Tom & Blackwatch Lessons from War

[Tom Hunter]

Coral Sea to March 7th 1942

When we looked at the Coral Sea area the Japanese had been pounding Port Moresby with air attacks and bombardment and had just put thousands of troops ashore to invade.

Interestingly I felt I was losing the air battle, and I was certainly taking more casualties than Blackwatch so I pulled all my remaining fighters back to Oz on or about the 22nd of Feb. Blackwatch chose that moment to stop flying his massive bombing raids as well. Maybe we both decided the losses were too high at the same time or maybe he is planning something and needed the planes elsewhere.

Two weeks after the Japanese came ashore at PM there is still no sign of an end to the fight though there have been some deliberate assaults and both sides bombard every day.

I attempted to relieve the Port Moresby by sea sending a force of 3 old US BBs to clear the area of Japanese warships on Feb 27th.

Japanese Ships
BB Hiei, Shell hits 2
BB Kirishima
BB Mutsu, Shell hits 4
CA Chikuma, Shell hits 2
CA Myoko, Shell hits 3, on fire
CA Haguro, Shell hits 1
CA Nachi
CA Kinugasa, Shell hits 1
CA Furutaka
CA Kako
CL Yura
CL Kinu
CL Tama
CL Kiso
DD Shigure
DD Kawakaze
DD Fumizuki
DD Shiokaze, Shell hits 1
DD Nokaze

Allied Ships
BB Colorado, Shell hits 3
BB New Mexico, Shell hits 1
BB Mississippi
CL Concord, Shell hits 6, on fire
CL Honolulu, Shell hits 1
DD Henley, Shell hits 3, Torpedo hits 1, on fire, heavy damage
DD Smith
DD Alden, Shell hits 3, on fire, heavy damage
DD Fox, Shell hits 5, Torpedo hits 1, on fire, heavy damage
DD Crane
DD Gilmer
DD Rathburne

The Japanese advantage in CAs proved decisive in the second round of combat they torpedoed and sunk the Colorado and the US broke off the action. Who shows up the next day but our old friends Kido Butai and they take another American BB out as it runs for port. One gets away but that is the end of the US big gun presence in Oz.

As the siege has gone on Blackwatch has been very careful to keep a strong force blocking the port I guess he is trying to starve me out. By now there are 20,000 allied troops inside and 48,000 Japanese troops outside but I have some forts 2 or 3 and not much changes day to day. The allied airforce returned to PM on the 5th of March and has started scoring bomb hits the question is will it be enough to push Blackwatch back or will Port Moresby go down as another allied defeat.

It’s a race between LBA and base construction forces Vs. the Japanese besiegers. Every turn that goes by my air bases in Oz get bigger and if they get big enough I can make the trip from Gili Gili to PM very difficult.

[Blackwatch_it]

Coral Sea to March 7th 1942 Japanese point of view

One divisione and one brigade are at PM. They just need some more supplies to take the base. I think that allied troops are short of supplies now, so it's going to be a logistic affair.
US surface ships are no more able to show in the area and I don't believe that CVs will show either.
The bombers in Rabaul are rested and ready. Buna and Munda bases are building up.

KB cruise west of PM collected also a damaged CL heading away from PM, a couple of MWs and some AKs.
Vals and Kates attaked Cairns and Cooktown ports, but weren't able to find many targets.
In all this area is quite satisfactory for the Empire.

[Tom Hunter]

Burma to March 10th 1942

As mentioned above Mandalay fell in late February. The troops there retreated to Lashio and the Japanese army made a fast pursuit, smashed into the weary defenders and pushed them out of the town and into open terrain on February 28.

The British pushed the 18th Division into Burma and blocked the rail line North to Myitkina and were pushed back by the advancing Japanese. The British have been sending 4 engine bombers, 2 engine bombers and strafing Hurricanes to slow the Japanese advance and disrupt their units. Some turns well over 100 planes have hit the advancing Japanese. By March 10th Blackwatch has troops at Myitkina but has not launched a major assault yet.

