Of Rabbits, Dogs, and Windmills.........Quixote vs Ctangus

[Quixote]

December 28, 29, and 30

Phillipines - Still bombing both Clark and Bataan with shorter range bombers. The first deliberate attack on Clark went off at 1-2, taking the forts to level 1. The attack was close to a 1-1, and I have almost twice the AV he does here, so I'll rest a few turns and try it again.

SRA - I've been cleaning up the area and backfilling bypassed bases. No new forward bases in the past three turns, excepting Makassar. Started fighter sweeps of northern Java. Lost another 24 Nells/Betties who attacked in groups without escort (sigh...) Note: Our whole game has been played with the air coordination bug from beta. Theoretically it's fixed with v1120, but it's devastated my bombers almost every turn we've played. The Allies and Japan are now almost tied in total air losses for the war, and it's not even 1942 yet...

Malaya - Resting up for Singapore. Should start marching in a turn or two from Johore with enough force to take the city quickly. Ctangus is trying to get a few of his troops out by air, but he's been paying for it with transport planes lost to LRCAP.

Solomons - Sank a couple of ships reinforcing Port Moresby with subs and Nells. He has five units (parts of, at least) at PM now, so it looks like he's not just going to let me have it. Since my divisions are all currently occupied with Malaya and Luzon, I'm putting together a collection of smaller SNLF and Guards units which I'll throw at PM in ten days or so. I don't think he's had the time to move enough here to keep me from taking it from him even with a patchwork force, but I'll find out sooner rather than later. We're far enough into the game that he could have all three American CVs down here and things could get interesting, but my guess is that the CVs are elsewhere (like PH or the South Pacific.)

China - Not usually one of my favorite parts of the game, but it's been interesting so far - some good and some bad. Up north I'm winning handily - there's an off chance I manage to encircle a ridiculous number of Chinese troops at Loyang/Chengchow. Down south, I've made it no further than 2 hexes from Canton and will probably have to settle for that for a while. In central China, he's pushing hard. Since I sent a lot of my starting units north at the beginning of the game, he's got more AV than I do between Changsha and Sinyang, and seems to want to attack with it. I don't think I'm in danger of losing any major cities, but I'm certainly not going anywhere fast in this area any time soon, either. Since he was obviously pushing hard through Ichang to Hankow, I waited a few turns and sent the troops who got kicked out of Ichang at the beginning of the game back into Ichang. The idea was to let him go by, then cut off his supply and make him turn around and have to shock attack me across a river. My units weren't very disrupted, and were still very combat effective when I did this. They aren't any more... He only had five smaller units in Ichang when I ordered the attack to re-take the city, but got an additional seven units (including corps and HQs) to move back into the hex the same turn my attack went off. It wasn't pretty.

[Quixote]

December 31 through January 7

Cent Pac and Aleutians - I've taken all that I plan to take here with the possible exception of Midway, and Ctangus hasn't tried to interfere. These theaters may get more interesting in several months, but I don't see too much happening in either of them until then.

SRA - Captured Koepang (it had not been reinforced), pushed south from Palembang with infantry to take Oosthaven, and tried a small night surface raid of Darwin which failed, but wasn't a disaster. CA Chikuma and destroyers versus CA Houston and more destroyers - Chikuma has a few more holes now then she did before, but will live. Otherwise there was no other real damage on either side. Most of the bases I want for the Java invasion have been taken, excepting Denpasar - the small island with a decent airfield just south of Java itself. Strafing of Java has started, but after a turn or two Chuck pulled his fighters back. I have not started bombing any airfields on Java itself yet.

Solomons/South Pacific - While waiting for the PM invasion forces to gather at Rabaul (pulled from Truk, Babeldoab, and Rabaul itself - it was going to take several days to get them all ready) I sent the KB to raid Suva and the Fijis. My subs had been spotting action here, and I had the time and fuel for a quick run down and back. I didn't sink twenty ships full of multiple infantry divisons and fighter groups, but it was still a worthwhile effort. (See below)

[Quixote]

December 31 through January 7

China - China continues to be interesting. I'm still rolling up north, but Chuck is more than holding his own everywhere else. I'm paying for my Ichang move with a whole Japanese division that will end up eliminated sooner or later. He's been taking divison-sized losses or worse in several of the battles up north. I'm wishing I'd paid a little more attention to south and central China, and I'm sure he's wishing he'd done the same in north China. One of us will come out on top eventually, but for now it's ugly on both sides in places.

