Rise of the Sheep! JocMeister(A) vs. Obvert(J)

[Wuffer]

hmm, the whole drama about Ivo j and Okin was strat bombing.
If you can't strat bomb efficiently, for whatever reasons, you will have to switch to other alternatives.

As infantry is not part of the pdu enhancement (jet), jap LCUs being the Achilles heel in the game. Invade the real thing, before he could rebuilt all these divisions.

BBs and Kamis to be considered, of course.
Good luck!

[JocMeister]

I was about to do a big write up on the coming invasion but Maria is working the evening shift and Ida is not being cooperative. I just watched the replay. Only a small skirmish. I´m going to try and get Erik the turn back and I´ll try and get an update up tomorrow.

PS. Anyone have a good solution on avoiding the entire allied strike package getting annihilated tomorrow as I suspect there will be a ton of AMcs/MTBs popping up all over the place under heavy CAP tomorrow just like I saw in the Marianas.

[koniu]

So, I know some of you, perhaps all of you have been a bit frustrated with me lately... I have been a busy little bee behind the scenes of this AAR though. So place your bets gentlemen! Where are we going?

My bet is Okinawa.

Close enough to Japan to use Liberators against Home islands.

[DOCUP]

I don't know where your going. But use DDs to clear them out.

[CaptBeefheart]

OK, a few things:

1. I'm starting to have second thoughts on air HQ and base matching being beneficial to air coordination. I couldn't find anything in the manual last night. Too many beers may be clouding the memory. [:)] It'd be nice if Alfred could chime in on this, as he da man on these questions.
2. My parents just moved to Woodbridge, VA. Does anyone know a good beer retail outfit within a few miles of there (MD being a bit too far methinks, but possibly NW DC)? I'll be visiting there on my next trip to the States, of course.
3. I've been homebrewing since 1986. You just need enough space to hold a nice kettle, a five-gallon (what, 18.9 liters?) bucket, a glass carboy of the same size and either 48 bottles or a five-gallon Cornelius keg, plus a few other relatively small items. A closet works pretty well to hold stuff and even a tiny kitchen (by U.S. standards) in Korea is big enough to brew. Save the garage for when you guys get serious.
4. Sorry for my contribution to slightly derailing this AAR toward beer, but as richlove said, this is a public service.
5. I'll put $5 on the Amoy area being the destination for that invasion fleet.

Cheers,
CC

[catwhoorg]

ORIGINAL: JocMeister

I should have specified I meant a Swedish sized garage and not an american sized one! You know. Place for one normal sized car... [:D]

America.

The land of double and triple garages, so full of junk, the cars still are on the driveway.

[JocMeister]

God I hate this game sometimes. Ida is fast asleep. It 3 in the morning here. Yes. Three in the morning. [X(] And I couldn´t sleep because I was laying awake thinking about the turn. At 4 I gave up, made some coffee and have just watched the turn.

Do anyone else know of ANY game that does that? [:D]

I don´t mind the beer discussion one bit! If I´m not mistaken I´m the one that started it after all? [:)]

DING DING. We have winner. Koniou nailed it. [&o] I´m landing on Okinawa. We are now on the second day of battle and things look promising so far. Landing tomorrow. I really hope this early morning gives me a chance to catch up on the AAR. I don´t like being behind!

[JocMeister]

[font="Verdana"]Destination Okinawa[/font]
______________________________________________________________________________

Sorry for not getting this up last night. As koniu guess the target is Naha on Okinawa! [:)]

I know some of you have been thinking I´m a bit dense lately with my obsession with Formosa and reluctance to listen to any other alternatives...So I hope this explains things a bit... [;)]

------------------------
Background
------------------------
This operation actually started right after I secured the Marianas. I knew after Luzon I would either go to Formosa or Okinawa. You who have followed my AAR for some time know I like to hedge my bets. So I did again. [:)] I prepped half the forces for Okinawa and half for Formosa.

My reasoning was that if he divided equally between Formosa and Okinawa I would hopefully be able to secure them both using quality of troops. But if it looked too tough I could hopefully secure a beachhead on Formosa and then use the forces prepped for Naha on Formosa too.

