Once Again into the Breach - Mike (J) vs. tc464 (A)

[rustysi]

I'm curious to see that old post says.

Me too, I haven't had a chance to read much of it yet.

[Mike Solli]

22 Sep 43

Sub War

The Jack found a convoy off Taihoku and badly damaged a Yusen-N xAK. She’ll sink tomorrow.

An LST convoy south of Lunga drove over the I-170 and I-171. Each sub took out an LST.

5 Fleet
4 Fleet
Nothing to report.

SE Fleet

The 4E bombers went for Hollandia’s port today. The 2E bombers spread themselves around, but the majority of them went after Aitape’s troops. I think Aitape is the target.

My night bombing Betties put a couple holes in the runway at Manus and damaged half a dozen P-47s. The airfield and port are still at level 3. I’m surprised it hasn’t gone up yet.

SRA

Nothing to report.

Burma

The monsoon still rages (I think until November), but on occasion, the weather forecast is relatively good. I’ve been dumping a lot of supply in Burma and it is showing. The only place where there is a shortage of supply is in the far NE of the country. Today was one of those nice days so I sent some fighters to visit Akyab to begin whittling down his fighters and gain more experience, especially for the IJNAF fighter pilots.

It started with 32 Georges, who did very well. For no loss, they shot down the lone Sea Hurricane and 9 of 15 Hurricane IIcs. Then 11 Tojos went in (only a chutai of them). For a loss of 3, they got 5 P-40s: 3 of 17 P-40Ks and 2 of 8 new P-40N5s. Finally, 19 Franks showed up shooting down 3 Hurricanes and 8 P-40Ks, for a loss of 3 Franks. So, overall, I lost 6 planes (plus an op loss) to 26 Allied fighters (and a couple of op losses). So it begins again.

China

Nothing to report.

Other Stuff

Reinforcement: I-185, will be based at Kwajalein.

The N1K5-J R&D advanced to 8/45 (will become operational 5/44).

[Mike Solli]

23 Sep 43

Sub War
5 Fleet
4 Fleet

Nothing to report.

SE Fleet

I had created some barges to haul a little supply from Hollandia to Aitape a couple of days ago. They made it today, just in time for an Allied bombardment TF to visit. The US TF was composed of 2 BB, 2 CA, 1 CL, 11 DD and 2 DE. Of course they obliterated the 10 barges, but that caused them to have a pretty half-hearted bombardment causing only a few points of port damage.

My Betties visited Manus again damaging a few P-47s and causing a little airfield damage, along with a point of airfield supply damage. Every little bit hurts.

His 4E bombers rested again. Here’s how the 2E sorties were allocated:

Aitape: 94 against the troops
Talasea: 20 against the airfield
Rabaul: 19 against the airfield.

It’s becoming a routine. He’s definitely interested in Aitape. He’ll skip over Wewak. The invasion of Aitape will render both Hollandia and Wewak powerless. Shrewd choice. I’ve stationed KB1 (3 CVs, 99 Zeros, 54 Judies, 54 Jills) to the NE to plaster an invasion force. His carriers (2 CVs and 1-2 CVLs I think) are hanging out around Lae to cover things when the big day happens.

SRA
Burma
China

Nothing to report.

Other Stuff

The Ki-102b Randy finally finished repairing an R&D factory. In addition, there are 2 more factories: 25(5) and 19(11).

[Mike Solli]

24 Sep 43

Quiet day.

My Betties hit Manus again causing very little damage.

The Allied 4E bombers rested again. Here’s the breakdown of the 2E sorties:

Aitape: 98 against troops
Talasea: 19
Rabaul: 12
Hollandia: 5

I got confirmation of an xAK sunk by sub on 7/19/43.

[Mike Solli]

25 Sep 43

Sub War

The I-33 sank an xAKL south of Merauke on a supply mission.

The Totitsukaze hit the Bonefish with a DC off Saipan.

Another Japanese large xAK was torpedoed off Takao. She’ll sink tomorrow. This is becoming a dangerous spot. I’ve moved around my ASW forces (air and sea), but it doesn’t seem to matter.

5 Fleet
4 Fleet

Nothing to report.

SE Fleet

The 4Es rested and the 2Es did about the same thing as the previous days.

