Posts made by MrMalachiCrunch

2012 would be an interesting year to release an AandA varient for the War of 1812.  I grew up and still live close to the area where many of the battles were fought.  My alma mater was named after Sir Isaac Brock who was killed in a heroic action just a few dozen miles from my current location.

It should be a message to the world that two once bitter rivals for the control of North North America now share the worlds longest undefended border and celebrate each others national birthdays with mutual ‘Friendship Festival’ held in one of the border fortress towns, Fort Erie which is also just a dozen miles down the road from me.

July 1-4 long weekend 2012 would be an awesome date to release the game at that very festival.  Now for the easy part, to make the game…… snickers

Now, how to address the broken british promise to give michigan to the natives for taken sides with the Brits.  They say the sun never set on the British Empire…not even god trusted an Englishman in the dark…

Our group was wondering the same thing and came to the same conclusion.  In the new 1942 game I had a massive multinational allied fleet in SZ 12 including 3 russian subs of all things.  Facing it was a fleet in SZ 14 consisting of a Jap and german battleship/loaded carrier combo along with 6 u-boats.  It was in interesting situation, neither could attack the combined enemy with a divided attack force.  From SZ 14 the axis could hit Moscow  landing on an occupied eastern province with air power or SZ 17,18, 11, 9, 8 with the assumption the fighter(s) would land on a victorious carrier that single handedly destroyed a fleet of 4 CV, 8 FTR, 4 DD, 6 SS, 1 BB and  2 CC.  It meant using a fair bit of capital ship resources to escort straggling/special mission transport fleets or hoping in vain he would trade a ftr and cv for 1 or 2 transports.

I could have used the Yanks earlier to clear the enemy in SZ 14 but early I required a long shuck train starting on the US seaboard, Canada, algeria and across the top of Africa into persia to guarantee control of africa and to overwhelm the 2 german transport shuck operation into Africa.  I had enough fleet to defend, the Japs were trapped and would have put my america to africa shuck out of position.

Hmmm, I am no expert on this, actually don’t know much about it at all.  Therefore I am now going to offer my opinion on the subject :-)  If it was refined and a ‘thinner’ product it would be easier to burn off and or evaporate.  I think the raw stuff out of the ground might have lots of toxic aspects to it that get refined out.  It’s actually pretty amazing how much of a barrel of raw crude gets used.  Since Iraq and Iran have old outdated facilities I think they might only utilize about 60% (if memory serves me correctly) of the barrel, the rest is burned off or discarded.  In modern facilities I think they used like 99% and I would suspect some of the toxic aspects are actually profitable when seperated.

Calvin is indeed correct.  My point with the bombers was simply to illustrate the math using less fractions.  Choosing 6 bombers makes it easy to note you have ‘on average’ a 1 in 6 chance of losing a bomber, so if you have 6 you can count on ‘on average’ losing 1.  It’s much harder to use an example with 1 bomber where you lose 1/6th of it to an aa shot.

One neat thing about being a software engineer is that I can easily write a program to simulate anything I want, and I have with the bomber example above.  With the simulation, 1 bomber per turn was purchased, all surving bombers faced AA shots then did a bombing raid.  As one would expect the bomber fleet slowly increased until it reached a steady state of about 6 bombers losing on average 1 per turn and buying 1 per turn, thus investment of the cost of a bomber 12 or 15 depending.  The average damaged inflicted was about 17.5 IPC

I am not advocating SBR as a strategy, but if you think dropping infantry with cruiser shots against a huge stack is the way to slowly attrit the enemy I would strongly disagree.  Sure, if you ALREADY own a cruiser and its NOT being used then maybe…maybe, but you are still trading 7 of your (IPC or units) for 5 of the enemy.  However, that X units infantry landed into russia releaves the russians of X units of their own to counter defensively a german stack, which allows those units to press perhaps the Japs.  Or it allows England to clear a russian territory of a few germans/japs using just a few infantry and massed airforce.  Nothing better than to hit a stack of 4 enemy units say 3 infantry and a tank which just took a satelite russian territory with 3 Brit infantry, 2 bombers and 4 fighters.  Battle simulator says you win 99.7% of the time and ‘on average’ you inflict 14 IPC (14 as its only 99.7% certain you will win!) at the cost of 8 IPC.  Moreover, you change the strategic situation on the ground AND russia will get the income from that territory next turn without having to fight for it, thus allowing it to retake a different territory.  So, rather than trading 7 for 5 you are trading 8 for 14.

