Hunting the AuTiger - an AAR (no Tigers please)

[Dive Bomber1]

August 30, 1942 - The night phase was quiet again other than some minesweeping, but the day phase brought a return to large scale Allied aerial bombardments, particularly in the Timor area. It is certainly frustrating to watch those massive attacks come in and to not be able to do a thing about them.

Sure, I am very slowly upgrading some Nates and Oscars to Tonys and Tojos, but it is taking a long time to repair the upgraded units, their experience is bad, and I am losing more planes and pilots than I am training thanks to operational and flak losses. And that's while flying at short range and against isolated LCUs. By the time I will be able to attempt to stand up to the Allied air attacks AuTiger will have new and better fighters in place.

There were two slightly encouraging occurrences for me in this turn. First off, AuTiger finally pulled back his troops from Hsinyang, which frees up my front-line bases in China again. And in Naval news, another of my CVs finally upgraded and is now being sent to join the rest of the Combined fleet in the Aleutians. It won't be long before I will be able to risk my fleet again.

[Dive Bomber1]

August 31, 1942 - Allied "stealth subs" recently snuck into a couple of the smaller islands in the western Kuriles and laid fresh mines, so I've got to send out more MSWs to clean up the results. Fortunately none of my passing ships hit any of the mines. Otherwise the night phase was quiet as usual in this game.

There was a fair amount of air activity again this turn as my bombers hit Yenen repeatedly, as well as a number of Chinese LCUs that are still out in the open. My operational losses are still high, but at least it appears that it is the most incompetent of my pilots who are being killed off rather than my better pilots.

AuTiger continues to give his Chinese pilots practice against the trapped 34th Division, but this turn a number of my air units got the chance to practice against the Chinese unit that is keeping the 34th trapped, so AuTiger got some of his own medicine back.

The most interesting air action was over Umnak where a number of Bettys from Kiska, along with a strong escort of Zeros, flew against a supply TF. AuTiger had RCAF Kittyhawks on CAP and my Zeros did quiet well against them; shooting down six for the loss of only four Zeros; and my Bettys were able to drop bombs on an AK and an MSW escort. So this was a nice little message to AuTiger that my air units are "dead" yet.

Speaking of air units, I now have 3 Tojo Daitais, 2 Tony Daitais and 1 Tony Chutai in various states of repair and training. There are also three more Nate or Oscar units that are eligible for upgrade to Tonys once I build up a sufficient stock. (I am currently building Tonys at a rate of 110 planes per month.) This won't "turn the tide", but once I've got them reasonably trained they ought to balance things out a bit.

BTW - here is the Intel screen for September 1 so that you can see the current situation. Obviously, those 4000+ lost Japanese planes are the major source of my headaches at this time.

[Dive Bomber1]

September 1, 1942 - AuTiger enjoyed one of the Game's rarities this turn - one of my subs hit a mine at Umnak and promptly sank. Subs don't hit mines very often and you've got to be really unlucky to have a sub sink due to a mine hit. But that sort of defines this pbem for me.

Once again the day phase was primarily occupied by air attacks from many of my secondary air units in China. I'm taking lots of operational losses on a daily basis, but at least the experience levels of the "survivors" are slowly increasing. For whatever reason AuTiger hasn't been trying to ambush my air attacks. Never-the-less, I still expect to see his P-40s show up sooner rather than later.

Otherwise things continue to be reasonably quiet. I am even getting more FT TFs into the various bases in the Western Aleutians without problems. Who knows - maybe I will get the couple of week's worth of time that I need to go in and rescue my trapped units at Adak.

[Dive Bomber1]

September 2, 1942 – There was yet another quiet night phase followed by a minimal amount of minesweeping during the day phase. Then the usual air attacks started.

AuTiger sent 159 B-17s against the Resources at Amboina. My AA didn't do a lot of good, but never-the-less a number of Forts were damaged and two became Operational losses. The damage to the Resources at Amboina was minimal. BTW - just as a reminder, we are playing "PDU Off", so there shouldn't be a lot of B-17s elsewhere at this time. (I hope! )

Otherwise, Allied Air stayed fairly quiet, except for the usual Chinese bombers attacking the trapped 34th Division. The Chinese bombers are being escorted by a fair number of P-40s, so I'm not going to try to ambush them.