[Quixote]

December 31 through January 7

Lastly, here's a quick summary of shipping losses for the first full month of the war. Give the speed of my expansion, I'm not unhappy with this. (Alas, my bomber losses are another matter, but I'll post some plane losses in the next week or two of action.)

[Quixote]

January 8 through January 14

China - Slowing down just a little, but still the same balance - he's still stronger in the south, and I'm still stronger up north. I've fallen back (more or less been forced back, really) to Canton, where I can at least hope to hold out in the urban hex and occasionally bombard his troops with the collection of light cruisers and destroyers I've now got at Hong King. Up north, things are still developing well for me, and I'm trying to surround and eliminate a couple of larger stacks if Ctangus doesn't start pulling back. So far, he hasn't been the retreating type on land if he can help it.

Singapore and Clark - Unfortunately, I've settled in for a slower capture of both the spots. My initial attacks (and several subsequent attacks) have been lackluster at best. The most successful have been just under 2-1, but then the next one five days later does nothing...I guess I'll be forced to excercise at least some patience here. The rest of the Malay peninsula is finished, so the extra 500AV there should be enough to push Singers over the edge when I get them to Johore to help out. Clark is down to zero forts, and I'm getting regular 1-1s, coming close to 2-1. He doesn't have that much supply left (the hits on airbase and port supply are becoming very rare), so sooner or later I'll get a good roll, or he'll run out of bullets.

Solomons - Port Moresby is due for an invasion next turn (January 15th.) I took a slightly longer course around the tail of the New Guinea bird with the fleet, but even this slight diversion seems to have thrown Chuck's search off (I'm guessing he's using search arcs. Or his patrol pilots are just really bad.). He still had transports in the area when he finally picked the KB up 6 hexes out - only smaller xAKs, but most of them are gone, now.

SRA - I took Denpasar and sent in air support to cover the impending Java landings. I've been sending in small minesweeping and SCTFs at Merak on the other end of the island for the past five or six turns, covered by zeroes from Oosthaven, just to keep him honest here. I haven't shown much down south other than taking Denpasar, but that in itself is sort of a red flag. From recon, Ctangus has more defenses up north than he does down south on likely landing spots, so south it'll be. I have paras prepped and ready to land both north and south (I haven't used them at all so far. In retrospect they'd have helped in China early on, but...) Air HQs are now at both Palembang and Koepang. The Palembang area hasn't been at all target-rich this week, but Koepang has more than made up for that. Betties downed a LOT of xAKLs at or headed towards the northern bases in Oz, along with several more AOs and TKs. Since most of their small escorts were sunk too, subs have been adding insult to injury down here by attacking the survivors on the surface and sinking them, also. (That "6 torpedo hits by one sub in one attack" post came from down here. There have been several others just as deadly using fewer torps.)

[Quixote]

January 15 through January 18

Solomons - Landed at PM on the 15th, and captured it on the 16th (3-1 shock attack.) Since Ctangus had thrown a few units into the defense here, I'm a little surprised it fell immediately - I didn't exactly bring the hammer here. I took Terapo the same turn hoping the forces in PM would just surrender straight away, but no such luck - they took to the jungle. I tried for a quick grab of Horn Island while I was at it (small four ship fast transport with 18AV aboard), but no luck - he's got 5 units here already, though most of them are support. I did a quick evac, and will try again with a larger force in the near future.

