ALLIED ONLY: aztez (A) vs erstad (J) ...2nd ROUND

[aztez]

Total aircraft losses...

[aztez]

We also discussed the China ceasefire for at least two weeks starting immediately.

Both of us feel that it is not right to chinese fall before 1943 which very unrealistic.

The ceasefire proposals starting from june 4th 1942


- Remaining Chinese ground and air units stay on chinese bases, and don't launch any offensive actions (including recon). ---> OK!

- Other allied forces cannot use chinese bases (and especially cannot launch air strikes from chinese air bases). This rule applies to any bases china owns. If the allies invade and retake a chinese base from Japan, they can do anything they want with it. --> OK!

- Units that japan has bought out of manchuria are free to go anywhere.

- Japanese ground units that start in China stay in Asia. Japan has to pay PP to use any of the units outside china, and they can only go to French Indochina, Thailand, Burma, Malaya, Formosa, and Manchuria/Russia. (A bit altered see below)

- Japan can buy one fighter, one bomber, and one recon unit from China. Those units can go anywhere. All other air units assigned to China command stay in china, although they can launch strikes on targets within range. --> OK!

- There has to be an LCU (Can be a BF or ENG unit) in all Chinese cities, and Japan will garrison all cities with approximately twice the garrison requirement (I say approximately because if the garrison requirement is, say, 100, and I have an INF unit with an assault value of 190, I would call that close enough). I haven't totally computed what this amounts to but it looks like it would keep the majority of the infantry in China. ---> OK! I don't have an clue how much that totals to though!

- No more Japanese attacks on Chinese units or bases. --> OK

Still in discussion....

- There should be some sort of an av limit on how much you can send towards Burma and Malaya?

Could we agree that maybe around 2000av should be maxium. I don't mind if you buy out units into Manchuko though.

[LoBaron]

Not bad Aztez!
I´m still at work so cannot really comment now.
 
But one thing really caught my eye: where are his invasion TF´s? he did not have time for a complete landing
plus supplies did he? I do not see any other TF sighings than KB and the Battlewagons...

[bigbaba]

Wow. Very nice "Brain Drain" of the KB-Pilots. he surely didnt expect to face well trained Navy Pilots starting from Suva. The Question now is:

Can you Keep Suva AF Open or will he nuke it to the Stone Age since he seems to have the Control of the sea Region around Fiji.

[aztez]

LoBaron: No, not bad at all. Intresting to see what happens next.

I don't whether he landed all the troops yet but there seems to 450av worth of them at Nadi.

That is not enough if he wants to take Suva out. Those transports are gathered in the same hex with KB. That is what the intel is showing up anyway.

bigbaba: Thanks! We shall see how it goes. I can guarantee that we can get at least 2 large strikes out in the next phase.

I still do have some 35 fresh divebombers (Helldivers) and 30 torpedo bombers. Add those battered squadrons and our airforce still do have the capability to inflict serious damage to the enemy.

When things slow down a bit I will move some squadrons into NZ for refit. I have Wildcats and SBD's in the pools. I have been saving them for this mission.

The naval bombardments aren't that effective anymore. That is good to know and it will cost him a lot of planes if he wishes to engage the Suva defense.

[aztez]

Here is an pic showing what is waiting for him next turn.

These guys can still do a lot of damage.

I will rotate few squadrons into NZ for temporary refit since they can make journey. I might flew in some army lba bombers from Christimas Island into Suva to replace these for time being.

There are plenty of SBD's in the pools and I have nearly 100 F4Wildcats ready for an upgrade process. I didn't want to use these before this battle took place.

I have an feeling we will see an intresting turn once more when it arrives.

[SuluSea]

Great job Aztez! This looks like AEs version of shuttle bombing. Any CA's or BBs within a few days sailing distance to shore bombard his troops when the fleet carriers sail north? Hopefully your carriers have retired to a safe distance incase he sails in your direction with his flattops. I guess with the amphibious bonus at a halt he may still have some supplies/heavy weapons to unload and your planes should get another crack.
 
How far away are your ARs?
 
 

[aztez]

SuluSea: Thanks mate! Yeah, I guess you could call this "shuttle bombing" indeed.

I have no CA's nor BB's near Fiji's. I don't think that would have been wise and the risks would be enormous to even try this.

In my estimate those ships would dangered for nothing. I can bomb him with my airforce if and when needed.

The carriers are far off from Fiji's and even if he tries to hunt them down well he can reach them. This is good news and with the limited intel he has I doubt he even tries this move.

Personally I wouldn't mind since he would leave his troops and naval assets unprotected at Fiji.

I agree that he must have something waiting to unload since I doubt he would just land these guys in knowing that they cannot capture the main base in this area.

