Quick update. I've been working on Mike's starting turn furiously. Well, in between bouts of watching grandkids & helping their parents out when requested. I hope to get it to Mike today or tomorrow at the latest. I've received a turn from Ted and sent it back. I'll post the update as soon as I send the turn to Mike.
TURKEY TROTS TO WATER GG FROM CINCPAC ACTION COM THIRD FLEET INFO COMINCH CTF SEVENTY-SEVEN X WHERE IS RPT WHERE IS TASK FORCE THIRTY FOUR AND THE NEXT UPDATE TO AAR RR THE WORLD WONDERS
I fear this one may be dead. The turn has been in his hands for months but I've heard nothing from him. I'll give him another holler to see. Keeping fingers crossed, but I'm doubtful. That's unfortunate.
What a shame that would be. I’ve read this one a few times now. Still have only attempted the aleutians campaign but one day I swear I’ll take on the big cahuna and this is gonna be my Bible. JFB4LIFE lol
hpalmer wrote: Sun Jun 19, 2022 3:01 am
What a shame that would be. I’ve read this one a few times now. Still have only attempted the aleutians campaign but one day I swear I’ll take on the big cahuna and this is gonna be my Bible. JFB4LIFE lol
You need to give the campaign game a shot. You'll never be the same. It really is worth the investment in time.
Good news folks! Ted sent me a turn a couple days ago and I just sent it back to him. I think we're going to keep this going this time. In Ted's defense, he wanted to get it going last summer but had too many irons in the fire. Things have settled down for him and he spent a week or so figuring out what was going on. Anyway, I have 2 turns to post, one that we did last summer and the one I just sent back to him today. I'll post them and then try to give an AO by AO summary of what's going on with some screen shots. I'm implementing something I've been doing with my game with Mike that has helped a lot. While the turn is gone, I go over everything I can and make a list of the things I need to do. Some are immediate and some are in the future. I scratch them off as I accomplish them during a turn. Sometimes, it's little things like "move this ship from here to there for an upgrade". Sometimes it's larger and more important. It really helps me a lot. Anyway, look for a turn soon. Maybe today if I don't get interrupted by RL.
I control everything through Umnak Island (other than a few dot hexes to the west of Umnak). Ted still has Dutch Harbor. There is a trio of B-17s that bomb Umnak (which is a mess with damage at 80-100-54). I bombed the hell out of Umnak and eventually took it (relatively recently).
I also have a sentai of Sallies bombing Dutch Harbor. I am aware of an infantry battalion and base force there. I may attack it. We’ll see.
4 Fleet
Not much going on from my perspective. Ted has Mili, where he has 104/29/10 (fighters/bombers/auxiliary). I’ve pulled out all my aircraft from the Marshalls. Once I get some SSTs, I’ll start pulling out the starving remnants that are still there. It’s written off.
SE Fleet
I’ve pretty much abdicated this area (air, land and sea) to Ted. His air power here is overwhelming. I still control Vanimo (base to the SE of Hollandia) and points north (the few that are there) along with Rabaul, Gasmata, Talasea and Tulagi. I'm flying in troops to the bases to try and slow Ted down over here. I'm concerned with him getting those bases and building them up to advance his airfields into my juicy interior. The total number of Allied sorties in this area today were 190. At Truk, there were an additional 157 sorties. You get the picture. Truk’s port is 100% damaged.
I see 109/35/33 aircraft at Manus and 88/140/68 at Kavieng. Yep, lots of enemy aircraft. I have a string of subs to the N and NW as a tripwire, in case he decides to move north.
SRA
There’s been a constant air war over Saumlaki. I have a sentai of fighters that seem to be holding their own. Three Hellcats visited today. There were no losses. Hellcats? The Allied planes are coming from Darwin, which is maxed out with port 6(3) and airfield 9(7).
The Allies invaded Truskett, a dot hex on the northern shore of Australia. That’s the last (unmanned) outpost I have in Australia. I was hoping he didn’t notice that. That would have been fun to hold the rest of the war.
Burma
Two British Hurricanes were shot down over Akyab for no loss to me.
