Splashing the Divebomber

[AU Tiger_MatrixForum]

What is irking me is all the talking heads hyping the LSU - Florida game are saying Florida "stumbled" last week, not that Auburn played a hell of a ballgame. Florida didn't lose the game, Auburn won it.

I have little to report this turn other than Dive is moving troops into Wuhan and Pukhoi unfortunately. I doubt my reinforcements will get to Nanning in time to carry the works, which in the end is not a setback for me. There are no industries, resources, or oil to damage in Nanning, the whole effort was to get Dive reacting to me for a change. I still may take the place, but I am losing hope. Now Wuhan in a different story. I have bunches of Chinese cooling their heels in Changsha, and have ordered nearly all of them to the road hex due East of the city to evict two Jap units from the road hex. I don't know what Dive is planning but I will certainly cause him concern. His options from Wuhan are 1) reinvest Changsha, or 2) move on Ichang. I am unworried either way frankly. I forgot to mention one other tidbit last turn: Dive has abandoned his position on the Burma road, his troops having re-crossed the river and returning to Lashio. The previously half-starving garrison in Yunan are flush with supplies now the trucks are moving up from Myitkyina. I was tempted to thank Dive in an e-mail but decided against for obvious reasons.

The Aleutians saw some skirmishes between my subs and his ASW to little effect. Dive is still hiding out in Kiska.

Five more turns until the AR's.

[AU Tiger_MatrixForum]

I screwed up my save game, so I have to do this from memory.

The assault on Nanning is called off. Dive has two reinforcing units on the RR outside of Nanning, and another two hexes away. I didn't commit enough resources for a major attack, and have lost the opportunity, if it ever really existed. Also, I have recalled the 4000 AV's attacking east from Changsha because Dive all of a sudden has 28 units stacked up in Wuhan, and I didn't want to risk meeting them outside of my fortifications. Supply levels in Western China are looking significantly better now the Burma Road is open again.

The Aleutian Sitzkrieg grinds on.

I will load my transports in Noumea for the New Hebrides next turn.

[AU Tiger_MatrixForum]

The Yorktown and the Hornet are three days from SF; the Sara and the Lex are not repairing yet. Oh well, three more days to get the AR's.

Nearly my entire surface fleet is sitting at anchor in Anchorage, but will begin to depart for the West Coast and PH next turn, although I will leave a fast TF there to escort the DM's that are departing Seattle for a run into Adak Is.

All but two of my units besieging Nanning have moved this turn but will move next turn. All of my units in the area should be consolidated in the next few days.

I am glad I called off my attack from Changsha on the east road hex now because Dive has 34 units in Wuhan now.

In Noumea I am loading the 2nd USMC Div, an EAB, and a BF for landings on Luganville. The two engineering units will land only after the base is taken. In addition to the Div, I intend to land paras at the same time to hopefully carry the base quickly.

It is fortunate I decided to withdraw from Nanning because my Intel is showing numerous units, including armor embarked for Haiphong.

[ny59giants]

In Noumea I am loading the 2nd USMC Div, an EAB, and a BF for landings on Luganville. The two engineering units will land only after the base is taken. In addition to the Div, I intend to land paras at the same time to hopefully carry the base quickly.

Joe W landed his paras against Moses at PM the same turn he launched a deliberate attack and took the base in one turn. He explained that a bombardment attack took place against the paras and thus the defense was halved for the attack (or something like that). Something to remember for the future. [;)]

[AU Tiger_MatrixForum]

ORIGINAL: ny59giants

In Noumea I am loading the 2nd USMC Div, an EAB, and a BF for landings on Luganville. The two engineering units will land only after the base is taken. In addition to the Div, I intend to land paras at the same time to hopefully carry the base quickly.

Joe W landed his paras against Moses at PM the same turn he launched a deliberate attack and took the base in one turn. He explained that a bombardment attack took place against the paras and thus the defense was halved for the attack (or something like that). Something to remember for the future. [;)]

I had another opponent do that to me at Hong Kong, and remembered it.

