Quisling! An AFB does Japan (No PanzerKat)

[BBfanboy]

ORIGINAL: John B.

Well the bad news is that there seems to have been some kind of bug. I saw the LCTs sink and Scott saw the same on his turn. But, the victory report did not show that any of them had sunk at all. [:(] Oh well, onward.

This turn Scott move the American furball up to within 8 hexes of Hong Kong probably to lure my boys into launching an anti ship strike and shredding them with CAP. Fortunately I was set at a 7 hex range and there was no combat. I have my fighters set to zero range so let's see if Scott heads north. Probably not, but if he does he may lose lots of strike aircraft.

IIRC, Japanese barges and Allied LCTs are not worth any VPs.

[John B.]

Oh then that may explain it!

[John B.]

It was a bad day to be a US bomber. The B-25's tried a ground strike on troops in Phnom Penh so the ones that got through did not do any damage at all. As for the B-24Js, they hit the airfield at Takao in Taiwan. They did damage to my transport supply bridge to Manila but at a very heavy price. From the looks of these reports, one third of all the B-24Js shot down in this game happened yesterday. Let's hope he leaves the supply bridge alone for awhile. Or keeps losing 40 heavy bombers per turn to keep it closed.

[John B.]

As for Manila, they still have nice stock piles of supplies. It's at 168,000 tons after about three weeks of siege. Scott has 9 divisions there but no engineer units. This makes me think he just wants to wait and just shell it until it runs out of supply. He finally hit the light industry but I still have 90 left and it will shut off when the resources are exhausted anyway.

[John B.]

There is a cost to Scott for letting me bang away on his troops at Manila. He lost another 15 squads devices and I lost one. So 5 VP this turn when I lost none. If I can keep a VP lead that will certainly help. The real question is how long can I keep up Manila's supply. The air bridge has been very helpful so I'm going to have to fight to keep that open as it was probably bringing in 200+ per day. The sub transports are minor but every little bit helps. I may sacrfice an AMC just to run supplies in or a fast transport mission.

[Bif1961]

The Pacific version of Stalingrad.

[GetAssista]

ORIGINAL: John B.
It was a bad day to be a US bomber...

Why do you still use A6M2 on CAP well into 44? Do you have a shortage of airframes and loads of pilots to burn?

[John B.]

The A6M2s were a training squadron that had almost reached time to switch out pilots and I wanted more fighters at Takao so I paid the PP to move them there for more airframes in case of a bomber raid. I figured with the cannon they were good against unescorted American bombers. Unless there are desperate times I won't be using them in the main fight.

[John B.]

Well, it was not a good turn for the IJN. Scott caught a resupply convoy at Taiwan and laid waste to it. And, he sank a lot of supplies. Some Kamikaze Jeans got in a little bit of payback as did some Jills who just happened to be flying off of my CVLs that I'm moving away from Hong Kong and over to Nagasaki. Still, not a good turn at sea. Nothing to report in the air, I lost a lot of Jeans which tends to happen in Kamikaze operations. [:D]

[John B.]

And, I continue to slowly bleed the US army at Manila.

[John B.]

I've spotted the US carriers. It's the big furball too as some poor Kamikazes on local patrol wandered into about 600 planes on CAP. I think that once again Scott was trying to lure me into a naval strike so that he could shoot down all of my planes. Didn't work. [:)] Sadly, last turn his subs did work and they sank a IJN CV that went down with all hands. Bound to happen but still sucks when it does. Not even shooting down 3 B-29s could cheer me up.

[John B.]

Meanwhile, Manila's supply situation is still ok at just north of 160,000. I"m flying in 300 tons per day and the factories are still making 90 per day but, it still is going down by about 2,000 per day or so. I guess Scott figures he has a lot of time and if he sits on Manila for 5 months before he attacks then he has not really lost anything.

I'm not sure how long to keep the bombardments up. The last two turns saw only 4 and 3 squads of his killed respectively so it may make sense for me to reduce supply consumption by eliminating my own bombardment and just shooting back at him while shooting down a plane or two per turn with AA. I think I'll wait until supply goes down to 150,000 and then see how things stand.

[John B.]

Last turn was a good turn (relatively speaking). Scott decided to fly low with his Corsairs and they paid a really heavy price. Lot's shot down and lots more so badly damaged that they were scrapped. I don't think he'll be doing that again anytime soon.

[John B.]

This turn, however, was a different story! I think that we accidentally chose the "unionized Kamikaze" option wherein they refuse to fly until after lunch. In the morning I had the perfect ambush set up. Sweeps flying out of Manila cleared the air above Apari. As in, no more CAP. The waves of Kamikazes set to go in, however, did not fly in the morning phase they all flew in the afternoon. [8|] Lot's of dead planes. The only wave that did anything was one of Oscar IBs they actually scored several hits and may have sunk two destroyers and an AK (word is still out on the AK it had a massive explosion). If I did get those ships than the score for the air is slightly less than 2-1 in Scott's favor which helps me as he needs more than 2-1 to win. Or, at least that's what I tell myself.

On the plus side, that was a lot of P-47's he lost.

[John B.]

The next turn has come and gone. Scott's attentions have shifted a bit further north as he seeks to isolate the Phillipines. I'm trying to run a supply convoy into norther Taiwan and I'm also thinking of pulling the KB out of Hong Kong. Otherwise, they risk having to run a gauntet of sea and land based air to make it to safety. The KB can now concentrate on keeping Taiwan open.

[John B.]

Takao has a very large mine field and Scott swept 115 mines this turn but at a cost of some YMS and AMs. I"m sending in more mine laying ships to help prevent bombardments of Takao which is the key aerial resupply based for Manila.

[John B.]

Meanwhile, at Manila, I launched a second wave of air attacks and most of the regular air missed or scored one or two hits (a Lilly did sink and LCT and 3 vehicles so that was cool). But, my Oscar 1b kamikaze squadron continued to show it's stuff. Almost every Kamikaze struck home and I"m pretty sure they took two DDs with them! Can you have an elite Kamikaze squadron? This unit was the only effective on in my attack on the previous turn. They've now relocated to the HI for new planes and pilots.

[John B.]

And, Scott tried his first attack. This one was on Clark field. I took more losses, but he did not reduce the fort level down from the current 5. And, the AT guns did some damage to all the armor he has there. I don't think I have enough artillery in the hex to up his infantry kills by much. I do have a lot in Manila. Maybe I should move it to Clark field and see what happens.

[BBfanboy]

Hmm - that fortress at Takao is pretty good - 20 gun shots got 40 hits! Better check the eyesight and the math skills of the guy who was doing the counting ...

[Bif1961]

You can have an elite Kamikaze unit, but not for long. Talked about successful you got 6 hits with only 5 Oscars being destroyed.