Moses(AL)Jwilkerson(IJ)

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: moses



Numea Plan of Action:

I think my plan will be to let his carriers come in and fight my LBA for a while. I'll have over 100 fighters over Numea and more at Kumac. His trained zero's will hurt me bad but he will take losses and lose a lot of planes to flak. Plus he will burn sorties trying to hit my land defences.

When the landing comes he will surely take heavy losses from my shore defences. Then my subs will come from despersed locations to take out the cripples. He will probably try and work on my subs with his carrier air and the time will come to send in my surface fleet.

Naturally I would rather not. If the landing appears weak then I will defer. But if needed I will send the fleet in.

I plan to split the force into 3 or 4 sections to cause the Japanese bombers to disperse. Then they will charge in towards the transports for a great battle. My surface force will probably sufer heavily but my AA will kill a lot of planes and this may allow my LBA to gain the upper hand in the days to follow.

Noumea can fastly get a death trap! The problem with New Caledonia is that there are three bases which you can´t really defend against a major operation (I think at least not yet). In my game against Helpless I didn´t inted to land at Koumac (the base in the North of New Caledonia) but my transports ended there and even that they were set on do not unload I had my troops at the undefended base of Koumac.

Then you just have to march down to Noumea with all you´ve got. There´s a road (stock map) so it just takes you a couple of days. So the CD guns won´t help as the invasion won´t come from sea. If a player puts 2 divisions at Noumea then it can be an invitation for the Japanese (if he knows about the troops there) to bring 5 of his divisions sitting around somewhere waiting for the counter offensive, land at the North, march down and destroy a lot of troops. Not to think about a disaster that a probably nuke bombardment could do to Noumea killing 100+ planes and damaging the rest, so super-KB is then untouchable.

But that´s just a "how it could be". I think with the major operation jwilkerson now has against PM you could at least bleed his ground forces a bit. If they are in good shape after PM perhaps he would look for another target.

[moses]

Certainly it can be a deathtrap. Thats why its my primaryu worry right now and the one location that by taking Jwilkerson could really hurt me.

But Kumac is not undefended. When I listed my forces at Numea I meant the entire 3 hex island. One of my 3 divisions is at Kumac with one of the inf Bde's and one of those 36-155mm arty units that seem to be so effective. My guys are dug in at level 5 now at Kumac and won't be so easy to dig out.

I would think he will need at least 5 divisions to take the island. Even with 5 I'm not certain he will win. Their effective strength will drop coming over the beach and once I know the landing beach I can shift forces there fairly quickly. So could 5 damaged Japanese divisions drive out 2 and a half US divisions from a wooded level 5 or 6 fort???

Probably they can as you assume he will be bombarding and using KB to reduce my force. But he has no close LBA to use and so he will be using KB pilots to pound ground troops against heavy flak.

But some little 2 or 3 division invasion is going to be stopped cold. And I'm really drooling at the idea of 5 divisions worth of AP's unloading in front of my shore defences.

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: moses

Certainly it can be a deathtrap. Thats why its my primaryu worry right now and the one location that by taking Jwilkerson could really hurt me.

But Kumac is not undefended. When I listed my forces at Numea I meant the entire 3 hex island. One of my 3 divisions is at Kumac with one of the inf Bde's and one of those 36-155mm arty units that seem to be so effective. My guys are dug in at level 5 now at Kumac and won't be so easy to dig out.

I would think he will need at least 5 divisions to take the island. Even with 5 I'm not certain he will win. Their effective strength will drop coming over the beach and once I know the landing beach I can shift forces there fairly quickly. So could 5 damaged Japanese divisions drive out 2 and a half US divisions from a wooded level 5 or 6 fort???

Probably they can as you assume he will be bombarding and using KB to reduce my force. But he has no close LBA to use and so he will be using KB pilots to pound ground troops against heavy flak.

But some little 2 or 3 division invasion is going to be stopped cold. And I'm really drooling at the idea of 5 divisions worth of AP's unloading in front of my shore defences.

Ahh, that puts some light in it! I thought you have massed your troops in Noumea what, surprisingly, many players are doing.

[moses]

Nope I have troops covering all the bases.

As for the uber-naval bombardments I take some precautions here as well.

First I will have PT's at the key airbases and subs at the 4 and 5 hex distant locations. Once my port gets to level 9 (which is in about a week) I will be able to start putting in massive minefields. The minlayers are a week away as well.

Second not all my air force will be at Numea. Numea is at fort level 7 right now so it should hold up OK. But it won't do do have 400 planes sitting on the runway on a regular basis. I have one group of B17E's there now and a few small LB and TB squadrens plus fighters. The rest of my heavy bombers are waiting in New Zealand training.

