Groundhog Day! - No NJP

[Mike McCreery]

Early August 1943.

Chungking falls. NJP picked up a few thousand VP's for that. I was surprised it was not more. Now he has troops to spare. I am moving troops back into India to prepare if he chooses to attack. It would not be advisable IMO but he does have 4000AV at least now to do what he wants with.

I joked about him attacking Russia. In truth, the Russians stand ready with many in strat mode to move up north to prevent encirclement. I dont think he will go here but it is good policy to have troops ready. I have been training Russian troops and air groups since day one of the game and most are maxed out in experience. This game may go into late 1945 if not 1946 so either way it should be done.

My philosophy of this game remains unchanged. I am going to use one vector to interdict his naval forces and force an embargo of oil from Japan. If that is sucessfull then the extra troops he has will be irrelevant. He has 2 choices for most of them, use them to bolster the defenses of burma, thailand and indochina or move them off continent to bolster island defenses.

If he moves them off continent he adds fuel to the cost of supplies for those troops and risks supply shortages based on naval interdiction.

A 4 squad PT boat crew just put a torpedo into one of NJP's heavy cruisers at merauke and I have a handful of surface task forces being held away from the base just to avoid them. Thank you Mr. Kane for making the statement that you expected your PT boats torpedoes to be effective. I thought of them as a defensive weapon but they certainly work in close quarters naval combat.

[Mike McCreery]

Advance on the Bismark Sea

As predicted, NJP pretty much abandoned this area after the successful allied raids on Rabaul. I am keeping up heat by using the bombers at Port Moresby and Buna against the airfields. Just bombed a bunch of carrier planes at Rabaul this last turn.

The objective now is to advance as quickly as possible until further resistance.

I have an amphibious task force of a division headed to Hansa Bay. This is a dot hex just above Madang. Scouting shows a small unit there, hopefully a naval guard unit. This base is important as it can be increased to a level 9 airfield. They should arrive and start landing in 2 days.

In the meantime, I have another small amphibous force running up north to drop units at Mussau island north of Kavieng. That will discourage any Japanese shipping from trying to re-supply the main island(s).

Another force is headed somewhere, I keep changing it.

This is all a prelude to a 100% prepped division landing at Namatani in 4 days. This division will have at least 4 tank units with it along with multiple combat engineers. My surveys show almost no vehicles at Namatani and/or Kavieng so I am going to try to take this island first. The 6th army whatever will accompany with motorized support and I will add at least 4 or more artillery units. I hope to take the island relatively quickly. There is another division somewhere prepped for Kavieng and I will bring it on once Namatani falls.

[Mike McCreery]

On the west side of New Guinea NJP is moving with a pack of smaller surface task forces. Not sure what he is doing but I managed to put a torpedo into one of the heavy cruisers with a PT boat at Merauke and now his initial plan might have changed.

It could be a smart idea for him to evacuate the island as it is not going to be able to hold forever but he may be reinforcing and/or resupplying. If he has other intentions I am not responding to them. He has at least 5 subs at the tip of New Guinea to attempt to take out anything passing between. My carriers and most of my STF are staying put in the solomon sea.

I am sending 2 light cruiser task forces to go up north and see if they can do a little raiding.

My forces are close to taking Katherine and I will have eyes on Darwin next turn. None of this is necessary as I do not plan on coming through this area. In fact, I hope to trap some troops between Darwin and my real vector around the Sorong area.

[Mike McCreery]

Troops take Katherine and reveal 30,000+ troops and 300+ AFV's at Darwin. I dont believe he is planning on leaving without a fight.

On the east side of New Guinea transports landed at Hansa Bay yesterday revealing a NG unit AV 31 with a current AV of 18. Not sure whether that is due to disruption from the landing or supply issues. I only managed to get 82 AV on the beach so hopefully more will join this turn. Will bombard the base with a STF and send in bombers to soften them up but I assume that I can take the unit(s) out without much problem.

Hopefully I can move north quickly along the coast of New Guinea. It appears that the only base NJP majorly increased in size is Vanimo. I am not sure what he has there or anywhere else along the northern coast as I did not want to tip my hand.

Within the next 30-60 days will be a race to see what I can get away with.

