Tophat vs ADavidB - Back at It

[wobbly]

ORIGINAL: ADavidB

I also received news from SIGINT that Tophat now has over 345,000 troops in Tokyo! I wonder why he is building up such strength way back there? Maybe he is trying to expedite the recovery of the troops that were weakened in the battles for Manila, Singapore and Soerabaja? Could he be staging troops for some massive invasion in the Eastern half of the Pacific? I wonder if he would try a "mad dash" for "USA" at the end of the year?

Dave Baranyi

You do get a large influx of base units - he may just be slow in moving them to new homes.

[ADavidB]

August 16 -

This was a tough turn. The weather finally broke to a good extent and Tophat was able to get off 2-Daitai sweeps of topnotch Zeros in two different regions. He first sent a sweep over Derby where 54 crack Zeros caught a fairly weak squadron of Hurricanes down low, shooting down 7 of them with no losses to the Japanese. Then a sweep of 48 zeros tangled with two squadrons of Hurricanes over Chungking. Things were a big better there, with 5 Zeros shot down for the loss of 11 Hurricanes. But I can't allow this sort of action to continue.

Therefore I've set my Hurricanes in Northern Australia to training for now, and brought my best Hurricane unit back to Chungking. I also set all three Hurricane squadrons at Chungking to higher altitudes - they tend to do better up high. I expect Tophat to send those sweeps back next turn, weather permitting, and while I'll attempt to duke it out in China for at least one more turn, I'm not letting him slaughter more pilots in Australia at no risk. I'm also not risking my bombers against multiple Daitais of "X90" Zeros. I'll find "softer" targets while Tophat is out hunting.

Elsewhere, things worked a bit better. All of my air attacks on the Japanese troops at Kungchang flew this turn and caused a good number of casualties. Likewise, my B-17 squadron in Darwin flew and hit the engineers in Kai hard. But my Wellingtons in Chungking refused to fly again, for probably the 5th day in a row. So, given Tophat's new found interest in Chungking, I decided to just pull the Wellingtons out for now and sent them back to India. I'll use the Chinese bombers for now until the situation stabilizes a bit.

So while it is very frustrating to continually retreat from the Japanese "Gods of the Skies", I still refuse to waste Allied planes. Tophat can have his fun for now. Once I finally get Corsairs I will have no time at all for any complaints about them…

Dave Baranyi

[ADavidB]

You do get a large influx of base units - he may just be slow in moving them to new homes.

That's an interesting suggestion, but he does seem to be moving a lot of base forces forward already. I'll just need to keep an eye out for more info.

Thanks -

Dave Baranyi

[Speedysteve]

You do get LOADS of them though Dave. I have in my PBEMS upto 40 of the blighters filling out......

Steven

[ADavidB]

ORIGINAL: Speedy

You do get LOADS of them though Dave. I have in my PBEMS upto 40 of the blighters filling out......

Steven

Wow! Oh well, more units for easy capture later on...[;)]

Thanks -

Dave

[ADavidB]

August 17 -

Wow! The bad weather was back with a vengeance! No combat air missions took off anywhere, and only a handful of Japanese recon missions took off. But Tophat's planes must have been trying to fly despite the weather because there were five Japanese planes lost to operational losses. (All of my airfields were rained out, so the planes didn't even try to fly.)

Otherwise, everything continued to be quiet. Tophat may be trying to bring a bombardment TF in to hit Darwin, but the TF hasn't gotten in close enough yet for a dash and it is within range of my anti-shipping bombers, so as long as the airfield isn't rained out I ought to be okay.

A strange thing has occurred in the game. The New Zealand Command HQ doesn't have a leader any more - it simply says "staff" and there are two question marks where the capabilities are supposed to be. When I click on "staff" I do get a list of potential officers to replace "staff", but I can't get them to actually fill-in. The other odd thing is that all of the officers on the list are rated as "WO". I even changed the headquarters from New Zealand to South Pacific, but I still couldn't get rid of "staff". This appears to be a pretty solid memory bug. Oh well, as long as it doesn't happen to too many more units.

