Matrix Games Forums

May 8 - May 17, 1943

Still really quiet. The Japanese artillery are pounding Voroshilov daily to little effect, but the Russians around Vlad do appear to be _very_ slowly starving. Probably going to make a bigger push here soon.

No allied moves to speak of. They've been sinking quite a few Japanese merchant ships and even a few big tankers, but we are starting to get serious about convoying. And this last turn was purportedly a major boon to Japanese ASW efforts, with 6(!) allied subs reported sunk today. All thanks to the navy and a couple of unlucky subs hitting mines near Hokadate in Hokkaido. Probably a couple were FOW, but very good news indeed. We also lost a merchant raider to some Dauntlesses near Raoul island. It was returning to Noumea and got to close when I wasn't paying attention [8|].

May 17-July 6, 1943

Not much to report on. Still no major allied move. Both sides seem to be simply consolodating their positions.

The siege of Vlad drags on, but they're now down to just the city itself. Nevertheless, with level 9 forts, it will be a tough nut to crack. And ejecting hime from Voroshilov sapped much of the strength of our divisions. We're going to rest a couple more weeks before beginning the assault in earnest. It is astonishing how long he can last with no supplies at all. His troops have been uterly without supplies for 8-9 months and they still seem able to defend themselves effectively.

There was a night surface action around Attu island, where a Japanese cruiser force came in suddenly to attack. The Japanese withdrew in good order after sinking a few AKs and 2 Soviet destroyers (including Comrade Stalin's namesake!).

Meanwhile, I was bored, so I decided to try to strike the allied positions in Northern Australia. The KB (now reinforced with Taiho and the first 3 Unryus), plus LBA struck suddenly and without warning at the ports and Airfields at Broome and Port Helland. Recon had showed valuable targets such as (probably damaged) subs and transports in port. Remember: being bored is not a good reason to attack.

The aircraft losses were heavy on both sides, but many of the Japanese bombers got unstuck and ran into some allied fighters unescorted. Net result: Japanese lose more aicraft than the allies (and with mostly good pilots). And for the mere sinking of a submarine and some landing craft. And worst of all, I revealed the position of the KB. I wonder where the allied CVs are?

July 7-10, 1943.

All of a sudden, hell breaks lose over Burma! Hundreds of allied aircraft begin pounding Japanese airfields and ground troops. Recon has showed that at least some allied troops are on the move. Could this be a major bid for Burma, or is it just a concerted air attack?

Man, those P-47s are killers. They are achieving a 10:1 kill rate or so.

Aircraft losses are heavy on both sides, but the B-24s make it through to plaster the main Japanese airfield and torch many Tojos on the ground.

The Allies are invading Burma!

There are 4 possible places to put a defensive line; where should I put the Main Line of resistance? My planning has been based on counterattacking incursions once they get to the Mandalay line, and abandonning Northern Burma. Anyone have experience with this and/or advice? How easily can he draw supply into those northern bases? Can the Japanese defend central Burma? I've got around 7 divisions available total (4xINF, 3xARM), plus supporting troops. Will that be enough? Enemy strength so far unknown. Should I make a stand, fall back to Southern Burma, or abandon it completely? My plan was originally to wait until he emerged from the jungle, and then attack him with everything I've got.

Your best bets IMHO are the Myitkyina Line or the Moulmein Line. The other two place your troops in vulnerable terrain that is not easily defensible.

To hold the Allies back in Burma you need to fight in the jungles. 

Myitkina line, I feel, is very risky. No chokepoints or obvious strongholds, and lack of roads can turn from a boon to a curse. One mistake with recon, and your army will be stuck in the jungle, while Allies are marching on Irawaddy's valley.

Mandalay line allows you to hold everything that is valuable in Burma and keep your troops in position where they can redeploy to any threatened point rapidly. Hopefully, you've built up all bases on the open ground to high level of forts. However, even with massive forts it cannot be held if Allies obtain total air superiority.

Prome line cedes most of the things you want to hold Burma for to the enemy and is still vulnerable on the left flank.

Moulmein-Chiang Mai line is a good fallback position once the Allied tide becomes unstoppable. It should be fortified in advance.

ORIGINAL: TheLoneGunman
To hold the Allies back in Burma you need to fight in the jungles. 

Exactly. Get those suckers into the jungles along their lines of advance.

Red circles good defensive spots. Blue is a unit in the right place. Watch your supply in the hexes without roads into them.

The carnage continues unabated. I was unable to withdraw my air units at one of my airfields with 100 runway damage, so they got pounded again... that seems strange because I was able to withdraw an air unit from the same AF by rail... why can't I rail up the few undamaged fighters as well. Is there any way to damage your own planes so you can move the units by rail?

Chindits landed in force at 3 points and the chinese pushed a recon regiment out of the mountains. A japanese infantry regiment is moving up to support the shattered unit. 7 Japanese divisions are about to enter Burma, and we're bringing in more flak and engineers.

