The Sun In My Eyes - EOS from the Allied Perspective

[Mistmatz]

ORIGINAL: goodboyladdie

...
I will be getting this baby in 60 days. She has no air group. Any ideas on how I should employ her? I am leaning toward putting USMC fighter units on board and using her to beef up CAP as my AAA sucks until at least 4/42.

I noticed you can load army fighters on CV's, so maybe you use it as ac ferry to Oz. On the other hand I believe you should be able to do island hopping as soon as you have AV support in Noumea nad the industrial town NE of it (which might be the BFs in Tasmania).

But the trip from WC to PH needs to be done by ship for the short legged planes at least.

Another option would be to use her as escort carrier for Oz convoys, to hopefully keep subs away.

[goodboyladdie]

I considered aircraft ferry, but it's a waste of her high speed and good durability at a time when I am lacking fast flight decks and radar equipped ships. I have the turn back. I'll try to have my turn completed and the AAR updated by Sunday evening, but as in all these things, it is dependent on the Mk1's agreement of the ambitious plan...

[goodboyladdie]

I will summarise turn 1 briefly and then post relevant screenshots as I labour through turn one...

Overnight the AK Hai Lee was sunk off Bataan by RO33. The next day Manila was hit by four heavy raids. One came from Carrier based aircraft. The Port was heavily damaged and many ships and submarines were destroyed/damaged. Enemy losses were slight. Clark was also bombed once and the airfield has been damaged. Many planes were destoyed on the ground.

Pearl Harbor was hit by three air raids launched from Japanese CVs. Torpedoes featured in the first raid (as did very heavy losses amongst the Kates). Many ships were damaged. A retaliatory raid against the KB was badly mauled by CAP and no hits were scored. Vals destroyed the AP President Johnson as she attempted to clear the area (31 hits!). A Japanese invasion force at Johnston Island was struck by the airgroup of the Big E. 2 AKs were hit and the CL Iwate took 6 bombs. SigInt has revealed an invasion force on it's way to Midway, but there is nothing that can be done. The vulnerability of the Fleet at PH has been exposed. The Fleet will evacuate as quickly as possible to the West Coast of CONUS where a measure of air cover can be provided.

Off Kota Bharu a Vildebeest scored a bomb hit on the BB Mutsu, but no damage was caused. The RAF could not prevent the invasion force landing. Invasions were also reported at Kuching, Brunei, Miri, Legaspi, Guam and Wake Island. Wake and Miri have fallen.

Edit: I forgot to mention Kavieng and Rabaul being invaded and Hollandia having a transport tf offshore...

[goodboyladdie]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

ORIGINAL: goodboyladdie

All the old supply sink units (Industrial Forts) are planning for Magadan in Siberia, so I'll have to sort them too.

You can't change the objective for static LCU's. Anyway, he made the ones that represent civilians target someplace remote on purpose so they won't fight as well.

My experience of them is that even when they are planning for the right place they do not fight very well. They do seem to take a lot of killing though as the Japs run out of bullets...

[goodboyladdie]

Just got time for two quickies. It looks like it was the Lady Lex's group that did the damage at Johnston.

[goodboyladdie]

The butcher's bill for day one at sea...

[ny59giants]

Why did you allow him to use so much LBA to hit the port of Manila to get so many subs damaged and/or sunk??

[Dixie]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

Wow, are those masts for sails or what?

The art is made for WPO, back then radio technology wasn't up to the levels of WW2 so ships often had big masts in order to improve radio range and the receiving ability of the ships.

[goodboyladdie]

ORIGINAL: ny59giants

Why did you allow him to use so much LBA to hit the port of Manila to get so many subs damaged and/or sunk??

It was a surprise attack! [:D]

This is our third start with this mod so we had to make sure that we did things a little differently to allow us both an element of surprise. He hit Manila hard, but only hit Singapore with a relatively feeble raid. It's swings and roundabouts. I will miss the subs, but I get plenty more...

[goodboyladdie]

Dixie has very kindly produced some proper scaled art for the Thai Cruisers. There is only one bitmap slot to represent both the CLs and the CA so at some point over the next couple of days I'll post both of the candidates for your comments before I choose which one to use.

Edit: I'll try to add them here and in the previous post to save having too many posts between the actual AAR parts of this "AAR"... Well that did not work - back to plan A.

[Mistmatz]

Best of luck for your restart!

Didn't notice Arlingtons speed and equipment. She could surely accompany any CV TF but then you might run into the coordination problem unless you form another TF with its own complement of DDs and maybe CL/CA.
But then I doubt you'll want to have a CV battle anytime soon without the respawn option. And for raiding purposes you dont actually need the few planes more...

