Hunting the AuTiger - an AAR (no Tigers please)

[Dive Bomber1]

September 14, 1942 – There was the usual night phase minesweeping going on this turn, but in addition one of my ASW TFs chased an Allied sub in the shipping lane between Paramushiro Jima and Kiska. My ships didn't catch the sub and it is still there. It appears that AuTiger has put that sub on patrol instead of on a mine-laying mission. BTW – my Supply FT got into and out of Adak without detection or problems this turn so my troops are stocked up nicely again.

The day phase brought the usual Japanese bomber attacks on Yenen along with a few odds-and-ends air-to-ground attacks in China. Bad weather continues to hinder most planned air attacks. I've been slowly pulling back many of my air units and rebuilding them behind the lines. This has the added advantage that it reduces the number of good targets for AuTiger to hit with his 4Es.

Speaking of 4Es, 144 Forts hit the oil fields and air fields at Sorong this turn. Things weren't messed up too badly, but unfortunately AuTiger's B-17 crews are fairly well experienced so only a couple of B-17s suffered Operational losses.

The ground war in China resumed in a minor manner with a pleasant result for me for a change. AuTiger's nuisance troops on the railroad to the northeast of Canton failed miserably in their bid to expel my troops from the hex. I had two good divisions and two good armoured regiments in place because the Division that Refused to Move for the past two turns finally moved into position just in time for this turn's attack. That result ought to make AuTiger reconsider his plans in the region.

AuTiger should also realize from this turn that I am pulling back my troops from the siege of Yenen. If he follows I'll just start to train my pilots on his troops in the field.

It also appears that AuTiger is planning to move once again in the South Pacific. Maybe he will go after Ndini. He can have the wretched place. I've had engineers in there for months and months and I still can't improve the airfield to level 1. Ndini turned out to be pretty much useless to me as an outpost.

[Dive Bomber1]

September 15, 1942 – There was minimal minesweeping during the night turn and minimal aerial bombing during the night turn due to lots of bad weather in China. Only my regular Yenen attack flew and kept the air fields there closed as my troops continued their pull back. Only a few laggards were left in Yenen to suffer from the Allied bombardment attack.

For the third or fourth day in a row AuTiger's mass of Chinese troops that are sitting on the crossroads outside of Kaifeng escaped air attacks thanks to rain. That's despite the air attacks being ordered from 8 different air bases. The only change in the situation in China was that AuTiger sent a second Chinese LCU to join the one that he already has attacking the trapped 34th Division.

In Burma AuTiger's Forts and Libs attacked the Brigade that I have on blocking duty just to the west of Myitkyina. I wonder if he intends to venture out across the river? He is still losing the occasional Dakota so he is obviously moving troops or supplies somewhere.

There was more air action than usual in the Aleutians as first one of my Betty units hit AuTiger's troops at Adak, then a mix of Blenheims, Mitchells and Marauders from Dutch Harbor hit my troops at Adak in turn. It was a good reminder that I will have to have a fair amount of LR CAP in place when I send my TFs to Adak.

[Dive Bomber1]

September 16, 1942 – Things were quiet as usual during the night phase. Some of my MSWs did their regular minesweeping, but there was no action from AuTiger – no minesweeping, no mine laying and no sub hunting. I suspect that AuTiger is preparing for something "bigger".

The day phase was similarly quiet as there were no Allied air attacks and little obvious activity from the Allied side. Some of that was likely due to generally bad weather across most of the map, but again I suspect that AuTiger is preparing for one or more serious attacks; likely in the South Pacific and in the Bay of Bengal area. For example, there are still a couple of transport TFs sitting at Luganville and the Allied air balance in that region continues to increase. In addition, the Allied air balance in the Bay of Bengal region has gone astronomical.

So I have been quietly shifting forces around to get better air coverage and air patrols in sparsely covered regions, and as well I have sent several cruiser TFs off into the rain in the hopes of being able to provide a couple of "surprises" to AuTiger. I have also been slowly pulling back my better air units out of China since there isn't a good reason any longer to keep on throwing massive air attacks everywhere.

I am continuing to use Sallys to attack the airfields at Yenen. That's no real loss since I am out of reserve Sallys, am not getting any more replacements, and won't get any Peggys for upgrades for a long time. But the rest of my bombers and my best fighter units are being pulled back for other uses. Never-the-less, I still have a lot of fighter units with poorly skilled pilots placed around China and all of them need a break in the weather so that they can train some more. Two things are certain; I will never start another pbem with PDU "off" and Advanced Weather "on".

In the land war in China the last of my units pulled back from the siege of Yenen and are heading back to bases for R&R. I'm also moving weaker units back from the front to cover bases at the coast which will allow me to move better units forward to the front line bases. I have LCUs that have been resting and rebuilding since I gave up on the siege of Changsha and they are now ready to move back to more critical positions in the line. Unless AuTiger does something uncharacteristically silly I won't likely use my troops in any more offensives in China, but by keeping them as a viable threat I can keep pressure on the Allied line.

