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

[PaxMondo]

ORIGINAL: cap_and_gown

There is no need to have convoys coming from both Medan and Palembang. The Medan oil and fuel will migrate to Palembang.

Really? This is good news. I had not noticed this to work. How does it happen without a RR connect between the two. Is there even a road connection?

[CapAndGown]

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

ORIGINAL: cap_and_gown

There is no need to have convoys coming from both Medan and Palembang. The Medan oil and fuel will migrate to Palembang.

Really? This is good news. I had not noticed this to work. How does it happen without a RR connect between the two. Is there even a road connection?

I don't know how it happens. It just does. Supply will also flow across pretty much the entire island. Basically, supplies flow too easily. That is why the Burma theater is borked.

[PaxMondo]

Ahhhh ... so it isn't just Burma, there is an issue in the supply movement overall.  OK.  Thanks for this.  So, this is a loophole that we hope will be plugged in the near future and then you will have to play it straight.

[CapAndGown]

Feb. 21, 1943

The allies invaded and captured an empty Canton Island today. It looks like Pago-Pago will be invaded tomorrow. After that, I expect the allies to turn their attention next to the Tonga Islands and Baker Island. From there it is hard to know if he will go for Fiji or the Gilberts.

On a production note: amazingly, I am actually repairing a resource center! Java is now consuming over 3000 resources a day more than it produces. There are now almost 300 HI factories on the island. Indeed, Batavia and Sorebaja are now some of the largest producers of HI in the empire. So in order to make a dent in the fuel needed to ship resources to the island (though, admittedly only a small dent) I decided to repair the one damaged resource center. Never thought I would do that, but this is the only place in the empire that consumes more resources than it produces outside the home islands.

[CapAndGown]

Feb. 22, 1943

As expected, Pago-Pago was invaded today by the equivalent of 3+ divisions:
27th Infantry Div /370
2nd USMC Engr Rgt /362
1st USMC Tank Bn /358
8th Marine Rgt /362
158th(Sep) Infantry Rgt /362
2nd Marine Rgt /362
41st Infantry Div /371
6th Marine Rgt /362
3rd USMC Tank Bn /362
2nd USMC FA Bn /362
I US Amphib Corps /362
1st USMC FA Bn /362

Their opposition is the 65th Brigade and an artillery unit worth 250 assault points with level 3 forts. I doubt it will hold out very long.

I thought in this post I would lay out my plans for the placement of CD guns.

A number of base forces will upgrade their TOE's to have CD guns, as well as additional aviation support and engineers. Many of these base forces are located at bases that already have static CD gun units, such as at Truk, Takao, Saipan, Babeldoab, and Saigon. Their are also some port units that, when combined with the appropriate Naval Guard unit will get CD guns. And there is at least one SNLF unit that will combine with another to get CD guns. It takes some poking around, but the CD guns are out there.

My philosophy on the placement of CD guns is as follows:
1) Any base that already has a static CD unit does not need the additional CD guns provided by a base force. I want to spread my CDs around so as to cause multiple invasions to suffer casualties, not just a few invasions.
2) I want to place CD guns where the base MUST be invaded. I don't want the allies to be able to land somewhere and then walk over to where the CD guns are, thus sparing their ships. This basically means that one hex islands are ideal, although some bases, like Ambon and Milne Bay, are "virtual" islands because the allies would be unlikely to invade an adjacent jungle hex and walk to the target.

With these goals in mind, the following map shows where I have concentrated my CD capable units. In addition to the locations shown on the map here, I also have, or will shortly have, CD capable units at Koepang, Ambon, Puerto Princessa, Shortlands, Manus, Luganville, and Suva. The Suva one doesn't exactly fit my criteria, but the base force is already there.

The one big draw back here is that to upgrade the TOE of these base forces, there needs to be a command HQ in range. So what I have done is loaded up the 4th Fleet HQ on some transports and its job for the foreseeable future will be to travel around the Pacific issuing orders in person to upgrade. Apparently, a cablegram will not do. [8|]

[CapAndGown]

Well, this is interesting. In reviewing the units used to invade Savii and Upolu, I see that the 27th and 41st divisions were used against those islands as well. That invasion took place on Jan. 17. It is now Feb. 22. So only about a month has passed since these divisions were last landed on a hostile beach.

