Tophat vs ADavidB - Back at It

[ADavidB]

I'd like to give a strategic update as of January 20, 1942. First off, as far as losses go, I've been able to keep them to a minimum in all areas - ships, planes and troops. I've only lost one combat ship since December 7, 1941 and that was a DD lost to a sub attack. My most important losses have been the seven subs that I've lost. The biggest naval win that Tophat has achieved so far was the ambush of the supply convoy between the West Coast and Hawaii where he sank ten out of 12 transports and the minesweeper escort. I haven't been seriously contesting Tophat in the air anywhere, so my aircraft losses have been minimal since December 7. And since Tophat still hasn't taken Singapore or Manila/Clark/Bataan, or any of the Chinese cities, my troop losses have been minimal too. So this fits in with my original plan to deliberately minimize losses.

As far as "pull-backs" and "stands" go, I have a rough set of priorities for the next several months of the war. These priorities will change as the war develops and particularly once I start a counter-offensive:

A) Bases that I'll throw everything at to keep: San Francisco and Karachi - these two bases are driving my current strategy.

B) Bases that I will fight the hardest for, but won't lose the game for: Pearl, Sidney, Bombay - I am trying to make these bases "unconquerable", but will be satisfied with causing Tophat serious losses if he invades them

C) Bases that I will fight very hard for, but will withdraw from if necessary: Anchorage, Brisbane, Colombo, Calcutta, Dacca - I am hoping to make these bases "killing zones" and am building up supporting bases

D) Bases that I will fight hard for, but will withdraw from as necessary: Tricomalee, Madras, Darwin, Townsville - I am using these bases as key staging bases, so if Tophat comes in at the "wrong time" for him he could run into a lot of opposition. But that will change from time-to-time.

E) Bases where I want to draw Tophat into a war of attrition: Lashio, Myitkyima, Imphal, Kohima, Jorhat, Dimapur - I am moving the Burmese armies into those bases, along with the Chinese troops who are assigned to Southeast Asia command.

Note the bases/regions that are "missing" from the above list. Next is some of my rationale for the bases that aren't on the list above:

- I am fighting as best as possible for the Philippines, particularly Manila/Clark/Bataan, and for Singapore, but I don't expect to be able to keep them in the long run and am not allowing reinforcements in, not putting CAP over them, and not trying to supply them.

- I am going to defend the DEI with Dutch forces. I expect to eventually lose the DEI. I am moving Dutch troops from some of the isolated Dutch bases to Timor in order to try to tie up Japanese forces there and therefore allow me to strike at them from Australia.

- I am building up the malarial Northern and Northeastern Australian bases as far as air fields and fortifications go, but I won't waste a lot of effort to try to keep any of them against a serious assault. I'd rather bomb them from the non-malarial bases.

- I've abandoned New Britain, the Solomons and PNG. If Tophat doesn't do much with them I may go back later in 1942, but they aren't a priority right now and I am much happier to have the troops from that region back in non-malarial Australia.

- I've pulled the base force out of Noumea and am sending it to Christmas Island. I have replaced it with an AVD so that I can keep Catalinas there, but can also withdraw quickly from a serious assault. I've also got the Le Triomphant there to hunt down subs and to mislead Tophat about my ship dispositions.

- I am sending supplies to New Zealand and have returned the two Kiwi cruisers to NZ, but if Tophat decides to attack NZ, the Kiwis are on their own.

- I am keeping the existing troops in the various South-central Pacific bases and re-supplying them, and I will chase enemy subs in the region and react to any limited invasion, but I won't commit my main forces to their defense, nor serious ground troops. The only change that I'm making is to put some forces into Christmas Island.

- China is on its own and I am happy to tie up Japanese forces wherever I can. But I don't intend to send Brit or AVG air units into China unless I see some really "juicy" opportunities to do a one-time surprise.

Aircraft:

- If you are wondering, all of the air units from the Philippines are in non-malarial bases in Eastern Australia. I am slowly building them up to full strength and replacing the obsolete aircraft with modern models, but only after the air units at Hawaii get first cut at both replacements and upgrades.

- I am upgrading all Wirraways that can be upgraded to Hurricanes as soon as the Hurricanes are in the replacement pool. I have no intention of giving "free kills" to the Japanese air forces. I don't care about the short range because I will be using these planes for defense for the foreseeable future, not offense.

- I am upgrading all Hudsons that can be upgraded to Beauforts. I don't care about the loss of range - I want torpedo attacks.

- Three out of four of my US carrier fighter squadrons have been upgraded to F4F-4s and the last one will be within a couple of days.

