difficult situation
maybe leave them for a day on naval and then switch back
maybe this will reset obstacles
Good point. Sometimes I've been able to get out of this "no fly" cycle by pulling the planes right out of the Front and standing them down in a backwater base for a while. If they don't fly this time I'll do that.
Finally some of my planes got into the air this turn. But I still "zigged" where I should have "zagged" at Wuchow where I pulled my Hurricanes out, only to see Tophat come back in with bombers. However, the flak did its job and the Japanese bombers didn't do theirs, so things worked out okay in the end.
But the big aerial news was at Yunan where Tophat sent his planes in for a third day in a row, only to find a "warm reception" from the AVG:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Day Air attack on Yunan, at 38, 32
Japanese aircraft
Ki-44-IIb Tojo x 45
Ki-21 Sally x 24
Ki-15 Babs x 3
Those Sallys are certainly persistent - they still got through and caused damage on the ground. I'm betting that Tophat will try to break the AVG there at Yunan, so I've brought in my experienced Hurricanes and Mohawks that are veterans of the Chinese air wars to add some bite. If he continues to attack I'll bring my other P-40 group in too, since they aren't finding much opposition when they do fly:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Day Air attack on Mandalay, at 33, 30
Japanese aircraft
no flights
Allied aircraft
Wellington III x 111
P-40B Tomahawk x 72
F-5A Lightning x 4
Japanese aircraft losses
Ki-43-Ib Oscar: 2 destroyed
Japanese ground losses:
104 casualties reported
Guns lost 3
Yes, "miracles of miracles", the RAF finally got into the air again for the first time in weeks and weeks. After I rest up the Wellingtons I will move them along to other targets - maybe China again for the first time in a couple of months…
In the meanwhile, my B-17s at Canton Island "said hello" to Tophat's Zeros at Baker Island:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Day Air attack on Baker Island, at 94, 92
Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 18
Allied aircraft
B-17E Fortress x 12
Japanese aircraft losses
A6M2 Zero: 2 destroyed, 3 damaged
Once again, this is just to keep Tophat "honest". The situation will really sink in the first time that those B-17s come in accompanied by some P-38s…
Otherwise, things were typically quiet except that my Chinese ground forces had a better-than-usual artillery attack on the Japanese at Kungchang. But I can't keep this up on a daily basis because an artillery attack puts the supply into the "pink" at Kungchang for a couple of days. I'd love to know how Tophat can continue to do daily bombardments at the end of long supply routes…
very extensive use of oscars - offensive in china or in burma ?
lots of ki 15 babs - they are too slow - i always rearm them to dinah ASAP
mohawk major fighter - preserving p-40 ?
very extensive use of oscars - offensive in china or in burma ?
lots of ki 15 babs - they are too slow - i always rearm them to dinah ASAP
mohawk major fighter - preserving p-40 ?
1 - Yes, Tophat has tried to use Oscars in China and Burma to allow him to use his Zeros elsewhere. I kept on popping better Allied planes in and out to force him to commit his better planes there too.
2 - He does a lot of recon and the Babs take the brunt of the work
3 - The Mohawks did quite well against the Oscars. But every so often Tophat would catch me with his Zeros and the Mohawks would be hit hard. I deliberately kept the P-40s out of the fight and so used the Mohawks as a fill-in. But now I have 110 P-40E and 150 P-40B in reserve and full compliments in my air groups, so I can do things like the last turn.
Truthfully though, Japanese "Ops Losses" have been my biggest "friend". Tophat pushes his planes very hard. I gripe about him getting his planes in the air more than I do, but I also sit my planes out a lot in order to make certain that they are rested and repaired. If you go back to my September 7 report and look at the Intel screen you will see that I only have 350 Ops losses compared to 968 for Tophat. That, essentially, is the difference in our air scores. But I'll take it! [:D]
One of the things that makes Tophat such a tough player is that he sticks with his plans and general strategy and doesn't react to surprises. He also doesn't repeat mistakes nor does he throw away his forces. This turn was a good example of all of that.
Tophat has a very deliberate strategy in China. He is attacking at three key locations, but only one of those attacks is the main target - in this case Sian. He sends bombers in every turn and also does artillery attacks every turn. The ambush I set over Yunan last turn didn't cause Tophat to pull his better fighters away from their escort rolls over Sian to try to attack the AVG in Yunan. Instead Tophat got off two very strong and well escorted attacks on Sian again. Fortunately for me, my AA is still working fairly well at Sian so Tophat did lose five more planes to Flak and Ops damage. But with all my good fighters in China collected in Yunan, Tophat was also able to get an unmolested air attack off against some Chinese troops that are sitting near Wuchow.