Dave Baranyi

[ADavidB]

August 18 -

The weather cleared up a little this turn, allowing some air missions, including a big surprise - a successful night bombing run on Mandalay by the Beaufighter VIFs! They actually hit the runway twice and caused a few casualties too. Now, it wasn't anything to get Tophat worried, but it was a nice change of pace.

In China Tophat got off a routine air raid on Hengchow that did the usual minor damage. Then my Chinese bombers hit the Japanese troops at Kungchang. Although this particular SB-2c squadron and the Mohawk squadron that is at the same base to the north of Kungchang are bombing those Japanese troops very regularly, they haven't improved there experience beyond 70. That's not bad, but it isn't good enough to be able to survive the Japanese 90-experience Zeros. I wonder what else I have to do to get the experience of my pilots higher?

Tophat sent 51 of his high experience Zeros out again after Derby this turn, but I didn't have any fighters flying, so it just generated fatigue for those pilots. Tophat may well send bombers in to hit Derby, but there isn't anything there that I care about, so I see no reason to waste fighters in a vain attempt to defend against the "Gods of the Air". I think that Tophat keeps hoping to egg me into committing my better P-40 units against his crack Zeros; but I know better - sending P-40s with mid-70s experience against Zeros with 90+ experience levels is stupid at best of times.

BTW - my B-17 squadron in Darwin had a good trip over Kai again. I wonder if Tophat will try to defend Kai or if he will continue to allow me to use it for target practice?

In other news, one of my AVDs tried to catch a Japanese sub that has been meandering between Johnson and Palmyra Islands for a while, but although the ship found the sub, the sub was the one that got an attack off. Fortunately, the attack missed.

Otherwise, my maneuvering and placement of forces continues as planned, and more "dots" are becoming useful "stepping stone" bases for me. Oh, and yes, Tophat finally brought the airfield at Lunga up to level 1 after months of working on it. I hope that he is enjoying the malaria… [:D]

Dave Baranyi

[ADavidB]

August 19 -

This was one of those frustrating turns when important things don't happen, and there is no obvious reason for what went wrong. Tophat has increased his pressure on Homan lately, so I've been trying to get some bombers to hit his troops there. My bombers were going in fairly regularly before, but for the past couple of game weeks I can't get either the Brit bombers or the Chinese bombers to attack, regardless of what the weather appears to be. (The weather forecasts for China have been steadily calling for rain for a month or more now.)

This turn I had three experienced SB-2c squadrons and three experienced Hurricane squadrons in Sian, with the bombers set to attack Homan and the Hurricanes on escort. But none of them budged! In the meanwhile Tophat got off four different air attacks from four different bases. Even the SB-2c unit that usually goes to hit the Japanese troops at Kungchang failed to go again for the second day in a row. That particular air unit not only has a high experience level but also has high morale and low fatigue. And the base that it is in has plenty of supply.

In any event, despite the frustrations of the air unit non-action, things didn't work out too badly in the end. First, the Japanese troops did a feeble artillery attack at Kungchang which was followed by a fairly strong artillery attack by my Chinese troops. Then Tophat tried another deliberate attack at Homan that was fairly costly for him:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ground combat at Homan

Japanese Deliberate attack

Attacking force 245830 troops, 2656 guns, 191 vehicles

Defending force 95244 troops, 204 guns, 0 vehicles

Japanese engineers reduce fortifications to 6

Japanese assault odds: 2 to 1 (fort level 6)

Japanese Assault reduces fortifications to 6

Japanese ground losses:
8811 casualties reported
Guns lost 244
Vehicles lost 7

Allied ground losses:
2658 casualties reported
Guns lost 29
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fortunately, I've recently been pulling out some of the badly worn down Chinese units in Homan and replacing them with stronger, rested units. But if my bombers had been able to hit the besieging troops the results might have been even better.

Ironically, two Wellington squadrons that I sent out to bomb Pagan for practice did fly and hit the target. Those same two air units had sat in Chungking for two weeks with orders to attack Homan and never flew. Now in Dacca they flew through thunderstorms to hit an empty base.

Bloody game…

Dave Baranyi

[frank1970]

Maybe they are in range of their HQ now? I think I somewhere read, that being in range of your HQ increases the chance of flying missions.