And once again AuTiger didn't try to ambush any of my air-to-ground attacks in China. The airfields at Yenen were hit hard again, as were a number of Chinese LCUs in the Field. I continue to shift my planes around so that I don't leave too "tempting" a target in one place for too long and also to rebuild some units that get too low thanks to the constant Operational losses. To an extent I'm simply treading water, but with the Air Training model in the Game there isn't much of an alternative.

The most encouraging news was that my big "Tokyo" ("Adak") Express made it in, dumped off its supplies, and made it back home totally undetected. So my troops on Adak are much "happier" at this point. I'm also getting more forces into the Kuriles/Aleutians, so my plans are coming together quiet nicely, as is the reconstituted KB. Things have been quiet for quite some time, but if I get another couple of weeks without being bothered the situation will "liven up" significantly in the Aleutians.

[jwilkerson]

ORIGINAL: Dive Bomber1

August 27, 1942 –

<snip>

And in other news, more end results of my early poor decisions in the game came to light this turn as a dozen more AR and a half dozen more AS conversions showed up. In reality, I really don't need those ships now, and they cost me a lot of supplies to convert them, so this has turned out to be a very costly misjudgement on my part. Oh well, at least I'm not doing the same thing in my newer pbems.

Actually, not sure you can have too many AR .. well probably .. but a "bunch" are sure nice. I actually use the AR around in the home islands and send the Naval HQs to the forward areas. The Naval HQs are at less risk as they can be flown about via air and are harder to sink if riding on multiple boats. But you need a few AK too, so don't convert them all!


As to AS, yup, not sure you need any more of those at all. I went for MLE and AR in my game with Moses, at least a dozen of each and while I probably have too many MLE, I'd be fine with another dozen AR !

[Dive Bomber1]

ORIGINAL: jwilkerson

ORIGINAL: Dive Bomber1

August 27, 1942 –

<snip>

And in other news, more end results of my early poor decisions in the game came to light this turn as a dozen more AR and a half dozen more AS conversions showed up. In reality, I really don't need those ships now, and they cost me a lot of supplies to convert them, so this has turned out to be a very costly misjudgement on my part. Oh well, at least I'm not doing the same thing in my newer pbems.

Actually, not sure you can have too many AR .. well probably .. but a "bunch" are sure nice. I actually use the AR around in the home islands and send the Naval HQs to the forward areas. The Naval HQs are at less risk as they can be flown about via air and are harder to sink if riding on multiple boats. But you need a few AK too, so don't convert them all!


As to AS, yup, not sure you need any more of those at all. I went for MLE and AR in my game with Moses, at least a dozen of each and while I probably have too many MLE, I'd be fine with another dozen AR !

I use the AS ships as "poor man's ARs" for the many subs that I get damaged. I'm pretty agressive with my subs and so I usually have lots of them back in port at any given time. (I don't like to send subs out on missions until they are down to a Level 1 Sys damage.)

But yes, I still have plenty of AKs - I was fairly careful with them during my expansion so I didn't lose a lot. They are presently very busy moving resources all over the map, as well as those few "spare" supplies that I manage to collect in my few supply-producing bases. (Having the Resource and Oil sites damaged in the majority of the bases that I captured causes me no end of grief.)

BTW - I find that the MLEs don't seem to work as I expected. As far as I can tell, it takes one MLE for every ML that you want to reload.

[jwilkerson]

ORIGINAL: Dive Bomber1

BTW - I find that the MLEs don't seem to work as I expected. As far as I can tell, it takes one MLE for every ML that you want to reload.

Hum,


I certainly don't find that. I put one MLE in the port and then base an ML TF out of that port and the ML TF rearms automatically everytime it RTBs.

[Dive Bomber1]

ORIGINAL: jwilkerson

ORIGINAL: Dive Bomber1

BTW - I find that the MLEs don't seem to work as I expected. As far as I can tell, it takes one MLE for every ML that you want to reload.

