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

[RangerJoe]

I've decided to wait until my AV exceeds 6k before attacking Chungking again. Not sure if that's better or to hit more frequently. I have more divisions in the area, so I can swap them out to recover more quickly and still keep my AV up.

I don't know if you are bombing daily but that would keep the fatigue and disruptions level up.

Did you ever sing that song:

"Here we go again, same ole shit again . . . "

[Mike Solli]

9 Oct 43

Sub War

2 incidents, better discussed below.

5 Fleet
4 Fleet

Nothing to report.

SE Fleet

I had sent some barges from Hollandia to Aitape with supply. This was the second time I tried doing that. The first time, a bombardment fleet met the barges at Aitape. Guess what happened this time? Yep, the same thing. [8|]

The Allied bombardment fleet was composed of 6 CA, 4 CL and 6 DD. They caused a little additional port damage. On their way out, they ran over 2 subs. They sank the RO-112 and badly damaged the RO-101. She'll make it back to Truk though.

During the day, AItape's port was plastered by hordes of bombers. I didn't bother to count them. [:D]

SRA

Nothing to report.

Burma

The Akyab sweep netted both P-40Ks (he's still using them?!) and 7 of 37 Hurricanes (more targets!) in return for a Frank.

Ledo was a bloodbath today. I lost 7 Franks but 18 P-40N5s were downed in return.

More sweeps tomorrow.

China

Still prepping for the attack.

Other Stuff

Reinforcement: 30 Independent Engineer Regiment, rebuilt.

[Mike Solli]

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

I've decided to wait until my AV exceeds 6k before attacking Chungking again. Not sure if that's better or to hit more frequently. I have more divisions in the area, so I can swap them out to recover more quickly and still keep my AV up.

I don't know if you are bombing daily but that would keep the fatigue and disruptions level up.

Did you ever sing that song:

"Here we go again, same ole shit again . . . "

Yep, ~150x 2E sorties against Chungking daily. Some switch to the airfield on occasion for a day or two to keep the damage up.

Sang that song once or twice. Retired Army here. [:D]

[Mike Solli]

10 Oct 43

Sub War
5 Fleet
4 Fleet

Nothing to report.

SE Fleet

About 100x 2E sorties against Aitape's poor remains of a port. [:D] Other than that, pretty quiet here.

SRA

Nothing to report.

Burma

At the cost of a Frank (plus a couple op losses), 1 of 2 P-40Ks and 5 of 30 Hurricanes were shot down.

Ledo is progressing nicely. Two Franks lost vs. 10 of 17 P-40N5s. Only problem is that the Franks need to rest & repair and I have only 2 sentai of them here. I'll need to pull them back to a decent airfield. The Akyab sweep can be done with Tojos but I need Franks for Ledo. Time for a break there, unfortunately. I need to upgrade a third sentai to Franks to keep the pressure up.

China

Still prepping.

Other Stuff

Reinforcements:

Junyo-1, 21 Zero fighters, rebuilt, will be stationed on Nisshin.
13 Independent Mixed Regiment, Pagan garrison.

[Mike Solli]

11 Oct 43

Sub War

The I-41 was hit twice by the KV Chilliwack. She's pretty heavily damaged at 45-56(25)-0-0, but she should make it back to Kwajalein for temporary repairs.

5 Fleet
4 Fleet

Nothing to report.

SE Fleet

Other than a dozen 2E bombers hitting the airfield at Talasea, nothing happened here at all!

SRA

Nothing to report.

Burma

Two sentai of Tojos swept Akyab killing a P-40K and 8 Hurricanes at a cost of 3 Tojos. Wearing the fighters down a bit more!

China

Nothing exciting...

Other Stuff

Reinforcements:

xAK Yozan Maru, Std-B, will convert to a TK.
xAK Imati Maru, Std-B, will convert to a TK.
3 JNAF AF Unit, rebuilt.
56 JNAF AF Unit, rebuilt.