China
Chungking fell on 2 Jan 44. The Chinese Army is about gone. I see 37 Chinese units remaining in 4 groups. There are 23 in Kansien, 12 about 3 hexes N of Changsha and 2 individual units in separate hexes 4 hexes north of that. They are all surrounded and out of supply. The Air Force in China is bombing the big group gaining valuable experience and most of the victors of Chungking (some 350k or so troops) are headed to kill the remnants off. Some are headed elsewhere discussed in more detail when I give the China AO update.
Other Stuff
There was a carrier battle a few days ago, or a few years ago, depending on how you look at it. I managed to heavily damage/sink 3 CVLs and some other warships at a cost of about a dozen planes. Some other carriers were damaged/possibly sunk in the couple months prior to that. I need to dig up my notes on it to see what actually happened. At any rate, I’ll figure out what happened earlier and summarize it later.
The turn didn’t start off very well. There was something I was chasing (I seem to remember CV Bunker Hill being badly damaged and crawling toward Pearl Harbor), but it may have been something else. Anyway, east of the Marshalls, I have several subs that were chasing after 2 different TFs. One turned out to be the PF Glendale, which beat up I-9. After the event just below this one, I heard sinking sounds and thought it was I-9 going down, but it was an Allied ship. There were no Allied ships damaged this turn at that point, so it had to be an Allied ship from a previous turn. No clue what it was though. I-9 is crawling toward Kwajalein (nearest base 8 hexes away) with damage at 57-65(26)-12(9)-0.
A hex SE of Guam saw the Grayling torpedo and sink the Etorofu class E Mutsure, which was there to prosecute Allied subs. That’s not the way to do it. (The sinking sounds happened after this event and Matsure had already sunk.
The I-153 was one of a pair of subs in the shallow water to the SW of Horne Island. I remember they were waiting for something that was lurking down there but what came out were some DDs. The I-153 took it on the chin with damage at 31-69(27)-4-0. She’s very slowly trying to make it out of there, but I don’t think she’ll make it. The other sub is flying out of there screaming like a little girl.
Those were the first 3 events that happened during the turn. I thought it was going to be a long turn. What happened next you’ll see in the SRA section.
5 Fleet
Ted’s 3 B-17s flew and my Sallies didn’t.
4 Fleet
I’m building up the Marianas. I kind of went crazy building forts in this game. A lot of it is already done, so it is what it is. One thing I’m working toward is level 9 forts in these four islands. The forts are at the following:
Saipan: 8.31
Tinian: 6.56
Rota: 6.01
Guam: 6.24
Each base will have 2 divisions, 1 IMB, 1 RF gun battalion (upgraded), 1 heavy artillery regiment and 1 heavy artillery battalion. The divisions and artillery are coming from China. All of the artillery and 4 of the divisions have already been bought out. The infantry division all have 98 or 99 experience. That should be an interesting battle. Those divisions are currently on their way to Hong Kong from Chungking. I’m collecting my xAPs, AMCs and AKs at Hong Kong to move them as they arrive.
I’m also thinking of putting a tank regiment at each island as well. Each island also has some CD guns to make any Allied visit warm.
SE Fleet
There were 189 sorties against Hollandia and New Britain, and 169 sorties against Truk’s port. Ted is trying to prevent me from evacuating troops from Truk. I still am getting troops out (mainly by air, but single ship fast TFs are doing well), but the damage to the port remains pegged at 100, and the stupid engineers continue to try to repair the port and not the airfield. Sometimes this engine infuriates me. Such is life, however.
SRA
This happened after the 3 ASW attacks above. I had a TF of 3 CA, 2 CL and 2 DD off Carnarvon (NW coast of Australia). Why, you ask? I saw that there was some shipping moving around there and I wanted to catch them, probably to harass Ted more than anything. When I was reviewing the turn last week, I didn’t even notice the TF. Anyway, they caught a supply convoy of 6 xAKs and 3 xAKLs and sank them all. Yeah, in the grand scheme of things, it’s meaningless, but maybe Ted will post some surface ships there instead of places where it may matter.
