Blinded by the Rising Sun - SireChaos (J) vs Championzhao (A)

[SireChaos]

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

ORIGINAL: SireChaos

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

India has a lot of HI and resources. You seem to capture a lot of fuel when you take India.

I know it has HI and resources. I´m pretty sure I have all the resources I´ll need, and pretty much all the HI I can support.

Capturing fuel is nice, but how long will it last? India can support 405 HI with its only oil and refineries, so there´ll be 1000 or so HI using up captured fuel at 2000 tons per day. Australia has 45 HI it can support with fuel production, and another 1000+ it cannot support. I´ll have a hard enough time building up fuel stockpiles in Japan, so I won´t be able to afford diverting much to either place.

True, but HI can be banked unlike fuel or supply. Can't ever be bombed. As IJ, you hoard fuel only because of its ability to convert to HI. So, if you can find a way to build/acquire more HI without having to spend supply (HI factory expansion), I would think that a good strategy. As observed in other AAR's, it looks like you can capture the equivalent of an additional 500K HI (at least) by taking India. If you can take Karachi .. a lot more. That's a lot of HI Just my thoughts, maybe others will offer theirs as well.

Good Luck and BANZAI!!

Good points.

[SireChaos]

Something else I forgot to mention...

Thanks to, by and large, a lack of warp movement due to surprise being off, none of the invasion forces other than Khota Baru and Batan Island are in sight of their objectives yet. This leaves my opponent still guessing which targets I will hit.
The two destroyers that were by default supposed to bombard Midway are sent to bombard Wake Island instead, in the hope that this will make him believe I will invade there soon. Not that I plan to capitalize on any decision he makes based on that false conclusion - I just like to keep my opponent guessing.

KB was 200 miles west of Manila on turn 1; they are now moving south and then west around Borneo in order to raid Java before returning to Cam Ranh Bay to refuel. They will stay close enough to raid Manila again on turn 2, though. CVL Zuiho is moving around the southern end of the Phillipines meanwhile. Hopefully, the lull will fool my opponent into sending some of his surviving surface ships south, where they will be attacking by Zuiho´s bombers. Should he be foolish enough to send them out on turn 2, they will spend the day a few hexes at most from KB, and all my bomber squadrons have Naval Attack as a primary mission, with Port Attack against Manila only as secondary.
A submarine on a minelaying mission has spotted a TF containing at least one battleship due south of Singapore; that pretty much has to be Task Force Z being relocated to Java - with any luck KB will find them there.

[SireChaos]

December 8th, 1941

Over the last two days, the Allies have been sending bombers to any port in their range that isn´t a staging point for my invasions; so far, only an ACM in Shanghai has been sunk, but two other ACM, three xAK, an xAP and an APD have been damaged, and I think one of the ACM will sink, more likely than not.

On the other hand, whereas on the previous turn KB sank 13 ships, this turn another 25 Allied ships sank at the Phillipines. No less than 7 submarines are reported sunk at sea, but in the same hex as Manila, for a total of 14 sunk, 5 damaged, leaving (IIRC) 6-8 USN intact subs in the DEI; also, two Dutch subs are reported hit by Ki-21 bombers off Saigon, for whatever that may be worth.

Current kill tally in the Phillipines is:
14 SS (plus 5 damaged)
4 AM
2 AS (the third has taken several bombs)
3 DD
2 PG
4 PT
2 AO
1 TK (plus 1 damaged)
1 xAK (plus at least 6 damaged)
4 xAKL
2 damaged xAP
1 damaged AVD

The dead subs and sub tenders are the best part of this; now if I can get the two Dutch sub tenders as well, my opponent will have some trouble operating subs close to the area of operations.

In other news, Japanese troops have landed at Makin and, encountering no resistance, have taken control of the island. The forces bound for Miri, Aparri, Vigan and Tarawa are each less than a day from their destination.

The landings in Malaya are proceeding without interruption; taking advantage of the spanner that KB can throw into any Allied naval defensive effort, I have decided to move some plans forward. The invasion forces bound for Singkawang, Lingayan and Palembang have begun boarding their transports.

[SireChaos]

December 9th, 1941

My opponent is a sneaky, sneaky bastard.

