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

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: DesertWolf101

March 6, 1943

Over the last few days Andy positioned his forces around Calcutta and began moving into the city for the river crossing. His bombers were distracted in engaging my garrison and plastering Diamond Harbor which allowed my engineers to repaired the runway damage. I took the opportunity to send in my fighters for another round of intense air combat. 9 Japanese pilots were killed in action, three of them aces.

Crazy losses, don't know why Andy is so ruthless in pretty much every of his games. You won't have to worry much about late 43 if he continues to lose at such a ratio, especially as you will have better fighters by then and get a quality edge over the Allied for at least 6-12 months.

[DesertWolf101]

ORIGINAL: castor troy

ORIGINAL: DesertWolf101

March 6, 1943

Over the last few days Andy positioned his forces around Calcutta and began moving into the city for the river crossing. His bombers were distracted in engaging my garrison and plastering Diamond Harbor which allowed my engineers to repaired the runway damage. I took the opportunity to send in my fighters for another round of intense air combat. 9 Japanese pilots were killed in action, three of them aces.

Crazy losses, don't know why Andy is so ruthless in pretty much every of his games. You won't have to worry much about late 43 if he continues to lose at such a ratio, especially as you will have better fighters by then and get a quality edge over the Allied for at least 6-12 months.

I doubt this ratio will continue as I think his air offensive is specifically linked to the Calcutta crossing but we shall see. If only these losses included a significant number of 4E bombers. Right now those are really tough for me to bring down. Hopefully the entry of the George will change that.

[DesertWolf101]

March 7-8, 1943

Allied forces shock attacked across the river into Calcutta and encountered a dug in force with level 8 forts. I had almost reached level 9 forts before he started bombing my airfields and prevented further fortification. The garrison in place is made up of predominantly second line units so I am happy for them to hold in place indefinitely.

I am struggling with a huge decision right now. I had been planning to launch a massive counterattack using 20 divisions once his army shock attacked across the river where I can take advantage of their disrupted state. Two issues that give considerable pause however are the lack of sufficient supply forward and the fact that his bomber force is still very impressive. Besides about 250 4Es, He also has about 400 medium bombers, about 200 dive/torpedo bombers, and 300 IL-2s which I have found to be relatively weak at causing damage to infantry but great against armor and more importantly at draining supply. I have seriously eaten into his fighter force but he still has some 400 altogether although I have noticed he has been forced to downgrade some of them to older types (Less P-38s and more P-39Ds, and P-40Es are making a comeback).

Pros - High tempo of air operations, keep him away from my neighboring industry a bit longer, the potential to catch and hurt some of his LCUs.
Cons - Lack of forward supply, land based air threat to my shipping (about 6 divisions are on assault transports), the risk of having a substantial part of my army trapped forward, the bomber threat in clear terrain, and the distinct possibility that he will retreat to fortified bases if I gain ground (his ability to build up bases is astounding, I imagine he can do the same with fortifications very quickly).

[DesertWolf101]

March 9, 1943

I have noticed that my fighter squadrons are exponentially more effective at tackling heavy bombers when they are still fresh. Even when they easily defeat enemy sweeps, the sweeps tend to exhaust them and they don't press home their attacks well against subsequent enemy bomber formations. Today a large formation of B-17E bombers attacked Dacca where a Japanese fighter force that mostly consisted of Tojos was on station. I am not sure if weather was a factor or what exactly occurred but unlike the battle of Calcutta the bombers came in without sweeps or escorts. They were slaughtered, with no Japanese pilots killed in return (two WIA).

I took a look at my aces list, and while the Navy still dominates the Army is catching up. I have 146 IJNAF aces and 84 IJAAF aces (total 230). I believe this is a very healthy stable of excellent pilots to build on going forward. The first Hikotai just transitioned to the George so I am starting to get them more capable mounts as well. I am currently producing 100 Georges a month and building up more production capacity towards 200 a month. Hopefully this will be enough.

[GetAssista]

ORIGINAL: DesertWolf101
I am struggling with a huge decision right now. I had been planning to launch a massive counterattack using 20 divisions once his army shock attacked across the river where I can take advantage of their disrupted state.

