AE Tourney II/Chickenboy PROHIBITED!!!/If you are Penelope Cruz my number is 714 287-4297

[Cap Mandrake]

Quite a wild sea chase in the IJN game. As a result of the USN raid toward Iwo, my ships are flushed out of port, except for Chitose which is too damaged even to leave port and is sunk. One severely damaged DD tries to get out and founders. One AK left behind as bait is sunk. One damaged CL escapes the carriers but is sunk by no less than 6 submarine torpedoes.

Anticipating that Chicken will have picked up on the movement, I start moving able-bodied (sort of) ships that are arriving at Palau toward Truk. Indeed, on the 12th, his carriers move SE and launch a huge fighter sweep over Palau. Most of the big boys have flown the coup. Sadly, Shokaku is likely spotted on the 12th. I divert everything to a more Southerly route which preserves them for one more day but the options are running out.

Kongo, one CA and 5 DD are near Makin Is. and will try to sprint past Tarawa today. I moved some recon aircraft to Juliut in the Marshall chain to scout for Kongo. Zuiho will reach Wake Is. today and may find soemthing to attack along his shipping routes. She is so far unspotted.

[Cap Mandrake]

***********7-14, IJN game************

Chicken moved his carrirs back toward Guam so the fleeing ships will reach port. It looks like an invasion of Tinian is next.

Kongo's sprint through the Marshalls ends with her being hit by some SBD's from the Southern Marshalls. She can still make 24 kts so she will still be a threat behind his lines. The cruiser has 20% flotation damage so she will have to head up to Iwo.

Meanwhile, Zuiho found some transports near Wake and likely sunk one AKA and an LST. There were troops aboard. I am pretty sure this will come as an unpleasant surprise to Chickenboy. He will not want Kongo, 6 DD's and and a CVL prowling around.

[witpqs]

[>:]

[Cap Mandrake]

IJN game. The attempted breakout of Kongo and Tone is a bust but I did mange to ambush a bunch of Yankee Dog aircraft.

The breakout was achieved but the wolves scared away all the sheep so I decided to head back before his carriers showed up. I concocted a little ambush at Jaluit.

[Cap Mandrake]

***********USN game, July 13-16***************

I am finally ashore at Saipan but the naval guns there are still murder. One LSD was sunk by shore gunfire, a BB was roughed up above decks and 5 DD's were roughed up pretty bad. As the landing forces were all ashore on day 1, I pulled back the Saipan Assault Group to Pagan and have pounded Saipan port daily with 80-150 TBF/TBM sorties at 13-15K feet. Gound fire is still too potent for the dive bombers so they are on naval attack duty.

B-25's and B-24 are busy supressing the airfields at Tinian and Guam. I sent in some LCT's to Saipan to bring in supply. 6 or 7 were lost to mines and shore batteries but they nearly resupplied all the ground troops. I will have to send in another group of LCT's with supplies and keep it up the port attacks. Corsairs are now operating from Anatahan in the ground attack role. They can take the ground fire better than the SBD's.

Essex and a CVL and a DD were all hit by Jap subs in the last two days. They will all survive but it is still annoying.

Meanwhile, the landing force force for Guam is nearly all embarked at Pagan along with 77th ID. You may recall these forces were previously used to take Pagan. D-Day Guam is in 3 days. Groudn offensive will commence at Saipan when all troosp are in good supply.

[Cap Mandrake]

******************July 20 update, both games*****************


IJN game: My sortie of Kongo ends badly. On her way back to Truk from the Marshalls, she was ambushed by USN carriers which probably came from the recon void North of Eniwetok. Kongo is mortally wounded, a DD sunk and Tone and another DD are hurt with only a couple of dozen US planes to show for it. Also, I don't have enough avaition support at Jaluit so I have maby 25-30 damaged Zeroes on the ground. When Chicken figures this out, the airfiedl will be obliterated. Both Musashi and Yamato are in pretty good shape and are trying to make Truk today after running from Palau. At this point in the game, any Jap ship bigger than a cruiser is a liability and merely represents points to be lost. Damaged Shokaku is at Truk. Damaged Zuikaku tried to run South from Palau today because Chicken had a carrier group posted there. She was hit be a sub but is still alive. Nagato also escaped from Palau to the South. Zuiho is still oeprating aircraft NE of Wake. I tried to send in two cruiser groups toward Chicken's landing on Tinian, but the weather cleared and one was hit by dive bombers and will have to return to Truk.

The strategy is to try to keep Musashi, Yamato, Nagato, Zuikaku and Shokaku alive for the points. Ditto the damaged Jap CA's. I flew in some search planes to Wake and hope to spot an ASW group or some transports for Zuiho.

