Empire of the Sun - DesertWolf101 (J) vs Andy Mac (A)

[GetAssista]

Since Andy has no CV cover yet to get pushy on other theatres, it would be good to get a lot of USSR front veterans to Burma and beyond to fight in India, and have greener divisions dig in Siberia instead, hopefully training their xp in regular mutual bombardments with Soviets RR links are great, sea lanes are secure, and Japan starts having excess PPs somewhere around that time methinks.

ORIGINAL: 29000Kevin
Heck you could do a full Air attack on the West Coast of America alongside a Battleship bombardment to damage Andy's Air factories and delay the arrival of late war planes and also destroy his old American BB's, I have seen the P-51H factory being bombed by the IJN Ise once before in a PBEM game where the Japan player launched a full scale invasion of the WC and failed to achieve the desired results. still it was bloody epic to watch it.

BB bombardments of remote places is a fantasy at this point. Very little damage will be done even if you get CV air there to have Judys recon the place. First bombardments always trade the vast majority of their shots with CD forts, and you won't have a second one. In exchange for a lot of fuel spent and considerable risk of running into some DD torp attack too far from home.

[29000Kevin]

Yeah Bombardmenting Los Angeles is not going to do much with the CD unless you brought some AKE's along the ride, I already said that a operation like that would waste a lot of Japanese fuel for limited gains, Bombarding the airfield in Perl Harbour however is much more practical as it allows your Carriers to focus all their bombs against the ships in Perl Harbour rather than wasting it on the airfield, also results in less loses for your veteran Carrier pilots and allows you to recover pilots if the ships remain on station.

[GetAssista]

ORIGINAL: 29000Kevin
Bombarding the airfield in Perl Harbour however is much more practical as it allows your Carriers to focus all their bombs against the ships in Perl Harbour rather than wasting it on the airfield, also results in less loses for your veteran Carrier pilots and allows you to recover pilots if the ships remain on station.

PH has CD fort so everything I wrote applies. My own initial BB bombardments of PH recently traded shots with Oahu Harbor Defense instead of hitting the base. With 10+ DL to boot.

[DesertWolf101]

That's right Kevin, I think the signs were overwhelming over the past months that Andy was going all in with India. I am still watching for any indications he might be planning something elsewhere as well though, I just have not seen any signs of it. I do have a couple of surprises for him in India, but overall I think he has brought enough to push me back to the Burmese border.

GetAssista, now that the I am largely in a defensive posture in the Soviet front (with the exception of Operation Furnace which is in the starvation stage), I am indeed moving divisions from there to threatened sectors. In less than a months time I should have around 20 divisions in India but unfortunately I think the last half a dozen of those will not arrive in time before Andy launches his offensive.

[DesertWolf101]

January 24, 1943

Andy's offensive in India began with a series of heavy bomber raids on my forward airfields. First time I see the B-24 being used against me. Anticipating his strikes, I had largely pulled back my fighter groups from the forward airfields until I got a better sense of where he was striking. I will now move them forward to contest them.

CL Adelaide was also sunk by Nell bombers near Perth.

[DesertWolf101]

January 25, 1943

A bit of a mixed bag in the air over India today. The Japanese suffered quite the disaster when I sent IJNAF bombers on a deep raid to hit the Hyderabad (Sindh) airfield that my intel inaccurately told me had no CAP but plenty of bombers on the tarmac. The result was an astounding 59 bombers lost... ouch! Thankfully I had switched over the elite torpedo trained aviators beforehand but my offensive punch in India is pretty much spent now.

On the other hand, Andy leveraged his USN fighters now that he doesn't have any CVNs but the Wildcats were torn to shreds by my Tojos. One Tojo was lost for some 40 F4F-4 fighters in sweeps over my airfields.

[GetAssista]

ORIGINAL: DesertWolf101
On the other hand, Andy leveraged his USN fighters now that he doesn't have any CVNs but the Wildcats were torn to shreds by my Tojos. One Tojo was lost for some 40 F4F-4 fighters in sweeps over my airfields.

Allies will not have deep naval fighter pools until 4/43 when Hellcats come in. In stock1 USN has +30 Corsairs and +45 F4F-4 a month until then. So he can't sustain those kind of losses for long. His mainstay is relatively short-legged USArmy P-40K. So you better concentrate on CAPping your stuff and waiting for him running out of escorts for his bombers. Unfortunalely Tojos are crap against 4Es

IMO you should not really try to deep bomb him during the day for now, he had a lot of time to prepare so surely he has CAP over his initial bomber positions. Maybe later when his attention is divided between transferring planes and having an active land war. Your long range naval bombers are too fragile and valuable as sea area denial anyway to risk them in this role. Night bombing is another matter

[DesertWolf101]

ORIGINAL: GetAssista

ORIGINAL: DesertWolf101
On the other hand, Andy leveraged his USN fighters now that he doesn't have any CVNs but the Wildcats were torn to shreds by my Tojos. One Tojo was lost for some 40 F4F-4 fighters in sweeps over my airfields.

Allies will not have deep naval fighter pools until 4/43 when Hellcats come in. In stock1 USN has +30 Corsairs and +45 F4F-4 a month until then. So he can't sustain those kind of losses for long. His mainstay is relatively short-legged USArmy P-40K. So you better concentrate on CAPping your stuff and waiting for him running out of escorts for his bombers. Unfortunalely Tojos are crap against 4Es

IMO you should not really try to deep bomb him during the day for now, he had a lot of time to prepare so surely he has CAP over his initial bomber positions. Maybe later when his attention is divided between transferring planes and having an active land war. Your long range naval bombers are too fragile and valuable as sea area denial anyway to risk them in this role. Night bombing is another matter

I'm with you on the deep bombing. I only really tried that given the circumstances where multiple days of recon showed no fighter presence covering a juicy target. I think what might have actually happened was that I encountered bleeding CAP from Karachi. Even night bombing is very risky. I tried going after his overstacked airfields at Rawalpindi only to encounter significant amounts of night CAP. Luckily I only lost a single bomber in that raid but I didn't score any hits either.

