Typhoon of Blood-Innkeeper Bill vs Hotel John III RA 3.0

[khyberbill]

We are up to the 10th of April and there is now more supply at PH then at the start of the game. While John was refueling his CVs a lot of supply and resources were shipped in. John did catch the end of the movement of these ships back to the West Coast and sank several. I will continue to sporadically test his blockade, mainly to keep it going.

John tried to sneak a TF into Hilo with troops. Interestingly it arrived just after my bombardment TF had left. But a wandering PT boat torpedoed one ship and during the day dive bombers from PH hit the TF hard with at least one ship sinking.

John has gotten air superiority in Northern Australia so the troops are now advancing to the forward bases of Alice Springs and Cloncurry from Katherine. No supply at Katherine either. Later this year I hope to push back. There are many AA units enroute which should even things up. The only AA unit in the theatre has been knocking down up to three bombers every time the hex it is in is attacked.

John continues to bombard Coco Islands. A PBY torpedoed a CL and it is reported to have sunk.

Intel keeps reporting lots of radio traffic at Christmas Island. I have no idea what is going on there. It is at the end of a long supply tail which suits me at this point. Plans to re-take the island have been shelved and we will concentrate on better opportunities in 42 and probably 43. Pago Pago and Savaii are each at lvl 3 forts with a division present at each island so I have no real fears for those two islands.

The war moves slowly in Burma. Troops continue to flow to NE India.

China sucks.

[khyberbill]

For some reason, John pushed two armored units into Katherine while we still had shrimp on the barbie.





I did not cut off Aussie losses, there were none, not one squad disrupted. The shrimp tasted great.

[khyberbill]

The second part of the double spanking was an all out air assault on PH by John's land and naval assets. Has anyone noticed that playing John is like holding a wild cat by the tail? WOW. Wave after wave of Zeros from his CV's followed by several waves of Bettys and Nells with escorts frpm Kona/Hilo followed by several waves of Kates and Zeros. I dont think John likes Kates very much. For the record, as many aces (8) were made as were pilots KIA (8). No MIA's or wounded. Below is the day's air losses.

[khyberbill]

A small TF of two British CVs with about 65 planes, mostly bi-planes has been sitting down in Perth waiting for something to come along, and along came a TF with two CVE's and 2 CS's. This TF was ambushed just west of Exmouth. Over a two day period, The Taiyo, Unyo, Mizzuho and Natori along with several destroyers were sunk. This operation was made possible due to the knowledge that all of John's CV's were near PH although he may have started to pull them back now. Several days have gone by without a sighting and ships with supply are starting to slip into PH.

Two of Johns BB's were caught napping at Lahaina and were hit pretty hard by dive bombers from PH. They will survive but will be in the yards for a fair bit of time.

In Australia, the 'advance' from Katherine to Alice Springs continues. Several ships with troops will be offloading soon to help the situation. AA units are urgently needed.

this is a screen shot of my top pilots. I have never had so many aces so early in a PBEM as well as so many pilots with good EXP and only about half the list of aces is shown. Most of them are Army pilots, I cant wait to put these guys into a P47D25.

[khyberbill]

For comparison, this is the leading pilots list from my game with Pawel which is a month ahead of this game.

[khyberbill]

For those fans of British R-Class BB's, here are four at work.

[khyberbill]

And for those of you who are not R-Class BB fanboys, here is a picture of the guitarist Greg Howe with my wife on our front porch. Greg Howe stayed with us one night last summer while conducting a workshop nearby.



If you have not heard of Greg Howe, here he is with Micheal Jackson.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WJsqEzZfbw

[ny59giants]

Mr Bill (old "Saturday Night Live" reference) [;)],

Cocos Island - Japan can base Emily and 2nd generation Nell and they can almost reach the western map edge. Add a small Air HQ and they can carry torpedoes. I can monitor ship movement from here and send a SC TF to raid and/or some CVE/CVLs. Place your Brit and Dutch subs in the straits between Sumatra and Java as he is probably transiting this point with his BB TF.

Alice Spring - Move your Australian Command HQ here to pull in additional supply, plus build up the base. Depending on what you want to do about shipping supply from Ledo into China, you can move in extra C-47s soon and start to transport supplies to Tennant Creek.

Aussie Armor - Steadily upgrade your armor rgt at Sydney to Lee/Grant. Then send them up to Alice Spring. They will destroy his tank rgt.

OT - payment for additional advice will be one bushel of fresh Macintosh apples. [:D]

[khyberbill]

Cocos Island - Japan can base Emily and 2nd generation Nell and they can almost reach the western map edge. Add a small Air HQ and they can carry torpedoes. I can monitor ship movement from here and send a SC TF to raid and/or some CVE/CVLs. Place your Brit and Dutch subs in the straits between Sumatra and Java as he is probably transiting this point with his BB TF.