Now as for this game not being an accounting game, I could not disagree more.  Its all about accounting.  Accounting for what can hit you so you have just enough to defend against an attack, having too much on defense implies you might not be using those ‘surplus to need’ forces somewhere else.  Purchasing capital ships for fleet defense when it is not required implies you have less land force to better your position.  Not accounting for the fact your enemy has tied you with income and you are trading 7 IPC for 5 of his over a long period of time will win you few wars.  Obviously, sometimes you have to lose the IPC battle to gain strategic advantage, sacrafice the queenfor a biship is obviously a bad IPC choice unless it gets you checkmate in 2.

‘did’ implies past tense……

I don 't think I am at all missing the numbers, numbers is one thing I am very good at.  If you drop 4 units off with 4 cruiser shots you are merely scaling up the same ratio.  2 INF + 2 ART + 4 CC shots =  a power punch of 20 inflicting on average 20/6=3 1/3 units of damage for the cost of 4 of your units.  Unless you are taking out tanks or airforce you are killing about 10 IPC on average for the cost of 14 IPC of units.  Therefore you lose the war of attrition.

Now, for the bombers, lets talk averages.  You build 1 bomber per turn and own 6 bombers.  You fly out 6 bombers, 6 AA shots on average downs 1 bomber per turn.  The average damage a bomber does is (1+2+3+4+5+6)/6=3.5 damage per bomber.  (3.5 ave damage) x (5 remaining bombers) = 17.5.  So yes indeed, on average you can say that 12 IPC of bomber investment yields 17.5 IPC of strategic bombing damage and scale it any way you want.  Yes, some turns you might lose more than 1 bomber, and some turns you won’t lose any.  Never bet against averages when there are many trials of many units.  Yes, 1 destroyer might take out a 1 battleship, but never count on it.  And NEVER EVER count on a 5 destroyer fleet taking out a 5 battleship fleet.

Now, those 6 bombers might inflict more than 17.5 IPC of damage if used in land combat as they might get to fire several times each in a long battle.

Dylan, exactly how many times have you actually played AA?  The UK really doesn’t need a navy?  Really, exactly how do they get units into battle then?

The utility of straffing with offshore bombardment and landing units really does not seem to be of economic nor strategic benefit, if it were a good idea, then BBs over CCs should be the choice with a 33% better chance of inflicting a hit.  I just don’t see how even a battleship shot and infantry is a smart attack against a stack to ‘just weaken it a bit’ never mind a cruiser shot.  With a total offense of ‘5’ you should do 5/6th of a hit and therefore 5/6th of a 3 IPC unit.  Spending 3 IPC to inflict 2.5 IPC of damage just doesn’t win it in my books.  Better off to buy bombers and strategicly bomb there you spend 15 (or 12 in later games) IPC to do 17.5 IPC.  Moreover, you should drop 2 units rather than 1 to fully utilize the transport.  The best ratio would be 1 INF + 1 ART for land units using the math every 1 point of offense does .5IPC of damage against a stack of infantry.  Couple it with 2 CC you get 10 offense inflicting on average 5 IPC of damage for the cost of 7 IPC in units, you lose the war of attrition.  Moreover, those 2 units landed in a shuck operation in time coupled with air assests might take out 2-3 units in a territory being traded back and forth and thus actually earn income and change the tactical situation on the board.

The game is tilted to allied victory our group finds.  We play with the optional rules no russian attack, jap super subs, german jet fighters and 2 extra infantry in Libya, eastern europe and manchuria.

I’m not a fan of Japanese factories and since you can build unlimited units in Japan there really is little need for it.  You can make the argument you get units to the front faster true, but at the cost of 5 infantry and perhaps the associated cost of the AA.  True it is tough to transport tanks with the transports only bringing 1 tank or 2 infantry, perhaps midway into the game 1 factory to produce only tanks might be required.  Japan really needs lots of infantry to mate up with their air power, trading territories with russian and leaving tanks is no way to win the war of attrition.  Some tanks are required to add punch and to offer greater mobility, liquid power I like to call it.  The tacitial threat of mobile tanks requires greater defensive thought and resources, ie blitzing jap tanks into africa might cause the allies to keep some forces at ‘home’ playing safety.

