Tophat vs ADavidB - Back at It

[ADavidB]

ORIGINAL: tabpub

One of your observations is wrong: "taking the top unit from a stack" does not "wipe out" the fortifications there. Take the time to look at each individiual unit in a stack, in the upper left hand corner under the name it will state that units fortification level. The value that you see in the ground unit list screen is the approximate average of the units in the hex, which I believe is weighted as to the size of the units also. As in a Chinese division at fort 6 and a Chinese corps at fort 1 will result in an overall fort level of 1 or 2.

Now, one important thing to remember is not to order these units to move, even if you later change them back to defend later during that same orders phase. I seem to remember that the unit fortification went to zero, as soon as it was given orders. I might be wrong on this one

As to the other statement about the "empty" HQ, there are other potential things happening there. One, range of guns is a big factor. I have been on the end of many Japanese bombardments where he has more 'guns' shooting than I do, yet I suffer no casualties and he does. Why? I have 105 howitzers now, not the old 75's that you start with.
Two, when you as the attacker see your bombardments doing less you should....ATTACK. The targets that have been hit by the bombardment are now mainly disabled and will contribute virtually nothing to the defense and will be more easily destroyed in the attack. I will have to admit that this is still a "working theory" and have not had the opportunity to try it out myself.
Three, units that are low on supply that are doing bombardments don't do much; perhaps the bombardment units are not fully supplied and/or are disrupted/fatigued..

Ah, that is good information. I had assumed that the fortification was the fortification of the whole stack, not the individual units. So in essence this means that each unit is treated separately, not as a group. That's good to know. (And is consistant with the other goofy things in the ground combat routines. I don't like it nor agree with it, but now that I know how it works I'll figure out some way to work within it.)

Tophat has tried the "Attack" bit when the bombardment results go down, with unfortunate results on his part when only the HQ has been wiped out. If the rest of the units are in good shape and supplied the results are favorable to the defender. Never-the-less, the attacker is rarely "punished" for bad attacks as much as it should be.

Thanks for the comments - they were helpful and useful.

Dave Baranyi

[tabpub]

You're welcome; good luck out there and keep your head down.

[ADavidB]

May 17 -

Tophat caught on to my withdrawal from the crossroads south of Homan and did a deliberate attack this turn. But only three of my units were still there, leaving the rest in reasonable shape as they withdraw. It is also fortunate for me that Tophat didn't have "shock attack - pursue" set instead of "deliberate attack". This gave me a bit of a breather space. In any event, with what I have learned I am changing my strategy in China a bit and hopefully I'll be able to tie Tophat down better now that I understand more of the stranger nuances of the ground game.

Elsewhere, Tophat's forces captured Djokjakarta this turn. He still hasn't sent any troops up to Soerabaja yet. He did send a Zero Daitai on a sweep over Soerabaja. He can't seem to believe that I won't send aircraft into there. Well, for one, I don't have many aircraft that can reach Soerabaja anymore. And anyway, why would I bother? It's not like I can suddenly put a group of Corsairs in there.

Tophat also sent a bunch of Nells and Zeros after Lae again. They hit the Port again, but that's okay, the Argo is long gone. I don't care if Tophat bombs Lae into the Stone Age - it will save me the trouble. [;)]

The one thing that did work out for me was my plan with the B-17s. As I expected, Tophat's Zeros were fatigued and the B-17 crews caught them as they should:

Day Air attack on Koepang, at 28, 77

Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 5

Allied aircraft
PBY Catalina x 2
B-17E Fortress x 14

Japanese aircraft losses
A6M2 Zero: 1 destroyed, 2 damaged

Allied aircraft losses
B-17E Fortress: 1 damaged

Aircraft Attacking:
11 x B-17E Fortress bombing at 25000 feet
3 x B-17E Fortress bombing at 25000 feet

Sure, the B-17s didn't do any damage on the ground, but they did let Tophat know that he doesn't totally own the air with his Zeros. [;)]

Dave Baranyi

[Speedysteve]

Hi Dave,

I have been examining ground bombardments of late.

