Islands of Destiny: RA 5.0 Japanese Side

[John 3rd]

Certainly have taken down a bunch of USN planes and pilots over the last four days. Nice to knock them down and be fighting over my base where losses are lowered.

Am getting ready to run the new turn with the High Altitude CAP set. If the day goes well, I am thinking of placing a BUNCH of fighters over Nagasaki next turn and try to CRUSH my opponent's Sweeps. By a bunch, I mean move to surrounding bases another 4-500 fighters and place them on LRCAP.

[John 3rd]

December 15, 1944

Not only can we fight in the skies over Nagasaki but we can also stage ambushes still. How Dan has not taken out Batan Isle amazes me. Staged from there, two Daitai of IJN planes ambush a Squadron of P-47s and then CRUSH all 19 of this raid.

YUMMY!

[John 3rd]

December 15, 1944

I-19 bags its 2nd LST in as many days as it Battle Surfaces to sink LST-912 with 9 Shell Hits and 1 TT.

The bag limit in the South Pacific looks like it could go pretty high!

[John 3rd]

December 15, 1944

The Fighters at High Altitude do OK. Doesn't seem to be much more effective then Low Altitude.

The Allies come in at Nagasaki for a fifth day of action:

NIGHT
25 B-24 attack the AF--maybe Dan is listening to his readers?--and do a grand total of 1 Air Base Hit. There are 19 NF defending. That number will triple tomorrow.

Morning
103 F vs. 10 F4U
103 F vs. 14 F4U
98 F vs. 258 F4U--WOW!
96 F vs. 21 F4U

Afternoon
104 F vs. 16 P-47
98 F vs. 16 P-51
82 F vs. 47 P-47

The biggest thing that stands out to me in this day's action is the consistency of my CAP size thru all these Sweeps. Even after that MEGA-Sweep of 258, the CAP bounces right back. Pretty impressive.

Orders for tomorrow:
NF reinforce as detailed above and 4 new AA units will swing into action as well.

Bring in, as detailed earlier, 350 more Fighters. Place 2/3 of them at nearby bases to hid the bump in numbers. They are set at 50% LR CAP--Nagasaki. The remaining 100 or so reinforce the planes already at the Nagasaki base complex. Hope to do this next turn today so, perhaps, I will be able to Post this action in a couple of hours.

Here are the lovely totals for the day's action:

[John 3rd]

December 16, 1944

VICTORY! At least a temptorary one...

The Allied Fleet moves back towards Formosa. GREAT!

At Tokyo a Tanker TF carrying 154,313 Fuel and 95.200 Oil begins unloading...

[ny59giants]

Total Supply is.....

[savelius2]

The way I see things there are a few critical questions to ask at this point: First, are you going to be able to maintain this pace of fighter operations for long? The moment you run out of airframes or supply things will quickly go south. Secondly, what is the VP result of the strategic bombing campaign vs airframe points? Trading airframes at 1:1 will help vs the 2:1 autovictory, but if he’s getting 300 VP of strategic points a day on top then you have maybe three months to the end, and that’s assuming he can’t ramp up the bombing campaign or get better at it in the engine. Third, can you use the KB to augment your homeland fighter forces without losing them, or are your current raids netting enough points or tempo disruption to be worth the opportunity cost of not having them over Japan?

[John 3rd]

Michael and I chatted some yesterday and he asked about supply in the Home Islands. I stated my frustration about the lack of it and how it wasn't growing hardly at all. This made me get to thinking and so I went thru the entire Home Islands last night on our evening turn and I found BUNCHES of items trying to repair themselves: Factories, Engines, LI, HI, etc...

ROOKIE mistake. Damn. Just pisses me off. EVERYTHING in the Home Islands is now not repairing anything.

[John 3rd]

The Victory Point Question:

December 14, 1944
Japan: 68616
Allies: 101,644

December 17, 1944
Japan: 68969
Allies: 102,674

Net Gains:
Japan: +353
Allies: +1,030

[John 3rd]

December 17, 1944

A HUNTING we shall go!

I-197 SINKS AK John Davis with 2 TT near Newcastle and damages AK Skagerak with 1TT near Brisbane.

No escort. Continuing patrol...

[John 3rd]

December 17, 1944

I've had a ZERO Daitai of Kamikazes stationed at Kendari for months. Set them to train 50% and Naval Attack 100 Ft. They have been quite fruitful to date. This day finds them hitting a TF of 5 LSM at Namlea. No aircover. They 14 planes score 8 hits sinking all five of the little ships.

[John 3rd]

December 17, 1944

Canton--Hong Kong
I've been running troops and supplies from the western DEI to these bases for months without real Allied interference. Canton is now beseiged by the Allies and I had a Brigade plus 5,000 Supply racing in. The TF arrives on the 16th and begins unloading. The 17th sees the Americans finally shift some DB over to deal with this. Since I have been pulling my tired China Fighters and other air units out for R&R and replenishment, there has been no aircover here for 14-18 days during which time I've run in three convoys. THIS convoy gets hammered by about 100 DB losing 9-11 AK/AKL but only AFTER they are unloaded.

