Requiem for Tomorrow Wirraway (J) v DesertWolf (A)

[Wirraway_Ace]

10 Jan 42

In China, the enemy puts up CAP over Sian for the first time, using two squadrons (one at half strength) of the AVG at 31,000 feet. They get slightly the better of 7th Sentai Oscars on a sweep, and some also get past the Oscars escorting Sally's, though the escorts score kills. We lose 7 Oscars and 7 Sally's to 7 H81-A3s. The airfield is significantly damaged. If the enemy follows past practice, he will relocate the squadrons next turn.

Also in the air, but many thousands of miles to the south, the Kido Butai hits heavy industry at Brisbane and resources at Toowoomba with decent weather. Both attacks are effective, and P40Es flying a training mission over Brisbane are savaged by the Zeros on escort. The sweeps that came in ahead did not find the P40s in the air. The enemy loses 9 P40E and most of the HI and resources.

Kates from Zuiho find some Dutch AVPs and AKLs headed in the direction of Derby or Broome. A destroyer squadron engaged them first in an indecisive daylight action. The TF Commander was relieved for lack of aggressiveness (to be fair, it may have been a fuel issue; we are running our Banda and Timor Sea operation on a logistics shoe-string).

Oscars sweep and Sallys hit Rangoon, undefended from the air.

Four Aoba's bombard Port Moresby while the 4th ID continues to load transports at Rabaul. We don't have any land-based front-line fighters in this theater yet so we are being cautious about using Betty's or Nells against the Port Moresby airfield. We assumed he would mass his available fighters in and around Sydney and Brisbane with the Kido Butai operating there, leaving Port Moresby undefended, but the enemy has so far not attempted to CAP over his industry. He has a practice of primarily using his fighters against unescorted bombers--a "Hit them where the ain't" tactic--so he will almost certainly jump some squadrons in to Port Moresby if he sees unescorted strikes. Thus, three cruiser TFs are keeping the airfield suppressed until a Sentai of Claudes upgrades to Zeros at Takao. They, of course, won't upgrade at Truk or any other airfield south of Takao at the moment.

Armor attacks again in the mountains east of Sian. The end is near for the seven enemy corps there. They are down to under 300 AV.

In the Aleutians, no sign of the enemy yet as the transports retreat. We now have two airfields in the Kuriles and will have two in the Aleutians open in a few days. The Aleutians are intended as a strategic distraction while the Kuriles must be hardened.

[Wirraway_Ace]

11 Jan 42

5th Fleet
Our submarine wolfpack operating along the default shipping lane (hex row) approximately 500nm northwest of Pearl identified an amphibious (or transport) convoy and a replenishment convoy en route towards the Aleutians (or potentially the Kuriles). I-18 sank a transport with guns on board while I-20 unsuccessfully stalked 4 DMSs escorting at least one AO. The wolfpack, led by CDR Yokota on board the Glen equipped I-26, will continue along the expected enemy route north while 5th Fleet continues to mass submarines in the Aleutians. The Combined Fleet staff do not have any intention of reacting to an enemy counter invasion in the Aleutians, but will pursue a deception plan to give the enemy the impression we will. An infantry brigade has been ordered to board transports with Dutch Harbor as the destination--it will be diverted long before it approaches the Bering Sea. We have done the same with a SNLF, a base force, and some AA guns. We will also take this opportunity to withdraw the Kido Butai in the direction of the Aleutians, since it needs to refuel one of the thirsty Kongos anyway. Zuiho, off Darwin, will also move northeast. The enemy does a good job with his navsearch, and will know the both TFs are moving in the direction of NORPAC. Whether he believes they will really make the long trip there is another question. We lose nothing by the simple deception, since both TFs need to refuel and rearm anyway. His SIGINT may pick up the other taskforce moves. We will see if that affects his planned operations.