In one of my games vs Fabertong I have been examining a series of battles closely. We are locked at death's door at Myitkyina with roughly even forces - British vs Japanese. Both sides have separate artillery battalions. At the start of the battle both sides caused bombardments casualties in the 100-300 range. Now 3 weeks later both of us bombarding are lucky to cause 100 casualties. In time I can see this decreasing to almost 10-20 casualties per day.

Regards,

Steven

[ADavidB]

ORIGINAL: Speedy

Hi Dave,

I have been examining ground bombardments of late.

In one of my games vs Fabertong I have been examining a series of battles closely. We are locked at death's door at Myitkyina with roughly even forces - British vs Japanese. Both sides have separate artillery battalions. At the start of the battle both sides caused bombardments casualties in the 100-300 range. Now 3 weeks later both of us bombarding are lucky to cause 100 casualties. In time I can see this decreasing to almost 10-20 casualties per day.

Regards,

Steven

That's the same effect that I've been seeing, except when I bring in fresh troops to replace the one or two worn out units the casualties skyrocket again.

The "immoral" of this story is - if you want to negate your opponent's bombardments, leave that HQ with "0" support units in it in the "stack" with the rest...

(What can I say, it's just the way the game works...)

Thanks -

Dave Baranyi

[ADavidB]

May 18 -

This was a pretty quiet turn. I'm not certain as to the reason that Tophat's aerial attacks have dropped off so much recently:

- He's upgrading his planes?
- He can't train his pilots any higher?
- He's getting rained in everywhere just like me?

In any event, this has been particularly good for my troops in China who need a decent rest. What really surprises me though is that Tophat hasn't started a serious bombing campaign at Soerabaja. He sent a Zero Daitai on a sweep again today - "rotsa ruck" - he must be expecting me to be sending my P-40Bs in there to protect against his bombers. That, of course, makes no sense to me at all - I would just lose lots of P-40Bs. I'll let all that AA that I've accumulated at Soerabaja do the shooting for me.

My retreating land units are reaching Homan unmolested by Tophat. Homan is already at level 7 fortifications so the additional troops will only help to build that up. I'm also just gotten another good infantry unit into Hengchow, so the battle will drag out there even more.

SIGINT informed me that the Japanese 2nd Tank Regiment is still sitting at Mandalay. I guess he is leaving it there to "protect" the base. But I have no intention of sending troop back into Burma - in fact almost all of the combat troops that were in Burma are now in Asansol, resting up, lowering fatigue, building up, and becoming a very big part of my defensive plan for India. It hasn't taken long to accumulate well over a 1000 attack points there and it just keeps on growing. And that's with spreading out plenty of other combat units throughout the rest of India.

In other build-up news, Anchorage is now both a level 9 Port and a level 9 airfield. And the fortifications are over 6 and climbing. Once the forts hit 9 I'm sending my engineers "down the line" to help speed up the other bases. I've sent all Northern Command units to Anchorage so it is a force to be contended with now. If Tophat decides to move into the Aleutians I can cause him some serious grief, and if he doesn't, the Kuriles will look very tempting once the "warm" season comes around again in 1943.

Less than two weeks to go until June comes with its upgrades and new units. I'll finally get Spitfires. I'm going to husband the Spits in the same way that I am husbanding my other planes. I'll take my time changing the Brit Buffalos to Spits and make certain that I build up a replacement buffer. My buffer of P-40Es is starting to look nice and I only need 10 more P-40Bs to fill up my last group and then I will start to "bank" P-40Bs also. And, of course, it's nice to know that I have hundreds of P-39s "in the bank" along with even more F4F-4s. If those Dutchboys in Soerabaja can hold out another month I ought to be in very good shape for the Summer of 1942.

Dave Baranyi

[ADavidB]

May 19 -

This was another fairly quiet turn. Clouds showed up over almost every base that had a unit from either side. Tophat was able to occupy Madioen essentially by marching in to it - he didn't have to attack it. Tophat still hasn't attacked Soerabaja. He is keeping his troops away for now. He did send a Zero Daitai in on another sweep, but I still don't have any planes there other than a few of those ridiculously short-ranged Dutch scout biplanes.

If Tophat wants to keep things quiet for now, I am more than happy to oblige him. I don't get another good set of reinforcements for almost four weeks, so I'm pretty busy just organizing what I have.

