Excel Empire - F Krieg vs Great Went - DBB-C 28

[FeurerKrieg]

August 21st, 1942

India/Burma
With both units in place we attack at Imphal. We get a 3:1 result againts fort level 3. The forts drop to 2, so I think we have a good chance of taking the base on the next attack.

[center]
Some important clean up that leads to a nice source of oil at Ledo.[/center]

DEI/N Australia
Sorong expands airfield to size 1.

China
Our 13th Tank Regiment reaches the distant base of Kashgar and attacks. This first assault gets a 1:1 result and drops forts to zero. With luck we'll take the base in a couple more tries. The defending 303rd Brigade only has 2,000 men and is showing a negative supply modifier.

Our artillery bombards at Siangtan today and gets about 120 casualties.

We try again at Tienshui but today only get 1:2.

Other
CV Kaga beginning refit while under repair in shipyard at Yokohama/Yokosuka

[FeurerKrieg]

August 22nd, 1942

India/Burma
Allies continue their air attacks on Jameshedpur to little effect.

A second attack at Imphal is enough to take the base. The 84th Indian Brigade retreats east and we will continue up the road. We will fly in some SNLF squads to garrison Imphal until a suitable unit can be found.

DEI/N Australia
Small air attacks from the Allies hit Katherine, but we don't take much damage.

Southeast of Katherine, the 28th/A & B units attack the 3rd Australian Brigade and get a 1:1 result. (151:91) The /C unit is on the way so if A&B can't clear the way into Katherine, the /C unit should be able to do it.

China
We do a deliberate attack at Kweilin and achieve a 1:1 result against level 2 forts. Forts drop to level 1 and casualties are even. This base should be our soon and this time for good.

A second attack at Kashgar is all it takes as our tank regiment gets a 5:1 result and 3,000 men of the 303rd Brigade surrender. We have now captured all the Chinese bases in central Asia. This tank regiment is part of the 3rd Armored division and it will head down to Korea to await the arrival of the other pieces which come in about 2-3 months.

[center]
The last base in the middle of nowhere is captured.[/center]

A bombardment at Kienko shows that we outnumber the Chinese for a change. I think we can take the base soon.

Other
Ace pilot Ichimura K. of Hiryu-1 is promoted to PO1

DD Thanet is reported to have been sunk near Broome on Jun 12, 1942

[FeurerKrieg]

August 23rd, 1942

India/Burma
A heavy attack of Blen IV, Wellingtons and B-25C hits Dacca a night scoring a few hits, and destroying one Zero and one Nick. AA fire takes down one Blenheim IV. In the daytime, about 40x P-40E and 16x Hurricane IIc sweep Dacca as well. Our Tojos and Nicks perform reasonably well taking out 13 enemy planes for the loss of 14 Tojos. We only lose 4 pilots though, so that is great.

[center]
Defending Dacca[/center]

DEI/N Australia
It has taken a while, but we finally unload some troops at Bandjermasin. We should be able to reclaim the base from these Dutch refugees in another day or two.

Pacific
We get another hit on an enemy sub from our Milne Bay airplanes.

Truk goes to port size 7 and Tabiteuea goes to port 2. Truk's size 7 will be very helpful for repairs and rearming.

Other
Aircraft Ki-43-IV Oscar advances R&D to 12/44
Device NE turbojet advances R&D to 11/45

Pilot Ando, N. is reported as having been found

[FeurerKrieg]

August 24th, 1942
Plenty of air combat today.

India/Burma
More sweeps at Dacca. First is 16x Kittyhawk I, then 7x P-40E, and then 9x Hurricane IIc. We have a solid CAP up and manage to kill 14x Kittyhawks and 1x Hurricane, but the P-40E all get away. We lose 3x A6M2 and 4x Tojos, so a good result over all.

DEI/N Australia
The Allies have been doing daily attacks on Katherine, so we decide to put up some LRCAP today from Wyndham. 16x Zeros, 2x Tojos, and 11x Nicks catch 8x Kittyhawks escorting 5x F4F-3's loaded with bombs. In the afternoon our CAP catches 12x Hudson bombers escorted by 11x Kittyhawks and then another raid of 16x P-40E with bombs escorted by 3x Kittyhawks.

In total we kill only 1 of the Kittyhawks, but 2x F4F-3 and 7x Hudsons. We lose 3 Zeros and 6 Nicks in the process so about even odds.

[center]
Some air combat down under[/center]

For the whole day we lose 10 pilots which isn't too bad given the number of planes we lost.