My Chinese SB-2cs did fly again this turn, and only very belatedly did I realize that they have been going after Japanese troops at Sian, not Kungchang! I had switched their target before Tophat's extended absence and forgot that I had made the change. Fortunately, Tophat didn't have any LR CAP over Sian.
Otherwise, the only other action was the usual Japanese artillery bombardments of Hengchow, Sian and Kungchang. Tophat's subs have been very quiet recently - my patrols have spotted only an occasional Japanese sub and there have been no sub attacks on Allied ships for ages. Of course, it helps that I don't have a lot of TFs on the go either.
Weather grounded all Allied air attacks again this turn, but at least the recon flights got off the ground and brought back some info. The Japanese air attacks in China, on the other hand, were able to get off as usual. There were two big attacks on Sian and one of Tophat's intermittent attacks on Wuchow. He keeps me guessing in that part of China and I haven't caught his planes (or pattern) yet.
Two Japanese air attacks didn't work. First there was an attempted fighter sweep of Yunan by a squadron of Zeros. Tophat is lucky that they didn't find the mark - running into the full AVG along with three skilled British fighter squadron would have given those Zeros problems regardless of their experience. Then one of Tophat's air training missions flew in the Philippines, but it did no damage.
Otherwise, there were the usual three Japanese artillery attacks in China and I had my troops in Kungchang do one of their occasional artillery attacks. I only let my troops bombard when the base supply is in the "black".
I spent a lot of time this turn re-assigning leaders in China. I've been moving my Chinese troops around a lot, so I re-set the leaders in the rear bases to "Rear" leaders and my front line leaders to "Front line", "Combat" and "Assault". I like to try to use every little bit of "edge" I can find.
This turn I also received a number of fresh troops in San Francisco. I'll start to move them out next turn. I don't load troops onto ships the first turn that they arrive because they arrive without supplies. If I try to put them on ships before they get supplies from the base (which takes a turn) the loading routine tries to load the troops along with supplies, leaving me with partial loading and all sorts of other headaches that I don't need. So it's better just to wait a day.
Next turn I receive two more fast battleships, a number of destroyers and a lot of other ships. I'll have to check out the new ships to see if any of them are due for October upgrades; if they are, I'll just leave them in port.
I also get a number of new air units; the most interesting of which is a full group of B-25s in Karachi. That will help to change the balance of air power in the Far East. I'll finally have an additional long range strike force to add flexibility to my Wellingtons.
It looks as if it is just about time to rename this Game, "War in China" instead of "War in the Pacific", now that Tophat has started to move troops in against Wuchow. That makes four bases in China that will be under Japanese attack. I've already built up Wuchow well and have a number of good units in it, including the sole Chinese armoured unit, so we'll see how well Tophat likes being bogged down in yet another location. I moved some CAP in this turn and set the troops to start off their own artillery bombardment. Fortunately, I've got plenty of supplies there too.
However, Tophat does have a lot of reserves if he wants to commit more troops to China. This turn SIGINT informed me that Tophat has over 350K troops in Tokyo and around 511K troops in Hiroshima. When I also consider the troops that Tophat still has in the DEI it appears that he isn't keeping a lot of ground forces in the Central Pacific - he is probably counting on the KB to keep me "honest" in that region.
So I can probably take it for granted that India won't be assaulted in the foreseeable future. If he is silly enough to attack India without the KB for support I'll eat his forces for breakfast. And if he is silly enough to commit the KB to India I'll come down on the Japanese Central Pacific with 10 Combat Divisions and the entire US Pacific Fleet, and my forces in India will still cause the Japanese no end of grief.
Since Tophat hasn't been taking any dumb chances so far, I am assuming that he will instead continue his systematic approach to China and that he may well attempt some limited attacks in Northern Australia and the South Pacific. But the longer that he waits to move into the South Pacific, the more it will become like India already has become - a giant trap.
The reinforcements that I received last turn and this are certainly welcome. It turns out that the South Dakota is already upgraded so I am sending it out to the Front. The Washington has an October 1942 upgrade due so I'm leaving it in San Fran for the next few weeks. I received two Marine Wildcat squadrons and a Marine Dauntless squadron which are now on their way to the Front. I also received a P-40E group for Northern Command. That's handy - I'm moving them to Alaska in anticipation of my plans for 1943. And the B-25s arrived in Karachi as expected so I moved them forward. I'll be happily putting them to use very soon. I'm also repositioning some of my Australian land forces just in case Tophat does decide to invade Northern Oz.
