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

[aztez]

Awfully busy day and dead beat. I just managed to get the turn done.

My apologizes if todays update is not as detailed as usual. Simply exchausted by the RL today.

I was thinking about doing 4 day update tomorrow but I know many of you were intrested on the 2nd turn of operation Fortune so opted to get this out.

Swenslim: To be honest it is bad! The battles so far has cost me so much supplies and lost territory that I can barely manage at the moment.

The loss of Sian does basically mean that the supply/resource points from north are stopped. In the longrun this will affect my economy badly.

Actually thinking at the moment whether it would be wise to pull out of Changhsa and southern area and withdraw towards central china where he does not have the railroad system and I could put up an tight defense.

I know I will lose more resources by doing this but than again I will lose the central china next or at least it seems undefendable to me.

What do you guys think of the "organized retreat" towards Chungking???

Rob: Thanks mate. Btw, I will answer you and LoBarons emails later this week. Appreciated the comments. I was going to do that today but well it is getting late back here.

Yeah, the pilots are ok even with the 2nd turn of fighting. The aircraft are the problem. Those Wildcats did not have drop tanks so they need to be disbanded and reformed within 60 days. I did this to few Devastators and bought them out immediately with PP via intel screen.

That suits me fine since they will appear in the west coast and that is the place where my carriers are heading for repairs. These ships have accumalated mediocre high SYS damage since they have sailing for longtime now.

I will propably upgrade some land based Wilcats first and once I get the carrier trained back than I will switch between them.

I think I propably win more since well I was doomed. Now I have an slim chance of doing something and that is why I'am thinking about the organized retreat option. My av value is too thin and the troops are too spread out.

I might ask him an extra two weeks to get the mess at north sorted out! The movement is simply very slow.

Yeah, I'am using Ledo for those missions. Only problem being the lack of transport aircraft!

[aztez]

Operation Fortune (june 5th - 6th 1942)


The flurry of action was done by the japanese this turn. Our carrier aircraft did not take off due to poor weather conditions and lack of escorts.

Here is what happened...

MORNING JUNE 5th

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Night Time Surface Combat, near Suva at 131,161, Range 12,000 Yards

Japanese Ships
BB Yamashiro
BB Hyuga
DD Hatsushima
DD Asagiri

Allied Ships
DD Hammann
DD Mustin
DD Vendetta



Reduced sighting due to 60% moonlight
Maximum visibility in Overcast Conditions and 60% moonlight: 10,000 yards
Range closes to 11,000 yards...
Range increases to 12,000 yards...
Both Task Forces evade combat

AFTERNOON JUNE 5th

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Afternoon Air attack on TF, near Suva at 132,160

Weather in hex: Overcast

Raid detected at 160 NM, estimated altitude 18,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 60 minutes

Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 20
B5N2 Kate x 53
D3A1 Val x 103



Allied aircraft
F4F-3 Wildcat x 12


Japanese aircraft losses
A6M2 Zero: 2 destroyed
B5N2 Kate: 1 destroyed, 10 damaged
D3A1 Val: 16 damaged


Allied Ships
CL De Ruyter, Bomb hits 1, on fire
DD Hammann
DD Stronghold
DD Piet Hein, Bomb hits 2, heavy fires, heavy damage
DD Van Ghent, Bomb hits 1, heavy fires
DD Mustin, Bomb hits 1
DD Vendetta, Bomb hits 1, heavy fires

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Afternoon Air attack on TF, near Suva at 132,160

Weather in hex: Overcast

Raid detected at 40 NM, estimated altitude 18,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 15 minutes

Japanese aircraft
D3A1 Val x 41



Allied aircraft
F4F-3 Wildcat x 4


Japanese aircraft losses
D3A1 Val: 1 destroyed, 4 damaged


Allied Ships
DD Van Ghent, Bomb hits 2, and is sunk
DD Vendetta, Bomb hits 2, heavy fires, heavy damage
DD Piet Hein, heavy fires, heavy damage
DD Hammann
DD Mustin, Bomb hits 1, on fire, heavy damage


MORNING JUNE 6th 1942


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Morning Air attack on TF, near Suva at 132,160

Weather in hex: Severe storms

Raid detected at 160 NM, estimated altitude 18,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 60 minutes

Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 43
B5N2 Kate x 13
D3A1 Val x 19



Allied aircraft
F4F-3 Wildcat x 10


Japanese aircraft losses
A6M2 Zero: 1 destroyed
B5N2 Kate: 1 destroyed, 2 damaged

Allied aircraft losses
F4F-3 Wildcat: 2 destroyed

Allied Ships
CL De Ruyter
DD Mustin, Bomb hits 2, and is sunk
DD Stronghold


AFTERNOON JUNE 6th 1942

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Afternoon Air attack on TF, near Suva at 132,160

Weather in hex: Clear sky

Raid detected at 160 NM, estimated altitude 18,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 60 minutes

Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 29
B5N2 Kate x 76
D3A1 Val x 122



Allied aircraft
F4F-3 Wildcat x 6


Japanese aircraft losses
A6M2 Zero: 1 destroyed
B5N2 Kate: 11 damaged
D3A1 Val: 1 destroyed, 14 damaged

Allied aircraft losses

Allied Ships
CL De Ruyter, Bomb hits 2, and is sunk
DD Kortenaer, Bomb hits 2, and is sunk
DD Stronghold, Torpedo hits 1, and is sunk
DD Hammann
DD Van Nes, Bomb hits 4, and is sunk
DD Evertsen


That concluded the action from Fijis. I was somewhat disappointed by two things A) Those 2 battleships were able move towards KB and B) The weather was poor last turn and reflected badly into our operations.

