jwilkerson(Jpn) Moses (Allies)

[Ken Estes]

JW, can we see a bit more of India, north of your last screenshot? Do you have recce to show garrisons, etc? Where are your Tinas and 1/2 Abn Rgt? If there is so much of the Indian Army forward deployed, are there not undefended cities? Just curious,  Ken 

[jwilkerson]

3/21/43

Ken ... I'll post another Burma shot shortly. At the front Moses is showing three Indian divisions. Two at Mytchina and one at Akyab. So probably not the whole Indian OOB forward yet. The other forward units are all brits.

Air War:
Total Losses (allied/japanese): 34/23
Air to air losses (allied/japanese): 20/11

Another moderate day in the air war. We deployed two fresh IJA exp80 air units forward to Pagan, the support base 2 hexes behind both Akyab and Mandalay. One group has Tony the other Tojo.

Burma:
Moses lost another PT boat to the minefields at Akyab. He's doing a good job sinking the PTs .. but needs to work harder!


Oz:
Still see some guys milling around SW of Derby.

Aleutians:
Another possible bombardment force has appeared NE of Adak. Could be headed to anywhere, even Kiska. A group built around the Hiryu and containing the Mutsu and Musashi are heading up to Kiska to reinforce the Taiyo/Unyo/Hosho/Nagato group. The Chuyo is headed back to the Home Is. for repairs.

[jwilkerson]

3/25/43

Air War:
Total Losses (allied/japanese): 99/24
Air to Air Losses (allied/japanese): 74/14

The two new exp 80 air units (1 each of Tony/Tojo) at Pagan (support base for Akyab and Mandalay, 2 hexes from each) made a difference today, shooting down a few Allied bombers. But more importantly bringing a bit of respite for the defenders of Akyab on the ground.

Two more exp 80 air units have been released from training and are transitioning, 1 each to Tony and Tojo. They will enter the fight in Burma within a week. And thus 2 beat up units were pulled out of Burma and sent back for replacements and training.

Burma:
The 16 ID convoy is at Victoria Point heading for Rangoon.

Oz:
We now see 4 units heading towards Derby from Perth. This causes an alert and may divert the 38ID currently heading towards Kendari from Palau. In addition we see one unit heading towards Darwin. There are two Sally units at Derby and one at Darwin that will begin bombing the intruders.

Aleutians:
The Taiyo/Unyo/Hosho/Nagato group will sortie to the NE of Kiska this turn to show itself. The Hiryu/Musashi/Mutsu group are passing the Kuriles enroute to Kiska.

I still owe a shot of Burma!

[jwilkerson]

3/27/43

Air War:
Total Losses (allied/japanese): 73/69
Air to Air losses (alles/japnese): 49/54

Moses focused on maximizing front end fighter strength at Akyab, whereas our guys mostly avoided action today. In the Aleutians things heated up considerably. Moses is doing an invasion of Adak and our carrier group drew a series of strikes from Atka, thus exacerbating the air losses on both sides.

Burma:
The 16ID is unloading at Rangoon.

Oz:
We definitely see HQs and Divisions and other units heading NE from Perth to Derby. We are diverting the 38ID currently passing through the "beak" of NG to head towards Derby. Also we are sending 4 Tabby Chutai to Darwin to fly in the 16A HQ to Derby. Looks like Moses is making a real attempt on Derby. But so far we only see one Armored Regt heading North towards Darwin, so that side still looks like a feint.

Aleutians:
Moses is unloading at Adak. Minefields, coastal guns and several strafing strikes from our CVE group have sunk several Lxy craft and other small units but quite a few DDs and AKs and such have also been damaged. We will be linking up the Hiryu/Mutsu/Musashi group with the Taiyo/Hosho/Unyo/Nagato group this turn. The AA ammo of the CVE group is still adequate to continue the battle. At Kiska two Nell Chutai, one Kate and one Val Daitai are supported by a number of Zero and Jack Chutai. strikes out to Adak are authorized. We will see if anyone will fly.

