War Plan Orange

@Baron:

This would be simple to fix with a simple rule from other naval combat games.
Instead of a single ship being able to block an infinite number of enemy ships, which is ridiculous, blocking ships should only be able to block an equal number of ships.

Interesting idea. Presumably it would be applied to ground combat as well. Gets rid of the notion of blockers, more or less.

Just so we’re clear, this is absolutely nothing like the real War Plan Orange.

Marsh

the real War Plan Orange works out as “the dance” in axis and allies because the geometry of the board prevents the US from wandering over to Guam or the Philippines with out getting smack-a-whacked by every Japanese plane and ship they’ve got.

This one is “Unternehmen U-boot-sandwich”

@ShadowHAwk:

@simon33:

@Baron:

This would be simple to fix with a simple rule from other naval combat games.
Instead of a single ship being able to block an infinite number of enemy ships, which is ridiculous, blocking ships should only be able to block an equal number of ships.

Interesting idea. Presumably it would be applied to ground combat as well. Gets rid of the notion of blockers, more or less.

At sea you can justify removing the use of blockers as those are vast areas of ocean and a sub can be anywhere.
On land on the other hand it is much easier to find and block your opponent. Roads are important so are bridges you cannot simply take a tank and drive it from point A to point B you have to use the exising roads.

On operation market garden a handfull of germans kept back the advance for 1 day if i recall correctly. On the very first day.

I agree that Subs at sea are different than land units.
My main concern and question is quoted below.

@Baron:

@The:

Hey Folks,

the current discussion has some very good points. Some of the biggest flaws of the original rules concerning Subs are the possibility to detect an unlimited number of Subs with just one single destroyer. In our games we’ve limited this with great success to just three subs that can be detected by each destroyer. (Maybe even this ratio could be reduced to a 1:2 or 1:1 basis.)

A second point is the unhistorical capability of Subs to sink other Subs. There was only one case in which a submerged Sub was able to sink another submerged Sub. (And to me this seemed to be a very lucky shot.) So I would appreciate such a change of the rules very much.
…
Greetings,
Lars

**How many Submarines should be blocked (both Submerged and Stealth Move) by a single Destroyer unit to keep balance?
The IJN blocker strategy can be doomed if the rate is 1 for 1.
All additional Submarines would be able to attack behind the blocker SZ, is it too OP?
Should 1 DD:2 Subs blocking ratio be better balanced?
IDK.
I hope some of experienced players will share on this point.

If you follow the link from the post title you can read a collection of posts on Destroyer blocking capacity.
Feel free to comment on the other Redesigned thread; thanks to not derail this one from YG with secondary discussion involving possible HRs.**

I played a game about a week ago where I was USA and I started your war plan Orange idea.
It was at my friends house where he was playing against himself. The Axis had all of Russia and were poised to take Cairo but since he is a somewhat inexperienced player he didn’t know how to play Japan so they were crippled with the last of their fleet in sea zone 6. So as the USA it was the perfect time to rest this submarine theory. After a few rounds I had over 10 subs all in separate sea zones within two spaces of sea zone six and a large stack of bombers on hawaii.
The game ended before I could really start convoy disrupting seazones and trading destroyers for subs but it seems like a good strategy

If you mean War Plan Orange is a fancy name for spamming subs, then yes I’ve tried it and liked it.

During the start of the game, subs are concentrated with the main Pacific USA fleet. Purpose: to conserve the main fleet.
-present subs would be sacrificed as fodder (but Japan won’t attack)
-new subs built 1-2-3 turn ago will deter the Japanese player from attacking the main fleet because anything sent to deal with the main fleet will be annihilated by these new subs.

During the middle game, the USA main fleet will survive The Naval Battle even when large number of subs are located elsewhere. So, large numbers of subs will approach the entire Japanese mainland territories.

During the end game, something’s gotta give.

I haven’t seen a proper response yet. Don’t forget, it does cost the USA 180IPCs or so to get reach naval equilibrium, then outbalance it and then keep the convoys going. It shouldn’t be surprising this strategy works considering the large investment. The important part is that it seems to be very cost effective.

On a side note: another aspect of this strategy I haven’t seen yet is the psychological effect is has on Japan :-D Look careful at your opponent when you announce you will purchase 8 subs for the 2nd time. There’s some serious despair when it hits him that this is his live now.

Plan Orange is sounding like a solid strategy and I was wondering how many subs should be bought each round.
What is the sub purchasing strat for WPO YG?

Subs are the cheapest Naval unit, therefor you can mass-dominate the Pacific with SS.
But I also think that you have to bring in the airbases to project a real threat.
3 to 4 CV’s paired with DD’s is maybe enough plus Bmbrs.

R1. 3xSS + 1Bmbr
R2. 2xCV
R3. 5xSS
R4. 5xSS
R5. 3xBmbrs
Total of 158 Ipc’s

15 SS plus 3xCV and 5xBmbrs.
Combined with units allready on the board makes an impressive stack.
An existing total on R5 of 198ipc.
(this is just an example of buys)

We ran some sims this last week regarding this, and as YG pointed out, the subs are easy to ignore until they are on your convoys and it takes forever to get them there.  The ironic result is that we found a couple of ways of hiding/protecting JAPANESE subs and ships by spreading them out and only placing them where Destroyers didn’t want to be, but there was not much of a intimidation factor created by having the subs spread out among carolines, Hawaii, queensland, or anywhere else in between.

Some of the respondents talked about getting a massive stack of subs, complementing it with a few carriers so that you have 2-4, ignoring BBs and just taking the surface ships that you get at the beginning of the game along.  America doesn’t really want to ‘dance’ around with Japan in the northern pacific because they can never achieve odds;  the SS strategy may well be very intimidating to SZ 6 and force the Japanese to garrison it in great force.  Unf. you need to do this before Japan reaches peak income or he will be able to buy up enough defense to stop your invasion.

