AAR-Historic Project Me as Japan against stjeand

[kennonlightfoot]

42 May 24

Reinforcements are the usual Inf. Div.
Production: Inf. Div., 2 Oilers, 1 Truck.
Convoy War: Another 8 Merchants sunk.

Situation:
Not much is happening other than cleaning up loose ends.
No sign of what the US is up to with their now substantial fleet.

Australia - Rain so little or no action.

S. Pacific - Garrison on Tonga died so unopposed landing made.

China

The attack against Changsha continues:
1st round: After air attacks a 3:1 attack is made: 0 hits vs 2 hits but holds.
2nd round: After switching out for fresher armies a 6:1 attack is made. 4 hits and the defender retreats.
Changsha is taken which pretty much ends all I plan to do in China for now. I will be making attacks of opportunity to cause casualties so they can't rebuild their armies but little else. Weather and supply make a deep incursion into China to reach the next layer of VP hexes rather difficult.

Burma

Attack on the remaining surround corps forces it to surrender.
Some minor small attacks on divisions causes casualties but no retreats. Their line holds.

[kennonlightfoot]

42 Jun 7

Again little action. I am beginning to wonder if the Japanese have reached their limits. They don't have enough force relative to the defenders to make anything but pin pricks.

Convoy war though is going great. Sank another 14 Merchants.
Reinforcements are usual Inf. Div. plus 1 Oiler and 1 Truck.

China - Clear

Make a few attrition attacks forcing the line below Changsha back some more.

Burma - dreaded heavy rains shut everything down.

Australia and S. Pacific

Still moving slowly toward Brisbane.

Kido Butai returns to Fiji to refuel and rest.

Still no sign of what the US is up too.

[kennonlightfoot]

42 Jun 21

Another non-turn. Rain shutting down two of the fronts.
Reinforcements and production same as before.

The US makes its first sub attacks on the China convoy routes. Does nothing which is to be expected. They only have two sub groups with bad torpedoes.

Convoy War: The Allies finally shut it down but Kido returns since they will probably alternate closing and opening.
The UK is down to 37 Merchants. The US is still at 41.

The US should be receiving the Wasp CV this coming turn. That will give them a six CV fleet. The question is what will they do with it?

Victory situation:
The Japanese have 320 VP and are gaining at the rate of 27 per turn.
The Allies have probably 224 VP and are gaining at the rate of 15 per turn.
That gives the Japanese an expanding lead at the rate of 12 per turn. The Allies will need to do something about that very soon. Hopefully, I can keep them distracted a bit longer in India and Australia, since they can easily pick off some of these islands like Wake.

Australia - Rain and no combat.

India - Rain and no combat.

China

Still continuing to hunt of good odds attacks to just cause casualties.
I make three attacks against the Res. Army causing a lot of damage but it holds.

[CaptBeefheart]

kennonlightfoot: Just wanted to say I'm reading your AAR. Many thanks. I just picked this game up with my anniversary coupon and I'm trying to get a feel for it.

Just to clarify, if he re-took one of the New Hebrides or Solomons (maybe even New Britain or New Guinea) bases he'd disrupt your supply line to Oz? How does that work?

Cheers,
CB

[kennonlightfoot]

ORIGINAL: CaptBeefheart

kennonlightfoot: Just wanted to say I'm reading your AAR. Many thanks. I just picked this game up with my anniversary coupon and I'm trying to get a feel for it.

Just to clarify, if he re-took one of the New Hebrides or Solomons (maybe even New Britain or New Guinea) bases he'd disrupt your supply line to Oz? How does that work?

Cheers,
CB

It is something stueand set up in the scenario that prevents the Japanese from receiving supplies through ports in India, DEI, and Australia unless they can also hold ports (usually) in other locations. For Eastern Australia it is set up so the Japanese have to control all the ports in New Guinea (both UK and DEI sides) and the Solomon Islands including New Caledonia. That includes a lot of very small islands with 1 level ports which are hard to keep under sufficient land based air to defend them. All the Allied has to do is concentrate on one of them like Henderson Field and take it to cut off all the supply to Japanese units in Eastern Australia. I believe the requirement includes the New Hebrides Islands but I haven't verify that. I took them mostly for bases to support taking New Caledonia and Fiji.

If that isn't enough to discourage the Japanese from making landings, they also have to take the ports in order starting with Cairns and moving south. If any of these chain of ports is broken by a Allied landing, then all the units pass the loss port are cut off from supply.

I was able to avoid the restrictions which were mean to also prevent early taking of Australian ports before they had enough force to defend them, by making landings taking undefended ports then using my coastal ships to keep them in supply. That way the garrisons for Cairns and Townsville were already cut off when I finally qualified for supply. That allowed me to quickly expand my control all the way to Rock Hampton.

With the extreme restrictions and how easily the Japanese could get cut off, taking these Australian ports probably is a bad idea. But I wanted test how well the restrictions were doing at achieving that purpose. I also wanted to force stjeand to have to spend most of 42 trying to shore up these positions rather than picking off my islands.

[kennonlightfoot]

42 Jul 5

US Subs try to attack my convoys with what I have seen the usual results before their torpedoes upgrade. Nothing.
My escort bonuses don't show up. Which seems to be the rule. I don't know what in the game decides when you should see that you have a bonus or not. But the ships were there.

