Castles in the Sand - Spidery(J) vs MrKane(A) no MrKane please

[obvert]

ORIGINAL: Spidery

Do you train them in transport before using? Curious.

I have been training the IJA pilots in transport but not so much with the IJN pilots. So far I have lost 153 IJA and 112 IJN transport planes to ops losses (Allies have lost 355). Given the relative number of active planes from the two types and the longer distances the IJN ones fly I think this suggests little benefit.

What I expect would make a difference is experience but how do you get transport pilots with good experience?

Keep training in skill, o potentially choose general training. Or train in another type of group in something like sweep 100ft to get strafing and defense +experience, then train in transport. also good leaders for the groups will help, with air skill.

[koniu]

ORIGINAL: Spidery

Do you train them in transport before using? Curious.

I have been training the IJA pilots in transport but not so much with the IJN pilots. So far I have lost 153 IJA and 112 IJN transport planes to ops losses (Allies have lost 355).

What I expect would make a difference is experience but how do you get transport pilots with good experience?

In my game allies are losing huge numbers of transports. I think in October 1944 allies lost something like 1500+ transport planes (10%of total war loses). C-47 loses are biggest allied loses of war, almost 1300 planes, on second place is F6F-3 Hellcat with ~1000 planes.

Early You dont need so many transports as Japan. But what i learn they are needed later. Especially i like H8 flying boats. They have huge capacity and range. Useful in both supply and troop transport and they can operate on bases without or with damage field. They only need water

I also believe that pilots with trained transport skill are more efficient. Like in live, transport mission is not as easy as it sounds. Wrongly placed or secured cargo can kill You as easy as enemy fighter. You need to learn how do it properly

[Spidery]

November 20th 1943

Another 57 oil wells knocked out at Palembang. Looks like it gets harder to score hits the few wells that are left. Some evidence of fuel flowing from Palembang North.

Allied cruisers bombard OOsthaven.

Liberators hit Ponape lightly, 1 Jake lost on the ground.

Over a dozen subs spotted around in the area around Guam and Truk, is this the precursor to the next attack?

Also

SIG INT REPORT FOR Nov 20, 43

Radio transmissions detected at Luganville (120,150).
Heavy Volume of Radio transmissions detected at Pearl Harbor (180,107).
Heavy Volume of Radio transmissions detected at Pearl Harbor (180,107).
Heavy Volume of Radio transmissions detected at Pearl Harbor (180,107).
Heavy Volume of Radio transmissions detected at Pearl Harbor (180,107).
Radio transmissions detected at Winnipeg (224,28).

[Spidery]

November 21st 1943

Quiet.

Lots of claimed hits on subs near Guam. He has sent recce over Woleai.

Allied cruisers bombard Billiton.

Allies still losing lots of transports to ops. He is losing them at twice the rate I am and I have about 120 to 150 flying a day so that suggests he has 200 to 300 active. Only thing I can really think he might be doing is flying supply to troops in Burma.

[Spidery]

November 22nd 1943

Various sub actions of little consequence.

Liberators hit Palembang airfields.

Bombers hit Bandoeng again (is he laying a trap expecting me to send some fighter cover?).

Allies have expanded Sampit to its max level of 8.

[Spidery]

November 23rd 1943

I-2 is damaged (29/52/2) near San Francisco and will limp back to Hakodate for repairs, a long way to go.

Slightly odd attack as an Allied Brigade commits suicide across the river near Warazup:

Ground combat at 62,41 (near Warazup)

Allied Shock attack

Attacking force 2649 troops, 0 guns, 0 vehicles, Assault Value = 101

Defending force 5004 troops, 44 guns, 11 vehicles, Assault Value = 147

Allied adjusted assault: 0

Japanese adjusted defense: 601

Allied assault odds: 1 to 99

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

Allied ground losses:
1349 casualties reported
Squads: 35 destroyed, 76 disabled
Non Combat: 2 destroyed, 8 disabled
Engineers: 1 destroyed, 5 disabled

Assaulting units:
Bannu Brigade

Defending units:
19th/C Division

If I counter-attack I should shatter the Allies but that division fragment has nearly completed the move to the road and if I launch that attack it will be 14 days or so before it gets to the road and that will risk being cut off. Interesting that he has a supply(-).

B7A2 to 1/44.

A P1Y2-S Frances factory is fully repaired.

[Spidery]

Obvert,

Haven't tried it but the Pilot addendum suggests that experience gain benefits from number of missions flown so may be the best way to gain experience is to train up transport skill, transfer to active use, and then transfer them back for some more training after they have a 100+ missions.

In general, I have difficulty getting experience for my pilots (except for fighter pilots that can do some CAP). So may be the best way would be to start by training transport skill up flying bombers or transports and then transfer them into fighters or float planes to do some CAP and then into action.

