Greyjoy(J) vs. Obvert(A) - The air war in China- DBB, SLs, PDU OFF

[GreyJoy]

Now what my fleet really needs is the upgrade that some of my DDs get on 7/43...a naval radar!!!

What happened last night clearly shows that the allies have a clear superiority when the visibility is low...with their radars they can easily decide when and if to engage...and my TFs too often get suprised...need to get those radars ASAP and distribute them among my SAGs

[crsutton]

The biggest turn around comes in 1/44 when the Allied ships come with even better radar, fully working torpedoes and all new arriving crews have night skills in the 60-70 range. I can't recall losing a night surface battle after that event in my last campaign. But in 10/42 in my current campaign, I am coming out on the losing end of most surface fights. On the bright side at least the survivors come out with better night fighting exp...[;)]

[Lowpe]

ORIGINAL: GreyJoy
I read it every day! Seen what the Musashi has done in the Adamans[8D]

Hey, a reader! That is great.[:D] Actually, I know you read because you comment every now and then, but thought you might have missed the fun lately.

Here is some constructive criticism I hope: your task forces are too big and don't play to the characteristics of your ships. Musashi can go it alone with just destroyers for screens plus why slow her to 25 knots? Her long guns will let you stand off in a daytime encounter, and with plenty of screens to protect from enemy torpedoes she can handle up to two enemy BBs at once.

So I would have broken Musashi down by herself & screens, and used the two Pagoda BBs in another, giving you an additional hard hitting task force.

It seems to me that once you go past 6 ships you really start to see diminishing returns on each additional ship added especially at night. Also, the Allied ships are less likely to evade the encounter it seems. Might make you more vulnerable to air attacks during the day however.

But I am a believer in multiple small unit task forces.

Just my thoughts![;)]

[GreyJoy]

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

ORIGINAL: GreyJoy
I read it every day! Seen what the Musashi has done in the Adamans[8D]

Hey, a reader! That is great.[:D] Actually, I know you read because you comment every now and then, but thought you might have missed the fun lately.

Here is some constructive criticism I hope: your task forces are too big and don't play to the characteristics of your ships. Musashi can go it alone with just destroyers for screens plus why slow her to 25 knots? Her long guns will let you stand off in a daytime encounter, and with plenty of screens to protect from enemy torpedoes she can handle up to two enemy BBs at once.

So I would have broken Musashi down by herself & screens, and used the two Pagoda BBs in another, giving you an additional hard hitting task force.

It seems to me that once you go past 6 ships you really start to see diminishing returns on each additional ship added especially at night. Also, the Allied ships are less likely to evade the encounter it seems. Might make you more vulnerable to air attacks during the day however.

But I am a believer in multiple small unit task forces.

Just my thoughts![;)]

I do agree, but i also noticed that when you have small TFs (say 2 BBs with just 4 DDs) the DDs get easily damaged and detacth from the main SAGs, leaving the BBs with too few escort and exposed to the enemy's DDs.
It's not an easy choice for Japan considering the lack of DD numbers

[GreyJoy]

June 22, 1943

SOPAC: Tanaka arrived with 2 CAs and 2 modern CLs (and 7 DDs) at Torokina, while the BBs reach Rabaul and reload/refuel, getting ready for the next clash.
The allies lick their wounds...for today

CHINA: we're trying to move around Chungking, closing the last route on the WR terrain that exits from the city and leads to Patung.

BURMA: the allies recon Ramree and Akyab....mmmmm....

