If your opponent floods the area with single cargo ship TFs, flood the area with submarines! Even the R-boats will work against unescorted cargo ships. If you have a base within return range, you can attach MTBs to an escort TF (for fueling purposes) and then release the MTBs to return to a port.
That said, non-combat ships should not be used to draw enemy fire and operation points unless as you stated they are actually transporting something.
Jan (J) vs Mark VII (A) - Bottlenecks+ Game on 11.27
Moderators: wdolson, MOD_War-in-the-Pacific-Admirals-Edition
Re: Jan (J) vs Mark VII (A) - Bottlenecks+ Game on 11.27
Seek peace but keep your gun handy.
I'm not a complete idiot, some parts are missing!
“Illegitemus non carborundum est (“Don’t let the bastards grind you down”).”
; Julia Child
I'm not a complete idiot, some parts are missing!
“Illegitemus non carborundum est (“Don’t let the bastards grind you down”).”
; Julia ChildRe: Jan (J) vs Mark VII (A) - Bottlenecks+ Game on 11.27
Normally I would I do sweeps with DD's, 2-3 in a single TF or Zeros on Low NAV which will take care of the pests. This time I did not have enough assets but mostly did not want to warn him that the invasion is coming.
Subs are certainly a good way but that would have been a red flag for him for sure! And this time Kido & the invasion got here before the subs
.
Subs are certainly a good way but that would have been a red flag for him for sure! And this time Kido & the invasion got here before the subs
.Re: Jan (J) vs Mark VII (A) - Bottlenecks+ Game on 11.27
Don't waste your Zeros on Low Nav, Kates or Jakes on Low Naval with bombs. Even planes on ASW will attack ships, I have used Devastators for that.
Seek peace but keep your gun handy.
I'm not a complete idiot, some parts are missing!
“Illegitemus non carborundum est (“Don’t let the bastards grind you down”).”
; Julia Child
I'm not a complete idiot, some parts are missing!
“Illegitemus non carborundum est (“Don’t let the bastards grind you down”).”
; Julia ChildRe: Jan (J) vs Mark VII (A) - Bottlenecks+ Game on 11.27
This is Bottlenecks... I do not have any 'free' Kates or Jakes yet. My Zero 'covering squadrons' can be sometimes tasked with this, say I split the unit to thirds, 2/3 on CAP/Escort for the scheduled bombing raids & the last third to clean house when Allied CAP has not been seen for a while. Netties do not like attacking single ship small fry but this can clean up Singers or Manila Bay eventually.RangerJoe wrote: Tue Sep 12, 2023 9:37 pm Don't waste your Zeros on Low Nav, Kates or Jakes on Low Naval with bombs. Even planes on ASW will attack ships, I have used Devastators for that.
Re: Jan (J) vs Mark VII (A) - Bottlenecks+ Game on 11.27
Dec 29, 1941
The Port Moresby landing! A patrol of of two DD's dispatched ahead to clear the way sinks a couple of fleeing xAKL's. The main landing is covered by BB Hiei, a couple of CA's and a number of smaller ships. The Allies have some emplaced 6" CD guns, these are suppressed after a few shots, without any damage to the unloading ships. During the day phase xAP Taizan Maru got too close to the shore & came under fire from a 2 pdr AT gun battery. The escorts reacted & suppressed the pesky Aussies, but the single hit she took must have struck something important (+4 SYS damage).
This is a 2 full INF division landing, the 21st and 33rd Infantry. The combined casualties were less than 300 men which is better than expected. At the end of the day, the divisions are fully offloaded and have a hefty surplus of about 5k supply each. Tomorrow, we attack!
We also landed at Kavieng & found it empty, as was Milne Bay.
Various small scale naval air attacks happened today. Betties out of Malaya found & sunk DD Vendetta. She was undergoing a substantial refit in Singapore at the beginning of the war, looks like she put out to sea but just barely moving. After a few days of search, she was found in Port Swettenham & dispatched by a single torpedo.
The one and only air attack from Kido was 4 Vals getting a hit on xAK Iron King in Cooktown. The weather over the CV's was good and there were many targets detected around. Maddening, no idea why the rest of the groups did not fly.
Oscar sweeps over Rangoon have still not been able to completely beat down the CAP, the leftovers were again able to shoot down some Nells who does not seem able to resist trying to bomb Harbor Defense motor launches from 14k up. (They Nells were mean to bomb Singapore Harbor. Orders were adjusted.)
Mini KB did a lot better than her big sister again, Jakes sunk a minesweeper escorting a medium size cargo ship, which was heavily damaged herself, and an ACM.
The Jangtze River flotilla bombarded Changsha again, this time at daytime, damaging several planes and various parts of the infrastructure. The ground units are mostly en-route to their next objectives or waiting for reinforcements. Yesterday the enemy Cavalry corps we (thought) we bottled up in Paotow was able to slip out to the NW (no movement pips were seen
) The good news is that when we catch up with them, it will be a better terrain than Mountains!
On Luzon, 4th Inf division and several supporting units arrived to Manila today. Probably emboldened by this, the tank regiment tasked by the daily harassment attack got a bit too bold & pushed too deep into the city. They were able to cause about a company's worth of casualties, but lost several vehicles destroyed and more damaged.
In the meantime, the Allies have tried something sneaky and sent a unit into Cabantuan, perhaps trying to slow us down. I welcome any chance of smashing Allied formations one by one. Much better than having to dig them out from the forts around Clark Field!
On Mindanao, after clearing out Malaybalay a couple of days ago, we were now in position to take Davao by the 81st Naval Guard.
In Jerantur, Malaya, the 56th Regiment attacked again and to everyone's surprise was able to take the base. The Allied forces must have been in much worse shape than expected. The strongest unit, an Indian brigade, surrendered outright, while the rest of them, lead by the beat up FMSV brigade, retreated towards Kuantan.
Just across the strait, a detachment from 112th Regiment, transported on DD's was able to take the first base in NE Sumatra - Tanjoengbalai.
Elements of Thai 2nd TRA Division, conducting a recon in force arrived in Moulmein and neighboring Thanbuzayat, finding them both empty. There are some units showing across the river in Martaban, but it looks like the main Allied defense is centered on Rangoon, for now at least.
The Port Moresby landing! A patrol of of two DD's dispatched ahead to clear the way sinks a couple of fleeing xAKL's. The main landing is covered by BB Hiei, a couple of CA's and a number of smaller ships. The Allies have some emplaced 6" CD guns, these are suppressed after a few shots, without any damage to the unloading ships. During the day phase xAP Taizan Maru got too close to the shore & came under fire from a 2 pdr AT gun battery. The escorts reacted & suppressed the pesky Aussies, but the single hit she took must have struck something important (+4 SYS damage).
This is a 2 full INF division landing, the 21st and 33rd Infantry. The combined casualties were less than 300 men which is better than expected. At the end of the day, the divisions are fully offloaded and have a hefty surplus of about 5k supply each. Tomorrow, we attack!
We also landed at Kavieng & found it empty, as was Milne Bay.
Various small scale naval air attacks happened today. Betties out of Malaya found & sunk DD Vendetta. She was undergoing a substantial refit in Singapore at the beginning of the war, looks like she put out to sea but just barely moving. After a few days of search, she was found in Port Swettenham & dispatched by a single torpedo.
The one and only air attack from Kido was 4 Vals getting a hit on xAK Iron King in Cooktown. The weather over the CV's was good and there were many targets detected around. Maddening, no idea why the rest of the groups did not fly.
Oscar sweeps over Rangoon have still not been able to completely beat down the CAP, the leftovers were again able to shoot down some Nells who does not seem able to resist trying to bomb Harbor Defense motor launches from 14k up. (They Nells were mean to bomb Singapore Harbor. Orders were adjusted.)
Mini KB did a lot better than her big sister again, Jakes sunk a minesweeper escorting a medium size cargo ship, which was heavily damaged herself, and an ACM.
The Jangtze River flotilla bombarded Changsha again, this time at daytime, damaging several planes and various parts of the infrastructure. The ground units are mostly en-route to their next objectives or waiting for reinforcements. Yesterday the enemy Cavalry corps we (thought) we bottled up in Paotow was able to slip out to the NW (no movement pips were seen
) The good news is that when we catch up with them, it will be a better terrain than Mountains!On Luzon, 4th Inf division and several supporting units arrived to Manila today. Probably emboldened by this, the tank regiment tasked by the daily harassment attack got a bit too bold & pushed too deep into the city. They were able to cause about a company's worth of casualties, but lost several vehicles destroyed and more damaged.
In the meantime, the Allies have tried something sneaky and sent a unit into Cabantuan, perhaps trying to slow us down. I welcome any chance of smashing Allied formations one by one. Much better than having to dig them out from the forts around Clark Field!
On Mindanao, after clearing out Malaybalay a couple of days ago, we were now in position to take Davao by the 81st Naval Guard.
In Jerantur, Malaya, the 56th Regiment attacked again and to everyone's surprise was able to take the base. The Allied forces must have been in much worse shape than expected. The strongest unit, an Indian brigade, surrendered outright, while the rest of them, lead by the beat up FMSV brigade, retreated towards Kuantan.
Just across the strait, a detachment from 112th Regiment, transported on DD's was able to take the first base in NE Sumatra - Tanjoengbalai.
