Forlorn Hopes: The Japanese Respond

[John 3rd]

I generally avoid the Thread because it provides me headaches!

Glad you are well and your campaign continues with Mynok.

[John 3rd]

For those who read both AARs I need to ask if my Operational Security has been breached?  For NO REASON Dan suddenly decided to start bombing Manchuria.  He could have done this at ANY time over the last 6-8 months but hasn't until now.  IS there a reason?
 

[vettim89]

ORIGINAL: John 3rd

For those who read both AARs I need to ask if my Operational Security has been breached?  For NO REASON Dan suddenly decided to start bombing Manchuria.  He could have done this at ANY time over the last 6-8 months but hasn't until now.  IS there a reason?

I read both AAR's (therefore I tend to not post in either). As far as I can tell, I think the Manchuria operations are just an extension of Dan's ever widening economic war against you

[FeurerKrieg]

Given all the Franks in the Home Islands now, can you blame him for looking for targets elsewhere? I'd say his bombing Manchuria is probably a good thing (for you) since it means he can't or doesn't want to continue bombing Japan.

[Heeward]

I have to agree with vettim89 and Feurer Krieg - by operating successful cap over some bases which increases aborts / reduces bombing effectiveness and inflicting unsustainable losses he has to try to hit your oil, resource, industry centers where your fighters are not.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

[John 3rd]

I am sure you guys are right.  It was simply so spooky that this occurred.  He has been taking real losses and I am sure he is trying to find some sort of answer.

I've now gone a period of 8 out of 10 days where I have shot down more of his planes then mine.  It isn't much but I am happy to do something.  Just reclaimed Sendai and will advance my fighter line north over the next few weeks.

Am getting ready to do my August 1st Industrial Report but want to notate that shutting off those aircraft factories has already shown a real difference.  I am 3-4 cities where supply is over or right at 20,000!  That is a VERY good thing!

[John 3rd]

August 1, 1944
Victory Points and Economic Summary

Victory Points:

Score
Japan 55,168 (Up 942 Points)
Allies 60,163 (Up 5,934 Points)

Strategic Losses 9,046 (Up 2,202)

For the fifth month in a row I GAIN victory points. It seems positive to me.

Fully 33% of Dan’s point gain comes in the area of strategic losses. This has been slowed with my resurgent aerial battle over Japan and now Manchuria.

Malaya and Indochina will be over within 1-2 weeks. This will give Dan a crapload of victory points with Singapore, Saigon, and Bangkok due to fall. Only positive thing about this is that I pulled out 600,000 troops and it didn’t happen FOUR months ago. Will never understand why he hesitated.

Noumea fell and the Allies slowly begin moving against other empty SE Pacific bases.

The Allied army on Wake simply sits there as I ran in several AK with supplies as well as have 100+ bomber and torpedo bombers hitting the Americans every day.

Unlike the wild month of June, the Japanese were pretty passive as the Fleet (ALL of it) sits in/at Soerabaja upgrading and repairing. I have—literally upgraded the entire Fleet from CVs down to DDs. The work should be done about August 10th and then the Fleet will sail to its final destiny…

Ships Sunk
Japan 951—9,441 VP (up 477)—I lost 66 ships during July. Considering the heavy fighting in Malaya and my withdrawal from Saigon/Singapore these numbers are no surprise. These were my losses: 30 AP, 17 AK, 1 AR, 5 MSW, 3 PG, 3 AG, 1 MLE, 1 AV and I-154.

The lack of Japanese warships lost is a real indicator of my Fleet sitting in Java.

Major Japanese Vessels Sunk to Date---CV Junyo, Hiyo, Hiryu, and Katsuragi, BB Fuso, Yamashiro, Mutsu, Nagato, Musashi, and Yamato, BC Kirishima, Haruna, and Kongo, 6 CA , 14 CL, 107 DD, and 47 SS.

