Turnaround? Lowpe (J) vs Tiemanj (A) Stock

[Lowpe]

Off to the movies to enjoy a horrible movie, but it is with my wife and daughter whose 22nd Bday is coming up.

How did I get so old so fast? How did she?[X(]

I can't get over that Japan still fields 2 battleships...I saw the Deathstar yesterday and thought no way will I have any today. And looky, I do!

Amazing...but my daughter won't accept it as an early birthday present.[:D]

[Lowpe]

Turn is away...

I need to get my damaged battleships out of the Yellow Sea. If I can get them away I might be able to use them once more as ships, but if I can't then I can use them to attract aerial attacks and take some enemy planes.

I left all the fighters at Port Arthur...protecting the Iboat (3 more days and she can steam away) and a damaged destroyer in drydock.

Over in Luzon, I am putting to use my E's. I am now going to try putting together a surface group of 8-10 E's and steam them into sub infestations. I am hoping they will be absolute death to any sub they run into. If not they will work ASW and escort individual tankers as outlined previously.

I got 6K more supply to China, and have lots more on the way. The supply bridge runs from SRA to Luzon to Formosa to China. Not sure how much longer the Allies will let me do this, but I am making hay while I can.

[Lowpe]

September 19, 1944

I think I will call it 100 days left in this game, barring a substantial move by the Allies.

And they are making them!...over in China they are surging across the river towards Lang Son. Heavy bombardments and many movement arrows. At least my troops mostly have enough supplies to fight.

Okayama is bombed by 4E beasties, and the Allied troops are now pulling out of Okayama and heading towards Kobe. Osaka is further reinforced, but I need to give thought to the northern rail lines along Honshu.

My two remaining battleships make a size 2 port with 400 naval support. Won't get the system damage down fast with that...I need them to run the guantlet and get out of the Yellow Sea.

According to tracker I picked up 69 VP to allied air losses, and downed 49 planes. It seems fog of war under reports planes destroyed by flak.

[Lowpe]

Turn is done...

I have decided to fly about 180 fighters into Kobe, believing the Allies are trying to make a push for Kobe real quick. Back to a very low CAP.

I also sent in lots of armor, some more infantry divisions and started the retreat from Okayama to the urban terrain goodness that is Kobe. Forts 2 now at Nagoya, working on level 3 where I will stop.

Fine tuning my Chinese defenses and planning on running away from Pakhoi back to the jungle. I am very light in AA here is western China. My goal is simply to slow down the Allied advance, try to keep a force fighting in x2 and x3 terrain. It will be tough.

[Lowpe]

September 20, 1944

Allies continue taking western Honshu...bomb heavily at Okayama and the AA concentration there does great work. I had a fighter festung at Kobe, but they don't bomb there. Only at Okayama and a little on Takamatsu (on Shikoku).

Allies also naval bombard five or six coastal cities.


As I look at the map, I believe I made the proper decision to retreat from western Honshu. I am concentrating my forces more and more, and the Allies will have to at least maintain some garrisons.





14 Myojo strike at some destroyers near Saishu To, but CV fighters are too close and only 3 make bombing runs, all missing. The paltry escort of 10 Tony's is almost totally wiped out.

[Lowpe]

90 Allied units at Hanoi and Haiphong, but only a few divisions and tanks surge across the river, get a 406-1 attack and will now move south on a somewhat stronger positin (650 AV).

Allied bombing her is very painful. They wiped out all supply in the northern position in two days of bombing. The troops west of Lang Son are fully stocked with supply, but will now face the brunt of the Allied air attacks.

I have drawn in some lines that I plan on defending. Really trying to create little areas of delay and the troops fall back.

The coast of China garrisons will most likely start a retreat to the jungles today.

[Lowpe]

Who says Japanese AA can't bring down planes....it just takes 26 units of them.

[Lowpe]

Ships destroyed. Not bad. Hiroshima will hurt...tankers, subs, merchants but not as bad as you would think. I will still have VPs left for the Allies to garner.

VP ration 156.1K to 71.5K.

[Lowpe]

Beyond all hope, the radar equipped Iboat looks like she will steam away tomorrow.

[Lokasenna]

You could have gotten the I-40 out faster if you'd left her in the shipyard for a day - repairs would've been completed and she would've been returned to service immediately, instead of having that 3-day delay for switching to Readiness with 1 system damage. Even if it would have taken 2 days at pier side...