Umm, it's not clear what you are trying to say here. Counterattack exactly where? I only see 1400 AV in Calcutta (+6 ID on transports you mentioned which will take a turn or 2 to unload). Allied disruption will fall off really quickly, and you will have to deal with x4 terrain bonus in the city, so it is a hopeless struggle

[DesertWolf101]

ORIGINAL: GetAssista

ORIGINAL: DesertWolf101
I am struggling with a huge decision right now. I had been planning to launch a massive counterattack using 20 divisions once his army shock attacked across the river where I can take advantage of their disrupted state.

Umm, it's not clear what you are trying to say here. Counterattack exactly where? I only see 1400 AV in Calcutta (+6 ID on transports you mentioned which will take a turn or 2 to unload). Allied disruption will fall off really quickly, and you will have to deal with x4 terrain bonus in the city, so it is a hopeless struggle

I have 13 divisions in around Dacca where my India army retreated to. I was thinking of reinforcing this with an additional 6 divisions on transports and attacking to either trap the allied army in Calcutta or force it to withdraw and defeat it in the field. I have decided the cons outweigh the pros though so I hade decided otherwise.

[29000Kevin]

*Made another giant comment, but then realizing that its probably too late for the plan to work properly so gave up and deleted it due to how it advocated for a campaign that would've likely killed a few too many japanese, due to supplies issues involving the cancelled counteroffensive plan you had.

[DesertWolf101]

ORIGINAL: 29000Kevin

*Made another giant comment, but then realizing that its probably too late for the plan to work properly so gave up and deleted it due to how it advocated for a campaign that would've likely killed a few too many japanese, due to supplies issues involving the cancelled counteroffensive plan you had.

Not a problem.

I meant to respond to your earlier comment about using day and night bombing but didn't get to it. Andy unfortunately has brought so much flak to India that it's extremely difficult to bomb any of his major airfields. He doesn't even need CAP, his flak is so abundant it's overwhelming. The only time I was able to bomb was when he spread his air forces to some of the minor airfields with less anti-aircraft guns.

[traskott]

Suscribed. I have read both AAR sides, and it's very interesting. Old Andy Mac keeps playing same as in the PzB AAR....

[DesertWolf101]

ORIGINAL: traskott

Suscribed. I have read both AAR sides, and it's very interesting. Old Andy Mac keeps playing same as in the PzB AAR....

Welcome!

[DesertWolf101]

March 16, 1943

Over the last week or so, Calcutta has faced relentless bombing from the air while the Japanese field army slowly makes its way down towards the coastal road under the effects of Malaria. Supply is definitely an issue and Andy is making things worse by air dropping loads of mines on Chittagong port, the one viable Japanese port forward in Assam. Nevertheless, I am quite pleased with how things have turned out. Overall I have suffered an equal amount of casualties on the ground relative to Andy during the withdrawal from India and inflicted far more casualties in the air. Furthermore, I have delayed him enough to probably prevent a serious enemy threat to Burma until the end of the monsoon. I expect another serious enemy air offensive against the Magwe oil fields next.

[DesertWolf101]

Meanwhile in the frozen north, the Japanese army has almost entirely pushed the Soviet forces into the two bases of Voroshilov and Vladivostok. I am starting to get impatient in my effort to deplete his supplies, and may attempt a frontal attack soon that I will probably regret.

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: DesertWolf101

Meanwhile in the frozen north, the Japanese army has almost entirely pushed the Soviet forces into the two bases of Voroshilov and Vladivostok. I am starting to get impatient in my effort to deplete his supplies, and may attempt a frontal attack soon that I will probably regret.

Just block him there. Leave a force big enough not to worry about his defenders and take the rest of the map that is held by the Russians. While you do that keep bombing bombing bombing and naval bombarding if you can do it without being threated and as soon as you have secured the rest come back and take the two bases that have run out of supplies.

If you are lucky he could even try to attack your blocking force and deplete his units and supplies while rebuilding his disabled squads/guns. Flak fire and getting squads/guns out of disabled state seems to be what takes the most supply, way more than the odd supply hits.