Elements of Thai 2nd TRA Division, conducting a recon in force arrived in Moulmein and neighboring Thanbuzayat, finding them both empty. There are some units showing across the river in Martaban, but it looks like the main Allied defense is centered on Rangoon, for now at least.
Re: Jan (J) vs Mark VII (A) - Bottlenecks+ Game on 11.27
December 30, 1941
SS Tuna spotted xAK KM Rio Grande off Toyohara. She is a 'loaned' German merchant ship, now pressed into IJN service hauling resources from Sakhalin, and the sub decided to save on torpedoes & attack on the surface. The German sailors promptly planted a 105mm shell on the sub to make them reconsider, causing what looked like a good amount of damage. The USN sailors kept popping off their 3in deck gun and the sub captain madly fired off all torps onboard (to no effect) while the damage control crew tried to put out the fire & allow the sub to submerge. Eventually they managed, hopefully they are slinking back all the way to West Coast!
A short time afterwards a supply ship was hit & sunk by a Mk 10 torp at Adak Island. All the escort could do was to scare the sub with a few ell placed depth charges, unlikely that any lasting damage was done to this one.
With the moon being full, Allied bombers have been visiting our oil producing regions, trying to get some his in on the cheap. Today a Zero unit was ordered to welcome them over Palembang. There was no damage to our facilities so we could call it a success, but it felt more like both sides were stumbling around in the dark than a proper interception.
Kido is slowly sailing down along the Eastern coast of Australia, today started with a sweep of Townsville which found and shot down some Buffalos.
The rest of the Kido air groups then executed a series of port strikes against Cooktown, Townsville and Cairns, sinking at least one vessel in each port or outside of it. It was a recon in force, in case the Allied command was getting cute & hiding some ships to sally against the Port Moresby invasion.
A smaller unit of Zeros was moved to China to deal with the Flying Tigers over Changsha, tormenting the army Oscars. Despite having inferior planes, the American aviators are making up for it in skill & tactics (high CAP). Hopefully the shallow pool of well trained US pilots will be depleted soon. Out of 15 Tigers, 4 planes were reported shot down or crashed today for a loss of a couple of Zeros.
On the ground the Northern spearhead chased away an HQ unit from Xiangyang (just SE of Nanyang). We can see units withdrawing from the heavily fortified Tongbai forest, heading to Nanyang.
Gushi was also taken, the single defending Corps, already badly mauled already from previous battles should now no longer be a concern.
On the Hngchow-Nanchang road, another round of combat for Yingtan resulted in a breach of the last defensive line and more than twice the casualties for the defending Chinese. Japanese units in front of Yushan/Chushou rested today.
In Cabantuan, the aerial recon reported a US tank unit, 192nd Tank Battalion attempting to flank or troops moving towards Manila. Most of the bomber units available in the area were tasked with bombing the tanks and a sizeable ground force was ordered to attack. When the troops advanced, all they found was bunch of burning tanks and other vehicles, but nobody to fight. This unit must have been severely understrength to be destroyed by only a bit over 40 Betties & Sallys.
In the meantime a strong enough infantry contingent has arrived to Manila so all three tank regiments were tasked with supporting their own infantry unit. A mixture of regulars from 4th Division, combat engineers and paratroopers from SNLF units entered the city through different routes and were able to push out the lone rear guard 91st PA infantry division with minimal losses (on our side).
A portion of another enemy INF division is now trapped at Batangas & should be taken care of tomorrow, then it is onwards to Clark Field next. I am glad we were able to beat up at least a few units on good terrain before they all retreated to the rough terrain, we will see what shape they are in once we get there. They key, as usual, will be to attrite their supply ASAP.
21st and 33rd Divisions attacked Port Moresby today and managed to eliminate the first of the two defensive lines, inflicting about a regiment's worth of casualties on the defending Aussies. Own losses were less but not insignificant; Port Moresby appears to have been reinforced enough that a single IJA division may not have been enough to take it. Good we brought two! Approximately 200 AV remains, centering around the 30th Australian Brigade and the three bird (Gull, Sparrow and Lark) battalions. I suspect they have not been able to recombine into the 23rd Brigade because some fragments of them are still elsewhere. A light AA Regiment and an artillery regiment are also present, as are two companies of the New Guinea Volunteer Regiment.
SS Tuna spotted xAK KM Rio Grande off Toyohara. She is a 'loaned' German merchant ship, now pressed into IJN service hauling resources from Sakhalin, and the sub decided to save on torpedoes & attack on the surface. The German sailors promptly planted a 105mm shell on the sub to make them reconsider, causing what looked like a good amount of damage. The USN sailors kept popping off their 3in deck gun and the sub captain madly fired off all torps onboard (to no effect) while the damage control crew tried to put out the fire & allow the sub to submerge. Eventually they managed, hopefully they are slinking back all the way to West Coast!
A short time afterwards a supply ship was hit & sunk by a Mk 10 torp at Adak Island. All the escort could do was to scare the sub with a few ell placed depth charges, unlikely that any lasting damage was done to this one.
With the moon being full, Allied bombers have been visiting our oil producing regions, trying to get some his in on the cheap. Today a Zero unit was ordered to welcome them over Palembang. There was no damage to our facilities so we could call it a success, but it felt more like both sides were stumbling around in the dark than a proper interception.
Kido is slowly sailing down along the Eastern coast of Australia, today started with a sweep of Townsville which found and shot down some Buffalos.
The rest of the Kido air groups then executed a series of port strikes against Cooktown, Townsville and Cairns, sinking at least one vessel in each port or outside of it. It was a recon in force, in case the Allied command was getting cute & hiding some ships to sally against the Port Moresby invasion.
A smaller unit of Zeros was moved to China to deal with the Flying Tigers over Changsha, tormenting the army Oscars. Despite having inferior planes, the American aviators are making up for it in skill & tactics (high CAP). Hopefully the shallow pool of well trained US pilots will be depleted soon. Out of 15 Tigers, 4 planes were reported shot down or crashed today for a loss of a couple of Zeros.
On the ground the Northern spearhead chased away an HQ unit from Xiangyang (just SE of Nanyang). We can see units withdrawing from the heavily fortified Tongbai forest, heading to Nanyang.
Gushi was also taken, the single defending Corps, already badly mauled already from previous battles should now no longer be a concern.
On the Hngchow-Nanchang road, another round of combat for Yingtan resulted in a breach of the last defensive line and more than twice the casualties for the defending Chinese. Japanese units in front of Yushan/Chushou rested today.
In Cabantuan, the aerial recon reported a US tank unit, 192nd Tank Battalion attempting to flank or troops moving towards Manila. Most of the bomber units available in the area were tasked with bombing the tanks and a sizeable ground force was ordered to attack. When the troops advanced, all they found was bunch of burning tanks and other vehicles, but nobody to fight. This unit must have been severely understrength to be destroyed by only a bit over 40 Betties & Sallys.
In the meantime a strong enough infantry contingent has arrived to Manila so all three tank regiments were tasked with supporting their own infantry unit. A mixture of regulars from 4th Division, combat engineers and paratroopers from SNLF units entered the city through different routes and were able to push out the lone rear guard 91st PA infantry division with minimal losses (on our side).
A portion of another enemy INF division is now trapped at Batangas & should be taken care of tomorrow, then it is onwards to Clark Field next. I am glad we were able to beat up at least a few units on good terrain before they all retreated to the rough terrain, we will see what shape they are in once we get there. They key, as usual, will be to attrite their supply ASAP.
21st and 33rd Divisions attacked Port Moresby today and managed to eliminate the first of the two defensive lines, inflicting about a regiment's worth of casualties on the defending Aussies. Own losses were less but not insignificant; Port Moresby appears to have been reinforced enough that a single IJA division may not have been enough to take it. Good we brought two! Approximately 200 AV remains, centering around the 30th Australian Brigade and the three bird (Gull, Sparrow and Lark) battalions. I suspect they have not been able to recombine into the 23rd Brigade because some fragments of them are still elsewhere. A light AA Regiment and an artillery regiment are also present, as are two companies of the New Guinea Volunteer Regiment.
Re: Jan (J) vs Mark VII (A) - Bottlenecks+ Game on 11.27
December 31, 1941.
The Allied air force has again taken advantage of the full moon and visited our oil producing regions. Unlike in the last few days, the weather was also mostly clear so a number of oil wells were hit. Additional AA units are on the way, but we will just have to neutralize or capture the airfields on Java & Singapore. Unfortunately the invasion of Java is not quite ready yet.
A retaliatory night bombing of Bandoeng was less than successful because most of our planes have gotten lost on the way...
The dangers of sailing unarmed auxiliary ships through active zones have also been highlighted last night. SS Snapped snuck into Legaspi harbor and brazenly attacked a pair of Aden class cargo ships on the surface. Due to the size of the port, their escort ship was tied up further away (disbanded) and could not come to their assistance until it was too late. The Mark 14 torpedoes worked just fine today, both ships taking a hit. One of them 'could' still be saved, perhaps; the other has too much sys damage and is still on fire.
The Invasion of Ambon kicked off last night as well. Because of the known Dutch coastal defenses, including 180mm (7") CD guns, the landing force was covered by BB's Fuso & Yamashiro, as well as a number of CA's. Despite their best efforts and expending pretty much all ammo onboard, the costal defenses were able to land some effective hits on CM Itsukushima and an xAK. The good part is that neither of them is in immediate danger of sinking, except from the ever present sub menace.
