Return of the Sheep! - JocMeister(A) vs. MrKane(J)

[JocMeister]

[font="Verdana"] May 25th -42 [/font]
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More to the confusion!

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China
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Tom has cleared out the Changsha basin. First units have reached Chungking where I decided to hold with 1700 AV. I can still pull out to the south. At least for now. Bombers have already started wrecking havoc on the troops. Despit level 6 forts I´m suffering a couple of hundred losses each turn. No AA present...at was destroyed in the rout. I have 20 supply in the base... some units have a little supply but most have 0. [8|]

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SOPAC
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I might have gotten a whiff of the KB this turn. If it is the KB he has moved North indeed. I´m starting to lean towards the idea that he will actually go ahead with the Samoan operation. Starting to worry I may have missed a lot of units that are prepping and whatnot.

If he does I will lose Upolo. Savaii will be touch and go will I feel confident Pago Pago can withstand anything less then 3 IDs. I hope a combination of forts and terrain (Jungle x2) will lessen the effects of bombardments.

Question, does Japan have enough AE/AKEs to rearm a couple of BBs at level 1 port? If not he will have to head back to Noumea to rearm.

I wouldn´t mind 2-3 more weeks to allow more troops to arrive though...

Fiji are back in allied hands for now.

Ground combat at Nadi (131,160)

Allied Deliberate attack

Attacking force 10091 troops, 131 guns, 42 vehicles, Assault Value = 460

Defending force 1756 troops, 9 guns, 0 vehicles, Assault Value = 59

Allied adjusted assault: 225

Japanese adjusted defense: 15

Allied assault odds: 15 to 1 (fort level 2)

Allied forces CAPTURE Nadi !!!

Combat modifiers
Defender: terrain(+), leaders(-), preparation(-), experience(-)
Attacker:

Japanese ground losses:
215 casualties reported
Squads: 1 destroyed, 32 disabled
Non Combat: 0 destroyed, 1 disabled
Engineers: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled
Guns lost 3 (1 destroyed, 2 disabled)

Allied ground losses:
91 casualties reported
Squads: 0 destroyed, 9 disabled
Non Combat: 0 destroyed, 2 disabled
Engineers: 0 destroyed, 4 disabled

Assaulting units:
7th Marine Regiment
24th (Sep) Infantry Regiment
102nd Cmbt Engineer Regiment
641st Towed Tank Destroyer Battalion
8th NZ Brigade

Defending units:
64th Naval Guard Unit

Forts at Suva reach 5. I´m sending some engineers to Nadi right away to quickly get at least some forts up. Now I need some luck and pray that Tom doesn´t have a massive hammer prepped and ready for Nadi and/or Suva.

[offenseman]

It is very possible that he has AKEs able to rearm BBs. There are plenty of those ships available and they take only a few weeks to convert.

[ny59giants]

I usually convert 6 Lima Class xAKs to AKEs within the first week. They will help.

[Sangeli]

The fact Nadi had only a single naval guard unit tells me that Japan is probably not really interested in Fiji. Given the situation in Australia I think you can bank on the KB being restricted to supporting the Aussie forces and limited raiding; supporting another major invasion is out of the question. Honestly he's probably more concerned about you setting up defensive positions in the New Hebrides like Tanna than the other way around.

[JocMeister]

Thanks for the info on the AKEs. Thats a bit worrying. But in my experience even using a great number of AE/AKEs rearming 4-6 BBs will take a couple of turns.

ORIGINAL: Sangeli

The fact Nadi had only a single naval guard unit tells me that Japan is probably not really interested in Fiji. Given the situation in Australia I think you can bank on the KB being restricted to supporting the Aussie forces and limited raiding; supporting another major invasion is out of the question. Honestly he's probably more concerned about you setting up defensive positions in the New Hebrides like Tanna than the other way around.

Yeah, I found that odd. The only thing that makes sense is if he intends to knock out Pago Pago first and then take Suva/Nadi at his leisure.

[koniu]

ORIGINAL: JocMeister

Thanks for the info on the AKEs. Thats a bit worrying. But in my experience even using a great number of AE/AKEs rearming 4-6 BBs will take a couple of turns.

My experience is different.
Usually i was able to rearm 4BB TF in single day using 3 AKE (Lima class), and it was after bombardment mission.

[JocMeister]

ORIGINAL: koniu

ORIGINAL: JocMeister

Thanks for the info on the AKEs. Thats a bit worrying. But in my experience even using a great number of AE/AKEs rearming 4-6 BBs will take a couple of turns.