SRA - The action has been at Java, and there has been quite a bit of action. I landed at Banjoewangi (southern tip of Java) and took it on the 16th. The next day I dropped Paras on Loemadjang two hexes north and captured the level 4AF there. I don't have enough to push to Soerbaja at this point unless he turtles up, but I did bring enough not to get kicked off the island - my one remaining uncommited division (the 38th) landed here on the 18th, in what was a nail-biter despite plenty of naval and air coverage, and joined the three tank regiments and one infantry regiment already ashore. At this point Chuck decided to fight back, and on the 18th he commited what I assume were most of the surface assets he had left in this part of the world. Banjoewangi was visited by a group centered around the BC Repulse, another centered around CA Houston, and two groups of PT boats. I think there were ten or eleven different rounds of naval combat here this turn. I lost two or three AKs and an escort, and a few of the troops from the 38th Div probably had heart attacks to go along with the disruption they suffered from being attacked mid landing, but in the end this was a huge day for Japan. I've attached part of the naval sequence below - outrageously good luck for the Japanese. In addtion to victories at sea, Ctangus lost another 50 planes this turn, mostly on Java. He's almost out of fighters, so the few groups that did fly got massacred by zeroes for very little return (one AK hit, I think), and the ones that didn't fly got pounded by two large raids that hit Madioen and detroyed lots of planes on the ground. It wasn't the easiest replay to watch (I kept seeing Houston and Repulse pop up and wondering when ANY of my larger groups were going to engage...), but it was one of the best replays I'm likely to get this game without any CVs involved.

[Rapunzel]

Nice AAR, keep it updated [&o]

[Quixote]

Thanks very much Rapunzel - glad you're enjoying the read. Chuck (Ctangus) seems to update/post quite a bit more frequently than I do, but I'll try to keep things up do date to within at least a day or two of game time. That said, let me finish up a picture or two and get this caught up tonight!!

[Quixote]

January 19 through 27

Here are the plane losses to date. Quick summary, Ctangus has lost a ton of fighters, and I've lost a ridiculous amount of bombers for this point in the game. Having played more than half the game with the coordination bug (or fix, depending on your viewpoint) in beta, I've lost many, many bombers who flew into CAP with no escort. Since the beta update a week ago, things haven't been incredibly coordinated, but they have been better. Even with that,though, the game still throws you a friendly curveball now and then. I was just starting to feel comfortable about re-establishing dominating air superiority over Chuck this past week when I see the "bombers fail to link up with escorts" message on the 26th over Java. Since he has few fighters left, I wasn't worried much about this. Until I watched my Nells and Betties fly again unescorted into the heaviest CAP he'd put up anywhere on the map in the past two weeks. Between air to air and ops losses, down went another 40 of my bombers in one day. Oh well, you can't win 'em all. Hopefully I'm being at least semi-competent with pilot training and airframe production, since it appears that I'm getting to the point where I'll soon need to be.

[Quixote]

January 19 through 27

China - Lots of manuevering going on in the last week, on both sides, but without any decisive or costly losses. Hard to say who's winning or losing at this point. The momentum seems to be swinging a bit in my favor in central China - he's pulling back from Hankow and Sinyang - but I'm not sure at this point if I can really make him pay for pushing early yet, or if it ends up being a good idea on his part.

Solomons, and points south - Ctangus sent his B-17s to visit Port Moresby harbor a turn or two after I took it. Like at Takao earlier in the game, a few of my ships now have holes in them and need some repair. I haven't mentioned it until this point, but my CAs continue to be magnets for mines, torpedos, and bombs. Except for poor Chokai, which took three torps in the same sub attack, none of my CAs are in danger of sinking, but I have yet to find one that prefers combat over yard time. (This was prompted by Ashigara hitting the trifecta at PM - mine hit, bomb hit(s), and torp hit, all on different turns. I don't think I'm reckless with them, but on a "per capita(l) ship basis", they hit more mines and take more torpedoes than every other class of ship I have hands down. As for points south, I landed a small force at Koumac. Recon (albeit from subs) shows Noumea very lightly defended, so I'm marching my SNLF down the length of the island, and am moving up enough in the way of reinforcements to be able to take the island. Not that I plan to defend it tooth and nail later, maybe, but having Noumea early is great for hurting US-Oz cooperation.