Two Naval Landing units were able to disembark without much issues and will be able to take the base, eventually.
The Allied heavy bombers were also active during the day. Several smaller groups of B17E's attacked Kido Butai off Eastern Australia. The CAP was having a hard time stopping the beasts, but at least they were able to annoy and distract the pilots enough so that all of the bombers missed their targets. Our carrier launched several strikes of their own, including a sweep and port attack in Townsville. Several small ships were sunk in the area, as well as several Warhawks were shot down.
On our side we have raised a request that any future airframes need to put more emphasis on survivability. Way too many planes are being lost after only suffering minor damage in combat.
The battle for Yingtan has ended today, the two Chinese corps retreated to Shangrao (East) with heavy losses. IJA 34th division will follow but may or may not get there before the battle for Yushan/Chushou ends as well. Today we pushed through another fort level there (now 2), and about 20% of the enemy strength was reported combat ineffective. If the two additional Corps from there also retreat into Shangrao, that would be less than ideal as they have perfect defensive terrain and forts 4 waiting for them.
In Central China, intel indicates several local counterattacks against our push towards Nanyang. Nothing of immediate importance appears to be targeted and all of the enemies are heading towards open terrain
The second day of combat in Port Moresby have seen IJA 21st and 33rd divisions continue to push & destroy the last prepared defensive line. It looks like the enemy lost about the third of his remaining combat strength. Hopefully one last push will see us victorious!
On Luzon, the two regiments of 16 ID that kept a small rearguard (2/3rds of an INF division) in place in Batangas have swept them away today, opening the railroad across the whole length of the island. The enemy has now retreated into Clark field as their main stronghold.
The Allied air force has again taken advantage of the full moon and visited our oil producing regions. Unlike in the last few days, the weather was also mostly clear so a number of oil wells were hit. Additional AA units are on the way, but we will just have to neutralize or capture the airfields on Java & Singapore. Unfortunately the invasion of Java is not quite ready yet.
A retaliatory night bombing of Bandoeng was less than successful because most of our planes have gotten lost on the way...
The dangers of sailing unarmed auxiliary ships through active zones have also been highlighted last night. SS Snapped snuck into Legaspi harbor and brazenly attacked a pair of Aden class cargo ships on the surface. Due to the size of the port, their escort ship was tied up further away (disbanded) and could not come to their assistance until it was too late. The Mark 14 torpedoes worked just fine today, both ships taking a hit. One of them 'could' still be saved, perhaps; the other has too much sys damage and is still on fire.
The Invasion of Ambon kicked off last night as well. Because of the known Dutch coastal defenses, including 180mm (7") CD guns, the landing force was covered by BB's Fuso & Yamashiro, as well as a number of CA's. Despite their best efforts and expending pretty much all ammo onboard, the costal defenses were able to land some effective hits on CM Itsukushima and an xAK. The good part is that neither of them is in immediate danger of sinking, except from the ever present sub menace.
Two Naval Landing units were able to disembark without much issues and will be able to take the base, eventually.
The Allied heavy bombers were also active during the day. Several smaller groups of B17E's attacked Kido Butai off Eastern Australia. The CAP was having a hard time stopping the beasts, but at least they were able to annoy and distract the pilots enough so that all of the bombers missed their targets. Our carrier launched several strikes of their own, including a sweep and port attack in Townsville. Several small ships were sunk in the area, as well as several Warhawks were shot down.
On our side we have raised a request that any future airframes need to put more emphasis on survivability. Way too many planes are being lost after only suffering minor damage in combat.
The battle for Yingtan has ended today, the two Chinese corps retreated to Shangrao (East) with heavy losses. IJA 34th division will follow but may or may not get there before the battle for Yushan/Chushou ends as well. Today we pushed through another fort level there (now 2), and about 20% of the enemy strength was reported combat ineffective. If the two additional Corps from there also retreat into Shangrao, that would be less than ideal as they have perfect defensive terrain and forts 4 waiting for them.
In Central China, intel indicates several local counterattacks against our push towards Nanyang. Nothing of immediate importance appears to be targeted and all of the enemies are heading towards open terrain
- 2023-09-24_13-04-04.png (235.97 KiB) Viewed 1951 times
On Luzon, the two regiments of 16 ID that kept a small rearguard (2/3rds of an INF division) in place in Batangas have swept them away today, opening the railroad across the whole length of the island. The enemy has now retreated into Clark field as their main stronghold.
Re: Jan (J) vs Mark VII (A) - Bottlenecks+ Game on 11.27
January 1st, 1942.
Last night a couple of patrol boats just South of Shanghai reported finding a minefield. Looks like Allied command was trying to be sneaky & dropped some eggs onto one of the shipping lanes. They should pose no danger now that we know about them.
Night air raids on Sumatra continued, this time Zeros on CAP over Palembang were able to down one of the Dutch bandits, only Djambi suffered a single oil hit.
In a rare success, and APD escorting a run to Palembang was able to score a direct hit on SS Sturgeon when the sub attacked in shallow water just North of Muntok in the Java sea. Air recon will be keeping an eye on the ports around to see if she puts in for repairs.
The Imperial high command have decided to encourage RAF to leave Rangoon, so a CA bombardment force was dispatched to deliver said encouragement. They punched through some HDML on the way in and then the Minesweeper RTN Meklong, on loan form the Royal Thai Navy detected a nasty surprise under water. Unfortunately CA Mogami did not get the word to stop on time & will be pumping water out all the way back to a friendly port. So will DMS Meklong, for that matter as the British CD guns protecting Rangoon waterfront woke up I poked a neat 6" hole in the hull. The rest of the TF (Mikuma, Suzuya & Kumano) then went to work wrecking whatever they could see. The airbase & runway looks to be in pretty bad shape, with fires raging all over the city. The ships were under strict orders not to target the refineries, but the Empire have plenty of excess capacity.
Yesterday Kido Butai was repeatedly attacked by heavy bombers in the Coral Sea. Intel indicated they came out of Townsville so today a little payback was arranged. BB Haruna & Kongo with a couple of CA's + escorts were ordered to cruise into Townville harbor in broad daylight & remind the gaijin of their place in the new order. DD Maikaze & Nowaki preceded the main force, just to get rid of any sailboats & other small fry we keep running into. The battleships slowly sailed to a distance of 25k yards offshore, laughing off a couple of attempts to bomb them from untrained US Army Banshees, even shooting down a few. In the afternoon the order to open fire was given, with pretty spectacular results.
The naval bombardment was preceded earlier in the day by an 80+ strong raid of Kates from Kido, targeting the Townsville harbor. Several small ships were reported sunk and a few hits achieved on port fuel storage facilities.
On the ground front, another assault on Yushan/Chushou have seen the next level of forts broken, with a just a single line remaining.
Port Moresby held out for another day as well, our troops needing to dig out the defenders from some real bad terrain.
The situation was the same in Ambon, where several gun emplacements were destroyed today, but even our superior numbers and morale was not enough to carry the day.
Last night a couple of patrol boats just South of Shanghai reported finding a minefield. Looks like Allied command was trying to be sneaky & dropped some eggs onto one of the shipping lanes. They should pose no danger now that we know about them.
Night air raids on Sumatra continued, this time Zeros on CAP over Palembang were able to down one of the Dutch bandits, only Djambi suffered a single oil hit.
In a rare success, and APD escorting a run to Palembang was able to score a direct hit on SS Sturgeon when the sub attacked in shallow water just North of Muntok in the Java sea. Air recon will be keeping an eye on the ports around to see if she puts in for repairs.
The Imperial high command have decided to encourage RAF to leave Rangoon, so a CA bombardment force was dispatched to deliver said encouragement. They punched through some HDML on the way in and then the Minesweeper RTN Meklong, on loan form the Royal Thai Navy detected a nasty surprise under water. Unfortunately CA Mogami did not get the word to stop on time & will be pumping water out all the way back to a friendly port. So will DMS Meklong, for that matter as the British CD guns protecting Rangoon waterfront woke up I poked a neat 6" hole in the hull. The rest of the TF (Mikuma, Suzuya & Kumano) then went to work wrecking whatever they could see. The airbase & runway looks to be in pretty bad shape, with fires raging all over the city. The ships were under strict orders not to target the refineries, but the Empire have plenty of excess capacity.
Yesterday Kido Butai was repeatedly attacked by heavy bombers in the Coral Sea. Intel indicated they came out of Townsville so today a little payback was arranged. BB Haruna & Kongo with a couple of CA's + escorts were ordered to cruise into Townville harbor in broad daylight & remind the gaijin of their place in the new order. DD Maikaze & Nowaki preceded the main force, just to get rid of any sailboats & other small fry we keep running into. The battleships slowly sailed to a distance of 25k yards offshore, laughing off a couple of attempts to bomb them from untrained US Army Banshees, even shooting down a few. In the afternoon the order to open fire was given, with pretty spectacular results.
- 2023-09-26_12-59-12.png (164.68 KiB) Viewed 1928 times
On the ground front, another assault on Yushan/Chushou have seen the next level of forts broken, with a just a single line remaining.
Port Moresby held out for another day as well, our troops needing to dig out the defenders from some real bad terrain.
The situation was the same in Ambon, where several gun emplacements were destroyed today, but even our superior numbers and morale was not enough to carry the day.
