Groundhog Day! - No NJP

[Mike McCreery]

Ok, going for a left hook here.

My guess is that NJP will attempt to hit some surface fleets, possibly interdict my carriers and then retreat under heavy LBA cap.

I do not believe he will attempt to attack Saishu To directly. At least I hope not... LOL!!

The plan as I understand it is that all of the surface fleets at Saishu To will meet with the carrier groups which will then relocate to Saishu To along with all of the other groups. Basically I am going to try to hold steady.

Last turn my attack radius was set to 1 which prevented a massive attack on his surface fleets. I have now set my range to 2. Also, all 4EB's available will be hitting Moppo with ground and air attacks.

If NJP is smart he will attempt some surface attacks and retreat east. If he holds at Moppo there is going to be a lot of fighting. Hopefully my carriers/STF's are fast enough to get to Saishu To before his surface groups reach me.

If I am wrong it is likely that CV's will burn next turn.

It is Christmas day... Who is going to get the presents and who is going to get the coal?

[Lowpe]

Aggressiveness, thy name is Waramr.

Good luck!

[Mike McCreery]

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

ORIGINAL: Wargmr


From now the game is mostly going to center around LBA and large troop movements.

Not too many players get to this point, and this now is your 2nd roundup!

Well done. Both of you.[:)]
[&o]

Thank you sir. But the excellent play goes to NJP. Someone said once, maybe Pax, that all the Allies need to do is manage to not lose their carriers in 1942/43 and it is a slam dunk from there (paraphrasing). But it is true. Hats off to all you JFB's. Your game is a whole dimension more difficult than the allies.

[ny59giants]

I have no idea how many pilots I lost.

On Intelligence screen, hit "List Top Pilots." Look in bottom left hand corner. Good place to go after major A2A action.

[Mike McCreery]

ORIGINAL: ny59giants

I have no idea how many pilots I lost.

On Intelligence screen, hit "List Top Pilots." Look in bottom left hand corner. Good place to go after major A2A action.

Thank you for that pointer.

In the turn where he lost 700+ aircraft my stats were as follows

49 MIA 27 WIA 72 KIA

Last turn they were

41 MIA 21 WIA 50 KIA

I lost about the same number of planes this turn as last turn but NJP's losses were about equal today.

[Mike McCreery]

Well, he came right at me and I didnt move.... *sigh*

On the bad side.

Over the course of the last 2 days over 700 naval points of carriers have been sunk.

Many of my main carriers just got hit in surface combats.

On the good side.

No fleet carriers are even close to sinking and most only have minor damage to flotation and engines.

NJP lost 2 heavy cruisers, 2 light cruisers and probably a battleship at least on paper if not sunk.

The invasion of Saishu To was a complete success resulting in 1 division, 2 armor units plus 5 coastal AA units and 2 base groups now installed on the island under my control.

The loss of 2 CVL's and 3 CVE's hurts in terms of points but tactically and/or strategically it really makes no difference at this point. The western coast of Korea is open for invasion. I am going to put 3-4000 AV through the hole between the 2 heavy urban cities in (Northern)China and then drive them into Korea while invading the coast where opportunity presents itself.

[BBfanboy]

Which two heavy urban cities? There are more than two in China.
The gap between Nanking and Shanghai shows on your map but it is a long hike to Korea and you need to get by two more big cities - Peiping and Tientsin. Or are those the two you refer to?

If the latter, where is all that AV now? Surely you don't have that much in eastern China already?

[Mike McCreery]

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

Which two heavy urban cities? There are more than two in China.
The gap between Nanking and Shanghai shows on your map but it is a long hike to Korea and you need to get by two more big cities - Peiping and Tientsin. Or are those the two you refer to?

If the latter, where is all that AV now? Surely you don't have that much in eastern China already?

Yes, there are more than two but there are only 3 left and the 2 northern ones are the ones I was referring to.

I am less than 200 miles from the Manchuko Border. There is 1800AV of troops at Paoting and more railing in daily.

The Russians have come down from the north and captured most of the cities north of those.

It aint looking pretty for the Japanese.

[Mike McCreery]

Massive battle at Nunkiang goes badly for the Japanese

[Mike McCreery]

World Map Jan 11 1945

Palembang will fall within a week to a brigade sized unit. The Japanese troops have mostly starved to death. My overall strategic plan to cut off the oil from Japan succeeded and I was able to use troops that would have been bogged down in Sumatra and Java to launch an early offensive on the Phillipines.

