TO THE BITTER END

[spence]

SITUATION

It's 7/15/43, the IJN (me) is winning 15300 to 12300 (approx). The Kido Butai is providing the basis for many a coral reef in the Southwest Pacific. The Allies are on the march; sort of. It takes 10 clicks on the ships sunk list to get through the list of all the APs, AKs and LST/LCIs the USN has lost. So maybe there is a chance for the IJN to pull this one out.
WARSHIPS SUNK

CV/CVL/CVE: 11 IJN, LEXINGTON, SARATOGA, HORNET, WASP, VICTORIOUS, BELLEAU WOOD, INDEPENDENCE, LONG ISLAND. Enterprise and Yorktown were heavily damaged back in 8/42 but should be coming back soon. Essex got tagged along with maybe Princeton -at least they've disappeared from the forward area.

BBs: Yamato, 3 old USN BBs, some others got hurt

CA/CLs: a few of the older IJN CLs, about 20+ USN CA/CLs

DDs: a dozen +/- IJN, 3 clicks worth on the Ships Sunk Screen.

AUX: lots for each

AP/AK/TK/LST/LCI: 2 clicks worth of IJN, 10 clicks worth of USN

THE FRONT

LAE - BUNA - KIRIWINA - WOODLARK - MUNDA - VILA The only place where opposing forces are in contact is at Buna. A reinforced Allied division has just hiked over the Owen Stanleys to stand at the gates of Buna. They face a reinforced IJA division. Two Allied prepared attacks have been repulsed with heavy losses to the Allies.
They've got engineers and I forgot to check whether or not I built it up to fortification level 9 before the attacks. At any rate it's at 7 now.

OVERALL GAME RULES

Two day turns, FOW, advanced weather ( I do love rain), IJN sub OFF, US DC on,
120 IJN/100 USN, variable reinforcements for both



The big question is really can my worthy opponent supply the forward area AND move forward. His heavy LBA has been operating out of OZ. Seemingly most of his medium bombers are also there or in Noumea cause the air attacks are not that hard to take (even though the IJA/IJN forgot to put guns on their fighters).

Since the last big carrier fight the IJN surface forces have done rather nicely in raids on Allied shipping at Gili Gili and Rossel Island. Incidentally I sacrificed that which called itself the Kido Butai (HIYO and RYUHO) in order to open up the theater for the surface forces (he lost VICTORIOUS, INDEPENDENCE, and BELLEAU WOOD sunk with ESSEX and possibly PRINCETON damaged - mostly to LBA from Rabaul and Shortlands - the real KIDO BUTAI died at the hands of survivors from the CAGs of the 4 sunk USN carriers in the disasterous battle of IRAU in Jul-Aug 42 (38th Div also lost for the most part) - when the HIYO-RYUHO-HOSHO TF was forced into a battle after a raid on NEVEA by a USN CVTF that had been operating SW of GILI GILI the previous turn (turn of the raid) I figured the days of the KIDO BUTAI were numbered anyways (Only HOSHO got hit and sunk, mostly through sheer luck, but basically the USN speed advantage meant the KIDO BUTAI was out of business).

Anybody interested in how this comes out? Like I said the basic question is whether or not he can move forward AND keep that which he holds supplied enough to support the drive.

I haven't figured out how to include the Combat Reports yet. Since I live in the boonies I've got a particularly slow dial up Internet Link and I'm wondering if it'll take me an hour to transmit them for each turn anyway. But I figure there might be some IJN fans (this is my first long campaign game as IJN) who might want to hear about things in 1943 (depressing for sure) so I'll try to keep up if anyone is interested.

[Shadow of the Condor]

Always nice to read another AAR [:)]. When I post, I fire up MS Word and first copy the Combat report from the save game file. This way, I can edit and write, etc. all off line if I have to. Then I open the thread here, select "post reply". BAck to the word file I have written up, copy, back to the thread, and paste. Works great [:)].

Good luck with your game!

[AmiralLaurent]

Hi, I'm also playing IJN in 1943: 3 games currently in July, May and March 1943 (resulting of a scen 17 where my USN opponent couldn't continue to play and 3 people were volunteers to replace him. I play against the 3). The big difference is that the IJN CV TF was beaten in 1942 but the USN CV TF is still there.

Interested in discussing with another IJN commander. Do you play scen 17 or 19 ?

Here is the situation in my July game. Date is 4/July

Score IJN 12260 USN 9580

IJN naval losses:
5 CV, 2 CVL, 2 BB, 4 CA, 26 DD, 9 SS, 3 ML, 1 AV, 2 APD, 3 TK, 17 AP (10x1000, 6x2000, 1x3000), 5 MSW, 3 PC, 267 AG (none on the sunk list but I count them)

USN known naval losses (add some DD and transports)
1 BB, 3 CVE, 4 CA, 1 CL, 29 DD, 4 SS, 5 DMS, 3 DM, 4 APD, 3 AO, 15 AP (8x1500, 4x2000, 3x3000), 20 AK (18x1500, 2x2000), 16 MSW, 4 PG, 16 SC, 48 PT, 1 LCI, 2 LCVP

Allied troops hold Gili Gili, Lunga, Tulagi and Irau and took in the last weeks Wau and Salamaua with an airborne operation (paras and then C-47 carrying troops). Ground fighting is actually taking place in Marilinan (N of Wau) and Salamaua.

[spence]

My thanks to SHADOW. I'll give it a try next turn.

I was off by a turn. It is now 7/15/43. On the 11th/12th a composite division of US/AUS troops attacked Buna suffering some 800 killed to roughly 300 Japanese. A counterattack and a bit of air bombing by the IJAF on the 13th/14th resulted in another 800 or so Allied dead for about half as many Japanese. There are at least 4 Brigades/Regiments of Allied Infantry supported by engineers, armor and artillery but the march over the mountains pretty much knocked the stuffing out of them cause their assault values are extremely low.

The 13-14th produced only one small naval battle between surface ships: 2 Aobas, Oyodo and 4 DDs vs a DD and an AK. Both US ships were sunk with negligible damage inflicted on the IJN (not too surprising).

Heavy bombing of Kiriwina and Buna by PM based SBDs and a few B-25s. Oz based heavies and Hudsons piled on as well. A couple of Zeroes and escorting Lightnings and Warhawks were shot down over Kiriwina. Several damaged bombers couldn't make it home and were lost. About a dozen of my newer "Eagles" made "perfect landings 100 meters off the near end/far end/sides of the runway" and were killed. Seems to be about average (would that they were in fact average).

(Heck, I grounded every single plane I had one rainy day and 6 of them managed to kill themselves in the classroom[:@])

[Shadow of the Condor]

originally posted by spence

(Heck, I grounded every single plane I had one rainy day and 6 of them managed to kill themselves in the classroom )

Make sure your squadrons are set to Training 0%. That means they're in the classroom (or bar). Training 10% (or more) means they're flying training missions and liable to not come down safely.

[:)]

[AmiralLaurent]

Even with the whole airforce grounded, you may have op losses because new planes are flown from Rabaul to replace former losses. There is no way to stop these flights.