Tophat vs ADavidB - Back at It

[Ron Saueracker]

Really well done. Held him off for two more months than historically while burdened with the fast pace of the game mechanics. No small feat. And, cheaply from what I can see.

[ADavidB]

ORIGINAL: Ron Saueracker

Really well done. Held him off for two more months than historically while burdened with the fast pace of the game mechanics. No small feat. And, cheaply from what I can see.

Thanks Ron!

The key was that I refused to fight piecemeal in Luzon, Malaya and Java. And the deciding factor in the final loss of each of Manila, Singapore and Soerabaja was the eventual lack of supplies.

The only combat ship losses I took were when I tried to counterattack in the early stages of the Japanese invasion of the DEI. Because my naval forces were overwhelmed I didn't buy any time from the battle.

What this means is now I have a very strong force of undamaged combat ships, lots and lots of aircraft, strong LCUs everywhere, and lots of transport ships to bring those LCUs, associated supplies and fuel wherever I need them.

But the reality of the situation is that I am still not ready to strike the sorts of crippling blows that I want to do. Therefore I am continuing to set up traps, build up my forces and wait to see if Tophat makes any mistakes. I'm happy to wait for the October ship upgrades and the arrival of P-38s. And even then I want to be able to bring overwhelming force to bear when I strike. Therefore the historic time table, minus the struggle in the Solomons, still looks very appealing to me.

Cheers -

Dave Baranyi

[ADavidB]

July 29 -

Tophat hasn't been well recently so our rate of exchange of turns has gone down a lot. However, Tophat is not losing his enthusiasm for the game and he is anxiously awaiting the arrival of August 1942, which I presume will bring him more means by which he can continue his conquest of the Pacific. August only brings me upgrades for a few Brit light cruisers and the odd reinforcement, so I don't have as much to look forward to, other than my expectation of some extension of the Japanese expansion in a yet-unknown direction. But I did achieve another small but significant milestone this turn - I was finally able to upgrade my last squadron of Devastators to Avengers!

Most of the action this turn was in the air again. Tophat bombed the airfields at Hengchow and Homan without much effect. But my combined Chinese and British bombing raids on the Japanese troops that are besieging Homan went quite well; Tophat did not have LR CAP in place and so my bombers were able to build up experience nicely while causing significant Japanese casualties. This turn I've pulled the Chinese bombers and Brit fighters back from Sian because I expect Tophat to at least send a sweep of Zeros and maybe an air raid too. I'm keeping my best Hurricane squadrons on CAP at Chungking in case Tophat does decide to "stretch" and try a bombing raid there against my Wellingtons (which I have stood down again).

My B-17Es also hit the airfield at Lautem hard after blasting past the Zeros that were on CAP with no losses to the bombers. That bomber group now has 10 Zero kills to its credit - that's better than most of my fighter groups. This turn I'm going to send a B-17E squadron against Baker Island again; I want to keep Tophat thinking about my intentions in that region.

It appears that Tophat has part of the KB out to sea again to the immediate East of the Marshalls; a Val attacked a sub that I have on patrol to the Northeast of Baker Island. I'm not sure if Tophat will move further this time, so I put more patrol squadrons into the region in order to get better intelligence of what is happening. I also have more "surprises" ready in the South Pacific, but all-in-all I would prefer not to have my current build-up in the region interrupted at this time.

Dave Baranyi

[ADavidB]

July 30 -

That Japanese carrier TF that is off of the Marshalls seems to be slowly moving East and North, according to the location of the two US picket subs which were spotted this time. One sub was spotted by a Kate and the other by a Val. So that carrier TF appears to be ready for a "hunt". I don't have anything in that area other than subs, but I'm keeping an eye on things none-the-less, just in case Tophat sends the TF on a "dash" to the East.

The B-17E squadron that flew out of Canton Island to attack Baker Island did quite well again. It shot down two zeros in the air, two more zeros were lost due to operations, and two more were damaged, for the cost of two B-17s. The B-17s even caused damage to the air field. I'm resting these bombers again for a while - this will keep Tophat antsy about his ability to defend the air over Baker Island. This turn I'm sending the even more experienced B-17E group from Darwin to hit Lautem again. If there are Zeros on CAP, that's great. If not, then the base will be pounded again.

