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You must have caught him completely out of position - I assume that he was intending to commit 100% of his available forces against your "DEI Offensive" with the hope of crushing you utterly, hence his quick abandonment of India (I'm sure all of those troops were going to Sumatra, Java & Timor).

He can't move that many troops in the blink of an eye, or the supporting base structure for his aircraft. I think his HI cubboard is bare at the moment.

Still no sign of the KB....

I would form a series of 2 DD TFs (eventually 4 TFs total) that go from the Kuriles back to the western Aleutians (Adak). 2 TF from each direction. Have them use waypoints that steadily move them further south to see if they are spotted and by what. I would say now that he will use KB to attack in the ocean hopefully away from your LBA, but gets his involved. I like to use 2 ship pickets as the AI (code) often will not consider a single ship a worthy target to attack.

hi GJ,

reading here about your OKdo coup de main gave me grayt joy!

if you've got the time, i'd appreciate hearing about the process of your phib load-out, were all your Op SH LCUs loaded at PH?

i was v. impressed that you included mongo Supply, Fuel & Fleet-Support (AKE, AS, etc.) elements in the immediate follow-up.

there were 2 problems in your assaults - 1 of the initial phib landings had awful disruptions, & then you lost a coupla' dozen transports. what's the status of the disrupted LCUs, & what's the impact of the transport losses (were they empty or loaded when they got tagged ?).

i hope you are primed to ship add'l supply&fuel to your new territory, staging out of the Aleutians & Midway.

best regards!

ORIGINAL: paullus99

You must have caught him completely out of position - I assume that he was intending to commit 100% of his available forces against your "DEI Offensive" with the hope of crushing you utterly, hence his quick abandonment of India (I'm sure all of those troops were going to Sumatra, Java & Timor).

He can't move that many troops in the blink of an eye, or the supporting base structure for his aircraft. I think his HI cubboard is bare at the moment.

Yes, he admitted that. His pants were down when i opened the door

ORIGINAL: ny59giants

Still no sign of the KB....

I would form a series of 2 DD TFs (eventually 4 TFs total) that go from the Kuriles back to the western Aleutians (Adak). 2 TF from each direction. Have them use waypoints that steadily move them further south to see if they are spotted and by what. I would say now that he will use KB to attack in the ocean hopefully away from your LBA, but gets his involved. I like to use 2 ship pickets as the AI (code) often will not consider a single ship a worthy target to attack.

Yup...i agree. I already have picket TFs and several subs operating on my lines... however my CVs will be with our transports so if he wanna have a CV battle, i welcome him now.

ORIGINAL: jmalter

hi GJ,

reading here about your OKdo coup de main gave me grayt joy!

if you've got the time, i'd appreciate hearing about the process of your phib load-out, were all your Op SH LCUs loaded at PH?

i was v. impressed that you included mongo Supply, Fuel & Fleet-Support (AKE, AS, etc.) elements in the immediate follow-up.

there were 2 problems in your assaults - 1 of the initial phib landings had awful disruptions, & then you lost a coupla' dozen transports. what's the status of the disrupted LCUs, & what's the impact of the transport losses (were they empty or loaded when they got tagged ?).

i hope you are primed to ship add'l supply&fuel to your new territory, staging out of the Aleutians & Midway.

best regards!

Well, distruption was a problem only due to the 40 days trip it took me to get there...all that time aboard in combat mode isn't exactly confortable!
However we landed with a distruption level of 40 but with no disablement at all (thanks to the 100% preparation). So in a couple of days my troops were in a fighting shape again.

Then i didn't lose any ship during the landings. Only after we conquered Bihiro (one week after the first landings) we forgot to move a TF containing support units (a base force) and it got sunk... but was my mistake cause i left it with no CAP

Overall i can say that all the landings went perfectly.

I had brought with me everything...something like a MASS MIGRATION...every type of support ship is with my fleet up there now (except for the ARDs). AS, AD, AV, AVD, AVP, AR, AGP, everything....

Yes, all my troops were loaded at PH...it took me nearly a month to load everything in the right order....was a nightmare...believe me! Was the most difficult thing to be done...Every Amphib TF contained an equal percentage of APA/AKA, LST, LSD, LCI, AK and AP, xAKs and xAPs, so that even the slow-unloading ships could get some help by the APA/AKA/LSI/LCI once they were empty....and it worked woderfully!

The more I think about it, the more this Allied vector of attack send shivers down my spine.