[DesertWolf101]

January 26, 1943

Day 3 of Andy's air campaign over India saw a massive and concentrated Allied effort to close the Japanese airfields at Indore. Luckily I had anticipated this and I moved in about 200 fighters (primarily Zeros and Tojos) the turn before to face the storm. First the Indore defenses had to suffer through a series of night raids by some 75 medium and heavy bombers (which I had some Nick fighters on CAP to distract). Andy then hit me during the day phases with P-40K, Beaufighter, and Wildcat/Martlet sweeps as well as bombing raids utilizing 141 heavy bombers (B17E/B24D) and approximately 110 escorted medium bombers (B25/B26).

My fighter defenses were eventually grounded down by the weight of the assault and large numbers of fighters had to be written off due to taking damage from the heavy bomber's defensive guns. Still, some 30 four engine bombers were destroyed and the Indore airfields are battered but not yet closed. 12 Japanese pilots paid the ultimate price.

[Dili]

I don't think he can sustain that kind of losses for the heavies : 34 of 141 a 24% loss rate.

Btw what was the AA in your base for the 4 kills?

[DesertWolf101]

ORIGINAL: Dili

I don't think he can sustain that kind of losses for the heavies : 34 of 141 a 24% loss rate.

Btw what was the AA in your base for the 4 kills?

I had only two AA battalions at Indore, but another two regiments and three battalions arrived in the base during the movement phase. I am hoping for a bit of a reprieve to allow the newly arrived AA to unpack and for some of the runway damage to be repaired. In addition to the destroyed 4Es I am hoping I damaged enough of them to prevent another really large attack next turn but we shall see.

[DesertWolf101]

January 27, 1943

Surprisingly enough, the air war over India intensified further this turn even after yesterday’s intense action. Andy changed the game a little by sending in mass sweeps over Indore after a wave of night bombing that harassed and fatigued my pilots. With the exception of the F4U-1 that made its first appearance, the Allied fighters were no match for the Japanese aces. That Corsair though was something else, and I can’t wait for the arrival of the George to counter it.

Andy rested his American medium bombers but not his heavies. The B-24 and B-17 bombers shifted target to Cawnpore and this time they were aided by Russian SB-2 bombers. A Tojo Sentai was on station to help disrupt their aim and tear into the Russian bombers after dealing with the initial Wildcat sweep.

I am hoping for a lull in the action of a day or two as my fighter pilots are starting to get exhausted. I take pilot management very seriously and I dislike sending fatigued pilots into combat.

[castor troy]

Crazy losses. Allied can't afford such kind of losses over a longer period especially when IJ pilot losses are low due to fighting over IJ bases.

[jdsrae]

Your fighter pilots won’t want to stay on the ground resting while there are targets like that available.

[DesertWolf101]

True enough, but I was also thinking about how he could potentially wear me down with continuous pressure where the lopsided losses are no longer possible. Andy has a substantial quantitative advantage over me in India that I am wary off.

[DesertWolf101]

January 28-29, 1943

I got my lull in India which allowed me to start resting my pilots and repair airfield damage. Enemy forces have seized an abandoned Gwalior and are about to seize Surat from a tiny Japanese rearguard. I am trying to delay as much as possible to get the time I need for the reinforcements from the Soviet Union to arrive.

Speaking of the Soviet front, the Yamato task force is leaving port today to head back to its bombardment duties. Andy however is keeping a large number of submarines on station and has even dropped some mines from TB-3 bombers to block Rashin port. I was surprised to see my CAP there fail to intercept the bombers - not sure if it is not impossible to intercept bombers on minelaying duties or if bad weather and a bad die roll prevented the fighters from finding the bombers [&:]

[DesertWolf101]

January 30, 1943

Enemy heavy bombers plastered Allahabad which paved the way for a Chindit Brigade to drop in and take the base. I had a third of an extremely experienced division there but the bombing was too much and the Japanese unit was pushed back. Gah!

My pilots were rested enough so I decided to mount some sweeps of my own. Results are displayed below.

[DesertWolf101]

January 31, 1943

Having seized Allahabad, Andy railed in a substantial force to the base and more are coming. He also caught me on the back foot at Cawnpore and destroyed a large number of Japanese aircraft on the ground with his heavy bombers. He is leveraging the paratrooper and heavy bomber combination to good effect.

[DesertWolf101]

In the meantime, the KB emerged out of the shadows near Karachi and sunk a troop laden convoy. I think the results displayed below are pretty wildly inflated in terms of destroyed/damaged devices. Still, I suspect I destroyed an infantry brigade which if true is nothing to scoff at.

[DesertWolf101]

February 1, 1943

I resumed battleship bombardments of Vladivostok and the mines already are an issue. One of my destroyers slams into one and is heavily damaged.

The situation in India remains quite tense as the Allies rush forward all over the map. I am trying to stay ahead of Andy's forces but the Allies move very fast. I got some respite from the heavy bombers today due to adverse weather and for my part I took the opportunity to hit hard one of Andy's forward airbases that he used for transport aircraft when he weakened its defenses. The result is below.