India:

I now have base force units in all coastal bases and all but three inland bases, and I have base forces on their way to those last three unoccupied bases. Many of those base forces were evacuated from Malaya. I also have combat troops or artillery units in all coastal bases and have the Indian armored units and some back up infantry divisions in strategic inland bases. I moved all of the British air units out of Malaya into India. I've changed the AVG from China Command to SEAC. All British combat ships are in Indian ports. I am going to reorganize them so that I have mutually supporting battleship-lead TFs in each key port. I have the Dutch minelayers in Indian waters, mining the Indian ports.

Dave Baranyi

[ADavidB]

January 20 -

Tophat has gotten very, very busy. His spy subs are back in the Eastern Pacific, his air force is bombing all over the Far East, he is doing naval bombardments of new targets, his land armies are attacking, and it looks like he even dropped some paratroops.

Sinkep is Tophat's next major objective (although I'm not sure why it and not something else). He hit it with a big, battleship-lead bombardment TF, and then a bunch of Japanese troops suddenly appeared there to try a shock attack on the Dutch forces there. Well, his troops got whacked 0 to 1, which ought to slow them down a bit for a while. I didn't see a fast transport sneak in, and the troops have no artillery with them, so I'm assuming that they are paratroops. If so, that's good - I'd rather have them tied down there then have them pop up somewhere that I value more.

Tophat's ground troops were much more successful in Johore Bahru where the Japanese reinforcements enabled the attack to overwhelm the defenders and push them into Singapore. On the other hand, Tophat's deliberate attack at Clark Field resulted in a 0 to 1 failure for him, although both sides took heavy losses. Elsewhere, Tophat was satisfied to continue with artillery duels. His artillery attack at Changsha was particularly effective this time - he must have a lot of artillery units there.

Tophat has also become "serious" about Tabun-Nur and added an infantry division to back up the Mongol cavalry units that were already there. This pretty much eliminates my chance to capture the base, but I'm more than happy to keep these Japanese units tied up away from my Chinese bases.

The other main action is in Burma where Tophat is moving on Mandalay finally. I moved my AVG planes out of Mandalay and have set them and the bombers in the region to attack the approaching ground unit. I want to slow it down a bit.

It wasn't all Tophat this turn. One of my Dutch subs snuck threw a ton of escorts to put a torpedo into an AP off of Northern Borneo. It's not much, but I'll take what I get…[;)]

Dave Baranyi

[ADavidB]

Here, as of January 21, 1942, are five of the key summary charts that give an indication of the state of the war and my progress towards my original objectives. Remember that my prime objective was to limit Allied losses in the early stages of the War when the Japanese have the biggest advantages.

Tophat is starting to build up a big lead in Army points as is to be expected. I've got no reasonable troops at the front which might cause him major casualties. That lead will only grow as he takes Singapore and eventually all of the Philippines. But it won't grow quite as much as he might like, because I have kept troop replacements set to "off" in both the Philippines and in Malaya. Replacements won't stop the Japanese forces and just use up supplies, so there is no reason to have them on for units that will be lost anyway. And in the case of Malaya I was able to send the Air HQs and a number of the Base Forces back to India ahead of the Japanese invasion, so they won't be around to be caught in the trap.



Note that almost half of the Allied naval losses are still due to the two BBs that were sunk at Pearl. Tophat has also sunk a number of AKs, but that isn't a big issue with me at this time - I have plenty more available. The loss of those subs hurts, but I need subs to be my key scouts so I will continue to use them as such. I now have all of my BBs in the West Coast ports. I don't intend to risk my undamaged 20-knot BBs until after they have had their first upgrades in April and the ones with serious damage from the Pearl attack won't be leaving port for a long time yet.



The key to the Air losses chart below is to consider the ratio of Air-to-Air to Ground losses, and to keep in mind that Allied air losses have been minimal after the first few days of the War. I am not challenging the Japanese air superiority at this time and won't until I can establish some local air superiority in numbers as well as having current aircraft available instead of totally obsolete aircraft. So I'm quite happy to see the Japanese operational losses and flak losses. BTW - note how no Allied level bombers are in that list - I have been very, very careful to horde them behind the lines. When I use them I want them to count!


My ability eventually contest the air against Tophat depends upon my skill at balancing the right planes with the right places and with the right pilots. In the first couple of months of the War, this means replacing hopelessly inadequate planes with acceptable planes while not losing good pilots. So I have been bringing my air units back from the fronts as much as possible to locations with sufficient supplies where the planes can receive replacement and upgraded aircraft and the pilots can be trained. But I've got to have useful planes in the Air Replacement pool to be able to fill-in the air units and allow for upgrades.

