Quisling! An AFB does Japan (No PanzerKat)

[John B.]

RangerJoe,

Those are all good points. Right now my fighters are almost all tied up on home defense. I do strike him with low level attacks now and again but I don't keep with it because when his CAP hits me it costs a lot of bombers. I keep forgetting about the LRCAP idea. I'm going to use training zero squadrons to see if that will help! Thanks!![&o]

[John B.]

Another day passes and more death and destruction. There was major air raids over Nagasaki which I had to leave undefended due to the beat up nature of the airfield there. My flak did ok, but not as well as expected.

[John B.]

The firebombing of Nagasaki took out my heavy industry production (I have lots of those points saved up so I don't really care about that). The fire level does not look particularly high but Scott was bombing me at over 20,000 feet so that may have tamped down some of his bombing results. The Mushsahi will never fight again. There is not enough time for it to be repaired and Scott sank most of the other ships that were in port there. I did send my surface TFs to attack one of his surface fleets. Then my boys rebased to Fukakuoa and sheltered under the air umbrella there.

I turned off all the repair at Nagasaki. No sense spending supply to rebuild VP for Scott to harvest.

[John B.]

The good news was in China. My four divisions held off another shock attack from Scott and this time my losses were far less than his. I also pushed back an armored battalion that he had pushed near Canton.

[John B.]

Site of the battles.

Scott did attack at Manila and I still have troops left there. Each day they tie him down in gold.

[RangerJoe]

See if you can use the Mushashi as a CAP trap. If you are going to lose it otherwise . . .

[John B.]

He has been sweeping Nagasaki with 300-400 fighters every turn. The airfield this time was at 30% runway and 70% service damage so I'm waiting a turn to see if it will repair down to an acceptable level then I'll push the fighters in there.

BTW, I took your advice on the LRCAP over his airbases. I've got a squadron over three of them in and near Okinawa. Let's hope he looses more bombers!

[John B.]

Another savage day of strat bombing over Nagasaki. I opted to not oppose this one or tomorrow's as my fighters rest and take on replacements. But, Scott is starting to pick up VP this way and by staying at high altitude he is avoiding the flak losses that would put a dent into his campaign.

[John B.]

Not much really happened on this last day of November. Scott did not bomb Nagasaki (I think in part because of bad weather) and not much naval combat. Scott is making his way through the Pacific picking off my various bases that I control and invaded Jolo which has been isolated for a long long time.

[John B.]

November is now in the history books. It looks like Scott picked up about 10,000 VP this month and I got 3,000 or so. I'm not crushed by this given that I lost Manila and Scott won a major carrier battle. And, I still have a 10,000 point lead so we just need to hang on until the US gets tired of this war.

[John B.]

About 3.3 million supply and more than 1 million fuel so it's not desperate. I've also taken to shuttling fuel that accumulates in ports to other ports that have HI to try to keep some of the HI in China/Korea churning out supply points. I think I have way more than enough HI points to last out the war so I only keep the HI turned on to keep supply flowing.

[John B.]

Current aircraft/engine production. We're kind of all in on the Frank. And, I'm increasing the George2 since it seems like a better plane (and I can use the large pool of navy pilots I have to fly it). the Jack 5 just showed up this turn and I"m producing Tonys and zero 5cs.

[John B.]

The Frank is the most destroyed plane but it's nice to see some US planes on this list as well. Scott's fighter arm is now basically Corsairs.

[John B.]

A series of sea battles on the Home Islands this turn. Not the best result since I lost a BB and my last CA. I did get through to Scott's AKs and he probably lost about three more than are listed here. As I've said, if I don't use my ships they eventually get blasted to smithereens by his airforce so any points they're getting for me will help to counterbalance the losses that those ships represent. They're basically dead ships sailing.

I do think I put the hurt on the Iowa as it was escorted away but, sadly, not of my DDs got a torpedo hit on any of the BBs that they fought.

[John B.]

It's now December 2nd. Nothing very dramatic. Scott cleaned out Manila and launched another bloody attack on Marcus Island. He pounded the airfield at Fukokua so I can imagine some pretty intensive strat bombing there over the next few turns. Otherwise, another turn of grind.

[RangerJoe]

Have a rapid response team of AAA units ready to rail in to the potential target. [X(]

[John B.]

Have a rapid response team of AAA units ready to rail in to the potential target.

Because Scott can switch his bombing targets with ease I think my AA would just wind up chasing him around. Tokyo has the most AA defense right now followed by Nagasaki.

[John B.]

December 3rd 1944 was not a bad turn for the Empire of Japan. Japanese air losses were less than twice allied air losses and there was not strategic bombing. My Franks continue to be shot down in droves but the Frank Rs are still about 2 months away.

[John B.]

It was even a good turn at sea. The "Razor" in command of the Hiei managed to take out the CA Astoria as well as a DD (I watched them go down so those are confirmed kills). I"ll wind up losing 3 DDs for the fight so that's not too bad. The Japanese navy is rapidly disappearing but at least it's taking some VP with it as it goes.

My West Coast CV raiding force is, alas, still too far away to send it's planes back to the HI and the American Carriers are nowhere to be found. I suspect Scott is coming to sink my poor boys!

[Bif1961]

I notice you had practically no oil in the Home Islands, what impact will that have on your economy?