Empire of the Rising Lemon? SqzMyLemon (Japan) v Smeulders (Allies)

[SqzMyLemon]

Strategy Update:

The Philippines:

Operations here are going well. The delay caused by waiting for the 38th Inf. Div. to redeploy from Hong Kong to Luzon will allow combat units to recover fatigue and disruption. Air units will mass at Clark Field in preparation for an intense bombing campaign against Bataan. Manila will be taken to cut supply to Bataan even though I will lose 200 AV to garrison requirements that could be used at Bataan.

On Mindanao mopping up continues. 16th army units are heading to Cagayan and Davao for embarkation to Truk for operations in New Guinea. The 144th Inf. Rgt. of the 4th Fleet will embark for Truk and in all probablity will reinforce Wake Island. Combined Fleet units will also be embarking for Truk to prepare for operations in the Solomon's.

The Celebes:

Ambon will be invaded as soon as forces can be assembled.

Southeast Pacific:

The Japanese fleet is mustering at Truk for reassignment and aircraft upgrading. The plan is to have KB support the operations in the Solomon's and to have a smaller carrier force support operations against the Celebes and deal with any Dutch/British fleet units that may make an appearance. My invasions to date have been quite slow, so I'm taking a lot of prep time to gather up all my assault/support units to launch a sustained assault to quickly take a lot of bases and give the Allies no time to recover.

Just some musing's about what my future intentions are. Once a few of my current operations are finished I can show a more detailed plan. I hope in the immediate future to make the updates more exciting in terms of invasions, I know right now things seem to be developing slowly. It's time to really take the war to the Allies!

Thanks for following along and to those who have commented on enjoying the AAR, thank you, I'm glad you are enjoying it.

[SqzMyLemon]

Jan. 16/42 Update:

Sub Ops:

My woes continue in terms of shipping losses to Allied submarines. To those that think Allied subs do not perform well early in the war, I can't agree. They've been a real thorn in my side and have not been adversely affected by my anti-submarine efforts to the point of ineffectiveness, the duds are the only thing keeping me from severe losses. From air on ASW duty, to SC attack groups, to DD and PB escorted convoys...my anti-submarine efforts have failed...I continue to lose ships on a regular basis. I have a real sense of foreboding...I worry about when my Carriers are in harms way and if Allied hits will continue early on here. To summarize this turn:

East of Woleai SS Narwhal misses a DD in a convoy and receives I DC hit for her efforts.
S.E. of Toyohara, SS Gar puts a fish into the xAK Italy Maru, then SS Cachalot finishes her off in another attack with a further torpedo hit.
East of the Philippines, SS Spearfish luckily misses AMC Awata Maru.
SS O16 launches a torpedo salvo at CL Tatsuta and fortunately misses.

Japanese subs report no sightings of Allied shipping.

China:

In northern China a Japanese Shock attack at 91,37 inflicts 1450 Chinese casualties to the loss of 239 Japanese. Chinese forces retreat towards Yenan.

Chinese forces take the base hex at Kweiteh, S.E. of Kaifeng along the rail route.

The Philippines:

Luzon: Manila falls to Imperial troops, the city was undefended, more importantly, once the hex S.W. of Manila is secured let the starvation begin at Bataan.

Mindanao: A Japanese Shock attack at Malaybalay ends resistance in this sector capturing 1761 Allied troops to the loss of 6 Japanese casualties. Butuan is bombarded, because I wasn't sure of the amount of enemy troops there. Only 10 casulaites are recorded. I will Shock attack next turn. With the elimination of enemy troops at Malaybalay, 16th Army units are heading to Davao and will board transports for Truk, objective Rabaul.

Strategy update:

I'm pulling all submarines back to base to support offensive operations in the Celebes and Solomon Islands. I'm planning aggressive patrols in enemy waters with TB's and DD's to start flushing out Allied dispostions and see where the heck the Allies are hiding. Once Ambon and Balikpapan are in Japanese hands I'll start aggressive bombing campaigns against Java. In Burma troops are massing in the North in preparation for the invasion of Rangoon. I'm going to start having my resource and troop convoys hug the coastlines, Smeulders is hitting me in open ocean hexes so I'll avoid those areas from now on. I'll be replacing all low aggression ASW commanders with more aggressive ones. All Japanese submarine captain's will come under review and will be replaced if found lacking in proper zeal. Playing with PDU off is serverly limiting my choices of aircraft to upgrade to, so I'll be doing my best to use what I have effectively.