Finally, in the Aleutians AuTiger didn't send his 2E bombers out against Adak this turn so my LR CAP got some air time but no practice. But since I've lost a number of airframes over the past couple of game months at Adak and because I now have some replacement units available, I finally sent my semi-frozen Zero Daitais back to Tokyo to get some fresh planes and a bit of a break. Never-the-less, they will be back in the cold skies of the Aleutians fairly soon.

[Dive Bomber1]

September 17, 1942 - Recently I have to keep on checking the date on the turn to make certain that I'm not just replaying an old turn. Not much is happening and what is happening is mostly a "broken record".

And as such this turn had no night action other than a bit of minesweeping by my MSWs, followed by lots and lots of rain during the day phase. My Sallys attacked the airfields of Yenen as usual and kept them fairly heavily damaged. Most of my other planned air attacks in China were rained out other than a couple of small air-to-ground attacks. The only air attacks by AuTiger were by Chinese light bombers on a couple of Japanese straggler units in the field.

Interestingly, almost no Allied CAP showed up anywhere over China or India when my daily recon flights went out. I'm guessing that AuTiger is resting up his planes for some big future attacks. He will also start to get P-38s soon, but since this is "PDU off" he won't be able to fill many US fighter units with them.

So I continued re-distributing my air units to give me better general air cover and air patrols, and as well I also moved more of my good fighters into position to support my upcoming activities in the Aleutians. Surprisingly, my three cruiser squadrons still haven't been spotted so maybe one of them will eventually be able to attempt a surprise. Of course, I'll likely still be hammered by coastal guns and LBA, but I can always hope for some good luck.

[Dive Bomber1]

September 18, 1942 – This was yet another fairly quiet turn. There was a minimum of minesweeping by my MSWs this turn, followed by the usual air attacks on the airfields at Yenen, along with a scattering of minor air-to-ground attacks elsewhere in China. My main air-to-ground attacks continue to be scrubbed on a regular basis as the Advanced Weather permanently eliminates all desertification in Northern China and Mongolia.

AuTiger is continuing with his now enhanced ground assaults on the 34th Division. Each turn his attacks eliminate a few more troops although he hasn't achieved a breakthrough in results as of yet. The other Chinese troops in the field are just sitting around and using up supplies since my planes refuse to fly against them. My other units that are far out in the bush continue to make mile-a-day progress so I essentially don't pay attention to them in order to avoid causing myself irritation. Someday they get out of the "bush", but I'm not certain that I will live long enough to see that happen.

In the Naval war it was another day of small miracles as all three of my cruiser TFs avoided detecting yet again. I'm sending them towards my patrolling subs in case AuTiger mistakes any detection for false submarine reports. (I've done that in other pbems, so maybe he will make that mistake too.) If the TFs can escape detection next turn they will finally be in position to attempt some naval bombardments. These are purely nuisance attacks, but it will wake up AuTiger a bit. BTW – the targets are Ceylon, Northern Australia and Eastern Australia, so that ought to keep AuTiger busy.

But the Big News this turn was the start of "Operation Dai-Fumeiyo" ("Operation Great Disgrace" ). I've started off four big empty transport TFs towards Kiska, as well as two big surface combat TFs and the new-and-improved KB. They will join the Yamato TF that has been sitting at Kiska for quite some time along with a DD TF that has been doing the occasional Fast Transport run into the East.

AuTiger has two big PT TFs at Umnak and appears to be building a third. This means that I will have to put together some CL/DD TFs and have a number of fighter units on 100 ft naval attacks in order to have a hope of stopping the PT TFs. I have also put a CL, DDs, APDs, PGs, PCs and MSWs in each of my transport TFs in the hopes that they can fight off a few of the PTs.

The real question will be – what serious naval forces does AuTiger have up North? My best case scenario will be if he has something similar to what he showed during my original invasion of the western Aleutians. If that is the case I should be able to pull off the recovery of my troops from Adak and also cause him some losses. On the other hand, if he has most of the US fleet up north than I will undoubtedly suffer some serious losses and the operation may fail.

BTW – I am only using 1500 capacity APs in my four transport TFs, so they ought to be able to pull out the troops in one turn and then sail away before anything bigger than a PT TF arrives, but one never knows with this Game. Also, a lot will depend upon the luck-of-the-draw with the Weather; if the weather grounds my planes and closes the flight decks of the KB while the Allied air forces get to fly I'll be hammered. But maybe, just maybe, I'll get lucky for a change. (How many times have you read that here? [8|] )

[Dive Bomber1]

September 19, 1942 – One of my training air units was ambushed again in China. I don't believe that this was just a "good guess" on AuTiger's part, nor was it a case of me sending the same attack day in and day out, because this air unit was one of the many that hasn't flown an attack for a week due to constant bad weather. Instead, I suspect this was because the @#$%^ Sync Problem continually allows AuTiger to see my intended attacks when they don't fly. [8|]

So what I have to do is to turn my attacks on and off each turn and move my planes even more often. Of course, with the @#$%^ Advanced Weather that means that I will lose even more planes and pilots to Operational losses, making it even more of a no win situation. I get very tired of this sort of thing and it reduces my enjoyment of the Game significantly.

