WiTP: AE...An AAR: Egan(A) versus Happy Times(J)

[Egan]

A couple of people have asked us for an AAR of our game with this fine strategy title so as we are a couple of turns in now I thought I would jot down a few things. I won't update this every turn but as things happen which are worth commenting on - we shall see how it goes.

I'll mainly try to show how the game works for those thinking about buying it or those struggling to get to grips with it. The main thing to remember is that it isn't so much complicated as it is a fair bit of work.

One of the strengths of WiTP is that just about anything is possible - as long as you put the work in to make it happen. Virtually nothing is done for you; supplies, troop movement, operational planning and air training are all your responsibility. Logistics, for example, are not carried out by some abstracted routine; if you want a base supplied you have to load all that stuff onto a ship and move it there, and then unload it. Of course, that also means you need secure shipping routes, escorts, and tiny little virtual people to make it all happens. Phew...

Anyway, First up, here are our settings and the House Rules we have chosen to use:

HOUSE RULES:

POLITICAL POINTS
Permanently Restricted Units must not cross national Borders.
Full PP for transfer of units from restricted HQs
i.e. PP to move out of Kwantung/Manchuko, India & China.
No switching land unit to air HQs etc. to do this cheaply
Full PP to transfer units from restricted HQs to allow movement across borders.
Thai forces can not move out of 3 hexes of their national frontier.
AVG must remain in Burma or China.

INVASIONS / LAND COMBAT
No sub invasions.
Only allow landings/invasions at dots hexes or bases.
No use of portions of parachute units to seize hex's
No unit fragment to cut off retreat, Units blocking retreats must be of realistic size (brigade or above).
Only airdrop a unit on a target if it has at least 40 Prep Points on the target it’s dropped on.

STRATEGIC BOMBING
No strategic bombing in or out of China until 4/43
No Chinese City bombing until 1944.
No bombing of Chinese Industry.

AIR COMBAT
Sweeps to be restricted to no more than 30 000ft.

SETTINGS

FOW: On
Adv Weather: On
Allied Dmg Control: On
PDU: ON
Historical 1st Turn: Off
Dec 7th Surprise: On
Allied Reliable Torps: Off
Realistic RD: On
No Unit Withdrawals: Off
Variable Reinforcements +/-15 days
Expansion at start: Off
Auto Upgrade: Off
No X-wing fighters on the Long Island.
1 Day turns


We shall see how we get on with this set up. It should be fun. In the next post I'll talk about my first moves, the PH attack and my plans.....

Oh, one last thing: Juha, If you're reading: Stop right now! This is for the those brave heroes of the Allies only! Within are my the fruits of my stupendous (or merely stupid,) planning! Go and bother the Philippines or something!


Has he gone? Then we shall continue.....

[Happy Times]

I think it is great that Gordon will do his AAR in Subsim, i hope it will bring more people in to this game.

As the first turns have showed you cant have total control of the events and luck and chance play a role also.
But usually it is a realistic mix of planning, intelligence and random factors, Midway being a prime exsample.

I wish a good game for Gordon and the readers of his AAR and look forward to reading it after this conflict has ended.

Bact to the HQ, the situation requires my attention.

[Egan]

Well then...Here we go.


First Orders


We're using Historical Start OFF, which allows orders to be given before the war starts. I use this turn to several things. Firstly, virtually all squadrons across the map are set to training at 100% and zero range (to minimize operational losses,) and have their pilot numbers padded out to maximum. Every few weeks I shall go through a lot of these squadrons and send pilots with 50+ experience to the pilot pool that the front line squadrons draw their manpower from. Hopefully, this will mean that the guys at the sharp end aren't entirely green. Fighter squads are set to 'escort' training, bombers to either low level naval attack or general training and patrol air craft to either Naval search or ASW training.

The only squadrons that are left combat ready are those who will be fighting straight away in South East Asia, the Philippines and Pearl.

Once this is done I start giving orders for bases to be built up: Ports, airfields and defences everywhere from San Fransisco to Vladivostok are set to expand.

I also use this phase to give orders to Force Z out of Singers. They will now head south towards Java instead of north to their almost certain death. I've had good success in these waters with Force Z in the past as a pirate raiding force. Hopefully I'll get the chance again.

