Deja Vu All Over Again - apbarog(J) vs OPilot(A)

[apbarog]

13 Feb 43

Permit engaged xAK Ume Maru at Saumlaki, missing with many torpedoes but hitting with 2, and getting 4 gun hits, sinking the ship. A heavy artillery unit was almost completely unloaded, with a few big guns not able to be unloaded in the size 1 port. No escort with the ship. OPilot hadn't paid any attention to Saumlaki, Babar, Taberfane and Dobo up until this point. He knows that I'm paying attention to them.

Trying a huge Oscar IIb fighter sweep of Chungking today. Over 200 enemy fighters there but I doubt that they are all flying. Sending around 150 Oscars.

Gove bombed. Adak bombed. US APDs spotted at the US base 2 hexes east of Adak. I have a small cruiser TF 2 hexes to the west of Adak, waiting to react into Adak when the enemy comes. They haven't for quite awhile. 2 Japanese CVLs are escorting supply convoys to Adak and Ulak, and the ships will be 6 hexes from the enemy base. Fewer than 9 Kates for attack aircraft. About 60 Zeros protecting. Sallys in the Aleutians will target the APDs, being trained in low level attack.

Operational report says that Saratoga was not sunk. Tracker says that Lexington was sunk near Midway.

NiK1-J George was accelerated to 5/43. There's a fair number of squadrons that can fly Georges in this PDU-OFF game, but most won't arrive for at least 9 months.

[IdahoNYer]

apbarog - this one on a tactical pause or done?

I miss the posts!!!

[apbarog]

apbarog - this one on a tactical pause or done?

I miss the posts!!!

The game continues. This thread does not, due to lack of reader interest and my loss of enthusiasm to post daily.

IdahoNYer, it's early April 1943 now and OPilot just invaded and took Noumea. This is his first major invasion, not counting his failed attempt at Wake earlier. At Noumea he used 2 US divisions and the whole US fleet, and British carriers also. As all but 2 of the Japanese big and small carriers started upgrades on 1 April (something that OPilot was probably aware of), the landings were mostly unopposed. Bettys from Luganville were mostly shot down. A few got through but missed battleships with torpedoes. My defense of New Caledonia was light, with the infantry being just SNLF units, one in each base. Luganville is much more defended and may be bypassed because of that. The Solomons are getting more troops now.

I'll do what I can to make the Allied advances costly. I do think that this will be my last WitP:AE game. After literally decades of playing some form of Grigsby's battles in the Pacific, going back to the 1980's, I think that I've done what can be done without doing some wild Japanese strategy to win the game, a strategy that is not inline with winning the war. With my fairly new deep interest in commercial aviation flight simulation, I think I'll be hanging up my hat in the Pacific. As this game was due to my offer of switching sides with OPilot, I am honoring my promise and will finish this game to the bitter end, and fighting as hard as I can. OPilot has been a great and honorable opponent, enduring quite a lot of punishment in our last game without complaint. I owe him the same.

[DesertWolf101]

I have also been closely following your AAR and missed your posts.

Please do update us when you have the time!

[Lowpe]

apbarog - this one on a tactical pause or done?

I miss the posts!!!

The game continues. This thread does not, due to lack of reader interest and my loss of enthusiasm to post daily.

IdahoNYer, it's early April 1943 now and OPilot just invaded and took Noumea. This is his first major invasion, not counting his failed attempt at Wake earlier. At Noumea he used 2 US divisions and the whole US fleet, and British carriers also. As all but 2 of the Japanese big and small carriers started upgrades on 1 April (something that OPilot was probably aware of), the landings were mostly unopposed. Bettys from Luganville were mostly shot down. A few got through but missed battleships with torpedoes. My defense of New Caledonia was light, with the infantry being just SNLF units, one in each base. Luganville is much more defended and may be bypassed because of that. The Solomons are getting more troops now.

I'll do what I can to make the Allied advances costly. I do think that this will be my last WitP:AE game. After literally decades of playing some form of Grigsby's battles in the Pacific, going back to the 1980's, I think that I've done what can be done without doing some wild Japanese strategy to win the game, a strategy that is not inline with winning the war. With my fairly new deep interest in commercial aviation flight simulation, I think I'll be hanging up my hat in the Pacific. As this game was due to my offer of switching sides with OPilot, I am honoring my promise and will finish this game to the bitter end, and fighting as hard as I can. OPilot has been a great and honorable opponent, enduring quite a lot of punishment in our last game without complaint. I owe him the same.

