Can't speak for anybody else, but in Oz and India, my best units are always in strat mode in the best place possible to react to landings.
He might be able to reinforce really quickly
This is true, and honestly would accomplish one of my goals (diverting his forces). Given that it's still August 1942, he won't have many upgraded Australian infantry squads yet (275-300 so far). The CMF Militia Squads are OK, but not great. Even the 1942 squads aren't great.
I can pull Southwest Area Fleet from Soerabaja also, if I need to evacuate from Geraldton. I may pull it in anyway to help with unloading of reinforcements.
The goal isn't so much to take and hold this area, but to raid and plunder if possible. Kind of Viking-style. Kill the men, enthrall the women/children, and take the gold (if any). Perhaps Operation Ragnar would've been better suited, but we got quite enough of that with JocMeister's AAR, yeah? [;)].
That's a good plan for India, which has a robust railroad net. But if Lokasenna can place a chump fragment midway between Kalgoorlie & Port Augusta, he'll isolate Perth from supply & reinforcement. Admittedly, that's a cheesy move - but if the 8th Tank can blitz & capture Cunderdin while KB is present, Perth is isolated & enemy convoys from Cape Town to Oz are blocked out.
That's a good plan for India, which has a robust railroad net. But if Lokasenna can place a chump fragment midway between Kalgoorlie & Port Augusta, he'll isolate Perth from supply & reinforcement. Admittedly, that's a cheesy move - but if the 8th Tank can blitz & capture Cunderdin while KB is present, Perth is isolated & enemy convoys from Cape Town to Oz are blocked out.
Yeah, Oz has railroad "choke points", as it were. There's a thick railroad to Kalgoorlie, but past that it's thin. I'm not interested in an inland Australia adventure.
Mostly, this is a strategic move. We've been pretty stagnant for about 2 months. Navally, we're a match across the map, however I can have the initiative if I choose to. I want to keep him reacting instead of acting for as long as possible. This is the path of least resistance towards that end. The longer he reacts, the longer I have to defend. I think. I know he just got a bunch of naval reinforcements in July/August. I want to see if I can make him use them hastily instead of sticking to his plan, as well.
Can't speak for anybody else, but in Oz and India, my best units are always in strat mode in the best place possible to react to landings.
He might be able to reinforce really quickly
This is true, and honestly would accomplish one of my goals (diverting his forces). Given that it's still August 1942, he won't have many upgraded Australian infantry squads yet (275-300 so far). The CMF Militia Squads are OK, but not great. Even the 1942 squads aren't great.
I can pull Southwest Area Fleet from Soerabaja also, if I need to evacuate from Geraldton. I may pull it in anyway to help with unloading of reinforcements.
The goal isn't so much to take and hold this area, but to raid and plunder if possible. Kind of Viking-style. Kill the men, enthrall the women/children, and take the gold (if any). Perhaps Operation Ragnar would've been better suited, but we got quite enough of that with JocMeister's AAR, yeah? [;)].
[:D][:D]
Been reading a bit of that. It's a good one, but yes, wow, a whole lesson in norse mythology as well. I remember fist encountering some of the CVs!!
Sounds better with 5 IDs!
Landing at Geraldton is better, but gives him more time too. i doubt Kalgoorlie will be undefended.
This will be interesting!
"Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm." - Winston Churchill
Can't speak for anybody else, but in Oz and India, my best units are always in strat mode in the best place possible to react to landings.
He might be able to reinforce really quickly
This is true, and honestly would accomplish one of my goals (diverting his forces). Given that it's still August 1942, he won't have many upgraded Australian infantry squads yet (275-300 so far). The CMF Militia Squads are OK, but not great. Even the 1942 squads aren't great.
I can pull Southwest Area Fleet from Soerabaja also, if I need to evacuate from Geraldton. I may pull it in anyway to help with unloading of reinforcements.
The goal isn't so much to take and hold this area, but to raid and plunder if possible. Kind of Viking-style. Kill the men, enthrall the women/children, and take the gold (if any). Perhaps Operation Ragnar would've been better suited, but we got quite enough of that with JocMeister's AAR, yeah? [;)].