In China, Tophat sent a fairly weak air strike against Hengchow and a strong air strike against Homan. As I expected, Tophat also put LR CAP over Homan, but I didn't have any planes flying, so that was fine with me. What surprised me was that Tophat didn't try to strike at Sian. I now have all of my raiders from the previous turn resting nicely in Northern China where there is plenty of air support and supplies. My Chinese bombers didn't fly this turn, however, because of weather.

Dave Baranyi

[ADavidB]

As we reach the end of July and Tophat works on his future plans, I have been looking at the forces at my disposal and trying to decide how and where I will respond to further Japanese expansion. My Naval and Ground forces are pretty much "set" for the next few months and I have the great majority of my bases built as I wish. So the major decision for me is how, when and where to commit my Air Power, and in particular, my fighter planes. In light of this, the following is a summary of the air forces that I have available to me as of the end of July 1942:

Total Combat Air, fielded, Land and Naval:

Fighters and Fighter-bombers: 3400
Level, Dive and Torpedo bombers: 2600

The majority of the planes listed above are in fully-equipped Flights, Squadrons and Groups, with the exception of the five Chinese fighter squadrons, each of which is currently at about one third strength. Of course, a significant portion of the total is also made up of Soviet aircraft which aren't involved in the fighting at this time.

But even excluding the Soviet air units, I still have a sizable Air Force available to me, and equally importantly, I have built up a sizable stock of replacement planes which allow me to plan extended air campaigns as long as I am not reckless with my aircraft. So I'd like to share the current status of my replacement pools of fighters and fighter-bombers to give an idea of where I have flexibility in my use of CAP and Escorts:

1 - Front Line Fighter Reserves:

F4F-4 Wildcats - 474
Kittyhawk - 279
P-39D Airacobra - 236
Hurricane II - 223
P-40B Tomahawk - 87
P-400 Airacobra - 78
P-40E Warhawk - 52
Mohawk IV - 40
Spitfire Vb - 17
Seafire - 0

Note - Seafires are zero because I am actively replacing Fulmars with them. P-40E numbers are low because I recently exchanged the AVG's P-40Bs with P-40Es. Mohawk IVs are low because they are recovering from the battles in China.

2 - Second Line Fighter Reserves:

Wirraway - 436
F2A Buffalo - 270
Buffalo I - 186
F4F-3 Wildcat - 170
Fulmar - 152 *
Lysander - 105
Hawk 75A - 102 *
CW-21B Demon - 78 *
P-36A Mohawk - 76 *
Brewster 339D - 57 *
P-26A - 50
P-35A - 45
I-153c - 1 *
I-16c - 0 *

Note - the aircraft with the * next to the number in reserve are still in use in units that are currently in the Rear. The P-36A is still being used in the West Coast fighter groups. There are no First Line replacements for the Dutch fighter units or the Chinese fighter units until P-40Ns show up in 1943. Also, only half of the Fulmar units have been replaced with Seafires due to the slow replacement rate of Seafires. It is my hope that I will not have to go back to the Second Line fighter reserves to back-fill my main combat units.

3 - Soviet Fighter Reserves:

I-16 Type 24 - 361
LaCGG-3 - 29
MiG-3 - 18
Yak-1

All I-16 Type 24 fighter units have been upgraded to one of the other Soviet closed-cockpit fighter types except for that isolated fighter unit that is stationed at Petropalovsk.

Dave Baranyi

[ADavidB]

July 31 -

Rain and storms showed up most everywhere which made air operations quite an iffy thing this turn. Tophat got off a weak air attack on Hengchow and a stronger air attack on Homan, while my Chinese bombers either didn't leave the ground or missed their targets. Tophat has stopped trying to do sweeps - I guess that he was losing too many fighters due to operational losses - this turn he lost 4 more fighters that were on escort with his bomber attacks.

My B-17Es did fly out of Darwin and attack Lautem. There wasn't any CAP but surprisingly, the bombers still didn't do much damage. I'm resting them again this turn.