It "hurts" me to look at the chart below. I won't be in a position to use those SBDs and Dakotas for months. And I am very limited in air units that can upgrade at this time to those ever-tempting Wellingtons. Notice how many Wirraways I have in stock - I have no intention of using them as front line CAP - why waste the pilots and air points?


Here is the other view of the same info - you can see what my priorities are as far as aircraft upgrades go - I want to have the best CAP available that I can, and I want as much patrol capability as I can. I am currently using all of my heavy bomber groups on long-range patrol - it is much more important to me at this time to know what Tophat is doing than to waste bombers against his concentrated air defenses. Only my tactical bombers are being assigned to combat duties at this time, and they are all simultaneously being set to partial naval patrol.


The real "killers" at this point are the low replacement rates of P-36A Mohawks and P-40Bs. They may be second-line fighters, but I have a lot of bases in the West Coast that depend upon them and I still have "third-line" fighters around too. So it's been a balancing act to upgrade the fighter squadrons at the bases that are nearer to the front in order to backfill the fighter groups at the rear. Only recently was I able to convert the P-26A squadron in the Hawaiian Islands to P-39s, and only then by keeping replacements "off" for the P-39 units on the West Coast. And I still have one more P-26A squadron and a P-35 squadron in Australia that escaped from the Philippines. It will be several more weeks before I can upgrade them, and I then I will have to decide between using the next squadron-worth of P-40Es to upgrade those P-35s, or to first upgrade the squadron of P-36s that is in Anchorage. (Upgrading those Alaskan P-36s puts more planes into the pool for my P-36 fighter groups in the West Coast.)

So as long as Tophat continues to grab bases in the Far East and leaves India, Australia, Hawaii and the West Coast/Alaska alone for a while I will be in reasonably good shape by the time I get my next big influx of reinforcements in mid-February 1942.

Dave Baranyi

[ADavidB]

The last post was supposed to have a number of screen captures embedded in it, but it didn't work. I don't know why. I'll fool around with it a bit to see if I can get it to work...

Dave

[ADavidB]

Huh? I can only embed one picture per post? Oh well. here goes...[8|]

[ADavidB]

Okay, here are the Naval losses:

[ADavidB]

And here are the Air losses

[ADavidB]

And here is the state of the Air Pool:

[ADavidB]

And here, finally, are the planes used from the air pool...this definitely loses a lot of its immediacy...[:(]

[ADavidB]

My apologies to everyone for mucking that up - it looked much, much better when I created it as a Word document.

Dave Baranyi

[ADavidB]

January 21 -

Well, after that snafu with the embedded pictures that wouldn't embed, I'm going to hold off on pictures for a bit and try something else a bit different (for me at least).

January 21 was a fairly quiet day in many ways, although there were a couple of interesting occurrences. Tophat intensified his aerial bombardment of my troops in the Philippines, but let many of his air groups elsewhere rest. His Glen-equipped spy subs were also busy, but my forces couldn't detect them, and in the absence of the KB, I'm not going to worry about those subs too much because I still don't have a lot of naval traffic sailing around.

Three notable things happened from my perspective. First off, my air units in the Burma region took off and actually bombed that Japanese unit that is on the "Road to Mandalay". [;)]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Day Air attack on 33rd Division, at 32, 31

Allied aircraft
P-40B Tomahawk x 11

No Allied losses

Japanese ground losses:
4 casualties reported
Guns lost 1

Day Air attack on 33rd Division, at 32, 31

Allied aircraft
Blenheim IV x 18
P-40B Tomahawk x 15

No Allied losses

Japanese ground losses:
38 casualties reported
Guns lost 2
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

My IL-4Cs from China also attacked, but without any success. I want to disrupt that unit a bit - with the malaria in that region it won't recover very quickly.

The second notable occurrence was a Japanese bombardment attack at Tabun-Nur that went wrong for the Japanese:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ground combat at Tabun-Nur

Japanese Bombardment attack

Attacking force 19110 troops, 144 guns, 0 vehicles

Defending force 28338 troops, 216 guns, 0 vehicles

Japanese ground losses:
54 casualties reported
Guns lost 6
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And finally, an unplanned attack occurred:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ground combat at 51, 30

Allied Shock attack

Attacking force 18624 troops, 143 guns, 0 vehicles

Defending force 14193 troops, 184 guns, 0 vehicles

Allied assault odds: 2 to 1

Japanese ground losses:
47 casualties reported
Guns lost 2

Allied ground losses:
399 casualties reported
Guns lost 8

Defeated Japanese Units Retreating!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I didn't plan that - I had just ordered those two Chinese units to move into that hex to check out that Japanese unit. It was a road, not an atoll, so why did my units initiate a Shock Attack? Oh well, I guess I'll just have those two Chinese units follow the Japanese unit and see what mischief I can cause.

