Matrix Games Forums

March 9, 1942 - This was a busy turn as expected. My troops continued to land at Palembang and Iloilo, and a bombardment TF hit Cebu hard again. The shore guns at Palembang once again were selective and only hit the escort craft in one invasion TF - the same one as last turn. This turns out to be the TF that I sent along as a last minute decision because it had a base force on board. It was originally headed for Singapore; I wonder if the change in orders contributed in some manner to it being the only TF of three that drew shore fire?

There was a lot of air action all over the Far East, but much of it was hampered by bad flying weather. AuTiger is now faced with having to split his air attacks on multiple ground targets, which is weakening their effectiveness. I keep on switching targets for my bombers, particularly in China, just to keep Tiger from bringing a horde of fighters to play at any given point.

The actual attack on Palembang went fairly well. My forces reduced the fortifications to Level 5 while achieving a 5:1 attack result. This meant that my casualties were reasonably low and my troops didn't gain disruption or fatigue and are ready to do another deliberate attack in the upcoming turn. I've also got a supply TF arriving which will help the situation.

There was no air attack on my ships or troops at Palembang. It appears that Tiger pulled his planes back from Batavia. I'm not bothering to send any more planes against Batavia for now. Instead I'm sending my planes at Kuching to hit the airbases on the south coast of Borneo - the distance is shorter and I want to invade that region next anyway.

My dot-grabbing continued as my troops landed at Vanikolo, the last dot in the Santa Cruz Islands. I'm resting up most of my NLF units right now in anticipation of more dot and base grabbing in the remaining Dutch East Indies.

In base-building news, the port at Singapore reached level 9, so I'm all set for supporting my fleet in that region. Also, another base in PNG reached a level 2 airfield, so I'm starting to move Army bombers out of the Philippines and into the Central Pacific in anticipation of an aerial bombing campaign against Port Moresby to back up my naval bombardment campaign. Those bombers and level 2 bases will also make it even harder to Tiger to sustain his presence at PM.

In ship-saving news, Ryujo and Zuiho reached Tokyo safely, and Kaga reached Osaka safely. I've been pulling out all of the damaged small ships from both bases so that my repair efforts are focused upon those carriers. The repair news also continues to be good from Rabaul where the floatation damage on Taiho has now gone down to 18. So I've ordered a TF of escort ships to sail from Truk to Rabaul in anticipation of being in a position to pull Taiho back within a few more days. I intend to bring my lone AR out too and send it back to Truk along with Taiho - I am never comfortable with leaving ships in Rabaul harbor unless I have control of PM.

BTW - in a move that will definitely get Tiger's attention, my paratroops landed easily at Benares and captured it. I wonder if Tiger will now send troops to Lucknow or take a chance on my grabbing that too? [:D]

March 10, 1942 – Japanese troops kept on landing at Iloilo and Palembang this turn. Once again, the coastal guns at Palembang fired at the same TF despite other TFs also unloading at the base. Troops also started to land at Cebu, and the coastal guns there also shot back, despite having received yet another naval bombardment over night. But the Cebu landing was indicative of a number of small, careless mistakes that I've been making recently, because my engineering regiment started to land first while the main invasion force is still a day's sail away.

I've been finding lots of small mistakes like that recently – I need to take more time to check out what I am doing rather than assuming that things are going "according to plan". I've also made some silly decisions recently because I'm not keeping the "Big Picture" in my head well. This game can be quite unforgiving and a move wasted is almost always a move lost for good. I'm hoping that I can recover from this latest rash of mistakes, but time is marching on, and every turn that I waste is yet another turn during which AuTiger will become more prepared to stop me.

AuTiger announced a new phase to the war this turn as a couple of B-17 groups hit the airfields at Babo. I'm not sure why he decided to attack that little base in the south-western corner of New Guinea. I do have a base force there along with a patrol squadron, but they aren't doing much else of anything. Maybe Tiger wants to give his B-17 pilots some relatively safe practice? Fortunately, the distance from Darwin and the weather ought to take its toll if Tiger keeps it up on a regular basis.

The real surprise for me this turn was the big turnaround in fortunes for my invasion force at Palembang. Last turn they were unstoppable and got a 5:1 attack result. This turn they had supplies and reduced the fortifications to level 4, but they suffered a 0:1 result. Go Figure. So now their disruption is quite high and therefore I set the invasion force to do a bombardment attack and I also ordered another naval bombardment TF to hit the base again. I suspect that Tiger has pulled his troops out of the remaining bases in southern Sumatra, so I am scouting them a bit from the air and moving a air-capable SNLF unit to Singapore by sea so that I can air drop them onto the empty bases and capture all of the Dutch defenders of Palembang once I finally attack again.

BTW – don't ask why I am shipping that SNLF unit to Singapore – let's just say that it is yet another example of one of my many recent mistakes.

My other land assaults were successful. Iloilo was captured easily. Unfortunately, I forgot to set the landing TFs to stick around, so I have to send them back in order to pick up my victorious troops and take them to their next staging point. Taliabu and Vanikolo were also captured. And troops landed at Dumaguete, the last base in the Philippines that isn't under my control with the exception of Cebu.

In China two Japanese armoured units kicked the already battered Hopei militia unit further down the road towards Lanchow. Eventually my tank units will run into some real opposition, but I've got a number of divisions marching along behind them, so I will be prepared for that occasion.

