Recklessness Abounds - Cruft vs Alikchi

[Captain Cruft]

9th Mar 1942 (approx.)

BB Hiei is down to 22 float damage. Still no attempts on her in port.

Batavia falls. Tanks and troops will now rush to Tjilitjap, Bandoeng etc.

Kungchang falls. Only remaining objective in Northern China is Sining. Mongolian horse boys are on the way.

Cebu Island falls. Philippines are now completely Japanese.

---
HI pool is at 202,000+.
Armament pool is at 11,000+ - I have turned off the size 150 factories at Seoul & Mukden for now.
Naval Shipyards are at 1,400+ - All warships are building. I have even accelerated four Unryu class late-war CVs and still the pool goes up.
Merchant Shipyards are at 675 - Struggling a bit but then the only things I care about are the ARs and MLEs.

3 fresh Zero Daitais arrive in 5 days, including the first with A6M3s. They are badly needed (the pilots that is).

[Captain Cruft]

11th Mar 1942

BB Hiei is down to 18 float damage (and 29 sys). Still no attacks.

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I made some bad choices in the air this turn.

Firstly, the vast fleet of unknown ships anchored at Diamond Harbour caused me to order a port attack by some 50 Nells out of Rangoon. I forgot (again) that most of the planes would try to launch torpedoes. Result = loads of planes damaged by flak for no hits. 1 TK and 2 AKs received bombs but it looks like the tasty British BBs and CVs weren't there.

I really don't like the port torpedo attack rule, at the least it would be nice to be able to specify which weapons to use ...

Secondly, I ordered the Nates, Zeros and Lilies at Lae to attack Port Moresby airfield. Result = loads of Nates shot down (yet again) for about 3 runway hits. ROFL. The Nates have been withdrawn to Admiralty Islands where they will remain on CAP duty until they can be upgraded. The Zeros and Betties from Rabaul will have a go next turn instead. I know this contradicts my "Betties on Naval Attack only" rule but there aren't any ships about at the moment ...

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Most amusing event of the turn was two Mongolian cavalry divisions being halted in their tracks (on Deliberate Attack) by two Chinese "Air Base Forces". This was in the hex between Lanchow and Sining. What I had failed to notice that they had just crossed a river and therefore were very disrupted. D'oh.

[Captain Cruft]

Ignore

[Captain Cruft]

13th - 14th Mar 1942

Combined air attack on Port Moresby from Lae and Rabaul - mixed results.

BB Hiei is finally seaworthy and will escape from Kendari next turn.

Combat Files

(Link points to a directory in which all combat files will be archived).

[Captain Cruft]

14th - 15th April 1942 (date is now correct!)

Tactical

3rd Daitai + G1/4th Daitai perform airfield attack from Kendari to Koepang. Lots of P-40s shot down in the air but no planes destroyed on ground. Negligible runway hits.

BB Hiei is on the way to Palau to meet my solitary AR.

SS I-165 was sunk to the west of Trivandrum (sp?) by 4 British DDs and their heat-seeking missiles.

As compensation, SS Tautog was reported as sinking a few hexes to the west of Pearl Harbor. Why Alikchi did not dock the sub at a port nearer to where it was damaged I don't know (again).

Combat Files

Strategic

Bankha fell today to a mixed brigade/regiment landed from Singapore.
Tanks are blitzing through Java via the rail line. Bandoeng fell this turn, hopefully Tjilitjap will follow next turn.
Foot sloggers are rapidly approaching Samarinda on the road from Tarakan.

Soerabaja and Balikpapan are the only remaining objectives. Shouldn't be long now ...

[Captain Cruft]

16th-19th April 1942

It's gone totally quiet now except for the inexorable advance of Japanese forces on the ground.

Some recent conquests:

Hengchow (China) - the north-south rail line is showing J zones everywhere now
Samarinda (Borneo)
Puerta Princesa (Phillipines) - last holdout in the PI
Arawe (New Britain)

In Java, the forces from Batavia look like they're trying to form a roadblock at Djokarta. The Imp Gds Div has just disembarked at Batavia so they will be sent forward together with 4 tank regts and arty units waiting at Badoeng. Hopefully that will be enough to break through.

