Moses(AL)Jwilkerson(IJ)

[moses]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

If he's avoiding bases within range of those planes, isn't that of value?

Yes well it is of some value. He has not bombed my bases offensivily and he has only very rarly used naval bombardment. So I guess I could say that my short range aircraft have had some value as a deterant.

Also there are a couple places where I can use my short range 4 fighters. At Myntanka in Burma I can bomb at range 4. Also in Alaska when the weather allows I am trying to use my short range aircraft. But in most of the Pacific the range 4 or less aircraft are pretty useless.

The problem is that offensvely Japan has such an ability to concentrate that he can overwhelm anything you can bring to the fight. Defensively Japan just has to establish a range 5 defence which is not so hard to do. Once established the allies get only 50 P40's and 100 P38's even into 1943. Against this Japan can produce how many fighters??? I don't know.

But from my recon he seems to be making 400 or 500 hundred good fighters per turn. Plus since he has easy bypassed bases to train on I'm guessing that he has a much higher training levels then my pilots. I'll do a survey next turn and try and quantify this.

In the end I will surely prevail, especially once I start getting the Corsairs and other aircraft in 43/44. It just seems strange. I did not know that Japan had such a gross numerical advantage in aircraft in late 42.

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: moses

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel



But from my recon he seems to be making 400 or 500 hundred good fighters per turn.

wow, Jwilkerson must be the god of production... [;)]

[moses]

ORIGINAL: String

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

If he's avoiding bases within range of those planes, isn't that of value?

Indeed. Also there are some areas where you can advance under the cover of those aircraft, such as solomons and PNG.

I would love to be able to operate in the Solomons. Problem is that he owns the whole thing. I have Numea and Luganville/Effete which are a long way off.

So how to get a foothold to fight from. If I try and take one of those bases I am too far away from land based fighter cover. He will surely tranfer in 400 Betties and hundreds of zero's to hit my invasion fleet. Plus eventually KB will show.

I have 1 good CV and one CVE. Plus two british carriers in the Indian Ocean. So. what are my chances of:

A. Gaining a beachead. And what will my loses be.

B. Once ashore can any airbase be built up and maintained in the face of such air superiority.

[moses]

"wow, Jwilkerson must be the god of production... "

oops, I meant 400 or 500 hundred per month!!!!!![:D][:D][:D]

[String]

ORIGINAL: moses

ORIGINAL: String

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

If he's avoiding bases within range of those planes, isn't that of value?

Indeed. Also there are some areas where you can advance under the cover of those aircraft, such as solomons and PNG.

I would love to be able to operate in the Solomons. Problem is that he owns the whole thing. I have Numea and Luganville/Effete which are a long way off.

So how to get a foothold to fight from. If I try and take one of those bases I am too far away from land based fighter cover. He will surely tranfer in 400 Betties and hundreds of zero's to hit my invasion fleet. Plus eventually KB will show.

I have 1 good CV and one CVE. Plus two british carriers in the Indian Ocean. So. what are my chances of:

A. Gaining a beachead. And what will my loses be.

B. Once ashore can any airbase be built up and maintained in the face of such air superiority.

Feint and then throw the kitchen sink. Once you get ashore and get the airbase going he is doomed. A good alternative is Timor. It's in range of australian LBA and once you are on shore it's easy going, with 2-3 hexes max between bases.

[moses]

17 Nov:

So you ever think that you are the worst WITP player ever?? Think again.

I plan my invasion of Ogliuga Islan in Alaska for months. I have a RCT prepping and its sitting at 100 prep points. The stinking island is unoccupied!!!!!!! What do I do?? I load the wrong freaking RCT!!!!!

My troops hit the beach and are ripped apart. By what you ask. I guess they scrap their knees on the coral or something. I don't know. But at the end of the day 75 % of my troops are disabled. Crap. His carriers bomb my surface fleet doing some damage. But for what? My troops are not ready. They will have to be pulled back.

So I manage it somehow. My troops reload and I return to Dutch Harbor. Another brilliant operation. I think somewhere along a line running North/South through about Rabaul I lose about half my brain. West of their I am a good player. To the east I can do nothing right.

So if your playing WITP and you think you suck. Don't worry. There is always someone worse then you.

[KDonovan]

So you ever think that you are the worst WITP player ever?? Think again.

