Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: DesertWolf101

ORIGINAL: GetAssista

This unit appears to lack any movement indicator though as far as I can see. Are you sure your love was well-received there? [:)]

I assume you are referring to the Naval Guard unit at the very top? Yeah it is holding in place while the rest of my forces race to reinforce it. I am about to deliberate attack on the selected contested hex in the image, which should drive the Chinese units there out of the way. Then I will march through the paratrooper unit holding the hex beyond that and then through angkang and hopefully all the way the Guard.

Ah, I did not read you correctly the first time sorry. Thought you would love to get it out, not get to it ) China will be there first long before any of your reinforcements, and a single standard 200+ Chinese corps is on par with 60 AV NG in this terrain. More will push it off

Ooops, me too!

How many tanks on the Ankang road?

Here we can see a negative side effect of the Allies desire to hit you...over focus most likely on Java and the 2-3 CVs he has and the Solomons rather than what is truly important...the Ankang road.

You have an excellent chance of surrounding Chungking in June, or earlier, pocketing 1/3rd of the Chinese Army, and or securing the mountains...significantly well ahead of what a determined Chinese defense could perform.

Or I wonder if it is simply the Allies desire to defend forward.

Given this proclivity, I would think about deep invasions, perhaps Chittagong, Diamond Harbor, Ceylon, Seward, Tahiti...you don't have to stay, smash as much as you can and leave or force the fight where you want it or simply raid with the 5th Carrier Division. So many options!

Enjoy!!!!

December 29, 1941

Central Pacific

The KB launched a full deck carrier strike on Brisbane's industry this turn but the terrible weather (thunderstorms) really put a damper on the party. I was only able to get 44 strategic points from the foray. I wonder if I should target manpower instead of industry directly?

SRA

Japanese surface task forces spread out and cleaned out some enemy PT boats, minelayers, and minesweepers across the region. South of Palawan the damaged DD Peary was encountered and sunk. The biggest encounter however was between the Takao task force and the Marblehead and its destroyer escorts south of Singapore. The Japanese ships did well, pumping 20cm shells into the Marblehead until she went under. I'm pretty sure DD Stewart is also a goner. Battle result below.

In other news, I also landed an infantry regiment at Tarakan. Went smoothly except one of my APs got hit with a single 75mm shell and is on fire. Given that she is still carrying supplies and given the state of Japanese damage control, I fear the fire will spread and consume her.

Some more good news in the region. Two of my subs laid down their mines near Singapore last turn given enemy traffic in the area which turned out to be a good move. Two Dutch subs got badly damaged when they stumbled on the minefield, and at least one of them has sunk (heard sub sinking noises shortly thereafter).

I also sent a Zero sweep to clear the skies over Batavia and they eliminated 25 Buffalos to no losses of their own. This stellar result was tempered by an ambush over Manila where I lost 15 Lilys/Sonias to residual American CAP when a bunch of bombers went in first before their escorts arrived with the rest. Funny but annoying to see P-26s dish out heat!

If you target manpower and start fires, Industry may be destroyed which the Allies, for some reason, do not have the knowledge on how to build more . . . [;)]

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

If you target manpower and start fires, Industry may be destroyed which the Allies, for some reason, do not have the knowledge on how to build more . . . [;)]

Doesn't matter unless you are trying for a total conquest of Australia.

Actually, given the situation, I think a far better use of the KB would be splitting and hunting Allied shipping in the Pacific ala John III deep raids off the West Coast or deep past Tahiti etc, etc. But you aren't really in position to do that which is a pity since you are playing a super aggressive forward fighting Allies that has robbed the Pacific of all carriers...which means there are probably tons of shipping going on, even slow battleships, with no protection. Hindsight though... [;)]

Or shelve Brisbane and steam around Australia...looking for shipping concentrations and strategic VP and sweeps. It would be nice to have setup iboats, raiders to catch fleeing ships etc. Brisbane isn't big enough to merit Deathstar's attention unless there is a lot of shipping there or sweeps to devastate his fighters.

If the Allied player is up to snuff though, there could be 2-6 American AA gun units in Oz by now which makes the farming of VP pretty tough...you would have to aim for Newcastle and Broken Hill as Sydney would probably be to well protected by AA.

Remember your true enemy is the USN...hard to give advice because I don't know how far you have thought in advance and planned things out.

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

If you target manpower and start fires, Industry may be destroyed which the Allies, for some reason, do not have the knowledge on how to build more . . . [;)]

Doesn't matter unless you are trying for a total conquest of Australia.

Actually, given the situation, I think a far better use of the KB would be splitting and hunting Allied shipping in the Pacific ala John III deep raids off the West Coast or deep past Tahiti etc, etc. But you aren't really in position to do that which is a pity since you are playing a super aggressive forward fighting Allies that has robbed the Pacific of all carriers...which means there are probably tons of shipping going on, even slow battleships, with no protection. Hindsight though... [;)]

Or shelve Brisbane and steam around Australia...looking for shipping concentrations and strategic VP and sweeps. It would be nice to have setup iboats, raiders to catch fleeing ships etc. Brisbane isn't big enough to merit Deathstar's attention unless there is a lot of shipping there or sweeps to devastate his fighters.

If the Allied player is up to snuff though, there could be 2-6 American AA gun units in Oz by now which makes the farming of VP pretty tough...you would have to aim for Newcastle and Broken Hill as Sydney would probably be to well protected by AA.

Remember your true enemy is the USN...hard to give advice because I don't know how far you have thought in advance and planned things out.