China
As expected the enemy relocated both the AVG squadrons from Sian. Also, as expected, he moved them back to Chungking. The 5th Air Div anticipated these moves and struck Chungking, destroying 4 of the American Volunteer Group aircraft on the ground and damaging many more. The enemy had no CAP over the base. His Chinese squadrons were aloft on training missions in obsolete Russian aircraft at the time of the attack. As we have noticed before, the sweeps did not find them, but the main raid encountered the trainees. The raid came in a bit disorganized behind the sweeps, so there were no escorts with the bombers in the first group to arrive. We lost one Sally.

Annes and Lilys continue to hit Wenchow, and damage a P40E still stuck on that closed airfield. 13th Army is finally ready to advance in full strength on city, so a BB TF will bombard the enemy defenses tomorrow, while the aircraft switch targets to his ground units.

Further north, both 1st and 11th Armies have just about finished repairing all the medium tanks, and will attack again in 24 hours. Japanese industry has yet to build a single new medium tank since the war began. We have suffered an number damaged, but none destroyed.

At Singapore, the first transports begin loading for the invasion of Java.

In the Timor Sea, a destroyer squadron sinks some AKLs and AMs while Zuiho's Kates finish off the last of the AVPs. This whole business is a bit puzzling. These ships could have stayed in Darwin safely or hidden in the Gulf of Carpentaria. Apparently the enemy did not want to commit even the modest number of fighter aircraft to Northern Australia it would of taken to dissuade Zuiho from a port raid. The whole episode, with low value ships (though the AVPs are useful) wandering about within range of aircover, had the look of one of his typical CAP traps, but there were none that we found. Zuiho was careful with her strike ranges to limit the risk, but found nothing. We are going to withdraw to refuel and rearm anyway, but wonder if this was still bait of some type.

[BBfanboy]

In January 1942 there are NO fighters in Australia unless some were brought in from the Philippines or DEI. Australia's fledgling aircraft industry produces bombers for now. The US can send some there but every theater is screaming for them at this time.

[Wirraway_Ace]

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

In January 1942 there are NO fighters in Australia unless some were brought in from the Philippines or DEI. Australia's fledgling aircraft industry produces bombers for now. The US can send some there but every theater is screaming for them at this time.

"La,la,la," [plugs ears]. Thanks BBfanboy. I am trying not to know more than I should. I do know he moved at least one squadron of P40Es to Australia. I believe it was one of three in the PI. There was also a squadron of P40Bs from the PI that is not accounted for. I suspect they are both in Australia, though I only have confirmation of the first.

As a player, I know some of these squadrons are provisional, and he may have chosen to withdraw them rather than buy them out. As the Imperial Japanese High Command, I would not likely be privy to such detailed intel.

[Wirraway_Ace]

12 Jan 42

Near Midway, our submarines report no sign that the enemy convoys continued north toward the Aleutians. Did they turn around? In the 5th Fleet AOR, our transports have made it back to the Kuriles and none of our picket ships or subs 500 miles south report any enemy sightings. We are evacuating fragments of the units in the Aleutians to the Kuriles in case we have to rebuild these forces.

China: The enemy withdraws all his fighters from Chungking and Sian. They are probably at Kweiyang or Kunming. Recon will find them. Meanwhile, 5th Air Div bombers hit multiple ground targets.

Philippines: The enemy flies in an understrength squadron of P40Es to bounce our airfield attacks at Manila. Tojos sweep and shoot down half the enemy fighters with no losses.

Burma: Recon shows no sign of enemy activity.

Java: D-Day is the 16th. We will take Java from north to south. The enemy appears to be planning on standing in the mountains at Bandoeng in the north and Malang in the south. Due to stacking limits in both these hexes, there is no real advantage to landing at Semarang and splitting the island. He cannot mass in a single mountain hex. At the moment, his forces are concentrated at Batavia and Soerabaja. Recon will watch closely to see if he begins moving when our convoys are sighted. Kalidjati is undefended at the moment, as is Buitenzorg, and we have two airborne battalions available...