I know, I have lots of troops at CoCos Island-enough to have already destroyed an inf regiment and inf division. I also do have some subs guarding the straight. They see the ships, but they dont attack. Yet. The CV-TF I destroyed had been hampering re-supply to Cocos Island. Their loss should ease the pain for a bit. I imagine John will have to pull some ships from the PH blockade.

Alice Spring - Move your Australian Command HQ here to pull in additional supply, plus build up the base. Depending on what you want to do about shipping supply from Ledo into China, you can move in extra C-47s soon and start to transport supplies to Tennant Creek.

The HQ is hung up between Katherine and Tennant Creek. I have over 70k at Alice Spring and it just wont flow north.

Aussie Armor - Steadily upgrade your armor rgt at Sydney to Lee/Grant. Then send them up to Alice Spring. They will destroy his tank rgt.

Good advice. I have some US Army and Marine armor in the area and will upgrade.

OT - payment for additional advice will be one bushel of fresh Macintosh apples.

Okey Dokey

[ny59giants]

Look to place your subs one movement phase away from Batavia (5 to 7 hexes). This is the logical base to use (but using logic with John is tough sometimes [:D]).

Alice Springs to Tennant Creek - supplies don't flow across that stretch of trail. That is why I said to use C-47s. [;)] If you want to stay in northern Australia, your transport planes are very valuable.

In my game as Japan, I had massive amounts of Allied armor retake Exmouth and drive on Port Hedland. Lack of supplies and my airforce beat him up and he retreated all the way back to Carnavon.

[khyberbill]

Look to place your subs one movement phase away from Batavia (5 to 7 hexes). This is the logical base to use (but using logic with John is tough sometimes ).

A short range Dutch sub that I have had stationed there bagged a small cargo ship. In other news, John tried to crash a party being held at the Enlisted Mens Club in Hiva Oa. He wasnt invited. When he realized he did not have enough oomph he loaded his troops back onto their transports. Along came the APD Fox and sank all three with 3" guns. A small victory but large morale booster.

In China the line is mostly holding. In Australia, we are bounced out of Daly Waters and headed to Tennant Creek. But as soon as we were kicked south, all the units suddenly received supply so their journey should not be as bad. Lots of troops are on their way to Australia.

John appears to have pulled many of his CV's from the blockade of PH. Supply ships are getting in and there is now about an 140 days of supply at current ops.

Below is the Enlisted Mens Club at Hiva Oz:

[FatR]

And ambushes like the one you pulled off is why I don't like idea of using small detachments of carriers as raiders, ever. Gains really do not outweight the risks. Particularly under the current beta, where you can't hope to sink a troop convoy and make units lost forever. And a small force might not even be a able to sink a large catch. Well, in the first 2-3 months of the war I can see the benefits of splitting the available carrier force in two, depending on situation, but not after.

Well, maybe my strategy is overtly conservative, of course. We'll see how it will work in my second ongoing PBEM.

[khyberbill]

In Burma, we are just about chased out of the whole country. Here is a picture of John's army having its way with the fleeing Base Forces.

[khyberbill]

And ambushes like the one you pulled off is why I don't like idea of using small detachments of carriers as raiders, ever. Gains really do not outweight the risks.

John's previous raids had sunk several cargo ships which is why he continued them. In fact, I had an xAKL sitting as bait about 10 hexes NW of Exmouth while my TF was hovering near Perth. I was somewhat surprised by his sudden lunge to Hiva Oa without any escort. I have the place well garrisoned and was lucky to have the APD near Tahiti when I saw the TF approach.

[khyberbill]

First the good news, it appears as if the Seadragon sunk the Ryujo just south of Tulagi. John has turned his lonely eye to this area. Not one, but two torpedoes exploded as well as a message that the ammo magazine went up. The following day John bombarded Koumac with a small CA force. Not much damage, but then, there is not much to damage there.

Prior to this John had sent KB south towards NZ and bagged quite a few ships in the area but missing two huge troop convoys. I had seen KB edging down and then heading towards OZ. The scouts missed the turn south and more PBYs have been brought in. I need to staff and build up the airfields at Lord Howe Island and Norfolk Island if he continues these raids. In fact, I have some SeeBee units on the way to start clearing airstrips.

Now the bad news. In northern Oz John is hammering me to death. I have been definitively outplayed here. I made the decision to retreat my forces in one column and that has slowed down the retreat. We are one hex from Tennant Creek now and that might help matters. In fact, within a turn or two I will have lots of AA (2 will be the USA coastal AA units) there which should start discouraging his bombing runs. Lots of troops pouring into Sydney though to help stabilize the northern line and then push back.

