Here we go again! tc464 (A) vs. Mike (J) - No tc464

[Mynok]

Etorofu Jima

[Mike Solli]

ORIGINAL: Mynok


Etorofu Jima

Thank you!

[Mike Solli]

28 Apr 42

Quiet day today. Mainly air sniping back and forth. We each lost about 5 aircraft. I don't have the ability to put up fighters over Magwe. My air support is not in place yet and a couple of the airfields in the area are still at level 1. Ted bombed the oil fields at Magwe and damaged 69 of the 300 fields. [:@] I shouldn't be upset because it's inevitable. I want to suck as much oil out of there as possible before it turns into the surface of the moon. (It's almost there now.)

Baby KB is headed east to see where the cargo ships are coming from. They sent a small raid to Darwin and sank an xAKL in port. They're continuing SE to see what's up.

I received the AV Akitsushima as a reinforcement.

[Cribtop]

I recommend reading PzB's AAR for some good thoughts on defense of Burma.

[Mike Solli]

I'll check it out Cribtop. Thanks.

20 Apr 42

Lots of reinforcements today:

SC Ch-29
Maizuru 3 SNLF - 5 Fleet
301 Independent Infantry Battalion - 5 Fleet
302 Independent Infantry Battalion - 5 Fleet
303 Independent Infantry Battalion - 5 Fleet
Kure 5 SNLF - SE Fleet
Yokosuka 5 SNLF - SE Fleet
Ichiki Detachment - 4 Fleet
79 Garrison Battalion - Southern Army
80 Garrison Battalion - Southern Army

Australia

I sent a CA TF over to Pt. Hedland to bombard and see what's there. Turns out the Australian 16 Bde is there along with a base force. I was hoping for less....

The Nells that have been bombing Darwin to recon the place finally hit the jackpot. I saw the 2 Australian Division. It's militia. Not sure how powerful it is. If anyone has any intel, please let me know. I've stopped the Nell bombing. I hate using them for that purpose. I've lost about half a dozen crews for that intel.

I'm sending a sub into the port of Darwin also to recon - this time for mines. If there aren't any, I'm sending the 4 BBs in to trash the place. Just a little visit to say hello. I'm not concerned about any more ships in port. Baby KB is to the east and the BB TF has been to the west for several days. Boise has vanished. I don't expect her to come back. If the BBs bombard, they'll be replaced with a CA TF.

Sub War

Ted's subs are becoming a pain in the ass, and most of his torpedoes don't even work yet. He's sneaky. He parks them right off shore of the Home Islands in a deep water hex. I'm finding them and parking ASW TFs on top of them. Unfortunately, he has more subs than I have ASW TFs. [:(] I did get a hit from one of my Tomozurus today. The 4 of them just finished their refit to convert from TBs to Es and get some DC racks about a week ago. They're parked in the deep water hex just south of Yokosuka. They got a hit on a US fleet sub. Hopefully, that'll send her home.

Ted's subs ran amuk, unfortunately. I don't mention attacks that cause no damage. They happen on both sides all the time. He sank 2 of my xAKs today just off the Home Islands. [:@] One was just off Nagasaki. It was part of an unescorted convoy. Guess I'll have to escort all of them now. [8|] The sub surfaced and pumped the cargo ship full of lead. Fortunately, before she sank, she got 3 penetrating hits on the sub. Hopefully, that'll send the sub home. The other one was a hex away. She got a torpedo hit on a cargo twice - from 2 separate attacks. What rotten luck. The poor ship also sank within sight of the Home Islands. This sub got clean away.

Burma

I didn't contest Magwe again today. Ted hit the oil there, damaging another 59. [8|] That field is now down to 172 of 300 fields. I suspect it'll last about 3 turns. I'm torn between putting 2 fighter units around it now or waiting a couple of turns and putting 4 fighter units there. I'd love to ambush him and kill some fighters.

Pt. Moresby

Ted is still sending 12-15 B-17s a day there to visit and I'm defending with a daitai of Zeros. Today I shot down 1 or 3 B-17s, depending where you look. In the replay, I saw 1 go down, but in the intel screen, 3 were shown as going down in A2A. Well, at least 1 went down. I'll whittle them down eventually.

[Mike Solli]

30 Apr 42

Well, another month comes to a close. Interesting events....

Reinforcements:

xAKL Tenpei Maru (Std-E)
CHa-33
17 Army HQ (Destined for either Rabaul or Pt. Moresby)

Australia

I found out where the supply run is coming from. It's a little base on the Australian coast called Normanton. I caught an xAKL there with Baby KB and sank her. I'm doing a port attack tomorrow to take out the rest of the ships that are in port.