The last available KI-84a Frank Sentai is now ready at Rabaul[8D][&o]

KI-43 IV° ready in 8 days for the first of July[8D][8D][8D][8D]

[Lowpe]

ORIGINAL: GreyJoy

I do agree, but i also noticed that when you have small TFs (say 2 BBs with just 4 DDs) the DDs get easily damaged and detacth from the main SAGs, leaving the BBs with too few escort and exposed to the enemy's DDs.
It's not an easy choice for Japan considering the lack of DD numbers

Yeah, that is a definite downside.[:(]

[Lokasenna]

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

ORIGINAL: GreyJoy

I do agree, but i also noticed that when you have small TFs (say 2 BBs with just 4 DDs) the DDs get easily damaged and detacth from the main SAGs, leaving the BBs with too few escort and exposed to the enemy's DDs.
It's not an easy choice for Japan considering the lack of DD numbers

Yeah, that is a definite downside.[:(]

I've also had the displeasure of getting creamed by 12-13 ship SCTFs when I've used smaller (6-8 ship) TFs. In a night action, before Allied radar, maybe not such a difference. Daytime? You're going to get pounded.

[Sangeli]

ORIGINAL: GreyJoy
KI-43 IV° ready in 8 days for the first of July[8D][8D][8D][8D]

I guess with PDU OFF you really do need to use your Oscars! The IV isn't a bad frame either.

[GreyJoy]

June 23-28, 1943

Quite after the storm and before the next one at Torokina.
Tanaka took the lead of a newly arrived SAG, composed around BB Yamato, 4 brand new CAs and several more Kagero class DDs.
The other 2 BB TFs are reorganized after the last battle.

Now, facing the USNavy, there are the BB Yamato and Musashi (that will be organized under a new TF with 10 Kageros and Bunji as leader), a TF build around 2 Fuso BBs and 10 DDs, another SAG with 4 CAs and 10 DDs and one more composed of 2 old BBs, 2 new CLs and 10 DDs. These TFs will patrol the nights around Torokina bay.


The 1st Guards Division is assembling at Finshhafen

Maloaep is bombed every day and I am pretty sure it won't last long now.

Roi-Namur is naval bombed again by his CL/DDs that are simply too fast from Mili to be spotted and attacked...

A Scary attack by a SS against the CV Junyo south of Truk...luckly it's a miss....[&o]

In India, the retreat from Imphal continues...under a constant pressure by the enemy tanks that, however, seems to be unable to achieve anything in the JR terrain.

In china we managed to conquer for two times the road that leads SE of Chungking, but for two times the allies managed to get back in faster than me... the situation doesn't look good with my units too much wore down to really be able to achieve anything...I think that, sooner or later, i'll be forced to leave the dream to make any more progresses in China...

KB still positioned in the DEI. No sign of the American CVs

Delivering 20mm AA guns in all the places not reachable by his LBA bombers...(against DBs these guys are pretty usefull with their limited ceiling).

Just few days before Oscar IV and Tony KI-61d will become operational...can't wait

[veji1]

ORIGINAL: GreyJoy


In china we managed to conquer for two times the road that leads SE of Chungking, but for two times the allies managed to get back in faster than me... the situation doesn't look good with my units too much wore down to really be able to achieve anything...I think that, sooner or later, i'll be forced to leave the dream to make any more progresses in China...

Would finishing of Sian and the north still be possible ? Otherwise yes, it might be time to get into the best defensive positions in China and start planning for resistance rather than attack...

[crsutton]

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

ORIGINAL: GreyJoy

I do agree, but i also noticed that when you have small TFs (say 2 BBs with just 4 DDs) the DDs get easily damaged and detacth from the main SAGs, leaving the BBs with too few escort and exposed to the enemy's DDs.
It's not an easy choice for Japan considering the lack of DD numbers

Yeah, that is a definite downside.[:(]

I've also had the displeasure of getting creamed by 12-13 ship SCTFs when I've used smaller (6-8 ship) TFs. In a night action, before Allied radar, maybe not such a difference. Daytime? You're going to get pounded.

Daytime maybe, but the problem with 12-13 ships TFs is that quite frequently many of the ships do not ever fire a shot. Waste of assets. I prefer 7 to 9 ships max no matter the force. Way back in UV days the devs said that large surface TFs are at a disadvantage. It was designed to be that way. I don't think that has ever changed.

[Lowpe]

ORIGINAL: crsutton
Daytime maybe, but the problem with 12-13 ships TFs is that quite frequently many of the ships do not ever fire a shot. Waste of assets. I prefer 7 to 9 ships max no matter the force. Way back in UV days the devs said that large surface TFs are at a disadvantage. It was designed to be that way. I don't think that has ever changed.

