Aussies v Aussies - Clubbing baby seals (no AOFFEN or Mark)

[jrcar]

26 Jul 1944 China
We are slowly tightening the noose here, and cumbling the defence, breaking him up into packets. Neiking is the next target and will soon be attacked with paras.

It will be nice to finish this off to free up supply and army bombers for use in Indochina.

[obvert]

ORIGINAL: jrcar

26 Jul 1944 Java
The bulk of the forces were at Batavia and held for around 3 weeks. He has a 4000AV stack so it is just a mater of time, maybe two weeks...

We have in place decent defences closer in. The key is to protect the oil at Balikpapan as long as possible.

Once Java falls it will take a month or two before he is ready for the next move. From now on we fight hard...

What kind of concentration do you have protecting the oil? How much has he tried for it and what kind of results did he get? Any B-29s or night attacks?

[Wuffer]

ORIGINAL: jrcar

Sorry for the long lack of posts, (...)

Round up by theatre to follow.

Hi,
just wanted to say that I prefere this weekly/mothly overviews even more instead of daily news if no important battles happened. Helps better to understand what's going on.
So, keep on the defence.

[jrcar]

So far mainly dealing with 20-40 B-29 at longer range outside of their fighter escort. Finding that 80-100 "Heavy" (Frank George) fighters do a good job of disrupting the attack and shooting planes down... not so sure how well that will work once he mounts larger raids... and certainly once he has fighter escort.

Tojo also do quite well, Zero not so good.

Once he secures Java I expect the oil fields at Balikpapan to go within a week... no way we can stop it... just make it hurt a lot.

ORIGINAL: obvert

ORIGINAL: jrcar

26 Jul 1944 Java
The bulk of the forces were at Batavia and held for around 3 weeks. He has a 4000AV stack so it is just a mater of time, maybe two weeks...

We have in place decent defences closer in. The key is to protect the oil at Balikpapan as long as possible.

Once Java falls it will take a month or two before he is ready for the next move. From now on we fight hard...

What kind of concentration do you have protecting the oil? How much has he tried for it and what kind of results did he get? Any B-29s or night attacks?

[jrcar]

27 Jul - 01 Aug 1944
On the 27th the CV Shokaku takes 4 torps from a sub, it manages to make port and the aircraft are off... flying in Naval Support and almost have the fires under control... it is very iffy... not sure it is worth the effort as she is badly banged up.

On the 1st Andrew sends in a CA tf to Sorebaya, banging up the airfield, large sweeps during the day basically trash the airgroups which now need to be withdrawn to rebuild.

At the same time he sends in waves of sweeping fighters over Balikpapan from CV's between Java and Borneo and from airfields on Java, including one sweep of 155 Coursair! Our fighters do OK, and the bombers don't fly. The port is evacuated and more fighters bought in, better to fight now when he is at long range...

Airlosses below, we loose 80 pilots, most of whom are lower experiance crews.

[jrcar]

01 Aug 1944
Overnight we sent out some PT boats to chase the enemy CV's which they did but the got pushed away:

Night Time Surface Combat, near Bandjermasin at 58,99, Range 10,000 Yards

Japanese Ships
MTB G-554
MTB G-555
MTB G-846, Shell hits 1, and is sunk
MTB G-848, Shell hits 2, and is sunk
MTB G-871, Shell hits 1

Allied Ships
CV Yorktown
CV Bunker Hill
CVL Independence
CVL Princeton
CVL Cabot
BB Alabama
CLAA San Diego
DD Abbot
DD Ammen
DD Charles Badger
DD Beale
DD Bell
DD Porter

Then allied planes came back, in the morning 200 unopposed B-24 destroy oil ay Sorebaya (Why? Can't get it out now anyway...) then 80 odd B-29 come in before the sweeps:

Morning Air attack on Balikpapan , at 64,97

Weather in hex: Severe storms

Raid detected at 80 NM, estimated altitude 15,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 25 minutes