Northern Australia: Recon flights from Koepang show forty bombers at Darwin. The enemy is probably planning on closing our newly acquired airfield at Koepang. These bombers may also be at Darwin as a staging location to Java, if he sees a high-value target. Bettys from Ambon will strike the airfield. No fighters are reported present but recent information suggests the enemy may be critically short of fighter aircraft in Australia. Regardless, Zeros from Zuiho will sweep the airfield.

Port Moresby. A SNLF landed at Buna. The 4th ID will arrive tonight.

New Caledonia. A SNLF will land at Koumac tonight. The main force will land at La Fou on the 14th.

[Wirraway_Ace]

13 Jan 42

Quiet turn. We will have the political points tomorrow to buy-out the rest of the division tasked with taking Midway. It will be transported from Korea immediately. No firm D-Day has been set for this operation, but the target date remains by the end of the month.

We have a decent pool of Kates and Lilys are a low priority, so both those assembly lines are temporarily closed to conserve the valuable Ha-35 engines. We have converted all the useful IJN air service squadrons from Claudes to Zeros, so we may also be able to taper Zero production for the moment. Meanwhile, we need every Oscar we can make.

In China, the 11th Army attacks five enemy corps south of Sian without the benefit of any air support due to weather. It is a 1:2 attack, but the enemy suffers heavily from our massed armor and artillery. His AV is down to half its original strength and our losses are light.

Recon shows most of the bombers are gone from Darwin, while Dinah pilots report a build-up of bombers at Soerabaja. While this may be a coincidence, intelligence believe these are B17s and potentially Vindicators being massed for a last major effort by Allied airpower on Java.

In New Guinea, the 4th ID lands at Buna and begins its march across the Kokoda trail.

Further to the south, New Caledonia appears unreinforced. The 144th will not be committed to the landing. Three SNLFs will take the island; one has landed at Koumac, and two more will land at La Foa, tomorrow.

[Wirraway_Ace]

14 Jan 42

In China, weather grounds our bombers.

Off Java, weather conceals our invasion taskforces from the enemy air search. We will land at Kalidjati tomorrow while 3rd SNLF paratroopers will seize the undefended airfield. Eighty miles west, 1st SNLF paratroopers will take and hold the airfield in the mountains at Buitenzorg. Any troops that try to escape Batavia to the mountain redoubt at Bandoeng will be in a race with our armor across the plains.

At Midway, I-168 sinks an xAKL.

On New Caledonia, undefended Koumac is taken while the rest of the troops land at La Foe, covered by Kaga's Zeros.

[Wirraway_Ace]

15 Jan 42

In China, 1st Army shock attacks in the mountains east of Sian. Weather grounds our bombers again, and the attack does not quite get a 2:1, but enemy losses are heavy (including over 200 squads destroyed) and ours light. They will try again.

On Java, two divisions land unmolested at Kalidjati. The soldiers of the 2nd and 38th Divisions are greeted by paratroopers who took the undefended base and airfield as the transports were unloading. Zeros and Oscars fly into the airfield to take over CAP duties while the transports continue to unload.

Things go less smoothly thousands of miles south at La Foa. The Kido Butai withdrew prematurely, and the enemy stages in two squadrons of A-24s which sink two transports offloading supplies and two small destroyers. A third transport is crippled and scuttled. All the troops were ashore and enough supply.

Further north, the enemy also stages in A-24s to Port Moresby. Weather conceals the transports at Buna (which have Zeros on LRCAP), so the A-24s go after our cruiser covering force to the south. They lose three aircraft to flak with no hits.

At Midway, I-168 sights 3 APs. Our sub wolfpack in the area is descending on the atoll. We shall hopefully be able to determine if these are really troop transports or AKLs grown to APs in the mind's eye of the submarine skipper.