To stop dead a move like this Rader would have needed upwards of 6-8 Divs plus plenty of support in place. Whilst this was possible for him *if* he had moved some of his units sitting around in India to NORPAC several months ago, the average Jap player like myself will not have that luxury. I am sure plenty of us are moving a Div or two from DEI/China/PI up to Hokkaido even as I type this..........which means of course thinner defences in those areas......[:(]

Yup. As someone reasoned before, once the Allies get strong enough by 1944(even after taking some serious losses, as GreyJoy has) they dont need to advance, but an just take a group of bases at will within strike range from Honshu and destroy it. Only way to stop it is to heavily garrison those bases(and even that will just delay), which will leave the DEI(and oil + resources) only lightly defended. What will happen if Japan has lost the majority of its CV force in 1942 and its Scen 1 with half the China still unconquered? I know in Scen 1 the whole Southern Army is nowhere as big as the one GreyJoy landed on Kuriles.

Game over man, game over, Rader...

ORIGINAL: Miller

The more I think about it, the more this Allied vector of attack send shivers down my spine.

To stop dead a move like this Rader would have needed upwards of 6-8 Divs plus plenty of support in place. Whilst this was possible for him *if* he had moved some of his units sitting around in India to NORPAC several months ago, the average Jap player like myself will not have that luxury. I am sure plenty of us are moving a Div or two from DEI/China/PI up to Hokkaido even as I type this..........which means of course thinner defences in those areas......[:(]

That's the same Rader told me. But i don't agree at 100%.
The whole operation was planned only because i saw a particularly weak spot there (so to say several bases with no combat garrison but with highly developed AFs) so i was able to mount up 6 different landings in less than a week.
Even a single reinforced Bde behind 6 forts and with some artillery would have been enough to force me to look somewhere else. Or, if i really wanted that vector, i would have been forced to concentrate my attack on 1 or 2 islands at max. That said, with some air reserve in Japan (reserve that Rader clearly didn't have), and the KB not out of position (my bet is that the KB was moving towards DEI at the time he spotted me), i would have been facing the terrible risky situation of being stuck in a weekly siege, without any LBA support with my whole landing fleet exposed for several days and with only my CVs in cover.... for sure it would have been doable...but the risks would have been really high...probably too high for me.

That's why for ex that i always excluded an invasion of the Mariannas. There Rader, since 1942, has put a lot of efforts in fortifing and garrisoning, placing Bdes everywhere and building up ports and AFs... for sure i could have landed there...but at what cost??

Grey Joy,
first of all congratulations on a really well executed plan.

I totally agree with your evaluation on the conditions that allowed your invasion to be feasible; I really wonder why Rader built up those airfields if he had no intention to defend them.

In my opinion this is the most glaring mistake Japan can make, everywhere on the map, because it allows a succesful invasion and a fast deployment of land based planes to the theater that would be otherwise impossible in unbuilt bases.

Far to often I see Japan players occupy millions of dot bases and build them up, only to garrison them with a naval guard unit or a base force that is no obstacle to an invasion; all this strategy does is provide the Allies with ready made airfields for the next phase of their offensive.

Rader was lulled into a false sense of security. He built his defense around the idea that he would have at least a few days (if not a couple of weeks) to rapidly reinforce any area that GJ was attempting to move in to - hence the development of airfields & placement of strategic reserves that could quickly move into the threatened area (flood it with troops & aircraft).

In this particular case, Rader was literally looking at the wrong side of the world & moving large numbers of troops, ships and aircraft into an area that not only wasn't the true target, but also just about as geographically remote/distant as you could get from the real target. Hence, given the very short notice that he had regarding the true target of GJ assault (plus the size - which may be the largest amphibious operation any of us have seen in AE), the aircraft (those not destroyed by the Rabaul raid) and troops could not be moved in either the timeframe or numbers to amount to any sort of real defense against the Sledgehammer that GJ has wielded.

I think this will go down in AE history as one of the greatest "maskirovka" of all time & literally snatching decisive victory from the jaws of defeat.

Besides lashing out does anyone see a constructive approach Raader could take to minimize this disaster? Clearly he can't throw the allies back but other than fortifying the HI against further incursion and the mother of all Naval battles what other options are available for an Japanese player?

ORIGINAL: JohnDillworth

Besides lashing out does anyone see a constructive approach Raader could take to minimize this disaster? Clearly he can't throw the allies back but other than fortifying the HI against further incursion and the mother of all Naval battles what other options are available for an Japanese player?

Probably bring all his fighters back to Japan and defend most or all of his industrial sites. In early 44 Allied 4E bombers production is still not overwelming and if he manages to cause significant losses, which can be done , he can hope to survive for a bit by slowing down Allied operations.