I plan my invasion of Ogliuga Islan in Alaska for months. I have a RCT prepping and its sitting at 100 prep points. The stinking island is unoccupied!!!!!!! What do I do?? I load the wrong freaking RCT!!!!!

My troops hit the beach and are ripped apart. By what you ask. I guess they scrap their knees on the coral or something. I don't know. But at the end of the day 75 % of my troops are disabled. Crap. His carriers bomb my surface fleet doing some damage. But for what? My troops are not ready. They will have to be pulled back.

So I manage it somehow. My troops reload and I return to Dutch Harbor. Another brilliant operation. I think somewhere along a line running North/South through about Rabaul I lose about half my brain. West of their I am a good player. To the east I can do nothing right.

So if your playing WITP and you think you suck. Don't worry. There is always someone worse then you.

ouch, 75% disablements. Although, i think the winter weather had more to do with the amount of disablements you suffered, than the lack of prep pts. i've noticed about 50% disablements from units that were prepped that landed on hostile shores in the winter zones

[moses]

The sad thing is that I had a 100 prepped unit sitting in Ankorage training for months. I just loaded the wrong one. IRL someone would say something[X(]. But what can you do. My guys were 100 preped for a different base and I guess when I dropped them off somewhere completly different it sort of pissed them off.

I guess I cant blame them. Higher headquarters is always screwing up.

Keep in mind that this is 75% disablement again no opposition whatsoever. Don't try this yourself. Prep you're units!!!!

[moses]

A key point that I forgot to mention is Jwilkerson's response to my P38's going into action in China. He has stopped all training runs. For four days there has been no activity at all. China is quiet and in Burma the only planes he has flying are over Myantanka.

I think this is a mistake. He probably does not realize how few fighters that I have left. In Burma I have only about 100 P40's remaining and 24 P38's. In China I have 72 P38's and a lot of short range planes. By pulling back he is giving me nice training opportunities in Burma for the first time. For the last four days my planes have attacked Akyab without any risk of losses.

In a related issue my bombers flying out of Cairns hit his training base from which he has been flying Zero's against Woodward Island. As a result he has evacuated this base. The only training base he has operated for the last four days has been 2 squadrens of zero's flying out of Manila.

So what now?? I have just unloaded 2 F4F groups in India and these will be able to start operations around Myantanka very soon. I have 2 divisions there fighting 2 divisions of Japanese. I will gain air superiority and begin bombing these troops. This should force him to start contesting the air again.

Also I guess it is time to send my troops toward Akyab again.

[String]

An air-land juggernaut advancing down from Burma was always one of the worst fears i had in my japanese games

[moses]

The problem I see is that I really only have four or five divisions to send south. Doesn't he have about 12 or more??? So if he just digs in it's not certain in my mind that he can't hold on for the long term.

Right now in Myantanka he has 2 divisions and a little extra against my two divisions. It's wooded terrain and I assume he's dug in pretty good by now. We bombard with about equal effect for the last four days.

So we will see what happens. I will get some more airpower concentrated there in a bit. If he fights in the air then fine I will kill some planes. If he pulls back then maybe ground attacks can injure his forces. But will they??

The good news is that if it ever does fall and I gain access to that rail line I will probably take the whole Mandalay sector in short order. It's just getting that first foothold that is difficult.

[moses]

21 Nov:

Air War: It's gotten real quiet as I assume Jwilkerson is revamping his pilot training program. Some Nates have shown up at Manila where he trains against one of my last unoccupied bases. Nothing is flying in China so I assume that he is upgrading what he can to Tony's/Tojo's. He is running lots of recon against Homan and so I pulled my fighters out of there. No need to let him tee off on me when a couple hundred Tony's hit from all angles.

Burma: I bomb Akyab with impunity as Akyab, Pagan, and Mandalay have no air cover. Fighting continues at Myantanka on the air and ground. On the ground we bombard each other and cause equal low-level casualties each turn. In the air I'm flying missions from multiple air bases and getting better then 1-1 kill ratio's. Plus I have 2 new F4F groups assembling at Ledo so in the near future I will have 72 F4F's which should make Myantanka untenable.

On the ground 2 infantry and two armored units are advancing towards Akyab. 3 Chindit Bde's and 4 Chinese division are headed for various wooded and mountain locations from which they can infiltrate and cut the rail line. This will be a slow process but by late December Japan should be under considerable pressure.