Re: Jan (J) vs Mark VII (A) - Bottlenecks+ Game on 11.27
January 2, 1942
The shoutout of the day goes to I-160 off Exmouth; at least for effort, if not for results!
Throughout the turn she executed several torpedo attacks, first missing a nice sized merchant, then an AM escorting it, then getting a dud on AMC Westralia. She also scored a hit on a small Straits class Dutch xAP, so the day was not completely in vain! Now out of torpedoes, she is heading back to port.
In the air, small skirmishes continued in the air all across the theatre. Dutch Martins raiding oil at night (we got one!), Zeros mixing it up with Flying Tigers over Changsha (we did better), then a couple of P-40B's trying to jump low-flying Zeros on NAV attack over Bataan. We shot down one, chased away the other, then the Zeros smashed up a small inter-island ferry.
The daily Kido strike was aimed at Charter Towers airfield today, hoping that the heavies from Townsville may have relocated there. The strike was met by a trio of Hurricanes & a trio of Warhawks, but the elite IJN fighter pilots had no issues keeping them away from the Kates. Unfortunately the base itself was empty and the low DL (did not want to warn them we are coming) combined with not-so-great flying weather means the base is still mostly intact.
The only proper ground attack today happened in Guangshan (just E of Sinyang), with the Chinese causing a bit more than expected casualties. We should be able to knock them back tomorrow though.
The forces at other contested bases got the day off, except the arty crews. Gotta shoot those shells off before they spoil!
A word on resource logistics in the Bottlenecks mod.
One of the subtle but almost insidious changes that LST made was that a lot of resource production got relocated outside the Home Islands area. At the game start, some 3 game weeks ago I had 7.5 million RES in the Home Islands, enough for 40-something days of production.
By January first, the level was just over 5 million, or a whopping 24 days (!) of production. There is about another 2.6 million 'readily available' in Hokkaido, Korea, Manchukuo & China, but it must all be shipped in. Japan's industry (HI + LI) needs 213k resources per day on top of what is already produced locally. This is around 80 ships per day completely unloaded. Every day.
Out of 28 turns, I had a exactly two where I managed that. Certainly the Japanese merchant marine is all over the map at game start and a lot of shipping is tied up at transporting troops and supporting invasions. I have implemented a shift so that only xAP's are used for troop transports where possible, or the smaller Toho class hulls for the various base forces & such.
The basic shipping capacity reduction originally implemented in the DBB-C mod means I need a lot of hulls to move all those resources. The main workhorse is Aden class (3200 capacity), with smaller Akasi (2600) and Ehime (2400) used for the short hops and because they can unload in one day. I have been holding back the larger Yusen classes (4300) for major invasions (Division+) but they never sail back home empty!
To return to the required numbers, this is how much surplus RES is produced 'close by':
Manchukuo - 52k
China - 37k
Hokkaido - 33k
Korea - 15k
Total 137k
Which means mid-term I still need to ship in additional 76k RES from further afield (some will be captured in China, but industry needs to be expanded a bit as well, if at all possible). Empire-wide we have a a modest surplus of 8k right now, and of course our conquests are not nearly complete.
The shoutout of the day goes to I-160 off Exmouth; at least for effort, if not for results!
Throughout the turn she executed several torpedo attacks, first missing a nice sized merchant, then an AM escorting it, then getting a dud on AMC Westralia. She also scored a hit on a small Straits class Dutch xAP, so the day was not completely in vain! Now out of torpedoes, she is heading back to port.
In the air, small skirmishes continued in the air all across the theatre. Dutch Martins raiding oil at night (we got one!), Zeros mixing it up with Flying Tigers over Changsha (we did better), then a couple of P-40B's trying to jump low-flying Zeros on NAV attack over Bataan. We shot down one, chased away the other, then the Zeros smashed up a small inter-island ferry.
The daily Kido strike was aimed at Charter Towers airfield today, hoping that the heavies from Townsville may have relocated there. The strike was met by a trio of Hurricanes & a trio of Warhawks, but the elite IJN fighter pilots had no issues keeping them away from the Kates. Unfortunately the base itself was empty and the low DL (did not want to warn them we are coming) combined with not-so-great flying weather means the base is still mostly intact.
The only proper ground attack today happened in Guangshan (just E of Sinyang), with the Chinese causing a bit more than expected casualties. We should be able to knock them back tomorrow though.
The forces at other contested bases got the day off, except the arty crews. Gotta shoot those shells off before they spoil!
A word on resource logistics in the Bottlenecks mod.
One of the subtle but almost insidious changes that LST made was that a lot of resource production got relocated outside the Home Islands area. At the game start, some 3 game weeks ago I had 7.5 million RES in the Home Islands, enough for 40-something days of production.
By January first, the level was just over 5 million, or a whopping 24 days (!) of production. There is about another 2.6 million 'readily available' in Hokkaido, Korea, Manchukuo & China, but it must all be shipped in. Japan's industry (HI + LI) needs 213k resources per day on top of what is already produced locally. This is around 80 ships per day completely unloaded. Every day.
Out of 28 turns, I had a exactly two where I managed that. Certainly the Japanese merchant marine is all over the map at game start and a lot of shipping is tied up at transporting troops and supporting invasions. I have implemented a shift so that only xAP's are used for troop transports where possible, or the smaller Toho class hulls for the various base forces & such.
The basic shipping capacity reduction originally implemented in the DBB-C mod means I need a lot of hulls to move all those resources. The main workhorse is Aden class (3200 capacity), with smaller Akasi (2600) and Ehime (2400) used for the short hops and because they can unload in one day. I have been holding back the larger Yusen classes (4300) for major invasions (Division+) but they never sail back home empty!
To return to the required numbers, this is how much surplus RES is produced 'close by':
Manchukuo - 52k
China - 37k
Hokkaido - 33k
Korea - 15k
Total 137k
Which means mid-term I still need to ship in additional 76k RES from further afield (some will be captured in China, but industry needs to be expanded a bit as well, if at all possible). Empire-wide we have a a modest surplus of 8k right now, and of course our conquests are not nearly complete.
Re: Jan (J) vs Mark VII (A) - Bottlenecks+ Game on 11.27
January 3, 1942 (this time the read date)
For the last few days NAV search was reporting an elusive ship in the busy lanes south of Mindanao, variously ID'd as a patrol craft or gun boat of various types. Knowing what just a couple of well manned 4" guns can do to a merchant convoy, CL Isuzu was dispatched to deal with the intruder.
Turns out Cpt Jack Sparrow made a wrong turn navigating the vagaries of timespace & met his end in a hail of 14cm HE shells.
An IJN underwater raider got lucky today as well, as xAP Taroona went down after two torpedo hits SE of Suva. Looks like Allied efforts to fortify Fiji are in full swing!
The moon is still full so the Allied night bombers continue to attack oilfields in Sumatra. The Zeros are able to keep them disrupted over Palembang (got one today again), but they do tend to hit at least one more base every night, mostly Djambi.
The Army recon has found a few units at Pegu, all camped out nicely in the open so bombers visited them yesterday, to pretty good result. Today, predictably, the Allied high command put their favorite reaction squadron on CAP duty - the Flying Tigers in their H81-A3, but this was expected so our (so far) only unit of Ki-44 Shoki (Tojo) fighters was sent to deal with them. Another squadron of the Tigers have been dueling with Zeros over Changsha lately as well. Today the Japanese pilots had the better of the exchange, with a total of 10 enemy planes reported shot down or crashed on landing, for the loss of 5 friendlies.
Enemy flak continues to be a concern, with 6 planes of various types reported lost today. (Mostly Singapore... cannot be helped and then Martaban - looks like there is a lot of flak there).
In China, the destruction of two encircled Cavalry corps in the deserts N and E of Paotow began in earnest now that all retreat routes have been cut off. It is just a matter of time how long their morale holds up. The forward scouts from our own cavalry units reported several more enemy formations of unknown size ahead, heading to establish further defensive positions.
The first recon-by-bombardment at Clark Field shows the enemy has just under 1k raw AV, anchored by two well equipped INF divisions and a number of smaller or more depleted units. It will take a few days until we are ready to attack, but attack we will!
A few smaller skirmishes have seen the destruction of 1st Hydarabad Batt (on approaches to Kuantan), 2nd (Dutch) Garrison Commando just S of Medan. A good number of enemy troops were also destroyed at Guangshan (E of Sinyang), Yushan/Chushou (last lvl of forts destroyed!) and Butuan where a single tank regiment wrought havoc amongst the lightly armed Philippine troops.
The Chinese have also launched the first of the upcoming hit & run attacks, a Cavalry company was routed from one of the waystations on the Chengting-Anyang railroad by a full INF Corps.
For the last few days NAV search was reporting an elusive ship in the busy lanes south of Mindanao, variously ID'd as a patrol craft or gun boat of various types. Knowing what just a couple of well manned 4" guns can do to a merchant convoy, CL Isuzu was dispatched to deal with the intruder.
Turns out Cpt Jack Sparrow made a wrong turn navigating the vagaries of timespace & met his end in a hail of 14cm HE shells.
- 2023-10-01_3-17-23.png (1.17 MiB) Viewed 1865 times
The moon is still full so the Allied night bombers continue to attack oilfields in Sumatra. The Zeros are able to keep them disrupted over Palembang (got one today again), but they do tend to hit at least one more base every night, mostly Djambi.