Allies 1,326---14,683 VP (up 165)---Dan also lost only 19 ships in June. Exact Losses are: 11 AK, 1 PT, CL Newfoundland, 3 DD, and 3 SS (Porpoise, Tautog, and Sea Horse)

Major Allied Vessels Sunk---CVs Enterprise, Lexington, Hornet, Wasp and Intrepid, CVL Langley, 6 CVE, BBs Colorado, West Virginia, Idaho, Tennessee, Arizona, Prince of Wales, Alabama, Oklahoma, North Carolina, Mississippi, BC Renown, 15 CA, 10 CL, 102 DD, and 66 SS.

ASW Attacks for July:
ASW Task Force: 7 (down 22)
ASW Land-Based Air: 5 (down 14)

These are attacks that scored damage on an Allied SS and they dropped due to a number of SS being pulled out of the theatre for a 2-3 week period of time. Only in the last days of July did the action heat-up again.

Manchukuo Garrison---8,602---UP 103---(8,000 Needed)
Political Points---1,845

Units Transferred:
Pulled 8th Infantry Division and 4th Ind Brigade from Pusan for 4th Fleet. They have business assigned to them (VERY secret).

Converted 10 AA units from Manchuria and China to 4th Fleet and deployed them to Japan.

Industrial Report
Supply 1,228,864--Down 197,064
Fuel 1,448,078—Up 186,881
Manpower 744 (1,228,864)—Down 15,573
Heavy Industry 14,003 (274,774)—HI Down 300 and surplus DOWN 2,962
Resources 13,273 (1,559,330)—Lost 1,143 Resource Centers---Strategic Bombing…
Oil 1,888 (322,606)—Down 375 Oil Centers

My supply problem appears to be lessoning thanks to Michael and few other people’s help. It will take time for the Home Islands to gain some decent stockpiles of supply. Considering I have two large Convoys unloading 400,000 Oil and 150,000 Resources right now, these numbers will problem go up in the coming month.

With the CAP reclaiming portions of Japan I HOPE to see improvements.

HI pretty well held steady for the month with only a slight decline. Several Naval Shipyards, Merchant Shipyards, and Repair Yards were partially closed starting in June. In July I added vehicles and aircraft repair to partially closed down.

Shipyards
Naval 1,241 (71)—Lost 12 yard points to Strategic Bombing.
Merchant 981 (8,710)—Stockpile coming down.
Repair 1,477—Up 2 but the only ones being used are Shanghai, Cebu, Soerabaja, and Manila.

Carriers
Kasagi (22 Days--Normal)
Aso (63 Days--Accel)
Ikoma (125 Days)
Ibuki (21 Days--Accel)

CL Sakawa (20 Days—Accel)

8 DD will be produced within the next two weeks.

Weapons
Armament 785 (6,909)-Increase of 7 to the industry.
Vehicles 179 (8,278)

Armament plants increasing in Manchuria and Korea. Had another mass influx of new units. Some came in at cadre strength but the rest are solid. I have a slight stockpile growing.

Vehicles dropped by 10,000! I got a new Armored Division at full strength and have 2 Armored Divisions in Java that are now at about 75%.

Aircraft
Engines 2,065 (up 51)
Assembly 1,711+(41-Rd)

My engines are busy shifting over from Kawasaki to Naka and Mitsu.

Assembly dropped 58 and Research plummeted due to MISTER Frank, Peggy, and Randy starting production last month. Last month I made the mistake of shifting a number of factories into researching J7W Shinden so Research will start to rise again over time.

Engine Production
Mitsubishi 638(142)—Need 866—620 in Pool
Nakajima 1,347(244)—Need 1,308---1,488 in Pool
Kawasaki 000---Need 4---130 in Pool
Aichi 80---Need 90---142 in Pool

Big changes in the engine area with those new planes coming online. SHOULD have enough stockpiled as Nakajima expand. I’ve shutdown enough bomber plants that the deficit in Mitsubishi SHOULD improve fairly quickly.