Anyway, after that happy occurrence, the same TF found another 4 xAKs and sank them all too. 86 VPs. I’ll take it!
Four Hellcats swept Saumlaki finding 19 Tonys and 10 Tojos. A Tony was shot down for no US loss. That pilot bailed out wounded. I need to upgrade to better planes down there.
Burma
The Allies control Kalemyo. I sent a Frank sweep there. Ted is trying to build up that airfield. Actually he already did. It’s up to level 4. Anyway, I recall trying to keep it damaged so he can’t use it effectively. It’s too close to my main lines for my tastes. Fourteen Franks met 9 miscellaneous Allied fighters, trading 1 Frank for 1 Kittyhawk III. Not what I hoped or expected from a highly experienced Frank sentai. Fortunately, the pilot was only wounded.
A Tojo (yes, I’m still using them, but not producing any more of them) sweep of Akyab met a few Hurricane IIcs and lost one to no Allied planes. Slackers. Interestingly, the pilot survived the encounter and is still with the sentai.
I do want to mention my pilot with the most kills, LGEN Anma, K. I looked him up in Mike’s game and learned that he started the war as a CPT! He’s in the 64 Sentai and is currently flying the Ki-84a Frank and has spent the war in Burma. Talk about picking up rank! CPT to LGEN in just over 2 years! 92 experience, 81 A2A and 73 Def, with 20 kills.
China
Just so you know what’s going on in China, I had 251 sorties against various Chinese surviving units. They killed 20 squads and disabled another 164.
Other Stuff
I’ll start discussing the different AOs. You’ll get the info there…
I invaded Adak at the beginning of the war, primarily to slow down Ted. The intent was not to do too much in the (hopefully) backwater.
Not much to say here other than it really is a backwater. I’m slowly trying to extract my more important ground units so they can begin guarding locations farther west. Ted has the ability to bypass the Aleutians now. If he does invade anywhere here, the two major bases (Adak and Unmak) each have a division sitting there. It would be a costly invasion. I do recall Ted losing a US division up here. It was a long battle but it was destroyed, along with some other units. He may have gotten a small slice out, but it’ll probably cost too many replacements to rebuild.
You can see the Marshall Islands. Everything looks fine with the exception of Mili. I see 107/34/11 planes there. I’ve pulled out everything of importance. I’ll eventually start to pull out other stuff with SSTs (once I get some).
Up north, Wake is still mine with 6k troops, level 6 forts and 16k supply. There are a handful of G3M3s looking to the east. There are 28 CD guns and even a dozen tanks. Being an atoll, it would be an interesting fight. A naval bombardment would run into 200 mines and a couple of midget subs. Ted can take it, but it would cost more than it’s worth.
I forgot to mention the far left side of the above picture. You see two carrier TFs. That's KB withdrawing NW after its battle against the US carriers a few days ago. It happened almost 3 years ago, real time. It's composed of 7 CVs (Akagi, Kaga, Soryu, Shokaku, Unryu, Amagi & Katsuragi) and 2 CVLs (Chitose & Chiyoda). The total complement is 282 Zeros (36 A6M5 & 246 A6M5c), 117 Judies (18 Y1 & 99 Y3), 138 Jill (all N2 - the N2a recently became operational - 46 in the pool). In addition, I always have 3 spare planes and pilots in each daitai. Total losses from all causes from this operation were:
Zeros: 14 planes/7 pilots
Judies: 19/8
Jills: 15/10
I checked back and found I sank the following:
CVL Princeton
CVL Cowpens
DD Phelps
DE Levy
APD Manley
APD Hatfield
APD Gilmer
And damaged (all bombs are 500 kg):
CVL Belleau Wood – 1 torpedo and 7(!) bombs, heavy fires and heavy damage
DD Clark – 1 bomb, heavy fires
APD Brooks – 2 bombs, heavy fires and heavy damage
APD Dickerson – 2 bombs, heavy fires and heavy damage
APD Waters – 1 bomb
Since then I have heard sinking sounds 3 times that I can’t easily explain. We’ll see eventually what they were.