Finally, I give orders for several Marine units in San Diego to move to SF from where they will head to Pearl and then on to the South Pacific. I'm also moving several bomber and fighter squadrons across the continental US by rail road from New York to SF. It will take them a few days to arrive but once they do they will be shipped out to Pearl as well.

Starting Considerations.


Although I've got a bit more experience with the game than Juha, this is my first PBEM so it's very much a learning experience for me too. Challenging as the AI can be, it won't be anything like playing against a human opponent and I'll have to up my game considerably to fight this war.

My initial plan is simple. Beat Japan.

I think there are two ways to do this: By starving him out of the war by hitting his oil supplies and destroying his economy, or by getting bombers within range of the home islands and bombing him until he bleeds. Both are going to be long and costly.

My initial thought is to follow a fairly historical strategy of island hopping across the central Pacific before whacking his industry with B-29's. This is a long way in the future, though. The lack of any shipping with amphibious capability makes such a strategy pretty difficult until mid '43 at the earliest so I'm going to need to do something else until I have the gear in place.

From past games, I know that New Guinea will provide good sized bases than can be built up further. I would like to get Hollandia at some point and use that as a jumping off point for various operations. Likewise, I am seriously considering trying to hold on to the major oil producing port of Palembang for as long as possible. A lot of that will depend on how aggressive Juha is in the DEI.

In the Pacific I would like to hold on to islands Baker and Canton as long as possible but not to extent of losing carriers over them. I have found these islands to be quite important because once they are taken the main shipping routes from Pearl to Oz and NZ lengthen by 10 -14 days. it also gives him somewhere to base patrol aircraft on, place sub tenders and generally make a nuisance of himself. I'm not bothered about Wake particularly, but I may attempt to rescue the Wildcat Squadron from it.

As for Midway, I am undecided. I don't really want it to fall but, if it does, it will be fairly easy to take back. It would be a nightmare for him to keep supplied, and I would soon enough be able to flatten the place with 4 Engine bombers. B-17's are fun!

I'll fight delaying actions in Burma and try to stop them from entering India. I've already diverted the task force carrying the British 18th division to Bombay and once they arrive they will be sent forward. I'm quite keen to rescue the Gurkha unit from Malaysia as they are proper infantry rather than militia and are there for worth their weight. I also have 2 Oz brigades just outside Singers. I am thinking very strongly about evacuating them to either Palembang or Perth.

OK, I think that's it for now. My thinking is a bit all over the shop but in my defence I've had an absolute horror of a hangover for the last two days on top of a nasty cold. Let me tell you, the Pearl Harbour raid just isn't fun with all that on top of it.

So, as I leave you now, the sun is setting over the pacific on December the 6th 1941. Is it also setting on the ambitions of the United States and the British Empire? Join us for the next 14000 turns and find out....

[Takeda Shingen]

Grand campaign with one-day turns. Oh man, this is going to be a long one.

[Krauter]

Sounds like a fun game.

However.. I'm not good with acronyms.. so.. what does..:

PBEM, DEI, etc, etc mean?

[Raptor1]

Originally Posted by Krauter

Sounds like a fun game.

However.. I'm not good with acronyms.. so.. what does..:

PBEM, DEI, etc, etc mean?

It means: Play by Email, Dutch East Indies, et cetera, et cetera

I would follow this, but I refuse to because of the no X-Wing rule.

[Egan]

7th December 1941

The Pacific at the start of the war:



As my little virtual blokes go about their daily lives, a great big cloud of Japanese aircraft appears out of nowhere. The attack lasts what seems like forever.

Quote:Weather in hex: Clear sky

Raid detected at 129 NM, estimated altitude 11,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 48 minutes

Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 72
B5N2 Kate x 72
D3A1 Val x 135



Allied aircraft
no flights

Japanese aircraft losses
A6M2 Zero: 7 damaged
A6M2 Zero: 2 destroyed by flak
B5N2 Kate: 14 damaged
B5N2 Kate: 3 destroyed by flak
D3A1 Val: 5 damaged

Allied aircraft losses
B-18A Bolo: 3 destroyed on ground
B-17D Fortress: 2 destroyed on ground
P-36A Mohawk: 3 destroyed on ground
PBY-5 Catalina: 6 destroyed on ground
SBD-1 Dauntless: 3 destroyed on ground
P-40B Warhawk: 4 destroyed on ground
B-17E Fortress: 1 destroyed on ground
F4F-3 Wildcat: 1 destroyed on ground
R3D-2: 1 destroyed on ground
A-20A Havoc: 1 destroyed on ground
O-47A: 1 destroyed on ground