Here is a map of lower new guinea and what I am looking at.

Sarmi at the north end of the map is still in allied control.

[zuluhour]

I'd like to know how you can post all the mouse overs on one map, sure looks convenient to me. I make up intel
screens for wall paper on Sunday and email them to my work machine to ponder during the week. Looks like it
all I would add is sorted intel monkey and recon flight info.

[Mike McCreery]

ORIGINAL: zuluhour

I'd like to know how you can post all the mouse overs on one map, sure looks convenient to me. I make up intel
screens for wall paper on Sunday and email them to my work machine to ponder during the week. Looks like it
all I would add is sorted intel monkey and recon flight info.

It is a compilation of pictures. You take a print screen of the map and save it. Subsequently you take a print screen with one of the mouseovers. Then you crop that picture until only the mouseover is left. Move the mouseover on top of your original screen print and then combine it with the cropped mouse over. Rinse and repeat.

That one photo took between 20 and 40 minutes to create using this method.

The upside is that the mouseovers can go where you want and you can crop out all irrelevant data (such as range)

[Mike McCreery]

Ceram Sea - Early August 1943

NJP has built up a shield wall with the islands north of Darwin. This was my path of last advance. If you check the development of the bases behind this however, you see that not many airfields have been developed.

It is my hope to slide between the shield bases and philipines and create a partial and eventually full blockade of the southwest portion of the map from NJP. Having most of these bases undeveloped gives me great potential. I have also highlighted all of the allied dot bases that have not been taken by the Japanese.

This gives me plenty of room to spread out for naval searches, etc.

[BBfanboy]

ORIGINAL: Wargmr

On the east side of New Guinea transports landed at Hansa Bay yesterday revealing a NG unit AV 31 with a current AV of 18. Not sure whether that is due to disruption from the landing or supply issues. I only managed to get 82 AV on the beach so hopefully more will join this turn. Will bombard the base with a STF and send in bombers to soften them up but I assume that I can take the unit(s) out without much problem.

Looks to me like he may have realized that Hansa Bay was wide open and started to fly in troops just before you got there. That means he will continue to fly in more, so I hope your suppression efforts have the desired effect before he can build forts!

[Mike McCreery]

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

ORIGINAL: Wargmr

On the east side of New Guinea transports landed at Hansa Bay yesterday revealing a NG unit AV 31 with a current AV of 18. Not sure whether that is due to disruption from the landing or supply issues. I only managed to get 82 AV on the beach so hopefully more will join this turn. Will bombard the base with a STF and send in bombers to soften them up but I assume that I can take the unit(s) out without much problem.

Looks to me like he may have realized that Hansa Bay was wide open and started to fly in troops just before you got there. That means he will continue to fly in more, so I hope your suppression efforts have the desired effect before he can build forts!

It was a single SNLF unit probably there to prevent fragment airdrop. The attack went in at 86 to 1 and the unit has retreated south toward Madang with the Allied division in pursuit. A naval construction battalion and a regiment will land tomorrow along with an advanced port facility.

My management of multiple small units has greatly improved in this game with the majority of naval construction battalions in the field rather than sitting on the EC or at PH.

An airdrop goes in at the next dot base north for next turn. That is reaching a bit but maybe I can reinforce before he counter attacks ;]

Amphibious assault at Namatani sucessful with 500AV ready and a total of about 700AV on the beach. He has 300+AV behind forts so some more softening up is in order. I have artillery on the way so I can start bombartment(s).

[BBfanboy]

I hear ya on the small unit movement. In my current game I converted a lot of the 3900 ton capacity xAKs to xAPs with 1000/2200 capacity - very handy size for moving CB units and some of the EABs. I also converted quite a few of the 1750 ton capacity xAKLs to xAPs with 500/750 capacity - great for raiders, independent companies and Aussie bird battalions - if their 10 kt. speed is not an issue.

[Mike McCreery]

Units are moving north quickly. Hansa bay has over 25,000 troops including 2 divisions landed. The airfield will go to lvl 1 tomorrow.

Dropped an airborne unit at Dagua and am moving it northwest to Aitape which seems undefended. Vanimo is a lvl 4 airfield with 2 small units at it. Might try a crazy plan to land a 100% prepped division there within a few days.