[Wirraway_Ace]

Anyone familiar with Japanese medium tank production within the game? I read in Goldman's superb Nomanhan, 1939, that these vehicles were difficult and expensive for Japanese industry to produce, so they were treated like gold. This seems to be faithfully replicated in the game. Through the middle of January, not a single new medium tank has been produced of either the Type 89A or Type 97.

I have increased Vehicle Assembly to 150.

[mind_messing]

ORIGINAL: Wirraway_Ace

Anyone familiar with Japanese medium tank production within the game? I read in Goldman's superb Nomanhan, 1939, that these vehicles were difficult and expensive for Japanese industry to produce, so they were treated like gold. This seems to be faithfully replicated in the game. Through the middle of January, not a single new medium tank has been produced of either the Type 89A or Type 97.

I have increased Vehicle Assembly to 150.

Not terribly so, could do with a refresher.

No production might be due to a few things, especially around upgrades and production dates. Worthwhile checking both of those.

Generally speaking, more VEH is a good idea. The IJA tank units eat a chunk, and it can be hard to keep on top of the dual pressure of AFV losses and late war reinforcements. Banking the points for late war can pay off as the IJA get a handful of tank bde's that make great firefighting groups for the Home Islands.

[BBfanboy]

ORIGINAL: Wirraway_Ace

Anyone familiar with Japanese medium tank production within the game? I read in Goldman's superb Nomanhan, 1939, that these vehicles were difficult and expensive for Japanese industry to produce, so they were treated like gold. This seems to be faithfully replicated in the game. Through the middle of January, not a single new medium tank has been produced of either the Type 89A or Type 97.

I have increased Vehicle Assembly to 150.

Two possibilities:
- the pool is full so no more will be produced at this time
- there is no scheduled production so replacements for losses will only be produced using accumulated supply and vehicle production points. Per m-m's point, production might be scheduled to begin at a later date.

[RangerJoe]

My understanding is that when the vehicles are needed, the appropriate points are deducted from the vehicle and armament pools. Any upgrades will send the older vehicles into the pool. My suggestion would be to slowly upgrade the units so you don't have a lot of older vehicles in the pools which can still be useful against the Chinese.

[Wirraway_Ace]

Thanks Mind Messing, BBfanboy and Ranger Joe!

I need to look up the asterisk to see what it means.

[jdsrae]

As RJ said, demand them and they will arrive at the front, cooked to order from Vehicle, Manpower and Supply points.
Don’t worry if there are none in the pool, just set replacements/upgrades to on and if you have the V/M/S points they will appear.
It was a few years ago and I can’t check right now, but from memory some of the older tanks have better anti soft ratings than the newer models, which could be of more use vs riflemen. If you have time you can check the in game database to compare some of those stats to help decide whether to upgrade or not.

[Wirraway_Ace]

ORIGINAL: jdsrae

As RJ said, demand them and they will arrive at the front, cooked to order from Vehicle, Manpower and Supply points.
Don’t worry if there are none in the pool, just set replacements/upgrades to on and if you have the V/M/S points they will appear.
It was a few years ago and I can’t check right now, but from memory some of the older tanks have better anti soft ratings than the newer models, which could be of more use vs riflemen. If you have time you can check the in game database to compare some of those stats to help decide whether to upgrade or not.

Perfect, thanks. Of course, that means I have been conserving them somewhat needlessly...War is hard. It is harder if you are stupid.

I will look at the stats in the data base. From the historical literature, the older model light tanks were vulnerable to heavy machine gun fire, so they should definitely be replaced. I suspect the Type 89A medium tank would have a better anti-soft rating since its main gun was a low velocity infantry support gun versus the Type 97s anti tank gun.

[RangerJoe]

If that is the case for the older medium tanks, upgrade slowly to the newer model to use up the Type 89As. Use the older ones against the Chinese . . .