Hum,


I certainly don't find that. I put one MLE in the port and then base an ML TF out of that port and the ML TF rearms automatically everytime it RTBs.

I've tried that and my MLs refuse to reload. Is there a minimum Port size and minimum supply value that is required for MLEs to replenish ML TFs?

Thanks -

[Dive Bomber1]

September 3, 1942 - There was "good" minesweeping and "bad" minesweeping during the night turn. Some of my MSWs removed more Allied mines from my bases, but one of the DDs in my Fast Transport TF hit a mine on the way into Adak and so they all turned back. But I've gotten a little tired of the situation there, and my troops have a fair amount of supply, so I'm sending in two more Fast Transports next turn, along with a bombardment TF, and I've ordered my troops to attempt a Shock attack. Maybe I'll get a pleasant surprise… (Yeah, sure!)

My air forces took off in a big way in China this turn, with lots of Sallys hitting Yenen and Changsha without any opposition. My second-string trainees also flew their light bombers and fighters all over China and hit plenty of Chinese troops in the field, albeit with limited results. On-the-other-hand, AuTiger sent 135 Forts against Amboina again this turn and essentially wiped out the Oil Industry, despite only getting "8" oil hits. AuTiger's gain was not without cost as a number of B-17s were damaged and he lost three more to Operational Damage.

Along with, or maybe despite, next turn's rather impulsive attack on Adak, my main forces continue to set up for a serious strike, which ought to occur in a couple week's time. (I know, I've been writing "a couple weeks" for a while now, but it's always hard to figure out exactly how long it will take to bring various and sundry forces together in one place for a major attack.)

BTW - I've been experimenting against the AI to see just what would be involved in a serious invasion of the Aleutians and Alaska. I essentially threw "everything" at the region, including the KB hitting Anchorage instead of Pearl Harbor. Even with the non-historic start and the associated initial "jump" for transports it still took me two weeks to capture the six western Aleutian islands and it is taking me another two weeks to grab the next islands including Dutch Harbor. And this is with the AI essentially ignoring what I am doing. It's a sobering lesson on how badly I underestimated the scope of the task when I tried to blitz AuTiger.

[Dive Bomber1]

September 4, 1942 – This wasn't a very good turn as things continued to work out poorly in the Aleutians. Yet another DD hit a mine on the way in to Adak, which meant that the entire Fast Transport TF went home without unloading its supplies. (I am definitely NOT a fan of this particular bit of code.) Then, despite full preparation and a fair amount of supplies my troops did poorly against the Level 7 fort. Oh well, back to the drawing board.

In any event, there was a lot of air action this turn as AuTiger exercised his heavy bombers against my resource and oil sources while I continued to attempt to train my pilots against Chinese ground forces. So Liberators hit the Resources at Hanoi and B-17s hit the Base Force at Mandalay while my 2E bombers hit the airfields at Hengchow and Homan and my fighters and divebombers hit Chinese troops in the field.

For some reason, while my air-to-ground attacks continue to get larger, the effect that they achieve against the LCUs seems to be diminishing. On-the-other-hand, the damage levels at the air fields of the Chinese bases appear to be lasting a bit longer, so maybe the supply levels in China are starting to drop a bit.

AuTiger continues to bring troops into Yenen, so there is no longer any chance for me to capture the base, but my besiegers continue to score hundreds of casualties every turn with artillery attacks, so I'll leave my troops in place for now since there isn't anything better to do with them. However, I have pulled back my armoured units and I may risk them against the remaining Chinese troops along the central railway if I can find some decent infantry divisions so that I can mount a proper Combined Arms attack. In the meanwhile I'll continue to bombard those Chinese troops from the air.

Hmmm – come to think of it, I should order back my Engineering units from Yenen too, since they don't contribute to artillery attacks.

[Dive Bomber1]

September 5, 1942 – My naval bombardment of Adak went off quite well this turn. My ships avoided the mines and any detection and hit the base fairly hard, although they didn't achieve a "nuclear" attack by any means. My follow-up air attack didn't do much, but together they ought to wake AuTiger up a bit. He is still building up the Eastern Aleutians a lot and I want to keep him occupied up there.