One place that ought to see action soon is Homan. Tophat is sending a bunch of his troops up the road after the place. My troops have all gotten in behind the fortifications so they are preparing to make a stand there. I wonder if Tophat will try a quick shock attack when he arrives or if he will go back to artillery duels. I guess I'll find out soon enough.

Dave Baranyi

[Rob Brennan UK]

Thanks for taking the time to reply. yes i'm paranoid about india too after reading Pzb's AAR .. as you know only too well

Is west coast really under threat ? as allied player i practically denude the place, even move the canadians down and send them to india through the back door. the canadian brigades aren't bad.

I dont think he'll come back to hawaii by now. but it never hurts to have a good defence which i see you are preparing very well imo.

Java will be interesting ( havnt read down yet so i may be out of kilter with events , this is one fast AAR ). I find that the dutch brigades are pretty good if defending huge walls. is ABDA hq based there and prepped for it ? she can be 9 hexes away and still help especially with a good commander. Its a unit that is worth saving if poss.

After Java its open season for Japan, many many options which i think you have well covered as you can given the limited troops this early.

Id forgotten about the river at singers , makes sense now. still its a daft rule once troops are over it. surely Matrix are aware of bridgeheads [;)]

regarding your comments on arty bombardments and i would assume a similar mechanic for ground attack a/c / i have a similar sit in mandalay but reversed when one jap div is a mess and the rest are fine and dandy, definately a problem. doent the manual say that the most dangerous/highest assault unit is targetted first? or am i imagining things. Kind of makes a mockery of bombing cut off units to deplete them. this really needs looking at, tweaking target priorities or just rotating troops round a stack would solve it partially.

Good luck with the war !

[ADavidB]

May 20 -

For the past couple of game-weeks Tophat has been only using his dedicated artillery units in his daily bombardments of Hengchow. Of course, this is to rest up his infantry units for an assault. Well, the assault came today:

Ground combat at Hengchow

Japanese Deliberate attack

Attacking force 161637 troops, 1595 guns, 6 vehicles

Defending force 106579 troops, 569 guns, 0 vehicles

Japanese engineers reduce fortifications to 8

Japanese assault odds: 0 to 1 (fort level 8)

Japanese ground losses:
6026 casualties reported
Guns lost 152
Vehicles lost 4

Allied ground losses:
2270 casualties reported
Guns lost 38

So I've ordered my engineers to start to rebuild the fortifications. I'm satisfied with the results, but not with the aftermath - thanks to the brain-dead artillery rules my 500 remaining artillery pieces didn't fire against the Japanese because they were outnumbered 3 to 1. [8|]

In Eastern China Tophat is holding back his 14 units one hex south of Homan, which is all right with me because my units in Homan are continuing to settle into the base, increase the fortifications and take on replacements.

In the DEI Tophat still hasn't moved any ground units up to Soerabaja. Again this turn he sent a Zero Daitai on a sweep but again I didn't have any fighters there. Tophat then sent in a squadron of Nells at 26,000 feet. The Nells avoided my AA but also only got two runway hits. With all the engineers and supplies that I have in Soerabaja Tophat will need to do a lot better than that. It appears that he will be satisfied with trading off the time it takes to prepare his troops for the assault on Soerabaja. He commented that the Dutch troops aren't as good as the troops that defended Singapore, but the Dutch troops also have a couple of orders of magnitude more supply than did the troops in Singapore. In light of this I've decided to turn reinforcements back on for the Dutch, just to help drag things out.

In the Solomons Tophat is continuing to land troops at Munda. I presume that he is landing several units including a base force or else he would have captured the base sooner than this. Actually, this strategy of his is a bit short sighted - by dragging out the capture he allows his troops to continue to suffer casualties during landing.