On the ground, just as our division is about to arrive at Katherine, the Aussies attack our armor at Katherine and force them to retreat with a 4:1 result. The armor will be back as soon as the division moves in to assault the base.

Other
I thought we had sunk all the R class ships but we get this today:
Previous report of sinking of BB Royal Sovereign incorrect. Intelligence reports ship is still in service

[FeurerKrieg]

August 25th, 1942

India/Burma
Many night attacks on Dacca result in about 4 destroyed fighters, but the airfield is not noticeably damaged.

Northwest of Rangpur, our tank unit pushed back the enemy 1st Patiala Lancers Regiment to ensure John doesn't get sneaky with opening a hex side to free his British and Indian division.

DEI/N Australia
At Bandjermasin, I have the destroyers that were escorting our SNLF forces peel off and do some bombardments. It seems that they killed the last Dutch troops because our SNLF units capture the base and there are no Dutch to be found.

A bit farther west on Australia, we unload some small units at Port Hedland. I don't expect we will haul many resources out of here because it isn't worth the supplies to build up the base, but there is a whole lot of iron ore being mined south of this port. The real reason to capture the base is to destroy one more Allied LCU and also it is one more base that they will have to build up if they want to use it. Some Sallys at Broome and Bettys at Timor also fly in and harass the enemy troops there.

China
We send a whole lot of air power at Kienko and try a deliberate attack today. Much to my surprise it succeeds with a 6:1 result! I guess the Chinese are in worse shape supply-wise than I thought. This victory definitely opens up the Chungking plains for us and will hopefully lead to the siege of Chungking in the not too distant future. We take about 3,300 casualties, mostly just disablement, but the Chinese lose 6,400 men and 57 guns in their retreat, about 80% of which are destroyed squads/guns. One unit is destroyed outright.

[center]
Finally![/center]

We will work our way around the west side to clear out the enemy units at Chengtu and then grab the base west of Chungking before moving into the lay siege to the city itself.

Father south we attack the trapped troops at Pakhoi and get a 2:1 result. Not enough to make them surrender yet, but at least it should just go up from here given the casualties are 10:1 in our favor and the enemy troops have no supply.

Other
Aircraft D5Y1 Myojo advances R&D to 9/45

[FeurerKrieg]

August 26th, 1942

India/Burma
Jessore expands airfield to size 3. I have some AV support on the way, and once it arrives we will pack this base full of Tojos. The range is short, but Calcutta is in the adjacent hex.

We put our Zeros and some Nicks on night CAP over Dacca and we break up most of the raids coming in. We also have added some AA to the base and flak brings down 3x Blenheim IV.

Northeast of Imphal, our 65th Brigade and 56th/A Division push back the 84th Indian Brigade (from Imphal) and the 104th RAF Base Force. Next stop Kohima.

China
Taking advantage of the clear plains south of Kienko, and the big stack of Chinese there, our Sallys escorted by Oscars keep on bombing. Casualties run up to the 700-800 range.

Other
Aircraft H8K2 Emily advances R&D to 1/43

DD Teruzuki arrives at Maizuru

[FeurerKrieg]

August 27th, 1942

India/Burma
Near Rangpur, Ann's bomb the 1st Patiala Lancer Regiment and the unit vanishes. I think we destroyed the last 4 vehicles the unit had.

The fragment of our para unit that captured Sambala is being bombed as it marches away from Jameshedpur. I neglected to mention a few days back that it entered Jamshedpur from the west, thus giving us control of the hexside that is the rail line into that base. So far the enemy hasn't gone back and reopened that hexside. Perhaps John hasn't noticed. In any case, the para frag will soon be bombed away to nothing, which is fine since then I'm free to use the rest of that unit again since we have a HR about para frags being dropped.

DEI/N Australia
Along with some air support, the Kure 5th SNLF attacks the base at Port Hedland and the Port Hedland RAN Base Force surrenders.

[center]
Capture of an iron ore port[/center]

Other
Aircraft Ki-45 KAIc Nick advances R&D to 2/43

[FeurerKrieg]

August 28th, 1942
Quiet day.

India/Burma
Allied air attacks on our troops at Jamshedpur

DEI/N Australia
We do a bombardment of Katherine just to double check what is there. Looks like we shouldn't have much trouble taking the base.

Other
Aircraft Ki-100-I Tony advances R&D to 1/45

[FeurerKrieg]

August 29th, 1942

India/Burma
Lots of enemy air attacks at Jamshedpur again, casualties are light.