Plane Production
Fighters Planes/Month (in Pool)
A6M2 0 (138)
A6M3 0 (0)
A6M3a 0 (174)
Oscar 0 (0)
Oscar IIa 0 (11)
Tojo 0 (90)
Tony 0 (40)
Jack 98 (149)
A6M5c 31 (239)
A6M5 113 (564)
Oscar III 0 (24)
Ki-61 Tony 4 (30)
N1K1 George 74 (73)
Frank 1a 610 (24)
Frank 1c 0-Rd (12/44)
A6M8 0-Rd (06/45)
J7W-Shinden 3-Rd (08/45)

Naval fighters stay in pretty good shape because I am producing three main models; however, I shifted one plant of each to research Shinden. This occurred before the supply crisis and I regret that choice.

The Army side finally fixes itself with Frank in mass production! I am literally converting a Sentai to Franks every other day! They are providing me a fighting chance…

Bombers
Betty 0 (171)
Betty 2 0 (194)
Frances 105 (28)
Sally 0 (87)
Helen 0 (230)
Lily 0 (54)
Nick-a 0 (25)
Nick-b 0 (0)
Val 0 (380)
Kate 0 (146)
Judy 90 (317)
Jill 0 (321)
Grace 127 (68) Started production last month!
Randy 40 (1) Started production last month.
Peggy 178 (27) 3 months early.
Betty 2e 38-Rd (10/44)

My Bombers look excellent as Peggy, Grace, and Randy enter service. I have shutdown over50% of Judy, Frances, and Peggy production to help with HI and supply.

Recon/Float
Emily 26 (1)
Alf 16 (32)
Pete 0 (99)
Pete A 0 (7)
Rufe 11 (100)
Glen 0 (27)
Dinah 0 (0)
Irving-R 0 (50)
Irving-S 23 (14)
Jake 12 (17)
Babs 0 (0)
Dinah-3 52 (12)
C6N Myrt 24 (106)

Stopped Alf, Jake, and Rufe production.

Transports
Tina 16 (2)
Sally 0 (0)
Topsy 28 (10)
Mavis-L 0 (0)
Tabby 0 (14)

Transports had been doing pretty well until I really started using them from Marcus to Wake and from Singapore to Palembang.

[John 3rd]

Naval Note:

I am bringing CV Kasagi, CVL Ibuki, CL Sakawa, and 8 DD in on the same day.  This ready-built CTF will then try to shot down to Nagasaki and then points south.  This will be a nice shot in the arm for the Kaigun.

Once they are completed, I will shut down 50% of naval shipyards and just mainly focus on the remaining warship construction without drawing away too many HI points.

[n01487477]

John-
good to see you are getting a grip on the supply situation.
(I'm looking at BB1.5 so these Q's might not be applicable)

1. Ki-46-III Dinah(44/10) is a fighter similar but not quite as good as the Frank, but more importantly there are 3 groups to Build (60 TBO)... Are you planning to produce some?
2. What made you chose the Peggy(0 TBO) over the Betty 2e(75 TBO + Okha) to accelerate and invest in ? (just curious)
3. How much of those 1888 Oil cntrs are Palembang ? I am assuming about 700 ... so you will have about 1200 producing * 6 = 7200 HI sustainable. Not enough to support Japan long-term...but makes Japan viable now for at least 90days and maybe overall as much as 200-300 days total...

What I'd like to know is what Oil Centres are available to Japan, what Oil you have in Manchuria, Formosa etc...
Cheers
Damian

[tocaff]

I read both AARs of this "war" and on the rare occassion that I do post I'm extremely careful not to mention anything that could lead to divulging sensitive info.  We all know that "Loose lips sink ships."

I'm really enjoying following the action and especially the insights into the production problems the Japanese face as time rolls on.  Keep up the good work!

[ny59giants]

Damian,
Here are the Oil centers and damages from 24 July.

