John III vs. Wolfpack: The Japanese Version

[John 3rd]

June 1, 1942

SS
DD Isokaze hits YET ANOTHER mine at Kodiak. My sweeping isn't keeping up with his mining...
SS Argonaut hit by LBA @ Kodiak
SS Porpoise hit by LBA @ Singapore

Air
Terrible Weather throughout the entire board! Missions cancelled at Alaska, China, and Burma...

Australia
12,93 22B 14 Cas and 1 Tank
36,89 16F 15F 36 Cas

Land
LANDING AT ANCHORAGE!!!! [&o] BANZAI!
OK--Here are the stats and I now KNOW what I am up against! My 100 Ship Invasion Force takes 2,915 Coastal Shots ([X(][X(]--WOW!)--5PG and 5AP are Heavily Damaged with 3AP hit as well. Initial landing costs 8,584 Cas and I lose 53G.

Wolfpack bombards my troops and I get a good idea of the opposition. My initial thoughts were that I would be fighting 2 1/2 Inf Div with a total of about 50,000 troops. The guesswork--recon--is pretty accurate. This is what he has there: 41st Inf Div, 4 RCTs, 1 Canadian Brigade, 2 Art Reg, 2 AA units, 1CD unit, and 6 BF--51,974 total troops.

My initial landing force is: 4 Inf Div, 1 Inf Brig, 2 Eng Reg, 3 Heavy Artillery Reg, and 2 Mortar Bat. My 2nd wave, which is loading right now in Dutch Harbor, consists of 2 Inf Brig, 1 Eng Reg, and 2 Mortar Bat. Total should end up around 150-160,000 troops. I WILL HAVE ANCHORAGE AND THE TROOPS THERE! BANZAI!!! [8D][8D]


Deliberate Attack: Manila 1-1 Forts 3 to 2
123,169 902G 576T Losses 2,944 50G 17T
57,313 160G 78T Losses 1,600 22G 2T


46,36 (China) The 68th Inf Div closes the road from Changsha again. They have to Shock Attack across the river--2,269 Jap for 159 Chin. They do cross so the raod is closed for the moment. He has five Chinese Corps there so it probably won't remain closed for long.

My Changsha troops are tired and I cannot order an attack tomorrow. I will let them rest one more day and then try to take the city.

Sea
I now have 8 CV in Dutch Harbor. KB 1 & 3 are now together. Will let them rest and then will go on a MASSIVE raiding mission!

There is a small reinforcement convoy about to start off-loading troops and supply between Sitka and Anchorage. I will drop off a second SNLF and enough supplies to take care of both of them. The original is now six hexes from Anchorage and marching steadily towards there on the road.


Engineering: Rabaul AF 5

[John 3rd]

I forgot to mention that I will have my two Bombardment Forces hitting Anchorage tonight and tomorrow. They will stay and bombard until out of AMMO!

[invernomuto]

Hi John,

BANZAI!!!

I really like your strategy.
Alaska should be yours soon and you're going to take a good amount of VPs.
What are your next plans? A West coast raid?

[John 3rd]

Thank You Kind Sir!

I have the feeling that there will be a fairly lengthy seige (say 4-6 weeks) at Anchorage. Pretty certain has has plenty of supply. I can continue to wear him down with Naval Bombardments, Ground Bombardments, and Aerial attack. Will let that work for a few days before trying my first attack.

I have worn out some of my older BB with these continuous attacks so I want to send them home for R&R. I am pretty certain that my next major step will be a surprise attack upon San Fransisco by 8 CV! Would like to try another P.H.-type raid. Will try reconning the Harbor with a few Glens and then make the decision.

After the raid, I think we head back for the SE Pacific and look towards New Zealand. Wolfpack thinks I will focus entirely on continuing my Australia operations. I shall endeavor to make him KEEP thinking that and take a swing at Wellington and Auckland...hmmmm...kiwis!

