Matrix Games Forums

Mar 8, 1942

As I said earlier, today largely consists of sweeps and bombing runs in India to take advantage of his weak CAP/LRCAP and I am decently successful, destroying a number of fighters and potentially weakening his CAP enough to make my bombers useful. These sweeps take place both at Ceylon and Akyab, where I will increase my bombing runs over the next few turns. On Ceylon, I am also moving my garrison to Colombo to hold as long as possible, as that is where all my supply is.

Morning Air attack on Jaffna , at 31,45

Weather in hex: Severe storms

Raid spotted at 25 NM, estimated altitude 20,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 5 minutes

Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 12

Allied aircraft
Hurricane IIb Trop x 16

Japanese aircraft losses
A6M2 Zero: 5 destroyed

No Allied losses

Aircraft Attacking:
9 x Hurricane IIb Trop sweeping at 20000 feet

Morning Air attack on Akyab , at 54,45

Weather in hex: Heavy cloud

Raid spotted at 33 NM, estimated altitude 22,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 7 minutes

Japanese aircraft
Ki-43-Ic Oscar x 20
Ki-44-Ia Tojo x 5

Allied aircraft
Hurricane IIb Trop x 16

Japanese aircraft losses
Ki-43-Ic Oscar: 4 destroyed
Ki-44-Ia Tojo: 2 destroyed

No Allied losses

In the Aleutians, his carriers move back, but the Yamato and a few escorts stick around near Prince Rupert. I even get the message below...doubt it actually happened and my pilot is being optimistic, but fun to see nonetheless.

PBY-5 Catalina from VP-42 has spotted BB Yamato at 197,48
BB Yamato is reported HIT

Granted, the Yamato is a big target. The Cat's bomb may have left a dent somewhere.

Those sweep results are awesome!

Mar 9, 1942



John reinforces with a large number of additional fighter units, mostly Zeros, and is able to material reduce the size of my existing British fighter wings. Roughly even air-losses for the day, so he is taking losses as well, but he can easily replace his fighters. I cannot, at least for now. ~55 Allied planes are lost to ~45 Japanese planes. I lose ~30-40 Hurricanes whereas he loses ~30 Zeros/Oscars.

Luckily, I have American fighter wings on their way.

Where did you get that picture of John? He sure cleans up nicely.

Don't forget the Brit fighter training group in the UK. Hopefully, it will not make your pilot losses as painful.

Slightly OT - Next week I'm on stay-cation and plan to do some updates on BTS and BTSL. Anything you see that I might have overlooked, please PM me. One thing I'm doing is allowing some of the tank/armored units in India to take the plentiful Grant/Lee tanks that are just stockpiling in Aussieland. One of the three device lines for tanks will go with the Grant/Lee to hopefully give the Allies a little more punch in 42 and early 43 before they all go to Sherman V.

ORIGINAL: ny59giants_MatrixForum
Don't forget the Brit fighter training group in the UK. Hopefully, it will not make your pilot losses as painful.

I'm on my second class of British training pilots from there!. First class of ~140 pilots were all trained up to 70 air, 70 defense.

It seems to me you are having a lot of fun in this game![:)]

ORIGINAL: Lowpe
It seems to me you are having a lot of fun in this game![:)]

I very much am!

ORIGINAL: ny59giants_MatrixForum
Slightly OT - Next week I'm on stay-cation and plan to do some updates on BTS and BTSL. Anything you see that I might have overlooked, please PM me. One thing I'm doing is allowing some of the tank/armored units in India to take the plentiful Grant/Lee tanks that are just stockpiling in Aussieland. One of the three device lines for tanks will go with the Grant/Lee to hopefully give the Allies a little more punch in 42 and early 43 before they all go to Sherman V.

I sent John a bunch of graphical fixes, temporary sils to use for missing ship graphics I noticed while testing the mod before we started. There is still a number of missing art for ships, particularly smaller ships and auxiliaries. I also noticed some of the new plane models introduced for Japan seem to be missing artwork, at least from what I can tell in my last turn with John.

Will updated on game soon.

Mar 10-14, 1942

John looks to be moving on Dutch Harbor in the Aleutians, which I avoided reinforcing in favor of Umnak Island. I have reinforcements on the way, but the real important thing here is my carriers (3 USN, 1 British) are about 3 days out from being able to attack this invading force or, more importantly, his small carrier force. I believe this is the same carrier force we saw early, which includes 2 CVEs, 1 Junyo-class CV, and the BB Yamato! I would love to sink the Yamato and cause heartbreak to John. In the mouseover below, the Range of 29 hexes is how distant my carriers are from the current location of his carriers.



In the South Pacific, I manage to hit a force that took back Baker Island from me again. It has troops on it this time so it won't be easy to re-take, but perhaps this will slow him down a bit if he tries to also take Canton Island again.



The current situation in India below. All important hexes pretty much have 3+ forts. Bombay has 4+ and Madras is close to five. John was close to taking out all of Ceylon in one swoop, but he was one day late and Colombo was reinforced by 2 Australian brigades that arrive there. Colombo should hold out for awhile yet, but I am airlifting as much of the Aussie troops out as I can.

I'm going to have to play John someday, just hope I can still stand on my toes.

