cap_and_gown(j) v witpqs(a) - no witpqs

[sfbaytf]

Here's what the cat dragged in on my game, just so you have an idea of how hard it is to effective blockade a continent like Oz. I'm blockading a Straits-the Straits of Formosa which is a much smaller area to cover. I have subs, search aircraft flying from Luzon covering the straights.

I also have carriers that make forrays into the area as well as SAG's

This is what I encountered when I decided to send a small hello bombardment force to Shanghai-I had no idea of this convoy, nor were they ever spotted before being engaged by my 3 ship TF.

I can only imagine what else sneaks through...

[CapAndGown]

July 23, 1942

Clearing the Philippines proceeds apace. Cagayan was captured today. Last turn witpqs shock attacked which turned out to be a disaster for him. I was marching two divisions into Cagayan. One of them got ahead of the other so witpqs decided he would try to attack before the other division arrived. Unfortunately for him, the other division arrived just as the attack went in. I doubt it would have turned out well for him in any case. His troops are out of supply and even one division outnumbered them. Shock attacking two divisions resulted in 1-17 odds, causing the allies about 3,400 casualties for only about 240 for the Japanese.

Witpqs sure does like his mines. Mostly they have not accomplished anything since I have been able to spot the subs and the pattern of their operations indicates they are laying mines. Last turn a sub showed up at the approaches to Palembang. So I sent some DMS to investigate. Sure enough, mines.

I have been playing cat and mouse with his subs in the Java and South China Seas. ASW patrol planes have reported hits on some of the subs. I have a CS escorting one tanker convoy. It has been able to track one of his subs that earlier took a shot at one of my TKs. I have been routing convoys around this sub.

I have decided against an invasion of southwest Australia. An August offensive seems a little late in day. I need to get troops into position to man my defensive perimeter. I will discuss my defensive preparations in a future post.

I noticed that a Zero Sentai I based on the Taiyo went from being carrier capable to carrier trained a little while ago. Cool. [8D] To bad this Sentai need to be withdrawn in December. [:(]

[CapAndGown]

August 1, 1942

The beginning of August marks a significant new phase of the war, most particularly in terms of Japanese production. But first we turn to tactical developments, some of which may have strategic significance.

Philippines

I am close to being done with cleaning up the Philippines. The last two major holdouts that I have been putting off were Zamboanga and Cebu. Both of these bases required an amphibious invasion, so I was waiting for the AKs to become available. Even with AKs, the regiments I landed at each spot suffered about 40% disablements. Unfortunately, I may actually have to land some more troops to finish these bases off. I wanted to land as few troops as possible precisely to avoid having all these disablements. But the attacks have not gone as well as I would have hoped, so I may need to send in more troops. I will wait to see how the next round of attacks goes. At least those disablements seem to be being repaired relatively quickly; rather than my combat power going down after each attack, it has been going up.

On the remainder of Mindanao, only Davao is left. It will be about a week before I can march the troops over there and capture the place.

China

I am close to capturing the last Chinese base on the coast - Pakhoi. I want to capture this base in case allied submarines are able to refuel there giving them longer time on station. (Witpqs continues to use his subs mainly as minelayers. A commonwealth sub is parked at the island south of Singapore right now, and it is no doubt laying mines.)

In northern China, all of the sudden the troops that were on the front line are bugging out back towards Sian. I wonder what's going on there? Is he consolidating his forces for an offensive? It would seem that he may be flying supplies into China from Ledo. A bunch of allied transport aircraft are showing up as ops loses. I am moving to put strategic reserves into place to deal with any offensive. I consider southern China the most likely spot for an allied offensive, but reserves are also available in northern China as well.