Despite the success of the naval bombardment I've decided that Adak is too hard a nut to crack at this time, so instead I am going to mount a massive Dunkirk-style evacuation of my troops. I'll cover the Evac with the entire Combined Fleet, so if AuTiger attempts to interfere with anything short of the entire USN I ought to get a fairly good local advantage. (And if AuTiger can defeat the entire IJN at Adak then he will have won the game fair and square.)

Not all my action in the North Pacific went as planned, as I forgot to reduce the maximum range for the Zero Daitai at Kiska that I set for PT-busting at 100 feet, so they flew off to Umnak and got whacked by the Canuck CAP there. Oh well, maybe I'll remember the next time.

AuTiger (or the weather) kept the big US bombers on the ground this turn so all of the air action in the Far East was thanks to my second stringers who flew in great masses all over China, but didn't accomplish a lot despite darkening the skies. At least they are now reaching the Moderately Mediocre level, and those pilots in the most worthless of all Crates – Nates – are almost reaching respectability. But it will be months and months before I get any Oscar IIs, so the only thing that I will be able to do with those Nate units is to continue to harass Chinese infantry units.

[Dive Bomber1]

September 6, 1942 - The "big" news this turn was that a US sub finally hit one of the myriad of mines that I've laid all over the map. I'm attempting to cover all of my bases with mines, and not trying to bury any particular base in mines, and this has finally paid off in a small way. BTW - my MSWs continue to sweep Allied sub-laid mines in various places too. (Maybe the AE version ought to be called "Mine War in the Pacific"…)

The rest of the action this turn was air attacks in China. AuTiger continues to be relatively quiet and only his daily attack on the trapped 34th flew. Most of my planned attacks flew, including a number of big air attacks on the airfields at Yenen as well as ever increasingly larger air attacks on AuTiger's Chinese troops in the field. As I've observed recently, despite more planes flying ground attack missions the quantities of Chinese casualties isn't increasing.

In any event, I pulled back a number of air units this turn in order to rest them up and keep from providing too predictable a pattern for AuTiger to eventually counter. AuTiger has been flying F-5As over Canton on a daily basis, so he must be planning some action that direction. In any event, I pulled out my bombers from Canton and left my better fighters on CAP this turn, just in case AuTiger decides to send the 4Es in again. (I am also looking forward to seeing how my Tonys and Tojos do against unescorted bombers. [:D] )

In the North I sent the "rejuvenated" half of the KB out from Tokyo and off towards the northeast. My other plans are coming together in that region and I'm gaining confidence that I will be able to pull off my "Dunkirk". AuTiger finally moved some PTs back to Adak this turn, so I set a couple of fighter groups to 100ft Naval Attack (with their maximum ranges carefully curtailed) in order to "discourage" this. Hopefully, AuTiger will leave the PTs there one more turn. [;)]

[Dive Bomber1]

September 7, 1942 - We had our usual night phase in which the only thing that happened was that some of my MSWs swept some Allied sub-laid mines. For whatever reason, the Allied MSWs then swept Japanese sub-laid mines during the day phase. The rest of the action was in the air.

Things started out okay as my bombers hit the airfields at Yenen hard again. But then, as I had been expecting, AuTiger's P-40s showed up on LR CAP over Changsha. But despite being prepared I received yet another unexpected set-back as the P-40s continued their domination of the air, shooting down three as many A6M3s as P-40s were lost. The only good luck for me was that a few more P-40s were lost to Operational damage.

I'm getting really frustrated with the inability of my fighters and pilots to fight P-40s to a draw. I'm not certain if this is just a matter of an edge in experience of the P-40 pilots, an edge in performance over my planes, or a combination of both. My A6M3 Daitais had reasonably good pilots, but they just weren't good enough. And I can't train my Tojo and Tony pilots to reasonable levels quickly enough to bring them into the fray, and I'm not certain that even they will make a difference.

The only thing that worked out right for me this turn was that some of my Zeros at Kiska caught AuTiger's horde of PT boats sitting at Adak this turn, shooting up a number of them and sinking three. AuTiger has at least 30 PT boats grouped in two TFs of 15 a piece, so I will have to do a fair amount of shooting before I can work them down to a reasonable number. And once AuTiger starts to get the "infinite" PT boat replacements I'll have an even harder time.

