Islands of Destiny: RA 5.0 Japanese Side

[John 3rd]

July 4, 1944

Luganville has been a pretty decent area for Japan over the last two months. As alluded to earlier, Dan landed without near enough and then my Ndeni planes smashed two separate TFs trying to bring troops/supply into the New Zealand perimeter.

Since I cannot fight what has been detailed above, we adopted a spirit of 'hit them where they ain't!' We want a cheap naval victory that yields a good haul of Victory Points. This led the High Command to making a decision that has been kept, more-or-less, secret for the last several weeks.

Dan has seen Japanese CVs east of the Philippines, in the Marianas, and all throughout the DEI. Just today four CVs engaged north of Miri. This has all been very purposeful. The goal is to make Dan THINK all of Japan's flattops are accounted for. After all, only an idiot would split his CVs in mid-1944. RIGHT??

Very quietly a Carrier TF slips SE and arrives at Tulagi undetected. It refuels on the last of the fuel stationed there (for a possibility like this) and disbands into the Port. No recon or air search picks up on it at all. Dan goes quiet in the area so I load three PC/PG with supplies and send them to Luganville. They arrive, are seen, unload, and depart.

No reaction by the enemy.

OK.

Send down the modern BC Ikoma and 4 DDs to bombard the New Zealanders present there. I decide to take a major risk and dangle Ikoma out as bait. I order it to bombard and 'remain.' Dan spots it coming SE, it bombards the base, and, as planned, remains. Sure enough, he reacts and sends his 3-4 CVE north from Suva. His BB Pennsylvania TF is just behind the Jeep CVEs.

Four small strikes hit the Ikoma: 17 SBD, 14 F and 14 DB, 15 F, 17 SBD, and 7 Avengers, and then 15 F, 13 SBD, and 6 Avengers. Watching the strikes is terrifying as I truly hope Ikoma and her Captain are up to the task. HE is! The little TF's AA claims 6 DB and 2 AV in exchange for 7 1,000lb bombs and NO TT hits. NICE! Ikoma is at 26 SYS, 1 FLOT, and 6 ENG--NONE is major damage. A DD takes a pair of bombs but is in remarkably good shape.

Enemy SPOTTED!

Form up CVs Soryu, Hiryu, Shokaku and CVL Ibuki. Order a FULL SPEED sprint to arrive at a point 1 Hex SE of Luganville. Order reaction to maximum range of 6. For once we WANT to move if the enemy is in range tomorrow. Over 260 planes are ready to fly tomorrow...

Ndeni prepares for action as well!

[John 3rd]

Should add that I sent Dan the following message with the CR and 001:

Sorry. The turn took FOREVER and I give up on any form of bombardment in any game EVER again…

We'll see if this makes him stay and try to finish the job on poor, helpless damaged Ikoma...

BANZAI!

[Bearcat2]

How big is the airfield at Efate and what does he have there?

[adarbrauner]

Just a question, why did you send 55 Jills to sacrifice (instead of, say 12)?

The action off the Ebrides looks exciting, thumbs crossed but:

where are the cap traps for Dan's main fleet south of formosa? Subs attacks?

[CaptHaggard]

J3—

The narrative in #3921 is truly compelling... on the edge... awaiting events...

Good luck! Cheers!

[Alpha77]

It may be, however not sure if this area is too much a "sideshow" by now, perhaps these are only 2-3 CVEs or so... yup good if they can be get... but on the price (perhaps) neglecting the more important areas.

John use biggest IJA fighter units stuff them with older Tojos (of the IIc version older makes no sense anymore) try to guess or recon his next base target, send 300 fighters in Quantity has quality on its own. If you lose half of them not so big deal, but lets see what they can bring down with them. 4xHMG still can shoot down any Allied fighter as well 1-2e bombers[8D]

You can set Tojos lower (they have good climb) and throw in some vh flying other planes (even ZeroM5 if enough of them), lets hope not too many Allies read here and now know the IJ best weapons. so psssst, lets better be quiet, for OP sec. You need bit of luck with weather and bad coordination for the enemy and his raid may be fragmented.. what a feast we will have.

But lets hope you op does not drop the game after half his force is shot down Allies do not like huge losses, they may throw the towel (like mine did, even if he said, no time to play anymore. I am not to blame I was only defending vs. the imperialists [8|])

[John 3rd]

ORIGINAL: Termite2

How big is the airfield at Efate and what does he have there?

Lvl-3 and about 25 planes.

[crsutton]

ORIGINAL: John 3rd

Here is the combat report of the CAP over his Fleet:

Yeah, but how many carriers did you sink?

[John 3rd]

Ahhhhhhhhh...does that question really deserve an answer????

ZERO!

No runs. No Hits. No Errors.

[BillBrown]

But you shot down an F4F-4 Wildcat. [&o][8|]

[Alpha77]

Might be a good sign, if he uses these still in 44 ? Guess the Allies had also some higher air losses... so nice bit of intel we got here.

Btw, I had the habbit while playing PBM to go to the worst and hottest areas last and was then already a bit tired and made mistakes(in my game the south where I lost many big ships and my fields was trashed by 4Es, even later I was able to repair it all and bring lots of fighters back to shoot dozens of his down, only the 4E do not suffer much, 42 IJ have mostly too weak weapons, but he gets OP losses for them. This will accumulate over time).

