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

[CapAndGown]

ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

That was the first thing I checked after the replay was over.  100% LRCAP. [8|]

LRCAP will spill over to adjacent hexes just like regular CAP.

[Mike Solli]

Yeah, I found that out the hard way.  The whole daitai seem a bit much though.  I want to flood the area with fighters (120-150) but can't get the airfields built up fast enough.

[Mike Solli]

24 May 42
 
Sub War
 
Ted seems to have moved his merchant shipping lanes.  I no longer find any merchant ships north of New Zealand.  I pulled out my subs from the US west coast for two reasons.  First, they needed to be replenished and second, I want him to become complacent so they'll be successful when they return.  I have 7 subs scheduled to return in a week or so.  Hopefully, they'll find the waters plentiful.
 
The only sub attack today was off the coast of Colombo.  The I-11 found and sank an xAKL. 
 
Burma
 
Ted didn't even go after Magwe's oil or refineries today.  He spread out his attacks over several of my airfields.  That's really too bad because I don't have enough engineers in Burma to repair them quickly.  I'm going to LRCAP the southern most airfields he's bombing on occasion to whittle down the British bombers.  Once I do that, then I can make headway against the damage he's causing.  Have I said recently that I hate Burma?!
 
SE Fleet
 
KB 1 is just about a day's sail from being in launch range of Vava'u and the TFs in the area.  If they sail the entire 13 hexes tomorrow, they'll be within 6 hexes of the port.  They usually don't go that far.  We'll see. 
 
I've loaded all of the assaulting units from Ndeni with the exception of 3 Naval Guards and the construction unit.  I'll remove two of the Naval Guards when more transport arrives.  I plan on building up the forts (already to level 1) and the airfield to level 2.  Then I'll place an air support company and put some recon there.  Ndeni is just a speed bump, but Ted won't know that.
 
Australia
 
Baby KB is still hanging around Darwin.  Ted still is attempting to supply Darwin to make it into a fortress.  I bomb Darwin's airfield pretty much daily with Sallys to keep the damage level up.  As long as there is damage to the airfield, he's not building forts. [;)] Baby KB sank another xAKL.  I think it had already unloaded it's supply. [8|]
 
The only other thing of note in this area is that Warhawks, in squadron strength, are now escorting the B-17s that make their daily runs against my ground troops.

[Mike Solli]

24 May 42 (cont.)
 
Oops, I hit the wrong button.
 
Central Pacific
 
This area has been very quiet.  I don't think Ted realizes how different AE is from WitP.  In WitP, I had a lot of Bettys/Nells protecting the area.  He learned that to his sorrow. [:D] Now I have 1 daitai of Nells.  Wake used to be a fortress, but not any more.  I used to have 2 daitai of Zeros, 2 of Nells/Bettys and recon in WitP.  Now I have exactly 2 Emilys stationed at Wake.  I haven't seen anything in this sector in months.  The only thing of note is that Wake's fort level is now at 5 and crawling toward 6.  If or when he takes it, I'll make him pay the price.  Once it hits level 6, I'll pull out the engineers and put more infantry there.
 
Aleutians
 
Well, KB 2 finally launched and it was glorious!  Well, it was fun, but not necessarily war winning. [:D] The 2 carriers launched full deckloads against the port of Adak (10 Zeros, 53 Kates (800kg bombs) and 48 Vals).  When the smoke cleared, here was the final toll:
 
4 subs (3 confirmed sunk and probably all 4)
3 xAPs (not sure if any sank)
3 xAKs (probably none sunk)
1 AVP
2 AMs
1 AS (probably sunk)
1 AG (probably sunk)
 
Not a show stopper (but it is nice to sink APs) but it'll hopefully cause Ted to divert escorts and air support to out of the way places.  The cost to me was 5 Vals and crews.  KB 2 is now headed back to the barn.  I hung around in one spot too long.  They'll head back to Kwajalein to repair the minor damage they've incurred and replace the minor losses (7 planes and 5 crews).  Then I'll consider another spoiling attack, maybe try to ambush a convoy around Johnston Island or somewhere else in the central Pacific.
 
Burma (again)
 
I forgot that I took Kalemyo, right on the Indian border.  It's just a dot base, but it was defended by an armored unit.  A brigade* of the 33 Division did the execution, destroying 52 vehicles.  Banzai!
 