---
Points ratio is now > 3 - 1. Allied LCU losses are by far the biggest contributor to this. Several Chinese units have been completely eradicated in the messy goings on in that area.

Production wise, the HI pool is now at 209,000 and the first cargo of c.80,000 Resources has been deposited at Sasebo. Naval & Merchant Shipyard capacity is coping admirably - CV Junyo arrived unaccelerated at Tokyo two days ago. Once AV Akitshima arrives next turn I shall form a nice convoy with some Kagero class DDs and head off for Truk to join the rest of the "Fleet".

[Captain Cruft]

20th-21st April 1942

Still quiet.

Japanese forces on land are approaching Djokarta (Java), Balikpapan (Borneo) and will soon be going for Kweilin (Southern China). Sining in Northern China should fall next turn to complete the conquests there.

The only thing that happened this turn was an Airfield Attack on Port Moresby by some 60 odd Lilies out of Lae (now at size 3). 11 P-40s were shot down by the Zero escorts but 11 Lilies were lost in return. Minimal damage to runway etc.

In Burma I continue to be baffled by the lack of activity on the part of the RAF. All they are doing is using Blenheims to fly Recon over my bases (Rangoon, Pagan, Taung Gyi & Luang Prabang). I would have expected some Airfield Attacks by now, especially at the "army" bases where there are only a few Nates or Oscars defending. Perhaps Air Vice Marshal Alikchi is waiting to upgrade his planes come May time?

Over in the Pacific, Baker Island has sprouted a plane symbol. I am guessing that this just a PBY unit since recon has also started showing a single "AP" at the base, i.e. probably an AV. An RO type sub has been despatched from Makin to take a closer look ...

CV Junyo, AV Akitshima and 6 Kagero class DDs are now on their way to Truk. They will meet up enroute with the two super-duper minelaying cruisers (Tsugaru & Onoshima, on their way back from Wakkanai). Truk is finally getting near to becoming a size 9 port. Once it gets there I intend to start depositing some serious ordnance around the various island groups.

--
My Marianas defence plan is progressing well. Saipan maxed out at size 4 port this turn and will get to size 5 airfield next turn. Forts are at size 7. The base is looking pretty good now with an excess of support/aviation support and lots of engineers.

Units present at Saipan:-

5th Fleet (Naval HQ)
5th AA Regt (AA)
5th Base Force (Aviation Support + Light Coastal Guns)
5th NLF (Naval Infantry)
5th Coastal Gun (Light Coastal Guns)
24th Air Flotilla (Air HQ)
24th Aviation Unit (Aviation Support)
Saipan Base Force (Aviation Support + Light Coastal Guns)
Saipan Coastal Gun Unit (Medium/Light Coastal Guns)
1st - 15th Naval Const Bns (Engineers) - i.e. all of them. Clark Field is similarly getting all the "AF Const Bns"

Once the campaign in the DEI is over the Imperial Guards Div will also be transferred to the island but only after I have paid the PPs to convert it to 4th Fleet HQ.

The idea is to make an "impregnable fortress" where I can station the surface fleet under a >300 plane naval fighter CAP. I am assuming that I will have to fight this battle some time in 1943 rather than 1944 due to a) WitP accelerated time and b) my opponent's documented impatience

[Captain Cruft]

22nd-23rd April 1942

Troops are still marching in Java and Southern Borneo towards their objectives.

I tried another air attack on Port Moresby from Lae. These always seem to result in an equal exchange of Lilies for P-40s. This time was no different Still, with an attack every other turn or so I am stopping Port Moresby from building up. It also helps to keep the morale of the Allied air units there down.

One thing puzzles me. The almost total absence of Allied subs. They have not shown their faces for some time now. I would have thought they might be laying mines all over the place but, aside from the occasional discovery in the Marshall Islands, I have not seen this either. Perhaps they will all suddenly appear in the Kuriles landing troops or summat ;P

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P.S. I have recently discovered the CHS mod - it is much better. Together with the imminence of the significant 1.50 patch there is a small possibility that we may restart this game. Considering how slow we both are this may not be an option though. Nothing definite yet, we'll have to see ...