Sean,

great jobs in SOPAC (looks like you love sinking enemy merchants as well) and stealing the march on John on Ceylon.

For Yamato, I recommend using a PT boat. This happened in an AAR, unfortunately I forgot which one...

Hartwig

ORIGINAL: zuluhour

I'm going to have to play John someday, just hope I can still stand on my toes.

From the little I've seen so far, he is quite the "inveterate raider," as Canoerebel would say. He's been avoiding it for the most part recently while he focuses on India, but I'm sure he'll do more of it once he feels more secure in his landings there.

ORIGINAL: modrow

Sean,

great jobs in SOPAC (looks like you love sinking enemy merchants as well) and stealing the march on John on Ceylon.

For Yamato, I recommend using a PT boat. This happened in an AAR, unfortunately I forgot which one...

Hartwig

Thanks. I love sinking anything of Japan's. The majority of his carriers seem to either be in India or in the Aleutians, so all I have to worry about in the SoPac is LBA. As for the Aleutians, I have ~22-23 PT boats set to try and hit something next turn.

ORIGINAL: modrow

Sean,

great jobs in SOPAC (looks like you love sinking enemy merchants as well) and stealing the march on John on Ceylon.

For Yamato, I recommend using a PT boat. This happened in an AAR, unfortunately I forgot which one...

Hartwig

The inestimable Greyjoy [:D]

Mar 15, 1942

John lands at Umnak Island, which makes more sense, but is also much better defended. I have ~375 AV there with 3+ forts, 50% to 4 forts. I can also reinforce it even more once my carriers clear his ships, with transports already on the way from the West Coast. This should be fun; my carriers are 21 hexes away, will slow down for refueling, and try to hit him in 2-4 days time depending on where he moves his carriers. Note the bombardment from my troops and disablements caused. PT boats don't do much during the turn and some are sunk. If I can hold him from taking Umnak and reinforce it, could potentially destroy a brigade and division here.





In India, it appears a large carrier raiding force escorted by battleships is heading up towards Bombay/Karachi.



EDIT: I keep calling Umnak Island, Umlak in my head and making typos here! [:@]

ORIGINAL: Anachro
John lands at Umnak Island, which makes more sense, but is also much better defended.

What a nasty surprise it must be for John. No chance to prevail against that AV, real threat of his units being pummelled, and KB a world away. Milk him for attention to the fullest!

ORIGINAL: GetAssista

ORIGINAL: Anachro
John lands at Umnak Island, which makes more sense, but is also much better defended.

What a nasty surprise it must be for John. No chance to prevail against that AV, real threat of his units being pummelled, and KB a world away. Milk him for attention to the fullest!

I wouldn't be so sure this early in the game when US troops are mostly mid level experienced. The bombardment shows he has 3X the number of troops, including a Division and a Brigade. The IJA leaders will be very good. And he can bombard from the sea. Rough terrain and 3 forts might not be enough help. [:(]

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

ORIGINAL: GetAssista

ORIGINAL: Anachro
John lands at Umnak Island, which makes more sense, but is also much better defended.

What a nasty surprise it must be for John. No chance to prevail against that AV, real threat of his units being pummelled, and KB a world away. Milk him for attention to the fullest!

I wouldn't be so sure this early in the game when US troops are mostly mid level experienced. The bombardment shows he has 3X the number of troops, including a Division and a Brigade. The IJA leaders will be very good. And he can bombard from the sea. Rough terrain and 3 forts might not be enough help. [:(]

Yeah, there are chances if John brings more. So far he did not even bring a HQ which would penalize his assault AV a lot. Looks like he is doing a rolling land-capture-reembark-repeat amphibious bonus routine and reinforcements might be far away to get to the scene intact. Allies can also bombard from sea into zero Japanese forts, and given real CVs are nearby Japanese bombardments are considerably more risky.

A bad and grim time is looming over John, if this raid gets off nicely as well as others before, his morale , and good part of his navy shall plummet down to basement level.
Not nice start for Japan

Mar 16, 1942

The die is cast and I can only hope we have something good to say about tomorrow. If all goes well, we might perhaps sink or seriously damage some carriers, surface ships, and perhaps even the Yamato. Below you will find our settings. The Japanese carriers are currently northwest of Umnak Island. BB Yamato sits on the Umnak Island hex after bombarding last turn and perhaps will try to bombard again the following turn before retiring for fuel/ammo. I'd imagine John expects that he can simply retire, rearm, and bombard Umnak into submission. I'm hoping the appearance of Carriers gives me the leeway to reinforce Umnak with the transports you see on the right of the image.



John bombards Umnak with BB Yamato during the night, but despite several PT boat engagements, I regret to inform that no PT boat was able to torpedo or sink the Yamato. Nonetheless, the encouraging thing is that in the follow on land assault during the day, John is unable to reduce the forts and loses ~90 av in disablements.



In India, John's carriers strike Bombay and sink an AS and a few subs that were there repairing extensive damage from the port strike on Colombo. Let us hope we can get some form of vengeance tomorrow. Based on the number of planes, I'm confident he has the rest of his carriers in the Indian theater.

May the coordination of your strikes be as good as in the results from the other game you showed earlier in this AAR.



Hartwig