Looks like the Allies are finally starting to turn the "offense" knob to the right!

Here is a shot of one of many airstrikes against the Taiyo/Hosho/Unyo/Nagato group this turn. The IJN ships took no hits.

[jwilkerson]

3/29/43

Air War:
Total Losses (allied/japanese): 71/41
Air To Air (allied/japanese): 50/32

Burma:
16ID unloading complete at Rangoon, this unit will prep for Akyab and repair some disabled elements prior to proceeding to Akyab. The 18A HQ is also preparing to relive the 15A HQ at Akyab. The 55ID is concentrating at Rangoon at the Burma Army reserve. Up in the hills between Lashio and Mytchina, the IJA para units, with armor support are reducing two cut off Chinese units.

Oz:
The Ozzians are performing an interesting "march" up the rail line from Perth to Derby. We see 4 units. One is an HQ, one an Armored unit and one an Infantry Division.
Over by Darwin we see two units, one an Armored unit and the other an Infantry Bde.
A SAG consisting of Ise/Hyuga and 6 DD are departing Singapore for Soerabaja. They will support Northern Oz as needed.
The 38ID is proceeding towards Derby through the NG "Beak".

Aleutians:
The Americans continue to unload at Adak. Our mines are gone and so is our supply. The American attacks reduced our forts from Level 6 down to Level 4. We probably won't last out the next turn. Certainly not more than 2 turns.
The combined Hiryu/Mushashi/Mutsu and Taiyo/Unyo/Hosho/Nagato groups fought off numerous American LBA attacks this turn with no hits to the ships.


Here is a pic of Burma. Per Ken's question above, we note that a number of rear area Allied bases appear empty, however, we know for instance the main airbases (most of those showing empty) are not actually empty. And I've seen Japanese airborne units "bounce" off Allied baseforces containing zero assault value. In fact this happened in this game when I dropped an airborne unit on either Windham or Derby during my initial assault back in January '42. And while all 5 Japanese airborne units are in Burma now I do not anticipate using them to attack the Allied distant rear. Cost/benefit ratio just doesn't seem to be there.

[jwilkerson]

And here is a pic of Oz, showing the Allied units advancing towards Derby and Darwin.

[jwilkerson]

3/29/43

And here is a pic of the Aleutians showing our carrier groups NW of Amchitka and the American invasion proceeding at Adak.

[jwilkerson]

3/31/43

Air War:
Total Losses(Allied/Japanese): 55/43
Air To Air Losses(Allied/Japanese): 27/22

Burma:
Four new artillery units from China will be unloading at Rangoon.

We committed the second new pair of Tony/Tojo (72 planes total)(Exp 80 for both) to Pagan. Massed Corsairs 60+ in number have reduced out effectiveness, though we still tend to even the numbers up by shooting now unescorted bombers. It is the Corsairs trying to shoot down the Tonys with the Tojos in Support and the remaining Tony then shooting down the bulk of the unescorted bombers.

Aleutians:

The Musashi/Mutsu/Nagato/5CA/4CL/4DD SAG went in to the Adak invasion hex to slay the eeville Americans. But it seems they had finished unloading and departed, leaving us only a line of PTs ... and I have yet to find a cost effective way to take out PTs, so I do my best to ignore them. Unfortunately they don't always reciprocate and this battle resulted in 2 torp hits on the Atago. Later she took several 500 pound bomb hits and is currently disbanded at Kiska at 28/55/8 so she should survive There is the 9th Fleet HQ at Kiska providing 4 shifts and there is a base level 3 port. The carriers joined up into the Hiryu/Taiyo/Unyo/Hosho group. Next turn the SAG will link up with the carriers and await events.

First, here is the pic of the battle. We did get two PTs for our trouble.

[jwilkerson]

3/31/43

And here is the shot of the Aleutians. The SAG has just refueled/rearmed at Kiska and will rejoin the carriers to the NE of Kiska. We have also added a 3xDD ASW group following the carriers to assist against the mass of subs that seem to be out here.