The Army recon has found a few units at Pegu, all camped out nicely in the open so bombers visited them yesterday, to pretty good result. Today, predictably, the Allied high command put their favorite reaction squadron on CAP duty - the Flying Tigers in their H81-A3, but this was expected so our (so far) only unit of Ki-44 Shoki (Tojo) fighters was sent to deal with them. Another squadron of the Tigers have been dueling with Zeros over Changsha lately as well. Today the Japanese pilots had the better of the exchange, with a total of 10 enemy planes reported shot down or crashed on landing, for the loss of 5 friendlies.
Enemy flak continues to be a concern, with 6 planes of various types reported lost today. (Mostly Singapore... cannot be helped and then Martaban - looks like there is a lot of flak there).
In China, the destruction of two encircled Cavalry corps in the deserts N and E of Paotow began in earnest now that all retreat routes have been cut off. It is just a matter of time how long their morale holds up. The forward scouts from our own cavalry units reported several more enemy formations of unknown size ahead, heading to establish further defensive positions.
- 2023-10-01_12-53-18.png (218.32 KiB) Viewed 1862 times
A few smaller skirmishes have seen the destruction of 1st Hydarabad Batt (on approaches to Kuantan), 2nd (Dutch) Garrison Commando just S of Medan. A good number of enemy troops were also destroyed at Guangshan (E of Sinyang), Yushan/Chushou (last lvl of forts destroyed!) and Butuan where a single tank regiment wrought havoc amongst the lightly armed Philippine troops.
The Chinese have also launched the first of the upcoming hit & run attacks, a Cavalry company was routed from one of the waystations on the Chengting-Anyang railroad by a full INF Corps.
Re: Jan (J) vs Mark VII (A) - Bottlenecks+ Game on 11.27
January 4, 1942
In preparation for the next assault against the Port Moresby defenders, a small bombardment TF led by CA Furutaka was ordered to keep the CD guns busy. The Aussie gunners did not appreciate being kept up at night & planted a 6" shell into the superstructure, causing some damage (Sys 12). It must have worked though, cause the two INF divisions were finally able to take the base. Port Moresby is ours! Intel estimates over 10k enemy troops retreated up the Kokoda trail. Their new base has a small airstrip however, so we will need to put that out of action soon. And land behind them in Buna, lest they get any ideas about being rescued!
IJN subs did pretty well today, I-1 put a fish into an AKV off the US West Coast and RO-64 put two into a good sized merchant on a presumed supply run into Darwin. The little RTN Blajumbol, a Thai sub also scored a Straits calss small xAP off Sabang.
In the air we lost several bombers due to insufficient sweeps - just not enough air support at the FOB's. Also, the Singapore heavy AA gunners are able to target incoming bombers with unerring accuracy, storm or no storm 2,5 miles up in the air. I hope we are at least making them shoot off inordinate amounts of supplies.
Ambon also received a dose of Naval bombardment today. Ise & Hyuga plastered the base with heavy shells, unfortunately it was not enough and the two SNLF units failed to take it, again.
In China we broke through at Guangshan (E of Sinyiang) and now we have a good open road for reinforcements for the Northern push. The three Chinese corps that defended here are now just a shells of their former selves.
At the tip of that push was the 13th Tank regiment, just SE of Nanyang. They have gotten too far ahead of the supporting infantry & got mobbed by three fresh Chinese Corps. The Human Wave worked and the Tank regiment left a third of their force burning on the battlefield, with a bunch more damaged machines. The relief force was short by just single a mile!
In preparation for the next assault against the Port Moresby defenders, a small bombardment TF led by CA Furutaka was ordered to keep the CD guns busy. The Aussie gunners did not appreciate being kept up at night & planted a 6" shell into the superstructure, causing some damage (Sys 12). It must have worked though, cause the two INF divisions were finally able to take the base. Port Moresby is ours! Intel estimates over 10k enemy troops retreated up the Kokoda trail. Their new base has a small airstrip however, so we will need to put that out of action soon. And land behind them in Buna, lest they get any ideas about being rescued!
IJN subs did pretty well today, I-1 put a fish into an AKV off the US West Coast and RO-64 put two into a good sized merchant on a presumed supply run into Darwin. The little RTN Blajumbol, a Thai sub also scored a Straits calss small xAP off Sabang.
In the air we lost several bombers due to insufficient sweeps - just not enough air support at the FOB's. Also, the Singapore heavy AA gunners are able to target incoming bombers with unerring accuracy, storm or no storm 2,5 miles up in the air. I hope we are at least making them shoot off inordinate amounts of supplies.
Ambon also received a dose of Naval bombardment today. Ise & Hyuga plastered the base with heavy shells, unfortunately it was not enough and the two SNLF units failed to take it, again.
In China we broke through at Guangshan (E of Sinyiang) and now we have a good open road for reinforcements for the Northern push. The three Chinese corps that defended here are now just a shells of their former selves.
At the tip of that push was the 13th Tank regiment, just SE of Nanyang. They have gotten too far ahead of the supporting infantry & got mobbed by three fresh Chinese Corps. The Human Wave worked and the Tank regiment left a third of their force burning on the battlefield, with a bunch more damaged machines. The relief force was short by just single a mile!
Re: Jan (J) vs Mark VII (A) - Bottlenecks+ Game on 11.27
January 5, 1942.
A minesweeping TF tasked with keeping the approaches to Palembang free of mines found some, unfortunately one of them the wrong way. DMS W-17 went to the watery grave, joining a little AMc Fumi Maru #2 who at Port Moresby also cleared out a few dozen mines until she missed one...
When it rains, it pours (it is known) and we got ours back a bit when S-23 tried to tangle with a group of IJN minelayers at Adak and got a few depth charges dropped on her. Later on at least two underwater explosions were observed at the newly laid minefield, hopefully this will get the pests to stay away! Then in the afternoon a large fleet sub, guessed to be Grayling was also attacked at Adak so perhaps not. Never mind, we will bring out some more anti-sub nets!
SS I-1, still patrolling around the US West Coast got a small xAKL today and SS I-153 a large one by Tjilatjap, albeit needed two attacks to sink her. Then, as it tends to be the case, the Universe needed to balance itself and SS KIX, which got previously chased away by escorts, came back and put two fishes into a Toho class xAK by Celebes.
The Air forces reported a ton of bad weather all over the place today, the only exception being Pegu where a small battalion was seen marching out in the open & was promptly disabused of doing such things without a sizeable CAP overhead.
Our glorious river boat fleet bombarded Changsha again, the baby sized 8 cm DP guns they carry doing surprisingly good work setting the infrastructure on fire and even damaging a few bombers at the base. Payback for the nuisance raids small groups of Chinese bombers were doing recently. The keep switching targets daily so we were not able to catch them in the air yet. Need to get more recon over the rear bases but they are all busy providing battlefield intel.
Said intel has proven to be quite valuable, as today the Southern grouping captured Yushan/Chushou, destroying several hundred devices and pushing two Chinese corps SE towards Wenchow. There is probably one more Corps at the next base (Lishui), and about two more in Wenchow itself.
There is one last enemy base on the Shanghai-Nanchang road - Shangrao, just W of Yushan/Chushou. IJA 34th division arrived there yesterday, pursuing the remnants of two Chinese corps they pushed back previously and attacked today. As is usual with the Chinese and their unlimited manpower, a fresh corps was already in place to stop them. Fortunately, the Chinese command has only found a partisan formation and they are not that great in a proper stand-up fight. Their specialty is abusing RGC company and battalion-sized formations, so when faced with a full IJA division, they gave way and allowed us to capture the first level of forts.
A few more scattered bases were also captured today, including 81st Naval Guard pushing what is left form Davao garrison deeper into the jungles of Southern Mindanao.
A minesweeping TF tasked with keeping the approaches to Palembang free of mines found some, unfortunately one of them the wrong way. DMS W-17 went to the watery grave, joining a little AMc Fumi Maru #2 who at Port Moresby also cleared out a few dozen mines until she missed one...
When it rains, it pours (it is known) and we got ours back a bit when S-23 tried to tangle with a group of IJN minelayers at Adak and got a few depth charges dropped on her. Later on at least two underwater explosions were observed at the newly laid minefield, hopefully this will get the pests to stay away! Then in the afternoon a large fleet sub, guessed to be Grayling was also attacked at Adak so perhaps not. Never mind, we will bring out some more anti-sub nets!
- 2023-10-06_13-25-52.png (277.44 KiB) Viewed 1790 times
The Air forces reported a ton of bad weather all over the place today, the only exception being Pegu where a small battalion was seen marching out in the open & was promptly disabused of doing such things without a sizeable CAP overhead.
Our glorious river boat fleet bombarded Changsha again, the baby sized 8 cm DP guns they carry doing surprisingly good work setting the infrastructure on fire and even damaging a few bombers at the base. Payback for the nuisance raids small groups of Chinese bombers were doing recently. The keep switching targets daily so we were not able to catch them in the air yet. Need to get more recon over the rear bases but they are all busy providing battlefield intel.
Said intel has proven to be quite valuable, as today the Southern grouping captured Yushan/Chushou, destroying several hundred devices and pushing two Chinese corps SE towards Wenchow. There is probably one more Corps at the next base (Lishui), and about two more in Wenchow itself.