I've increased the numbers of bombers and patrol planes that are on patrol out of Canton Island. The Japanese CV task force is still hiding out north of Baker Island. That TF is in a position from which it could raid Canton, Palmyra or Johnson Islands. I don't have anything particularly valuable or "sinkable" at any of those bases, so I'm not too concerned, but this does interfere with my freedom of action a bit.

In other news, I have been flying reconnaissance over Mandalay and Rangoon fairly regularly, although I'm not bothering to send air raids. Tophat has several Daitais of Oscars in Mandalay, along with an assortment of auxiliary planes. But my most recent recon info told me that Tophat has increased the size of his forces in Mandalay. Is he really intending to try an attack into the Jungle? I've got an awful lot of Commonwealth pilots who are hoping that is the case. <g>

In other news in the region, His Majesty recalled a Brit carrier and two DDs for August. I'm sending back one of the smaller CVs that still has Fulmars on it, along with two of the shorter range Brit DDs. I still have plenty of ships in the region, and any serious effort by the IJN in the Bay of Bengal would not only be met by plenty of experienced LBA, but would also trigger a Blitzkrieg in the Central Pacific. So I'm sending those three ships back and wishing the crew the best of luck hunting U-Boats in the upcoming winter season in the Atlantic.

Dave Baranyi

[Milman]

ORIGINAL: ADavidB
In other news in the region, His Majesty recalled a Brit carrier and two DDs for August. I'm sending back one of the smaller CVs that still has Fulmars on it, along with two of the shorter range Brit DDs.

Dave Baranyi

Why don't you keep those air units from CV ?

[ADavidB]

ORIGINAL: Milman

ORIGINAL: ADavidB
In other news in the region, His Majesty recalled a Brit carrier and two DDs for August. I'm sending back one of the smaller CVs that still has Fulmars on it, along with two of the shorter range Brit DDs.

Dave Baranyi

Why don't you keep those air units from CV ?

I can't be bothered. I have plenty of good units and I don't want to lose the carrier units as "carrier ready". AFAIK, keeping carrier units on land eventually robs them of their carrier trained and ready pilots.

Thanks for the suggestion though...

Take care -

Dave Baranyi

[ADavidB]

August 1 -

It turns out that the Japanese carriers that are sitting to the north of Baker Island are there to protect a little transport TF that has sailed into Baker's Harbor to drop off supplies, troops or both. I've sent a sub in to see if it can get lucky. But I'm not going to bother any serious attack on an obvious trap.

Tophat is wondering why I'm not on a counter-offensive at this point. From my p.o.v., there is no particular reason to be on one. I'd rather wait until I have long range fighters to back up my attacks. In the meanwhile I continue to build up my front line bases and rear support bases in anticipation of action in the months to come.

It turns out that Tophat has a lot of air units in Malaya and vicinity. I put the Brit sub Trusty into the mouth of the Straights of Malacca and it was spotted by tons of planes and finally bombed. So I've got it limping back to India and I'll replace it with a sub that will be located a little further away. Tophat obviously doesn't want me to counter-attack in that region.

Only a couple of air attacks got off in the persistent rain. Tophat bombed my troops in Homan and I bombed his troops in Kungchang. Kungchang has turned out to be a good place for me to train up pilots. Next turn I'll send my Brit bombers after the Japanese troops in Hengchow.

In other interesting news, a Japanese sub has turned up for the first time off the far Western Aleutians. I've sent an AVD off on MSW patrol to see if I can catch it. Tophat has been hinting about something "special" happening in a couple of weeks. I wonder if he is thinking about an Aleutian adventure?

BTW - with the arrival of August four of my Brit light cruisers got their upgrades. The results were yawn-worthy; essentially the ships went from being totally feeble to reasonably mediocre.

Dave Baranyi

[ADavidB]

August 2 -

This was another of those turns where things just didn't work. Nothing disastrous happened, but nothing worked really right either. First off, the Japanese carrier planes went on an ASW rampage north of Baker Island, spotting every sub I had around and getting hits on two of them. Then we had the usual situation of rain covering most bases across the map; causing operational damage to the fighters that I was trying to train and washing out most of my scheduled bombing runs in China. Then my B-17 attack on Dili ran into a Daitai of Tophat's crack Zero pilots. The bombers fought their way through, but 8 B-17s were shot down while only two Zeros crashed from operational damage.