Carriers: In the next 38 days I will get three CVE's and the CV Essex. My CV Lexington is now nearly repaired at SF. It has 15 sys damage and still needs to upgrade. So by the new year I will at least have a token carrier force. I will use it with great caution.

Other: From Austrailia 96 B24's hit Port Moresby which is defended by 36 zero's. It's a bloody battle with13 zero's going down vs. 9 bombers. But I don't think the zero's can stand up to this long term and I have lots of bombers in the pool so this battle will go on.

At Ankorage my 138th RCT disembarks and they are pissed. They trained for months to invade Adak but were instead landed at Ogliuga Island. Meanwhile the RCT that was prepped for Ogliuga Island has been kicking back drinking beer. I need an MP unit.

[moses]

OK, I did a survey of Japanese aircraft production. i.e. I ran my curser over the cities and counted factories. Now get this.

Jwilkerson has 77 Tojo factories, 327 Tony factories and get this 509 Zero factories!!!! So he can produce 900 quality fighters per month. And here I sit with 50 P40's per month and 100 P38's.

You wonder if he even has to worry about pilot quality. If I were him I would just pack Burma with 8 or 9 hundred fighters and then send massed Sally's/Betty's against the allied air bases.

Maybe thats the plan. Once my ground troops reach Akyab, he shift in a thousand planes and drives me from the skies.

[Alfred]

Moses,
 
I commiserate with you regarding Japanese production.  I have yet to see any good reason why Japanese production can be manually altered but Allied can not.  Any competent Japanese player can derive great benefits from ceasing production of obsolete aircraft whereas Allied players are stuck with producing obsolete models.
 
Alfred

[moses]

1 Dec:

Air War: For the month I killed 438 front line aicraft plus the 90 or so Nates that I took out in one turn in China. These were perhaps the most significant losses as it shut down Japans China training center. His Nates have transfered to Manila where they bomb one of my empty bases there.

Jwilkerson's comments to me indicate that he thinks that I have won the air war. I hardly see how as he is still outproducing me in good fighters and they still seem to be doing well against my planes. But maybe things look worse from his end.

China: This front is now completely stable. Nothing has moved in a couple weeks and without him bombing my bases every day I now have extra supply. I am now allowing my army to replace it's loses.

Burma: My troops continue their long slow advance down the trails. At Myantanka I seem to have slightly the upper hand. But at the current rate of attrition he can hold out till around 1946. But at least my troops are not being beaten down. It's enough that he is forced to continue fighting in the air in order to prevent my bombers from pummeling his ground troops.

South Pacific: I'm preparing ops to take the islands NW of Pago Pago soon. AP's are a week from Pago Pago and then I will load up. A full division is prepped for Nanomea and several smaller units are prepped to take the other unoccupied island. 5 BB's will come along and I've activated a 72 plane P38 unit to provide air cover. No carriers will be available so hopefully I will not be surprised.

Once this is complete I will turn my attention to the island group between Luganville and Lunga. Using B24's and P38's out of Luganville I should be able to take these locations without carriers as well. These conquests will give me a good foundation to start 1943.

Alaska: Quiet and it will probably stay that way for as long as he keeps a couple carriers and large surface force at Kiska. I'm rather happy that he has to maintain his carriers here on garrison duty. Eventually in early 43 this might become very dangerous for him as more long range fighters appear and I actually have a carrier force.

[moses]

5 Dec:

My transports will all be at Pago Pago next turn and we will load up for the invasion of Nanomea. Assuming my division gets safely ashore this should be a cakewalk. He has only an SNLF and a base force there and they have been bombed for months by B17's.

The only issue is where are his carriers. I had subs patrolling all around the area for a month with no sign of carriers or carrier air. I also check the nearby ports like Truk, Rabaul and Kwajaline, and have seen no sign of carriers in the area. He is not flying any recon from Nanomea and so he should be blind to my invasion preparations. So it's hard to believe that he will have a significant number of carriers to oppose me as long as I take the island quickly.

If he has a small 1 or 2 carrier patrol in the area, then I should still be OK. I will have 72 P38's flying LRC and these should be able to suppress the efforts of a small carrier force. Beyond that I will just have a ton of ships that will soak up the bombs. 16 AP's will carry the main landing force and 25 or so AK's will come along with supply. 4 BB's and large numbers of CA/DD's will also be around. If a couple carriers show up I think the losses will be managable.