I did notice the US carriers have moved north of Lae. I’m not sure why they did that. Maybe they’re going to support the series of TFs sending troops/supply to Manus? He has fighters at Manus. Why aren’t they doing that? Whatever the reason, I see an opportunity.

Anyway, I have about half a dozen RO class subs in the immediate area. Four are in a picket line a few hexes to the NW from where the carriers are with a couple more entering the area. I picked the best commander of the lot and sent that sub in to see if he could get lucky twice (torpedo something and not get his ass sunk). RO-44 drew the short straw.

The nightly Betty raid caused a bit of damage and destroyed a P-47, while damaging a handful of planes, P-47s and Catalinas.

SRA
Burma

Nothing to report.

China

Just a reminder about China. The Chinese forts at Chungking are down to level 3. I have 130-150 2E bombers hitting the troops and on occasion, the airfield to keep damage up, daily. After the last attack, I pulled out the 3 Tank Division and 4 most beat up infantry divisions. They’re resting nicely, repairing their disabled squads and replacing the few destroyed squads pretty quickly. It’s interesting to note that most of the destroyed squads from the Tank division came from motorized infantry, not the tin cans they call tanks.

In addition, there are at least 6 fresh divisions (all AVs 450-480) headed to Chungking from around China to get in on the action. As of 29 September (where I am as of typing this), the AV is up to 5200 (including the 5 divisions resting and a fresh division that just arrived) with another 2200+ in the other 5 fresh divisions still heading there. I will attack again when the total AV exceeds 6k.

Other Stuff

The D4Y3 R&D advanced to 11/43 (will become operational 10/43). Note that the D4Y2 will also become operational 10/43. You probably don’t recall that I neglected keeping track of my airframe and engine production and had produced in excess of 600 Ha-60 engines early in the war. I’m down to about 280 of those engines now. They’re used for the D4Y1/Y2 and the Judy recon plane. I currently have 2 factories producing the D4Y1, each sized 30. In October, I’ll keep one at the D4Y2 (to use up the Ha-60 engines) and the second will upgrade to the D4Y3 and increase to size 60, for my carriers. The Y1/Y2 will eventually become Kamikazes.

The Ryujo, Hiei, Kirishima and the 6 Akitsukis entered refit at Yokohama.

Finally, I got confirmation that the AKA Belatrix went down at Namatanai on 8/19/43. That was the result of a cruiser raid I made there. Always nice to kill APAs and AKAs. I had figured she went down because she was doing a nice impression of a torch after that attack.

[Mike Solli]

26 Sep 43

Sub War

So, the RO-44 dutifully headed toward the US carrier TF, and made it there without encountering an enemy ASW TF. She came to periscope depth and what did she see? The CVL Independence. She launched 4 torpedoes (that’s all the tubes she has) and hit the Independence with one of them. The escorting DDs prosecuted her and hit her with one depth charge, causing moderate damage: 23-14(5)-2(1)-0. She’ll head for Truk for repairs. But, later in the afternoon, she found an LST TF shipping supply to Manus and sank one. Banzai! [:D]

5 Fleet
4 Fleet

Nothing to report.

SE Fleet

My Betties hit Manus again overnight, damaging the airfield a bit and also damaging some SBDs and PBYs. Just a nuisance, but anything to make him react to me for a change as well as slow down the increase in size of the airfield.

The Allied 4E bombers rested again today, but the 2E bombers did their usual, 129 sorties, with 88 hitting Aitape’s troops.

That little sub incursion worked so well, I’m trying it again tomorrow with another sub.

SRA

Nothing to report.

Burma

My fighters swept Akyab again, individually. For a cost of 4 Georges and 5 Tojos (no Franks) they shot down 22 enemy fighters. Tomorrow, just the Franks are going in.

China
Other Stuff

Nothing to report.

[Mike Solli]

27 Sep 43

Sub War

Today was not a good day for the Japanese merchant marine…

The Albacore sank a Toho class returning from shipping troops out. This was 4 hexes south of Tokyo. That area is just teeming with Allied subs. My convoys are now moving west of (or along) the north-south string of islands there. That seems to be much safer (for now).