At sea the Royal Navy successfully intercepted a second Japanese attempt to bombard Akyab. The British proved that the Japanese are not the only ones adept at night fighting and chewed up the Japanese BBs at moderate cost to themselves.

Japanese Ships
BB Fuso +7 on fire
BB Yamashiro, Shell hits 3, on fire +6
BB Hyuga +8 on fire, heavy damage
CA Takao +4
CA Kumano +1
CL Kitakami +6
DD Yugiri
DD Yakaze, Shell hits 1
DD Yukaze +2
DD Wakatake, Shell hits 1, on fire +7
DD Kuretake +1

Allied Ships
BB Revenge
BB Royal Sovereign, Shell hits 1 +4
BB Ramilles, Shell hits 1 +3
BB Resolution +2
CA Dorsetshire +2
CL Emerald
CL Dauntless, Shell hits 1 +3
DD Decoy +1 on fire
DD Fortune
DD Foxhound
DD Griffin, Shell hits 1
DD Isis
DD Nizam
DD Norman

The British sent Stringbags to harry the Japanese after the battle and one Japanese DD went down. Hyuga left at a really slow speed and the rest of the Japanese squadron retired as well. This battle left the Royal Navy in temporary control of the Bay of Bengal and to take it back will require a large commitment from Blackwatch. I did not sink much but the strategic implications are important. Both sides have limited numbers of BBs and before this battle Blackwatch had a lot more gun power available than I did. Now at best he has 7 intact BBs and he may have one or two others in the yards now since one of them ran over a mine at Java in January. Also these 3 BBs were reported torpedoed by a Stringbag attack in the first bombardment in February so its likely that they already had a fair amount of operational damage before this battle.

The British also have Warspite and a CV coming along with some lighter forces. Blackwatch has committed a very powerful air group to the Port Moresby battle and KB has been in that area again. The British cannot beat either of those two forces but as long as they are far away the Bay of Bengal is likely to be dominated by the Royal Navy.

On land the big question is what does the combination of heavy air bombardment and Malaria do to Blackwatch’s land forces. He is under constant air attack we will see if that plus the 18th Division will be enough to hold the line while the defeated units from further South recover from the abuse they took.

[Tom Hunter]

The air battles get fierce over Port Moresby with upwards of 100 zeros taking the skies over the base.

On March 10th the Betties came and bombed ground units. Over 40 allied fighters came up to meet the massed Japanese aircraft and the Japanese shot a lot of them down. On the 11th and 12th the Betties came back in even larger numbers and have pretty much knocked out the airfield. On the 12th 30 allied planes took the air against 100 Zeros and just over 200 bombers including 141 Betties hit the base.

The Japanese are trying to maintain the blockade of PM by air now, the surface TFs that were guarding the port have departed and a number of Allied ships slipped in on the 12th. We will see if any of them can last long enough to unload. Bad weather has also hampered the Japanese offense two turns in a row we have seen air operations from Rabual canceled on account of bad weather.

On land it continues to be a bombardment battle between the 40,000 Japanese troops outside and the 20,000 inside. A lot depends on the airforces on both sides and so far the Japanese air force is winning.

[Blackwatch_it]

True, RN is in control of the Bay of Bengal now. The problem is that Japan has not enough forces to be in control everywhere. Bay of Bengal is not a main target now, while Burma is. IJN presence is needed elsewhere now.
About PM:
the problem for Allied ship is not to slip in PM, but will they be able to slip out?[:-]

[Tom Hunter]

To my Amazement there are still allied forces in Java. Soerbaja has held the Japanese, there are Soerbaja and Malang most of the fighter were shot down by Zeros and the bombers took losses before bugging out.

I looked at the aircraft availalbe screen and saw that a number of Demons and Brewsters were in the pool so I flew the remnants away to an undisclosed location that had over 20k supply. They units rebuilt themselves though their pilot quality is low and I recently sent them back along with more bombers to attack the Japanese besiegning Soerbaja.