+1. But, since I just lost the Yamoto, nobody will listen to my naval strategies anymore.[:D] And, rightly so!

[GreyJoy]

ORIGINAL: veji1

ORIGINAL: GreyJoy


In china we managed to conquer for two times the road that leads SE of Chungking, but for two times the allies managed to get back in faster than me... the situation doesn't look good with my units too much wore down to really be able to achieve anything...I think that, sooner or later, i'll be forced to leave the dream to make any more progresses in China...

Would finishing of Sian and the north still be possible ? Otherwise yes, it might be time to get into the best defensive positions in China and start planning for resistance rather than attack...

The problem is the aerial superiority which i don't know if i can achieve anymore...

We'll try few more things in China and then we'll switch back to a defensive position

[GreyJoy]

June 28-29, 1943

The day the Oscar IV goes gold, the Frank a has its batptism of fire over Chittagong. it's a 1-1 but sounds like a smashing defeat.
160 Franks are sent against the enemy base and meet 25 P-40K, 18 Corsairs, 16 Kittihawk and 16 Hurricanes. All the enemies managed to climb and get into the dive position[:(]... 17 Franks for probably 20 enemy's planes...not good

BBs are advancing again in the Marshalls... but can't contend anymore the sealanes there... i've lost the battle for the Marshalls already

In China, all the efforts made to isolate Chungking are fruitless...

The only good news come from india, where our 14th Army managed to repulse another allied assault retreatng from Imphal to Kalemyo... losses are high but somehow the 2 IDs still manage to draw supplis from Kalemyo...not many, but enough to fight back their retreat

A small TK is torpedoed and sunk near Truk, while an xAK is torpedoed at Sarmi...enemy's subs are becoming a real problem lately

[veji1]

ORIGINAL: GreyJoy

June 28-29, 1943

The day the Oscar IV goes gold, the Frank a has its batptism of fire over Chittagong. it's a 1-1 but sounds like a smashing defeat.
160 Franks are sent against the enemy base and meet 25 P-40K, 18 Corsairs, 16 Kittihawk and 16 Hurricanes. All the enemies managed to climb and get into the dive position[:(]... 17 Franks for probably 20 enemy's planes...not good

BBs are advancing again in the Marshalls... but can't contend anymore the sealanes there... i've lost the battle for the Marshalls already

In China, all the efforts made to isolate Chungking are fruitless...

The only good news come from india, where our 14th Army managed to repulse another allied assault retreatng from Imphal to Kalemyo... losses are high but somehow the 2 IDs still manage to draw supplis from Kalemyo...not many, but enough to fight back their retreat

A small TK is torpedoed and sunk near Truk, while an xAK is torpedoed at Sarmi...enemy's subs are becoming a real problem lately

What could the new strategy in China be now that you probably have to switch to defense ? How are you going to organise yourself ?

[GreyJoy]

Again i have to apologise for the lack of updates...RL is really kicking in lately, with my father still in intensive care and with a job that is really absorbing...[:o]

We reached july 2nd....and we had quite a few battles in the last week in the Solomons...the allies are now really pushing in!!!

Will try to make a comprehensive report tonight....

[MrKane]

ORIGINAL: GreyJoy

June 28-29, 1943

The day the Oscar IV goes gold, the Frank a has its batptism of fire over Chittagong. it's a 1-1 but sounds like a smashing defeat.
160 Franks are sent against the enemy base and meet 25 P-40K, 18 Corsairs, 16 Kittihawk and 16 Hurricanes. All the enemies managed to climb and get into the dive position[:(]... 17 Franks for probably 20 enemy's planes...not good

160 Franks / 40 = 4 Sentais right ? In my humble opinion this not how to you should challenge air supremacy there.
However 17 for 20 it is not bad result.
But in my opinion you should do it this way:
Day 1 - Sentai 1
Day 2 - Sentai 2
Day 3 - Sentay 3
Day 4 - Sentai 4
Day 5 - Sentai 1
Day 6 - Sentai 2
...
Of course if you have some free Ki-43 it should be nice help on LRCAP. All his a/c are SR2 or SR3 you should try to go for morale/fatigue/maintenance break down on his side. Especially without dive bonus.