[:D][:D]
Been reading a bit of that. It's a good one, but yes, wow, a whole lesson in norse mythology as well. I remember fist encountering some of the CVs!!
Sounds better with 5 IDs!
Landing at Geraldton is better, but gives him more time too. i doubt Kalgoorlie will be undefended.
This will be interesting!
I'm landing at Geraldton because I know I can get a beachhead this way. At this stage in the war, I'm not willing to risk landing troops only to have them thrown back into the sea. It's possible that I have vastly underestimated Perth's fortifications, and I can't bank on keeping the CD guns suppressed long enough to get enough troops ashore. Not with my pitiful, no-bonus amphibious fleet of about 20 AKs, 2 LSDs, and 2-3 AMCs.
Began the approach in this last turn and am about to run the replay. He got a legitimate Sig Int hit on a task force this previous day. The day before that, one of the TFs was DL 1/0, which says to me that he got a hit on the unit being loaded on a ship. This most recent day, another DL 1/0 on a different TF and 1/1 on yet a different one. The 1/1 says to me that he got a hit on "Radio call sign of AK blahblah Maru detected at hex."
Well, I'm 2-3 days from landing. He got another DL 1/0 ping on the 4th Div's TF this time.
I just sent the August 27 turn. Looks like I'll be landing on either August 29 or August 30. I'm hoping for the 29, but it's up to the guys in TF 35 - whether they move at mission or cruise speed this turn.
A couple of 1-ship ASW TFs have ventured NW from Perth and he probably got a Val sighting with a sub about due west of Geraldton, near KB's position. Yesterday he got a sighting on Suzuya/Mogami/2 DDs with the Dutch O23, and I-11's Jake has been sighting ships near Perth. So he knows something is up. In all likelihood, he knows enough to have a general idea of what I'm up to. Night raids on Darwin by B-17s from Alice Springs didn't occur on this day, so I wonder if it's just a day of rest or if they moved to Perth...
3/5 of KB's fighters are A6M5 and 2/5 are A6M2. Planning to use A6M5 for dedicated CAP/LRCAP and the 2's for escort duty. It occurs to me that if he guns it with his ASW TFs to the NW, he could cause KB to reveal itself with a Val strike as they are on Naval Attack with 20% search.
Couple things. First, my invasion is sighted 6 hexes off of Geraldton. That's 2 hexes farther than I wanted. He also spotted KB and saw all my air groups except for Akagi's on CAP. I'll move KB closer to support as only 11 planes made LRCAP over the invasion forces. Thankfully only 4 B-17s were on Naval Attack today.
Second thing is Chungking. Guards Tank finally arrived there on August 27 so I ordered an attack for August 28. The results were extremely bloody. The combat report to follow at the end of the post as it's huge. On the plus side, Guards Tank jumped from 55 Exp to 63 Exp. That's huge! I wish Tracker tracked Experience changes for LCUs and ships. It's an important factor, I think. I'll have to keep track of some of my others.
