Once Again into the Breach - Mike (J) vs. tc464 (A)

[Mike Solli]

I'd run it during the game but we're heading out to our son-in-law/daughter's place to watch the rest of the game.

[rustysi]

Mike, I hope you'd know me enough to know I was only teasing. Enjoy the games. Myself I stopped watching football years ago. I will however check the scores from time to time.

[Mike Solli]

Yep, I know. Now back to the war...

12 Dec 43

Sub War

The Muskallunge sank an Aden (carrying resources) a hex south of Kobe. I’m intensifying my aerial search and ASW there and sending as many ASW TFs in the area as I can spare from patrolling the Home Islands to sink or drive her off (as well as another sub in the hex to the west. Akagi and Soryu are scheduled to complete their repairs in 2 and 3 days and I want to send them out. I don’t want to send them into the Sea of Japan then out to the west if I don’t have to.

There was some other action, but it was part of a bigger action, so it will be chronicled later.

5 Fleet

Nothing to report.

4 Fleet

The US carrier TF (either 3 CVs or 2 CVs and 2-3 CVLs) reappeared in the Marshalls. I had a couple of xAKLs hauling supply to some of the fringe islands and they got caught by some carrier planes. Both were sunk, but at least 18 torpedoes were expended. (Gotta look on the bright side.)

Roi-Namur’s airfield is repairing enough that the damaged planes are repairing now. As they repair, I fly them to Truk. Ted is content with sweeping that hex and not bombing it.

SE Fleet

No Allied 4E bombers hit Truk today. Yay! Maybe the damage to them was greater than I thought. I still see ~185 bombers at Kavieng but they’re content with recovering from the previous day’s attack.

Truk’s damage is 0-54-85, so the airfield is still closed. Should the airfield recover, I'll post some IJAAF fighters there, for fun and experience. No more IJNAF fighters will be posted to Truk.

There’s an Allied BB TF tooling around 6-7 hexes SW of Truk. I had 4 DDs in the area trying to intercept, along with 4-5 subs. The big mistake I made was it was 100% moonlight. Still, I think it was worth it.

They caught the enemy TF 6 hexes SW of Truk:

Japanese Ships
DD Asashio, Shell hits 1, on fire
DD Oshio
DD Michishio, Shell hits 14, and is sunk
DD Arashio, Shell hits 4, and is sunk

Allied Ships
BB Maryland, Shell hits 3, Torpedo hits 1, on fire
BB Arizona, Shell hits 4
BB Massachusetts, Shell hits 14
CA Chicago, Shell hits 1
CA Pensacola
CLAA San Juan, Shell hits 2
CL Raleigh, Shell hits 1
CL Trenton
DD Waller
DD Woodworth, Shell hits 1, on fire
DD Flusser

The remaining DDs got away. That torpedo hit on Maryland slowed her enough for this:

Sub attack near Truk at 109,114

Japanese Ships
SS RO-104

Allied Ships
BB Maryland, Torpedo hits 2, on fire, heavy damage
CLAA San Juan

My sub got away without damage. Later in the day she ran into what was probably an ASW TF:

Sub attack near Truk at 109,114

Japanese Ships
SS RO-104, hits 5

Allied Ships
DD Kalk, Torpedo hits 1, heavy damage
DD Mahan

She had light damage but her forward tubes were damaged, so she’s headed home. I’m hoping the remaining subs will catch Maryland and put her out of her misery.

SRA

All quiet down here.

Burma

The only reaction to me was a single Hurricane IIb over Kalemyo, which was shot down. My bombers damaged the airfield a bit, so at least it not building this turn.

China

The air bombardment of Chungking killed 5 steps (all infantry) and disabled another 171.