Thanks for following along.

[fabertong]

Hi Sqz......

Having looked at your production screenies.....

You are building or expanding a lot of stuff.......look closely at your supply......each factory point costs 1000 supply to repair.....you may want to halt some repair from time to time......you look to be building a lot of Kate's esp(when all repaired)......I'm not sure you will need that many frames every month(although I could well be wrong).......

The big expansion of shipyards is also very expensive supply wise.......

Your HI seems to be holding up well.....how much is it expanding by on a daily basis?

Good luck and good hunting.

[SqzMyLemon]

Hi fabertong,

Thanks for your comments, all advice and suggestions are appreciated.

I have put a halt to any future expansion of facilities until the current changes I've made have gone through repair wise. I started expanding pre-patch 2, so I was guilty of expanding with the available expansion options at the time, often a doubling of already high numbers. In hindsight, and now with the greater flexibilty of expansion post-patch 2, I will be very cautious in future expansion. My reasoning though for the early expansion is I might as well do it now while I can, then I can focus on hoarding later to weather the storm. Whether I'll be paying a high price in the future for my early expansion, I don't know yet, time will tell.

Yes, my Val and Kate production is too high now so, I will be turning off repair when the airframes reach the new level of production I want. Somewhere around 50-60 airframes I figure. I was also tinkering wth the idea of changing the factory to a different airframe, then back to the Kate or Val to bring the size down again, but I don't think that would be smart. I'd have to spend supply again to repair from scratch and would have no production for a while when I anticipate combat losses soon.

My HI seems to be ok, I am accumulating excess points daily, on average 1900/day. Once Singapore and Bataan fall I hope that increased supply production from those areas will offset my expansion requirements.

It's my first ever game of WitP AE and having never played WitP previously this is a completely new beast to me. I know I'm making my share of newbie mistakes, but I learn best from getting my ass handed to me on occasion [:D]

Thanks again for your comments, and good luck in your AAR as well.

[SqzMyLemon]

Jan. 17/42 Update:

A glorious turn indeed. Finally, a sighting of an Allied ship! The AVP Heron was spotted snooping around Zamboanga and was attacked by LBA Betty's based at Cagayan, 3 bomb hits later the Heron was gone. With my putrid sinking's so far of Allied shipping, I'll take anything right now. [8|]

The Philippines:

Luzon: Clark Field and Manila are secure. I've almost repaired all the damage at Clark Field so 5th Air division bomber units have already transferred from Takao to commence bombing sorties against Bataan. 120k+ supply was captured at Clark as well as 100k+ of fuel. Much needed for my much hungrier self-induced industrial monster I've created in the Home Islands.

Mindanao: A shock Attack at Butuan pushed the Allies out and retreating towards Surigao. Japan lost 196 to the Allies 554. So the last Allied units on Mindanao are at Zamboanga and Surigao, not much longer and operations will be wrapped up here.

Malaya:

Fighter sweeps over Singapore reported clear skies and no enemy aircraft.
Troops continue to slog towards Singapore. Allied units retreating to Singapore are treated to daily bombing raids on the way.

Sub Ops:

Maybe I shouldn't complain yet. ASW air assets given new elevations and search arcs have begun to spot and attack Allied submarines. a few hits were recorded during the 2 Air Phase's. I'm showing more spotted submarines on the game map as well so sending hunting groups to those locations.

SS Seadragon was spotted around Truk and was attacked by ASW vessels, btu no hits were recorded.
SS Spearfish, earlier reported sunk, was spotted by SC's CH 14 & CH 15 around Ishigaki, 3 DC hits were recorded including one "severe" damage hit reported. Hopefully the damage will require her to retire.

No Japanese ships were spotted or attacked this turn.