In other news, that small DD TF reappeared at Canton Island this turn. I wonder if Tiger will send them off on a bombardment mission against Baker Island in order to check out what I've got in place. The Half-KB (East) refuelled at Makin Island this turn and is sailing out towards the south-central Pacific islands where I now have several small invasion TFs headed. If the Canton DDs move I can also send my carriers quickly in their direction too.

Oh yeah – that carrier TF is yet another example of recent carelessness on my part. I just noticed this turn that I had added one of those 18 knot CLs into the TF when I set it up at Kwajalein! It's just as well that I didn't try to send the TF off on a full-speed "dash". Now I am sending that CL back to base along with a couple of DDs that are due for April upgrades.

Finally, in one area where things are working out as planned, the floatation damage on the Taiyo is finally gone. When the escort TF arrives next turn I will send the Taiyo and the lone AR back to Truk. Hopefully neither will hit one of the remaining submarine mines that are still showing on the map for Truk, despite my regular minesweeping.

March 11, 1942 – As often happens in this game, a number of ships were sweeping some mines when one of the sweepers "swept" a mine the "hard way". In this case, a Brit DD at Madras hit one of the sub-laid mines that I had placed there a while ago. I am continuing to use my long range subs mainly for mine laying, primarily because the presence of mines improves my chances of noticing any ship movements in a given port.

Speaking of ship movements, Japanese naval bombardment TFs hit Palembang, Cebu and Port Moresby again this turn. I also had aerial bombardments as a follow-up. PM is staying nicely closed, and I now have a Sally unit at Lae that will start to do some serious aerial bombardments in a couple of turns.

AuTiger hasn't abandoned his air plans, and Martins from Macassar attacked a combat TF at Kendari. But between my CAP and the presence of thick-skinned CAs, all that happened was that a number of Martins were damaged. Tiger also continued his nuisance B-17 raids in the region as a group hit the now-empty Bulla.

Tiger is getting more active in India/Burma and his light bombers attacked my ground troops at the border, but with little effect. More importantly a couple of big Brit ground units recaptured Yanam and actually destroyed the piece of paratroop unit that was there. I expected that the unit would retreat, but I guess that the supply lines were too long.

My troops at Palembang just did a bombardment attack this turn, and I'll continue with that next turn too. I'm doing the same thing at Cebu where I want all of my combat troops to land before I try a direct assault. My transport TFs returned to Iloilo so I started to load my combat troops from there for their journey to Truk. I also have all three armoured regiments from the Luzon invasion on their way to Palau. This will start to shift the balance of power in the Central Pacific.

In terms of "clean-up", my troops captured the last "dot" in the Philippines, Dumaguete, this turn. This completes my first phase of consolidation. In my upcoming move into the South-Central Pacific Islands I will be leaving my troops in place rather than pulling them out to move onwards. That's not only because I expect Tiger to be a little more pro-active in that region, but also because those islands are not malarial which means that I can leave my troops in place without having them wither away.

The US DDs are still sitting at Canton Island. The Half-KB (East) is sailing down between Canton and the South-Central Pacific Islands where my invasion TFs are heading, so I can react to either intercept those DDs if they move towards Baker Island, or protect my incoming TFs. Tiger has little in the way of long range patrols in the region other than at Canton Island, so I'm hoping to take advantage of this and get my troops in place before he realizes what is happening.

BTW – the escort TF reached Rabaul this turn so I formed a heavily-guarded transport TF containing both the Taiyo and my lone AR, and I've got them sailing towards the much safer environs of Truk. I'm also sending a transport TF down to Rabaul to pull out the Naval HQ that I placed there and move them over to Shortlands. I much prefer to use Shortlands as my main base in the region since it is more central and further away from PM and any raids. I am leaving an Air HQ in Rabaul to help repair my planes and also to provide extra support for my troops in order to try to minimize the effect of malaria.

March 12, 1942 – This was a pretty good day for AuTiger's forces. Some British DDs sank one of my subs off of Ceylon, B-17s and B-24s had a good strike on the resources at Moulmein, and then outnumbered Chinese bi-planes fought off my air attack on Ichang very well. The only thing that worked okay for me was that my bombers at Kuching finally flew and attacked the airfields at Samarinda, and a number of the defenders were shot down by my escorts.

Otherwise this was a set-up turn for me. More of my troops landed at Cebu so I set them to try a deliberate attack next turn. I'm betting that it doesn't work the first time, but maybe I'll get lucky. I also started to load the invasion forces for Tarakan. I've got a bombardment TF that will hit Tarakan again next turn, as well as other TFs that will hit Cebu again and Macassar. Tiger's bombers at Macassar have been flying nuisance attacks against my TFs at Amboina, and while they haven't gotten any hits yet I don't want them to get more practice than is necessary.

BTW – the invasion force at Palembang is still doing bombardment attacks while supplies build up. I am also getting ready to attack the two bases on Sumatra that are still in Allied hands – probably one by air and the other by sea. By the time that I have those bases secured the disruption levels of my Palembang invasion force ought to be low enough to resume attacks. In the meanwhile I am sending my Sallys at Singapore after the Dutch at Palembang again.

The Half-KB (East) is now just about in position in the Central South Pacific to intercept any US TFs that venture out in response to my upcoming invasions. Tiger still has his DDs at Canton, but they aren't doing much of anything. If they do happen to head west in response to my transport TFs they will run right into my CV air cover.

