Always with them negative waves... Aaffins/Cheesesteak v. RADM Yamaguchi

[aaffins]

May 29, 1942

We launch a sweep of Mandalay to see how well he's CAPing Burma, just Oscars again. One of the big mysteries of our opponent's play to me is how little he's utilized his land-based Zero squadrons. This is Scen 2 so he should have plenty of squadrons to go around.

The PB TF is now at Cairns, unclear on its purpose. Logically he would be bringing in some more Aviation support, but we didn't see any casualties reported when we torpedoed two yesterday. PT Boats are going to try for an intercept from Townsville. KB is positioned one hex from Cairns.

D-Day at Raoul will probably be tomorrow.

[aaffins]

May 30, 1942

He's definitely evacuating Cairns...his AV went down almost 600 compared to yesterday. We're thinking he's doing a massive airlift out using Sallies. He's had 8 ops losses, so that would seem to make sense. Still impressed he's able to pull that much out with just PBs and maybe APDs. We've decided to try a massive sweep with 100+ fighters from Charters Towers tomorrow. We figure he has to be flying his fighters at lower altitudes to protect against bombers, so we'll try to bag some KB pilots. We'll also attack on the ground; with the arrival of more of our units and so much AV being pulled out we're basically even, if he pulls out more troops perhaps we get lucky and capture a decent number.

Rough day for the Aussie Navy in their ASW efforts, 2 DDs and an AM get sunk by IJN subs...pretty terrible results. There's basically a carpet of subs between Sydney and Lord Howe I.

We hit the beach at Raoul tomorrow. Playing a pretty risky game with no air cover.

[Encircled]

ORIGINAL: aaffins

ORIGINAL: Encircled

Thats a fast transport configuration

I guess that makes sense, but what's the logic in using PBs that way? Can't really carry that much cargo and he should have AKs that are as fast or faster than the 14 knot PBs.

Remember that any Japanese warship can carry troops in a Fast Transport, I seriously doubt that will have been his only Fast Transport if he is evacuating Oz.

[aaffins]

ORIGINAL: Encircled

ORIGINAL: aaffins

ORIGINAL: Encircled

Thats a fast transport configuration

I guess that makes sense, but what's the logic in using PBs that way? Can't really carry that much cargo and he should have AKs that are as fast or faster than the 14 knot PBs.

Remember that any Japanese warship can carry troops in a Fast Transport, I seriously doubt that will have been his only Fast Transport if he is evacuating Oz.

Yep, you're correct. Now showing 3 TFs, 2 of PBs and one that appears to be real transports.

[aaffins]

May 31, 1942

Our sweeps are not very successful; we lose 39 planes in exchange for 18, only 6 of which are the Zeroes we were hoping for. The combat report shows CAP from the Akagi, Kaga and Soryu, so has he possibly split the KB up? It's also moved away, not showing on air search so it could just be that he had half his squadrons flying LRCAP and half are flying CAP over the TF.

Our ground attack is really rough, his AV was the same as yesterday so perhaps he did not evacuate any overnight:

Ground combat at Cairns (92,140)

Allied Deliberate attack

Attacking force 29611 troops, 625 guns, 1069 vehicles, Assault Value = 1647

Defending force 38925 troops, 151 guns, 113 vehicles, Assault Value = 1093

Allied adjusted assault: 387

Japanese adjusted defense: 5485

Allied assault odds: 1 to 14 (fort level 4)

Combat modifiers
Defender: terrain(+), preparation(-), experience(-)
Attacker:

Japanese ground losses:
544 casualties reported
Squads: 2 destroyed, 50 disabled
Non Combat: 0 destroyed, 19 disabled
Engineers: 1 destroyed, 20 disabled
Guns lost 3 (1 destroyed, 2 disabled)
Vehicles lost 3 (1 destroyed, 2 disabled)

Allied ground losses:
3258 casualties reported
Squads: 138 destroyed, 241 disabled
Non Combat: 5 destroyed, 33 disabled
Engineers: 19 destroyed, 49 disabled
Guns lost 68 (5 destroyed, 63 disabled)
Vehicles lost 27 (3 destroyed, 24 disabled)

