Have you done anything to offset the New Caledonia - NZ grab - that can play havoc with supply to Oz (from teh US anyway).
Other than bringing enough supply and fuel to let the Kiwi troops do their thing and build up the bases, no. NZ is a long way from where I want to go, and if Tophat goes and ties up a lot of forces in the far south, so much the better for my Central Pacific plan.
I want him to get bogged down far from his supply sources. I'm not planning any offensive action out of Oz, so I don't need megatons of supplies there. I'm also not sending troops to Oz - those Aussies are tough and can stand on their own.
This way I will have the entire strength of the US available for a giant thrust right into the center of the Pacific. Every ship, every plane, every man focussed and at full strength. The more bases that Tophat spreads out to, the weaker he becomes everywhere.
Turns have slowed down a bit because Tophat is busy reorganizing his supply lines and planning his next moves. Since most of my plans are already underway, my turns are much quicker. But that will change once I start to plan attacks later on in the game.
This turn the air war was fairly quiet, partially because of rain and clouds, and, I suspect, in part due to Tophat trying to rest up his air units a bit. He has taken some pretty heavy losses due to flak and operational damage. Thus, my forces in China were spared any air attacks this turn. However, Tophat did send bombers against Singapore and against more bases in the DEI. His attacks on Tjilitjap, Soerabaja, and Koepang caused negligible damage, so it's just as well that I didn't bother leaving Dutch fighters there to be slaughtered by his Zero daitais.
Tophat's air attacks on Singapore caused more damage, but his bombers also received more damage. And in the end, his artillery barrage still caused few casualties. I wish that I knew what combination of things is giving my troops in Singapore this ability to withstand artillery attacks - it would be useful to use in China where I do get substantive losses from artillery most times.
SIGINT informed me that a Japanese Base Force is on a ship on the way to Sorong. I presume that there is a combat unit on the way to Sorong too, because Tophat hasn't captured Sorong yet. SIGINT also told me that there is a Japanese Aviation Regiment on a ship on the way to Singkawang, which is under Japanese control. Singkawang is a "3(3)" air base, so building it up more isn't a bad idea in general. But that area of the map will become a backwater pretty soon, so I'm not sure Singkawang is the best place for an aviation regiment to go at this time.
The only naval action occurred north of the Line Islands. I have a small squadron of DMs sailing to the South Pacific and they ran into a Japanese sub. The sub tried to attack and missed, and then the DMs tried to attack and missed in turn. Tophat complained that I "rushed him" and so he forgot to move his sub during his turn. Tough! [;)] But I've only got one spare DD within range so there is a fair chance that his sub might escape my attack. (I'm not using the DMs to attack that sub because they are still carrying mines that I want to use elsewhere.)
I'm going to "liven up" things for Tophat in the DEI next turn. I've sent my B-17 squadron up to Darwin again and set them to attack Bolla, which currently doesn't have any CAP, but does have some troops in it. If Tophat puts some CAP into Bolla, then I'll stand down my bombers again - I want Tophat to spread out his planes as much as possible. If he doesn't place some CAP in Bolla in response to my attack, I will just keep attacking until he does. Then once he captures Sorong I'll attack it until he puts CAP there too. [:D]
Otherwise, my plans continue to go in accordance to my wishes and I am looking forward to my next set of reinforcements - particularly those engineers in India!
Have you done anything to offset the New Caledonia - NZ grab - that can play havoc with supply to Oz (from teh US anyway).
Other than bringing enough supply and fuel to let the Kiwi troops do their thing and build up the bases, no. NZ is a long way from where I want to go, and if Tophat goes and ties up a lot of forces in the far south, so much the better for my Central Pacific plan.
I want him to get bogged down far from his supply sources. I'm not planning any offensive action out of Oz, so I don't need megatons of supplies there. I'm also not sending troops to Oz - those Aussies are tough and can stand on their own.
This way I will have the entire strength of the US available for a giant thrust right into the center of the Pacific. Every ship, every plane, every man focussed and at full strength. The more bases that Tophat spreads out to, the weaker he becomes everywhere.