I wonder how well prepped they can be after only 30 days? Surely they can't be more than 50% prepped??? Perhaps this may go slower than I thought.

It is also comforting to see that the allies do not have an unlimited number of troops that they can throw at me. Instead, he is recycling troops. This is important because my defenses are designed with the idea that the allies can only muster about 6 divisions for any one offensive.

[CapAndGown]

Feb. 23, 1943

Corsairs showed up escorting a raid on Pago-Pago today. God I hope they are not the uber-unstoppable monster they were in WitP.

[CapAndGown]

Feb. 25, 1943

Pago-Pago fell to the first allied shock attack. Who will be next?

[PaxMondo]

Well, that took 3 days. 
 
How are the Corsiars?

[crsutton]

ORIGINAL: cap_and_gown

Feb. 23, 1943

Corsairs showed up escorting a raid on Pago-Pago today. God I hope they are not the uber-unstoppable monster they were in WitP.

Well, the first version which will be in production until the end of the year, has a service rating of three and is not carrier capable. It is still a good fighter becuase it can fly higher than anything you have and it is very fast, but will not be the uber killer it was in WITP. He will need to rest them a lot and they are vulnerable to bombers at forward bases unless he mixes them with wildcats or P40s.

[CapAndGown]

ORIGINAL: crsutton

ORIGINAL: cap_and_gown

Feb. 23, 1943

Corsairs showed up escorting a raid on Pago-Pago today. God I hope they are not the uber-unstoppable monster they were in WitP.

Well, the first version which will be in production until the end of the year, has a service rating of three and is not carrier capable. It is still a good fighter becuase it can fly higher than anything you have and it is very fast, but will not be the uber killer it was in WITP. He will need to rest them a lot and they are vulnerable to bombers at forward bases unless he mixes them with wildcats or P40s.

Thanks for the info. We are playing with a HR that limits CAP and sweeps to 30,000 feet.

[CapAndGown]

March 1, 1943

My Val factory was switched over to making Judy's. 30 Judy factories are already on line and are expanding. We should be making about 75-80 Judy's a month by April.

The allies are marching on Port Hedland from the south. I was expecting an air drop. Instead, he is coming overland. I was just about deliver a load of supplies to Port Hedland via fast transport. Those ships are now going to drop that supply off at Roti (next to Koepang) and then go pick up the SNLF unit at Port Hedland. The allies have also recaptured Katherine and are no doubt marching on Darwin. Except for two small units at Port Hedland, I have no one in northern Australia any more.

It looks like the allies will be invading Niue soon. I have organized a rescue effort to pull the SNLF unit out of there via fast transport. The TF is currently at Luganville. Hopefully, we can get in and out of Niue before the allied invasion force shows up and before he can react to my TF.

[CapAndGown]

March 1, 1943

Allied 4E bombers attacked the airfield at Savusavu today. 29 B-17E's and 12 B-24D's faced off against 43 Tojo's. The Tojo's acquitted themselves quite well. 6 B-17's were shot down and one was lost operationally, while 1 B-24 was shot down and 1 was an ops loss. 7 Tojo's were lost, 2 A2A, 3 on the ground, and 2 operationally. Only 2 pilots were WIA. Overall a good result.

OTOH, even though there is radar at this base, it is the type 2 radar that JNAF aviation units have. That does not have too great a range and therefore the fighters did not have enough warning to significantly damage the raid before they dropped their bombs. Most of the action was after the bombs were dropped. The type 2 does not upgrade to the type 3 until October.

To remedy this situation, I have a large number of AAA units at Yokohama that have upgraded their radars to the Tai-Chi 7 model. I plan on buying out a bunch of these guys and sending them to various bases where their longer range detection capability would be useful.

[CapAndGown]

March 3, 1943

Port Hedland was captured by the allies today. My fast transport TF arrived just in time to evacuate the bulk of the Naval Guard unit (or at least what remained of it after an intensive bombing campaign.) Too bad we couldn't get the whole unit out, if only for the entertainment factor of watching the allies hit air. [:D]

Another fast transport TF is set up to evacuate Niue tonight. The TF was spotted yesterday, but not today. I think we will be OK.