* When I divide a division into it's A, B & C elements, I call it a brigade, even though it really is a reinforced regiment.  I do that to differentiate between 1/3 of a division and a regiment (when the division starts out as 3x regiments, and the divisional artillery, engineers and recon).  Just for less confusion even though it's not really accurate. 
 
Java
 
Not much going on here, and I've become complacent.  A Japanese TK (7950 ton variety) was hit by a Dutch sub torpedo.  She'll survive.  The convoy was headed back to Soerabaja to move fuel to Babeldaob (and then to Japan).  That's the once critical area where I don't have any ASW convoys.  That'll soon be rectified.
 
Other Stuff
 
Today my armament points exceeded 100k.  I shut off 500 (of 620) armament factories.  That should increase my daily HI reserves by ~3000.  Now my HI reserves should increase by over 100k per month.

[CapAndGown]

ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

SE Fleet

KB 1 is just about a day's sail from being in launch range of Vava'u and the TFs in the area.  If they sail the entire 13 hexes tomorrow, they'll be within 6 hexes of the port.  They usually don't go that far.  We'll see. 

They will not sail the 13 hexes. I have occasionally seen moves that were longer that I expected. But 13 hexes? For calculation purposes I count on 9 hexes in any one turn, and an alternation of 9 & 10 hexes for longer journeys. Then again, I am religious about using cruising speed. I try not to use mission speed except for bombardments.

[Mike Solli]

I usually stick with mission speed.  I hope they don't go the full distance.  I'd like to be within a few hexes of launch range and go from there.

[CapAndGown]

ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

I usually stick with mission speed.  I hope they don't go the full distance.  I'd like to be within a few hexes of launch range and go from there.

Your sys and engine damage will be significantly higher.

[Mike Solli]

I understand that.  That's one of those tough decisions you need to make.  Sometimes I go with cruise for that reason, but sometimes time is of the essence.

[Mike Solli]

25 May 42

Reinforcement:  52 JNAF AF Unit

Overall, this was a quiet turn, but more fireworks are going to happen soon.  I took Cotabato, Mindinao (Manpower 1(1)) and continue to clean up (or bomb out of existance) all the little bits and pieces of Allied units in the jungle around the SRA.  There are a 2 remnants of the former Pt. Moresby garrison (an Australian Militia Div and a BF) that are slowly being bombed to oblivion.  Total strength there is <500.  There's one unit left in Summatra.  I have an SNLF unit watching them with a tank regiment on it's way to finish the job.  There is one unit near Balikpapan and one near Tarakan.  Both are being bombed slowly to oblivion.  There's also the Philippine unit (Division I think?) on Cebu.  I'll take care of them once Mindinao is cleared.  Mindinao still has one base controlled by the Allies (though not for long).  Five units there with a couple more in the jungle.  There's also one unit outside Babo slowly starving.

It's killing me trying to take all those dot hexes scattered around the map.  Ted is devious and will ship an air support unit & engineers and stick some recon in the hex to spy on me.  I feel I have to take the hexes.  Right now I have 4 companies working on taking them.  I'm ready to add more.

Well, my HI pool increased by 4300, about 3k more than yesterday.  The armament pool increased by a modest 30, so 90 armament points were used of the 120 factories still producing.  Perfect!

I'm getting concerned with Ted's bombing of the bases in Burma that I want to use for fighter strips.  Mandalay, Gaung Tyi and Magwe are all damaged.  I can use the bases near Rangoon but only 3 of the 5 in that area are at level 2+.  Another engineer regiment just landed at Rangoon and will proceed to Prome to increase that airfield from level 1 to 2.

I have a delimma.  My intent was to use the 21 Independent Brigade as the garrison for Palembang.  Earlier, a bug hit and converted the support in that unit to engineers.  Now it's a really strange infantry brigade with ~160 or so engineers and no support.  I'm considering sending it to Burma as an engineer construction unit to work on airfields.  It'll need some support to keep it healthy (maybe 15 Army HQ).  Gamey?  I talked to michaelm and there's no way to fix it.

Future Plans

Right now I have 5 CVs and 5 DDs accelerated.  The cost is 2 Ro- class subs halted (as well as Shinano).  Not bad.  My intent is to continue with the plan.  I have an I- class sub arriving in a few days and my naval construction points are at +12 so I'm good.