It certainly seems to me that the new board traffic is substantially less than what it was prior, and I am too struggling to stay motivated. A rather negative effects circle of doom....and rl has intervened too for me personally, but that can't be the case for everyone on the forum can it?

[CaptBeefheart]

I first was kind of put off by the new forum, but I've gotten back into it recently. Let's hope that's true for others.

Cheers,
CB

[IdahoNYer]

apbarog -

On the positive side, I'm glad your game continues.

On the negative side, I hope you reconsider posting updates and continue with WiTP; I've enjoyed your games/AARs over the years.

The forum does see a tad bare recently, although I'm not sure its the new format, I think it might be RL issues or perhaps the thrust of political correctness into the forum....I mean if Large Slow Target had to change his avatar after years if not decades on the WiTP forum, what is the world coming to!!!

[apbarog]

It's early May 1943, and the Allies are on the move. In the beginning of April, just when almost all of my Japanese carriers went into upgrades in Japan, OPilot made the jump to invading Noumea. He used all of his carriers, including at least one British carrier. I did little to oppose the landing. I had little more than small SNLF units on New Caledonia, and base support. My overall plan for the Japanese defense is to intervene when the Allies are making a big jump, one that is beyond Allied land based defense support. Noumea would have been an opportunity to throw KB at the enemy, but they were busy upgrading. OPilot used a USMC division and a US Army division to clear New Caledonia. Bases did not fall in just one day, having some forts built, but they didn't last long. B-17s from Norfolk Island supported the attacks. Once Noumea fell, the rest of New Caledonia was just a matter of time. A short time.

US forces also captured all of the islands to the east of New Caledonia. All but one was empty, and the one that was defended had just a fragment of a para unit. All bases fell during April and OPilot made a big effort to use lots of engineers to built them up quickly. This creeping strategy started to make Luganville vulnerable. This week, US forces invaded the lightly held island of Lakatoro, next to Luganville. I had a size 2 airfield there. OPilot took it quickly. Just today he invaded Luganville. Luganville is more strongly held, but no regiments or divisions. 3 smaller units. The US landed the 2nd Marine Division and a Marine regiment, so far. With the forts at Luganville, and the jungle terrain, it could take some time to reduce my defense. I had mines at Luganville. A US DD hit a mine today and sank. 2 US minesweepers found the Japanese Wake coastal gun unit at Luganville and got pounded. The base was bombarded by a cruiser force that went back to Noumea afterwards. I had 3 subs on the route southwest of Luganville. All 3 fired torpedoes at cruisers but all missed. 2 subs were damaged by depth charges. US CVEs are definitely at Luganville. I can't tell if the US CVs are there or not. 3 slow US battleships did bombard Lakatoro when that was invaded, so they are in the area and will undoubtedly show up at Luganville now that my big CD gun unit has been identified there.

Japanese CVs have been loitering at Shortlands, unseen. As OPilot has mostly been jumping from one invasion to another, hitting islands close to ones just taken, Ndeni is a logical choice for an approach into the Solomons. I ordered KB to move close to Tulagi, to be able to hit the Ndeni area in one day's movement. OPilot has very many subs between Luganville and the Solomons. Strong Japanese land based ASW has moved them out away from Japanese bases, but there's a solid buffer ready to intercept KB if it moves towards Luganville.

I've decided not to intervene at Luganville with KB. OPilot already has Lakatoro and it's size 2 airfield. I'll wait for the jump to Ndeni or a jump to the Solomons. Or Milne Bay. Who knows what is coming.

I still hold Darwin, but all Australian bases south of Darwin are Allied held. Australian forces started to move north towards Darwin, but Japanese bombers (and maybe low supply) forced them back south. OPilot invaded Gove recently, with 2 Australian units, but the Japanese are dug in, with jungle terrain, with the big 65th Brigade there. Australian cruisers bombard Gove regularly. And an absolutely huge number of heavy, medium and light bombers hit Gove almost every day.

My plan was to hold Darwin strongly with an infantry division and an armor division, and lots of supporting units. It has level 6 forts, but is clear terrain. I hoped to defend it with 3 fighter units. That plan was wrecked when 3 P-38 squadrons got a coordinated sweep of 74 planes. My stacked CAP was no match. Losses were about 40 to 2. I swapped in fresh units the next day, and got about the same result then. P-38s are just a brutal reality for the Japanese. On a rare occasion, you can get a decent result defending with Japanese fighters with a stacked CAP, but you have to have some luck, and most of the time, you'll get wrecked. Without fighter protection, the strong ground forces will be bombed out of existence. I wanted to force OPilot to invade Darwin by sea. I have over 600 mines at Darwin.