Confirmation on a couple of sinkings:

xAP Camphuys on 4/21/43 near Palm Island by a sub.
Triton off Truk by a Helen. They can hit something other than a whale!

[Mike Solli]

12 Oct 43

Sub War

The Totitsukaze caught and hit the Tuna off Saipan, heavily damaging her. She had been hit about a week ago in the same area.

An empty Aden class xAK was sunk by the Dorado off Babeldaob. I need more surface ASW assets here.

Finally, off Shanghai, an ASW TF hit the Trigger once.

5 Fleet
4 Fleet

Nothing to report.

SE Fleet

About 120x 2E sorties hit Aitape's port again.

Ted is keeping a large surface fleet at Manus and Kavieng to protect them from roving Japanese bombardment TFs. Sneaky. [:-]

SRA

Nothing to report.

Burma

Bad weather. No missions flew. [8|]

China

Another Deliberate Assault on Chungking:

Ground combat at Chungking (76,45)

Japanese Deliberate attack

Attacking force 200492 troops, 2137 guns, 1690 vehicles, Assault Value = 6896

Defending force 383538 troops, 904 guns, 0 vehicles, Assault Value = 13862

Japanese adjusted assault: 2200

Allied adjusted defense: 24689

Japanese assault odds: 1 to 11 (fort level 3)

Combat modifiers
Defender: terrain(+), experience(-), supply(-)
Attacker:

Japanese ground losses:
14115 casualties reported
Squads: 45 destroyed, 1659 disabled
Non Combat: 4 destroyed, 168 disabled
Engineers: 7 destroyed, 192 disabled
Guns lost 130 (5 destroyed, 125 disabled)
Vehicles lost 45 (3 destroyed, 42 disabled)

Allied ground losses:
23961 casualties reported
Squads: 216 destroyed, 1673 disabled
Non Combat: 64 destroyed, 905 disabled
Engineers: 6 destroyed, 16 disabled
Guns lost 97 (33 destroyed, 64 disabled)
Units destroyed 6

I think I waited too long to make this attack. He had too. much time to recover. Still, he lost a lot of squads and 6 more units bit the dust. No forts were destroyed unfortunately. Only a couple of my divisions took a lot of disablements and they're being replaced with fresh divisions. I should be able to attack again in a few days. Hopefully, that one will be better.

Other Stuff

The D4Y3 R&D completed today. The 3x30 R&D factories upgraded to the D4Y4 R&D. I upgraded a size 60 operational factory to the D4Y3. The size 30 factory will remain as a D4Y2 factory to use up the remaining Ha-60 engines (about 220). Those D4Y2s will eventually become Kamikazes.

[RangerJoe]

I sang that song myself for a few years.

You need to destroy at least 390 Chinese squads a month just to keep up with his replacements. Then come the automatic rebuilds besides but they will probably suffer from a lack of the other equipment. It makes me think that if a JFB can surround the Chinese units in favorable terrain for the JFB, then just keep them there and use them as a bombing and strafing live fire target area for aircraft. It would probably be better than facing the same units when they get rebuilt in Chunking. The Chinese would have to then try and destroy themselves and the JFB would take fewer losses and probably use less supply. They could probably use 2nd class units doing so.

[Mike Solli]

390 squads? That's 2-3 successful attacks a month. I'm doing another attack in a few days. Hopefully, I can start to whittle away at the infantry. I'm not attacking any other isolated Chinese. They're surrounded and withering on the vine.

I figured you were familiar with that song...

[GetAssista]

ORIGINAL: Mike Solli
Another Deliberate Assault on Chungking:
...

I think I waited too long to make this attack. He had too. much time to recover. Still, he lost a lot of squads and 6 more units bit the dust. No forts were destroyed unfortunately. Only a couple of my divisions took a lot of disablements and they're being replaced with fresh divisions. I should be able to attack again in a few days. Hopefully, that one will be better.