Assaulting units:
25th Australian Brigade
16th Australian Brigade
2/2 AIF Pioneer Battalion
2/3rd MG Battalion
18th Australian Brigade
2/5th Armoured Regiment
24th (Sep) Infantry Regiment
I Aus Corps Engineer Battalion
7th Aus Div Cav Regiment
102nd Combat Engineer Regiment
17th Australian Brigade
182nd Infantry Regiment
34th Combat Engineer Regiment
164th Infantry Regiment
193rd Tank Battalion
21st Australian Brigade
1st Motor Brigade
2/13th Field Regiment
148th Field Artillery Battalion
4th Field Artillery Battalion
108th Tank Attack Regiment
2/11th Field Regiment
109th Tank Attack Regiment
2/9th Field Regiment
147th Field Artillery Regiment
131st Field Artillery Battalion
1st Medium Regiment

Defending units:
21st Division
38th Division
33rd Division
2nd Division
9th Field AF Construction Battalion
3rd Engineer Construction Battalion
22nd Ind.AA Gun Co
92nd JAAF AF Bn

PT Boats are turned away by CA SCTF.

At Raoul our troops encounter two SNLFs:


Ground combat at Raoul Island (128,177)

Japanese Bombardment attack

Attacking force 2909 troops, 24 guns, 0 vehicles, Assault Value = 131

Defending force 7953 troops, 192 guns, 147 vehicles, Assault Value = 194

Japanese ground losses:
3 casualties reported
Squads: 0 destroyed, 1 disabled
Non Combat: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled
Engineers: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled

Assaulting units:
42nd Naval Guard Unit
43rd Naval Guard Unit
7th Air Defense AA Regiment
6th Air Defense AA Regiment
34th JNAF AF Unit

Defending units:
9th Marine Regiment
2nd Marine Raider Bn /2
1st Marine Raider Bn /5
148th Infantry Rgt /4
I US Amphib Corps
97th Field Artillery Battalion
134th Field Artillery Battalion

Despite the odd numbering on the CR all troops are ashore. The two regiments had low prep and are heavily disrupted as a result. FA will bombard and we'll take a few turns to recover. Raiders were 100% prepped and are in good order so they should be able to repel any counter. Ships are moving away to Auckland.

Enterprise/Yorktown/Hornet finished their upgrade at Melbourne and are moving past Hobart towards NZ. If he keeps a significant portion of the KB tied up in NE Oz there may be an opportunity to attack any IJN interdiction at Raoul I.

Two TFs show up moving towards Cocos I., which he never took. We have the 44th Indian Brig dug in there at full strength with full prep, so if he brings less than a division I think he will have a hard time. Only drawback is unit Exp is only 30...

[Encircled]

Are you sure he's pulling out?

Thats 4 of the better IJA divisions there.

And its well in his interests to see you take damage like that to Commonwealth units.

[HansBolter]

With four stout divisions entrenched in a base hex you will need real divisions to take the fight to it, not the motley conglomeration you have there now.

Yes, you technically have more AV, but its firepower that matters.
You also didn't get a fort reduction so you need Combat Engineers before making any further attacks.

You will also need to bomb, bombard, and eliminate their supply. If you can't presently accomplish those tasks, then repeated ground attacks are pointless. Better to invest and prevent the base from serving any useful purpose and bide your time.

[aaffins]

ORIGINAL: Encircled

Are you sure he's pulling out?

Thats 4 of the better IJA divisions there.

And its well in his interests to see you take damage like that to Commonwealth units.

Yes, positive, the next turn his AV total dropped all the way to 407 with only a fragment of the 21st Division now showing on the CR.

[aaffins]

June 1, 1942

Very quiet turn...we bombard at Cairns and as noted above his AV is now down to 407 so he's definitely withdrawing. A sub detects the Warspite off Sydney, but he probably assumes we're setting up for more Lord Howe bombardment.

June 2, 1942

Bit more going on this turn. Our PT Boats attack the evac, revealing it's mostly AMCs and AVs with a few small escorts. Unfortunately the enemy slips away before we can get in any attacks.

With the amphibs safely away from Raoul I. I sent the CA Vincennes + 4 DDs back to see if we could get lucky...we encounter 8 enemy DDs apparently evacuating enemy troops, a brief skirmish leaves one enemy DD with moderate damage. A bombardment attack reveals only 23 AV left on the island so we'll attack tomorrow and hopefully secure it.