[GreyJoy]

June 29- july 5, 1943


Ok, I try to catch up a bit... it's being a tough period in RL...so sorry for the lack of updates...(and the decreasing quality of my posts)

What happened?

Well, the action has been focused on the Solomons/NG and in the Marshalls.

Erik had been stationing his fleet near Munda for many days and I decided to take a shot.
Waited for a day of good weather forecast and alerted 70 Kates, 52 Judys, 57 Lilies (DB) and the best of my fighter groups in the Pacific.
The plan was to send 45 N1K1, 36 Franks and 36 Tojos on sweep, followed by the bombers escorted by 140 crap fighters...
120 fighters were reported being on CAP...so not a lot...
Unfortunately, as always, weather screws the best laid plans and the sweeps didn't move until the afternoon, while in the morning half of the bombers were downed due to storms over Torokina...
The attacking planes arrived piecemail and we got chewed up by the CAP (which wasn't that strong, with many Wildcats and P-40s and just a bunch of corsairs)...
For a total loss of 160 planes and 70 pilots (some of them really crack!) we scored a single torpedo hit on a slow BB (Colorado) and a couple of 100kg bomb hits on the Maryland...
Fast BBs and fast/modern CLs are spotted however... so I know this is one of his main vector!

Erik absorbed the hit and the following day counterattacked, sweeping Buin with something like 200 fighters, downing 70 fighters (Oscar IIIas and A6M5cs)... then he moved in his whole fleet to Buin... my surface fleet didn't engage and the air attacks from Rabaul scored only 5 500kg bomb hits that bounced on a slow BB... nothing more...and lost another 130 planes against only 30 of his own... the tide is really changing
He didn't unload at first, concentrating his several TFs under a HUGE CAP umbrella...
I made another mistake moving back my fighters from Torokina (I was scared of the naval bombardments) to Rabaul and that very same day 80 4Es plastered Torokina, closing the fields for good.
I had to decide what to do...if to engage with the surface fleet or not...I decided that, even if it was tempting, it would have been stupid to risk my best naval assets against his strongest ones for a place like Torokina-Buin... I had to remember that this is not the place I want to fight for... this is a delaying theatre...so I decided to hold on... he landed at Buin the following day with the 32nd Division
Buin won't hold for long...I have a garrison and a SNLF unit there...nothing more...

At the same time he moved at Wotje...unseen...landed and conquered the place with a shock attack the very same day, while Roi Namur is plastered every day by 30/40 4Es... the Marshalls are really lost now...

From Lae he's also advancing by land to Finshhafen...

Now that Biuganville is more or less lost, he will have an easy time flanking Rabaul on the eastern side...and I can't do much a part from delaying this movement as much as I can...

In China we are having a problem with a strange "bug" near Chungking (see tech forum) and are now waiting for Michealm to fix it... however that theatre is more or less stabilized now... I think the allies stopped the Japs once for good. Only at Wenchow we're still attacking...hope to capture it soon.

KI-61d and KI-43 IV are now in production...finally!


I'll try to be a little more present from now on...

[CaptBeefheart]

I hope your father gets well soon. I wouldn't apologize. Your family's health obviously takes precedence over keeping us entertained.