I’m 50/50 on pearl harbor, if I knew the allies were building factories in asia I might concentrate forces along the coast rather than attack hawaii.  On the other hand, I hate having assests not being used, those 2 fighters and battleships have little else to do on round 1.

I’m a big fan of jap transports.  Build 2 on round 1 plus 3 infantry.  Efficiently take infantry off surrounding islands while moving units of Japan.  With 4 transports on round 2 you can bring over 24 IPC worth of infantry per round, save towards a 5th transport then towards an IC.  Bring the transports down south from Japan to drop off in French indo-china (FIC), then next turn move them up north and bridge units to manchuria.  While your navy is off FIC you can leap frog India if it is too heavily defended and attack Africa directly at the cost of having your transports out of sync.  That would be the ideal time to build a factory or more transports.  Merely having the threat of a navy with 4 transports that can land 8 infantry with airsupport into Africa can do amazing things to the allied plans….

By round 2 you are bringing over 8 infantry per round, you are outbuilding the allied factories now by units, you don’t have to defend japanese factories while the allies have to defend theirs.  The allies are building tanks at their factories by necessity so you should be trading your infantry for their tanks. You should also be able to position your Jap forces to threaten both their factories while choosing to attack the least defended one.  If Russia is required to help make the british and american factories defendable in asia then germany should be running amok.  It’s a heck of alot of allied investment in asia to produce 5 unites per round in my humble opinion.

Agreed Herr KaLeun, the US and USSR did call the shots, it is merely an acedemic point of little consequence.  Now, if Quebec were to take the side of France at the end of WWII……

Canada might not have had the same size standing army as France after WWII but it was close, Canada had over 730,000 personal in the army.  Now, how do we count the French who fought against the allies or the ones with the all white battle flag and standard?  I’d take the battle hardened
Canucks over the white flag waving French any day, today included….

The Canadian Navy was ranked #3 after WWII we had 471 ships and a combat hardened personal force of almost 100,000, I’d be curiouis to know how many minutes the French navy would have lasted against ours back then.

Our airforce had 86 squadrons and almost 1/4 million personal, again, how many minutes would the French airforce last?

Military power is more than number of men.  I wouldn’t want to be part of a 2,500 man Iranian unit facing off against a force of 200 Americans with all their toys and gadgets…

So, current estimates of oil leaking in the gulf range from 35K-60K barrels per day, lets say 45K, so that is roughly a large WWII US tanker sinking every 3 days with its entire contents leaking out over 3 days in the exact same spot and repeat this for 20 tankers sinking and counting.  The average tanker sinking in the Pacific occured every 5-6 days and was on average smaller then the average WW II US tanker cited in my example.  So easily 2-3 times the daily average of oil spilled in the gulf of mexico compared to the oil lost during entire pacific campaign during WW II and all in one location.

Many WW II tankers sunk still contain much of their cargo and are cause for concern even now as they rot away and get ready to spew their cargo.

The United states did not threated to stop sending oil to Japan……They DID stop sending oil to Japan in august 1041 over Japan’s invovlement in China and the seizure of Indochina.  Since the US supplied 80% of Japan’s oil it forced Japan to choose between rolling over and dying or fighting.  Many Japanese militiary officers viewed this as an undeclared act of war.  You’d think the US would have anticipated a negative and probable military response.

I’d image most of the oil taken from the ground in WWII would have been of high quality light sweet texas crude and therefore less toxic.  After some initial tanker losses to u-boats an continental pipeline was created to pipe the oil from texas to the east coast thus eliminating much of the tanker targets.  When tankers were sunk, often the oil burned, and since the oil was concentrated it could burn most of it.  When oil floats up from a mile under and is acted on with dispersents at the source it is much harder to burn or collect.