I’m building up Jesselton (just east of Miri and Brunei) to station some ASW planes and ships to counter the subs in that area. I had a couple of engineer companies at Miri that had no mission. I put them on two xAKs to shift them to Jesselton along shallow hexes, but they had no escort (none available). Of course some US subs were in the shallow hexes (they’re getting bold). They ended up sinking both ships, destroying the engineers in the process. I had ASW ships patrolling the deep hexes but not the shallow hexes. That really sucks. I have two more engineer companies at Brunei, but I’m going to fly some transports there and fly them to Jesselton. The airbase at Jesselton is level 1. I think transports can land at a level 1 airfield. We’ll see. I have some AS there with a handful of engineers that are working on the airfield. I would like to speed it up though. If the transports won’t transport to a level one airfield, it’ll have to wait until it’s level 2.

In retaliation, the Hatsukaze hit the Seawolf with 2 depth charges off Saipan.

5 Fleet
4 Fleet

Nothing to report.

SE Fleet

My Betties missed today.

The US carriers withdrew to Finschaven so my sub missed intercepting them. That’s ok. I think that torpedo hit on Independence may have slowed things down. He may wait for carrier reinforcements which I suspect are on their way. More on that below.

114x 2E sorties hit the usual suspects with Aitape getting 80 sorties on troops.

Ted did something I’ve been waiting for. He sent 25x P-38Gs on a sweep against Truk. I had Truk loaded with fighters for this eventuality. The Lightnings ran into a buzz saw of 227 Japanese fighters and fighter bombers. I lost 5 planes (all A6M5c curiously) against 10 Lightnings shot down and another half dozen that didn’t make it back to their base, with the remaining damaged to some extent. I hope this makes Ted cautious in using his 4E bombers against Truk. A good chunk of those fighters will eventually be pulled back to Babeldaob and the Marianas (not sure how many yet), but I still need to defend Truk. Akagi and Kaga are still repairing sys damage:

Akagi: 48-7(7)-11-0
Kaga: 25-4(4)-9(2)-0

Each is repairing a point (occasionally 2) per day so 2 months to get Akagi repaired enough to leave safely. We’ll see what happens. If things get hot soon, I may have to risk moving them with sys damage.

Once the sys and engine damage is repaired, it really won’t take much to repair the major damage at all. Barring any unfortunate circumstances, both will be back in service before the end of the year.

Slowing down the build-up of Manus’ airfield is key here. His bombers can’t touch me until he gets that airfield large enough (level 5 I think?). So, I’ll keep using everything at my disposal to slow him down.

Nagato and Mutsu, along with 4 Fubukis, are headed down there to bombard. They should go in ~29 September.

SRA

Nothing to report.

Burma

The Franks swept Akyab today, 38 against 3 Hurricanes. Two Hurricanes were lost to no Franks. Ted isn’t even trying to reinforce the fighters there. He has more fighters further up the coast but he’s content with letting the Akyab fighter squadrons get decimated.

So far this month, I’ve lost 15 fighters to 50 Brits.

China

Nothing to report.

Other Stuff

Here’s my estimate of US carrier strength:

Confirmed sunk:
CV Saratoga
CV Wasp
CVE Anzio
CVE Santee
CVE Copahee

Operational:
CV TF:
CV Hornet
CV Wolverine
CVL Independence – sub torpedo on 9/26/43.
CVL Princeton – not confirmed, last spotted 8/5/43.

CV:
Enterprise – aerial torpedo on 6/22/43, hasn’t been seen since. Expect her back at any time.
Lexington – sub torp and 500kg on 4/27/43, hasn’t been seen since. Expect her back at any time.
Essex – sub torpedo on 6/23/43, hasn’t been seen since. Expect her back at any time.
Yorktown – 2x500 & 1x250kg on 8/7/43, fuel storage explosion hasn’t been seen since. Expect her back at the end of the year.
Gettysburg – 500 and 250kg on 8/20/43, hasn’t been seen since. Expect her back at end of year.
Bunker Hill – arrived 9/19/43, hasn’t been seen.