CentPac

A recon flight showed up over Canton Island today. The first such recon. Witpqs has been building Christmas Island and Tahiti like crazy. They are becoming major bases. Does this mean that Canton Island is the first target of his counter offensive? It would seem likely since this island is relatively easy to take. I am not too worried about losing it. Depending on when he attacks (if he does) I may not even counter. Right now Akagi, Kaga, and Ryujo are being upgraded at Singapore. Soryu just finished upgrading, while Hiryu is still 21 days away from being fully repaired from its earlier run-in with a Dutch torpedo. Thus, half of my CV capability is currently unavailable and a long way from the eastern edge of my possessions. KB2 is currently at Rabaul. It includes Zuikaku, Junyo, Hiyo, Zuiho, Shoho and Taiyo (which has a sentai of Zeros on board.) I do not judge this force sufficient to take on the allied carriers.

Hopefully, we are still at least a month away from an attack in the CentPac area. This will give me time to build up the Taubiteau area where I plan on installing an air flotilla in the near future.

Production

Both the Helen IIa and Tojo IIa became available today. I have now switched over Oscar production to Tojos and Sally production to Helens. When the factories are completely repaired I will have:

Tojo: 145/month
Helen: 130/month

I also finally got around to changing my Betty factories over to the Nell G3M3 model.

Engine production needed to be ramped up to meet the new demands. Currently, engine production will looks like the following:

M Ha-32 115(5) - 2 factories - 60 in pool
M Ha-33 160(20) - 3 factories - 68 in pool
N Ha-34 84(86) - 3 factories - 162 in pool
N Ha-35 325(0) - 3 factories - 105 in pool

Because of this large increase in production, I also increased my HI production further. The HI factory at Singapore was further expanded to 75 while Batavia and Sorebaja were both expanded to 55, taking me up to 14375 HI factories. Currently there are about 650,000 HI points in the pool. I would expect that over time, as the supply situation permits, I will be expanding all of these factories to 100.

The Japanese high water mark:

[Grotius]

Currently there are about 650,000 HI points in the pool.

Sheesh, that's a nice cushion. Even in vanilla WITP, I never got over 500,000 in 1942. How much HI do you pay in monthly pilot training? You're playing Scenario 1, as I recall.

In Scenario 2, which I'm playing, we have many more trainee pilots -- and the unfortunate, unintended consequence is that they suck up 40,000 HI a month at game start, ramping up to well over 100,000 HI a month by 1943 or 1944. I'm only in January 1942, but with that HI pilot cost, I'm only stockpiling 6000 HI a month or so. I'll be lucky to have 100,000 by August 1942, even if I do expand HI. (Andy Mac has said that he might adjust Scenario 2 to rectify this problem. The irony is that Scenario 2 in some ways makes the HI situation more dire.)

[CapAndGown]

ORIGINAL: Grotius

Currently there are about 650,000 HI points in the pool.

Sheesh, that's a nice cushion. Even in vanilla WITP, I never got over 500,000 in 1942. How much HI do you pay in monthly pilot training? You're playing Scenario 1, as I recall.

I pay 20,000 a month. The key here is to not overbuild. When I got to 90,000 armament points I shut down those factories, leaving only 95 producing. My plane production has not been that high. Basically, we have not been having any air duels in quite a while. I have been overproducing over 4,000 HI a turn now for quite a while. I was up to overproducing 5,000 HI a while back, but that rate has declined as I have ramped up plane production and vehicle production. (I definitely recommend increasing vehicle production to 150 a month right from the start.) OTOH, I have been expanding HI production at Batavia (60), Sorebaja (60) and Singapore (80).

[CapAndGown]

August 4, 1942

US CVs showed up in the northern Pacific today. Their search AC (SBDs) sunk one of my picket ships. I assume this is a raid of some sort. There are at least two TFs. One TF is obviously a CV TF. Not sure if the other one is as well. I might be a SCTF. Hard to imagine this is an invasion of any sort. I can't see coming into the Kuriles from the direction they are coming from. I suppose it could be an invasion of Marcus. But I can't see the point of that. I would just take it right back. Nor does this seem like a diversion. The US CVs are coming in from a direction where they obviously do not want to be seen until they reach their target. So my guess would be a raid against my resource convoys around Hokaido. (Although he has not sent any subs into the Sea of Okhotsk yet, which is somewhat surprising.) Another possibility would be a bombardment of one of my bases. But to do that he would need to get in very, very close, which seems quite risky.

