Monday Night Montage (ex-Moose Crossings) - (J) vs. Bullwinkle/Obvert (A)

[leehunt27@bloomberg.net]

how did the mini subs do?

[Lokasenna]

Haven't gotten that far yet. The last turn I did was on Friday, as I was out all day yesterday. I will run a turn this afternoon/evening, and one tomorrow... and then I'm in WITP deadzone for at least 4 days, possibly a week, depending on if the internet is working at my parents' place.

I'm actually going to delay the subs, waiting for I-16 to catch up to her sisters, so I can have 4 go in at once. That won't be for a little while yet. I-16 departed Singers either on this turn in my inbox, or the previous. It's about a week's sail to Trincomalee.

In the meantime, does anybody know if DL helps with minisub attacks? I have some Mavises at Port Blair, but they aren't too great at Recon...better than nothing, though.

[witpqs]

I am pretty sure that DL helps with all attacks. How much, exactly, is unknown to me.

[Lokasenna]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

I am pretty sure that DL helps with all attacks. How much, exactly, is unknown to me.

That's my assumption also. Gonna have to build my DL up. Good thing I've been resting that Mavis unit for a week, all but 2 planes are in single digit Fatigue.

[Lokasenna]

Well, tonight was my last turn with the amphibious bonus. Tomorrow is April 1. I'm interested to see how much pilot training will cost, as it's been coming very cheaply these past few months. I want to see if the cost will "go back" to 5 HI per pilot in school.


Highlights:

I've got a nice perimeter thus far. I own Noumea, Moresby, Horn Island, and Baker Island. He holds Canton. I also hold the small island north of NZ's North Island, just to deny it to him as a recon base, and will have Tongatapu soon. Suva is invested, with more on the way from Moresby to land at Nadi. I think he has written Suva off.

I have invested Mandalay and Lashio. I will get Mandalay once I get more forces in Burma. For now, I'm happily shooting down AVG & RAF fighter pilots, as well as RAF bomber pilots, as they try to harass Mandalay. Meiktila is mine with an ace Zero unit based there.

In the north, I still don't have Adak. He has maybe landed one more unit there, for a total of 12, otherwise I expect to find similar opposition. I am trying one last landing tomorrow. I may run into SCTF opposition, but my invasion force contains BB Fuso, CL Natori, and about 12 DDs plus SCs and PBs. Escorts and naval ships outnumber transports. KB (minus Kaga, sunk, and Soryu, at Singapore) is at Etorofu and heading east. No sign of his remaining 2 USN CVs. Unsure if I mentioned, but MKB was completely destroyed by them not so long ago - on literally their final day of covering my forces at Amchitka.

Lexington confirmed sunk via email from Bullwinkle! I should have noticed - I knew her SBDs made the ground at Trincomalee, and the fighters probably did also. He stated that he had moved her out of port early, just a day after upgrading to F4Fs from F2As, and not all were repaired. Hence why she got pounded on that second day of strikes. However, 22 TBDs have been destroyed on the ground - Big E's and Lex's. Regardless, all 4 midget attacks on Trincomalee failed.

In China, I'm beginning to surround Chungking and am keeping the airfield damaged. Chengtu will fall soon, and Kienko will be mine as well. He vacated the latter, but his forces will be cut off by a division between them and Chungking. Lanchow has been captured. All that remains in the north is Sining. Similar to Obvert's experience, Oil is refusing to move out of Urumchi. Oh well, maybe it will later? I will be investing Kunming with 3k AV on April 1, this next turn. Tsuyung will be invested shortly afterwards.

In the SRA, I will have Soerabaja soon. I am waiting for some combat engineers to arrive in about a week or so. Otherwise, all of Java is taken. On Borneo, only Tarakan remains. On Sumatra, I have 3 divisions just outside Palembang with its 28 units. Another 3 will be landed without the amphibious bonus, plus the HQ unit, to avoid having to land at Oosthaven or Benkoelen and walk all the way around. There are almost 100 Dutch bombers on the ground at Palembang with an air HQ, and last time I landed at Benk/Oost I ate some torps and lost valuable xAPs, APs, and AMCs. I will have CAs and CLs available to cover the landing, and plenty of shipping at Singers.



FWIW, Bullwinkle states that he thinks I've made one big strategic mistake and no major tactical errors, while he has made 3 strategic mistakes. He says that one of his is China, and that I should see/know the second but not the third. I suspect that the second is committing to a pseudo-fortress PB. Regardless of the VPs killing those 28 units will give me, I'm scared of taking Palembang completely destroyed like what happened at Singapore. Perhaps his third mistake is sending a bunch of stuff off-map so that it's unavailable. With his suspected DD losses, I think he might be desperately short of ASW escorts for his shipping.

