Aussies v Aussies - Being clubbed like a baby seal (No Jrcar or Tony)

[aoffen]

May 31st to June 9th
Firstly humblest apologies for missing a week. Things have been hectic and the game pace suffered a little as a result. Only 10 turns over 2 weeks. So....around the grounds we go.

CENPAC
All quiet after the Canton Island battle. I finally tweaked to the fact that he was reconning PH with sub based Glen float planes and sent some ASW TF's to chase his subs away. PH detection levels are now zero again. Lots of ship upgrades going on now. Wasp is PH bound with the Lexington and Saratoga 3 weeks away from operational status. I lose the Indomintable to withdrawal about the same time but will have 6 US CV's ready to go early July. I also finally got the USA 41st Div released from West Coast command and it is also PH bound with a bunch of various support units.

SOPAC/Australia
All quiet. No shipping activity has been detected around Fiji for a while so I suspect those who are going have gone. Am pulling my subs back to Brisbane and refitting them for the forthcoming battle. Should be able to set Townsville up as a sub base before long so that will really help me flood the area from the north Queensland coast to Rabaul with subs. I am unable to sustain my combat forces around Derby in NW Aust. The supplies just don't flow so have decided to pull back until I am in a position to re-open Darwin. That will come once I have the airpower and naval power in Australia for an attack north.

DEI
Constant Japanese air raids on Bandoeng but no land attacks. My force is still holding but supply levels have been steadily eroded. .

Burma India
The hornets nest at Akyab continues. Continued 100 strong air raids plus regular naval bombardments have reduced the base to a mess and stopped my aircraft flying. Overland supply seems to be non existant so everything is damaged on the ground and the base repairs very slowly. Have tried 3 approaches to fix this. First got some CD guns in to the hex (they were all damaged in a bombardment for some reason and are repairing), second started to mine the harbour using MkII mines on Brit subs (unfortunately only laying 40 at a time so will take some time to build up a decent field and no hits so far) and thirdly I tried to fight some supplies in on ship from Calcutta. That got nasty. I used 4 AKL's amphib loaded and covered them with 4 RN BB's in a surface TF in the hex (just in case he turned up with a naval force), my RN CV force one hex back and long range CAP from Chittagong. The force got to Akyab but were subjected to overwhelming air attacks by his Betty's and Oscars. My LR CAP couldn't match his numbers and I ended up losing all 4 AKL's and the BB Ramilies was crippled. A night naval bombardment force finished off the Ramilies the next day after the rest of the force had withdrawn so the mission was a complete failure. I knocked down about 20 aircraft for the the loss of 6 or 7 but I am still stuck with a base I can't supply (yet anyway). My fall back now is air supply from Chittagong but ultimately I need to get ships in. That means I need to build up Cox's Bazar to give me better fighter support so it has turned in to a long term strategy.

China
All quiet here too. Pursued his para raiders from Tsuyung and got another crack at them killing another 23 squads for no loss. The are running back over the mountains with me in pursuit. Will keep harrying them as some revenge for the loss of supplies.

Other action
Over the period I sank a Japanese PB and damaged or sank 2 subs, 1 off Perth and the other off Calcutta. I lost a PB at Perth, an AM off Melbourne and a TK off Colombo to his subs and had 1 of my subs damaged off Rabaul and another hit by air off Taiwan.

Overall
We seem to have entered a consolidation phase. I am prepping for an attack up through New Guinea but it will take time to get the assest into place. I also don't have enough air assets in Burma yet. More US air and naval support needs to head that way. Supplies are a bigger issue in Burma than I had anticipated so I need to rethink the strategy as a thrust from Akyab won't work until I can supply it by sea and that won't happen for a while.

Regards
Andrew

[aoffen]

Oops I forgot two important events.

