Hunting the AuTiger - an AAR (no Tigers please)

[Dive Bomber1]

April 28, 1942 – Things quieted down a lot this turn, thanks mainly to bad weather in many locations of the map. Because of this only one air attack flew – my mass attack on Changsha. There was no CAP over Changsha and no air unit sign over other nearby Allied bases. Maybe AuTiger pulled back his planes because the "surprise" was gone.

My air attack caused a lot of air field and air base damage at Changsha but didn't cause any casualties, so it appears that AuTiger only has combat troops in the base. My subsequent deliberate attack reduced the fortifications to level 8. Both sides suffered a number of casualties in the attack. I reset my troops to do a bombardment attack next turn so that they can reduce their disruption. As long as my air attacks can continue I will be able to slowly reduce the fortifications without the Allied engineers being able to repair them.

In Java AuTiger decided to be "cute" and sent a couple of units out of Soerabaja and into Malang again. I've got a pretty good SNLF unit there, so it ought to be able to hold out. In any event I ordered my troops on the other side of Soerabaja to move in to the attack, so if AuTiger isn't lucky he will end up with his two units trapped in Malang.

Otherwise, I just continued to reorganize and redistribute my forces. I ordered another base force to sail to the Kuriles and a couple more small base forces to march to bases in northern Japan. This way they can build up slowly with local supply and also be available for further advances or be in position in case AuTiger tries a northern attack. I have plenty of forces in the Pacific and don't need more at this time.

[Dive Bomber1]

April 29, 1942 – This was another relatively quiet turn. Nothing happened during the night phase and rain cancelled most air attacks other than my big air attack on Changsha and a 100+ plane 4E attack on the resources at Moulmein. The only naval action was an ASW attack on one of my subs in the South Pacific, which demonstrated that AuTiger is still busy in that region.

The only ground operation of note involved AuTiger's two Dutch regiments which recaptured Malang again, easily driving out my good SNLF unit. AuTiger continues to be quite successful with his "Confederate General" tactics. I expect that once he goes on the offensive he will be essentially unstoppable.

In the meanwhile I decided to go into action myself, so I set most of my long range patrol planes and my long range 2Es to recon various Allied bases around my defensive perimeter. I'm interested to see if I can pick up some useful info. I also set my surface combat TF at Amboina towards Darwin again. Now that I have been doing constant recon my naval bombardment ought to accomplish more than it did the last time. And with the lousy weather I might even be able to sneak in and catch some planes on the ground.

Finally, I decided to put the KB to use and sent it off for a raid on Noumea. I'm hoping to catch a few ships in port, and maybe even some planes on the ground. We'll see if the weather cooperates and allows me to get close enough without being spotted.

[Dive Bomber1]

April 30, 1942 – My fast transport invasion of Tenimbar Island worked out well – the TF got in, dropped off the troops and got out of there without interference. However, despite bad weather and lots of clouds, the Allied patrol planes in Northern Australia spotted my incoming bombardment TF and sent some escorted bombers after it in the afternoon air phase. Fortunately, the 2Es only went after the battleship in the TF and a number of bombers were lost and none scored any hits. This worked better than CAP and makes me think that I ought to send out battleship TFs on a more regular basis just to wear down the Allied 2Es a bit. [;)]

Unlike last time I tried this, I am letting my bombardment TF retreat to Amboina now that it has been spotted. If AuTiger assumes that I will do the same thing as last time he will pull back his planes and try to hit me on the way back. In any event, this is helping to mask my movement of base forces into Timor. I intend to provide "lots" of targets again to AuTiger so that he has to split his forces in this region too.

Taking the "embarrassment of riches" approach to the Allied long range bomber threat seems to be paying off. For example, AuTiger's 4Es in India hit the resources at Moulmein again this turn, causing no damage and gaining some wear-and-tear in return. The resources at Moulmein are already at 100% damage, so this means that my other bases in the region can continue to expand without being subject to attack.

Likewise, AuTiger's Australian B-17s hit the airfields at Gili-Gili this turn again. Sure, they caught a few Zeros on the ground, but the bombers took a fair amount of damage and this meant that Port Moresby was once again left alone to continue to be repaired. The airfields and air support facilities at PM are once again at 100% and the port is being repaired rapidly. This is allowing me to pull out my combat troops without interference.

I have also been shifting my Naval LBA into the Central Pacific and leaving the assault on Java to my Army Air units. Thus I now have most of my Zero Daitais in the Central and South Pacific where they are providing LR CAP on my retiring transport TFs, which minimizes air attacks (as long as AuTiger continues to use his 4Es to attack my airfields). I am also moving most of my Bettys and Nells into the Central Pacific because they are extremely useful for flying long range recon over the US bases.

Most of my recon flights did fly this turn and brought me some interesting information. It appears that the USN may be sitting in the harbor at Pago-Pago, which is out of easy reach at this time, but that is still useful to know. Also there are some ships in Noumea Harbor, which means that the KB may well have some targets when it arrives. So far the KB is still undetected – we'll see if it continues to be lucky or if luck turns in AuTiger's favour again.

One interesting bit of info that came with the new month was that AuTiger paid a penalty of 500 political points rather than send some British ships back. Maybe after my Noumea raid I'll move the KB back to the Far East and raid the Brits once again.

[Dive Bomber1]

May 1, 1942 - Once again there was no night time action and things were generally pretty quiet other than at Changsha and Soerabaja. My bombers hit both bases again along with bombardment attacks by my besieging troops. Surprisingly, a couple of Dutch bombers still flew out of Soerabaja and tried to attack a transport ship, but they missed. I didn't think that bombers would fly when the airfield damage was over 50%. (Maybe that's just on carriers?)

The artillery results at Changsha were very encouraging and there were over 700 Allied casualties. So I set my forces to do another deliberate attack on Changsha next turn since the weather is supposed to be good. I am hoping to reduce the fortifications some more. I am still marching more troops towards the assault so I will continue to increase the pressure.

I still haven't tried any deliberate attacks in Java since I am still bringing in more attackers. For some reason that I don't understand AuTiger has now moved 3 units into Malang. I can't understand why he is willing to split his forces, but I'm not complaining. I expect to have all of my troops in place in another week's time.