CVL:
Belleau Wood – arrived 7/16/43, not spotted.
Cowpens – arrived 9/3/43, not spotted.
Monterey – will arrive 9/28/43

CVE:
Sangamon – hasn’t been seen.
Suwannee – hasn’t been seen.
Barnes – hasn’t been seen.
Corregidor – 2 sub torpedoes on 8/15/43, hasn’t been seen since.
Natoma Bay – hasn’t been seen.

Worst case for me, looks like at any moment the US carrier fleet can swell to 6 CV, 4 CVL and 4 CVE with an additional 1 CV, 2 CVL and 5 CVE as reinforcements by the end of the year and finally 2 more CV repaired by the end of the year.

[Mike Solli]

28 Sep 43

Sub War
5 Fleet
4 Fleet

Nothing to report.

SE Fleet

The change in 2E tactics are interesting. Aitape was ignored today. Most of the bombers went for Hollandia’s port doing little damage. But, with existing damage to Hollandia’s airfield, the port damage was not repaired.

The 4E bombers rested again.

Manus’ port and airfield are still at level 3. This really surprises me. I guess my feeble tactics are delaying things.

Finally, the US carriers withdrew to just NE of Milne Bay. I have a Glen sub to the east of there keeping an eye on the carriers. I also have two subs in the deep water to the SW in case the Independence (or the whole TF) decide to go that way.

My Betties hit Manus again, causing a bit of damage and killing a P-70 while damaging a couple other planes. I’ve been waiting for those night fighters to show up. My Betties should have company tomorrow.

KB's Jills launched against an ASW TF that wandered into range. Only 18 of the 54 Jills found the target, and missed. He knows KB is there now. I'm pulling them to the NW out of his spying eyes.

SRA
Burma
China

Nothing to report.

Other Stuff

Reinforcements:

CV Unryu
CV Amagi
CV Katsuragi

These are the first three of the Unryu class, much like the Soryu. They can carry 63 planes and have 36 torpedoes. I’ve configured them to carry 36 Zeros, 15 Judies and 12 Jills. (I may change it to 9 Judies and 18 Jills. Not sure yet.) I was very pleasantly surprised at the quality of the pilots of their air groups, especially elite pilots. I don’t keep elite pilots in the bomber daitai and keep 6 in each of the fighter daitai. Combined, here is the elite body count for the 3 carriers:

Fighter: 28, kept 18 in the carriers so 10 to TRACOM
Dive Bomber: 40, all to TRACOM
Torpedo Bomber: 10, all to TRACOM

IJN TRACOM just increased by 60(!) to 235. I’m curious to see how that accelerates the pilot training.

The carriers are making their way to Nagasaki where they’ll pick up their escort and move to Babeldaob.

Note that those 3 carriers have the same capacity as just 2 Essex class…

Now I can accelerate the last 3 Unryus. I expect them in late March 1944. If I can keep my big carriers afloat that long, I’ll have 4 KBs, each with ~200 planes (12 carriers totaling 786 planes), plus a gaggle of little carriers (11 CVL/Es totaling 336 planes) that will most likely hide in the SRA (MKB). That could change if a golden opportunity presents itself.

[Lokasenna]

On the forts-vs-supply on islands issue: my experience is that the supplies are burned more by combat than anything else. And large combats burn a tremendous amount of supplies. You will run out of supplies in just about every major location that you defend unless you stockpile 10K+ there per division-equivalent.

Better to have the multiplier from the forts, in my opinion, than the pittance of supply (relatively speaking) that building the forts costs you.

[ny59giants]

Tokyo to Truk - I set the TFs to coastal and set my ASW accordingly. This way there is minimum deep ocean hexes.

[Lokasenna]

ORIGINAL: ny59giants_MatrixForum

Tokyo to Truk - I set the TFs to coastal and set my ASW accordingly. This way there is minimum deep ocean hexes.

I mostly just rely on my aerial ASW, which is brutal in at least spotting subs, and relatively random routes.

[rustysi]

An LST convoy south of Lunga drove over the I-170 and I-171. Each sub took out an LST.

The I-33 sank an xAKL south of Merauke on a supply mission.

She launched 4 torpedoes (that’s all the tubes she has) and hit the Independence with one of them.

later in the afternoon, she found an LST TF shipping supply to Manus and sank one.