... Or least, that's the theory...[:D]
We'll see how it goes.
Thanks for the comments -
Dave
And then you run into the marshalls.. with each base at level 9 forts and 400+ AP's, over 7000 mines and most important ones (tarawa, etc.) with nice coastal defenses. Backed up by prepositioned short and long range bombers with escorts and KB waiting to strike.. yeees.. central pacific sure seems good to me [:D] That said, perhaps TopHat isn't as keen on reinforcing his bases as some others are..
And then you run into the marshalls.. with each base at level 9 forts and 400+ AP's, over 7000 mines and most important ones (tarawa, etc.) with nice coastal defenses. Backed up by prepositioned short and long range bombers with escorts and KB waiting to strike.. yeees.. central pacific sure seems good to me That said, perhaps TopHat isn't as keen on reinforcing his bases as some others are..
There are a lot of islands in the Gilberts/Marshalls. When I was playing PzB I was able to grab a bunch of the empty ones and build them up quickly thanks to SeaBees. That buildup allowed Nomad to stop PzB's last big advance.
To a good extent I am playing the historic Allied strategy. I don't intend to invade heavily defended bases, but bypass them and bombard them into submission. I couldn't do that against PzB because I was always behind the power curve as far as aircraft and battleships go. This game I am hoarding both and when I bring them out, they will make a difference.
And if Tophat sends lots of troops and planes into the Gilberts and Marshalls - great, they won't be in the way if I go North instead. [:D]
Tophat was egging me on this turn to go ahead and "…mount an attack". Actually, I did try a couple of attacks this time, but they didn't work. My bombers didn't fly out of Darwin and my DD didn't find that sub off of the Line Islands. But then, Tophat isn't doing a lot at this point either. The only change this turn was that he got an automatic occupation of Catbalogan. I now have three bases left in the Philippines; Roxas (where I have no troops), Iloilo and Cebu.
Tophat is preparing for something or another. For example, he has had a transport TF sitting at Sag Sag ever since he captured it a couple of game weeks ago. He also has a TF with four APDs in it at Bulla. And there are now a couple of TFs at Balikpapan again.
My inability to get some action from my forces this turn wasn't limited to offensive operations; I've also been trying to fly supplies into China for the past game week or so, with very limited success. I'm using transports and bombers, but it seems that every turn the great majority of my bases in the Eastern India/Western China area are clouded over.
In other news, Tophat's forces in China continue to cause significant casualties among my Chinese troops with each artillery bombardment. He has pulled up a lot of artillery units and they maintain and advantage over my troops. This stalemate is costing me way too much and I have to figure out a way to break it in my favor.
The rest of my activities are going as planned, and I have started to reposition significant forces in the Eastern Pacific.
Tophat warned me in his email that his forces are on the move, and sure enough, my patrols in the DEI are seeing more enemy ship movement. The question is - are the task forces going after the remaining empty bases or will they be attacking my defended bases? It actually doesn't matter to me because what is important to my strategy is that Tophat keep his forces focussed on the DEI for the next few weeks at least.
My B-17 squadron finally took off from Darwin this turn and hit Bulla. A handful of Zeros attacked the bombers half-heartedly, but did no damage. I suspect that the Zeros came over from Amboina. My bombers caused a few airfield damage points and got some experience, but more importantly they sent a message to Tophat that I can do air raids over his captured territories. So, mission accomplished, I stood down the B-17s again except for a small percentage set to naval search. Sightings of my bombers on naval search will also help keep Tophat "honest". <g>
Elsewhere things were pretty much the same as I have been reporting recently. Tophat's air units bombed China, Singapore and various bases in the DEI. Again, those air attacks in the DEI did little or no damage. But then, so far we are both usually using fairly "historic"-sized air attacks; single squadrons of bombers escorted by single squadrons (or single daitais) of fighters.
My supply transport efforts in China seem to have worked a bit - at least my transport plane crews gained some fatigue. One very odd occurrence happened during another aspect of my re-supply efforts - right at the beginning of the Combat Replay I received a very quick message about my subs loading supplies. I had set a couple of subs to do a supply transport run to a base in the DEI. But I didn’t expect their loading to be "announced" as part of the Combat Replay. After all, there is no announcement of air supply transport. I only hope that this was something that only shows up in my Combat Replay and not during the Japanese Combat Resolution phase.