I was doing some checking of "Air Balance" and found out that Tophat has brought a huge number of planes to Sorong, Amboina and Kendari. He obviously wants to keep me from starting a long-range bombing campaign in that region. But all that information succeeded in doing was to convince me that I want to keep those enemy planes in that region so that they aren't moved to other locations where they might get in my way. [;)] Therefore, I ordered my B-17s off to hit Koepang again to "encourage" the idea in Tophat that I have an interest in the area. "Air Balance" says that I will have control of the air over Koepang, and even if I don't I'm still willing to take the chance because its been several days since my last air raid and any Japanese fighters on LR CAP will be even more fatigued. I've also sent my remaining Dutch recon biplanes in Java and Sumatra off to recon nearby enemy-controlled bases. Tophat won't know what I'm up to but he will likely assume that I mean to do something "aggressive" and try to react. [:D]

Dave Baranyi

[ADavidB]

ORIGINAL: Rob Brennan UK

Thanks for taking the time to reply. yes i'm paranoid about india too after reading Pzb's AAR .. as you know only too well

Is west coast really under threat ? as allied player i practically denude the place, even move the canadians down and send them to india through the back door. the canadian brigades aren't bad.

San Francisco is closer to Tokyo than Karachi. If I were playing Japan and I noticed Canadian and West Coast units in the Far East I would be very, very tempted to:

a) Grab a couple of refueling/replenishing bases in Alaska, then

b) throw everything that I have after San Fran...

Hey, why not?

I dont think he'll come back to hawaii by now. but it never hurts to have a good defence which i see you are preparing very well imo.

The nice thing about building up Hawaii is that it provides the best place from which to stage future attacks. And maybe, if things work out, the Japanese player will make the mistake of coming back...

Java will be interesting ( havnt read down yet so i may be out of kilter with events , this is one fast AAR ). I find that the dutch brigades are pretty good if defending huge walls. is ABDA hq based there and prepped for it ? she can be 9 hexes away and still help especially with a good commander. Its a unit that is worth saving if poss.

I've got everybody in Soerabaja - they will defend to the death together. I only wish now that I had put a few extra units from the Philippines in there, like the Marines...

After Java its open season for Japan, many many options which i think you have well covered as you can given the limited troops this early.

"Open Season" is closing very quickly - it is nearly the end of May. There aren't any places that I care about defending that aren't well defended now. The longer Tophat waits to come to me, the greater his pain will be if he does come. And if he decides to defend the "historical" frontier then I will just build up until I can crush him at any given point. Time is on my side.

Id forgotten about the river at singers , makes sense now. still its a daft rule once troops are over it. surely Matrix are aware of bridgeheads [;)]

regarding your comments on arty bombardments and i would assume a similar mechanic for ground attack a/c / i have a similar sit in mandalay but reversed when one jap div is a mess and the rest are fine and dandy, definately a problem. doent the manual say that the most dangerous/highest assault unit is targetted first? or am i imagining things. Kind of makes a mockery of bombing cut off units to deplete them. this really needs looking at, tweaking target priorities or just rotating troops round a stack would solve it partially.

Good luck with the war !

Unfortunately, Land Combat/Land Movement is what it is and I don't expect to see any significant beneficial changes. My biggest concern is that no one changes things back to the way that they used to be...

Thanks for the comments -

Dave Baranyi

[ADavidB]

May 21 -

Tophat finally started to land some troops at Toboali this turn. He ought to be pleasantly surprised once he captures it - there are nearly 45,000 units of supply there. Tophat's forces also finally captured Munda. As I had suspected, Tophat landed five units including two base forces.

Tophat still hasn't brought any land units into contact at Soerabaja. That's fine from my p.o.v. - the longer he "rests" his units away from Soerabaja, the more malaria will affect them. Tophat also didn't bother to send any Zeros over Soerabaja - instead he sent 53 Nells. But the Nells were at 24 to 26 thousand feet and they didn't get any hits although one was damaged by flak.

At the same time my B-17E squadron from Darwin took off again and 13 bombers hit Koepang. They only got 2 runway hits, but Tophat has no engineers on Koepang so there is no one to fix the cumulative damage. I've stood down the B-17s again - maybe Tophat will move those Zeros that didn't fly over Soerabaja this turn and have them fly LR CAP instead. [;)]

In other airplane news, I upgraded the last unfilled Soviet fighter group, so now all Soviet air units are full-up and most are rid of the open cockpit fighters. That leaves only one P-40B group on the West Coast that is 9 planes short of a complete group. So within a couple of weeks I ought to be there. Looking down the reinforcement pipeline, I get another P-40B group in India in a little less than 2 months. It will come in less than half full unless I can build up a stock pile of P-40Bs. So I have another target to meet.