Cheers,
CC

[GreyJoy]

Thanks CC! Things aren't improving unfortunately. We keep on praying and hoping


As for the game, we reached July 11

From the 6th to the 11th of July the allies keep on bombing Torokina, Buin, Maloaep and Roi-Namur.
Several of my ships are being torpedoed around Truk and near Balikapan (lost 1 big AO and 6 xAKs in the last week ), despite all my ASW efforts

On the 10th, however, the japanese made two aggressive moves:

SWPAC: we spotted for several weeks in a row, a flow of convoys from milne bay to Lae...every day lots of LSTs and barges kept on moving up and down...so we decided to strike:

Day Time Surface Combat, near Buna at 100,129, Range 21,000 Yards

Japanese Ships
CL Isuzu
DD Nenohi
DD Hatsushima
DD Ayanami
DD Oboro
DD Kikuzuki
DD Tatsuyuke

Allied Ships
SC-705, Shell hits 5, and is sunk
xAKL Oriskany, Shell hits 29, and is sunk
xAKL Capitaine Illiaquer, Shell hits 33, and is sunk
xAKL Lematang, Shell hits 25, and is sunk

Allied ground losses:
214 casualties reported
Squads: 35 destroyed, 25 disabled
Non Combat: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled
Engineers: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled
Guns lost 14 (8 destroyed, 6 disabled)


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Day Time Surface Combat, near Buna at 100,129, Range 19,000 Yards

Japanese Ships
CL Isuzu
DD Nenohi
DD Hatsushima
DD Ayanami
DD Oboro
DD Kikuzuki
DD Tatsuyuke

Allied Ships
LCT-142, Shell hits 1, and is sunk
LCT-143, Shell hits 2, and is sunk
LCT-144, Shell hits 1, and is sunk
LCT-145, Shell hits 2, and is sunk
LCT-153, Shell hits 1, and is sunk
LCT-156, Shell hits 1, and is sunk
LCT-157, Shell hits 2, and is sunk
LCT-160, Shell hits 1, and is sunk
LCT-161, Shell hits 2, and is sunk
AM Echuca, Shell hits 26, and is sunk

Allied ground losses:
2099 casualties reported
Squads: 182 destroyed, 187 disabled
Non Combat: 33 destroyed, 42 disabled
Engineers: 25 destroyed, 0 disabled
Guns lost 65 (35 destroyed, 30 disabled)


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Day Time Surface Combat, near Buna at 100,129, Range 19,000 Yards

Japanese Ships
CL Isuzu
DD Nenohi
DD Hatsushima
DD Ayanami
DD Oboro
DD Kikuzuki
DD Tatsuyuke

Allied Ships
LCT-169, Shell hits 1, and is sunk
LCT-321, Shell hits 2, and is sunk
LCT-350, Shell hits 2, and is sunk
LCT-355, Shell hits 1, and is sunk
LCT-358, Shell hits 4, and is sunk
PC Pulganbar, Shell hits 9, and is sunk

Allied ground losses:
583 casualties reported
Squads: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled
Non Combat: 65 destroyed, 44 disabled
Engineers: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled
Guns lost 29 (27 destroyed, 2 disabled)
Vehicles lost 14 (7 destroyed, 7 disabled)


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Day Time Surface Combat, near Buna at 100,129, Range 19,000 Yards

Japanese Ships
CL Isuzu, Shell hits 2
DD Nenohi, Shell hits 1
DD Hatsushima
DD Ayanami
DD Oboro
DD Kikuzuki
DD Tatsuyuke, Shell hits 2

Allied Ships
APD Litchfield, Shell hits 1
APD Crane, Shell hits 2, Torpedo hits 1, and is sunk
APD Humphreys, Shell hits 2, on fire
APD Hatfield, Shell hits 2, on fire
AVD Childs


The operation went smoothly. LRCAP was present but it was needed...no air attacks on our TF[8D]
Seems like a whole regiment went swimming near Buna[:D][:D]


At the same time, in Burma, we had been reconning his bases of Ledo and Dimampur for weeks now... no CAP present...
We striked with 250 bombers at Dimampur...severe storms found...crap... however we closed the base and destroyed 9/10 Liberators on the ground, for the loss of 7 planes to flak...not bad! At least we keep him honest here!

The retreat from Kalemyo is almost completed. 2 former "indian" divisions have already made to Singapore and are now transiting to Sumatra and Java.

In China more of the same, but the Wenchow siege has begun

the first 2 KI-61d and KI43 IV sentais are operational[:D]

CS Muzuho reached Tokyo safely. in 40 days she'll be operative again!