During the past week I got a P-38 squadron in action from Cooktown and made two high level sweeps of Port Moresby. He came up to play with fighters and we claimed 20 Rufes and Zeroes for no loss over the 2 missions. If I had been a lessor man I would have leapt to my feet punched the air and shouted take that you f#%&$@rs, but I kept my dignity intact. He then ran a large convoy covered by carriers and cruisers Into Port Moresby which I did not contest, but knowing how likely he was to come and bombard Cooktown I moved the Lightnings to Townsville for safety. Sure enough as predicted in he came and bombarded away. I lost a P-40 and that was it, so no harm done but plenty of troops got in to Moresby I suspect.

Over in the Centpac I sent another light cruiser raiding force into his rear to see if they could stumble over anything. They did but it was not what I expected - they seem to have blundered in to KB west of Marcus Island. They are now running north trying to get away with KB in pursuit. Valuable intel if they survive. Valuable even if they don't. Is KB returning to Japan for repair and refit or re-positioning for a thrust north. At least I know where they are and where of course they are not.

Was wondering if people find this format of AAR interesting. Seem to be getting 50 or 60 hits per report so someone is reading it. Is the style ok?

Regards
Andrew

[witpqs]

Sure, it's cool.

[CaptBeefheart]

Doing summaries by theater is a great AAR style. I'm not a huge fan of endless combat reports--your excerpts of key battles are about right. The odd map picture helps as well and could probably be done more often if you have the time (haven't seen a SOPAC pic in a while, for instance).

Cheers,
CC

[aoffen]

Were Back!!

Well its been a looooong time between drinks. To be honest I found the pressure of keeping up the turn pace and doing an AAR too much and so gradually let the AAR slide away completely. I have however resolved to kick it off again and try and keep it going with a couple of updates a week. To be honest I have been inspired by GreyJoy's entertaining AAR and the amount of great help and advice he got from the veterans on this forum. Frankly I am in need of a little help and so I have an ulterior motive for re invigorating the blog. So here we go........

I left you in June 42. We are now up to Jan 43 so I have to bring everyone up to speed with over 6 months of action in one post. I will hit the highlights then go with a series of maps and comments theatre by theatre.

The big news is I committed the ultimate newbie error and got my arse well and truly kicked in a very ill advised CV battle. In early September thinking I could have a go at Port Moresby, I committed my fleet to cover the landing forces. I managed to telegraph my intentions and eventually stuck my head into a well prepared CV and Nettie trap east of Horn Island. Things went from bad to worse as my single CV TF's reacted individually to spread out my cap, then my strikes hit bad weather and picked on his surface TF's instead of his carriers. All up it was disaster of epic proportions and over the course of 3 days I managed to lose 4 carriers and an old BB in exchange for a handful of IJN cruisers. Boy was I pissed at myself for that. Not a good couple of days for the USN. That really caused me some serious self evaluation and of necessity I have pulled my head in since then. After that battle both Darwin and Horn Island were taken.

His CV supremacy has allowed him to set up small fast CVL TF's which have been sweeping the seas looking for my convoys. I have tried to sneak fuel into Australia via both of the map edges but have probably been found out more times than I have succeeded. All up 6 convoys were intercepted and savaged. 2 were xAK convoys loaded with fuel from Capetown to Adelaide, another 2 were xAK convoys also with fuel in the deep south Pacific going from Pearl Harbour to NZ via Tahiti. In these 4 battles plus a strike on Perth and another raid into the Indian Ocean I lost about 50 xAK's in total. However the most painful losses were 2 large tanker convoys also intercepted in the south Pacific which saw 18 large tankers sunk. I am still feeling that pain. I have managed to keep Australia fuelled with what has snuck through but its tough.

On the bright side, in October I managed to retake Noumea in a surprise attack. KB turned up late and I took some minor losses but my LBA fighters at Noumea fought him off causing some serious fighter losses on his carriers. Securing New Caledonia has allowed me to protect the Australian sea board and secure a base for future ops. I tried a small land offensive in Burma marching overland to Wazarup (north of Myitkyna). Again his early reading of my plans allowed him to react and reinforce the threatened zone. I withdrew rather than risk an uneven fight. I have now put 2 USA divisions into Burma and a new big offensive is kicking off from Imphal and Ledo simultaneously.