My bad luck continued all over the map this turn. Despite severely bad weather in most locations AuTiger's patrol planes spotted two out of my three cruiser TFs. I've ordered the TFs to go in and do bombardments anyway, although AuTiger will undoubtedly pull his planes out of those coastal bases and reposition them to attack my TFs as they retire. I get sick and tired of this happening too.

And in the Aleutians AuTiger has built up his air power at Umnak and Dutch Harbor to huge levels, so my operation will obviously run into some serious problems. But I am going ahead with it anyway just to see what happens.

[Dive Bomber1]

September 20, 1942 – Well, things turned out pretty much as one would expect this turn, with one minor surprise thanks to a bit of thoughtlessness on my part. My three naval bombardment TFs struck as ordered, and in the case of the two that had been spotted, the results weren't very good.

First off Cairns was hit, there were no planes caught on the ground, and little damage was done. Afterwards 2E bombers from Cookstown hit my retiring ships but fortunately most of the bombs bounced off of the armor of the cruisers.

Then the next TF hit Derby by surprise so a number of Wirraways and Hudsons were caught on the ground and the general damage level achieved was reasonable. Since AuTiger wasn't expecting this attack there were no retaliatory air attacks on my retiring TF.

Finally my third TF hit Trincomalee where coastal guns fired back and damaged some of my cruisers (I had all three TFs stand off shore so that the DDs weren't involved in the bombardments.) Then instead of having LBA attacking my ships the Brit CVs attacked. I had totally forgotten about them. The torpedo bombers got some hits in and so I'll likely lose a few ships before the operation is done.

AuTiger also did one of his favourite little "tricks" of sending his US PTs out on a long range, deep ocean intercept, but they didn't find my TF. I hope that one of the changes to "AE" will eliminate this ploy from the Allied arsenal (as well as the ability to mass huge numbers of PTs in individual TFs).

As usual, my LBA in the Bay of Bengal didn't bother to attack any of the British ships, so I moved a number of planes to the Andaman Islands in the hopes of catching any ships that move too far away from Ceylon. In retrospect, I should have moved Zeros in to cover all three TFs, but I relied too much on the bad weather, which didn't end up grounding the Allied air units after all, likely because all of the Allied air units have very good experience.

Speaking of good experience, it turned out that AuTiger didn't "guess right" last turn in China when his P-40s wiped out one of my training attacks. He had simply moved the reconstituted AVG to Changsha and set them on 90% CAP. My trainee air unit was unfortunate enough to attack one hex away, and despite the bad weather the AVG attacked them in the neighbouring hex. I presume that the high experience of many of the AVG pilots helped with this.

In other news, AuTiger sent 145 B-17s against Sorong again, causing all sorts of damage. One of these days I'll move a bunch of Tonys and Tojos to a nearby base and attempt to ambush the 4Es.

In China AuTiger pulled back his remaining troops from the crossroads between Homan and Kaifeng, so I'm moving a bunch of troops back there to regain control of the main stretch of the railroad. Otherwise, things are quiet on the ground.

In the Aleutians my surface combat TFs arrived at Kiska this turn and so I reorganized them a bit to form three big BB-based TFs and two medium cruiser/destroyer TFs in the hopes of intercepting some of the hordes of PTs that AuTiger has at Umnak. The KB will arrive at Kiska next turn and the transports the following turn, so things are almost ready to go. I've also moved more fighters and bombers into the air bases in the region. The Game rewards "overkill" so I'm trying my best to achieve that here. Things are still quiet in the Eastern Aleutians as AuTiger awaits my next move.

[Dive Bomber1]

September 21, 1942 – We've entered the Synch Problem Twilight Zone now as AuTiger's Combat Replays and Combat Reports seem to be from entirely different games rather than from this one. However, since the Weather has also become uniformly and consistently bad all over the map (and I mean ALL OVER, not just in Southeast Asia) and a lot of the operations on both side are being shutdown anyway, so the Sci-Fi CRs aren't being as bothersome as they might otherwise be.

The main event during the night phase was the sinking from damage of one of my CAs from the Ceylon operation. I expected more attacks on my retiring ships during the day phase but they didn't come – AuTiger pulled back his ships. So my LBA didn't have any targets, although with thunderstorms everywhere it is highly unlikely that any of my planes would have taken off anyway. Even the recon planes on both sides were fairly quiet.

There were a couple of secondary air-to-ground attacks in China. AuTiger has increased his air presence in Changsha so in response I've spread out and reduced my air presence in the region, although I still have some air units on the peripheries that are set to try some attacks – weather permitting. My guess is that if AuTiger gets any decent weather he will attempt some strategic 4E attacks on my important bases in the region.