[ADavidB]

ORIGINAL: Frank

Maybe they are in range of their HQ now? I think I somewhere read, that being in range of your HQ increases the chance of flying missions.

True, there is a Brit Air HQ in Dacca. But I've been trying to fly regular C-47 transport flights out of Dacca and they rarely fly, nor does my recon fly out of there with any regularity. The weather seems to be the overriding factor on flight decisions.

BTW - those Wellingtons were also flying regularly in China where there are no Air HQs, against CAP, for game months and only stopped flying recently. It seems like the "no fly" weather has just moved into China in a big way. It's been over the West Coast of the US for the entire game and over India constantly for the past six game months.

I wouldn't mind this so much of the weather also regularly masked operations, but it never does.

Dave Baranyi

[ADavidB]

August 20 -

It looks like the KB is on the move again. One of my S-boats on picket duty halfway between Baker Island and Kwajalein was spotted and bombed by Kates and Vals. So I've got that sub limping off to Palmyra and will send another in its place. Right now I'm only using S-boats on picket duty because all of my more modern subs that are due for October upgrades are being sent to naval shipyards ahead of time. I'm hoping that the subs get radar this coming upgrade.

With the KB on the prowl again I've started to pull back my transport TFs in the South Pacific atolls. If Tophat chooses he can send the KB in on a "dash" and reach the atolls in a couple of days, and I don't want to leave easy targets around. I've also ordered another recon and air bombardment of Baker Island in the hopes of getting Tophat to hang around there for a bit. Now that I've pulled my combat ships out of the region I would prefer not to have to face Tophat with the limited LBA that I have in the South Pacific.

Elsewhere, my B-17 squadron in Darwin took off and hit the airfield and troops at Kai Island hard again. Once again, Tophat didn't try to have any CAP over the base. That's fine; I'll take what I can get. I am looking forward to finally getting P-38s in October because the Darwin to Kai run will be the first training ground for the new planes. BTW Tophat did send recon planes over Derby again. It must look sort of "tempting" to him; all that is there is a base force, a patrol squadron and a fighter squadron.

My Chinese bombers didn't fly again, but neither did Tophat's bombers in China. One Japanese fighter sweep flew over Homan, but there was "nobody home", so they just got to pick up some fatigue. I'm trying to "shake things up" a bit by moving some units around. Therefore I moved the Mohawks that have been building up experience in Lautem down to Sian. Mohawks have a longer range than Hurricanes, just in case the SB-2cs haven't been attacking Homan because of Japanese LR CAP being present and there being no escorts around that can reach. I had thought that Hurricanes could reach Homan from Sian, but maybe they can't.

I then moved the least experienced Hurricane squadron out of Sian and into Lautem, and set it to ground attack so that it can start to improve its experience. Finally, I moved one more Hurricane squadron out of Sian and back to Chungking in order to keep the number of planes at Sian less than the number of air support points at the base. It's all "voodoo science" and likely won't make a difference if the weather continues to be rainy all the time, but at least I am reducing the possible variables. The only thing I can't do is move an Air HQ to Sian because I don't have any in China.

I'm also still shuffling Chinese ground units around. I've been pulling the badly weakened Chinese combat units out of the front line Chinese bases that aren't being threatened and sending them back to the bases that have plenty of support. I've also pulled all of the Chinese units out of the countryside except for those few near Wuchow that are holding on to crossroads. In those cases I've exchanged worn-out units for rebuilt units. Essentially, I'm betting that Tophat doesn't start a fourth front in China beyond the three that he currently has going; Hengchow, Homan and Kungchang. SIGINT does keep on telling me that a number of Japanese units are preparing to attack Wuchow, but they have stayed a hex away and haven't moved in. Anyway, those six units won't make much of a dent in my fortifications at Wuchow, nor on the good, strong units that I have there.