In China things were pretty stable until last month. He committed a big armoured force in the south and took Nanning and Liuchow. That opened the road/rail north to Tuyun and ultimately Chungking. A small panzer armee (2-3 armoured Divisions) charged up that road, overan the defenders and took Tuyun, Kweiyang and advanced to the gates of Chungking. At the same time he advanced from Lashio in Burma and is besieging Paoshan at the moment. My counter attack is just going into his right rear and we have defeated 3 armoured regiments that were screening his flank. We are now advancing on Kweiyang. We may be able to cut him off and isolate the spearhead.

Major naval Losses to date are as follows
Allies (excl Dutch
4 xCV, 6xBB, 9xCA, 13xCL(none USN), 38xDD, 9xSS
IJN
1 x BB, 3~4 CA, 3~4 CL, 6xDD, 15~20 SS (intel shows 26 but prob too hi)

Air Losses
Allies 5100
Jpn 6100

VP's
Allies 15,300
Jpn 36,500

So without getting too wordy lets go around the grounds in pictures now and look at the current situation in each theatre.

[aoffen]

Sorry having some teething issues loading maps

[aoffen]

Lets try that again

Lets kick off with Australia
Scene of the Carrier defeat is marked
We are trying to push on Darwin with the 7th Div and about another Div worth of armour and brigades
Supplies are a killer. Tenant Creek is built up to level AF7 and we have 2 army HQ's supporting but it is still a real struggle to pull enough supply through. His air and now naval bombardments in Darwin are making it look like we will not prevail for the moment. Another USA Div is on the way from Alice Springs but I really need to get Katherine open for fighters and enough supply in to support them. Not 100% sure how to achieve this outcome.

[aoffen]

ignore this too

[aoffen]

BREAKING NEWS

Over to South Pac where we have breaking news. We have intercepted the damn CV's that killed another convoy. Some payback at last.
USS Washington ate 2 torps and haven't seen the damage yet but its still worth it.

Afternoon Air attack on TF, near Raoul Island at 135,180

Weather in hex: Light cloud

Raid detected at 33 NM, estimated altitude 13,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 12 minutes


Allied aircraft
F4F-4 Wildcat x 40
SBD-3 Dauntless x 54
TBF-1 Avenger x 17


Allied aircraft losses
SBD-3 Dauntless: 2 damaged
TBF-1 Avenger: 1 damaged

Japanese Ships
CV Junyo, Bomb hits 8, heavy fires, heavy damage
CV Hiyo, Bomb hits 6, heavy fires
DD Asagumo
CS Nisshin, Bomb hits 7, Torpedo hits 2, heavy fires, heavy damage
DD Arare
CL Jintsu, Bomb hits 1, on fire
DD Minegumo, Bomb hits 1, on fire

[aoffen]

The situation around Noumea
KB threw itself at Noumea in late December but was fought to a draw and withdrew.
We landed on Efate with a commando unit but got kicked off.

[aoffen]

North Pac
Not much to report here. Adak is being built up for future use as a sub base but this has been a backwater
A 3 CL surface raider force caught a convoy with some AA units on it and destroyed it last turn. 6 small AK's and 3 AA units lost

[aoffen]

Now to Burma

With the loss of our carriers we have diverted considerable air and ground strength to Burma. It seemed one of the few places we could take offensive action before mid/late '43. The 6th Aus Div, 2 USA Divisions and numerous engineers are in theatre and we have started a major attack out of the Imphal area. The objective is limited
1) to cut the rail line to Myitkyna
2) to take pressure off the Chinese by forcing him to divert troops to Burma to stop us
3) to force his air force to fight over neutral territory
Forces committed are 6 division equivalents (2 USA, 2 Ind, 1 Oz, 1 Brit) plus supporting armour, arty and engineers. A diversionary thrust of 2 Div equiavalents towards Wazarup is coming out of Ledo being mainly strengthened Chinese units with arty support. 2 Chindit Brigades and a Para brigade are available in Ledo to support the main thrust or the diversionary thrus as things develop.