AuTiger is trying something different with his subs right now and a handful of them have shown up around Tori Shima. I've got some ASW forces in the region and so I sent them out to see if they can get lucky. I was also already increasing my LBA on Naval Patrol in the area, so some of them ought to get a few cracks at the subs – weather permitting. I am assuming that AuTiger is finally trying to cut my shipping lanes.

In the Aleutians the KB arrived at Kiska as expected. I then split it up into a "Slow" TF and a "Fast" TF, with the Fast TF set to follow the Slow TF. I am hoping that this improves the response of the KB to the Allied single CV TFs and also increases the chances of air strikes launching. But given the abysmal weather I'm not betting on anything working.

I've sent a Minesweeping TF off ahead to make certain that the route to Adak is either clear of mines or at least that any new and unexpected minefields are detected. If the MSW TF draws out any of AuTiger's PTs from Umnak than so much the better because it will give my planes on 100 foot Naval Attack a chance of attacking the PTs (weather permitting).

The Transport TFs will reach Kiska next turn, at which point I will refuel them and send everyone out. I now have a massive overkill of planes in multiple air bases in the region too, so this is my best shot to pull off a successful recovery of my LCUs on Adak.

What will I do afterwards? Well, if the operation is reasonably successful I will send the LCUs back to the Home Islands to recover and then try to pull back my units from the small secondary bases that are between Kiska and Adak. I'll try to keep Adak under a general threat just to keep AuTiger "honest" in the region. I want to keep Kiska and Attu under my control for now simply because once Winter arrives AuTiger's ability to hit my bases with heavy bombers will be tempered greatly. Eventually I'll pull out of the Aleutians altogether and focus my defensive line in the Kuriles where I have already been building up all of the bases.

And again, assuming that I can pull this off with minimal damage to the KB I am going to send them on the long, slow and quiet route to the Far East to see if I can catch the RN "sleeping" in the Bay of Bengal. Of course, if the Adak recovery operation is a big disaster, which is always a good chance in this game, I will then sit back and wait for AuTiger to finally start to take "chances" and mount his counterattack.

[Dive Bomber1]

September 22, 1942 – The night phase brought a novel encounter; an escort ship in one of my transport TFs that was sailing off of the north coast of Borneo came upon an Allied sub and hit it with a depth charge. So it does appear that AuTiger is going to try an early submarine blockade. I never send transport TFs out without escorts, so I hope to discourage this early action.

As expected, the day phase brought a 100 plane B-17/B-24 raid out of Changsha. The 4Es hit the airfields at Shanghai, catching some Sonias and Nates on the ground. The losses wouldn't be so bad except that a number of Sonia pilots were also killed and now need to be replaced with rookies again. I'm pretty dubious about the rationale behind losing pilots when planes are destroyed on the ground; it strikes me similar to the logic that has captains going down with their ship when a ship sinks while docked. Oh well, if I were sending 4E bombers out I would love this "quirk" of the Game too.

Unfortunately for me, although I had a couple of Tojo Daitais on CAP at the bases next to Shanghai neither one intervened in the attack. I'm not certain if that is a factor of the experience levels of my pilots or the fact that my Japanese Base Forces still have Listening Posts instead of Radar.

A much stranger thing occurred this turn; a Soviet IL-2 Shturmovik spotted one of my transport TFs in the Sea of Japan. I checked, but the Soviets are still not active and I have a very large margin of "safety" in my Manchurian troops to keep the Soviets from being activated. I didn't think that Soviet planes could be used for Naval Air Patrols until the Soviets were activated.

In other news, the Imperial Guards "A" unit finally got out of the jungle and reached the highway in Burma while continuing on its way to join its colleagues in Rangoon. I will be very interested to see if the 116th sub-unit will make it out of the mountains near Yunan; it is up to 44 elapsed miles now. Will it move a hex closer to Lashio or will it reset itself to "0" miles again?

Irritations aside, the big news this turn was that I started Operation "Dai-Baka" ("Big-Idiot") and sent all of my TFs out from Kiska towards Adak. In the various TFs I have: 10 BBs, 6 CAs, 11 CLs, 56 DDs, 6 CVs, 3 CVLs, 3 CS, lots of transports and auxiliary ships and several subs. On the land I have 5 A6M2 Daitais, 3 A6M3 Daitais, an Oscar Daitai, a Nell Sentai, a Betty Sentai and a Val Sentai, and lots of Patrol, Recon, and Floatplanes. Back in Paramushiro Jima I have more Air units in reserve.

According to the consistently inaccurate Japanese INTEL, AuTiger has two 9-ship PT boat TFs at Umnak and at least one ship of some sort in port at Dutch Harbor. He has Mohawks at Umnak, and has shown the presence of various 2E bombers and likely some 1E Divebombers at Dutch Harbor. Needless-to-say, the Weather Forecast calls for rain.

AuTiger undoubtedly knows that I am up to something. The question is – does he think that I am sending in another invasion force to Adak, or does he realize that I'm trying to pull back my troops? And will the difference matter to him at all? My minesweepers will reach Adak next turn.

[Dive Bomber1]

I don't know what happened before, but the map image is finally in the message above.