My only concern is that a big carrier TF is just sitting waiting for me. But why would they be there? If he was operating a large CV TF in this area he has to either be baseing out of one of the large area ports or he would need to have tanker TF's in the area. Surely I would have detected something. But its also possible that he sends such a force on a tour of his front line and just happens to be there on the day I invade. Or worse he decides to raid Pago Pago just as my transports depart!!!!!!!!!!!

Everything else has been pretty quite as my air force recovers after a brutal November.

[moses]

11 Dec:

We've blasted through the first anniversery of the war!! I've reduced my freqyuency of posting as basically we are just pounding each other in Burma. No need to keep repeating the same thing.

Air War: Like I said every 2 day turn I'm taking out 50 or so of his fighters and losing about an equal number of planes in return. I've about run out of P40's. There are now 7 P40B's in existance and that group has been pulled back. I compensated by shifting my Burma focus to Myantanka where my 3 F4F groups can fight and bringing the P38 armed AVG back from China. These groups combined with bombers hitting Japan across the map take a steady daily toll on his fighters.

Burma: Lots of Japanese units appear to be moving up the road to Burma and several more small units have entered Myantanka to battle my 2 divisions there. He has also moved units into the countryside where they now contest with my chinese divisions and Chindit BDE's.

The main push though wil be at Akyab where my 2 UK divisions and 3 Armored units approach. It's slow going and I'm having some trouble with the follow command. My lead division was going faster then the following units and I just can't have the lead unit going in by itself. So I took one of the slow units, set it to defend, then set its movement to Akyab. Then I set all units to follow it. Now all looks well as the lead unit is a little behind all the followers so if I understand everything correctly they should all move at once in 3 or 4 weeks.

Namonea invasion: The transports head out and landings are set for the 15th. Over 140 ships are involved. At least one enemy CV was sighted in the Tulagi area but it took off when my bombers hit Lunga from Luganville for the first time a couple days ago.


Carriers: Lexington is down to 10 sys damage. So it takes about a year to repair a badly damaged carrier. I still have to upgrade this ship so figure 30 days to reach top condition. The Essex arives in 22 days so very soon I will have a tiny CV force.

[moses]

13 Dec:

2 BB's and a CA are seen near Nidi island SE of Tulagi headed east!!! East is in the direction of Nanomea and where there are BB's there are usually CV's. So it is possible that my invasion TF will meet his CV next turn as they stage 1 or 2 hexes off the coast of Nanomea.

I will know soon enough. The Japanese never took the base directly south of Nanomea so I sent some recon aircraft there and an AVD. Plus para's are landing there this turn from Wallis Island. Plus PG's and subs will be in the area so next turn is the moment of truth.

But why would he head to Nanomea by way of Nindi. He knows I have bombers at Luganville so why would he route his ships where they could be detected and bombed. It seems more likely that this is a bombardment TF headed for Luganville.

I will find out soon enough I guess.

[moses]

17 Dec:

He did have 4 CV's near Nindi but they seemed to be just supporting a tranport mission of some type to that base. My B17's attacked, fighting through the zero's to paste one of his AP's with 3 bombs. The next turn his carriers headed NE, oblivious to my pending invasion of Nanomea. The carriers route did cross the path of one of my picket PG's with predictable results. But of well.

My invasion goes in at Nanomea. The first assault was 1-1 and I started to worry that the island might hold. But the second assault was at obsene odds and the island fell easily.

The only losses came when some betties attacked from Tarawa. I found out that LRC does not fly at extended range and so my P38's provide no coverage to my fleet once it arrived at Nanomea. Oops. They did minor damage to two of my BB's.

Everything will pull out this turn except for some transports that will try and unload some more troops and supplies before retreating to Pago Pago or Suva. My transports should all be able to unload during the first night pulse so I'm hoping everything will be running away before his carriers arrive.

Alaska: Recently I've been trying to train a couple VR squadrens which enter the game with experience level 40. Jwilkerson sent his carriers a little closer to disrupt this. Guess what happens when 36 F4F's with experience level 40 to 50 get bounced by crack zero pilots while flying a bombing mission? It's not good. 33 Wildcats go down for 1 zero. The good news is that my replacements for these guys come in at around 55 so I still gain quality. And 7 of his zero's go down due to ops losses.

[anarchyintheuk]

I know counteroffensive led by carriers is a long way off, but the USN pilot replacement pool is more fragile than the fighter replacement pool.