Matrix Games Forums

Dec 18th:

DEI

Ride of Force Z: Over the day, Force Z - consisting of the Prince of Whales, CA Houston, 5 Dutch CL's, and 4 assorted DD's, engaged in a couple of naval combats.
1stL Force Z encounters a transport fleet consisting of 1 E, 1 AMC, 5 xAKL and sinks all of them, including 2200 Japanese troop casualties. Next up... Force Z encounters a small transport fleet 1 DD and 2 APD. They get sunk but were empty. My ammo is still at 80% for all guns and ships. Orders are given to stay put and intercept more shipping.

Banshee's at Kendari park 1000lb bombs into 2 xAKL's and the BB Ise. Namla (next to Ambon) is invaded.


Malaysia: DHRedge brought Zeros to Taiping, and down 5 Hurribuffs for 1 zero. My airgroups will retire to Singapore and I'll rotate in new squads in a couple of days. Bomb attacks against Taiping continue to be ineffective, and Singapore's forts are at 2.44 and increasing. Sweeps against Singapore come off at 1-1 excluding the Blenheims, of those I lost a lot. They will retire to parts unknown shortly. ext,

China: Multiple units from Manchuko have begun marching up the road to cut off China from off-base supply. I guess this also means marching restricted units across borders is fair game. I can steam roll through Burma China later. I'm about 4 days out from springing a pair of captraps with the AVG. Most of the Jap flights in China are unescorted or escorted with a tiny number of Nates. Time to force DHRedge to spend precious Zero's engaging in China, instead of elsewhere as is the current situation.

Pacific: At Efate, I meet the IJ 53rd Naval Guard Unit and 61st Naval Guard Unit, comprising 60 AV. My counterattack has no chance of success. Orders are given to pull a Commando Raid on Dieppe.

Crap - I updated this to our current time - right as teh Matrix hardware failed. Sigh.

To recap a little:

Dec 19th Saw Force Z engage in 4-5 battles with transports adn minelayers to start the day. All told, the IJN lost about 20 fully loaded transports, 6000 casualties, and bout 5-10 aux ships.

Then I ran into the IJN combat forces. Out of 5 battles against various IJ BB's, nothing really happened except I flashed my POW's big guns and they ran away, even though my guns were out of ammo. Then a small IJ tf of a CA, CL, and 2 DD's decided to be aggressive, and put 25 shells and a torp into the POW.

Daytime air attacks all went for the CL's (indicating the POW is seriously damamged and detached from the main Force Z) and sank 2 of them, heavily damaged the rest.

Tomorrow, Dec 20th, will most likely see the end of the POW and 5 Dutch CL's. In return, I killed about 40 transports, 10-20 aux ships, and 10k men, put a 2-3 week delay into getting Ambon up and running, and did some serious psychological damage to my opponent in that he stated he's going to have to protect all fleets from this point on.

Was such a sacrifice worth it? Was losing the POW (which will most likely happen tomorrow) and 5 Dutch CL's worth 40-50 transports, 10-20 aux ships (PB's CM's TB's etc), and 10k non-combat casualties?

You be the judge.

Dec 20th:

As expected, today saw the POW slip under teh waves. Multiple Netty airstrikes from various bases around the DEI sunk the 4 Dutchie CL's that escorted the POW, I thought she was going to make it, but the last airstrike of the day, 9 Betty's, put 3 torps into the POW and the POW went down.

The Repulse is now in drydock repairing.

With the loss of the POW, the Repulse not in the area, my ships are too few and too weak to interdict anything, and as such, DEI's Sir Robin is now in effect. All units ordered to disperse and retreat to Perth/DG/Columbia.

PI: The southern island is almost all gone. No landings on the Northern Island, forts continue to build at Clark and Manila.


Malaysia: Northern Redoubt continues to do it's job, and it's very appearance has seemed to hamper the IJA.

Strategic Concerns: Lots of movement in China. It appears that DHREdge has moved every non AV unit out of Manchucko and into China. It also appears, judging by the large number of divisions moving on China's northern flank, that he's moved out as much AV as possible from Manchuko. Couple this with the 65th BDE landing an assaulting Hong Kong - China is the target.

Knowing this makes me want to find a way to kill a hundred/two hundred AV in Manchuko and maybe get him below the garrison threshold, and activate the Ruskies in '42. That would be pretty sweet. War over LOL.

Fast Forward past the boring parts – January 18th 1942.

The POW went down the next day, along with the rest of the dutch CL’s.
Since then, I evacuated the DEI of shipping (but lost the Boise and Houston).

DHRedge made a major push into Alaska and down the Canucklehead coast. All of the Aleuts are gone (wiping out small garrisons at Adak, Dutch Harbor, Kodiak). Anchorage (150AV) is under siege by 500 AV and will fall shortly. Invasions have occurred down to Annette Island (2 hexes NW of Prince Rupert). Prince Rupert, the small mountain base close to it on the rail, and a couple other bases in Canada are beginning to accept US West Coast units. This is all good news for me. I spent 200PP and switched a base from Canada to the West Coast Command that’s 7 hexes from Annette – and now it can accept restricted US Airplanes. I also switched the mountain base by Prince Rupert to West Coast for fighters. This will allow all those restricted units on the West Coast to gain exp the quick way – combat missions. This whole Alaska invasion is going to be good news for me – as now my pilot skills will rise dramatically.

Elsewhere – no moves made on Oz. Rabaul is still in US hands. Rabaul and PM have been accepting reinforcements and building forts. I’m not moving anything too important up here, as I need to see if Japan marches elsewhere now that any further forward movement for the IJ in Alaska will be difficult. I reinvaded the Shortlands with 9AV Lark Batallion, captured it as it was empty. I also recaptured Goodenough island (also empty).

In the Pacific – Wake Island is sitting with 140AV and 4 forts (on the way to 6) and lots of supplies. Same goes for Midway Island. These can act as northern pincers to a US move in the Marshalls – as south of the Marshalls – I have 100+ AV at Tabiteau (sp) Nikananu (sp) and Aurorae (sp), with forts and airfields building.

IN the DEI – I have 500 AV sitting in Palemburg behind 3 forts. He’s been doing bombardment runs with a pair of CA’s. I’ve got half a mind to tell him he’s destroying his oil fields by doing so, but then he’s the enemy so bombard away! Singapore is at 4 forts and rising. My Northern Redoubt at Taiping in Malaya has not been attacked yet as DHRedge pushes troops into position. At present, I’ve got 350AV behind 3 forts and 15k supplies. It’s doing it’s job and seriously delaying a Singapore Assault.

India: Quiet. Deigo Garcia, Addu, and Ceylon are all in fort building and base building mode/

Phillipines: The SOuthern Island (Mindano?) is gone. No landings on the northern Island. Forts continue to build at Manila and Clark.

China : Dhredge moved every unit possible out of Manchuck into China. So yeah, all those 0 AV arty units? All those 0 AV construction units? Support units? All going into China. So basically, I’m looking to move a few China units to India and Karachi to build into 700AV monsters in a couple of years.... Everything else will have to go to Chungking to hold on. I don’t really care for this type of move (not paying PP’s to move 3k+AV and tons of support units out of Manchuria) – but oh well. It just means that once I move from India to Burma in a year or two, I’ll move all the India units I have with them.

Here's a little looksee on what I'm facing up in Alaska. Notice that I bought out 2 Canadian bases east of Prince Rupert from the Canadian Command to the West Coast HQ - this will allow me to train all the West Coast Restricted units in combat