KB 2 is headed back to Kwajalein after visiting Adak.  I have decided to divert it to Truk to expidite the repairs (which are minor actually).  I have an AR at Rabaul.  I will move it to Truk to take care of the couple of point of major damage incurred.  KB 2 will then go back to Kwajalein to keep it vigil over the central Pacific.

KB 1 is just outside of launch range of Vava'u.  I've got a couple of subs scouting the area and there are lots of little TFs in the area.  I'm going to just do a Naval Attack tomorrow.  After I clear the TFs, I'll hit the port, which has a lot of merchant shipping.  The 4 carriers should be able to a number on them.  Then, KB 1 will head to Truk for repairs.  They have minor damage as well, but more than KB2.  They've been at sea a lot longer.  By the way cap, they sailed 9 hexes yesterday.  You were right.

The Shokaku and Zuikaku are due upgrades in Jul 42.  I'll move them to the Home Islands in mid-June, unless Ted gets frisky of course.  Assuming the Pacific is quiet, Akagi/Kaga will be at Kwajalein and Hiryu/Soryu will be at Truk.  Not sure about Baby KB yet.

Speaking of Baby KB, they're still hanging around off the northern coast of Australia.  It's composed of Ryujo, Zuiho, Shoho and Hosho.  Junyo is still at the Home Islands.  She'll head to the SRA to join up with Baby KB escorted by Yamato and some DDs.  Yamato will go to either Soerabaja or Singapore, probably Singapore.  I'm thinking of using her to bombard Akyab.  Ted has a big airbase there.

Baby KB will have some real striking power:

Ship F/TB/DB
Junyo 18/18/18
Ryujo 28/19/0
Zuiho 18/12/0
Shoho 18/12/0
Hosho 14/6/0

Total 96/67/18

Pilot reserves.  I'll give a breakdown at the end of the month but the only concerns right now are IJN fighter and DB pilots.  I've gone to culling once a month so it's been almost a month since I culled the training units.  I'll do it again in a few days so things will look up shortly.  After the cull, I'll look at my reserves.  If I'm still hurting in the DB department, I may pull some Betty/Nell pilots with high NavB skill as DB pilot reserves.  We'll see.

[Mike Solli]

26 May 42

KB 2
This is the group that visited Adak. I got some intel saying there was heavy radio traffic at Midway. KB's direct route to Kwajalein took it close to Midway so I didn't want to be surprised. I detoured them a couple days sail due west then SW to avoid the area. A few days extra sail was worth it. They really aren't in any hurry.

Babeldaob

There's been a Dutch sub hanging around just off Babeldaob. She got lucky and put 2 torps into an xAK, sinking her.

SE Fleet

To make amends for the Dutch sub sinking the cargo ship, a merchant TF 3 hexes east of Tulagi spotted another Dutch sub and put her down for good with 2 depth charge hits and an near miss. I love killing those Dutch and S class subs early in the game! [:D]

KB 1 had orders for naval attack of Vava'u. They found 2 small TFs. The first was an ASW TF composed of the DD Benham and 2 AMs. The Benham took 1 250 kg bomb and the AMs both were sunk. Big deal. The only ship really worth anything was only lightly damaged. [8|] The second TF found was composed of 4 xAKs and an xAKL. One of the xAKs may have survived but I doubt it based on what happened the next day. Again I was disappointed because if there's anything Ted can afford, it's xAKs. I figured it was a supply convoy because I didn't get any intel on them carrying anything......at least until I reviewed the intel screen after the turn was over. There, to my delight and surprise, I saw 66 aircraft destroyed on the ground! I knew that didn't happen from airfield bombing so it had to be from this "minor" convoy. It turned out that the convoy was carrying 31 P-40Bs, 27 P-40Es and 21 P-39Ds! I hit the mother lode! The timing on that attack was perfect. I destroyed that convoy when it was 1 hex from it's destination. [:D] That's got to hurt.

Edit: No carrier aircraft were lost in this attack.

KB 1 will hang around one more day to hit the port.

Broome

Ted attempted to do a couple of port attacks against Broome today. The defenses were a chutai of the 50 Sentai flying Oscars. The 12 Oscars downed 3 of 15 Albacores. The surviving Albacores did minor damage to the port. The second attack was 18 Hudson Is and 3 of those were shot down too. They also did minor damage to the port. The construction battalion at that base was able to repair all of the damage. Even better, one of the pilots had his experience reach 81. He was promoted to TRACOM.

Burma

British bombers hit the oil field at Magwe, unsuccessfully again.

