Speedy vs Fabertong - time to smack back the Penguin

[Speedysteve]

P.S. Apologies for messing up the font above. No idea what happened or how to change it. LOL

[BBfanboy]

ORIGINAL: Speedy

P.S. Apologies for messing up the font above. No idea what happened or how to change it. LOL

Just select it with the EDIT button, highlight the text, and then from the area just above the text area, change the font face to Arial and the font size to the smallest or next bigger.

Re: that CVE, it is almost certainly toast. Ports can't help a ship on fire, and the FSE/ASE pretty much guarantees it will burn up if it doesn't sink from flooding.

[Speedysteve]

[font="Arial"]Hi all,

Hi BBfanboy. I'll try it in this post and hope the font change works!

Not a lot to report this day as troops move in Sumatra towards Djambi and south of Palembang.

B29's strike from Chittagong at Hankow's LI causing no damage.

Final recon of Kota Bharu spotted an enemy division (20K men) there. So there's about c.80K Japanese troops across Malaya at present it seems. I'll begin recon of western Borneo tomorrow.

-----------------------

Ambon/Sorong:

A lone Jap DD (Harusame) entered Allied seas north of Ambon attempting to interfere with 400 ships in the Allied Armada! Talk about a gnat vs giants! Amazingly they encountered an Ambon supply convoy on the flanks of the Armada and managed to moderately damage an AK before BB's and CA's came to the scene and the DD scurried off. Credit where its due. A very brave attack!

My forces are either retiring from the area, dropping off supply and material at Boela and Ambon or heading south to take an empty Dobo, Babo, Taberfane, Saumlaki and Babar (which will permanently house Allied forces and planes unlike the above listed bases which will just be re-taken.)

One of my CV Groups, containing CV Interpid, Bunker Hill, CVL Cabot and Monterey is heading to a position NE of Manado to interdict any enemy ships in the area (SS Pipefish spotted an enemy AK TF shown on the below screenshot).

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Submarine Warfare:

1 x dud/missed attack.

SS Pipefish scored the lone kill of the day sinking PB Shonon Maru east of Balikpapan.

On the other side SS I-169 was reported sunk by convoy escorts SE of Ceram.[/font]

[BBfanboy]

If I was the IJN commander I would place a sub right where the word Manado appears on the map.
Going north of the dot base NE of Manado avoids the obvious bottleneck and takes you through shallow waters which subs don't like.

[Speedysteve]

I hope not BBfanboy....I'll likely find out today!

[JocMeister]

Arn´t you worried sending a lone CV TF that deep into indian country? You still have LBA to worry about??

[Speedysteve]

I'm not too worried in this instance TBH. Recon indicates there's no real air threat as far as Mindanao/Balikpapan.

Kendari is closed by sllied LBA from Ambon and Manado and Ternate are empty.

Normally I would be wary but not now. Faber's had a lot of attrition over the Burma/Sumatra air battles of early-mid 44 and I thnik it's taken a toll on his pilot pools. This coupled with the fact his economy is in tatters means I feel confident [:)]

[JocMeister]

Just checking! [:D]

[Speedysteve]

I could be over confident though and we'll find out next turn[:D]

[Speedysteve]

Hi all,

Well it turned out I was right [:)]

There was no threat or attacks on my CV TF. They located the freighter TF in the late AM, when SS Grunion located the enemy sank a ship and reported their position. An afternoon strike decimated the small convoy. The freighters seemed to be carrying fuel. Also, oddly, 12 x Lily were reported as Ops losses today. That's a high amount and I wonder if one of the freighters was carrying them?

Afternoon Air attack on TF, near Jolo at 74,94

Weather in hex: Severe storms

Raid detected at 29 NM, estimated altitude 13,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 10 minutes


Allied aircraft
F6F-3 Hellcat x 46
SB2C-1C Helldiver x 32
SBD-5 Dauntless x 33
TBM-1C Avenger x 36


Allied aircraft losses
SB2C-1C Helldiver: 6 damaged
TBM-1C Avenger: 2 damaged

Japanese Ships
xAK Shofuku Maru, Bomb hits 6, Torpedo hits 3, and is sunk
xAK Yuzan Maru, Bomb hits 4, heavy fires, heavy damage
xAKL Kennichi Maru, Bomb hits 3, heavy fires, heavy damage
xAK China Maru, Bomb hits 7, and is sunk
xAKL Raizan Maru, Bomb hits 5, and is sunk
xAKL Yosyu Maru, Bomb hits 3, heavy fires, heavy damage
PB Toshi Maru #3, Bomb hits 2, and is sunk
xAK Yubari Maru, Torpedo hits 2, and is sunk
SC Ch 36
PB Tatebu Maru, Bomb hits 2, and is sunk


We'll now retire south towards Babar and meet up with the rest of the Allied armada before returning to Aus.

Little else to report of note other than Allied troops went ashore at an empty Dobo, Babo and Taberfane. Tomorrow Saumlaki and Babar will be taken.

-------------------------

Submarine Warfare:

1 x dud/missed attack.

SS Hake heavily damaged the troop filled AK Nichiryo Maru near Formosa with a torpedo.

SS Grunion sank AKL Hakuyo Maru near Jolo in the morning.

[JocMeister]

Glad I was wrong! Nice catch! [&o]

[Speedysteve]

Hi all,

Hi JocMeister:

A small but nice catch as you say. It all adds up!