There's more, but... halftime in the Arizona/UCLA game is over [;)].

[JocMeister]

Sounds like you are doing really well. Sadly I can´t comment very much as I know a lot of BWs position via PM but I am still reading. [:)]

Whats the VP status? AV an possibility?

[Lokasenna]

I am having supply issues in China, specifically at Sining and outside Kunming/Tsuyung (the latter is not surprising as I've walked through the mountains to get there). I've never moved this quickly. I have a couple of large convoys going in from Japan, so I'm glad that I've kept my supplies in Japan at 1.6M+ as now I'm down to 1.4M [:'(]. CEA HQ is based at Kweiyang, but only 12k Supply has pooled there and Changsha is still trying to draw more (only 8k out of 12k demanded for *3) to repair the HI there.

Right now, VPs are somewhere around 2.4:1. I have been making steady progress this past week after having been stuck for a while. I still have the stack of LCUs at Bataan to eliminate, which Bullwinkle is perhaps hastening by bombarding each day. He's losing about 10 AV per day and sometimes I don't see flak when I bomb the place, whereas I'm holding my AV steady at 99-100% TOE on the units - it's 1650 for him, 1200 for me. I have some tanks incoming from Cam Rahn Bay but I'll still need to find more from somewhere to finish them off. In the meantime, I'll keep training up bomber pilots.

Soerabaja will net me a pretty decent amount of VPs, as will Palembang.

There's a trapped stack of Chinese outside Sian. I am planning to cut every hex side on them and leave them in place until after I have Chungking. There are already 93 Chinese units at Chungking, with ~540k troops [X(]. It's going to take me a very long time to take the place, and hundreds of thousands of supply, I'm sure. My only perspective on it is my AI game, which is fine on supply despite perhaps an overexpansion of industry early on, but I think I captured a crapload of supply from the AI that game in places like Australia and Suva, so I'm not sure it's a good comparison. Regardless, I have to take Chungking for my strategic vision to come together - I want China gone so that I can devote my entire Asian army to the defense of my western door: Burma and the Chinese mountains.


I'm not confident of an AV, but I'm going to be fighting for VPs and if I get close...I'll go for it.

[Lokasenna]

Well, good news and bad news.

I was landing the 6th Guards Division at Adak on the last day of my bonus. I took more losses than anticipated, slightly, and my escorts burned all of their ammo in the first day of landing. It was a bit of a rush job, which was my first mistake. My second mistake was not having AKEs ready at Amchitka. Fuso's main guns were unable to reload completely, so I was relying on 6" guns and smaller to suppress CD guns 2 days later, on April 2. It didn't go so well.

However, I did succeed in baiting the USN CVs back into action...and KB is 10 hexes away from them! [:D][:D][:D] That was the second main goal of this operation. I'm moving in on the vile USN CVs (Sara and York) with Akagi, Shokaku, Zuikaku, and Hiryu. I'm somewhat regretting not taking Soryu, as I didn't end up needing her in the DEI after all, so we kind of have a Midway-type action going on here in that I left some behind...

I transferred 12 more Zeroes to Hiryu from Amchitka, overloading her somewhat, but he had 41 Wildcats escorting his strikes on April 2. Assuming my entire CAP gets up, I'll have 66 Zeroes. Not as many as I'd like, but I need the other 45 to go on escort...and that's made me transfer Akagi's Vals to Amchitka, and 24 more Zeroes to Akagi. Most of the damage comes from Kates, and I need to make sure they get through. The Vals may strike from Amchitka on their own, or they may not. I have 66 Zeroes available to escort the strike as well, but I expect he has mid-30s on CAP, as I think he thinks I'm repairing Akagi still.

I'm moving KB to the hex in the end of the arrow, 8 hexes away. I'm banking on him staying south of the island chain, as he's sighted my subs to the north and the other times his CVs have shown up, they've stayed on one side of the islands for the duration of their appearances.

If I sink the CVs, I can move on to the juicy, juicy shipping at Dutch Harbor. 30-some ships reported in port. I'd love to sink them all, and destroy some B-17s on the ground at Umnak. Speaking of those two places...recon shows that their garrisons are almost entirely support units. 8 units, 8k troops at Dutch Harbor. 10 units, 8k troops at Umnak. I know one of the units at Umnak is an Air HQ, due to the use of Cats with torps. I'm having a really tough time getting to him at Adak, but it looks like he's really weak farther back in the chain. If his CVs go down, I'll have a free hand to move in on Umnak/Dutch Harbor with about 300 AV each to be sure I capture them, destroying tasty, tasty support units and making his B-17s run for the snowy hills of Alaska. And then Adak will be completely isolated.