Allied Ships
BB Pennsylvania, Bomb hits 6, Torpedo hits 1, on fire
CA New Orleans, Bomb hits 1, Torpedo hits 1
AV Tangier
BB Arizona, Bomb hits 5, Torpedo hits 1, on fire
BB Nevada, Bomb hits 5, Torpedo hits 1, on fire
SS Cachalot, Bomb hits 1, heavy damage
BB West Virginia, Bomb hits 6, on fire
BB Oklahoma, Bomb hits 4, Torpedo hits 3, on fire, heavy damage
DM Ramsay
CM Oglala
BB California, Bomb hits 5, Torpedo hits 2, on fire, heavy damage
DM Gamble
AV Curtiss
BB Tennessee, Bomb hits 5, Torpedo hits 2, on fire
xAP St. Mihel
BB Maryland, Bomb hits 5, Torpedo hits 1, on fire
AVD Hulbert, Bomb hits 1, on fire
DM Breese, Bomb hits 1, heavy fires
DD Phelps, Torpedo hits 1, on fire
AV Wright, Torpedo hits 1
CL Detroit, Torpedo hits 1


Allied ground losses:
10 casualties reported
Squads: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled
Non Combat: 0 destroyed, 4 disabled
Engineers: 0 destroyed, 1 disabled


Airbase hits 40
Airbase supply hits 2
Runway hits 133
Port hits 9
Port fuel hits 7
Port supply hits 1

I'll be quite conservative when posting chunks of the combat report. AARs that use them heavily tend to be quite difficult to read IMO, and seldom tell you much more than the technical details.

As you can see from this one, though, plenty of torps and bombs get through to hit Battleship Row. The damage however, is lighter than I could hope for:



By lets_all_fight at 2011-03-29

Only California and Oklahoma are badly, badly damaged. All the battleships are going to need time in shipyards. With those two, they will need work ASAP to take down the flotation damage and not sink. Once they are stable I plan to send them to the west coast, probably to the big shipyard at Seattle.

I'm fairly pleased with this, though. Nothing has sunk which is always a good thing. The problem will be if Juha decides to keep the KB around for another day. I decide to send out several Surface Combat Task Forces and vector subs towards his location. Hopefully we can get a torpedo into one of his flat tops or even scare him away. I put out a couple of ASW TF's as well as Pearl is a sub magnet. They are fairly lousy at this time of the war but are better than nothing.

I also set all the fighter squadrons at Pearl to fly CAP missions at 15,000 feet. The one dive bomber squad is set to naval attack at 13,000 which is smack on the middle of the height band it needs to perform dive bombing. I don't imagine they'll any hits but you never know. The runway has taken a lot of damage and that will have an impact on how many frames I can put up. However, I'm optimistic I can do something. Every pilot from the KB that gets shot down now is one less to worry about later. They are probably the best quality pilots on the map at the start and between my CAP and Flak I hope to knock a few down.


DEI/Philippines

Juha hits Manila with several high sweeps to take out my CAP. It's partially successful and his port strikes sinks several subs as they sit at dockside. I don't like losing subs because even with the dud torpedos they are something of a force multiplier. The S boats and the Dutch boats in previous games have provided me with plently of delight and I'm hoping they do the same in this one. I also notice the Baby KB has been committed and is heading down the east coast of the PI. I am trying to evacuate high quality cruisers like the Boise from the area so I hope they don't cross paths.

Virtually all my shipping in the region is set to run to one of three places: Soerbaja in Java and Perth and Darwin in Oz. once at these ports warships will combine to create two or three decent quality raiding fleets which I hope to hurt his advance down here, and all other ships will make their way to places like Melbourne, Sydney or even Colombo.

I'm building forts in Manila, Clarke Field and Bataan. I plan to fight it out here although I probably won't move to many supplies in. This early on I simply don't have enough to spare anyway. The Cavite Island base force is told to start packing as it has 200 squads of naval support that will come in very handy later on. I'm tempted to rescue the 4th Marines as well but as they return later (much later) I'm not too worried. There is a facility in the game now to rebuild lost Land Combat Units for a PP price. I may well make use of this as time goes on. it certainly beats the older tactic of rescuing fragments of units in order to have them slowly build back up.

