Tales from the First Time -DanSez (J) vs Przemcio231 (A) - no Przemcio231 please

[Malagant]

Hopefully Houston will sink as well! That will be a huge burden off your shoulders to not have to worry about those two mean ships! Take some credit...you had the right forces in the right place at the right time to get the job done! Well done!

[DanSez]

Battles of Mindanao (cont)

Dec 16th
But not all was good news. My small supply and minelaying task forces are harried by another undetected group.

Night Time Surface Combat, near Davao at 80,92, Range 6,000 Yards

Japanese Ships
PB Kure Maru #5, Shell hits 10, heavy fires, heavy damage
xAK Taihei Maru, Shell hits 23, and is sunk

Allied Ships
DD John D. Ford
DD Peary
DD Pillsbury
DD Pope
DD Vampire
DD Tenedos
DD Electra
DD Express

[DanSez]

Battles of Mindanao (final act for this round)

Dec 17th

The SCFTs from Cagayan are retreating toward Babeldaob.
CA Furutaka has 8 pts System Damage
BB Hyuga has 23 Systems, 5 Engine
BB Ise has 17 System, 2 Engine
Special Attack Force DDs took a lot of damage
DD Kuretake has 28 System, 35 Float, 4 Engine
DD Sanae has 51 System, 21 Float, 22 Engine and 7 Fire.
Everyone else was 2 or less pts of damage.

Unfortunately around Davao is one last slaughtering of the supply ships:
Night Time Surface Combat, near Davao at 79,91, Range 3,000 Yards

Japanese Ships
PB Edo Maru
PB Myoken Maru, Torpedo hits 2, and is sunk
xAK Myoko Maru, Shell hits 13, Torpedo hits 1, and is sunk
xAK Shinanogawa Maru, Shell hits 7, Torpedo hits 1, heavy fires, heavy damage

Allied Ships
DD John D. Ford
DD Peary, Shell hits 1
DD Pillsbury
DD Vampire
DD Tenedos
DD Electra
DD Express

And with that, the area around Davao has been quiet outside Air Raids for the next few days.

[DanSez]

ORIGINAL: Malagant

Hopefully Houston will sink as well! That will be a huge burden off your shoulders to not have to worry about those two mean ships! Take some credit...you had the right forces in the right place at the right time to get the job done! Well done!

Both Tracker and the in game Intelligence Screen: Sunk Ships show CA Houston as sunk.
Maybe Houston was the explosion in the distance...

[Lowpe]

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

Good luck! Pound those Allies!

You are off to a good start with the POW and Repulse down, and a very good Pearl strike.

Now....sink the Boise![:D]

I pulled this from page 1 of the AAR....not only do you get the Boise, you toss in the Marblehead and maybe the Houston.

Get your subs out looking for cripples...they may try to take a route to either Darwin or Soerabaja, get the long legged search up fast and finish them off if they already aren't dead.

Look at the plane losses for the day and count up the float planes destroyed on the ground, that is a good indicator of sunk ships, however sometimes the floats divert to local bases, but it is a start.

It may seem like a pain now, but be grateful you have an Allied player that is aggressive!

[DanSez]

Back to the normal new reports for a little few post.

Dec 14
Alor Star is occupied by the Japanese
Japanese forces CAPTURE Hwaiyin !!!
Japanese forces CAPTURE Atimonan !!!

I sent the first 2 pilots to TRACOM - a pair of Army Fighter pilots.
I was thinking of putting 5-10 pilots per month until I get about 100 each Army and Navy with some mix of Fighter and Bomber.

Question of any reader knows:
Does the designation of Fighter/Bomber pilot remain when sent to TRACOM?
Is it beneficial to have an certain ratio of Fighter/Bomber pilots (like 3F to 1B) or should it be as even as possible?

I would like to reviews of all pilots (training and rotation) at the end of each month.
I am curious about a situtaion
I have an Army Sentai with pretty crappy moral. I left them on LRCAP for about 6 or so turns which I guess wore them out. So now do I need to let them rest up for a week or more -
or should I just dump those guys into the Reserve Pool and then restock the unit with relatively fresh pilots?

This unit is near the front lines so any pilot transfers might incur delays.
Is this considered 'gamey'?
Does it work?

