Amis vs Aussies - World Domination(no jrcar or Tony)

[jwilkerson]

09-10 August 1942

Burma
Over 60 B-17s pounding our divisions in the jungles of Burma - the withdrawal continues. Last turn one of our "elite" (90 EXP) divisions in the jungle tried to counter attack a couple of allied recon battalions but we were repulsed.

Timor-Celebes-NW New Guinea Area
B-17s stood down this turn - but B-26s rolled in to Dili for the third turn in a row. Our Oscars and Zeros shot down 13 in the air and another 9 ditched on the way home. The first good air turn we've had in memory.

China
The Chinese beisiging force at Hankow was finally eliminated today along with the final small unit in Southern China. For the first time since the start of the game we now have the clear intiative in China - our rear areas are secure. Next we will probably try to push the Chinese back from the Coast in the South. A few B-26s or B-17s down there could attack some of our key convoy routes.

Production
We are about 6-7 weeks away from deployable Tojos - I'm hoping they will be the IJA zeros. I only have 4 Zero Chutai in my half of the map - so even slow conversion of Oscar units will offer some defense - though it will be too late to save Burma.

[jwilkerson]

09-10 August 1942

Resources
Generally our levels of resources, oil, fuel, supply seem to be keeping things on track. During the ADAK operation, Nik drained the Home Islands pretty much dry of fuel, but we have gradually been able to get the levels up high enough to keep the convoys and the production system moving. Still trying to teach our Navy to get their fuel from the SRA so I don't have to lug it all the way back north [:D].

[jwilkerson]

09-10 August 1942

Aircraft
Likewise our aircraft pools are not struggling either at this point and actually much of the production is turned off - like Oscar production has been completely turned off for some time now. We are using Nates for units which are in training and Oscars only for "front line" units, so about 40% of our units are Oscars and the rest Nates.

[jwilkerson]

09-10 August 1942

Banda Sea Area
In this area we are gradually trying to capture all the multitudinous dots, the remaining ones are circled in yellow. We will also try to build a few more bases in this area, but we know we are racing against time. In the Eastern Central edge you can see the Allies are landing at Hollandia about 2 years early!

[jwilkerson]

09-10 August 1942

CBI
We will try to delay along the Burma/Thai border, but we don't have anything that can slow down the B-17s, so the front will advance at the pace of the B-17s rebasing.

In China, we will try to reorient our offensive towards the yellow circled bases, this will push the Allies a bit further back from the South China Sea. But it will take some time to redeploy our forces.

[jwilkerson]

11-12 August 1942

Burma
60ish unescorted B-17s came in to Rangoon this turn and finally our Nick's engaged. We say 6 B-17s did not make it home - but have learned this is about double the real number of losses on Allied side. But even if 3 did not make it home - that is greatest victory in air war to date! We flew in a Zero chutai to reinforce.

Banda Sea
We also flew in a Zero Chutai to Dili this turn. We are gradually gaining some measure of air space control over Timor. This gives us the following air units in Timor now

Koepang: 2 Rufe Chutai, 1 Oscar Chutai
Alor: 1 Zero Chutai, 1 Oscar Chutai
Dili: 1 Zero Chutai, 1 Oscar Chutai

NW NG
Sorong finally built a level-1 airbase this turn. We are unloading three more construction battalions at Sorong.

[jwilkerson]

13-14 August 1942

Burma
5th Division finally made it out of the jungle - now one hex NE of Pegu. 18 DIvision in Rangoon. Imperial Guards SE of Pegu and 38th DIvision also one hex NE of Pegu. We will leave the 5 ID in Pegu and send the 38 Division back towards Moulmein.

No Allied air attacks on the Rangoon area this turn.

One Allied Armoured Brigade sloshed its way through the water to get to Ramree Island.

Solomons
About a week late, the Allies have landed on Tualgi. Noteable perhaps only because the Allies are two years ahead on other areas of the map like invasion of Hollandia.

Banda Sea
The Allied attack on the SRA has begun! Looks like six units comming ashore at Aru Island.

[jwilkerson]

15-16 August 1942

Burma
P-38s did their sweep thing today and I think we lost 10 Oscars for 2 P-38s. The Nicks got a bit worn out so we will fly in another Zero Chutai to Moulmein to reinforce. We will also pull one Oscar chutai out of training to replace the beat up one.

Some armor and Gurkhas are moving through the jungle against one of our recon battalions - both sides are pounding the other with bombers - a side show that is becoming the main shebang!