[Captain Cruft]

24th-25th April 1942

This turn a vast tonnage of bombs was deposited on the airfield at Kendari courtesy of B-25s/B-26s from Timor and B-17s/B-24s (LB-30s) from Darwin. Nearly two hundred planes in total.

10 Zeros rose to greet the bombers and did a fair job, shooting down about 20 of them. Sadly it was not enough and as a result 100+ planes were destroyed on the ground. Damage to the actual base is not that bad, being about 20% service and 60% runway. In the absence of further damage this should repair quickly enough (there are c.240 eng squads present).

I am not giving up on Kendari as a base. Part of this debacle was my fault for being asleep and only having the fighter groups on 40% CAP with one stood down. There are now three Zero groups present, being F1/3rd, F2/3rd and F1/Genzan Daitais.

The remaining live Betties will fly to Palau where their groups can refill - the replacement pool can cope easily at the moment. All Zeros will stay at Kendari on 90% CAP and "Accept Replacements" from the vast supply pool generated by the local "Resource" armament factories. I hope that this will be enough to prevent the bombing campaign from knocking out the base completely. Indeed, the plan would be to return the Betties once air superiority has been regained.

--
P.S. We have decided that we will restart once 1.5 is out and CHS is finished. This game was started with version 1.0 after all.

[Captain Cruft]

28th - 29th April 1942

Since we have decided to do a restart I thought I might as well go mad with this game. I have gone into all out attack mode from this turn ...

Specifically:-

Every IJA plane anywhere near Burma shall attack Mandalay.
Every IJA plane in China shall attack Kweilin, which shall also be invaded.
Every CL and 4,750 endurance DD shall bombard Timor from Kendari.
The CV fleet (c.500 planes in total) shall gather some escorts and go plaster Noumea and points east.
SNLFs from Shortlands shall invade Munda, Lunga and points east.

Obviously the slog through Borneo and Java will continue.

Apart from venting my frustrations at things like having 6 gazillion useless Nates to look after this "strategy" may also prove to be a useful experiment.

Results so far:

275 planes destroyed, 178 Japanese (129 Nates) & 97 Allied.
Mandalay still standing. AVG attrited somewhat (24 P-40s destroyed - Nates even shot one down!).
Kweilin still standing. Troops on their way.
First bombardment of Timor (Koepang) scheduled for next turn. Lots of CLs and DDs on their way to Kendari.
CVs waiting for fuel to arrive at Truk, should arrive any time now.

Speaking of Kendari, it is recovering well. The massed Allied bomber attacks were repeated on the 26th/27th (not reported here) but not this turn. There are now > 100 quality Zeros there on 90% CAP. Come get 'em boys

[Grotius]

Heh, do your Zeroes actually shoot down Allied heavy bombers? In my PBEM of "Guadalcanal" aainst Maikarant, his B-24s and B-17s are better fighters than my A6M2s and A6M3s. [8|]

[Captain Cruft]

ORIGINAL: Grotius
Heh, do your Zeroes actually shoot down Allied heavy bombers? In my PBEM of "Guadalcanal" aainst Maikarant, his B-24s and B-17s are better fighters than my A6M2s and A6M3s. [8|]

Yes, if they have high exp (75+ ?). Otherwise no. It's all about getting the 20mm on target and it seems like the game somehow only allows this to happen for the high exp pilots. I bet the low exp of the bomber pilots helps too.

There is an earlier turn in this AAR where the Zeros at Kendari shot down about 20(?) B-17s and B-24s and damaged many more.

[Captain Cruft]

I have the latest turn in my inbox. Together with a message to the effect that my opponent will also be going ape for the remaining turns of this game.

Cool ... Maybe we'll actually get a CV battle or something.

[Captain Cruft]

It's the beginning of May 1942. The IJA Air Force has ceased to exist as an offensive entity and the Allies have air superiority in Burma and China.