I think the picture will get clearer after next turn. I really hope those fresh bombers make an coordinate strike. Who knows me might still get lucky since his CAP took an hit too.

[Yamato_Blitzer]

Ohhhh lol well thats alot better. I thought you were just gonna send your carriers in and that was it. I think (and well, i hope) this pretty much renders his invasion a failure, because now there should be a constant threat of your land based aircraft that he really can't sustain himself against. You're putting the bars to him. I think this is a big success.

congratulations!

[aztez]

Yamato_Blitzer: That seemed the best solution. This would have ended badly had we CV's instead of Suva. The floatation is kind of better when you are using solid islands! [:D]

I think it still too early to say what this battle will bring on future. At least

a) It shows I mean business and the happy days are ending.
b) His carriers cannot afford to lose too many top aces.
c) NZ adventure will become even more costly for him now that it is obvious that those squadrons have the legs to reach the mainland NZ. Personally I think the invasion plan is propably off the table after this battle.

We achieved a lot with this operation and this is the kind stop signal I was trying to deliver.

Next turn is not in yet and I really want to sunk those 2 battleships at least. They should be in real danger.

[Yamato_Blitzer]

Either way, this whole venture is really a waste on Daves part. Strategically, him doing this works in your favor, because he didn't pursue more valuable targets and he wasted his precious happy times for an otherwise strategically unvaluable target.

What does he get out of capturing NZ? Even if he does? Basically nothing. The amount of gain for the time spent isn't worth it at all. I don't deny that he's a good player but I don't see how going for NZ at this point under these circumstances is worth it at all. Maybe if it was 1943 and he had already eliminated the threat of U.S. naval power.

Maybe he thought you would just panick and send your remaining carriers in there outclassed and outgunned, he must have. But even then, he should have took up a more threatening position, such positions were easily within his reach.

[jrlans]

I think Dave is in a real pickle now as it were. If he backs KB off to prevent them from getting hit, he leaves his transports and BBs open, as well as what forces he has landed isolated with minimal supply.   If he keeps KB around to help cover the invasion or cover a retreat he risks loosing a CV or 2.  The next 2 turns should be interesting.  As a sidenote you might want to thin about flying your TBs back to your CVs so they can use torps against his BBs if they get in range and your CVs are safe.

[Swenslim]

Good for you that in the game no option for bombardment of airfields, with all this stuck planes he would oblitirate them.

[aztez]

Yamato_Blitzer: I think he wanted to keep the momentum. Keep in mind that the losses so far has been horrific and one sided!

If he could have taken out Fiji swiftly and low cost than he would have eliminated another solid airfield in this region. By taking out NZ he limits the options I have to on the offensive mode. Also, he kills quite a few ground units along the way and prevents reinforcements from appearing.

Maybe he even wanted an cv vs cv battles. By looks of it I really should have come up short on that one.

All in all the above things propably should explain a lot of things. Also, since this is an PBEM game there is always an psychological warfare ongoing which has longterm effects.

All in all he is an gentleman. The proposed china front changes etc he made speak volumes.

Now we must keep momentum ongoing. There will increased allied airforce activity in Burma.

jrlans: Yeah, I think he needs to sacrifice even more carrier pilots since he cannot naval nuke my base at Suva. Thus meaning KB will stay put and most propably will launch some strikes.

The good thing is that he needs to keep some of his bombers on naval strikes too since I have surface combat vessels in the area.

Also he might underestimate my airpower. As you can notice I have some fresh torpedo aircraft and dive bombers ready to go. Personally I want to see those Helldivers in action next turn along with RN torpedo bombers.

Next couple of rounds will be intresting for sure. I actually would like to run the combat replay file before heading out to bed. Another intresting attachment is the "test" turn where I had all my naval assets set on 10 000 feet naval strikes at Suva. This is not an gameplay turn but kind of an test.

There is no chance of moving those aircraft back into carriers since the fleet is gone. I send the carriers out with full speed ahead once they off loaded.

Those carriers would not be fit action either in full scale. I moved a lot of squadrons out and it would be "foolish" to risk anything. I can afford to lose aircraft but not the ships that go with them.

The carriers are heading to safe waters asap and will equip decks with carrier capable fighters and bombers. These squadrons in action will be flown out to NZ once they need refit and rest. I will upgrade few of those units as well.

Swenslim: True. I did overstack the airfield initially but I think it was still the best thing to do. We did launch several strikes.. and few of them were "big" ones.

There are severe penalties for stacking the airfields and I did pay those. So, it was an gamble but the positive gains overwhelmed the risks.

Now I have few fresh squadrons ready to go and he does not think there any left. How wrong he is IF these guys do take off.

As for the bombardment. Well, I have absolutely no desire to back to the "nuke" bombardments made in classic Witp.