Japanese aircraft
A6M2-N Rufe x 16
A6M5 Zero x 6
A6M5b Zero x 5
N1K1-J George x 9
N1K2-J George x 82
Ki-44-IIc Tojo x 48
Ki-84r Frank x 104

Allied aircraft
B-29-1 Superfort x 82

Japanese aircraft losses
N1K2-J George: 1 destroyed
Ki-44-IIc Tojo: 1 destroyed
Ki-84r Frank: 1 destroyed

Allied aircraft losses
B-29-1 Superfort: 11 destroyed, 39 damaged
B-29-1 Superfort: 1 destroyed by flak

Oil hits 13

Folowed by B-24 then the various sweeps. At the end of the day here are the losses. Our airgroups are in fair shape (although low on planes) and more Franks are bought in to continue the fight.

The oil at Balikapapn is about 50% gone... again I don't know why, now he will have to ship fuel from a long way away...

[jrcar]

2-5 Aug 1944
Just as we got the fires under control on CV Shokaku Andrew found the base she was at and sank her in port

He has given up on air attacks on Balikpapan for the moment...

He has now cracked open the top of Malaya and is begining the march south. Malay based forces are retiring in good order to the fortress of Singapore.

In Indochaina large groups of enemy units are detected closing in on Vinh (now level 6 forts, 2400 AV).

In China we have cracked open the central plane, isolated the cities and have taken Neikiang.

In the SWPAC most forces are now north of line Manus Is - Truk. Garrisons in the Marianas and Bonins continue to increase in size and dig further.

A couple of moderate air battles continues to see exchange loss ratios at about 1:1.

Looks like the Pilot pool is now filled up...

Have gathered more oil and fuel which is making the increasingly difficult trip through the subs to the Home Islands.

Grace enters production in a few days, and the Ha43 engine should be ready at the end of the month. Have changed a Frank factory to Jack to try that out instead of Zero.

Cheers

Rob

[jrcar]

6-14 Aug 1944
The last week has been mostly more of the same... Andrew has advanced down the Malayan Peninsula using Armour and para to help.

Interestingly there has been little movement in Java, since taking Batavia Andrew has circled pockets of resistance and then pinned them, while trashing the port, repair yards and airfieds at Sorebaya.

The DEI remains largely unchanged. He sent B-24 to Babeldoab again, this time a 70 Exp Zero unit was in residence and around 30-40 4E bombers went down.

After the trashing of the B-29 he is now using them at night to mine our Oil producing ports, have now cleared the mines from Balikpapan, Miri to go.

The Grace is now in production and the first Shinden factory is now repaired, the next couple should be done within a week. The Ha-43 should be available by the end of August, early Sept, then we can retire the Zero units on base defence.

Last turn we detected a convoy heading NE towards the Singapore Borneo gap, moved in some strike aircraft that lergely didn' fly, the Kamis did launch a small strike...

Afternoon Air attack on TF, near Tandjoengpinang at 51,85

Weather in hex: Severe storms

Raid detected at 40 NM, estimated altitude 5,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 10 minutes

Japanese aircraft
Ki-43-IIa Oscar x 32

Allied aircraft
Corsair II x 19
Hellcat I x 7
Seafire IIC x 8
F4U-1A Corsair x 11
F6F-3 Hellcat x 395
F6F-5 Hellcat x 36

Japanese aircraft losses
Ki-43-IIa Oscar: 18 destroyed

No Allied losses

This screen shot shows why! It looks like all his CV forces are moving into the South China Sea... our fleet is moving in responce... not sure where he is heading yet....

[Cribtop]

Yikes! My bet is he plans to turn your oil at Miri into glass.

[jrcar]

Well the next turn sees them heading north up the Malaya coast... I had two MTB attacks, sinking one transport... lots there! hoping for a few collisions...

I think this is shipping heading to Bangkok, from where he will move troops forward into a landing deaper in the south China sea... have most places of importance with a Div garrison, plenty of strike aircraft but little air support, and with such a mass our aircraft probably won't penetrate his CAP.

He has to do something bold, he is running out of time...

