Banzais Don't Make Victories - Anachro (A) vs John 3rd (J) BTS 5.7

[Anachro]

Dec 8th, 1943

As expected, John has no aggressive action planned, but pulls back towards Guadalcanal where he has extensive airfields at Lunga and no doubt heavy LBA support. At the same time, John's heavies pull back from Madang while some transports remain behind. I can probably attempt a strike across Guinea towards Madang next turn. What other idea I have in my mind is to move with my massed surface ships currently at Portland Roads under the cover of the Allied carriers to threaten John's carriers at Lunga and potentially force them away from LBA cover. Also, it seems John setup subs along my path of retreat south to try and pick off damaged ships.



The 2 Yorktowns at Brisbane have finished their upgrades and can potentially be added to the foray. I also have my 2 CV/CVL force north of Johnston Island heading towards Eniwetok. No sinking sounds this turn, sadly.

[Anachro]

Dec 9th, 1943

Hmm...interesting situation. We might have a path of intercept, but we are moving into areas of greater LBA for John.



And then we have a smaller CV force that can move onto path of retreat if John takes big A/C losses in a carrier battle.

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: Anachro
Hmm...interesting situation. We might have a path of intercept, but we are moving into areas of greater LBA for John.

Meh. That has Japanese CAP trap / LRCAP written all over it. Now maybe 1-2 hexes off of Gilli Gilli (S or SE) might be OK (then you'd get the benefit of your localized LRCAP), but I'd try to maintain at least 7 hexes distance from Rabaul for the assumed location of the CV exchange.

[Anachro]

Yeah, I am aware of the CAP trap. He's been pretty obvious about it over the last few turns. If I went it, it'd be with no initial strike set, purely defensive CAP. Would love to get him to move out towards the greater ocean. The base above Buin has a level 5 airfield I can put a number of fighters at.

[Anachro]

Dec 27th, 1943

A bit late and referred to as a late Xmas present by John, but Allied troops have landed at Port Blair and Little Andaman, hopefully gaining a foothold and forward airbase to support additional planned landings in the area. John was a bit bombastic in his messages once he spotted the TF coming 2 turns ago and certainly structured his message in a way to imply Japanese counter forces were coming, but cognizant of John's proclivity towards mind games and thinking this might be a bluff considering we know where most of his forces are, we continue onward, of course.

John 3rd Quote:

Would love to pick-up our pace since we have MAJOR action coming!

While the KB, etc. are far away, we know some cruisers/CBs/CAs/DDs might be in the area, and mini-KB, though much decimated, was last seen a couple weeks ago fleeing towards Soerabaja. Accompanying the landings are 1CV/3CVL and 2 CVEs. 2 additional Yorktowns are on their way from Perth to support additional landings.

We elected to overload Port Blair because given the danger in the vicinity we wanted to take the base in as little time as possible. Based on the disparity in the AV, this should happen soon enough: ~1500 AV landed currently vs. a garrison of ~400 AV. The Japanese CD units are a nuisance that seem to cause heavy damage to some transports regardless of what you do: seems like you need to embed multiple combat ships into a landing TF. That said, my damage so far is relatively light.

I was a bit worried about Japanese LBA, given that John has multiple large airfields in the vicinity, but right now this is partially alleviated by Rangoon and Moulmein being put out of commission. 2 days ago, Rangoon had 300 fighters, today is has 11. Major Japanese airfields nearby and still in commission for the Japanese are Sabang, Victoria Point, and Tavoy.

Meanwhile, troops are pushing down towards Rangoon by land: it appears to me John might be evacuating partially.



KB and much of the IJN are still way to the east near Wake Island, etc. where John has been carousing after a vain attempt to try and catch my secondary carrier force that went back towards Pearl Harbor.

[Bearcat2]

10th Guard ADU Coastal Gun BN has 2 8" guns along with smaller types., very nasty. Don't worry, he only gets an extra 40 CD units in this mod

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: Bearcat2

10th Guard ADU Coastal Gun BN has 2 8" guns along with smaller types., very nasty. Don't worry, he only gets an extra 40 CD units in this mod

Are you forgetting the AC-130 "Liz" gunships in your calculations too? [;)]

[Anachro]

Dec 29th, 1943

Two turns have passed and Port Blair is proving a tough nut to crack: 6 forts and one division defending. Nonetheless, I remain confident it will eventually fall. The forts are now down to 3. Two turns have passed since the initial landings. The day previous, I elected to withdraw most of my unloaded LSTs, LSIs, APAs and AKAs. I left behind the slower xAKs and xAPs (and some xAKs) to continue to unload supply and some support troops. I also bombarded with all my SCTFs and moved back as well as placed my carriers to the northeast of Port Blair.