I send out all my subs from Manila to annoy his invasion fleets in the area. Some of them have orders to mine likely invasion beaches.


Elsewhere

Juha starts landing troops in Northern Malaysia. I'm already pulling troops back to form defencive lines outside of Singapore.

Force Z heads south and his attacked by a flock of the dreaded Betties. I hate them. They have extreme range and, when coupled with a source of torpedos like a large enough base or an Air HQ, they become real ship killers. The one good thing about them is that they are made of matchsticks and rice paper and can be brought down easily. Seriously, we're talking Stuka Party here. The problem is you never seem to have enough fighters to deal with them all.

In Sumatra troops begin moving towards Palembang.

And as I just deleted the entire blooming post by mistake and had to start again I think I'll take a break....

All in all, I've had worse first turns. Juha sent me the combat resolution turn already for the next round and I have to say, ouch, I made a silly mistake which cost me.

[Egan]

Originally Posted by Raptor1

It means: Play by Email, Dutch East Indies, et cetera, et cetera

I would follow this, but I refuse to because of the no X-Wing rule.

Lol. Yeah, and I could use something to counter the infamous Japanese DeathStar that is the KB (oops, there's another one for the glossary. KB stands for Kido Butai - the Japanese carrier fleet.)

[Torplexed]

Who says Europeans have no interest in the Pacific Theater?

Force Z heads south and his attacked by a flock of the dreaded Betties. I hate them. They have extreme range and, when coupled with a source of torpedos like a large enough base or an Air HQ, they become real ship killers. The one good thing about them is that they are made of matchsticks and rice paper and can be brought down easily. Seriously, we're talking Stuka Party here. The problem is you never seem to have enough fighters to deal with them all.

So, did Prince of Wales and Repulse get away undamaged? If they did you're off to a good start. In my game against the AI, the POW took nasty flotation damage from the Betties and after a few weeks of hasty repairs in Singapore, managed to limp to Columbo, always on the verge of sinking. I starting calling it the Prince of Pails.

[Raptor1]

Whenever I started a campaign, Force Z tended to bite it on the very first turn. Though admittedly I usually either sent them the historical way or used the historical first turn option. If Force Z makes it out intact, I suppose it can be quite a pain for the Japanese later on.

I never played a game as large as this in PBEM, must take quite a long time to complete one. Maybe I should try finding an opponent for WitE, though I think I'm the only one around here that has that...

[Egan]

Originally Posted by Torplexed

Who says Europeans have no interest in the Pacific Theater?

So, did Prince of Wales and Repulse get away undamaged? If they did you're off to a good start. In my game against the AI, the POW took nasty flotation damage from the Betties and after a few weeks of hasty repairs in Singapore, managed to limp to Columbo, always on the verge of sinking. I starting calling it the Prince of Pails.

so far. they should make Java in a day or two. i have a lot of warships heading to Soerbaja: Dutch,US and RN. They are mostly destroyers but a number of cruisers will hopefully be present as well.

[Torplexed]

Originally Posted by Egan

so far. they should make Java in a day or two. i have a lot of warships heading to Soerbaja: Dutch,US and RN. They are mostly destroyers but a number of cruisers will hopefully be present as well.

Are you planning on using them to interfere with Japanese operations in the Dutch East Indies or saving them for later? Or would you prefer to keep future plans a secret?

[Egan]

Originally Posted by Torplexed

Are you planning on using them to interfere with Japanese operations in the Dutch East Indies or saving them for later? Or would you prefer to keep future plans a secret?

Use them if and when the chance arises. I've had good times with them in the past but that was against the AI.......I'm concerned about the appearance of the baby KB east of the Philippines; if it moves further west it can block the exit routes to Darwin so we shall see.

I'm not worried about keeping future plans a secret. In fact, I'd be happy if anyone has any ideas they would like to share. Doing an AAR is great because it forces you to think about what you are doing instead of merely clicking buttons. So don't feel the need to keep quiet, guys: just jump right in.

Anyway, I've got Juha's next turn now so lets see how it works out. When I get back I'll explain what I said earlier about my first mistake.

[Egan]

8th/9th December

I made a bad mistake. I set up several surface task forces to harass the KB and provide ASW support in the waters around Pearl. Mostly, this went ok - except, as luck would have it, to the one that had three cruisers in it.