Java - So far so good. I've lost a couple of DDs and AKs to LBA, but nothing too substantial. I cut Java in half with dual paratroops landings on the 26th, and it looks like I've split the AV on the island into halves, too. (see below)

[Quixote]

January 28 through February 1

SRA - Captured Malang, and landed the 11th brigade at Semerang instead of further south, with the intent of moving it one hex across the island to take Djokjakarta. CL Sumatra shows up at Semerang and picks a couple of fights with my covering force, but neither side accomplishes much. Sumatra rudely sinks a minesweeper at Merak while running away. A few more sporadic air attacks from Chuck's LBA on Java, but most of his bombers get chewed up by CAP for very little in the way of results.

Phillipines - Clark falls. With the expected heavy casualties and disruption, the Allies fall back to Bataan for a last stand. Instead of pursuing directly with everything, I'm going to rest up a couple of my strongest land units in Manila, then attack. I'd like to avoid another protracted seige, so I'll try being a little patient - it shouldn't cost me any more than a week of time doing it this way, and it may save me from another four or five 1-1 attacks here.

Burma - Although I hadn't planned to send much here until Singapore fell, I railed in a few smaller units after the initial landings in Malaya. Two of those units (small armor) crossed into Pegu from the south a turn earlier than I expected (I tried to time them to get there at the same time as an infantry brigade coming across country from Chiang Mai and missed by a turn), but the Burmese troops were bad enough (and in move mode, I think) that I got a 1-1 despite being outnumbered 4-1 in AV. The infantry unit came in next turn, and Pegu is Japanese now. Not that I expected differently, but Rangoon doesn't look too heavily defended.

China - Threated with encirclement, Ctangus pulled his big stacks back from Sinyang and Hankow. Pity. He did manage to maul two of the armor units trying to encircle him on the way out, though. 2000AV vs 100AV isn't a very fair fight, even in China.

Solomons/South Pacific - Small CL skirmish at Luganville, but again not much damage inflicted by either side. My second attempt to take Horn Island went off exactly the same as the first one, despite bombardment by cruisers and a landing force three times larger than my original one. I'm now getting as much practice at withdrawing troops here as I am at landing them. Score a win for Ctangus at Horn so far. Following up on the small landing at Koumac, I'm bringing down enough troops to make a run at Noumea. They're covered by the KB, though, which Ctangus found out the hard way. I guess he has at least one CV not in San Diego, since he flew in the whole complement of one US carrier's planes to Noumea. They attacked, but not a single bomber made it through to the ships. Taken with a grain of salt, he lost 21 Buffaloes, 16 Vindicators, and 11SBDs - not a bad day for me, although watching the replay of any DBs or TBs attacking your carriers does get the adrenaline going.

[Quixote]

February 2 through February 6

China - Stabilizing a bit, but still messy. See below. I've taken enough casualties (my fault, aided by good play on Chuck's part) that I've bumped armament and vehicle production up a bit more. Ctangus hasn't gotten off too lightly in the casualty department, either. Win or lose, China still projects as bloody for both sides for a while.

[Quixote]

February 2 through February 6

Java - Couple of positives. 1. I've already taken a third of Java, and it's only February 6th. 2. I'm playing slightly better here than I am in China. I'm still taking more in the way of casualties than I'd like to, but I haven't really lost many planes or ships in the process. So far getting to this point has cost me one DD and one (I think) small AK. It's cost Ctangus most of the air units he had here, along with several more tankers, subs, and AKs, not to mention the Repulse.

[Quixote]

February 2 through February 6

Malaya - Singapore falls on 2/2. Lots of Allied losses. I don't think Ctangus got much out of Singapore before it fell. Most of his early shipping here went down in the first days of the war, and the couple of times I caught him trying to airlift into or out of Singers LRCAP intercepted him.

Burma - Rangoon falls on 2/6. Not many Allied losses, unfortunately. I've got a couple of tanks and an infantry brigade trying to flank what he still has left in the lower part of valley, but I don't have enough to really push hard here yet.

Phillipines - Luzon is down to Bataan, and on Mindanao it's Cagayan and Zamboanga. Zambo is due for an invasion next week - I think he's airlifted most of the troops out already, but he's still running search planes there. Ctangus is trying to send in single ship supply AKs (to Bataan and formerly Clark, I guess), but so far I've been able to pick them up and sink them (at least the ones I've known about) with the small SCTFs I've got guarding the straights just for this reason.