[jwilkerson]

3/31/43

And here is Northern Oz. You can see the 38ID convoy at the extreme NE of the map. We have increased convoy speed to full, but it will still be several days before the convoy reaches Derby. Also four Chutai of Tabby's have arrived at Darwin to fly the 16A HQ over to Derby. That operation will also take several days. The 16A HQ has switched its planning target to Derby. Moses does not do serious attacks without HQs and we already see one heading to Derby, so we need to counter with commiting our own HQ. Question is, is this part of a plan to uncover Darwin. We should actually assume so. Moses certainly has to troops to pile on to Darwin, so why not do it? We will commit a Dinah III (13 hex range) to Darwin in a couple of turns.

[jwilkerson]

4/1/43

Start of April 1943.


Japanese Naval Situation:

Carriers:
Akagi/Kaga: In Home Islands, Kaga will upgrade April 43 this should be brief, The Akagi is ready. We hope the Division will proceed to sea within the week. Both airgroups are complete.

Shokaku/ZuiKaku: In Home Islands. Zuikaku is completing upgrade and her airgroup is complete. Shokaku has completed upgrade but needs one more Kate and crew to be ready for sea. This Division should also proceed to sea this week.

Soryu: In Home Islands damage now 10 but then still needs to upgrade. Ready for sea is 14-20 days.
Hiryu: In the Aleutians, flagship of the Northern Fleet Carrier Group. Yesterday in action her strike group shot down 3 Kittyhawks and 1 Hurricane and sank 3 American LSTs, and damaged a CLAA and an AK. For the loss of 2 Vals and 1 Kate.

Junyo/Hiyo: At Singapore undergoing upgrade.

Shoho/Zuiho/Ryujo/Ryuho: In Home Islands refitting. Airgroups will need to accept raw replacements, so the four CVLs will proceed to Soerabaja to train up their airgroups. Ready for sea within the week.

Taiyo/Unyo/Hosho: Part of Northern Fleet Carrier Group. In action for past 4 days against US aircraft and ships off the Aleutians.
Chuyo: Under repair at Miazuru. Sysdmg=32

Battleships:
Musashi: In the Aleutians, flagship of the Northern Fleet Surface Action Group. Yesterday in action against enemy PT boats off Adak.
Yamoto: In Home Islands, preparing to upgrade. Ready for sea within a month.

Nagtao/Mutsu: Part of Northern Fleet SAG. Also in action yesterday against USN PTs.

Ise/Hyuga: Off Palembang enroute to Soerabaja to provide support to Northern Oz as necessary.

Fuso/Yamashiro: At Singapore, repairing minor damage while Junyo/Hiyo upgrade.

Kongo/Haruna/Hiei: At Rangoon, awaiting fuel, which is enroute off Singpore. Recently complete 3 bombardment runs to Akyab.

Kirishima: Under repair at Miazuru. SysDmg 10. Ready for sea in about 2-3 weeks.

Big question is where to deploy the main carrier force. While I would like to mass the carriers in one mob, I'm also not comfortable leaving either the Gulf Martaban or the Aleutians bare. Martaban has more LBA on our side, but also is the most critical sector. And currently at least, Moses seems to be allowing us to dominate at sea in this area. In the Aleutians, the fleet's presence seems to be a limiting factor for Moses. And we still haven't seen carriers or 4EB or P-38s (or Corsairs) in this theater so Moses seems comfortable running this as a side show. Over the next six months, we will see another 4 CVE, 2 CV, and 2 CVL join our fleet giving us a theoretical maximum strength of 24 carriers of all flavors. But by that point the Allies will probably have at least that many (counting all carriers of USN and RN). We certainly will not win the carrier race, but fleet in being has a good bit of delay potential and can actually do some damage, though the battles in the Aleutians are probably typical though scaled down a good bit.

[jwilkerson]

4/1/43

Air Situation:

Fighters.