Those two subs aside, right now about three quarters of my subs are in port, either getting repairs or getting upgraded. I've just about completed my submarine picket line in the Central/Eastern Pacific and will start similar picket lines in the South Pacific and Indian Ocean soon. I've also just about completed my re-allocation of the Dutch air units to either Australia or India. Fortunately, while I was still in the beginning part of this exercise I realized that I was short of patrol aircraft in the Indian theatre, so I started to move some of the patrol units up there too. Now I have good search capability in both theatres.
As far as my general aircraft build-up goes, I now have nice reserves of all of my important bombers, as well as of P-39s and F4F-4s. I still have no reserves of P-40Bs or Es; however, I should have my last P-40E group filled up in a couple of weeks which will allow me to start to build a reserve of Es by mid-May. The P-40B situation will remain tight for at least several more months. BTW - I am even building a reserve of P-36s, although all of the P-36 units are all committed to the West Coast.
Tophat got a good start on moving his task forces around the DEI because I got to enjoy watching my flyboys sitting around looking at rain drops. That's one of the reasons why I don't like to rely on air campaigns to make a big impact on the game - it is very rare when I see even half of my flights going out. Since my opponents don't seem to have the same levels of difficulties with their air units I have to assume that experience (or lack thereof) has something to do with the willingness of my units to fly. I can't believe that "leadership" is a big factor because I am always careful to put good air leaders in charge of my air units. Oh well, this does save me from losing too many planes…
Tophat surprised me by sending an invasion TF to Pomala in the Celebes. It's an interesting move and cuts off the troops who were kicked out of Kendari. The other visible TF is that big BB-laden surface combat TF that is now sitting off the north coast of Timor. I am assuming that it is heading to Koepang, so I moved the planes out of Koepang and into Dili. If I'm wrong, Tophat gets some free hits on those planes in Dili, but I expect that Koepang is the target because it is the only level 4 airfield in that region. I've got Dutch troops in all three bases in Timor, but none of them have any CD guns, so Tophat will have a pretty easy time of it.
Tophat's subs seem to have benefited from their recent R&R. My ASW totally missed that sub off of the Line Islands last turn, and this turn a Japanese sub put three torpedoes into a tanker in a big transport TF to the East of Hawaii, despite attacks from all of the escorts. But being a tanker, the ship didn't sink right away, so I've diverted it towards Hilo. I doubt that it will make it, but maybe it will "distract" that sub.
Ah, there are only three more game-days until I get my next big batch of reinforcements. However, it will be several "real"-days before I see that event because both Tophat and I will be off to our respective in-laws for the weekend. If Tophat gets one more turn back to me this evening and I have a chance to play it tomorrow morning before I leave, I'll have one more post before a weekend without a computer.
I'm going to post a few screen captures of my intelligence screens to show how my strategy of husbanding my aircraft is working. First off, here is the mid-April shot of my available replacement pilots. I'm only really in trouble with the Dutch, and the majority of their planes are now far from the Front, so they will eventually start to recover.
It's nice to see that flak is effective. Having a better than 1-1 ratio for air losses through the middle of April is pretty amazing. Your strategy of denying points is working well. Good to see that you've accumulated that many RAF replacement pilots.
It's nice to see that flak is effective. Having a better than 1-1 ratio for air losses through the middle of April is pretty amazing. Your strategy of denying points is working well. Good to see that you've accumulated that many RAF replacement pilots.
It takes a lot to "resist temptation", but I've thrown away too many planes and pilots in previous games to want to do it again this game. Eventually one of two things will happen:
1 - Tophat will bring his forces to one of my heavily defended areas where I can bring local superiority in forces to bear and fight on my terms
or
2 - Tophat will stand pat in something like the historical gains and I will eventually bring a local superiority in forces against some weak point in his defenses, as the Allied actually did
What I want to continue to avoid is finding myself in a position where Tophat can grind down my useful forces by means of creating his own local superiority.