Dave Baranyi

[wobbly]

ORIGINAL: ADavidB

I didn't plan that - I had just ordered those two Chinese units to move into that hex to check out that Japanese unit. It was a road, not an atoll, so why did my units initiate a Shock Attack? Oh well, I guess I'll just have those two Chinese units follow the Japanese unit and see what mischief I can cause.

Dave Baranyi

did they cross a river getting to the hex with the enemy?

[ADavidB]

ORIGINAL: wobbly

ORIGINAL: ADavidB

I didn't plan that - I had just ordered those two Chinese units to move into that hex to check out that Japanese unit. It was a road, not an atoll, so why did my units initiate a Shock Attack? Oh well, I guess I'll just have those two Chinese units follow the Japanese unit and see what mischief I can cause.

Dave Baranyi

did they cross a river getting to the hex with the enemy?

The went into that road hex that crosses the Hwang Ho River - that's where the Japanese unit was sitting. So I guess that counts as "crossing the river".

Thanks for spotting that! [:)]

Dave Baranyi

[wobbly]

I found that out the hard way! Now I try to get as many defenders opposite rivers as I can - with some fortification. Even the chinese can meet out some nasty results to a neglectful commander with this one.

My pleasure on the heads up.

[ADavidB]

ORIGINAL: wobbly

I found that out the hard way! Now I try to get as many defenders opposite rivers as I can - with some fortification. Even the chinese can meet out some nasty results to a neglectful commander with this one.

My pleasure on the heads up.

I'm still surprised that my Chinese troops were able to kick that Japanese unit out of that hex. Interestingly enough, only one of the two Chinese units ended up with high Disruption from the attack. Regardless of that, this will soon become the fifth area in China where I am causing Tophat to tie up sizable numbers of troops. I should probably now send some troops to Nanning just to round out the picture...[:D]

Thanks again -

Dave Baranyi

[frank1970]

Only some ideas from me:
1. Why not putting some of the Phillippine fighters into China/India?
It is a very long way from Australia to India after the DEI fell and some longlegged fighters in India aren´t that useless (it is nice to protect your Wellingtons!).
2. Have you thought about a mining campaign against your opponents forward bases?
You use your subs as pickets, now let them do something usefull before you put them in their recon sectors. Remember that many small minefields are deadler than one large one.
3. It would be good to put the Dutch baseforces from useless bases into Northern Australia or into India.
4. Try to save those Dutch recon planes, they will upgrade to Recon mustangs lateron and be quite usefull.

Just my 5 cents

frank

[ADavidB]

ORIGINAL: Frank

Only some ideas from me:
1. Why not putting some of the Phillippine fighters into China/India?
It is a very long way from Australia to India after the DEI fell and some longlegged fighters in India aren´t that useless (it is nice to protect your Wellingtons!).
2. Have you thought about a mining campaign against your opponents forward bases?
You use your subs as pickets, now let them do something usefull before you put them in their recon sectors. Remember that many small minefields are deadler than one large one.
3. It would be good to put the Dutch baseforces from useless bases into Northern Australia or into India.
4. Try to save those Dutch recon planes, they will upgrade to Recon mustangs lateron and be quite usefull.

Just my 5 cents

frank

1 - I usually find that I am more short of relatively good fighters in Australia than in India. I do have the AVG in India, as well the Brit and Australian fighters from Malaya. And in the long run, what will decide India's fate, if Tophat decides to attack it, will be the ground troops and the naval forces that I have there. As my game against PzB showed, air power can't stop LCUs and naval bombardments.

As far as China goes - Tophat has to worry about my land forces taking over his bases - he doesn't have the luxury right now of doing a strategic air campaign against me.

I'm more interested in protecting my bases (providing CAP) than engaging in strategic bombing in India/Burma in 1942, so Hurricanes and Spitfires will meet my needs nicely, and having the AVG is a bonus.

2 - I have been planting mines at his bases - notice how much they have done so far? Neither have I...( [:(] ) Right now I feel that my subs are generally more valuable as pickets, not as minelayers.

3 - I am re-locating some of the Dutch forces closer to Australia - but I don't want nor need them in India or Australia right now. And by doing this it means that Tophat can't cut the DEI off from Australia by simply fast-tranporting in a handful of troops to the empty bases in between.