China:

Fighter sweeps by Nates over Changsa were jumped by AVG H81-A3's. 1 Nate was lost, no Allied losses. Looks like the air war in China may heat up a little.

The 38th Division has left Hong Kong en route to Lingayen...it's arrival will infuse 17,000+ fresh troops for the assault on Bataan.

Nanchang was liberated today, Chinese forces having abandoned it earlier. Troops continue to maneuver around Loyang to isolate and cut off it's supply.

Truk:

Combined Fleet units are massing for a reorganizing of forces. All carriers will be here with the exception of Zuikakau and Soryu, which are currently based at Babeldoab. Supply and LCU's continue to arrive at Truk in preparation for the next wave of assaults.

Industry:

More production screens will follow at some point to highlight what I've been doing there. I'm not producing enough engines at the moment, some pools remain at 0. I plan on halting production of some aircraft for a few days to allow the engine pools to build up a little, I'm not in any serious need of replacing losses right now so it seems like a good time to address this problem.

I'll post screenshots again once some theaters heat up, right now there's not much to show.

Catch you next time.

[SqzMyLemon]

Jan. 18/42 Update:

A quiet turn overall. Things are really dull on the Japanese side of things as I wait for troops and ships to reach their destinations for reorganization and re-deployment.

Sub Ops:

SS Pike is spotted S.E. of Woleai and attacked by DD Michishio, but no hits are recorded.
SS S-40 is detected by my invasion force at Gorontalo in the Celebes, no hits are recorded but at least no transports were attacked either.

Since I have changed routes of convoys and added increased ASW air cover Allied submarine attacks have tailed off. I'll continue to attack spotted submarines and keep them under pressure.

The Celebes:

Gorontola was invaded today by a small assault force. The idea here is to cut off the remaining Dutch unit's route of escape, so I'm not chasing it thru the jungle after every succesful attack.

A Betty raid of 13 aircraft was launched reacting to the spotting of the CA Houston and CL Marblehead at Kendari. The attack resulted in no hits and no losses to the Betty's, but an opportunity missed! When the Betty's sank the AVP Heron the other day, I failed to register that they were using bombs instead of torpedoes. The Betty's were still armed with bombs when they attacked the cruisers, hence no hits. I've switched them back to torpedoes, a costly mistake on my part. I may not have hit the cruisers with torpedoes today either, but I know there's a much greater chance with them than without them.

Luzon:

Bataan was bombed by 40+ Lily's and Sally's causing 5, count them, 5 Allied casualties to 8 damaged aircraft. Is it worth it? The 38th Div. is about 2 days away from reaching Lingayen, so say a week till they are in Bataan. I'll move my forces in now in the meantime to start bombarding the defences.

Malaya:

Malacca was captured today, Allied troops just evacuating in time to avoid a Shock attack by Imperial forces. The trek continues towards Singapore.

Industry:

I started to stop some aircraft production at facilities using the Ha-33 engine. I'm trying to build up my pool of these engines a bit. I stopped Nell, Tina, and Jake production I believe. I'll try this for a few days to see what the result is.

[SqzMyLemon]

The Celebes Jan. 18/42:

[SqzMyLemon]

Some temporary aircraft production changes Jan. 18/42:

[SqzMyLemon]

Jan. 19/42 Update:

Wow, can this AAR get any duller? An extremely quiet turn as the slothlike advance of Imperial forces continues.

Sub Ops: Absolutely nothing happened, no attacks whatsover, all was quiet under the ocean.

The Philippines:

Baybay:

Smeulders launched a night time sneak attack of 6 PT's catching a small escorted transport fleet in the harbour, but not docked. The xAK Yae Maru was torpedoed and sunk, as was the DMS W-1. 1 PT boat, the Q-112 was hit and sunk by a 12.7cm shell from one of my DD escorts. Visibility was down to 2000 yds due to only 7% moonlight, yet the PT's were spotted at 2000 yds and the combat report did not indicate the Allies had achieved any surprise. Overall I was very disappointed in the outcome. My total force amounted to 2 DD's, 2 PB's, 1 DMS and 5 xAK's. The loss of the above mentioned ships, plus the damaging of 3 xAK's to the Allied loss of only 1 PT boat was discouraging. Two attempted daylight attacks by the same group of PT's were evaded. All DD's in the area are converging to wipe out this force of PT boats.

