Spanking Lowpe (NJP72 vs Lowpe (A))

[Lowpe]

Feb 9th, 1943

Lots of action around Burma. Our initial stock of P38F are running out, the squadron has only 7 planes left in its squadron. There is another 12 Fs in a restricted withdrawing group on the West Coast...so it is time to upgrade them to G's.

Morning Air attack on Akyab , at 54,45

Weather in hex: Severe storms

Raid spotted at 19 NM, estimated altitude 44,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 4 minutes

Japanese aircraft
A6M3a Zero x 18
A6M5 Zero x 29
A6M5b Zero x 26
Ki-43-IIa Oscar x 12
Ki-44-IIa Tojo x 17

Allied aircraft
P-38F Lightning x 10

Japanese aircraft losses
A6M3a Zero: 1 destroyed
A6M5 Zero: 2 destroyed
A6M5b Zero: 1 destroyed
Ki-43-IIa Oscar: 1 destroyed

Allied aircraft losses
P-38F Lightning: 1 destroyed

CAP engaged:

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[BBfanboy]

Lowpe: Our initial stock of P38F are running out, the squadron has only 7 planes left in its squadron. There is another 12 Fs in a restricted withdrawing group on the West Coast...so it is time to upgrade them to G's.

I'm a little confused why you mentioned the restricted unit on the West Coast before saying you would upgrade to G's? Are you referring to upgrading your squadron in Burma to G's or the withdrawing squadron on the West Coast? And why not give the WC squadron some older obsolescent aircraft and keep the F's in the pool to replenish your Burma squadron?

[Lowpe]

PDU off, the unit is restricted and can only upgrade to a better plane...not something I wanted to do. So that is why I mentioned them....just to be thorough on all the P38s of that model I still had.

[BBfanboy]

Thank you, that clarifies it!

[GetAssista]

Man, this Tanaka dude must be one tough mofo to have his own line in the list of units. Probably an elder brother of Raizo

[Lowpe]

Feb 11, 1943

You AFBs are crazy, and great! There are just soooo many clicks and the units keep coming, and coming....I am still trying to come up with a sane approach to handling it. Any tips out there?

We haven't looked here lately, and I guess I have been going slow to let the small landing craft accumulate and I kind of want to tie the moves past Rabaul with the Marianas invasion. I have stockpiled quite a bit of PPs to buy out American divisions and units, need to invade Nauru and then transition to the Marianas operation while continuing to push everywhere else. The British carrier showed up and is in transit from the Canal...the troops are all at Pearl, need to get my transports there and start the next big, big op. Carrier clash for sure.

One big problem of my small force advance here up to Rabaul is that it is hard on the subs...since they are running a bunch of supply, most transports are in India or supporting the Darwin push. The Aleutians are now a big forward sub base to surround Honshu...just need to get more subs working out of there.

I have some Corsairs and Lightnings to spring on Rabaul and Salamaua. Should be fun. Terapo is now a size 2 AF and can run some aerially hijinks from there. Good assault bombers are showing up, slowly, and I have some plans for those guys...

I have concentrated all the Fletchers here, haven't lost any, and soon they will start pushing the perimeter. Raids with Lightning lrCAP...I have no fear doing anything with them. They now come in with good crew experience, and of course the ships I do have are pretty well trained up to standard now.

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[Lowpe]

Ooh, a blizzard. Pity those poor sailors working out of here. Or the seebees.

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[Lowpe]

Man, this Tanaka dude must be one tough mofo to have his own line in the list of units. Probably an elder brother of Raizo

Shizuichi Tanaka! Probably singlehandedly allowed the Emperor to surrender. You historians can correct my memory...of if new info has come to light. Although why he has a unit, of probably light infantry, I have no clue.

[Lowpe]

Thank you, that clarifies it!

NP!

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[anarchyintheuk]

Feb 11, 1943

You AFBs are crazy, and great! There are just soooo many clicks and the units keep coming, and coming....I am still trying to come up with a sane approach to handling it. Any tips out there?

I try to set the prep for lcus to their destination the turn that they arrive (at least the base forces and engineers). It helps to remind me where the next operation is. Being able to freely attach acus/lcus to commands once they've been bought out would have been great for organizational purposes.