In reserve we have the 9th Aust Div, 2 British and 3 or 4 Indian Divisions.

[aoffen]

China

China has been a problem. Everytime we think we have him stopped, he comes at us from another angle. Its like whack-a-mole.
The latest thrust has been the most dangerous. Massed armour cut through our defenses in the far SW and then maneuvered into our rear up the road from Liuchow. I think we are getting the situation under control now. A large force from Changsha area has arrived and is driving into his rear around Tuyun and Kweiyang(?) We managed to snot 3 tank regiments last turn with 1700 AV so hopefully that force can now cut him off from his supplies. Its serious but there is hope we can pull our chestnuts out of the fire here.

[aoffen]

Finally the subs

We launched a major sub offensive this month to co-incide with the improvement in our torpedoes. Deployed 30 up-to-date subs around Japan and have so far had some success hitting a dozen or so ships in 2 weeks. Probably half are sunk. He has started using shallow water as much as possible to route his convoys and I don't want to expose my subs in those dangerous waters until we at least have torps that will explode, so success will probably be limited for a while.

Here are our patrol zones around Japan.

[aoffen]

So there we are.
I am struggling to come up with a strategic theme at the moment. I still feel like I am in a hole. Things are slowly improving but I am probably a good 6 months behind now due to my carrier losses and Japan's success. I am still in the rebuild and consolidate phase.

At the moment my objective for the first half of 43 is to
1) Apply pressure in Burma and attrit his airpower there
2) Reinforce Australia from PH with aircraft, fuel, engineers and more fuel (a couple of large heavily escorted convoys will be required)
3) Recapture Darwin and open up the northern route of supply
4) Prepare a limited offensive in the second half of 43 either into the DEI from Darwin or into New Guinea from Townsville.

This baby seal feels alone and exposed on the ice. Any suggestions / advice from the great brains trust out there would be very much appreciated.

Regards
Andrew

[CaptBeefheart]

It's good to see you posting again here. Well done on hitting that KB Lite raid--that may stop the convoy busting. I don't know about the "great brain" part, but I'll offer a couple of observations.

I've always had trouble supplying Darwin by land, so you may have the same issues with your LCUs heading in that direction. Against the AI it is possible to send single xAKs in Amphib mode to Broome from Geraldton--possibly a supply vector from that direction on the road could help you. Likewise, overland supply to Burma seems to have been severely reduced in one of the beta patches. I've gotten around that by unloading supplies at Akyab, then Ramree down the coast, then Rangoon and so on as I move my army. Of course, it helps to have local air and surface superiority near each port to do that.

The Ironman AI does plenty of Indian Ocean shenanigans, so I've set up fuel convoys from Abadan to Karachi (with fuel stockpiling there), Karachi to Cape Town, and then Cape Town to Esperance (near Perth). You can route the Esperance convoys pretty far south using waypoints and hopefully out of the way of wandering CVLs. To me that's the safest way to get fuel to Oz.

Also, I don't know what you control in SoPac, but it's possible to set up a chain of airfields from Hawaii to Johnston to Palmyra to Canton Is. (or Penhryn [sp?]) to Pago Pago to Suva. Sending fighters that way might be safer than by xAK or AKV in your current environment.

Just to get a better idea, how about an air losses screen shot, a tracker shot showing ship losses vs. total number of ships of each type and a strategic map shot showing base control? It would be good to get a better breakdown of your surviving APs, AKs and others.

EDIT: If you're not already doing this, you might want to sprinkle a few cheap pickets along your supply routes in order to detect his CVL raids. You'd keep your actual convoys back far enough to hopefully react in time.

Good luck.

Cheers,
CC

[aoffen]

Just heading out for dinner. Will stick that stuff up when I get back in a few hours.
Cheers
Andrew

[aoffen]

OK, here are a series of screen shots.
First the strat mao showing bases

[aoffen]

Now Air losses
Sorted by numbers lost pages 1 and 2

[aoffen]

page 2