All this thinking is grand and glorious but FIRST I have to take:
1. Changsha I will rotate about 100 bombers out for the aid in the Anchorage seige and so I can preserve my Betty Daitai.
2. Manila Make available 150,000 troops and 300 plus aircraft. The troops will need a few weeks in Manila for R&R (or perhaps Noumea) and planning. The planes will reinforce whichever Southern Venture I choose.
3. Anchorage WANT those American-Canadian Troops! Hell--Didn't know the Canadian's had USEFUL troops! [:D][:D]

[invernomuto]

ORIGINAL: John 3rd

Thank You Kind Sir!

I have the feeling that there will be a fairly lengthy seige (say 4-6 weeks) at Anchorage. Pretty certain has has plenty of supply. I can continue to wear him down with Naval Bombardments, Ground Bombardments, and Aerial attack. Will let that work for a few days before trying my first attack.

Agree.

I have worn out some of my older BB with these continuous attacks so I want to send them home for R&R. I am pretty certain that my next major step will be a surprise attack upon San Fransisco by 8 CV! Would like to try another P.H.-type raid. Will try reconning the Harbor with a few Glens and then make the decision.

You should definitely do that. If he thinks that you are going to raid the West coast he'll be forced to defend Seattle and San Francisco. More units he has in the West coast, less units you will have to face in South Pacific or Australia.

After the raid, I think we head back for the SE Pacific and look towards New Zealand. Wolfpack thinks I will focus entirely on continuing my Australia operations. I shall endeavor to make him KEEP thinking that and take a swing at Wellington and Auckland...hmmmm...kiwis!

He must react to your moves.

All this thinking is grand and glorious but FIRST I have to take:
1. Changsha I will rotate about 100 bombers out for the aid in the Anchorage seige and so I can preserve my Betty Daitai.
2. Manila Make available 150,000 troops and 300 plus aircraft. The troops will need a few weeks in Manila for R&R (or perhaps Noumea) and planning. The planes will reinforce whichever Southern Venture I choose.
3. Anchorage WANT those American-Canadian Troops! Hell--Didn't know the Canadian's had USEFUL troops! [:D][:D]

I agrre, these are necessary obiectives IMHO.

[John 3rd]

Thank you again Sir! Do you have any other suggestions??? I am always open for new thoughts...

[invernomuto]

Doing the same with my Oscars. Next month, I should have enough to shift over to Tony/Tojo Research and will then produce a 50-50 combination of Tony and Tojo.

It's june '42 in your game, right? Remember that Oscar factories will automatically upgrade to Tony in Aug. '42 (with no damage, so you will not have to consume supplies to repair them). If you have a large number of Oscar in pool, I would stop Oscar production right now and wait for the automatic conversion. Every Oscar in pool after Aug.'42 is a waste of HI IMHO.

Bye

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: invernomuto

Doing the same with my Oscars. Next month, I should have enough to shift over to Tony/Tojo Research and will then produce a 50-50 combination of Tony and Tojo.

It's june '42 in your game, right? Remember that Oscar factories will automatically upgrade to Tony in Aug. '42 (with no damage, so you will not have to consume supplies to repair them). If you have a large number of Oscar in pool, I would stop Oscar production right now and wait for the automatic conversion. Every Oscar in pool after Aug.'42 is a waste of HI IMHO.

Bye

Oscar I upgrade to Tonies? Can this be confirmed? I never had this happen and my Oscar I upgraded to Oscar II.

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: John 3rd

Hey Castor!

Thank you VERY much for the commentary and insight. Really apppreciate your time and thought.

I have a good-sized stockpile of A2s right now and am building up my A3s. I like a mix of about 50-50 with my Daitai. Once I have a large supply of each, I will start shifting to research of the Jack/A5 for my next plane... Doing the same with my Oscars. Next month, I should have enough to shift over to Tony/Tojo Research and will then produce a 50-50 combination of Tony and Tojo.