Dave Baranyi

[ADavidB]

May 22 -

Another unfamiliar base was occupied automatically by the Japanese this turn - Panggoe. Tophat also continued to land troops at Toboali which again suggests to me that he is landing support troops along with combat troops. He probably wants to build up the Port as quickly as possible so he can remove supplies faster.

It looks as if my biplane recon flights did get a reaction out of Tophat. He sent a Daitai of Zeros and a squadron of Sallys to hit Benkolen on the Indian Ocean side of Sumatra. If Tophat doesn't send an invasion TF there too soon I'll send a sub supply TF to give a bit more time to the defenders.

The Nells came back to Soerabaja, but they stayed up at between 24 and 26 thousand feet so they didn't hit anything. I guess that Tophat is doing this as a training exercise of sorts, but if he wants to have any serious effect he will need to come down into the range of my AA and take his chances. He will take operational losses anyway, so he may as well try to get something for his effort.

SIGINT informed me that Tophat has an engineering battalion at Batavia and there is another one on a ship on the way. So it looks as if he intends to try to rebuild the facilities there. Soerabaja is still not being threatened in a serious manner - there are two units sitting one hex north of the base but they haven't moved in.

China was relatively quiet except for artillery exchanges. Tophat is back to only using his field artillery units for bombardments at Hengchow. There haven't been any Japanese air attacks in China in quite some time so my Chinese air units are almost back to full strength. It's too bad that I have to wait so long to be able to get them some modern aircraft - I'd love to give them some of my surplus P-39s.

Speaking of planes, I've been getting disbanded Dutch air units back recently. The experience levels are abysmal. I've got one bomber unit with an average experience of 35 and another with any average experience of 26! The fighter units have been coming back with experience in the mid-thirties, but it is possible to train them up into the high 40s fairly quickly. For some reason setting bomber units to "Train" doesn't seem to do anything - having them on "search" appears to be better, but the results still come very slow. So I'm obviously not sending these units to the front any time soon.

BTW - I opened up for business my sixth airbase in the Hawaiian Islands today. Now, where is the IJN when you want them… [:D]

Dave Baranyi

[ADavidB]

May 23 -

Tophat sent his bombers against Benkolen again; they didn't accomplish much and it didn't matter anyway since I only have remnants of Dutch units there. Nells flew against Soerabaja again too, but they stayed at 24 to 26 thousand feet and didn't do much - one Nell got damaged by flak and there was one runway hit.

Tophat didn't have any CAP over Koepang so my Mitchells got in and out safely. But since they were at 20,000 feet they didn't hit anything either - the last group of replacement pilots reduced the experience a lot. My B-17Es fared much better, and they were also at a lower altitude, so they got 11 runway hits and 1 airbase supply hit.

Tophat continues to bomb my remaining two bases in the Philippines. By now they have no supply so they won't put up much of a fight when and if Tophat invades. In Tophat's shoes I would invade just to give my ground troops more experience.

Tophat captured Toboali today. To my surprise there was only an NLF unit there and no support troops. So I don't know why it took so long for Tophat's troops to land. But he now has a nice "supply cow" to keep him going in the DEI.

In China the artillery duels continued, but afterwards I turned off my artillery attacks at Hengchow and Homan. I'll use planes to bomb the Japanese troops at both bases and save the supply points that I would otherwise use on bombardments. Tophat is continuing to only use his field artillery at Hengchow, so another assault is in the cards sometime in the future.

Dave Baranyi

[ADavidB]

May 24 -

There was yet another big air attack on Benkolen this turn. The Japanese planes aren't causing a lot of damage, but those sorts of attacks will use up any sub-borne supply in no time, so I'm wondering if there isn't somewhere more useful to unload those subs. Almost all of my remaining troops in the DEI and Philippines are under constant air attack at this point so small supply loads won't do the trick.