Reinforcements: Inf. Div. Production: Inf. Div., Oiler, and a Supply Truck.

Convoy War: I have scared off all attempts to get through.

Situation: The US now has six CV's with the addition of the Wasp last turn. From now on I will have to be careful with my fleets and try to keep them near land based support. But at the same time I would prefer a carrier battle where I have the better odds of winning. This won't last into 43.

China - Clear

But all I am doing there for the time being is attacks of opportunity where I can get more hits to weaken the Chinese.

India - Heavy Rains.

Weather has become the determining factor in India.

Australia and S. Pacific

I am pulling back toward the ports with the intent of withdrawing all my units. I have accomplished about all I can which is to distract the Allies.

Kido pulls back to Suva to refuel and rebuild effectiveness.

To replace Kido I send the CVL based Indian Ocean fleet to raid the Indian Ocean convoy route.

[kennonlightfoot]

42 Jul 19

Japanese Warships Advance to 43.
US Subs try to attack and fail.
Reinforcements: 1 Inf. Div. Production: Inf. Div., Oiler, Truck, and AA.
I will be trying to build up my defensive and support capacity with production of things like Trucks and AA.

Convoy War: Sink 9 Merchants.

China - Clear
But again just attacks of opportunity to weaken the Chinese.

Australia and S. Pacific.

I take the final Island, Pago Pago.
Kido Butai back to 97% Effectiveness.

In Australia I start my withdrawal and retreat northward.

Burma/India - Clear weather finally.

Attacked the Indian Corps driving it back. It required three attacks though costing me 5 and their unit 7 before it retreated. But now I am in position to take Dacca if the weather stays clear.

[kennonlightfoot]

42 Aug 2

US CV fleet showed up in Indian Ocean and sank one of my CVL's, Ryujo.
Also, made a bomber attack against Port Moresby bottoming one of my destroyers.
I'll have to be more careful where I place ships now that there are long range bombers about.

Convoy war goes on sinking another 3 Merchants.

Production: Another infantry and 2 AA (need some defenses for my ports), and 1 Truck.

The Indian Ocean fleet retreats to Singapore.
But Kido Butai sorties against against the S. Pacific convoy lane.

Australia evacuation is completed except for one unit.

Burma - Heavy Rain.

China - Clear

But the only activity is some attrition attacks to use up Chinese production.

The Burma line is solidifying and may be blocked now. All the units I am facing are now Corps size. The chances made to make taking India harder seem to have worked. Although it is hard to separate the effects of weather. I didn't feel like the Japanese got much of a break on rain.

[kennonlightfoot]

42 Aug 16

The Japanese receive a battleship this turn plus my usual infantry division and 2 AA's.
Builds for this turn are: Inf. Div., 1 Escort, and 2 AA. The Reinf/Upgrade is increased to 120.

The Convoy War is going very well. I think the Allied side is going to have to come up with some kind of counter to it but I am not certain how much this actually damages the Allies. It slowed the movement of production to India but I am not sure if it was serious enough to be worth the risks to the Japanese. They lost a CVL last turn.

UK is down to 18 Merchants and the US has 38. But with a stable Indian front they have time to rebuild their Merchant fleets. A lot depends on how easy it is for the US to substitute its Merchants for supplying India so the UK can produce infantry to support Inida.

Burma - more heavy rain.

China

Still just attrition attacks.

[kennonlightfoot]

42 Aug 30

This will probably the last post, other than just discussion, on this AAR since the new version is out and stjeand is also making an update to his "Historic Project" scenario.

I noticed that Japanese production bonus of 4% goes down to 3% every once in a while. Apparently, the Bauxite mines in Philippines (hex 65,52) function only if it doesn't rain to hard.

Convoy War - for the time being it looks like the Allies have shut it down.

US Subs wandering around in the China sea but aren't attacking. Don't know what purpose that has other than risking the loss of a sub if they get to close to my air units.

I finally remembered I have enough points to rework my codes. Hopefully that will make my ships a little harder to target. But I am not clear what that actually does.

China is a stalemate. Nether side is strong enough to sustain an offensive.

Burma - Heavy Rains
This will probably end any attempt to break into India.

Australia

The last Japanese unit is withdrawn as the Japanese switch to defense and garrisoning islands to slow the retaking of VP hexes by the Allies.

Victory Level

The Japanese have 455 VP with it increasing at the rate of 27 per turn.
The Allies have about 300 VP (I am estimating) with a rate of 15 per turn.

That give the Japanese a 12 point increase each turn for as long as they can hold on to their VP hexes. But the Allies have to take back 6 just to keep the Japanese from accumulating a larger advantage than the 155 lead they now have. I haven't studied these numbers enough to see how things will play out but both sides have VP hexes that are hard or impossible to retake. Allies have ones in US and Russia. Japanese home islands and probably the ones in China.

just a rough estimate would be that the Japanese will increase their lead to over 300 before the Allies hold enough VP hexes to start decreasing that number. And that will be probably mid 1943. Which means they would have two years (52 turns) to accumulate the 300 points needed to win. The bad news for the Japanese is that requires only holding an average advantage of six VP over that time. I haven't studied the map VP locations to see how difficult it will be for the Allies to get control of over 12 more VP hexes than they are currently holding.

Anyway, here is the Pacific situation at the end of this turn.