[Wirraway_Ace]

17 Jan 1942

I-20 confirms there are xAPs unloading at Midway.
Glens recon Pearl Harbor, but don't get a good look at what is in the harbor.
I-169 sinks an empty AP near Auckland.
RO-60 sinks an xAK carrying troops near Cairns.
I-24 sinks an empty xAK escaping Java.

A veteran destroy squadron sinks the last of the Dutch PT boats that attempted unsuccessfully to interdict our landing on Java. Our troops advance on Batavia.

Bettys hit the airfield at Soerabaja, but the enemy has relocated the 30 or so bombers there from Java. At the moment, the ABDA air force on Java consists of a handful of Hawks and a few patrol planes. Recon will try and locate where they went. Intelligence believes they may be on Borneo.

In China, our bombers hit the airfield at Sian.

[Wirraway_Ace]

18 Jan 1942

In China, the enemy has reinforced his defense in the mountains east of Sian with an understrength infantry corps and a cavalry corps. Our armor will attack tomorrow. At Wenchow, as expected, our three divisions will be in for a long fight, with one good enemy corps, and two weak enemy corps in strong terrain. Siege artillery, naval bombardment and airpower will be applied to weaken the enemy. The enemy also tried to entice us to attack the airfield at Chungking. He massed 50 bombers there on the 17th (with no fighters), then replaced them with 100 fighters overnight. This seemed a bit obvious.

We have called-off the Midway operation for the time being. With the confirmation the enemy has reinforced the base, the high command assesses the likelihood of success as low and Midway is not valuable enough to risk a major operation. Intelligence assessments of the enemy's carrier operations off the Home Islands indicate he is likely using Marine Wildcats to add fighters to the carrier air groups, and Yorktown is in theater. Indomitable is also in theater but still in the Indian Ocean. The three US CVs can be defeated by the Kido Butai, but we would likely lose one or more carriers. The enemy will have air search around Midway; the KB would have to rely on submarines to identify the enemy early.

On Luzon, our first attack at Manila gets a strong 1:1 and reduces the forts to 1. General Homma, known to be cautious with his troops, has none the less ordered a shock attack.

On Java, our troops are maneuvering and the transports are returning to Singapore. Our next move is on Burma. We are taking his bases on northern Sumatra, where he has continued to operate level bombers as naval search, and will also seize Port Blair in preparation. We anticipate the Royal Navy will attempt to intervene once our invasion TFs are sighted, but want to give him as little advanced notice as possible. He has a potentially powerful force, including a BB (Royal Sovereign), BC, a CV, a CVE and a number of cruisers.

A cruiser TF of four Aobas bombards Port Moresby with good effect.

On New Caledonia, our troops have reached Noumea and confirmed it is only defended by a French battalion and a fragment of a USAAF base force.

[Wirraway_Ace]

Following up on the medium tank discussion, I looked at the device data. The Type 89 and Type 97 medium tanks have the same anti soft rating of 24 and the same anti armor rating of 50. The Type 1 medium is where the differences occur. It has a lower anti soft of 16 and a higher anti armor of 80.

The Type 98 light tank is a significant upgrade on the Type 95. It has better armor than the mediums and the same anti armor, though lower anti soft (but still better than the old Type 95)

The Ya-I Go's have the best anti soft at 34, but with an armor rating of only 5, they die easily. I used them in one assault along with six armor regiments (Israeli Six Day War style, pure armor formations) and the battalion became isolated and almost destroyed. I assume that was a bad die roll, but it was an unpleasant shock. The battalion is almost rebuilt. I won't commit it without the infantry this time and see how it goes <pun not intended>.

[Wirraway_Ace]

I know this is mostly a game of ships and planes, so I will wrap up the discussion of Japanese tanks with this:


The Type 4, which was only ever finished in prototype. It looks like a PZ IV hull with Henschel King Tiger turret.

Sadly, the Type 4 self propelled gun (a very different thing) makes it into the game but not the Type 4 tank.