If Japan is going for Hawaii (which I believe EOS is all about) you'll anyway have not so many options left how to use her by the time she arrives. [;)][8D]

[goodboyladdie]

This turn is going to take an age! I have spent 20 minutes on it already and have not even finished PH!

Here is the current picture. The KB and Baby KB are heading East (at the time of last sighting). I normally like to have my CVs operating together as soon as possible, but I suspect that Mike is going to make killing them his priority. The Enterprise tf will head South East at full speed to try to open up some distance between herself and the hunters. Both tfs have reactions set to 0, so let's hope Halsey does not re-interpret his orders. The Lex will continue towards Canton Island as planned. The AF is intact and the groups are in reasonable shape. Most losses last turn were fighter losses. I have sent PBYs to outlying islands, Canton and Pago Pago. A-20s on Naval Attack (range 16 in this mod) have gone to Canton Island. I think his AAA losses will put him off another Port strike or an AF strike, but you never know. I intend to get what I can out anyway - I can always bring it back...

Edit: just an update on the evacuation plan. I will wait a turn as I am not sure where his CVs are going and most ships have used all their op points reloading AA ammo so would only move one hex if they went now...

[goodboyladdie]

Vessels damaged at PH part one...

[goodboyladdie]

And part two...

[ny59giants]

I remember someone once sent his 2 CV TF SW and hit Truk at the beginning (stayed far enough from the islands and with minimal patrols was able to get away with it). [X(] 
That would have surprised Mike. [:D]

[goodboyladdie]

I thought about doing something like that but thought it would end up with my CVs running to safety in Australia. With PH likely to be under siege and damaged ships eating up supply, I am highly likely to have to try to fight a supply convoy through by February. I will need all my CVs present and correct (and the AF operable) to even have a chance of it succeeding so did not want to be in a position where I had to have two of my CVs with a lot of system damage after having had to steam all the way across the Pacific twice.

I am posting the Air Losses screen below. With the lowering of aircraft durabilty to make A2A better while at the same time increasing the power of AAA this mod effectively makes dive and torpedo bombing a suicide mission. Use of Fighter-Bombers and skip bombing will also create big losses. I think this is a big problem, but got tired of banging my head against the wall with Cid. It will be interesting to watch what happens as this AAR develops.

[goodboyladdie]

I have a Division on the way to Perth and 1st Australian Division and 1st Cavalry Division on the way to Darwin. Northern Australia is very difficult to defend in this mod as there are many little bases for the Jap to land at. Once units start to arrive I'll post a map of my planned deployments.

This is the PI and Borneo situation. I have Houston, Boise and Marblehead and her destroyers heading for Brunei to interfere with the landings there. I will have some RN/Dutch cruisers attempt to do the same at Kuching. I will bomb Kuching's AF to try to suppress Mike's ability to base aircraft there for as long as possible. I will have to evacuate the air units in Luzon. There is no way they can do anything against the armada assembled against them. I will get them out until Mike spreads his effort and then consaider bringing them back to interfere with his land invasion. I will try to get LCUs down to Legaspi to see if I can eject him cheaply, although from the number of tfs present I think Mike has learned his lesson there. I have fought him in one Iron Storm 2 game which got as far as 4/42 (given up to try RHS) and two previous starts for EOS. I will keep the B-17Ds in Davao for now as I would like to be able to hit his CVE KB if given the opportunity.

[goodboyladdie]

Damaged ships at Manila (part one)

[goodboyladdie]

Damaged ships at Manila (part two). There are others with system damage of 10 or less. Anything that can get out this turn will, even if they can only move one hex. Staying where they are is just asking to be sunk. Hong Kong Naval Forces will run for the Sulu Sea and various destinations beyond at best speed.

[ny59giants]

I quit my game with John 3rd due to more errors with Allied production (did want to start another game). I think I will stay with just 2 PBEMs and try to learn how to play the "Dark Side" until AE comes out.
 
Some observations:
The range of LBA has increased considerably while fighter's has not. Be careful with your ships as more than Nell/Betty can reach across the China Sea.
You have at least one B-17 E/F that carries 1000 lb AP bombs.  A B-17D upgrades to this, but in my game it did not get the 1000 lb AP (stayed with the 500lb GP).  I hope this was fixed.
I would start sending your damaged subs to Java as soon as float damage gets below 40 as the Allied damage control should allow them to make it.
I know that flak is your friend (at least on land) for the time being. Don't know about who is right or wrong on the increased effectiveness of flak.
 
I hope this is your last restart. [:D]