At Darjeeling, we send a detachment from the 18th Division to reclaim the base and they easily force out the enemy unit that had moved in. We will send in a small anti tank gun unit to hold the base for the moment.

[center]
Clearing Darjeeling again[/center]

DEI/N Australia
Corunna Downs is occupied by our SNLF unit.

Pacific
Buna expands airfield to size 5.

China
We send our Chinese air forces after Kweilin to support a deliberate attack. We do well, getting a 1:1 result and dropping forts to zero. Casualties are notably heavier for the Chinese which means we should have this base shortly.

[FeurerKrieg]

August 30th, 1942

India/Burma
Today the Allies shift their attacks to Asansol, attacking our troops there and inflicting some casualties.

On the road to Ledo we capture Kohima. Most of the enemy troops continue to retreat, however the 104th RAF Base Force surrendered.

[center]
Another base closer to the oil[/center]

I neglected to explain that the trapped 70th British and 26th Indian divisions had recrossed the river to the southeast. Fortunately I had a unit there, so my large force followed them back over the river and they now are confined to one hex (we have all hexsides in red). The river crossing occured today and as such was our first initiated attack against these trapped units. We did okay with a 1:2 result. All my units are fine except the 5th Division which racked up some disruption crossing the river. After a rest, the 5th should be fine. We only suffered one destroyed squad in the crossing, the rest of our casualties were disabled so they will come back up as they rest.

DEI/N Australia
In the hex immedaitely west of Katherine, our reinforcement units (three SNLF units) that had marched from Wyndham run into an enemy unit and attack. The enemy was the 2nd Cav Recce Regiment. We get a 95:1 result and the Cav unit surrenders.

China
Our troops attack Kweilin with some air support lending a hand. The attack today suceeds with 3:1 results. We capture a half dozen P-43A-1 Lancers on the airfields and the Chinese lose nearly 12,000 men and 41 guns in their retreat. The remaining 35,000 enemy troops retreat east into the rough jungle. We have them largely surround and I will work to keep it that way so we can finish these enemy troops off at our leisure.

[center]
Kweilin is captured again[/center]

Other
Aircraft A6M8 Zero advances R&D to 12/44

Balboa expands airfield to size 5
Dambulla expands fortifications to size 3
Shortlands expands fortifications to size 2
Loemadjang expands fortifications to size 3

[FeurerKrieg]

August 31st, 1942

India/Burma
More enemy air attacks on our troops at Asansol today. I'm guessing he is just trying to slow my movement, but I could be wrong.

Our air units resume bombing the British and Indian units we have trapped. Probably hoping our troops were in bad shape from the river crossing, the trapped British attack us, but get a 1:324 result and lose about 2,400 men to our 400.

DEI/N Australia
You can see below our efforts to surround Katherine before we launch our attack.

[center]
Surrounding Katherine[/center]

Pacific
At our floatplane base of Enderbury Island, P-40E Warhawks from Canton Island attack a couple destroyers and CL Natori. No hits are scored, but I think I will try bring in some Rufe's to provide some cover.

Other
Some nice unit size increases
Genzan Ku S-1 converting to size 45 from 27
59th Sentai converting to size 36 from 30

And a new pair of eyes in the form of SS I-32 arrives at Cam Ranh Bay.

[FeurerKrieg]

August was a quiet month at sea, but saw plenty of advances on land. CA Portland is still on the sunk list, but Royal Sovereign drops off. I really thought Royal Sovereign was a goner but apparently not. CL Tromp is confirmed killed, so that was nice. Another slight decline in VP ratio, but September will bring some changes to that metric. Air losses are definitely up due to actions in China and India. Our fighters do roughly 1:1 against the enemy, but bomber ops losses make the overall ratio look worse.

In India we finish closing the pocket on the 70th British Division and 26th Indian Division. Now we just need to force their surrender. That will free up several elite units and lots of armor to head over and make a go of capturing Calcutta. We have a clear front defined from Jamshedpur through Howrah and over to Jessore. The plan is to march around the south from Jessore to capture Diamond Harbor, and then move into Calcutta from there. The idea being that if we have trouble at Calcutta, at least the airbases of Diamond Harbor will be in our hands. We have also started to mop up bases on the Imphal to Ledo road and will hopefully capture Ledo in the near future so we can get the Heavy Industry at Asansol producing to full capacity using fuel from Ledo.

In China progress is still slow, but we do make a step forward with the capture of Kweilin. This will allow us to go north and around Tuyun to threaten Kweiyang. Another big step was the capture of Kienko which has opened up the Chungking plains. With luck we will soon have Chungking surrounded. Finally, the desert campaign in central Asia was finished when we captured Kashgar.

