The Accidental War Obvert vs Lowpe

[Lowpe]

Jan 25, 1942

Soviets unleash some of their bombers...but firs the only good thing for the day.

[Lowpe]

Can't touch them Migs....

[Lowpe]

Just a little opening bombing attack...

[Lowpe]

Divebombers...

[Lowpe]

Industry targeted from Canton to Manchuria to Sakhalin

[Lowpe]

Well, at least Toyohara didn't fall. Didn't lose any ships either.

[Lowpe]

Soviet front.

[PaxMondo]

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

Can't touch them Migs....

Nates will only work against the SOV biplanes ... zero will work ok against MIG ... MIG is faster, but light armament.

[PaxMondo]

Yikes, so much industry hit so early ...

[Lowpe]

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

Yikes, so much industry hit so early ...

Well, I got to use the fighters I have. One squadron of Oscar Ic arrives today for the Soviet war and there are whopping total of two size 21 squadrons of Zeroes. Everything else is a Nate or Claude. Less than 300 fighters against 1500 Soviet fighters and 1500 Soviet bombers roughly.

My AA is not at bases yet, but starting to arrive. And of course I bought some out and send them to the SRA and Burma. Sakhalin and Sapporo need AA shipped in.

So, my point is that the industry close to the Soviets is going to get pounded, and to be honest, he will night fire bomb Tokyo when the moonlight improves I am sure. With the manpower present Tokyo will burn.

[PaxMondo]

Maybe ... does he have LB with range? Most of his SOV AC are really short legged ... so there can only be a few bases that he could launch from.

[Lowpe]

DB-3M with an extended range of 13..level bombers. They hit Harbin, well over 100 yesterday. Normal range 11. I figure there are at least 300 of these planes (SWAG here). The torpedo variant is present too with identical range.

So he can hit Hiroshima curving to Tokyo...I don't have the Navy present yet to close the air bases. One air base is size 3 so that will limit the strikes to short of Tokyo, but Vlad is size 7 and 14 hexes from Tokyo..

But Vlad can hit one hex past Hiroshima...Matsuyama at 13 hexes.

Of course his fighters are very short legged except for the Mig which can reach out 6 hexes.

The SB-2 has an extended range of 7, normal range of 6 and I figure there are 300 of those too.

Port Arthur is 14 hexes away and safe for now.

[SierraJuliet]

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

Can't touch them Migs....

The Migs are awesome. I don't feel comfortable throwing A6M5 at them. Tojo hold their own. It wasn't until the arrival of George that I felt that I had a fighter capable of overcoming Mig.

[SierraJuliet]

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

DB-3M with an extended range of 13..level bombers. They hit Harbin, well over 100 yesterday. Normal range 11. I figure there are at least 300 of these planes (SWAG here). The torpedo variant is present too with identical range.

So he can hit Hiroshima curving to Tokyo...I don't have the Navy present yet to close the air bases. One air base is size 3 so that will limit the strikes to short of Tokyo, but Vlad is size 7 and 14 hexes from Tokyo..

But Vlad can hit one hex past Hiroshima...Matsuyama at 13 hexes.

Of course his fighters are very short legged except for the Mig which can reach out 6 hexes.

The SB-2 has an extended range of 7, normal range of 6 and I figure there are 300 of those too.

The short range of Soviet fighters will at least mean that any bombing raids on the HI will be unescorted. They do have a fearsome number of bombers though. It will be a big ask for you to cover all your cities in Japan. It would be silly of the Soviets not to do bombing runs while they have plenty of bombers to throw in your direction. You have a big challenge there to whittle down his air power. Watching on with great interest to see you it works out.

[Lowpe]

A picture

So, if you could send say 400 bombers at night against Hiroshima/Osaka even with half load, 100kg x5, 250kg x4. With no night fighters available, say 50% of the bombers will actually fly, the results are going to be very bad.

And the Allies are sure to realize I will have to naval bombard those bases, which will be mined and protected by lots of subs...and the opportunity to inflict damage on Japan will lessen each day as I grow my air force strength and Soviets diminish, plus better aerial ASW etc., etc.

So, they will hit now at the point of maximum vulnerability.

[Lowpe]

ORIGINAL: SierraJuliet

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

Can't touch them Migs....

The Migs are awesome. I don't feel comfortable throwing A6M5 at them. Tojo hold their own. It wasn't until the arrival of George that I felt that I had a fighter capable of overcoming Mig.

I hear...the first thing I have done each turn is to look at the progress the r&d has made on getting the Jack and Frank. With an arrival date of 5/43 and a dozen factories working Jack and 15 working on Frank I can only pray that I can get them substantially early.

My guess is though, that the Nick A (which I will make in huge numbers and convert many LB to FB), the A6M3 will save the day. I do have one r&d facility on the Tojo IIa...I really wanted to play a game where I got away from the Oscar and Tojo line...this game will really be the Jack, Frank and Sam show. If I can make it that far.

[jwolf]

How good are the Soviet pilots? I assume they have lots, but most (all?) of the good ones would be busy vs. the Luftwaffe.

[Lowpe]

ORIGINAL: jwolf

How good are the Soviet pilots? I assume they have lots, but most (all?) of the good ones would be busy vs. the Luftwaffe.

Better than most of mine. Mine were stripped of all decent pilots for the SRA etc.

[Lowpe]

Well, in a week +1 day I get some decent aviation support for Manchuko which I sorely need.

Also China gets buffed with brigades...might be able to take Wenchow. Plus more air support at Canton which is under siege by the Flying Tigers and Chinese bombers.

I am now up to about 36 Zeroes protecting Honshu, Hokkaido and Sakhalin. Upgrade a chutai from Nates to Oscar Ic. It is just going to be a long slog here to protect everything.

There is only 2 fighters at Chungking, so I am thinking of pulling off a daytime firebombing there. I can get some Oscars to sweep/escort/LRCAP and hit him with some Sallies. DL is 9/10.

[Lowpe]

Here you can pretty much see the size of the Air Force and Aviation Support arrayed against 3000+ Soviets.