[Mike Solli]

27 May 42

SE Fleet

KB 1 allocated 3 carrier air groups to port attack of Vava'u and the 4th was set to naval attack. I didn't see the last xAK in port or in a TF so I assume it was sunk yesterday. The port attack netted only 1 ACM sunk. Nothing else was seen. Ted must have fled with the merchant ships that were seen in port earlier. The naval attack found 2 single ship convoys and sank both (an xAKL and the DD Benham, damaged yesterday). KB 1 will now head to Truk to replenish, repair and replace planes and pilots. A total of 6 Vals were lost (3 to flak and 3 op losses) and 1 Zero was an op loss. Six pilots were KIA and one was wounded.

Burma

Another unsuccessful attempt to bomb Magwe's oil field occurred.

Other Stuff

I finally got enough PPs to transfer the 8 Mtn Art Reg from Kwantung to 15 Army. The 8 Division is now loading on fast xAPs for the trip from Pt. Arthur to Rangoon. I'm down to just a handful of PPs. I'm now saving them to move all of the elements of the 1 and 2 Tank Divisions to 15 Army. Most of the elements have yet to arrive. The rest are scattered around the SRA. Poor planning on my part. I should have chosen where the Tank Regiments were sent more wisely.

[Cribtop]

BANZAI on sinking the air transport mission!

[Mike Solli]

Yup! I call it 2x P-40B squadrons, 1x P-40E squadron and 1x P-39D squadron. [:D]

28 May 42

Very quiet day today. KB 1 and 2 are returning to the barn.

Another failed attempt to bomb Magwe's oil field.

Tomorrow I'm going to cull my training units. I'll tally what I gain. The last cull was a month ago.

Nothing else worth mentioning really.

[Mike Solli]

I just took a look at Tracker. I have 258 Aichi Ha-60 engines in the pool. They are used primarily for the Judy. The TBO is 187. I'm thinking of shutting the engine factory off in another month. That'll give me ~375-380, about twice the TBO. Any thoughts? When I shut the factory off, I'll save 75 HI a day or 2250 a month.

[Mike Solli]

29 May 42

Reinforcement: I-33 - will head to 5 Fleet rounding out the SubRon there. It's composed of 3 Sub Divs each with 2x I class and a Glen carrying sub. Typically, 2 Sub Divisions are out prowling around the Aleutians while the 3rd Sub Division is on R&R.

Not much of a turn really. Ted finally succeeded in damaging one additional oil facility point in Magwe (42 of 300).

I culled the training units for pilots for the reserve. My criteria for completing training is 50+ experience and 70+ in the stat being trained. Here's the result:

IJA

Air - 61
GrdB - 50
Recn - 2
NavS - 6
ASW - 9

IJN

Air - 29
NavT - 30
VanB - 25
NavS - 5
ASW - 17

That is a total of 128 IJAAF pilots and 106 IJNAF pilots for a total of 234 trained pilots. So far this month I've lost:

KIA: 59
WIA: 28
MIA: 0

That makes a total of 87 pilots lost from all causes vs. 234 gained from on map training for a net gain of 147 pilots. Not bad. It's mainly because Ted isn't pushing me in the air and I'm happy waiting for better fighters. Once my airfields are ready for fighters in Burma (level 2+) I'll start to whittle down his planes there. I estimate 2 squadrons of Hurricanes and one of Warhawks along with 2-3 squadrons of bombers (Blenheim IVs and Wellington Is). I'll throw in 84 (possibly 114) Oscars (Ic), 54 Zeros and 12 Nicks. My losses will go up then, but I should be able to overwhelm him. One of the Zero Daitai can upgrade to the A6M3 in June (remember PDU is off). They're first priority to upgrade.

Edit: Oh yeah, KB needs 8 DB pilots to fill out pilot losses.

[CapAndGown]

I am up to Feb. 1944 and looking back I would lower my criteria for what constitutes a trained pilot. I now think that it might be best to go with 45-46 exp rather than 50. One good carrier battle will eat through entire reserves. For the IJN, a reserve of 500 Air, 600 DB, and 400 TB pilots would replace all losses from a carrier battle and still leave a cushion for other losses.

Does TBO include only those units schedule to arrive with that plane, or all the planes that can upgrade to it? For instance, even with PDU off, most Vals should be able to upgrade to Judy's I think? If so, does TBO include those? For a fully built out KB (i.e. all the Unryu's and Taiho plus CS->CVL conversions and CVEs) you are looking at about 600 fighters, 500 DBs and 300 TBs (depending on your mix of fighters/DBs/TBs. I go with equal numbers of fighters and DBs and half that for TBs.)