[29000Kevin]

Problem is the remaining Soviet forces are dug in large mountains, so any offensive will be costly, unless we attempt to outflank the enemy by going around pulling the tricks that Germany did to France avoiding the fortifications with help from the fact that winter is over, send in the paratroopers when it's obvious that Andy has noticed the army and watch if he retreats his main army in the mountains then attack the remnants of it to gain an easy foothold into them if its obvious that he's abandoning the position.

But the more easier objective is to eliminate Soviet China forces.

Attacking Vladivostok is still too early, give it 2-4 more months to actually attack, but you can try to prob the enemy with artillery by Bombardment, which also helps with training your Artillery units. But maybe just maybe go full out and see the results, the result is either we get the best Dice rolls and defeat the enemy or the IJA stuck recovering from losses for the next 3 months.

[DesertWolf101]

ORIGINAL: castor troy

ORIGINAL: DesertWolf101

Meanwhile in the frozen north, the Japanese army has almost entirely pushed the Soviet forces into the two bases of Voroshilov and Vladivostok. I am starting to get impatient in my effort to deplete his supplies, and may attempt a frontal attack soon that I will probably regret.

Just block him there. Leave a force big enough not to worry about his defenders and take the rest of the map that is held by the Russians. While you do that keep bombing bombing bombing and naval bombarding if you can do it without being threated and as soon as you have secured the rest come back and take the two bases that have run out of supplies.

If you are lucky he could even try to attack your blocking force and deplete his units and supplies while rebuilding his disabled squads/guns. Flak fire and getting squads/guns out of disabled state seems to be what takes the most supply, way more than the odd supply hits.

I am resisting the urge to commit to frontal attack too early and am continuing the air and naval bombardments instead. I am destroying/damaging a good number of devices with my battleships in particular so that should help.

[DesertWolf101]

ORIGINAL: 29000Kevin

Problem is the remaining Soviet forces are dug in large mountains, so any offensive will be costly, unless we attempt to outflank the enemy by going around pulling the tricks that Germany did to France avoiding the fortifications with help from the fact that winter is over, send in the paratroopers when it's obvious that Andy has noticed the army and watch if he retreats his main army in the mountains then attack the remnants of it to gain an easy foothold into them if its obvious that he's abandoning the position.

But the more easier objective is to eliminate Soviet China forces.

Attacking Vladivostok is still too early, give it 2-4 more months to actually attack, but you can try to prob the enemy with artillery by Bombardment, which also helps with training your Artillery units. But maybe just maybe go full out and see the results, the result is either we get the best Dice rolls and defeat the enemy or the IJA stuck recovering from losses for the next 3 months.

Speaking of the Soviet forces in the mountains, it looks like Andy may be sending them forward to test my blocking positions. Japanese reinforcements are on the way.

[DesertWolf101]

March 25, 1943 - Naval Battle of Ceylon

Besides the ongoing bombing of Calcutta and the Vladivostok pocket, not too much has happened over the last ten game days. That changed today when I sighted heavy enemy destroyer activity near Ceylon and sent in a couple of task forces composed of a mix of heavy cruisers and destroyers to engage. My two task forces, one led by Tanaka, engaged two enemy task forces composed of a total of 17 destroyers in a series of night and day fights at short range (thunderstorms weather). In the end, I confirmed the destruction of 14 of the destroyers and heavily damaged one more. For my part, I lost DD Hokaze (a Minekaze class destroyer) and a submarine that fell afoul of the enemy but likely did much to delay them for Tanaka's boys. I will attempt to finish off a couple of the enemy survivors that ended up right next to my task forces next turn.

[DesertWolf101]

March 26-27, 1943

Japanese warships hunted down another enemy destroyer near Ceylon. I think only 1 of the 17 enemy destroyers remain, and the destroyer in question, DD Blue, escaped to Madras which has fallen to the Allies.

In the Soviet front, Andy launched a full scale attack on my blocking position in the mountains.

[DesertWolf101]

The Japanese forces hold their ground and inflict significant disablements on the Soviets but unfortunately not as many destroyed devices.

[RangerJoe]

DD Blue was on patrol duty during Savo Island. It did not see the IJN coming in so it never sent an alarm but it survived. How appropriate here . . . [;)]