Ground combat at Chungking (76,45)
Japanese Deliberate attack
Attacking force 353168 troops, 3657 guns, 3935 vehicles, Assault Value = 12566
Defending force 431976 troops, 1037 guns, 0 vehicles, Assault Value = 12127
Assaulting units:
15th Division
9th Division
26th Division
12th Tank Regiment
90th Infantry Regiment
6th Division
36th Division
6th Tank Regiment
7th Ind.Mixed Brigade
10th Tank Regiment
3rd Division
35th Division
40th Division
27th Electric Engineer Regiment
69th Division
2nd Recon Battalion
9th Tank Regiment
13th Ind.Mixed Brigade
1st Tank Division
2nd Mobile Infantry Regiment
37th Division
3rd Tank Regiment
14th Division
1st Ind.Mixed Brigade
15th Tank Regiment
27th Division
2nd Mobile Engineer Regiment
19th Ind. Engineer Regiment
5th Armored Car Co
13th Division
8th Division
9th Ind.Mixed Brigade
68th Division
138th Infantry Regiment
32nd Division
23rd Tank Regiment
70th Division
10th Division
41st Division
12th Division
1st Division
11th Tank Regiment
116th Division
Guards Tank Division
14th Medium Field Artillery Regiment
3rd Army
3rd Hvy.Artillery Regiment
15th Medium Field Artillery Regiment
6th Ind.Hvy.Art. Battalion
Mongol Garrison Army
4th Ind. Mountain Gun Regiment
3rd Ind.Hvy.Art. Battalion
7th Medium Field Artillery Regiment
1st Hvy.Artillery Regiment
6th JAAF Base Force
Tonei Hvy Gun Regiment
8th Ind.Hvy.Art. Battalion
North China Area Army
Botanko Hvy Gun Regiment
2nd Mobile AA Battalion
13th Mortar Battalion
4th Medium Field Artillery Regiment
20th Medium Field Artillery Regiment
4th Ind.Hvy.Art. Battalion
34th Const Co
22nd Medium Field Artillery Regiment
6th Medium Field Artillery Regiment
2nd Mortar Battalion
2nd Hvy.Artillery Regiment
NCPC Army
2nd Mobile Field Artillery Regiment
10th Mortar Battalion
20th Ind. Mtn Gun Battalion
13th Ind.Hvy.Art Battalion
20th Army
23rd Army
5th Medium Field Artillery Regiment
RGC Army
10th Mortar Battalion
5th Ind.Hvy.Art Battalion
13th Army
12th Ind.Art.Mortar Battalion
1st Army
1st Ind.Hvy.Art. Battalion
7th Ind.Hvy.Art. Battalion
15th Ind.Medium Field Artillery Regiment
12th Medium Field Artillery Regiment
6th Army
201st JAAF AF Bn
Defending units:
73rd Chinese Corps
5th Chinese Cavalry Corps
20th Chinese Corps
12th Chinese Corps
62nd Chinese Corps
47th Chinese Corps
46th Chinese Corps
63rd Chinese Corps
2nd Prov Chinese Corps
3rd Chinese Corps
71st Chinese Corps
65th Chinese Corps
81st Chinese Corps
88th Chinese Corps
82nd Chinese Corps
91st Chinese Corps
8th Route Army
41st Chinese Corps
51st Chinese Corps
9th Chinese Corps
27th Chinese Corps
89th Chinese Corps
80th Chinese Corps
7th New Chinese Corps
28th Chinese Corps
5th New Chinese Corps
93rd Chinese Corps
38th Chinese Corps
45th Chinese Corps
100th Chinese Corps
7th Chinese Corps
19th Chinese Corps
59th Chinese Corps
83rd Chinese Corps
40th Chinese Corps
2nd Chinese Corps
37th Chinese Corps
57th Chinese Corps
86th Chinese Corps
35th Chinese Corps
6th Chinese Corps
36th Chinese Corps
85th Chinese Corps
30th Chinese Corps
60th Chinese Corps
84th Chinese Corps
87th Chinese Corps
17th Chinese Corps
11th Chinese Corps
58th Chinese Corps
90th Chinese Corps
21st Chinese Corps
2nd Chinese Cavalry Corps
94th Chinese Corps
76th Chinese Corps
52nd Chinese Corps
39th Chinese Corps
56th Chinese Corps
61st Chinese Corps
8th New Chinese Corps
43rd Chinese Corps
23rd Chinese Corps
98th Chinese Corps
42nd Chinese Corps
14th Chinese Corps
16th Chinese Corps
3rd Chinese Cavalry Corps
31st Chinese Corps
68th Chinese Corps
48th Chinese Corps
74th Chinese Corps
70th Chinese Corps
32nd Chinese Corps
15th Chinese Corps
4th Chinese Cavalry Corps
3rd Prov Chinese Corps
75th Chinese Corps
50th Chinese Corps
34th Chinese Corps
29th Chinese Corps
13th Chinese Corps
92nd Chinese Corps
66th Chinese Corps
24th Group Army
10th Group Army
Central Reserve
13th Chinese Base Force
8th War Area
16th Construction Regiment
CAF HQ
20th Artillery Regiment
8th Chinese Base Force
34th Group Army
8th Construction Regiment
36th Group Army
22nd Chinese Corps
69th Chinese Corps
7th War Area
12th Construction Regiment
5th Chinese Base Force
49th AA Regiment
22nd Artillery Regiment