The Aleutians, much to my chagrin, have turned into the focal point of the war thus far. I waited too long to get up here.

[JocMeister]

Exciting times ahead! [:)]

[Lokasenna]

Well, no CV battle. He didn't have a sniff of KB, so he must've just been scared already.

A couple days have passed. My forces on Adak are toast, I'm evacuating what I can via Fast Transport TF so that I don't need to fill in the entire 6th Guards Div from scratch. Will still need to do most of it, however. Bullwinkle made an ace move up here, getting the entire chain fortified before I could take it.

The window may have closed on cutting him off from the rear, but I'm still going to try it. It's a big risk, but if it succeeds then I'll delay any northern thrust for a very long time. Basically:

Umnak and Dutch Harbor now show 12 units apiece, and where they had no or few AFVs when there were 10-11 units, there are now over 200. I think he has supplemented the places with armor. The force compositions, according to air intel, are similar at Adak/Umnak/Dutch, so I think I can expect comparable amounts at each place - approximately a division equivalent on each island, with supporting units. On Adak that's 3 infantry regiments, a tank regiment or battalion,and several artillery units and base forces. On Umnak, I expect roughly the same. On Dutch Harbor, I expect the same except in place of base forces, perhaps more artillery or another regiment.

My basic plan is going to be to land the crack 33rd Div and 7th Ind Tank Brigade at Umnak, plus supporting units (2 anti-tank battalions, maybe 4, and perhaps another division). Umnak is the key to cutting him off at Adak. Dutch Harbor has no airfield, so if I take Umnak's level 5 away from him, Adak will be isolated except by sea. Since I still have an advantage at sea, I can then strangle Adak and turn it into my own fortress - and he's already built it up halfway.

The first step is going to be a big KB port strike at Dutch Harbor, call it December 7th all over again. He has 90 fighters at Umnak, but I expect most are on CAP over the airfield there to protect B-17s. I don't think he'll be expecting this. There are 34 ships in port at Dutch on the last day's intel, and at least a dozen in TFs in the harbor. He did see KB due south of Amchitka on April 6, but had DL 3/8. He would have known it was KB, and hunting for his CVs. He hasn't got a sniff of me since then. It's now April 8, and the strike on Dutch Harbor will occur in 2 days.


My surface forces that were previously damaged up here are getting close to repaired, and I will have 2 more divisions landed at Palembang within 8 days, and then my 4 Takao CAs will be heading for the north with Soryu and possibly the other 2 Kongos. The 4 Mogamis will remain to defend the DEI and raid the IO. Strategically, for fuel reasons, I would like to use the Kongos and Nagatos up north while the Ise/Fuso classes remain in the DEI. Once the Yamatos arrive, I think I will hold them as a central reserve to meet his main thrust from the east, whether it's in CentPac or NorPac.


Just spitballing for the record and documenting my intentions...so I don't forget them.

[offenseman]

Looking very forward to seeing how these move play out.

[Lokasenna]

ORIGINAL: offenseman

Looking very forward to seeing how these move play out.

Thanks!

I need to take my time this time. It's my last shot at the Aleutians. No rush jobs. That means it's going to take some time to put together, like waiting for prep on the ID(s) to hit at least 70. Unfortunately, my only forces currently prepped for Umnak are about 3 Naval Guard units, or 180 AV with weak firepower. I think I'm going to need at least 800 for Umnak, probably 1000.

As a side note, I've noticed that Fast Transport TFs result in less disruption on the beach from low prep, especially if there's already friendly forces on the island. However, FT TFs tend to transport sans supply...

[offenseman]

I know the dangers inherent with losing the Aleutians too soon. That said, I am sure you considered using those assets to build a nasty defense around Attu, Shemya, and Amchitka and making expansion of Adak time consuming through air raids, bombardments, mines and subs instead of the Unmak operation? What tilted the decision in favor of the Unmak invasion rather than holding what you have. Asking because I am currently debating how far I want to try to push things in my own game. [:)]

[Lokasenna]

ORIGINAL: offenseman

I know the dangers inherent with losing the Aleutians too soon. That said, I am sure you considered using those assets to build a nasty defense around Attu, Shemya, and Amchitka and making expansion of Adak time consuming through air raids, bombardments, mines and subs instead of the Unmak operation? What tilted the decision in favor of the Unmak invasion rather than holding what you have. Asking because I am currently debating how far I want to try to push things in my own game. [:)]

Basically, blood for dirt. With a secure base of operations already established at Umnak/Dutch and Adak, he can push me off of Attu/Shemya and Amchitka before I'm ready to be pushed back that far - I figure that if he makes it his main axis of advance, which he might well do in order to threaten the Kuriles and Hokkaido earlier, he could come at me here in about 6-8 months when he starts to get LSTs, AKAs, and APAs.