I have now moved some divebombers into NZ and these guys are resting and taking replacements.

US fighters are set on 90% CAP next turn since he has now moved lba fighters in the region.

The SBD's are set on 25 000 feet navalstrike with maxium range of 8. The british torpedo bomberse are set on max range at 20 000 feet.

By flying this high I'am hopeful that we can overwhelm the CAP if our ac's fly out into missions.

Overall I'am more than satisfied how this played out for me. We might have lost some valuable assets but the gains are good in return!

[aztez]

Aircraft losses reported in the intel screen...

[crsutton]

SBC4 Helldiver. They come with the Hornet when she arrives in the Eastern US. Fun to play with but you should have switched them out for the dauntless as they only carry a 500 lb bomb.

Pretty cool to look at though.

[SuluSea]

Aztez, did you build Kanduva Island into a size one airfield or was it like that out of the box?
 
Patch one is only a size one port/ zero airfield.
 
Great photo CRSutton, boy those guys at life were good with a camera.

[aztez]

crsutton: Very nice picture! I will switch them soon and fly these beast to New Zealand.
 
SuluSea: Yeah, I did build it up into level 1 airfield which in hindsight wasn't an good move. At Nadi he has level 3 airfield in place so he can definately base decent amount of lba fighters into region.
 
That improvement on the next patch sounds good.

[LoBaron]

Good operation Aztez! [&o]
 
Question will be wether he sticks around with KB hoping to deplete your AF on suva enough to re-supply the landed
troops of if he gives up and returns to truk for RR.
Somehow i have the feeling that this aint over yet. Do you think you can hold Suva with the troops there?
If yes this will be a battle of attrition and the side that can reinforce better wins (with better chances on the Allied side).
I think he made life hard for himself with this operation anyway.
 
I think that the standstill in China helps you to get things under control again. Hope that my comments on China help a bit
or at least contribute as another point of view.
 
Take your time responding to our mails, thats not so important (although id like to know if it helped some)
I think Rob sent you a much more detailed analysis than me and i didnt take an as in deep look
so if in some areas our views contradict id put my money on Rob and not myself. [;)]

[skrewball]

Suva could be your Guadalcanal. The winner will be who throws the most meat into the grinder! Do you have any reinforcements on the way?

[Sardaukar]

I think your strikes may be going in too high.

Since escorting fighters fly 2k above strike, you are putting Wildcats into unfavourable position. Check there database maneuverability of Wildcat vs. Zero at 20-25k and 25k-30k.

On the other hand, flying high may prevent Zero's getting a bounce, but 22k or 27k for escorts is bit high for Wildcat.

I think those Helldivers might actually be SB2C Helldivers, since there was mistake in data for couple of US carriers, that gave them SB2C Helldivers year too early or so.

[Fishbed]

ORIGINAL: Sardaukar

I think those Helldivers might actually be SB2C Helldivers, since there was mistake in data for couple of US carriers, that gave them SB2C Helldivers year too early or so.

SBC-4 is SBC-4, SB2C is SB2S

[aztez]

LoBaron: Thanks. This really good have even better. As said happy with results though.

KB seems to be moving out and he is moving more lba fighters into area. The last turn was not an good one though. I think that settled the Suva's faith but it was an blast at least.

China.. well enough said and it seems hopeless adventure. I will post an pic from there detailing rough av values around the map. I think It propably would be wise to move units towards Chungking even from Changhsa and Liuchow.

These will be overrun once he get the motion ongoing. Simply because he can use railroad movement.

Appreacited the emails as said. This weeks seems very busy though in RL terms. I got the daughters coming tomorrow and just got back from work.

skrewball: I still somewhat thin on infantry units and to be honest I cannot move ships in with proper aircover and these propably would massacred before they even would see the Fiji's.

To answer your question well no. I decieded againts it even before this operation was launched.

If this had happened before Pago Pago was overrun than it would totally diffrent story.

Sardaukar: Maybe, none of my bombers flew last turn and he brought in maybe additional division with supporting elements. There are now 11 units at Nadi.

I reversed my orders and now all of the bombers are at 10 000 feet with escorting fighters at 18 000 feet. Hopefully we at least hit something since I really was out of luck last turn.

Those ships were spotted though by SBD's. Unfortunately none of my squadrons took off.

Fishbed: I think those are the float version Helldivers. To settle it took an pic.

[aztez]

China (june 8 1942)


I took an pic from China. The map shows rough estimate of av values currently in the map.

I think I'am spread out too much and as I stated above considering abandoning southern and central china.

To me these areas seem deathtraps and will not serve the bigger purpose.

