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Having learned from my previous game(s), there are some steps in the early invasions I'm doing differently.

Burma: I'm stealing parts of the Malayan army, and will go for Moulmein directly instead of Tavoy first. It should take the units more than a week less, I'm crossing my fingers for getting to Rangoon before it has a 30-unit stack. Again...

Sumatra: I'm going to use the Kuching invasion force to take Palembang right off the bat, and then move all the AAA units I have sitting at Hainan Island(prepping for Singapore I think) in hopes of at least attriting Allied bombers, should they come. I'm still looking for an aviation support unit to snatch, to get some Ki-43s there. I'm hoping to secure Palembang at December 15th or 16th, have have the AAA and aviation support in place before 25th. I know I'm risking the oil wells and refineries, but unless they are hurt really, really bad, they should rebuild fairly quick.

Wake Island: I'm not going there. I've never been able to capture it... In my last game I tried it twice, losing a CL, about 15 xAKs and several Marine units 100%.

SOPAC: Wake Invasion Force goes to RABAUL right away, supported by the SHORTLANDS force. The usual places(Kavieng, Wewak, Hollandia etc) will also be taken during the first week. I'm using a lot of my cruiser force to cover these assaults, and the Kido Butai should be able to join them before December 18th.

Mindanao: will be taken by troops now at Bedeloab. I'm planning to land on the hex East to Cagayan, it worked the last time, too. He will have the time to move any air units he has away any way, so I might as well choose the easier beach.

Good luck Erkki!

I too am tackling Smeulders in a PBEM and AAR with him as the Allies as well. I won't go into any details but thought I'd share a thought or two. Smeulders is a very thorough opponent and keeps his cards pretty close to his chest. He'll look for a weakness to exploit and strike, otherwise he'll be very careful in committing any forces into harms way. I'm not sure how much you plan on trying to conquer, but if you are aiming for a limited perimeter be prepared to see little in the way of enemy naval forces. If one of your goals is to attrition the Allied naval or air forces you'll have to go get them, they won't come to you. Of course every game is different, so how the Allies perform in this one may be completely different then I am experiencing depending on your opponent's moves this time around.

Good luck in your match and enjoy the Japanese, they are fun to play. The best advice I can give is move quickly, don't allow the Allies a chance to consolidate early in any areas you plan on taking and push your opponent if you want to seek out his naval forces. I won't comment any more on your opponent but will enjoy following your side of the match.

Good luck again and Banzai!

ORIGINAL: SqzMyLemon

Good luck Erkki!

I too am tackling Smeulders in a PBEM and AAR with him as the Allies as well. I won't go into any details but thought I'd share a thought or two. Smeulders is a very thorough opponent and keeps his cards pretty close to his chest. He'll look for a weakness to exploit and strike, otherwise he'll be very careful in committing any forces into harms way. I'm not sure how much you plan on trying to conquer, but if you are aiming for a limited perimeter be prepared to see little in the way of enemy naval forces. If one of your goals is to attrition the Allied naval or air forces you'll have to go get them, they won't come to you. Of course every game is different, so how the Allies perform in this one may be completely different then I am experiencing depending on your opponent's moves this time around.

Good luck in your match and enjoy the Japanese, they are fun to play. The best advice I can give is move quickly, don't allow the Allies a chance to consolidate early in any areas you plan on taking and push your opponent if you want to seek out his naval forces. I won't comment any more on your opponent but will enjoy following your side of the match.

Good luck again and Banzai!

Kido Butai just got attacked by 50 bombers and over 100 fighters, so they for sure were "coming to get sum'!" [:D]

I'll post a more thorough one on day 2 once I get the turn file to him, but we could say that it wasnt a good day to be a P-40 pilot. On the con side, we still dont have a single confirmed ship kill at Pearl Harbor, and we lost more Netties.

December 8th

Pearl Harbor attack: Zeros sweep before our 2nd strike, so we only lose 3 Zeros and 5 bombers.

Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 46
B5N2 Kate x 141
D3A1 Val x 115



Allied aircraft
P-26A x 1
P-36A Mohawk x 6
P-40B Warhawk x 12
F4F-3 Wildcat x 2
SNJ-3 Texan x 1


Japanese aircraft losses
A6M2 Zero: 1 destroyed
B5N2 Kate: 1 destroyed, 3 damaged
D3A1 Val: 10 damaged
D3A1 Val: 1 destroyed by flak

Allied aircraft losses
P-26A: 1 destroyed
P-26A: 2 destroyed on ground
P-36A Mohawk: 3 destroyed
P-40B Warhawk: 2 destroyed
F4F-3 Wildcat: 1 destroyed
PBY-5 Catalina: 3 destroyed on ground

Allied Ships
BB Nevada, Bomb hits 5
BB Arizona, Bomb hits 1
CL Honolulu, Bomb hits 1, on fire
BB Tennessee, Bomb hits 7, on fire
BB West Virginia, Bomb hits 3, on fire, heavy damage
BB Pennsylvania, Bomb hits 3
BB Oklahoma, Bomb hits 3
AVD Hulbert, Bomb hits 1, on fire
BB California, Bomb hits 1, heavy damage
CA San Francisco, Bomb hits 1
BB Maryland, Bomb hits 4, on fire, heavy damage
DD Allen, Bomb hits 1, heavy fires


Allied ground losses:
9 casualties reported
Squads: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled
Non Combat: 0 destroyed, 1 disabled
Engineers: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled


Repair Shipyard hits 1
Manpower hits 2
Fires 2204
Airbase hits 4
Airbase supply hits 1
Runway hits 26
Port hits 5
Port fuel hits 1

As you can see, all 8 are still alive. Pennsylvania and Tennessee both received 2 800kg AP hits, but no single torpedo was dropped, and all of the behemonts are still alive even after the 2nd attack.

After this attack, the Allies struck the Kido Butai: they flew 7 B-17, 28 B-18 and 14 A-20 sorties, as well as some 100 fighter sorties. We lost 1 Zero, and shot down ridiculous amount of P-40 and P-36 mainly. A couple of bombers were also shot down, and not a single bomb hit.

Needless to say, I'm going to attack again...


Elsewhere: Zero vs. P-40 over Philippines went on, we lost 9 Zeros here to approx 20 P-40s and other fighters(Allies lost 133 planes today to 45 Japanese, of only 8 of the 133 were on the ground, by Kido Butai's D3A1s). We again lost some bombers, so all bomber sorties for tomorrow are cancelled. Japanese paratroopers land at Aparri, finding no defenders. Japanese submarine finds a picket xAKL near Singapore, and guns it down.

Theres also a lot of traffic escaping the Philippines both to South and East, but for some reason, Ryujo doesnt launch a single sortie despite of its search aircraft finding over 20 individual targets...

Did I read that right? Not a single torpedo hit? That seems odd. Did you have your TBs armed with torps?

ORIGINAL: pws1225

Did I read that right? Not a single torpedo hit? That seems odd. Did you have your TBs armed with torps?

Yep, they're all set to use torpedoes. On the first day I had just 1 B5N unit using them, and now 0. [&:]

Happens.  Its a leadership check I think, and they can fail.

Happened to me as well. I remember a thread about this a while back and there is apparently a hard limit on how many Kates can carry torpedoes the first day due to the shallow waters of the navy base requiring specially modified torpedoes of which there were only 60-80 available. Of course seems like maybe 1 in 6 times there will be essentially no torpedoes used. 
This happened to me in my PBEM as well and I had only 1 squad of 17 Kates carry torps and only badly damaged about 2 BB's.
Count yourself lucky as for me the second day the KB refused to fly strikes and the third day I lost ~60 KB planes for a few more 800kg hits due to P-40's ignoring the escorts and murdering the bombers [:(]

December 9th

I'm not going to repeat the standard "first 2 months stuff" here, but some highlights:

Malaya: A Japanese armor unit blocks the railroad, cutting off Allied units that try to retreat from Alor Star. Reinforcements should arrive tomorrow, so the Brits are pretty much doomed now, especially if they tried to get out in strategic move mode...

PI: dogfights over Manila and Clark Field continue. Today we lose 3 Zeroes and score 20+ confirmed kills and another 20-ish as damaged. There should be very little resistance after tomorrow. In the Philippine Sea, Japanese CVLs and CVE Hosho hit and destroy 8 small xAP and xAKLs as well as a TK worth 12 VPs.

PH: Pearl Harbor, round 3, doesnt go well: first we lose a couple of Zeros sweeping the place, but the strikes arrive in the PM phase, finding over 50 fighters. We only had 20 Zeros in escort(40% CAP), so we lost 30-ish planes today from the KB, Zeros and bombers.

Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 23
B5N2 Kate x 113
D3A1 Val x 89



Allied aircraft
P-36A Mohawk x 16
P-40B Warhawk x 44
F4F-3 Wildcat x 5


Japanese aircraft losses
A6M2 Zero: 1 destroyed
B5N2 Kate: 6 destroyed, 8 damaged
B5N2 Kate: 1 destroyed by flak
D3A1 Val: 3 destroyed, 13 damaged
D3A1 Val: 4 destroyed by flak

Allied aircraft losses
P-36A Mohawk: 1 destroyed
P-36A Mohawk: 1 destroyed on ground
P-40B Warhawk: 2 destroyed, 1 damaged
B-17D Fortress: 1 destroyed on ground

Allied Ships
BB Nevada, Bomb hits 2, Torpedo hits 2, on fire, heavy damage
BB Tennessee, Bomb hits 2, Torpedo hits 1
BB Maryland, Torpedo hits 1, heavy damage
BB Arizona, Bomb hits 3
BB Oklahoma, Bomb hits 2, Torpedo hits 1
BB West Virginia, Torpedo hits 1, heavy damage
CA San Francisco, Torpedo hits 1
CL Honolulu, Bomb hits 1, on fire
DD MacDonough, Bomb hits 1, on fire
BB California, Bomb hits 1, heavy damage
BB Pennsylvania, Bomb hits 1


Allied ground losses:
21 casualties reported
Squads: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled
Non Combat: 0 destroyed, 3 disabled
Engineers: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled


Airbase hits 2
Runway hits 6

SOMETHING went down, but if it was CA San Francisco (listing, counter flooding reported) or one of the BBs (multiple torpedoes hit mark today, as did many 800kg bombs, lots of listing, flooding, 2 critical damages, deck casualties reported) or DD MacDonough, I dont know. Nevada, Tennessee and Maryland should be all down for good long time ago, but no. [:(] Hiryu, Soryu and Zuikaku are yet to use a single torpedo.

I have lost enough aircraft doing no damage, its time for KB to leave.

EDIT: forgot to mention that Japanese DDs find Dutch submarine KXI near Kota Bharu, hit it twice(while running out of ASW ammo), but the sub is forced to surface, and it gets gunned down. Banzai!

Lets see. Strike aircraft sorties flown against PH were:

B5N2 Kate x 54
D3A1 Val x 126

B5N2 Kate x 141
D3A1 Val x 115

B5N2 Kate x 113
D3A1 Val x 89

As you can see, for some reason, only 50% of the B5Ns flew on day 1. I have no idea why that happened.

Damage caused:

Arizona: 5 250kg bomb hits. Probably doesnt need to be repainted.
Nevada: 2 torpedoes, 5 250kg bombs, 2 800kg bombs, most probably not sunk, critical damage not reported
Tennessee: 1 torpedo, 3 800kg bomb hits, 13 250kg bomb hits: CRITICAL DAMAGE reported, possibly sunk
West Virginia: 1 torpedo, 2 800kg bombs, 4 250kg bombs: LISTING, COUNTER FLOODING reported, possibly sunk
Pennsylvania: 1 800kg bomb hit, 6 250kg bombs - definitely not sunk
Oklahoma: 1 torpedo, 1 or 2 800kh hits, 6 or 7 250kg hits - probably not sunk
California: 3 800kg bomb hits - heavy damage reported but probably not sunk(last one was a bounce on belt armor)
Maryland: 1 torpedo, 2 800kg bombs, 6 250kg bombs: damaged but probably not sunk...

CA San Francisco: 1 250kg bounce, 1 torpedo (LISTING, COUNTER FLOODING) - possible kill
CL Honolulu: 2 800kg bombs penetrating deck, reported on fire but will probably survive...
AVD Hulbert: 1 250kg hit, definitely not sunk
DD Allen: 1 250kg bomb, fires, most probably not sunk...

To achieve that + approximately 40 Allied A/C destroyed on the ground, we wasted nearly 100 Zeros, B5Ns and D3As.

EDIT: out of the 3+6+6=15 B5N unit sorties flown, torpedoes were used on only 3.

December 10th

Another frustrating turn. Invasions themselves progress as planned, and the P-40s are probably down to a dozen or so A/C at the PI, but the Kido Butai finds multiple targets South to PH (one of these could be a CV TF too). All these targets are 2-5 hex away, but despite "clear sky" everywhere and first sightings at AM phase already, no strikes are launched.