[Bogo Mil]

ORIGINAL: John 3rd
Score
Japan 55,168 (Up 942 Points)
Allies 60,163 (Up 5,934 Points)

Strategic Losses 9,046 (Up 2,202)

For the fifth month in a row I GAIN victory points. It seems positive to me.

The Allies want a 2:1 ratio. This month they gained 4050 points (5934-2*942), and they need another 50173 to win in '45. If they don't get points faster, you will hold for another 12 1/2 months!

Fully 33% of Dan’s point gain comes in the area of strategic losses. This has been slowed with my resurgent aerial battle over Japan and now Manchuria.

Regarding the points, it is great for you that he goes for Manchuria now. He doesn't get any strategic points there, afaik. They hurt your economy, yes. But your fleet is almost completed, you can start turning off your shipyards - thus you can afford to lose industry. Most important is the aircraft production, and if you look at the economy screen of the tracker, you will realize that this branch needs only a small fraction of your HI output. Most costly are those shipyards.

I would turn off repair on all industries except some important aircraft models now. But don't turn off armament and vehicle plants if this is not absolutely necessary, only rurn off repairs. Try to build stockpiles with your existing plants as long as you have them. Maybe Dan decides to level them some day... You can turn off the plants if your HI pool really runs low or if you think your stockpiles will last for the rest of the war, but not now. It is wasteful to switch back and forth - turn the plants off, run out of arm points, expand the plants, ... This costs supply and some HI for nothing.

Malaya and Indochina will be over within 1-2 weeks.

I would try to defend Singapore as long as possible. Do you have good fort levels there? You will lose the defending troops, sure (evacuate fragments...). But if sacrificing 2 divisions more gives you one month more, that's a good trade, imho. In Singapore you have urban bonus, your should use that to your advantage. Have some engineers there as well - if you are lucky, they will destroy the industry when the base falls (most important is the repair shipyard - it hurts the Allies if they have to repair it).

[n01487477]

Japan 9075HI(??) --- Oil 76(124) = 76*6= 456/day
assuming 600K Oil in Japan
with these damage Oil Cnts in Japan = 69 days instead of 90 days Oil(as I first quoted)

1000 Oil C in Java/Borneo = 6000/day
Supplying Just Japan (in a perfect economy - no loss of TK's & perfect mobility or damage / loss to additional bases / Cntrs)
= 229 Days at full HI in Japan

**Hence the strategic importance of these bases should be made paramount without maybe drawing too much attention to them... fighter cap is recommended. Without these you've basically lost the game economically and will have to rely on your HI reserves and any Oil pumped in Japan(not much).With maybe a stand into mid '45.

Semi-self sufficient (both should produce ~80% of the days)
Nth China 500HI --- 75*6 = 450/day
Manchuria/Korea 2290HI --- 375*6= 2250/day

Hope this makes sense...
Damian

[John 3rd]

Thanks guys.  I am bedeviled with issues regarding my email at the moment (slightly detailed in other First Team AAR).  Add to that I am going over to see my Father and this means no substantial update until later today.

August 1st did feature a massive 3 Wave Allied assault on Tokyo that resulted in 89 Allied planes lost in exchange for 45 Japanese Fighters!  Will detail with a screenshot when I get back.

Damian and Michael--Thanks for the advice.  Damian did you see my Naval/Merchant surplus has come down?

Bogo Mil--Thanks for the Manchuria observation.  IT is great that no strategic losses occur there.  I hadn't thought of that whatsoever.
 

[John 3rd]

Current turn has been sent to Michael and I told him to forward it over to Damian if you are interested.  It'll probably be laughable...

[n01487477]

John - always interested in looking at data and seeing how the analysis could be improved in Tracker. I've already made a list of small changes I want to make

Also it is a great insight into the late game economy - and while not laughable, it is going to be an interesting few months.

All that I suggest is obviously at your digression (and believe me I have some similar problems I haven't fixed in my game V Nemo).