No Allied planes flew against my ships in the PNG region so the retrieval of my combat units from Port Moresby is continuing nicely. The facilities at PM are completely repaired now so the fortifications are starting to be built up and I've brought more fighters in on CAP while I still have big transport TFs sailing in and out.

My recon flights brought more interesting news this turn. It looks as if AuTiger has discounted a possible attack on Darwin and is pulling back some of his troops, although he still has fighters on CAP. Very surprisingly, there are very few fighters flying over the northeastern Australian bases.

But an even nicer bit of news came out of my increased recon of Noumea, where my Intel is reporting around 4 ships in port, some bombers at the air field, and NO fighters around. And better yet - the KB hasn't been detected and will be in attack range next turn! So I increased my CAP to 70% for my carrier fighters in the hopes of deterring the inevitable LBA counterattacks.

In other news, my troops captured Tenimbar Island this turn, and my first base force is getting closer to landing at Timor without interference. In Burma one of my Divisions finally moved the single hex from Lashio to the river hex to the east, after a couple of months of travel. (If there is any single thing in this game that the Designers should be ashamed of - it is land movement.) As expected, the forced Shock Attack failed, but I'll start to do bombardments and try a deliberate attack in a week or so once the disruption has gone down for my division. I have also given my units at Akyab orders to try a deliberate attack since their disruption is down and they have plenty of supplies.

[Q-Ball]

Good AAR! I am playing IJN in a couple games, and I left Tenimbar Is. alone...because I didn't want an airbase that the Allies could train fighters on, that close to Darwin. In one of them that's becoming irrelevant as I take over Northern Oz, but I wonder what you are doing with Tenimbar. Otherwise you are further along than I am!

[Dive Bomber1]

ORIGINAL: Q-Ball

Good AAR! I am playing IJN in a couple games, and I left Tenimbar Is. alone...because I didn't want an airbase that the Allies could train fighters on, that close to Darwin. In one of them that's becoming irrelevant as I take over Northern Oz, but I wonder what you are doing with Tenimbar. Otherwise you are further along than I am!

I'm not intending to build up Tenimbar as an air base and I will pull out my troops in a couple of turns. I just don't like to leave any bases under Allied control because if they are under Allied control they give away the location of my passing TFs and also I can't use them as way-points.

Instead I'm going to build up air bases in Timor, and AuTiger doesn't have enough long range fighters to support 2E bomber attacks on the Timor bases. Sure, he can send in 4Es, but the more bases I build, the more he has to spread out his attacks, and the less each base gets attacked.

BTW - neither AuTiger nor I have been using empty bases as training targets - we've only been training on enemy units.

Thanks -

[Dive Bomber1]

May 2, 1942 – Well, that was certainly underwhelming… The KB arrived off of Noumea under clear skies, with lots of concurrent recon flying over the base, including plenty of floatplanes from the KB itself. A flight of dive bombers located three US AVDs in a TF in the waters off Noumea. No Allied CAP flew, nor did any Allied bombers. Only a single Catalina spotted the KB.

So what happened? Not much. No attacks flew in the morning, and only a half strength attack flew in the afternoon against the airfields at Noumea. Sure, the airfields were hit hard and a number of Marauders were destroyed on the ground, but the AVDs sailed along in the sun and the port was unmolested.

Okay, part of the problem was a silly mistake on my part. I had intended to set my dive bombers to Airfield Attack as their alternate objective, and set the torpedo bombers to Port Attack as their alternate objective. But I obviously goofed something up because all of the attack planes were set to Airfield Attack as their alternate objective.

But that doesn't explain why no planes, not even floatplanes, tried to attack the three AVDs in that little TF. All of my planes were set to Naval Attack as their primary objective. BTW – I had two CS ships in the TF, so I had a total of 60 floatplanes available, and I set two thirds of them to Naval Attack with 50% patrol, with the other third providing local recon. Also, all of my dive bombers and torpedo bombers were set to 10% patrol. So the leadership on the KB certainly knew what was in the vicinity.

AuTiger must be hurting himself laughing at this total fizzle on the part of the KB. The only good thing that came out of this is that the US CVs weren't around or else I probably would have lost some CVs again. In any event, I ordered the KB back to base at flank speed – there is no point leaving them around now that AuTiger knows where they are, and also knows how useless that they are. Maybe they will provide some sort of use by distracting AuTiger for a turn or two while he tries to hunt them down.

BTW - I did learn one important thing from this raid - AuTiger has something like 50K troops in Noumea. I'm definitely not invading there in the near future… [:-]

Elsewhere things were fairly quiet, particularly at sea. Once again there were no reports during the night time phase and no Allied bombers bothered my shipping during the daytime phase. Things are going along as planned at PNG and my redistribution of troops is going well.

In Java AuTiger has left his three units in Malang which is still surprising to me. But my forces are still building and so I don't mind him doing this. He has no place to hide and the weaker Soerabaja becomes the happier I will be.

I enjoyed surprisingly good news in land combat this turn. First off, my daily aerial pounding of Changsha continued nicely, but even better it was followed by another strong deliberate attack that reduced the fortifications to level 7. I'll order bombardment attacks for the next several turns until more engineers and combat troops arrive.

Even more encouraging were the results at Akyab where my units reduced the fortifications down to level three and then got a 3:1 combat result. That ought to worry AuTiger a lot. My troops are in very good shape after that result so I have them set to do another deliberate assault next turn. And for good measure, I moved some Zeros to Rangoon and I've set them to LR CAP over Akyab next turn. Maybe they will catch some incoming transport planes.

AuTiger continues to try to distract me in China. He sent some Chinese bombers to try to hit Hong Kong, but they didn't get any hits so I don't know what their target really was. In any case, I formed a task force from the two ships that were being repaired in the Harbor at HK and sent them away. I also moved some fighters to Canton in order to provide LR CAP over HK, since I don't currently have a base force there, only a couple of construction units. I'll have to remember to send a BF to HK when I get my next reinforcements.