[AU Tiger_MatrixForum]

This will be a short update:

Two more turns until my Luganville attack force will be loaded and ready to weigh anchor.

All of my Surface warships in Anchorage, except for a fast TF, is departing for either PH or SF. Mostly escorts are going to SF for the Air TF's I will be building there in a few weeks.

All of my forces made it out of Nanning safely.

The number of units in Wuhan has dropped substantially, but are not on the road outside of Changsha. I assume Dive is moving on Ichang, and as soon as I am sure, I will move a powerful force to the Wuhan hex and the crossroads Southeast of Homan. I have no intention of taking either hex, but I will restrict the flow of supplies going to Dive's troops.

Dive is still laying mines all over Southwest India, fortunately I am spotting his subs in the process and am routing MSW's to those bases without danger of moving vulnerable TF's there.

THE LEX DROPPED TO 50 SYS THIS TURN![&o][&o][&o][&o][&o][&o][&o][&o]

[AU Tiger_MatrixForum]

The Lex has been banished to LA until I can get these other carriers repaired and upgraded. With the AR's I am getting next turn I should make some headway, I hope.

Strangely, Dive executed zero air attacks in China this turn. What is the boy up to?

Slowly, but surely, stragglers are coming into Dacca to rest and refit in preparation of an overland attack on Mandalay via Myit. This will not happen soon, but the early stages of planning are in the works.

The 2nd USMC Div departed the wharves of Noumea today to re-take the first of many liberated bases.

Absolutely nothing else happened today.

Six days 'til Wasp.


[>:]

[AU Tiger_MatrixForum]

Dive and I have had an e-mail SNAFU. Over the past several months we have had problems with e-mails not reaching him, and e-mails reaching me up to 12 hours after he sent them. I sent him the turn 2 days ago, and another e-mail yesterday asking if he got the turn. He received neither of them. Unfortunately, he did not find this odd because I had warned him I might be sporadic over the next couple of months because of school (final semester) and work requirements (just because I am working as part-time engineer does not exempt me from deadlines apparently). Anyway, we straightened out the problem, this time anyway, and will have updates tomorrow.

[marky]

try yahoo

wat email u usin?

[AU Tiger_MatrixForum]

I am on gmail, and have never had problems except with Dive. I have another opponent who is using Yahoo but have never had a problem. I suspect the problem is with Dive's provider (his e-mail is with this company) - a Canadian company I have never heard of before, but I cannot prove it. I have tried numerous times to get him to use a free-mail account, but he will not hear of it.

Frankly I am glad we cleared this up because I getting worried that he had abandoned the game.

[AU Tiger_MatrixForum]

Luganville has been invaded, and taken. By good timing, the follow on troops have arrived to begin unloading at the base. Dive managed to sink an AP by LBA flying from far away - I am not sure from where, but it was off the screen - in the direction of Lunga. To protect my ships unloading at Luganville I have moved in P-40E's, and am flying in portions of an Aviation regiment from Noumea, as well as unloading a BF from ships.

Dive's multitude of troops that had been in Wuhan some time ago has apparently disappeared - I cannot find them at all.

My AR's are doing good work in SF, and hopefully will do the same in my other ports on the WC also.

[AU Tiger_MatrixForum]

First the good news: My new AR's are absolutely great! Repairs are continuing apace on my lesser damaged CV's. The Lex docked this turn in LA (the 4 AR's tasked there beat her) and will hopefully see improvement soon.

Aleutians:
My fast (and only in the area) surface combat TF arrived in Dutch, with the DM's lagging a turn behind. I intend to lay more eggs at Adak Island, with the surface ships along as escort. A newly minted MLE is about a third of the way to Anchorage.

SOPAC: We had a surface battle this turn at Luganville, and Dive got the better of me. My covering TF of DD's bounced numerous shells off a couple of CA's and damaged slightly their three escorts. Half of my DD's are Hors d' Combat, with one sinking. The others are in no danger of following their sister ship to DJ's locker. Last turn I moved some inexperienced P-40E's to Luganville to provide cover for the landings. A 3 ship Betty strike, escorted by 18 Zeros showed up, torpedoing an AP. My covering P-40's lost 5, shooting down 4 Zeros with no effect on the bombers. I believe Dive's last defenders in the hex will soon be doing their bit for the Emperor.

