Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee, Docup(A)-Koniu(J)

[koniu]

4 Jan 43

Quiet. Only one air action today. 24 P-38 sweep in Burma but no CAP found

8 slow AOs end AAA upgrades and today they returning to shipping fuel to KB.
New DD arrive in Japan I need more of them. Two E end refits and now they are super E.

[koniu]

5 Jan 43

Burma
P-38 sweep Mandalay. I lost 12 Ki-44(3 pilots KIA) for 5 Lightnings
Bombers close Taung Gyi.

I have unloaded in Rangoon AF units. They have radars to support defense of Burma.
Still 70k supplies need to be unloaded.

Guadalcanal
Supplies unloaded. Now time to back north

Truk
Sub attack on BB TF leaving Truk. Like planed KB was detected moving west toward DEI.
I hope it will give some confusion to Ducup intel.

R$D
Another N1K1 factory repaired. That will give me 120 points per month so George will be available not later than in May. I still hoping for april

[PaxMondo]

ORIGINAL: koniu

RnD
Another N1K1 factory repaired. That will give me 120 points per month so George will be available not later than in May. I still hoping for april

Sweet. Always one of the highlights of any game for me ... putting the first George out.

[koniu]

6 Jan 43

Burma
Allies sweep Mandalay. Again.
This time British decide to sweep. 48 Hurricane IIc Trop sweep against 130 Tojos and Oscars.
I was not good day to Royal Air Force. 21 Hurricanes shot dowm for 7 Tojos and 3 Oscars. (4pilots KIA)

Tomorrow i am expecting Lightnings visit. P-38 must have difficulties to fly next day after combat. I will have that same problem when George and Frank arrive

EDIT
I think British are very low wit fighters reserve.
If i am right they should have no more than 90 Hurricane IIc in service. I am already seeing Docup flying Hurricane I version.

[PaxMondo]

Early '43, yes he could be.  But he should start to be good to go with USAAF fighters ... and if he hasn't moved some of those units to Burma you have to be sure you know where they are ... He's getting a lot of P40K's and P38's at this point with F4U ramping up as well.  Hellcats are close to arrival as well ...

[koniu]

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

Early '43, yes he could be.  But he should start to be good to go with USAAF fighters ... and if he hasn't moved some of those units to Burma you have to be sure you know where they are ... He's getting a lot of P40K's and P38's at this point with F4U ramping up as well.  Hellcats are close to arrival as well ...

I Burma i have seen only Hurricanes and ~50 Lightnings.
I China he have ~170 fighters
North OZ ~200 fighters, at lest 25 Lightnings ans some F4F
Ndeni 70 fighters, 25 Lightnings
Probably also fighters are in Wake

I have not seen P40K from at lest two months.

[koniu]

6 Jan 43 continuation

Ki-44IIa pool empty. I have upgraded first unit to IIc model. It should move 36 IIa to poll.

Why Docup not sweepeng Mandalay with all planes in one day. Spreading sweeps mean i can replace loses and rotate my units.
One good raid with sweeps and bombers and he will close Mandalay. But now i only fighting him with 1:1 kill ratio against his sweeps and above own base[:)]. His pilots loses have to be huge.During last week He lost 60 fighters that way and I 64 but only 12 Japanese pilots KIA.

[PaxMondo]

So, he is hoarding his newer, better planes.  I don't have access to Tracker right now for allies to give you good numbers, but P40K and P38G models are in full production at decent rates since Sept/Oct.  F4U just started for him and F6F start in a couple of months.
 
So, you have parity with him right with the IJA for another 6 months or so until the P47 shows up.  You need Frank to match the P47 as the Tojo is just too slow.  You've just started to lose parity with the IJN as the Zero can't compete against the F4U, then the F6F arrives in huge numbers in March.  Unfortunately, the IJN gets only George for the land-based units but has to wait a long time to see Sam for the CV's.
 
'43 is transition and for me is the hardest year of the war to play.  Always remember that allied production is a lot higher than simply the onboard and offboard production totalled.  They get a lot of full groups rotating in with new aircraft unlike IJ.  Roughly, that doubles their production.  So while the F4U might only have 30 ac/month off board production, the allies are getting at least one new group/month with Corsairs already equipped so that gives them another 30 planes ... or more.

[GreyJoy]

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

So, he is hoarding his newer, better planes.  I don't have access to Tracker right now for allies to give you good numbers, but P40K and P38G models are in full production at decent rates since Sept/Oct.  F4U just started for him and F6F start in a couple of months.

So, you have parity with him right with the IJA for another 6 months or so until the P47 shows up.  You need Frank to match the P47 as the Tojo is just too slow.  You've just started to lose parity with the IJN as the Zero can't compete against the F4U, then the F6F arrives in huge numbers in March.  Unfortunately, the IJN gets only George for the land-based units but has to wait a long time to see Sam for the CV's.

