Forlorn Hopes: The Japanese Respond

[John 3rd]

This goes without saying but Dan was massively confused as to how the Americans got it handed to them. 
 
Could I ask that joint readers PLEASE not reveal my secrets for this fight in his AAR or through PM?  Really appreciate it because I will--probably--have to use it again.
 

[John 3rd]

OK.  Sent the turn on to Dan and raised CAP to 60%.  This should provide roughly 300+ fighters for defense of the Fleet.

EVERYTHING else in Japan has CAP ZERO and Bombers ordered to attack!

Let Dec 7th--once again--be a GLORIOUS day for Japan.

Am headed to bed since the boys will be up in 5 hours...

[Nemo121]

Ah, I think this is a mistake... He is likely to have a lot of fighters available for CAP ( assume that he had 80% CAP so he should have 480 fighters for fleet defence). You won a victory but not the sort of victory which robs him of the ability to defend himself.
 
By sending few fighters in you are likely to create a situation where you lose a lot of those fighters to very little gain.
 
IMO it might have been better to:
a) LRCAP the fleets from Japan ( that should have gotten 200 to 300 planes over the fleet ),
b) set your own CV-based fighters to 10% CAP - which should have gotten you close to 500 escorts.
 
That way you would have either:
a) brushed through his CAP easily if it was weak or ( and if it was weak the 200 to 300 land-based fighters would have provided more than enough CAP
b) ensured mutual destruction of both your fighters and his if he has 400+ fighters available.
 
That would be fine since the point is to destroy those fighters so that your LBA has a clear shot at the enemy ships. I fear that your mid-range choice --- ostensibly the safe option - means that you aren't capitalising on your victory and will suffer moderate losses without actually achieving anything decisive. Now is NOT the time for half-measures. You need decisive results and so this is the time that you need to use up your naval air units, even unto destruction, IMO.
 
Just my opinion obviously. Basically though I would have zeroed the CAP from the CVs and LRCAPed from Japan and relied on the CV fighters to break the enemy CAP. You have done the opposite. If he is weak what you have done will still work. If he is as strong as I fear then what I suggest would have been better. We'll see.

[bigbaba]

damnd nice work, john. you let us totaly forget who yamamoto was.[;)]

can you please post us a acreenshot of your top fighter pilots kill numbers? i realy like to see, what amazeing numbers your aces have after this slaughter!

banzai! banzai! banzai!

[munited18]

John,

Just another lurker here. Wanted to say that this AAR has been very enjoyable to read. However, I have learned two very important things while reading. Although I consider myself a decent tactical guy, I realize that playing in a PBEM throws that all out the window. Some of the things you have encountered AND done were so left field to me that I am not sure if I will EVER play a PBEM!!![:-]. Due, of course, to simply no desire to have my a$$ handed to me long distance! Secondly, I am now worried about playing as Japan even against a bumbling AI!!!! That economy is just plain scary and may be beyond the limits of my non-imaginative thinking capacity!
I, too, have discovered WITPtracker and believe that Floyd and Damian are stinking brilliant! Still, I am sure that the Japanese empire would be fighting with sea water and cardboard if I had to be in charge of all that production!

Anyway, good luck on the coming CV free for all and if you keep posting, I'll keep reading

[John 3rd]

Just got up after 5 hours of sleep and am consoling Dan on his defeat.  He--once again--is thinking about throwing in the towel.  We'll see what he does this morning.
 
I appreciate the advice and I concur with the thinking.  My brain chewed on this during the night I feel that I have made a mistake in ordering everything to attack on the 7th.  We'll have to see what Dan does and what the results bring.
 
Based on the 7th, I will form a new plan of action to exploit the situation.  Dan wrote and said that his CV TF reacted--without orders to do so--so he cannot replenish from his CVEs.  This has him highly worried and trying to decide what to do.  I've never worked with Allied CVEs so I don't know how that works.  I gave him my opinion as to his two choices and played up my LBA to, perhaps, get him to abandon the Support Ships in his Fleet.
 
It should be an interesting turn whenever I get it...
 
I will post a screenshot on my Aces in just a minute.
 
munited--you made me really laugh when I read your posting!  Welcome to the company of the AAR.  Feel free to jump in whenever you want.
 

[John 3rd]

As per the request:

[bigbaba]

wow, a nate pilot is your best ace. never thought that. put him out of this flying coffin. he alone is more worth then a entire nate squadran.[;)]

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: bigbaba

wow, a nate pilot is your best ace. never thought that. put him out of this flying coffin. he alone is more worth then a entire nate squadran.[;)]

Pretty sure the reason why this ace is flying a Nate is because he´s in a daitai that is somewhere flying training runs and the daitai was downgraded from Tojo or Tony to Nates during their training.

[John 3rd]

Or Dan could choose Option 3---Continue with the Invasion!

Ohhh My Lord...let us see how many dozen ships we can sink. Results for December 7, 1943:

Sunk
CVE Altamaha, Copahee, and Prince William
BB Oklahoma and North Carolina
SS Cisco
1 LCI
3 AK

Damaged
CV Franklin
CVE 5
BB Mississippi
CLAA Juneau
3-4 Dozen AK/AP

Luckily out of 12 Strikes flown only two Strikes hit the American CVs and it cost heavily. In exchange for 105 F6F and damage to CV Franklin (on Fire) and BB Mississippi I lose a total of 208 Zero (M5/M3a), 20 DB, and 49 TB. OUCH!

It is nasty but I took a quick look at some of the Daitai and they are way down on planes but NOT pilots. This was true to 8 Daitai that I glanced at so I'll post pilot losses in a while.

My leading Ace is in a Nate because he is training up his Sentai in China!

I'm late to see my Father so take a look at the screenshot...