[Dive Bomber1]

September 23, 1942 - With any major operation you expect little things to go wrong, and "Operation A-ho!" ("Operation Moron") is receiving its share, although fortunately for now none of the mistakes have been terribly fatal.

The night phase started out fine as one of my ASW TFs attacked and hit a sub off of Tori Shima. But then I was puzzled that I received no minesweeping reports since my minesweeping TF should have reached Adak by now. So I was hoping that this meant that my MSWs had reached Adak but had not found any mines.

Yeah, sure. As my surface combat TFs started to arrive at Adak a number of DDs reported mines and one of my CLs hit one. (That's not how I want to sweep mines.) For whatever reason, my MSW TF never reached Adak, although the "green circle" last time indicated that it should have. But then who really knows how the TF movement routines work. And there was a good example of that this turn as a couple of my surface combat TFs didn't reach Adak either, despite being as fast as the three TFs that did.

And there was another movement goof that I still don't understand as only one of my CV TFs moved to station off of Adak while the other sat happily back at Kiska. It's a very good thing that AuTiger didn't have any Allied CVs prowling around or I would have been in trouble. The TF that stayed back at Kiska had been under orders to "follow" the other CV TF. I must not understand how to "massage" the "follow" order properly, so I gave up on it, turned it off, and ordered both TFs to meet at a new hex. (AuTiger will likely send at least some of his PTs to try a mid-ocean intercept a couple of hundred miles from his base.)

The final bit of odd luck came as AuTiger's Dauntless DBs flew from Umnak and attacked my TFs at Adak. Fortunately for me, they chose the Yamato to attack, and were shot up by flak without getting any hits. But at the end of the day only one Dauntless was destroyed and eleven were damaged from flak. I would have expected some operational losses for those DBs considering that the weather was bad and they were operating at the extremes of their range. But what I suspect happened was the "experience effect" again, in which well-experienced pilots get a break from all aspects of the Game, including bad weather.

So for the upcoming turn I set a number of A6M2 Daitais to LR CAP over Kiska in the hopes of discouraging more Allied bombers, in case they get another break in the weather. I've also got a number of A6M3 Daitais and an Oscar Daitai on 100 ft naval attack in case the PTs show up. But with the weather forecast calling for thunderstorms over the entire top third of the map I don't expect that my air units will get much of an opportunity to "play".

Elsewhere, AuTiger still has Chinese bombers hitting the 34th Division, so I am once again trying to ambush them. I've also moved a number of planes to try another airfield ambush in China. This hasn't worked in the past, but I've got no good reason not to try it again. There are probably some factors of which I am ignorant that are keeping me from being successful, but maybe if I try enough things and keep an eye out on other posts in the Forum (many thanks to J. W. for the clarification on the multiple fighter sweeps wearing down CAP!) I will eventually learn what I need to do to be successful.

[Dive Bomber1]

September 24, 1942 - Well, the Sync Bug has taken hold in a very big way in this game. AuTiger sent the Allied Combat Report for September 23 along with this turn and it was absolutely astounding how different it was from what I reported last turn. Instead of an ineffectual attack by some Dauntless DBs the Allies mounted multiple massive and effective low-level 2E anti-shipping attacks on all of my TFs in the Aleutians, even those that were still back at Kiska. (I didn't think that Kiska was even in range of the 2Es at Dutch Harbor.) If the Allied CR had been correct my operation would have been a massive failure. As it is, the "Japanese reality" is significantly different.

This turn started out similar to the last. More TFs arrived at Adak and found the Allied minefields. A DD and yet another CL each "swept" a mine the "hard way". Then my laggard MSWs finally arrived to clean up after the fact. Never-the-less, things were generally in good shape and all four recovery TFs were in place. So I proceeded to give loading orders and reset their return paths to Paramushiro Jima via Attu in order to keep them away from any Allied attacks from the south.

Having been "warned" by the Allied CR of the danger of wave-top Allied 2E attacks I reset to TF LR CAP the fighter units that had been set to anti-PT duty. AuTiger didn't send in his PTs again (maybe he is waiting for the rest of the Northern US Fleet to arrive) so I am taking advantage of this to prepare my retirement from the field. As I had hoped, since my TFs only had 1500 capacity APs and some APDs in them they filled up almost completely upon the initial orders, so there is a very good chance that they will get away.

I will be very interested to see what the Allied CRs look like next turn. Also, I wonder if AuTiger will bother to try to intercept my TFs or just let me pull back? In any event, this has taught me an awful lot about operations in the Aleutians.

In other action, many of my "sneak" air attacks in China flew to my great surprise. Of course, their effect was minimal, but it was satisfying to catch some Chinese bombers on the ground and also in the air. I immediately pulled back my air units in anticipation of the return of the AVG and the 4Es to the front lines. The only major Allied air assault this turn was 146 Forts that hit Dili. I had moved a recon unit there from Koepang, and I guess that AuTiger figured that I was trying to set up some sort of attack. So my losses were minor and AuTiger enjoyed a few Operational losses to his big bombers.