Finally, AuTiger is moving masses of troops around China again, and so it is likely that I may get more units stuck out of position thanks to the movement rules. The note that I saw that said that land combat and movement won't be improved significantly in AE is the one aspect that will give me pause when I get tempted to buy the upgrade. I have a totally irrational hatred for land movement and land combat in this game and the thought of paying again for more of the same is not very appealing.

[Dive Bomber1]

September 8, 1942 - Despite daily minesweeping all over the map my forces continue to miss or leave behind plenty of Allied mines, and thus a number of my ships hit mines while on their way into friendly ports this turn. Oh well, at least no capital ships have hit mines for a while.

In the air war AuTiger pulled back his P-40s but beefed up his Spitfires in Central China. I don't have enough really good fighter units around to even challenge the Brits so I left them to patrol around Hengchow and did my usual daily plane movements while setting some new targets. I actually find doing this sort of thing every turn to be terribly boring, but I hate to have my planes ambushed so I have no choice since the bulk of my air units are not yet competitive enough to leave in one place for any length of time.

I goofed up yet another movement order in China so yet another of my units will be trapped soon. I hate the movement system even more than I hate playing hide-and-seek with my air units every turn. Oh well, maybe I'll be able to train more planes against the Chinese units when they show up.

AuTiger pulled his PT hordes back from Adak so my planes didn't get any more "freebies". So I sent some bombers in to hit Adak just to keep AuTiger awake in that region. It will still be some time before my plans gel together; it takes quite a while to pull together so much force in one place.

[Dive Bomber1]

September 9, 1942 - Both sides were busy with the usual minesweeping during the night phase, and none of my ships hit any mines, so things went okay. I've got to think that my minesweeping crews have to be the most experienced sailors in the IJN by this time.

The air war was a bit subdued this turn as bad weather grounded many planned attacks. My main air-to-ground attack on a lone Chinese unit north of Wuchow did fly and those fighter units are starting to come around nicely, although none of them are ready to take on the AVG or other good US P-40 units yet.

Speaking of P-40s, AuTiger brought his P-40s back to Hengchow and Changsha this turn, but all they found were thunderclouds and patrol planes. AuTiger also has a huge number of auxiliary planes in Hengchow. I'm presuming that they are transports and that he is flying his troops all over the map again in response to my troop movements. The mass of Chinese units that showed up on the road to the southeast of Hengchow disappeared this turn, but that doesn't mean that they won't soon be harassing my troops that are to the north of Canton.

A lone Chinese unit showed up next to my "lost" armored unit that is sitting in the "bush" to the east of Wuchow. I am suspicious that AuTiger is planning to set up a P-40 ambush over that location in the expectation that I will send bombers in as I usually do. Therefore, I am not sending air attacks against that unit.

Instead I am attempting an ambush of my own. I've ordered all of those fighters at Canton - Zeros, Tonys, Tojos and Oscars - to fly LR CAP over the 34th Division in the hopes of catching those Chinese light bombers that have been hitting my troops on a daily basis, now that AuTiger had stopped escorting those bombers with his P-40s. If this works some of my planes ought to get some "easy" experience. [;)]

In the Far North, the big news was that the port at Kiska finally reached level 3, which meant that I could now dock my two heavily damaged DDs for emergency repairs. This also means that supplies and fuel will unload more quickly. My bombers hit Adak again, and the PTs stayed away, so things are coming along nicely in the region. What I have to be able to do is to convince AuTiger that I am mounting an extremely massive invasion of Adak while I am actually conducting an emergency withdrawal. It will be touch-and-go, but if I can pull this off I will be in a much better position since I have three Divisions and a Brigade stuck on Adak, and they will be much more of a threat if they are free.

[Dive Bomber1]

September 10, 1942 - This was yet another quiet night phase with a little bit of minesweeping on both sides. The day phase was also fairly quiet thanks to bad weather throughout most of China, and thanks to AuTiger setting up a major attack for next turn.