Things turned out REALLY odd though. I´m extremely curious to hear Eriks reasoning on this when the game is over. As we all know by now Erik put 300.000 men on Formosa. But on Okinawa there is only 30.000 men?! [X(] So this was kind of a easy choice where to go. [:)]

Not only is Okinawa almost empty of troops but its also the perfect place for an allied landing. Erik has neglected to build up the area properly. The closest level 9 AFs are on Formosa (9 and 11 hexes) and Shanghai (11 hexes). Besides those only Naha itself is built up to any kind of size (size 7). See map for more details on airfield sizes in the area.

------------------------
Ground Forces
------------------------
Allied troops:
I´m basically landing with 10 divisions. To back that up I have the usual assortment of troops. Two of the big combat engineer RGTs but fairly light on armor. Most of the armor is prepped for Formosa and its clear terrain. But with only 30.000 troops on Okinawa what I have will quickly overwhelm the defenders.

Japanese troops:
30.000 troops, 30 Units, 500 Guns and 200 AFVs.
Only combat unit identified via SIGINT is the 15th Ind.Mixed RGT. Rest are army HQs and AA units. If that is correct there will be no more then 200-300 AV on Okinawa.
The Okinawa BF is there with its CD guns but I have BBs embedded in all troops TFs to counter this.

------------------------
Tactical situation
------------------------
Getting the troops ashore is my main problem. If I can land 50% of the troops Okinawa will be in allied hands. The problem is getting them there...

The KB + the Japanese BBs are sitting at Shanghai only 11 hexes from Okinawa. I don´t know if Erik will do the ultimate Kamikaze or not. He has been really eager to commit the KB earlier. But I´m not so sure he will do that without good LBA support which he will lack in this landing due to lack of proper AFs.

I also have a plan that might neutralize the KB and battle fleet...[:)]

------------------------
Japanese forces
------------------------
KB (700-1000 planes)
12 BBs
3 CAs and an unknown number of CLs
35 DDs
A few subs.

This is backed up by LBA flying from various bases in the area. This effort is hampered by the lack of airfields.

------------------------
Allied forces
------------------------
Allied CV Fleet (3050 planes)
8 Fast BBs in 2 SCTFs
6 slow BBs embedded with the Amphibs
4 modern CAs in a SCTF
4 old CAs in a SCTF
4 old CAs embedded with the Amphibs
12 Cleveland CLs in 3 SCTFs
150 Fletchers in various SCTFs including 4 Fletcher TFs.
70 subs (last of the sub fleet)
200.000 men distributed among 5 Amphibs TFs.

------------------------
Execution
------------------------
Obviously even the most basic plan goes out the window as soon as two forces meet in battle. I have a rough idea on what I want to do and how to do it. A lot will depend on Erik reactions and how he lines up is forces. He is in a less then optimal position here as he have neglected building up the AFs on Okinawa and Kyushu. So he will have to depend on flying from lots of smaller AFs or the level 9 AFs at Formosa (11 and 9 hexes from Oki) or Shanghai (11 hexes). This is far from an optimal situation for him. And with the number of troops on Okinawa Erik may very well have decided NOT to defend Okinawa at all.

[JocMeister]

[font="Verdana"]Destination Okinawa - Day One[/font]
______________________________________________________________________________

Everything is in position. All ships except 3 subs are unspotted. I´m pleased to say Erik paid a price here for using his patrol planes to lift troops instead of what they are supposed to do. [:)]

[JocMeister]

[font="Verdana"]Destination Okinawa - Day Two and Three[/font]
______________________________________________________________________________

Day Two sees the subs moving forward while the fleet continues refueling.

During the night before day Three every available B29 dropped mines at Shanghai harbor. This is the location of the entire Japanese fleet. I don´t think Erik knew that I knew that. I have intentionally not reconned it nor had patrol planes that far out. I have two SIGINT confirmations on Shanghai. One on a CV and one on a CVL. That and the 1-3 "heavy volume of radio transmissions detected" per turn for the last month was kind of a give away. [:D]

I also moved in 50 Catalinas to Apparri to get some eyes over Shanghai and the rest of the East China sea. Not too surprising the KB plus battle fleet was at Shanghai. [:)]

On Day Three the advanced ships are finally spotted only 5 hexes from Okinawa. [&o] This triggers the first Japanese counter attack.