I've decided to send a base force to Thursday Island in order to increase my air coverage of the PNG region. It will take them a while to get there from Truk, but Tiger is staying fairly quiet, so that shouldn't be a problem. I'm sending the "regular" naval bombardment TF off to hit PM again, which will occur the turn after next, and in the meanwhile I am sending my first Army Air attack on the airfields at PM as experienced Sallys from Lae will fly out next turn. The damage level at PM has stayed constant recently, which suggests that I've finally run down Tiger's supply level there again.

I also had recon aircraft flying all around India this turn, which ought to bother Tiger a bit. He still has plenty of empty bases where I could drop paras if I wish. He has also not reinforced Trincomalee, which makes it a very tempting target. And it does appear that I will have a spare division available soon.

March 13, 1942 – The news which ought to grab AuTiger's attention this turn was a simple and straightforward message – Japanese troops landed at Nanomea in the South Central Pacific and captured it this turn. And US Catalinas from Canton Island also spotted my carrier TF that was sitting a few hexes to the northeast of Nanomea, which gives Tiger a bit of a warning not to blindly rush in. Next turn will give Tiger another message as he will see, if he checks, that I am not pulling out the invaders of Nanomea and moving on as I have done in so many places, but they are sticking around, and soon two more TFs will show up to capture the two other nearby islands.

It will be interesting to see how Tiger responds – after all, he hasn't yet risked any of his US combat ships and could achieve a local superiority in the region if he so desired. But that is a dangerous move this early in a game, as one of my other opponents just learned when his US carriers tried to attack a strong LBA position without taking out the air fields first. Granted, the LBA situation in the Nanomea region isn't yet "defined", but if Tiger leaves me alone I'll fix that soon enough. [;)]

Elsewhere overnight Japanese bombardment TFs hit Tarakan and Cebu again. Thanks to all of the pounding my attack on Cebu this turn was very successful and the forces there were overwhelmed easily. Now I've set my troops to objectives in Timor while they await the return of their transport TFs and the voyage to Palau for R&R before their next mission.

My troops in Palembang continued with their bombardment attacks while my isolation forces started to prepare for the next phase of the capture of Sumatra. I have picked up the land unit at Padang with a TF and have it heading for Benkolen while I have an air capable SNLF unit set for an air drop on Teloekbetong. Both units should arrive next turn and set up my final assault at Palembang. I have no intention of chasing those Dutch units through the hinterland of Sumatra.

Tiger was busy this turn with his usual devious activities. He had Liberators fly from India to hit the "manpower" resource at Hanoi. There's little that I can do about those sorts of nuisance raids, so I'll jet let Tiger accumulate operational losses. Tiger also sent his remaining Dutch PT boats to Macassar, so instead of sending in a bombardment TF I'm sending in a surface combat TF to try to get rid of some more PTs. Finally, Tiger's Chinese forces in India wiped out another Japanese paratroop fragment. He will have a harder time when he runs into the other combat troops in the region.

DB, a question for you.  With the fall of Yaman, how are you supplying the remaining troops in India?  Did you move supply elsewhere via HQ, land supplies by sub or undetected TF or send in supply via Tinas to another AF?
 
I have been watching this operation with great interest.  Just curious how the troops will be kept from straving.

ORIGINAL: princep01

DB, a question for you.  With the fall of Yaman, how are you supplying the remaining troops in India?  Did you move supply elsewhere via HQ, land supplies by sub or undetected TF or send in supply via Tinas to another AF?

I have been watching this operation with great interest.  Just curious how the troops will be kept from straving.

I captured Benares a while back, so I'm getting supply from there. I'm rebuilding my remaining fragment of paratroops in Rangoon and in a while I'll send them out to capture yet another empty Indian base. AuTiger can't protect everywhere, and he has most of his troops out chasing after my other units.

What this is doing is buying me time and spreading Tiger's forces out. I have three attacks on the go in the Burma-India border area and I need another week or so before my troops engage his troops. If I didn't have the distraction in India Tiger would bomb my advancing troops to bits.

Now, in retrospect, was it a good move going in to India so early and with so little preparation? I'd have to honestly say, No, because my lack of preparation has meant that my attack has been a nuisance rather than a real threat.

Given what I know now, I would have been better off grabbing Yanam and Benares first via paratroops, as well as other inland bases that were farther away from the main British forces. Also, I should never have landed extra troops at Yenam because not only is the port a level 0 but also all the roads to it are minimal, which meant that Tiger was able to bring up reinforcements before I was able to reach the railroads. Instead I should have gone after Trincomalee and Columbo before I committed major units to the mainland. But that's all hindsight, and part of the learning curve of this game.

Thanks for the comments -

ORIGINAL: Dive Bomber1

ORIGINAL: stldiver

I played allied and even with the planes upgraded, CS have only been an anoyance to shipping. Never the big kills, the only fear I have is that they spot for CV's and the CV's will come in for the ill. Also as CAP defenders they are not significant. So in my opinion the best use is search and find vs Destroy and protect.

Are you saying that you can put some fighters, such as float fighters, on CS ships? I didn't realize that. That would make them much more valuable as spy ships.

Thanks -

Only float fighters. I would put Rufe Float fighters on my CSs as soon as they arrive. Extra CAP always helps.

Only float fighters. I would put Rufe Float fighters on my CSs as soon as they arrive. Extra CAP always helps.