[John 3rd]

Dan and I didn't get another turn in today due to two things:
 
1.  I had a long visit with my Father
2.  It took nearly 3 hours to do the turn!
 
I just sent it to my opponent and need to take some aspirin for the headache I now have.
 
I will summarize the moves:
1.  EVERY plane available within a 2,000 mile radius has been pulled into Japan.  I stripped Okinawa, Formosa, China, the Philippines, Marcus, and the Aleutians for tomorrow's attack.  I moved nearly 2,000 planes and that is not a lie!
 
2.  The Objectives for tomorrow are two:
a.  The invasion force landing at Hakodate will be attacked by everything I have (2,000+ planes).  The goal is to completely wipe out the American Fleet that is presently there.  It will be bloody as all bombers are set at 3,000 Ft and there are numerous TB/DB ready to go.  Each AF in Japan is crammed (but not over the rules limits) from Kyoto to Sapporo.  The Strike Aircraft are set to only attack Hakodate by limiting the range.  No CV attacks for tomorrow from LBA.
 
b.  The KB will attack the American CVs again.  I have replenished my Zeros and set CAP at 10%.  There should be 500 Zero and about 100 Attack Bombers assaulting the CVs.  The goal is to finish off the American Hellcats so my bombers can freely attack the day after.
 
Dan has taken the barren rock of Kunashiri just NE of Hokkaido and landed on Etorofu Jima.  Neither of these locations are/were defended.  In an effort to avoid a repeat of Tori Shima (aka Mos Eisley Space Port) I asked Dan to please use Etorofu Jima if he intends to replenish.  I think this is a reasonable request.  EJ has a Sz-3 Port and could be used.  I am thankful that AE corrects this issue for the future.
 
Since I hit 8 CVE during the Dec 7th turn (sank 3 of them and put Torps into 4 others) I bet he doesn't have that many CVE for replenishment anyway...
 
That is the plan.  What say you?
 
PS  I tallied up my fighter pilots losses from Dec 7th and it was marginally OK.  I lost a total of 209 Zero but lost only 169 pilots.  This is bad but better then losing ALL of them.
 

[Cap Mandrake]

ORIGINAL: John 3rd
...Dan has taken the barren rock of Kunashiri just NE of Hokkaido and landed on Etorofu Jima.  Neither of these locations are/were defended.  In an effort to avoid a repeat of Tori Shima (aka Mos Eisley Space Port) I asked Dan to please use Etorofu Jima if he intends to replenish.  I think this is a reasonable request.  EJ has a Sz-3 Port and could be used.  I am thankful that AE corrects this issue for the future.

John...You may be a bit too hard on Dan in this case, Kunashiri is not really a barren rock. It's 50 miles long, heavily forested and has plenty of fresh water. There would be innumerable leeward (???whatever you call the side away from the wind) anchorages and there is a reasonably sheletered anchorage at the Southern end. It would be a much more stable place to offload supplies than the Normandy beaches, for eg. Of course, it would still be a task to reload 16 in. shells.....

[John 3rd]

Hey Mandrake!  I am still waiting on Nate's turn so I can send you ours.
 
I don't have a problem with the image or the potential.  The PROBLEM I have is that either side could replenish their ENTIRE force in less then 24 hours.  That is a load of crap!  [:@][:@][:@]  If the time was scaled by the Port size then I would be better about this but I hate what can be done.
 
Dan wrote and said he would think about it.
 
I am starting a new Thread entitled 'Sleepless Nights' to see what insanity we, as players, have done while waiting for a turn or battle result.
 
 

[ny59giants]

It is kind of weird that I can only load 200 x the size of the port in supplies per day, but I can pull in the whole Allied fleet to a size 1 port and refuel/resupply every ship in 44.
And I still have time to get drunk and stumble back to the ship before it leaves port the next day. [:D] 

[John 3rd]

Thank You Michael---I rest my point!
 
 

[Cap Mandrake]

ORIGINAL: ny59giants

It is kind of weird that I can only load 200 x the size of the port in supplies per day, but I can pull in the whole Allied fleet to a size 1 port and refuel/resupply every ship in 44.
And I still have time to get drunk and stumble back to the ship before it leaves port the next day. [:D] 

And just where do you think you could get drunk on Kunashiri [:'(]

You could now because the Russians own it. [:)]

[John 3rd]

Wodka!

[John 3rd]

Running Dan's first turn of the morning...
 
BANZAI!

[John 3rd]

I cannot load bombs and Torps fast enough!

[John 3rd]

The wild American Offensive continues with the Americans desperately landing EVERYWHERE! The most important element is that the Americans haven't grabbed a single major Port/AF yet. Each day allows me to hammer the American Fleet and inflict what can only be described as grevious losses.

Today's totals are listed on the screenshot but I should note that there were 3 afternoon Japanese strikes of nearly 400 bombers that didn't connect due to only a single crippled ship absorbing the attack.

Tomorrow will feature more of the same but I expect to lose Sapporo unless my 200+ Transports can fly in enough troops to hold it against the American Landing. It does have Lvl-7 Forts. If I hold it then things will move along rapidly. If not, I will consolidate Hakodate and then move north.

Additonally, I have been able to rest my Fighters at Nagoya and Osaka for 4 days now and they will be ready to fight an Allied Fighter threat once a real AF does fall.

My first reinforcing Inf Div will land in 2 days with another a day behind that. This will give me 4 Inf Div at Hakodate to advance with.

The KB flew strikes again but is low on sorties so I will 'retire' towards Ominato which allows me to continue attacking AND replenish at a REAL port (Sz-6). Once it does replenish then it will seek out and engage the American CVs cowering about Sakalin Island!

BANZAI!