And AuTiger is once again attempting to cut me off south of Homan. He has moved a dozen units out of Homan against my single division that is north of the crossroads. My division has been there quite some time and it has a level 4 fortification, so it shouldn't be a push-over, although one never knows in this game. Better yet, I have three strong units in three hexes to the east of Homan, so I gave them all orders to move into Homan. If AuTiger gets too aggressive I will be positioned to cut him off nicely. I also have a lot of units and very strong fortifications in the bases near Homan, and a number of units which will be passing along the railroad, so if AuTiger gets too ambitious I will be in a position to cut him off again like I did in the first game that we played.

[Dive Bomber1]

May 3, 1942 – Well, I learned yet another extremely painful lesson about this Game this turn. I had assumed that P-40s weren't that much better than the Japanese army fighters, and that if I maintained a good numerical advantage combined with reasonably good skill levels for my pilots that I could hold my own in the air in China. But boy was I ever wrong. AuTiger sent a bunch of P-40s and P-39s on LR CAP over Changsha this turn and intercepted my incoming air attack in a big way.


I had even recently reinforced my escorts for the attack and so I had a 2:1 advantage in fighters in the air. But the result was a massacre none-the-less. I lost 158 planes to air-to-air combat, including 108 Nates. The Allies only lost 20 planes. I had my Tojos and some Oscars there along with the Nates, but they made no difference and two thirds of them were shot down too. Surprisingly enough, my bombers faired much better and a majority of them made it through to bomb the air fields at Changsha again.

I suspect that the problem was two-fold. First off there was the difference in the general quality of the fighters. P-40s are obviously just too good for Nates. Only 20% of the P-40s were shot down, compared to 50% of the P-39s. The other major problem is that AuTiger was able to train-up his P-40 pilots for a long time in India because I abandoned my raiding troops there. So while my pilots were reasonably okay in their experience levels, the US pilots were likely much more experienced.

And yes, there was another problem here in my choice of strategy. I was bombing day-in, day-out and AuTiger was able to set up to catch me. But without regular bombing I have no chance to batter down Changsha. In retrospect, if I had realized that the P-40s could slaughter my fighters as much as they did, I would have at least considered some other approach, but that's hindsight.

You might ask, why not bring in the Zeros? Well, I've got plenty of fronts where I need fighters, and I've only got so many Zeros to spread around. I also wore them down during the initial stages of the invasions of Java and Port Moresby and so I am resting them back up again.

In retrospect, the thing that has hurt me the most was my initial decision to not have PDU set to "on", otherwise I would have had many more Oscars and a lot fewer Nates in this attack. You might not think much of Oscars, but compared to Nates they are "giant killers". Oh well, at least I had plenty of Nates in the replacement pools, despite not building any.

There were no other real disasters this turn, for which I should be thankful. The KB continued to sail away from Noumea with its proverbial "tail between its legs", but at least AuTiger didn't mount a successful counter attack. I'll take what I can get out of that muck-up. [&o]

AuTiger sent his B-24s against the resources at Tavoy and his B-17s against the resources at Rangoon. I don't have any CAP in the region because I am tired of having Nates wiped out by the 4Es, so this is just more good practice for AuTiger's bomber pilots. Once I capture Java I'll probably move some Oscars back into the region.

Surprisingly, my Zeros on LR CAP over Akyab didn't run into any transports. However, I did notice that there is an Allied unit making that very, very slow crawl from the north and is now one hex out of Akyab. My troops did another attack and reduced the fortifications at Akyab down to level 2, but they also only got a 2:1 attack result this time. So I've left them on the attack for next time. I'm hoping that the presence of my Zeros last turn will deter AuTiger from trying to fly in reinforcements this turn, particularly since his P-40s are a couple of moves away in China, and his Hurricanes and Spitfires are too short-ranged to provide LR CAP over Akyab.

BTW – my troops in Changsha got off another pretty good artillery attack this turn. However, their disruption hasn't gone down enough yet for me to schedule another deliberate attack, so I'll continue doing artillery attacks for now.

And south of Homan AuTiger's 12 units didn't attack my division this turn for some reason. That's fine with me because I've got more units on the way and I need a bit more time.

Finally, one of my quiet little transport TFs arrived at Koepang this turn and will off-load a base force next turn. So I flew in a Daitai of - what else, but Nates. Hey – if they discourage Hudsons in the region from ravaging my transports it will be worth it.

[Dive Bomber1]

May 4, 1942 – After what seemed like "forever" my troops finally captured Akyab this turn, despite the movement rules, despite air-dropped Chinese troops, despite air attacks, and despite being at the end of a long supply line. I don't know if AuTiger expected the base to hold, or he just couldn't get reinforcements there in time, or he just gave up on the base, but I am very happy to finally have Akyab under my control. Akyab has too much potential as a forward base to let the Allies control it, and now it is yet another "target" in the region that AuTiger has to consider when he is planning his air attacks. I'm leaving my strongest unit in Akyab and pulling back the other three. It will be very difficult for AuTiger to retake the base, and the effort he puts into such an endeavour is effort that won't be spent elsewhere.

And things are looking better every turn in my plan to close the Burma Road once and for all. My troops at the crossroads to the east of Lashio are almost rested up enough to do a real attack; in the meanwhile I am continuing my artillery attacks on the Chinese unit that is trying to hold the road. AuTiger never sent in reinforcements because he committed so many troops to the Front in China and to the defense of Myitkyina. If I can drive this unit out of the crossroads I will send one of my combat units along the road towards Myitkyina and another on the way to China itself. It's a "slow war" in that part of the world, but as Akyab showed, perseverance can pay off.

In China proper the lack of a bombing attack on Changsha showed this turn as my artillery attack did a lot less damage than in previous turns. But I am resting up my air units and have a couple of sneak attacks of my own planned that might get a bit of revenge. AuTiger also finally attacked my division south of Homan this turn with his twelve units and drove my unit back. I am hoping that AuTiger does move his troops forward to try to cut the rail line, because my units to the east of Homan are making very nice progress and may well give the Base Force at Homan a very nasty surprise in a while if AuTiger gets too ambitious.