There is one last enemy base on the Shanghai-Nanchang road - Shangrao, just W of Yushan/Chushou. IJA 34th division arrived there yesterday, pursuing the remnants of two Chinese corps they pushed back previously and attacked today. As is usual with the Chinese and their unlimited manpower, a fresh corps was already in place to stop them. Fortunately, the Chinese command has only found a partisan formation and they are not that great in a proper stand-up fight. Their specialty is abusing RGC company and battalion-sized formations, so when faced with a full IJA division, they gave way and allowed us to capture the first level of forts.
A few more scattered bases were also captured today, including 81st Naval Guard pushing what is left form Davao garrison deeper into the jungles of Southern Mindanao.
Re: Jan (J) vs Mark VII (A) - Bottlenecks+ Game on 11.27
January 6, 1942
Small landing forces hit the beaches at Awul on New Britain - to kill the leftovers of Rabaul garrison and Pare Pare on Celebes - to take the SW leg of the island.
Kolaka has also been taken by a SNLF unit, the Dutch Kendari garrison surrendered.
Apart of a few Chinese bombers squadrons and single Dutch night bombing one, the whole Allied air force took a day off today (I don't mind); no sweeps or bombing runs were challenged anywhere. We still managed to lose 12 planes, 5 to flak (Singapore) & the rest Ops.
The seas were quite calm as well, the only surface action of today was a CA TF swatting a little patrol yacht at Sorong.
The grunts were anything but bored though!
The first attack at Johore found & reduced forts from 3>2 and caused a good number of disablements. The 11th Indian division looks to be a quite well organized force, the attack mostly ground up the Aussie 22nd brigade and a few other supporting units. The silver lining is that they are quite inexperienced troops, I am hoping to keep it that way!
The 4th Chinese Cavalry corps surrounded NW of Paotow surrendered as well, just as a relief force was spotted crossing the river into the neighboring hex. Nice, now we can go after them without the shock attack. There are three units spotted on the Paotow-Ningsia road, I imagine it will be another cavalry corps and perhaps an HQ unit. The second surrounded Cavalry Corps has managed to break away from the tank regiments that were slowly grinding it down, but they have nowhere to go as all hexes are occupied by IJA units.
The biggest surprise of the day was Clark Field. I expected a similar result here as in Johore, even though our raw AV was only a double of the Allied force. While the Malayan units are all prepped for Singapore, the Luzon forces were prepped for Clark Field and the results were outstanding.
2059 vs 1004 raw AV on forts 2 resulted in 2043 vs 661 adjusted and 3:1 odds were just enough to carry the day! We have Clark!
A decision needs to be taken now.
a.) Order the two undamaged INF divisions + some tanks out of Luzon now & use them to take other objectives earlier
b.) Keep the force intact for maybe another couple of weeks & leave with 4 divisions, the 65th Brigade & 3 tank regiments.
Small landing forces hit the beaches at Awul on New Britain - to kill the leftovers of Rabaul garrison and Pare Pare on Celebes - to take the SW leg of the island.
Kolaka has also been taken by a SNLF unit, the Dutch Kendari garrison surrendered.
Apart of a few Chinese bombers squadrons and single Dutch night bombing one, the whole Allied air force took a day off today (I don't mind); no sweeps or bombing runs were challenged anywhere. We still managed to lose 12 planes, 5 to flak (Singapore) & the rest Ops.
The seas were quite calm as well, the only surface action of today was a CA TF swatting a little patrol yacht at Sorong.
The grunts were anything but bored though!
The first attack at Johore found & reduced forts from 3>2 and caused a good number of disablements. The 11th Indian division looks to be a quite well organized force, the attack mostly ground up the Aussie 22nd brigade and a few other supporting units. The silver lining is that they are quite inexperienced troops, I am hoping to keep it that way!
The 4th Chinese Cavalry corps surrounded NW of Paotow surrendered as well, just as a relief force was spotted crossing the river into the neighboring hex. Nice, now we can go after them without the shock attack. There are three units spotted on the Paotow-Ningsia road, I imagine it will be another cavalry corps and perhaps an HQ unit. The second surrounded Cavalry Corps has managed to break away from the tank regiments that were slowly grinding it down, but they have nowhere to go as all hexes are occupied by IJA units.
- 2023-10-09_11-39-13.png (191.09 KiB) Viewed 1750 times
2059 vs 1004 raw AV on forts 2 resulted in 2043 vs 661 adjusted and 3:1 odds were just enough to carry the day! We have Clark!
A decision needs to be taken now.
a.) Order the two undamaged INF divisions + some tanks out of Luzon now & use them to take other objectives earlier
b.) Keep the force intact for maybe another couple of weeks & leave with 4 divisions, the 65th Brigade & 3 tank regiments.
Re: Jan (J) vs Mark VII (A) - Bottlenecks+ Game on 11.27
It would depend upon what you have left to take for your expansion and perimeter., what the enemy has facing you, plus what he has left on Luzon. If he has Bataan with no supply source, you could bombard his units into submission and then attack.
If he still has Manila, you could put AMcs into the Bataan port where they should clear the mines without being in a TF. Then you could have a bunch of DD or smaller ships bombarding the enemy units at Manila while you maneuver your assault units. Once most if not all of his supply generation is removed, then his defense should collapse quite nicely.
If he still has Manila, you could put AMcs into the Bataan port where they should clear the mines without being in a TF. Then you could have a bunch of DD or smaller ships bombarding the enemy units at Manila while you maneuver your assault units. Once most if not all of his supply generation is removed, then his defense should collapse quite nicely.
Seek peace but keep your gun handy.
I'm not a complete idiot, some parts are missing!
“Illegitemus non carborundum est (“Don’t let the bastards grind you down”).”
; Julia Child
I'm not a complete idiot, some parts are missing!
“Illegitemus non carborundum est (“Don’t let the bastards grind you down”).”
; Julia ChildRe: Jan (J) vs Mark VII (A) - Bottlenecks+ Game on 11.27
I got Manila, Bataan is the last bastion on Luzon.
I think I will keep them together for a bit, if for nothing else then there is no large port on Luzon where I can bring in the big transport ships except Manila, so walking to a lvl 2 port and then loading for days and days, might as well take Bataan if I can & then be gone in a few days afterwards.
The first stage invasions all have units allocated already and the extended goals need to wait for CV's to be available since there is no sign of his CV's anywhere.
I think I will keep them together for a bit, if for nothing else then there is no large port on Luzon where I can bring in the big transport ships except Manila, so walking to a lvl 2 port and then loading for days and days, might as well take Bataan if I can & then be gone in a few days afterwards.
The first stage invasions all have units allocated already and the extended goals need to wait for CV's to be available since there is no sign of his CV's anywhere.
Re: Jan (J) vs Mark VII (A) - Bottlenecks+ Game on 11.27
January 7, 1942
The sub menace is ever present, as always. S-40 is stalking a TF by Makassar & receives a couple of love taps to remind her to stay away. So does I-7 off Vancouver island, after missing a CC - Canadian Corvette. I-174 gets away from a DD patrol in Hawaiian waters, then I-26 manages to put a torpedo into a small PC near San Francisco.
Both the Chinese and Japanese river flotillas are out on Jangtze today, theirs annoying Ichang, and ours doing the same to Changsha. We damaged an Airacobra & that must have made the rest of them mad since they came strafing the ships in the morning. Luckily they missed with the bombs, but a couple of ships did get extra ventilation holes installed. It's hot out there on the river anyway! A trio of Zeros then tried to do the same to the Chinese flotilla, also resulting in some extra holes on their vessels.
A Chinese Corps snuck out of the mountains W of Tsingtao so they were being worked on by the trainee Sallies from Port Arthur. It is good to give them live fire training! Tsingtao itself has a full IMB garrison and there is nothing important around so if I cannot dislodge them, they will continue to serve as targets.
Further South at Shangrao, the valiant 34th Division has attacked again and managed to take another defensive line and inflicted twice their own casualties despite getting 1:2 odds. The enemy units are green and suffering from bad morale after being beaten in several battles recently.
There were some P-40B Warhawks on CAP over Bataan today, so of course our sweepers did not fly, somehow the US flyers missed 50+ Sallies doing a bombing run so our boys were able to get away clean.
A quartet of B-17D's tried a day bombing run against OUR oil in Djambi and met a quartet of Zeros. Not only did the bombers miss the target, but intel reports that all four of them later crashed (reported as Air-Air losses). Will take it with a grain of salt but that would mean the Allies 12 of the D and 16 of the E type in the first month of the war.
On Mindanao, 8th Tank regiment reached the Allied remnants at Surigao and the half of the enemy that survived the experience retreated South, into the jungle. The tanks will pursue.
The 112th Regiment pushed the Dutch out of Medan today, with no damage to infrastructure. Nice!
The sub menace is ever present, as always. S-40 is stalking a TF by Makassar & receives a couple of love taps to remind her to stay away. So does I-7 off Vancouver island, after missing a CC - Canadian Corvette. I-174 gets away from a DD patrol in Hawaiian waters, then I-26 manages to put a torpedo into a small PC near San Francisco.
Both the Chinese and Japanese river flotillas are out on Jangtze today, theirs annoying Ichang, and ours doing the same to Changsha. We damaged an Airacobra & that must have made the rest of them mad since they came strafing the ships in the morning. Luckily they missed with the bombs, but a couple of ships did get extra ventilation holes installed. It's hot out there on the river anyway! A trio of Zeros then tried to do the same to the Chinese flotilla, also resulting in some extra holes on their vessels.