At Cairns we launch another attack, his AV is down to 205 now and we get 1:1 odds and reduce the forts. Would be good if we can eliminate these remaining troops at least.

Worse news at Cocos I. in the IO...he bombards with 5 BBs causing major casualties, then lands the 55th Division. That's enough to roll our inexperienced Indian brigade and he takes the base. Unfortunate, that would have been a useful launching pad.

[HansBolter]

I seriously doubt he can afford to leave a full division as the garrison for Cocos.
The time will come when you can retake it.

[aaffins]

June 3-10, 1942

Haven't updated in a bit but the game is still going reasonably strong. We missed a day or two last week and our opponent started talking about needing to begin a second game, which I thought was a bit unnecessary. I do have the sense he's a bit disinterested, but perhaps I'm misreading the situation. Rather than go day by day I'll just give a theater by theater summary of the last week of "action".

Burma:

We have continued our aerial bombardment of Akyab. The airfield and port are shut down. Three Japanese divisions remain trapped - the 16th, 48th and Imperial Guards - I am surprised he has not tried to either evacuate them or done something to try to relieve the pressure. The last convoy before we closed things down was nearly a month ago, so I would imagine supplies will become an issue at some point. We are assembling units at Cox's Bazar to possibly try to dislodge him on the ground but we don't really have enough AV at present. The 2nd Brit Div has just started arriving at Aden, once we get them to the front we may be able to.

We've determined that long term we think this area may very well be his weakpoint. He's poured so many resources into the SoPac we suspect he'd be vulnerable to an offensive in this theater.

China:

No significant action. Sinyang and Nanyang remain surrounded but have too many troops and are too entrenched for him to do anything as yet. Stalemates at Sian, Changsha, Kukong and Wenchow.

Australia:

Cairns fell as expected, here's the collection of units he did not manage to evac:

3rd Engineer Construction Battalion
22nd Ind.AA Gun Co
92nd JAAF AF Bn
21st Div /23
9th Field AF Construction Battalion
33rd Div /44

The final assault was only opposed by an AV of 13 so I suspect those division fragments were support.

He has spent most of the last week evacuating Cooktown under cover of the KB, or at least a significant part of it. We've probed a little bit, but could not afford to fight another pitched aerial battle with our P-40 pool empty.

Pacific:

We have finally recaptured Raoul I.

Here's the units we destroyed there:

43rd Nav Gd /1
34th JNAF AF Unit
6th Air Defense AA Regiment
7th Air Defense AA Regiment
42nd Nav Gd /10


The Lexington and Saratoga completed their upgrade at Pearl. We've decided to send them to the Aleutians. Objective is twofold - we want to reinforce Dutch Harbor and Cold Bay, which is moderately risky with Betties flying out of Adak, and we've seen a lot of shipping in the area we'd like to raid.

Our other carriers are around Raoul I. The IJN CVs disappeared 2 days ago after the enemy TFs cleared out of Cooktown.

[Cheesesteak]

Essentially, the tide has turned. Far earlier than I thought it would to be honest. The Akyab situation is a major problem for our opponent. He can slowly march them out, but that will take a toll.

Hardest part now will be measuring our next moves. Essentially, if we kept the exact same lines for one year game time, we could win by sheer press of weight. Where's the fun in that? There are plenty of lessons in this forum about what happens when the Allies overextend on an early push, so we will need to be careful.

[Cheesesteak]

I've let this AAR slip, apologies. There have been some interesting events recently.

Of note: Japanese airpower has been repeatedly smashed over Burma. Allied sweeps have consistently claimed 2-1 wins, including over some IJN CV Zero squadrons. The IGD was likely pulled out in the last furball, as allied bombers missed on day one and chose not to fly on day two. Still, has has over 55k troops stuck @ Akyab, suffering from daily bombing. With Raoul in hand, bombing and bombardments have redoubled at Lord Howe and Norfolk. They go unopposed, though a large CA TF is spotted 13 hexes north of LHI.

The game is summed up by our CV dispositions: near at hand, but both sides too tentative to maneuver into seas that the other could hit. Makes for a dull AAR, but is hugely to our advantage.