Tophat's bombardment TF did go to Koepang and caused a lot of general damage, as expected. But there were no planes, and the air field damage is actually quite light. Since I put a fair amount of supplies there earlier, there are still enough to keep my troops "in the black" and allow for the air field to be repaired. Although I could rush some bombers back into Koepang I won't bother because Tophat's ships will be back under the protection of CAP by next turn anyway.
Tophat's troops also captured Pomala this turn. I suspect that the raid on Koepang was part of a plan to keep my LBA out of the way while Tophat goes after the various empty bases between Timor and Sumatra. I'll let him think that this is succeeding until he actually has some "soft" task forces in range, then I'll bring my bombers back in for some raids.
Speaking of air raids, Tophat must have also noticed his bomber losses due to flak because his air attacks this turn were at much higher altitudes than before. Never-the-less, the Japanese bombers still suffered flak and operational losses. But thanks to rain that covered the entire Pacific Rim as far as my bases were concerned, I also had a number of operational losses and damage to my fighters on training. This is a very irritating aspect of this game, but one that is not amenable to sensible action since the only "cure" is to keep all fighters and fighter bombers set to "stand down".
Another less-than-enjoyable aspect of the Game's programming logic reared its idiot head this turn in Burma. I set a Brit infantry group in Lashio to go to Asanol in order to let it rest and recover from spending months in the malarial jungles. But this turn I noticed that the unit was one hex from Mandalay. The idiot AI sent my unit along the "railroad", right towards the now heavily fortified enemy base of Rangoon, instead of having the unit go up the trail to the east. So I've had to order that unit to go back to Lashio, then I'll have to send it along its way to Asanol one hex at a time.
BTW - a fourth infantry division arrived at Pearl Harbor today and started to unload. Speaking of transports - that @#$%^ Japanese sub I-4 is still following my tanker task force. This time it didn't get any torpedoes off, but in return my escorts didn't get any depth charges off either. In the meanwhile, the tanker that was hit last turn is still limping towards Hilo.
Tophat is getting busy again. This turn Japanese forces landed at three new undefended bases; Sorong, Vella Lavella, and Makale. In addition, that Japanese transport that has been sitting at Sag Sag for the past two weeks also left port and headed east. I wonder where it is going? In any event, that has tweaked my curiosity enough for me to send my Australia cruisers and destroyers northwards, just in case Tophat is getting some ideas about Eastern PNG.
Rain was again the constant companion of my forces all over the map. As a result, few of my air missions flew. But at least the rain didn't interrupt the arrival of the land portion of my mid-April reinforcements. I'm leaving all the Indian arrivals in the bases where they showed up - I want them to help build up those bases. I am waiting a couple of turns before I move the US CD and engineering units that showed up in San Fran. It is easier to load newly arrived land units onto ships once they have had a chance to bring their internal "supply" levels up scratch. Otherwise, any troopships that you choose will try to load supplies first.
In naval action, that tanker that was torpedoed last turn sank this turn, as expected. In the meanwhile, another Japanese sub showed up off of Los Angeles and was depthcharged by the escorts of an empty transport TF that is on its way back to the West Coast. But there were no hits on I-25, so it will still be around and able to cause mischief.
This was a busy turn that turned out a bit odd too. First off, Tophat automatically occupied Bacolod, a "dot base" in the Philippines that I didn't even notice before. Then his troops captured Vella Lavella, Makale and Sorong. But in the case of Sorong, as was predicted by my SIGINT, Tophat not only landed a combat unit but also a base force, along with an AA unit. So I am guessing that Tophat intends to bring some planes into Sorong right away.
My air attack on Bulla worked quite well, despite the presence of 19 Zeros on CAP. Fourteen B-17Es and 2 Catalinas flew in, photographed and bombed the airbase without casualties to themselves while damaging a Zero. Tophat has either brought more Zeros to Amboina or he has a carrier in the region. Either way, I'm happy with the result and giving my bomber boys a rest.