There is a STF to the north that is saying it is 2-3 ships with some of them being cruisers. Want to make sure the KB isnt hanging about.

[Mike McCreery]

New Guinea Gambit

Things are going well along the New Guinea coast.

I airdropped troops into Hollandia which proved undefended. I have 2 divisions prepped for Vanimo and I was debating whether to drop one of them off and let some of the nearby bases develop so I would have aircover or just drop a division into the site by amphibious assault directly. The latter won.

[Mike McCreery]

I was concerned about having my transports unprotected but also worried about my carriers so I moved the carriers back to Hansa Bay while bombarding with the 2 battleship groups I had. The bombardments were very effective.

[Mike McCreery]

World Map - August 19, 1943.

I have several objectives and right now it is hard to decide whether to focus on one or spread my assets out. Fuel has been a constant issue in this game. With 30% reduction in carrying capacity there are many ships where it simply is not worth having them carry any fuel at all. I also think that I need to police my use of 'Full Refuel' settings.

I have broken through and taken Vanimo and an important lvl 4 airfield. The airfield can be built to lvl 8 and there is currently no opposition in this area. Pushing forward could be an issue due to fuel and not having enough bases set up for protection. I could get caught against the New Guinea coastline away from safety of Buna and other large bases.

There are 120,000 Japanese cut off in the Rabaul complex that need to be dealt with. Namatani has been taking constant bombardments and is now down to about 12,000 men but it is tough going. At this time I have 7 major japanese airfields that need suppression and that takes a lot of whack-a-mole. Once Namatani falls things will get considerably easier.

I am also working on whittling down Mili and those islands so my supply chain will be shorter and I can attack the other pacific islands more directly.

Given the fall of Chungking and the associated freed up assets this will need to be more of a naval game than a land assault. I need to cut him off strategically and leave his big armies in the dust like last game. Just not sure where those armies are going to be.

[Mike McCreery]

September 1943

Namatani finally fell due to vicious bombardments by up to 5 bombardment groups a day. It ate a lot of supplies but who cares?

It appears that Madang will fall within days. That reduces the number of major airfields in Japanese hands from 7 to 5 in the area. I think it jut might be manageable now to be able to take down his air power. Rabaul might put up a fight, I have no clue how much supply he has there.

He should have stocked it for a siege but he has 50,000 men, 300 tanks and 300+ guns so he will be burning through a significant amount every month.

My carriers had minor damage due to the full speed jump to attempt to ambush NJP's warships. They are quietly repairing at Townsville and should be ready within a week or so.

[Mike McCreery]

Surprise Attack by Japanese Carriers

I was unloading a division at Manowarki when NJP attacked by surprise with his 3 carrier groups. It looked like it was going to be ugly and it did turn out so for the Japanese.

I had attacked a small oil tanker fleet last turn at Dobo and had then cut my range to 3 hexes so there was no counter attack by my forces. Some of the saving graces for me might have been that I was at 80% CAP at 22,000'

I lost 15 aircraft and NJP lost over 200 bombers.

[Mike McCreery]

Some of his bombers got through but they did minimal damage.

[BBfanboy]

ORIGINAL: Wargmr

Surprise Attack by Japanese Carriers

I was unloading a division at Manowarki when NJP attacked by surprise with his 3 carrier groups. It looked like it was going to be ugly and it did turn out so for the Japanese.

I had attacked a small oil tanker fleet last turn at Dobo and had then cut my range to 3 hexes so there was no counter attack by my forces. Some of the saving graces for me might have been that I was at 80% CAP at 22,000'

I lost 15 aircraft and NJP lost over 200 bombers.

The Great Manokwari turkey shoot in 1943! Awesome!

You must have stocked your CV fighters with superb pilots!

[Mike McCreery]

I am grinning although the results were certainly not typical.

He didnt screw anything up either, both attacks went in at good strength with no dispersion. 2 small groups were obliterated but I think those might have been LBA.

This is the morning attack.

[Mike McCreery]

And it wasnt like I took out all his bombers. There were dozens that made it through my cap. They just couldnt hit anything. The attack came in from 5 hexes out.