One place that doesn't need supply is Soerabaja where the supply is inching towards 60K. There was another attack by Nells this turn, but there was negligible damage and some Nells got hit or received operational damage. But it doesn't look as if Tophat will wait too long to attack Soerabaja; he now has five units totally over 40K troops sitting one hex from the base, with another 15K troops in Kragen. I'm guessing now that Tophat wants to try to bring in overwhelming force to capture Soerabaja in "one fell swoop" instead of a long, drawn out battle.

A battle that has suddenly changed scope is the air war in China. Now that I've started to send bombers against Tophat's troops in Hengchow and Homan Tophat is starting to send bombers back against Homan put LR CAP over Hengchow to protect his troops. Fortunately I have been resting up my Chinese air units and they have accumulated experience, so the results have been acceptable so far. First are the battles over Hengchow:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Day Air attack on 6th Division, at 45, 37

Japanese aircraft
A6M3 Zero x 10
Ki-43-Ib Oscar x 9

Allied aircraft
IL-4c x 6

Japanese aircraft losses
A6M3 Zero: 1 damaged
Ki-43-Ib Oscar: 1 damaged

Allied aircraft losses
IL-4c: 1 destroyed, 2 damaged

Japanese ground losses:
11 casualties reported
Guns lost 2

Aircraft Attacking:
5 x IL-4c bombing at 6000 feet
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Day Air attack on 60th Division, at 45, 37

Japanese aircraft
A6M3 Zero x 10
Ki-43-Ib Oscar x 9

Allied aircraft
IL-4c x 6

Japanese aircraft losses
A6M3 Zero: 4 damaged

Allied aircraft losses
IL-4c: 1 destroyed, 1 damaged

Japanese ground losses:
21 casualties reported
Guns lost 1

Aircraft Attacking:
5 x IL-4c bombing at 6000 feet
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What doesn't show up above is that I had Chinese fighters on CAP in Hengchow that stood up to the Zeros and Oscars quite well.

Next are the air attacks on Homan:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Day Air attack on 32nd Division, at 49, 30

Allied aircraft
I-16c x 6
SB-2c x 4

No Allied losses

Japanese ground losses:
27 casualties reported

Aircraft Attacking:
4 x SB-2c bombing at 6000 feet
6 x I-16c bombing at 2000 feet
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Day Air attack on 15th Division, at 49, 30

Allied aircraft
SB-2c x 4

No Allied losses

Japanese ground losses:
18 casualties reported
Guns lost 1

Aircraft Attacking:
4 x SB-2c bombing at 6000 feet
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Day Air attack on 30th Chinese Corps, at 49, 30

Japanese aircraft
Ki-51 Sonia x 8

Japanese aircraft losses
Ki-51 Sonia: 2 damaged

Aircraft Attacking:
8 x Ki-51 Sonia bombing at 2000 feet
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Day Air attack on 3rd New Chinese Corps, at 49, 30

Japanese aircraft
Ki-51 Sonia x 10

Japanese aircraft losses
Ki-51 Sonia: 2 damaged

Allied ground losses:
14 casualties reported

Aircraft Attacking:
10 x Ki-51 Sonia bombing at 2000 feet

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So I've moved fighters into Homan and put them on CAP to take care of those Sonias, and I'm resting the IL-4cs for a couple of turns and just letting my CAP take care of Hengchow. The way that my Chinese pilots fight makes me really wish that I could give them better planes.

Dave Baranyi

[ADavidB]

May 25 -

Tophat sent his bombers and fighters to Benkolen again, causing only one airbase hit. I wonder if he is just using these flights for training? The Nells attacked Soerabaja again at the same altitudes with pretty much the same weak results. But it was in China where Tophat surprised me by not sending his planes out. I had expected Hengchow to be attacked at least by fighters and probably by bombers too. But there were no air attacks. And while my bombers hit Tophat's troops at Homan, Tophat's Sonias didn't come back, much to the disappointment of my Chinese fighter pilots.

It appears that I still have the "Air Balance" in my favor over Koepang, so I am sending all of my long range bombers in Northern Australia out this coming turn - the B-17s, the Mitchells and even the Hudsons. If I'm wrong this could be a costly turn for me because I have no long range fighters in the region to provide escort.