Things are still pretty much the same in Java. I keep on bringing in more troops and supplies and bombing the remaining Dutch bases at my leisure. There is no need for piecemeal attacks at this time and the longer I wait the stronger my attacks will be. The other good news in the DEI is that my Base Force disembarked safely at Lautem over night and the transport TF got away without an attack. A supply TF will be arriving soon and another base force at the other side of the island, so my plan for Timor is working nicely.

The withdrawal of my main combat forces from Port Moresby is continuing to work well too. The last two divisions embarked into their transport TFs and are on their way back to Truk for non-malarial R&R. I combined to two transport TFs and placed a good Zero Daitai on LR CAP over it while it is still on the south side of PNG. Once the TF rounds Gili-Gili I will take off the LR CAP and give the fighters a well-deserved rest. BTW – the Weather is also cooperating by providing thunderstorms which help to hide my movements and ground AuTiger's LBA in Australia.

I've been moving more Zeros and Bettys into the Eastern Pacific for the past few turns. I no longer need them in the assault on Java, so I am positioning my attack air units where I can intercept any raids by the USN, and also give AuTiger something to think about if he checks the air balance in the region. My bases in the region continue to build up nicely and I want to deter AuTiger from testing my defenses as long as I can.

I am also going to give AuTiger something more "concrete" to think about in a little while because my Luganville invasion force has just passed the eastern tip of the Solomons. Luganville is still empty, so I'm only committing an NLF and a small base force to the invasion, but it does pose a very deep threat to AuTiger's shipping lanes. I am also backing up this small invasion force with a strong surface combat TF and the KB.

All this aside, I am becoming more convinced that the "Destiny of the Empire" rests in sailing towards the "Rising Sun", so I am slowly bringing much of the Combined Fleet back to the Home Islands, and I may not leave the victors of Port Moresby in Truk too long. Those troops may well see the Home Islands again sooner than any of them thought. But that visit "home" may also be short-lived, because things are progressing very nicely in the Kuriles, and the port at Paramushiro Jima has finally reached Level 3. [;)] [:D]

[Dive Bomber1]

May 5, 1942 – This turn belonged to AuTiger as far as serious action goes, as his big bombers hammered the airfields at Akyab and Port Moresby and the port at Rangoon. I had my new A6M3 Zeros flying CAP over PM but they didn't do a lot better than my old A6M2 Zeros. For now I'll just have to let bad weather and operational damage do my fighting for me.

I tried my own "death from the air" attack this turn, but the results were laughable. I had moved forward two Nate Daitais that hadn't been decimated over Changsha and set them to do strafing attacks at 100 feet on the airfields at Ichang. My Intel had been reporting bombers at Ichang, so I was hoping to destroy a few, even if they were only Chinese bombers. But my Nates continued to be totally useless and they caused no damage of any sort and instead were hammered by flak for their trouble.

In the meanwhile my artillery bombardment at Changsha gave an even more feeble result again this turn without the benefit of an air attack. Since there were only a few P-40s on LR CAP over the base I decided to send my rested bombers and my best fighters back to attack Changsha again next turn, and I also set my troops to try another deliberate attack. I don't want to lose momentum, nor do I want to allow AuTiger to start to rebuild the fortifications at Changsha, so I'll accept that my Nates will be cannon fodder again. BTW - AuTiger moved half of his troops back into Homan, so I've called off my "bum's rush" into the hex.

My other important move for next turn was to order my troops on the Burma Road crossroads to the east of Lashio to try a shock attack next turn since they are rested and ready. I'm hoping that I can drive the Chinese unit there either back towards China, or even better towards Myitkyina. We'll see if I get lucky.

Otherwise things went according to plan. My transport ships in the Timor region continue to unload unmolested and a base force ought to unload at Lautem next turn, so I flew some Oscars in to discourage long range 2Es. Sure, AuTiger can send his B-17s on Naval Attack, but then they won't be attacking PNG, so the trade-off is good from my perspective.

And my troop transports continue to sail clear of LBA range in PNG, so it appears that I will be successful in getting my good invasion troops back to non-malarial R&R where then can plan new invasions. I was also busy this turn setting up other re-assignment and rotation of troops. I'm trying to make certain that my forward bases have IJN base forces in them rather than IJA or IJF so that there are coastal guns available for use against any Allied raiding. AuTiger continues to be very quiet, but I don't expect that to continue for much longer.

[Dive Bomber1]

May 6, 1942 - The main action occurred at Changsha again this turn. My air strike went better than the last time - I only lost around 40 planes in total and my bombers fought their way through to hit the airfields at Changsha despite the P-40s. And the subsequent land attack also accomplished its mission as the fortifications went down to level 6. But it has become obvious that I have to bring some serious firepower into the region, so I made a move that I have held off on up until now in all of my games - I converted three good Zero Daitais from Home Islands to 4th Fleet control and flew them into Nanchang to provide escort for another air attack next turn.

I then pulled out of Nanchang all of my air units that had low morale and replaced them with higher morale air units. I also started to fly in towards China the 36-plane Sonia units that I have had off on Naval or ASW patrol in various places. Regardless of the Zeros I expect to continue to take losses and I want to be able to put continuous pressure on AuTiger in China.

As another part of this shift in forces I moved my low experience dive bomber and fighter units in China to multiple front line positions and I have set them to attack various Chinese ground units that are in the open and holding blocking positions. I intend to fly continuous air attacks across the entire front in order to force AuTiger to either commit to defend everywhere, or to pull back.

The only other major action this turn was my attack on the Burma Road which didn't do quite well enough as my forces only achieved a 1:1 combat result. So I have ordered more rested combat units to move towards that location. While I wait for them to arrive I will continue artillery bombardments. BTW - the third of the Imperial Guards division that was retreating from the jungle finally made it to the railroad, so I have it on its way to Mandalay and eventually Rangoon for R&R.