My experience is different.
Usually i was able to rearm 4BB TF in single day using 3 AKE (Lima class), and it was after bombardment mission.

Ouch, that doesn´t sound good for me!

[JocMeister]

[font="Verdana"]Japanese plans[/font]
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I´m getting more and more confused about Toms intentions. I´ve been pouring over Intel Monkey trying to find a clue but I come up short.

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Samoans
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-I have the 48th planning for Upolo
-16th + 14th Army HQ and 2 Heavy Artillery units planning for Pago Pago.
-2 Artillery units planning for Savaii. Possibly an ID planning for here as well.

All these are fairly recent in SIGINT. The earliest one is on the 14th Army HQ on the 30th April. I hope that means they have some time before fully prepped. One of the Artillery units prepping for Pago Pago was found by SIGINT moving to Rabaul last turn.

Question for the JFBs: How much would be reasonable to expect him to be able to lift in one go? Can he lift 3 IDs + support troops this deep in SOPAC? Would it be reasonable to expect him to wait for a full prepp before trying to land? Personally I have bad experiences trying to land semi prepped when enemy troops are present on the landing site. Thoughts and experiences from JFBs on this?

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Western OZ
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-4th ID + 10th Guards Mixed BDE planning for Perth

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IDs unaccounted for
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-2nd ID (last seen on Java)
-33rd ID (last known location 33/B at Noumea)
-55th ID (never found, probably not rebuilt)
-56th ID (last seen on Java)

[JeffroK]

ORIGINAL: JocMeister

ORIGINAL: Sangeli

The fact Nadi had only a single naval guard unit tells me that Japan is probably not really interested in Fiji. Given the situation in Australia I think you can bank on the KB being restricted to supporting the Aussie forces and limited raiding; supporting another major invasion is out of the question. Honestly he's probably more concerned about you setting up defensive positions in the New Hebrides like Tanna than the other way around.

Yeah, I found that odd. The only thing that makes sense is if he intends to knock out Pago Pago first and then take Suva/Nadi at his leisure.

He could also be trying to get your attention in the wrong area, allocate some Divs to prep for the area, land a sacrifice which attracted your Cv's and a couple of Divisions only to land elsewhere.

His Divs preppped for the SOPAC area could be second wave of an invasion where lack of prep pts doesnt hurt. Have you seen any sigint for "minor" ports where he can easily pick up the port then land his second wave easily.

I could be totally wrong.

[Sangeli]

ORIGINAL: JocMeister

[font="Verdana"]Japanese plans[/font]
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I´m getting more and more confused about Toms intentions. I´ve been pouring over Intel Monkey trying to find a clue but I come up short.

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Samoans
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-I have the 48th planning for Upolo
-16th + 14th Army HQ and 2 Heavy Artillery units planning for Pago Pago.
-2 Artillery units planning for Savaii. Possibly an ID planning for here as well.

Well you've detected 4 units prepping for Pago Pago. What do they have in common? NONE of them have any AV. Moreover, prepping army HQs won't really have any real sort of impact on the battle making the prep near meaningless...except in giving away your intentions. If you ask me it seems the Pago Pago preparations are just a ruse. In fact they all might be ruses as prepping is really only important if you have to make an opposed landing which is only necessary for Pago Pago. I mean the IJN landed a naval guard unit in Fiji no problem; why would need to prep for Savaii? Most likely he started prepping all these units for Fiji and Samoa to distract you from the main event in mainland Australia. Certainly seems to be working as well.

[JocMeister]

ORIGINAL: JeffK

He could also be trying to get your attention in the wrong area, allocate some Divs to prep for the area, land a sacrifice which attracted your Cv's and a couple of Divisions only to land elsewhere.

His Divs preppped for the SOPAC area could be second wave of an invasion where lack of prep pts doesnt hurt. Have you seen any sigint for "minor" ports where he can easily pick up the port then land his second wave easily.

I could be totally wrong.

Well, thats a thought. But the only major place I know of that he can land without prepp is OZ. And if he was coming full speed ahead for OZ why didn´t he go right away in his first landing?

Regardning "minor" places I havn´t found any SIGINT at all. Of course I could have missed something but I have been through the intel reports over 10 times in the last couple of day.

One possibility is of course that he simply prep those troops "in case of" but he intends to use them defensively for now. Personally I would be uncomfortable landing in the Samoans if I were him.