I haven't done it yet -- just looking at my options

*********************
Oh Yeah!!!!

And thank YOU for reading.
My first AAR and now over 1000 hits.

[DanSez]

14 Dec 1941 (cont)

Air War over Malaysia -- Another Bad Day -- I did have escorts set but from other bases and few launched, so the bombers are handled roughly.

*********************
Morning Air attack on 137/155th Field Regiment, at 49,75 (Taiping)

Weather in hex: Clear sky
Raid spotted at 37 NM, estimated altitude 15,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 10 minutes

Japanese aircraft
Ki-21-IIa Sally x 21

Allied aircraft
Buffalo I x 43

Japanese aircraft losses
Ki-21-IIa Sally: 3 destroyed

*********************
Morning Air attack on 137/155th Field Regiment, at 49,75 (Taiping)

Weather in hex: Clear sky
Raid spotted at 40 NM, estimated altitude 13,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 14 minutes

Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 2
G4M1 Betty x 20

Allied aircraft
Buffalo I x 43

Japanese aircraft losses
G4M1 Betty: 3 destroyed, 5 damaged

*********************
Morning Air attack on Georgetown , at 49,74

Weather in hex: Clear sky
Raid spotted at 16 NM, estimated altitude 11,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 4 minutes

Japanese aircraft
Ki-21-IIa Sally x 27
Ki-27b Nate x 5

Allied aircraft
Buffalo I x 26

Japanese aircraft losses
Ki-21-IIa Sally: 6 damaged

************************

At this point I only had small AV/Base forces in Malaysia -- more are on the way.

[DanSez]

Dec 14, 1941
****************
Sub Wars


Heavy Action around Laoag, Philippines
****************
ASW attack near Laoag at 81,72

Japanese Ships
DD Inazuma

Allied Ships
SS Swordfish, hits 15, on fire, heavy damage
****************
ASW attack near Laoag at 81,72

Japanese Ships
DD Ikazuchi

Allied Ships
SS S-37, hits 4
****************
Sub attack near Laoag at 80,72

Japanese Ships
xAK Shinko Maru, Torpedo hits 1, on fire, heavy damage

Allied Ships
SS S-36
****************

In Malaysia:
****************
ASW attack near Singora at 51,72

Japanese Ships
DD Akatsuki

Allied Ships
SS Pike, hits 7
****************

My opponent is aggressively cramming submarines into the mouth of ports and landing areas. Very annoying to see 4 green sub icons within 2 hexes of Babeldaob or Saigon, but then again he is bringing them where I can at least fire at them.

[setloz]

Question of any reader knows:
Does the designation of Fighter/Bomber pilot remain when sent to TRACOM?
Is it beneficial to have an certain ratio of Fighter/Bomber pilots (like 3F to 1B) or should it be as even as possible?

The answer to first question is yes.
For the second one, I don't know of a link between those ratios.

I always put pilots in TRACOM to save them until the good planes come in 43-44 (Frank R/ Ki 83 and the George). Pilot training acceleration is just a nice bonus.


One thing I noticed - you are using Betties and Nells in ground bombing duty. The starting pilots in these squadrons are great, having been trained in Nav/LowN/Search skills. Some of them also have 70-80 exp. These are very hard to train on your own and you should not waste them on ground attack duties.
Let the Army boys do their thing and get the Navy flyers to attack shipping only.

Morning Air attack on 137/155th Field Regiment, at 49,75 (Taiping)
...
Japanese aircraft losses
G4M1 Betty: 3 destroyed, 5 damaged

PS. Congrats on sinking the infamous Boise. The Houston and Marblehead sinking is the icing on the cake. [:D]

[Encircled]

You need your Air HQs as far forward as you can manage.

Once you can cover landings with Bettys and Nells with torps, then the allied navies will really struggle to interdict.

Sweep, sweep, sweep, sweep, sweep and sweep with your fighters, especially the Zeros. Nothing can match them at this stage

[ny59giants]

Anything hit with a torpedo will show up as sunk regardless of the ship size. That's the way the AI rolls. [:D]

[DanSez]

ORIGINAL: ny59giants

Anything hit with a torpedo will show up as sunk regardless of the ship size. That's the way the AI rolls. [:D]

That is good to know. It might explain some results I have in another tale (Battle of Kuching) where the little DD Maikaze looks like a raging bull.