In the war itself, Tophat had a good air turn and I had a so-so air turn. Tophat's planes first bombed Hengchow, and then he got two strong raids off on Sian. He is keeping the airfields permanently closed in Sian.
My Hurricanes and SB-2cs in Lanchow flew this turn, but in two groups, resulting in two weak attacks on two different Japanese LCUs at Kungchang. Then my Darwin-based B-17 squadron also got split up on its Port attack on Amboina, with the largest part not finding the target and only three bombers flying in to deal with a good Zero squadron:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Day Air attack on Amboina, at 39, 73
Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 22
Allied aircraft
PBY Catalina x 2
F-5A Lightning x 2
B-17E Fortress x 3
Japanese aircraft losses
A6M2 Zero: 1 destroyed, 4 damaged
Aircraft Attacking:
1 x B-17E Fortress bombing at 6000 feet
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Amazingly enough, I actually only ended up losing one B-17 to air-to-air combat and the other to flak.
In any event, I received yet another heavy bomber group today, so eventually I'll start some more serious bombing campaigns, but it's not that long until I start to get P-38s, therefore I may as well continue to be patient.
I kidded Tophat about "War in China" when I sent him the last turn, and he replied"
"Sorry,but the China fixation is about the only way i can attain enough points to actually contend for a win. Believe me I didn't want to go so heavily into china but your retreating tactic and my initial misrouting 2 divisions snowballed into "DELAY". This along with my conservative playstyle has narrowed my options down. Hence we are at WAR in China......................Law of unintended consequences! ------------> its both our faults!"
So Sneer was right - Tophat is trying to take China. Okay, I'm game for a Stalingrad approach...[;)]
I'm fairly confident that Tophat can't get 4:1 in points by January 1, 1943. I've got over 5800 points now and Tophat has less than 14000. And there isn't anything terribly valuable for him to take that isn't a long, hard fight away from him.
Even Noumea doesn't get Tophat a lot. I deliberately didn't build it at all before I abandoned it. So it is at minimum point value right now, and with the non-mechanized engineers available to the Japanese, even if Tophat grabs Noumea during the next three months he will have a hard time building it up. He also doesn't have any bases south of Lunga, so that's a long way to run supplies.
So once my subs get their October upgrades I'll blanket the ocean to the south of the Solomons with subs as well as keep some decent forces within striking range. As far as China goes, Tophat still has to "catch" me...[:D]
Tophat is busy and I have time on my hands, so here is a summary of some of the Allied Combat forces as of September 14, 1942:
Land Based Air: Total - 6523; Fighters - 2653, Fighter Bombers - 592, Level Bombers - 2062
That includes Soviet planes, and the Soviets are not currently active.
Naval Air: Total - 607
That only includes Fighters, Dive Bombers and Torpedo Bombers
Combat Ships:
Aircraft Carriers: 6 US Fleet CVs, 2 British Fleet CVs, 1 British CVL
The British carriers all have Seafires.
Battleships: ten 20-knot US BBs, three 28-knot US BBs, four 20-knot British BBs, one 28-knot British BB, one 28-knot British BC
Heavy Cruisers: 15 US CAs, 5 British CAs, 2 Australian CAs
Light Cruisers: six US 2-stack CLs, four US 4-stack CLs, nine British CLs, three Australian CLs, two NZ CLs, 3 Dutch CLs
AA Cruisers: 4 US CLAAs, 3 Brit CLAAs, 1 Dutch CLAA
Destroyers: 140 DDs of various Navies
Only two of the US 20-knot BBs have any damage and are sitting in shipyard ports at SysDam of 14. None of the other combat ships have any significant damage. All ships are upgraded to the latest upgrades with the exception of the two US 20-knot BBs with SYSDAM 14. All ships that are due for the October 1942 upgrades are sitting in Shipyard ports.
he can't beat you in china fast unless he starves you there [8|]
defense and coserve supply
without air campaign aimed in resources ad oil he will not gain much
Tophat has been busy with Family Life this week, and I am going on a week long pc-free vacation starting Saturday, so this AAR will be dormant for until the week of the 15th.
I've been wondering for months, basically since I first saw Dave's avatar, what (or who) is it?
Keroro Gunsou, aka, Sergent Frog, from the anime and manga of the same name. He's the leader of an squad of invading alien frogs in a popular TV Tokyo anime. For more info, http://www.tv-tokyo.co.jp/anime/keroro/