No enemy activity in the Marshall Islands.

US forces recaptured Adak Island in the Aleutians recently. None of the Japanese bases in the Aleutians are strongly held. Mines at Adak did claim a couple of US destroyers. OPilot has been cautious in the Aleutians. I've moved aircraft to the islands a couple of times to keep him honest, but have pulled most air out. Zeros are at Attu now, covering ships loading up fragments of units from all of the other Aleutian bases. Those fragments will go back to Japan and rebuild.

In Burma, it's a bit of a stalemate. Allied forces moved south from Akyab, and moved down a clear terrain slot just east of the coastal road, towards Prome. Japanese forces pulled back towards Prome, allowing the enemy to cut of Ramree Island, which was amphibiously invaded and taken by the British. A Japanese cruiser force with 2 CAs and 5 DDs tried to sneak into Ramree later, but discovered a big British TF led by Prince of Wales and Repulse. In a series of battles that day, every Japanese ship was sunk.

Got a bit of revenge near Broome, Australia. A mostly Dutch light cruiser TF had been active near the NW corner of Australia. It bombarded Broome. I had anticipated it, and Musashi and support was nearby to the north, set up on patrol to hopefully react into Broome. They didn't react. Afterwards, I moved the TF to the entrance just west of Broome, and I knew the Dutch would be back. They did return, and in a series of reaction move combats, similar to the fight at Ramree Island, the Dutch TF was pummelled. Several light cruisers and several destroyers were sunk. One Japanese DD was badly damaged but made it to Broome. But the damage was so great, with 97 SYS and 85 FIRE, that the size 2 port wasn't enough to save the ship. Musashi did take a torpedo hit, and other ships took damage, but all others escaped. Most are at Soerabaja now fixing up minor damage. Musashi will head back to Japan.

That's about it. OPilot has taken all of New Caledonia and is working on Luganville now. KB is waiting nearby for whatever comes next.

[apbarog]

Hey, I just noticed that I had my 20 year forum anniversary in May. Many thousands of hours of War in the Pacific and it's predecessors. All the way back to Gary Grigsby's Guadalcanal Campaign in 1982.

[apbarog]

Cudos to Matrix Games for recognizing Gary Grigsby's 40th anniversary since his game Guadalcanal Campaign. His games have been a big part of my life, literally tens of thousands of hours. Thank you Gary.

https://www.matrixgames.com/news/40-yea ... nniversary

[apbarog]

End of May 1943

Australian forces have captured Gove. I had a big Japanese brigade there and they held for awhile. Just one Australian battalion was landed at first. OPilot had to reinforce over a month's time and land 3 more big units, as well as lots of engineers and some Australian armor. P-38s ensured that the Aussies had little to fear from the air. Many, many Allied bombers hit Japanese troops day after day. Last week, I sent KB to Gove, considering a more past Horn Island. A big ANZAC cruiser force was there, and had been at Gove for some time. KB bombers ended up missing the 2 cruisers there, and sank over 20 of the tiny LCM and other tiny cargo ships that the can be bought at ports. A big disappointment here. KB is now headed to Truk to once again be in the Solomons area. No sign of US carriers for weeks now.

US troops are still on Luganville, but Luganville continues to hold, with 3 SNLF units, armor, AT unit, and some base support, and most importantly, the Wake Coastal gun unit. US slow battleships bombard but do little to the combat troops, concentrating on the Wake unit, and doing little to it, frankly. Lots of Japanese supply means that Luganville will continue to hold. The 2nd USMC divisions and a USMC regiment are on Luganville, with support.

OPilot could do anything at this point. Ndeni and the Solomons are a strong possibility, as is Port Moresby or Milne Bay. P-38s, again, dominate New Guinea from huge Australian bases, allowing for lots of heavy and medium bombers to hit at will. I try to defend in the air from time to time, but multiple P-38 groups make it impossible. 20 to 1 losses are not uncommon.

In the Aleutians, Adak has been lost. It was the most eastern and most built up Japanese base. 3 other Japanese bases remain to the west. They are lightly defended and fragments of all units have been extracted back to Tokyo for the inevitable.

I'm looking for a big battle with KB if I can find a good opportunity in the Solomons. The Essex class carriers will be arriving soon, and then things become much more difficult. Up until now, the US has lost 4 big carriers. The Japanese have lost 1.