[Quixote]

February 7 through February 12

China - All the way to the south, a combined para drop/shock attack on Nanning fails miserably (relatively equal AV, attack goes off at 1-6.) My forces are unceremoniously evicted from the hex on the following turn. All the way up north, several smaller tank units and an infantry regiment savage the Chinese corps which was blocking supply to my far right flanking troops. Somewhere in the middle, the AVG racks up even more kills on defenseless bombers. This time, in a novel twist, my 29 fighter escort flew with the last of four waves of bombers, all of which were traveling exactly one hex from their airbase to the target. Level 6 airbase, same target, same altitude, all two engine level bombers, one hex of travel...25 more easy kills for the AVG. In a "be careful what you wish for" moment, I was almost dying to get to the point in the game where I get to be on the defensive end of these exchanges, but then I remembered that B-17s don't really need escorts. Oh well, the war goes on, albeit with fewer bombers.

Java - Madioen is taken without a fight. Ctangus appears to now be moving to consolidate his forces, but like in Malaysia I think he may be a little late. The first of the victors from Singapore came ashore on the 12th with the 21rst Division landing up north at Kalidjati. Artillery and an HQ will be joining it in another couple of turns. See below for the overall situation here.

[Quixote]

February 7 through February 12

Phillipines - The rested 65th Brigade and the 33rd Division make it to Bataan on the 9th, and the first deliberate attack goes off at 1-1 (1178-605...oh so close) - forts drop to level 2. I haven't been hitting any airfield supply in the past couple of turns, but he didn't suffer any supply penalty on the deliberate attack so he's not out quite yet. Since I'm probably close enough to being able take Bataan without having to wait for his supplies to run low, I'm just going to rest, attack, rinse, and repeat until it falls.

New Caledonia - While waiting for the combat engineers and some additional infantry to land, the units already on the island are taking their time marching to Noumea itself. (They've been in rest mode half the time while marching...) After Ctangus tried the move with his carrier planes attacking from Noumea, I drifted to KB around for a couple of turns off the island, never moving more than 3 or 4 hexes, just trying to make the two subs I saw down here have to guess where I'd be, and to give the impression that this was the only reason I was moving at all. On the 8th I moved them 4 hexes west, which looked the same as the moves I'd been making the past three turns, but which put the KB within a sprint of Brisbane and Sydney. I didn't really expect to find it, but I thought I'd take a stab at those ports in hopes of finding the CV that Chuck had flown those planes off of on the 6th. If I got lucky, great. If not, I hoped I'd end up hitting at least something worthwhile (see below.) Anyway, sinking 10 or so transports and denting some of his cruisers certainly won't win the war for Japan, but it's better than nothing. In another interesting twist, it looks like Ctangus flew a second set of CV bombers to Noumea (thank god for good recon - I saw they were there before they had the chance to attack any of my transports.) I sent the transports packing a few hexes to the north of Koumac, and put up a small LRCAP from Zuikaku. Splash another 25 or so Allied bombers for no loss. (They all flew with no escort. Recon with high DL showed a bunch of fighters present. Maybe he had them resting, or he flew them back off, thinking that all my CVs were at Sydney...who knows.) I know he has mines at Noumea, but he's had mines everywhere, so I think there may be few enough of them here to risk a bombardment from a couple of BBs. I'll probably wait until the KB gets back and my ground troops are ready to attack, though - I don't need to tempt fate too badly, and I'm making good enough time everywhere else on the map (except China) that I can afford to spend an extra day or two here.

[Quixote]

February 13 through February 16

China - I think we've established some ground rules for this game. Outside China, Quixote wins. Inside China, Ctangus wins. It would not be inaccurate to sum up the entire game this way so far. There are some exceptions, but they seem to be growing fewer in number. On the "what did I lose in China this time" question, after I managed to almost trap a large attacking force in Canton, Ctangus managed to pull out the entire force (temporarily, I'm sure) long enough to savage another entire Japanese division. I should probably start using PPs to buy each one of these guys out - I'm creating my own fire sale here...