So I now have to think my bombing strategy some more. I won't have long range fighters for four more months and even then running fighters at maximum range doesn't give the best results. I don't want to be losing bombers at a 4:1 rate regularly either. And Tophat has been very careful to not extend beyond his ability to provide quality CAP. So I'm not really sure what I will do for now - I really don't have any reasonable offensive weapons available to me at this time.

In other news, if my Recon can be believed, Tophat has brought even more troops into Mandalay. He is keeping a very large CAP in place, so I can't just go and bomb the place. I guess that I'll have to wait and see what he does.

My AVD in the Aleutians found the Japanese sub but missed it during the attack. Now the sub has disappeared.

Finally, my supply situation has deteriorated recently in China, despite the fact that I've cut back on building bases, I'm not losing large numbers of planes, I can't get most bombing runs off because of rain and I haven't been losing large numbers of troops. Unfortunately, with the day-in, day-out thunderstorms over all of the Indian bases I can't even regularly fly supplies into China.

This is the sort of time when this game is no fun at all - it's more like work…[8|]

Dave Baranyi

[frank1970]

Put your bombers to 35000 feet. Make your high attacks weak (only 2 or 4 planes). He surely might not want to burn his precious fuel for nothing. You will make him think he cannot touch them after a while and might put his cap down. Then hit him with a low attack and put his airfield out of action for a while.

[ADavidB]

ORIGINAL: Frank

Put your bombers to 35000 feet. Make your high attacks weak (only 2 or 4 planes). He surely might not want to burn his precious fuel for nothing. You will make him think he cannot touch them after a while and might put his cap down. Then hit him with a low attack and put his airfield out of action for a while.

His Tonys and Tojos can go as high as my bombers, so that ploy doesn't work.

The real problem right now is not how to bomb his airfields but how to shoot down his fighters. My B-17s will do that against weak or average fighter pilots, but Tophat has too many fighter groups with good to very good pilots. He can also train as many pilots as he wants in the Philippines at the two Allied bases that he has left as training grounds.

Tophat has only allowed a couple of his bases to be occupied within bombing range of my planes, and they are not that close, which means that I not only have to face lots of CAP, but I also have to suffer lots of operational damage. I am not interested in trying to engage Tophat in a "war of attrition" where I lose 2 or 3 planes for everyone he loses. He can train as many pilots as he needs on those "trapped" units in the Philippines so I will never run him out of good pilots that way.

China is the only place where I can find Japanese troops without CAP, but with continuous thunderstorms my planes only fly once or twice a week, so they don't get much practice. I also have limited supplies in China and can't fly more in, again because of the continuous thunderstorms which stop my transports and bombers in India.

So right now the game mechanics are against me. If I fly my planes to attack Tophat's bases I am flying at extreme range and without CAP. That causes my bombers to be less effective, gain more fatigue and operational damage, and be more susceptable to fighter attack. So unless I can find a base to attack with no CAP, I essentially allow Tophat to get more experience for his fighters while accomplishing little and getting little experience for my pilots (and taking a chance on loosing experienced pilots). And Tophat has lots of fighters and can cover all of this front line bases that I can reach.

Unless Tophat moves closer to my good bases that have good supply, or I attack and occupy good bases nearer Japanese bases I can't do a lot. And Tophat still has all of his carriers, which limits my ability to do amphibious attacks. So for now the best I can do is to "grit my teeth", hope that Tophat makes a mistake, and wait for better planes to come over the next six game months.

So I'm not happy about the situation, but there isn't anything sensible that I can do about it right now. The only "weapon" that I have is patience and the hope that Tophat gets impatient and attacks somewhere where I can bring overwhelming forces to bear.