China: Dive managed to move a unit onto the road north of Changsha. (pic included) I don't know how he did it (in an e-mail he said it had been moving East, but at the last minute veered Southwest. Irregardless, he has cut off supplies to Changsha so I am reacting vigorously to correct the problem. For this turn, the unit, although severely cutoff is on its lonesome in the hex. I have ordered P-39's in Hengshow to provide LR CAP over the hex to cutoff any TR relief missions. As soon as I have troops in the hex, re-supply by air is no longer an option, or so I understand.

[AU Tiger_MatrixForum]

Dive and I are having sync problems. Apparently the air action I mentioned above at Luganville never happened. I noticed it first looking at the Aircraft Lost screen that the Zeros and P-40 casualties didn't show up. AP U.S. Grant hadn't taken a torpedo either. Distressingly, my very successful ground attack on the Luganville defenders was a lot less than I saw in the replay. Other than these items, things match up pretty well. I will start watching for these in the future.

[AU Tiger_MatrixForum]

The Wasp arrives next turn in SF as well as a bunch of escorts from the fighting in the North Pacific needing some minor repairs. The Saratoga is repairing quickly, and is down to 20 SYS, but is also behind a couple of AA upgrades. At the pace things are progressing, in about 30 days, all CV's except the Lex (now down to 49 SYS) should be ready for sea with full complements of TBF's aboard.

Aleutians:
Last turn, a 5 BB bombardment force hit Adak Is hard, destroying three PBY's, and damaging the other 9 there. None are ready for flight ops this turn. My DM's reached Dutch, and re-fueled. Two are going to Umniak Is., one is going to Atka Is., and five are going to Adak Is., escorted by the North Carolina battle group.

China:
Dive hit Yenen with a massive bomber strike with a heavy escort (200+ A6M2 and A6M3's). My eleven airworthy Spitfires were all shot down (3 pilots lost) shooting down five A6M2's. Not a bad showing considering the numbers. None of my ground strikes took place this turn.
So far the Chinese attacking Dive's lone unit at the cross-roads has not crossed the river yet.

South Pacific:
All opposition at Luganville has been eliminated, and supplies are flowing ashore.

No discrepancies in the CR's this turn.

[AU Tiger_MatrixForum]

I spoke too soon. The Sara stalled at 20 SYS, but the Wasp did arrive, as well as a slew of escorts for my future CV TF's, nearly all needing minor repairs.

Aleutians:
A surprising Naval battle occurred near Adak Island. Last turn a major (5 BB's) TF bombarded Adak, and left. This turn a small TF meandered into Adak. The TF had a CL and 6 DD's, and unfortunately ran into the North Carolina TF escorting DM's into the port. Amusingly, I don't think the DM's were spotted, but the NC TF was. When the smoke cleared, the Allied TF had sunk the CL, and a DD, and heavily damaged all but one of the others. As soon as the sun came up, bombers from Umniak and Dutch found the survivors, hitting the undamaged DD, and sinking three others. The many subs in the region are beating feet for an interception of the rest.
Speaking of beating feet, the NC TF and the DM's are running for the safety of Anchorage. If KB is still in the area, I expect it to come in to hammer airfields because Dive has tasted my LBA. I am wondering if KB is running towards SOPAC right now. Hmmmmm.

SOPAC:
Dive's LBA launched at my ships in the area, hitting none, but losing 5 Zeros and 3 Bettys to 6 P-40E's. I haven't seen the KB in a while in the Aleutians, and am starting to get paranoid about this area. Luganville has plenty of supplies now, so I will continue unloading this turn, but retreat Southward next turn, unless KB shows up in the North.