Predictably Blackwatch sent a number of Zeros to shoot this annonance out of the sky and last turn the Dutch lost 10 of these nearly valueless aircraft. On the other hand its keeping Japanese forces busy and adding to his attrition, the Dutch got a kill or two so I think its a fair trade. Anything that extends the life of the Dutch is good, even better when its thier own stuff.

Borneo continues to fall to the Japanese, they took Sinkawang ending the Dutch hold on the Maccassar striaght. The smaller Dutch base forces are increasingly isolated and often running low on supply. Sumatra is still Dutch except for the oil fields at Palembang which fell in early December, Maccassar, Kendari and Ambonia have all fallen though some of the smaller Celebese bases are still in Dutch hands.

We will see how long they can hold but I am already happier than I was in early March when I thought Java would fall by the 10th or 15th of the month.

[Tom Hunter]

Port Moresby has settled into a pattern. Blackwatch keeps a 300 plane group in Rabaul that bombs PM into the stone age from time to time. We have already seen this happen 4 times? maybe more. The down side for my opponent, the air group spends a lot of time refitting so that it stays up to strength in one of my earlier posts I showed the affects of flak, combat and operational loss on the size of the airstrikes.

Blackwatch aslo keeps a large group of Kates with fighters at Buna. These planes are set to Naval and thier job is to keep me from getting more stuff into PM. They are often backed up in this mission by surface units stationed in the hex but not always.

When the losses get too high the bombing stops and the airbase repairs itself. Once it gets into good shape I try something to releive PM. Around March 12 I tried moving more troops in by sea. The Japanese surface TFs had left for ammo and fuel I assume so my ships got in. I put a number of fighters into the place as well, maybe 50 or so along with some bombers.

The Japanese reacted the next day with surface ships and bombers. In the end I lost 4-5 merchant ships and 3 or 4 DDs. I did get a fair number of troops ashore but not much in the way of supplies. Blackwatch pounded my fighters as well so I had to pull all the air groups out once again. Allied bombers did strike ships at Buna and on the way to PM so that part was fairly successful. Once he had defeated the relief effort Blackwatch started repairing the 300 plane strike force once again.

Things calmed down for a while and the aircraft loss rate went down to a few a day.

On or about March 20th the airbase was ready to go again. This time I thought i would try something different so instead of flying in 50-70 fighters I flew in a similar number of bombers. Next turn I bombed the daylights out of Buna destroying 16 Japanese aircraft on the ground in exchange for light damage to my own forces. The turn after that I moved all my aircraft away from PM about 30 minutes before the sky darkened as the 300 plane raiding force returned and "BOMBS AWAY!" turned Port Moresbys airfield back into wreckage.


So we are at March 23rd.

Strategically we are both having some troubles supplying and reinforcing Port Moresby Blackwatch definitely has the advantage but he does not win them all. Blackwatch has a big force at Rabual and I have big forces in North East Oz, PM is in the middle. As long as Blackwatch maintains the big striking force in Rabaul he has the initiative in the area. But if he uses the strikeforce pounding PM he runs the risk that the Allies will get strong enough to take the initiative away. Its a very difficult balance for both of us.

The situation is also getting more complex because the Allied base at Lunga went to air capacity 2 about March 19th and has started regular raids on the Japanese base at Munda which went to capacity 2 a few days later. Right now there are regular 10 -20 plane or a side air battles over Munda. The Japanese have not had ships in the area recently but the possibility of a bombardment TF coming down the slot is always there.

[Tom Hunter]

I hope that there will be some posts in the One Month at War AAR showing the airbattles and what is participating. ADavidB seems to be trying to fight the Japanese with quality (sorry if I am interpreting that incorrectly) and is having a problem with not having enough P40s.