Death by a 1000 cuts.[:D]

[rustysi]

Another Japanese large xAK was torpedoed off Takao. She’ll sink tomorrow. This is becoming a dangerous spot. I’ve moved around my ASW forces (air and sea), but it doesn’t seem to matter.

And was historically.

Don't ignore search. Air ASW still needs good detection levels to complete its mission. As do surface assets.

Do you have any night nav search. If you have enough search groups in the area it might help to put some on night duties.

[rustysi]

Mike, I'll even go to extremes at times. When I have several convoys going through the same relative area at the same time I 'turn' my search assets to get double, sometimes triple coverage of an area. IOW I use search arcs and 'turn' them to adjust them to my convoy routes. PITA, but I do it. Doubt it'll make a difference in an AI game, but trying to develop 'good habits' for PBEM.

[Mike Solli]

ORIGINAL: rustysi

An LST convoy south of Lunga drove over the I-170 and I-171. Each sub took out an LST.

The I-33 sank an xAKL south of Merauke on a supply mission.

She launched 4 torpedoes (that’s all the tubes she has) and hit the Independence with one of them.

later in the afternoon, she found an LST TF shipping supply to Manus and sank one.

Death by a 1000 cuts.[:D]

Oh yeah! And there's more coming...[:D]

[Mike Solli]

29 Sep 43

Sub War
5 Fleet
4 Fleet

Nothing to report.

SE Fleet

My Betties did a night airfield raid again. This time P-70s flew. I expected that after seeing some get damaged/destroyed yesterday. They actually shot down a Betty too. That may have been the first bomber shot down at night!

There were only 41x 2E sorties today. Ted rested most of his Air Force. They were spread around and did little damage.

Nagato and Mutsu will go in to Manus overnight. Keeping fingers crossed that they can do some serious damage to the airfield to slow things down a day or so.

SRA
Burma
China

Nothing to report.

Other Stuff

Reinforcement: SC Ch-46, ASW

The Ki-43-IV R&D advanced to 12/44 (will become operational 2/44).
The Ki-84r R&D advanced to 3/45 (will become operational 2/44).

[ElvisDaKing]

ORIGINAL: Mike Solli


The Ki-43-IV R&D advanced to 12/44 (will become operational 2/44).
The Ki-84r R&D advanced to 3/45 (will become operational 2/44).

Hi Mike

May I ask you why you are still investing R&D for Ki-43 Oscar as you have already Ki-100 Tony operating as a sr1 fighter to support your Ki-84 Frank groups...
I know that there s 2 opposing ‘schools’, one in favour of Oscar and the other one in favour of Tony, but don t understand why you want to have both of them.

Re : I have R&Ded Ki-43 Oscar upto IIIa because of its range, its 250kg bomb and its armour, but then stopped and converted the Oscar R&D for Ki-83.
Ki 43 IV Oscar has nice 20mm canons but his durability is too low which makes it useless as an interceptor, especially against allied 4E.
Ki 43 Oscar can be useful as an Escort fighter and as a kamikaze plane, so IIIa seems to be best model with its longest range...


Nice to see also Ki-84r be advanced for production in 2/44
Question : Are you also R&Ding the Ki 84b ? and if so what would be its planned production date...
Investing heavily in Ki 84a, I start production in Aug 43 and upgraded 5 R&D factories to K-84r, so the Ki 84r will be available well before the Ki-84b...
I am wondering, if it s worth to invest R&D for the Ki-84b....

[Mike Solli]

30 Sep 43

Sub Ward

The I-171 was hanging out to the SW of Milne Bay hoping to run into the US carriers (or maybe the damaged Independence), but unfortunately, she ran into an ASW TF, taking a depth charge hit. Heading home for repairs...

5 Fleet

Nothing to report.

4 Fleet

Some US carriers appeared a little east of Mili and bombed the place with 29 Helldivers, 16 Dauntlesses and 16 Avengers. No lasting damage was done and a Helldiver was taken out by flak.

I have 6 subs in the area. I'm going to try and intercept the TF.

