Tophat vs ADavidB - Back at It

[ADavidB]

March 9 -

Palembang finally fell today. Tophat had been flying in supplies to his troops (a Topsy crashed on the way) and they were able to drive my troops out at long last. I wonder if my engineers were able to damage the facilities? (Is there any way to tell as the Allies?)

Elsewhere, Tophat sent bombers in against Singapore as I expected. Still, it is better than having 100,000 troops at the gates. The only ground attack that Tophat tried this turn was at Kungchang where his troops ended up with another 0:1 result and three times the casualties of my Chinese troops. Better yet, the Japanese lost a lot of guns too. And I have more troops next door and may still be able to cut Tophat's troops off from their supply lines.

In the naval war, a Japanese sub, the I-15, ambushed a transport TF in the shipping lanes between California and Hawaii and hit a tanker quite hard. But the escorts caught up to the sub and eventually sank it. Tophat has several more subs in the Line Islands area that I've spotted and I am sending ASW TFs after them.

Dave Baranyi

[tabpub]

ORIGINAL: ADavidB
I wonder if my engineers were able to damage the facilities? (Is there any way to tell as the Allies?)

Um, you can hover your cursor over the base, or better yet, if you have bombers in range, select city attack and see on that screen what the situation at Palembang is.

[ADavidB]

ORIGINAL: tabpub

ORIGINAL: ADavidB
I wonder if my engineers were able to damage the facilities? (Is there any way to tell as the Allies?)

Um, you can hover your cursor over the base, or better yet, if you have bombers in range, select city attack and see on that screen what the situation at Palembang is.

When I move my cursur over Palembang, I get the following information now that the Japanese have control of it:

Value to Japan - 22(2)
Value to Allies - 11(1)
Port - 3(1)
Air - 4(2)
Manpower - 3(0)
Resources - 902(0)
Oil - 702(0)

So does this mean that he got the resources and oil pretty much intact? And where do I find the equivalent numbers for the bases that I control?

Thanks -

Dave Baranyi

[Alikchi2]

I believe that Palembang produces 900 oil when undamaged. So you did hurt it, but not too badly...

[ADavidB]

ORIGINAL: Alikchi

I believe that Palembang produces 900 oil when undamaged. So you did hurt it, but not too badly...

I'll keep an eye out on the other bases that are about to fall and see if I can tell what happens to them.

Thanks -

Dave Baranyi

[tabpub]

ORIGINAL: Alikchi

I believe that Palembang produces 900 oil when undamaged. So you did hurt it, but not too badly...

No, it makes 700. It is undamaged. In order to check your own bases, you have to open the base screen and click on one of the industry/resource icons on the bottom. As I said before, the best way to check enemy held bases is to go to the city attack targetting screen and see what it says there, if you have the aircraft in range.

[ADavidB]

ORIGINAL: tabpub

ORIGINAL: Alikchi

I believe that Palembang produces 900 oil when undamaged. So you did hurt it, but not too badly...

No, it makes 700. It is undamaged. In order to check your own bases, you have to open the base screen and click on one of the industry/resource icons on the bottom. As I said before, the best way to check enemy held bases is to go to the city attack targetting screen and see what it says there, if you have the aircraft in range.

Okay - I'll try that.

Thanks -

Dave Baranyi

[ADavidB]

The following shows the availability of my battleships. As you can see, I have five "20-knot" American BBs and five Brit BBs ready for action. Three of those five US BBs are due for upgrades on April 1. (Those other US BBs that were damaged at Pearl won't be upgrading, nor be available for a long time yet.)

I'm keeping my BBs in defensive positions so that I can stop any serious Japanese invasions, if Tophat ever pulls his BBs out of the DEI. Once I get the April upgrades I may well send those three US BBs to Hawaii to participate in the defense there - I'll have plenty of air cover in Hawaii by then, along with at least 4 working air bases.

Dave Baranyi

[ADavidB]

March 10 -

Tophat continues his methodical approach to advancing in the DEI and Northern New Guinea. He sent a bombardment TF in to hit Singhawang and started to land troops at Biak. He also sent the usual numbers of bombers out to bomb various bases in the DEI, Philippines and China. All of his land attacks this time were artillery bombardments.