For the 2nd game in a row my opponent did not have the Phillipines garrisoned with many troops resulting in an easy win of Luzon. I think this is probably the biggest strategic error NJP made in this game.

There are about 4000AV worth of british and indian troops moving on Chungking. Not counting the inner ring of 4 cities I have counted 25 units in between me and the city. It would take 26 days in move mode to reach Chungking by road movement at this time. The 25 units are mostly support and beat up regiments. I do not anticipate much organized resistance.

Chungking is producing 143LI and a nearby city is producing about 30 more so there is limited supply in the region.

The plan is to spearhead into the city, freeing up all those chinese units for garrison duty. I anticipate it taking 1-2 months to get this done.

Meanwhile, Japan is fighting furiously still in Manchuko and leading me to consider just backing the russians off into good defensive terrain as his western front could become quickly overrun by the American troops which have broken past Peiping and Tientsin.

Ultimately in this game I wish to overrun Korea and if necessary stage an amphibious invasion from Fusan. TAKE THAT FUSAN!!! (for readers of my last AAR ;] )

The current timeline for the war is 3 months to release Chungking and get that moving and then another 3 months prep for the invasion and an amphibious invasion by June. I hope to end the war by August. I do not think that I can end it before April unless the Japanese completely collapse.

[Mike McCreery]

Score Jan 11, 1945

In my first game with NJP I won on January 24, 1945 with a 2-1 victory. His point total was just over 57K.

Looking at the numbers in our 2nd game the biggest differences are in Allied Army loss points where he has accumulated 10,000 more points by taking out China and assaulting Russia. The other major difference is that he has avoided losing his carriers and 5,000 points of naval assets.

The 2nd game is a Senario 2 game rather than a Scenario 1 game. They were both DBB with stacking limits but the Scenario 2 game also had reduced cargo capacity. I did not feel as if there was any reduction in expansion on the Japanese side but do admit that it affected my ability to move material over the course of the game.

NJP's aggressiveness in taking out China and also pushing a large assault on Australia was successful in slowing the Allied advance down in this game and bought him 4-8 months of game time. He also has handled his supply well, his aircraft production is well ahead of last games schedule and he is still competitive in the air campaign.

Play wise, I did almost nothing of what I said I was going to do in the goals I put forth for game 2 early on. Therefore, my game play was equal to or maybe even less than what I managed to pull off in game 1. Conversely, NJP appears to have increased his ability in all areas and has put a very strong game on into 1945.

With that, I will say that NJP has won this game due to superior game play. If I manage to wrap things up by the historical date then I can say that I didnt lose the game either.

[Mike McCreery]

Ningkow, Mid January 1945.

I looked at Ningkow last turn and it had 1-2 units with 3K-5K troops. So I figured I would give it a good smashing with my airforce because it would likey be unopposed. I was very surprised at the amount of flak that small a number of units could throw up. Well, until I saw that a whole darn army had moved in overnight.

Killed over 4300 men in 4EB attacks.

[Lowpe]

ORIGINAL: Wargmr

Play wise, I did almost nothing of what I said I was going to do in the goals I put forth for game 2 early on. Therefore, my game play was equal to or maybe even less than what I managed to pull off in game 1. Conversely, NJP appears to have increased his ability in all areas and has put a very strong game on into 1945.

It is hard not to improve as Japan second time thru to 45, as Japan is so darn unforgiving early mistakes in economy and planes and ships.

Conversely, I think the early game is where the Allied player improves dramatically, and you did early on avoid a lot of losses while staying competitive in those dark days.

[Mike McCreery]

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

ORIGINAL: Wargmr

Play wise, I did almost nothing of what I said I was going to do in the goals I put forth for game 2 early on. Therefore, my game play was equal to or maybe even less than what I managed to pull off in game 1. Conversely, NJP appears to have increased his ability in all areas and has put a very strong game on into 1945.

It is hard not to improve as Japan second time thru to 45, as Japan is so darn unforgiving early mistakes in economy and planes and ships.

Conversely, I think the early game is where the Allied player improves dramatically, and you did early on avoid a lot of losses while staying competitive in those dark days.

I am not down on myself, just a critical review of my performance. The important thing as I said to my gaming partner is to enjoy the day to day battles, wins and losses. I enjoyed thousands of hours of exciting game play over a year of contests. Sadly, this one is going to come to an end soon. But I cant complain about the wonderful experiences I have had.