I am fighting the Japanese with everything, quality or not. I often lose, just look at the last few days over Soerbaja where the Dutch airforce came back and got spanked. But I also win some because Blackwatch can't be everywhere. I made some successful raids on Balikpapan with Whirriways and a few Beauforts for over a week and the Whirriway group has over 70 experince now, they are one of my best bomber groups. I had 30 Beaforts waiting for the Japanese invasion of Menado and sunk several transports. The early efforts to hold the air over Port Moresby cost me a lot of Whirraways now I send P39s, P40s and F4Fs but I am looking for ways to get the Whirraways back into action.

Going from memory (I am on the road, no game until tonight) I have lost about 2,000 aircraft so far and Blackwatch has lost about 1,700 most of his advantage is aircraft destroyed on the ground which happened on the first day of the war, at Georgetown where I lost 50 planes (the AVG in December, that hurt) and at Myikitina where I lost another 50 when the place fell unexpectedly.

So when you look at the evidence it seems that sending the obsolete stuff in does hurt Japan even though he wins. Again from memory I think he has lost over 180 Betties and more than 200 (maybe more than 300, memory is fuzzy) Zeros so far. (obviously my fighter and bomber losses are similar but since I have so many types they are less concentrated.)

Finally there is the practical effect Blackwatch knows that he is going to get battles everywhere. That affects his operations, it also makes for a very exiciting game for both of us.

[Tom Hunter]

The Central Pacific heats up on March 21st as US CVs move to suppress Japanese LBA on Baker Island.

The Japanese planes had been harrasing the occasional allied merchant ship. Allied high command thought everything had been re-routed but there is always some one who does not get the word.

The CVs came into range of the Island and the Japanese launched serveral airstrikes of 10-20 planes. These ran into 60+ F4Fs set at a range of altitudes which successfully stopped the Japanese attacks shooting down a number of zeros and nearly destroying a group of 15 betties that tried to come in without escort.

On Baker Dauntlessess and Devastators bombed the airfield and blew up a number of planes on the ground. The airfield was also hit by B17s from Canton Island.

After 2 days of attacks the CVs withdrew.

[Blackwatch_it]

The only thing extending the life of the Dutch forces in Soerbaja is the lack of supplies. The line to Batavia seems too long to keep such an amount of troops supplied.
But maybe I've a solution for this and will stop the Dutch suffering soon.

[Blackwatch_it]

ORIGINAL: Tom Hunter

Port Moresby has settled into a pattern. Blackwatch keeps a 300 plane group in Rabaul that bombs PM into the stone age from time to time. We have already seen this happen 4 times? maybe more. The down side for my opponent, the air group spends a lot of time refitting so that it stays up to strength in one of my earlier posts I showed the affects of flak, combat and operational loss on the size of the airstrikes.

Blackwatch aslo keeps a large group of Kates with fighters at Buna. These planes are set to Naval and thier job is to keep me from getting more stuff into PM. They are often backed up in this mission by surface units stationed in the hex but not always.

When the losses get too high the bombing stops and the airbase repairs itself. Once it gets into good shape I try something to releive PM. Around March 12 I tried moving more troops in by sea. The Japanese surface TFs had left for ammo and fuel I assume so my ships got in. I put a number of fighters into the place as well, maybe 50 or so along with some bombers.

The Japanese reacted the next day with surface ships and bombers. In the end I lost 4-5 merchant ships and 3 or 4 DDs. I did get a fair number of troops ashore but not much in the way of supplies. Blackwatch pounded my fighters as well so I had to pull all the air groups out once again. Allied bombers did strike ships at Buna and on the way to PM so that part was fairly successful. Once he had defeated the relief effort Blackwatch started repairing the 300 plane strike force once again.

Things calmed down for a while and the aircraft loss rate went down to a few a day.

On or about March 20th the airbase was ready to go again. This time I thought i would try something different so instead of flying in 50-70 fighters I flew in a similar number of bombers. Next turn I bombed the daylights out of Buna destroying 16 Japanese aircraft on the ground in exchange for light damage to my own forces. The turn after that I moved all my aircraft away from PM about 30 minutes before the sky darkened as the 300 plane raiding force returned and "BOMBS AWAY!" turned Port Moresbys airfield back into wreckage.