Than again I'am not an expert on china warfare. Just another allied player on these forums having his butt kicked towards Burma.

[crsutton]

ORIGINAL: Sardaukar

I think your strikes may be going in too high.

Since escorting fighters fly 2k above strike, you are putting Wildcats into unfavourable position. Check there database maneuverability of Wildcat vs. Zero at 20-25k and 25k-30k.

On the other hand, flying high may prevent Zero's getting a bounce, but 22k or 27k for escorts is bit high for Wildcat.

I think those Helldivers might actually be SB2C Helldivers, since there was mistake in data for couple of US carriers, that gave them SB2C Helldivers year too early or so.

No, see my earlier post and photo. In the game, the Hornet arrives on the East Coast with the pre-war Helldiver biplane. A lot of people have complained on the forum about this thinking it was the mid war Helldiver monoplane divebomber. It is not. They just share the same nickname. Go to the aircraft description window and click on the SBC-4. I also posted a pretty nice video of this plane and a lot of early navy models on the main forum page.

[aztez]

I drew an raw sketch what the chinese inner defensive lines would look like.

Granted I would lose industry cities down in central and southern china but are they worth the battles anymore? Changhsa has level 5 forts while rest are up at level 4.

Once the ceasefire is over he can start focusing his armies towards them if he chooses to do so.

The railroad system allows fast deployment moves.

Here is an one option which at least should give us better defensive perimeter. Only problem being lack of industry that is occupied by the chinese forces.

Remember this is only an sketch plan...

[LoBaron]

looks good! [:)]
 
and everything outside is cutoff or raiding country.

[Yamato_Blitzer]

IMO, the majority of China is as good as lost and the best thing to do is retreat to the interior or defend less bases than you're defending now....Defending all those bases spread out, lacking supply and quality is mere fodder, he will break through it all because all he has to do is form those massively concentrated armies and strike where ever he feels like. I would either defend less bases and/or set it up so that you can encircle him, danger of encirclement is the disadvantage of his tactics and it can be done. You can't plan an encirclement yet, but you can later.

You will have to cede some cities, but that's inevitable regardless of anything, that's the long term cost of what happened at Sian, your losses were simply to high. Spreading out your troops that much isn't gonna help, it's wasteful. You basically have to match him in AV to successfully ward him off at any base and keep loss ratio decent. Those bases with 700-800 av will definitely be wasteful engagements.

I just think your losses will once again be unacceptably high with that set up.

[aztez]

LoBaron: To be honest. I don't know what would be the effect of abandoning Changhsa, Liuchow and Kweilin. I'am speaking in terms of supplies.
 
The way I see IF I stay out the way I'am doing at the moment than I'am playing into his hands. He can go around and take one stack at an time.
 
Things are not looking up here.
 
Yamato_Blitzer: Those av values just showed how things are at the moment. That was no indication how the setup will be made.
 
Thanks for the comments. So, we basically agree that leaving the southern and central china is an good idea.
 
Those 800av hexes need to changed and as said that just is the setup at the moment. Which needs to be changed.
 
Those hexes I marked were based on the road system but you are suggesting moving into even tighter formation in inner china?
 
 

[LoBaron]

No id never pull out without a fight there. Its a good location for a counterattack and you give up fortresses for free.
you got a lot of units there its a matter of supply though if you can stage one.
So the critical point is to keep the west. thats the only area where you can fly supplies in.
if you can do both its better naturally, if you cant the west is more important than any frontline city IMO.

also can you do recon to check if he depleted his forces in the south to stage the attack on Sian?


Edit: im just trying to see things from the Japanese side. If i dont want to go India then steamrolling western China with my
Burma army would be a very lucrative option. Basically if i capture Kunming then the war in China is over.
And remember he HAS a couple of AV´s in Burma.

[aztez]

ORIGINAL: LoBaron

No id never pull out without a fight there. Its a good location for a counterattack and you give up fortresses for free.
you got a lot of units there its a matter of supply though if you can stage one.
So the critical point is to keep the west. thats the only area where you can fly supplies in.
if you can do both its better naturally, if you cant the west is more important than any frontline city IMO.

also can you do recon to check if he depleted his forces in the south to stage the attack on Sian?


Edit: im just trying to see things from the Japanese side. If i dont want to go India then steamrolling western China with my
Burma army would be a very lucrative option. Basically if i capture Kunming then the war in China is over.
And remember he HAS a couple of AV´s in Burma.

Ok. I assume you talking about Changhsa?

The only problem with that is the fact that he has quality troops and a lot of them. If you look at the region only bonus I get are those level 5 forts.

He can move a lot of units very quickly into central china due to railroad movement. I assume within an month he can have at least 4000av assaulting the base.

I guess he will also move towards the are from south.

I'am not too certain it wise to commit my forces here. Only downside are those supply losses.

There is absolutely 0% chance of me launching counterstrikes near Sian. Simply because I'am barely hanging on.

[crsutton]

Aztec, don't feel too bad. I am seven weeks into my game and about to lose Changsha and Siam. I think I know what I am doing but am getting my butt kicked in China anyways.