[Lowpe]

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

You could have gotten the I-40 out faster if you'd left her in the shipyard for a day - repairs would've been completed and she would've been returned to service immediately, instead of having that 3-day delay for switching to Readiness with 1 system damage. Even if it would have taken 2 days at pier side...

Thanks. I must have seen that I could change the status after it finished upgrading, but not repairing and panicked.

[Lowpe]

Not very dangerous, but can I eke more victory points out of them before they are sunk?

They will be spotted tomorrow I think, as the Allies are intent on finding them, and some fleet carriers are within range of a strike if they move north tomorrow.

[Lowpe]

In this scenario 6 game, there is one Japanese ARD. Which would be very valuable right now, but unfortunately it was sunk at Truk in June of 1942 -- two months prior to my takeover roughly.

I do have one AR, and several AD, AS, AG left and they are all working hard. But they cannot repair float damage past 5 points.

I wish I would have put a few more along the Yangtze River though.



Worth so few victory points, but really is a priceless asset for Japan.

[Skygge]

Who says Japanese AA can't bring down planes....it just takes 26 units of them.

What height do the Allied bombers in general come in at?
26 planes Down in one turn is quite good, and I think it must be 7.000 feet or less.
- or maybe they fly with a lot of plane fatigue(?)

[Lowpe]

I just wanted to thank Alfred for his excellent Ship Repair 101. I have read it over the years, but now I am living it (checking it almost daily). Come to think of it, I have not seen Alfred in quite a while - I hope he is ok.

Given my circumstances, I am really coming to understand the utility of AG, AR, AD, AGP ships in repairing damaged Japanese ships. Many players pooh pooh this ships, but they are exceptionally valuable.

I am in the process of converting quite a few more AG style ships (don't need shipyards to convert). A good use for an otherwise useless xakl right now.

A single repair ship can basically increase the repair level of a size 1 port to that of a size 8 for normal damage repair (on a ship that is eligible by the repair ship).

Two repair ships double that ability so you can really create some wonderful backwater repair yards.

Even during good times, with safe shipyards, AR's can add their daily repair points to the shipyard manager for speeding all normal damage while ships are in pierside mode. And unlike naval squads, there is no malus for the severity of damage of the ship being worked on.

Think of the value of having 5 AR's at a size 10 Port for speeding up pierside repairs!

One thing to be careful about is that ship damage to the repair ship is implied to reduce the total number of repair points it produces for that day. To be effective it needs to be undamaged, disbanded, and unused.

This is an aspect of the game I have not paid enough attention too.

[Lowpe]

ORIGINAL: Skygge

Who says Japanese AA can't bring down planes....it just takes 26 units of them.

What height do the Allied bombers in general come in at?
26 planes Down in one turn is quite good, and I think it must be 7.000 feet or less.
- or maybe they fly with a lot of plane fatigue(?)

Normally he has been bombing at 7000, but the flak at Okayama has forced him to fly at 10K. I suspect his planes are very tired since they fly almost non-stop.

However, for the last two days almost none of the single engine bombers have flown...as they have taken a beating in the last 2 weeks or so losing around to 400 planes.

[Lowpe]

The big move from the open terrain of Okayama to the heavy urban terrain of Kobe has started in earnest.

Japanese fighters at Port Arthur, and I am moving my battleships there...perhaps the Deathstar will head north.

I managed to escape all my E's into Luzon area.

Planting a few minefields and refueling some warships for future operations.

I am also retreating back to the wood in western China...away from open death that is Pakhoi. Since Allies are moving on Lang Son with 90 units, I don't see the reason to keep up the garrison on Pakhoi...better to get those troops into the woods.

[Lowpe]

Does the British Spitfires upgrade to Thunderbolts I and II?

The Thunderbolt has been around for quite a while, and yet I haven't seen them and there have been no ops losses attributed to them?

[Lokasenna]

Depends on the squadron. Mostly they go to either the Spitfire or Thunderbolt lines, not both.

[Lowpe]

September 21, 1944

The moon is almost completely gone, and Japan's has managed to scrape together two MTBs. One, a screamer at 38 knots, the second, a lot slower at 22 knots. The decision is made, the two boats will head into Shikoku on separate courses because of the speed differential.

Enemy CVEs are known to be at Shikoku as well as convoys.

The hand picked Captains, from a dwindling list of qualified skippers, guide their boats out during the night.

And they pounce!