So we are at March 23rd.

Strategically we are both having some troubles supplying and reinforcing Port Moresby Blackwatch definitely has the advantage but he does not win them all. Blackwatch has a big force at Rabual and I have big forces in North East Oz, PM is in the middle. As long as Blackwatch maintains the big striking force in Rabaul he has the initiative in the area. But if he uses the strikeforce pounding PM he runs the risk that the Allies will get strong enough to take the initiative away. Its a very difficult balance for both of us.

The situation is also getting more complex because the Allied base at Lunga went to air capacity 2 about March 19th and has started regular raids on the Japanese base at Munda which went to capacity 2 a few days later. Right now there are regular 10 -20 plane or a side air battles over Munda. The Japanese have not had ships in the area recently but the possibility of a bombardment TF coming down the slot is always there.

Your troops are welcome in PM and don't worry about supplies, the Japanese Empire will take care of them

[Tom Hunter]

Naga falls in the Philipines. This leaves Manila as the only allied base left on the main island. The Japanese have 100,000 troops attacking it and 40,000 more coming up from the South. Naga held a long time, I have no right to complain but I will miss it.

The Japanese send the 300 aircraft flying fist of death to bomb Lunga on Guadal Canal. 9 allied fighters rise to challenge the 113 zeros escorting and Blackwatch wins another one. The 200 bombers then chew up the airfield.

A Japanese deliberate attack on Port Moresby fails. The Japanese take Kragen just a bit North of Soerbaja Blackwatch is trying to improve his supply situation in Soebaja so that he can take the place.

In China the big battles go on hold for a bit but we have a number of division sized forces nipping at eachothers supply lines so there are some small deliberate and shock attacks in road a RR hexes. But the story remains the same, Wuchow is Chinese, Canton is Japanese, Yenan is contested and there are forces here and there on the rail.

Burma is Japanese no battles there but the RAF is using the place as a training ground for the bomber forces. So far this does not seem to affect Blackwatch that much.

KB and the US CVs have gone into hiding again and I am not saying where mine are.

[Blackwatch_it]

The fall of Naga allows all my troops to attack Manila in a couple of days. Hopefully Manila will fall in the first days of April and free some LCUs for future employment.
Lunga airfield is out of action after two days of heavy bombing. PM is still holding, but out of reach for Alied naval units. We'll see how long can resist.
The capture of Kragen is going to improve the supply situation of the troops attacking Soerbaja.
China is the usual slaughter as Tom says, nothing to add.
KB is docked in Shangri la and refitting.

Here are some numbers

The planes losses so far are: 2384 allied vs 1942 japanese.

Land units losses are: 5984 allied vs 569 japanese

Ship losses: 290 (3583 pts) allied vs 76 1131 japanese

Alied capital ships losses: 1CV 4BBs 1BC 7CA 6 CLS
Japanese capital ships losses: 3CVLs 2CVEs 2CLs

[Tom Hunter]

The battle for Luzon comes to an end as tens of thousands of US and Philipine troops go into captivity. The Japanese forces that took Naga on March 26th came up to Manila launched a shock attack and ended the battle for the city.

In Burma and China things are mostly quiet. The British send in bomber raids and the Japanese duck and then come out and do whatever they wanted to do. China still has fighting and manuever going on at Yenen and our armies confront eachother at various places on the rail line but things have quieted down at the moment.

The allies are back in Port Moresby with fighters and P39s made strafing runs on the Japanese DDs and DEs that are in the hex. Anyone know what 4 shell hits means in terms of actual sys damage?

An allied convoy got to Lunga on Guadal Canal and was attacked by Japanese DDs and a CL. Several ships were sunk on the allied side. The 300 plane strike force stopped hitting the island and there are rumored to be more allied planes in the base.

Buna was hit by B17s several days in a row, some Kates and Zeros were destroyed but not enough to stop the Kates from attacking allied supply ships on the way to Port Moresby.