My sub scouted Darwin and found no mines. The 4 BBs are headed there and will pay a visit the day after tomorrow. Some CAs are replacing the BBs along the west flank. I'm then going to start regular bombardments using TFs of 1 BB, 2 CAs and some CL/DDs. I probably will keep one of them on the west flank, just in case Boise comes back. I figure a BB and 2 CAs can handle Boise. [:D]

Ndeni

A TF of 4 CAs, 1 CL and 9 DDs paid Ndeni a visit, bombarding the place after sinking an xAK. Guess what they bombarded? The 8 Marine Regiment! I did not expect to see them. I've placed a sub division to the east and south to slow down any convoys that may try to reinforce or yank them. I'm still going to do the invasion. I really want to kill that unit. KB is headed to Rabaul to rearm. A replenishment TF topped them off and will remain in the area as well. Should something substantial show up, KB will be able to get there in 2 days. In addition, I'm going to station the CA TF in the Solomons, just in case. They can get there in 1 day. When the invasion fleet arrives, the CAs and KB will support the invasion.

Remember the subs I had hanging out in Ted's sea lane? They didn't see anything for a few days so I moved them south. Yup, that's the new sea lane. I sank an xAKL.

US West Coast

One of my subs off the coast sank another xAK off the coast of San Francisco again.

TRACOM

They finally had success! They accelerated 122 [X(] IJNAF pilots from month 10. Pretty cool!

[Cribtop]

How many pilots did you have in TRACOM?

[Q-Ball]

A Brigade at Port Hedland, and a Regt at Ndeni.....your opponent is pushing forward units that he should not at this stage. You should be able to take advantage of that.

[CapAndGown]

ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

Reinforcements:

xAKL Tenpei Maru (Std-E)

Mike,

You seem to be building victory points for the allies. The Japanese Merchant Marine, though busy at the moment, is very, very large. (Probably, the amount of resources needed in the Home Islands should be increased, as well as the fuel requirements.) There is no reason at all to be building xAKLs. In fact, there is no reason to be building anything smaller than Std B and A xAKs. Even these may not be needed. Right now in my game (Oct. 1943) I have stopped production on every xAK except Std A's. And for those I am stopping production when they reach a 1 day delay. If I need the extra xAKs for some reason, I can have them in one day. Even if you are considering the smaller C and D types for conversion purposes, rethink that. Converted xAKs are much less efficient that the purpose built TKs, and if you manage your convoy system properly, without losing too many TKs to subs, you should have plenty of TKs available by the end of 42.

Use the points you save by stopping xAK/L production to accelerate large TKs (30 durability) that are in the queue but not yet building.

I think you are tending to want to build everything possible when this is not really necessary. I am quite sure you have halted production on the Shinano. How much more should you start thinking about priorities when it comes to the Merchant Marine?

[Q-Ball]

I agree with Cap n Gown. Unless you have lost 200+ transports, which you haven't, then you don't need to build much in the way of additional merchant capacity.

The Std-A and Std-B I would still build because you can convert them in a pinch to TKs. I would continue to build TKs, AOs, CVEs, out of the Merchant Pool. But halt all Std-C,D, and E construction. When 1944 rolls around, you'll have transports just sitting around, even if you lose 100+ to subs. The Std-C and D conversions make very inefficient tankers.

Plan to covert all YUSEN-A,YUSEN-S,HUSUMI, and KYUSHU classes to AKs in June.

[Mike Solli]

ORIGINAL: Cribtop

How many pilots did you have in TRACOM?

44 IJN pilots & 8 IJA pilots

[Mike Solli]

Guys, to be honest, I never considered not building some of the merchant ships. I'll defer to your experience. I have none with this game.

To be honest, I don't care about victory points. And yeah, I did halt the Shinano. In addition, I've halted a few Ro class subs.

I'll take a look at halting the small cargo ships. That should allow me to start accelerating some other ships. I'm not sure the CVEs are worth it, but I'll consider it.

Q-Ball, I've been going back and forth about converting to AKs because you lose some capacity. When I discovered that you can land 3x faster, that convinced me. I made a list of who I was going to convert. I don't expect to do much invading later in the war, but having that ability is nice.

[Mike Solli]

ORIGINAL: Q-Ball
Plan to covert all YUSEN-A,YUSEN-S,HUSUMI, and KYUSHU classes to AKs in June.

Why those Q-Ball? I found my list:

Yusan N - AK (56 hulls at start of war)
Husimi - AK (25 hulls at start of war)
Yusan S - Convert to -t (10 hulls at start of war)
Yusan A - Convert to -t (7 hulls at start of war)
Kyushu - Leave as is. Transport from hubs to Home Islands. (32 hulls at start)

[CapAndGown]

Don't just think of AKs for invasions of enemy bases. They can be useful for resupplying bases that have small or non-existent ports. They can also be used to land troops in a hurry at bases with small or non-existent ports. Thus, they can be used to rapidly reinforce a base the allies have invaded but not yet captured. Station them in different theaters along with rapid reaction forces of brigade or divisional size and some escorts. That way you will be on hair trigger alert to reinforce threatened bases.