For some reason - weather, repositioning of forces, fatigue, or whatever, AuTiger didn't have his big bomber attacks flying this turn. Even my landings at Timor continued uninterrupted. And my final retiring transport TF with the divisions from Port Moresby has just about made it "around the corner" at Gili-Gili on its way back to Truk. BTW - I am moving a number of fresh units to PM to build the fortifications and prevent a trivial invasion from recapturing the base, but I am keeping my main combat divisions free to perform "hard strikes" as I want them. I am not yet ready to go on the defensive.

[Dive Bomber1]

May 7, 1942 – This was a turn with both Good and Bad, as well as Smart and Stupid. First off, the Good was what I had hoped – my Zero Daitais shot down 31 P-40s over Changsha. So that was a Smart move. However, the Bad was that that fresh Nates that I also had along with the Zeros were decimated once again by P-40s and I lost 30 more of them. So that was a Stupid move.

I have to finally accept the fact that the Nates are non-competitive, regardless of how many of them are around, or what fighters are accompanying them. That point was hammered into my stubborn skull in an additional location, Soerabaja, where 1 obsolete Dutch fighter fought off 30 Nates without being shot down. Now, as far as I am concerned, that shouldn't happen; but it did, and there is no point in banging my head against the wall any longer. I have to face the fact that I am stuck with hundreds of almost totally useless planes. Oh well, at least I can look forward to eventually replacing the Nates with better fighters, while I am stuck with Sonias forever.

I actually shouldn't bad-mouth the Sonias that much, because they did keep the airfields at Changsha damaged, which allowed my artillery attack to do well again. My troops at Changsha still haven't recovered enough for another deliberate attack, and I have fresh troops only a couple of day's travel away, so I will keep up the artillery attacks for now. I wonder if AuTiger will up the ante and bring his 4Es into China to try to catch my Zeros on the ground?

Elsewhere, things were relatively quiet other than Allied air attacks on various bases in Burma and my air attacks on the remaining Dutch bases in Java. Just about all of my Java invasion units are in position now so my attacks should being within a few more days. Never-the-less, I still expect to have a hard time, even though AuTiger has split his forces.

My TFs at Timor were left alone again this turn, which is a minor miracle from my perspective. And my last major TF got safely around the cape at Gili-Gili so I was able to stand down the last Zero Daitai that I had on LR CAP in the region. Finally, my Luganville invasion TFs remained unspotted and so the first force ought to land next turn. BTW – although my patrols aren't spotting any Allied ships in the local region, one of my sub-based Glens spotted some ships at Norfolk Island. AuTiger has a base force there and patrol planes, so it looks like he is using it as a way station.

[Dive Bomber1]

May 8, 1942 – The Luganville landings starting during the night phase of this turn. As I expected, there were no allied troops, so my forces will grab the base unopposed next turn. A few Hudsons flew out of Noumea and tried to attack a cruiser in the covering combat TF, but fighters from the KB shot most of them down – a nice change of pace from the usual LBA mayhem. More Allied ships were spotted down at Norfolk Island, but nothing in the Luganville/Noumea region. I will keep the KB around for a bit just in case AuTiger does try a raid.

The only other Allied naval movements that were noted were some APDs at Dutch Harbor. I still have a couple of Glen-equipped subs up there and they are doing a good job of keeping any eye on the ships in the region while keeping out of trouble. I've decided that the constant presence of ships in the Dutch Harbor region is just too "tempting", so I collected up a nice surface combat task force from my rested and repaired ships in Tokyo and I am sending them at mission speed towards the Kuriles. If AuTiger continues to keep small TFs hanging around Dutch Harbor I will attempt to send my SC TF in to hit them. However, I don't intend to try a bombardment attack of the base because I don't want to take damage so far from home without a good reason. All-in-all, the Aleutians are looking more and more interesting, so I am moving more rested up troops towards the Central Pacific so that I have "options" for my next moves.

As I had hoped my Zero attack last turn sent a message to AuTiger and he pulled his fighters back from the front lines in China. So my air attack on Changsha this turn went in unopposed and caused some nice damage, which helped my subsequent artillery attack to cause a nice bunch of casualties. While the AV of my troops at Changsha continues to recover nicely I don't want to have them do another attack quite yet because I have more good units about to enter the fray. So I'll just have air and artillery bombardments again next turn. Sure, this gives AuTiger time to set up fresh ambushes, but in order to discourage that I am moving more planes to other parts of the Front in China to attack his units in the field. I am also moving my weaker air units from base-to-base in order to keep AuTiger from pin-pointing their location.

In the meanwhile I am starting to bring to the region my now-rested Army 2E bomber units. I intend to move them in to the attack on Changsha because they have much better survivability than the Sonias. This will also allow me to attack more targets with my Sonias, which makes the job of ambushing me even harder for AuTiger.

In the DEI my air attacks hammered AuTiger's recovered air units in Soerabaja again. I am moving planes in-and-out of the battle so that I can rest weaker units while keeping up the pressure. Things are just about all-together on the ground now, so I ordered my first deliberate attack on Batavia for next turn. My continuous air and artillery attacks should have reduced down the supply level, but one never knows what will happen with ground combat in this Game.

BTW – in order to start AuTiger guessing in Burma again, I moved in some Zeros and had them sweep Myitkyina this turn. They fought it out with some Hurricanes and shot one down without any losses, despite being outnumbered. I immediately moved my Zeros back and set them to LR CAP over Akyab in the hopes of catching AuTiger's 2Es by surprise. I don't intend to put much air power into the Burma theatre at this time, but I still hope to make AuTiger worried enough that he stays a little off balance.

Finally, some Allied 2E bombers from Darwin attacked some of my freighters at Lautem this turn, damaging one. My Oscars on CAP did damage some of the 2Es, so I'm happy with this trade. I want to make AuTiger believe that Northern Australia is my next objective, so I will slowly step up my build-up in the region to keep him on alert.

[Dive Bomber1]

May 9, 1942 – The big news this turn was that Batavia fell on the first attack. In fact it fell with little trouble and my troops suffered few casualties. It appears that the long preparation time and constant bombardments did the trick. Unfortunately, Batavia is malarial so I can't rest up my troops there, so I have given them orders to march on to Soerabaja and join in on the siege there. BTW – AuTiger did get a good piece of luck with his defense because the Resources and Oil at Batavia were totally destroyed.