12th Chinese Base Force
18th Group Army
4th Chinese Base Force
8th Group Army
China Command
26th Group Army
7th Construction Regiment
3rd Heavy Mortar Regiment
14th Chinese Base Force
23rd Group Army
10th Chinese Base Force
1st War Area
4th Group Army
3rd War Area
6th War Area
19th Chinese Base Force
1st Chinese Base Force
15th Group Army
1st Artillery Regiment
2nd Construction Regiment
18th Chinese Base Force
11th Group Army
5th War Area
17th Chinese Base Force
14th Construction Regiment
2nd Chinese Base Force
Lusu War Area
3rd Group Army
39th Group Army
303rd Brigade
31st Group Army
32nd Group Army
10th Construction Regiment
6th Chinese Base Force
21st Group Army
27th Group Army
34th Separate Brigade
25th Group Army
9th Chinese Base Force
14th Group Army
17th Group Army
9th Separate Brigade
13th Group Army
37th Group Army
41st AA Regiment
6th Construction Regiment
15th Chinese Base Force
4th War Area
7th Artillery Regiment
4th Construction Regiment
259th Brigade
57th AT Gun Regiment
2nd Group Army
3rd Construction Regiment
4th Heavy Mortar Regiment
9th War Area
22nd Group Army
1st Construction Regiment
29th Group Army
33rd Group Army
Jingcha War Area
2nd War Area
18th Artillery Regiment
56th AT Gun Regiment
Perhaps my own experiances with the Chungking meatgrinder has made me...care less about losses, but...
Japanese ground losses:
36254 casualties reported
Squads: 229 destroyed, 2929 disabled
Non Combat: 11 destroyed, 422 disabled
Engineers: 51 destroyed, 512 disabled
Guns lost 417 (17 destroyed, 400 disabled)
Vehicles lost 486 (24 destroyed, 462 disabled)
About a small divisions worth of outright losses, and a great deal of disablements. Divide the divisions into A/B/C components, and you'll recover disablements in no time.
Check your units to make sure that there aren't any completely trashed units. If there are, send them for some R&R in the rear or buy them out for the Pacific. Nothing says R&R quite like garrison duty on a Pacific Island at the expense of His Imperial Majesty.
That's 20k troops that won't recover. Not dropping the forts is a big downside, but battering away at Chungking is like chipping away at the foundation of a skyscraper: you chip away and don't see much in the way of results, and then suddenly it all collapses.
Perhaps my own experiances with the Chungking meatgrinder has made me...care less about losses, but...
Japanese ground losses:
36254 casualties reported
Squads: 229 destroyed, 2929 disabled
Non Combat: 11 destroyed, 422 disabled
Engineers: 51 destroyed, 512 disabled
Guns lost 417 (17 destroyed, 400 disabled)
Vehicles lost 486 (24 destroyed, 462 disabled)
About a small divisions worth of outright losses, and a great deal of disablements. Divide the divisions into A/B/C components, and you'll recover disablements in no time.
Check your units to make sure that there aren't any completely trashed units. If there are, send them for some R&R in the rear or buy them out for the Pacific. Nothing says R&R quite like garrison duty on a Pacific Island at the expense of His Imperial Majesty.
That's 20k troops that won't recover. Not dropping the forts is a big downside, but battering away at Chungking is like chipping away at the foundation of a skyscraper: you chip away and don't see much in the way of results, and then suddenly it all collapses.
Didn't I teach you about the dividing trick? [;)]
Yeah. I told Bullwinkle in an email that there was some excitement and I was a little disappointed, but not entirely. I have no way of knowing which 3 units of his that I destroyed - the animation only shows the first 30 units, and those are all HQs. If I destroyed squad-type units, I could be seeing an actual increase in his troop levels after 30 days. Overall, this is an acceptable attack despite the lack of a drop in forts.
Mostly, I'm excited about the guns. I know his guns have been giving me issues. And I will find out on the upcoming turn how much AV I wiped out. Mine recovers. His won't. Eventually, this will lead to higher attack odds and higher odds drop forts even if your engineers don't. It's why tanks run rough-shod over the Chinese everywhere else.