Thanks for your comments -

Dave Baranyi

[ADavidB]

August 3 -

The big news for this turn was the following SIGINT report:

"4th Division is planning for an attack on Canton Island"

So Tophat is planning to extend the frontier into the South Central Pacific. I checked my SIGINT spreadsheet and found that the 4th Division was reported to be at Bataan three times, with the latest report coming on the 15th of July. So if it were being transported to the Central Pacific it should be arriving at Kwajalein about now. Now, that's assuming that the 4th Division would be the lead invading force - Tophat may well have other forces ready to invade and is preparing the 4th Division for garrison duty.

Right now I have a small Navy Base Force, an Army Field Artillery unit and an AA unit on Canton Island. Obviously, they won't be repelling any serious invasion. So I have a choice - do I bring some serious forces to Canton and plan to try to stand up to a major invasion, or do I pull back into the groups of islands to the south and east? Canton is not an easy island to defend now that Baker Island is in enemy hands - there are no close-by bases from which I can project supporting air and naval power.

It is obvious to me that Tophat wants me to commit the US Navy when they are still relatively weak in comparison to the IJN. The question is - how strong is the USN at this point? I've got all six fleet carriers in perfect shape, I've got all of my heavy cruisers, I've got one fast battleship and I have 4 radar-equipped 20-knot battleships available. However, few of my ships have seen combat yet. I've got lots of twin-engine and 4-engine bombers available, but for the most part they only have average experience. And while I have plenty of fighters and fighter bombers available in the region, all are short-ranged except for one P-40B group.

In any event, as long as the Japanese carriers are still hanging around to the north of Baker Island I should be okay - Tophat will want to pull his ships back to Kwajalein for refueling before he starts a major attack. Tophat has also already started to spread a number of submarines to the south and east of Canton Island in order to track my ship movements and see if he "gets lucky". So I've got some decisions ahead of me.

In the meanwhile, Tophat is bringing more fighter groups in to participate in his daily bombing raids in China. He has his crack Zero units on LR CAP over his troops and front line air bases. My Wellingtons took off this turn and hit the Japanese troops at Hengchow hard after fighting their way through LR CAP. Two Wellingtons were shot down but 4 Zeros succumbed to operational damage, so I'm satisfied with the results.

It's just too bad that I can't maintain any momentum in my air raids in China. When my planes do hit the besieging Japanese troops the effectiveness of the following artillery attack is significantly reduced. However, do to weather I haven't been able to attack the Japanese troops besieging Homan for a couple of weeks and their artillery attacks are getting more effective each turn, particularly since the Japanese bombers are able to hit defending troops most every turn. Tophat's air units have shorter distances to go nowadays, so they are able to fly more often and are losing fewer planes to operational damage than they were during the early stages of the Chinese campaign and during the Javanese campaign.

Oh well, I just have to be patient…

Dave Baranyi

[String]

Hmm, August you say? I'd say fight. If you have large air support formations nearby with C-47's present then airlift them to Canton, faster this way. Catalinas can be used for this too.

Fast transport in as many marine CD batallions you can, also send in as many coastal AA units you can find in range. the 155mm gun equipped CD units are good too. Is Oglala around? If use her to start mining immediatly. Naturally, a division or two would be nice too.

Now I'd use the 4 old slow BB's along with the fast one as a bombardment guard at Canton so you can gather as many airgroups possible there, marines squadrons can be transported in via carriers etc.

[anarchyintheuk]

Great piece of intel, but like you said Canton isn't easy to defend. It isn't too close to other built up bases to make your lba effective and I imagine you can't have too much av support within range. You'd have to transport at least a division to throw back an invasion. Anything less is just IJN vps. Even then you'll eventually lose whatever you reinforce Canton with (depending on how stubborn your opponent is). Unless you can build up significant av support in the area before the invasion comes, not much point in defending it. Just my two cents.

[ADavidB]

ORIGINAL: String

Hmm, August you say? I'd say fight. If you have large air support formations nearby with C-47's present then airlift them to Canton, faster this way. Catalinas can be used for this too.

Fast transport in as many marine CD batallions you can, also send in as many coastal AA units you can find in range. the 155mm gun equipped CD units are good too. Is Oglala around? If use her to start mining immediatly. Naturally, a division or two would be nice too.

Now I'd use the 4 old slow BB's along with the fast one as a bombardment guard at Canton so you can gather as many airgroups possible there, marines squadrons can be transported in via carriers etc.