Next it is Tjilitjap's turn. I have been collecting various fragments of my smaller combat units at Tjilitjap and letting them recombine, so I haven't tried an attack there yet even though there is only a coastal defense unit on the defense. I'm not certain if all of my fragments will reach Tjilitjap before the victors of Batavia arrive, but I'm in no hurry and may well wait for the main forces so that I can have an assured capture.

Soerabaja is still under attack from the air and by artillery. Dutch planes keep on getting repaired and my planes keep on destroying them. It's a silly waste of supplies for AuTiger, but I'm not going to tell him that. AuTiger has also kept his three infantry units at Malang, I guess to provide a "back door" for his main forces. But now that Batavia is mine I am sending a big transport TF full of 1500 ton APs to Batavia and will load a good division to drop off at Malang to finish off the split of the Dutch forces. AuTiger's Dutch infantry were able to drive out my little NLFs, but they won't be able to do the same to a full crack division. I'm sending a bombardment TF in to hit Malang too, just to add to the impact.

While this was going on my invasion forces in the New Hebrides captured Luganville. A base force landed along with the infantry so I already put an air patrol unit in place. AuTiger's 2Es from Noumea flew in again against my picket ships but between the flak and the fighters from the KB the bombers didn't get any "cheap" training. I've decided that I will send more troops into the region and capture Efate too. I suspect that AuTiger has the bulk of his land combat forces defending Noumea, so if I can trap them there I can throw his plans in the region for a real loop.

In China my air attack on Changsha went in unopposed again which allowed it to again cause a lot of airfield damage. AuTiger doesn't have any support troops in Changsha so my air attacks aren't causing casualties, but they are keeping the Chinese from repairing the fortifications. My besieging forces are now rested enough that I set them to do another deliberate attack next turn. I have more fresh troops moving up so even though this attack will cost me casualties I will be able to attack again soon.

AuTiger brought some of his Chinese fighters and bombers back to the front lines in China, so I brought in another good Zero Daitai and started to move Sallys in to the attack. I also once again shifted my other air attacks to different targets so it is harder for AuTiger to ambush my Sonias. And I will have another Zero Daitai in place next turn. I intend to eventually "clear the skies" of opposition in China.

As things get more resolved in Java I am busy moving support units back to Singapore for R&R. I still have a number of LCU fragments that I want to eventually recombine. I am also planning to start to give my R&R units "objectives" for the northern Australian bases so that AuTiger keeps an eye out in that region. As part of this plan I moved an air recon unit to Lautem this turn and have set it to recon Darwin. I want AuTiger to keep his forces split for as long as possible.

And in the far north my spy subs continue to spot small TFs at Dutch Harbor. There appears to be a PT TF and a DD or APD TF sitting in the hex on a regular basis. So I am looking forward even more to sending in some fast ships with a good captain to see what I can find. I wonder how far eight divisions can get in the Pacific Northwest? [;)] [:D]

[Dive Bomber1]

May 10, 1942 – This was a bloody turn for a change, and much of it was not to my liking. First off during the night turn one of my Glen-equipped subs put two torpedoes into a USN DD around halfway between Pearl Harbor and Johnston Island. But there were a ton of other USN DDs there and my sub received 26 depth charge hits. For whatever reason the sub didn't sink and so during the day phase it was also repeatedly hit by USN dive bombers and torpedo bombers. But by the end of the turn my sub finally sank, as did the USN DD.

However – my Intel showed me a large number of TFs of varying types in that hex. This is very interesting because this isn't along the usual sea lane towards the South Pacific. Instead this suggests some sort of raid-in-force into the Central Pacific. So just in case I decided to shift some of my forces from the Central Pacific to my eastern bases. First I sent several Betty units to bolster my naval patrol plane coverage in the Central Pacific. Next I split off the battleship and CS ships from the KB down near Luganville and ordered them back to Lunga to meet up with other surface combat ships that can protect against nuisance surface raids in the New Hebrides region. I then ordered the KB to move at flank speed first to Tarawa, and eventually to Kwajalein. I also ordered my two CVs that were undergoing repairs at Truk to sail to Kwajalein at flank speed. So if AuTiger is trying an attack in the Central Pacific I will soon have plenty of force there to meet him. If instead AuTiger shifts the direction of his TFs to the southwest then I will still have the KB where I wanted it any way.

The bloodier and unhappier occurrences took place in China where AuTiger brought his USAAF P-40s and P-39s back to provide LR CAP over Changsha. Last turn only one out of my three Zero Daitais flew escort (for no obvious reason) so AuTiger was encouraged to try another confrontation in the air. All of my Daitais flew this time and a large number of USAAF fighters were shot down, but I also lost a number of Zeros and dive bombers. However, I still have more Zeros in the region that I brought forward and I also moved out more of my dive bombers and replaced them with experienced Sally units. In addition, I set more air attacks to occur at other locations in China in an attempt to stretch the Allied forces thin.

But the worst part of the battle in China this turn was on the ground where my troops suffered large losses at Changsha and to the east of Lashio without gaining anything. In particular, it was galling to see that the fortifications at Changsha didn't go down from their current level of six. But this is another lesson that I learned before and I once again ignored at my cost – ground attacks do much worse when the weather is bad, particularly during thunderstorm weather. I should have waited and my impatience cost me heavily once again.

I am being more patient in Java, but I find it extremely frustrating that I can't close the airfields at Soerabaja despite daily air attacks. Dutch fighters continue to get into the air and today a couple of Dutch and British torpedo bombers flew against and hit two ships in a transport TF that was on its way to Kragen. With the airfield damage level of "83" those planes shouldn't be taking off, but they still do. So I repositioned heavier bombers in closer to Soerabaja in the hopes of finally closing those airfields.

I've also continued with artillery attacks while I wait for my troops from Batavia to march across Java. AuTiger has started to move his troops from Malang back to Soerabaja and I don't want to start a costly war-of-attrition in Soerabaja like I have in Changsha. AuTiger obviously still has plenty of supplies in Soerabaja and I want to bring up overwhelming force. BTW – a number of Allied subs suddenly appeared at Soerabaja and Malang, so AuTiger is finally evacuating fragments from his units. It's only too bad that my ASW is as lousy as it is, however, I'm also concerned that sunk fragments will come back to haunt us as "ghosts" or messed-up leaders.