- To my knowledge he has never reconned any of the bases there so he is going in completely blind.
- Pago Pago and Savaii are level 4 AFs.
- He knows my CVs are in the area and he will be forced to use KB initially to cover the Amphibs.
- No friendly AF within range.
- Major Allied forces behind him on Fiji.
- He should be spotted perhaps as much as 5-7 days before he can land.
- He knows there has been A LOT of allied shipping in the area and should presume major allied defenses are present.

But I´m a pretty cautious guy. Perhaps he is counting on the IJN to simply drive off the Allied CVs.

ORIGINAL: Sangeli
Well you've detected 4 units prepping for Pago Pago. What do they have in common? NONE of them have any AV. Moreover, prepping army HQs won't really have any real sort of impact on the battle making the prep near meaningless...except in giving away your intentions. If you ask me it seems the Pago Pago preparations are just a ruse. In fact they all might be ruses as prepping is really only important if you have to make an opposed landing which is only necessary for Pago Pago. I mean the IJN landed a naval guard unit in Fiji no problem; why would need to prep for Savaii? Most likely he started prepping all these units for Fiji and Samoa to distract you from the main event in mainland Australia. Certainly seems to be working as well.

Ah, sorry I should have been clearer. The 16th and 48th are infantry divisions!

[Encircled]

How much would be reasonable to expect him to be able to lift in one go? Can he lift 3 IDs + support troops this deep in SOPAC? Would it be reasonable to expect him to wait for a full prepp before trying to land? Personally I have bad experiences trying to land semi prepped when enemy troops are present on the landing site. Thoughts and experiences from JFBs on this?

He's got the shipping capacity.

Might be an idea to ask Greyjoy how prepared his units were when he landed in the teeth of a strong allied force at Geraldton and took it without heavy casualties?

[aztez]

Hmmmm.. intresting stuff! [:)]

I doubt you signit is completely false here since it has numerous references towards Samoa and Fiji.

My wild guess he is going for broke there and soon landing on either/both targets.

Never played this guy and he is definately good opponent but he seems to be rolling the dice that you wohn't interfere with your carriers and surface assets here.

Than again I might be completely wrong on all of the above! [:D] ...just my gut feeling...

[Lowpe]

Opposed invasions: it depends on how many troops you will face and whether or not they are suppressed. 50% would be my low number scaling up to higher percentages depending upon the relative strength of each side. Having said that, I did an opposed landing at a little more than 30 percent prep...follow up waves of landings suffered less even with lower prep.

Japan, as mention, easily has the lift to a multiple division attack. You hardly have sunk anything.[:(]

[offenseman]

Try to make an educated guess as to if units prepping have been bought out or not. Many have prepped restricted units as maskirovka. That said, this does not seem to be the case since those units largely start unrestricted. 10th Guards being an exception. When he went into Oz as lightly as he did, I suspected he was going to go after Perth as well to starve the island out. He is perhaps hoping to draw your forces away to defend SE Oz and leave the west coast empty to the point where 4th Div and the Guards BDE can handle things.

With the KB missing and where it was when it was last reported, it is possible he met some AOs and is sending them south of Oz and to the Perth area. And lets face it, he made sure they were seen.

regarding shipping. With few losses sustained Japan has a lot of sealift capacity. More if he has converted many ships to xAK-t

[JocMeister]

ORIGINAL: aztez

Hmmmm.. intresting stuff! [:)]

I doubt you signit is completely false here since it has numerous references towards Samoa and Fiji.

My wild guess he is going for broke there and soon landing on either/both targets.

Never played this guy and he is definately good opponent but he seems to be rolling the dice that you wohn't interfere with your carriers and surface assets here.

Than again I might be completely wrong on all of the above! [:D] ...just my gut feeling...

Yeah, I don´t think he would "waste" at least two unrestricted IDs doing false intel. Not unless he has actually switched to the defensive.

My gut also tells me he is coming. I think for Pago Pago. He has the best prepp level there. If he is successful he can easily deal with Suva after that.

Definitively going to commit my CVs if I think the Samoans are in danger of falling. Or if a really good opportunity presents itself!

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

Opposed invasions: it depends on how many troops you will face and whether or not they are suppressed. 50% would be my low number scaling up to higher percentages depending upon the relative strength of each side. Having said that, I did an opposed landing at a little more than 30 percent prep...follow up waves of landings suffered less even with lower prep.

