Rising Sun over the Rockies - F.K. vs OSO - Wake captured by US

[FeurerKrieg]

Not much in the way a naval action, but the Empire didn't lose a single ship this month. No sub kills or losses.

On the air front, it was a good month, with the Allies taking twice as many A2A losses as Japan.

The only territory that changed hands was Cox's Bazar, which is a Burma/India border town so the map hasn't changed.

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[Alikchi2]

Looking good.. any thoughts on how the conquest of NZ and big chunks of China has affected your economy?

[FeurerKrieg]

Not really. The HI in New Zealand has been running since I captured it, I think it is 50 HI, so that is 50 x however many days it has been.

China is trickier - there are some areas that have HI but don't get oil or resources to them. Certainly, China's resources have helped me prevent shortfalls in the Home Islands since I'm able to pull a 70-80k of resources out of the coastal cities every now and then.

I think it is safe to say that both conquests certainly haven't HURT my production.

I noticed that the production shot above only shows 511k of resources, but I actually have 820k or so since a lot is on board ships.

On the same note: Oil is actually around 2.9 million.

[FeurerKrieg]

May 7th, 1943
A single wave of Allied bombers hits Akyab today.

The airfield at Shortlands was finished today. (sz 4)

Lashio repairs are nearly complete - runway is done, facilities will be done tomorrow. (0/28)

[FeurerKrieg]

May 8th, 1943
Today, two waves of bomber hit the troops at Akyab.

Lashio is completely repaired and our fighters have moved back in. Tonys, Zeros and 2 Sentai of Jacks this time. About 150 fighters. Lets see if the Allies want to shut us down again - and if they are willing to pay the cost of admission to do so.

[leehunt27@bloomberg.net]

great AAR by the way. i love the added historical pictures ec

[FeurerKrieg]

Thanks for the compliment, Lee!

May 9th, 1943
Sweep over Chungking today brings down 6 P-43A Lancers. Some Tonys are lost to various operational causes, but most pilots make it home.

Akyab, nor Lashio is attacked today. It is all quiet in Burma for the first time in many days.

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Chinese marked P-43A[/center]

[FeurerKrieg]

May 10th, 1943
A couple more attacks on Akyab were about all the transpired today in terms of action.

More significant, was the spotting of a P-47C Thunderbolt on CAP over Dacca. This plane is rumored to be faster, more maneuverable, more durable and have stronger guns than anything the IJA or IJN can put up. The plane has a range of 360 miles, so it can reach farther into Burma than the P-40E. Hopefully, since it has to fly at range, our planes will have still have a chance against it. We will have a better navy fighter in August (the A6M5 Zeke), and even it is inferior to the P-47C. And even worse news - Republic is rumored to have a better version coming out in Sept of 43 that will have a range of 600 miles! At least for the next few months, the C is rumored to have a fairly low rate of production.

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A new menace in the air[/center]

[leehunt27@bloomberg.net]

If you don't mind me asking Feurer Krieg, can you talk about some of the strategic lessons, victories, blunders etc in your campaign so far?  I am just starting a CHS game right now (after an 18 month break from WiTP)  as the Japanese and trying to ramp up a slow start into a decent push.  What were the decisive moves, the regrets and what not?  Always good to talk strategy part way in

[FeurerKrieg]

ORIGINAL: leehunt27@bloomberg.net

If you don't mind me asking Feurer Krieg, can you talk about some of the strategic lessons, victories, blunders etc in your campaign so far?  I am just starting a CHS game right now (after an 18 month break from WiTP)  as the Japanese and trying to ramp up a slow start into a decent push.  What were the decisive moves, the regrets and what not?  Always good to talk strategy part way in

Hi Lee -

Happy to discuss.

In general, I don't think I have made many strategic blunders, just tactical ones. Other might see it different, and they are free to comment!

On the strategic side: I think keeping the KB in sitting at anchor in the Pacific has worked well. The US can't attack without bringing everything they have, and meanwhile, the KB ships are all at 3 or less system damage, 85% of the pilots are above 75 experience, and all ships (including surface ships) are fully upgraded. Will all that help in a big fight? Maybe not, but it can't hurt.

One could say I should have not taken Midway, Line Islands and/or Johnston, but I would disagree. Each of those assaults by the US took time and cost them ships and pilots. To be fair Johnston cost me carriers, but that was a tactical error that I'll speak to below. If I hadn't taken those places, it is quite possible the US would have spent that time attacking the Kuriles, or maybe the Gilberts/Marshalls before I had them built up.

The biggest benefit to this strategy has been that I was able to cut off Australia from the US Carriers. Therefore, there has not been any offensive threat to NG, Solomons, New Caledonia, or the southern DEI at all. With no threat, I have been able to keep my assets high in Burma and the eastern Pacific. Japan often has a 4 or 5 front war to deal with - I've been able to keep it down to mainly 2 fronts thus far. This has allowed me time to get divisions and brigades on the critical bases that I showed in a map a few posts back - the bases the Allies need to take to escort bomber raids on the Home Islands.