Ah - I see. That makes sense. I never thought of that. Thanks!!!

March 14, 1942 - I keep on coming up with new and different ways to goof things up in this game. Here's a perfect example of how what seemed to be a "great idea" ended up rather goofy. As I mentioned last turn, I wanted to capture Teloekbetoeng and Benkolen on Sumatra so that I would isolate the Dutch troops at Palembang before I attacked them and thus eliminate them rather than have them escape into the back country. So I ordered an air-capable SNLF unit to para-drop into Teloekbetoeng from Singapore, and I picked up by ship the SNLF unit that I had at Padang on the west coast of Sumatra and ordered it to go to Benkolen.

So far, so good. However, after I had loaded the troops at Padang onto the transport TF that had originally brought them there, I noticed that the green "sailing ring" fell short of Benkolen, and I wanted those troops to get there next turn. Well, my transport TF at Padang consisted of 4 - 10 knot 1500 ton APs and 4 - 18 knot APDs. I then got a "bright idea" - I decided to split off the four APDs into their own transport TF and send them on ahead, letting the APs arrive at their own pace.

So I ran this turn and as planned, the para-SNLF unit landed at Teloekbetoeng despite bad weather, and the APDs reached Benkolen easily, dropped off their troops, and also got away under the cover of more bad weather. My para-SNLF unit captured the unoccupied Teloekbetoeng with the normal shock attack that comes with an airborne assault, and as expected there were no enemy troops at Benkolen to oppose my ship-borne SNLF unit.

Sounds good, right? Well, when I checked the LCU symbol at Benkolen to give orders for my troops to attack next turn and capture the base, and to my great surprise it turned out that I had no troops there, just the "potential" of troops. All of the actual troops had been loaded on the APs and the APDs didn't have any. I guess that this is the equivalent of the APDs coming in, dropping off the tents and kits, and sailing off, leaving all the equipment on the shore, but no troops to use it!

Fortunately, the APs are only one hex away and will unload next turn, but it will be yet another turn before I can actually capture the base. Despite this I've set my troops at Palembang to do a deliberate attack next turn anyway in the hope that the presence of the "virtual" LCU at Benkolen will provide a zone-of-control and keep the defenders at Palembang from retreating if my attack succeeds. (But then, given how my luck in ground assaults has been going in this game and my other pbems, I'm not counting on the attack to succeed anyway. [8|] )

So in retrospect, if I had realized that the troops would be loaded non-uniformly I could have formed two transport TFs before I loaded any troops, and loaded the APDs first, in which case the combat troops would have been loaded there and any "virtual troops" would have been left for the APs. I'll have to remember this in the future.

Other operations went somewhat better this turn. Two of my bombardment TFs hit Palembang and Port Moresby again. And the CA/DD TF that I sent to Macassar as a surface combat TF instead of a bombardment TF did engage the Dutch PTs that AuTiger had sent there. But despite the fact that I had changed the mission of my attacking TF, the Dutch PTs "surprised" my TF anyway. Fortunately, the sole PT to launch a torpedo missed, and after that the surprise was gone and my DDs succeeded in sinking a PT without taking any serious damage. My ships are now back at Kendari. I've replenished them and next turn I will create a brand new SC TF, move them into it, and then send them back to Macassar to hunt down the remaining Dutch PTs.

In other action, my armored units in northeastern China kicked the Hopei Militia unit yet another hex closer to Lanchow this turn. I remember that there was another Chinese unit on that road, but it appears that Tiger has moved it along to Lanchow instead of trying to block the road with it. In addition to the two armored units, I also have five good divisions moving along the road, so once they all reach Lanchow they ought to be able to break through unless Tiger pulls a lot more forces from his frontline bases. And simultaneously I have units doing a pincer move around Homan and towards Sian, which ought to give Tiger lots of worries in the region.

Things were reasonably quiet in the India-Burma region, except for a couple of small nuisance air attacks on my advancing ground units at the border. The weather continues to hinder Tiger's air campaign, and I'm not bothering with one of my own in that region at this time.

Things continue to be quiet in the Central Pacific so I am also continuing to "quietly" move my forces forward. The bombardment TF that I have been using to hit PM regularly is just about at the point where it will need to be sent home for R&O, although I believe that I can get one more attack out of it before I absolutely have to send it back up north. But I've got a nice, fresh and big surface combat TF that is just about to reach Rabaul for refueling before heading down to Gili-Gili, so they ought to be able to take up the slack quite nicely.

March 15, 1942 - My laggard troops joined their equipment on the beach at Benkolen this turn without any problems. The same can't be said about the assault on Palembang, which reduced the fortifications to level 3 but only achieved a 1:1 attack result. AuTiger has come up with quite a good formula for defending his bases with his weaker troops. I'm not sure what I will do when I have to face his better troops. In any event, I'm sending out the naval and aerial bombardment forces again next turn to help out the ground troops at Palembang.

This was an unusually quiet turn for both of us. There was no naval action and air action was also limited. I guess that we are both maneuvering our forces for position. Tiger is moving his remaining Dutch PTs away from Macassar and towards Balikpapan. I have a couple of good surface combat TFs heading towards Tarakan to support that upcoming invasion, so they ought to be able to take care of the PTs.

The Taiyo made it to Truk this turn with no increase in its system damage level. I've pulled all of the other damaged ships out of Truk so that my repair efforts will focus upon Taiyo. I'll leave Taiyo in Truk until I get the current PM bombardment TF back to port, then I'll send them all back to the Home Islands.