The Japanese have been pounding the remaining allied airfields in Java and this has forced the withdrawl of most of the allied planes in the area.

I will write a longer view of the war when we hit the 4 month mark on April 7th. I am keeping this update short but will discuss strategy then.

[Tom Hunter]

Early April the battle for Port Moresby.

The battle continues on April 2,3,4, the 300 plane fist of death bombs Lunga. I keep sending fighters there because I do not want to give up control of the air but Blackwatch wins all the air battles. These are the results for April 3 1942:

Day Air attack on Lunga , at 67,97

Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 84
G3M Nell x 39
G4M1 Betty x 110

Allied aircraft
F4F-4 Wildcat x 2
Kittyhawk I x 3
P-39D Airacobra x 1
P-40E Warhawk x 8

Japanese aircraft losses
A6M2 Zero: 2 destroyed

Allied aircraft losses
F4F-4 Wildcat: 10 destroyed, 7 damaged
Kittyhawk I: 4 destroyed
P-39D Airacobra: 1 destroyed
P-40E Warhawk: 23 destroyed, 1 damaged
A-24 Dauntless: 6 destroyed, 11 damaged


Fog of War inflates the kill totals by a lot, and I think that the larger your attacking force the larger the kill total inflation. If memory serves this turn Blackwatch destroyed about 30 allied planes in exchange for 15 of his. This loss ratio has been typical recently, the air to air fighting in Burma is over so the Brits are not shooting anything down any more and the Japanese have near total control of the air over Java as well. The result is that fighting is concentrated in the Guadal Canal and Port Moresby area and Blackwatch has concentrated some very good Zero Daitais there.

Over Port Moresby things are somewhat different. On April 3rd my air raids look a lot like this sample:

Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 5

Allied aircraft
F4F-4 Wildcat x 3
Kittyhawk I x 11
Beaufort V-IX x 18
P-39D Airacobra x 20
P-40E Warhawk x 10
B-18A Bolo x 2
B-25C Mitchell x 17

This group lost a few planes and put shell hits on:
CA Kinugasa, Shell hits 16
CA Kako, Shell hits 4

Which did not seem to do very much to them. That was my story for the whole day, repeated large air raids intercepted by 5 or even 2 Zeros that did not really do much damage.

The other really important news is that Cooktown is a size 4 airfield which means I can fly B17s and Hudsons over Port Moresby. This has an immediate effect, the Japanese start seeing bomb hits on the CAs that have been closing the port.

On April 4th things got a little better (if you allied) or a little worse (if your Japanese). Buna was hit by B17s and some P40s and P39s strafing. A few more Zeros got shot down along with some P39s and P40s and the B17s reported blowing up 3 Kates on the ground. At sea things got more dangerous for Japan as over 60 Hudsons and a number of B25s and Beauforts went after the Japanese TF guarding the port.

Tone 3 bomb hits
Haguro 1 bomb hit

In a way this is good it will likely cause Blackwatch to move the TF away but in another respect its pathetic over 100 air strikes and all I get is 3 bomb hits. A group of P39s strafe some merchant shipping at Buna and put serious damage on an AP. So I guess the 37mm is good against merchant shipping but does not do much to CAs.

Lunga gets hit by 300 aircraft again including 102 Zeros and 162 Betties. I looked up Zero losses and as of April 4th Blackwatch has lost 465 of these planes. I can’t imagine that he can continue to lose 10 or more a day for very long. Even though he is killing more of my planes by just a bit less than 2 to 1 I still think this is could be unsustainable. I am also working on that ratio, hoping that my airfield bombing will help.

April 5

The 300 plane flying fist of death turns its attention away from Lunga. This is understandable Lunga looks like the surface of the moon and there are no planes based there any more.

Instead they join what is supposed to be a coordinated raid on Port Moresby. Zeros, Nells and Betties from Rabual with support from Vals and Kates at Buna.