With no air attacks coming from John, I figured he'd pounce on my transports still at PB if he felt there was an opportunity. With my combat vessels and air cover seemingly leaving I thought this turn might be it, so this turn I actually changed my mind and moved my carriers back to cover Port Blair. The result is that John does indeed take the bait. A strike package of A6M3a Zeroes and Jill bombers strike, as does an unescorted group of Judy's. The result is a number of A6M3as and carrier bombers shot down and some new carrier aces. My carriers launch their own little strike against Victoria Point and come off worse from LBA. Interesting thing to note is these LBA naval strikes from John were shown as done by an "Ibuki kanko" in the combat replay. So CV Ibuki must be around somewhere.



In other friends, the KB finally gets some retribution for wantonly going around, as the CV Renkaku takes one torpedoe that might slow her down a tiny bit, at least put her in the yards for a few days. Our bombers continue to work Madang over and keep her out of commission as a airfield for Japan.

[BBfanboy]

In his game with Canoerebel, John liked to put his carriers in the Gulf of Siam and send them across the Malay peninsula to strike at IO targets. That way he did not need to retain surface combat vessels with his carriers and could send them raiding too. Good area to search if you can.

[Anachro]

Dec 31st, 1943

Port Blair has held on longer than we'd have liked and John seems to be gathering forces as a CB or some other capital ship has appeared at Victoria Point, either to conduct bombardments or cover a counterlanding. I'd be fine with a counterlanding as it would bottle up more troops as I plan to be back in the area soon to: 1) land additional supply at Port Blair and 2) cover additional landings. This is all happening as troops slowly make their way south towards Rangoon from India. The 2 Yorktown-class CVs will be in the IO theater shortly.



While this is all going on, my carriers in the SoPac take advantage of no detection from yesterday's thunderstorms to launch a nice little strike on Truk with John's KB further to the north. In the Aleutians, John tries to bombard me and my PTs, at great sacrifice, put a torpedo into a CA.

[Bif1961]

Nice, after the war Jacques Costeau can go there and dive the wrecks you just made.

[Bearcat2]

Any update? bored out of my mind in mandatory isolation looking for something to keep my mind off impending financial ruin.

[Elessar2]

Nearly 2 months on, I am guessing with John's new game this one is toast?

[Q-Ball]

I think Sean (Anarcho) has dropped off. I had a game going with him, and he resigned it, citing work/loss of interest. He hasn't logged-on since early April.

[paullus99]

And with John's business being fast food, I'm sure the last few months have been more than a little stressful too.

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: Q-Ball

I think Sean (Anarcho) has dropped off. I had a game going with him, and he resigned it, citing work/loss of interest. He hasn't logged-on since early April.

Too bad. [:(]

[Anachro]

Lot's of updating needed, but let's say while Q-ball is correct and my real-life has been very busy, I have kept the game with John haphazardly going when I can. We try to manage one update a day, though sometimes that drags on to 1 in a few days every once in awhile. Let's just say I've had a failed invasion of Burma (well, not failed, but ran into roadblocks that would not have been a problem if I had been better organized/prepared which is due to me being a bit lax in my prep). I'll give an update on that later, but while I will most likely need to do some extracting/rebuilding of some forces, I have one more punch to throw that might tip Burma in my favor. And then there's this...



I was hoping for more effectiveness against the enemy carriers, but I'll take it.

[Bif1961]

Glad to hear this is still going and with things slowly starting back up I am sure John is busy as well.

[Anachro]

@Big1961 Thanks!

Feb.11, 1944

Figuring that John might try to strike at my carriers given how close they are, I detach two small SCTF's to war off John's ships. A 3xDD force is sent south towards John's BCs and a 1xCL 2xDD force is sent up towards Port Blair to hit anything from there (any maybe John's carriers too). My carriers flee at flank speed to refuel and rearm. Something quite amazing happens as my CL/DD SCTF runs into the Yamato in a most lop-sided battle in terms of battle strength. In the opening salvos of the engagement, DD Radford managed to plant a torpedo into the Yamato that causes a magazine explosion - the Yamato is sunk with all hands. Unfortunately, the DD Radford herself is lost in the engagement; moreover, my 3xDD force gets mauled without much compensation against John's BCs.



This brings the tally of Japanese ships lost over the past three days to: 1xBB and 2xBC (1 BC heavily damaged in port and I expect to finish off soon).

[BBfanboy]

Wow! What a reappearance and comeback all in one!
Very glad you are OK and getting back into things. Looking forward to the continued saga! [:)]