Remember these rules cut both ways in future battles. There will be times when we will face same situations. Allthough if possible I intend to gain lba base immediately with decisive landing before the main fleet enters area.

[offenseman]

To several- JR...  I guess I am old too.  [:D]

That was a brilliant victory Aztez!  [&o]

Many good comments have already been made, here is some more food for thought.  Depending on how he changed his Kate production, those losses could neuter KB's torpedo aircraft capabilities for awhile. 
I've got a feeling that he you are going to get those BBs... 

[Ketza]

My biggest fear as Japan is land based USN planes. Im always looking out for them.
 
Well played.

[seydlitz_slith]

Since no one else commented on it, I see that Dave managed to kill the Boise. Actually it looks like she was the first cruiser to die.

Aztez, the Helldivers that you are referring to are the old biplane Helldivers, right? They belong right there with the swordfish making attacks.[:D]

I think that having 2 day turns really helped here since airfields will be overstacked on day one, and on day two the excess will most likely fly due to losses on day one.

Interesting proposal on China. Trying to think like Dave, what does he get long term....
1. All units in China can go on rest/train for a year or two.
2. He can turn replacements off and use all of those to repair and upgrade units in the other areas.
3. He has your oil in China and much of the resources, so he has what he needs.
4. The air unit restrictions do not hurt him much since the units are obsolete. It does give him assurance that you won't be bombing Japan in late 1943/1944 using heavy bombers flying from bases in China.
5. He can still buy troops out in from Korea, so that still gives him up to 4,000 AV of good troops to deploy elsewhere. The heavy artillery would be especially worthwhile to him as there are about 20 units of good artillery there that he could use in preparing his defences. Just be glad that he can't dig up border forts and move them. Those things are the toughest units in the game.
6. He gains a psycholigical victory in knowing that he beat you down in China to the point that you discussed peace in that theater.

I would be tempted to keep the fighting going in China even though it looks hopeless because your tide is rising even as he recedes. Every drop of blood that he sheds is a drop that can't be replaced easily.

[aztez]

offenseman: Thanks. It could have even better but than again worse. So, one needs be satisfiied.
 
We did shoot down bunch of bombers and more importantly their crews. I think he will have tough time replacing them
It seems that maybe those battleships got away. I'am at work but just got the turn to the inbox stating the following:
 
"Nothing too exciting. I trade some more carrier air for more of your ships."
 
That is not bad though since those ships were 90% damaged anyway. I will run the turn this evening to see how things played out.
 
Ketza: Don't be too worried though since most of lba bombers cannot hit a thing in 1942!
 
seydlitz: Yeah, CL Boise is gone but she did an brave service. I know, it is kind of sad to see her gone! That ship has been amazing for me since the first time played witp.
 
Hmmm, not sure. I moved them out of CV Hornet so no. They are not bi-planes at all. Those guys were normal divebombers allthough it seems they didn't do their jobs judging by Dave's comments.
 
Yeah, 2 day turns have it good sides and personally I highly recommend anyone starting this game to use multiple day turns. They are way more exciting.
 
Very well thought out views and really cannot argue againts those. It is all about supply and resources. He gets more of them and gains peaceful front where he doesn't need to worry on anything.
 
I might need to clarify. The war in China is not ended yet. We have all front ceasefire until 19th of june 1942. Also Dave stated that IF I need extra time northern china that can be arranged.
 
During the next two weeks there will be no offensive action started by either side and he is not going to move his troops out to new locations. I can move my units around freely and I need to make most of this window!
 
The turn update will later tonight. I have somewhat busy schedule today.

[Swenslim]

What is your supply stock at China ? After loosing many resource centres, especially Sian wich had 3200 res and 62 fuel per day ? There is probabilty that you will not be able to restrore destroyed TOE and fully supply your troops.
 
And with Sian in hands he can in any moment destroy your industry, because it is in range of Oscars and Sallys.

[Rob Brennan UK]

A belated congratulations there Aztez [&o] Nicely Done !

Looks like your Wildcat pilots survived exteremely well too judging from the screenshot. don't suppose you have any landbased F3's anywhere you could upgrade to F4's increasing the F3 pool as i assume your not planning on upgrading the Suva based ones untill this operation is over ?

As for China , I think you both win here. plenty of time for all those chinese disblements to get better will help chinas AV enormously and you can train too , exp 50+ is a LOT better then the current levels on most chinese corps.


Out of curiosity are you flying in supplies from Ledo ? the unnamed city 2 hexes westish of chungking is in range of ledo for DC'2 etc and imo far better than flying supply into the mountain citys further east. Build it up to a level 4 ofc to help prevent ops losses but you dont need aviation support just a couple of corps or divs with a few eng squads can do it easily.

cant wait for day 2 [X(]