Onto the analysis:
HI: Japan has 13926HI, although only 12135 is being produced as Sth China, Commonwealth, Indo-China, Thailand & Malaya are out of oil.Also Nth China is lacking oil in Chengting and Peking - although overall there should be theoretically enough oil in Tietsin to support the region for 8 days - I just hope that it is still moving the oil around. And as I stated in my previous post this area should produce 80% of the time.

Oil: In Japan 121366 with 239600 nearby in TF's. This will give you 42 days Oil here. For readers interest the Japanese Oil Cntrs at Akita and Niigata are almost destroyed.

Manchuria: seems to be running well providing 2542HI/turn. This is important enough to dissuade Dan from continuing his raids here.

Elsewhere: Borneo and Java are the remaining bases with surplus Oil production. IMO apart from Japan the most important Strategic area remaining. Of the 1876 Oil Cnts remaining - Java has 200 and Borneo 793. The loss of Palembang will reduce the total to 1536 - so half of the remaining Oil lies in this region. This 993*6= 5958Oil/day, obviously is not enough to fuel the 8943HI in Japan forever & maybe for only a short time depending on how John decides to defend and protect these assets.

Without this remember only 42 days remain in Japan, with I estimate 129 days.
(5958+294)=6152(Oil produced/day) 6152-8943=-2791(loss of oil/day)
360966(Oil in Japan)/2791 = 129 days. (sorry not too much more math!)

Although there is another TF with 70K Oil loaded and Oil already sitting in Ports so there is a margin of error here.

Recommend:(totally your choice)
[*]Jesselton - 47K Oil sitting here ... not sure how it got there, but go get it.
[*]Brunei - 54K, Miri 14K and Kuching 4K - go pick it up before he takes Singapore and Saigon/Camranh Bay
[*]Splash and dash Oil at Manila or Cebu or HK?? I prefer Manila/Cebu as there are enough Res here to keep it going and the extra supply might be useful later.[edit]Shanghai might be another viable small oil seed just to keep the supplies rolling.
[*]Tietsin and Soochow turn off repairs to HI.
[*]I've noticed that you are pulling supplies back from Manchuria - Murkden,Heijo and Dairen look like another good locale to pickup.(But Japan is starting to look ok 6 bases over 10K and the rest not far behind)
(to be continued ...)

[n01487477]

Ships:

Repair Yards - I notice you have many of them halted, now maybe I am wrong but turning them off makes no difference to supply - they work cost free.

Naval Shipyards surplus is now 0, running at -320. If you want to have that CVTF come in all at the same time you need to either halt each at delay 1 or Accel CV Kasagi, set CVL Ibuki for 1 day to normal and the 3 DD's to halt for a day or two. I'd also stop accel PC 34 & 42 and DD Haruzuki until they are the same, and this will allow Kasagi to be accelerated.

Merch surplus is 8179, reducing -273 / day (so 30 days left). I notice you have a number of AG's sitting at delay 1... now I've tested this in the past and these annoying transports will sit here sucking 44pts/turn while they are not created via create barges. It is up to you but I'd make two or three tf's at Osaka (using about 1000 supplies to get them out of the mix.)This is a real annoying part of the ship build and I hope AE changes this as you are paying for them twice IMO.


Recommend:
[*]Turn off repair to Naval at Nagasaki
[*]Turn on Ship Repair
[*]Line up the ships so that they come in on the same day.
[*]In 30 days you are going to have to cull some more of your merchant build.
[*]Be careful of the ships outside the normal build range but which you have accelerated, once they enter the normal build range instead of costing just the durability, they will cost dur*3 (eg. Pc 39, 56)

(more to come ...)

[n01487477]

LCU's:

You are nearing the end of the build here.
You currently have:pts(production)
Manpower: 1228670(3720)
Arm:7196(785)
Veh:8278(0)

With only 4 HQ's, 33Inf & 10Eng to come. These will require 285648 Man, 31192 Arm and 0 Veh.