USN CV TF on the other hand hits Tarawa invasion force, sinking 3 transports... I will try to intercept that force with the Kido Butai, they are barely 1 day's sail away. I dont think they have fuel to refuel with in the South, so KB will position itself between Palmyra/Xmas and the Gilberts, while my submarine screen moves in from the North to see if any search aircraft overfly them tomorrow.

December 11th

All invasions progress in schedule, the last PT boat at PI was wiped out by a Japanese DD squadron.

US CV TF is now 120nm SW of Tarawa, reported to be moving SW. In the case it sails South and then turns East, 5 IJN submarines are continuing on an intercept course to South, now spread out approx 300nm away to the NEE. Kido Butai will continue sailing SWW, now between Johnston and Palmyra.

December 12th

Looks like the USN CV TF chose to go Australia instead of harassing my landings at New Britain and New Guinea. I'll probably lose track of it next turn, and I'm not going to hunt it down all the way down to Sydney/Melbourne, though in the case it stops at any of the islands(sub screens soon in position) I have my replenishment TF ready, now at Ponape.

All invasions in schedule, and 4 British units at Alor Star are are now completely cut off, as the 1st Tanks captures Georgetown.

December 13th

Rabaul, Mindanao and Jesselton invaded against little resistance. USN CV TF disappeared out of search range, but my 2-ship AMC TF sighted its search planes, so its still heading to Australia.

Next 5-6 turns should be interesting...

December 14th

Mini-KBs kill everything in sight in South Philippine Sea and Sulu Sea. They caught for example xAP President Jackson. Rabaul, Jesselton and a couple of other places fall.. At Davao, the ever victorious Japanese forces are so swift in their divine assault, that even enemy PBY Catalina search planes dont get airborne! [:D]

December 15th

4-BB force wipes out AS Holland near Kuching. This BB force is a trap for tomorrow's Singkawang Invasion - my opponent should be very aware of the nearby CVs so I dont think there will be a naval reaction, but whether he knows that I transferred more Zeroes aboard them and that they're all set to LRCAP my invasion and BB TFs tomorrow, we will see. My bait TF that swept down the Malayan coast almost to Singapore was not attacked, but I know he has bombers.

Submarine I-24 runs across what is likely a USN CV TF (6 DDs and 1 CA sighted)some 240nm East of Santa Cruz Islands - Kido Butai was just 3 hex out of range! [X(] 6 submarines will sweep West to Santa Cruz, and the KB will detach Kaga and leap Warp-9 to intercept. The American TF is most likely heading to Australia - if it stops at Santa Cruz, it will get blasted out from this world by the KB, and if it sails North to the islands or through them, it is within torpedo range tomorrow morning.

Now that I recall it(3min after ending the turn), I think I forgot to set Kaga follow the main force and at least provide LRCAP. She also has both BBs with her. [:@] [:'(]

And the map for everyone interested:



Edit: the above plan has just 1 weakness: Jap CVs can only launch to 8 hex. At least there'll be some search coverage...

December 16th

Kido Butai sails under a thunderstorm and fails to launch even its search aircraft [:@] Theres still enough fuel to continue on SW vector for another 8 hex, after which the KB will turn North towards Rabaul, refuel, and sails to refit at Truk. Kaga will provide cover to the replenishment TF.

Today Japanese troops landed at Singkawang, and there should be enough AV to throw the defenders back tomorrow. I have fighters ready to fly in... Mini-KB is now filled with fighters, and they did good job today killing off 4 Dutch bombers and all their escorts. Palembang D-day now December 18th evening or December 19th morning.

December 17th

Singkawang falls, and the expected hundred-Swordfish assault on my invasion force fails to materialize. Aerial reconnaissance shows Singapore is EMPTY. Am I facing Brave Sir Robin?

Chinese falling back too, I've now captured 2 large-ish cities in the northern front without having to fire a shot. In my previous game I found the existing Japanese strength in China completely inadequate to even hold what it has in the beginning, but this foe, hes running?!? [&:]

December 18th, 19th

Palembang invaded against 1 x AMc and 1 x HDML. There is a big mine field, at least 100 mines cleared and its still there, but only lost 1 PB. 280 AV landed against minor opposition, it should fall tomorrow.

Looks like the enemy is pulling back everywhere... This got to be Sir Robin. Just 20 fighters left at Singapore, only other airfield I see that has any planes is Rangoon with 9 "aux" and 3 fighters(buffaloes).