Another of my 'broad' goals has paid off well - avoid attrition battles. In Burma this can be seen I think. The enemy fighters have to come to me to engage and because of that I have a very high recovery rate of pilots. I can afford to lose airframes, but not pilots. So if the enemy bomber kill some frames on the ground, not such a big deal, given that my pilots that get shot down in the air are often rescued. I can only hope that enemy pilots are not rescued as often, but I don't have any way to know if that is the case.

Finally - the other big part of my strategy - removing China - paid off very well. I haven't had to worry about shipping lots of supplies or troops or air units into China and those assets have been able to be channeled out to our two main fronts. LCUs are starting to come out of China now as well, and those will be helpful, given many of them are 99 exp units.

Tactically I have definitely made some mistakes and learned from them. The biggest was the carrier battle at Johnston. Because this mod has lowered torpedo accuracy, I should have replaced my Kates with either fighters or dive bombers before that battle. If the divebombers get some hits, slowing the enemy flattops, then Kates can be swapped in and attack on the second day to finish off the enemy ships. Our second carrier battles in the Line Islands show the results of removing the torpedo bombers - we lost no ships in that engagement.

I regret losing two CA's at Kendari early in the war also, but I think at the time the loss was worth it. The rapid seizure of the DEI was essential to my overall plans in the Pacific, and if I had to do it again, would probably not change anything there.

A minor error was neglecting to shut off my Hitachi engine factories right away, now I have 167 in the pool that are worthless.

My CHS pointers would be (at least for scen 160):
A) Don't fight unless you 1) have to or 2) can get really good kill to death ratios
B) Swap out torpedo bombers unless you are hunting transports
C) Keep the US away from Australia as long as possible
D) Secure the DEI right away.
E) Pick either the Philippines or Singapore and throw most of your stuff there. Don't try to take both simultaneously - you can take the two faster if you do it sequentially.
F) PLAN PLAN PLAN. Plan out the first 9-12 months of the war, with some contingencies in place for when things don't go as planned. Without such planning, it just isn't possible to move fuel and supplies to where you will need them, as well as getting troop lift capacity in place. Start shipping fuel and supplies out of the HI from day 1.

[Alikchi2]

Excellent post and very much useful, thank you. [8D]

[FeurerKrieg]

May 11th, 1943
Another quiet day. One small attack on Akyab is it. Our NLF unit is slowly recovering there. I'm considering sending some barges up to Akyab to bring the NLF unit back, but I'll hold off for now.

[FeurerKrieg]

May 12th, 1943
A sweep over Chungking brings down 5 P-43As, although 2 Tonys went down also.

Looking over the LCU list, many division and regiments are arriving over the next 40 days. Of those, 3 Regiments and 3 Division are non-restricted commands and will be distributed over our inner perimeter bases.

[FeurerKrieg]

May 13th, 1943
Today our ASW group operating out of Rabaul, which includes a ten DC APD, and two of my new PCs with the A/S Mortar and 6 DCs, managed to find the SS S-28 and send her to the bottom.

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An enemy sub goes down for good[/center]

In Burma, we saw two attacks on Akyab - and one attack had some new escorts...

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Scary planes spotted in Burma[/center]

The airfield at Amami was increased today. (sz 2) And finally, this was one of those days that we suffered zero aircraft lost.

[FeurerKrieg]

May 14th, 1943
Today Woleai expanded. The island has six engineer units there and once they are done, they will move to the next base for rapid development. Probably somewhere on the northern coast of New Guinea.

Our ships at Adak Island attacked a US sub, but scored no hits.

Our training fighters LRCAPed over Chungking, but only brought down 1 C-47 and 1 P-43A. Ops losses were too high so I might stop doing these LRCAPs.

[leehunt27@bloomberg.net]

Thanks Feurer Krieg.  Good advice and analysis on the strategy.  I wholeheartedly agree about battles of attitrion-- the Japanese player must ask himself constantly "Does this battle help me win the war?  Will shooting down 20 Hurricanes over Burma or bombing Australian jungle infantry and incurring Op losses take me to victory?" etc etc.
 
I agree on the planning part-- i have been trying to assess japan's flanking vulnerabilities and what not and throw my opponent back enough, but keep real fighting limited to where i want to fight. we'll see

[FeurerKrieg]

Hi all - sorry for the delay. A lot of quiet days, so I should be able to get caught up tonight.

May 15th, 1943
A couple P-40N sweeps at Chungking find no targets.

One wave of bombers hits Akyab.

[FeurerKrieg]

May 16th, 1943
Mitchells, Marauders, and Vengeance dive bombers hit Akyab today.

In another lucky day, ops losses were 7 for the Allies and 0 for Japan.

[FeurerKrieg]

May 17th, 1943
No air or naval action today.

Our artillery at Chungking, which pound away everyday, had a good day today. Enemy losses reported at 145 Troops, 5 guns and 1 vehicle.

[FeurerKrieg]

May 18th, 1943
Chungking was back to more normal, with the artillery killing only 78 troops today.

SS Sargo was hit by a Ki-30 Ann dive bomber near Bali.

Between Timor and Australia an Allied ship was spotted, but our bomber could not find it later due to heavy cloud cover.

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Enemy ship spotted[/center]