SE Fleet

A bombardment TF composed of Nagato, Mutsu and 4 Fubukis reached Manus with the intent of damaging the airfield (still level 3) to slow down the build up of that facility. Instead, they found an cargo parked there:

Night Time Surface Combat, near Manus at 101,119, Range 8,000 Yards

Japanese Ships
BB Nagato
BB Mutsu
DD Sagiri
DD Yugiri
DD Sazanami
DD Ushio

Allied Ships
DD Beale, Shell hits 5, Torpedo hits 1, and is sunk
DD Braine, Shell hits 3, and is sunk
xAK Yochow, Shell hits 5, and is sunk
xAK Beltana, Shell hits 4, and is sunk
xAK Goulburn, Shell hits 9, and is sunk

I suspect they were carrying supply.

Now a bombardment? Nope, not yet:

Night Time Surface Combat, near Manus at 101,119, Range 11,000 Yards

Japanese Ships
BB Nagato, Shell hits 3
BB Mutsu, Shell hits 3
DD Sagiri
DD Yugiri
DD Sazanami, Shell hits 1
DD Ushio, Shell hits 1, on fire

Allied Ships
DD Converse, Shell hits 8, on fire
DD Dashiell, Shell hits 2
APA Henderson
APA Callaway, Shell hits 3, Torpedo hits 2, and is sunk
APA Cambria, Shell hits 9, and is sunk
AK Albireo, Shell hits 4, and is sunk
AK Eridanus, Shell hits 7, and is sunk

Allied ground losses:
5957 casualties reported
Squads: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled
Non Combat: 203 destroyed, 132 disabled
Engineers: 190 destroyed, 191 disabled
Vehicles lost 179 (177 destroyed, 2 disabled)

Too bad that last APA got away. Some ground unit(s) are hurting though.

Now a bombardment? Nope:

Night Time Surface Combat, near Manus at 101,119, Range 4,000 Yards

Japanese Ships
BB Nagato, Shell hits 1
BB Mutsu, Shell hits 1
DD Sagiri
DD Yugiri
DD Sazanami
DD Ushio, heavy fires

Allied Ships
DD Worden, Shell hits 3, and is sunk
APA McCawley, Shell hits 5, Torpedo hits 1, and is sunk
APA Barnett

This one was empty.

Finally, the bombardment:

Night Naval bombardment of Manus at 101,119

Allied aircraft
no flights

Allied aircraft losses
P-47D2 Thunderbolt: 4 damaged
F4U-1 Corsair: 3 damaged
P-70 Havoc: 1 damaged
PBY-5 Catalina: 6 damaged

Japanese Ships
BB Mutsu
BB Nagato

Allied Ships
AS Platypus, Shell hits 1

Allied ground losses:
10 casualties reported
Squads: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled
Non Combat: 0 destroyed, 3 disabled
Engineers: 0 destroyed, 1 disabled

Airbase hits 2
Runway hits 10

E15K1 Norm acting as spotter for BB Mutsu
BB Mutsu firing at 37th Infantry Division
E15K1 Norm acting as spotter for BB Nagato
BB Nagato firing at Manus

It didn't do much, but the Allies lost 4 DDs, 2 APAs, 2 Ask and 3 xAKs, plus a bunch of troops. The troop points lost increased by 80, so that's what, 240 squads lost?

(Edit: The damage to the Japanese ships was minor.)

I saw a total of 207x 4E sorties, all against the troops at Aitape. In addition, a few dozen 2E sorties hit Talasea.

The Okinoshima dropped 125 mines at Aitape. Present for the Allies.

SRA
Burma
China

Nothing to report.

Other Stuff

Reinforcements:

121 Ku T-1: 9 Judy recon, 13 Air Flotilla, training
254 Ku S-1: 18 IJN fighters, 13 Air Flotilla, training
263 Ku S-1: 27 IJN fighters, 1 Air Flotilla, training
265 Ku S-1: 27 IJN fighters, 13 Air Flotilla, training
321 Ku S-1: 18 IJN night fighters, 13 Air Flotilla, training - QUESTION: Do night fighters need to train at night?
381 Ku S-1: 27 IJN fighters, 13 Air Flotilla, Kendari, transferred to 21 Air Flotilla and will train defense on already trained pilots until unit is needed.
Zuiho-1: increased to size 27 and will be fighter complement on Mizuho .
SC Cha-67: ASW
Mizuho completed refit.
Nisshin completed refit.

