LoBaron + Robbrennan vs Offenceman, allied secret AAR

[Alfred]

Rob,

Further to my last post I did a quick search on "aircraft supply capacity" and "re"found posts from:

treespider (March 2010)
Blackhorse (October 2010)

where both commented on no rounding up. Treespider had run tests on the Dutch transport plane. It's cargo load is 1300 lb but it only delivered 1 supply point. Blackhorse (one of the devs) specifically said up to 3999 lb cargo load, only 1 supply point delivered. He did advise that a transport plane would deliver 1 supply point even if it's cargo load capacity was less than 2000 lb.

michaelm (June 2010) confirmed cargo load capacity is divided by 2000.

Then of course there are those posts from me elsewhere which state the same thing ... they must be correct[:D]

Alfred

[LoBaron]

25. Nov 42:

Just a quick situational update from me today:

"Right Jab" refueled successfully at Midway and is now on course to target, I expect the landing to take place in about 7-8 days.

I expect the 1st Marines to be highly fatigued after landing because of the long travel on an amphib TF, but this is a good test to
see how bad the fat value will be on such occasions.

The last of the convoys bound for Noumea is now 4 days off, the SeaBees and USAAF ground staff will switch from strat mode to
combat immediately, and then everything is set up for the second part of the op, "Left Hammer".

[Rob Brennan UK]

Thank you for the information Alfred and kfsgo , 1/2000 i had not even guessed at . RE warazup , its a L1 AF (so a base) and i have 2 more Eng units 1 hex away designated for base building. I'll try and max this place out asap for supply flow from India as i cannot just use the allied transports at the exclusion of china tbh. Similarly I'm building up the base SW of Imphal (1 hex over the border)for the same reason (to Katha hopefully).

Much appreciated chaps ! [&o]

RE game - Operation 'retake horn island' (imaginatively named) can go in 4 odd days (awaiting some fuel and 4 DD's) . given how easily Japan retook sulamaki <sp> I'm flying out the Aussie troops from the neighboring base and building up the island 1 hex N of Darwin instead.

also CL Caradoc took a torp entering Perth .. she will survive.. My elite Aussie search and ASW hudsons (LR) aren't a golden bullet for clearing the passages , while the KV ASW group wanders aimlessly about [;)]

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: Rob Brennan UK

Thank you for the information Alfred and kfsgo , 1/2000 i had not even guessed at.

Think "ton".

[Rob Brennan UK]

Proximity to the European Union means i think in decimal [;)], more often than not. Although still comfortable with feet/inches and gallons (imperial) .. Decimal makes more sense when looked at logically but i just cannot relate to Liters Kilograms etc . think i need a Pint of beer to mull it over [;)]

OffemceMan has finished his frenetic week so we can hopefully update a tad more often now. Is Tad, a decimal or imperial measurement of time i wonder ? darn it , where is that beer ?

[LoBaron]

27. Nov 42:

The subs assigned to the protective zone N and SW of Marcus Island
have reached their assigned PZs.
None have been detected so far, so until now except for daily recon flights
there are no hints that the invasion is coming.

CVE air setup is 3 F4F squads and a dauntless group to give a small offensive
punch in case Mike tries to engage with surface forces.
All in all the invasion has about 70 fighters available, engough to neutralise the
small airforce at Marcus.

My greates fear at the moment are mines, hopefully the sweepers with the invasion
group will be enough, the air cover TF will stay out of the hex anyway.

[Rob Brennan UK]

26th Nov 1942

Speaking of Subs !


submarine attack near Perth at 48,147

Japanese Ships
SS I-8

Allied Ships
xAK Orfor, Torpedo hits 1, on fire, heavy damage SUNK



xAK Orfor is sighted by SS I-8
SS I-8 launches 6 torpedoes at xAK Orfor


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sub attack near Busselton at 47,149

Japanese Ships
SS I-168, hits 2

Allied Ships
CV Illustrious
BB Valiant
BB Warspite
BB Prince of Wales
CA Devonshire
CA Dorsetshire
CA Houston
CL Mauritius
CL Dauntless
CL Hobart
DD Nestor
DD Nepal
DD Norman
DD Nizam


Perth is fast becoming the graveyard of the CW shipping , 2 ASW groups and 4 air groups on mixed search/ASW are on patrol but no contact more often than not. The CV group had been given way-points to avoid a straight run into Perth to no avail in the end. I was S%$%%^&g myself when that screen popped up [;)]. Actually the most annoying aspect (ater the miss) is Japan now knows that the UK Cv group is now in Australia. Oddly Perth is out of fuel ! considering its the main drop off point for Australia that's a tad annoying and im shipping some back from Adelaide. 8 Tankers are 4 days out , so no long term problems really. 2 British a/c transports are coming into Perth and have been beefed up with spare DD escorts.