Typical American WWII tankers held about 140,000 barrels cargo.  In the entire Pacific during the entire WWII period, only 333 oil tankers were sunk, 85% or so of them Japanese and most likely with a smaller average capacity.  http://www.sprep.org/publication/webpage/004ship_waste_ww2/WWII_Strategy/_private/Strategy_Report_May_03.doc

Here we go again with my text box screen jumping up and down with every key stroke…ugh

Last I checked there was lots of life around the Chernobyl reactor, well except for human life.  Just cause there is life somewhere does not imply its a great place for human life.

OK, as a non-american who could really give a ratts-a$$ about who runs the US, right or left wing some personal observations.  It really is sad to see the right and left fighting and rearranged deck chairs as the titanic is taking on water. I for one would welcome a strong, prosperous and introspective america.  MSNBC is about as left as FOX is right.  FOX tends to make more factual mistakes however, like Anne coulter arguing with a Canadian journalist about Canada sending troops to vietnam during that war.  Canada didn’t, but Anne is not one to let facts get in the way of a good insult.
http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/sticksandstones_multimedia2.html

CNN is becoming irrelevant.  Nobody mentioned PBS, they are accused of being lefties by FOX types, but PBS puts out a high quality product, perhaps a bit left as right wingers don’t tend to pursue journalism as a career.

Perhaps to get a better perspective on America, Americans should watch non-american news shows.  It might just surpise you what non-americans think are important issues and what important issues are to the rest of the world that most US media outlets ignore.

BBC world report is highly respected around the world and should be one of many sources.  While Al-Jazzera has its critics and often rightly so, it is an interesting window on the grievences of those who wish american harm.

Interesting choice on the assult rifle, if the front line troops had that and the panzerfaust early on to counter the T-34 tanks thing indeed would be different.  While I agree that the bombings by the west were not nearly has helpful as we like to think, concentrated bombings of ball bearing factories and oil facilities did affect output.  But as I said, Germany had more than enough equipment produced, it just lacked the fuel to use it.  At the conclusion of the battle of the bulge, the Germans were destroying their super tanks as they ran out of fuel and had to be abandoned.

Had the germans put their economy on a war footing in 1938 instead of 1944 me thinks things would  be far different in the world.

Well almost all the war materials Canada produced were sent far away, same as the United States……  The values of Canada’s territories in the game are probably over-inflated, no way was Canada 50% of Englands production.  The concept that the game was made more simple by putting the value in where the products went to would have have the continental united states having a value of about 1 since 95% of what was produced there was sent abroad.  Would that mean the atlantic ocean would have some values as much of what was produced was sunk by U-boats?  Hawaii would then have a value of 10…

I was being facetious.  Fox is merely the toy/mouth piece of Rupert Murdoch who can hardly be confused with a lefty.  Ironic how fox seems to influence things in the US but rarely mentions it is owned by a foreigner.  Well, technically not in order to satisfy FCC rules.

Anyways, it’s also ironic that Churchill was basically for poison gas usage and hitler was against it.

I’m in the Niagara Region and play against a friend who is local fairly often as well as a friend in Hamilton once in a blue moon.  They’re both married with kids and day jobs however.  My work is flexible and with no wife or kids I have a bit more freedom to play.  I’ve had game board setup at my place for over a month as it required 4 five hour nights to play it out!  I don’t mind road trips as it seems I am out on the periphery.  Axis & Allies 2nd Edition 100+ games and 1942 about 15 games I have both as well as the original Pacific game although I have never played it other than a simulated run through against myself to get a feel for it.  I win about 85% of my games but against the same few people probably means I am going to be in for a rude awakening against somebody with a new perspective!

Burton Folsom must be a democrat, I see him refered to alot by fox news and freeman societies, they are democraticly slanted right?

This is starting to look like a right versus left typical american political battle.  This FDR as evil dictator argument is boring……

What about asking the attack/defense values of units, is that trolling?

Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics.  The average casuality rate takes into consideration troops that fought at all times in the war, including troops that first saw combat in the last weeks of the war.  If you looked specificaly at German troops who saw combat starting in 42-43 while not averaging in troops that started fighting later in the war and focused only on those on the eastern front you’d see a much higher casualty rate than the average of all fronts and all participants timewise, albietly 95% still seems a bit high still.