US control: Guam, Rota, landing in progress on Tinian


(C0NT.)

[witpqs]

Cool - an update!!! [:)]

[Cap Mandrake]

USN game: I sent a carrier force West to kill Zuikaku which was in port at Palau after being hit by a sub. Chicken had no air cover over Palau, so the TBF/TBM raid at 15,000 feet with bombs over Beazelbob obliterated Zuiakaku. They also chanced upon previously damaged Musashi and Nagato trying to make it to Palau. The dive bobmers were on naval attack. Musashi was hit by 30 bombs before she sunk, including a great deal of 1000 lbrs. Nagato also sank afer 20+ hits. I now estimate there are no Jap carriers. Yamato is probably alive somewhere. A Jap DD force tried to raid Pagan. They dodged a BB-led SCTF but were defeated by 3 USN DD's at night.

This is all well and good but my problem is the pace of my assaults. The Jap naval guns at Saipan are absolute murder so I have been relentlessly attacking the port with TBF/TBM's in level bombing attacks. I have been trying to run in supply with LCT's to Saipan. I lose about 1/3rd every night. Yesterday, 77th ID and one regiment of Marines had enough supply, so I attacked with them alone. They achieved 1:1 and reduced fortifications one notch, though I suffered higher casulaties. 77th ID and several regiments of Marines, some combat engineers and a tank Bn will atack today. I can't keep all these boys supplied by LCT's so I am sending in the APA's and LST's from the Guam landing which still have supplies aboard. Indiana and 4 DD's will suppress the shore guns and will likely need shop time afterward. It is my hope I dont lose too many APA's. The B-24's from Pagan will also go after the port at Saipan today.

The landing at Guam went very well but one day of bombardment revealed I will need to get more supply there to continue. I am loading up some LST's but Pagan is short of supply. I sent some AK's to Kajelein to bring some up. I will send the AKA's at Pagan to Pearl to get some. I have APA's headed to Pearl to get anothe Marine division that just arrived. They are prepped for Saipan but I think I will use them at Tinian. I think they can get there in time.

Chicken has a large group of AK's and support vessels trying to hide out along the north coast of New Guinea. 2 CVL's are detached to kill them for the points.

[witpqs]

A unit's supply needed display is based upon a projected 1 month of usage. Notice that it goes up after combat, because it's a simple calculation (I don't know how far it looks back, maybe only 1 day?). The supplies needed for a 1 day attack are obviously less. The penalty for low supply does not, in my experience, kick in just because the unit has less than the projected one-month supply. I don't know where it actually does kick in, but you can usually attack with units that appear low, as long as they have decent supply, without getting any penalty.

If a partial force managed 1 to 1 odds attacking, then the whole force might do just fine even if some units do get a supply penalty, but maybe none will.

Sorry I don't have precise data.

[Cap Mandrake]

Wow..I was suffering from a very serious misaprehension. The red supply thingy gets my attention.

Usually, when I see something in red it means somebody is going to die or at least get sued.

[witpqs]

[:D]

I sure hope what I wrote is right!

[Cap Mandrake]

Score in the IJN game

[Cap Mandrake]

Air losses IJN game

[Cap Mandrake]

USN/RAN losses from the IJN perspective.

[Cap Mandrake]

*****************July 25 summary, IJN Game****************

More destruction of Japanese vessls. Damaged Shokaku and Nagato were sunk after being flushed out of Beazelbob by a USN port attack, they fled South only to find another carrier cgroup cutting off escape to Truk. They turn North and tried to make Palau again but were caught. I had a bumch of ships at Truk. I tried to move Yamato to the NE but the move was anticipated and she was destroyed over two days, first by carrier attacks and then in a surface engagement with two US BB's. Zuikaku also tried to disperse but ran into the two US BB's at night.

A small surface group tried to raid US ships disembarking at Tinian but was caught in the open and sunk by planes from Guam and the CVE's. A second cruiser and her escort of two DD's were snk near Iwo by a group of four USN DD's at night (US torpedoes work in 1944).

Chicken has captured Guam and eliminated the garrison after I foolishly counterattacked on day 2 of his landing, thereby greatly easing the capture. He has also captured Tinian but has not destroyed the former garrison.

He has just started bombardments and port attacks on Saipan, which has proved the most difficult nut to crack in the mirror game because of the naval defense guns.

The IJN has 3 or 4 seviceable CA and 4-5 DD's, plus a moderately damaged Musashi (at Truk) plus Zuiho, which is trolling for targets East of Wake and 3 more damaged CA's.