The IJA have 28 of the 36 plane Sentai. Broken down as follows:
6xTony
6 Tojo
4 Oscar
12 Nate
The above are split between Burma, Manilla and China. There are currently 2 Tony Sentai in China. All Oscars and Nates are in Manilla and 6 Tojo and 4 Tony units are in Burma. So exactly 1/3rd of IJA fighter strength is deployed in Burma.
And there are also 6 Tony Chutai of 12 planes each all in China.

The IJA also have 3 x 36 Plane Nick units, 2 NF and 1 FB. These are training up, two at Manilla the third enroute to Manilla.

On the IJN side, there are 21 land based Daitai of 27 planes each. There are broken down as follows:
9xJack
12xZero (including 1 each on Taiyo and Unyo)
And there are three 9 plane Chutai with 1 of these having Jacks and 2 having Zeros.

And there are also 5 of the 9 plane Rufe Chutai, these are all deployed in support of the Aleutians.

4 Jack Units are deployed in Burma and 4 are deployed in Papua. The 9th one is deployed at Kiska.
Of the 10 Zero units, 4 are in training at Soerabaja, 2 are aboard the CVE and one has just arrived in the Home Islands. The others are scattered across the Central Pacific from Rabaul to Tarawa.

We have a total of 1686 Land based fighters and 261 carrier based fighters yeilding a grand total of 1947 fighters of all flavors.

Carrier Air

Total carrier based planes include 261 fighters and 383 Kates and Vals, for a total of 644 Aircraft aboard the 16 IJN carriers.

Total Vals and Kates ashore are 173.

We built Kate and Val inventories up to 300 each and then switched all production over to Jill and Judy research. We will have 100+ of each, they are scheduled to arrive in Dec/Nov 43 respectively. Likewise we are building up A6m5 research to 100+ scheduled to arrive 9/43 so we will have a full generation of replacement aircraft within about 6 months, in time for the 8 new carriers to arrive.

[marky]

good stuff!

love the style ya use j!

[jwilkerson]

Thanks, but check out Pauk's style, he is a true master. [&o][&o] He packs about 10 screen shots worth of info onto one screen. I fear with my skills doing that would take me a week!

Anyway real world has been chomping on me again this week so I've missed a couple of turns ... but here is where we are now.

4/6/43


Air War:
Total Losses (A/J) 44/43
Air to Air (A/J) 25/23

After two hecquetic turns where total losses were about 150/200 (A.J) things have settled down again. We tried an ill-advised ploy of committing about 6 EXP80 airgroups of Jacks and Tojos to directly defend Akyab. They didn't do nearly as well as the "sniping" tactics we've been using. But now we know to stick with the "sniping" tactics. So those are back in place now.

Aleutians:
Our fleet is still dancing around and Moses is still stuck at Adak although I suspect he can take it when ever he wants.

Northern Oz:
Well the "big stack" first headed towards Wyndam but then reversed course and is now headed towards Darwin. We just unloaded the 38 ID at Wyndam and flew the 16A HQ over to Wyndam. So those deployments are now being switched back to Darwin. Darwin is our strongest base in Northern Oz, so we hope it can hold until reinforcements arrive. We've piled Sally's into Darwin but they will need considerable time to dent the many divisions it seems are in front of us.
Lots of stuff is on the way to Northern Oz.

[jwilkerson]

4/8/43

Air War:
Total Losses (A/J): 72/51
Air to Air (A/J): 47/36

Things have settled down a bit, we've gone back to our snipping tactics over Akyab. This turn did see a victory of sorts as Moses expended many bombing sorties in the Burma theater on the airbases at Akyab and Pagan (the support base 2 hexes to the rear of Akyab).

Burma:
We are preparing to send the 16ID and the 18A HQs to Akyab.