'43 is transition and for me is the hardest year of the war to play.  Always remember that allied production is a lot higher than simply the onboard and offboard production totalled.  They get a lot of full groups rotating in with new aircraft unlike IJ.  Roughly, that doubles their production.  So while the F4U might only have 30 ac/month off board production, the allies are getting at least one new group/month with Corsairs already equipped so that gives them another 30 planes ... or more.

Yes, but, nonetheless, the allied cannot sustain many months of offensive missions against a well defended IJAAF perimeter.
George and Franks are good, but their service rating sucks so much that you can't really rely on them. I say better to have 50 Tojos in the air than 25 Franks. I strongly suggest to invest R&D resources on the second models of George and Jacks that, with a service rating of 2, can get in the air a lot more....waiting for the SAM

Under this optic i think those who invest a lot on the Tony-KI-100 are not fools.... with a service rating of 1 it's a very important plane to have...and has 2 20mm on CL.... Too late for us, probably, but those who starts new games should really consider, imho, a balanced air force also keeping into considerations the service ratings and not only the firepower

[PaxMondo]

Mmm, I rarely ever have issues with SR's until they get up to 4 ... so variance of opinion is all I can say.  Ki-100 is a '45 air frame, so not a factor in '43 no matter what you do (or at least I've never been able to commit the resources it would take to pull that into '43.  YMMV).  You can get the 1st Frank in mid '43 if you want with only modest investment, and I would want it for the TBolts.  But that's just me.
 
Correct, allies cannot in early '43 sustain non-stop offensive ops.  But they can do surge ops which is what they did historically.  And well timed surge op's ... well you have to be able to stop those.

[koniu]

7 Jan 42

Another good day in Burma
50 Lightnings sweep Mandalay. 11 of them destroyed[:D]. Japan lost 16 planes and 3 pilots. Against P-38 very good result

Japanese sub miss CA
Sub attack near Diamond Harbour at 52,38

Japanese Ships
SS I-153

Allied Ships
CA Frobisher
DD Aylwin

Diamond Harbour is now mined

[PaxMondo]

ORIGINAL: koniu

7 Jan 42
50 Lightnings sweep Mandalay. 11 of them destroyed[:D]. Japan lost 16 planes and 3 pilots. Against P-38 very good result

Yep. All you can do to lower your losses is get more a/c on CAP.

But losing 3 pilots .vs. 11(likely a few more on the way home) is a winning strategy for you even so. You're getting at lest 8 more pilots with exp and he has to start 8 more newbies all over again.

[koniu]

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

ORIGINAL: koniu

7 Jan 42
50 Lightnings sweep Mandalay. 11 of them destroyed[:D]. Japan lost 16 planes and 3 pilots. Against P-38 very good result

Yep. All you can do to lower your losses is get more a/c on CAP.

But losing 3 pilots .vs. 11(likely a few more on the way home) is a winning strategy for you even so. You're getting at lest 8 more pilots with exp and he has to start 8 more newbies all over again.

I was not precise. 11 is total number of planes lost by allies.I am always telling about total day loses. I shot down 7 and 4 is ops loses. But still it is 11 airframes vs 16(11 a2a) and 5-8 pilots.
For that data i am using always tracker. Tracker is more precise with cleaning FoW from data game is giving

[obvert]

ORIGINAL: GreyJoy

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

So, he is hoarding his newer, better planes.  I don't have access to Tracker right now for allies to give you good numbers, but P40K and P38G models are in full production at decent rates since Sept/Oct.  F4U just started for him and F6F start in a couple of months.

So, you have parity with him right with the IJA for another 6 months or so until the P47 shows up.  You need Frank to match the P47 as the Tojo is just too slow.  You've just started to lose parity with the IJN as the Zero can't compete against the F4U, then the F6F arrives in huge numbers in March.  Unfortunately, the IJN gets only George for the land-based units but has to wait a long time to see Sam for the CV's.

'43 is transition and for me is the hardest year of the war to play.  Always remember that allied production is a lot higher than simply the onboard and offboard production totalled.  They get a lot of full groups rotating in with new aircraft unlike IJ.  Roughly, that doubles their production.  So while the F4U might only have 30 ac/month off board production, the allies are getting at least one new group/month with Corsairs already equipped so that gives them another 30 planes ... or more.