Dave Baranyi

[ADavidB]

August 21 -

Tophat certainly got the "luck of the rain" this turn. Whereas the rain let up a bit and allowed some air strikes to go out, only minor attacks flew for me while major mass attacks flew for the Japanese. But then, the turn didn't start out so well for me anyway. First off, AVD Hulbert, which I had sent off on an ASW mission to find that Japanese sub that was hanging around between Johnson and Palmyra Islands found the sub alright, or more correctly, I-17 found the Hulbert and put a torpedo into it, causing heavy damage. Later during the day MSW Cessnock found I-17, but again I-17 got an attack off, which fortunately missed this time. So now Cessnock is escorting Hulbert to the closest level 3 port while I send another ASW TF containing 3 DMS ships and a good commander to try to find I-17.

My air attack on Baker Island also didn't do that well. The main part of the B-17 squadron couldn't find the target and turned back. This left three B-17s and a Coronado to fly into a group of 18 Zeros on CAP. [X(] Fortunately, the B-17s were able to sneak in and out, shooting down one Zero and even dropping their bombs on the airfield while receiving only minor damage!

In China another minor air mission consisting of those IL-4cs hit some troops at Nanning, causing a bit of damage. But my main air forces at Sian and vicinity were totally rained out. However, the rain didn't stop the Japanese who sent a number of very big bombing raids against Homan. Seeing 75 Sallys flying without escort really made me grind my teeth, but there isn't much I can do if my planes won't fly. To "add insult to injury", the Japanese artillery bombardment at the end of the turn caused more casualties than usual due to the "softening up" of the troops by the air raids. All I can do is shake my head and move out the wiped-out ground units while I try to move new units in place. However, I will probably loose Homan before I can bring sufficient reinforcements to bear. [8|]

In other news, Tophat finally sent some troops to invade the Russell Islands in the Solomons. For whatever reason, he had left them alone for a couple of game-months. Maybe he was expecting it to be captured automatically like so many of the dot-bases.

And it looks as if the Japanese carriers are sitting to the north of Baker Island in order to provide cover for another transport TF that is offloading more troops. There is a Japanese surface combat TF there too, just to discourage me from trying to sneak in a surface attack. So I've called off my "cockroach special" and have returned my transport TFs in the region to their original courses.

Dave Baranyi

[frank1970]

As far as I know full units are hit harder by artillery than torn out ones, so maybe your units have built up and so loose more to artillery?

[wobbly]

It may well be considered gamey by you but I don't particularly like the idea of training pilots in your new shiney P-38s. Better to use the wirraway for its intended purpose and change when they are capable air jockeys.

[ADavidB]

ORIGINAL: Frank

As far as I know full units are hit harder by artillery than torn out ones, so maybe your units have built up and so loose more to artillery?

That's true, but artillery also causes more casualties if the target units were hit by air attacks first. That's why combined attacks are so important and why the @#$%^ weather is making things so hard for me.

Thanks -

Dave Baranyi

[ADavidB]

ORIGINAL: wobbly

It may well be considered gamey by you but I don't particularly like the idea of training pilots in your new shiney P-38s. Better to use the wirraway for its intended purpose and change when they are capable air jockeys.

There are no "safe targets" in the range of Wirraways, or any other fighter that I currently have. Tophat is playing it very, very smart and making it very hard for me to build pilot experience. Kai Island is the only undefended Japanese possession within range of any of my fighters.

Anyway, I intend to put pilots who are already as good as I've got into the P-38s and just train them better.

Thanks -

Dave Baranyi

[ADavidB]

August 22 -

I'm "slugging through the mud" in China now that I can't get bomber attacks to fly. There has to be some subtle reason why the Japanese bombers get to fly so much more frequently despite the uniformly bad weather throughout the region. There must be some "magic number" thresholds that need to be reached - maybe experience, maybe leadership, maybe supply level - but I can't figure out what the proper combination is in this situation. I've seen this in all my WitP PBEM games - I reach a point at which air units that had been flying regularly just won't fly any more.

This is the case right now in China with the SB-2c units. They were flying regularly and gaining experience and morale. Now that they have good levels of both and are well rested, they won't fly at all. And my fighters are behaving the same way, even in bases where there is plenty of supply and the air support is clearly in the "black". What worries me is that I am starting to see database memory failures pop up at random - the HQ in NZ that won't let me assign a leader, the Chinese unit in northern Manchuria that has no enemy units between it and the Chinese bases but continues to suffer from the "59 to 0" syndrome are prime examples. Could the inability of my bombers to fly be due to something similar? Or is it simply a case of the combination of advantages that the Japanese have in terms of experience, leadership, supply and so on pushes them over the "magic limit" and allows them to attack?

