Moses(AL)Jwilkerson(IJ)

[goodboyladdie]

But however many he produces they are only good in the hands of experienced pilots. As long as you try to kill at least 40 Naval pilots a month (including search plane and bomber pilots), by June 1942 the pilot pool is gone and the Zero bonus has expired. Once his best pilots are gone the Zero is very easily destroyed as they are very fragile and most Allied fighters have heavy armament and good durability...

[Mike Solli]

June 42?  The IJNAF pilot pool is usually gone by the end of 41.  Many of the daitai & chutai start understrength.

[moses]

ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

June 42?  The IJNAF pilot pool is usually gone by the end of 41.  Many of the daitai & chutai start understrength.

Well here's my kills for the first 60 days. I think the pilot pool is dry!!!!

[John 3rd]

Keep it up Greg!  I HATE losing that many planes so early...

[ny59giants]

You are going to have to rotate your 72 plane fighter groups in and out of PM to rebuild after attrition takes them down a few notches. [:-]

The BIG question is, how are you going to get a large amount of supply to PM with your CV's in need of yard time?? Placing a 270 AV BF is good, but your need to get at least 20k of supply to PM is critical.[:(] Those Betty/Nell are probably set on naval attack and AF secondary. [:D]

[Mike Solli]

ORIGINAL: moses

ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

June 42?  The IJNAF pilot pool is usually gone by the end of 41.  Many of the daitai & chutai start understrength.

Well here's my kills for the first 60 days. I think the pilot pool is dry!!!!

[X(] Ouch!

[moses]

I have over 50,000 sp there (PM) already. My great need is an aviation support unit which is still two weeks out.

I don't think his Betties are all that good. He has taken a lot of losses and had very little success. Plus Rabaul is still a level three airbase.

[Mike Solli]

ORIGINAL: moses
Plus Rabaul is still a level three airbase.

After 60 days that is not good.

[moses]

OK lets see if I understand this.



This says for instance that he is producing 57 zeros and has 24 zero factories left to repair at Tokyo.

Correct???????? Is this accurate or does FOW play a role???????

[Mike Solli]

[X(] I never realized you could get that much intel (I never played the Allies).

[Mike Solli]

ORIGINAL: moses

OK lets see if I understand this.

This says for instance that he is producing 57 zeros and has 24 zero factories left to repair at Tokyo.

Correct????????

Yup, that's right. Keep in mind that he most likely has multiple A6M2 factories (with 2 of them in Tokyo).

[moses]

OK then I counted them all up. I show production of 268(39) zero's!!!!! 223(153) Oscar's!!!!!!; and 125(40) Betties!!!!!!! PLUS......PLUS I counted 50 factories of various types which have factories to repair.

Now there have to be supply implications of this. For example 50 factories repairing per turn is 50,000 sp/turn. We're at day 60 so this comes to 3,000,000 sp; the entire starting japanese supply pool!!!!!!!!!

[moses]

5-7 Feb:

Time marches on: Singapore will fall within a day or two and Burma is now just a mop-up operation. West of Java his cariers move back and forth never quite engaging fully with the Java defences. My last surface units have fled the area for either India of the south Pacific but hopefully he does not know that. At PM weather forced the Japanese air campaign to halt allowing me to fully repair my airfield. Thunderstorms are forcast for tommorrow so I will spend at least one more day before sending in my P39's and F4F's.

China: He now seems commited in the North and so I will risk a little offensive: Near Changsa my troops ventured toward Wuhan and routed two Jap Brigades that were guarding the road. Now I will send 7 of my Corps across the river where two units sit opposite Ichang. If my units all cross at once the river assault rule should give them a quick victory. Ichang is a level 5 airbase and I'll use my SBD's to ensure a clean kill.

3 of my Ichang Corps are already moving down the trail and 6 Corps from Homan have moved south and will attack the single unit blocking the road to Kaifeng. If all goes well I will have 16 Corps in that central zone between the two rivers. What does he have there??? Perhaps no more then a division or two defending a lot of open space with no natural defences.

I may not achieve all that much but if I can retreat five or six of his units and force him to fight some unfavorable battles, make him redeploy and burn supply.....well then it will be worth it. And maybe...just maybe I catch a couple of his divisions in the open and rout them. It's not impossible that he will then lose control of the situation and I will take this entire central region.

[moses]

8-9 Feb:

Malaysia and Java: Singapore falls and his fighters range across Java at will. The battle really is over in the air. I have one last chance as my B26's wait for his carriers to veture close enough. But he just has too many fighters and there is no point in me reinforcing my squadrens. The good news is that my fleet is safely gone and I've managed to keep my losses to one CA and 5 or 6 DD's. The landings in Java are just a matter of time.

Now for a demonstration of my incompetance at this game:[&:]

PM: I send in my P39's and F4F's for the decisive show down. I set my P39's at 20,000 ft and my F4F's at 24,000 as instructed. I then leave my F4F's at CAP LEVEL 0%!!!!!!![&:] What an idiot. After planning this for over a week I botch the execution. Obviously it does not go well. I lose over 22 P39's for 4 zero's and 3 bombers. Worse a bunch of my F4F's get blown up on the ground. I pulled everything out and will now spend another 10 days regrouping.