In the ground war in China AuTiger surprised me by starting to pull back his troops from the railroad hex that is two hexes to the northeast of Canton. I guess he got tired of seeing his troops use up supplies for no good reason. Maybe he will allow me to recover my currently-trapped armored unit.

[Dive Bomber1]

September 25, 1942 - When I received this turn from AuTiger he happened to ask the "Question from Beyond the Grave" - "We are both using 1.806, aren't we?"

Oh goshdarngollygeewizbatman…

AuTiger never mentioned that he had upgraded, and because I am playing three pbems that all started at 1.804, I didn't want to upgrade.

So I sent out a couple of panic emails to my other pbem opponents asking them if they were still playing 1.804 and if they minded a lot upgrading to 1.806.

Since my other opponents are on the other side of the Planet, it wasn't likely that I would be getting responses quickly, so I decided upon "Executive Action" and upgraded anyway.

So as long as my other opponents don't have any real hard problems with this (and as long as AuTiger didn't "backgrade" back to 1.804 while I was doing the turn) we ought to be as okay as possible under these circumstances.

In any event, the turn itself:

My minesweepers swept more mines at Adak, and some of my escorts near Tori Shima chased more subs, but otherwise things were quite over night at Adak. Then as the new day dawned my patrols spotted AuTiger's PTs at Adak. However my transports were not only already sailing off into the West but were also fortuitously in the same hex as my CVs, in addition to the various air groups that I had flying LR CAP over them. Some Dauntlesses and Kittyhawks flew in to try to attack my BBs but my LR CAP took care of them nicely. It is such a good feeling to see my air units actually successful for a change.

My secondary fighters then made a couple of strafing attacks on the US PTs, shooting up a number of them. But there wasn't any surface action until the end of the turn at which point the PTs finally encountered a couple of my big surface combat TFs. The first time the PTs achieved surprise and put a torpedo into a DD, but otherwise my ships shot up the PTs very well and sank a number of them.

Most importantly, all of my troops were pulled off of Adak. All I have to do now is to get them home safely. So I ordered my surface combat TFs back to Kiska and have my CV TFs heading to Attu along with the transport TFs. I ordered fresh air units to provide LR CAP over the retiring transport TFs and set most of the rest to regular CAP over my bases, other than one inexperienced A6M3 unit that I left set to do PT strafing if AuTiger decides to send his remaining PTs after my TFs.

So unless AuTiger risks trying to surprise me with his CVs (and he will have to get past all of my patrol planes, lots of Bettys, Nells and land-based Zeros, and the KB) I ought to finally get my forces back to where I can use them. That's three divisions and a brigade that will soon be in a position to cause headaches for the Allies if I can get them home safely.

AuTiger surprised me a bit in China this turn because he sent his Chinese bombers without escorts out to attack my LCUs in China again despite my ambushes last turn. So I moved more planes back into position and will try more ambushes next turn, as well as more airfield attacks.

[USSAmerica]

Good work with your rescue mission, Dive.  It was well coordinated.  [8D]
 
As for the snych bug you two have started seeing, matching up patch versions is a very good idea.  I have no first hand experience with this, but I've read lots of times that PT strafing can also cause the synch bug, as can the Japanese player using the Escape key during the combat resolution.  Just something to consider.  After a turn or two with matching patch levels, if you still are seeing the bug, you will want to try Pompak's patented method to recover from it.  It's posted in several places, but in the Must Read Threads thread for sure.  [:)]

[Dive Bomber1]

September 26, 1942 - After all of the "drama" of the past few turns things started to settle back down into a routine. My ASW forces chased some Allied subs off of Tori Shima again during the night phase, and my retiring forces continued sailing undisturbed back towards Japan.

Things appear to be under control in the Aleutians. Although a couple of Marauders scouted my retiring TFs no planes attempted to get through the CAP over my TFs and bases. So my surface combat TFs reached Kiska undisturbed, one of my air combat TFs reached and refueled at Attu, and the other continued to accompany the transport TFs. As I expected, the survivors of AuTiger's PT TFs are now regrouped back at Umnak, which just reached a level 6 air field.

I've now reset the destinations of my transport TFs to Paramushiro Jima instead of Attu, with "home" bases now set to Wakkanai so that they will continue along the northern route towards the Home Islands. I cancelled the LR CAP orders for my fighter groups in the region and have them now on simple CAP in order to rest them up while still keeping the Allied bombers away. I've also reset my Bettys and Nells to long-range air patrols; right now I would much rather detect any lurking enemy TFs than attempt to attack them outside of escort distance.

I created a large Fast Transport TF out of my two smaller cruiser/destroyer anti-PT TFs and have ordered it to go off into the stormy night to pick up the NLF unit that I have on the island just to the south-east of Adak. I intend to pull back all of my forces to Kiska and Attu and to allow AuTiger to try to retake the empty islands around Adak if he wants to spend the effort.