My forces didn't do much either. Some planes from Java attempted to attack a Japanese transport TF off of Palembang, but without success. Tophat had Oscars on LR CAP for that TF. Surprisingly enough, Tophat hasn't been using his Zeros as LR CAP. Of course, against my Dutch planes he really doesn't have too… <L>

That tanker of mine that was torpedoed off of California a turn or two ago sank. Tophat's subs have been doing a good job with their torpedoes; only a couple of ships that have been hit by Japanese torpedoes have made it safely to port.

My build up continues as planned in all regions. Tophat is pretty much leaving me alone, which is probably a poor strategy on his part. If he does end up coming out to check out beyond the current front lines he will find a lot of well rested forces. But I'm not complaining, it's not Summer yet, so I am still at risk in a number of areas.

Dave Baranyi

[ADavidB]

March 11 -

First the first time in quite a while Japanese Air units flew against Java, and it wasn't pretty for the Dutch. I was wondering last time where Tophat's Zeros had gotten to - now I know. Twenty-seven Zeros escorted seventeen Betties against Batavia. My recently recovered Brewsters were wiped out and the Betties pounded the base fairly hard, including getting a hit on a PT boat that was docked there, sinking it. In contrast my Dutch pilots seem to have lost their "touch" as a couple of attacks went out against a transport TF but no one got any hits.

There was the usual heavy bombing by the Japanese in a number of other places, and the Japanese Army got to work, capturing Biak and reducing the fortifications at Manila to zero, although the combat result was still 0:1 and Tophat's forces took a lot of casualties. I suspect that time is just about up for Manila.

My bombers didn't take off for Mandalay this turn. I didn't notice clouds, but they still didn't fly. Maybe Tophat has too many fighters on CAP. And I'm going to try the B-17Es over Amboina again this turn. We'll see if they can find the mark and maybe also shoot down a few Zeros. BTW - I still have a B-17C squadron around. I'm using them for long range patrol. I'm going to leave them as such until I start to get some "interesting" candidates for bombing.

Dave Baranyi

[ADavidB]

March 12 -

This was a rather chippy turn, with Tophat pushing in many directions and my forces trying to push back, albeit much less successfully. To start off, Tophat sent his big five-battleship combat TF to bombard Kai Island. He succeeded in shooting it up rather badly and destroying all of the supply there. I'm going to try to fly in some supply to allow the planes to be repaired. Then the Dutch Blasters ran out of luck as they were shot up by the escorts of the transport fleet that was sitting in Palembang harbor. One of the Dutch PTs was sunk and the other hit nothing. However, later on during the daylight hours my bombers in Java did take off and attacked several Japanese transport TFs, hitting and setting on fire an AK and a DD.

My Blenheim IVs didn't fly again - I guess that their pilots are "made of sugar" and are afraid to go out in the rain. My B-17Es did fly to Amboina and claimed a Zero shot down, but they didn't achieve anything as far as the bombing mission goes, so they are being put back on air patrol.

Amongst other activities, Tophat started to land troops at Emirau, told me that he has sent fresh troops to Manila, and my SIGINT told me that he is sending fresh engineers to Mersing - undoubtedly to prepare for a renewed attack on Singapore.

All of the ground combat consisted of artillery duels. I'm pretty certain that Tophat will take Manila very soon, so I finally pulled out my good leaders from the LCUs in Manila and replaced them with my poorest Army leaders. This may well hasten the fall of Manila, but in reality there isn't anything more I could do to hold it much longer anyway. So, for example, General Short will get to surrender the troops at Manila. [&o]

And for the good news, there are only two more days until I get my next big round of reinforcements.

Dave Baranyi

[ADavidB]

So Tophat and I have been at war for just over three months and I've been following a strategy of deliberately husbanding my forces. Let's see how well this is working out for aircraft. First, Fighters. So far, so good, I've built up some nice full units. P-40Bs are still a bit of a problem.

Dave Baranyi

[ADavidB]

Now for fighter bombers. And there is one group of P-39s that isn't showing here because it is sailing on some transports and thus shows up in the "Naval Air" table. ([&:])

Dave Baranyi

[ADavidB]

Finally, level bombers. Note that I am going for a diverse mix and full groups rather than trying to focus on one main type.

Dave Baranyi





Note - the "damaged" planes are due to those air units being recently moved, not due to combat.