Aleutians:
The Americans used their battleline to sink some of our barges. We did another one of our night surface sweeps of Adak, but nobody home. The Americans did manage to bounce a 500 Lbr off the Musashi, dropped by a USN B24.
We've dispatched the newly arrived Kaiyo to the Aleutians to relieve the Hiryu. This will build the Northern Fleet CVE group back up to four active vessels (the Chuyo remains under repair at Maizuru, she is now at 22 sys dmg). The Hiryu will return to home water to rejoin with the Soryu has this ship completes her upgrade at Osaka.

Northern Oz:
Rapidly developing into the NEW main theater. We unloaded the 38ID at Wyndam last turn, to see the main Aussie Mod switch directions and head towards Darwin. We have the 56ID heading through the NewGuinea Beak and in route to Darwin. We will probably try to keep the 38ID at Wyndam But we are returning the transport group to Wydham just in case. The 16A HQ has been flown back to Darwin. We are flooding Sally units into the area.
There is also a "small" group of Aussies threatening Broome/Derby. And this group include at least one Division, a Bde, an Armored Unit and an HQ. So it is a realistic threat. We are unloaded a SNLF and some supply at Broome to beef up the garrison there. One Sally unit continues to operate out of Derby.

The Ise/Hyuga group is hovering North of Darwin ready to intervene should the Aussies venture into the Darwin hex. The Hiyo/Junyo/Fuso/Yamashiro group are off Batativa enroute to Soerabaja.

[castor troy]

Nothern OZ is a very good place to operate tank battaillons en masse. I once did that and was able to surround and cut off a lot of troops which then were destroyed. All of the area there is clear terrain so your tanks move from hex to hex within a couple of days. Something most of the Allied inf units can´t do and I don´t know how many tank units Moses has there.

[jwilkerson]

Currently all my tank units are in China around Ichang. Eventually I was planning on moving them to "cambodia" as there is some clear terrain there worth fighting over once the Allies break through over there. But in the near term Bring them to Oz might be an option to ponder. Would take a hecque of a lot of shipping .. but most of my APs aren't too busy right now anyway. He does have at least one Armored unit with the Darwin stack and at least one with the Derby stack. The "foot print" key ("W") does make it difficult for either side to sneak around in the clear hexes unless they've been there before. Thanks for the idea! If I'm able to hold Darwin from his initial push I might have time to move the armor.

[Mistmatz]

IIRC armoured units are better transported with AK's instead of AP's.

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: Mistmatz

IIRC armoured units are better transported with AK's instead of AP's.

that´s correct, a tank brigade could be shipped with two big AKs without a problem (if safe from subs).

[jwilkerson]

4/10/43

The big AKs are pretty busy .. either carrying resources or acting as auxiliary fuel carriers ... but there are plenty of AP to do the job .. IF we can hold Darwin long enough for it to matter.

Air War:
Total Losses (A/J): 54/50
Air to Air Losses (A/J): 30/17

Burma:
The 16ID has begun its trek out to Akyab. The 18A HQ will follow shortly. More gas is on the way to Rangoon to allow the Navy to move again. We hit a Dutch sub with Sally's in the Macassar Straights.

Aleutians:
Somehow Adak held out again, but one more round should take it out. The Kaiyo is heading North to relieve the Hiryu in the Northern Fleet Carrier group. The Hiryu will return to the Home Islands to rejoin to Soryu which is completing upgrade.

CenPac:
The Americans took Baker Is. We had 4 AT Guns and 10 Support squads aboard. We hit several vessels with Betty's and mines including 1 CA.

Northern Oz:
A big pile of Allied units have arrived at Darwin, including at least two divisions, I'm sure there are several more. We have the Ise/Hyuga group on tap to bombard and we've flown in some fresh Sally's to bomb. The 38ID is holding at Wyndam, the 52ID is rounding the beak of NG on the way South. Other forces are enroute as well. This turn or the next are probably the best chance Moses will have for a while to take Darwin. We have about 550AV in a Level 9 fort .. the 4ID has 100 Prep points as do some of the support units. Our HQ is full strength but only has about 11 prep points since he had switched to Wyndam and is now switching back.