I am also planning to pull out of some of the south-central Pacific atolls that I grabbed early on in this pbem. AuTiger has ignored my move. This hasn't really affected his ability to move forces between Hawaii and New Caledonia and I can't supply nor build them those bases effectively, so I may as well pull back while AuTiger is still planning assaults elsewhere and is also waiting for his Fall 1942 improvements. The Allies get P-38s as of October, so AuTiger will undoubtedly attempt more long-range air attacks once the Lightenings arrive in numbers. Hopefully what it will really mean will be that AuTiger's air units will start to "enjoy" greater Operational losses.

As usual, there was some air activity in China this turn. A number of my bombers flew and hit the airfields at Yenen again, just to remind AuTiger that I can still do it. And a relatively inexperienced Zero Daitai got some well-needed practice when it ambushed a Chinese bomber unit over the 34th Division. But AuTiger has been sending Recon flights over south-western China again, and thus I expect that the 4Es can't be far behind, so I've moved my planes once again.

Never-the-less, most of my air units are now settling into air bases far away from the Front Lines. My fighter units are settling into backwater air bases where they can train in peace and quiet, and my bombers are moving into various naval air bases where they can watch out for and attack Allied subs. My days of "adventuring" are pretty much over now, and the onus is on AuTiger to make this particular pbem "interesting" again.

[Dive Bomber1]

ORIGINAL: USS America

Good work with your rescue mission, Dive.  It was well coordinated.  [8D]

As for the snych bug you two have started seeing, matching up patch versions is a very good idea.  I have no first hand experience with this, but I've read lots of times that PT strafing can also cause the synch bug, as can the Japanese player using the Escape key during the combat resolution.  Just something to consider.  After a turn or two with matching patch levels, if you still are seeing the bug, you will want to try Pompak's patented method to recover from it.  It's posted in several places, but in the Must Read Threads thread for sure.  [:)]

It appears that the worst, if not all, of our Synch problems have cleared up now that I moved to v1.806, and that was despite a lot of strafing of PTs. So hopefully we are past that issue.

The retrieval of the troops from Adak used the same sort of "massive overkill" approach that I used successfully to take Port Moresby, way-back-when. This game "rewards" careful planning and preparation, and "punishes" seat-of-the-pants blitzs, as my misbegotten raids into India and the Aleutians both showed.

So now that I've frittered away so many game-months on unsuccessful pushes in the Bay of Bengal, China, the South Pacific and the Aleutians, I am going to sit back and wait to see if AuTiger has learned how to avoid my mistakes, or instead has learned how to "make" my mistakes. [:D] [;)]

Thanks for the comments.

[Dive Bomber1]

September 27, 1942 - There was a pleasantly quiet night phase, followed by a surprising number of Allied air patrols over the Western Aleutians. It turns out that AuTiger moved a Catalina squadron into Adak immediately after he was certain that my troops were gone. While I was primarily interested in extricating my troops from Adak, I haven't lost all "interest" in the place. Therefore I ordered fighters, bombers and a bombardment TF off to hit Adak again next turn.

My Fast Transport got the NLF out of the little island next to Adak safely this turn. I'll use it to pull the NLFs out of the other two bases to the west of Adak. In the meanwhile I am leaving two battle groups at Kiska and the "fast" CV TF at Attu, just to keep an eye on AuTiger. I've got the "slow" CV TF on its way back to Paramushiro Jima along with the four troop TFs. This way, if AuTiger does happen to try to intercept my troop convoys there will be something there to "discourage" him.

In the meanwhile I am starting to pull out some of the extra air units out of the Western Aleutians and put them back into the Kuriles. The air bases at Kiska and Attu are overloaded and I don't need so many air units there now that the main operation has been successful. Also, having those air units back in the Kuriles and in the Mid-Pacific bases will give me notice of any Allied "silliness" in the region. AuTiger hasn't shown too much of a tendency to do risky things in this pbem, but he did in our earlier matches and one never knows how he will act as he gets more advanced forces.

One big benefit of getting rid of the Synch problem is that AuTiger no longer has a "free look" at my planned air attacks. Therefore, this turn he "guessed wrong" in China when he tried to surprise my bombers with massed Allied fighters. AuTiger moved his crack fighter units to Yenen and the bases to the west of it, but my forces attacked Homan instead. Now that AuTiger is getting aggressive in the air over China again I pulled even more of my air units back.

AuTiger has now pulled all of his Chinese LCUs off of the railways in China. We have a fairly balanced stand-off there now. Never-the-less, I am still looking to see if I can't find some way to get the 34th Division free from its trap. I am still ticked off that I had it effectively free a couple of game-months ago and the @#$%^ AI sent the unit south into a trap instead of east to freedom.

[Dive Bomber1]

September 28, 1942 – The night phase was quiet with only one half-hearted sub chase from a few of my DDs on ASW duty. For whatever reason my bombardment TF didn't bother to go over to Adak and stayed at Kiska instead. The Allied PTs are all gone and I set Zeros on LR CAP over the TF so any bombers from Dutch Harbor ought to be ignored, but the ships stayed in port anyway. Ah, the wonders of the "unknown" inner workings of WitP.