At PH the siege has been essentially lifted. John has not been blockading for a week or so and we just had some fighting over Kona. He tried to begin an evacuation and in a few days of air battles, this was discouraged. A sub hit the Ise with a torpedo and then John appears to have left it behind at Kona by mistake and over two days we hammered the Ise from the air. KB launched another ill-advised attack on PH shipping and lost over 60 Kates and Zeros.

India, Burma and China are basically quiet. John and I are discussing a cease fire in China. We both hate that arena.

[Nemo121]

It looks like you are playing things well here.

The key to this game will be discerning the flashy from those moves with substance. John likes lots of flash to his operations but his logistical backing for those operations is often very poor. You can expect him to continue piecemealing forces out which leads to vulnerability.

I played him once in a BG Gettysburg game and what I found to be very useful was to play into his desire for victory by showing him weakness/gaps which he would then seek to exploit only to find that in so doing he over-extended and was ripped apart by my forces. If I were you I would simply retreat in Oz and lead him on. Eventually his desire for flashy wins will lead him to overextend and you'll get the victories you are no fighting hard for at much less cost.

Generally though just play for time. He'll undertake lots of unnecessary operations which will give you many, many opportunities to take shots at his forces. So long as you have some forces available you'll be able to capitalise.


In terms of defence: I wouldn't expect him to pay nearly enough attention to building up mutually supporting defensive positions. It isn't flashy and it isn't "active". John has this idea that activity is good when really only goal-oriented activity in search of achievable and cost-effective goals is good. When you go on the attack I'd advise slipping past his initial defensive line ( which will be at least partially manned ) and striking deep ( where there's every possibility he will not have the necessary garrisons and fortifications ).

Remember basing subs in a base ( or island hex ) will, over time, give you pretty good intel on that base/island. I do this all the time in order to gain pre-invasion intel and it works very well.

Three biggest tips:
1. Some players you need to defeat. Some will defeat themselves if you give them time and enough rope. John is the latter type of player. The skill, for you, lies in maintaining discipline to allow that to happen AND in creating situations which draw him into self-defeating action.

2. When attacking go deep. It'll be cheaper in the long run.

3. I also wouldn't keep this AAR fully up to date in terms of your strategic plans. I'd delay posting them here until the operations are concluded.

[khyberbill]

Thanks for posting Nemo.

First of all, I don't plan on discussing strategy until the operation gets going or unless I am under water and need lots of help.

You are certainly right in that John is an active player as you will read below. And it is obvious that what he thinks is important to me isn't necessarily so and vice versa. A case in point is his recent and aborted invasion of New Caledonia.

John first invaded Koumac with about 20k of troops and discovered an Army regiment encamped behind lvl 3 forts (now we know what the CVL was doing near Tulagi). John quickly invaded La Foa (the next hex north of Noumea) to cut off retreat from Noumea. There he discovered a BF and lvl 2 forts. And the next turn he found another Army regiment (different division though) in La Foa. The following day two Marine regiments arrived in Koumac.

Meanwhile KB and assorted other task forces are circling around like buzzards. KB almost caught a small CV force of mine that had been loitering in the area. I have several Marine Air units on New Caledonia and they switched to night naval bombing and scored a few hits. Then a night raid of a CA and two DD's sliced through a transport TF in La Foa. It appears the TF was there to remove the Japanese.





As can be seen only an Officers Club skiff is remaining in the harbour. John will indubitably try and grab the small islands to the east of New Caledonia. I do have a small garrison on Efate that will probably not survive.

For some reason John believed that New Caledonia was not important to me and that I would not have much force there.

In China, we have a cease fire in place. Neither of us cares for the ground combat there. A cease fire benefits me at this point in that the Chinese will slowly build up strength.

We also appear to be in a stalemate along the India/Burma border. Of course, John could be preparing to invade India. All coastal cities have now been built up to lvl three forts and are well garrisoned with British and Australian troops (yes, those with the low reinforcement rates)

In northern Oz, the column finally retreated to Tennant Creek. John is pounding me there and I, in turn am bombing his troops. He is trying to sneak a tank regiment down that coastal road toward Cloncurry and Normanton. B25s are getting some good hits on this unit now that it is out of fighter escort range. I expect he will turn it back soon. I really like B25s set at 1k against armored units in the open. More troops are arriving all the time (an East African brigade is now moving out of Alice Springs) and I hope I will be able to move north by the end of summer.

John has deserted Kona and Hilo with the exception of about 30 units and some subs. I have not decided what to do yet (invade or continue to use the islands as a training ground) so in the mean time, I bombard night and day building up EXP for air and naval surface units.