Then, the vaunted deliberate assault went in with the entire army:

Ground combat at Chungking (76,45)

Japanese Deliberate attack

Attacking force 308496 troops, 3102 guns, 1883 vehicles, Assault Value = 11232

Defending force 341011 troops, 558 guns, 0 vehicles, Assault Value = 9687

Japanese adjusted assault: 2850

Allied adjusted defense: 4819

Japanese assault odds: 1 to 2 (fort level 0)

Combat modifiers
Defender: terrain(+), leaders(+), supply(-)
Attacker: disruption(-)

Japanese ground losses:
28908 casualties reported
Squads: 80 destroyed, 2592 disabled
Non Combat: 5 destroyed, 154 disabled
Engineers: 4 destroyed, 251 disabled
Guns lost 152 (4 destroyed, 148 disabled)
Vehicles lost 24 (3 destroyed, 21 disabled)

Allied ground losses:
42507 casualties reported
Squads: 672 destroyed, 2258 disabled
Non Combat: 748 destroyed, 1395 disabled
Engineers: 9 destroyed, 24 disabled
Guns lost 115 (26 destroyed, 89 disabled)
Units destroyed 17

The Allied troops lost increased by 110, which coincides nicely with the assault. My troops lost increased by 14, so I lost about 42 squads. Nice! That also coincides with the attack results.

My divisions are in really nice shape, other than being disrupted and fatigued, both in the upper 80s to low 90s. We’ll see what they look like in a week. I’d love to attack again that soon but I suspect it’ll be 10-14 days to the next attack.

Only a few of the destroyed units were infantry, but the other infantry units have to be in bad shape with those kinds of losses.

I must have rolled poorly, because my adjusted AV was only 420 higher than the last attack with only 5k raw AV. The Chinese adjusted AV was down from 9081 to 4819 from the previous attack. The daily bombing and artillery are doing a number on the Chinese. Their days are numbered.

Total Chinese infantry squads destroyed this month is 881.

Other Stuff

Reinforcement: DD Hayashimo (Yugumo class), KB escort

The current Ki-102b Randy FB R&D is 2x30 and a third at 24(6). The current operational date is 10/44 with the 2 factories accelerating it to mid-April 44. That last factory will not help more than a few days, so I have converted it to my first J7W1 Shinden R&D factory.

I got confirmation that the SS Gato and an xAK sank in August and July 1943, respectively.

[Lowpe]

You should be able to do better than every ten days.

Break your units into thirds, put them into reserve, non pursuit mode, and reassemble in four days and attack on the fifth. Any unit with close to 50% disruption move west onto the road to rest, where you should have a HQ to help them.

Keep the infrastructure bombed so no forts are built, and you will have Chungking shortly.

[rustysi]

Japanese Ships
DD Asashio, Shell hits 1, on fire
DD Oshio
DD Michishio, Shell hits 14, and is sunk
DD Arashio, Shell hits 4, and is sunk

Allied Ships
BB Maryland, Shell hits 3, Torpedo hits 1, on fire
BB Arizona, Shell hits 4
BB Massachusetts, Shell hits 14
CA Chicago, Shell hits 1
CA Pensacola
CLAA San Juan, Shell hits 2
CL Raleigh, Shell hits 1
CL Trenton
DD Waller
DD Woodworth, Shell hits 1, on fire
DD Flusser

The remaining DDs got away. That torpedo hit on Maryland slowed her enough for this:

Sub attack near Truk at 109,114

Japanese Ships
SS RO-104

Allied Ships
BB Maryland, Torpedo hits 2, on fire, heavy damage
CLAA San Juan

My sub got away without damage. Later in the day she ran into what was probably an ASW TF:

Sub attack near Truk at 109,114

Japanese Ships
SS RO-104, hits 5

Allied Ships
DD Kalk, Torpedo hits 1, heavy damage
DD Mahan

Nice little action. I'd say one or two more torps into Maryland and she's gone. Happy hunting.[;)]

[rustysi]

Chungking results look promising.

IMHO two more attacks by the end of the month should do the trick.

[Mike Solli]

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

You should be able to do better than every ten days.

Break your units into thirds, put them into reserve, non pursuit mode, and reassemble in four days and attack on the fifth. Any unit with close to 50% disruption move west onto the road to rest, where you should have a HQ to help them.

Keep the infrastructure bombed so no forts are built, and you will have Chungking shortly.