[Dive Bomber1]

May 11, 1942 – Allied forces were keeping their heads down most everywhere this turn. There was no night time naval action and no Allied planes flew offensive missions during the day. Even the regularly present Allied TFs at Dutch Harbor disappeared. Only a small transport TF was spotted by a sub-base Glen in the far South Pacific.

With the "Sub-Crusher" TFs missing from sight this turn I moved more long range patrol craft into the Central-Eastern Pacific. I put Bettys or Nells at all of my level 2 and above air bases and set them to "Patrol" only. I don't want them being thrown away against the US CV CAP in unescorted attacks. (Not that my Naval LBA attacks enemy TFs very often anyway.) If it does turn out that AuTiger is attempting a mid-Pacific invasion I will keep my LBA in reserve until the TFs get close enough for my land-based Zeros to provide escort. At the same time I sent more surface forces off towards the region. I'm almost looking forward to AuTiger trying something in the Central Pacific.

As part of my shift of forces I started loading one of my victorious divisions out of Truk and will send it back to the Home Islands. This way, if they are needed I can easily change their heading to the East instead of to the North. Once my other two divisions reach Truk and disembark I will re-load them on faster transports and send them towards the northeast too. I intend to change the focus of operations in a big way starting in June 1942.

For now I am keeping AuTiger busy in China. My planes hit Changsha hard again today without opposition. I also sent Sonias and over 100 Nates with good pilots against the Chinese fighters at Wuchow. It was nice to see those Nates destroy enemies in the air, even if they were only biplanes. (The Nates shot down 15 and suffered no losses themselves.) Some of my other air units hit Chinese troops in the north, so the entire Front was kept busy.

In Java a few Dutch fighters still got into the air but they were overwhelmed by my incoming attacks. I keep on shifting bomber units in-and-out of the local bases in order to be able to continuously attack with high morale units. My Army bombers are susceptible to rapid morale loss when faced with heavy flak such as they are seeing at Soerabaja. My artillery attacks are also starting to have a better effect, despite the return of the second Dutch infantry unit from Malang. Regardless of whether or not AuTiger leaves his final Dutch infantry unit in Malang my invasion will still go off as planned in order to shut the "back door" once and for all.

[Dive Bomber1]

May 12, 1942 - There was some night time action for a change this turn - one of my subs put two torpedoes into a US AP in the South Pacific, and my bombardment TF hit the Dutch troops at Malang hard. But once the sun came up the US heavy bombers flew and caused me all sorts of grief. B-24s hit the airfields at Nanchang, B-17s hit the airfields at Wuhan and a horde of B-17s hit the airfields at Luganville. The Chinese attacks were costly and I lost a bunch of Zeros on the ground. Never-the-less, my Changsha air attacks flew anyway and my planes hammered the air fields there again.

Those 4Es in China flew out of Chungking, which has a huge air value right now but AuTiger has also brought planes back into Hengchow. So since the airfield damage at Changsha is very large at the moment I have redirected my Nanchang attackers to go after the airfields at Hengchow, just in case I can catch more fighters on the ground. I have also brought yet another fresh Zero Daitai into the fray at China and have attacks planned all across the Front. I guess the results will be up in the hands of the weather gods next turn.

On the ground in China, AuTiger's forces kicked my unit out of the Yenen side of the river between Yenen and Chengting again. I'm just moving a stronger unit to my side of the river and moving the defeated unit back to Chengting. This yo-yo action in the region has enabled me to successfully get back all of my Lanchow expeditionary force and the good units from there are now on their way to south-central China. BTW, I am continuing with artillery attacks on Changsha for now until I get reinforcements in place.

Speaking of weather, AuTiger has received a great gift from the weather gods if he is planning an attack in the Central Pacific - the entire region from Truk to Hawaii is under thunderstorms, so my patrols aren't spotting anything. All I can do is bring more planes into the region and continue to sail my combat TFs towards my main bases. The only edge that I have is that if AuTiger is sailing invasion fleets into the region they will travel much more slowly than my combat TFs.

The situation remains much the same in Java this turn as I rotated more air units in-and-out and continued the daily attacks on Soerabaja. Sure enough, the Dutch are still getting a few planes into the air, but my attacks continue to take care of them easily. AuTiger must be totally out of Dutch pilots by now. I am still moving big units into position and am continuing with artillery attacks at this time. Things remain surprisingly quite in the Timor region and the Allied LBA is not bothering my supply TFs. I'll enjoy this grace period while I can.

Despite the relative quiet in Northern Australia AuTiger still has fairly large air balances in the bases in that region. But those pale in comparison with the air balances in north-eastern Australia and Noumea. AuTiger has brought massive numbers of air units to the region - I guess that his INTEL has reported my Australian "objective" settings of the units that captured Port Moresby. What this means is that the islands in the far South Pacific that are to the east of Noumea are very lightly guarded as far as air units go. But that's all well-and-good, I've committed enough to that region for the time being and I have chillier objectives in mind at this time.

[Dive Bomber1]

May 13, 1942 - As I suspected the weather made a mess of plans on both sides. Some attacks flew, but our main bases were socked in. So it was only a "preliminary round" this turn.

That might be okay, because those air attacks of mine that did fly didn't do much. First off there was a Zero escorted bombing raid on the airfields at Yenen. As I had hoped, only a few Chinese biplanes were on CAP. But as luck would have it, the Zero Daitai that I had flying on escort was "not ready for Prime Time" and only shot down 2 biplanes while one of the Zero's was actually shot down by a Chinese biplane. (AuTiger will get a big laugh out of that one.) And to top it off the Sonias had their usual pitiful results. Then I had a Zero Daitai sweep of Hengchow go in all right, but they didn't find anyone in the air. AuTiger had pulled his planes totally out of the base.