That PM bombardment TF is about at the stage where I don't want to have it in combat any longer. Most ships have system damage in the 10-12 range. Fortunately, my fresh and larger combat TF arrived at Rabaul this turn, so I set them right away to steam down to Gili-Gili to take over the job once the current TF returns from its final bombardment mission before R&O.

BTW - the Kaga and the two damaged CVLs are repairing nicely in the Home Islands. I also have three BBs there that are just about at optimal repair levels, as well as a number of recently upgraded and repaired DDs. So I'll have a nice fresh force to move forward fairly soon.

I moved the Half-KB (East) a few hexes toward Canton Island because Tiger has left his DDs there. If my planes get a chance to attack, that's fine, otherwise I'll be equally happy to just scare those DDs out of the neighborhood. I'm not too worried about LBA because Tiger has most of his bombers committed to Australia at this point.

Otherwise I am just positioning my forces. It will be several days before my next round of minor invasions start, so unless Tiger starts a major early counterattack Things should continue to be quiet for the next few turns.

March 16, 1942 – I can usually tell when AuTiger has something big planned because he becomes impatient for the next move. For example, when I sent yesterday's turn to Tiger in the morning, I mentioned to him that I would likely be too busy for the rest of the day to be able to do another turn. Tiger sent his response during the day, and then in the evening he sent another an email asking if I would at least be able to run the turn so that I could "see" the combat replay and combat report. It was much too late for me to be able to do that, so I declined and apologized in an email response.

Never-the-less, Tiger's enthusiasm did tweak my curiosity. Just what was Tiger planning?

- An ambush of the Half-KB (East) off of Canton Island like he did in April 42 of our previous game?
- An ambush of my bombardment TF that was heading one more time from Gili-Gili to Port Moresby?
- A Doolittle-style raid of the Home Islands?
- Moving his 4E bombers to Java and ambushing my planes at Singapore?
- Some other dastardly plan? [X(]

So it was with some trepidation that I finally ran the turn this afternoon. And what happened? -

Nothing out of the ordinary.

What did happen? My bombardment TFs successfully hit Palembang and Macassar again. My Army bombers staged a big raid on Palembang and also successfully flew some other smaller raids on other targets. My troops finally capture Benkolen and landed at Memtok. My attack on Palembang reduced the fortifications to level 2 and achieved a 1:1 result. Since my troops at Palembang were in great shape afterwards I left them with instructions to attack again next turn.

Tiger sent some of his B-17s to hit the resources at Pagan, as well as some of his British 2E bombers flew against my advancing troops in Burma. And an Indian armoured regiment and a Chinese infantry regiment unsuccessfully attacked my armoured regiment in India.

After the turn ran I went over everything much more carefully than usual. I even looked at the Japanese SIGINT, and reaffirmed my belief that it isn't worth the effort. [;)] There were no Allied TFs spotted anywhere except for the Dutch PTs in Balikpapan.

I checked the Air Balance figures for bases all along the front lines, and even behind the lines on both sides in many places, but there was nothing out of the ordinary except for one case – Benkolen, where the air balance was negative 700 or so. But all of my other bases in Sumatra were in the positive 300+ range, so that result at Benkolen must have been a residual Allied value that wasn't re-set after I captured the base.

The only other explanation I can come up with for the value at Benkolen would be for the US CVs to be due west and moving in, but I don't know why the other bases under my control to the north and south of Benkolen wouldn't show a reduction of Air Balance concurrently.

And if by some chance Tiger is sending his US CVs in to raid my forces in Sumatra, I'm more than happy to let him. In one of my other pbems which is about 10 days ahead of this one, my opponent threw all of his US CVs and all of his Allied surface ships against Amboina, with the support of his 4E bombers. As of the third day of battle, three US carriers were sunk and a fourth was sinking, most of the Allied heavy surface ships were badly damaged, and the air bases at Amboina were still open and operating at 100%. And this was done only with my LBA and some small Japanese surface combat TFs – my CVs are still several days away from joining the fray, and three strong, fresh Japanese SC TFs will pull into the region within a few days too.

DB, in the report of March 16, you reference "checking the air balance" at various bases.  Is this a function found in the stock game or is it part of a utility you and Tiger are using?  Just curious.  I have no idea what that is.
 
Interesting game.  So very different from the one I am playing as the Allies.

ORIGINAL: princep01

DB, in the report of March 16, you reference "checking the air balance" at various bases.  Is this a function found in the stock game or is it part of a utility you and Tiger are using?  Just curious.  I have no idea what that is.

Interesting game.  So very different from the one I am playing as the Allies.

"Air Balance" is a stock game function. All you have to do is place your cursor over a base and look at the information window that pops up. If you control the base and have some combat aircraft there, you should see a positive air balance. Whether the air balance is positive or negative depends upon who has the most combat aircraft in the region.

So if you put your cursor over an enemy base that is far away from your bases, you should seen a positive air balance - that is for him. On the other hand, if you have a lot of planes at the front and look at an uncaptured enemy base you should see a negative air balance - it means that you have more combat planes than your opponent in that region.

Air balance is worth checking from time-to-time, particularly if you suspect that your opponent is massing aircraft. You don't want to send a few weak bombers and fighters against an enemy base that shows a big positive air balance. Also, if the air balance at some of your bases suddenly drops, it may mean that your opponent has brought his carriers nearby.