Whatever he intended, my guess is that the operation will now be called off. If it is not, I have plenty of assets in the area to deal with the threat and my shipping now has adequate warning to avoid any danger.

Meanwhile, now that the position of at least some of the enemy's CVs has been revealed, I will conduct my own raids. KB2, which is at Rabual with CVs Zuikaku, Hiyo, and Junyo, CVLs Ryujo and Shoho, and CVE Taiyo will conduct a raid into the southern Pacific and try to catch some transport TFs going to and from Tahiti. KB1 which is at Singapore will sortie into the Indian Ocean looking for TFs sailing the Capetown-Perth route. KB1 currently is composed of CVs Shokaku and Soryu and CVL Zuiho. CVs Akagi, Kaga are undergoing refit and Hiryu is still about 20 days away from being fully repaired.

ASW action

The HMS Trusty has been hanging out near Singapore. I have two ASW TFs in the area hunting this sub and another one down. Last turn my ASW TF reacted to the the Trusty. Unfortunately, all they got for their trouble was one sunk DD. [:(] This turn, however, when they reacted towards the Trusty they were able to launch an attack which scored two solid hits on the bloody sub. I would love to be able to just finish this guy off!

[CapAndGown]

August 15, 1942

Whatever the allied CVs that attacked my picket boat north of Marcus were up to, they turned around and headed home, just as I thought they would.

Meanwhile, my own CVs have been conducting their own raid, one group into the Indian Ocean, the other into the very far south Pacific. The Pacific operation stumbled on two very large allied transport TFs. We only attacked one of the TFs, and then not everyone participated in the morning strike. Nevertheless, we managed to sink a large number of xAKs all carrying fuel bound for Australia! The sunk ships list only lists 4 xAKs as sunk, and one DD. But I am quite sure a number of other xAKs were done in as well, along with a DE. I am christening this "The Battle at the Bottom of the World."

For tomorrow I have split up KB2 into numerous surface and air combat TFs. The surface TFs are set to patrol with a max reaction range of 6. This disposition of forces will mean that my CVs will not have any escorts next turn. But I am not worried about subs. The main danger is that witpqs may split off his escorts (just DDs and DEs by the looks of things) and try for an intercept. It is a risk I am willing to take. My guess would be that he will scatter his ships to the four winds in single ship TFs. I want to get as many of these as I can, obviously.

Carriers and ships were allocated based on their search capability. the CS will drive up the middle so that I can spot the eastern TF whether it goes north or south. The BBs were sent to the west because their float planes can spot the southern TF. In addition, for the CVs, one sentai of Kates was set to 20% search in each TF. For the Taiyo, which only has a sentai of Zeros aboard, I set the Zeros to Naval attack at 100 feet. Maybe their cannons can set the fuel cargo on fire!

Morning Air Attack:
Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 20
D3A1 Val x 16

Japanese aircraft losses
D3A1 Val: 2 damaged

Allied Ships
xAK Caleb Strong, Bomb hits 2, heavy fires, heavy damage
DE Fox, Bomb hits 3, heavy fires, heavy damage
xAK John C. Fremont, Bomb hits 4, heavy fires, heavy damage
xAK Edgar Allan Poe, Bomb hits 4, heavy fires, heavy damage

Afternoon Air Attack:
Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 54
B5N2 Kate x 34
D3A1 Val x 34