The allies have a similar set of raids going to Buna and there are about 100 planes of CAP over Port Moresby.

The Japanese attack turns out to be a little less coordinated than Blackwatch hoped and the Vals and Kates come in without escort while the Zeros at Buna battle the B17 strike:

Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 8

Allied aircraft
B-17E Fortress x 31

Japanese aircraft losses
A6M2 Zero: 2 destroyed, 2 damaged
B5N Kate: 7 destroyed, 2 damaged


Japanese ground losses:
36 casualties reported

Airbase hits 1
Runway hits 4

And here come the Japanese single engine bombers:

Japanese aircraft
D3A Val x 27
B5N Kate x 43

Allied aircraft
F4F-4 Wildcat x 6
Kittyhawk I x 12
P-39D Airacobra x 27
P-40E Warhawk x 15

Japanese aircraft losses
D3A Val: 31 destroyed, 2 damaged
B5N Kate: 76 destroyed, 7 damaged

When 70 bombers meet 60 fighters you know its going to be ugly. The actual loss for this raid was about half the posted kills but it was still a big loss. In total the Allies will lose 129 planes today and the Japanese 81. Air to air losses were much closer but the Japanese get a bunch of allied planes on the ground because (maddening frustration) the bombers based there refused to fly missions. Instead they went off to play poker, personally I hope they were all machine gunned on the ground.


Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 141
G3M Nell x 57
G4M1 Betty x 155

Allied aircraft
F4F-4 Wildcat x 6
Kittyhawk I x 12
P-39D Airacobra x 27
P-40E Warhawk x 15

Japanese aircraft losses
A6M2 Zero: 63 destroyed, 1 damaged
G3M Nell: 2 destroyed, 2 damaged
G4M1 Betty: 6 damaged

Allied aircraft losses
F4F-4 Wildcat: 9 destroyed, 1 damaged
Kittyhawk I: 25 destroyed, 4 damaged
P-39D Airacobra: 69 destroyed, 56 damaged
P-40E Warhawk: 42 destroyed, 6 damaged
B-26B Marauder: 11 destroyed, 23 damaged
Wirraway: 5 destroyed, 8 damaged
Beaufort V-IX: 19 destroyed, 24 damaged
B-25C Mitchell: 5 destroyed, 14 damaged
B-18A Bolo: 1 destroyed


None of the allied bombers based at PM or the Hudsons at Cooktown flew on April 5 which is really frustrating. On the other hand the real figure for Zeros killed in air to air combat was 30 today. That is a pretty big bite out of the airforce we will see what happens on the 6th.

[Blackwatch_it]

The best result of the bloody air battles over PM, Buna and Lunga is the increase of the gap in destroied planes.
The losses were 2384 allied vs 1942 japanese on march 26 and now are 2943 allied vs 2234 japanese.
These means that the loss ratio for this period was 2:1, quite pleasing IMO.

[Blackwatch_it]

We are now in april 42 and we have been at war 4 months. Time for a balance.

Burma and Malaya
I have completed the conquest of Malaya and Burma. The japanese army in Burma is in perfect shape and ready for new targets. The resouce centers in this area are working at full capacity.

Philippines
The conquest of Luzon is completed, some more resources are available from th production centers in the island. The troops engaged in the operation are refitting and getting ready for new tasks.

DEI
The 4 resouces centers in Borneo are in Japanese hands and so are Palembang and Batavia. Soerbaja in under siege and is not going to resist very long.
Kendari and Amboina are also in Japanese control.

South and Central Pacific
Strong aibases are located at Rabaul, Buna, Munda, Tarawa and Baker.
The allied are experiencing severe problems keeping PM and Lunga supplied.
The ship taking supplies and troops from the USA are compelled to take a longer route.

China
No much to say: its a confused and bloody slaughter.

