The Hive - Cruft PBEM (Japan, Scen 2 Beta + Stacking Limits)

[Captain Cruft]

Ki-201

This will eat the P-47N at a rate of at least 3 to 1, and probably about 5 to 1 on average. However, against the P-80A, which is the only Allied jet fighter in this scenario, it consistently loses at a ratio of between 2 or 3 to 1.

So, assuming you could build out an airforce mostly composed of Ki-201 units, all you need to do is to keep the Allies more than 11 hexes away from the homeland. This being the maximum range of the P-80A.

[Captain Cruft]

1 Sep 1943
[font="Courier New"]
Supply: 4.078m
HI: 1.554m (16,000 factories)
Fuel: 6.241m
Aircraft: 4,816 (4,439 ready)
Ship losses: 1 x DD, 10 x E, 7 x APD, 15 x SS
[/font]
It's September 1943, and the IJN has still only lost a single DD ...

Score: Japan 21k, Allies 19k (draw)

It looks like he will be landing at Kwajalein soon, which I very kindly built into a size 5 port.

[Captain Cruft]

2 Sep 1943

A fairly disastrous turn. I decided to try an offensive air operation against Magwe, the home of the P-47s and P-38s. As a result I lost over 200 planes against around 50 Allied. Mostly Oscars, Tojos and Nicks.

This has led me to a possibly drastic decision. I am going to withdraw the entire 1st Air Army (18 fighter Sentais) to Takao until we have the Frank and/or Tojo IIc available. The units will train Air until that time, and any pilots which get up to 50/60/60 will be despatched to the front line. At the same time any frontline pilots who become golden will be withdrawn into TRACOM awaiting such time as the potential 900 planes of the 1st Air Army are deployed again as a CAP "roadblock".

I am bored with Burma now and just wish he would get on with taking it. The odds and sods of the 3rd Air Division will continue to skirmish, but there will be no more Swarm in this area. The Oscar bombing has probably had the desired psychological effect of making him even warier than he is naturally but now is the time to start serious preparations for the more important battles which lie ahead in 1944 and 1945.

[Captain Cruft]

Side note

With 18 fighter units, you could layer CAP from 10k to 27k at 1k intervals and still have a unit to spare. Mervellious

[Captain Cruft]

3 Sep 1943

Today was a day where absolutely nothing happened ...

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Upon closer inspection I can actually muster 20 Sentais for the 1st Air Army. That includes one fighter-bomber unit which can serve as "aim disturbing" night-fighters, flying the Nick initially. In March 1944 this will amount to 980 planes, which ought to work as an effective P-47 and 4E blocker. In the meantime it should enable me to train up around 1,000 Air skill pilots which is very much needed. I have about 400 in the Reserve right now, but they are a bit variable.

Possible initial bases for deployment of this "big defensive stick" are Canton, Takao and Manila. I'm not going to bother trying to defend Indochina much since it's basically impossible, and Singapore and Java are too far away. We will just skirmish in those areas if and when he gets around to attacking them.

One thing I need to do is to agglomerate sufficient subsidiary aviation support, engineering and flak units to accompany the actual Air HQ unit on its potential travels, and also make a transport fleet available at Takao which can move it all quickly. This is a bit contradictory to my previous "massive dispersal" defensive air plan so I will have to think carefully about which units to use ...

[Captain Cruft]

6 Sep 1943

An invasion fleet approaches Kwajalein, where it will be opposed by a single midget submarine and a garrison comprising 70 AV behind level 6 forts. For the first time not all of the house LCUs are completely trashed, there are a couple of SNLF Coys in good shape. This however will not make for much of an impediment if he lands an entire division as usual.

I am going to try for some night torpedo delivery by Emilies and Frances's out of Ponape. The (meaningless) weather forecast is Clear and Moonlight is at 57%. There are no fighters present with enough range (14) to do an escorted daytime raid.

[Captain Cruft]

Time for some screenies ...

Here's the scores on the doors.

[Captain Cruft]

I have destroyed 335 4E bombers

[Captain Cruft]

I have also destroyed 697 P-38s and P-47s

[Captain Cruft]

This has cost me a lot of planes though

[Captain Cruft]

The 1st Air Army forming up at Takao.

[Captain Cruft]

TRACOM

I have now removed all IJA golden boys from the map. The IJN is maintaining a few golden units at Ponape but nowhere else.

[Captain Cruft]

Pilot pools

It will be absolutely ages before the pools will be empty, I will probably only be able to drain them once all the training units arrive in May 1945. One of the downsides of fighting a quiet war I guess.

[Captain Cruft]

Another picture of the map's key area.

For some reason I have not seen any subs around these parts for some time now.

[Captain Cruft]

Shipping heavy arty from Hankow to the Marianas (and Bonins). All the main islands will get a unit of 27cm or 32cm guns or mortars. I am hoping that these will have a useful effect when the Marines come landing, and since they are small they may avoid the worst of the aerial bombardment, which really likes to hit CD units.

[Captain Cruft]

Here's one such unit already based at Saipan.

[Captain Cruft]

There are two CD units which you can create by combining other LCUs. Here is one such, the Combined 8th SNLF, stationed at Guam. The other is the Kure 7th SNLF, which is at Ulithi.

I have an OCD thing about combining units into their parents, and I was very pleased to discover that as a result I acquired some extra CD guns

[Captain Cruft]

Here's the Kure 7th. Ulithi is very slightly over-stacked, but this will end once it reaches its maximum size 6 forts and I can remove some engineers.

[Captain Cruft]

The 31st Special Base Force is another non-obvious powerful CD unit, or at least it will be after its ToE upgrade in about July 1944.

[Captain Cruft]

I do not intend to make things easy for him in the Pacific. Here is an overview picture of everything west of Ponape and Eniwetok.