jwilkerson(Jpn) Moses (Allies)

[DuckofTindalos]

Isn't WitP fun?[:D] If this were WPO, you wouldn't have this problem. Of course, you probably wouldn't be fighting over Akyab either, but potayto, potahto...

[jwilkerson]

11/19/42

Burma:

The USN Houston decided to join the Warspite in the fun and games about bombarding Akyab. But on her maiden voyage, she ate a torp, but we missed the Warspite.
A Chinese unit has occupied the mountain hex between Lashio and Mytchina. What a pain. We will have to cover several contingencies.


China:

The IJA fighter force are reorganizing, refitting the decent (70+ EXP) groups with Tony's and preparing to go back in. The other Nate groups are relocating to Manilla to train there. The Zeros will start to train out of Soerabaja.

Aleutians:

The Northern Fleet main units are refueling at Kiska. We will fast-trans a SNLF from Kiska to Ogliuga, Raizo will lead the transport group and they will be covered by a DD surface group. The Americans seemed to have pulled out of Ogli, so we will try to sneak in, before they try to return.


Solomons:

Our carriers are refitting here and will then support some resupply operations to Ndeni and Nanomea.

[jwilkerson]

11/29/42

Burma:
Air War continues. This turn we commited several fighter units to the front for the first time in a while. The air war in Burma is an attrition battle, which we would normally think is not in Japan's interest. But if we pull out completely, the bombing of our land units will continue and with the Brits now sending forward a Corps to Mytchina and multiple units towards Akyab, we need to distract as manby bombers as possible from our land units. We need to try to hold Burma as long as possible, so hence we accept the attrition as a delay to loss of Burma.

In the critical air to air fighter combat - our higher EXP continues to produce equal or greater losses on the side of the Allies, even though the Japanese are typically outnumbered at the front by somwhere between 5 to 1 or even as much as 10 to 1. The a2a exchange ratio is holding at about 1 of ours for two of theirs. This is not good enough to be sustainable for us, but in the long run, nothing works. The purpose is delay and for now we are delaying. We are moving two divisions from CENPAC to Burma (the 20th and the IG) and their arrival will also contribute to the delay. Recently a fairly large number of engineer units have arrived, both IER and baseforces, so these will help delay as well by increasing our ability to repair damage. As long as he is mostly bombing the airbases, as he is now, we are having some effect on the delay with our fighter deployment.

[pauk]

As I may see you are in the same position as I was (and in same period!) in the Burma (Akyab). I hope that you can do better than me.

[jwilkerson]

[:D] Well I hope I can do as WELL as you!!!

You're not destroyed by end of '43!! I'm worried that I will be!

I think Moses has concentrated abnormal amount of airpower in NE India and even with entire IJA fighter force and half of IJN fighter force committed to this area, I can do no more than I'm doing. I need to do an occasional "raid" to keep things honest - but Moses is a player who pays absolutely close attention to the "air intel" and move sequencing advantages and so it is tough to strike back. Sometimes the "threat" without the act might be better. But we need to do a few of each.

[pauk]

yes, the soon that will be almost only option for you. But there are few more tricks - keeping transports at Akyab while fighers protecting base (and the transports). Moses probably won't attack these ships and will limit range of his bombers and send naval force... and that is what you are asking for!

a job for IJN!

"Air intel" is real killer for Japan players. It is almost impossible to set an ambush for the Allies.... oh well....

[jwilkerson]

I've been trying to figure out a way to have Navy infleunce at least the situation at Akyab.

For about 2 months I ran the Western battle force (2 OBB, 5 CA/CL and DDs to fill out to 25) around in the Gulf of Martaban. "Darting" in an out of Akyab on several occasions. Unfortunately, these never coincided with the visits on the Warspite.

However, my "darting" has not always been successful and I lost 2xDD and dmg to Fuso from B-17s being able to reach out and hit me from my "staging hex" - the hex I have to be in order to get in and out.

So the first thing I can think of is to use more speed. To bring some fast BB down and try them. And maybe first I'll just go in with Cruisers and DDs.

I do keep subs milling around Akyab and could increase that presence. Subs have recently hit the Houston and also have sunk several ASW craft Moses has sent on sweeps.

I also have kept all 4 minelaying subs going in to Akyab and these have hit 3xDD and sunk two.

But nothing has touched the Warspite. She is probably up to 90 EXP by now [:(]

Another step I can take is to move some of the Nells up from Tavoy to Rangoon. This will put me closer in case there is a chance to pick off some cripples. And it will be difficult for Moses to launch escorted P-38/B-17 strikes against Rangoon which I keep covered by 1-2 Tojo Sentai without exposing them to a counterattack, at least the damaged ones. And the more I can distribute his bombing the better I'm doing.

But I'm struggling with the idea of putting transports at Akyab. I figure he already has at least some of his B-17s on Naval Primary and AF secondary and these would just pick off the transports "for free" and still probably hit an airbase once during the turn. I would be no more able to protect the transports than I am the AF. I suppose sacrificing some transports could be viewed as additional 'dispersion' of his bombing. But his surface forces could easily drive these transports out to sea and make them even easier to sink. I cogitate on it.

