jwilkerson(Jpn) Moses (Allies)

[jwilkerson]

2/17/43

Air:
Total Losses(Allied/Japanese): 72/49
AirToAir Losses(Allied/Japanese): 62/37

Japanese turn for a bit of a victory in the air. We didn't do anything different - and Moses didn't either - he hit us with lots of P-38s and Corsairs and B-17s - but he must have missed some of the bounce rolls because we did ok - even in the fighter to fighter combat. Glad to know everything we have isn't Nate-ish. Two retrained Tony EXP 75 "cannon fodder" units will reach the front line Burma bases next turn. Then we will rotate out a couple of the beat up units. Normal process.

Burma:
IG ID has reached Akyab. So now all RCT of the 55 ID will return to Rangoon and reform. The 11 ID is now enroute to Akyab.

CenPac:
Quiet.

Aleutians:
Quiet.

[jwilkerson]

2/19/43

Air War:
Total Losses: (Allied/Japanese) 55/41
AirToAir Losses: (Allied/Japanese) 36/27

In the critical battle of the high performance fighters over Burma, the Allies got the edge by a slight margin. The Tonies and P-38s suffered at the hands of the Corsairs and Jacks respectively. The Japanese lost 16 Tony and 8 Jack while the Allies lost 17 P-38 and 5 Corsair.

Burma:
11 ID proceeding to Akyab.

Aleutians:
We are sortieing the fleet again, this time we will push the edge of the envelop to with 4 hexes of Atka. After this sortie, assuming the fleet survives, we will send the Akagi/Kaga/Yamato group back to Japan for refit. The Taiyo/Chuyo/Unyo/Hosho/Nagato group will remain on station.

CenPac:
The Shokaku/Zuikaku Group and the Shoho/Zuiho/Ryujo/Ryuho Groups are returning to Japan for refit as well.

[jwilkerson]

2/21/43

Air War:
Total Losses (Allied/Japanese): 29/37
Air To Air (Allied/Japanese): 12/20

Well a relatively slow day in the air, but the Allies came out of top. Mostly just because one of our new EXP 75 Tony units, got hammered at Akyab by another couple of days of 1000 planes Allied raids. This unit lost 33 out of 36 planes and 20 out of 16 pilots. Proving once again that EXP 75 Tony units are now Nate equivalents. So that unit has been withdrawn. We are prepping four new Tojo units to give them a whirl. These range in EXP from 76 up to 81. We will see if they can do any better. Also two new 80-81 EXP Jack units are prepping. Maybe throwing in 6 new units will make a difference. On the other hand, maybe it will just mean we can loose more airplanes faster! Well we will run the experiment once and see how it goes. Training the IJA fighter pilots at Manilla is working even better than I expected. So based on all factors, we may reset the "commit" threshold back up to EXP 80 and not commit anymore (for a while) below that level.

Our Nells made a first ever air strike against shipping in Daimond Harbor (from Rangoon). We sank 3 Minesweepers for no loss.

Otherwise things are fairly quiet.

[jwilkerson]

2/23/43

Air War:
Total Losses (Allied/Japanese): 43/8
AirToAir (Allied/Japanese): 33/7

Well Japanese turn to come out on top of the air exchange. As a part of the action our carriers in the Aleutians finally pulled a few small strikes out of Atka from all their trolling trouble. But it is now time to send the Akagi/Kaga/Yamato group back to japan for refit, so away they go.

Submarine Warfare/ASW

Allied submarine activity is definitely picking up. Our current two primary convoy routes are:
(1) Palembang=>Kuching=>Brunei=>Porta Princessa=>Bataan=>Batan=>Naha=>Sasebo.
and
(2) Soerabaja=>Balikpapan=>Tarakan=>Menado=>Palau=>Guam=>Saipan=>IwoJima=>Tokyo

Both routes are covered by ASW air but there are a few places where the coverage is not as strong as it needs to be. We will activate an airbase at Jesselton to strength the area between Brunei and Porta Princessa. That is the main week spot. We have two Hunter-Killer groups patroling this convoy route as well (route 1).

[DuckofTindalos]

I'm surprised you still have active Nell groups. I'd have thought they would all be gone by now.

[Mike Solli]

If you're careful with them they can last a long time.  In one of my games (10 Mar 43) I still have about 100 Nells flying around, and I didn't build any.

[DuckofTindalos]

Well, yeah... I was just wondering...