Very little action in the Pacific outside of some submarine activities around Canton Island, Hawaii and Tahiti.

In Australia we are nearly ready to capture Katherine and rest there while waiting for the 33rd Division to arrive so we can march on Darwin. In the process we have eliminated a couple units which will hopefully slow down the inevitable counterattack.

Some numbers for August -
Bases captured: 14
VP Ratio August 1: 3.382:1 (Japan)
VP Ratio September 1: 3.364:1 (Japan)
Air losses: 350 Japan, 179 Allies
Ships lost - Allies: 5 Ships, gain of 132 Points due to Royal Sovereign coming off the list
Ships lost - Japan: 1 Ship, 3 Points

Capital Ships lost (entire war):
Allies
CV Enterprise
CV Indomitable
CV Lexington
CV Saratoga
CV Yorktown
BB Prince of Wales
BB Resolution
BB Ramillies
BB Revenge
BC Repulse
CA Australia
CA Canberra
CA Chester
CA Chicago
CA Cornwall
CA Dorsetshire
CA Indianapolis
CA Pensacola
CA Portland (unlikely)
CA San Francisco
CL Achilles
CL Adelaide
CL Caledon
CL Ceres
CL Danae
CL De Ruyter
CL Dragon
CL Enterprise
CL Hobart
CL Java
CL Leander
CL Marblehead
CL Mauritius
CL Perth
CL Tromp

Japan
CV Shokaku
CVL Zuiho
CA Mogami
CL Kashii
CL Kashima
CL Sendai

Here is the current submarine scoreboard. No subs lost, but only one hit as well. That hit was on an enemy sub by I-20, so that is certainly a nice kill. That also puts I-20 on the scoreboard with its first kill.

[center][/center]

Home Island (non-Hokkaido) stockpiles are shown below. Supplies climb slightly again, and fuel is near flat. Oil drops notably. Looking ahead, these numbers all start to climb notably next month as we start pulling oil and fuel from Fusan. Supplies also start to climb at a good rate as factory expansion and R&D builds have slowed down. Resources are climbing at a solid rate as you can see.

[center]
August Home Island Stockpiles[/center]

[PaxMondo]

For your date, 9/1/42 ... looks quite nice. You've really blunted the allies and should be able to keep the initiative throughout '43 and into early '44.
What are your plans to torture the allies during the next 15 - 18 months?

[Lowpe]

I will say be careful as this is scenario 1 with reduced shipping capacity style game; not sure how that plays out.

But you have done exceedingly well.[&o] [&o]

[FeurerKrieg]

Thanks, Pax & Lowpe.

As Lowpe says, it is Scne 1, and DBB-C, so I'm wary of over extension. My plan was to expand to a point and then focus heavily on building defenses which includes not only digging in, but also putting together good regional counterattack forces.

After the early carrier battles went well, and based on some suggestions posted here, I expanded my initial goals to include Calcutta. Part of that decision was about pushing back the Allies but probably a bigger consideration was the fact that if I can take Calcutta I will have a supply surplus in that region, some of which I can take back home.

So, currently I don't have much plans beyond Calcutta and Darwin other than putting more effort into finishing off China. But I'm always open to ideas.

[FeurerKrieg]

September 1st, 1942

India/Burma
We have a nice coordinated air attack on the British and Indians today. Some Nells fly in on their own - guess they don't like flying with the Army boys. Our ground attack on the British pocket gets 46:1 results with lots of enemy casualties.

[center]
Army planes form up for a big raid[/center]

Allied air attacks focus on the 2nd Division which is attempting to push back the 19th Division from the road southeast of Jamshedpur. The 2nd Division gets 1:5 results on the 19th Indian Division. We have a big advantage in experience, so I think we can wear down the enemy troops.

Pacific
A Sally gets a hit on an enemy sub near Milne Bay.

I figure it is time to remove the Aussie refugees at Terapo so I start doing attacks there.

[center]
Clearing out some old enemy units[/center]

Other
A bunch of AO's go into refit to get some AA guns added to them. Every little bit helps.