Java - Is not in China. More Japanese forces have landed at Semarang, I pummeled his units trying to escape from Djokjakarta, and it looks like I'll suceed in cutting his forces in half and be able to deal with them piecemeal. All good stuff here.

Noumea - Is also not in China. Ctangus has lost 2CLs, a couple of DDs, and probably another CV worth of planes in the last couple of turns, and to add insult to injury I think I stand a good chance of taking Noumea away from him this coming turn, anyway. All this has been done with almost no loss on my part.

[Quixote]

February 13 through February 17

Noumea - The attack went off at 1-1 (exactly 1-1, 256 vs 256 adjusted), and the forts dropped from 3 to 2 (which is probably why I only got the 1-1 in the first place.) Combat engineers and additional AV are marching in from Koumac, so it should just be a matter of time. The CVs are going to try to close the airfield at Noumea, then retire. I only hit one mine at Noumea - CA Aoba took one for the team in the leading SCTF. No danger of sinking, but she'll join three or four of her sisters in drydock in the Home Islands, if she makes it past the subs rapidly gathering. I counted 6 around here last turn, but hey, at least I can see them...

Solomons - One of the only bases in or near the Solomons I don't own is Horn Island. Horn has already become it's own little microcosm of the war, and unlike most other theaters, Horn has seen successes and failures on both sides. I'm determined to take it sooner or later, but Ctangus is doing his best to make sure it's later. After running the turn on the 16th (see below), I decided to send in my cruiser TF to mix it up with Australia and Canberra next turn. The Air HQ is in place at Port Moresby, but I need one more turn before I can buy torpedoes, so I'm going to buy a little time with the cruisers (I hope) until LBA makes this area too dangerous for Chuck to reinforce. Even if I don't outright win the naval engagement, if I can damage Ctangus's CAs enough to slow them down then my Nells should be able to do the rest. My settings and TF commander look good, so we'll see how this plays out.

[Quixote]

February 18 through February 24

Phillipines - Forts are now gone at Bataan. One or two more turns of rest, and Luzon should be completely in Japanese hands. R&R for the victors in Manila, then probably off to save China before Chuck overruns the place.

China - Hasn't been that bad the past week. No new debacles. In the "insignificant but entertaining" category, Ctangus continues to use a small group of B17s to hit an even smaller group of tanks trying to flank him in the farthest remotes of north China. This has been going on almost every day for three weeks now with minimal effect on either side. My recon unit is going nowhere fast, but I'd still rather see his heavies here than elsewhere.

Burma - A few more units are starting to come ashore at Rangoon, but I still don't have much committed here yet. I've pushed north with a few tanks and two infantry regiments, but have stopped everywhere Ctangus has decided to defend. Apparently, he's decided to try to defend quite a bit. We have a house rule on crossing borders with restricted units, but Chuck already has a Chinese corps or two helping out the defense in lower Burma. Going to have to bring in a division or two of my own at this rate.

DEI - Java is all that's left of the DEI, and there really isn't much left of Java. My attempts to fragment his defense worked out almost perfectly. His decision to continue to try to defend from further invasions helped. He's down to one base, and even that's not very well defended. All of his remaining units are stuck outside of base hexes, on the paths or roads they were using to move from point A to point B, when point B was still Dutch and worth defending. Since he has no more 'point Bs' left that he can reach in time, 50,000 Dutch troops now scattered in pockets around the island are going to end up surrendering sooner or later without much of a fight.

[Quixote]

February 18 through February 24

Noumea - Koumac hit AF2 on the 20th, and has had a small group of Vals there since the KB retired. It's been quiet until the 24th, when Ctangus moved in a small group of ships. Since he moved his fighters and what was left of his carrier-based bombers out (I'm sure he doesn't want to get them captured on the ground in a shock attack), his ships had no cover. The attack didn't sink any troops, so I'm assuming this was an evacuaton force, but he's going to have a tough time evacuating much this way. The last attack only cost him one ship, but unless he's got a sizeable force ready to land and reinforce within the next day or two, Noumea is looking like a dead end for him.