Wow, such an interesting piece of stats. 1:13 odds yet destroyed/disabled squads look like they are from 1:1 realm or better and Japan permanent losses are negligible. Means he really has supply at zero, but then adjusted AV is roughly double from starting reflecting 2x terrain and what 0.5 from forts. So not that high penalties here. And Japan does have guns superiority, but not an overwhelming amount. Wonder how it all came to those kind of losses.
You were lucky [:)]

[Lokasenna]

ORIGINAL: GetAssista

ORIGINAL: Mike Solli
Another Deliberate Assault on Chungking:
...

I think I waited too long to make this attack. He had too. much time to recover. Still, he lost a lot of squads and 6 more units bit the dust. No forts were destroyed unfortunately. Only a couple of my divisions took a lot of disablements and they're being replaced with fresh divisions. I should be able to attack again in a few days. Hopefully, that one will be better.

Wow, such an interesting piece of stats. 1:13 odds yet destroyed/disabled squads look like they are from 1:1 realm or better and Japan permanent losses are negligible. Means he really has supply at zero, but then adjusted AV is roughly double from starting reflecting 2x terrain and what 0.5 from forts. So not that high penalties here. And Japan does have guns superiority, but not an overwhelming amount. Wonder how it all came to those kind of losses.
You were lucky [:)]

Ground combat results have an enormous FoW factor - I've seen some by at least/around a factor of 2 (in both directions). Destroying a unit that I know has a TOE of 32 squads and seeing 60 destroyed, for example...

ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

390 squads? That's 2-3 successful attacks a month. I'm doing another attack in a few days. Hopefully, I can start to whittle away at the infantry. I'm not attacking any other isolated Chinese. They're surrounded and withering on the vine.

I figured you were familiar with that song...

If he doesn't have the supply at Chungking (2x needed) then he can't take any replacements. I doubt he has that.

Of course, he gets zombies for free.

[Mike Solli]

13 Oct 43

Sub War

The Growler torpedoed an empty Type-1 TM (8150 capacity) just off Babeldaob. She'll make port and the ARs there will do temporary repairs so she can go get fully repaired, to be torpedoed again someday. Her damage is 11-25(25)-31(30)-0.

5 Fleet
4 Fleet

Nothing to report.

SE Fleet

Wewak's port was the recipient of some 120x 2E sorties. Better that than something vital. Not that there's really anything vital down there anymore. [:D]

SRA

Nothing to report.

Burma

Only Akyab was targeted today. My Tojos took out 2x P-40Ks and 13 Hurricanes for a loss of 3 Tojos and an op loss. He's down to about a dozen Hurricanes and a handful of Warhawks left.

China

Nuttin.

Other Stuff

Reinforcements:

RO-113, headed to Truk. Eventually, all of the short legged RO class will head to the SRA where they can do some damage should Ted ever head that way.
3 Naval Construction Battalion, rebuild
13 Base Force, can't remember where I decided to send this unit. I didn't write it down. I do remember taking a long time to figure it out though.

I got confirmation that the Mingo was taken out off Truk by a Helen. Very nice!

Today, Ted admitted that I'm doing a number on his subs. There still seems to be a million of them. [:D]

He also said that all but one of his carriers is out of the fender shop. I estimate that to be 6 CVs, 4 CVLs and a few CVEs. Not counting the CVEs, that's about 720 capacity. I have the 3 new Unryus, Soryu, Shokaku and Zuikaku (Akagi and Kaga are under repair) totaling about 400 planes. Then there's 12 CVL/CVEs totaling about 384 more planes. I outnumber him, but half the planes are on tin foil carriers. Akagi is still a month or so from completing temporary repairs at Truk, but Kaga will have the temporary repairs done in less than a week. Right now she's at 6-4(4)-2(2)-0. It shouldn't take long to fix her up once she gets back to Japan. Akagi and Kaga will eventually give me an additional 153 planes.