Japanese aircraft losses
D3A1 Val: 3 damaged

Allied Ships
xAK Benjamin Franklin, Bomb hits 3, heavy fires
xAK Rufus King, Torpedo hits 4, and is sunk
DD Henley, Bomb hits 1, heavy fires
xAK Samuel Adams, Torpedo hits 2, and is sunk
xAK Peter Silvester, Bomb hits 4, heavy fires, heavy damage
xAK John Page, Torpedo hits 4, and is sunk
xAK John Adams, Bomb hits 4, heavy fires, heavy damage
xAK Stephen J. Field, Bomb hits 1, Torpedo hits 2, heavy fires, heavy damage
xAK Robert Morris, Torpedo hits 1, heavy fires
xAK John C. Calhoun, Bomb hits 5, Torpedo hits 3, and is sunk
xAK William Dawes, Torpedo hits 2, heavy fires, heavy damage
xAK Zachary Taylor, Bomb hits 4, heavy fires, heavy damage

[CapAndGown]

August 16, 1942

Day 2 of the "Battle at the Bottom of the World" saw witpqs try to run surface intercepts of my Carriers. It did not turn out well for him. Trying to engage Carriers with surface forces is a fools game. Yamamoto figured that out after just an hour of reflection after the disaster of Midway.

The action was rather complicated and involved numerous surface, submarine, and air actions: over, on and under the ocean!

One of my DD groups intercepted an xAK and sank it.

The BB Hiei intercepted the DD Henley, which had been hit by a bomb yesterday, and sank it. 3 main guns salvos hit the Henley. 14" shells are not good for anybody, much less a DD!

The allied TF was apparently composed of xAPs with a battleship escort. The xAPs were split into single ship TFs and raced westward to escape. Two of the xAPs ran smack into my picket line where the I-23 put torpedoes into two of them:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Japanese Ships
SS I-23

Allied Ships
xAP Lurline, Torpedo hits 1

Allied ground losses:
20 casualties reported
Squads: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled
Non Combat: 1 destroyed, 1 disabled
Engineers: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Japanese Ships
SS I-23

Allied Ships
xAP Matsonia, Torpedo hits 1, heavy damage

Allied ground losses:
27 casualties reported
Squads: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled
Non Combat: 1 destroyed, 2 disabled
Engineers: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled

Both xAPs are reported sunk, though I am skeptical. I wish tracker kept track of number of ground loss points accumulated. I can't remember exactly what the allied ground loss total was before this battle so I can't say with any certainty whether these xAPs actually sank. (no sinking sound.)

The Zuikaku group found a group of CLs apparently based at Tubuai and racing in to intercept our Carriers. Only one of the CLs was actually hit. And only one of those hits was penetrating. No reports of fires, so probably not very serious.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Afternoon Air attack on TF, near Tubuai at 166,190

Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 16
B5N2 Kate x 20
D3A1 Val x 24

Japanese aircraft losses
B5N2 Kate: 1 destroyed, 11 damaged
D3A1 Val: 5 damaged

Allied Ships
CL Detroit
CL Raleigh, Bomb hits 2
CL Trenton
CL Concord
DD Ellet

The Hiyo group attacked the Warspite which was apparently escorting the southern group of xAPs. It is apparent that the Warspite and some accompanying DDs were split off from the xAPs and were trying to intercept. The Warspite was hit by one torpedo and a few bombs which, obviously, did nothing. Not sure that the torpedo did much either. There is no report of a fire or heavy damage. The sunk ships list, however, shows the Warspite as sunk. And the roll over on that TF shows APD, APD, APD, AM. I would think that the BB would show up as something else other than an APD. Maybe it really did sink? Though that seems impossible from just one torpedo.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Afternoon Air attack on TF, near Mangaia at 147,195

Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 25
B5N1 Kate x 12
B5N2 Kate x 14

Japanese aircraft losses
B5N1 Kate: 1 destroyed, 4 damaged

Allied Ships
BB Warspite, Bomb hits 4, Torpedo hits 1
DD Stuart
DMS Hopkins

In the final act of the day's action, the Junyo group found another set of xAPs fleeing eastward. I believe these xAPs were part of the same southern TF that the Warspite was escorting. Like their brethren to the west, these xAPs were also broken up into single ship TFs and only one of them was attacked.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 25
B5N2 Kate x 17

Allied Ships
xAP Santa Inez, Bomb hits 1, on fire

Allied ground losses:
30 casualties reported
Squads: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled
Non Combat: 0 destroyed, 2 disabled
Engineers: 0 destroyed, 4 disabled
Vehicles lost 1 (0 destroyed, 1 disabled)

For tomorrow, I am bring KB2 back together again. Once all the ships are mated up, we will retire to Suva to refuel and rearm.