[ADavidB]

March 13 -

My Blenheim IF night fighters finally accomplished something - they destroyed an Oscar on the ground at Mandalay. But my Blenheim IV bombers refused to fly again, which was a real lost opportunity because Tophat has reduced the number of fighters in Mandalay. However, since my IL-4c bombers attacked Mandalay from China Tophat will be warned and probably put more fighters back in for next time.

The rest of the air war was all Tophat. His air units continued to bomb all the usual places: Singapore, China, Luzon and the DEI. My Dutch bombers didn't go after any Japanese naval targets. And the ground war was again a matter of artillery duels, with the exception of Tophat's capture of Emirau Island off of New Britain. He is still taking a fairly laissez faire approach to the New Guinea, the Bismarck Archipelago and the Solomon Islands.

However, something is brewing in Tophat's mind in the Central Pacific. SIGINT just informed me that Tophat has over 85,000 troops in Ponape. Hmmm - What does he intend to do with them? Will he send them to the Southwest, to the South, to the Southeast or even due East? That quantity of troops suggests at least two full divisions and associated support, and maybe even three divisions. And the KB has been very "conspicuous by its absence". But seven of Tophat's battleships and a lot of his heavy cruisers are still busy at work in the DEI, so if he launches an attack on any of my bases he will do so with only a fraction of his surface combat capability.

If I am right and Tophat is really preparing two or three divisions in Ponape for an invasion, I don't have the forces right now in the South Central Pacific to stop him. And I won't be prepared to face the KB until mid-to-late April at the earliest. So if Tophat attacks any of the outer island bases in the Central or South Central Pacific in the next few game weeks I will have to sit back and watch.

However, if he were to attempt to attack Hawaii, I would probably be able to cause him a lot of damage. I now have three infantry divisions, two armoured battalions, two artillery regiments and lots of support in Pearl Harbor. As well, I have a base force, a CD unit, an AA unit, an engineering unit and an RCT in each of Lahina, Hilo and Kona. I also have over 400 aircraft spread across the four bases - half bombers and the other half fighters and fighter bombers. I have more fighter bombers and bombers on the way, along with the first units heading for Molokai. So in another week I will have my fifth airbase being set up in the Hawaiian Islands. And, oh yes, I have plenty of combat ships in Hawaiian ports.

And yet I haven't stripped the West Coast or Alaska bare. I still have the 2nd Marines, two Central Pacific infantry divisions and all of the West Coast Units in place along the West coast bases, along with half of the Pacific Fleet. So I'm not worried about an invasion of the West Coast. And all of the Northern Pacific units are in Anchorage or nearby, along with a nice "surprise" if Tophat happens to decide to go into the Aleutians.

On the other side of the World, the 2nd UK Division arrived at Karachi and will be immediately shipped to Trimcomalee. Both big Brit infantry divisions will then be in Ceylon and I will continue to spread my other Brit units around India. What I'm really looking forward to receiving in this theatre are the Brit and Indian engineering units that are due soon. I have plenty of bases that I want to build up quickly and I need all the help that I can get.

Dave Baranyi

[ADavidB]

March 14 -

All of the action has been in the Far East recently. I'm not even getting submarine reports in the Central and Eastern Pacific. Has Tophat pulled back his subs? Is he planning an attack in the Eastern Pacific and doesn't want to telegraph it? Or has he sent his forces into the pretty much vacant South Pacific? I guess I'll find out sooner or later, but it still feels odd.

Never-the-less, there was sufficient action in the Far East to keep me busy micromanaging my forces. That lone Dutch Blaster went into Palembang harbor at night and scared off the transport TF that was sitting there, but the TF came back during the day and one of the AVs in the TF shot the Dutch PT out of the water. At the same time, my bombers in Java flew against a number of naval targets but only achieved one hit on an AP near Balikpapan. Tophat has a number of TFs in the DEI and it appears that he intends to use them soon. For example, Japanese troops started to land at Noemfoor today while Mussau was occupied by osmosis in the Bismarks. Tophat is slowly but surely expanding his lines.

My Blenheim IVs finally took off to hit Mandalay today and were escorted by a contingent from the AVG. A number of Oscars rose to meet the incoming attack - the Tomahawks shot down three Oscars and the bombers damaged a number more. But despite the large number of bombers (67 flew in) the combination of altitude (I had them at 20,000 feet), interference from the Oscars (3 bombers were shot down) and the presence of heavy cloud cover meant that they achieved no hits.