I do have a strategy to use MKB in a fight with KB. MKB will be 2 hexes behind KB and will set their Jills and some of their Zeros to fly 12 hexes. The remaining Zeros will fly CAP out 2 hexes, to help cover KB as well as themselves (if needed). The Jills will only carry bombs, but that's better than nothing and MKB will be somewhat protected. We'll see if I ever get to try it.

[Mike Solli]

ORIGINAL: GetAssista

ORIGINAL: Mike Solli
Another Deliberate Assault on Chungking:
...

I think I waited too long to make this attack. He had too. much time to recover. Still, he lost a lot of squads and 6 more units bit the dust. No forts were destroyed unfortunately. Only a couple of my divisions took a lot of disablements and they're being replaced with fresh divisions. I should be able to attack again in a few days. Hopefully, that one will be better.

Wow, such an interesting piece of stats. 1:13 odds yet destroyed/disabled squads look like they are from 1:1 realm or better and Japan permanent losses are negligible. Means he really has supply at zero, but then adjusted AV is roughly double from starting reflecting 2x terrain and what 0.5 from forts. So not that high penalties here. And Japan does have guns superiority, but not an overwhelming amount. Wonder how it all came to those kind of losses.
You were lucky [:)]

I've been lucky in all of my attacks. Also note that he loses about 100 guns per attack. It's starting to make a difference. The next attack is going in on 15 Oct. My raw AV is 5813. I'm hoping to do 1-2 additional attacks this month. Those FoW results really are interesting. My actual losses were lower, on the order of ~20 infantry squads destroyed.

[Mike Solli]

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

ORIGINAL: GetAssista

ORIGINAL: Mike Solli
Another Deliberate Assault on Chungking:
...

I think I waited too long to make this attack. He had too. much time to recover. Still, he lost a lot of squads and 6 more units bit the dust. No forts were destroyed unfortunately. Only a couple of my divisions took a lot of disablements and they're being replaced with fresh divisions. I should be able to attack again in a few days. Hopefully, that one will be better.

Wow, such an interesting piece of stats. 1:13 odds yet destroyed/disabled squads look like they are from 1:1 realm or better and Japan permanent losses are negligible. Means he really has supply at zero, but then adjusted AV is roughly double from starting reflecting 2x terrain and what 0.5 from forts. So not that high penalties here. And Japan does have guns superiority, but not an overwhelming amount. Wonder how it all came to those kind of losses.
You were lucky [:)]

Ground combat results have an enormous FoW factor - I've seen some by at least/around a factor of 2 (in both directions). Destroying a unit that I know has a TOE of 32 squads and seeing 60 destroyed, for example...

ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

390 squads? That's 2-3 successful attacks a month. I'm doing another attack in a few days. Hopefully, I can start to whittle away at the infantry. I'm not attacking any other isolated Chinese. They're surrounded and withering on the vine.

I figured you were familiar with that song...

If he doesn't have the supply at Chungking (2x needed) then he can't take any replacements. I doubt he has that.

Of course, he gets zombies for free.

Yeah, I take the results with a grain of salt. I look at trends. I consider this a successful attack, with the infantry losses higher than the other attacks.

I track his units listed during the attacks, and see the occasional unit pop up that wasn't there previously. I usually see more than the listed number of destroyed units too. I attribute that to the daily air bombardment.

[Mike Solli]

14 Oct 43

Sub War
5 Fleet
4 Fleet

Nothing to report.

SE Fleet

Well, today was the day I was waiting for. Truk was bombed for the first time in the war. I had a lot of fighters waiting for it too. Here is what flew in the first attack:

32 George 2
72 Tojos
12 Nicks
23 Franks
26 Tonys

There were a total of 4 attacks. The first 2 had P-38G escorts. Here's what came in total:

34 P-38G (11 shot down with another 2 op losses)
29 B-24J (15 shot down with another 4 op losses) - 9.5 days of production, ouch
24 B-24D1 (16 shot down with another 4 op losses)

I think it was a mistake to attack with such few numbers. It was a disaster for him. He caused a total of 1 airbase damage, which (obviously) was repaired.