So I can try to gauge the threats on a turn by turn basis. He can't bombard me every day and when I think its safe I can move in a hundred B26's to bomb his landing.

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: moses

Nope I have troops covering all the bases.

As for the uber-naval bombardments I take some precautions here as well.

First I will have PT's at the key airbases and subs at the 4 and 5 hex distant locations. Once my port gets to level 9 (which is in about a week) I will be able to start putting in massive minefields. The minlayers are a week away as well.

Second not all my air force will be at Numea. Numea is at fort level 7 right now so it should hold up OK. But it won't do do have 400 planes sitting on the runway on a regular basis. I have one group of B17E's there now and a few small LB and TB squadrens plus fighters. The rest of my heavy bombers are waiting in New Zealand training.

So I can try to gauge the threats on a turn by turn basis. He can't bombard me every day and when I think its safe I can move in a hundred B26's to bomb his landing.

I would say New Caledonia is safe! [:D]

[moses]

Hopefully and he may not even try. But right now the subs need to get there and my minelayers need time to work. So every day he spends at PM helps my defence.

Another key fact is that in two days my entire carrier force will all be repairing at San Francisco. The CV Wasp arrives in 30 days. The Lex and Saratoga still have heavy repairs to do but at least the repairs are underway. When those repairs are completed I will have 5 US carriers and 2 British in my own uber-carrier TF.

The Japanese fleet has, on the other hand, been galavanting about the Pacific and must have some significant system damage and will eventually have to go to a good port for repairs and refit.

Sure the Lex ( with 72 damage points) will take some months to repair. The Saratoga is at 50 pts now and repairing at a point or two per day. But my force is gathering and the days of Japanese dominance are coming to a close.

He does have a time limit for any Numea operation.

[ny59giants]

Have you taken out a fragment of your troops, especially the USMC, from PM so you can rebuild it if it doesn't survive??

If not, I would send some subs over to get some frags. Thus, you can get the division back sometime in late '43 or '44, I think.

[moses]

We have a house rule on no sub transport of units so I have not.

[ny59giants]

Can you use your C-47's to get some of them then??

[String]

ORIGINAL: ny59giants

Can you use your C-47's to get some of them then??

Yep and also patrol formations.

[moses]

Doesn't seem so. The pick up units command is not active for my air units in Austrailia. Plus Port Moresby airfield is all blown to hell anyway.

[moses]

26 June:

PM: 4 Japanese divisions come ashore in one pulse. (must have been more AP's then I ever saw.) They took 3000 losses. Only a few ships took damage from shore fire but my B17E's did manage to nail 2 AK's.

It doesn't look good for the guys at PM. But I guess if Japan wants something at this stage of the game then they get it.

Burma: My armor unit that advanced ahead of scheduale was driven out rather easily. That was annoying. Also the Japanese air surge is getting out of hand so I am shifting into counter-air mode. Next turn is overcast and every bomber in India is hitting his airfields which now all seem occupied.

[Mike Wood]

Hello...

You need to pick a PBY group within range and:

1) Select supply transport
2) Designate Port Morseby as the target

You will then have the option to pick up troops and PBYs do not need an airfield.

Am not suggesting you do so, just telling you how.

Bye...

Michael Wood

ORIGINAL: moses

Doesn't seem so. The pick up units command is not active for my air units in Austrailia. Plus Port Moresby airfield is all blown to hell anyway.

[moses]

Ahhh. I knew I had seen the pick up option work before but didn't know why it was not active for my PBY/C47 in the current instance. Thanks.

I don't know that its really fair to do this though. Certainly I would if my intent was to remove a whole unit. But to remove a couple squads and regrow the unit--I don't know. So to help me decide if this is gamey or not------has anyone done this and know if:

Does the fragment suffer a serious experience or morale drop as it takes on reinforcements? I mean if I have to train my cadre for a year or two before it becomes an effective unit, then I might consider this historically sound. Basically I would be training a raw division from scratch. On the other hand if I can quickly rebuild a fully effective (good experience) USMC division in a period of a couple months then this would seem to be gaming the system.

Might need opinions quick. Those guys might not survive the week.[X(]

[stldiver]

In my pbem I had a USMC division wiped out at fiji with another division, I only recovered a few fragments of each by submarine, I initially tryed to regrow them at Sydney with command HQ's and plenty of supply but they grew approx 20 Inf squads per 30 day cycle. I moved it back to the West coast and it grew at 30 squads per 30 day cycle, The support staff grows at the same rate, Thus after over a year the unit is now combat ready, with 297 combat squads, and approx 330 support (far short of the total compliment), also experiance is 51, and I intend to land it on some relatively lightly defended islands to gain experiance back before thrusting into a major battle.