I think we're going to stand on the Mandalay line. It's fairly exposed, but strangely this actually is steering a lot of my thinking. I may be vulnerable to air attack, but he will be without forts and therefore even more so. I may not be able to protect my front line airfields adequately, but with supporting airfields in the rear around Rangoon, and in southern Burma (Moulmein/Tavoy), I ought to be able to pulvarize any of his land units when they emerge from the Jungle, while he won't be able to support them with fighters easily... at least that's the plan!

July 12-16, 1943.

All fronts have now opened up in ferocious allied air attack. In addition to Burma, allied bombers have visited Luganville in the New Hebrides and Koepang in Timor in large numbers. Rather than sitting passively in defense, I've been picking one allied airfield to concentrate all firepower on each turn. It seemed to work out alright this turn, and for the first time in a while allied air losses were higher than Japanese. One of us is going to run out of airplanes before too long!

A sub made an attack run on Zuikaku, but thankfully the torp was a dud. The bad news is that he's spotted the KB (midway between the DEI and Rabaul, redeploying to the latter). I wonder where (if anywhere) he actually plans to land. Recon has showed heavy landing craft buildup in Northern Australia - maybe he's going to try to land in the Timor area? He'll have a hard time keeping all those airfields supressed.

Have you actually stopped and looked at how many Jakes you've lost due to Ops losses? [X(]

ORIGINAL: TheLoneGunman

Have you actually stopped and looked at how many Jakes you've lost due to Ops losses? [X(]

Yes, I think it might be because I fly them at max range in all weather with no rest, and especially from 0-airfield atolls (using AVs for support). I wonder if not having an actual airfield makes a difference?

You should just shoot them. [:'(]

The problem is rest. Fly them at 50-60%, not 100% and they'll do better. Still going to suffer gobs of losses if you are overflying an enemy base with lots of fighters, or if you find the enemy carriers.

ORIGINAL: cap_and_gown

The problem is rest. Fly them at 50-60%, not 100% and they'll do better. Still going to suffer gobs of losses if you are overflying an enemy base with lots of fighters, or if you find the enemy carriers.

The 22 he's lost to air-to-air engagements pales in comparison to the 938 he's lost to operations.

Think of where all that HI could have went... [:(]

July 17-August 3, 1943.

After around 2 weeks of intesive allied bombing of airfields, the front suddenly went quiet. The bombardment resumed today in a series of air attacks from Northern Australia, from Fiji to Noumea, and most heavily in Burma. We guessed the targets well, and got some leaky CAP intercepting some strikes without getting too many planes caught on the ground. Air losses are intense in Burma for both sides. I can stand the loss of airframes pretty well, but the pilots hurt. Luckily we seem to keep a good number of them over our own airspace.

The siege of Vlad drags on and the Russians show no sign of breaking (or even reducing in AV, they seem to be going up!). After a series of furious assaults, each costing tens of thousands of Japanese casualties, we've gotten the forts from 9 to 6. Still a long way to go, and we need to rest and reorganize the assault forces for the moment, rotating in fresh divisions to replace the shattered ones. We must break Vlad before he can safely bring supply in by sea!

Recent allied moves include occupying the last of the Aluetians, including ones orginally belonging to Russia, and the occupation of Norfolk Island to establish an airbase for operations against New Caledonia. The latter move was supported by at least one American CV judging by submarine reports and Hellcat ops losses, and were mostly uncontested. We did bomb Norfolk a couple of times and sink some AKLs in its waters, but it was mostly half-hearted. I just don't want to lose pilots over enemy territory.

Still (appart from Burma), none of these were major allied operations. He is clearely just putting land-based air in place to support operations and waiting for Essexes. We are still waiting for the first allied invasion hammerblow. Where will it strike...?

August 4-9, 1943.

The allied air onslaut in Burma continues unabated. Each turn he destroys 1 airfield, usually just after all the japanese planes have left. Then the engineers are left to clean up the mess. Life is hard for a Korean labourer in Burma! One of these days, I'm going to guess wrong and we'll get smacked. But until then, we can skirmish around the edges, and pick off planes, and bomb his airfields in return.

This turn we got lucky for the 3rd time in a row. This time, I left a CAP-trap at Taung Gyi just behind the front (lvl 5). A series of air battles between some sweeping fighters and attacking bombers and the Japanese fighters resulted. This resulted in heavy carnage (yet again), but this time we managed to pick off a healthy number of Vengeance dive bombers, SB-2 bombers, and DB-3Ms. Last turn we bagged 73xIl-2 Sturmoviks on the ground. Even in Burma, the Russian air force dies in droves [:)].

He's steadily depleting my fighter pool, but I've got lots of the junk left (Oscars, Tojos, and especially A6M2s!). A little shorter on the A6M3a's, but we're starting some A6M5s now.

The worrying thing is that B-24s are unstopable. Hundreds of fighters don't even dent them, and die like flies trying to. If he wants to destroy one of my airfiles, there's nothing I can do about it! So I think the hit-and-run tactics will be the order of the day. Plus, they're kind of fun!

August 9 - September 26, 1943.