A Chinese Corps snuck out of the mountains W of Tsingtao so they were being worked on by the trainee Sallies from Port Arthur. It is good to give them live fire training! Tsingtao itself has a full IMB garrison and there is nothing important around so if I cannot dislodge them, they will continue to serve as targets.
Further South at Shangrao, the valiant 34th Division has attacked again and managed to take another defensive line and inflicted twice their own casualties despite getting 1:2 odds. The enemy units are green and suffering from bad morale after being beaten in several battles recently.
There were some P-40B Warhawks on CAP over Bataan today, so of course our sweepers did not fly, somehow the US flyers missed 50+ Sallies doing a bombing run so our boys were able to get away clean.
A quartet of B-17D's tried a day bombing run against OUR oil in Djambi and met a quartet of Zeros. Not only did the bombers miss the target, but intel reports that all four of them later crashed (reported as Air-Air losses). Will take it with a grain of salt but that would mean the Allies 12 of the D and 16 of the E type in the first month of the war.
On Mindanao, 8th Tank regiment reached the Allied remnants at Surigao and the half of the enemy that survived the experience retreated South, into the jungle. The tanks will pursue.
The 112th Regiment pushed the Dutch out of Medan today, with no damage to infrastructure. Nice!
Re: Jan (J) vs Mark VII (A) - Bottlenecks+ Game on 11.27
January 8, 1942
For unknown reason I-164, patrolling outside Merak strait decided to enter it and promptly run into a mine. The boat was lost with all hands so we will never know why...
A couple of flights of night raiders came over Palembang, but the moon is now only 50% so the oil wells should be safe enough for the next couple of weeks.
Out in the Far East (AKA just off US West Coast) I-26 popped another one of those little escorts (PC Pulaski). No point carrying the torpedoes all the way back to Kwajalein, is there?
Ambon continues to be a PITA, erm... thorn in our side. Looks like the two SNLF assault forces already there are unable to dig up the Dutch from the swamp so today anther one was landed, the assault component of a future Special Base force. The Dutch heavy CD guns set one of the xAK's on fire, despite CA Haguro & Myoko doing their best to suppress the defenders. There was a ground attack ordered as well, to take advantage of the disruption caused by bombardment which at least dropped the last level of forts.
Small skirmishes in the air over China, Java, Luzon and even Singapore - Looks like some Hurricanes flew in from Batavia. They can just make it with drop-tanks. The results were about even in air to air combat, but we continue to have too high OPS losses, mostly due to flying from undeveloped airfields. The engineers are improving whatever we capture, there is jut never enough of them for all the jobs.
Our units conducted another attack at Johore today, getting 3:1 odds but the forts were still at 2 so the base just held. The Brits only have one combat capable unit left - the 11th Indian division, estimated to be about 60% effective. The 22nd Australian brigade is trashed and so is the Punjabi battalion, the last 'combat' unit present. Looks like the attack managed to completely destroy one of the batteries of the 3rd HAA regiment, which I am sure our bomber pilots will appreciate!
In China we attacked at Biyang, the hex between Tongbai & Nanyang where IJA 3rd division + 13th Tank regiment are squaring off against 'slightly' banged up 3 Chinese Army Corps. The single level of forts was pulled down and we have inflicted almost 10x own casualties.
A raider INF Corps from the partisan-held area W of Tsingtao was reported to be getting ready cut the Tsingtao-Tsinan railroad so in a textbook operation they were first hammered from the air by several trainee squadrons of Sallies and then sent packing back to their mountain strongholds by a regiment from 32nd INF.
Last but not least, a couple of regiments from the 2nd Thai Infantry divisions crossed over from Moulmein to Martaban today to conduct a recon in force. They run into a couple of brigades + the artillery regiment of the 1st Burma Division & got a bloody nose for their trouble. More units are following, we will see if the British can or will try to throw them back over the river again.
For unknown reason I-164, patrolling outside Merak strait decided to enter it and promptly run into a mine. The boat was lost with all hands so we will never know why...
A couple of flights of night raiders came over Palembang, but the moon is now only 50% so the oil wells should be safe enough for the next couple of weeks.
Out in the Far East (AKA just off US West Coast) I-26 popped another one of those little escorts (PC Pulaski). No point carrying the torpedoes all the way back to Kwajalein, is there?
Ambon continues to be a PITA, erm... thorn in our side. Looks like the two SNLF assault forces already there are unable to dig up the Dutch from the swamp so today anther one was landed, the assault component of a future Special Base force. The Dutch heavy CD guns set one of the xAK's on fire, despite CA Haguro & Myoko doing their best to suppress the defenders. There was a ground attack ordered as well, to take advantage of the disruption caused by bombardment which at least dropped the last level of forts.
Small skirmishes in the air over China, Java, Luzon and even Singapore - Looks like some Hurricanes flew in from Batavia. They can just make it with drop-tanks. The results were about even in air to air combat, but we continue to have too high OPS losses, mostly due to flying from undeveloped airfields. The engineers are improving whatever we capture, there is jut never enough of them for all the jobs.
Our units conducted another attack at Johore today, getting 3:1 odds but the forts were still at 2 so the base just held. The Brits only have one combat capable unit left - the 11th Indian division, estimated to be about 60% effective. The 22nd Australian brigade is trashed and so is the Punjabi battalion, the last 'combat' unit present. Looks like the attack managed to completely destroy one of the batteries of the 3rd HAA regiment, which I am sure our bomber pilots will appreciate!
In China we attacked at Biyang, the hex between Tongbai & Nanyang where IJA 3rd division + 13th Tank regiment are squaring off against 'slightly' banged up 3 Chinese Army Corps. The single level of forts was pulled down and we have inflicted almost 10x own casualties.
A raider INF Corps from the partisan-held area W of Tsingtao was reported to be getting ready cut the Tsingtao-Tsinan railroad so in a textbook operation they were first hammered from the air by several trainee squadrons of Sallies and then sent packing back to their mountain strongholds by a regiment from 32nd INF.
Last but not least, a couple of regiments from the 2nd Thai Infantry divisions crossed over from Moulmein to Martaban today to conduct a recon in force. They run into a couple of brigades + the artillery regiment of the 1st Burma Division & got a bloody nose for their trouble. More units are following, we will see if the British can or will try to throw them back over the river again.
Re: Jan (J) vs Mark VII (A) - Bottlenecks+ Game on 11.27
January 9, 1942
Low intensity, but constant aerial combat across many areas. Veteran Japanese Zero or Ki-44 (Tojo) Chutai (9-12) sized units tangle with scattered CAP over Java, Southern Burma and Central China. The CAP is usually beaten down (today 10 enemy fighters claimed shot down, a single instance where the CAP got through meant 3 KI-30 light bombers cut down) but there is nothing to do against Allied flak but take it & replace losses as they can be replaced (we lost 13 planes to flak & ops).
At Martaban, our bridgehead still exists. Two battered Thai regimens were dreading a counterattack today but it did not materialize. The Brits have two brigades + arty support, but they are well dug in in the jungle & content just to lob a few shells over, probably watching what else is crossing the river.
Johore fell today, finally so the way to Singapore is now open. There is only a single major combat unit there is the 11th Indian Division which just retreated, having lost perhaps a half of their combat strength. The 9th Indian division was not allowed to recombine, same for the Australian one. The 22nd Australian brigade is just a shell, but there will likely be about 3-4 more brigade sized units. Optimistic estimates say that Singapore will have ~600, but could be 800+ AV which is just about at the limit of what our current combat strength can realistically take on. Some armored units and a few INF regiments were set in pursue mode before today's attack, hoping to build up enough of a bridgehead so a full shock attack across the strait will not be necessary. Some of them have already crossed!
A bit further North, elements of the 18th Division arrived to Kuantan where a small part of the Malaya army is holed up, finding a reinforced regiment's worth of combat power (~140), spread across a couple of brigades & some support units.
In China, the central thrust is working on improving supply lines before moving further. Today the forest base of Tongbai was taken, being only lightly held by an admin unit and a Corps HQ. This could have been a major obstacle; our units found substantial fortifications in the woods (lvl 4) but they were abandoned. Perhaps the Chinese are having supply issues this far forward?
Low intensity, but constant aerial combat across many areas. Veteran Japanese Zero or Ki-44 (Tojo) Chutai (9-12) sized units tangle with scattered CAP over Java, Southern Burma and Central China. The CAP is usually beaten down (today 10 enemy fighters claimed shot down, a single instance where the CAP got through meant 3 KI-30 light bombers cut down) but there is nothing to do against Allied flak but take it & replace losses as they can be replaced (we lost 13 planes to flak & ops).
At Martaban, our bridgehead still exists. Two battered Thai regimens were dreading a counterattack today but it did not materialize. The Brits have two brigades + arty support, but they are well dug in in the jungle & content just to lob a few shells over, probably watching what else is crossing the river.
Johore fell today, finally so the way to Singapore is now open. There is only a single major combat unit there is the 11th Indian Division which just retreated, having lost perhaps a half of their combat strength. The 9th Indian division was not allowed to recombine, same for the Australian one. The 22nd Australian brigade is just a shell, but there will likely be about 3-4 more brigade sized units. Optimistic estimates say that Singapore will have ~600, but could be 800+ AV which is just about at the limit of what our current combat strength can realistically take on. Some armored units and a few INF regiments were set in pursue mode before today's attack, hoping to build up enough of a bridgehead so a full shock attack across the strait will not be necessary. Some of them have already crossed!