I'm trying something different in this game. After the big carrier battle at Wake Island, a big Japanese victory, I sent KB back to Japan for carrier upgrades. I emptied all of KB's fighter squadrons of their excellent Pearl Harbor veteran pilots and replaced them with untrained pilots. I then started training. I figured that I wouldn't need the carriers for an extended time, and I was right. Training progressed. Fighter pilots are now pretty good. Not to the level of the elite pilots that I pulled out, but good enough. My plan is to use what I've trained and keep the elite pilots for later in the war. I'm pushing hard to get the Sam as soon as I can. Will it make any difference? Will the war last long enough to even see the Sam? I don't know, but we'll see. In the reserve, I count 157 Navy fighter pilots with experience 80+, and I estimate about 500 Navy fighter pilots in the reserve with experience 70 to 80.

[apbarog]

We now jump to 9 Aug 43.

The war has continued. The Aussies built up Gove and took Bathurst Island, adjacent to Darwin. They've also taken Port Hedland on the northern Australian coast. I slipped a tank division into Darwin when the enemy was taking Gove, and a Japanese infantry division, with support, was already at Darwin. I knew that I was sending the tank division to an eventual death at Darwin, but my strategy has been to defend and delay as much as possible. It's August, and I still hold Darwin. Darwin gets hit with over 100 medium and heavy bombers regularly, but OPilot has trouble keeping the airfield damaged. I have many engineers at Darwin and had lots of supply. Supply is now under 20k, but the defense continues. Once OPilot starts hammering the ground troops instead of bombing the airfield, things will get more bleak. An ANZAC cruiser force occasionally bombards Darwin, helped by the size 5 airfield the Aussies have built at Bathurst Island.

Just this week, KB reappeared northeast of Bathurst, trying to catch the enemy cruisers, which were at Bathurst. Cannon-fodder Zeros from Saumlaki swept the defending Spits, losing about 50 in the process, but depleting the enemy. Bettys from Koepang, with escorts, went after the cruisers but all torpedoes missed. Judys from Saumlaki sank a lone AM to the east of Bathurst, and dive-bombing Lilys from Taberfane obliterated many tiny APc's making their way along the coast southeast of Bathurst. KB, however, did not launch. I can only blame weather over KB for this, as weather over the cruisers was good enough for the Bettys to attack. Big disappointment. Weather has ruined KB surprise attacks more than once in this war. Think back to Auckland.

In the Solomons, the US took the base adjacent to Luganville, built it huge, and eventually took Luganville. It was a long and hard fight. I had moved the Wake Coastal gun unit to Luganville, and it had a great effect on holding the base. Many enemy ships were damaged and sunk. OPilot ended using almost every slow US battleship to bombard Luganville, and still the Wake unit was having an impact. The biggest effect of the guns, however, was that all those bombardments targeted that unit, and left the defending infantry, armor and artillery alone. The island held for months but was finally lost.

OPilot moved on to Ndeni next. Multiple P-38 units were used from Luganville. (He used some in the Darwin area also). And lots and lots of heavy bomber raids. Ndeni didn't hold as long as Luganville, but it put up a fight, led by a special base force that had some coastal guns. It was a good defense.

Fairly recently, OPilot took Port Moresby rather quickly, landing 2 US Army divisions and lots of support. He is consolidating there. A big airfield at Port Moresby will quickly make Rabaul vulnerable to heavy bombing. And P-38s. And now there are P-47s.

In the Aleutians, part of a US division landed on the next island west of Adak. (The name escapes me at the moment.) An SNLF unit was defending, with an excess of supply. Since just part of the US infantry division landed, without any other supporting units, the Japanese held. OPilot landed more of the division but botched the landing, then tried to pick up the division and accidentally ordered them to reinvade after loading. A big mistake. The US division was trashed and left the island entirely. Since then, bombing and bombardment has shut down 2 of the 3 remaining Japanese bases in the Aleutians, with Attu starting to get the treatment now. I expected to have lost all of these bases a long time ago. I've done little more than defend with small units and some subs, and still hold.

In China, things went mostly quiet after I established a supply line from China west into the mountains and to Burma. In the far north of China, I've just recently made another push on Lanchow and its 90 oil, and I'm about to take the base. It is obvious that the Chinese are starving. I do think that my plan to starve China by taking the mountainous area of western China has worked. I just have to hold it now.