I'm not picking up any signs of major shipping moving around Oz. I wouldn't be surprised if he has evacuated his big ships from the area already. One thing Francesco did very well thus far is blanket the South Pacific with naval search so he has had good eyes on KB for a while now. In terms of deep raids, I am not sure if you are aware from my previous AARs but that is something I do quite often. I have a process for that though which involves heavy use of SIGINT and submarine search to maximize effectiveness of the raids.

With regards to my nefarious plans of global conquest, I am not flying blind. I started out this campaign without a concrete idea of which direction I will go, not least because I wanted to study how Francesco will play out his initial moves, but I still did advanced prep for likely phase II operations. More on this later when I make my final decision.

December 30, 1941

We finally get a bit of a quieter turn after lots of action the past game week. I will do a general update on the status of the campaign as we enter 1942. It's been quite a ride!

Tarakan was taken by Imperial forces this turn and luckily none of the oil or refineries were damaged. However, an attempt to take Sinkawang with a regiment failed today even if more casualties were inflected on the enemy than sustained.

Probably the most interesting event is an effort by the KB to target manpower in Sydney and start some fires. I am very inexperienced when it comes to strategic bombing so I have no idea if ~ 10,000 fires is good or will lead to any industry damage. Should I keep hitting manpower or switch to direct targeting of industry?

I think 250,000 fires is "good" [;)]

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe
If you target manpower and start fires, Industry may be destroyed which the Allies, for some reason, do not have the knowledge on how to build more . . . [;)]

Realistically Japan will never be able to reach the firestorm levels necessary to completely destroy industries in a competitive game. Too few bombers, too far away targets. Be content with hitting HI and Res directly for strategic points and that's it

ORIGINAL: castor troy

I think 250,000 fires is "good" [;)]

Ha ok yeah I doubt I will get anywhere near there.....[:D]

ORIGINAL: GetAssista

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe
If you target manpower and start fires, Industry may be destroyed which the Allies, for some reason, do not have the knowledge on how to build more . . . [;)]

Realistically Japan will never be able to reach the firestorm levels necessary to completely destroy industries in a competitive game. Too few bombers, too far away targets. Be content with hitting HI and Res directly for strategic points and that's it

Firestorms definitely not but I was wondering if fires could inflict enough damage to warrant my targeting of manpower. Seems the consensus is no. I will shift my targeting during the next turn.

December has passed and a new year has arrived. Below is the score as 1942 dawns. The game has been quite bloody in the air and although I am ahead in the air war I definitely made some mistakes and had some bad luck with bad weather which led to more losses than I would like.

Naval Losses

In terms of naval losses, I already lost a heavy cruiser which is quite unfortunate. Given Francesco's aggressiveness and my own early push into dangerous waters I also lost a large number of merchant ships (~30 xAKs and ~20 xAKls). Fortunately, with the exception of the Palembang antiaircraft convoy these were almost all empty ships.

In terms of enemy losses, I have confirmed the sinking of 4 battleships, 1 heavy cruiser, 6 light cruisers, between 25-30 destroyers, and more than 15 submarines.

January 1-2, 1942

The pace of operations continues at a rapid clip. Over the last two days:

1) The KB strikes on Australian industry are reaching their conclusion, thus far they have netted ~ 1,000 VP. Not bad!
2) Port Blair is captured by Japanese paratroopers.
3) Sinkawang is taken by storm, resulting in the destruction of 20 enemy aircraft on the ground.
4) Tarakan loses 24 oil wells damaged to a well planned series of strikes by Francesco.
5) Japanese forces at Singapore are almost as rested as they can be in malaria country and the 38th Division has almost arrived.
6) Japanese forces advancing from Moulmein are about to cross into Pegu with the mission of closing the Burma road.
7) The ruse to trap enemy forces in Luzon is a smashing success. The best American/Filipino forces including all their armor chase down a Naval Guard unit that acted as bait all the way to Legaspi only to hit thin air as the Guard is evacuated by sea. Meanwhile Japanese forces land behind the enemy and trap them, and are now also converging on Manila.
8) Imperial armor routs the Chinese 8th Route Army north of Sian, while the Naval Guard keeps holding on against repeated Chinese attacks even as it reaches the end of its endurance.

The Philippines will see some pitched battles soon but the two key theaters of action right now are Java and China. I am attempting to prep the landings around Java without KB support which is not easy given the influx of enemy air/warships as well as their carriers. Southern Sumatra is almost entirely in my hands however which will provide a great springboard for operations once Singapore is captured.

In China, I am advancing forward past Sian despite what I expect to be an imminent effort by Francesco to cut the road behind me. I have planned for this though and will have forces allocated to deal with any such effort. It's a calculated risk that I am comfortable taking.

Haven't been able to update on the progress of this game for the last week since Francesco has been very busy with work. I'm not sure when I will be getting the next turn, but hopefully soon? It's hard to pause for so long at this stage of the game when so much is happening!

Ah, were it to be that WitP-AE is life, but...

Life happens.... unfortunately.[:'(]

Shouldnt have turned me down for game Dw all I'm saying we were doing 6 or 7 turns a day.........

ORIGINAL: Andy Mac

Shouldnt have turned me down for game Dw all I'm saying we were doing 6 or 7 turns a day.........

I miss those days!

Andy if you are up to taking the Japanese side I am ready to roll. It seems everyone and their grandmother wants to play as the Allies but no one wants to take Japan. [:D] It's a shame really because the Japanese side is a lot of fun!

January 4, 1942

I finally got the turn and there is good news and bad news. The good news is Singapore has been captured. The bad news is that just like in the Empire of the Sun game, the industry, shipyards, resources, etc. are completely wrecked.

Sorry not a japanese player just doesnt interest me