[Mike Solli]

About 18-20 Apr 42 I decided only to cull pilots from training units twice a month, 15th & last day of month. Out of curiosity, I tracked who I culled. Here are the numbers (keep in mind that this is slightly less than 1/2 a month:

IJN:

Air - 29
ASW - 11
NavT - 35
NavB - 16
NavS - 4

IJA:

Air - 51
GrdB - 60
ASW - 7
Recn - 5

The criteria is a minimum of 50 exp and 70 in the stat being trained. The only thing that sticks out is the shortage of IJN NavB. I'm going to convert 1-2 Nell units from NavT to NavB. Basically, the NavB is only for KB DBs.

[Mike Solli]

ORIGINAL: cap_and_gown

Don't just think of AKs for invasions of enemy bases. They can be useful for resupplying bases that have small or non-existent ports. They can also be used to land troops in a hurry at bases with small or non-existent ports. Thus, they can be used to rapidly reinforce a base the allies have invaded but not yet captured. Station them in different theaters along with rapid reaction forces of brigade or divisional size and some escorts. That way you will be on hair trigger alert to reinforce threatened bases.

So the increased offload rate includes supply too?

[CapAndGown]

ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

About 18-20 Apr 42 I decided only to cull pilots from training units twice a month, 15th & last day of month. Out of curiosity, I tracked who I culled. Here are the numbers (keep in mind that this is slightly less than 1/2 a month:

IJN:

Air - 29
ASW - 11
NavT - 35
NavB - 16
NavS - 4

IJA:

Air - 51
GrdB - 60
ASW - 7
Recn - 5

The criteria is a minimum of 50 exp and 70 in the stat being trained. The only thing that sticks out is the shortage of IJN NavB. I'm going to convert 1-2 Nell units from NavT to NavB. Basically, the NavB is only for KB DBs.

Do you cross train? For instance, it would probably be useful to cross train torpedo bomber pilots on NavB. That way when their carrier runs out of torps, even though they are still flying sorties, they can still, hopefully, hit something with their bombs. Also, I have seen torpedo bombers flying from ships that still have torps available chose to use bombs instead. In such a case, it definitely pays to have trained on NavB. (It also pays to set your torpedo bombers to 6k feet so they have a chance of hitting something when using bombs rather than torps.)

[CapAndGown]

ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

ORIGINAL: cap_and_gown

Don't just think of AKs for invasions of enemy bases. They can be useful for resupplying bases that have small or non-existent ports. They can also be used to land troops in a hurry at bases with small or non-existent ports. Thus, they can be used to rapidly reinforce a base the allies have invaded but not yet captured. Station them in different theaters along with rapid reaction forces of brigade or divisional size and some escorts. That way you will be on hair trigger alert to reinforce threatened bases.

So the increased offload rate includes supply too?

Not really sure, now that you mention it. I would have thought so. Would need to reread that section.

[Mike Solli]

ORIGINAL: cap_and_gown

ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

About 18-20 Apr 42 I decided only to cull pilots from training units twice a month, 15th & last day of month. Out of curiosity, I tracked who I culled. Here are the numbers (keep in mind that this is slightly less than 1/2 a month:

IJN:

Air - 29
ASW - 11
NavT - 35
NavB - 16
NavS - 4

IJA:

Air - 51
GrdB - 60
ASW - 7
Recn - 5

The criteria is a minimum of 50 exp and 70 in the stat being trained. The only thing that sticks out is the shortage of IJN NavB. I'm going to convert 1-2 Nell units from NavT to NavB. Basically, the NavB is only for KB DBs.

Do you cross train? For instance, it would probably be useful to cross train torpedo bomber pilots on NavB. That way when their carrier runs out of torps, even though they are still flying sorties, they can still, hopefully, hit something with their bombs. Also, I have seen torpedo bombers flying from ships that still have torps available chose to use bombs instead. In such a case, it definitely pays to have trained on NavB. (It also pays to set your torpedo bombers to 6k feet so they have a chance of hitting something when using bombs rather than torps.)

I don't cross train, but I should. Now that I think about it, the pilot of every plane that carries a torpedo should be able to bomb as well. I have some Bettys in SE Fleet area that have been bombing Allied remnants in New Guinea for months. Their bombing is probably higher than their NavT skills. I ought to start culling out of there a bit to form a reserve for KB.

[Mike Solli]

ORIGINAL: cap_and_gown

ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

ORIGINAL: cap_and_gown

Don't just think of AKs for invasions of enemy bases. They can be useful for resupplying bases that have small or non-existent ports. They can also be used to land troops in a hurry at bases with small or non-existent ports. Thus, they can be used to rapidly reinforce a base the allies have invaded but not yet captured. Station them in different theaters along with rapid reaction forces of brigade or divisional size and some escorts. That way you will be on hair trigger alert to reinforce threatened bases.

So the increased offload rate includes supply too?

Not really sure, now that you mention it. I would have thought so. Would need to reread that section.

Yeah, I'm going to pull out the book tonight.