The planes and troops losses are getting more and more in Japan favour. I slowed my offensives in march to keep low my losses and this tactics produced good results.
The surface ships offensive power of the allied is at the moment out of the game. 4 BBs and about 15 CAs and CLs are lost and the US navy is not showing close to Japanes waters.
The loss of my CVLs and CVEs near Noumea was a hard hit, but my fleet carrier are ready for action.

In all most of the planned objectives are reached and the future looks very interesting fron the japanese point of view.

[Tom Hunter]

I wrote this before reading Blackwatches post. I think his judgements are all correct though time will change the situation. Its also a very interesting game from the allied point of view as well I hope our readers are enjoying it too.

Reflections on 4 months of war

I started this game not knowing much about the game and there are a lot of things I would do differently, which makes me wonder if I would do them better…

Some observations on game mechanics
I have found that CAP does not work well to defend my air bases. If I have over 100 aircraft ordered to defend a base, CAP set on 90 plenty of supply and air support available I seldom get more than 60 flying. If enemy bombers have no escorts this is fine but the Zeros all seem to fly at once so even though my opponent and I both have 130 planes ready at the point of contact I have 60 and he has 130.

The air combat model gives the side with more planes higher kills so in a case like this I lose. This doesn’t reflect actual combat experience but so be it, it’s the way the game is designed. I will likely experiment with new tactics to see what I can do about this, since Blackwatch reads and contributes to this AAR I will not say more.

Strategically I think my position is acceptable. I made some mistakes in the early war and lost a lot of shipping for little gain but my shipping losses in the last two months have been much lower. I have chosen to risk shipping for certain important objectives such as holding Port Moresby and Guadal Canal. This has been costly but so far it has worked they are both still Allied.

Right now the Allies are holding the line at Soerbaja, Port Moresby, Guadal Canal, Yenen, Canton Island, and the Burma/India border. The Japanese are putting pressure on the first 4 but are not attempting to advance in India or the Central Pacific though they have the option to try at any time.

I have had 2 successful naval battles one that shot up some Japanese BBs at Akyab and the other that sunk all the CVEs and CVLs of baby Butai in the South Pacific. On the reverse side I lost a major BB Vs BB battle at Port Moresby and earlier in the game I lost a CA Vs LBA battle near Buna and lost the Enterprise and her escort group East of Gili Gili.

Strategically the combination of US CVs sinking Baby Butai and the R class BBs winning the battle of Akyab gave control of the Bay of Bengal to the Royal Navy. The remaining (4) US CVs have done a small amount of raiding but are mostly just staying alive. If I can keep them in being until Wasp arrives then I will have close to 1 to 1 odds on the Japanese plus 3 British CVs and those odds are good enough for defensive battles with LBA involvement at least.

Both of us have done reckless things and lost important forces as a result. I suspect we will be calculating our risks more carefully going forward. The Japanese still have the initiative but the allies are better able to hit back and raid than they were earlier in the war. I suspect that we are going into the same phase of the war that the Allies and Japan went into in June to August 1942 when the Japanese advance was slowed by Midway and the attrition battle started in the Solomons. In our case neither of us is inclined to risk the CV fleets on a big gamble so they will likely stay intact or suffer minor attrition over the next 6 months but the LBA and lighter surface forces will see a lot of action. Though of course I could be wrong, it will be interesting to see how things go.

[Blackwatch_it]

ORIGINAL: Tom Hunter

I started this game not knowing much about the game and there are a lot of things I would do differently, which makes me wonder if I would do them better…

Some observations on game mechanics
I have found that CAP does not work well to defend my air bases. If I have over 100 aircraft ordered to defend a base, CAP set on 90 plenty of supply and air support available I seldom get more than 60 flying. If enemy bombers have no escorts this is fine but the Zeros all seem to fly at once so even though my opponent and I both have 130 planes ready at the point of contact I have 60 and he has 130.

I could offer you to restart when 1.5 is released......[:)]

About the cap the question is: do you have an air HQ in that base?

[Tom Hunter]

Sometimes I have had air HQs in the airbase other times I have not. I have yet to see all of the ordered CAP get into the air except over my CVs.