Also pleased with the experience gains, especially for Guards Tank. It only lost about 30 vehicles disabled and a couple of motorized support destroyed, so that 8 Exp gain isn't going to get wiped out by taking replacements.
I do have to send a couple of my independent regiments to Neikiang to R&R. They're in single-digit AV, thankfully mostly disabled but they've still got to get out or they won't be ready for the next attack. My AV this turn is down to 8887 - about 3500 down. In my experience, the divisions with the best commanders recover rather quickly. Unfortunately I don't have enough good commanders to go around (good = 62+ Insp/Admin/Land) and some of my divisions have guys with 60+ Insp/Land (for the attacks) but only 50s Inspiration. These divisions, even when split, seem to repair themselves at least 50% slower. My 68th/69th/70th Divisions have these poor commanders. They're smaller divisions so I'm less willing to use a superior commander on them.
All that said about leaders, I am also disappointed I didn't get a leaders(+). And who knows, maybe I didn't pass the die roll for HQ bonuses. CEA HQ is at Kweiyang (well within the 9-hex command radius) and fully prepped, and I have other HQs in-hex fully prepped. Does anybody know what attribute the HQs need to have to have a better chance of passing? Is it Land or Leadership? Or something else?
All the brigades/regiments need to move out to repair faster. A couple still had 120+ AV, but with 80 disabled squads I'll send them 2 hexes to the nearest uncontested base (Neikiang). The pieces of 2nd Tank Division (one of the regiments was still helping with mop-up around Palembang but is heading to Hong Kong now) need to move out as well. I only have 2 independent engineer regiments here, as I'm relying mainly on embedded combat engineers to drop forts. With this many divisions, I was hoping they'd do it this time... One of those units needs to go to Kweiyang where CEA is at, because it needs about 20 new squads.
Disruption/fatigue on all units is around 90. Good thing I'm not really concerned about an attack on his part.
I ran down the numbers on all of my divisions in the hex and compared to the previous day's interim save. Also marked down how many missing devices from each division, and it was 2 or less in every case - most of my losses were in smaller units, which isn't surprising at all. I know they all took replacements this turn as it says Replacements delayed 2 days, but I don't know of any way to find out how many they took.
(Apparently if you use the 'code' tag it screws with formatting)
The missing devices from 1st Tank Division are almost all motorized support (74) or AT guns (11). They've been missing since I combined the unit, slowly filling out.
So what's really of note here, to me, is that since repairing disabled devices doesn't (to my knowledge) drop the XP of units... Only a few of my divisions risk dropping a point of XP when they take replacements. The 90th Regiment was in perfect shape going into the attack and got really beat up. It lost a point of XP, too. Presumably from taking replacements this turn.
I know they all took replacements this turn as it says Replacements delayed 2 days, but I don't know of any way to find out how many they took.
As long as there is a history, i.e. before you break a division down into thirds, you can see the reinforcements on the LCU page of tracker. Try using the buttons on the bottom I recall.
I know they all took replacements this turn as it says Replacements delayed 2 days, but I don't know of any way to find out how many they took.
As long as there is a history, i.e. before you break a division down into thirds, you can see the reinforcements on the LCU page of tracker. Try using the buttons on the bottom I recall.
The "formation" button.
Hrm. Perhaps, but the Replacements Phase is after Land Move/Attack Phase in the turn order. I think what happened is all the units suffered disabled/destroyed devices during the Move/Attack Phase and then the Replacements Phase occurred (before the day changed to 8/28 and I loaded into Tracker) and they all took replacements. Since IJA devices work on a demand vs. ARM/VEH points basis (and I have plenty of ARM/VEH points), pools don't really build up in my experience. Things just "appear" in units. They may appear in the pools for a turn, however... I forget if Production is before or after Replacements.
I suppose, as a kludgey estimate, I could look at how much Manpower was deducted from my pool this past turn. I would've used some to change a factory from size 21 to 30 (I let an A6M3a R&D factory upgrade to A6M5 and had to change it back, oops...), but the rest of the Manpower usage would've been for replacements.