Good luck!

March 17, 1942 – The big news this turn was that Palembang finally fell after yet another naval bombardment and a deliberate attack by my troops. Since I had all of the other bases in Sumatra under my control the Dutch troops at Palembang surrendered and Sumatra is free of Dutch troops, other than one small base force fragment that is starving to the north somewhere.

I was fortunate that the resources and oil at Palembang weren't damaged too much. There are already a lot of both in store there, along with a lot of supplies. That will make the recovery of my invasion troops much easier. I have the invasion division, an engineering regiment and a base force already there and an air regiment and a construction unit are on their way.

The port and air fields at Palembang are badly damaged, so it will take a while to fix them up. So for now I am still flying LR CAP over the base. AuTiger did move 2E bombers back to Batavia and they attacked my supply convoys, but my LR CAP shot down several and damaged more. A few damaged Dutch fighters were also destroyed on the ground during the capture.

The invasion of Tarakan started in a serious manner this turn as two big naval bombardment TFs hit the base, caused lots of damage and casualties, and also destroyed a number of planes on the ground. My main invasion force started to land, and I've set them to try a deliberate assault next turn, but I don't expect it to succeed because the invasion supply TF that arrived prematurely last turn has sailed off. I have it returning along with another and the rest of the invasion force, but this will slow me down a bit.

My South Seas bombardment TF hit Port Moresby very nicely again this turn and started the long journey back to base. Since I was worried about a possible sneak attack by Tiger's CVs in the region I ordered the TF to return via the western route around New Guinea. Most of the ships in this TF have system damage in the 10-15 range now, which increases their visibility more than I like. I'll just have to take my chances on what LBA Tiger might have in Darwin.

My replacement bombardment TF arrived at Gili-Gili this turn as planned, so I ordered them off to PM for their first attack. Although the damage at PM remains high, the forces there are not yet low on supplies, as was shown by the amount of flak that was thrown up against my Army bomber attack this turn. It is just as well that I am planning on doing a long softening-up campaign on PM – I suspect that it will be difficult to take even with a couple of good divisions and support troops.

Further east in the South Pacific I spotted what might have been Tiger's "plan" that he had hoped would come to fruition last turn – a small combat TF was around five hexes to the east of Nukufetau. I'm guessing that Tiger sent them off to Nukufetau to try in intercept my incoming invasion TFs. But my TFs are still a couple of day's sail away.

My patrol planes tell me that the TF is returning to Canton Island, but I'm never certain of patrol reports, so I redirected my invasion TFs out of the region and placed the Half-KB (East) a hex to the west of Nanomea. This way if Tiger's TF is heading to those islands instead of away from them, my naval air units might get a shot at them.

I still have plenty of other invasions going on around the map. Muntok fell this turn and other troops landed at Tomini. Things are fairly quiet in China, other than my daily large scale aerial bombardments of Ichang, and the steady move of my troops along the road to Lanchow. Well, "steady" may not be the best word to use, because I am having some difficulty with "phantom" enemy zones of control, but this is surmountable if I am patient.

Thanks for the info about "air balance".  I've been playing for about 6 months and had never discovered this feature.

March 18, 1942 – The big news and big surprise this turn was that my invasion troops captured Tarakan easily on their first try, despite the mix-up with the supply TF. And to add to the good news the oil and resource facilities were untouched! The air fields and port are badly damaged, but my engineers will fix them quickly. So within a couple of days I ought to be operating aircraft out of the base.

Since my invasion division was in great shape I ordered them to continue down the road towards Samarinda after the fleeing Dutch troops. I also set the invasion of Balikpapan into motion by organizing an invasion TF at Manila and starting to load it with another infantry division. AuTiger still has his remaining Dutch PTs at Balikpapan, but I'll take care of them soon enough with my surface combat forces. In addition to Tarakan, other troops captured Tomini, and troops landed at Pontianak. But that is just a blocking force and the main invasion will come next turn.

There was a lot of rain this turn which delayed many of my air missions but didn't stop most because the majority of my bomber crews now have pretty good experience. On the other hand, only a couple of air missions flew for the Allies. I'm not certain how much of that is because of the bad weather, and how much is a case of Tiger resting up his aircrews. He did lose a fair number of planes to operational losses, so I'm guessing that the weather is the main issue for him.

I took the time to check around the air balance values in most of the critical regions. Surprisingly, the Allied air balance is very light over Tiger's Central Pacific outposts like Canton Island. Only Noumea has a fairly strong air balance. Equally surprising was the observation that the Allied air balance is fairly light in north-eastern Australia. However, the air balance is very large in Darwin, so it looks like Tiger is turning Darwin into a main defensive base. (I am getting very tempted to send the KB down the Australian east coast to see if I can pick off some ships in port.) India, as expected, is currently covered by overwhelming Allied air superiority. And the air balance at Soerabaja is moderate in the Allied favour, but nothing that can't be easily changed as my forward bases come into action.

Speaking of the KB, the Half-KB (East) didn't get a chance to go into action because Tiger's DDs vanished from the Nukufetau region. So I ordered my carriers to a point a couple of hexes due west of Nukufetau and also ordered my two invasion TFs to return to their orders to invade the two remaining islands in the group. It will be interesting to see if Tiger sends those DDs back.