In Burma, the Allies finally ordered a general offensive, with British and Indian units move south into the plains around Mandalay, and a huge Chinese corps moving south from Myitkyina(modern spelling, forget spelling of the time). The corps cut the road into China, and is now taking Lashio. It remains to be seen whether OPilot will try to push east into China, south towards Rangoon, or southeast to flank Rangoon. The Japanese has a decent defense south of the Burma plains in the jungle. It will be very tough for the Allies to push east into the mountains. I did invest heavily in the Franks, and they've done well in Burma. OPilot doesn't have any P-38s or P-47s in Burma, so far. The Franks can deal with the P-40s, even with old Flying Tiger pilots or other elite pilots.

That's about it. It's August 1943 and I'm pretty happy with the current situation. I've only lost one medium sized Japanese CV, while the US has lost 4 big carriers. When I discussed my overall strategy for the war long ago, I had 2 goals: starve China as described above, and expand quickly in the Pacific in order to go after the enemy carriers, but hold forward bases weakly. My China goal has been achieved, I think. My second goal was only partially successful. But more than anything else, I hit and hurt the Allies with KB just often enough to encourage OPilot to be slow and cautious. He has been using a creeping strategy: taking small bases or dot bases near my island bases, and building his bases up big, and dominating the air. Then invading. He's relying heavily on P-38s and B-24s, and in most cases, I've resorted to not contesting that. When I've tried, I lose dozens of planes while he loses a handful. I let him bomb jungle bases. Eventually he invades, but he takes so much time to do so, I consider the delay a win.

A side note. One thing I'm doing in this game is accumulating a very large number of highly trained Japanese naval fighter pilots. I have hundreds of them with experience and air-to-air skills over 70. All of my original KB fighter pilots were sent to the Reserve Pool after the Wake carrier battle, and new pilots were trained and are now with KB. I am heavily investing in the Sam, and I hope to be able to use hundreds of very good an elite fighter pilots in them, late in the war. Will it make any difference? Probably not, but I had the time and opportunity to train others, so why not see what they can do later. My assumption is that this war will drag on into 1945, and OPilot really needs to pick up the pace for that not to happen. He has the tools to get the steamroller going. Most of the USMC divisions have never been spotted. They must be training for something big, but that is a big unknown. I've seen the Essex carrier, and more are on the way. If I can keep OPilot cautious, maybe we'll see the Sams at work in numbers later on.

[Cheesesteak]

Thx for the update!

[apbarog]

10 Dec 43

The war has continued. Most of the time since my last update, the Japanese Navy has been sitting in Japan. Carrier pilots have been training, and many hundreds of the original KB pilots are in the Reserve pool, waiting for an end-game strategy that I hope to employ, hoping to get Sams on the carriers. We have had some battles. Last week I tried to raid Rangoon with a cruiser force, but ran into a stronger British cruiser force. 3 Japanese Cl's were lost while sinking one Brit CL. But damaged Japanese ships only moved 1 hex away from Rangoon, despite being set for high speed, and more ships were lost to naval bombers. LRCAP for the Japanese didn't arrive. 5 DDs and another CL were lost.

But mostly, the war has been defined by OPilots slow advance. He has left little to chance, using overwhelming force. His strategy in the Pacific has been to grab empty islands near Japanese bases, build the islands up, and dominate the area with airpower. This strategy is almost impossible to counter, and frankly, is the best I can hope for. There has been no big jumps forward so far. In the past couple of months, US forces have finally taken most of the Marshalls and the Solomons, and the Australians have finally cleared northern Australia. British forces have retaken Rangoon. But it's almost 1944, so I'm good with the current situation. I'd like to think that my strategy of aggressively expanding in the South Pacific early on, and inflicting some stinging losses as early and as quickly as possible, helped form OPilot's slow advance strategy, but I don't know if that really made any difference.

Here's some screen shots of the areas of the map.

[apbarog]

Aleutians 10 Dec 43

Aleutians CROPPED.jpg (188.97 KiB) Viewed 795 times

[apbarog]

Burma and Western China 10 Dec 43

Burma and West China CROPPED.jpg (647.48 KiB) Viewed 794 times

[apbarog]

China 10 Dec 43

China CROPPED.jpg (531.49 KiB) Viewed 793 times

[apbarog]

Northern Australia 10 Dec 43

Darwin CROPPED.jpg (491.6 KiB) Viewed 792 times

[apbarog]

Kwajalein to Truk 10 Dec 43

Kwaj and Truk CROPPED.jpg (344.64 KiB) Viewed 791 times

[apbarog]

Solomons and New Guinea 10 Dec 43

Solomons and New Guinea CROPPED.jpg (487.7 KiB) Viewed 790 times