[jrcar]

In our game I ship fuel to Oz with xAK as well, a bit desperate at times but you do what you have to.

Historically before the war Australia mostly recived petroluem products (car and lighting fuel) from the USA in 4 gallon containers, although they did start to recive bulk supplies and were begining to break it down in Oz into 4 gallon containers for retail sale.

Otherwise 44 gallon containers were also shipped.

These all went via xAK type vessels... but in game tersm this is all "supply" rather than fuel oil for ships.

I think fuel for ships came in bulk, just prior to the war Australia had significantly increased bulk fuel oil storage facilities (Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth, Darwin) but while the facilities were there fuel oil for them was not.

Australia itself was using a lot of coal rather than oil (as was a fair bit of the merchant fleet still), mostly for industry and power production. Most of this coal was from Australia, but high qulaity coal was sometimes imported.

Cheers

Rob

[CarnageINC]

Good AAR Cap, it's turning into a must study for noob jap fanboys.  You must be running your supplies very well to support your deep south operations.  Do you use a lot of your TK capacity or run AK's?

[Grotius]

Day 2 of the "Battle at the Bottom of the World" saw witpqs try to run surface intercepts of my Carriers. It did not turn out well for him. Trying to engage Carriers with surface forces is a fools game.

Interesting, because witpqs posted a comment in my AAR, drawing attention to someone else's (mostly) failed attempt at a surface interception of KB. Ironic that he himself went ahead and tried it here! Maybe he figured he had little choice?

[CapAndGown]

August 17-19, 1942

August 17 saw the final few encounters of the Battle at the Bottom of the World.

I forgot to turn reaction off on one DD group so it decided, or maybe witpqs decided, to try to intercept the CL force. Fortunately the engagement was inconclusive. All the ships of KB2 are back together now in one TF and headed for Suva. There is fuel at Suva, though not much (14k) but there is a replenishment TF about two days out from Suva, so I have plenty of gas available.

My subs scored some more intercepts of the xAPs fleeing west towards New Zealand:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Submarine attack near Raoul Island at 139,201
Japanese Ships
SS I-9

Allied Ships
xAP Matsonia, Torpedo hits 3, on fire, heavy damage (Maybe this time it really is sunk!)

Allied ground losses:
Vehicles lost 1 (1 destroyed, 0 disabled)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Submarine attack near Raoul Island at 138,202
Japanese Ships
SS I-20

Allied Ships
xAP President Coolidge, Torpedo hits 1

Allied ground losses:
15 casualties reported
Squads: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled
Non Combat: 0 destroyed, 1 disabled
Engineers: 1 destroyed, 0 disabled

Edit: Let me add that another piece of intelligence was gathered today that indicates the fuel situation in Oz is very bad: The SS Grampus was spotted near Kwajalien today. That sub was last seen patrolling south of Rabaul several days ago. Since it is apparently heading home to rearm/refuel, that means it is based out of Pear Harbor, not an Australian port. The only reason for a sub patrolling the Solomons to be based at PH is because there is not enough fuel in Australia!

ORIGINAL: CarnageINC

Good AAR Cap, it's turning into a must study for noob jap fanboys.  You must be running your supplies very well to support your deep south operations.  Do you use a lot of your TK capacity or run AK's?