Typical of my luck in this game, either AuTiger guessed that I would go after his Chinese bombers over the 34th Division, or else the weather grounded the bombers, so my attempted LR CAP ambush found nothing over the 34th. Of course, AuTiger also got to see the mass of Japanese fighters over the troops thanks to my recon flight, so the surprise is now gone.

That's an interesting question - should you send Recon when you are trying an LR CAP ambush or not? I have been assuming that Air Recon improves all attacks, including LR CAP. But in this case where no enemy planes flew, the LR CAP accompanied the Recon planes and gave away my plans.

In any event, the situation in China has changed in a very big way as AuTiger has moved over a hundred fighters, around 125 bombers, and around 225 auxiliary planes to Hengchow. AuTiger has been resting his bombers for some time now, so he obviously means to attack somewhere. The question is - where will the attack fall? (I'm assuming that those bombers are 4Es and as such will be essentially unstoppable.) Will he go after one of my major Chinese air bases or will he go after Resources, Oil, or even some of the western Home Island bases? [&:]

AuTiger has been reconning Canton every turn, and he did it again this turn. This recon trip showed my Tojos and Tonys on CAP. Will AuTiger attempt to hammer my nascent Army Air Force units at Canton? And what is he doing with so many air transports at Hengchow? [&:]

BTW - the LCU symbol at Hengchow is now "green" instead of the usual Chinese "yellow". What forces did he bring there - British Air HQs, British Base Forces, or American Paratroops? [&:]

So I agonized over what to do in China - pull back again or try to finally "get lucky". In the end I decided to see if my luck will ever turn positive. I moved around one hundred and twenty-five of my best bombers and the same number of my best fighters to Canton and set them to attack Hengchow next turn. This hasn't worked for me yet in this pbem, but maybe - just maybe - I will get a break. (I haven't won an important battle since I captured Port Moresby, which was months ago in game-time and real time, and I am totally frustrated by my inability to cause AuTiger to make any mistakes.)

BTW - funny enough, AuTiger wrote to me with this turn that the "Sync Problem" gave him a scare because it showed a major air attack that didn't really happen. I guess that the Replay showed one of my attacks on Yenen going after Hengchow instead. (I've got several carrier-air fragments that I can't re-grow and neither can I disband them into other naval air units, so I am assuming that these fragments are contributing to whatever causes the Sync problems in our pbem.)

So in addition to setting up my Bushido Charge against Hengchow, I moved my Tojos, Tonys and Oscars to various other air bases in China and set them back to doing ground assaults on Chinese LCUs in the field. The Tojo and Tony units only have experience in the mid-60s, and so with the Game Engine they would be totally slaughtered against AuTiger's experienced pilots in his P-40s, despite the difference in the airplanes. It is taking me way too long to build up decent second-generation fighter units and I don't want to throw them away at this time. BTW - just to keep AuTiger "honest", I still have massive air attacks planned against Yenen and some Chinese LCUs in the northeast of China.

China aside, things were quiet everywhere else, except for another air attack on Adak by my Bettys at Kiska. I subsequently moved that Betty unit back to the Home Islands for R&R and moved a fresh Betty unit in its place. AuTiger is keeping his PT boats back in the eastern Aleutians, so my other air units didn't get any practice.

[Dive Bomber1]

I'm figuratively rubbing my jaw after it hit the floor while I reviewed AuTiger's Combat Report from the last turn side-by-side with my combat report. The Allied Combat Report showed four major air battles that didn't happen in my Combat Replay or Combat report. And what's worse from my p.o.v. is that the results were all in my favor in the Allied version! ( [;)] ) There were also changes in some of the land battles as far as the results went.

It looks as if a totally different "seed" was generated for AuTiger's Combat Replay than for mine. With his "seed", the weather effects were less and grounded air attacks on both sides flew. Also, land combat results were better for both sides - something that is typical of better weather. I've got to think that my old "un-favorite" aspect of the Game, "Advanced Weather" has a big part in the Sync Problem. Maybe that's why no one has been able to fix the Sync Problem - everyone has been trying to fix things related to fragments and so on and no one has tried to fix Advanced Weather.

Oh well, maybe AE will fix the problem. In the meanwhile, if I start any more pbems I will insist on having Advanced Weather set to "off".