Morning Air attack on TF, near Ishigaki at 92,70

Weather in hex: Heavy cloud

Raid detected at 40 NM, estimated altitude 5,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 13 minutes

Japanese aircraft
B6N2a Jill x 22

Allied aircraft
Corsair II x 92
Corsair IV x 15
Seafire L.III x 5
F4U-1A Corsair x 61
F4U-1D Corsair x 436

Japanese aircraft losses
B6N2a Jill: 16 destroyed

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Afternoon Air attack on TF, near Ishigaki at 92,70

Weather in hex: Light cloud

Raid detected at 40 NM, estimated altitude 1,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 13 minutes

Japanese aircraft
B6N2a Jill x 6

Allied aircraft
Corsair II x 92
Corsair IV x 15
Seafire L.III x 5
F4U-1A Corsair x 61
F4U-1D Corsair x 436

Japanese aircraft losses
B6N2a Jill: 4 destroyed

As can be seen in the screenshot the allied fleet has become strung out and failed to move the entire distance to 4 hexes from Naha. This leads me to postpone the landing another day. I hope this will not effect the outcome of the battle. Its unfortunate but cannot be helped with some many TFs that some do not move the indicated distance.

[Lokasenna]

ORIGINAL: Commander Cody

OK, a few things:

1. I'm starting to have second thoughts on air HQ and base matching being beneficial to air coordination. I couldn't find anything in the manual last night. Too many beers may be clouding the memory. [:)] It'd be nice if Alfred could chime in on this, as he da man on these questions.
2. My parents just moved to Woodbridge, VA. Does anyone know a good beer retail outfit within a few miles of there (MD being a bit too far methinks, but possibly NW DC)? I'll be visiting there on my next trip to the States, of course.
3. I've been homebrewing since 1986. You just need enough space to hold a nice kettle, a five-gallon (what, 18.9 liters?) bucket, a glass carboy of the same size and either 48 bottles or a five-gallon Cornelius keg, plus a few other relatively small items. A closet works pretty well to hold stuff and even a tiny kitchen (by U.S. standards) in Korea is big enough to brew. Save the garage for when you guys get serious.
4. Sorry for my contribution to slightly derailing this AAR toward beer, but as richlove said, this is a public service.
5. I'll put $5 on the Amoy area being the destination for that invasion fleet.

Cheers,
CC

My friends just moved to Woodbridge. The Calvert Woodley store I mentioned earlier is in NW DC, on Connecticut Ave. I'll ask them if there's a good beer shop nearby, but I kind of doubt it...

[JocMeister]

[font="Verdana"]Destination Okinawa - Day Four[/font]
______________________________________________________________________________

During the night the B29s drop another load of mines over Shanghai. The mining operation have cost me 8 B29s so far. No sounds of anything hitting mines. But strangely Erik doesn´t seem to have swept any mines during the night either. Did he neglect to bring minesweepers to Shanghai?

The fleet assembles three hexes outside Naha. I choose to move to the east. This takes me away from the level 9 AFs at Formosa and it might fool Erik about the target since I moved past Naha.

Fearing a myriad of AMc and other small vessels to pop up all over the map I sent in 4 ship Fletcher TFs to every available airfield within range. None where found so shame on me for expecting it. But to my defense this HAS happened before. This cost me the first naval casualty of the operation as one of the DDs TFs at Naha hang around. This cost me DD Pickings who were sunk in a Kamikaze attack. 3 other were heavily damaged and might not make it.

Erik did NOT move the Fleet from Shanghai. I do not know if this is because the sub and mine threat or if he never intended to do so. Or he is still waiting... But a pretty big raid was launched from Naha striking the allied fleet. I´m happy to report only 3 bombers made it through the quite impressive CAP. All three bombers were shot down by flak. I was aiming for 1000 planes on CAP and got 1200. Quite happy with that. But also quite disturbed that 3 bombers did get through even with such a big CAP.