Japan, as mention, easily has the lift to a multiple division attack. You hardly have sunk anything.[:(]

In the Samoans he will be landing against heavy forts (hope to get them to level 6) with good troops. I would have liked more AV on Savaii but there is none to be had. I have almost nothing on Upolu so he should be able to secure that.

ORIGINAL: offenseman

Try to make an educated guess as to if units prepping have been bought out or not. Many have prepped restricted units as maskirovka. That said, this does not seem to be the case since those units largely start unrestricted. 10th Guards being an exception. When he went into Oz as lightly as he did, I suspected he was going to go after Perth as well to starve the island out. He is perhaps hoping to draw your forces away to defend SE Oz and leave the west coast empty to the point where 4th Div and the Guards BDE can handle things.

With the KB missing and where it was when it was last reported, it is possible he met some AOs and is sending them south of Oz and to the Perth area. And lets face it, he made sure they were seen.

regarding shipping. With few losses sustained Japan has a lot of sealift capacity. More if he has converted many ships to xAK-t

Unless I missed something no prep on restricted units outside China. 10th Guards he must have bought out really early because they were on a boat very early in the game.

Yeah, could be a feint of course. But the 4th ID and the guards BDE can´t take the Perth region alone. He needs more troops for that... can´t figure this out and it sucks having to defend on 3 locations (Fiji, Samoans and Perth).

Interestingly enough I see very little moving for Burma. Only 2 IDs found there. Possible three... Started prepping 1800 AV for Rangoon this turn...if Tom continues to send everything down into SOPAC I may be able to land directly in Rangoon later in 42...

[Lokasenna]

It's entirely possible to have oodles of AKs, AMCs, and LSDs. Sighted them anywhere recently? They're all fast (18 or 20 knots) and with good capacity. Even AVs will load the cargo portion of units, and unload at the commissioned rate of 600. Chances are that if you haven't sighted them recently, they're staging somewhere for something.

[JocMeister]

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

It's entirely possible to have oodles of AKs, AMCs, and LSDs. Sighted them anywhere recently? They're all fast (18 or 20 knots) and with good capacity. Even AVs will load the cargo portion of units, and unload at the commissioned rate of 600. Chances are that if you haven't sighted them recently, they're staging somewhere for something.

Nope, not since he landed in OZ. He seems to move everything using hordes of PBs. A sub fired at an AK a couple of weeks ago in China Sea. But thats it.

[JocMeister]

[font="Verdana"]1st of June -42[/font]
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So we reached the 1st of June. Aircraft wise its not very exciting but the Brits start getting the Hurricane IIc which is pretty much the same as the IIb but with cannons instead of MGs.

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China
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Most of the usable Chinese units make it to the mountains. I will try something desperate here and stack as much as I dare in a 20k SL hex and see what happens. Supply is nil so I will just have to watch DIS.

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India/Burma
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I begun shifting prep from defensive targets to offensive ones. As mentioned in a post I´ve started prepping the most powerful units for Rangoon. Also prepping for Ramree and Prome. Tom looks very weak in Burma with only 3 IDs.

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Oz
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Troops are back in Melbourne and Sydney. Should be back to full strength in 7-10 days. Managed to ambush another Betty strike. Nice!

Morning Air attack on Broken Hill , at 80,160

Weather in hex: Light rain

Raid detected at 28 NM, estimated altitude 18,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 9 minutes

Japanese aircraft
G4M1 Betty x 45

Allied aircraft
P-39D Airacobra x 20
P-400 Airacobra x 14

Japanese aircraft losses
G4M1 Betty: 28 destroyed, 2 damaged

No Allied losses

Resources hits 3

I got another ID (the 56th) via SIGINT prepping for Perth. So that makes two IDs. Still not enough to be a serious threat.

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SOPAC
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Managed to fully unload everything at Suva. All units are now complete. Nice! Forts are building like crazy and are already at 3 (Nadi) and 4 (Suva). Airfield at Suva hit 4 and 150 P40s are now flying CAP over the base. I would have like to made the field B17 capable but I want the forts up to 6 before starting on the AF again.

First prep of Suva pops up just 5 days after we kicked Tom off Nadi.

4/65th Brigade is planning for an attack on Suva.

Either its a coincidence and I never picked it up before or he wasn´t expecting me to move forward here.

A new Arty unit is prepping for Pago Pago.

3rd Ind.Hvy.Art. Battalion is planning for an attack on Pago Pago.

[Lokasenna]

Hey dingleberry! I just spent 10 or so minutes typing a response to your PM, and your inbox is full...and then I lost the response. I'll have to get back to you later [:'(].