So in answer to your question, expect the above rates for regrowing and if you only take a fragment, expect it to take over a year to be ready again. Of course, base forces regrow faster, as do small units, the rebuild is dependant on supply, command HQ's and closeness to west coast.

In addition you have to have squads available in the pool, something the Marines don't have a lot of in early 42, but they come on later, so if you expect heavy marine action this will slow the process.

Not gamey with over a year time to rebuild. I actually lost 2 division on Fiji and 4 1/2 more were badly mauled trying to retake Noumea (unsuccessfully). Thus I am very experianced at the rebuild option. I would contact your opponent as to his thoughts on gameyness on rebuilding. It is his opinion that matters most.

Updating, the green troops come in at 50 experiance, thus a total rebuild is 50 experiance combined with what was there before for your new avg experiance, no way to train them up except in combat.

[moses]

Well that sounds fairly realistic. If it takes 1 year to rebuild a unit to 50 experience. I would think that exp. 50 equates to a green unit. 70 being an average unit and 90 being a crack force.

[anarchyintheuk]

I don't think rebuilding is gamey except for using phillipino and dutch replacements after those territories are captured. It's a realistic limitation. Not using a unit until is completely rebuilt is another (having had the unit removed from the orbat once, you'd think command would make sure it was absolutely ready for its next deployment).

[moses]

28 June:

Air War: A nice day for my air force as I conduct counter-air missions throughout Burma and some in China. In two days 146 Japanese aircraft are lost against 128 of mine. I killed 38 Oscars, 46 zero's, and 13 Nates mostly in the air although some were killed on the ground. That has to put a dent in his training program.

PM: He has 4 divisions there and I assume an HQ. There are no support units however. He took about 6000 losses coming over the beach so maybe my USMC division can fight for a while. If I know Jwilkerson he will not rush things with a shock attack. He will probably bombard for a week before testing things with a deliberate attack.

Burma: My offensive against Burma continues to come undone as I'm having troubles getting my troops to load onto the ships. If I can't get this to work next turn then I will have to halt my armored unit coming down the trail. They are at 46 miles and I don't want another unit going in all by itself. In that case I might as well reconsider the whole operation as my armor will take another four weeks to get to Akyab.

In any case I have caused him to reinforce the area and it seems he is airlifting another full division into Akyab. I might have to change my focus in this theater.

China: I have entered Wuhan and Canton and am cutting off his supply production in those cities. I will now work to do the same at Nanchang and hope to take these cities out of production on a permanent basis.

[moses]

30 June:

Jwilkerson surprises me and shock attack at PM right off. He pulls the little trick where he lands paras on the assault turn in order to half the defence strength. Even then it was close. 3-1 and my army surrenders. Crap.

Now the war will be decided by what he does in the next month. Only PM and PH offer the possibility of a decisive result:

India would take a month to get forces there and I just have too much air and ground force there for this to be feasable.

Austrailia is right in front of him. He could certainly gain a foothold and start taking cities but it would take a long time and his whole army. I would just wait him out until my CV's were ready. KB's been at sea for a while now and it has to have a break sometime. Plus Austrailia means tangling with a lot of LBA on a steady basis.

Other islands such as Suva, Canton, Midway etc might be annoying to lose but hardly decisive. Effectively he would be trading 7 or 8 transports plus two weeks of KB time for each brigade sized force of mine he captures. Hardly decisive.

So its either PH or PM (edit:I meant Numea) or the third option is just sit back on the defensive and maybe conduct port or commerce raiding with KB.

Jwilkerson has shown no interest in PH all game plus KB is 3 weeks away and closer to my carriers when they are ready to go. So it just has to be PM. (edit: again Numea)
Burma: I've finnally managed to get my troops to load properly so it looks like the operation is a go. This will be a very high risk landing and I've wondered if I should call it off entirely. But I guess the worst that can happen is that he retreats my force and I have to regroup and start over. He will have to risk a shock attack with some troops that have to be pretty beat up. And if he fails he will be ripe for quick defeat.

China: He shock attacks my forces in Canton before they all arrive and retreats them at the cost of nearly 4000 losses. On the second day of the pulse my 4 other Corps arrive and they expect to be similarly attacked next turn. My troops now safly occupy Wuhan and are now preparing to move into Nanchang in the next week.

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: moses

30 June:

Jwilkerson surprises me and shock attack at PM right off. He pulls the little trick where he lands paras on the assault turn in order to half the defence strength.

What does that mean? I never have heard of that! [&:]