Hmm, never thought of reserve mode. They're sitting in Chungking in combat mode right now. Funny comment about disruption. My lowest disruption is 83%. [:D] Losses are very light, maybe 2-3 AV destroyed per division. I need to check on disablements, but my raw AV decreased only 1796, primarily to disablements. I may keep them in divisions because the division commander usually reduces fatigue and disruption faster than the colonels and I'm more concerned about that than raw AV. Anyway, I'll see how much they recover next turn (since it's too late to change anything anyway).

[Lowpe]

Your right Mike, I meant 50% disablements. Fatigue is another worry, disruption normally falls super fast.

[Mike Solli]

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

Your right Mike, I meant 50% disablements. Fatigue is another worry, disruption normally falls super fast.

Disablement, disruption, I get them mixed up all the time. Ok, disablements. The army is composed of 24 infantry divisions and 1 tank division. The disablement levels are as follows:

1 at 29 - it started with significant disablements before the assault.
3 at 15
1 at 16
The rest are at 0-5.

This is not an issue.

Averages:

Fatigue: 83.6%
Disruption: 87.7%
Disablements: 8.3%

[Lokasenna]

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

You should be able to do better than every ten days.

Break your units into thirds, put them into reserve, non pursuit mode, and reassemble in four days and attack on the fifth. Any unit with close to 50% disruption move west onto the road to rest, where you should have a HQ to help them.

Keep the infrastructure bombed so no forts are built, and you will have Chungking shortly.

If you're going to move out, you may as well move to Kienko where they'll recover even better inside a base than outside of one.

[Mike Solli]

To be honest, I'm not sure what I'm going to do. In the past, I was resting the troops at Kienko (that's the base 2 hexes west, right?). I'm still waiting for the turn and want to see how they recover sitting in Chungking. It takes the divisions 3 days to march to that base. I know they'll recover faster, but 6 days of marching with little recovering during that time may not be worth it. If they recover only a couple of points in Chungking, I'll probably do it though. We'll see. All I care about at this point is recovering disruption and fatigue. 8% disablements isn't an issue.

[rustysi]

Yeah, disruption recovers pretty quickly if you do nothing. Fatigue takes more time. From what you show above, both are pretty high.

You should be able to recover both much more quickly than your opponent, especially if you can maintain the air and artillery bombardments.

[rustysi]

It takes the divisions 3 days to march to that base. I know they'll recover faster, but 6 days of marching with little recovering during that time may not be worth it.

Good point, wish I had an answer for ya.

Just thought of this, they'll also use more supply marching back and forth.

[Lowpe]

Mikes troops at Chungking are in great shape, and he should't wait long to attack again. IMHO.

[ny59giants]

Mu OCD-ness is showing, but double check your leaders. Especially those that you have divided and recombined.

[Mike Solli]

ORIGINAL: ny59giants_MatrixForum

Mu OCD-ness is showing, but double check your leaders. Especially those that you have divided and recombined.

Ooh, hadn't looked at that. The turn just came in. I'll do that after I run it. I've divided and recombined every Japanese division attacking Chungking multiple times.

[Mike Solli]

I ran the turn. I need to finish it and send it back, but I took a look at the 25 divisions that are sitting in Chungking in combat mode. Here's how they recovered:

Immediately after the battle:

Fatigue: 83.6%
Disruption: 87.7%
Disablements: 8.3%

1 Day later:

Fatigue: 75.3% - down 8.3%
Disruption: 62.7% - down 25.0%!
Disablements: 7.1% - down 1.2%

Very interesting...

[Mike Solli]

ORIGINAL: ny59giants_MatrixForum

Mu OCD-ness is showing, but double check your leaders. Especially those that you have divided and recombined.

Michael, I looked at all the division commanders at Chungking. It appears all were probably the same. Nothing out of the ordinary. I did replace 4 or 5 of them with better commanders, but I think it was ok.

[Mike Solli]

13 Dec 43

Sub War

It was a very nice day for our ASW forces, for the most part. DD Nokaze caught and hit the Paddle once in the shallow area just off Shanghai. After the turn, she was nowhere to be seen, so I suspect she's headed home.

