Notes from a Small Island

[Canoerebel]

2/26/45

Paramushiro: The day features a number of raids against this base. Most of the raids are by 2EB in modest numbers, but a few B-24 squadrons from Shikuka take part. Damage is uniformly light.

[Canoerebel]

2/26/45

Paramushiro: Erik's army doesn't attack. I don't think it would have succeeded, but it's still a relief. Eventually the Allied army should recover enough to handle this little debacle.

[Canoerebel]

2/26/45

Mergui: No sudden capitulation but some progress.

[Canoerebel]

At Mergui, the Allied army will attack again tomorrow. A DD TF and a CA/DD TF will bombard at range 1, since the two enemy units lack shore guns.

An enemy unit at Tavoy has a movement dot towards Meguie. Bombers will target it. A small detachment is in a blocking position.

There's a movement dot at Rangoon, but it's too early to suspect Erik might withdraw there. I'm not even sure the fall of Mergui would persuade him. He might consider bringing KB into theater. He'd be able to dominate for awhile, until more Allied carriers arrive, which may take months. That tactic would hinder him in other theaters, which I hope to take advantage of later.

[BBfanboy]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

At Mergui, the Allied army will attack again tomorrow. A DD TF and a CA/DD TF will bombard at range 1, since the two enemy units lack shore guns.

An enemy unit at Tavoy has a movement dot towards Meguie. Bombers will target it. A small detachment is in a blocking position.

There's a movement dot at Rangoon, but it's too early to suspect Erik might withdraw there. I'm not even sure the fall of Mergui would persuade him. He might consider bringing KB into theater. He'd be able to dominate for awhile, until more Allied carriers arrive, which may take months. That tactic would hinder him in other theaters, which I hope to take advantage of later.

If I were him I would reinforce Tavoy. From there it is only a one jungle-hex/one road walk to get to the open plain leading to Ayuthia and Bangkok.

[Canoerebel]

2/26/45

NoPac: A busy map, and includes an outline for Allied plans here leading to the Next Next Big Thing. And I think that will be the last Big Thing prior to Russian activation, which takes place in about five months.

[Canoerebel]

2/26/45

SEAC: Long-term planning in this theater.

[BBfanboy]

What is your PP situation? Do you have enough to start buying out Chinese units?

[Canoerebel]

I have about 650 PP. Not enough to go on a spending spree.

The situation with the Chinese troops is unusual, do to an apparent House Rule violation by the original Allied player. The HR required the usual PP payment to buy out restricted units. But he moved all the Chinese units to Karachi, apparently to save them from the Japanese onslaught at the start of the game.

So started the game with 10k Chinese AV at Karachi. Gradually, I've moved them all to Burma and then across the border into China, where they sit today. Many of them are permanent restricted. I think I have one or two unrestricted units on the MLR down around Rangoon. I'm not going to buy out any others. The hole thing just felt kind of "off," so I'm erring on the side of using all Chinese units in China only, with the one or two exceptions just mentioned.

But I like that use. One of these days, Erik's units on his MLR, deep in the mountains, are going to look back and find Allied armies behind them.

[Lokasenna]

I wouldn't worry about whether he "extracts" from "northern" SE Asia to combat a landing in Malaysia. The more he sends south, the more that can get cut off except via seaborne extraction - which is not always a possibility.

[Canoerebel]

2/27/45

Hachinoe: A handful of RAF night bombers do some damage. Prior thereto, a series of small PBY Liberator strikes came in, opposed by about 15 Nicks. The Nicks downed a handful of the Liberators. Overall this night mission wasn't a success.

[Canoerebel]

2/27/45

Mergui: Smaller TFs bombard, scoring pretty well against infrastructure at a distance of "1" but failing to score hits against the infantry (although disruption may have occurred).

It looks like I don't need to risk the BBs here - pure DD TFs score just as well.

[Canoerebel]

2/27/45

Paramushiro: LCI gunships don't score quite as well as yesterday, but still seem more effective than BB bombardments and sizeable air strikes.

[Canoerebel]

2/27/45

Bangkok: The Allies have been sweeping and bombing Bangkok regularly. It's been many weeks since Erik had any fighters here, but he "installed" an ambush today.

Allied fighters performed pretty well, tuckering the opposition enough that the scattered sorties by Allied bombers weren't hit hard.

It's rare for Erik to post sizeable air contingents down here, but the invasion of Mergui changed that. He has a lot of stuff posted all around the base. I'm weighing whether to try to employ my carriers as a CAP trap, but the odds may be too iffy.

[BBfanboy]

You need BBs and a good D/L on target (previous day recon + night recon + bombardment recon to deal with high forts. Mergui does not have forts 6+, so smaller shells can have an effect. Having troops on the ground doing attacks also seems to help the D/L.
I bet if you watch the animation closely, the LCIs come in very close to bombard.

[Canoerebel]

2/27/45

Near Mergui: Allied bombers hit the enemy unit moving towards Mergui from Tavoy. It's a brigade.

Erik did the same thing, sending bombers against the little Allied detachment in the hex N of Mergui.

[Canoerebel]

2/27/45

Hachinoe: Really odd things happened at Hachinoe. Weather shut down all my sweeping fighters from Etorufu, Uruppu, Kushiro, Wakkanai and Toyohara. Weather permitted ops from Shikuka, the bomber base, and the bombers and a few escorts flew in before any sweepers.

Despite what seemed like the worst fortune possible, the bombers do okay and losses are probably acceptable. Some sweeps fly later and do okay.

There was a sync bug version in which all the fighters swept first. Unexpectedly, they performed poorly, losing most of the sweeps. But they clear the air of enemy fighters, so that the bombers scored much better.

[Canoerebel]

2/27/45

Paramushiro: Erik may be transporting in 56th Div. now. It makes sense. I have another division 100% prepped. It's scattered about, after helping with Kushiro. I'm reassembling it and will bring it up here in a week or two.

[Canoerebel]

2/27/45

Mergui: This combat looked pretty good. IJ AV dropped precipitously during the animation. The two units Erik is bringing in via air transport or tiny. He'll have to do a lot more and it might not make a difference.

Forts drop to 3, which is key.

[Canoerebel]

Tomorrow will feature a final - and risky - test of Allied sweeping ability. The focus will be Sapporo, where Erik's had 600 to 800 fighters for many weeks now. A fair number of those fighters are engaged in daily sweeps, and a fair number of the squadrons were involved in that protracted LRCAP over the contested hex. There is a chance that his fighter quality has degraded during this campaign - unlikely, but possible.

I suspect he'll have at least 250-300 fighters posted on CAP. I'll be using a mix of all kinds of fighters - more Army than Navy - to see if there seem to be signs of organic weakness. I can afford one rough day to test the hypothesis. If it doesn't work, I'll know. If it does, I'll go from there.

The northern part of Honshu doesn't offer much in the way of strategic targets. Alot of what's there has already been hit. So I'm definitely going to need new airbases to the west or south of Japan in order to threaten Kyushu and southern Honshu. That's part of the long-term plan, looking out about two or three months.