He sent the three destroyer that start out in Hong Kong to attack my transport TF as Samah while they load invasion forces. One APD, 2 xAK and 1 xAKL are sunk, and around 20 other ships are hit, with no damage at all to the British destroyers!
He is also hitting the Vigan and Aparri invasion forces with PBYs; they scored about 10 hits so far, all of them duds; my opponent must be chewing his mouse cable in frustration by now.

Dutch submarines sink an xAK and a fleet oiler off Cam Ranh Bay; there´s only two of them, and my aircraft have reported three hits against them since war started, but they´re making their presence felt. I´ve moved more bombers for ASW into the area, and as soon as the ships escorting the Malaya invasion force are back, I´ll try hunt these subs down with ASW surface forces.
In other news, the badly damage ACM out of Shanghai sank; I am taking measures to secure the port before moving ships for resource convoys there.

I-121 put two torpedoes into a Dutch xAP off Batavia after laying mines there; another destroyer is reported sunk in the Phillipines, but that one had been reported sunk the day before already... Warships escorting the Vigan invasion force sink two PT-boats for no damage suffered, and KB and CVL Ryujo sink 3 xAP and 5 xAKL as well. Around ten ships are still reported to be in Manila.

The Miri invasion force didn´t move as quickly as I thought it would; however, unopposed landings took place as Vigan, Aparri and Tarawa, and Tarawa is now ours. Khota Bharu also changed hands with heavily Allied losses.
The invasion of Palembang will be delayed after the action off Samah; all the troops are embarked, but I´d rather not send them to their destination in a TF of damaged and poorly escorted (a single TB) transports. The TF (and a second one transporting troops for Malaya move to Cam Ranh Bay to unload, where a new and properly escorted invasion TF will be organized.

[SireChaos]

December 10th-12th, 1941

My opponent remains devious and hard to catch.

On the 10th, the PBY squadrons at (presumably) Clark Field seem to have finally found a supply of working torpedoes; they hit an invasion force bound for Lingayen hard enough to make it turn back and inflict serious losses to two of the major LCUs intended to fight on Luzon - the 65th Brigade and 2nd Tank Regiment.
On the 11th, the same PBY hit a troop convoy going from Japan to Indochina and badly damaged an xAK carrying part of an airborne unit.
Over the course of these days, my opponent lost about a dozen PBY to fighters, flak and ops losses. Curiously enough, my invasion force landing at Legaspi remains unattacked so far, perhaps because I have set the F1M of its two seaplane tenders to CAP duty. I am beginning to appreciate that nimble little seaplane.

Also on the 10th, heavy cruisers Louisville and Pensacola hit Tarawa and wiped out the ships that had just finished unloading troops there - a PB, an xAK, 4 xAKL

By now, Japanese troops have taken Legaspi, Tulagi, Manus, Kavieng and Miri; they reached Hong Kong but haven´t taken it yet. Most importantly, and triggering the first Orphan Anne broadcast of the war, Guam has fallen.
KB is off Soerabaya on the 12th; they wiped out a task force of mainly Dutch auxiliaries (a minelayer, a patrol craft, a small oiler, four AMc, an AG, a AVP, and a big British tanker), and hit numerous ships in port at Soerabaya. One of the ships hit was CL Mauritius, five bomb hits, two of them 800 kg, so I have high hopes of having sunk it. Unfortunately, PoW and Repulse are nowhere to be seen; the destroyers Jupiter, Isis and Stronghold were there, on other hand hand, and got hit. Oh well... tomorrow, Batavia.

[SireChaos]

December 13th, 1941

A fairly uneventful term.

The British garrison in Hong Kong holds, adjusted AV 345 to 205 - equal losses on both sides, but their losses were mostly destroyed devices, mine where the disabled.

KB strikes Batavia, sinks a HDML and an AMc and damages about 20 other ships, mostly freighters and two minelayers. KB will now return to Cam Ranh Bay to refuel and rearm.

Japanese midget subs attempt to enter San Francisco harbour, hitting a destroyer tender and a tanker; four midget subs are lost, one returns to its carrier.

14 F1M2 from the seaplane tender manage to beat back two separate strikes from 3 B-17D and 12 PBY; no kills, but no losses, either, and both attacks are aborted!

Japanese troops land at Dadjangas on Davao.

Belatedly, and escorted by Mini-KB and a cruiser/destroyer force, the invasion force for Palembang has gotten underway.