In any event, Japanese bombers were able to attack Hengchow and Homan at will and Tophat even sent a big 49 Zero sweep over Sian that creamed the squadron of Mohawks that I had there. I had laboriously trained those Mohawks in ground attacks on the Japanese troops at Kungchang for over a game month to get them up from experience around 60 to experience 70. But they were totally overmatched by the "Gods of the Skies" and 11 Mohawks were shot down for a loss of 3 Zeros. And to "add insult to injury" my SB-2cs still didn't fly to attack the Japanese troops at Homan. So I'm pulling back my planes further.

I'm also trying to increase my training in the backwater bases, but because China, India, Australia, Hawaii and North America are constantly under thunderstorms (I kid you not - this is unfortunately no exaggeration!) I constantly have fighters damaged by weather-induced operational damage when I set the fighter units even to a 20% training level. Therefore, I still have tons of pilots with experience in the mid-to-high 50s and no way to train them regularly. So you can well understand why I don't like to confront Tophat in the air - bad planes, poor pilots and no improvement in sight for months. And I keep on getting the uneasy feeling that Corsairs won't be the "answer to my prayers" that so many people have told me.

Anyway, my dissatisfaction with the game model aside, there was other action outside of the one-sided air war in China. For example, Tophat captured Russell Islands this turn. This was his first base captured in quite a while. He is also using Topsys somewhere - probably to transport supplies - and is losing a few of them from time-to-time due to operational losses.

Japanese sub I-17 disappeared from view in the waters between Johnson and Palmyra Islands and none of my ASW activity in the region could find it again. One of my air attacks did get off the ground - my B-17 squadron in Darwin flew and hit the airfield at Kai unopposed again, adding more damage and causing more casualties. Interestingly enough, the bomber pilots aren't adding experience despite the ease of these missions. But why should I be surprised…

Dave Baranyi

[ADavidB]

August 23 -

I was splitting a few fighter air groups up in the hopes that they would receive ops damage less quickly while training than as whole groups when I suddenly ran out of "divides" after I split four groups. So I emailed Tophat and it turns out that he was under the mistaken impression that the Game allowed 20 "divides" per side instead of a total of 18 for the two sides together. So he is now scrambling to bring air units back together. I was wondering how he was able to put air units at so many bases.

But splits or not, the Japanese air forces own the air over China right now. Tophat sent several huge bomber raids on Homan, causing all sorts of damage and casualties, followed by a couple of big fighter sweeps. I never understand why so many Japanese players complain about big Allied bombing raids - good Japanese players like Tophat and PzB have no difficulty at all in bringing together raids of hundreds of bombers and hundreds of fighters. Those raids are just as effective as any Allied bomber raids and have the advantage of being escorted by much better fighters than the Allies can put up in 1942.

But never fear, 14 Hurricanes and 9 SB-2cs finally launched from Lanchow for the first time in a couple of game-weeks and caused 15 casualties among the 150,000 plus Japanese troops that are besieging Kungchang…Obviously the Allied air forces are way over-equipped and way over-rated… ()

Okay, soapbox aside, Tophat followed up on those air raids with another deliberate attack on Homan:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ground combat at Homan

Japanese Deliberate attack

Attacking force 237954 troops, 2408 guns, 184 vehicles

Defending force 85975 troops, 124 guns, 0 vehicles

Japanese assault odds: 4 to 1 (fort level 6)

Japanese Assault reduces fortifications to 5

Japanese ground losses:
6342 casualties reported
Guns lost 89
Vehicles lost 5

Allied ground losses:
4375 casualties reported
Guns lost 42
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm running out of supply at Homan and I don't have any more replacement troops nearby to reinforce it, so in combination with my inability to launch any air strikes against the besieging troops, I expect Homan to fall at the next serious attack. Oh well, those troops held up for quite some time.