The fighting in Burma recently has been intense. Every day, hundred of allied bombers drop their loads almost unchallenged. The best elements of the Japanese airforce have been engaged in Timor bombing bases in Northern Australia. About a week ago we launched a major raid from Timor in conjunction with the KB that destroyed 50+ allied 4E bombers on the ground - but that is just a drop in the pail.

I was unable to draw any supply to Lashio through the jnugle (because my troops were defending their own base), which put the Japanese at a severe disadvantage - note that supply is borked. Outside base, you get full supply while inside the base you starve. Other than the base effect, supply draw is actually too easy, and he dosen't seem to be having any troubles at all. Anyway, I got about 2 divisions worth badly mauled at Lashio, and they retreated to a much more sensible defensive location in the jungle. He's pressing hard with around 5 Chinese corps and 5 Indian dvisions, plus a spattering of other troops. I'm bringing up some more reinforcements.

The biggest news recently is the surrender of Vladivostock after being isolated for 14 months, and a 6 month siege. This conquest of the Trans-Amur region finally eliminates the threat to my rear areas in Manchuria. Japanese forces are now redeploying, some ot the Pacific, and some to the new Russian border near Chita.

Just this turn the Allies invaded the Atolls near Funafutti - likely to set up seaplane bases that can see into the Gilberts. No sign of major allied ships or carriers, but this could indicate a move towards the Central Pacific...

Allied buildup has been proceeding apace near Kamchatka. We've been building up the Kuriles in response. The first northern allied 4E bombing raid came off this turn against Paramushiro Jima. Japanese fighters are responding, but my great fear, that the allies might try to get supply in to the defenders of Vlad has passed. Now it's more of a long term strategic bombing threat - still a considerable problem, but not nearly so chronic.

Here's the surrender of Vlad:

Ground combat at Vladivostok (112,46)

Japanese Deliberate attack

Attacking force 106821 troops, 2128 guns, 929 vehicles, Assault Value = 2687

Defending force 103431 troops, 1402 guns, 107 vehicles, Assault Value = 3643

Japanese engineers reduce fortifications to 0

Japanese adjusted assault: 4306

Allied adjusted defense: 1447

Japanese assault odds: 2 to 1 (fort level 0)

Japanese forces CAPTURE Vladivostok !!!

Combat modifiers
Defender: terrain(+), leaders(+), supply(-)
Attacker:

Japanese ground losses:
16830 casualties reported
Squads: 129 destroyed, 746 disabled
Non Combat: 259 destroyed, 502 disabled
Engineers: 60 destroyed, 74 disabled
Guns lost 4 (2 destroyed, 2 disabled)
Vehicles lost 98 (42 destroyed, 56 disabled)


Allied ground losses:
102882 casualties reported
Squads: 4772 destroyed, 0 disabled
Non Combat: 7108 destroyed, 0 disabled
Engineers: 226 destroyed, 0 disabled
Guns lost 1654 (1654 destroyed, 0 disabled)
Vehicles lost 148 (148 destroyed, 0 disabled)
Units destroyed 19


Assaulting units:
14th Division
23rd Division
19th Division
13th Division
10th Division
1st Division
12th Division
32nd Division
8th Division
41st Division
9th
37th Division
25th Division
3rd Army
1st Area Army
1st Ind.Hvy.Art. Battalion
4th Ind. Mountain Gun Regiment
4th Medium Field Artillery Regiment
10th Mortar Battalion
10th Medium Field Artillery Regiment
10th Mortar Battalion
2nd Hvy.Artillery Regiment
13th Mortar Battalion
11th Ind.Hvy.Art Battalion
Botanko Hvy Gun Regiment
3rd Hvy.Artillery Regiment
2nd Medium Field Artillery Regiment
5th Army
12th Medium Field Artillery Regiment
9th Medium Field Artillery Regiment
Korea Army
20th Medium Field Artillery Regiment
5th Medium Field Artillery Regiment
26th Field Artillery Regiment
4th Army
13th Ind.Art.Mortar Battalion
Kwantung Army
7th Medium Field Artillery Regiment
22nd Medium Field Artillery Regiment
15th Medium Field Artillery Regiment
12th Ind.Art.Mortar Battalion
13th Ind.Hvy.Art Battalion

Defending units:
39th Rifle Division
98th Rifle Division
40th Rifle Division
66th Rifle Division
105th Rifle Division
21st Rifle Brigade
113th Rifle Brigade
258th Rifle Division
35th Rifle Division
187th Rifle Division
13th Naval Infantry Brigade
190th Rifle Division
59th Rifle Division
29th Rifle Brigade
Vladivostok Naval Fortress
22nd Rifle Division
60th NKVD Regiment
Soviet Far East Cmd
1st Red Banner Army

September 28, 1943: Action near Funafutti

During the night, allied BBs and CAs moved in and bombarded, shattering the Japanese defenders of Funafutti.

The next day, Japanese strikes went out, but they got badly unstuck from the paltry numbers of zero escorts. The toll on Bettys and Judy was high, but we did manage to get enough ordinance through to sink an APA, an LST, and a few AKs. Allied CVEs were conclusively spotted, but I bet the CVs are around in support.

15 Japanese subs were in the area and are responding.