I converted 1x30 A6M5 factory to the J1N1-S Irving NF. Should have done that a while ago.

The P1Y2 R&D advanced to 10/44 (will become operational 6/44).

I got confirmation that the DD MacDonough sank on 5/12/43. That was during a surface action between 4 Japanese DDs and 4 Allied DDs just off Kavieng.

[Mike Solli]

ORIGINAL: ElvisDaKing

ORIGINAL: Mike Solli


The Ki-43-IV R&D advanced to 12/44 (will become operational 2/44).
The Ki-84r R&D advanced to 3/45 (will become operational 2/44).

Hi Mike

May I ask you why you are still investing R&D for Ki-43 Oscar as you have already Ki-100 Tony operating as a sr1 fighter to support your Ki-84 Frank groups...
I know that there s 2 opposing ‘schools’, one in favour of Oscar and the other one in favour of Tony, but don t understand why you want to have both of them.

Re : I have R&Ded Ki-43 Oscar upto IIIa because of its range, its 250kg bomb and its armour, but then stopped and converted the Oscar R&D for Ki-83.
Ki 43 IV Oscar has nice 20mm canons but his durability is too low which makes it useless as an interceptor, especially against allied 4E.
Ki 43 Oscar can be useful as an Escort fighter and as a kamikaze plane, so IIIa seems to be best model with its longest range...


Nice to see also Ki-84r be advanced for production in 2/44
Question : Are you also R&Ding the Ki 84b ? and if so what would be its planned production date...
Investing heavily in Ki 84a, I start production in Aug 43 and upgraded 5 R&D factories to K-84r, so the Ki 84r will be available well before the Ki-84b...
I am wondering, if it s worth to invest R&D for the Ki-84b....

I'm finishing off the Oscar IV because I already have 4 factories available to accelerate it. Yeah, I know, that's probably not a good reason to do it, but they were already repaired and I have Ha-35 engines to spare (855 in the pool as of 2 Oct). When they're done, I'll convert those factories to some other R&D type. I'll figure that out later.

I hadn't planned on doing any R&D on the Ki-83 for 2 reasons: It's 2 engine and it uses the Ha-43 engine. That engine is an issue for me. I won't get it until 5/44, and I'll have to do massive increases just to produce enough of the George K5. When the engine is operational (5/44) I'll transfer 1x60 R&D factory to production. In addition, I'll convert some other factories to the Ha-43, probably an Ha-35 (or 2) and possibly an Ha-32 (we'll see about this one). The last 3 R&D engine factories will convert to the NE Turbojet to work on that one.

I'm not going to bother with the Ki-84b. I'm already flying the Ki-84a and working on the Ki-84r. I don't have the stats in front of me so I can't comment on that.

[Mike Solli]

1 Oct 43

Sub War

The I-154 has been patrolling to the west of Colombo looking for British ships. An ASW TF found her and sank her today. [8|]

The W-17 allegedly hit the Grampus off Truk.

5 Fleet

Nothing to report.

4 Fleet

The US carriers launched 16 Avengers against Maleolap, then 28 SB2Cs against Wotje and finally 15 SBDs against Maleolap. No lasting damage to either side. Beside any CAP and bombers reserved for anti-ship duty, the US has available 27 Hellcats, 28 Helldivers, 15 Dauntlesses and 15 Avengers. I can't figure out what types of carriers are playing here.

My subs are still trying to catch his TF. It's bouncing around all over the place.

SE Fleet

Nothing happened here today. He rested all his bombers, with the exception of 4x 2E bombers that hit Hollandia.

I separated 3 CAs and 4 DDs from KB1 to go visit Manus. That BB bombardment wasn't. We'll see what happens...

SRA
Burma

Nothing to report.

China

My army is growing nicely. I have a couple new division reinforcements and the 4 divisions and tank division I pulled out are resting well. Two of the infantry divisions have gotten all their replacement squads and are resting up the disabled squads. My AV in Chungking is 4274 with another 1793 AV with the resting divisions and 4 more divisions enroute, who will arrive over the next week. That'll make a total AV of ~8k.

Other Stuff

Reinforcement: RO-44, will add to the RO horde in SE Fleet area.