Morning Air attack on TF, near Naha at 95,69

Weather in hex: Heavy cloud

Raid detected at 120 NM, estimated altitude 14,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 36 minutes

Japanese aircraft
A6M5b Zero x 44
D4Y4 Judy x 67
N1K2-J George x 35
Ki-44-IIc Tojo x 45
Ki-84r Frank x 22
Ki-100-I Tony x 24

Allied aircraft
Corsair II x 113
Corsair IV x 63
Hellcat I x 10
Seafire IIC x 18
Seafire L.III x 5
F4U-1A Corsair x 66
F4U-1D Corsair x 492
F6F-3 Hellcat x 175
F6F-5 Hellcat x 251

Japanese aircraft losses
A6M5b Zero: 10 destroyed
D4Y4 Judy: 33 destroyed
D4Y4 Judy: 2 destroyed by flak
N1K2-J George: 7 destroyed
Ki-44-IIc Tojo: 12 destroyed
Ki-84r Frank: 7 destroyed
Ki-100-I Tony: 10 destroyed

Allied aircraft losses
Corsair II: 1 destroyed
F4U-1A Corsair: 1 destroyed
F4U-1D Corsair: 2 destroyed
F6F-3 Hellcat: 2 destroyed
F6F-5 Hellcat: 3 destroyed

Two smaller raids also flew that was wiped out.

The allied only flew one strike against a TF at Daito Shoto.

Morning Air attack on TF, near Daito Shoto at 98,69

Weather in hex: Moderate rain

Raid detected at 73 NM, estimated altitude 15,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 31 minutes

Japanese aircraft
A7M2 Sam x 23

Allied aircraft
F6F-5 Hellcat x 82
SB2C-4 Helldiver x 55

Japanese aircraft losses
A7M2 Sam: 2 destroyed

Allied aircraft losses
F6F-5 Hellcat: 4 destroyed

Japanese Ships
xAK Hankow Maru, Bomb hits 5, and is sunk
E No.186, Bomb hits 2, and is sunk
E No.192, Bomb hits 2, and is sunk
E No.190, Bomb hits 1, and is sunk
E No.154, Bomb hits 3, and is sunk

Tomorrow is obviously the big day as we attempt to land. I still very uncertain if Erik will risk his fleet. If he does he will try the 8 hex silliness again I´m sure.

And how will I play this? I´m very reluctant to split my CVE TFs from the CVs and give cover directly at Naha. So I think I´m going to stand off just outside Naha 1 hex to the west hopefully soaking any strikes coming for the Amphibs. This means I will have to rely on leaky CAP or provide LRCAP over Naha. Not sure which alternative is best?

I will also do some naval bombardment on Naha itself to rough up the airfield. I´m not going to start on the actual turn just yet so any advice or thought as appreciated! [:)]

[koniu]

ORIGINAL: JocMeister
DING DING. We have winner. Koniou nailed it. [&o] I´m landing on Okinawa.

[:D]
I look at map You give in post 2836 and it was only logical target.
DEI was not option as this area is already out of war. The same for central/south Pacific.
Aleutians where also under my consideration but if it was summer `44 not spring `45. Now they will give You nothing, You already in B-29 range of HI and they will only delay You by few months. Hokkaido will be Holly Mary move with all those empty ocean between Midway and Japan.

So Formosa or Okinawa. So i choose Okinawa For few reasons.

Liberators in range of HI
Cutting off Formosa and China from Japan
You can use LBA to support Okinawa landing
Okinawa is ~10hex from HI and Formosa(many big AF to supress) so air counterattack will bee week and low coordinated. Only real threat to Your fleet are enemy surface ships if they manage to sneak to Your CV TF or Landing TF and even then it will be one way trip.

I hope i will be able to read like that Docup moves when time comes.
Good luck.

EDIT: what price i winn. I hope it is not place in first wave of beach assault.
On other hand i play all MOH and Call of Duty games so my skills can be useful.[:)]

[JocMeister]

ORIGINAL: koniu

[:D]
I look at map You give in post 2836 and it was only logical target.
DEI was not option as this area is already out of war. The same for central/south Pacific.
Aleutians where also under my consideration but if it was summer `44 not spring `45. Now they will give You nothing, You already in B-29 range of HI and they will only delay You by few months. Hokkaido will be Holly Mary move with all those empty ocean between Midway and Japan.

So Formosa or Okinawa. So i choose Okinawa For few reasons.