Tophat's air units were busy themselves. A couple of fairly large air strikes came in against Banjarmasin. I no longer have any planes there, so I don't care about the damage. And this is a good indication that Banjarmasin will likely be seeing an invasion soon too.
Now for the really strange news: first off, my air patrols in the Hawaiian Islands spotted Japanese sub I-21 right next to Oahu. Then a couple of my twin-engine bombers on naval attack bombed and hit I-21. Next, my patrols spotted I-23 in the same hex! So more of my twin-engine bombers bombed and hit I-23. What the Devil is Tophat doing sending a couple of fleet subs in right next to my biggest and best defended base? All that will happen next turn is that I will send out a couple of dozen small, fast and heavily armed ASW TFs and blanket the entire area. I've also set the two P-39 groups that I have in Pearl to naval attack at 100 feet. I don't mind the chance to give my guys ASW practice.
BTW - if you are wondering, Tophat is still doing artillery exchanges in Singapore and still achieving surprising low Brit casualty numbers. At this rate the Brits may well still be in Singapore in the New Year. [;)]
How the Devil did all of my ASW TFs miss those Japanese subs? And if that sighting by a B-26 to the Southwest of Hawaii was one of those two subs from last turn, how did it get there so fast? It appears that Tophat not only has "stealthy" subs but also high speed subs. This was a very surprising turn of events - I expected at least some of my ASW TFs to make contact at the minimum. Hmmm…
So while my forces were practicing pure futility in the Hawaiian Islands, Tophat's forces expanded their air attacks in the DEI and even returned to the Philippines to bomb Cebu for the first time in a very long time. Tophat also sent a cruiser-lead task force to bombard Banjarmasin. So it appears that Banjarmasin is coming close to facing an invasion.
Otherwise it was pretty much the "same old, same old" as I continue to build up forces at my strong points. I've pretty much finished my rearrangements of forces for this period; the next major moves will wait until I get my next large group of reinforcements in two week's time.
The more I examine the state of my forces, the happier I am that I didn't commit to some risky attempt to interdict Tophat's advances so far. He has done a very good job of staying within his air and sea cover and I just don't feel like throwing away any forces in an attempt to "surprise" Tophat somewhere. I can't stop him in a serious manner in the DEI, so there is no real point to try to grapple with his forces yet.
Well, Tophat is extending his area of interest; a cruiser-lead TF bombarded Bankha on the Straights of Malacca this turn. Last turn I received SIGINT indicating that a radio signal was located coming from the middle of the South China Sea - I wonder if that mystery task force is heading to northern Sumatra?
Tophat automatically "occupied" another dot base this turn - something called "Pinrang". Other than that and the bombardment of Bankha, the rest of Tophat's activities consisted of bomber attacks on various points in the Philippines, DEI, Singapore and China, along with the daily artillery exchanges in China.
I did send my Darwin-based B-17s after the port at Sorong this turn. They caused a nice amount of damage to the port, but the effect of the Japanese AA unit in Sorong was felt; four B-17s and two Catalinas were damaged in the raid. So, with my test over with, I'll leave Sorong alone for now.
In the "build-up war", the airfield at Lahina reached level 5 this turn. That means that I now have two level 5 airfields in the Hawaiian Islands along with Pearl which has a level 10 airfield from the start. That means that I can operate 4-engine bombers from three different bases in the region without penalties. The port at Johnson Island finally reached level three. That certainly took a long time, but at least now I can disband ships into Johnson's port too.
The other big news is that I finally brought a couple of US battleships back to Pearl Harbor. They both have radar and some upgraded AA, so I can commit them to defend against surface attacks. That means that if Tophat happens to want to throw the Combined Fleet against the Hawaiian Islands I can now respond to surface bombardments. I have another BB due for a radar upgrade, but it has been sitting in port waiting for weeks to get down to system damage 3 from level 5. Last turn it finally went down to level 4, so with any luck I ought to get the upgrade within another week or two.
I also now have all of my US carriers in forward ports. They are all upgraded and are in good shape, along with their escorts. The US Navy is now a respectable force in the Eastern Pacific.