The little Ch-50 hit the Tarpon (and damaged her tubes too!) just south of Kobe. Yesterday, Muskellunge sank a freighter there, and I saw another sub in the area too. Maybe Tarpon was the other sub? At any rate, the area is flooded with ASW TFs and naval search and ASW aircraft. I want to drive them away when Akagi and Soryu are repaired in a couple of days.

The E Hayabusa hit Gudgeon just off Babeldaob twice, heavily damaging her. I still see a sub in the hex though. [8|]

There was no confirmation of any of the subs sinking.

To put a damper on all the good news, the Wahoo torpedoed and sank the W-4 just off Adak. That rotten sub has sunk at least 3 of those escorts there. Can't seem to get her.

5 Fleet

The BB TF just replenished at Ominato and is beginning the long trek back to Umnak. The deliberate assault will commence on the day the BBs bombard. Right now, my total AV is 300 while the Allied AV is 113.

4 Fleet

A US CV TF is still hanging around in the Marshalls, to the east of Kwajalein. Today, their DBs hit Maleolap and Roi-Namur's airfields, causing light damage to both. I still think there are 3 CVs in the TF.

I have Kaga, Shokaku, Chitose and Chiyoda moving from Babeldaob to Saipan, a day out. I have the 3 Unryus at Saipan. I'm considering sending both TFs to the Marshalls to take on the US carriers. Combined, they have 400 aircraft. In addition, I could probably station 100 or so LBA at the various airfields there to support my carriers. I'll make that decision tomorrow.

SE Fleet

Not much happened here today other than a handful of 4E bombers hitting Hollandia and 60x 2E bombers hitting Rabaul, both to no effect.

That BB TF south of Truk has disappeared.

Truk's damaged has decreased to 0-54-52. The airfield is still closed but repairing.

SRA

Nothing to report.

Burma

Bad weather prevented most missions in Burma. Only a Frank sentai flew over Akyab shooting down 2 Hurricanes for the loss of a Frank.

China

The artillery and air bombardment killed 33 squads (23 infantry) and disabled another 204.

Before the attack, the raw AVs were as follows:

Japan: 11,232
China: 9687

and today:

Japan: 9280
China: 6745

The difference is that mine will recover. Also, for the first time, my total strength is higher than the Chinese.

Japan: 350k (177k infantry)
China: 304k

I feel the end is near, finally. Well, not really. There still are 4 other Chinese forces out there, all surrounded and starving. One has ~90-100k and is stuck in a town in clear terrain. The other 3 are in woods, one of ~40k and the other two individual units probably with just a few thousand each. I'll focus on the last three with my bombers practicing on the guys in the clear. But those last 4 forces are just clean up, really.

Edit: 904 infantry squads destroyed this month.

Other Stuff

Reinforcement: 14 Base Force, SE Fleet, not sure where I'm sending this unit with its nice CD guns yet.

The Ki-43-IV R&D advanced to 6/44 (will be operational 2/44). This will free up 4 R&D factories.
The Ki-84r R&D advanced to 6/44 (will be operational 2/44). This will free up 6 R&D factories.

One thing I realized recently is that Zuikaku (144 days to complete repairs) will be repaired within a couple of weeks of the last 3 Unryus. (They're all accelerated and will be until completion next spring.) That's another 260 plane capacity coming pretty much at the same time. Banzai!

Yeah, I know, it probably won't matter, but he probably figures Zuikaku is gone and has no idea about the other 3 carriers. It could come as a nasty surprise. [;)]

[Bif1961]

If you think he only has 3 carriers attacking the Marshalls you should go for it because if you sink any of his carriers that will help delay the ultimate attack on your inner defensive ring. With the Japanese 1943 becomes the time I want to sink his carriers but I don't want to lose mine if I guess wrong. However, by 1944 his reinforcements in carriers will normally overwhelm that decision cycle and force you to confront his carriers as he drives into your inner defensive ring. So better to do it now, with an advantage, then be forced to do it later at a larger disadvantage.