In other news, the air fields at Madang reached level 2, so there is yet another base in the region that is now suitable for my 2E bombers. This helps to draw the noose around Port Moresby even tighter, particularly now that I know that Tiger isn't putting a lot of air power on the Australian mainland bases across the straights. I have a base force on its way to Thursday Island which will help tighten the noose even more. When I eventually go after PM I intend to have the surrounding region a complete death-trap of LBA, as well as having the full KB supporting the operation. Right now my best estimate is for a late April invasion.

March 19, 1942 – AuTiger pulled off yet another of his carrier surprises this turn, but things didn't work out as badly for me as in past pbems, maybe because of what I suspect that Tiger chose to do.

The turn started out unspectacularly with my naval bombardments of Port Moresby and Singkawang, and my troop landings at Singkawang and Toboali. The Dutch PTs moved to Tarakan where they were detected at night by my surface combat TF but weren't engaged until the daylight. For some reason this detection kept my transport TFs from running away. My SC TF fought with the Dutch PTs three times, sinking two PTs in the first round, sinking none and getting a DD torpedoed in the second round, and sinking two more PTs in the third round. Otherwise there were just a number of air raids by both sides in the Far East and a few other places. Then the main action took place off of Nukufetau in the south-central Pacific.

Once again Tiger had his US CVs split into four separate TFs and once again his air groups got the jump on mine and got three attacks on the Half-KB (East) before my planes got to attack the US CVs. Fortunately this time, the distance was too great for any US torpedo planes to participate in the attack. My CAP did quite well against the first attack, but the dive bombers in the second and third attacks got through to hit the Soryu quite hard. A later fourth US attack was weak and only put a bomb into a DD.

My first counterattack put a number of torpedoes and bombs into the Enterprise, sinking her right away. A number of other US ships also got hit. My second attack put several torpedoes and a couple of bombs into the Lexington, damaging her badly. At this point luck finally came to my rescue as the remaining US CVs sent their air attacks against one of my little invasion TFs, sinking the escort and one transport ship and severely damaging the other transport ship, but not sinking it.

So at the end of the day the Soryu was badly damaged and her planes had moved to the Shokaku and Akagi. Because there had been such large air losses during my attacks on the Enterprise and Lexington, neither undamaged ship is overloaded with planes. I moved my damaged DD, along with the DDs that are in the "red" as far as fuel goes into the TF with the Soryu, which can only make 2 knots. Unless the weather gives me a break I expect that the remaining two US CVs will finish off the Soryu next turn.

On the other hand, maybe luck will "strike" in my favour again since I am sending the undamaged transport TF and the damaged transport ship to Nukufetau. If Tiger doesn't send some combat ships to Nukufetau to interfere with my landings, I will get the troops ashore in the dark and then the transports will become sacrificial decoys. The Shokaku and Akagi ought to be able to make it safely to Tulagi – if Tiger chooses to send his remaining CVs after my two undamaged CVs, and guesses the right direction, he will then have to face my LBA at Lunga on the way in.

Never-the-less, I'm not happy at the result since I was ambushed again. Tiger is working from the theory that if you have your CVs travelling at full speed they will have more operational points left at the end of their move than if they are travelling at mission speed. That seems counterintuitive to me, because I would expect there to be fewer operational points left under those circumstances. But I did have my CVs move into position at "mission" speed, although they were set to "patrol", and they were within their max movement range. So maybe Tiger is on to something.

But the real deciding factor was the fact that I once again had the KB split in half. If I had the full KB in place fewer, and maybe no dive bombers would have gotten through, and my strikes on the US CVs would have been bigger. And I was also operating a long way outside of my air patrols again. In a case of "shutting the barn door after the horse got away", I moved a long-range patrol unit to Nauru Island this turn, which now gives me air patrol coverage of the area in question. This game is very unforgiving of dumb mistakes, so I have to find ways to stop myself from making them.

BTW – the final total for the day was 128 US planes lost against 66 Japanese planes lost. Most of my planes were lost in air-to-air battles or to flak. The USN lost a lot of planes to air-to-air, some to flak, and a lot to operational and "ground" losses – "ground" losses of carrier planes meaning that the planes went down with the carrier. Surprisingly, Tiger only lost one squadron of Devastators, which makes me suspect that he had replaced his torpedo planes on at least one of his CVs with an extra dive bomber group.

That is always a "tempting" choice for Allied players, but very dangerous in the early stages of the game because the Japanese ships have very good deck armor. In one of my other pbems my opponent appears to have done the same thing, and his CVs sent huge numbers of dive bombers against my battleships at Amboina with no effect except to lose huge numbers of dive bombers to flak and CAP, and in the resulting surface battles my essentially "untouched" surface combat ships battled his surface combat ships to a draw, preventing them from wrecking the airfields at Amboina and allowing my LBA to sink three out of four of his CVs and heavily damage the fourth (mainly with torpedoes).

In my CV losses in my other pbems, it was torpedoes from torpedo planes that damaged my ships enough to subsequently allow them to be sunk by dive and level bombers. In this pbem the dive bombers caused some damage to the AA guns of the Akagi and Shokaku, but didn't shut their flight decks nor slow them down in a serious manner. Only the Soryu received enough hits to cause serious damage.

March 20, 1942 - AuTiger is an aggressive and smart player. He figures out how to leverage the odds in his favor and takes smart risks. So it is very tough to rely upon "luck" when playing against him. The current situation in the south-central Pacific illustrates this very well.