My recon production is actually coming up. I have held back on them to start with becuase I have taken few casualties with them and I wanted as many fighters as possible. I like those Dinahs as well! The Alfs were heavily stockpiled at the start of the game. Just started producing more to get ahead again. Have shifted most of my Float planes on my fleet to Alf. Am expanding Emily production too...

My pilot situation is amazingly good right now. I have taken so FEW losses! Probably 80% of my Oscar Daitai are in the 70s/80s. Only in Burma are we trading punches and there it is bombers against a mix of Zeros and Oscars.

I was expecting a massive aerial battle with Anchorage but it looks like he has pulled out most of them...don't understand his fall and wait strategy. Makes no sense and just keeps me on the attack!

Thoughts?
John

John,

that´s how Wolpack plays as I´ve mentioned before. Overall I don´t find his tactic to be bad, but as I´ve encountered in my game against him he retreats too often and TOO FAR. He did let me take bases in India without heavy opposition (could say any opposition) and now, months later, he tries to get me out. But now I´m more than prepared and he loses his RN BBs against my long range torpedoe bombers (100 Nells are enough for all the RN) in just a few turns, my ground troops have dug in in Jamshedpur (fort 6), Diamond Harbour (fort 7) and Chandpur (fort 9) and the last two turns he tried an attack against Jamshedpur and Diamond Harbour taking huge losses. He didn´t even concentrate on one target but attacked both with not even 90000 men. RAF (which has suffered heavy losses at the airbattles over Burma and the forward Indian bases, are out of trained pilots and has not many fighters left) and USAF in India stand no chance against IJAF Tonies, Tojos and Helens and as it stands now he´s a bit disappointed as some div and many tank brigades are advancing west. When my daitais take losses (try to keep at least 50% of the trained core pilots), they go to China (also not a single plane who tries to intervene my training) and is back shortly to beat up the enemy in India. If he had tried to sabotage my training in China I wouldn´t have beaten his airforces in India that easy. But knowing he would take more losses than me, if he would defend China with fighters, he didn´t do it and evacuated everything to India. Luckily we have a stacking limit at airbases so he can´t put all of his planes into Karachi.

I think he won´t come out to defend Alaska and you´ll have time to prepare or further advance. And he stops all attacks that take heavy losses even if he must attack, so far in my games.

I would bet the first base he would really defend is Seattle. The only problem I see so far is that you will be spread out so far in 43 that he just can bypass so many troops you will need to defend your inner perimeter of defense. If you don´t consider upgrading to the next patch with the new ASW model - which is great [&o] - his subs won´t be hurting you really bad but if you ugrade, his subs will really be a problem for your supply and troops going to your bases. In my 1.6 game Wolfpack and I have completely cancelled submarine warfare because subs are just victims (IJN more than USN of course). But in my beta patch Nik mod game, we´re only in late 6/42 (started in 5/42) and my IJN subs are doing great. The ASW I´m doing against Zetas subs already sunk 3 subs but with 1.6 I would have sunk 10+ subs with the same effort.

Some thoughts to your coming plane production. It´s a good idea to 50/50 Tony and Tojo production in general. Against Wolfpack I would suppose you go 70/30 for the Tony as the range 6 against 5 of the Tojo really helps if you´re fighting over Burma and over the forward bases of India. And it´s far better in destroying 4E bombers which he sent against me occasionally. And my Tonies perform just as good against P38s as the Tojo does in my game.

I would send every daitai available to China for training. Don´t know if he really defends China with US planes, if not, his Chinese airforce is wiped out quickly, or, what I expect, will be evacuated to India pretty fast. I´m training as many Army daitais in China as possible, my Navy daitais are already trained to a max (as they haven´t seen much action for months [8|]) and mostly the IJAF is fighting over India (which is the only major air theatre in my game). The only thing I really fear is the F4U showing up in less than a month. Wonder how my elite pilots are performing then. It has to be much better than the P38, if not I think I can hold my own against them - what probably won´t be the case though. [:(] I hope I expressed myself good enough that you´re able to understand my thoughts.