However, to my great surprise, I noticed that Tophat has pulled back most of his fighters from Mandalay. I'm not sure why - maybe he expects me to rest my bombers. (Which was exactly what I was planning to do.) But now that I've seen that there are only 10 fighters in Mandalay, I'm sending the Blenheim IVs back in at a lower altitude to see if they can do some damage this time.

Back in the DEI, Tophat sent a big Zero sweep against Batavia that wiped out most of my Demons there. But as long as the base is operable I will continue to move Dutch fighters around and attempt to hit some of the transports that are swarming in the region.

BTW - I got the third British CV today, along with another BB. I would definitely welcome a Japanese foray into the Bay of Bengal at this point in time. [;)]

Dave Baranyi

[ADavidB]

March 15 -

This turn started out very nicely as one of my S-boats put two torpedoes into a tanker that was departing Kendari. Then my air attack on Mandalay finally worked well, despite the fact that my recon intelligence was off and there were more Oscars there than reported. Never-the-less, my P-40Bs took care of the CAP and the Blenheim IVs did a creditable job of bombing the airfield. But I'm not trying this trick a third day in a row, despite the fact that most of my bombers and fighters are still in good shape. First off, Tophat tried a Zero sweep of Imphal, but his fighters couldn't find the target. Then I noticed that the numbers of fighters in Mandalay went up substantially. So this appears to be a good example where "discretion is the better part of valor" holds quite true.

While trying to occupy some of Tophat's planes and troops in Burma, I am also trying to sneak individual transports full of supplies into various ports on the Indian Ocean side of Sumatra and Java in order to help the troops there last longer. This turn the transport at Padang was discovered, after which some Nells and Zeros from Palembang tried to attack but missed. I'm astounded at this - usually Japanese torpedo bombers always get hits. I kept on feeling that if instead of a transport had been a carrier or a battleship there those Nells wouldn't have missed…<L>

In land action Tophat kept up his bombardments, with the exception of a deliberate attack that captured Noemfoor. I wonder why he is waiting so long again to try to take Manila?

In the "reinforcement war", the types and quantities of US replacement aircraft continue to cause me to change my upgrade plans on the fly. For example, a few game-days ago the 46th Fighter Squadron re-appeared after having been disbanded subsequent to the Pearl Harbor attack. The squadron came back with zero planes because it was scheduled to get P-40Bs. Fortunately, I was very close to having 24 P-40Es available, so today I reached the "magic number" and was able to upgrade the squadron. Now I'll have to wait another couple of weeks to have enough P-40Es again to upgrade another existing P-40B squadron so that I can have some P-40Bs in the replacement pools.

Dave Baranyi

BTW - to give you an idea of the scale of things at this point, here is the combat report for the Mandalay raid:

Day Air attack on Mandalay , at 33,30

Japanese aircraft
Ki-43-Ib Oscar x 26

Allied aircraft
Blenheim IV x 52
P-40B Tomahawk x 15

Japanese aircraft losses
Ki-43-Ib Oscar: 6 destroyed, 5 damaged

Allied aircraft losses
Blenheim IV: 1 destroyed, 6 damaged
P-40B Tomahawk: 2 destroyed, 3 damaged

Japanese ground losses:
22 casualties reported
Guns lost 1

Airbase hits 1
Airbase supply hits 3
Runway hits 19

This is the biggest air battle we've had to date.

Dave

[Speedysteve]

Hi Dave,

Forgive me if you have mentioned this before but what do you intend to do with your CV's? Keep them in West Coast ports? Noumea? etc

Regards,

Steven

[ADavidB]

March 16 -

Tophat continues to be busy in the Far East. His forces occupied Butung Island, southeast of Kendari, via "osmosis" and started to land troops at Wasile which is northwest of New Guinea. He also has troops marching from Tarakan to Samarinda where all of my troops from Tarakan and Balikpapan have gathered for a last stand. It is interesting that Tophat has decided to march his troops instead of landing them from ships - by doing this he is exposing his troops to more effects from malaria. And Tophat may be sending a small TF to Bulla, which is the other base on the island where Amboina is located. My survivors from Amboina are either at Bulla or headed there.

