Quisling! An AFB does Japan (No PanzerKat)

[John B.]

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

My mistake, a unit needs only one supply point for no malus. Multiple units, maybe only the first one gets the supply.

You might be right about that. Here is the current supply state of my brave pixels. I think that I saw Alfred or someone else once say that even at zero supply you still fight one with 25% of your combat power. Must be picking up the guns of the enemy dead or something like that.

As you can see, I have one unit at zero supply so maybe that's why I got the minus. Still, given my small units I'm amazed at how much death I've been dealing out. I wonder if Scott is overstacked and thus suffering extra casualties.

[RangerJoe]

If you can pull a little out of each unit, you will also not be over stacked. The fragments will reform the unit and the Marcus Island forces will not suffer over stack penalties.

If the enemy has ships in the area and you have torpedo bombers in range, night torpedo attacks might cause more trouble. Those G3M3 Nells have very nice long legs. With trained crews, even Low Nav at night with bombs can wreck soft targets up to CA.

[John B.]

I have had torpedo plans set to night attacks throughout the game but they have never launched. Not sure why.

[John B.]

A couple of Meh turns. Here on the 21st not too much happened.

[John B.]

On the 22nd I thought I had an opening to go after some surface ships. I didn't.

The four divisions retreating in China are being hammered from the air. It was clear weather and the entire 4 engine fleet smashed them as well as the dive bombers Scott has been using for land attacks. He shock attacked me this turn causing large losses. Even though it's a main road out of there, I'm only moving 10 miles per day given all the interdiction they're facing.

[John B.]

If you've been following this AAR over the years you'll note that one of my enduring frustrations has been my carriers getting into position to pull of a nice surprise attack and then the planes not launching. It's happened again. I put 3 CVEs and 1 CVL plus two BBs with lots of float planes off the west coast of the US. In the previous turn one strike of BB floatplanes attacked a TK convoy and got one hit with a 60 lb bomb. None of the carrier planes attacked in either the morning or the afternoon. Oh well, who knows. Fog of war and bad micro weather yada yada.

[John B.]

So I split the TFs in two and this turn actually found three separate convoys (maybe Scott did not even notice the attack last turn). I'm in two different hexex, they're in three different hexes and not one single plane launched this time.[:@] It really doesn't make any sense at all that in four naval air phases there was one strike with two float planes. Oh well.

[John B.]

Well, at least this time Scott shock attacked at Marcus Island again and took more losses. He strat bombed Kagoashima which is basically a smoking ruin by now and it appears that he lost a DD to a mine. He also sent YMS to Guam. I wonder if an invasion is in the offing? I can only hope!

[John B.]

We're just about at the end of November. The days drag on when you're getting pounded from the air. Shot down a few planes over Manila. Scott did BB bombardment but did not attack like I thought that he would. Lots of troops being flown out. I can even get the 75mm guns on the transports so most of three divisions are out of there. No real action near Kyushu. But, a resupply convoy made it to Shanghai and even carried a little of fuel to get the HI there to start turning over again. Upon further reflection, I would not have build up HI in China, only LI. I have lots of resources and no fuel and a place like Manchuria can hold out long enough to make it worthwhile.

[John B.]

I'm not sure if Scott realized that I had carriers off of the West Coast. I actually blundered into two TFs in the middle of the night. the BBs did not fight as they had a CVL in the TF so everyone ran away.

[John B.]

And finally, finally, my admirals decided that they could not come back to the HI after hanging out on the West Coast without at least some scalps on their belt. Lots of planes flew in the AM and in the PM turns. Even the BB floatplanes got in on the act with their 60 kg bombload and hit a few ships. I chose these two BBs specifically because of their large floatplane component.

[John B.]

Here is the list of known sunk ships. Lots of low value LCIs (which did not seem to have any troops on board which is really too bad). But, there were a lot of AKs that were reported as heavy fire/heavy damage (see, e.g. previous post) and lots of sinking sounds in subsequent damage repair cycles. While I did not sink any troops these all appeared to be fuel convoys as many of the bomb its were followed by reports of fuel cargo burning. So, this may interrupt the fuel pipeline for just a little while both by sinking ships and I imagine Scott will have to rein in the convoys while he makes sure I'm cleared out of the way.

I suspect that Scott will be able to hunt down my CVEs pretty easily since I can only really go to the HI. So, I'm likely to lose far more than 2-1 on VP as he sinks 100+ point small carriers and two 200 point BBs in exchange for 9 point AKs. But, my thinking is that all of these ships are likely to be blasted by either his carriers or by B-29s raiding that ports where my ships hole up. So, since those VP are gone anyway I might as well get as much from them as I can. Besides, any discombobulating I can do of his attacks may buy me precious days of survival.

[John B.]

Nov. 26, 1944 and, as Roosevelt basks in the glow of his election to a 4th term not too much happened. My TF of the US coast managed to sink some additional LCIs and perhaps some more AKs. I may not know until the US surrenders to me soon. Scott did launch a deliberate attack at Manila and got 5-1 odds. It held, but barely. Looks like the end is nigh.

[John B.]

Well, on the 27th the end was nigh. First, Scott went all out over Nagasaki. He also took Manila and attempted a shock attack in China. But, in the end, I'm not too displeased as the VP gap narrowed, but I still have a nice lead with no obvious VP point losses on the horizon except for the almost certain doom for my CVEs now heading back from the West Coast.

[John B.]

Over Nagasaki Scott put up some truly impressive fighter sweeps. But, he took some heavy losses and I even got into the bomber stream a little bit (but no real dent in his capabilities). The airbase there is out of commission so I've relocated the air defense to Fukokua. Judging by the numbers, I may have lost more planes but Scott's losses were also high.

[John B.]

My West Coast Marauders were able to say good bye with one final strike on Scott's LCIs. They're only one point each but I did see about 30 of them go down overall (about a CL or so). I'm not sure if losing the mortar and rocket launching LCs will hurt him any, but it sure doesn't help.

There were some naval battles off of Kagoashima where I tried to get the jump on his BB TF that is guarding his building up airfields. My MTBs and two DD TFs did not inflict any real damage and I lost two DDs. But, at least they gave it a shot.

[John B.]

As I suspected, Scott launched a second assault on Manila and this time took it. There will be major Japanese army losses for the next couple of turns, but I actually appear to have inflicted more damage on him than I thought that I would. My reverse airlift was able to bring out about 2.5 divisions, most of the air support units, the AT units, the construction units and even the remnants of a three AA units so my acutal land losses will be far less than they otherwise might have been. Manila held out for almost 5 months and Scott lost a LOT of planes to flak and troops/devicies to bombardments and attacks so I have to count this as a victory.

[John B.]

Scott also tried a shock attack here in China. I'm very glad that my boys held as four of my divisions are the ones that were beat up escaping a potential pocket. If I had retreated here, scott would have pummeled me with armor attacks every turn and torn a huge hole in my line. As it stands, he has armor battalions running around in my rear area but the center is tying down his main advance.

[John B.]

A lot of dead engineers in this one. Looks like they may be combat engineers which would be helpful for his future sieges.

[RangerJoe]

If he has armor in the open away from his airfields, you could try low level bombing them. Otherwise, sweep with a few good fighter units if available to knock down his CAPing fighters. Don't forget to LRCAP any of his airfields that you can to increase his ops losses, you won't need many planes for that and they don't need to be good ones either.