[jwilkerson]

ITG (In The Game) Nell's and Betty's aren't much different. And rather than build even more Betty's to replace the Nell's I'm just gonna keep using the Nell's until they are no more. I have 3 full (27 plane) groups of Nell's and 3 more Chutai (9 plane groups) and 30 Nell's left in the pool. One good devastating air battle and the number of units operating Nells will dwindle considerably - but for now they are just soldiering on!

[DuckofTindalos]

I do the same thing usually. No sense in just having them go to waste; mine just tend to run out faster...[:D]

[timtom]

ORIGINAL: jwilkerson

ITG (In The Game) Nell's and Betty's aren't much different. And rather than build even more Betty's to replace the Nell's I'm just gonna keep using the Nell's until they are no more. I have 3 full (27 plane) groups of Nell's and 3 more Chutai (9 plane groups) and 30 Nell's left in the pool. One good devastating air battle and the number of units operating Nells will dwindle considerably - but for now they are just soldiering on!

RL, 755 Kokutai (ex-Genzan Ku) flew G3M's until 10/43. Indeed radar-equipped G3M's soldiered on to the very end under Grand Escort Command.

[DuckofTindalos]

Grand Escort Command... I always smile and roll my eyes when I see that name...[:D]

[jwilkerson]

2/25/43

Air War:
Total Losses (Allied/Japanese): 87/49
AirToAir (Allied/Japanese): 65/37

Another + day for the Japanese. Today was extra notable because we got a total of 50 of the 4EB "monsters" (isn't that what the JFB call them!?). And 46 of these losses were in air to air combat. Most of these losses occured over Pagan in Burma and Lae in Papua as the Allies challenged our Tony/Jack (in Burma) and pure Jack (in Papua) defended bases with masses (100+ each) of unescorted 4EB. I wonder if this will be the last time we see massed unescorted strikes attacked decently defended bases? Perhaps not, I've thought I might have seen the last of it previously. I suppose even the current losses can be shrugged off as meaningless in terms of the whole Allied war effort.

The "loss gap" .. i.e. the difference between the Japanese and Allied air loss totals for the whole war somehow continues to slightly increase in our favor. We are at 560+ in favor of the Japanese. This very well maybe the high point relative to the rest of the war. I would be surprised if it wasn't.

[jwilkerson]

2/27/43

Air War:
Total Air Losses: (Alled/Japanese): 66/32
AirToAir Losses: (Allied/Japanese): 41/4

Hum. Another day for ourside. Even bigger when you consider that 21 or our losses were on the ground during a bombardment at Port Morseby, not really a good sign in and of itself, but not really a contributor to the result in Burma. We are now deploying 2 of 6 new fighter units to Burma this turn. One Jack unit (27 planes) to Pagan. And one Tojo (36 planes) to Mytchina. Over the next 1-2 days we will deploy another 4 units (1 Jack, 3 Tojo) into the forward areas. We are also pulling out beat up units at a one to one ratio for regular rotation. But we have a number of front line Burma fighter units with 10-19 planes. So our net strength will increase dramatically over the next day or so.

Burma: We unloaded both a fuel and a supply convoy at Rangoon this turn. This "reactivates" the Navy, who have gassed up and sortied. Also three of the Kongo Class BB (not including Kirishima) have departed Singapore today. We will consider using them for another Akyab bombardment or two.

Northern Oz:
A quick shot of how things look in this area. We are making slow progress at building it up. But we will try to increase the pace.!

[jwilkerson]

3/9/43

Sorry, I've been traveling. Just enough time to do turns, but not enough to do AAR. I'll try to catch back up here.

Air War:
Total Losses: (Allies/Japanese): 27/24
AirToAir: (Allies/Japanese): 8/10

Allies tiny edge in air to air on a low intensity day.

Burma:
The "B" RCT of the 55ID is back in Rangoon rebuilding with the 18A HQ. The "A" and "C" RCT of the 55ID have existed the Akyab hex and are returning to Rangoon to refit. The 11ID is continuing its trek out to Akyab.
The 3 Kongos (Haruna, Hiei, Kongo) bombarded the Allied troops at Akyab today covered by the Junyo/Hiyo/Fuso/Yamashiro group.
Nells out of Rangoon sank 3 Allied MSW investigating Akyab.

Northern Oz:
We see some units headed up the rail lines towards Derby and Darwin. We are flying in some more Sallys to step up the bombardment of these units. Also additional LCU are heading this way as well.

[jwilkerson]

3/11/43

AirWar:
Total Losses (Allied/Japanese): 38/11
AirToAir (Allied/Japanese): 15/9

Slight advantage to us this time on another slow day.