I was thinking that, but I've lost track of Tophat's BBs, which are my biggest worry in any invasion. Since my surface combat ships don't have great experience they could get hammered by the Japanese and still not stop an invasion.

Thanks for the comments -

Dave

[ADavidB]

ORIGINAL: anarchyintheuk

Great piece of intel, but like you said Canton isn't easy to defend. It isn't too close to other built up bases to make your lba effective and I imagine you can't have too much av support within range. You'd have to transport at least a division to throw back an invasion. Anything less is just IJN vps. Even then you'll eventually lose whatever you reinforce Canton with (depending on how stubborn your opponent is). Unless you can build up significant av support in the area before the invasion comes, not much point in defending it. Just my two cents.

My concern is what if this is a 3-Division invasion? I don't really want to commit too many forces to Canton and have them isolated there.

Thanks for the thoughts -

Dave Baranyi

[PzB74]

My Jap opponent gave an objective to most of his troops...90% of them are fictional.
So this may be a ploy to draw your attention in the wrong direction.

Suggest you watch your hiney [;)]

[String]

ORIGINAL: ADavidB

ORIGINAL: String

Hmm, August you say? I'd say fight. If you have large air support formations nearby with C-47's present then airlift them to Canton, faster this way. Catalinas can be used for this too.

Fast transport in as many marine CD batallions you can, also send in as many coastal AA units you can find in range. the 155mm gun equipped CD units are good too. Is Oglala around? If use her to start mining immediatly. Naturally, a division or two would be nice too.

Now I'd use the 4 old slow BB's along with the fast one as a bombardment guard at Canton so you can gather as many airgroups possible there, marines squadrons can be transported in via carriers etc.

I was thinking that, but I've lost track of Tophat's BBs, which are my biggest worry in any invasion. Since my surface combat ships don't have great experience they could get hammered by the Japanese and still not stop an invasion.

Thanks for the comments -

Dave

It all depends on the airfield size of Canton island. If it's 4-5 then things are easier, if it's less than things are harder. Hopefully you have some beauforts nearby, i don't think you have enough time to get them from australia. If you don't then hopefully you have some avenger sqdns around. if you don't then use disembark some from your carriers. 3 would be enough imho.

Now to the point.

He will probably try to start the invasion with an initial dash-in-bombardment-dash-out move to shut down your airfield there. This means at worst his fast battleships and perhaps Yamato if it has less than 4-5 sys damage (which I doubt). Otherwise he would have to come within range 4 of canton the previous day and that would mean torpedoes.

This means a night engagement of four of his paper BB's vs 5 of yours + accompanying cruisers. I'd suggest adding some of your newer CL's in the TF too, but try to keep it under 20 ships. 5 BB's 4 CA's 2 CL's 6 DD's would be my bet. Too large SF TF's tend to become ineffective. If you have DD's to spare then create one or two 6 DD taskforces with the sole purpose of harassment, give them a cautious commander so they'd disengage when raped... but If you happen to have PT's there then dont use DD's and use PT's instead.

Unless he is incredibly lucky he won't bombard anything after engaging those taskforces and some of his ships will end up with enough damage to be within torpedo strike range the next day.

With your airfields protected from the sea he has to move in his carriers, which means he has to strike at your airfield, which means that he will suffer awful losses vs your AA if you moved in as many AA units you could find (base forces are nice too) And he has to come within striking range of your bombers. He won't suffer many hits, or any at all most probably, but it will fatigue his fighters and dilute his cap. And THEN you move in your carriers and plaster him. Remember, he is far away from his big ports and with japanese damage control we all know what it means.

atleast that's the plan [:D]

[ADavidB]

ORIGINAL: PzB

My Jap opponent gave an objective to most of his troops...90% of them are fictional.
So this may be a ploy to draw your attention in the wrong direction.

Suggest you watch your hiney [;)]

That's an interesting ploy, but costly if you do plan any invasions or critical defenses and your units aren't set for the "right" location. Similar SIGINT intercepts in the past have been accurate, so I'm giving this one a serious look unless I find something else out that suggests otherwise.

Thanks -

Dave