Knowing GJ's preparation level, this may not be effective, but without having inside information I think Rader's best chance would be to get as many troops and supply across to Hokkaido as possible and then keep up as much air pressure as he can on the bases there.  Try to get GJ into a massive, supply eating attrition battle, while stalking and attempting to kill as many resupply convoys as possible far out at sea.  I think completely running out of supply in theater is the only real danger to GJ now.

I might have not retreated as far as Rader did, all the way to Hakodate, but it's very likely that Rader had only pitiful levels of troops on the whole island and may not even be able to hold Hakodate. 

In fact, if I were GJ, I would push troops into Hakodate to see what's there, and try to take it.  It will be nearly impossible for Rader to counter invade, but reinforcing with the barges while he still holds one base is much easier.  It might be possible to clear out that nest before Rader can make it too expensive.  

ORIGINAL: Miller

The more I think about it, the more this Allied vector of attack send shivers down my spine.

To stop dead a move like this Rader would have needed upwards of 6-8 Divs plus plenty of support in place. Whilst this was possible for him *if* he had moved some of his units sitting around in India to NORPAC several months ago, the average Jap player like myself will not have that luxury. I am sure plenty of us are moving a Div or two from DEI/China/PI up to Hokkaido even as I type this..........which means of course thinner defences in those areas......[:(]

Yep, I think GJ did all of us AFBs a favor in that he has every Japanese player very nervous about the risk of leaving Northern Japan unguarded. If the Allies control the Aleutians than the approach to the Kuriles and Hokkiado is wide open with no Japanese base of significance between Pearl and Japan. I don't think any Japanese player can cut any corners when defending this location as by the time any Allied invasion is spotted, it is too late to transfer forces. The defense must be in place all the time and strong-expecially if Japan is operating with his fleet in aother theater. You may never need all those divisions in Hokkiado, but you had better have them there...[:-]

ORIGINAL: hkbhsi

ORIGINAL: JohnDillworth

Besides lashing out does anyone see a constructive approach Raader could take to minimize this disaster? Clearly he can't throw the allies back but other than fortifying the HI against further incursion and the mother of all Naval battles what other options are available for an Japanese player?

Probably bring all his fighters back to Japan and defend most or all of his industrial sites. In early 44 Allied 4E bombers production is still not overwelming and if he manages to cause significant losses, which can be done , he can hope to survive for a bit by slowing down Allied operations.

For a bit... but that does not matter in the long run. Rader has to hit a home run to save his bacon now. And he has to take it to GJ. Not a good position for Japan to be in versus the strength of the Allies in 1944. Not good at all.......

ORIGINAL: crsutton

ORIGINAL: Miller

The more I think about it, the more this Allied vector of attack send shivers down my spine.

To stop dead a move like this Rader would have needed upwards of 6-8 Divs plus plenty of support in place. Whilst this was possible for him *if* he had moved some of his units sitting around in India to NORPAC several months ago, the average Jap player like myself will not have that luxury. I am sure plenty of us are moving a Div or two from DEI/China/PI up to Hokkaido even as I type this..........which means of course thinner defences in those areas......[:(]

Yep, I think GJ did all of us AFBs a favor in that he has every Japanese player very nervous about the risk of leaving Northern Japan unguarded. If the Allies control the Aleutians than the approach to the Kuriles and Hokkiado is wide open with no Japanese base of significance between Pearl and Japan. I don't think any Japanese player can cut any corners when defending this location as by the time any Allied invasion is spotted, it is too late to transfer forces. The defense must be in place all the time and strong-expecially if Japan is operating with his fleet in aother theater. You may never need all those divisions in Hokkiado, but you had better have them there...[:-]

He has also provided some validation for the IRL decision to extend the Japanese perimeter into the Aleutians. I'm not saying they executed it well, but their concern was more than worrying at ghosts.

Ok, turn sent.
 
We will bomb Sendai factories and we will sweep with DDs Hakkodake...let's see if we can sink some barges [;)]. Let's see how badly my B-24s suffer at 20k feet...
 
We'll also move our big landing TF to pick up the troops devoted to the Toyohama invasion...
 
finger crossed for our first strat bombing of the campaign[:'(]

Kamis will come. I predict no holds barred night attacks and massive coordination of forces, but not for at least 2-4 weeks game-time. He will dump 15 Divs into Hakodate and maybe more. He does have all of China vacated. The US is massively superior, but that's a lot of troops.