Yes, but, nonetheless, the allied cannot sustain many months of offensive missions against a well defended IJAAF perimeter.
George and Franks are good, but their service rating sucks so much that you can't really rely on them. I say better to have 50 Tojos in the air than 25 Franks. I strongly suggest to invest R&D resources on the second models of George and Jacks that, with a service rating of 2, can get in the air a lot more....waiting for the SAM

Under this optic i think those who invest a lot on the Tony-KI-100 are not fools.... with a service rating of 1 it's a very important plane to have...and has 2 20mm on CL.... Too late for us, probably, but those who starts new games should really consider, imho, a balanced air force also keeping into considerations the service ratings and not only the firepower

I am facing the service rating issue now. The Jack is somehow even worse than the George in it's availability. Not sure why that is. I'm really needing the next versions that go to a 2 service rating. I've also realized that having nodes with one base that has a ton of support, more than you need (250-300 support), and a big field, then smaller bases around is a good idea. The big base is the part I was missing. I'm rectifying this everywhere now, as most of my bigger bases had only 100-150 support. I have a lot of air HQs arriving which is incredibly helpful.

I'll have the Frank soon but the Tony Id is also a decent variant with a 2 service rating, and the Ki-100 will come in late 44. The Tojo IIc is already proving itself and will be useful and in production probably until the very late war fighters like the Ki-83 and possibly the Ki-94 come online.

The most important part about an aggressive Empire with some extended boundaries in 42 is that I have more stuff now in late 43 to defend the core of important areas in the DEI, BUrma and Central Pacific. In about 45 days I'll get about 2k AV of new brigades, a bunch more engineers and base forces and several new HQs, plus a bunch of new air groups. If he doesn't make a very big risky move in the next two months, the perimeter will be much more solid and tough to crack.

[PaxMondo]

Working with SR requires practice, but it isn't that hard.  Allies have mostly SR2 ac and up, so if you've played allies you will have to have learned how to deal with SR.  SR3 doesn't require me to modify my practices ... SR4 and up do though.  SR5 is troublesome to deal with, but I like the Karyu and it is SR5. 

[koniu]

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

Working with SR requires practice, but it isn't that hard.  Allies have mostly SR2 ac and up, so if you've played allies you will have to have learned how to deal with SR.  SR3 doesn't require me to modify my practices ... SR4 and up do though.  SR5 is troublesome to deal with, but I like the Karyu and it is SR5. 

So what is secret of dealing with high SR? I have no experience as this is my first game

[PaxMondo]

Obvert mentioned most of it ... large air bases, good AV support, rest %, good leaders, unit rotation, .... there are no secrets.  Just practice in applying which one to get the result you want with what you have.

[koniu]

I will try that.
I am currently building AF rings in central Burma(tree months behind plan because of rookie mistake with delaying Burma invasion, lucky Docup is not attacking and moonsonn are coming in 5 months so i hopping to hold Burma for some time), around Timor, Palembang, in central China, Java, Kurile`s Island, Salomon`s.
Most of AF is ready or soon will be. I need only find units with AF support, In 14 days i will get 10 of more AF battalions they will sail there asap. Ships already waiting to load them

I have also start building second ring of defense when first line start to calapse. Soon i will send eng units to Philippines.
Recently i just find 6k enemy troops in Philippine, they not threat for me but i already prep my troops to land on that island and kill them.

[koniu]

8 Jan 43

Burma
Quiet. Today enemy not sweep. Units are taking replacments and resting

70 Ki-49 bombard enemy AFs in nort Burma. Heavy enemy flak fire. 3 bombers lost. Minimal damage to AF

Singer
ASW TF detect enemy sub in Singer hex. I will send tomorrow few DD to investigate. Also i will mine sweep in case enemy mines.

Saumlaki
Enemy sweeps and bombardmend (medium bombers)

China
I bobing troops aroud Yean. Two ID are moving to capture city. Chines troops are retreeting from area.

KB
Somewhere between DEI and Marshals

I think i will sail to DEI with KB and i will send more medium bombers to Marshals.
Decision will be made in few days.
Allied activity in norh OZ is disturbing. I see tankers unloading in Darwin. Lot os subs in port. Something is going on.
Also Docup is avoiding reckoning my bases around Timor, strange

[koniu]

I am week in DEI. At lest weekar from what i should be
AF are still building, and i need 3 weeks to have there enough AV support.
As i am expecting invasion in South DEI so Combined fleet approved defense plan.

150 fighters and 100 2E T. bombers will guard that area everyday.
4 BB, 4CA and 8 DD will anchor in one day range to intercept landing forces before they land on Timor or Saumlaki.
KB will be 2 days on flank from area.(4 days from Salomon's or Marshals)

Plan is to sweep with naval forces and attack with LBA on day one and end with enemy on day two with KB. I am not expecting to see fleet carriers but CVE support is passable

I will leave Marshals with minimal protection. I can loose Marshals but i cant DEI.
Also in Marshals detection distance will give me at lest 2 day warning, in DEI i have not that.

I am moving more air units from China and Japan to south pacific and DEI