Air Losses: Allies have been engaged in a lengthy effort to fight hard in the air. Erik has countered effectively. The air war has been bloody over the past month or so. In particular, I've lost a lot of bombers, including a fair number of Superforts. Underlying the use of the bombers is always the main objective of attritioning enemy fighters. More often now, the Allies are prevailing in fighter contests. Erik might have large reserve squadrons he hasn't even committed yet, so that I'm really mistaken in my analysis. But I think the Allies are making decent progress.
Today roughly 20 hits were scored against Kushiro resources with minimal losses to B-24s over that target.
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"Rats set fire to Mr. Cooper’s store in Fort Valley. No damage done." Columbus (Ga) Enquirer-Sun, October 2, 1880.
Uruppu: General Harding says his division is chomping at the bit to attack again. General Kreuger says it'll be a few days and encourages him to detail squads to mix with other divisions to raise morale throughout the Uruppu-Jima Expeditionary Army.
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"Rats set fire to Mr. Cooper’s store in Fort Valley. No damage done." Columbus (Ga) Enquirer-Sun, October 2, 1880.
Uruppu: I am putting on a clinic how to achieve non-nuclear bombardment results.
It's challenging to get good results against troops in 3x terrain, so this isn't surprising. The hit against supply is important, as is the continued disruption of enemy troops.
Allied ships can remain at sea more or less indefinitely, as I've seen in both my recent games, when in escorting roles. But bombarding exacts some wear and tear, at least when CD guns are firing in opposition. I've disbanded one of my TFs at Shikuka to repair accumulated light wear and tear, so basically 2 TFs will rotate for the next week or so.
If you want to be better assured a FP will take off to spot for your bombardment, look at the bottom part of the report (just where you cut it off) and see which ship in the TF was first to bombard. That is the ship that should have the FP set to Night/Recon/Range 0. It doesn't hurt to set the others as well - I have had multiple FPs launch for spotting, but only after the pilots were getting really good at Recon - over 50.
No matter how bad a situation is, you can always make it worse. - Chris Hadfield : An Astronaut's Guide To Life On Earth
I learned today that a divided unit will still withdraw. One of the two combat engineer units at Uruppu set to withdraw today had a fragment at Shikuka. Neverthless, the unit withdrew. Dash it all, no nifty work-around.
"Rats set fire to Mr. Cooper’s store in Fort Valley. No damage done." Columbus (Ga) Enquirer-Sun, October 2, 1880.
After work, I ran a little route I call the Hyper Mountain Goat up a spur ridge on Lavender Mountain. Half way up, sweating and straining and looking forward to getting it all behind me, the thought pops up: "Did Erik put his units in reserve mode after the battle so that they wouldn't engage in an auto-bombardment?" I'm not sure that's what happened, but I'll give this some thought. Even if I thought he did so, I probably wouldn't ever act on the possibility by ordering my army to attack the day after a tough, tiring attack. To do so might wreck my army. If I was under serious time constraints, perhaps I'd take a chance. But in this case I'm really in no hurry for reasons I won't go into right now. It suits me very well if Uruppu falls in late December or anytime in January.
"Rats set fire to Mr. Cooper’s store in Fort Valley. No damage done." Columbus (Ga) Enquirer-Sun, October 2, 1880.
In my Babes based game I received four large caliber artillery units around this time, but I also use 60 day variance on reinforcements. Do you have them yet, or do you even get them in this scenario?
Two are 8" howitzer equipped and two have 240 mm guns. May be helpful in these sieges if you get them. Look ahead at your ground reinforcements to see if they are available.
Uruppu: Tough terrain + tough forts = non-nuclear bombardments. This CA/DD TF is standing in for the BB TF that is repairing light accumulated wear and tear at Shikuka.
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"Rats set fire to Mr. Cooper’s store in Fort Valley. No damage done." Columbus (Ga) Enquirer-Sun, October 2, 1880.
Uruppu: 7th/A Australian Division comes ashore, the first of the post-attack reinforcing landings. The unit takes a fair number of disablements (nearly 50 during the course of the turn). It's about 65% prepped. The other two RCT will land over the next two turns.
BB Idaho accompanied this TF to suppress enemy shore guns, which it did, but Allied shore bombardment results were meager too.
I'm going to consider bringing 6th USA Div. in whole rather than in RCT - even though that will reduce the landing-prompted-counter-battery fire by two-thirds (to one day rather than three), disablements may be considerably lower.