So I understand that J3rd rather fights in a area where he can have easier success. Sometimes the tention is also so huge if you receive a turn where you expect something bad happen and you might rather avoid the area in the game instead tend more to "unimportant" things. This is quite normal psychological seen [;)]

In my last PBM turn, I made one of the worst mistakes one can imagine, somehow the Kates on the CVs used bombs... there were NOT set to torpedoes. I don´t know how I missed that, and this would have been not as bad if they were set low, so many bombs would hit. But in this turn I experimented with vh alt for Kates, they flew at 25k and did not hit much....[:'(] But... the Allies were taken by surprise I had upgraded 2 of the fgr units to M5 Zero already which flew a reliable CAP at 0 range. The M2s escorted and the Vals hit good. And he had only 2 CVs and 1 CVE, this was the best CV battle for me in the whole game...in terms of own losses. Only a handful of his bombers got through and scored A SINGLE hit on a BB (which actually destroyed an AA gun!) we probably sunk the CVE and 1 CV, but if we had torps, the whole fleet might be slaughtered. Also the BBs and CAs...

.. but made no difference as the Allies gave up after that (for lack of time ofc), losing Kunming and noted they can not easily close my airfields in the south and 40-50 of his fighters there shot down, while we lost a dozen pilots. And 20 planes or so. Most were still ZeroM2 or the early Tojo, so not even honest losses. However he before destroyed many on the ground, but only by means of 4Es and nav bombardements, 1E or 2E bombers we could fight easily...

Re. the above CV battle, I also believe that the one CV which already upgraded (and participated there) to RADAR made a difference in terms of getting CAP in good position. Also this time I brought with me much more SF assets to missdirect his planes and for more AA (with the latest scen update they even hit something)

Sorry bit OT

So back to you game: Are you certain the Allied Luganville area activity is not a missdirection?

[Lowpe]

Good luck. It is a nifty little plan.

But remember you are playing not only for VP, but to delay the Allies.

[John 3rd]

There is no DELAYING the Allies. We've got enough placed in the path for speed bumps. That is about it.

Have got to start seriously looking at my ground deployment in the Home Isles. Never too early to work on that. Want those prep levels at 100%.

[John 3rd]

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy




The Devil really is in the details for this sort of behavior. I agree that using xAKLs in singletons or pairs to soak off carrier sorties is gamey as Hell. But I've got no problems with using PB,PC,DD,PG,AMc,AM or other 'military' versions of ships on picket duty.

The common cry is that the Allies don't get enough of these to convert for picket duty? Too bad. So sad. Use a Fletcher then.

The game engine still does a poor job of disregarding these singletons when putting together anti-ship packages. So you have a couple xAKLs that *still* get targeted with 15DBs or TBs from a carrier strike.

CR uses YMS's for this task. They are misnamed as they are not yard craft, but instead are deep water capable ships with 3500 endurance.
I see no issue with using YMSs for picket duty.
xAKLs sure, but minesweepers no.
My two pennies for what its worth.

I agree. As YMSs also carry an ASW rating of 1 (IIRC), they also provide a useful submarine screen around harbors, further rationalizing their presence outside of Allied ports.

It's a lousy duty to draw-akin to the dreaded radar picket DDs and DEs at Okinawa-but is fair game as far as I'm concerned.

If they were used for PICKETS then I would be OK--somewhat--about this. They are not. He uses them as long-range, sacrificial scouts probing my defenses and trying to provoke a reaction. A line of them would be OK. Makes some sense. But sending them within 2-3 hexes of many bases TRYING to provoke something is another thing.

Some of you may remember I had hunting parties tracking these guys down fairly relentlessly until I realized I was just using up precious fuel trying to catch an endless amount of YMS.

[John 3rd]

Alpha77: I did remember to order Torps on Jill Daitai. Have made the exact mistake you did several times.

[HansBolter]

ORIGINAL: Alpha77

Might be a good sign, if he uses these still in 44 ? Guess the Allies had also some higher air losses... so nice bit of intel we got here.

They are serviceable planes with a relatively deep pool for the allies, so why not leave a few CVEs operating them to relive strain on pools of Hellcats and FM-1s.

Smart resource management rather than an indication of desperation.

However, desperation regarding pool depth is a constant state for an Allied player.

[Lowpe]

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

ORIGINAL: Alpha77

Might be a good sign, if he uses these still in 44 ? Guess the Allies had also some higher air losses... so nice bit of intel we got here.

They are serviceable planes with a relatively deep pool for the allies, so why not leave a few CVEs operating them to relive strain on pools of Hellcats and FM-1s.

Smart resource management rather than an indication of desperation.

However, desperation regarding pool depth is a constant state for an Allied player.

Almost limitless pools of the the late war FMs, DB and TB for carriers. I bet I destroyed around 5 thousand in my last game...but the Allies get tons of them.

[Alpha77]

Hans meant desperation Allies have so much stuff, they do not know where to store it anymore.... well I only know my pools in 8/42 were quite filled as Allied (eg. 100 4e + bunch of Mathilda, Lees, 25pdr, masses of AA, 2pdr, all sortof 105,155 or 75mm guns ...etc after convois arrived, only Brits seemed a bit scarce) but that was vs. AI (and even the "old" suicidal AI,so no comparison with PBM) ah and I had 6,5 Mio supply or so alone in SanFran (LOL[8|])

[John 3rd]

Dan's home so the turn is sent. We'll see what happens with that attempted ambush!

Promised a screenshot of current production so here it is with Frank-B starting up. The -A factories have not converted yet. Should see that pretty quick.

[Lowpe]

I seem to recall that the Frank A upgrades to the Frank B in this game...is that right?

With the DS hanging around, where are your large tanker convoys...still near Singers? What are your plans for them?

And finally, it seems like you have a production of 30 night fighters a month?