The I-27 found an unescorted xAK off Rockhampton and hit her with a torpedo. The cargo ship staggered off and the sub caught up with her later in the day putting 3 of 4 torpedoes into her. She went down like a rock.
Subs keep appearing in the shallow and deep hexes just south of Kobe. I have several float plane units flying naval search and ASW as well as three ASW TFs in the area. A couple of Allied subs were nosing around there. One was hit by a couple of depth charges (maybe) and both were driven off.
A few subs are hanging around the Marianas Islands. No hits by either side, but a lot of depth charges and torpedoes wasted.
5 Fleet
All quiet here. I am preparing for the worst but I don’t expect Ted to counterattack here any more.
4 Fleet
Trying to pull all the good troops out of Truk. It’s actually working pretty well with Fast Transport TFs and xAPs. Ted is keeping the port at 100% damage with his 2 and 4E bombers. I damage some and flak takes one out every now and then.
SE Fleet
He’s focusing his air power on Hollandia. This is where I expect attacks. I believe Ted will hug the northern coast of PNG with his fleet and keep invading up the coast. I have 14 subs set up as speed bumps to tell me if anything is going to happen. My carriers are headed to Babeldaob to react to any incursion here or in the SRA. Between Manus and Kavieng, he has 200+ fighters, 200+ bombers and 200+ auxiliary aircraft. Yikes!
SRA
He didn’t sweep Saumlaki today. There’s really nothing going on here, other than the occasional sub. A long while ago, he destroyed the oil at Boela and Babo. I’ve decided to repair the oil at both of them. I think he may not notice and I’ll get some extra oil out of there. 45 oil fields would give me 450 a day, 13,500 a month and 162k oil in a year. I don’t expect to get that much oil out of them, but I’ll take what I can get.
I'm pretty much keeping the SRA drained of oil and fuel. I currently have the following on its way to the Home Islands from the SRA:
Oil: 213,450
Fuel: 136,200
Resources: 132,545
Burma
Thirteen Franks swept Kalemyo again meeting 8 various Allied fighters. A Kittyhawk was shot down for no Japanese loss. My IJAAF fighters here are really good. The average experience is 69-72, A2A in the low 70s, and no pilot has a defense below 70. The RAF has taken a pounding in the war. They’re now relying on US fighter protection. A couple of Mustang (P-51A) swept Mandalay to try to wear down the Japanese without success today. Each squadron was 25 aircraft. They lost 10 fighters shot down to only 2 Franks (2 KIA).
A handful of Tojos shot down another Hurricane over Akyab.
Other than that, I don’t see anything going on here.
I’m in a good position here. My major airfields are all on rail lines. I have a total of about 8 fighter units, with half or more resting in Rangoon. The Frank sentai that was in combat had 18 damaged planes. I pulled it out to recover and replaced it with another fresh Frank Sentai.
China
The Chinese Army is still in existence, with about 160k troops in 4 groups. They have no supplies, so they aren’t a threat, but I still want to kill them off. I’m sending the divisions that are going to the Marianas to Hong Kong. I’m sending one army to Paoshan, in case the British break through my line in Burma. The rest are heading to wipe out the remaining Chinese then will form defenses against the Soviets, when they attack in a year and a half. I have time, which is good.
Other Stuff
I have another turn from Ted. His comment was:
I'm still realigning things to recover from "WTF was I thinking?"
I’m doing a lot of the same thing. I’ve finally realized that my job now is to figure out where he will attack and try to smash it, if possible. At the very least, I need to turn it into a protracted campaign. I have a lot of power, but it needs to be preserved, or at least traded in my favor.
I’ll continue to post short discussions of each theater between turns (here and with Mike). This has become a very interesting game; nothing like I have ever played before.
Finally, for those who are interested, the VP ratio is 2.29:1 in my favor.
Hey Mike, are you still ok with me reading about this alternative universe war? I really enjoy it, but I don't want you to slip up and break OPSEC for our game if you forget that you gave me clearance here a while ago.
