Hearts Of Iron: Take Three.

[misterbean]

The Japanese seem to be doing your work for you sinking their own ships like that

How does width work in naval landings? Does it increase by landing from multiple sea zones or does it stay constant?

I think multiple seazones would each act as a seperate axis of attack, so they would add CW. Paradrops definitely add to the CW of the attack.

 

[misterbean]

I'm not sure you can land from multiple sea zones. although I think width increases if you simultaneously attack from land and sea (and air? I don't use paratroopers)

In a Carrier vs Carrier battle like that how important would you say the planes are? if you had to choose between having up-to-date planes and up-to-date ships which one would you choose?

See above, re: paratroops.
As for carrier battles, I would go for the planes over the carriers. The game is weighted towards offense in most cases, and CAGs add to the attack. Look at my battle. USS Lexington, which, by this point, is...what? A twenty-year-old relic? She was banged up pretty bad, but she survived the intense battle.

edited to add: Lady lex is 17 years old at the time of this fight.

 

[Stuyvesant]

And here I was hoping to see the whole Combined Fleet sunk in one operation, like a Mega-Midway. Oh well, can't always get what you want.

Good outcomes, though. You sank more than you lost and the Japanese retreated from all battles. Considering this was about as big a fleet as they could ever hope to throw at you (at least as far as the carriers are concerned, and I assume it's the carriers that will win or lose the Pacific sea war), I foresee rapidly escalating problems for the Japanese, once more US carriers come online.

 

[KyrionMyrthar]

Nicely done!

 

[misterbean]

And here I was hoping to see the whole Combined Fleet sunk in one operation, like a Mega-Midway. Oh well, can't always get what you want.

Good outcomes, though. You sank more than you lost and the Japanese retreated from all battles. Considering this was about as big a fleet as they could ever hope to throw at you (at least as far as the carriers are concerned, and I assume it's the carriers that will win or lose the Pacific sea war), I foresee rapidly escalating problems for the Japanese, once more US carriers come online.

I am still a little sour about throwing the rest of the ships in there. I still feel like I could have handled it, send them packing, right into the battleships, sink them all. Only question: at what price?
Like you said, I lost 1 destroyer and sank 2 heavy cruisers (including Deutschland), a transport ship and a landing craft. Not too bad. I forgot to mention in the chapter that I added 3 destroyers to the build queu. What was that about "sink 1, build 3"?

Nicely done!

Thank you. Unintended, but at least they won't be bothering me for a while. I checked. Most of their ships are in even worse shape than mine.

 

[Forster]

You lucked out there. I suspect having up to date radar and targeting techs helped quite a bit. What level fort is on Guam?

 

[misterbean]

I don't have a fort on Guam, and they needed 5 days to get to 60%. In other words, I'm fairly certain they will never get into Midway.

 

[Nicegil]

The "Land"-player that I am learned a lot today.
Great explainations about naval combat. Thanks !!!

May be you could make the screenshots (with figures datas) a little bit bigger ; It's quite hard reading them (or it's just me getting old.... sigh )

 

[misterbean]

It's probably because they're only half the original size. I will take it into consideration in the future. Thanks for reminding me.

 

[KyrionMyrthar]

You could have just a garrison division on Midway with level 10 forts, infra and AA, and you'll be fine. I've beaten off five-eight Imperial Marine divisions with a simple 2xGAR/1xAA/1xAC unit.

 

[misterbean]

You could have just a garrison division on Midway with level 10 forts, infra and AA, and you'll be fine. I've beaten off five-eight Imperial Marine divisions with a simple 2xGAR/1xAA/1xAC unit.

Nice. Oh well, at least I got some Armour Practical out of it. That's got to count for something.

 

[Gnorf]

Now that we’ve established that IC-whoring is largely inefficient, I’m going to do it anyway.

I take great offense to this, haha.

I think one IC cost me around 2 IC for 120 days to build in my latest Soviet game. Got to 850 effective IC without consequences and hit great navy + great air force in 1940. The USA even asked me for lend-lease.

 

[misterbean]

I take great offense to this, haha.

I think one IC cost me around 2 IC for 120 days to build in my latest Soviet game. Got to 850 effective IC without consequences and hit great navy + great air force in 1940. The USA even asked me for lend-lease.