All that said about leaders, I am also disappointed I didn't get a leaders(+). And who knows, maybe I didn't pass the die roll for HQ bonuses. CEA HQ is at Kweiyang (well within the 9-hex command radius) and fully prepped, and I have other HQs in-hex fully prepped. Does anybody know what attribute the HQs need to have to have a better chance of passing? Is it Land or Leadership? Or something else?
A sentiment echoed in my own AAR. Pretty much everyone in command of a division and above is well suited for the role, yet I'm not getting the rolls modifing my AV nor the + leaders bonus.
Also, using anything smaller than a brigade in Chungking is going to give you a lot of wasted units. The ground combat engine just doesn't like small units in big battles. Regiments are perfect for atoll defence, not urban seiges.
All that said about leaders, I am also disappointed I didn't get a leaders(+). And who knows, maybe I didn't pass the die roll for HQ bonuses. CEA HQ is at Kweiyang (well within the 9-hex command radius) and fully prepped, and I have other HQs in-hex fully prepped. Does anybody know what attribute the HQs need to have to have a better chance of passing? Is it Land or Leadership? Or something else?
A sentiment echoed in my own AAR. Pretty much everyone in command of a division and above is well suited for the role, yet I'm not getting the rolls modifing my AV nor the + leaders bonus.
Also, using anything smaller than a brigade in Chungking is going to give you a lot of wasted units. The ground combat engine just doesn't like small units in big battles. Regiments are perfect for atoll defence, not urban seiges.
I know they'll get chewed up. Only 2 of those brigades don't build into divisions, and several are 200+ AV by themselves. It's possible that my divisions will be recuperated before the smaller units are. In any case, they haven't cost me that much as I didn't suffer that many actual destroyed devices - it costs less supply to repair from disabled.
Another factor is that, depending on the order of attack in the combat, the smaller units may be taking some heat off of my divisions. It's anecdotal, but the extremely light losses in terms of destroyed devices in my divisions leads me to believe that this may be the case. In previous attacks with divisions only, I've actually suffered destroyed devices. In this one, I suffered less than 25 among all of the divisions? That's really, really light. Sure, a lot of disabled, but those come back rather quickly.
The brigades/regiments will stay because they're 100% prepped and I want their AV to be calculated into the attack odds. We'll see if my thinking is still the same after this round of recovery.
Overall, I think I may have made a strategic mistake here.
First, going in, I had one of those days where lots of stuff just goes wrong. In order:
* The initial invasion TF, with CLs and a couple DDs set to merge into it to soak up 4"/6" CD gunfire, runs into 12 PTs. 1 AK is sunk, another slightly damaged. And then the TF CO, with an Absolute threat tolerance, runs for Soerabaja. Thanks, guy!
* This causes the 18th Division, which is prepped for Perth (my mistake there, really) to hit the beaches first. 2/3 of the squads are disabled upon landing, with many hundreds disabled from CD gunfire.
* 33rd Division lands mostly intact, and with some supply. This is good, at least.
* Bad weather over my TFs seemed to be messing with my CAP. I get lucky and not many ships are hit by bombs, but only 11 Zeroes were on LRCAP over the amphibs and only 19 Zeroes show up on CAP over KB. What the hell? On successive days, CAP is better. I did change some settings, but nothing major - just switched which group was flying CAP and which LRCAP and which stood down for escorting.
* Bombardment destroys over a dozen Allied planes on the ground, but I made it a day bombardment so they all got to strike at me first... I think the Geraldton AF was overstacked this first day. He rectifies this on day 2, as the bombardments don't do much and fewer planes come at me.
I got 650 AV on the ground. Bombardment reveals the 32nd US Infantry Division is present, along with supporting units. And 2 CD Gun units. This is really going to hurt me on August 29, when I will lost 10 ships (mostly xAKs) to CD fire alone.
