Today was a great day for Japan ( not that I told PH that ).
1. My ambush off the Aleutians worked moderately well... not as well as I would have liked but we can't have everything.
2. The USN is beginning to sniff around the Kuriles and confirming some of my strategic assessments re: likely landing sites. I have to play the level of resistance just right though. I want to give him the right values so that his strategic calculus yields the results I want. Too much or too little and he'll go somewhere I don't want.
3. The USAAF began sweeping Japan in order to break the backbone of Japan's fighter force before the bombers come back. Excellent, every day he sweeps is another day for me to get truly formidable fighters into service. AGain, the key will be feeding him enough pilots and planes to get him to think his attacks are a great success whilst not actually allowing them to cripple my fighter force. A difficult task but one which should be enjoyable to try. I plan to do this by sending up large numbers of utterly expendable Ki-61s, A6M5s and suchlike ( utterly expendable because they don't have sufficient armour or armament to be bomber killers, aren't fast enough or manoeuvrable enough to tangle with fighters and don't carry sufficient bombs to be useful kamis ) with poor pilots ( 40 Exp, 40 A2A skill rookies ) and let them be shot down in droves. This will show him excellent exchange rates whilst not actually touching the core of my fighter force ( the guys I'm looking to move into J7W1s, Ki-94IIs etc ). My bet is that if I preserve the cream of the crop at the expense of losing the middle-quality guys ( 40 to 50 Exp ) I can fend his fighters and bombers off and buy enough time to train up the utter rookies ( 20 to 30 Exp ) guys. It is a gamble but I have to offer some resistance to buy myself the time I need to build some J7W1 and Ki-94 squadrons (I'm already making an average of 12 J7W1 per day and should make about 22 Ki-94 II per day once they begin production---- any day now ).
If you look at the losses from today you will see that, initially, the losses look massively in PH's favour. He lost 36 planes to 230 Japanese planes. That is a more than 6:1 exchange rate. Look at it in more detail though.... 72 of my planes were kamis. So, they don't count toward the A2A total. Still, that leaves him with a loss of 36 planes to destroy 158. That's still about 4.5 to 1. Pretty good isn't it? Well, not when you look deeper.
The Ki-84as made a very obvious move into Shanghai ( along with Ki-115 amphibians ) in the hopes of diverting the Allied bombers from the Home Islands - which they did successfully. So those 31 planes were the cost of a maskirovka. I've identified that the maskirovka works and have also found out a cheaper way to make it work next time ( basically using amphibians which won't be destroyed when he bombs the airfield since they aren't based at the airfield ). That takes it down to 36: 127 ( and I didn't lose a single pilot from the Ki-84a squadron as I'd taken steps to place them beyond the reach of his 500lbers ).
When you look at the other planes I've lost only the N1K5J ( 15) and Ki-84r ( 9 ) are even first-line now ( and they'll be very much second-line once the J7W1 and Ki-94 II fully enter service ). In total I lost 24 planes I would be willing to put into the air at the end of the month. Everything else I lost was either a kamikaze or a plane which has no more utility come November 1945.
In terms of pilots I lost about 110 pilots. Of them 72 flew kamis. So I only lost 38 pilots killed from those who flew fighters vs the Allies. Of those 38 only about 12 came from the Georges or Franks. The rest were utterly expendable. Obviously it'd be better if I didn't have to make these sorts of trade-offs ( pilots and planes for strategic breathing room ) but Japan in Armaggedon doesn't have ANY good options left. It is all about choosing the least worst option. I think this mix of pilot and plane losses is my best chance to encourage sweeps without actually letting those sweeps achieve anything of value.
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Morning Air attack on TF, near Adak Island at 162,52
Weather in hex: Thunderstorms
Raid detected at 80 NM, estimated altitude 9,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 24 minutes
Japanese aircraft
D4Y4 Judy x 30
Japanese aircraft losses
D4Y4 Judy: 18 destroyed
Allied Ships
DE William C. Miller
TK Esso Richmond, Kamikaze hits 1, heavy fires
TK Watertown
TK Elizabeth Kellogg
DE Martin
DE Lyman
TK Spencer Kellogg
DE Mitchell
TK Brandywine
DE Manlove
TK Gulfbelle
TK Ruth Kellogg
Aircraft Attacking:
26 x D4Y4 Judy flying as kamikaze
Kamikaze: 1 x 800 kg GP Bomb
Hmm, the Judys did very poorly. I had sent them as I was hoping for some CVEs and had visions of 800 Kg bombs turning 3 or 4 CVEs into artificial reefs. Ah well, I suppose not every raid can be a success.