[Lowpe]

A couple of days away from the landing at Nauru Island...that will be followed by the invasion of Tulagi, and air drop on Finnshaven (sp) adjacent to Umboi....think I might send some APDs to land on Umboi at the same time...and drop mines the day after on Fin and Umboi...then get them some CD/AA guns and engineers.

Looking at what I need for the Marianas invasion...all in for that pretty much. Need to make sure that CD guns and Minefields get deployed very early too! The Deathstar will be heavily oriented to fighters with the SBDs on the rear echelon CVE fleets. Thinking I might do a switch up on carrier aircraft once I am spotted....but I might start the other way around. Not sure...thoughts, anyone? F4Fs versus A6M5c maybe? More likely 5b.

Supply in China...since Kunming HI started up again we have seen a steady reduction in supply according to Tracker...not to worry though ( I think)....

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[Lowpe]

....because supply is flowing into the Corps in the field. I was looking for a nifty way to show this to you in Tracker...hows this? Really correlates with HI at Kunming working!

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[Lowpe]

Feb 11, 1943

You AFBs are crazy, and great! There are just soooo many clicks and the units keep coming, and coming....I am still trying to come up with a sane approach to handling it. Any tips out there?

I try to set the prep for lcus to their destination the turn that they arrive (at least the base forces and engineers). It helps to remind me where the next operation is. Being able to freely attach acus/lcus to commands once they've been bought out would have been great for organizational purposes.

I was trying to do that and just gave up...mainly because of shipping shortages and I tend to leapfrog units forward. Once the troops get to a forward staging base, then I switch prep or just let it accumulate to 100.

What I would like would be to set prep for a small theater...Say Solomon Islands or Mindanao. Not get the whole bonus that a base prep gets but a chance to get some bonus or just alleviate the malus'.

[Lowpe]

Friendly reminder, if you have problems with my posts due to size feel free to use Cntrl-mouseweel to zoom in and out. I also have tried to make them a little less dense for CC...let me know if there are any issues.

Hoping to pick up the pace of the game thru the rest of August, prior to another trip in September.

[BBfanboy]

Man, this Tanaka dude must be one tough mofo to have his own line in the list of units. Probably an elder brother of Raizo

Shizuichi Tanaka! Probably singlehandedly allowed the Emperor to surrender. You historians can correct my memory...of if new info has come to light. Although why he has a unit, of probably light infantry, I have no clue.

It was not uncommon for Japan to name units or portions of units after their commander. Remember the Ichiki detachment on Guadalcanal - nearly wiped out by an ill-advised night attack on prepared Marine poisitions ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiyonao_Ichiki

[BBfanboy]

Re: Namatanai for the Corps HQ for Rabaul combat - I would worry that it can be bombarded too easily from Rabaul. I think it better to put an Army HQ with command radius=5 on one of the other islands southeast of Rabaul. Disclaimer: - I am not fully aware of Japan's ability to keep SCTFs at Rabaul nor the supply levels there to support bombardments so my assessment of the danger to Namatanai may be too high..

[Lowpe]

Quick question...for Dababes mod:

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[Lowpe]

Re: Namatanai for the Corps HQ for Rabaul combat - I would worry that it can be bombarded too easily from Rabaul. I think it better to put an Army HQ with command radius=5 on one of the other islands southeast of Rabaul. Disclaimer: - I am not fully aware of Japan's ability to keep SCTFs at Rabaul nor the supply levels there to support bombardments so my assessment of the danger to Namatanai may be too high..

Nah, that doesn't bother me at all....in fact I wonder if I could encourage something like that?

[Lowpe]

Man, this Tanaka dude must be one tough mofo to have his own line in the list of units. Probably an elder brother of Raizo

Shizuichi Tanaka! Probably singlehandedly allowed the Emperor to surrender. You historians can correct my memory...of if new info has come to light. Although why he has a unit, of probably light infantry, I have no clue.

It was not uncommon for Japan to name units or portions of units after their commander. Remember the Ichiki detachment on Guadalcanal - nearly wiped out by an ill-advised night attack on prepared Marine poisitions ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiyonao_Ichiki

Yeah, I see that...but Shiz was a big wheel commanded Divisions and then Army Groups...if we are talking Shiz. I wonder if it is a Naval unit or an Army unit?

[Lowpe]

Feb 12, 1943


Invasion Nauru a few days away...no surprise so we will see if Japan contests it.

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