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"Rats set fire to Mr. Cooper’s store in Fort Valley. No damage done." Columbus (Ga) Enquirer-Sun, October 2, 1880.
Hans, this unit arrives on West Coast in less than a month. I think it's one of those you're referring to. It's the only US Army or US Marine arty reinforcement I get until the summer of '45.
One of the oddities of the late game is that Allied ground unit reinforcements go through a pretty major dry spell from mid '44 through mid' 45. It's not a big deal, because by then the Allies already have a ton of units and can draw replacements. But it might be a big deal in one event.
That is if the Allied player strips West Coast and "assumes" inbound reinforcements can pick up the slack. The only reinforcements that might arrive for many months would be base forces with 16 or 12 AV and an occasional armored unit. So if the IJ player should go wild and manage to invade, things might be ugly.
I doubt that would ever happen, but the idea prompted me to pull some AV back from Pearl to West Coast to provide minimally acceptable garrisons (or mobile reserves) to protect the key factories.
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"Rats set fire to Mr. Cooper’s store in Fort Valley. No damage done." Columbus (Ga) Enquirer-Sun, October 2, 1880.
Bad weather shut down all air activity in NoPac, so it was a quiet day.
I've been enjoying learning more about the air war. It's always been a beast for me. I find it hard to wrap my mind around the fragility/inferiority of the Allied planes that performed so well in the war, not to mention the quantity of Japanese air frames and the quality of Japanese pilots late in the war.
Over time, I had come to view the P-38 and P-51 as seriously weak and the Hellcat as unusable against quality enemy LBA fighters (but fine in carrier combat).
Now I've begun to learn how to use them, despite the issues, somewhat effectively. I like to use the Corsairs as the first fighters to go in. Sometimes they take heavy losses but they always take a toll on the enemy. That allows the late-arriving P-47s, P-51s and P-38s to perform fairly robustly. Under the right circumstances it also also escorted bombers to get through with acceptable losses to the fighters and bombers.
For all of my game with John III, and for most of this game, I've used fighters at max altitude. While that's not prophylactic in its effectivness, it was the most efficient means of clicking on settings that seem to work decently. Over the past few weeks in this game, I've begun toying with Allied fighters at lower altitudes - mainly Spits and Corsairs. I have alot to learn. Thus far I've seen no evidence that this is either more effective or less effective that just using max altitude. Only a few returns are in thus far, so I'll continue working things.
"Rats set fire to Mr. Cooper’s store in Fort Valley. No damage done." Columbus (Ga) Enquirer-Sun, October 2, 1880.
ORIGINAL: HansBolter
Two are 8" howitzer equipped and two have 240 mm guns. May be helpful in these sieges if you get them. Look ahead at your ground reinforcements to see if they are available.
I love those guns: they appeal to my love of all things artillery related. Good fortress busters. I think that Taiwan still maintain a few 240mm guns on the smaller islands they control.
Should be nice for digging the enemy out of the Kuriles if they arrive in time.
Uruppu: Another Aussie RCT comes ashore, joining yesterday's gang that's still landing. (Disablements over the course of the landings today are again pretty significant.) This results in a logjam in the waters offshore - I have a lot of ships under LRCAP from Death Star and from Ketoi.
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"Rats set fire to Mr. Cooper’s store in Fort Valley. No damage done." Columbus (Ga) Enquirer-Sun, October 2, 1880.
Uruppu & Kunashiri: As the turn opens, Allied fighters over Uruppu report enemy carrier air present; a number of Judys are knocked down; eventually, an enemy TF is sighted seven hexes to the south; KB has arrived.
During the course of the turn, hundreds of good Allied fighters sweep against hundreds of good enemy fighters over Kunashiri. OVerall, the Allied fighters do pretty well. But this important battle will be overshadowed by events elsewhere in the neighborhood.
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"Rats set fire to Mr. Cooper’s store in Fort Valley. No damage done." Columbus (Ga) Enquirer-Sun, October 2, 1880.
Uruppu: Opening skirmish over Uruppu shows lots of enemy land-based air flying LRCAP. The Allies prevail but it weakens the Allied LRCAP that will be available when KB's aircraft sortie.
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"Rats set fire to Mr. Cooper’s store in Fort Valley. No damage done." Columbus (Ga) Enquirer-Sun, October 2, 1880.