If I push him out while I still maybe can do so, then he has to come for Umnak and Adak first, which I can defend better than I can Amchitka, Attu, and Shemya due to airfield size and the potentially huge port at Adak. When I started my invasions up here, Adak was the must-have and Umnak/Dutch the nice-to-haves, but that's switched now. With his 4Es at Umnak (at least 30), he can pound my airfields and ports pretty much at will. But he won't risk them at Adak. If I take Umnak, I can take his ability to use his 4Es away from him, at least in the north (for now). I know how thin is OOB is before about July/August of '42. I'm not sure how much more he can spare to send up here.


Basically, coming up here in early February was way too late. I needed to send stuff up here on Day 1. Next time, I will.

[offenseman]

Makes sense, thanks for the comments.
He has done quite well up there to put you in that spot. With some planning, skill, and maybe luck, you can turn that tide though.

[Lokasenna]

Well, he sighted KB again. DL 6/6 at 11 hexes out. I had been staying >15 hexes to avoid Catalina patrols. I'm going in! No CVs in sight, but there is a 7-ship TF at Dutch Harbor in addition to the 34 ships in port. It is reported as 1 CA and 6 DDs, which could be accurate. The CA sighted in port is still there.

I'm moving KB 7 hexes to the NNE, and 6 hexes from Dutch Harbor. I don't care to have that SCTF come out for me, but with any luck they'll go scurrying off towards Nome or Anchorage. I've left Naval Strike as my air groups' primary mission, in case his CVs come out of nowhere. I have plenty of sorties left as well.

[offenseman]

on the edge of my chair!

[Lokasenna]

All I have to say is.... *sigh*.

My air group losses don't seem to have been TOO bad. Mostly the fighter groups, and about 40% of those on actual escort duty were LBA temporarily based on Akagi, and their skill levels weren't elite - merely adequate.

But I lost 13 Zeroes in A2A, 10 Vals, and 1 Kate. Total Zeroes were 18, total Vals 12.

I shot down 13 P-39D's plus 3 ops, 6 F4F-4's plus 1 ops, and he had his B-17s on Naval Attack... I shot down 5 of those in A2A, 2 to flak, and 4 to ops [8D]. I also shot down 1 P-40E.

All that at Dutch Harbor.


For my trouble, with 32 ships still in port, I planted a bomb on 2 subs (no major damage), a bomb on AMC Prince Henry, and a bomb on a DM. That's it.

The AM strike was.... *drumroll* .... 35 Zeroes and 3 Vals, and the 1 Val that got to attack missed DD Blue. And my commanders aren't bad! They're good! I must have really failed some rolls. Him seeing me gave him the chance to LRCAP the place.



I could stick around. While watching the replay I was too disgusted and wasn't going to, however he suffered a bit heavier losses than I did. But on second thought, he has 118 fighters at Adak according to recon (68 remaining at Umnak) that he could easily transfer over to fend me off for a second day.

I'll just have to come back later, maybe. I should've run straight in from 16 hexes out, I guess. Lessons learned. I just didn't want to move in at Full Speed, even for 10-12 hexes, and I don't trust Mission Speed to go any further than 8 in a day.

[JocMeister]

I feel the same way about full speed. I almost NEVER use it. Especially when you have multiple TFs involved. They are bound to end up all over the place.

[Lokasenna]

Ok Obvert, here's my proof that Urumchi ships out Oil. It's a lot less than I thought it was, though...

I've had the base since turn 86, and I captured it with just 4895 Oil there. Even if he was running the refinery, 300 * 85 = 25500, so that means just over 20k Oil was shipped out for the Allies. Where'd it go? Russia?

If it went elsewhere into China, why am I not seeing it for my own movement? They're the same roads whether they're under my control or Chinese... I haven't quite captured all of China yet. I've got Sining left in the north. Maybe once I've got that last base, all the Oil will go down to Lanchow? That's another one that's confusing me. I captured the place on turn 108, with 979 Oil. On turn 110, it shot up to 12930 Oil. Where did it come from?! Only ~2100 came from Urumchi. And on turn 120, when Urumchi shipped out 1000 Oil, Lanchow itself shipped out 2500.