Koniu

The Emily transports are working flat out (okay about 30% rest) and I expect will do so for the rest of the game. I get a lot of IJN transport groups in 1944 and I expect most will use the Emily transport.

[Spidery]

November 24th 1943

Quiet

12000 fuel and 2400 oil have flowed from Palembang to the Northern ports I am loading from. This is promising.

[Spidery]

November 25th 1943

Allies hit Palembang hard scoring 319 oil hits reported but only knocking out an additional 35 oil wells. I guess most of the bombs are hitting already damaged oil wells (just 59 left producing).

[Spidery]

November 26th 1943

Diminishing returns at Palembang as only another 13 oil wells are lost.

An Ansyu class PB is lost to SS Pompano.

[Spidery]

November 27th 1943

I-181 sinks a tiny (1000 ton) xAKL in the Santa Cruz area for a single VP.

Allied CA bombard Truk. Not impressed by the ineffectiveness of the Truk Naval Fortress[:(]. Only 2 hits from 155 shots with the advantage of firing from a fixed platform and with fire zones already dialled in. Still damage suffered is marginal.

Night Naval bombardment of Truk at 112,108 - Coastal Guns Fire Back!

Japanese aircraft
no flights

Japanese aircraft losses
H8K2-L Emily: 10 damaged
N1K1-J George: 44 damaged
N1K1-J George: 1 destroyed on ground
Ki-57-I Topsy: 4 damaged

155 Coastal gun shots fired in defense.

Allied Ships
CA Australia, Shell hits 2, on fire
CA Salt Lake City
CA Pensacola
CA Chicago
CA Chester
CA Northampton
DD Wilson
DD Patterson
DD Gwin

Japanese ground losses:
120 casualties reported
Squads: 0 destroyed, 1 disabled
Non Combat: 1 destroyed, 24 disabled
Engineers: 0 destroyed, 2 disabled
Guns lost 4 (1 destroyed, 3 disabled)

Airbase hits 4
Airbase supply hits 2
Runway hits 29
Port hits 8
Port fuel hits 2

In the afternoon P-38H sweep and there are still enough N1K1-J airborne to swap 12 lost for 19 downed in the air so that is fair enough[:)].

Nice result at Bandoeng where the Allies try a deliberate attack against the isolated troops[8D]. About 10% of the 110th Division has been flown out.

Attacking force 54272 troops, 1120 guns, 806 vehicles, Assault Value = 1499

Defending force 15017 troops, 67 guns, 84 vehicles, Assault Value = 338

Allied engineers reduce fortifications to 1

Allied adjusted assault: 510

Japanese adjusted defense: 301

Allied assault odds: 1 to 1 (fort level 1)

Allied Assault reduces fortifications to 1

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

Japanese ground losses:
126 casualties reported
Squads: 1 destroyed, 17 disabled
Non Combat: 0 destroyed, 13 disabled
Engineers: 0 destroyed, 1 disabled

Allied ground losses:
987 casualties reported
Squads: 28 destroyed, 40 disabled
Non Combat: 19 destroyed, 22 disabled
Engineers: 5 destroyed, 8 disabled
Guns lost 62 (23 destroyed, 39 disabled)
Vehicles lost 33 (17 destroyed, 16 disabled)

[Spidery]

November 28th 1943

Light cruisers bombard Truk. The I-154 happens to have stopped off for fuel and is lost to ASW. The Allied forces manage to find 3 mines and take some small damage from shell fire but damage lots of planes. In the morning, Liberators strike but the N1K1-J are flying too high and fail to engage them. This manages to damage so many planes that the P1Y1 on the ground are unable to attack the Allied cruisers in a nice strike distance.

As Allied cruisers can bombard without needing to worry about mines or the coastal guns, Truk is another lost cause[:(]. Against the Allied bombers and Lightnings would have tried to make a fight of it but with this...

It will be interesting to see if he invades. If he is planning on doing so then probably a couple of weeks of bombardment and I hope the troops can hold for a few days. So might not be until the end of December he would be in a position to use it to cover an advance on Marianas. That will give me time to get most of the bases to fort 8 and evacuate the engineers and replace them with ground troops.

Allied make another attempt at Bandoeng and lose more VP.

[Spidery]

November 29th 1943

A transport task force is spotted off Cox's Bazaar and Nells from Port Blair fly over 1100 km to strike at it.

Of 23 dispatched 18 get lost en route and only 5 attack, sinking a 3000 ton xAK[:)]. Better now take care to avoid CAP in future.

An xAK is lost in the South China Sea to Dutch sub O24 taking with it is cargo of supply for Singapore. Wish he had attacked a resource convoy heading the other way[:)].