Mike, you are absolutely allowed to read this. I'd actually like for you to read it. Getting this going again, I'm really surprised at all the mistakes I've made with this one. And it's far too late to change anything, especially the economy. It's really a different game too. I'm now definitely on the defensive. I don't expect to plan any invasions anymore. Very different game than I'm used to playing.
I'm playing our game very differently than this one. I'll tell you that much.
Four Oscar IIIas intercepted 6x B-17Es over Umnak today, losing one fighter (and pilot) for their effort. I hate the Oscar.
4 Fleet
Still trying to pull stuff out of Truk. KB is moving toward Babeldaob (see below).
SE Fleet
Today, it wasn’t all Allied in this AO, for a change. And it was due to an error on my part. At the beginning of this month (years ago, real time) there was a carrier battle in the vicinity of the Gilberts where 2-3 US CVLs were sunk. My victorious KB was headed west to disappear and get a little R&R. I kept their fighters and bombers on their normal missions (60% CAP, normal naval attack missions) just in case. They veered too close to Truk. The fighters intercepted 7 various 2 & 4E bombing runs (first big & 6 small), with the first escorted by 17 P38Gs. They ended up shooting down 11 Lightnings and 5 bombers (flak got one as well) for the loss of 11 planes with 3 pilots KIA and 4 more WIA. I gained an elite pilot. I also had this little gem:
Banzai! - Tsujinoue, T. in a A6M5 Zero rams a B-25D1 Mitchell for the Emperor
A couple things to note here. The B-25 didn’t go down and the pilot survived wounded! Maybe he needs glasses? I always thought the pilot was lost when this happened, but obviously not. It did help a lot that the battle was over Truk.
At any rate, I didn’t plan on doing this, but it wasn’t too bad overall. Killing off the Lightnings was a nice little benefit.
Hollandia is still getting a lot of attention. The following sorties were “received” by Hollandia today:
Fighter: 64
2E Bomber: 61
4E Bomber: 17
In addition, Rabaul received 20 sorties and Gasmata received 34 sorties. For those of you interested, Truk received:
Fighter: 17
2E Bomber: 77
4E Bomber: 89
SRA
Nothing to report.
Burma
Two dozen Mustangs (survivors of yesterday, no doubt) swept Shwebo and ran into 13 Tojos and 6 Franks, who shredded them, shooting down 6 Mustangs for no loss. Banzai! That’ll teach them Mericans!
China
The remaining scattered Chinese are being bombed and strafed by the IJAAF, for a total of 250 sorties.
Other Stuff
KB is headed to Babeldaob where part of MKB resides. Zuikaku was badly damaged last fall and eventually made her way to Osaka. The estimate is 121 more days to completely repair. Her damage is currently at 3-42(42)-20(19)-0.
All fighters are A6M5, A6M5b (one daitai) or A6M5c (most)
All bombers are D4Y3 Judy with the exception of Shokaku and Hiyo with the D4Y1. Both will be upgraded as soon as they reach port.
All but 3 CVEs have the B6N2 or B6N2a Jill. The Taiyo, Chuyo and Shinyo carry the B5N1 or B5N2 Kate.
So, assuming the 3 CVEs are on escort duty, here’s the final composition of everyone:
KB
Zero: 351
Judy: 117
Jill: 147
MKB (+escort CVE)
Zero: 169
Judy: 42
TB: 45 (114)
Zuikaku is expected to complete her repairs on 7 May 44.
Kasagi, Aso & Ikoma are all accelerated and are expected around 26 Apr 44. That’ll be a hefty addition to the flight deck capacity.
When the 4 CVs above are added, KB will be:
Zero: 495
Judy: 180
Jill: 201
For a total of 876 planes. KB (with the escorts) totals 325, but I’m reluctant to include them in a full fledged carrier battle. At any rate, the Imperial Japanese Carrier Fleet is looking pretty good. They will still be outnumbered though, so I need to be cautious.
My philosophy is a fleet in being threat is the way to go. I’ll post the state of the IJN later.
