Quisling! An AFB does Japan (No PanzerKat)

[RangerJoe]

That is a lot of torpedo hits for those MTBs. You must have good crews.

[John B.]

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

That is a lot of torpedo hits for those MTBs. You must have good crews.

Looking at the combat report the US TF did not attempt to get underway until they contacted me at a range of 2,000. The ships were basically sitting ducks and I must have rolled really well.

[John B.]

Another turn and not too much of note. Scott lost some beaufighters over Guam that tried to bomb a little AKL supply shuttle I have there and ran into my CAP. A small group of my planes tried a Kamikaze attack on a lone AK and missed (which is a very sad epitaph for a Kamikaze pixel pilot!).

[John B.]

In China Scott seems to be going all in for his push up the coast. He has hammered my units there repeatedly with his medium bomber force and this turn he tossed in the strat bombers as well. I dodged his land force that is coming my way this turn and I have another division there to add to my forces.

More importantly, I remembered that I have lots and lots of AA units sitting around in Manchuria with nothing to do until the Russians show up. So, this turn I stripped that garrison of anything that said AA and sent it to Shanghai.

[John B.]

Another turn more plane losses and strat bombing.

[RangerJoe]

If he is strat bombing a base where the airfield is shut down and the bombers are not escorted, do you have float fighters that you could base there?

You could also base them at a seaside base with NO airfield and they could not be bombed on the ground.

[John B.]

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

If he is strat bombing a base where the airfield is shut down and the bombers are not escorted, do you have float fighters that you could base there?

You could also base them at a seaside base with NO airfield and they could not be bombed on the ground.

That is an interesting idea. Scott essentially sweeps each strat bombing target with 200+ fighters so if I just put up some float fighters they'll be blown away. Still, if he starts to get lazy . . .

[RangerJoe]

ORIGINAL: John B.

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

If he is strat bombing a base where the airfield is shut down and the bombers are not escorted, do you have float fighters that you could base there?

You could also base them at a seaside base with NO airfield and they could not be bombed on the ground.

That is an interesting idea. Scott essentially sweeps each strat bombing target with 200+ fighters so if I just put up some float fighters they'll be blown away. Still, if he starts to get lazy . . .

Fighters on training won't be swept. They might intercept the bombers. [;)]

[John B.]

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

ORIGINAL: John B.

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

If he is strat bombing a base where the airfield is shut down and the bombers are not escorted, do you have float fighters that you could base there?

You could also base them at a seaside base with NO airfield and they could not be bombed on the ground.

That is an interesting idea. Scott essentially sweeps each strat bombing target with 200+ fighters so if I just put up some float fighters they'll be blown away. Still, if he starts to get lazy . . .

Fighters on training won't be swept. They might intercept the bombers. [;)]

Oh, interesting!

[John B.]

Another day and more death in the air. Savage air battles over Hiroshima and strat bombing of Nagasaki. He took a lot of flak losses over Nagasaki.

Speaking of air battles, the Frank really is not a very good plane is it? I keep losing it in droves. I'll upgrade to the Frank model r in about two weeks, but it does not seem like much of an improvement.

[RangerJoe]

Do you have the KI-83 with good pilots for sweeping? Someone had good luck with those. If you sweep over a hex with your own units, you may not lose the pilot either.

As far as training fighters go, if he does not escort the bombers and he has not shut down the airbase, you can do that anywhere. The risk is the airfield getting bombed. But if there is a lot of flak, bombing accuracy should be lower and bomber losses higher.

[John B.]

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

Do you have the KI-83 with good pilots for sweeping? Someone had good luck with those. If you sweep over a hex with your own units, you may not lose the pilot either.

As far as training fighters go, if he does not escort the bombers and he has not shut down the airbase, you can do that anywhere. The risk is the airfield getting bombed. But if there is a lot of flak, bombing accuracy should be lower and bomber losses higher.

Sadly, the Ki-83 is not due to show up until 10/45. I think the Frank model r will be my best army fighter in this game until the very end. The navy has some good planes in the fray. I"ve got the Jack 5 and the George 2 both of which seem to be pretty good.

[John B.]

Well it's Christmas Eve and it appears Scott did not have much CAP over one of the off-shore islands. The result was 8 hits (!) on his APA force there. I confirmed that one of them sank and the rest are going to have flotation damage that will keep them from doing much for awhile. This is extra impressive given that these were old model Kates and the lost a couple to CAP on their way in.

[John B.]

The sad news was that I had a bunch of fighters on CAP over China that jumped a flight of his B-29s and did not shoot down any of them. [:(] It's a wonder that Scott does not just send those boys over the HI unescorted and not wasting time on fighter sweeps.

[John B.]

Then, on Christmas Day we each got a gift. First, Scott did not have much CAP over his TF and I got through with another torpedo hit on an APA (this one went down thanks to a subsequent attack by a mini-sub. True heroes who went to a watery grave). But, most of the bombers I had set to fly anti-ship missions did not launch.

I did get in a bombardment of one of his offshore islands. I lost two destroyers to mines but I sank 20 PT boats so it was an equal loss (which favors Japan at this moment). It seems to me that those pesky craft are most effective on nights of poor visibility so I'm going to hoard the MTBs until the current moon wanes.

[John B.]

It looks like a killed a few fighters in my shore bombardment while Scott hammered the China boys with more from his medium and his heavy bombers.

[John B.]

Christmas Day 1944 may have been dreary for the 101st airborne, but it was a good day for the Empire of Japan. Here is the current score board. Scott did not make any headway in China and continues to move forward in S.E. Asia. But, I've gotten almost all of my troops out of there so now I just want to keep his divisions busy as long as possible.

[John B.]

You may have noticed the high number of allied planes destroyed on the field in the VP screen and that's because we can scratch one flattop. True, it's a CVE but it has a flat deck and that makes the Emperor smile. I'm almost certain it went down as there were sinking sounds right after the torpedo hit, the ship is reported as sunk, and we have all the dead carrier planes.

[John B.]

And, in a day dedicated to the Japanese submarine corps, this boat showed true Samurai spirit. First, it hit the destroyer and then, when it was forced to surface it put a torpedo into an APA. There were sinking sounds after my sub sank. My money would be on the destroyer since it's a smaller ship (and RO boats have smaller torpedoes). In either event, it was a good fight!

[Bif1961]

Japanese MTBs had two torpedoes each so 15 reported hits would be 5 torpedo hits over 100% which would be 10 hits possible from 5 MTBs.