Dutch Sub KX has been lurking near Boela and spotted and attacked 3 TF's with large tabkers and some Japanese AO's , interestingly are those AO's just being used for fuel transports ? i suspect so tbh. Sadly the brave but inaccurate sub was sunk on the 27th.

[/color]ASW attack near Boela at 80,110

Japanese Ships
AO Tsurumi
AO Sata
AO Notoro
AO Naruto
TK Amakusa Maru
PB Narita Maru

Allied Ships
SS KX, hits 8, heavy damage



SS KX is sighted by escort
PB Narita Maru attacking submerged sub ....
Sounds of submarine breaking up detected!
Escort abandons search for sub

Japan launched a ground attack on the main front in south china. The few Chinese AT guns and newly arrived artillery (81mm mortars) seem to have made a large compared to Japans last attack. I'm actually pretty happy about this . Tomorrow the US bombers will attack the damaged Japanese forces and try and turn some of those disablement's into permanent casualties. Chinese fighters will provide escorts and LRCAP .



Ground combat at 78,51

Japanese Deliberate attack

Attacking force 105117 troops, 947 guns, 1759 vehicles, Assault Value = 4111

Defending force 90393 troops, 538 guns, 0 vehicles, Assault Value = 3531

Japanese adjusted assault: 2158

Allied adjusted defense: 7072

Japanese assault odds: 1 to 3

Combat modifiers
Defender: terrain(+), experience(-)
Attacker:

Japanese ground losses:
7907 casualties reported
Squads: 17 destroyed, 540 disabled
Non Combat: 72 destroyed, 514 disabled
Engineers: 1 destroyed, 41 disabled
Vehicles lost 451 (112 destroyed, 339 disabled)


Allied ground losses:
5119 casualties reported
Squads: 17 destroyed, 242 disabled
Non Combat: 11 destroyed, 229 disabled
Engineers: 0 destroyed, 30 disabled


Not a single Chinese AT gun was lost although the supply levels have dropped into the red.

Mandalay was once again bombarded , no losses worth talking about but the supply cost is a killer. IF i put a lot of troops into reserve would it stop them using up supply for counter battery fire ? If i do get assaulted however i'm aware that I'll need some leadership tests , so it will weaken the defenses BUT could save me a fortune in supply if i just leave the artillery + one inf div on combat orders.



Ground combat at Mandalay (59,46)

Japanese Bombardment attack

Attacking force 426 troops, 58 guns, 38 vehicles, Assault Value = 3388

Defending force 96643 troops, 1556 guns, 1692 vehicles, Assault Value = 3472

Japanese ground losses:
Guns lost 9 (7 destroyed, 2 disabled) GOOD ! ..
Vehicles lost 28 (23 destroyed, 5 disabled)


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

In the Indian ocean the CW is mooching around with a fake AP force heading to near the Andaman islands in an attempt to lure Japanese forces into the area. Doubt we will have much effect but we are escorting with BB's and ASW groups so it 'looks' a s real as possible. But with only some Beaufighters for LRCAP the air cover is pathetic. even if KB shows up and sinks the lot it'll be worth it as a distraction for whats coming in the Pacific. don't want to lose it to LBA in the process though so I'll pull back tomorrow. No Japanese search a/c spotted yet so I have no idea if we have been spotted yet . Andaman is appears empty according to recon ?? If i could make a decent fight of it I'd try and retake the place but this would be a self made POW camp.

More tomorrow hopefully.

[Alfred]

ORIGINAL: Rob Brennan UK

Mandalay was once again bombarded , no losses worth talking about but the supply cost is a killer. IF i put a lot of troops into reserve would it stop them using up supply for counter battery fire ? If i do get assaulted however i'm aware that I'll need some leadership tests , so it will weaken the defenses BUT could save me a fortune in supply if i just leave the artillery + one inf div on combat orders.

Units in "reserve" are completely immune from a pure bombardment attack. Hence you will get some supply benefit from not incurring casualties.

Regarding the leadership test, that only becomes an important issue in the event a deliberate/shock attack is at 2:1 odds or better. Under those circumstances, there is a test to determine whether the units in "reserve" are activated.