We'll try to stage an ambush here over the next convoy (5-6 days) by bringing in 4-5 Daitai/Sentai.

Imperial HQ
At Imperial HQ, orders are issued for the final evacuation of the Aleutians and some units from the Kuriles. If you remember several months ago I pulled all five ID that were stationed up here. We'll now pull five-six Brigades with double that number of other units for redeployment elsewhere...

Soerabaja
The Kaigun is partially disbanded in Port working off some SYS Damage. We've got the last four CVs about done with their upgrades (mentioned earlier). In two days all ships will be ordered to make ready for operations and the Fleet will sail three days after that. All the CVs, except Junyo, will form up and prepare for combat operations. Junyo and all the CVLs will form a TF for Raiding purposes in the south. There is PLENTY of fuel for this operation so it will be like the old days...

[ny59giants]

Supplies - Now that you are under 1 Million, you need to see where is at. Hit the "B" button and sort by supply to see where it may be stockpiled, but shouldn't be. You may need to halt rebuilding LCUs as you need it for new airframes. I would keep a running tally of it and check to what you have every 5 days (since you don't have Tracker).

[John 3rd]

I've already began to notice an appreciable increase at my main locations.

Feel sooooooooo stupid to have not checked this earlier.

Will do what you ask and Post later on tonight.

[John 3rd]

December 19, 1944

SS Action
The feeding continues in the South Pacific as I-200 attacks and sinks TK Alcides with 3 TT near Noumea.

Kaigun
Hoses are put away. Paint cans are cleaned up. Some areas are still patched while others are fully repaired. The vast majority of its work completed, the Kaigun prepares to leave Soerabaja:

KB-1 Six heavy carriers depart and move towards Singapore on a quick mission.
KB-2 Vc-Adm Yamaguchi looks at his TF of CV Junyo, 5 CVLs, 2 CA (Mogami and Kumano), 1 CL, and 6 DDs and smiles. This is NOT what he is used to commanding but the mission he has been assigned is right up his aggressive alley. His TF weighs anchor and makes course for Balikpapan...

The remaining ships strip down and prepare for the sea.

Osaka
A Tanker Convoy drops anchor here and 61,955 Fuel and 54,606 Oil begin flowing into the Port.

One week total for Fuel 212,000 and Oil 146,800 delivered to the Home Islands.

[Lowpe]

You will notice screwy logistics as you get low...the AI doesn't do well with fuel especially, but really all of it is problematic. You need to create supply bases, where you can feed supply into combat.

I hesitate to see your supply shrinkage in trying to feed the combat in China for example.

You can get by without tracker, but you will need to take notes or screen picutres or a simple spreadsheet.

If you don't measure it, you can't manage it, and the economy won't last as long.

Absolutely no fun playing when supplies go zero. Everything else is tolerable. [;)]

[John 3rd]

I am not sending ANY supplies to China. They will fight and fend for themselves.

[Lecivius]

ORIGINAL: John 3rd

I am not sending ANY supplies to China. They will fight and fend for themselves.

ORIGINAL: John 3rd

Canton--Hong Kong
I've been running troops and supplies from the western DEI to these bases for months without real Allied interference.

Just sayin (cause I'm such a swell guy)

[John 3rd]

I stand corrected. I have run in supplies from the DEI to southern China. My thinking was from Home Ilses to China.

Thanks!

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: ny59giants

Supplies - Now that you are under 1 Million, you need to see where is at. Hit the "B" button and sort by supply to see where it may be stockpiled, but shouldn't be. You may need to halt rebuilding LCUs as you need it for new airframes. I would keep a running tally of it and check to what you have every 5 days (since you don't have Tracker).

But, for VP purposes, there is this:

"Control of Base - Each base has a basic VP level for Allied ownership and one for Japanese
ownership. The final victory point value that is awarded to the controlling player at the end of
the game is figured by the following formula:

»» Basic VP# x [ ( current size of port ) + ( current size of airfield x 2) ]

The basic VP and final VP numbers for each side are displayed for each base when the mouse
cursor is placed over a base (the basic VP number value is in parenthesis).

This full amount of the final VP value is only scored at the end of the game if the base has
supplies at least equal to its needed supplies. If supplies are lower than the required amount,
the VP’s scored will be less than this maximum, (the lower the supplies the lower the scored
VP’s). Bases with 0 supplies would score 25% of the full final points.

Example: Rabaul has a Basic Japanese VP level of 3. Assuming the size of the airfield is 8, and
the size of the port is 7, the Final VP level for Japanese ownership of Rabaul is 3 x [ (7) + (8 x
2) ] or 69. As long as Rabaul had more than its supplies needed, the Japanese player would
score 69. If Rabaul’s supplies were only equal to 30% of its needs, the Japanese player would
score only 33 VP’s."



This calculation is not only made at the end of the game wrap-up. It's made every turn. It seems particularly challenging on islands in the late-game for Japan.

How do Japan players balance the need to supply garrisons to keep 75% of the VPs for the base, with pulling supply home to make airplanes?