I wish I could carry mines on most of my subs like the allies can!

Since this is my first PDU on game, I've built up Jack R&D to 200+ and I'm hoping that the Jacks can buy a brief respite against the P-38s. Did you try massed Jacks against P-38s early in your game?

But I consider the primary mission of the land based Navy fighters to be escorts for the Nell/Betty/Frances - so I won't be able to convert more than half of them and still have a credible escort force.

But if I commit Jack units in "pairs" initially - I might at least break up the pattern for a while.

Overall I seem to get better results with spreading my fighters out rather than giving him a big target by concentrating. Well unless he is doing un-escorted raids which he generally avoids if I have at least 3 fighter groups at one base. Although I rarely have more than one actually (except at training bases of course!)

[pauk]

Jacks can eat P-38G for breakfast, if they are flown by crack pilots! IIRC, Jacks done well even against J especially when crack Jacks meets somewhat fatigued J variants.

[jwilkerson]

Yeah, everything works better with "crack pilots" [:D]

So what is your definition of "crack" pilots? I guess I think of it as 80+

I've dropped my "commit" threshold to 75 and am about to commit 2xA6m3 and several Tony units with EXPs at this level. But, for the Jacks I will push the training of some additional groups all the way up to 80. Four of them for now anyway, that will give 108 Jack capacity for the "debut" which will hopefully be in Feb 43 if I get the full 2 month acceleration on production arrival.

[pauk]

yes, i accepted PzB terminology: crack pilots (80+)... veterans are 70-80, regulars are from 50-70.... also had a two Praetorian groups - with exp 90+....

my only advice is - train, train and when you think you trained enough your fighter crew, then start it over again[:D]...

[jwilkerson]

12/3/42

Overall:
Jacks advanced the second month, so now they will start producing 1/1/43 ... at 200+ per month, we should be able to populate the first four landbased naval fighter units with Jacks by about mid-Jan and have them at the front a few days later.

Aleutians:
Three convoys carrying 140K fuel will arrive and unload over the next week, this will give Northern Fleet the gas for another operating cycle. Also the Akagi/Kaga group (and 21 escorting ships) will arrive at Kiska also in about a week. This will give us a surge strength of about 350 carrier planes. Thereafter will we pull the 4xCVE group back to Japan to refit and thence to CENPAC. This will allow withdrawal of one of the CV pairs from CENPAC for refit.

CENPAC: The Carrier group is at Tulagi completing refit, everyone including the oilers are gassed up. We will cover resupply operations to Baker, Nanomea and Ndeni in the next operating cycle.

Burma:
More engineers reaching the front, more unloading at Bangkok. We will shuffle some of the beat up ones around to less bombed based so they can rebuild. We will cover the Chinese unit in the Mtns between Lashio and Mytchina with an armored unit thus pinning that unit. We might also try to develop an offensive North from Lashio into China. This will at least provide a distraction by threatening the road between Mytchina and Kunming.
We need more stuff in Burma!

China:
Moses is keeping quiet in China, that's to our advantage right now. We are slowly building up our fighter force in case he launches a big offensive. Mostly likely he will either attack from Changsha or from Honan or both. We will have 150-200 Tony's and as many Sally's as can be profitably used, as an intervention force.


In the aircombat over Burma we saw a strange sight today - P-26s !!! Is this a form of American Kamikazi attack!?

[jwilkerson]

12/3/42

Checked around and we don't have many "Praetorians" (apparently this is Paul/Pzb speak for exp 90+ air units). And we've never thought about trying to have any on purpose. In the carrier fleet - which over all has not been heavily engageed - we have one fighter and one dive bomber unit that qualify as praetorians. On land we have one Dinah unit.

Here is a view of the carrier fighter force.

[jwilkerson]

12/3/42

And here is the carrier bomber force - minus a couple of units that did not make it to the bottom of the page.

Our normal process is to strip the aircraft off newly arriving carriers and send the airgroup to China or PI or now Soerabaja for training. The newly arrived carriers operate with "carrier capable" units in the mean time.

Overall our best pilot is a 99 EXP and our worst pilot (just arrived) is an 18. Not sure this guy has even finished primary flight training yet - either that or he bribed somebody!

[DuckofTindalos]

ORIGINAL: jwilkerson

In the aircombat over Burma we saw a strange sight today - P-26s !!! Is this a form of American Kamikazi attack!?

Maybe that's how Moses managed to put that many airplanes into the Burma theatre. Talk about scraping the bottom of the barrel; I think the bottom has gone out of the barrel by now.

[jwilkerson]

12/5/42

Burma:
Well the P26As are back - and again repeating their "ramming" attacks against our fighters ...

[jwilkerson]

12/5/42


Attempting to do something about the flood of Allied planes comming to CBI we have sent the KISO and about 20 subs out into the Indian Ocean. We got a spot on this convoy last turn and plotted intercepts (assumed 3 hex move to Perth for Kiso and 4 hex for one of our subs). The KISO got the intercept, sank one of the escorting DDs but she is now bingo fuel and ammo so RTB (Soerabaja).