There are strong indications that the allied CVs are located at Pearl Harbor. Yesterday we received two notifications of heavy radio traffic at Pearl, and today we got another. I am wondering if the Marshals may be the next target while witpqs tries to focus my attention on Fiji. Unfortunately, there is not much I can do about the Marshalls right now. I may send some additional air strength there, but I need a strong presence at Fiji right now to deal with the allied 4E bombers. Fiji and Tonga still seem to be the focus of his next attack so I will keep the units I have down there in place. (Baker should also be taken shortly since it is empty.)

[FatR]

I think it is preferable to abandon the efforts to oppose the Allied air offensive at Fiji entirely if there is a definite threat to Marshalls. Loss of Fiji exposes Noumea-Luganville-Ndeni barrier and islands that can be eventually used to threaten Marshalls/Gilberts. Loss of Marshalls/Gilberts exposes the entire Central Pacific, bringing Allies within one leap of your vital areas.

[CapAndGown]

March 4, 1943

The allies recapture Fenton and Wyndham. Next stop: Darwin.

My fast transport TF that was supposed to pick up the naval guard unit at Niue, and is commanded by Tanaka, was still at Niue during the day phase. [X(] My god, I sweated the whole turn feeling for sure they were going to be attacked! Don't know why they weren't. Maybe the range was too great for the planes that he surely MUST have set to naval attack. [&o]

I think the reason they did not race in and out is because they stopped to pick up supplies. I guess when you do the pick up routine you need to tell them to load troops only. At any rate, Tanaka has been ordered to skedaddle.

[CapAndGown]

March 9, 1942

Today saw the biggest air battle of the war over Magwe. I figured the allies were saving up for a massive air offensive over Burma and today is the day it arrived. Over all, it turned out much better than I could have hoped. The allies lost over 60, and perhaps as many as 70 AC while the Japanese only lost 17. OTOH, 177 oil centers were damaged. But since Magwe has been pumping for a whole year now, and I never thought it would last this long, I can't say that I am really upset. In fact, I am very happy about the A2A results.

Only 2 pilots were KIA, 4 were WIA, and 1 was MIA. Of the two Senatai based at Magwe, the Tojo Sentai claimed 28 kills, while the Nick Senatai claimed 22. For the 2 Tojo Sentai's based at Meiktila (the adjacent base), one Sentai claimed 8 kills, the other claimed 5. These Sentai were providing "bleed over" CAP.

I must say I was rather impressed by the care with which this raid was assembled. I think forum members would benefit from finding out from witpqs how he managed to put such a well coordinated raid together. My only question is why my radar was able to detect raids at 12,000 feet 120 miles away, while raids coming in at 30,000 feet were only spotted 28 miles away.

At any rate, the action began with two different sweeps to try to knock back my CAP:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Morning Air attack on Magwe , at 57,47
Weather in hex: Moderate rain
Raid detected at 41 NM, estimated altitude 32,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 10 minutes

Japanese aircraft
Ki-44-IIa Tojo x 62
Ki-45 KAIa Nick x 42

Allied aircraft
Hurricane IIc Trop x 16

Japanese aircraft losses
Ki-44-IIa Tojo: 1 destroyed

Allied aircraft losses
Hurricane IIc Trop: 3 destroyed

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Morning Air attack on Magwe , at 57,47
Weather in hex: Moderate rain
Raid detected at 23 NM, estimated altitude 33,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 5 minutes

Japanese aircraft
Ki-44-IIa Tojo x 55
Ki-45 KAIa Nick x 41

Allied aircraft
P-38E Lightning x 25

Japanese aircraft losses
Ki-45 KAIa Nick: 1 destroyed

Allied aircraft losses
P-38E Lightning: 5 destroyed

After the sweeps, the bombers began to arrive with heavy escort:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Morning Air attack on Magwe , at 57,47
Weather in hex: Moderate rain
Raid detected at 120 NM, estimated altitude 12,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 47 minutes

Japanese aircraft
Ki-44-IIa Tojo x 45
Ki-45 KAIa Nick x 39

Allied aircraft
Hurricane IIb Trop x 16
Hurricane IIc Trop x 32
Vengeance I x 47
P-40K Warhawk x 25

Japanese aircraft losses
Ki-45 KAIa Nick: 1 destroyed

Allied aircraft losses
Hurricane IIb Trop: 3 destroyed
Hurricane IIc Trop: 7 destroyed
Vengeance I: 3 destroyed, 11 damaged
P-40K Warhawk: 3 destroyed