[Mike Solli]

cap, you hit on a big dilemma for me. There's a real shortage of IJNAF fighter units. Right now I have 8 Daitai (27-45 planes) and 6 Chutai (9 planes). Of these, 2 daitai and 1 chutai are training. The rest are on the front line.

Burma - 3 Daitai
SE Fleet - 2 Daitai, 4 Chutai
4 Fleet - 1 Daitai, 1 Chutai

There are a total of 124 pilots training right now.

I get another 12 plane training chutai tomorrow which will give me an additional 16 pilot slots making 140 slots with no change in the near future.

There are several options. I agree with you that my current solution (50+ exp and 70+ air) aren't going to work once Ted really starts to fight.

1. I can keep things the way they are. Fine until I start to take losses which can happen anytime.

2. Decrease exp to 45. That'll help a bit. If I did that right now it would give me another half dozen pilots tops. That really doesn't help much.

3. Increase the number of training units. I can only do this by decreasing what's on the front line. Most of my Zero units are in the SE Fleet area. There's been very little activity there. Ted was bombing Pt. Moresby with B-17s until I invaded Australia. Now those B-17s are hitting my troops in Australia. I'm thinking of pulling out 3 of the Chutai from the Rabaul/Pt. Moresby area back to Truk and use them to train with. If I really need them, I can pull out the half trained pilots and replace them in a week with trained pilots. This would give me 36 more pilot slots minus 6 "instructors" leaving 30 slots to train with. That would mean about 10 more pilots a month.

It looks like it takes 2-3 months to train up a recruit to 50/70.

I also have available 3 Rufe chutai. I really don't expect to use them in combat so I've been contemplating using them as training chutai. I've had time to ponder it because they arrived with only a couple of pilots each. I loaded them up with rookies who are still training. By adding them in, I'd have an additional 36 slots, giving a total of ~200 training slots or about 70-100 a month. There's only one additional way to train more pilots and I'm using it.

Each of my units has extra pilots in it. I use partially trained pilots, with experience in the 35-50 range and air skill of 40-50. I train up to 50% of the unit (occasionally more if it seems quiet). That slowly raises the quality of those guys. It's hard to estimate how long it takes to get them up to the mark but it help.

I really can't think of any way to raise the number of reserves trained than what I've discussed. I try to use the IJAAF as the work horse. They typically take most of the losses but they also have far more training units. Right now (with this month's batch of culls) I have almost 300 reserve fighter pilots for the IJAAF. The IJNAF has about 50.

[Mike Solli]

Oh yeah, TBO is everyone that can upgrade to a particular airframe. PDU off makes for some really odd choices for units. I have some units that won't be able to upgrade from the Nate until late next year and there's one that won't upgrade at all. I'm still building Nates because I will need them for reinforcements (and the occasional op loss).

[Captain Cruft]

Rufes are OK at shooting down unescorted bombers if they have good enough pilots in them. Not much different to Zeroes in that respect, and definitely better than Claudes. I have also found them useful for doing recon where the "front line" has a size 0 airfield. Much less expensive than using Mavis/Emily.

Not every plane has to fight the air superiority battle ...

[Mike Solli]

I checked my Rufe chutai a little closer.&nbsp; Two of them are in restricted HQs in Japan.&nbsp; They're trainers.&nbsp; The third is in 21 Air Flotilla (which is in the SRA).&nbsp; They appeared somewhere in the Marshalls.&nbsp; I've moved them to Truk where they are currently training up some pilots.&nbsp; I'll eventually move them to the SRA where they belong.&nbsp; (I don't want to spend the PPs to change their HQ.)&nbsp; They actually are the only fighters assigned to the 21 Air Flotilla.&nbsp; They'll move to Ambon (where the HQ and most of the planes reside) to give a bit of air cover, just in case.
&nbsp;
I&nbsp;moved a couple of the Zero chutai in SE Fleet area to Truk and then removed all but a couple of the pilots.&nbsp; I attempted to add rookies but was unable to do it.&nbsp; I kept getting vets.&nbsp; Really weird.&nbsp; Has anyone else had that problem?&nbsp; They're detachments.&nbsp; I wonder if that has anything to do with it?