Things are quiet for me elsewhere. Other than for some transports returning to the West Coast all of my ships are where I want them to be. Likewise except for a couple of units that are still "on the road" in India pretty much all of my ground units are where I want them to be. And the same thing holds for the great majority of my air units. Also, all of my bases are well supplied and I have plenty of fuel where I may need it in the future. So right now I am just waiting for the upgrades and reinforcements that will show up in June.

Dave Baranyi

[ADavidB]

May 26 -

A lot of things stayed the same this turn. Tophat sent bombers after Benkolen and Soerabaja and neither attack did much more than put some wear and tear on his planes. Tophat did get to occupy Belitung automatically but otherwise the Japanese forces were fairly quiet.

However, Tophat has moved the first group of troops into contact at Soerabaja. So I set my troops to do a bombardment to see how well they can do. Tophat also sent more troops to Homan so I did the same. My bombers in China were rained out and Tophat's bombers in China also stayed home.

My air attacks on Koepang worked well in comparison. Tophat didn't have any fighters on LR CAP so all three bomber groups got in Scot free and added more damage to the total. Now I've sat down all my bomber squadrons again to let them rest up and to let Tophat fly some LR CAP if he wants to do so "after the horse is out of the barn". [:D]

BTW - The Argonaut made it to port finally despite suffering from slowly increasing flooding damage.

Dave Baranyi

[ADavidB]

May 27 -

This was an active day in the air over China. First off, Tophat sent Zeros over Homan in an attempt to clear my CAP from the sky, but my Chinese open cockpit fighters held their own:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Day Air attack on Homan, at 49, 30

Japanese aircraft
A6M3 Zero x 23

Allied aircraft
I-16c x 8

Japanese aircraft losses
A6M3 Zero: 4 destroyed

Allied aircraft losses
I-16c: 3 destroyed

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

But a larger swarm of Oscars caught my less well-trained biplane pilots at Ichang and hammered them pretty hard:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Day Air attack on Ichang, at 47, 33

Japanese aircraft
Ki-43-Ib Oscar x 34
Ki-15 Babs x 1

Allied aircraft
I-153c x 8

No Japanese losses

Allied aircraft losses
I-153c: 4 destroyed

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

But the Japanese fighter sweeps didn't stop my bomber attacks on Tophat's troops in Homan or Kungchang so it was worth the effort. Next turn, in addition to the attacks on Japanese troops at both of those bases, I will also send my longer-range Chinese bombers back to attack the besiegers at Hengchow.

In other air war news, another big group of Nells flew over Soerabaja again and once again caused little damage while losing one plane and getting another damaged. My bombardment attack on the Japanese troops at Soerabaja was also relatively ineffective so I've stopped doing that. I'll just leave my troops on "defend" from now on.

A Japanese mine sweeping TF cleaned more mines out of Toboali this turn, which reminded me that I haven't seen a single Japanese ship hit a mine so far in this game. The Japanese mine sweeping and mine avoidance capability has been quite amazing. I certainly have to wonder if it is really worth the risk to plant mines either offensively or defensively.

Dave Baranyi

[ADavidB]

May 28 -

Things are staying pretty "normal". Tophat sent some troops in to Pamakasan (I think by fast transport) which is on the island just off of Soerabaja. There originally was a Dutch base force there but I moved them to Timor quite a while back. So whenever Tophat decides to attack he will capture the base without a fight.

Tophat also sent his bombers at Benkolen again. It appears that the "training" is helping because his pilots are getting more hits. I'm trying to off load some supplies there by submarine - we'll see if the supplies get immediately destroyed by the ongoing bombing. The Nells hit Soerabaja again and their aim isn't improving. If Tophat doesn't wear down my troops by land attack he sure isn't going to do it with those particular bombers.

Weather got in the way of my bombing attacks on Koepang and only the Mitchells took off. They are getting better and they caused some nice damage. I'm resting the Mitchells this turn and waiting to see if the Hudsons and B-17s take off.

Tophat tried to sweep Ichang again with 30+ Oscars, but they couldn't find the target. So I decided that there was no point in losing more biplanes and moved the silly things back to Chunking. It's such a pain that I have to wait until late 1943 to be able to replace those useless deathtraps.