Will get to that over the next couple of days (got another turn to flip after work).

[DanSez]

ORIGINAL: setloz
The answer to first question is yes.
For the second one, I don't know of a link between those ratios.
...
One thing I noticed - you are using Betties and Nells in ground bombing duty. The starting pilots in these squadrons are great, having been trained in Nav/LowN/Search skills. Some of them also have 70-80 exp. These are very hard to train on your own and you should not waste them on ground attack duties.
Let the Army boys do their thing and get the Navy flyers to attack shipping only.


PS. Congrats on sinking the infamous Boise. The Houston and Marblehead sinking is the icing on the cake. [:D]

Thanks for the answer and replies.

Yes I have been pulling back on using Bettys for ground attacks -- this one slipped by the sensors. Nells are not being used for ground attacks anywhere.

I hope both the Houston and Marblehead are sleeping with the fish. The next phase of attacks in the Davao area are just leaving Babeldaob, with better carrier support than just the Taiyo.

[DanSez]

ORIGINAL: Encircled

You need your Air HQs as far forward as you can manage.

Once you can cover landings with Bettys and Nells with torps, then the allied navies will really struggle to interdict.

Sweep, sweep, sweep, sweep, sweep and sweep with your fighters, especially the Zeros. Nothing can match them at this stage

21st Air Flotilla now at Babeldaob and a couple of smaller JAAF type support elements landed or are nearly there.

Timing is critical and something you see in the master game players. I am still busting my knuckles on the door of knowledge.

Speaking of sweep sweep sweep - 3 full sentai of Oscars getting ready to fly over Singapore in the next couple of game days. Army bombers moved and moving into the initial landing sites as well to start pounding the lower part of the Malaysian Peninsula.

[Lowpe]

AA at Singers will be nasty, so fly high...maybe 20K+, bomb the airfields to keep fort building to a minimal, but only unleash them after some good sweeps.

[DanSez]

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

AA at Singers will be nasty, so fly high...maybe 20K+, bomb the airfields to keep fort building to a minimal, but only unleash them after some good sweeps.

Thanks for the warning - I hope to sweep only for the near time and try to bomb his defensive lines and retreating troops as I advance down Malaysia.

Do you recommend night bombing Singers to reduce morale?
Hate to start that up, but I'm sure to get more than my fair share of it.

[ny59giants]

IMO, its more important to damage the AFs at Singapore and prevent fort building than it is to bomb his retreating troops. Second, ONLY enter Singapore with FULL divisions. If you go in with brigades and/or divisional components, those LCUs will get trashed when you attack. Got the scars from doing it. Even if you go in with full divisions, plan on one of them to become severely disabled when the shock attack occurs. This doesn't always happen, but it occurs more often than you would think.

[Lowpe]

Absolutely concur, don't waste planes bombing his troops in the jungle while Singers is digging in. Priority one is sweeps and second priority is stop fort building at Singers.

[DanSez]

Thanks for the replies on Singers.[&o]

As soon as I get a turn or two of sweeps over Singers, I will shift most of the bombing there.

[DanSez]

I will give general game updates for the next couple of days until the next big clash occurs on the 19th. At that time I will go back and review the moves and tactics of that naval action.

Dec 15th
Top of the New Report:
Japanese forces CAPTURE Shortlands !!!

Babeldaob expands airfield to size 4

(recall 21st Air Flotilla in route)
I continue to expand Babeldaob AF and port. Is that a good use of supplies at this point? I needed to get the AF to level four at least.

Air Wars
He has been effectively harassing me in the Philippines, so I thought I would give this a try. Raid size-wise very appropriate for this stage of the war.
Night Air attack on Batangas , at 79,78
Weather in hex: Moderate rain

Raid spotted at 29 NM, estimated altitude 12,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 10 minutes

Japanese aircraft
G4M1 Betty x 8
I know, in hind-sight I should not be using Betty for this, I am learning to change my ways. This report is about 10 game days behind current play. I do appreciate the coaching efforts from the readers.

There is a lot of other action going on – peasants troops dying from air raids in China, regular bombing and sweeping in Malaysia (not in Singers yet – due to range and moving HQs). Moving on…