Heavy smoke from fires obscuring TK Esso Richmond
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Morning Air attack on TF, near Adak Island at 162,52
Weather in hex: Thunderstorms
Raid detected at 80 NM, estimated altitude 42,400 feet.
Estimated time to target is 20 minutes
Japanese aircraft
Ki-43-IIIa Oscar x 42
42 flew to get 23 hits. An EXCELLENT result which justifies my kamikaze training. This is the first unit I put into action which had a significant number of "trained" kamikaze pilots ( defined as pilots with LOW NAVAL SKILL of 50. Faced with no fighter opposition and almost no FlAK these kamis really had a field day.
Japanese aircraft losses
Ki-43-IIIa Oscar: 25 destroyed
Allied Ships
xAK George H. Powell, Kamikaze hits 2, on fire
TK Ruth Kellogg, Kamikaze hits 1, heavy fires
xAK George E. Waldo, Kamikaze hits 2, on fire, heavy damage
SC PC-786
xAK George L. Curry, Kamikaze hits 1
xAK George Davidson, Kamikaze hits 3, on fire, heavy damage
xAK George M. Pullman, Kamikaze hits 2, on fire
SC PC-787
xAK George Middlemas, Kamikaze hits 3, and is sunk
SC-1273, Kamikaze hits 1, and is sunk
xAK George H. Himes, Kamikaze hits 1, on fire
SC-1067, Kamikaze hits 1, and is sunk
xAK George D. Prentice
xAK George H. Williams, Kamikaze hits 3, on fire, heavy damage
SC PC-784
SC-1069
SC PC-788
DE Martin, Kamikaze hits 1, heavy damage
DE Mitchell
TK Caliche, Kamikaze hits 1, heavy fires
DE William C. Miller
TK Spencer Kellogg, Kamikaze hits 1, heavy fires
Aircraft Attacking:
42 x Ki-43-IIIa Oscar flying as kamikaze
Kamikaze: 2 x 250 kg GP Bomb
I know that 3 ships sank immediately following this attack. I suspect that any of the xAKs which suffered three hits will also sink and the ones which suffered 2 hits should be in danger also although most of those will probably survive. Several of the TK which were hit had their fuel cargos catch fire also so they will probably sink. All in all I expect 3 TK, 3xAK and the 2 SC to sink following this attack. 8 ships for 80 planes. Not a bad exchange rate for me. Not bad at all.
Kamikazes committed:
Ki-43 IIIa: 42
A6M7: 14
D4Y4: 30
Escorts:
0
Escorts Lost:
0
Total Kamis Committed: 86
High Approach ( >30,000 feet ): 86
Medium Approach ( 1,000 feet to 30,000 feet ) : 0
Low ( 100 to 1,000 feet ) : 0
Hits:
H: 25
M: 0
L: 0
Kamis destroyed by Allied fighters: 12
Kamis destroyed by FlAK: 4
Kamis which attacked ships: 70
Kamis which hit ships: 25
Number of Ships attacked:
xAK: 10
TK: 9
DE: 7
SC: 7
NB: If a ship was attacked by two different kami groups in the same day it still counts as two attacks. The idea here is to give an estimate of the number of times ships were subjected to attack by kamis.
Number of hits achieved:
xAK: 18
TK: 4
DE: 1
SC: 2
NB: If a single ship was hit 3 times then it will be counted as 3 separate hits here.
Ships confirmed sunk:
xAK: 1
SC: 2
P.s. The green square is a CV TF he keeps pushing into the Yellow Sea... Definitely staking a claim there. It is just outside of easy kami range from Shanghai and Saishu To so I'm leaving it be. If he moves another 2 hexes north though I may make an effort to take out the CV TF. For right now it doesn't impact my plans at all and gives him a sense of achievement and security so allowing it to live is the better option. Only when he threatens something I really NEED ( or gives me the opportunity for a quick victory as at the Aleutians) will I resist him.