[Cap Mandrake]

Points in the IJN game. Chicken has the tow big point swings for Guam and Tinian

[Cap Mandrake]

The USN game has also reached July 25. After a week of daily assaults which started at 1:2 and finally reached 2:1, Saipan has fallen, though the big garrison still needs to be eliminated. The point swing for Saipan is nearly equal to Guam and Tinian combined. Daily assaults continue on Guam where the ratio has reached 1:1 and casulaties are trending in the Allied favor. With adequate supply, I am fairly confident Guam will fall. Chicken tried to hide a large group of empty transports and support vessels north of New Guinea but they were spotted and sunk by naval gunfire from 3 DD's. 2 CV's have been finishing off cripples at Palau, including, finally, Zuikaku. I don't know how many times that damn thing has been reported sunk. I suspect Yamato is still afloat but cant find her.

Full court press at Guam today with carrier bombers and even USN Corsairs on ground attack. The armor for the Tinian invasion is embarked and I will embark the combat engineers tomorrow. I used both 77th ID and 111 RCT at Guam instead of Tinian so now I am short infantry for Tinian. I did not have enough free transports to get all of 3rd Marine Div (100% prepped for Tinian) in one lift from Pearl, so I picked up about a regiment-worth. I will have to land with one regiment of 3rd Marine, plus the combat engineers and armor and try to get the rest of 3rd Marine to the battle before the game ends. Also at Pearl is 87th ID, which is 70% prepped for Saipan. Probably, i will throw them at Tinian too if I can get the transports there in time.

Right now, I am slightly ahead on net points. If I turn Guam and Tinian and Chicken can take Saipan, then it will be down to naval and air losses.

[Cap Mandrake]

We are up to July 28 in both games. We are at a snails pace because Chicken apparently is in the dog house for wasting his life on WITP. [:)]

IJN Game: Chicken owns Guam, Tinian and Rota and has started suppression raids against Saipan. Just this turn he raided Trunk and caught Musashi and 2 CA's fixing up dents. Even so, his raids were disjointed and the Jap CAP downed 50 Allied planes to the loss of a similar number of Zeroes. Musashi is the last BB afloat but there perhaps 6 CA's still about. Zuiho still lives and is being pursued by what I suspect are two carrier TF's W and SE of Wake.


USN Game: I think I finally sunk Zuikaku after at least 30 bomb hits in port. Still not sure if Yamato is around somewhere. It has been hit badly but not confirmed sunk. The big news is Saipan fell. This is a huge point swing and has put me in a solid lead. I am going to try a landing on Tinian before game end. I am sending in some armor and engineers once day ahead of about half a regiment of Marine 2nd Div which is sprinting from Pearl. Tinian is getting pounded by carrier planes. Guam is low on supply and so is Pagan. Saipan has 37,000 tons but I can't move it because the port is 100% destroyed. I sent in some B-24's to operate from Saipan today.



My capture of Tinian before game end is iffy but so is Chicken's opportunity to capture Saipan.

[Gridley380]

Is this duel still ongoing? I want to know who wins!

[Cap Mandrake]

ORIGINAL: Gridley380

Is this duel still ongoing? I want to know who wins!

Interesting that you mention that because I just got the 7-29 turns last night after an epic journey by desert tortoise.


IJN game: Zuiho was pursued by what I suspect were two carrier groups closing from the East and West and met her end doing figure of eights at 24 kts NE of Wake. Some of her makeshift air group got off to Wake but she was not able to mount a counterstrike at the unseen enemy. The E-boat with her was also sunk. Musashi lives another day with fighter cover over her at Truk. 3 crusiers made a dash from trunk to the South, SE and W and all 3 still live.
A jop sub torpedoed a CVE West of Saipan (this is the first big target hit by one of my subs even though I had several carriers and a BB knocked out of commission by Jap subs in the other game).

The landing at Saipan has started. No serious damage from my shore guns and no mine hits. Bahhh.

USN Game: Elimination of the former garrisons at Saipan and Guam goes well. The landing at Tinian goes in today. Most of the carriers are out of sorties and there is not enough supply at Pagan or Guam to resupply. Saipan has enough supply but the port is still 100% damaged. I am landing some engineers there by amphibious landing and have flown in an air HQ so at least there are soem corsairs operating there on ground attack over Tinian. P-47's and B-25's are flying from Pagan and Anataham. I sent back all the B-24's to Roi Namur as there is not enough supply to support them.

Main body of 2nd Marine Div about 4 days out from Tinian.