On the map you need 24217 Manpower, 330036 Arm and 11190 Veh points to fill out your units.

You will essentially have no problem producing this, unless your HI/Oil situation deteriorates further...(this will take around 70-80 days to achieve)

Recommend:
[*]Stop repair to Nagasaki Arm factory
[*]Reduce Arm production by 100 at Fukuoka and Gumma and turn on 100 Veh at Tokyo and Kyoto for 30 days - balancing the equation. This will give you enough Veh points to do everything. You could even possibly reduce the Arm by more and still remain workable in reinforcements and delayed troops.
[*]Further to above - as you know Arm and Veh point production is the most expensive at 6X. If I were to strip this back to almost nothing so to save as much HI as possible - thinking you have essentially 90days Oil then 472 Arm factories turned on over this period would be enough- saving 1800 HI/day.But then you would have to micro-manage this with your delayed and reinforced troops.
[*]109th at Niigata and 111th at Mutankiang turn on reinforcements. (others could too, but these are the ones I targetted.

[Bogo Mil]

I would consider to stop accelerating most ships. For example CV Aso: With acceleration, you will get the ship 30 days earlier, but these 30 days will cost you 30 * 73 = 2190 Naval shipyard points. That's 6570 HI points. In other words, getting the CV one month earlier costs you 6570 / 36 = 182 fighter aircraft. Is the shorter delay really worth it?

It depends on your strategy - if you have a plan which requires the ships earlier, it's probably worth it. But if not, I would become very stingy now. You will run out of oil before the game ends, thus every 36 HI points wasted means you can build one fighter less. You have to prioritise now. I think the air defense is the most important thing, a major shipbuilding programme is a luxury for people who have stockpiled vast amounts of oil and HI points.

Another option would be to cut down the armament and vehicle production to save HI points. I would hesitate to do so - imho having strong LCUs is more important than getting ships a few weeks earlier.

[n01487477]

(last post...I hope ... You probably know most of this - so I hope that this or anything I might have said before isn't condescending - it is not my aim, rather I'm hoping to just explain a bit of what I know and I'm sure others with better expertise/opinions can jump in and talk more about this...)

Air:
Overall you have 4726 planes in pool, 1556 reinforcements needed and 2479 planes Yet to be built (TBO).

I have a lot to say here so I hope that I remember everything I was thinking an hour ago.

TBO: - I like getting all my groups, I see no need to have less than my quota and I'm sure you feel the same John. Yet I see TBO groups with no planes in the pool and no production.

For instance there is the T4/Yok H6K2-L group which is organising but which will never arrive - there is another group on the map but it has no planes (pls upgrade this to something else)... so unless you open a new production run for these then ...

This is probably not so important as the fighters where as I stated in a previous post the ki-46-III KAI Dinah has 60 TBO but no production.

I'd have a look at the TBO for each and decide how you can upgrade- downgrade to allow these groups to come in. Like the Oscar III which can be upgraded to the Frank - allowing enough to build the TBO.

Reinforcements: The lack of supply and pilots is really hampering John's ability to keep his groups at full strength, but I think you need to either think of combining some groups and making some more training groups, or start mixing (I hate doing this) good with inexperienced pilots. The point is and I need to remember this in my game cause I'm doing it all wrong there ... get those planes and pilots out there doing something like training or dying.

Engines:
Apart from Mitsubishi engines, everything looks good.

I don't want to go into all the specific issues here but if you want me to pm you John with more about this area I'm happy to ...

[*]Matsue turn on Mitsub Engine plant
[*]Turn off 90 Nakajima Nagoya & Nigata
[*]Turn off more Peggy / Randy to stop the Mitsub bleeding
[*]Stop repairing Jacks/Tony's/Frank -- maybe ??
[*]Stop repairs to 200 Nakajima.

Hope some of this helps John - I'm no expert, just giving my thoughts..
Damian