Keep up your good work and your AAR!

[invernomuto]

Oscar I upgrade to Tonies? Can this be confirmed? I never had this happen and my Oscar I upgraded to Oscar II.

From what I read:
Nate--> Oscar IIa
Oscar Ib --> Tony

Is that correct?

[John 3rd]

Thank Guys for the thoughts here.

Castor--I completely concur with you. You elected to go after India, due to his tactics, and I chose to lunge North and then South. I plan to take Anchorage (perhaps Nome--so there are NO surprises behind me!) and nothing more. Want to destroy his troops.

New Zealand and Australia next. I've noticed several times in China, when I've been butting my head against Changsha, his predilection to bring out troops and then withdraw after just one or two attacks. Might those attacks have been successful with some work? YES!

I will/am using China for my training as well. I have lost some Bettys with attacking Anchorage and intend to replace soon with Helens/Sallys. Want my TT Betty pilots READY to cause chaos! Would LOVE a shot at some BBs!

Haven't had a chance to update today. Will try in a little while!

Thanks to the both of you for the contributions! Did we figure out the upgrade path on Oscar?

[castor troy]

Don´t know about the Oscars. If the factories really auto upgrade to Tonies then I´m quite dumb to convert them a few months before to get enough Tonies available. [8|]

[John 3rd]

After six months of seige, Changsha has FINALLY fallen! I will be posting the combat logs in just a few moments...

[John 3rd]

June 2, 1942

SS
Nothing

Air
Anchorage 50Z 91B No losses, destroy 3 Recon/6 Bombers/3 Fighters, 32 cas, 1 Gun, and AF

China:
Changsha 115B 330 Cas
46,36 55F 50B 85 Cas

Australia
12,94 24B 21 Cas and 2 Tanks
37,90 30F 10B 10 Cas

Ground
Anchorage Landing Continues!
HOLY COW--CD! 1st Round 3544 Shots 2nd Round 732 Shots Numerous Ships Damaged---about 15 heavily. Disabled troops--Rd1 4,732 and Rd 2--732. US Bombardment does 161 cas.

China
My Chinese situation is frustrating. Wolfpack keeps clearing the road out and I cannot attack Changsha due to high disruption....Grrrr....

46,36 7 Chinese Corps attack my Inf Div on the Road! 42-1 Forced to retreat and the road opens again--DAMMIT! 447 Jap for 269 Chinese

54,92 East of Port Moresby Shock Attack! 49-1 2,245 POW enter Japanese Hands.


Navy
Losses from CD and Attack today: CL Oi, 2 ML, 1PC Have about 20 heavily damaged AP/PC trying to make it back to disband at Kodiak.

I lose Oi and 2ML due to B-25 Raids at 121,22. They successfully mined Sitka and then paid for it...

I now have 10 Carriers at Dutch Harbor--KB1 and 3 plus 2 CVE. Let them rest a little then they will go raiding.

Reinforcement Convoy departs DH for Anchorage. It is carrying: 2 Inf Brig, 1 Eng, 2 Art, and 20,000 Supply.

Engineering:
Sitka (US) goes to AF 4
Dutch Harbor Pt 5


June 3, 1942

SS
SS Halibut attacks on the surface an AP (119,29)--hits it 2 times and takes a hit. This is the hex where I am landing troops/supplies to cutoff Wolfpack's retreat from Anchorage.

Air
Anchorage 68Z 6B 11 Cas and 1G

Manila 64F 94B 104DB 233 Cas and 5G

China
Changsha 109B 192 Cas With taking Changsha, I am splitting up the China Air Force some. Shift HQ to Northern Pacific for 3 Daitai of Bombers, 1 Chutai of Bombers, and 1 Daitai of Oscars--Total: 36F and 93B. They will take over most of the burden from my Betty Daitai that are in the Aleutians.