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Morning Air attack on Magwe , at 57,47
Weather in hex: Moderate rain
Raid detected at 120 NM, estimated altitude 13,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 41 minutes

Japanese aircraft
Ki-44-IIa Tojo x 24
Ki-45 KAIa Nick x 21

Allied aircraft
Blenheim IV x 32
Hurricane IIc Trop x 32
Wellington Ic x 16
B-25C Mitchell x 48
P-40E Warhawk x 25
P-40K Warhawk x 50

Japanese aircraft losses
Ki-44-IIa Tojo: 1 destroyed
Ki-45 KAIa Nick: 1 destroyed

Allied aircraft losses
Blenheim IV: 1 damaged
Hurricane IIc Trop: 1 destroyed
Wellington Ic: 1 damaged
P-40E Warhawk: 1 destroyed
P-40K Warhawk: 1 destroyed

Not all the bombers had escorts. Some of them got separated during the flight.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Morning Air attack on Magwe , at 57,47
Weather in hex: Moderate rain
Raid detected at 40 NM, estimated altitude 15,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 15 minutes

Japanese aircraft
Ki-44-IIa Tojo x 9
Ki-45 KAIa Nick x 5

Allied aircraft
Wellington Ic x 12

Allied aircraft losses
Wellington Ic: 1 destroyed, 4 damaged

As can be seen, my CAP is becoming rather weak by this time.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Morning Air attack on Magwe , at 57,47
Weather in hex: Moderate rain
Raid detected at 120 NM, estimated altitude 13,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 47 minutes

Japanese aircraft
Ki-44-IIa Tojo x 5
Ki-45 KAIa Nick x 3

Allied aircraft
Hurricane IIc Trop x 16
Vengeance I x 31

Allied aircraft losses
Vengeance I: 3 destroyed, 10 damaged

Finally, the heavies start to arrive. They are obviously based the furthest away.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Morning Air attack on Magwe , at 57,47
Weather in hex: Moderate rain
Raid detected at 80 NM, estimated altitude 15,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 29 minutes

Japanese aircraft
Ki-44-IIa Tojo x 1

Allied aircraft
Liberator II x 28

Allied aircraft losses
Liberator II: 2 damaged

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Morning Air attack on Magwe , at 57,47
Weather in hex: Moderate rain
Raid detected at 80 NM, estimated altitude 15,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 27 minutes

Japanese aircraft
Ki-44-IIa Tojo x 1

Allied aircraft
B-24D1 Liberator x 35

Japanese aircraft losses
Ki-44-IIa Tojo: 1 destroyed

Allied aircraft losses
B-24D1 Liberator: 4 damaged

I would say that 177 oil hits is excessive. Strat bombing should probably be toned down. These are not laser guided munitions. [:'(]

In other news:

Last turn we received two notices of heavy radio traffic at Pearl Harbor. It is increasingly looking like the allied CVs are there and may be planning for an invasion of the Marshalls. I am moving air assets closer to these islands, but there are not that many places I can actually base them due to very low levels of aviation support-generally between 24 and 32 at each base, with Roi-Namur having 48.

[Cuttlefish]

ORIGINAL: cap_and_gown

My only question is why my radar was able to detect raids at 12,000 feet 120 miles away, while raids coming in at 30,000 feet were only spotted 28 miles away.

What the combat report calls "radar" can actually be any form of detection. Picking up the raid 120 miles out probably means the bombers flew over some of your troops on the way in. Their commander checked the bomber's course, looked at a map, and then ordered someone to radio Magwe that they were going to have company.

[CapAndGown]

March 10, 1943

The allies retook Darwin today. Almost all of northern Australia is back in allied hands.

24 Liberators attacked Savusavu. 6 were shot down at the cost of 5 Tojos, 3 A2A, 2 on the ground.

Niue was invaded. Another TF is just about to land troops on Wallis Island. No doubt witpqs wants to get some bases closer to Fiji so that is fighters can reach Fiji.

I have positioned air transports in the New Hebrides in preparation for evacuating cadres of the units in the Fiji Islands once the allied invasion begins. I wonder if he will commit his fleet carriers for an invasion, or rely on LBA?

[Ketza]

How long did his reconquest of Northern Aus take and were you defending it or just had a small rear guard there?