Sub/ASW:
On a typical day, Moses hits one of our ships somewhere and our ASW air hits one of his subs. Most times these hits do not result in sinkings.
Today however, the US sub "barb" attacked us at Toboali and we stuck back with two ASW groups, both of our groups got hits and the barb went down.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sub attack near Toboali at 22,57

Japanese Ships
MSW W.10
PC Ch 30
PC Kyo Maru #7

Allied Ships
SS Barb, hits 2, on fire

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ASW attack near Toboali at 22,57

Japanese Ships
PG Hirotama Maru
MSW W.22
PC Ch 17
APD APD-32

Allied Ships
SS Barb, hits 10, on fire, heavy damage *sunk*

[jwilkerson]

3/13/43

Air War
Total Losses (Allied/Japanese): 64/34
AirToAir Losses (Allied/Japanese): 43/27

Campaign Losses (Allied/Japanese): 9012/8308 gap 704 in favor of Japan.

Today was still actually a slow day in the air, except our CVE group in the Aleutians sortied out to cover the barges running supply into Amchitka. This generated a series of air attacks which increased the apparent intensity of the air war a bit.

Strangely the "gap" between Allied and Japanese losses containues to slowly rise in favor of the Japanese, despite continued allied improvement in the fighter vs fighter situation. I'm figuring this anomoly is just due to higher attacker losses due to flak and operations. However, in air to air losses, Japan continues to average, just barely a 2:1 advantage. I would expect this to rapidly evaporate towards the later part of 1943.

Aleutians:
The Hosho/Taiyo/Chuyo/Unyo/Nagato group sortied 2 hexes east of "Kiska" to cover barges running in to Amchitka. This generated several attacks by a total of about 150 US aircraft over the course of the turn. The Chuyo took two hits leaving her damage at 31/2/1, so she will probably survive. Chuyo Kates sank an MSW at Adak.

Burma:
The Dutch O-16 sank due to damage received several days back when she drove into a mine at Akyab. Our (only) 4 minelaying subs continue to shuttle back and forth between Rangoon and Akyab to continue to improve the minefield at Akyab.

CenPac:
The 38ID is loading at Buna to head West.

Home Islands:
The 54ID has been released and will be moved to Truk to become the main garrison unit there.

[jwilkerson]

3/13/43

Burma:
Well on the map things don't look much different from turn to turn, but I think I need to do more screen shots anyway, so here we go. I'm still thinking Burma is where the game hangs in the balance right now. And probably specifically at Akyab. Moses now has 9 units in the hex (just brought in a new Mtn Arty unit) with 7 more units visible on the way. We are both showing about 1500 AV during the bombardments. I have the 11 ID on the way with another 400 or so AV. The forts are at level 6(54 pts towards 7). I also have 4 Arty units on ships headed for Burma (probably Akyab) and the 16 ID as well.

In the air, we are holding on to the rear bases, but struggling to protect Akyab itself. The Manilla IJA fighter training bases is about to spit out several x80 units. We may convert the first two to Tojos and see if we can "sneak" them into Akyab to a big battle.

There are also three navy fighter units training up at Soerabaja to relieve the worn out Jack units still in Burma. Exp 75 fighter units of any flavor seem to be totally ineffective, so we will continue training up to x80.

[jwilkerson]

3/15/43

Air War
Total Losses (Allied/Japanese): 68/44
Air To Air Losses (Allied/Japanese): 56/33

Totals were exacerbated by some fighting in China and by our movement of a Tony unit to Pagan. The Tony unit took heavy losses from the Corsairs, but then took out more than its share of unescorted bombers in return, hum.

Sub/ASW:
Moses sank a small auxillary minesweeper off Brunei. We have and East-West Convoy carrying 4 artillery units passing through here next turn and we have 2 H-K groups in the area as well.

Burma:
Three Allied PT boats attempted to enter Akyab harbor. All three struck mines and were sunk! We've finally found an effective weapon against PT boats!!! Now to improve our ability to lure them onto minefields!

[jwilkerson]

3/17/43

Air War:
Total Losses (Allied/Japanese): 77/35
Air to Air Losses (Allied/Japanese): 57/15

The Tony's seem to make a difference against the unescorted bombers at Akyab, if we can use the Tojo's to get the Tony's past the Corsairs!

A pair of (one each) Tony and Tojo sentai are completing reconversion after training up (to 80 EXP). We will toss them into the fighting at Akyab in a few days.

[jwilkerson]

3/19/43

Air War:
Total Losses (Allied/Japanese): 25/29
Air To Air Losses (Allied/Japanese): 14/16

Things are gettin' a bit too quiet.