Realistic or what? I must admit to having a Ron Saueracker moment after this turn ...

I'm still enjoying it though, there were compensations. Details to follow.

[Captain Cruft]

30th April - 1st May 1942

Here are the air losses for this turn. The main thing was losing 100+ Sallies at Mandalay and Kweilin - I now have only about 50 left. Since the IJA pilot pool is empty re-building these groups will be hard (and outside the time frame of this soon to be aborted game).

The horrendous combat replay may be found at the link in the signature.

[Captain Cruft]

30th April - 1st May 1942 (cont.)

Bombardments of Timor

The compensation I spoke of earlier was a rather successful day & night bombardment of Koepang by CL Isuzu and some DDs. It was so good that no fighters rose to greet my recon plane on the second day of the turn. As you can see from the air losses above some 100+ Allied planes were destroyed on the ground. Some of these were at Kweilin though.

Further bombardments in the region are scheduled for next turn at Maumere and Kai Island, where Alikchi has established embryonic airbases. Following that, the cruisers and destroyers will all head back to Kendari for a re-fuel and re-org. Lautem is next on the agenda after that.

Invasions

Balikpapan fell today to 4 divs which had been landed at Tarakan and marched down the coast road. Two of these divisions are now planning for Koepang whilst the other two will remain in Borneo to "clear up". Contrary to my earlier thoughts I have now decided that Timor must be invaded. It's just too much of a threat to ignore, even if it doesn't matter in this particular game.

The Djokarta roadblock was brushed aside by the Imp Gds Div and accompanying armour and arty. Soerabaja next stop.

Meanwhile, in Burma there are now no aircraft outside Rangoon. The remnants of the IJA air groups have been withdrawn to Luang Prabang and Hanoi. As if to celebrate his now almost total air superiority the British commander has ordered some of the hordes Chinese at Mandalay to cross the river at the hex between Pagan & Taung Gyi. This would seem to be a reckless attempt to take back Burma. Hopefully, the 4th Mixed Regiment can hold them up for a while, lol.

Over in the Solomons, 3 SNLFs are unloading at Shortlands. They will shortly take off for Munda, Russel Islands & Lunga accompanied by the 8th Fleet from Rabaul (4 CAs + 6 DDs).

CV Raids

To cover the Solomons ops, and generally be a pain in the ass, 9 CVs and CVLs have left Truk and are on their way to the vicininity of Luganville, where Allied transport have been spotted. The CVs are split into 3 TFs of 150-190 planes each. You never know, what with Allied recklessness now toggled on, the Allied CVs might sally forth to meet them. On the other hand, I have a hunch they might turn up in the Marshall/Gilbert Islands. Regardless, we should be having some fun soon

[Captain Cruft]

1st - 2nd May 1942

Well, I was wrong about the forces that had crossed the river south of Mandalay. Whilst they did include one Chinese unit, the bulk of the expedition was composed of Indian tank brigades! They brushed aside the 4th Mixed Regt, which retreated directly to Pagan.

I would now anticipate that an encircling exercise will be performed on either Pagan or TaungGyi or both. Let's see how long they can hold out, the garrisons are fairly large (at least 1 div each), forts are at 4/5 level and prep points getting towards 100 in most cases.

Also in the Burma region, who should pop up to the west of Rangoon but the British fleet! 4 'R' class battleships, the Warspite and the Formidable, at least. Luckily this was in the air phase on the first day. Nells launched from Rangoon in the standard fashion and managed to put single torpedos into one of the 'R' battleships and, more importantly, the Formidable. I was fully expecting a bombardment of Rangoon to follow but it didn't, and next day the fleet was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps the "cautious" British admiral decided to retire?

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Over in the DEI, the push towards Soerabaja continues apace (I am using Shock Attacks with Pursue). In the Banda Sea, what looks like a standard Alikchi bombardment suicide squad is heading northeast towards Amboina. If they should get there they will meet some 8in cruisers and DDs. Let's hope it's at night

Kendari is now pretty much fully operational again and the Betty groups have been returned from Palau complete with new planes.