After last turn in which I sank the Enterprise outright and damaged the Lexington badly I figured that there was some small chance that Tiger might pull back. But on the other hand, since this is the fourth game that I've played against him, I also figured that there was a good chance that he would push forward regardless. Sure enough, this turn his undamaged CVs had moved from the east of Nukufetau to the west of Nukufetau, essentially where my CV TF had been last turn.

My undamaged CVs were far away and out of detection range, but the heavily damaged Soryu was only a couple of hexes away, so a number of full air attacks hammered the Soryu and put her under once and for all. The US CVs then sent their planes after the DD escorts of the Soryu, sinking a couple and damaging a couple more, and then after the retiring now-empty transport TF that was up at Nanomea.

Tiger wrote to me that this wasn't a "planned" ambush, but that he had given up on trapping my CVs near Canton Island and was sending his CVs to intercept my "PM Express". So this battle was a case of the "blind fighting the blind" to a good extent. Never-the-less, there was a critically important message in this battle - Tiger had ALL of his US combat ships dedicated to this operation. There were five carriers in five separate air combat TFs!

After last turn I had thought that Tiger only had four of his CVs in action. But in reality he had me outnumbered five carriers to three! So I really got away with murder last turn and should have been wiped out, as happened to me in my other earlier pbems. Instead we traded CVs and Tiger has a second CV that is badly damaged. So in retrospect, I was very, very lucky last turn.

To give you an idea of the criticality of operating within your own Intel/Patrol zones, this turn the patrol planes that I belatedly placed at Nauru Island spotted the retreating Lexington TF as well as confirmed the presence of three undamaged CV TFs. I am still kicking myself for being so inexcusably stupid in not putting a patrol unit there game-weeks earlier.

I made another move last turn that seemed "smart" at the time but turned out to be pretty dumb in hindsight - moving those low-fuel DDs into the Soryu TF. I did that thinking that:

1) Tiger only had two undamaged CVs left, and
2) He would be cautious and might not chase after my cripples

I would have been better off creating individual SC TFs for each low-fuel DD and then sending them off in all different directions. As it was I just gave Tiger four ships for "free".

Oh well, live and learn. At least my other two CVs got away and are safely on their way to Tulagi. Shokaku will need to go to a major port to get her AA guns repaired, but Akagi is in reasonably good shape. Both ships will need to reinforce their air units, but I don't want to do that until I have the TF safely in port and can decide my next move. There is no point in filling the air units with untrained rookies.

Speaking of air units, my "dumb luck" continued in a way, as I was able to transfer the salvaged air units from the Soryu to Tulagi. There is a level 2 air base there and lots of air support, so if Tiger does decide to send his undamaged CVs near the Solomons, I might be able to make him regret that move.

There was lots of other action elsewhere, including lots of bomber attacks on both sides. Tiger sent his heavy bombers out against resources at several different undefended bases. My forces hammered air fields at various locations in China and the Dutch East Indies. Tiger and I have very different philosophies on how to play the game - Tiger tries to optimize what the game allows him to do, while I try to see if I can simply capture enough bases now and worry about the rest later. It is obvious to me that I can't do anything about Tiger's LBA other than to try to capture the more important LBA bases. And once Tiger gets his good planes and fleet carriers in 1943 there won't be much of anything at all that I will be able to do unless I've moved the front lines way, way out by then.

My troops captured Singkawang, Toboali and Nukufetau this turn. Pontianak received another naval bombardment and my planes hit Balikpapan hard. Both attacks destroyed a number of Dutch fighters on the ground. The Dutch PTs are retreating towards Balikpapan while my forces at Tarakan consolidate their gains and start to move forward.

In China my armored regiments kicked the Hopei Militia yet another hex towards Lanchow. Tiger has decided to try to distract me my sending some of his units out of Yenen and towards my forces to the south, but I have lots of units in the region and they have rested up nicely so I'm more than happy to fight it out in the open.

Tiger's forces are slowly cleaning up my remnants in India. I've stopped planning to reopen that initiative due to the results of the battle of Nukufetau, and I've sent my CVs in Singapore along the back route to the Central Pacific. Once Tiger replenishes his remaining US CVs I expect him to continue to send them on their way to Australia and attempt once more to re-open PM. Slowly but surely Tiger is wresting the initiative away from me.

It was really fun to watch this CV engagement unfold.  Of course, getting to read both player's plans and objectives made it clear that a CV duel was potentially in the works near Nukufetau.  Amazing how it happened and that three IJN fleet CVs could survive th eonslaught of US dive bombers as well as they did.
 
Interesting how these things happen sometimes.  At Jutland, the engagement was intiated by either the Germans or the English (I forget which) checking out a fishing boat with scouting cruisers.  The scout forces skirmish....the next thing you know, the air is full of coal smoke, heavy shells and burnt cordite as the battle ebbs and flows.
 
Are you going to swear off splitting the KB now?
 
Also, you note the quality deck armor of the Japanese ships and the consequent resistance to bombs.  I have two thoughts.  First, were you talking about BBs and cruisers (the CV had no deck armor to speak of)?  Second, I have never played the Japanese.  About what level of system damage does a 500 pound bomb to to a IJN CA?  CV?  I'm guessing about 10% to a CA...less to a BB.  I have no idea on a CV, but it should be fairly high.