Alfred

[Rob Brennan UK]

Thanks Sensei alfred ,, can always rely on you when i'm too lazy to read the manual [;)]

28 + 29th Nov 1942

China

The Chinese AF was granted a golden opportunity to bag some unescorted bombers today ! and fluffed it , only a few tangled with the Helens (guessing range was the issue) but we still nobbled a few while one lancer was destroyed on returning to base. The Bombers hot the target with no opposition but did no damage worth talking about. All this jumping about with the Chinese AF is hopefully causing the Japanese to deploy even more a/c into theater.


Burma

Japanese bombardments halted today and Mandalay jumped to 1968 supplies, even swebo went upto 120 ! about 100 more than has been there for months , hopefully we'll stop starving there from now on and can slowly build up the infrastructure. I'm going to take Alfreds advice and reserve all men in Mandalay bar 2 combat divs and some Armour. I seriously doubt Japan will attack anytime soon and we will see the impact on supply when she resumed shelling.


Java

Madeoin Is starting to crumble , with the huge increase in Japanese air attacks its no great surprise and the daily sweeps of 60+ zeros keep away any allied attempts to interfere here. Still its all to the good i suppose. Not sure i mentioned this before but we had a 'plan' to coincide with the current US invasions of the CW re invading Java. It was scrubbed due to being utterly unsupportable and rescuing the dutch would have been a political maneuver not a military one. IF the dutch actually got replacements (from where i have no idea ) post 6/42 there might have been a point to it.

Madeoin supply now 2349, won't last long now , but we did rebuff a Japanese assault which launched a few days too early. The AA guns here have over the past few months shot down a LOT of Helens .. pretty much all the Flak Helen kills have been over Java. shame that its all completely restricted as i would like to evacuate the better units. C'est la vie.


Ground combat at Madioen (54,104)

Japanese Deliberate attack

Attacking force 55034 troops, 685 guns, 181 vehicles, Assault Value = 1911

Defending force 34591 troops, 400 guns, 174 vehicles, Assault Value = 948

Japanese engineers reduce fortifications to 3

Japanese adjusted assault: 813

Allied adjusted defense: 5254

Japanese assault odds: 1 to 6 (fort level 3)

Combat modifiers
Defender: terrain(+), experience(-)
Attacker:

Japanese ground losses:
6322 casualties reported
Squads: 5 destroyed, 201 disabled
Non Combat: 5 destroyed, 324 disabled
Engineers: 2 destroyed, 85 disabled
Guns lost 1 (1 destroyed, 0 disabled)


Allied ground losses:
2405 casualties reported
Squads: 18 destroyed, 179 disabled
Non Combat: 9 destroyed, 170 disabled
Engineers: 0 destroyed, 8 disabled


Australia.

The 8th Australian A/Division has been mostly evacuated from Babar (the island N or Darwin , Not the French elephant). Notably all the support personnel have gone while the poor grunts are left at the back of the queue. Typical brass ! The AKV Athene arrived safely in Perth after running the sub blockade , while hudons flying from geraldton reported attacking a Jap sub heading North. We did lose another AK south of Perth to sub action today and apart from the incoming TK convoy (with 4 DD escorts) all else is being re routed.

Thats about it from the War Office in London .. TTFN

[LoBaron]

29th Nov 42

Invasion of Marcus island is imminent, either on Nov 30th or Dec 1st.

Mike did a small test sniff at Lunga, sending 2 AKLs and a couple of PBs there - probably to test my reaction, I doubt he landed anything.

Three NZ Hudsons attacked the ships and scored the only bomb hit of the day on xAKL Katsuragisan Maru.
Later a couple of B17s and B24 tried the same but failed to hit anything.

Ship of the day:

On the other end of the map the Captain of AM Outarde made medal candidate with his performance
off Santa Catalina.

Sub attack near Santa Catalina Is at 224,77
Japanese Ships
SS I-24, hits 5
Allied Ships
AM Outarde

TF 115 encounters mine field at Santa Catalina Is (224,77)
Allied Ships
AM Outarde
5 mines cleared

Nice work for such a small boat. Float planes had detected the minefield a day ago and Outarde got the orders to investigate.
One of the DC drops was a direct hit, I hope I-24s skipper is now convinced to leave the area. Its a long way home.


Other news:
The ships assigned to "Left Hammer" have all arrived at Noumea, in two days the combat units and engineers will board their transports.
The CV groups will stay between Suva and Noumea but slowly start moving north.

[LoBaron]

2nd Dec 42:

1 days delay to Right Jab but troops will land tonight.

At Noumea the forces for Left Hammer are loading.

First wave OOB below:

Lunga Landing Group:

2nd Marine Reg
2nd USMC Tanks
23rd SeaBees
43rd Construction Reg
179th USAAF BF

Additional air support can be flown in after the landing is secure and a small
AF has been established.