I did mention the Soviets as a possible exception to that rule, didn't I? How did you get there by 1940, though? Using low laws to finish the first runs faster? Delete the army to save on supply production? Perfect staggered build? Keep the war with Finland going? No, by then they would have been out of range for you to get the good laws. Amazing feat.

Ok, I admit. I'm jealous. A good lesson for new players. No matter how good you get, there's always someone out there, who's better than you.

 

[ThatStrategyGuy]

850 Effective IC? Running the numbers for about 2-3 seconds means you had about 600 base IC, how did you get that? Are you a wizard?

 

[Gnorf]

I did mention the Soviets as a possible exception to that rule, didn't I? How did you get there by 1940, though? Using low laws to finish the first runs faster? Delete the army to save on supply production? Perfect staggered build? Keep the war with Finland going? No, by then they would have been out of range for you to get the good laws. Amazing feat.

Ok, I admit. I'm jealous. A good lesson for new players. No matter how good you get, there's always someone out there, who's better than you.

Heh, I know some exploits but I'm terrible when it comes to actually conducting warfare.

At first I built two airfields and the rest went to IC construction. I let dissent rise to bring me below 30 IC to allow to prepare for war. After I got dissent high enough I deleted all HQ's and regulars to save on CG cost. I let the rest of the army sit without supplies. I was in the meantime raising threat on Germany, Japan and Afghanistan as well as raising my own national unity. Japan and Germany was to lower my own neutrality and Afghanistan was a good target to declare war on. They aren't a democracy so threat increase actually makes a difference. In september of 1936 I was on a war economy (unity was the limiting factor - not neutrality). I actually had 0 CG cost until I switched to a war economy, then it was 4,62 and later went down to 0 again after raising threat. Sometime in early 1937 I declared war on Afghanistan. It wasn't January, but I can't remember exactly what month. I enacted the purge and switched to a heavy industrial focus for the rest of the game. I also staggered the build to take advantage of the practicals which was a real head-ache to figure out what spacing would give me the greatest boost. I wrote it down at the time but I've since misplaced the paper. I also kept the ship and two submarines under construction in the beginning in the queue but without any IC allocated to reach great navy quicker. The first IC run was slowed due to intentionally tearing my country apart but once I got practicals up the cost and build-time was ridiculously low. I also declared on Germany sometime in 1940 with the rationale that I have enough of an army to not lose horrible while I can force Germany to split their force in France and waste more manpower there. I got the Rodina modifier with a lovely 20% boost to IC as well as an eventual transfer of industry to Siberia. It took around a year until I could turn the war around but total economic mobilisation and 20% allowed me to beef up my navy that had until that point existed merely of submarines and transports to reach Great Navy. Germany wasn't my planned main foe but the allies were so a slow victory didn't bother me much. It also helped that Japan failed ridiculously in China. I think at one point the Chinese almost captured Port Arthur/Dalian.

Edit: I also started cooking light aircraft and submarine practicals sometime in 1937

 

[misterbean]

Impressive use of exploits there.

edited to add: I just tried, and I still don't get how you could build 440 factories by 1940, while also building enough planes and ships to get the great airforce/navy effects. And all this while using Heavy Industry, which boosts your CG needs? I don't get it.

 

[Gnorf]

Impressive use of exploits there.

edited to add: I just tried, and I still don't get how you could build 440 factories by 1940, while also building enough planes and ships to get the great airforce/navy effects. And all this while using Heavy Industry, which boosts your CG needs? I don't get it.

No no, I didn't build that many factories. Other modifiers increased the effective IC. Also are you staying at war with Afghanistan? If so the CG cost is less than what you gain from increased efficiency.

 

[misterbean]

True enough. Like I've said many times in other threads, I am bad at timing a staggered build, so the added effect of practical gains, coupled with a bit of practice, can make a world of difference. So Rodina can support 850 IC, or were you running a deficit?

 

[Gnorf]

True enough. Like I've said many times in other threads, I am bad at timing a staggered build, so the added effect of practical gains, coupled with a bit of practice, can make a world of difference. So Rodina can support 850 IC, or were you running a deficit?

I was running one hell of a deficit!
Thank god for communism so I could ask for free resources, the few comintern members I had made a big difference. I even tried to coup Republican Spain but the communists won the election haha. Got them into the Comintern in mid 1941.

Also I'm trying to redo it now and record everything that happens. I was lucky the other time but I think I might be able to manage it again.

 

[misterbean]

Naval double-header coming up in a few moments!