Thank you for the vote of confidence. No, I have not been using xAKs for fuel transport. I initially brought fuel down from the Home Islands during the opening phases of the war before the DEI was secured. Later, I had all of my AOs tank up at Palembang to support a sweep by the KB in the Indian Ocean. At the conclusion of that operation, the AOs still had lots of gas left, so I sent them over to the Pacific to refuel various bases. Then, after I figured out the importance of turn around time, I split off the fast (14 and 15 knot) AOs and they are now part of the Singapore-Home Islands convoy system. Meanwhile, the small AOs (10x8k capacity) filled up at Tarakan. They were supposed to support a sweep by the KB into the south, but I launched that operation early once the allied carriers showed themselves in the northern Pacific. So instead, I sent them over to Nauru to dump some gas over that island where I plan on stationing some of my fleet, and now they are heading down to Suva.

I have one 50k shuttle running back and forth between Balikpapan and Rabaul. I also just started another shuttle based out of Miri to start getting fuel into Luzon and Mindanao.

Right now in the Pacific I have the following fuel levels:
Rabaul - 42k
Nauru - 17k (Nauru currently has a limit of 18k)
Kwajalien - 28k
Truk - 68k
Luganville - 34k
Suva - 14k

I have included below an outline of my tanker convoy system. This system will expand as more TKs become available. In addition to the TKs rolling out of the ship yards, I am converting Std-A, Std-B, and Std-C type cargo vessels to TKs as they come out of the shipyards.

[CapAndGown]

More info on production and convoys.

I have been unable to grow a stockpile of resources on the Home Islands. The reach for my resource usage has been hovering around 50 days since January. This is even after I started bring in resources from the SRA. So to try to start building up a stock pile, I decided to turn off LI factories at Tokyo and Osaka. That will mean 4,000 less supply is produced per day on the Home Islands; instead ~20k per day, I will be producing ~16k per day. That should be fine for a while.

Java has reached a tipping point where it is now consuming more resources than it produces. That is OK since there are a lot of resource centers in the neighborhood and I currently have a stock pile of over 400k resources on the island. Batavia and Sorebaja each now have 70 heavy industry factories. I plan to keep on expanding these factories.

As to my resource convoys: the allocation of resource convoy routes and make up is constantly evolving as ports get built up and I refine my thinking about the best way to handle this. I have a few constants that guide my thinking in this area. 1) Use the biggest ships available so as to reduce the overall number of ships and thus reduce the amount of fuel used. 2) Try to give each convoy its own dedicated endpoints so that convoys are not competing with each other for space at the docks. 3) Have as few convoys as possible by having them as big as possible so as to increase the number of escorts per convoy and reduce the number of convoys allied subs can take a shot at.

With these principles in mind, the following map show my current, or soon to be, convoy routing system. (I am still working on getting Muroran up to a size six port.)

[SqzMyLemon]

ORIGINAL: cap_and_gown

Java has reached a tipping point where it is now consuming more resources than it produces. That is OK since there are a lot of resource centers in the neighborhood and I currently have a stock pile of over 400k resources on the island. Batavia and Sorebaja each now have 70 heavy industry factories. I plan to keep on expanding these factories.

I was wondering if you have expanded any HI factories in China? There seems to be plenty of excess fuel for expanding production. Would you be worried about the drain on supply in the region if you did so?

[CapAndGown]

ORIGINAL: SqzMyLemon

ORIGINAL: cap_and_gown
Java has reached a tipping point where it is now consuming more resources than it produces. That is OK since there are a lot of resource centers in the neighborhood and I currently have a stock pile of over 400k resources on the island. Batavia and Sorebaja each now have 70 heavy industry factories. I plan to keep on expanding these factories.

I was wondering if you have expanded any HI factories in China? There seems to be plenty of excess fuel for expanding production. Would you be worried about the drain on supply in the region if you did so?

There is no excess supply of fuel in China or Manchuria. These places need to have fuel and oil sent there every once and a while. I would not build HI there, or even repair the HI at such places as Hong Kong or Wenchow. (There is also the supply issue.)

ADDED: I also don't like building HI in China because I feel it is too vulnerable.