August 29
This day is really hairy. No less than 6 first rate cruisers and 6 DDs run into my 4 Mogamis and 2 DDs at 26,000 yards during the day. My Mogamis do their job of keeping the SC TF away from the transports, but Kumano has to be scuttled on August 30. Mikuma later gets hit by 3 bombs from SBDs and likely won't make it (71 Sys, 58 Fires) but I will try. In exchange, I hit a couple of his cruisers with minor shell hits. Oh, and I lost DD Maikaze. These cruisers of his were last sighted 4-5 weeks ago by Calcutta (same ships I think, at least some of them).
2 subs, I-123 and I-11, are each hit pretty hard by DCs. So 40% of my sub hulls are heading back to Soerabaja.
During the two days of aerial scraps, I lose somewhere between 10 and 20 Zeroes, and shoot down about 100 Allied aircraft. I lose 9 Vals to flak on Day 2. KB was not set to naval strike on Day 2 - on purpose as I wanted to be sure I hit Geraldton with my Kates/1 Val unit (rest set to ASW) - so his cruisers get away clean.
I manage to get up to 1000 AV on day 2 of the landings, and he shock attacks me. This saves my butt. He gets 1:16 odds, and over 4000 Allies are dead or disabled for just a couple hundred IJA. He had a disruption penalty. I still have 900 AV the next day, but only 5k supplies on the beach. Enough to try an attack, maybe two, but that's it... I need the base to fall or I've likely just sent most of 3 divisions to their deaths, along with 2 engineer units, 2 AF units, 1 arty unit, and 1 HQ. I'm pleased with how much made it onto the beach, despite the CD gunfire, but now I need to salvage something from this.
Basically, I should have brought the whole IJN for this. I don't know what I was thinking [;)].
For August 30:
What's left on the transports (mostly motorized support and supply) doesn't justify taking another 10 ships in CD gunfire losses, plus my SC TF ammo is mostly spent. I need to withdraw to the NW and see if the LCUs already on the ground can accomplish anything. If so, I can fly in my planes and move back in with my transports, allowing KB to switch to a naval attack role completely while the IJAAF flies CAP over Geraldton. If that can happen, I might be in decent shape.
Sometimes, I think we are own worst enemies here. Allies went for the knockout with that shock attack, instead of the slow grinding assault. You got really lucky there.
What will you do if the ground combat can't accomplish anything?
Tough landing. I've been looking at those CD guns in OZ, and they are good. A few units of 16 x 6" guns each.
I know a lot of players use certain groups for CAP and others for escort. I've aways had better luck putting everyone on between 30-50% CAP and the rest escort. Also, even when hitting an airfield, it's always secondary option for most groups, even if one or two are airfield strike only, just so in the case of naval units being present, the KB will strike hard.
If your guys can take the base you at least can pick the up again. You could also take Carnarvon and try to move some tanks in to try to open the hex side if they can't take Geraldton.
"Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm." - Winston Churchill
Tough landing. I've been looking at those CD guns in OZ, and they are good. A few units of 16 x 6" guns each.
I know a lot of players use certain groups for CAP and others for escort. I've aways had better luck putting everyone on between 30-50% CAP and the rest escort. Also, even when hitting an airfield, it's always secondary option for most groups, even if one or two are airfield strike only, just so in the case of naval units being present, the KB will strike hard.
If your guys can take the base you at least can pick the up again. You could also take Carnarvon and try to move some tanks in to try to open the hex side if they can't take Geraldton.
Before I sent in the landing turn, I looked at the Geraldton fortress. It only starts with 2 guns. He moved a USA CD unit there.
If I can't take Geraldton, Carnarvon is my alternate escape plan. I might be able to last long enough. I should have marched a couple units over land from Port Hedland to begin with, just to take advantage of opening/closing hex sides.
For the CAP, Idunno what was up with it. I had 2 units on 80% CAP, 20 rest and 2 on 50/60 LRCAP and 50/40 rest. One unit was on Escort duty in case the Kates had something to strike (nothing that first day, and I went for the AF second day).
His cruisers getting away clean stings my pride a little bit, but I'm happy that I still have 2 Mogamis, maybe 3. The actual major damage on Kumano/Mikuma was/is very light - less than 10 on Mikuma, and less than 25 on Kumano. I always feel robbed of a ship in those cases. Fires killed Kumano.