PI: He moves into Clark and I don't even notice for a turn!!!!! So I noticed and launched my shock attack but with a day to dig in and get a free bombardment, Japan holds with 1 to 1 odds. I will try again tommorrow and have flow in a dozen LB30's to help. Maybe I can drive them out but if not the battle is done because I will have no remaining sourse of supply.

Sometimes I think I know what I'm doing but days like this make you wonder.

China: Some good news is that by moving my big stack out of Changsa I have finally gotten supply to move north. Everything there is now at 100% supply greatly increasing my confidance.

[ny59giants]

What is your defensive preparations look for in India??

Now that Malaya is gone and with KB off the coast of Java, both Java and Sumatra will probably fall within a month.

Also, how is the fortification of your island chains from Hawaii to Oz shaping up??

[erstad]

ORIGINAL: moses

OK then I counted them all up. I show production of 268(39) zero's!!!!! 223(153) Oscar's!!!!!!; and 125(40) Betties!!!!!!! PLUS......PLUS I counted 50 factories of various types which have factories to repair.

Umm.. I suspect your 50 includes a large fraction of R&D factories. Likely he's not repairing those.

[Mike Solli]

ORIGINAL: moses

OK then I counted them all up. I show production of 268(39) zero's!!!!! 223(153) Oscar's!!!!!!; and 125(40) Betties!!!!!!! PLUS......PLUS I counted 50 factories of various types which have factories to repair.

Now there have to be supply implications of this. For example 50 factories repairing per turn is 50,000 sp/turn. We're at day 60 so this comes to 3,000,000 sp; the entire starting japanese supply pool!!!!!!!!!

Ouch! [X(] That's just a wee bit excessive. [:(]

[moses]

ORIGINAL: ny59giants

What is your defensive preparations look for in India??

Now that Malaya is gone and with KB off the coast of Java, both Java and Sumatra will probably fall within a month.

Also, how is the fortification of your island chains from Hawaii to Oz shaping up??

India: Well I did not send anything forward except one indian BDE and a base force to Akyab. On the down side only the 1st Burma BDE was evacuated from Burma. The rest of the Burma army is taking the long road back and may be entirely cut off. I have quite a few air units in India now and the Dutch minelayers are hard at work. The battle fleet is mostly gone as the waters are a bit too restricted for me to operate their in any safety.

So every city on the mainland is garrisoned and will soon have at least some mines. The big island is relatively defensless but I don't think I can afford puting units here yet.

I feel pretty good about him invading here. Sure if he wants he can make things really hot for me in India. But he will have to commit KB and most of his Army. India is a good place to bleed his air force and with KB there, PM will be safe, allowing me to bleed him some more from that location.

Java: I agree, Java is lost whenever he wants to send the troops to take it. The air battle is now not worth fighting anymore as while I am killing some zero's I'm also doing a good job of training his zero's. So I'm keeping a group of B26's there for one last shot at his ships but everything else is just being allowed to attrit down. I've withdrawn a couple air units to India and I've disbanded a number of groups together.

I've also started to load up excess supply from Java to keep it away from Japan. My AK's have suffered some but the Betties don't have much aim anymore and waste a lot of torpedoes. I have pulled a ton of oil and resourses from this area over the last month.

Pacific Island chain: Midway and Palmyra now have a full RCT. The bulk of the division for Canton Island will arrive in a couple days. All are fortified with ample supply and over a thousand mines. I have some type of artillery/CD unit at each location. Suva and Pago pago are still a little lite.

[moses]

ORIGINAL: erstad

ORIGINAL: moses

OK then I counted them all up. I show production of 268(39) zero's!!!!! 223(153) Oscar's!!!!!!; and 125(40) Betties!!!!!!! PLUS......PLUS I counted 50 factories of various types which have factories to repair.

Umm.. I suspect your 50 includes a large fraction of R&D factories. Likely he's not repairing those.

Some are R&D I'm sure and I'll count that up next chance. But still there are a LOT of production changes going on. Many engine factories, all those plane upgrades, some shipyards and repair facilities.

I'm one of those guys who is very conservative (as Japan) with production changes. But still I often run into a supply crunch about this time where there is just very little supply in the home islands. You know, you need to ship supply initially to a lot of places to support your offensives. If you're burning a million or so of supply on upgrading your production do you just flat run out at some point? What happens then?

Remember this is a historical start so Jwilkerson doesn't get to storm into my positions and conquer everything by the end of January. It's 10 Feb and Java and Palenbang are still producing for the allies. And that supply has largely been used or evacuated. Plus I've had time to evacuate a lot of supply from area's that I wasn't going to defend. So a lot of those little bases which you normally take and capture a thousand sp here and there are being captured empty.

The fog of war in this game is just great. [:D] I wonder......as bad as it looks for me, Is it possible that he is dealing with a supply crises? Or is that just wishful thinking?[;)]

[moses]

ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

Ouch! [X(] That's just a wee bit excessive. [:(]

Or is it brilliant???!!![:D]

Jwilkerson mentioned to me at one point that he was pushing the envelope on production. Looks to me like he has burned, shredded, and then ate that envelope!! [X(] There is no envelope anymore. [:(][&:]

But he's no novice and so likely he know's something I don't.