RO-107 tries to get at the bombardment force from Truk yesterday and is damaged and heading for repair in the Marianas.

Corsairs sweep Djambi to meet N1K1-J and Ki-43-IV. 25 F4U-1 downed for the loss of 9 N1K1-J and 8 Ki-43-IV[:)]. Expect he won't be doing that quite the same again.

11 damaged planes lost on the ground at Truk but I have 2 xAK in place that can evacuate the remaining damaged planes.

Allies have had recon over Singapore, something they have not generally been doing.

Only 8 oil wells left at Palembang now.

Bandoeng falls.

Allied probe at Myitkyina and find the defense solid.

Ki-84r to 12/43

[Lowpe]

ORIGINAL: Spidery

November 28th 1943
As Allied cruisers can bombard without needing to worry about mines or the coastal guns, Truk is another lost cause[:(]. Against the Allied bombers and Lightnings would have tried to make a fight of it but with this...

Ok, my understanding of mines has really increased thanks to Alfred.[&o] The key to hitting shore bombardment forces is undetected and number of minefields.

By far the best use of our subs now is to drop mines at night in places like this. Sub mines are very nasty, and even though very few in number, it is what you need to do to stop shore bombardments. Large, spotted minefields aren't going to do it. They will work against amphibious invasions however.

I can't tell you the number of times I have lost ships to these small minefields.

There are four really good minelaying subs...if you still have them. But any will do in a pinch.

[Spidery]

3 of the mine laying subs are still around. 1 have just laid two minefields (40 mines each) so will be interesting to see what happens next time he bombards.

The first time he bombarded the defense was undetected but primarily that which starts the game there, so probably treated as one minefield.

The complaint, in so far as there is one, regards those Pacific Island groups that are surrounded by coral reefs at a distance. At Truk the reef is about 60km in diameter so to attack the airfield his cruisers need to enter the lagoon and that means one of a few passes that will be mined and covered by naval guns. I expected the Naval guns to do better.

The game has a problem that it can't really distinguish the cases for naval bombardment of an island without reefs (e.g. Guam), or with the reef close in (e.g. Wake), or a large island where the airfields could be 40km from the sea, or an island with a lagoon (e.g., Ponape, Truk). Scenario designers could make adjustments to better reflect the situation. However, it is just a game so it turns out Truk is much less defensible than it would have been, but then Allied subs are neutered, oil flows freely from Hong Kong to Fusan, the Chinese can't defend, and so on...

Offensive minefields don't really cut if for the Japanese because damaging an Allied ship somewhere safe has no significant effect. Whereas damaging it somewhere near Japanese holdings gives a chance for a kill. My mine-laying subs have payed for themselves by sinking the damaged CV Wasp[:)]

[Spidery]

November 30th 1943

RO-36 takes mild damage near Kavieng and will return to base.

Large mine sweeping force seen approaching Truk, plus some more bombardment forces but no carriers or assault troops seen so far.

December allows the Allies to start getting lots of new good stuff for the American troops. The Type 2 CS-Tank becomes available but I seem to have 225 already active so not sure what that means.

A6M5d-S Zero and Ki-84r Frank enter production both of these could be handy. Ki-84a factories immediately upgrade and I will be producing 185 Ki-84r per month and 40 A6M5d-S.

[Spidery]

November Overview

Nothing much in the way of offensives but more sub action and the start of Allies suppressing Truk, probably before an invasion. Lost most of Eastern New Guinea. Land and air still trading okay but sea not so good. Feel I should be able to increase the air losses and do better trades.

Code: Select all

         Japan   Allies
 Total:   +364    +1074
 Bases:   -167     +200
 Air:     +375     +544
 Land:    +130     +258
 Sea:      +26      +72
 

[Spidery]

November Industry

Palembang, Rangoon, and Balikpapan refineries are off so less fuel produced than expected. Still not so good.

Armaments take a dip as the start of major reinforcements arriving and rebuilding forces lost on Java.

Total Equivalent Supply: +56,000

Code: Select all

 Oil:     -92,460
 Fuel:    -16,496
 Supply: +155,565
 HI:     +114,094
 Veh:      +3,223
 Arms:     -1,894
 

[Spidery]

Pilots

100 IJN pilots in TRACOM are working well:

Accelerated training for 429 IJ Navy pilots from month-cycle 8
IJ Navy instructors accelerate training of 2 pilots from month-cycle 8
Accelerated training for 30 IJ Navy pilots from month-cycle 7

[Spidery]

Ship Losses

Either in sub action or around Palembang.

Claimed sinkings a TK and a tiny xAKL by subs, an xAK by Nells, 1 DD to mines, 7 SS. However, I think none of the SS nor the DD are actually sunk.