In other regions, Tophat continued to recon Derby and followed up with another big sweep by 53 Zeros. That's okay, I don't have any fighters in the air over Northern Australia - there's no point since I don't have anything good enough nor in big enough numbers to stop those sorts of sweeps. Tophat also started to recon Darwin. I'm sending out more bombers next turn to hit Kai Island. We'll see if that gets Tophat to act in some manner.

In the Central Pacific, poor old S-30 was "run over" by 4 Japanese DDs, but the ASW attack missed the sub as it continues to try to limp to safety. I'm guessing that those DDs are part of the carrier TF that is guarding the TFs that are supplying Baker Island. Speaking of "limping home", it doesn't look like the Hulbert will make it to safety - system damage is now at 99 and floatation at 95 and the ship is a hex from port.

Dave Baranyi

[ADavidB]

August 24 -

Tophat rebuilt two more air groups, leaving only two more to go for him. But because he has been using the split groups for upgrading it will be a couple of weeks before he can get the rest of the planes to the point that he can rebuild them. Oh well, at least I've got a bit of flexibility now.

Tophat's patrol planes finally spotted the small transport TF that has been sitting in Darwin Harbor for the past few days and which had sailed ever so slowly across the northern edge of Australia for a game-week or so. Of course, once the ships were spotted in the AM air phase a bunch of Bettys flew out from Amboina in the PM air phase and were able to put a torpedo each into two of the AKs. I've got to wonder about the reality of a reaction in an afternoon over such a long distance, but who am I to question such a robust Game design… [8|] In any event, I've now put a couple of Hurricane squadrons in place in the hopes that the Bettys come back next turn, even though they were accompanied by Zeros this turn.

Tophat got off his now regular massive air attacks on Homan, further pounding the remaining Chinese forces. The overall base supply is now gone and a number of units are totally out of supply, so as I mentioned last time, the next deliberate attack ought to take the base. BTW - my planes in Lanchow didn't fly again this turn.

My squadron of IL-4cs did fly this turn and surprised me by flying right past a squadron of Tonys at Changsha. No one was shot down on either side, but the IL-4cs did little damage and one bomber was lost to operational damage.

My squadron of B-17s at Darwin also flew again to hit Kai Island. The Fortresses flew in the morning, and then the squadron of Hudsons flew in the afternoon. For whatever reason, the squadron of Beauforts didn't fly. The B-17s caused some damage but the Hudsons caused no damage at all.

And as expected, the Hulbert sank in Palmyra harbor.

Dave Baranyi

[ADavidB]

August 25 -

The Bettys didn't come back to Darwin this turn despite a recon flight and a patrol plane that spotted the transport ships still unloading in port. I guess that the Hurricanes were noticed. However, the Bettys had escorts last time so I don’t know why they wouldn't fly if the escorts were still with them. The weather forecast was for rain all over, but that doesn't usually affect a "hungry" Betty… [8|]

One of the damaged AKs was emptied out and so I was able to pull it out of the TF and disband it into port. The damage isn't too bad so it ought to survive if the port at Darwin isn't bombed or bombarded. The other damaged AK is in its own TF and is still unloading. If it empties out successfully I'll also disband it into port. The other two undamaged AKs are set to head south if they get to unload undisturbed.

In China there were medium sized Japanese air raids on Hengchow and Homan again. The big 100+ bomber run didn't fly this time. I've moved a couple of Hurricane squadrons into Hengchow in hopes of surprising Tophat - he hasn't bothered to sweep Hengchow for quite a while because I haven't been keeping CAP there. We'll see if I get away with this.

Elsewhere, a couple of Wellington squadrons flew from India to hit Pagan for practice. I'm now flying recon flights all over Burma just to keep Tophat edgy. My night fighters are also occasionally getting a few hits so I let them go just for nuisance value.

A couple of more Japanese subs showed up in the South Pacific so I'm sending out a couple more ASW ships to see if I get luckier this time. I'm assuming that the Japanese carrier force has retired to Kwajalein because my picket line subs didn't report any Kates or Vals this turn. If not, then I may get to see the KB in all its "glory" charge off after an MSW or something like that… [;)]

Dave Baranyi