China seems to be a backwater morass for the RADM, where he is in danger of being stalemated in mid-'42. Were I in his shoes, I'd have this Guy Ritchie line in my head: "Alarm bells are ringing, Willy."


A nice bellwether for the Allied player - getting those damned Devastators out of play and replacing them with actual planes.

[Cheesesteak]

I've let this AAR slip, to the detriment of the readers. Fins and I both have jobs that sometimes require a few extra hours here and there, but that's not much of an excuse. Neither are the ramped-up personal life commitments, or the 7 soccer teams I signed up for to de-stress from the prior two points excuses.

Started this AAR, and dag'gum it, gonna finish it.

Captain's log, Stardate 26.1254.235.something-something:

So! What do we have here? An opponent that has functionally not advanced for over 2 months game time. Fins, through his mastery of land combat, has successfully pushed him back on multiple fronts: Akyab/Chittagong, NE OZ, and Raoul. What does that mean? These are possessions that many Allied players simply never lose, so there's that. These aren't the only easily hit bases. Yamaguchi has gone up to Dutch Harbor in the North, and there are a few isolated islands that we can flip back. Finally, even though there was a great read from CR on why the Allies shouldn't over-commit in'42, I'd be curious to get his & others thoughts on a potential axis of attack.

The IJN is entirely intact, we plan on changing that.

[CaptBeefheart]

I know you guys are busy with metric football and the like, but this could be a good time to lay out the strategic situation, you know, like a theater by theater analysis of force dispositions such as you see in a few other AARs, complete with map screenshots. Just an idea.

The old way of thinking was get into a massive attrition battle at around this time, as that seems to favor the Allies (like Guadalcanal did in real life). However, an insight gleaned from Canoerebel's recent AAR is to keep the VP denominator down. That means don't give the Japanese excessive points for land, air or sea losses as at the end of the day you have to win by a 2:1 VP spread. So, the argument would be yes, you have to gain territory to ultimately threaten Japan with strategic bombing (I'd say from Formosa, the Ningpo area, northern Luzon or Hokkaido), but you should try to minimize the battles in which you are not piling up VPs by at least 2:1 ratio.

Cheers,
CB

[Cheesesteak]

ORIGINAL: CaptBeefheart

I know you guys are busy with metric football and the like, but this could be a good time to lay out the strategic situation, you know, like a theater by theater analysis of force dispositions such as you see in a few other AARs, complete with map screenshots. Just an idea.

The old way of thinking was get into a massive attrition battle at around this time, as that seems to favor the Allies (like Guadalcanal did in real life). However, an insight gleaned from Canoerebel's recent AAR is to keep the VP denominator down. That means don't give the Japanese excessive points for land, air or sea losses as at the end of the day you have to win by a 2:1 VP spread. So, the argument would be yes, you have to gain territory to ultimately threaten Japan with strategic bombing (I'd say from Formosa, the Ningpo area, northern Luzon or Hokkaido), but you should try to minimize the battles in which you are not piling up VPs by at least 2:1 ratio.

Cheers,
CB

You're one step ahead on AAR planning and 100 on campaign strategy. Game date 6.22.42

[Cheesesteak]

Alaska

[Cheesesteak]

LHI and Norfolk still have active search planes. Daily bombing on ground troops at LHI produces consistent casualties without resistance. Example:

Morning Air attack on 8th JNAF AF Unit , at 100,169 (Lord Howe Island)

Weather in hex: Clear sky

Raid spotted at 19 NM, estimated altitude 10,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 5 minutes

Allied aircraft
B-17E Fortress x 5

No Allied losses

Japanese ground losses:
46 casualties reported
Squads: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled
Non Combat: 0 destroyed, 10 disabled
Engineers: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled

Aircraft Attacking:
5 x B-17E Fortress bombing from 6000 feet
Ground Attack: 8 x 500 lb GP Bomb

[Cheesesteak]

Burma & the IO

Currently, the only real active front. Competing fighter sweeps and bombardments are still favoring the Allies, but Beefheart raises a good point about overall point tally.

[Cheesesteak]

NE OZ

mopping up remnant forces. The relative AV is so lopsided, it's not even worth going into