At least my planes flew against the air fields at Adak during the day phase. They caused some damage but didn't catch any of the Catalinas on the ground. My Fast Transport TF also got back to Kiska unscathed, so there is another small operation that worked well. My main transport TFs are still sailing along undisturbed towards the Home Islands so all is going as well as I could hope in that part of the World at this time.

China was fairly quiet this turn other than a B-17 attack on the resources at Chengting. I guess that now that I'm no longer planning to try to take any of the Chinese bases I ought to start to bomb the Chinese Industries too. But right now that's too risky because AuTiger has hundreds and hundreds of fighters sitting at Yenen and Chungking in the hopes that some of my bombers try to attack.

What I am trying next turn is a couple more ambushes, including ambushes over some of my troops that just moved back to the hex halfway between Wuhan and Changsha. I am trying JW's recommendation of having the planes fly in from multiple bases instead of a single big base. Given the way that the weather is in China, that may not work so well, but it is worth a bit of a try. I've also reset some nuisance air raids in the Indian border region.

However, most of my current effort is focused upon redistributing my forces again. So I'm continuing to spread LBA all over the map and also establishing better in-depth defenses. The question will be – how long will AuTiger give me to prepare for his counter-offensives?

[Dive Bomber1]

September 29, 1942 – My bombardment TF sailed off and hit Adak this evening, causing a nice amount of damage and even catching some Catalinas on the ground (or water, whichever the case). That will help keep AuTiger from taking things for granted in the region. Now I can set up the remaining withdrawals from the small and indefensible forward bases.

AuTiger's forces were also busy during the night phase, as for the first time in a long time an Allied ASW TF hunted down one of my subs off of New Caledonia and whacked it with a couple of depth charges. So there goes another sub back for R&O.

More significantly, AuTiger finally sent a big bomber attack against Kendari. 139 B-17s hit the air fields and port at the base. I had a reasonably good Daitai of Oscars on CAP, and they did shoot down seven Forts as well as damaging a number more, but the attack wasn't blunted. Thus there was a lot of damage, including some sunken ships and destroyed planes on the ground. As usual, a number of my pilots were "asleep in their planes" as the bombs fell and so were lost in the attack.

There was also a big 2E attack on the air fields at Lautem this turn. AuTiger certainly has been working hard to destroy all of my air base in the region. I wonder if he intends to start his re-conquest in the DEI?

In somewhat of a surprise, a number of Liberators flew against Tavoy from India but they didn't end up hitting anything, so I have no idea of what was their target. It's been a long time since any of the Allied 4Es have "missed" on an attack. There were also a few more hit-and-run air raids by my forces in China, but nothing much was accomplished. AuTiger has now massed a huge number of planes in Chungking, so I pulled back the rest of my combat air units. I can't compete so there is no point in throwing away more planes for no reason.

Instead I am continuing to increase the spread of my LBA on Naval Attack across the Pacific. This way, when AuTiger finally moves I won't have to lose enormous numbers of planes to Operational Damage just to get them into position. As a "bonus", this allows me to track and attack Allied subs more effectively.

[Dive Bomber1]

September 30, 1942 – This was a really quiet turn. Actually, I hope that we have more of these before AuTiger really gets going.

The night phase had another one of those ironies of this game – a DD escort in one of my minelaying TFs hit an enemy mine at Rangoon this turn. Of course, given the often incomprehensible AI routines in this Game, the entire TF turned back without laying any mines. So I've ordered them back to Rangoon and sent the badly damaged DD to Tavoy.

The day phase was even quieter. I had Recon flights going all over China and the only places that had any CAP were Yenen and Chungking. AuTiger is obviously planning something big in China – he has around 235 fighters in Chungking, along with lots of bombers and auxiliary planes. He also has a lot of auxiliary planes in north-eastern India, so I suspect that he is using them to fly supplies into China in order to support his operations.

There were only a couple of small Allied air attacks this turn. A few Chinese bombers flew against my troops that are on the road between Wuhan and Changsha, and a few 2E bombers, accompanied by a ton of P-40Bs, flew against Lautem. AuTiger lost several P-40Bs thanks to Operational losses. That ought to teach him what I've been going through. [;)]

Otherwise it was another turn in which I continued to reorganize my forces. The final third of the Imperial Guards Division finally made it to Rangoon after all these months, but the three pieces are all at different Upgrade levels, so I can't rejoin them. I'll just leave them there and see if they ever do reach the same Upgrade levels. [8|]

Another of my small units that was stuck in the "bush" in south-western China also finally got out and reached Nanning this turn. There are still several LCUs that are crawling along at a mile-per-day, but they are getting close to being back where they can recover. [&o]

So "quiet" is a good thing for me right now. I appreciate the opportunity to move my forces into a more balanced distribution. During the height of my Adak Recovery Operation almost every area outside of the Kuriles and Western Aleutians was stripped bare of forces. It's a good thing that AuTiger didn't get "ambitious" then or I would have been in big trouble.