RE: Battle of the Marianas (Japs)
Posted: Fri Feb 05, 2010 2:53 pm
excellent aar! [&o]
your doing pretty well.
your doing pretty well.
Quiet turn, both sides withdrew, not a single combat sortie. BB Nagato actually spent the day at Guam, so he's definitely gone for now.
Shokaku took two torpedoes from a sub, USS Flier. He has his own units between Marianas and Pelieu to pick off stragglers. Taiyo will make it, the rest... who knows. Possibly a few more CVs will live. Ulithi looks safe for now as the Americans have gone. Presumably only for now.
111 US aircraft have bought the farm due to ops losses - the vast majority of those are aircraft without homes to go to as a result of the last action. Total air losses are 400 Jap to 200 Allied, which I think is actually pretty good given the Japs are utterly outmatched in the air, though the naval VPs are very much in his favour at 850 to 150 and he'll get more as Shokaku is going to sink. Zuikaku, Taiyo and Chiyoda are going to make it though they wont' be flying planes again in this scenario, less VPs for him though.
The IJN is now essentially three pretty tough and badass battleship squadrons, BB Nagato in one, Yamato/Musashi in another, and the Kongos in a third. Question is where to base them. Only Truk can rearm them but Truk strikes me as vulnerable. I also got three combustible/vulnerable/expendables who might dish out some pain against lightly defended targets, tho their slowness won't make raiding easy.
Fuel is plentiful at least, I can use the fleet as much as I want.