I did one thing wrong. I set the darn task force to patrol an area, rather than simply sally forth to where the KB had been and then return home. What this meant was that the TF was in the wrong, wrong place when dawn arrived - about 100 miles from where I wanted her to be. She was well outside the air umbrella from Pearl, which had been pulled in fairly close to help fight incoming attacks.

Well, the KB, which is currently heading NW, found her and hit her with two powerful strikes. The one in the morning was bad enough but the one in the afternoon finished her off. I lost USS San Fransisco and two destroyers, and Both St Louis and Minneapolis are badly damaged. St Louis has 91 flotation damage and probably won't make it home. Minny is burning like a roman candle but may make it home if her crew get the fires under control. It was a stupid and costly mistake. The allied player certainly will never lack for cruisers but it's a long time until they start arriving in any numbers. I could have used all three of those ships.

I set the orders after setting up a bunch of ASW TFs on Area patrol. It was automatic and if I had spent even 10 seconds checking before I did something else I would have seen it was likely to go a bit wrong. Oh well, lesson learned.

In other news today:

Phillippines



He's coming heavy, that's for sure. I'm hopeful I'll get a couple of subs mixing it up and causing trouble. Maybe even I'll have some minefields in place for when the bad guys arrive.

Australia

I've begun to prep a couple of units for Noumea and pulling disparate units together to form their Divisions. For those of you new to the game, Preparation means what it sounds like: you order a land unit to start preparing for a new location or base. Preparation is out of 100 and can take a few months to get up to high enough levels. it especially important for landing at Atolls and islands - too low a prep level and they are likely to be cut apart by the enemy. I've never found it quite so important for land based warfare but a well prepped unit is still likely to have an edge over a lesser prepped one.

Once I have a couple of spare engineer units I'll send them north to Coen and Normanton. Coen can be built up to a size 9 airfield, which means an unlimited amount of aircraft can be based there. It's in a useful position as well and once I get enough B-17s in theater I'll hopefully do Japan some damage as the try to rampage down New Guinea.

Normanton, on the gulf of Carpentia, is important for another reason: it will become a major transport hub for keeping Darwin supplied. The dirt track that runs across continental Oz is simply incapable of keeping this isolated and important outpost in the beer and shrimps to which they are accustomed. It requires a major effort to do this and I doubt it will be much before mid or even late 42 that things really get going.

New Zealand

I've never done much with NZ before, but i plan to build up Aukland this time and use it as a major hub. I want to get various ships like aircraft and destroyer tenders down here and a plentiful supply of fuel - enough to support carrier ops. A full carrier TF can suck down a stunning amount of fuel when it comes into port and I don't want to let them down.

I also want to use Kiwi troops much more than my last time out. In my last game I kind of ignored them until the spring of 45 by which time it was too late to do much (the war ended on 18th June that summer.) this time I want to have them prepped and ready for action in the Solomons or New Guinea.

Elsewhere.

Many landings in northern and central Malaysia. I had a screenie but it kind of screwed up. I'm going to have to get FRAPS downloaded again I think. It makes life a bit easier. Force Z will arrive and refuel in Soerbaja tomorrow. There are a lot of ships there now so I'll await Boise and then build a pirate force. Shiver me timbers etc.

What's that? China did you say? China? You don't want to know about China: China is a mess.

Carriers

I've two carriers in the Pacific just now: The Enterprise and Lexington are steaming southeast towards Palmyra just now. From there they will either turn north to head home to Pearl, or head west and see whether they can cause trouble. I am hoping to launch a few raids here and there on isolated outposts over the next month or two, mainly to get my pilots some experience. There are a lot of threads about Allied carrier usage over at Matrix but I don't really want to hide them away. Maybe I can draw Juha into doing something rash. Saratoga is still at San Diego. I may keep her there until Yorktown arrives in about a months time.

Other News.

Juha took Makin. I imagine Tarawa is next.

There are many, many subs out there now. All coloured red. Smashing.

[Egan]

@ Torplexed.
Your point about European interest in the PTO is a good one. Going into a bookshop here in Britain (except, perhaps the amazing Foyles in London,) tends to back this up. There will be literally dozens of books about The Battle of Britain or the Eastern Front but maybe three or four about the PTO. It drives me mad.