Tassafaronga Landing Group:

145th Inf Reg
35th SeaBees

Tulagi Landing Group:

22nd Marine Reg
15th SeaBees

Renell Island Landing Group:

2nd USMC Para
43rd SeaBees


I will have aviation support ready to fly in wherever airfields become operational.

[seydlitz_slith]

Perhaps the Outarde snagged the sub with her paravanes and rolled the depth charge right down it.

[LoBaron]

Hey seydlitz! Good to see you, I hope RL is not treating you too bad. [:)]

Outarde was on constant ASW duty since her arrival, might have to check her stats. I agree though
that the direct hit was a matter of really good luck.

[LoBaron]

4th Dec 42:

The 1st Marines have landed on Marcus Island!

The first wave was greeted by stiff resistance from prepared positions but managed to get a hold
on the beach. Losses were acceptable and the troops already got more than 2 weeks of supplies and ammunition.

Both on Dec 2nd and 3rd, Vandegrift received a leaders(-) roll on shock attack. [X(]
Are there other reasons for that modifier than leader attributes? The only other explanation (except really bad luck) that
comes to mind is that the unit is the wrong theatre. Hm.

The landing fleet itself got away clean, not a single ship was hit by (quite active) coastal guns fire or mines. I attribute this to the good performance
of Oklahoma - who is nearly out of 14in by now - and CL St. Louis, and the reliability of every minesweeping-capable vessel on duty. Good job!


The Marcus Island garison is now revealed, theres more troops than intel suggested, but as I already said, I like this part of FOW.
Currently my guess is that in case you multiply the recon figures by 2.5 - 4 you come close to the real troop strenght.

Opposing the 1st Marines are:

45th Road Const Co
Jaluit Base Force
7th JNAF Coy
47th Road Const Co
10th JNAF AF Unit

All in all thats about 2400 troops when recon indicated between 5 and 800.

Still the Marines should handle them except if Vandegrift decides to get another couple of leaders(-)...



On a sidenote: KB has not showed up yet, which either means Mike will not react to that landing (increases the threat on Left Hammer),
or he is on the way but not there yet (in which case he will hit empty air).

Thats all for today guys. [:)]

[Rob Brennan UK]

Commonwealth side of the war is a lot less interesting for the past few days.

China , static as usual with some hefty Japanese combat sweeps over now empty airfields. The majority of the bombers have moved back to


Burma and will partake in a planned huge attack on Magwe airfield. Initially we will hit nearby troops with the B17's and try and draw off some base CAP. Then a real risky turn with multiple bomber attacks on the field itself (aimed at PM attacks) while P38's and hurricane C's sweep in the AM while allotting P40's and the .303 hurricanes as escorts. should happen in 2-4 days time as I made a bit of a cock up with the Lightning groups due to hideous maintainability delays. Basically i 'upgraded' the groups to old P36's as the P38's had delays upto 20 days ! Then swop back the P38's . However this little cheat/exploit has been halted by the Game,thankfully, as i got damaged planes back , good programming all. However I'd failed to notice that Calcutta was desperately short on AV support (oops) and that was the delay problem, so i railed the planes to Dacca where the overcrowded but ground crew heavy base can fix them up quickly.

So YES i got caught out trying to exploit the game engine , or i just tried out something new , you decide [;)]

Java , Madeoin is now out of supply for all intents and purposes , the AAA guns shot down 6 more Helens and damaged a lot more in the past 4 days, not long now and Japan will notice the guns are silent. We have only intrinsic supply now. I wonder if other units will share supply with the AAA guns ? will be nice to experiment on this.


DEI .. We got a small measure of revenge and sank a patrol boat off java :-


Sub attack near Donggala at 68,97

Japanese Ships
PB Isshin Maru, Torpedo hits 1, heavy damage
SC Ch 16
PB Ichiyu Maru

Allied Ships
SS O21


And more importantly bagged an unescorted AO near Kendari. I wonder if japan has a fleet supply reserve Oiler fleet or is she using them to haul fuel/oil back to Japan ?

The horn island invasion fleet is boarding in Townsville this turn. We will be hitting the beaches with 100% prepared troops.

2nd Australian Division , still has militia and not 1942 squads unfortunately.
2/4 Armoured unit. With Stuarts and Grants.
1st Medium Arty

while back up is the C/B CD guns unit and 2nd RAF base force

We have Macarthurs command in range and 100% prepped for the target too, The 1st and 2ND Aussie HQ's are prepping for PM and Milne bay instead, so we wont be carrying those along. Only been running recon and that says 1-2000 men and 4 guns , I hope that doesnt translate to 10k men and huge CD guns. Escort is pretty weak with the newly repaired CA Australia and several DD's and AM's . Sadly no minesweepers as I just do not have any and neglected to ask America for some.