Cheers

Rob

ORIGINAL: Cribtop

Yikes! My bet is he plans to turn your oil at Miri into glass.

[Cribtop]

Sailing past occupied Singers and Borneo to Bangkok is awfully cheeky of him! My guess was based on the screenie as I didn't see any transports. If they are present you are probably right. He must try a big move, as you say. Stop that and win the war, probably. If he's thinking Hail Mary, Luzon or Formosa are logical, perhaps using Hainan Island as a stepping stone. Such a move could be very vulnerable to kamis and other tactics. Fun to watch the late war play out, though!

[jrcar]

14 Aug-14 Sept 1944
For the bulk of the month not much happend.

His CV's moved into the South China sea escorting a convoy of empty ships? That then loaded up troops from Cam Ranh Bay and Saigon. We threatened his flank with our CV's, but after about a week the whole shabang turned around and headed via the coast back past Singapore to Java...

Talking of Singapore he continued to advance down the Malay peninsula and through us out of Johore Behru, which was not in accordance with the plan... as a consequence we still hold Singapore, but have no supplies and our force is a bit battered... still it is behind level 6 forts and he has to do the shock attack yet....

Java has just about been finished off, he has been in no hurry and we have evacuated a lot of stuff with little hassle.

About ten days ago he landed at Sinkawang (posibly with teh troops lifted from Indochina) on the NW tip of Borno with massive air support from ground and CV's. In the last three days we have been fighting an air campaign over Miri. Day one saw the P47 (which have been resting and training for the last month) committed in mass and achieving 3:1 or better against our CAP... however hs other aircraft are just managing 1:1 so all up we are looing at 1:2 losses, which is sustainable, and we are wearing his P-47 down. The second day saw Sinkawang socked in and about 100 B-29 launchedinto the Teeth of our CAP... result wasn't pretty at about 1:1 losses however he lost around 30 B-29. Day three saw similar to day one with no 4E turning up. At this stage we can keep this up, have shot down about 50 P-47 in the last 3 days...

In Indochina there has been no movement against our lines. He has closed up in force but isn't even bothering to bombard...

In China we just too the depth sity of Chengtu, which was the one he was able to fly supply into from Ledo. Our forces are a bit battered so we need a bit of rest. Elsewhere in China we are occupying key centres and coastal cities in divisional strength...

He has just started to tentetively move on Lunga... our rearguard may hold...


Our issue is oil, and fuel, and supplies... all which are linked to oil. With our HI operating at less than half we only have about 80 days of fuel. The main impact is that we are not bothering to resupply garrisons forward of the Philipines except for the oil centre at Balikpapan... We have enough HI points now, with the stockpiles of engines and airframes that we can keep fighting to the end on land and in the air.

We have lots of good aircraft, a good reserve of good to excellent pilots... but we may collapse quickly once supply at a location is used up.

The fleet is largely intact, although our CA's are battered. 7 Fleet CV's 1 CVL 5 CVE and 4 BB's. Maintaining them as a "force in being" and "show them" every now and then to remind Andrew they are still around... having said that he should be able to overwhelm us by now with CV forces....

I am half expecting a massive end run direct onto Japan, he hs the CV's (although about 8-10 appear to be in the DEI), transports and troops... the Home Islands are in fair shape but I'm not confident we could repel him... There is a lot of stuff that he has that we don't know about... having said that he has large forces in Indochina, Java and Borneo...

Cheers

Rob

[jrcar]

We are now at the end of September 1944.

Singapore fell after he landed an amphib force and marched overland, around 10 allied Divs. Once we lost the city our forces continued to fight for another week.

Andrew has noe focussed all of the Allied strength into the South China sea, basically he isn't doing anything anywhere else.

We have been fighting air battles between Vietnam and Hainan, which he has slowly won. This has given us time to almost finish off China and move forces around.

Our main defensive line is now in a Horseshoe from our defences in North Vietnam, through China, Formosa and on to the Phillipines. We have decent air bases, and fair ground defensive positions along this curve.