[CarnageINC]

How long did it take to have all your HI and A/C production and research up and running to capacity before you expanded, or did you expand right away and your A/C production?

[CapAndGown]

ORIGINAL: CarnageINC

How long did it take to have all your HI and A/C production and research up and running to capacity before you expanded, or did you expand right away and your A/C production?

I am not sure I understand this. I have not expanded HI anywhere except at Singapore, Batavia, and Sorebaja. Those sites, obviously, could not be built up until they were captured, and then there was the issue of having enough supply to effect the repairs.

My AC production has been steadily increasing as new models become available. For instance, I am now producing Rufe's and A6M3's where I was not at the start because they were not available. Same with Nick's. I initially expanded Zero production to 86 and have left it there. I also converted and expanded Nate factories to Oscars. Bomber factories were initially converted over to Sallies. All of that was done on day one.

I have been incrementally adjusting my R&D. There is no need to do this all at once since it will be some time before any of those factories will actually repair. I feel no need to examine every single R&D plane and decide if I want it or not right now. Those decisions can be spaced out over time.

[CarnageINC]

Ahhh...I thought you increased your HI but you just turned off armaments.  It just seems like it takes forever in my pbem for my A/C production to come up to speed.  I have plenty of supplies at most sites I believe, was just curious on times. [;)]

[CapAndGown]

August 20, 1942

Things have gone quite again as KB2 heads back to Suva (while trying to avoid an allied sub).

Below is a synopsis of my plane and engine production at this point.

[CapAndGown]

August 30, 1942

Not much since the last report. KB2 will be back at Rabaul next turn. KB1 is back at Singapore patching up some system damage. Once that is done it will be moved over to the Pacific where I estimate the main allied carrier force is located.

I thought I would provide a synopsis of my defensive preparations in this and the following posts.

Defensive philosophy:

Where possible, create clusters of mutually supporting airfields so that they cannot all be shut down at once by allied 4E bombers. Provide Air HQ or Air Flotilla support to as many bases as possible so that torpedo bombers can use their main ordinance. For the outer rim, only build forts to level three before pulling out the engineers to begin working on new bases.

Because I am going with lots of bases rather than a few big ones, this presents the following two problems: 1) little aviation support; 2) difficulty in providing an adequate garrison.

Their is little I can do about #1. Most bases have a 24 AV support unit while a select few have 48 AV base forces. A large number of aviation support units will arrive in January. I hope this helps. Right now I am thinking about breaking up Sentai's of bombers and fighters into Chutais to reduce the load on individual bases and to be able to fly out of numerous bases in smaller packets than one large strike.

For #2, my overall planning is to garrison a select number of bases with regiments. With level 3 forts and an AV of between 120-150, it is hoped that these bases can hold on for a few turns until reinforcements can arrive. Reserve forces are stationed in various theaters close to the possible invasion sites. Some reserves, such as the Para units, can be flown in as soon as the invasion materializes. Other forces will load up on Amphibious TFs using AKs stationed at the same port where the reserves are located. AKs/reserve forces will be based at the following locations: Oosthaven on Sumatra; Kendari; Rabaul; Luganville; and Suva. Para units and Transport AC are based at the following locations: Rabaul; Lomblem, north of Timor; and Taiping in Malaya.

My Carrier forces will be based at Nauru.

One 3xBB force is based at Luganville. One 3xBB force is based at Singapore.

One CA force is based at Singapore; Once CA force is based at Rabaul. One CA force will be based at Nauru. And one CA force is based on Hokaido. There are also two CL forces in the Home Islands.

Bombers and fighters are making their way to the front in increasing numbers. The idea here is to have them based in areas near where an invasion might occur, but located in a position where they can rapidly shift to support another theater.

Here is the New Caledonia/New Hebrides theater. The regiment at Luganville serves as a reserve force for both New Caledonia and Fiji/Somoa. This area is almost completely built out and most of the engineers have moved back to the Solomons/Gilberts areas.