I find Tophat's invasion strategy a bit odd, but I'm not going to tell him that. [;)] In the Philippines Tophat has not invaded Iloilo or Cebu - I have troops at both bases. But he hasn't invaded Guiuan, Tacloban or Ormoc either, and I don't have forces there. In Borneo, in addition to still holding Samarinda, I also still hold Singkaweng, Banjamasin and Sanpit on the West Coast, but don't have any troops in Sanpit. On Sumatra Tophat still only holds Jambi and Palembang and he hasn't attempted a landing on Java yet. Despite this Tophat has nearly reached parity with me as far as victory points go - and as soon as he captures Manila he will go well ahead of me.

Speaking of Manila, Tophat continues to have problems there - and I have no idea why. His planes bomb it and his artillery bombard it every day. My troops are deep in the red as far as supplies go, and I pulled out my better leaders recently. Yet when Tophat's forces attempted a deliberate attack this turn against a fortification level of zero, they still got a 0:1 result and equal casualties. SIGINT tells me that Tophat has the 4th Division sailing on the way to Naga - I guess that he hopes that "fresh blood" may finally make the difference.

The stalemate continues at several locations in China too. I added to the entanglement by moving three Chinese units back into that crossroads hex between Changsha and Hengchow. Of course, since it is a "river" hex my units had to do a shock attack at bad odds, but Tophat had already moved all but one of the units that were in that hex to Hengchow, so my troops survived and stayed in place. This should now cut down on the supply flow to Tophat's troops in Hengchow. On order to drive my troops out of that hex Tophat will have to weaken his defences at Changsha, and if he does I'll send troops back to there. [:D]

The air war was pretty quiet this turn as I was resting my bombers everywhere but in China. Tophat tried a sweep of Batavia with 27 Zeros, but Sorry Charlie - nobody was home. <g> Tophat also put a ton of additional fighters into Mandalay, so I set all of my bombers in that region back to "naval attack/naval search". Tophat doesn't have any ships in the Bay of Bengal, so this just means rest for my pilots.

In the reinforcement war, I am moving a few troops from here to there, but not a lot at this moment. Most of my forces are where I want them to be. I will get a few more reinforcements in two week's time, and will receive my next big quota of reinforcements in a month's time. Since I am sticking to my "Backwater Build-Up" plan, this isn't a problem for me. Oh yes, I've also got most of my ships in position to take advantage of the April 1942 upgrades too.

Once those April upgrades are in place the temptation for me will be to consider having some US forces go west to "snoop" around the situation in the DEI. It would be nice to find some "easy pickings" to practice on, or even a bombardment TF that is outside of air cover. We'll just have to see how the next few game-weeks unfold.

Dave Baranyi

[ADavidB]

ORIGINAL: Speedy

Hi Dave,

Forgive me if you have mentioned this before but what do you intend to do with your CV's? Keep them in West Coast ports? Noumea? etc

Regards,

Steven

Currently I have my US CVs in various ports in the Eastern Pacific and my Brit CVs in Ceylon and vacinity. I'm trying to leave them in position to get behind any major invasion in either area. I'm also leaving the three US carriers that are due for the April upgrade in ports with shipyards so that they can get those upgrades right away.

My plan is to not engage the Japanese forces until I have upgraded my ships significantly as well as have large numbers of "modern" aircraft where I want them. I am hoping to draw Tophat into committing his forces against one of my heavily defended areas, engage him with LBA and surface combat ships, then come around from the back to hit his supply and/or transport ships.

This means that I am reinforcing and building up areas where I can have multiple mutually-defending bases with lots of supply and firepower at hand. At this stage of the game that means the US West Coast, the Hawaiian Islands, South Eastern Australia and the Bay of Bengal. Everywhere else is expendable, although I will do my best to hinder Tophat's progress or ambush him with local forces.

Tophat seems a bit frustrated by his lack of progress in the Phillipines, Singapore, China and even the DEI to an extent. I'm hoping that frustration turns into impatience and he makes a mistake or two.

As I mentioned in my March 16 report, once I've got the April ship upgrades in place I may well send some forces to the west if I feel I can get some "cheap hits" in with little or no risk. But since I don't know where the KB is located, and I do know that Tophat has at least 300,000 troops in the Central Pacific, I'm not in too much of a hurry to split my forces at this time.

I am essentially comparing my progress against a "May 1 Start" and although there are six game-weeks left to meet that date, I am pleased with how things are stacking up for me. When I finally face Tophat in a serious manner I want to hit him hard enough to shake him.

Thanks for the comments -

Dave Baranyi