I fear an advance here more than anywhere. The four bases I still control (Rabaul, Gasmata, Talasea and Tulagi) are isolated and withering on the vine. They are all out of supply, but Rabaul has a bunch of fuel. I send subs in there to refuel to try and use up some of the fuel.
There are some defensive forces up the PNG coast, but nothing extraordinary. There are just Naval Guard units and South Seas Detachments. A serious invasion will just brush them aside. I hope to be able to catch the invasion force at sea and decimate it with KB. The problem is that Manus has 130 fighters, 46 bombers and 41 auxiliary aircraft. Farther back is Kavieng, with 69 fighters, 140 bombers and 187 auxiliary aircraft. I think I need to move the sub screen farther south as a sort of trip wire. That may be hazardous to the subs, but most of them are RO class subs, so they’re expendable.
Just about all of my carriers are at Babeldaob, other than some of MBKs carriers that just finished upgrading in the Home Islands.
The SRA is intact other than Boela & Babo’s oil fields being destroyed. I am dropping off supply at those two bases to try and build up some of the fields and try to get some oil out of there. I’m not sure if that will work, but I’m hoping Ted won’t notice it.
There are 3 enemy TFs to the south that I can see. I see an AP at Darwin, 6 PT boats just north of Darwin and a TF of 4 ships 5 hexes SE of Saumlaki, two of which may be APDs. I have a small surface TF of Naka and 4x Asashio DDs that should get to Saumlaki tomorrow. Even if that’s where he’s going, they’ll be offloaded before my ships get there. Saumlaki has a sentai of fighters and a brigade of infantry along with a special BF with 4 DP guns and a brigade of SNLF. We’ll see. This may be the chink in my armor. I am happy that I’m still hauling stuff out of the SRA, but I need to station some ships down here permanently to try and counter the threat that’s definitely coming.
I’m holding the Brits off here, for now. The major components of the Burma Area Army are 10 infantry divisions and 2 tank divisions, along with a number of smaller units. At some point I’ll begin withdrawing, but not yet. I have a lot of naval search and don’t see anything moving at all. The air forces are particularly strong. There are the following:
IJAAF:
Frank Sentai: 3
Tojo Sentai: 3
Oscar Sentai: 1
Oscar Chutai: 1
Helen Sentai: 3
Plus a lot of recon, ASW and transports.
IJNAF:
George Daitai: 2
Zero Daitai: 1
Betty Daitai: 1
Nell Chutai: 1
The IJAAF is the primary defender here. They usually have 3 sentai on the front line with the others in Rangoon resting and rebuilding/repairing. Practically every IJAAF pilot has 70+ in experience, A2A and defense. I’d say about a quarter of the pilots are 60+ in experience. The IJNAF is a back-up force, there just in case.
The oilfield at Magwe is still functioning at 124(176)! I long ago expected it to be utterly destroyed. I always have a Frank and Tojo sentai guarding it. That’s the main reason I still am that far north.
Right now, this AO is stable with the Japanese Air Force having the upper hand. We’ll see how long this lasts as the Allies get better fighters.
This theater is over (for the most part) until the Soviets attack in August 45. There still is a Chinese army in existence. In the north are 2 individual units. In the center is an army of 12 units (57k troops) and in the south is an army at Kanhsien of 21 units (93k troops).
I’m pulling out 8 divisions and 4 artillery units for the Marianas and a division for Naha and one for the Philippines. (They may both go to the Philippines.) They are heading to Hong Kong for transport. Here is roughly what is available (after garrisons are removed) for the operations against the remaining Chinese:
20 divisions
3 brigades
10 artillery units
1 tank division
1 tank regiment
In addition, reinforcements amount to another 8 or so divisions and 7 or so brigades. After the last of the Chinese Army is eliminated, they will form armies and guard several regions:
Paoshan – against an incursion from the CW army in Burma
Wasu – Soviets
Paotow – Soviets
Mangan – Soviets
Kalgan/Peiping/Tientsin line – Soviet coming from Manchuoko.
It really is worth the investment in time.
You get the picture. Truk’s port is 100% damaged. 