Australia
12,94 13B 34 Cas and 2 Tanks
37,90 21F 26B 80 Cas


Land
Continue Landing at Anchorage (90,000+ troops unloaded)
CD--Rd 1 87 Shots and Rd2 142 Shots--3 more AP hit. Disabled--Rd1 1196 and Rd2 220.
US Bombardment: 173 Cas

Shock Attack: Changsha---TAKE IT! FINALLY!! Fort 0 15,698-1
Do Force 8 Chinese Corps to Retreat. Unfortunately...it is down the road...that I could not keep closed! Inflict--2,910 Cas for NONE.

With taking Changsha, I divide out the worse off units for refit. Spread them out as follows: 2 Inf Div ordered to Hsinyang, 3 Inf Div+ 1Inf Brig to Wuhan, and 1 Inf Brig to Kuikang (need it to garrision). The remainder will rest in Changsha for a week or so and then continue the attack down the railline.

Deliberate Attack: Manila! 1-1 Forts drop from 2-to-1
132,794 832G 573T Losses 2,490 40G 10T
54,382 120G 75T Losses 1,380 18G

Sea
Wolfpack losses yet another TK from my New Zealand Raids

For the Day, lose 2PC and a DD--Fuyo

Bombardment: Anchorage 4BB and 2BB plus 3CA 1096 Cas, 2 planes, 23G, 2V, and AF/Pt. Order them to attack one more time and then head for Dutch Harbor. Will separate the highest SYS DAM ships and send them home.

17 B-25 hit AP with 6B unloading at 119,29. Will lose that ship next round.

Tomorrow I will form-up my CVs for a massive raid on Sitka and Prince Rupert Sound. I will destroy the AFs and interdict anything that might come along.

The reinforcement convoy for Anchorage will be diverted to 119,29. It appears Wolfpack is going to try to get past my 3 SNLF units there. I WILL NOT ALLOW HIM TO RETREAT! Those 2 Inf Brigades and support units will keep him bottled up.

Naval Construction at Home: CVL Ryuho joins the Imperial Fleet. Order CV Zuikaku to head for Tokyo to join her--SYS 6--but OK. Shokaku is still at 20 SYS. She will stay at least two more weeks getting repaired. All planes have been replaced. Those ships, with IJN Yamato, will head for Noumea to cause chaos!

[tsimmonds]

Oscar I > Tony

[moses]

Do Force 8 Chinese Corps to Retreat. Unfortunately...it is down the road...that I could not keep closed! Inflict--2,910 Cas for NONE.

Plus all those guys you retreated take about 20% losses above the loss listed in Combat report. I expect he has nothing left. You will rule China from here on.

15000 to one against 8 corps!!!!!!!! You know these guys have nothing left!!!!!!

[John 3rd]

Yaaaaaaa....baby!

Do you think it is a mistake to wait a week and let things settle some?

[moses]

The way you've bombed his industry I don't see how he has anything much left. You have closed Burma rd correct?

You should be able to go straight to Chungking after a short period of regrouping and clearing of the rail line. I don't know what you're goals are. If you just want to eliminate China as a threat then you are done. If you want to take every last Chinese city then you still have some work to do.

But no rush in either case. he doesn't have the supply to replace his losses. You can rest and occasionally bomb his cities. (This will keep his morale from rising). Your troops will keep getting stronger while his will not improve.

[John 3rd]

I have cut the Burma Road.

I think I want to open the Railline and nothing mroe then that. Don't really have any desire to go for more. If I can build-up my Forts and have strong garrisions--he won't be able to take the cities back. At that point, based on political points, I will gradually transfer units to the Pacific Theatre. Thoughts?

I will continue to bomb his resource and industry sites. That should help keep him down. I REALLY want to use the area for keeping my airpower trained up. That will help later in the war on both the ground and air fronts.

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: irrelevant

Oscar I > Tony

If Oscar factories upgrade to Tonies I wonder what all those players with PDU off do with hundreds of Tonies if they can´t upgrade their squadrons.