[Dive Bomber1]

September 11, 1942 - The night phase was totally quiet; even my minesweepers didn't sweep any mines. I've been seeing this a lot recent - my map shows a green mine "dot" at one or more of my bases, but when I send MSWs they don't sweep anything. I've seen similar things where enemy sub icons show up at a base and stick around for weeks and weeks, but no matter what TFs I send to the base - ASW or otherwise - there is no contact. I guess that those are "ghost" mines and subs.

The weather cooperated a bit and the main action this turn was in China as expected. First off my regular bomber attacks on Yenen flew as planned, and then the Main Events took place.

First off was my attack on Hengchow. AuTiger had P-40s, Hurricanes, Mohawks and Spitfires on CAP. Despite them my planes got through, although my Zeros took heavy losses. The results on the ground weren't bad, and included a B-17, but weren't spectacular either. Never-the-less, and despite my air combat losses, this was still the best air attack that I launched in a long time.

Next was AuTiger's turn, and his heavy bombers flew en masse against Wuhan instead of Canton as I had expected. They hit the airfields hard, but all I had there were Nates, Oscars and Babs, so the losses were tolerable.

None of my other planned attacks flew thanks to weather, and so the end results were as is shown in the screen capture of the Air Losses Table below. I'll call it a Pyrrhic Victory because I did cause a number of losses to the Allied side, but obviously I can't keep up taking the losses that I took on a regular basis. So I reorganized my air units again, pulled back the decimated ones, and planned my next set of attacks - weather permitting.

I am also very interested in eventually seeing what the Allied Combat Report looks like for this turn. Will the Sync Bug bite again?

Otherwise there was nothing notable in the turn.

[Dive Bomber1]

September 12, 1942 - This turn can be summed up as:

- My mines didn't work
- My minesweepers didn't work
- AuTiger's mines worked
- AuTiger's minesweepers worked
- My troops ignored movement orders again
- My Air Patrols missed the largest Allied Combat TF on the face of the planet


The big news this turn was that AuTiger sent a mainly British bombardment TF to hit my base at the Andaman Islands. His TF missed my reasonably large minefield, but fortunately I had a Naval BF in place and two Allied DDs were hit hard by the shore guns. Although some Naval Patrol planes were destroyed on the ground and there were plenty of troop casualties, all-in-all the attack didn't do as much damage as it might have.

What ticks me off is that none of my many long-range Naval Patrol planes in the region spotted the TF, nor did my many submarines. Whenever I attempt to send out a bombardment TF AuTiger tends to spot it while it is still at home port, and then proceeds to blast it to bits from the air. I get tired of this sort of bad luck turn after turn, but I haven't come up with any way to get around it.

What did work this turn were my bomber raids in China that hit Yenen and Homan hard. AuTiger has pulled his planes back from his forward bases and is resting his air units out of my reach. I'm still busy trying to rebuild and train up my air units, so I'll just have to be satisfied with hit-and-run attacks instead of anything serious.

BTW - I've gotten tired of artillery attacks at Yenen so I ordered my troops to head back to my forward bases in Northeastern China. AuTiger will likely move his troops forward since he does that every time I pull back, but I'll just use the opportunity to train more fighters. I'll eventually move my better units from the Yenen siege to threaten the Chinese troops on the highway south of Homan and send them back to base. This is all pointless to a good extent, but it does give me the hope that AuTiger will someday finally make a mistake that I can jump on. In the meanwhile, at the other end of China, a good Division of mine has refused to move for the second turn in a row after "accepting" movement orders. I'm getting really tired of ground movement problems too. I sure wish the AE developers were advertising loudly how they are going to "fix" the issues like ground movement rather than how they are adding new complications to the Game.

[Dive Bomber1]

September 13, 1942 - This was a very ordinary turn where ordinary things happened:

- Minesweepers swept mines
- Subs laid more mines
- My bombers hit the airfields at Yenen
- The rest of my bombers didn't fly because of rain

AuTiger doesn't have to actively play - he just sits back and watches me lose 10 or so planes every turn due to Operational losses.

In any event - a safe and enjoyable New Year's Eve to All!