A bit further North, elements of the 18th Division arrived to Kuantan where a small part of the Malaya army is holed up, finding a reinforced regiment's worth of combat power (~140), spread across a couple of brigades & some support units.
In China, the central thrust is working on improving supply lines before moving further. Today the forest base of Tongbai was taken, being only lightly held by an admin unit and a Corps HQ. This could have been a major obstacle; our units found substantial fortifications in the woods (lvl 4) but they were abandoned. Perhaps the Chinese are having supply issues this far forward?
Re: Jan (J) vs Mark VII (A) - Bottlenecks+ Game on 11.27
January 11, 1942
Despite low moonlight, Allied bombers came over Palembang again. They flew in low and scored a couple of hits; looks like Zeros will be back on CAP again instead of dueling with Buffalos over Batavia.
BB Ise & Hyuga brought the wrath of IJN to Ambon again. Between them and a group of Nells during the day the, Ambon CD gun unit and the base force were completely destroyed, allowing our three SNLF units finally take the base.
The Allied command also took advantage of our inability to seriously hamper air operations from Singapore airfield and flew in a unit of Hurricanes. A small unit if Zeros on sweep just made them more angry and the subsequent raids paid the price, escorts or not. Just a normal bloody day in the skies over Singers.
The enemy units on the ground wanted some glory themselves too so they mobbed a lonely IJA Recon regiment that bravely crossed the causeway on its own yesterday, pursuing the forces beaten at Johore. It looks like the 11th Indian division is in good order (I suspect they were kept in Reserve mode for the last combat) & we got good intel on the opposing forces (~600 AV), but the recon guys paid with their lives, as none of them got out.
The Brits at Martaban must have finished their tea; the two brigade blocking force has pushed the battered Thai regiments back across the river to Moulmein. Not even the arrival of the 3rd regiment was able to save the day, unfortunately.
IJA got ours back a bit in front of Wenchow, where a Chinese corps and an Army HQ was smashed, opening the way to the city itself.
A couple of SNLF units and a base force dropped off some time ago at Tanjoengselor has finally made its way across the jungle into Tarakan, but it looks like most of them must have come down with some tropical disease because the shock attack left something to desire. Looks like additional naval support will have to be allocated. Perhaps a few dozen or few hundred 8" shells will be enough to persuade the Dutch garrison to move to the jungle & leave the base to us.
Despite low moonlight, Allied bombers came over Palembang again. They flew in low and scored a couple of hits; looks like Zeros will be back on CAP again instead of dueling with Buffalos over Batavia.
BB Ise & Hyuga brought the wrath of IJN to Ambon again. Between them and a group of Nells during the day the, Ambon CD gun unit and the base force were completely destroyed, allowing our three SNLF units finally take the base.
The Allied command also took advantage of our inability to seriously hamper air operations from Singapore airfield and flew in a unit of Hurricanes. A small unit if Zeros on sweep just made them more angry and the subsequent raids paid the price, escorts or not. Just a normal bloody day in the skies over Singers.
The enemy units on the ground wanted some glory themselves too so they mobbed a lonely IJA Recon regiment that bravely crossed the causeway on its own yesterday, pursuing the forces beaten at Johore. It looks like the 11th Indian division is in good order (I suspect they were kept in Reserve mode for the last combat) & we got good intel on the opposing forces (~600 AV), but the recon guys paid with their lives, as none of them got out.
The Brits at Martaban must have finished their tea; the two brigade blocking force has pushed the battered Thai regiments back across the river to Moulmein. Not even the arrival of the 3rd regiment was able to save the day, unfortunately.
IJA got ours back a bit in front of Wenchow, where a Chinese corps and an Army HQ was smashed, opening the way to the city itself.
A couple of SNLF units and a base force dropped off some time ago at Tanjoengselor has finally made its way across the jungle into Tarakan, but it looks like most of them must have come down with some tropical disease because the shock attack left something to desire. Looks like additional naval support will have to be allocated. Perhaps a few dozen or few hundred 8" shells will be enough to persuade the Dutch garrison to move to the jungle & leave the base to us.
Re: Jan (J) vs Mark VII (A) - Bottlenecks+ Game on 11.27
January 13, 1942
A resupply convoy to Palembang run into a freshly laid minefield, xAK Kokai Maru not looking so well afterwards. In the Yellow Sea SS Sargo surfaced and blasted an Aden class to bits, the only consolation that she probably expended most, if not all of her torpedo reloads to get a couple of exploding hits. The patrols outside Shanghai could not hear the explosions, but they reported hearing what they swear was some choice English cursing.
The Mk 14 torpedoes had a lucky streak today, with SS Trout sinking PB Kaki just off Milne Bay too. Hopefully the transport ships she was escorting will get away!
There was some action up North as well. Yesterday a CV TF (First sighting of an Allied CV!) showed up outside Adak island, then Dauntless DB's put a thousand pound bomb into TB Hato and six of them into CL Tama. Today a follow up surface raiding TF showed up. The anchorage was empty and DD Patterson will not be going home, courtesy of a Type 93 naval mine.
The Dutch night (oil) raiders avoided the CAP today due to heavy rains and 10% moonlight, yet still managed to hit the oilfields... The Dutch were being their usual efficient selves, SS O20 after laying some mines in the Strait of Malacca then proceeded to sunk the xAMc that was sent to clean them up.
Several bases were taken today, or will be tomorrow after unopposed landings - Watampone on Celebes, Dili on Timor, Salamaua on PNG. Lunga was taken yesterday by paratroops from Rabaul.
On Luzon an Infantry division & a third of another one marched back into Clark Field so they were kicked back to Bataan. Not sure what that was about but I will take wrecking a hundred+ AV for no loss of our own, except a few days delay.
The Allied pocket at Kuantan also surrendered today, including the 9th Indian Division, one of the Malay brigades (FMSV?) and a couple of independent battalions.
The Thai forces' orders to seize a bridgehead across from Moulmein still stand, today the 3rd RTA division did much better than the scattered regiments of 2nd RTA a couple of days ago. The Brits (well, the Indian & Burmese) manning the line must be very tired, they were only able to inflict a couple of platoons worth of casualties while suffering almost the same themselves. More forces will be needed to actually take the base, but at least we are across!
In China the enemy were pushed out of Biyang on the main road between Tongbai forest and Nanyang proper, 3 Corps' worth of troops retreated into Nanyang in a not very healthy state. Out in the deserts of Northern China our mobile units supported by a couple of Mixed Brigades keep smashing through the three Chinese Cavalry Corps screening that flank. The enemy is now reduced enough so they are nothing more than roadblocks. I don't know that we have enough strength to take Lanchow, but I imagine our opponent will have to at least honor the threat.
A resupply convoy to Palembang run into a freshly laid minefield, xAK Kokai Maru not looking so well afterwards. In the Yellow Sea SS Sargo surfaced and blasted an Aden class to bits, the only consolation that she probably expended most, if not all of her torpedo reloads to get a couple of exploding hits. The patrols outside Shanghai could not hear the explosions, but they reported hearing what they swear was some choice English cursing.
The Mk 14 torpedoes had a lucky streak today, with SS Trout sinking PB Kaki just off Milne Bay too. Hopefully the transport ships she was escorting will get away!
There was some action up North as well. Yesterday a CV TF (First sighting of an Allied CV!) showed up outside Adak island, then Dauntless DB's put a thousand pound bomb into TB Hato and six of them into CL Tama. Today a follow up surface raiding TF showed up. The anchorage was empty and DD Patterson will not be going home, courtesy of a Type 93 naval mine.
The Dutch night (oil) raiders avoided the CAP today due to heavy rains and 10% moonlight, yet still managed to hit the oilfields... The Dutch were being their usual efficient selves, SS O20 after laying some mines in the Strait of Malacca then proceeded to sunk the xAMc that was sent to clean them up.
Several bases were taken today, or will be tomorrow after unopposed landings - Watampone on Celebes, Dili on Timor, Salamaua on PNG. Lunga was taken yesterday by paratroops from Rabaul.
On Luzon an Infantry division & a third of another one marched back into Clark Field so they were kicked back to Bataan. Not sure what that was about but I will take wrecking a hundred+ AV for no loss of our own, except a few days delay.
The Allied pocket at Kuantan also surrendered today, including the 9th Indian Division, one of the Malay brigades (FMSV?) and a couple of independent battalions.
The Thai forces' orders to seize a bridgehead across from Moulmein still stand, today the 3rd RTA division did much better than the scattered regiments of 2nd RTA a couple of days ago. The Brits (well, the Indian & Burmese) manning the line must be very tired, they were only able to inflict a couple of platoons worth of casualties while suffering almost the same themselves. More forces will be needed to actually take the base, but at least we are across!
In China the enemy were pushed out of Biyang on the main road between Tongbai forest and Nanyang proper, 3 Corps' worth of troops retreated into Nanyang in a not very healthy state. Out in the deserts of Northern China our mobile units supported by a couple of Mixed Brigades keep smashing through the three Chinese Cavalry Corps screening that flank. The enemy is now reduced enough so they are nothing more than roadblocks. I don't know that we have enough strength to take Lanchow, but I imagine our opponent will have to at least honor the threat.