My losses:

Tojo - 2
Tony - 2
Frank - 2

I lost 1 KIA and 4 WIA. My pilots gained massive experience. I had my units set to 70% CAP, 30% rest with about 25% extra pilots in the units. The pilots are still in good shape.

I had some fighters on escort missions so they didn't fly CAP. I have 57 damaged fighters right now but with the escorts changed to CAP, that negates half. I have some 250 fighters operational.

I had my fighters stacked but he brought his B-24Js in at 25k and the B-24D1s at 20k with the Lightnings at 25k.

I'm prepared for another attack, but I'm not expecting one tomorrow.

Wewak was bombed again.

KB1 and 2 left port (Babeldaob and Saipan) to link up 10 hexes north of Aitape. Just in case...

SRA

Nothing to report.

Burma

The Akyab sweep took out 7 Allied fighters for no loss today. Tomorrow I'll resume the sweep of Ledo with my Franks.

China

The next attack is going in tomorrow.

Other Stuff

Reinforcements:

CHa-68, ASW
Ch-45, ASW
TK Oei Maru, Type-1 TM (8150 capacity)
I-184, headed to Truk
AO Takasaki, it's 1750 capacity. Didn't catch that small capacity or I wouldn't have bothered.
ACM Wa-22

The N1K5-J George R&D advanced to 6/45 (will become operational 5/44).

[Mike Solli]

Note that 5 bombers were shot down by flak! That's amazing! [:D]

[rustysi]

My son and I are going to a Browns game this fall. I think we're going to make a stop there to visit. He's never seen her. Can't wait!

Sounds like a great trip!

I really feel for ya though. The Browns?[:D] Japan?[:D] You don't have masochistic tendencies do ya?[:D]

[Mike Solli]

ORIGINAL: rustysi

My son and I are going to a Browns game this fall. I think we're going to make a stop there to visit. He's never seen her. Can't wait!

Sounds like a great trip!

I really feel for ya though. The Browns?[:D] Japan?[:D] You don't have masochistic tendencies do ya?[:D]

lol, what can I say?

[GetAssista]

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna
Ground combat results have an enormous FoW factor - I've seen some by at least/around a factor of 2 (in both directions). Destroying a unit that I know has a TOE of 32 squads and seeing 60 destroyed, for example...

1:13 is not under FOW I believe, and I doubt that your own losses are subject to much FOW either

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna
If he doesn't have the supply at Chungking (2x needed) then he can't take any replacements. I doubt he has that.

Nor will he be able to bring disabled squads back to ready. So those are effectively gone too.

[rustysi]

AO Takasaki, it's 1750 capacity. Didn't catch that small capacity or I wouldn't have bothered.

They have their uses. There're three or four of these little guys. In addition you have four or five PC's that match up nicely. Same speed and endurance. Great for getting some fuel to all those little bases and maybe an occasionally an unrep.

[rustysi]

ORIGINAL: GetAssista

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna
Ground combat results have an enormous FoW factor - I've seen some by at least/around a factor of 2 (in both directions). Destroying a unit that I know has a TOE of 32 squads and seeing 60 destroyed, for example...

1:13 is not under FOW I believe, and I doubt that your own losses are subject to much FOW either

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna
If he doesn't have the supply at Chungking (2x needed) then he can't take any replacements. I doubt he has that.

Nor will he be able to bring disabled squads back to ready. So those are effectively gone too.

Yeah, you seem to be progressing nicely here. I'm sure you know it's going to be a long road to reduce this mass. I've read some say its taken months.

On the air war you really seem to be handing him his head at this stage of the war. Nice job.