Banda Sea
Oscars covered some Betty's going in against the landing at Aru Island. The Allies had scores of P-38s and Beaufighters over here as well. We lost 5 Oscars, but all the Betty's got through. We beat up one AK but the Warspite "bomber magnet" suckered away most of our Betty's.

Meanwhile B-17s and B-24 continue to pound Ambon - so we will have to further reinforce that area.

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: jwilkerson

15-16 August 1942

Burma
P-38s did their sweep thing today and I think we lost 10 Oscars for 2 P-38s. The Nicks got a bit worn out so we will fly in another Zero Chutai to Moulmein to reinforce. We will also pull one Oscar chutai out of training to replace the beat up one.

Some armor and Gurkhas are moving through the jungle against one of our recon battalions - both sides are pounding the other with bombers - a side show that is becoming the main shebang!

Banda Sea
Oscars covered some Betty's going in against the landing at Aru Island. The Allies had scores of P-38s and Beaufighters over here as well. We lost 5 Oscars, but all the Betty's got through. We beat up one AK but the Warspite "bomber magnet" suckered away most of our Betty's.

Meanwhile B-17s and B-24 continue to pound Ambon - so we will have to further reinforce that area.

you´re employing Betties bomb armed? I would only use them with torps or not at all, they´re just to precious (the experienced crews I mean).

[jwilkerson]

ORIGINAL: castor troy
you´re employing Betties bomb armed? I would only use them with torps or not at all, they´re just to precious (the experienced crews I mean).

Yup, I mostly employ Betty's as "bomb armed" since they spend 97% of their time on submarine suppression.

But the particular raid in question could only be mounted, with escort, from a forward, level-2 base, that didn't happen to have a torpedo HQ at it. I think I have 4 torpedo HQs, in my part of the map and it is thus difficult to always have at least one within 10 hexes of any place the Allies could land, so sometimes we go without torpedos!

[jwilkerson]

17-18 August 1942

Burma
Gurkas and armor stormed across the Salween this turn in the face of our massively ineffective though unopposed Nells and Sallys. We have some reinforcements on the way to support our out numbered recon battalion. The side show has indeed become the main show!

Banda Sea
Allies continue unloading at Aru Island. B-17s and B-24s continue pounding Ambon though now we've reinforced with Rufes AND Zeros. We will bring in some engineers to help out with the repairs.

China
Our Sallys and Anns hit Kanhsien this turn leaving 41 points of runway damage showing at the end of the turn. We've probably driven out the AVG squadron that has been basing here. We have a moderate sized Army of 4 divisions plus recon, artillery and engineers on the way to try to take the place. Not sure it will be enough.

[jwilkerson]

19-20 August 1942

Banda Sea
No big change - the B-17s continue to pound Ambon and the Allies continue to unload at Aru Island.

[jwilkerson]

21-22 August 1942

Burma
Gurka's push back our recon battalion in the jungle - supported by lots of bombers, including B-17s. The main front is quiet. This "sideshow" activity is actually looking like it is substantially in our interest. There is no base anywhere near the sideshow activity - it is in deep jungle and should be difficult to supply as the Allied supply trail gets longer.

Banda Sea
Allies continue to unload and build up (roughly one airbase level per turn) at Aru Island. And B-17s continue to rumble non-stop over Ambon.

[jwilkerson]

23-24 August 1942

Banda Sea
Allies are rushing forward - we are now double occupying one of the many dots neara Aru Island - but we look to be able to capture a few more. Allies seem to be focusing more on the NW New Guinea side.

Nick, ran a carrier group down around Biak and launched a strike that put a few hits on the Warspite.

Production
I had accelerated Musashi a few weeks ago and ran our Naval Point surplus down fro 4,500 to about 1,000 - so I'll have to shift the construction back to normal. I shifted Rhuyo to accelerated mode instead.

We should be set to put at least six Tojo Chutai in the field by the end of September, but I suspect it is too little too late. With P-38s in both Burma and Aru Island sectors already.

[jwilkerson]

25-26 August 1942

Banda Sea
Well the po'ole dumb Japanese almost got a "victory" [;)] in the air war this turn - the numbers says we got six B-17s and seven P-38s - probably the greatest victory we will EVERY get in the air in one turn!

Nik, is helping me in the Banda Sea - he parked some carriers off Biak this turn and took a pile of Allied sweeping fighters (well technically I guess they were escorting 3-4 SBDs). If nothing else, Nick is attracking attention of the new Aru Island Allied Aerial Army.

In the mean time my "Fleete" has rolled in to Ambon and are providing some Zero reinforcement to our CAP over the air field. The B-17s continue to roll in however.