Koepang airbase continues to be a mess. Lautem is next, after I've seen off the suicide jockeys.

---
Most excitingly, a picket sub to the south-west of Baker Island was spotted by something called an "SBD Dauntless". Since this some 5 hexes from the nearest land mass it would seem the CVs are coming out to play, as predicted. Therefore, the Japanese CV death star has been diverted from its earlier destination and ordered to steam for the Tarawa area at full speed. Hopefully the LBA in the area can damage the raider enough so that I can catch 'em!



P.S. Combat file uploaded to link below.

[Captain Cruft]

ORIGINAL: Captain Cruft
Also in the Burma region, who should pop up to the west of Rangoon but the British fleet! 4 'R' class battleships, the Warspite and the Formidable, at least. Luckily this was in the air phase on the first day. Nells launched from Rangoon in the standard fashion and managed to put single torpedos into one of the 'R' battleships and, more importantly, the Formidable. I was fully expecting a bombardment of Rangoon to follow but it didn't, and next day the fleet was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps the "cautious" British admiral decided to retire?

I have just had confirmation that the British Fleet was indeed intended to bombard Rangoon but had instead retired hurt after the air attacks.

Never put a "cautious" or "careful" commander in charge of a bombardment TF. For some reason the stock scen 15 only provides you with a single "aggressive" British admiral though.

The next turn is in my inbox. Let's see whether Max React = 6 allows the Death Star to catch the US CVs in the Gilberts. /me rubs his hands gleefully

[Captain Cruft]

3rd - 4th May 1942

Well the KB didn't quite make it. Local LBA did though (Kates, Nells & Zeros). Three US CVs (and 1 CL) received torpedos in total. These were Enterprise (2 hits), Saratoga (1 hit - ** FUEL STORAGE EXPLOSION **) & Hornet (1 hit). All were in the Tarawa area except for the Hornet, which was accompanying what looks like an invasion force on the way to Wake Island!

The CVs in the Gilberts just look like a raiding party, they are split into the same pairings as when they were being pesky in the DEI. Namely, Enterprise/Lexington and Saratoga/Yorktown. It now looks as if the Enterprise TF is high-tailing it back to Pago-Pago, whilst the Saratoga is in the hex between Tarawa and Makin.

Meanwhile, the KB has just passed Nauru Island. I am sending the Shokaku & Zuikaku north to help out with defending Wake whilst the remaining 7 slightly slower carriers will chase/annihilate the Americans out of the Gilberts.

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Japanese troops have reached Soerabaja on the heels of the retreating Dutch. We will try a Deliberate Attack to start with, recon is now showing 45,000 troops in opposition.

Also in the DEI, Menado falls. Strangely, the TF that I had theorised was coming towards Amboina didn't arrive. Instead it was seen at Kai Island and then disappeared. Possibly a Fast Transport delivery? A shame the Kendari Betties got socked in ...

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I was right about encirclements in Burma, and it's going to be Pagan. Assault strength is 500+ and forts are 5+, therefore I am reasonably hopeful of holding out there for a while. Supplies are currently OK but if necessary I can re-deploy the IJA transport fleet to Rangoon to do some Supply Transport.

[Captain Cruft]

8th May 1942

We finally managed to have the CV battle. 7 Japanese CVs (Akagi, Kaga, Hiryu, Soryu, Shoho, Zuiho & Ryujo) vs. the Saratoga and Yorktown. The Death Star was positioned at the hex between Tarawa & Makin whilst the US fleet was heading back to Canton Island, just not fast enough. I was surprised in that the US CVs "reacted" to close the range. Perhaps this was so that the Devastators could get a look in, which they did. I would have turned React off though once I was running for home.

Anyway, the result was both US carriers sunk for a cost of 28 planes and two 1000lb bomb hits on the Kaga, which will be OK. A couple of US cruisers succumbed too.

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It looks like we are going to be re-starting with the CHS real soon now. I think we will probably start new AAR threads when that happens. The new game will feature 1 day turns and, since I have managed to get myself properly online, higher turn frequency plus more screenshots and assorted bumpf.

Stay tuned