4 - The Dutch recon planes are still doing their jobs, which is to provide naval search patrols - I find them quite useful for that. I'll save whatever is savable when the time comes.

Thanks for the comments -

Dave Baranyi

[ADavidB]

January 22 -

Borneo is Tophat's main target now. He sent another big bombardment TF, including 5 BBs, to hit Tarakan, and started to land troops at Brunei. But maybe he should have sent a few of those ships from the Tarakan TF to hit Brunei too - the incoming transport TF hit a mine, had a gun duel with the Coastal Defense, then one of the landed units decided to retreat to Jesselton without even being seriously engaged with my troops. And my LBA flew in to hit one of the APs in the invasion TF. Realistically, Brunei won't last long, but its defenders are still causing Tophat some headaches. Nearby, Tophat started to unload some troops at Puerto Princesa. There's no one home there, so he will grab that next turn.

The other fronts were fairly quiet with the exception of China, where we continue to fight artillery duels. Tophat's shear numbers of troops are starting to suppress my guns, but it is taking him a lot of units to accomplish this. For example, Tophat now has 6 units (1 infantry division and 5 Mongolian cavalry divisions) at Tabun-Nur. I did notice in the Sigint report that a Mortar unit is planning an attack at Wochow, so I'll get to tie up more of his units in that region.

Dave Baranyi

[ADavidB]

January 23 -

Tophat gained his first major victory in China today as his forces finally captured Yenen. I'm surprised that my forces there held out as long as they did. It now appears that Tophat is trying to sneak around to the North and isolate my forces, so I'll probably have to call off my siege of Tabun-Nur. Tophat's forces also occupied Puerto Princesa and Mandalay. Tophat seemed surprised that I didn't try to defend Mandalay, particularly since it is in a river hex. But none of my ground troops in that region are really up to holding off the big Japanese divisions in the area. The only question now is will my Chinese troops be able to make it forward before Tophat moves into the next bases. I'll now move my aerial bombardments to Mandalay to try to slow Tophat down as well as keep him from using the air fields.

Elsewhere, the main action was again off of Borneo. More of Tophat's troops retreated from Brunei - gawd knows why… And my Dutch subs and planes hit several of Tophat's APs off of Northern Borneo, sinking two of them. That's nice - every little bit helps. His ASW did find the range on one of my subs, however, and I'm not certain if it will make it back to port.

Meanwhile, my "Buildup in the Boonies" continued as planned, other than it seems that the replacement rate for some types of aircraft has stagnated. I don't know if replacement aircraft are being diverted to fill out new groups that are due in the next couple of weeks or what.

Dave Baranyi

[ADavidB]

January 24 -

The KB is back! My picket line of subs is paying off already. The Gudgeon was sitting northmost in the line of submarines, about halfway between Midway and Kiska Island, when it was first spotted by a Val, then hit by a Kate. So I've called an orange alert for the Hawaiian Islands and Alaska and a yellow alert for the West Coast, and started to divert task forces southwards. Fortunately, I don't have any task forces in the northern routes between the West Coast and Hawaii/Midway, only submarines. I've also emptied Pearl of non-combat ships. I'll leave my combat ships in port for a day or two more until I have a better idea of where the KB is headed. This is a pain, but not a disaster.

Back in the West-Central Pacific I got a bit of a surprise - a Kate attacked one of my subs which was sitting just to the west of Palau. Does Tophat have a carrier group in Palau too? This bears watching. It would be nice if Tophat split the KB - I would love to catch up to a part of it. [;)]

At the same time, off of the north coast of Borneo, my Dutch subs emptied their torpedo tubes again into an AK and an AP. While they are off to reload a couple of my US subs will get to see if they are equally lucky.

In other action, I continued with my aerial bombing of Mandalay, and Tophat kept up his air attacks in China, the Philippines and the DEI. And in the ground combat war, Tophat finally captured Changsha and Sinkep. Once again, I was quite happy with the efforts by my troops at Changsha. Surprisingly, Tophat hasn't moved any troops into Singapore yet, nor has he started a bombing campaign. And, oddly enough, he hasn't at Manila either.

In my strategic resource reallocation effort; with Tophat's CVs thousands of miles off to the East, my forces in India continued to sail around in peace, other than occasionally being shadowed by some long range search planes. Tophat also sent a couple of subs into the Bay of Bengal, but they haven't shown up yet. So I will continue to monitor Tophat's progress while I await my next big delivery of reinforcements in another 19 days.

Dave Baranyi