Our fleet is now concentrated under the aircover of Manila. occasionally we make a small move, but he has lots off subs off the coast (that get hammered by our ASW aircraft).

Our oil centres are basically blown to bits in Borneo, although we continue to get a trickle out. We continue to pull small amounts of oil from China. Our fuel stocks are doen to about 67 days.

Supply is being shipped as fast as it is made to Korea and the Pillipines. Need more.

Air production is going great guns, pilot quality is good and improving. Plenty of depth in IJAAF pilot pools, much less in IJNAF.

Soon he is going to land "somewhere", we are betting southern China Coast, with an unstopable force. We are doing what we can to prepare...

Cheers

Rob

[jrcar]

For what it is worth the score.

[jrcar]

This is the north part of the Horseshoe. Most bases are dug in to level 6 and have at least a div in them. The main airbase complexes, built around a level 9 airfield, are shown

Samah on Hainan Island has been hit by bombardment forces and is currenty closed, have about 200 aircraft trapped there.

Our land based defensive line in North Vietnam has not been probed for some time, we through out a unit in the hex that is clear of enemy forces recently killing a lot of armour.

More forces are on the way to Formosa, it now has a number of CD units as well...

[jrcar]

The southern side of the horseshoe, again major airbases circled, although only Manila is level 9.

Cam Ranh Bay is is main port, it has around 300 ships docked and a stack of CV/CVL/CVE... We have had some luck striking it so he keeps a sizeable CAP there as well

[jrcar]

Airproduction is going well, Shinden will soon move forward at a rapid rate. We are saving lots of good pilots for when it comes.... hoping for Jan...

[jrcar]

Industry
HI fluctuates from about 800-1600 depending on how the fuel flows in China... there is lots of fuel sitting in ports when it is needed inland... ah well.

Overall the situation is marginal but we are surviving still... we should be stuffed about Jan 1945.

Our Armaments pools is around 100k, Armour is betwen 0 and about 500 depending on what is rebuilding. All the forces from the Burma operations are now basically rebuilt, as are most of the units lost on Java.

[jrcar]

14 Oct 1944 Mid month update

Over the last 14 days the Allies have:

1. Landed and cleared Hainan. Ship losses were minimal (bad weather stopped our strikes) airlosses have been a couple of hundred aircraft each but generally under 2:1 against us so acceptable.

2. Chased away KB after it raided his ship hugging the IndoChina coast (we got an LPD and some escorts, but missed some CVE's and support ships). Our aircraft losses were light and are now replaced.

2. Continue to bomb surrounded troops in Java, although an "intervention" at long range by A6M2 Zero got a few kills

3. Landed and finally took Lunga, although he lost a CVE and had four more damaged by Kamis!



Now we have isolated the Chinese to 3 hex, lots of bdes, regts and a few divs are marching hard for the coast. We are building the airfields along the rail lines and have shipped over about 10 air base units for air support. Each coastal port has about a div and level 4-6 forts... starting to build a response force.

Our fleet has made a few probes of his long and thin supply line... but we are now just about out of fuel

In China he has sent B-29 deep at our oil facilities, but he has lost a number of B-29 to the defending fighters...

A frantic shipping of supply to China and the Phillipines has impacted levels in Japan that are now slowly recovering.

We are down to 56 days of fuel...

Lots of heavy aerial fighting has seen our plane numbers drop, but pilot quality is slowly getting better.

The question continues to be where will he land. Taiwan has been reinforced, but the Chinese coast is just so vulnerable... An overland campaign will take him some time though.

He has massed just about all the Allied fleet in the South China sea. Almost nothing we can do except try to keep a defensive line in front of him and strike the more vulnerable flanks... Could REALLY do with more fuel


Did I mention fuel?! And supply.

Cheers
Rob

[obvert]

It's amazing to me that you're still ahead in points at this stage with where he is. Well done!

You should still be able to contest quite a bit without the fuel if you can conserve supply as well. You may have done this already, but maybe shutting down all fort building in the HI and back areas plus suspending any growth in the R n D or airframe industries for now to get supply up while you're still producing HI. Just a thought.