Quisling! An AFB does Japan (No PanzerKat)

[John B.]

Keeping the bushido spirit alive, I'm trying two limited counterattacks (circled). Each has a lot of AA and I'm hoping to draw off some of Scott's massive bomber fleets into the AA fields to shoot some of them down, or, at the least, to get some allied land kills. I'm not sure what he has in the hex in Korea so I'm going to bombard this turn to see what is there. If it's not much then attack next turn. Or shoot down planes, whichever one works.

[John B.]

At sea it's all just a big mess. The Razor duked it out with Arleigh and came in second place. The two torpedoes in the Hiei basically put it out of action for the rest of the war assuming she can get home. I may have sunk one US DD but no sinking sounds and no indication of heavy damage. It's a sad day when US torpedoes are better than Japanese ones. I did get a sub (at least there were sinking sounds) and the CVs are still almost all heading back to port. There is a plethora of subs and ASW patrols. We'll have to see what happens.

[John B.]

And since I have lots of patrol planes and bombers with nothing to do, they're all flying supplies in. I'm not sure how much this represents, but it's better than nothing!

[John B.]

It was not a glorious turn for either the US sub force or the Japanese ASW force. They did sink one of my CVEs heading home and I put some damage on a few of his subs, but nothing awful. I sent out MTBs to Tsushima that did not do much and there was bombardments. Informed that he is still winning, the Emperor smiled.

[John B.]

Pretty tame day except that I lost an E to a torpedo and I'm pretty sure I took out two allied subs. This will make no difference at all, but it's always good for player morale in the end times to be doing some damage to the Allies.

[John B.]

On a further upbeat note, both of my attacks against Scott went in and caused some significant damage to the allies. Here, the Allies had two regiments near Heijo on the Korean peninsula very roughly handled.

[John B.]

And, in China, an entire American armor battalion was eliminated. Oddly, Scott did not bomb either one of my attacks. I'm sure he knows that these hexes bristle with AA but he could have at least disrupted me a bit. I'm glad he didn't.

[RangerJoe]

Well, look at all of those ground points that he is going to have to double to try and win!

Armour needs infantry support.

[John B.]

Sadly, combats like this help Scott to close the gap. This was not entirely unexpected, as noted above, the collapse at Masan led to my troops being in clear terrain and thus pounded from sea and air. Now, anything that can fly troops out is set to ferry them home to at least mitigate the VP loss.

[John B.]

And, the VP total.

[GetAssista]

ORIGINAL: John B.
Sadly, combats like this help Scott to close the gap. This was not entirely unexpected, as noted above, the collapse at Masan led to my troops being in clear terrain and thus pounded from sea and air.

On the good side, your squads and devices cost half as much as Allied in VPs, excluding Chinese.

[John B.]

ORIGINAL: GetAssista

ORIGINAL: John B.
Sadly, combats like this help Scott to close the gap. This was not entirely unexpected, as noted above, the collapse at Masan led to my troops being in clear terrain and thus pounded from sea and air.

On the good side, your squads and devices cost half as much as Allied in VPs, excluding Chinese.

That is very true. Basically, Scott needs to kill me at a 4-1 ratio to get to where he needs to be with land combat points. Given his airpower that may not be a problem for him, hence why I want to avoid clear terrain hexes like the plague!

[John B.]

This was another good air turn for the Japanese. He lost a lot of Corsairs over Kobe. According to the breakdown, he lost 63 A's in air-to-air combat. He is at a slight disadvantage at Kobe since it is 8 hexes from his airbase. Once he gets Tushima built up it will be within his normal range but that will be a few turns at least.

I've also been moving Nate training squadrons from Manchuria to the HI. Once these squadrons have a batch of pilots ready (at the 50 EXP 70 air to air level) I'm converting them into normal interceptor squadrons to have more available for air defense.

And, my massive airlift out of Pusan is bearing some fruit. I have taken out about 3/4's of the 10th division in two turns and now I'm working on bringing out the 23rd division. This will help reduce the VP haul Scott gets out of smashing me in south Korea. I figure I have at least three more turns before he has forces in position to attack and anything that can fly troops is bringing them to the HI. I'm not bringing home support units right now since a squad is a squad and I might as well bring the fighting troops home first.

[John B.]

Opps, that last post was from last turn when his SBDs learned to not bomb my flak concentrations.

[John B.]

Here is the current turn's report. I also sank a 31 point TK this turn with a sub. If you think about it, Scott has to kills 372 squads/devices just to make up for that one tanker.

[John B.]

Here are the specific air losses. I'm not sure I quite believe his A's got hammered that badly but hey, it's 1945 and if I can't believe my own press releases what can I believe? And, continuing on the math theme, Scott will have to kill 876 squads/devices just to make up for those losses (ignoring the VP I lost from air-to-air combat of course).

[RangerJoe]

ORIGINAL: John B.

Here is the current turn's report. I also sank a 31 point TK this turn with a sub. If you think about it, Scott has to kills 372 squads/devices just to make up for that one tanker.

That is why Japanese subs are worth building. Especially if they can get into rear areas with unprotected ships.

[RangerJoe]

ORIGINAL: John B.

Here are the specific air losses. I'm not sure I quite believe his A's got hammered that badly but hey, it's 1945 and if I can't believe my own press releases what can I believe? And, continuing on the math theme, Scott will have to kill 876 squads/devices just to make up for those losses (ignoring the VP I lost from air-to-air combat of course).

I find that discounting enemy losses by one third seems to be a more accurate figure.

[John B.]

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

ORIGINAL: John B.

Here is the current turn's report. I also sank a 31 point TK this turn with a sub. If you think about it, Scott has to kills 372 squads/devices just to make up for that one tanker.

That is why Japanese subs are worth building. Especially if they can get into rear areas with unprotected ships.

The ships are not unprotected, Scott has very heavy ASW escorts for each of his convoys. But, in the rear areas he does not have the same DL against my subs so I think they are more likely to get off a shot at a merchant vessel. Even so, my subs are almost always sunk or heavily damaged when they attack.

Still, I think your overall point is very well taken. A one sub for one ship tradeoff works well and you always have the chance at a very lucky shot on a CV!

[John B.]

Well the Japanese subs are on a bit of a run taking out another TK this turn. The RO boat was lost, but it put two torpedoes into a TK that then caught fire. Sinking sounds were heard.

Scott sent his heavy bombers over Hiroshima today and did a bit of damage to my George factory there. But, at the cost of a lot of bombers shot down (and damaged).