China
The Allies like to "sweep" our "Leaky CAP" so we tried that trick this turn and got some 2nd Line Allied fighters SE of Changsha.

Burma
Allies pounding our garrison (143rd Regiment) at Ramree Island - 100s of bomber sorties rolling in - we're hunkering down in our holes.

Production
Naval Points dropped to 850 that turn, so we stopped another pile of submarines - maybe that was the problem all along - we'll see if the Naval Point drop levels off next turn.

[jwilkerson]

25-26 August 1942

Banda Sea
Here is a screen shot.

Our main base in the area is Kendari - supplies are feed to Kendari from Balikpapan and Fuel from Soerabaja. We have a level-5 port, a large naval HQ, an AKE, an AS and an AD, so hopefully we are in decent shape from a rearming perspective.

Over the past several weeks we've managed to (barely) gain some measure of air space control over Timor and unescorted Allied bomber raids by non-B17s would appear to be too expensive to our opponents. We are now (slowly) moving in more units and supplies to the greater Timor area.

On Ceram, we have three bases as you can see. Boela is a level-2 airfield and has been involved in two attacks on the Allied shipping off Aru Island. Amboina is under sustained unescorted B-17 attack and has two Rufe Chutai and one Oscar Chutai on the level-4 air field. A Zero Chutai is based one hex to the HW at Namlea but for some reason has only enagaged the B-17s once. Recently we moved in our Western Fleet into the Amboina hex. This fleet contains our escort carriers Unyo and Taiyo each containing one Chutai of A6M5. Taiyo also has aboard one Chutai of Mabel and Unyo one Chutai of Val. Ise and Hyuga provide the Capital Ship component, six heavy cruisers and 15 Destroyers complete the 25 ship TF with Admiral Nagumo in command.

We have a DESRON operating in the area with one CL and seven DD. These ships are primarily acting as Fast Transport, moving supplies and small units around. Several small amphibous TFs move larger units around and greater amounts of supply. Currently a medium sized tanker force is unloading at Amboina. Fortunately the Allies are ignoring this force as it has been unloading for over two weeks now as the B-17s keep flying over head.

You can see Nik's carriers in the "Biak Bight" providing welcome distraction to the recently installed Allied Aerial Armada at Aru Island - just under the word on the map spelled "Dobo".

We still hope to occupy the yellow dots if only to enable awareness of when the Allies arrive at these places.

The main Allied base at Darwin just off the SW edge of the map is the B-17 base and Merauke to the SE houses the B-24s.

[jwilkerson]

25-26 August 1942

China
We are re-orienting our slim offensive troop margin for operations in Southern China. The immediate targets are the two bases circled in Yellow. I doubt we can hide our intentions - so the risk will be that major forces from Changsha will shift South - though we still retain strong forces around Hankow and so we can at least threaten Changsha with Westward movements in this event.

Amoy will be our short term primary base of operations, with Hong Kong and Canton also comming in to play. We have about four Sentai of bombers (Sally, Lily and Ann) and about 8 Chutai of Oscars as well as about 4 Chutai of Babs. The planes are scattered around the area.

[jwilkerson]

25-26 August 1942

Burma
We need to start referring to this theater as "Thailand" as we only have a tiny toe-hold remaining in "Burma" proper. In previous WITP games, I was never in this situation until very late 1943 - so we are 15-18 months ahead of my WITP experience in this game!

Our primary base of operations is Bangkok. We have three Divisions at Rangoon, Pegu and the hex just East of Pegu - that is the current "main line of resistance". Another division is heading to (map) NE Thailand and the 33rd Division is in reserve at Bangkok.

Currently we are not sure how quickly the Allies can push us back - they seem to be focused on two peripheral activities right now - eliminating our forces on Ramree Island and the jungle campaign along the NW (map NE) Thai-Burma border. Both of these "diversions" are buying us badly needed time to build up our fortifications and finish getting the factories ready to build Tojos.

[Nemo121]

Would it be possible to trouble you for a map of the various theatres with a front-line trace outlinging your remaining outposts and the line of bases you intend to fight to the death for? It might help visualise just what your situation and plans are....

While you are consolidating is any consideration being given to IJN raids? From my experience in my PBEM against 1EyedJacks unobserved raiding deep into enemy territory has actually been made significantly easier in AE due to changes to the way naval search works. FWIW I think this is realistic and find it a very enjoyable change to gameplay.

[jwilkerson]

Well here is the easy "front line trace" answer.