[FeurerKrieg]

September 2nd, 1942

India/Burma
After several days of Allied air attacks, we decide to surprise them a bit. We fly in about 150 fighters (1E up high and 2E down low) to Jessore and put them all on 100% LRCAP over Howrah, where the Allies attacked yesterday. Things go excellent as our planes tear into both escorts and bombers. The Nicks again do excellent bringing down the enemy 2E bombers. For the 14 planes we lose, we only lose 6 pilots. Guess that is because they bailed out over the 2nd Division. Good thing it was Army fighters or the 2nd Div might have left the pilots stuck in the trees. [:D]

Howrah Air Battle, A2A and Ops Losses
Allies, Total of 76 planes:
13x Hurrican IIc Trop
6x P-40E Warhawk
4x Hurrican I Trop
37x Blenheim IV
6x Wellington Ic

Japan, Total of 14 planes:
10x Ki-44-IIa Tojo
3x Ki-45 KAIa Nick
1x Ki-43-Ic Oscar

Farther east, we move in to Dimapur. In order to ensure the retreat enemy stack doesn't go to Ledo and blow up our oil wells, we drop some Paras into Jorhat and capture that base. Now the Dimapur stack will retreat to the jungle while we go and take Ledo, hopefully with little damage to the oil wells and refinery.

Finally, our attack on the British pocket today gets 81:1 results and the 1st NW Frontier Base Force surrenders. We get 1,850 enemy casualties, as well as 27 guns and 22 vehicles destroyed. We have 17 squads disabled.

[center]
IJAAF has a good day[/center]

Pacific
Near Tahiti, I-171 takes a shot at APD Little and misses. The sub is damaged by a solid DC hit from APD Stringham. I think the sub can make it back to Truk.

China
We clear out the road east of Chengtu by driving off the 71st Chiense/B Corps. The unit retreats towards Neikiang since Chengtu is Japanese. Also of note is that the Chinese that were at Chengtu have retreated of their own accord meaning that we finally have a resumption of resource production at Chengtu. That plus the fuel that has trickled in means both the LI and HI are producing supplies here now. Not a ton, but it certainly helps.

You can see our progress in the Chungking plain and elsewhere in the hexside control map below.

[center]
Situation in China[/center]

[FeurerKrieg]

September 3rd, 1942

India/Burma
Near Colombo there are two reported hits on SS Swordfish from our MAD equipped Helen Ia planes. Maybe we did some damage to the sub.

Magwe expands airfield to size 5.

Not sure if this was intentional or John just forgot to stand a unit down, but the only Allied air attack in this area today is 23x P-40E that sweep Asansol. Our CAP from Jessore engages and our 6x Oscars and 21x Tojos do well against the enemy planes. We take out 11x P-40E but only lose one Oscar and one Tojo.

Our British pocket attack gets 96:1 results today. The enemy is showing disruption, fatigue, morale, experience and supply negative modifiers now.

DEI/N Australia
Cocos Islands expands airfield to size 2. We are slowly building this base up since it is a good place to watch for attacks coming from Cape Town, or Australia and India.

China
We try an attack on the large Chinese stack that is between Kienko and Chungking. We get a 1:2 result showing the Chinese still have some fight in them. We'll need to rest, so if the Chinese want to retreat, they will have the opportunity to do so.

Other
Aircraft D4Y1 Judy advances R&D to 12/42

TK British Motorist is reported to have been sunk near Port Moresby on Jan 05, 1942

Ace LT Fujiware R returns to action at Dacca with 9 kills. Welcome back Lt!

[FeurerKrieg]

September 4th, 1942

India/Burma
In India we shift our bombing to Dimapur to support our first assault on the base. The first attack gets a 1:1 result and forts go to zero. There are several enemy units here, but they are all pretty small and weak at this point.

In the pocket, we get 75:1 odds and the 26th Indian Division surrenders. This get us 3,000 casualties, 50 guns and 142 vehicles destroyed. All that is left if about 7,000 British troops. Hopefully they will see the writing on the wall and surrender soon.

[center]
One less enemy Division in India to worry about[/center]

China
Hengyang expands airfield to size 5.

Today the Chinese airforce does well. Our bombing run on the large stack we attacked yesterday is escorted by Oscars, but they are mostly high skill, low experience pilots and it shows today as we lose 9x Oscars and 2x Sallys but only bring down 3x of the P-43A-1 Lancers. We still inflict a few hundred casualties on the enemy.

[witpqs]

Howrah Air Battle, A2A and Ops Losses
Allies, Total of 76 planes:
13x Hurrican IIc Trop
6x P-40E Warhawk
4x Hurrican I Trop
37x Blenheim IV
6x Wellington Ic

Japan, Total of 14 planes:
10x Ki-44-IIa Tojo
3x Ki-45 KAIa Nick
1x Ki-43-Ic Oscar

Ouch! Way to go.