China:
Nothing to report other than it looks like Dive is starting his old infiltration tactics in Southwest China. I hope not because the Lion's share of my strength is in other regions of the country.





BTW, the North Carolina, and the two CA's 'on fire' all received only "armor hits". All are fine.

[AU Tiger_MatrixForum]

I was looking at Dive's ship losses, and noticed a sad entry:







I hadn't realized I sunk the Hibiki until now. I hope the entire crew was rescued.

[AU Tiger_MatrixForum]

I took a lot of time this turn taking care of administrative tasks, ie. checking on new air units, moving ships around, reorganizing air defenses, ordering 8 more AR's, etc.

A couple of turns ago I had 50+ DD's, CA's, CL's and CLAA's arrive in SF for minor repairs, and for future use in CV TF's. Since these guys got there, the Sara hasn't moved in its repairs, so every one of the smaller ships are heading to LA to free up resources in SF. The Sara is still at 20 SYS, and needs two upgrades. This may take a while.

Aleutians:
As Patrol AC on Adak Is. get repaired I am moving them to Umniak Island. There isn't much else to report.

China:
I am getting frustrated with units resetting their orders to Defend - I had about 1200 AV's tasked with marching to Dive's trapped Div Northwest of Changsha. They decided the city was preferrable, obviously. This turn I ordered them all to Hengchow, and will watch to stop them a hex short to combine for an attack on the Jap unit. This turn two units crossed the river to attack the Div, but received bloody noses as expected. The AVG is finally up to full strength again with airplanes, but need to repair 12 of them before the unit is operational again. Once the airplanes are repaired, I will split the AVG, and spread them around China along with the arriving Spitfires to make it costly for Dive to attack with mediocre airplanes.

SOPAC:
Luganville has plenty of supplies now, so all the ships are returning to Noumea, although all the minesweepers are going back via Efate to clear mines in the hex. Once Luganville's defenses have built up a bit, I need return the 2nd USMC to Noumea, a non-malarial zone, to re-build for the future invasion of Lunga. All of the Paras are already there.

India/Burma:
The ever-so-slow build up continues for my eventual offensive in Burma.

[ny59giants]

In my new PBEM game against John 3rd, I pulled back all my LCU's from Clark Field into Manila and left 40k in supplies between Bataan and Clark. I don't trust the combat routine.
 
The thing that I have yet to figure out is how to get supply to move. [:(][:(]  I had only 2 static units in Bataan and it would not move the supplies to the "party" in Manila.

[AU Tiger_MatrixForum]

Aleutians:
The Sitskrieg continues, although one of my subs hit a mine at Kiska Island. No worries though because it suffered minimal damage, and only 16 FLOAT damage. Speaking of mines, my MLE has docked in Anchorage so mines will be proliferating all over my possessions in the region. Once I have sowed enough, some of my DM's will move Southward.

SpPac :
No response from my taking of the Luganville.

China:
Here is where it is getting interesting. This turn I kicked Dive's Infantry Division out of the crossroads Northwest of Changsha only to have it move into the boonies to the West. In that direction I have noticed a Jap unit Southeast of Kweiyang. This is the first time I have spotted it, but apparently it has been moving around a little bit because of the little "J" marks where there shouldn't be one. Frankly this sucks, because I have little in the way of forces in the region, although help has been dispatched! I imagine there are more Jap forces hidden in the region because I can't see Dive moving just one force into the area. Fortunately, all of my bases are garrisoned by at least one combat unit so Dive will not get a city on the cheap.

[AU Tiger_MatrixForum]

Aleutians:
All quiet on the Northern Front. I am tired of my subs just sailing around burning fuel. They are utterly ineffectual at attacking ships so now most of them are returning to Anchorage to load mines.

SoPac: Still nothing from Divebomber although the weather is clear. Bombers will pound Efate. Make hay while the sun shines, eh?

China: Decent weather in China means 4E attacks on a likely Jap airbase. The AVG is fully repaired, has been split, and is protecting three different Northern China bases. All of my short range Chinese bombers are attacking Dive's pesky unit running amok in my interior.