Reconnoitering PM too and hope that Japan thinks this is the main event and defends the wrong base , but that most likely wishful thinking.

Fingers crossed.

[seydlitz_slith]

Glad to see this game is still going on. I read through the thread during the week to catch back up on things. Very interesting.

Print more maps for us...

RL is still moderately busy, but I have been able to keep up my game with Traskott.

Lenny,
now is the time for the US forces to start to shine. I know that it is hard to sit and watch for the whole first year.

Rob,
How about a map of the Burma theater. I am kind of curious as to what it looks like.

Did Mike start a new job yet? I know that he was looking last year when I had to drop out.

[witpqs]

It looks like only Imperial support troops on Marcus, except perhaps a few organic squads...

[LoBaron]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

It looks like only Imperial support troops on Marcus, except perhaps a few organic squads...

Small correction:

It looks like only Imperial support troops were on Marcus, except perhaps a few organic squads... [;)]


AFTER ACTION REPORTS FOR Dec 05, 42

Allied forces CAPTURE Marcus Island !!!

Japanese aircraft
no flights

Japanese aircraft losses
No Japanese losses

Combat modifiers
Defender: disruption(-), preparation(-), experience(-)
Attacker: shock(+), disruption(-)

Japanese ground losses:
1361 casualties reported
Squads: 14 destroyed, 4 disabled
Non Combat: 113 destroyed, 36 disabled
Engineers: 57 destroyed, 0 disabled
Guns lost 1 (1 destroyed, 0 disabled)
Vehicles lost 5 (5 destroyed, 0 disabled)
Units destroyed 2


Allied ground losses:
295 casualties reported
Squads: 0 destroyed, 33 disabled
Non Combat: 0 destroyed, 22 disabled
Engineers: 0 destroyed, 1 disabled

Ok that was the good news. Clean op.

The downside list is a bit longer than I hoped though:

1) diversion fail:

Easy to guess why. Mike did not react with any noticeable forces as he knew frome start that Marcus would fall, so the advantage of drawing Japanese attention
away from the Guadalcanal area is lost. Well, that would have been the bonus anyway. Its an Island gained on Mikes flank so sooner or later he will
have to do something against it to prevent it developing into a staging area.

2) additional losses:

This was due to my decision to do only a final big bombardement with the escorting surface combat group and then disengage, leaving
xAP Bloemfontein and the unloading AK s behind, protected only by the minesweepers.

The cost was Bloemfontein and xAK San Vincente. I-23 came away without a scratch. I dislike increasing the already formidable skill
of the IJN sub commanders...



So thats the situation, still the dice has been thrown and operation Left Hammer will proceed, containing close to every large USN combat ship
in the south pacific.

[seydlitz_slith]

My guess is that Mike will not react until you take Kwaj and Roi Namur and possibly not then. You should be clear all the way to Eniwotek.

Other than the northern Solomans, if I were him, I would not be threatened until you took Ponape (threatens Truk) or moved on Guam/Tinian/Saipan as that threatens to cut off the entire theater. In fact, if you were bold enough, going after Guam/Tinian/Saipan now you would probably find it not yet heavily defended or built up and you could force a major change in his defensive plans.

[LoBaron]

I agree.

In fact Guam is part of the long time plan for ´43, early ´44.

I will try to implement a 2, later 4, axis of advance plan.

1) Attrition can only be accomplished by crawling up the Solomons. So this is one axis and has to be done. If you neclect this area
you do it at your own risk. I have already seen many AAR´s where not forcing attrition on the Japanese ended badly.

2) Broaden the advance on the Marcus Island Axis, taking the northern Marshalls and finally Guam to choke the South Pac.

3) Open a second frontline from the south in direction of the Marshals.

4) Move along the Aleuthians at a modest speed to put pressure on the Kuriles.


At least thats the rough outline.


Thats said, please talk about Mikes potential defensive setup or general strategy only on very rough terms. You are a great player and know so
many details about Mikes intentions that you could leak information unintentionally. I know how difficult it is to decide what to talk about and what
not - and I have at least a mediocre talent to read between the lines. [;)]


Ponape definitely looks like an interesting target, Mike seems to use it on a regular basis (possibly but not exclusively as an advance guard for Truk)
if the radio transmisions over the last week are true, and I think they are.