So right now AuTiger has a huge Air Balance at Chungking, but I'm betting that most of that is his 4Es. So I shuffled all of my planes around and set four good Zero Daitais to sweep Chungking next turn from two different bases. And I have those two bases covered by LR CAP by Zeros from other bases. I have two Daitais coming in at 100 feet and the other two at 25,000 feet. I haven't had much luck with sweeps in the past, but I'm hoping that this attempt works out for a change. I also still have my Sallys at Nanking set to hit the airfields at Changsha, but without escort. Instead I have Nates on high altitude LR CAP over Nanking. I've noticed that 2Es hold their own pretty well against enemy CAP, so we will see how it goes. Once again, weather may well ruin all of my plans, but I have to find some way to strike at AuTiger's air units in China. I have also set my troops at Changsha to do another deliberate attack next turn. And I will have more troops arriving shortly. I am determined to make some sort of breakthrough in China.

In Java Allied planes continue to be repaired at Soerabaja, and then destroyed in the air and on the ground each turn. I'm hoping to stop this silliness soon with my troops. My forces from Batavia arrived at Tjilitjap this turn, so I have ordered them to do a deliberate attack on the coastal defense unit there. They ought to wipe it out without trouble, and then I will send them on to Soerabaja. Once they get there I will have an overwhelming land force, and my invasion of Malang will be in the works too. So Java should totally be mine before the end of May.

Things remained obscured and quiet in the Central Pacific. My forces arrived at their initial positions and I am now consolidating them. If AuTiger shows up I will hammer him with overwhelming force, and if he doesn't I will start the Combined Fleet on its way to its June targets. Hmmm - maybe I should mount a diversion towards Midway… [;)]

[Dive Bomber1]

May 14, 1942 - There were some surprises, disappointments and big costs in this turn. First off, AuTiger sent his Liberators against Taipei and his B-17s against Tientsin to hit oil fields. Thus my Chinese airfields were untouched. So when 100 Zeros appeared in the sky over Chungking I had high hopes. But there was a big air battle in which AuTiger's P-40s shot down a lot of Zeros, and my Zeros at 100 feet accomplished nothing except to escape the shoot-out at 25,000 feet. Sure, my planes ended up shooting down 50 Allied planes, but those 40 lost Zeros hurt a lot!

Then to add insult to injury my bombing attacks on Changsha didn't fly because of the weather and so my follow-on deliberate land attack was repulsed with large numbers of casualties. I am going to have to hold off on attacking Changsha for weeks now until I get some fresh troops into place. And I have to be able to bomb the base daily.

So with no other choice available I brought all of my Sallys and Zeros to the two front line bases that are in reach of Chungking and set everyone to the attack. I even brought in yet another reserve Zero Daitai. However, I did not set any fighters to 100 feet - that move hasn't worked for me at all in this Game.

Elsewhere, my overwhelming forces took Tjilitjap with ease, so I immediately sent the main forces on towards Soerabaja. I am leaving all of the small forces in Tjilitjap to recover and get ready to move on. Once again the weather grounded my air attacks in the region and so a bunch of Allied planes have been repaired at Soerabaja. So I've moved more bombers back into the region to attack the airfields again from multiple bases.

And in the South Pacific AuTiger's B-17s hit the airfields at Luganville again. The base is serving its purpose well - it is keeping AuTiger occupied and keeping his B-17s away from PNG and Timor. I have more invasion TFs slowly sailing towards the region which ought to keep AuTiger occupied for a while yet.

In the Central Pacific there still hasn't been any trace of AuTiger's big fleets that my sub ran into a few days ago. I am guessing that he either sent them to the south-west or maybe he was just sending them back to Hawaii and my Intel mistook their direction. Never-the-less, I am leaving my beefed-up forces in the Central Pacific for a few more days until things become clearer.

[Dive Bomber1]

May 15, 1942 – China was the site of the important action again this turn. A number of my air attacks went off, including an unmolested air attack on Changsha by my second-line air units and other nuisance raids across the Front. But the main attack hit Chungking as planned, with 103 Zeros and 43 Sallys facing a wide assortment of Allied fighters – essentially AuTiger threw the "kitchen sink" in the air against my attack.

My bombers did get through and landed some hits on the airfields in Chungking, including destroying a couple of B-24s on the ground, which was a moral victory of sorts. But once again I lost more escorts than the Allies. But afterwards something "odd" that I had noticed in past attacks stood out – the Zeros set to "escort" were decimated, but the Zeros set to "sweep" were in pretty good shape. In both cases the Zeros had been set to an altitude of 30K feet. That got me thinking – since my Sallys went in at 5K feet, were the escorts actually accompanying them at 10K feet (5K above the bombers) and thus at an altitude disadvantage?

In order to test this out I sent all of my tired and/or worn out bomber and fighter units far behind the lines and regrouped my best bomber and fighter units at Wuhan. The Sallys are going in at 5K feet again, but all of the Zeros have been set to "sweep" at 30K feet. BTW – the fighter pilots that are left have high experience – I haven't been replacing the rookies.

It will be interesting to see what happens. AuTiger has nearly 200 bombers at Chungking but only a couple dozen fighters. We are now like two tired and wounded fighters trying to get in one killing blow without being hit by the other. It will be interesting to see which side gets the "luck" in this battle.

The air battles in Java continue as numerous Allied second-line fighters and bombers again showed up in Soerabaja. I'm certain now that AuTiger is out of pilots and is filling the planes with "zombies" because my Nates have turned into "Killers" instead of being swatted like "gnats". My bombardment TF hit Malang again, but this time it can return to Tjilitjap instead of Batavia for refuelling and replenishment. The invasion TF ought to hit Malang in two more turns, at which time my additional land forces ought to start to arrive at Soerabaja. So unless there are some very big and unpleasant surprises awaiting me during the serious ground combat phase, Soerabaja ought to fall before the end of May.

Now I have to think about what to do with the good combat troops that I will have resting in Soerabaja. I don't feel like tying them up in an invasion of Northern Australia. Should I ship them back to Japan and invade the Pacific Northwest with 8+ divisions? Or should I ship them to China and use them to break the impasse there?