---------------------

Sumatra/Burma:

All quiet in Burma as I gradually withdraw units from the frontline, some for repair and others for evac for use in other theatres.

In Sumatra the twin pronged offensive against Djambi and Oosthaven will start tomorrow. The screenshot shows the situation with troops moving SW to Oosthaven and from the west towards Djambi. I don't expect serious resistance from either of these. Djambi has 2 units and Oosthaven 4 with 10K men.

Faber may decide to move from Palembang with his 100K stack. I'm leaving units behind in Pramol blah blah (the base SW of Palembang) so should be ok here behind level 4 forts. In many ways if he does decide to leave Palembang I could be good for me as my LBA can hit him on the move.

Recon of Northern Borneo is complete. I confess I'm torn and undecided whether to advance on Malaya or Borneo.

Faber has very few units in northern Borneo. Potentially as little as 12 units comprising 25K men in Singkawang, Brunei, Kuching and Miri so should be fairly easy to take this region.

Malaya on the other hand has upto 50-60K men.

Pros and cons:

Borneo:

+

Easy to take at present
Cuts off more oil
Creates a massive wedge in enemy held territory threatening further areas

-

Risky as would require air cover and threat of LBA from Saigon, Soerabaya and Singkawang
Not as many VP's are available

Malaya:

+

Singers is a great base to get with a big port, AF and repair shipyard
Potential threat to Jap held Burma and Indochina
Good VP's available from Singers
Easier to protect invasion fleets

-

More Jap troops to take on so harder to take
Still a relatively peripheral invasion that wouldn't threaten as many areas as Borneo would

What do my fellow readers think?

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Ambon/Sorong:

All like clockwork down here with no further Japanese interference. The remaining target bases were taken (Dobo, Babo, Taberfane, Babar and Saumlaki) with no loss. I'm awaiting for the remaining men and material to unload then all ships will head back to Townsville before dispersing.

----------------

Submarine Warfare:

2 x dud/missed attacks.

SS Cero blew up E W-28 NW of Luzon.

SS Icefish located the same convoy and sank AK Ikuta Maru with a torpedo.

On the other side SS Tang was sank by an Uber E ASW TF west of Japan.

[RogerJNeilson]

The issues of Palembang, Batavia, Soerabaja and Singapore is they are BIG targets and therefore they are likely to be places where the Empire will hold for as long as possible. Fighting will produce damage and its therefore a call between wanting the points and or the faciltities - or taking advantage of his needing to garrison them with loads of top quality troops which by a bypass will turn into loads of high quality POWS.

Once Borneo is secured he can neither get any of the SRA material out - which is why the war started, nor can he easily extricate his troops. By now you should have massive air superiority and naval supremacy - and the balance will continue to swing against him as resources dry up.

For the Empire its a horns of a dilemma as if they realise that you can bypass they will possibly pull forces back, in which case you can take some of the big prizes cheaply. Recon is the key to all this I guess.

My tuppen'worth.

Roger

[Speedysteve]

Hi Roger,
 
Indeed. It's the reverse for me where I can take bases much quicker that have lower VP's or tae longer to stake out more sons of Nippon and claim more VP's. Still pretty un-decided on this one I must say....

[RogerJNeilson]

Time is the issue maybe?

How soon you you need to be physically in control of Singapore (base facilities etc) or the fuel of Palembang etc? If you need them to help your offensive than you need them now. If not then you can bypass them and pretty much walk in six months later when they are starved out by your bypass. So do you have a nice tidy sweep up strategy, or do you grab key bases and use your naval and air assets to ensure the Japs left behind stay and behave themselves?

Roger

[BBfanboy]

ORIGINAL: Roger Neilson 3

Time is the issue maybe?

How soon you you need to be physically in control of Singapore (base facilities etc) or the fuel of Palembang etc? If you need them to help your offensive than you need them now. If not then you can bypass them and pretty much walk in six months later when they are starved out by your bypass. So do you have a nice tidy sweep up strategy, or do you grab key bases and use your naval and air assets to ensure the Japs left behind stay and behave themselves?

Roger

Agreed, Speedy needs to close down Singers to prevent airlift of the bypassed troops out of Palembang.

[JocMeister]

I have found it almost impossible to stop airlifting. Not sure what I´m doing wrong but if the distance is longer a few hexes even using 100s of fighters on LRCAP I´m powerless to stop any airlifting. In or out. [:(]

[LoBaron]

LRCAP against transports only works if LRCAP base is 3 hexes or less distant from the fighters base of origin.
Within this range airlift is stoppable without problems. Out of that range you will not score a single kill.

[JocMeister]

ORIGINAL: LoBaron

LRCAP against transports only works if LRCAP base is 3 hexes or less distant from the fighters base of origin.
Within this range airlift is stoppable without problems. Out of that range you will not score a single kill.

Ah, that explains it. Thank you.

Is there any way at all to stop transports flying in/out outside 3 hexes? My opponent is using what I can only assume is a fairly large armada of flying boats to shuffle units around at will.

[RogerJNeilson]

Now that is useful to know, you learn something every day don't you.

I assume, I hope correctly, that any airlift is only of men, and that the heavy equipment has to stay in place - therefore its not a superweapon... if it was then I'd be very concerned.

Roger