[jwilkerson]

12/5/42

Air to Air : Thanks to the advent of the P26s the Allies have taken another nose dive in terms of the a2a combat ratio over Burma.

[jwilkerson]

12/5/42

Akyab:
The Warspite group made another bombardment run against Akyab. Our sub minelayers (now operating out of Rangood) had just sowed a new field and the Dutch CL Sumatra hit two of them and went down.

[jwilkerson]

12/5/42

Burma/Akyab:

But the most ominous event of the day is that we have spotted "8 units" now outside Akyab. Our AV is about 1100 - woods hex - so Moses needs 2200 AV to kick us out if he shock attacks. If the "8 units" include 4 divisions he might have enough. He has two full divisions at Mytchina.

But this triggers a "magnitude one" reaction event. Several LCUs will be rerouted to Akyab. The Western Fleet will sortie all cruisers and destroyers. Next turn we will sortie a surface force from Kure that will include 7xBBs, combined with the two BBs at Singapore, this will give us nine in the area.

Instead of unloading at Bangkok per normal, we have rerouted to Reinforcement Convoys at Singapore towards Rangoon. We might even try landing directly at Akyab, though probably via fast trans from Rangoon.

The West Fleet Repl Group also sortied. But we will need to borrow some tankers to move some major gas to Rangoon as well. The Navy will have to intervene at Akyab as well.

We have also released one IJA Fighter unit from training at Manilla (EXP 75) this unit is transitioning to Tony's at CRB. Two Zero and One Tony unit also staged forward from Bangkok.

As always, we cannot afford to lose Akyab this early - so this is a strategic alert.

[jwilkerson]

12/11/42

Burma:
We rotated new air units into Burma today.
Tony Sentai (36 plane) deployed as follows:
1 unit to Mitchina
1 unit to Mandalay
1 unit in reserve to Taung Gyi

Zero Daitai (27 plane) deployed as follows:
1 unit to Lashio
1 unit to Taung Gyi

And 2 Tony Sentai and 1 Zero Daitai were withdrawn.

We will be able to continue rotating Tony units - but have carved out 4 Zero Daitai which are training at Soerabaja for the new Jacks. The Jack production should come on line as of 1/1/43 at 206 units per month. So by about mid-month we should be able to transition the four zero groups over to Jacks. Three of the zero groups are now EXP 72,76,77 an the fourth has just started training and is around 50 EXP. However, all will be 75-85 by the time we transition.

The Western Fleet is moving a 23 ship Cruiser/DD group to the staging point of Southern Burma, we will be able to visit Akyab if necessary. The force is being covered by a Zero unit out of Rangoon. The oiler group is in support. The minelayer sub group are making another sortie this turn as well. Now that they are operating out of Rangoon (L9 port just achieved a few days ago) the cycle time is much faster (versus going back to the MLE at Georgetown).

Both the 20th Infantry and IG Divisions have loaded aboard ship at Truk and are moving to Burma along with the 25Army HQ. The 20th and the HQ are planning for Mytchina, the IG for Akyab. It will take them at least two weeks to reach their destinations, hope we can hold that long.

We see Brits comming down the trails as well and need forces to block them. We are stripping the small garrisons from all over the DEI.

A Surface for including 7xBB, 1xCL and 8xDD left Kure two days ago and will reach Singapore in about 4 more days. The Fuso is still repairing B-17 damage, but the Yamashiro is ready. We will probably sortie with 6xBB initially.

Also the Hiyo/Junyo group, departed Truk 2 days ago and is now at Ulithi, they should reach Singapore in about a week and will also go to the Gulf of Martaban. They will provide ASW and Fighter support for the surface fleet in the Gulf.

Aleutians:

We saw a major surface force SW of Unalaska 2 days ago, but it is gone right now. Our Northern fleet is finally ready to sortie, The Kaga, Akagi group joined yesterday and refueled. So at Kiska we now have the Kaga/Akagi, Hiryu/Soryu and the 4xCVE groups all ready to go, with two CL/DD surface groups as well. The three BBs are one each with the carrier groups, but could split out if necessary. The 4 oiler group is fully fueled and there are about 100k of gas at Kiska. Kiska has 27 Zeros, 27 Rufe and 27 Vals as well as 24 Jakes and 9 Irvings.
We will probably head South and mill around to see if we can catch the Americans comming out to play.

Central Pacific:

We have 2 CV (Shokaku/Zuikaku) and 4 CVL (Shoho, Zuiho, Ryujo, Ryuho) covering a resupply mission to Ndeni. As resupply mission for Nanomea has reached Ocean Is. that op will go in next. Also the fleet train is headed for Ocean Is. so we will refuel there after Ndeni.
We have 5 minelayers resowing the field at Wake, there has been a lot of sub activity around Wake lately and the Americans might be preparing to may us a visit. We did deliver a construction engineer from Truk to Wake so this should speed up fortifications. We also need at least one more small infantry unit.