Not sure what I am going to do with myself once this game is over. I have awakened for nearly 2 years now anticipating a turn in my inbox and soon that will not be the case.

Thank you for the kind words about the early part of the war. NJP came close to taking every part of Australia including completely overrunning Tasmania. LOL!!!

[Mike McCreery]

Western China

[Mike McCreery]

Western China January 20 1944

China is collapsing quickly. The picture in the above post is only 4 days before. This turn a combat at Tuyun resulted in a victory for the allies along with 2 units destroyed and 5 units retreated across the river.

The only hex with more than 2x defenses between me and Chungking is the hex just southeast of Kweiyang and northeast of Tuyun. I see that there are about 14K troops in the hex. Only about 3000 troops retreated so there could be a division there in reserve. We shall soon see.

To the east at Chikang the unit in the base was just knocked across the river by the advancing allied armor. The AV of the unit before combat was 80AV so I will be expecting something in the range of 20AV once I cross the river. If I take Chikang I can strat move units into this city and drive straight into Chungking by road if for some reason Kweiyang becomes a roadblock.

Wuchang just got invaded by the east and west and I will do a direct attack with 2 divisions to determine the strength of the 13 units in this hex.

The goal is to free up Chungking so the Chinese can do garrison duty freeing up all the british, canadian and US troops while I prepare to invade the home islands of japan.

The plan is currently ahead of schedule due to lack of significant resistance. This does not mean that NJP might not have a strategic reserve waiting.

[Mike McCreery]

Russia Late January 1945

I have 15 fragmented Russian divisions on the map. NJP's envelope is rapidly diminishing as he is giving up Hailar without further combat.

The plan is to immediately re-organize as much of my forces as possible while positioning to move from the north down to the south to Titshar. Once this city is conquered I plan on crossing the river and assaulting Taonan from the western side and then moing down to Changchun.

I am keeping the Russian and other Allied movements separate. At this point the Americans have indicated a significant strategic need to damage the aircraft, vehicle and supply factories in the towns of Harbin, Chengchun and Mukden. The Russians have indicated that they have no ability to significantly affect these factories. Therefore it has been agreed that everything East of Chengchun will be the issue of the Russians.

Mukden provides an artery down into Korea where the bulk of the US military will be focusing it's power.

Because the Russians have essentially no airforce they have agreed to strategic bombing of Chengchun, & Harbin by the Allies to affect the plane factories established there.

The British, Canadian and Indian troops will continue to liberate China until such a point that it can liberate itself.

[Mike McCreery]

Central China Late January 1945

Armor units stormed into Kweiyang last turn and shock attacked the 4 remaining units there. All 4 were destroyed. The armor column is going to move ASAP along the northwest road toward Chungking. My hope is to capture a city in the inner ring so that I can strat move the rest of my army into there without having to walk the whole way.

Once China is liberated it is just a matter of evacuating as fast as they can fill in the garrison positions.

Chungking has about 40,000 troops and 300 or so tanks according to initial recon so it will not be a pushover. I am estimating 1500AV on the top end but maybe 1000AV more likely.

Hopefully my constant bombardment of his western garrison cities and general harassment plus replacements Etc has left the city running on fumes. If not there is 4000 AV in the pipeline so eventually I will be able to overcome any resistance.

The other issue which has not been addressed yet is the nearly limitless appetite China will have for supply and how to deal with that properly. There is 1/2 million of supply available at Manilla and 800K available at Darwin but those are drops in the bucket for what China can suck up.

[Mike McCreery]

CAP trap over Shaishu To

There had not been a bombardment in a few days and the airfields were open so I thought I would take a shot at CAP'ing Shashu To along with taking out some smaller surface ships.

It went well and not well.

First off my destroyers showed up and polished off 3 E boats at the island, no problem, everything going according to schedule. Suddenly and without warning 2 Japanese battleship bombardment groups show up and pound the island. Must have been the other side since they completely missed my destroyer group.

The bad news is that a lot of planes are damaged along with about 1/2 the runway. The good news is that it was not enough to stop the CAP from flying the next day protecting the destroyers along with bagging quite a few mostly unescorted bombers.

[Mike McCreery]

China Jan 31, 1945

Neikiang was captured last turn leading to the strategic movement of many divisions to this city for assault of Chungking.