The interesting dynamic there is that as soon as the last Japanese destroyer is killed, their planes can no longer hit the subs.  The destroyers are prime causalities because of their low cost,  so are the subs.  But if you can land 6 sub hits from 20 subs, and they still have to retain a destroyer or lose the ability to hit your subs…then they have to make some bad choices about what to lose.  since they can still slaughter your surface ships, it could result in a battle where American subs survive but neither Japanese nor American fleets do…then its just planes v subs…until japan brings up one more DD and wipes you out.

@aequitas:

Subs are the cheapest Naval unit, therefor you can mass-dominate the Pacific with SS.

A stack consisting mainly of subs is pretty vulnerable to DD + plane attack. They need to be spread out to be useful. Perhaps that is what you are saying.

Correct Simon33.
Thank you.

@taamvan:

We ran some sims this last week regarding this, and as YG pointed out, the subs are easy to ignore until they are on your convoys and it takes forever to get them there.   The ironic result is that we found a couple of ways of hiding/protecting JAPANESE subs and ships by spreading them out and only placing them where Destroyers didn’t want to be, but there was not much of a intimidation factor created by having the subs spread out among carolines, Hawaii, queensland, or anywhere else in between.

Some of the respondents talked about getting a massive stack of subs, complementing it with a few carriers so that you have 2-4, ignoring BBs and just taking the surface ships that you get at the beginning of the game along.   America doesn’t really want to ‘dance’ around with Japan in the northern pacific because they can never achieve odds;  the SS strategy may well be very intimidating to SZ 6 and force the Japanese to garrison it in great force.   Unf. you need to do this before Japan reaches peak income or he will be able to buy up enough defense to stop your invasion.

The interesting dynamic there is that as soon as the last Japanese destroyer is killed, their planes can no longer hit the subs.   The destroyers are prime causalities because of their low cost,  so are the subs.   But if you can land 6 sub hits from 20 subs, and they still have to retain a destroyer or lose the ability to hit your subs…then they have to make some bad choices about what to lose.   since they can still slaughter your surface ships, it could result in a battle where American subs survive but neither Japanese nor American fleets do…then its just planes v subs…until japan brings up one more DD and wipes you out.

What purchase strategy did you use taamvan?

I think that is a good thought YG, but it’s flawed. At this point your looking at probably a US4 turn which means India is worried about defending itself, not wiping out an occasional Jap destroyer.  Also war plan orange kind of plays into your Spanish Beachhead strategy, right? So if that’s the case the Russians shouldn’t be wasting 12 IPCS for a bomber used against Jap ships, that bomber IF bought would be used to SBR Stalingrad/Ukraine/Leningrad.  And if the American beachhead has gone well, then those 12 IPCS should be used for a couple tanks to
Be pushing torward the German front for an offensive strike. But that’s only how I’d play it.

True, I wasn’t trying to derail by mentioning Spanish Beachhead, so apologies.  If U.S. Is indeed going with a KJF then perhaps a British bomber is justified, but even then you could just move your London Strat bomber that way opposed to spending India money on it. And if you need your bomber in London consider a UK Euro turn 1 buy of 5 inf for London and 1 Strat bomber for South Africa. The Strat Bomber could then be moved to India on UK2 or help a Eygpt Counterattack first before going on to Calcutta. In my games India simply can’t afford any type of offensive unit until R6+ where US has relieved pressure from Calcutta or if Japan goes with a ballsy Sydney first move.

I’ve just noticed that the rules apparently allow NCMing a sub into a SZ defended by a fleet which includes a hostile destroyer, unless you argue that the rule which states that DDs nullify the “Treat hostile SZs as friendly” ability overrules the rule in the sub unit description which states:

Treat Hostile Sea Zones as Friendly: A submarine can move through a sea zone that contains enemy units, either in combat or
noncombat movement. However, if a submarine enters a sea zone containing an enemy destroyer, it must end its movement
there. If it ends its combat move in a hostile sea zone, combat will occur.

This appears to imply that you can indeed move a sub into a hostile SZ on NCM even if it contains a DD, you just can’t move through it.

Triple A allows this move FWIW.

This strengthens this play, a fair bit IMO because you can’t just have a half the number of fleets as SZs to protect.

A couple UK bmrs positioned in Calcutta could definitely help pick off those lone Japanese destroyers for sure. UK sub(s) would also help protect your expensive bmrs when attacking w/bmrs, or could be used to bait Japanese dd’s to isolate them, if you can build subs in India (or send them from Africa). You need to have India stay in the game though to be used as a launch pad, so they will need to be using most income for inf and def units in the early rounds. I agree w/Tirano that UK bmrs could be sent over from Europe, but I would prob send the London bmr over (maybe after a Taranto run) instead of building one in S Africa on the first turn. I’m just a firm believer in max def for London on the first turn (or save some income), and don’t generally build luxury units, or ICs in Africa unless the Germans drop all ground G1. Anz bmrs in both Queensland and India have good range for this mission (bmrs can fly back-n-forth from those ABs).

Another thing is that this form of sub ware fare takes a few turns to develop so you really don’t need to have UK build bmrs right away. You should max def both London and Calcutta, while the USA gets fleet and subs into position, then build the bmrs (which have great range) just before the US is ready to go IMO to coordinate efforts (will also help to hide your intensions). I like to have some mobile units built for the India, and this would fit into this type of swamp Japan strat because once the Japanese have to back off Calcutta a couple mech with those bmers can be pretty effective getting into China too.