Luzon: Another 62 bomber ground attack mission over Bataan resulted in 0 Allied casualties. I don't get this at all. Does anyone know why bombing Bataan is so ineffective?

The Celebes:

Smeulders informed me by e-mail, when he sent his next turn, to not get excited about the sighting of the Houston, as he was moving it to safer waters. That being said, my planned night time surface raid at Kendari never materialized anyway, I am still 2 hexes shy of Kendari. I had the ships set to direct movement, absolute threat tolerance, and full speed, the slowest ship (the BB) was still at 25kts, yet they didn't reach Kendari. Am I not doing something right in setting this up, or was the distance from Gorontola to Kendari too far to go in one night time naval movement phase at full speed? At least I did find out that the Allies have no naval air units at Kendari and Ambon possibly, as no day time raids were launched at my TF.

China:

Another attack on the small Chinese force of 5 guns at 88,47 resulted in the loss of 14 Japanese troops to 0 Chinese. All that was achieved was the retreating of the Chinese unit. Again, I don't get this, my force was 1459 troops attacking a force of 5 guns and all I do is get a retreat and incur 14 casualties? Mind you, I was still in "move" mode during a Shock attack, but would the penalty be that severe?

A screen of the attempted raid on Kendari to visualize how far my TF went follows.

[Mike Solli]

Did the TF refuel itself? That would slow it down.

[SqzMyLemon]

I don't think so Mike. Gorontola was just caputured so no fuel was present in port, and no other ships were present other than some transports. I have to figure this out though, I want to utilize the better night time capabilities of the Japanese ships, but if I can't get them to a target...well. [8|]

[Mike Solli]

The BBs may have refueled the escorts while steaming. If that happened, op points were used and the max distance would have decreased.

[Mynok]

Why are you chasing those Dutch units into the jungle around Manado? Just let them die and get on with your conquests.

[SqzMyLemon]

Jan. 20/42 Update:

Sub Ops:

The xAK Morioka Maru takes 2 torps from the SS Gar east of Ominata and sinks. At Ternate SS KXVIII is spotted by the DD Shigure, but no ASW hits are recorded.

The Philippines:

The Allied force of PT boats is on the hunt again and spots the same TF it attacked the other day. During the night, however my TF evades combat. My surface forces are converging to try and eliminate this threat to my transport ships.

Bataan is bombed again by 67 Lily's and Sally's, no Allied casualties were reported. Is bombing Bataan a waste of time?

China:

Kweiteh is liberated.

Jan. 21/42 Update:

Sub Ops:

SS S-41 N.E. of Kuching tries a torpedo salvo at a TF I have in the area which misses. Escorts do not respond.
SS KIX is spotted at Ternate, but is not DC'd.

That was it for action the entire day other than my usual bombings in China. [>:]

However, things are in motion over most of the map. Large support convoys with troops, support units, supply and fuel are outbound from the Home Islands with destinations of Babeldoab and Truk.

On Luzon, the 38th Div. has arrived at Lingayen and is following units marching for Bataan from Clark Field. So the final assualt on Luzon will begin in the next few days. On Mindanao, 16th army units are almost at Cagayan for redeployment to the Solomon's. An Ambon invasion force is being assembled. Support units are being deployed to facilitate the expanding of airfields at Manado and Tarakan. The order of assaults in the Celebes will be Ambon, Kendari, Balikpapan and Makassar.

Invasion fleets have left Truk supported by 4 CV's...destination Rabaul and the Admiralty Islands. Units that invaded Nauru and Ocean Islands have been re-embarked and are being directed to rendevous with the Rabaul invasion fleets. The order of assaults will be the Admiralty Islands, Rabaul, Shortland, Port Moresby, and finally Guadalcanal.

In Burma the 33rd Div. is marching for Moulein (SP?) to begin the push towards Rangoon, airfields in northern Thailand are expanding to provide adequate air support against the hurricanes of the British airforce.