The usual artillery duels continue in China and other than Tophat continuing to move troops forward, nothing much is happening.

Dave Baranyi

[ADavidB]

May 29 -

What a pleasant surprise! One of the subs that had just dropped off a few supplies at Benkolen found a transport ship going by, put three torpedoes into it and sank it! So those air raids on Benkolen weren't just for training purposes; Tophat is invading it. Despite the loss of that ship the rest of the ships in the TF arrived and started to unload their troops. Because the base is out of supply my troops didn't fire back. I don't think that Tophat put any escorts with that invasion TF, so I'm sending another sub back to Benkolen that I had doing supply transport, just in case it gets lucky too. [;)]

Tophat didn't send his Nells to Soerabaja today - I don't know if it was the weather or if he decided that a bit of rest might help things. My Hudsons and B-17s did fly over to Koepang and added more damage to the already heavily damaged air base and port. So I'm standing them down and sending the Mitchells again next turn. It looks as if Tophat is no longer trying to send LR CAP over Koepang - he was probably taking too many operational losses.

In China Tophat sent his Oscars out on a sweep of Homan this time. But my Chinese fighters held their own:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Day Air attack on Homan, at 49, 30

Japanese aircraft
Ki-43-Ib Oscar x 31

Allied aircraft
I-16c x 6

Japanese aircraft losses
Ki-43-Ib Oscar: 1 destroyed, 1 damaged

Allied aircraft losses
I-16c: 2 destroyed, 1 damaged
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I put more I-16cs in Homan in case Tophat sends his Oscars back again. BTW - my IL-4cs, with the help of escorts, easily got back a few Nates that were on LR CAP over Hengchow and bombed a Japanese unit there. All this air action aside, Tophat's troops captured the empty Pamakasan.

Tophat was also bragging in his email about all the upgrades and reinforcements that he is receiving - Lucky Guy - all I'm getting right now are Dutch re-treads in obsolete planes with untrained pilots…[:(] [;)]

Dave Baranyi

[ADavidB]

May 30 -

There is a mystery in the Eastern Pacific. SIGINT reported a radio transmission emanating from 134, 49. This location is around 15 hexes west of San Francisco. I don't have any task forces in that region, so it isn't a misattribution. Now, it could just be a Japanese sub out there, but Tophat was commenting a few turns back that he wanted to "sink some shipping". Could this be the KB back in the Eastern Pacific? Sure, I have a multilayer sub picket line from the outer Aleutians down to Canton Island, but with the cloudy/rainy/stormy weather that has been occurring on a daily basis throughout Alaska, the Eastern Pacific and the West Coast for game-months, it is possible that the KB could have snuck through without being seen, particularly if Tophat took the risk to not fly his search planes.

So I've redirected the two task forces that were supposed to go through that area of the Pacific and I put all my West Coast, Alaska and Hawaiian forces on full alert. Now is when I really wish I had more Coronados! I've been diligently changing my Catalinas to Coronados and have several groups out in the Midway to Canton line of bases, but I don't have any on the West Coast and the build up rate is very, very slow. So we will see what happens; it is always better to be safe than sorry.

Meanwhile, back in the "tangible" war, things heated up in my favor in the Chinese front as Tophat sent his Oscars back to Homan where they faced my Chinese aces. Quantity did not win over Quality this time:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Day Air attack on Homan, at 49, 30

Japanese aircraft
Ki-43-Ib Oscar x 31

Allied aircraft
I-16c x 13

Japanese aircraft losses
Ki-43-Ib Oscar: 8 destroyed, 1 damaged

Allied aircraft losses
I-16c: 4 destroyed, 3 damaged
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

My IL-4cs also flew past the Nates on LR CAP over Hengchow to hit the Japanese 6th Division again. The Nates seemed to flee at the sight of my escorts.

In the DEI Tophat sent his bombers against Benkolen again, but his troops didn't attack. Maybe that lost transport was more important than I first thought. The Nells also flew en masse against Soerabaja again; 1 Nell was damaged by flak and there was no damage on the ground. Finally, my Mitchells didn't fly, but my recon did and I think that I noticed some LR CAP around.

Dave Baranyi