Liberators in range of HI
Cutting off Formosa and China from Japan
You can use LBA to support Okinawa landing
Okinawa is ~10hex from HI and Formosa(many big AF to supress) so air counterattack will bee week and low coordinated. Only real threat to Your fleet are enemy surface ships if they manage to sneak to Your CV TF or Landing TF and even then it will be one way trip.

I hope i will be able to read like that Docup moves when time comes.
Good luck.

EDIT: what price i winn. I hope it is not place in first wave of beach assault.
On other hand i play all MOH and Call of Duty games so my skills can be useful.[:)]

Very well done. [:)] The reasons you state are exactly the reasons why I chose Okinawa over Formosa. And the 300.000 vs. 30.000 of course! [:D]

THE most deciding factor was the lack of airfields and ranges from Formosa to Okinawa. As you say Erik is not going to be able to get any reasonable support from his bases there. Its simply too long! [:)]

Sounds like you will make a perfect grunt landing in the first wave then! Congratulations! [:D]

[JocMeister]

I think I´ll do one of the following after giving it some thought:

1. I´m going to move the WHOLE fleet to Naha during the unloading. Everything but the CVs obviously. This of course will split the CVE/CV fleet. I hope to offset this by giving the CAP squadrons a range of 1 on both the CVEs and CVs. The CVs will be given SCTF protection by the Iowas.

2. Keep the CVEs/CVs together and give them 1 hex of CAP range.

3. Keep the CV/CVEs together and give half the CAP squadrons LRCAP orders for Naha.

4. Another option is to leave the Amphibs on their own. Using only light SCTFs for protection. This knowing any strikes that will take off will almost exclusively go for the BBs and CVs.

Thats the 3 best options I can come up with. Any input/advice/thoughts would be very welcome.

EDIT: Looking at the distances involved (11 hexes) I think an intervention by the Japanese Battle line to seem unlikely? Even moving at full speed they could not arrive during night and would arrive in broad daylight with the chance that CV air power attacked them before reaching the landing site. Thoughts on this?

[CaptBeefheart]

Good luck. Don't think I can offer advice, except I would not go with 4. Amphibs need some protection.

Cheers,
CC

[Encircled]

Got to agree with CommanderCody, you can't leave the amphibs without aircover

How about a pre-emptive strike on Shanghai?

Or how about moving some Fletcher SCTF near Shanghai, hoping for a reaction into the minefields (or is that gamey?)

[JocMeister]

I´ve decided to keep the CVEs and CVs together 1 hex outside Naha. All the CAP squadrons will be given a range of 1 instead of zero and if any strikes go for Naha I´ll hope for leaky CAP from the CV fleet. I´m taking a gamble Erik is not going to send the BB fleet full speed to Naha. Only small combat ships will be in the Naha hex. CLs and downwards. This to try and minimize any incoming strikes .

Worst case scenario Erik will make a BB rush. In that case this can turn really nasty. But the Amphibs are close enough to start unloading during the night. This means about 80% of the troops will be unloaded by the time any BBs can arrive in the PM phase. Another danger is a 8 hex strike from the KB. If it comes I´ll have to hope the leaky CAP will be enough to put some serious hurt on his strike before they can get to the ships.

A CA TF will bombard during the night. Hopefully damaging any planes on the field and rough things up a bit.

In addition to this I will sweep with 150 P51s from Aparri. This is a bit of a suicide mission. But one of my best CV squadrons will provide LRCAP over Naha with 42 Corsairs. The sweeps will be followed by a small 100plane B24 strike on the AF.

[JocMeister]

ORIGINAL: Encircled

Got to agree with CommanderCody, you can't leave the amphibs without aircover

How about a pre-emptive strike on Shanghai?

Or how about moving some Fletcher SCTF near Shanghai, hoping for a reaction into the minefields (or is that gamey?)

Thanks CC and Encircled. I thought better of it. It was a wacky idea. Lack of sleep. [:)]

Its a good idea with the reaction and mine field. But ince Erik played nice and didn´t intentionally trigger a mass of unwanted strikes from my CVs I´ll repay the gesture and refrain from doing something similar. [:)]

[castor troy]

why using 10 divisions on a target that 2 or 3 divs could take easily? If recon tells you there are 30,000 men on that island there will be 15,000-20,000 at best and then if there are support units then that might not even be an IJA div. In the end you might only go in vs roughly 200-250 enemy av.