In Malaya, troops continue to push south, Johore Bahru will be the next to fall.

In China, Japanese units continue to position around Loyang in preparation for the siege. I'm making an early push towards Changsha to test the resolve of the Chinese. I think Smeulders will fight for this city, but I may be able to concentrate enough force here quickly to surprise him.

That's it for now, just waiting on the next turn from Smeulders, then I'll update with screenshots all that is about to happen. I think it's safe to say things are finally going to get tougher for the Allies. As Mynok so bluntly stated "Get on with your invasions!" Thanks for following along, and feel free to slap me upside the head as Mynok has. [:D]

[Mike Solli]

ORIGINAL: SqzMyLemon

Bataan is bombed again by 67 Lily's and Sally's, no Allied casualties were reported. Is bombing Bataan a waste of time?

Never! Better training for your bombers. Also, you increase the troops disruption and fatigue. Also remember, FOW. You never really know what's happening.

[Mike Solli]

Try to minimize the fuel you pull out of the Home Islands. You really want to get in the habit of sending fuel to the Home Islands. As soon as you capture most of the SRA, start using that source of fuel for your fleet. Then ship the excess to the Home Islands, after oil, of course.

Edit: Just my 2 cents.

[SqzMyLemon]

Mike,

Since you mentioned about experience and training of the bomber crews, have you replaced any of your veteran bomber/fighter pilots in China with green pilots? I've replaced as many as I can with green pilots, with almost no threat of Chinese air interdiction I've been finding daily bombing/escort raids are raising experience/skill levels quite quickly among these air units.

[Mike Solli]

I haven't done that. But I will as soon as I get my next turn. Thanks!

[SqzMyLemon]

Hi Mike,

Just a note on my fuel situation. I'm quite short at Babeldoab and just topping up Truk so to speak to keep the major fleet ships fully operational. All my major fleet operations will be in the Celebes and Solomon's for the next few months. I'm starting to slip tankers into Tarakan to direct supply Babeldoab and Truk, although it's risky right now as Allied bombers have hit the base periodically. I plan on shipping fuel/oil home as soon as I've eliminated the rest of the Allied bases close to my intended route. Now don't ask me how my supply situation is coming, I've expanded too quickly so back tracking there.[:D]

[SqzMyLemon]

Jan 22/42 Update:

Sub Ops:

SS Sculpin launches 2 separate 4 slavo attacks first against the DD Amatsukae and then the DD Tachikaze. All torpedoes miss and Sculpin receives 1 DC hit in return.
SS Tambor launches a 6 torpedo salvo and hits the AO Kyokuto Maru within 1 hex west of Truk. The oiler hasn't sunk yet and I hope it can make Truk to attempt repairs.

Malaya:

A ground attack by Betty's at Johore Bahru results in 5 damaged Betty's inflicting no casualties on the 11th Indian Div.

Borneo:

The 16th Naval Gd. Unit receives 12 casualties from an air attack by 5 139WH-3's east of Singkawang.
Allied forces were Shock attacked by Japanese forces causing 164 Allied casualties to Japan's 61 at 67,83.

The Philippines:

Luzon: Air attacks by 48 Lily's and 21 Sally's cause 10 casualties at Bataan, to the damaging of 9 Lily's and 1 Sally.

The Celebes:

Ternate was attacked by 9 A-24 Banshee's catching a small supply TF. The PB Kure Maru was hit by a 1000lb and will sink next turn (99 fire and 63 Flt. damage) also the xAKL Kofuku Maru was hit by two 1000lbs bombs and promptly sank. 2 Zero's from CAP over Zuikaku diverted and damaged 4 of the Banshee's.

Bismarck Sea:

The taking of Emirau Island starts the operations around Rabaul.

China:

48 Sally's bomb Chinese forces at 90,37 causing 91 casualties.
Ichang is bombed by 10 Lily's causing 4 Runway hits, 1 Airbase Supply hit and 5 Airbase hits.

Screenshots follow to highlight the active theatres.

Bismarck Sea: