An Aussie Affair: Re-Match!

[CapAndGown]

Originally posted by Luskan
More worried that Raver and his new airfield at Woodlark are going to start chewing up the solomons by bypassnig my little strongholds and building their own bases as they go.

He has Woodlark! I must have missed that. Now you are going to lose complete freedom of movement for any resupply attemtps in the Solomon Sea. My guess would be the he simply bypasses most of your troops in order to starve them in submission. He can have Woodlark up to a size four in no time. If you are going to counter invade somewhere, this is where it is going to be.

[Luskan]

Sorry Cappy - I meant Rennell not Woodlark. Raver doesn't have Woodlark and to take it, well, I've got 9 or 10 airfields than can hit transports unloading there, or support over 300 zeroes that can support my CVs etc. Raver will take GG before he goes for Woodlark - since I stole lots of units from GG to barge to PM he is probably already getting ready for it. I have taken a few steps that will prevent him landing at Woodlark - not the least of which is my recovering surface fleet at Rabaul. Not recovering very fast I might point out, but still sort of recovering.

Raver's navy is also doing some recovering I'm sure. nothing has happened these last few turns but repeated raids on Lunga (almost empty now) where the one squadron of Nicks contests the air with lightnings from Nevea, corsairs and warhawks from irau, Liberators and b17s from Luganville and probably p39s from Rennell. All those red lines converge in cop operative raids on Lunga and somehow my engineers and nicks keep the place open. The amount of flak I've shoved into the place has certainly paid off - but they've also paid a heavy price. I just got 4500+ load points of AA unit replacements. Will not ship them to Lunga, but to other, AA-less bases in preparation for Raver's next move.

On reflection, Raver certainly doesn't make the same mistake twice. In our first game he didn't include any minesweepers for his transport groups, had multiple groups going to each location and multiple CV groups supporting them in a complicated web of support and dependance. Of course, when there were that many tfs - and he forgot to set half to do not retire and the plan went to **** when his ships did the psychic CV detection thing and gave me an extra turn to fly in every bomber/ship in every ship on the allied OOB etc. he lost.

His last invasion was the opposite - 6 simultaneous invasion prongs at Rennell, Irau, Pm, Lae Lae (ft), Buna (paratroops which took the empty base and then dakotaed in troops) and Dobadura (paratroops only), which cleared the truly massive minefields at Irau and PM almost without incident (Idaho has hit about 3 or 4 mines but doesn't seem worried) and with the exception of the unloading fiasco at Irau (dropping the guns and support troops on the beach first) the invasions were perfect.

His problems this time were: overstretching. Buna and Dobadura could never have hoped to hold against my fast transporting regiments from Rabaul, Gasmata and Lae.

The troops he landed at PM were not initially strong enough, so he evened the odds by pushing another division in. However he hadn't bombarded properly prior to his first three attacks so they were a waste and killed lots of his men (after the tens of thousands of allied troops died at Irau and PM I can't udnerstand how Raver is still ahead on army loss points), and then they tired out and needed more troops raced in - by the time he was starting his next big push, I'd had regiments clear Buna and Dobadura, march over to PM, rest for four turns, and then shove him into the sea.

Raver didn't close the GG-PM barge supply route, which would have won him the battle. Even now his fighter bombers strafe barges every turn - usually costing me 1 or 2 a turn as they ferry supplies into Buna or Lunga. GG will be reinforced before Raver can arrive so he missed an opportunity there.

The second big mistake Raver made was to waste allied airpower on airfields and ports when a: those at PM and GG were already closed, b: there weren't enough supplies there to dent anyway, and c: he SHOULD have been bombing my relaxing combat troops.

Raver's decision not to force a CV battle will remain one of the stranger decisions of the war. He had corsairs and hellcats - he had 4 big cvs, 5 CVEs and is now getting two CVLs (he might have already had some anyway) - sure, when you consider I've got every single CV, CVL and CVE on the IJN OOB, completely undamaged with unattrited aircrews, it is daunting, but he should have sailed his CVs north of GG, or west of Irau - and had the fight.

If he had completely lost it (by not scoring any hits on my ships), he would have lost the game. But any result better than that - damage to both sides, sunk CVs to both sides, or lost aircrew for both sides (especially mine) or maybe magnificent USN victory - would have ensured that his invasions would have succeeded, as my CVs would not have been able to niggle at the stragglers as they have done. My cvs have sunk a BB, 2 CA, 1 CL, 12 DDs, 4 APs, 7AKs, 4 MSW, 2 DMS and lots of SCs AFTER Raver's troops were ashore and they were doing supply runs.

[Raverdave]

I am yet to get any Hellcats....and when I do you will know about it.

[Luskan]

I'd love to catch your CVs in the open and have a do or die battle before then - but I think the truth of it is that as long as I can threaten you with all my CVs, you cant just pack some transports and sail up to Rabaul in one go. If my CVs are gone then you're in the clear to do just that.

I'm five thousand points ahead of Raver - 12500 to about 17500. When I'm the USN, I feel that if the IJN is double my score then I'm loosing. I've never been double Raver's score - his base building campaign has seen to that.

P-39s are useful for something - I'm starting to loose barges at an alarming rate (3 or 4 a turn for 6 or 7 turns now). This threatens my Lunga and PM supply runs - which obviously causes me concern (I can't use transports for those route or Raver's Lba will eat me alive). I'm thinking that my tonys can escort my barges - engage the enemy p39s and maybe get a few easy kills in a nice low level dogfight.

Raver unloading barges at Irau - nothing I can do about it with lightnings and corsairs to deal with.

[Raverdave]

Relax cobber, there is still plenty of time for a CV on CV battle....and it WILL come, but only when I am ready. So far I have been lucky in not having a CV battle....apart from the very early part of the game when we simply traded aircraft for no gain to either side. But that was back in what? August'42? I have a number of CVs that are carring some battle damage (and weather damage) which urgently need to be repaired.

HOLD THE PRESS!

I have just seen Luskan's CV TF sailing down the Coral Sea:( And I have nothing to contest him with. I have a feeling that he is looking to shutdown the fast TFs out of Cairns:eek: If he does this it will spell the end for my poor troops in PNG.

[Raverdave]

Originally posted by Luskan
Sorry Cappy - I meant Rennell not Woodlark. Raver doesn't have Woodlark and to take it, well, I've got 9 or 10 airfields than can hit transports unloading there, or support over 300 zeroes that can support my CVs etc. Raver will take GG before he goes for Woodlark - since I stole lots of units from GG to barge to PM he is probably already getting ready for it. I have taken a few steps that will prevent him landing at Woodlark - not the least of which is my recovering surface fleet at Rabaul. Not recovering very fast I might point out, but still sort of recovering.

Raver's navy is also doing some recovering I'm sure. nothing has happened these last few turns but repeated raids on Lunga (almost empty now) where the one squadron of Nicks contests the air with lightnings from Nevea, corsairs and warhawks from irau, Liberators and b17s from Luganville and probably p39s from Rennell. All those red lines converge in cop operative raids on Lunga and somehow my engineers and nicks keep the place open. The amount of flak I've shoved into the place has certainly paid off - but they've also paid a heavy price. I just got 4500+ load points of AA unit replacements. Will not ship them to Lunga, but to other, AA-less bases in preparation for Raver's next move.

On reflection, Raver certainly doesn't make the same mistake twice. In our first game he didn't include any minesweepers for his transport groups, had multiple groups going to each location and multiple CV groups supporting them in a complicated web of support and dependance. Of course, when there were that many tfs - and he forgot to set half to do not retire and the plan went to **** when his ships did the psychic CV detection thing and gave me an extra turn to fly in every bomber/ship in every ship on the allied OOB etc. he lost.

His last invasion was the opposite - 6 simultaneous invasion prongs at Rennell, Irau, Pm, Lae Lae (ft), Buna (paratroops which took the empty base and then dakotaed in troops) and Dobadura (paratroops only), which cleared the truly massive minefields at Irau and PM almost without incident (Idaho has hit about 3 or 4 mines but doesn't seem worried) and with the exception of the unloading fiasco at Irau (dropping the guns and support troops on the beach first) the invasions were perfect.

His problems this time were: overstretching. Buna and Dobadura could never have hoped to hold against my fast transporting regiments from Rabaul, Gasmata and Lae.

The troops he landed at PM were not initially strong enough, so he evened the odds by pushing another division in. However he hadn't bombarded properly prior to his first three attacks so they were a waste and killed lots of his men (after the tens of thousands of allied troops died at Irau and PM I can't udnerstand how Raver is still ahead on army loss points), and then they tired out and needed more troops raced in - by the time he was starting his next big push, I'd had regiments clear Buna and Dobadura, march over to PM, rest for four turns, and then shove him into the sea.

Raver didn't close the GG-PM barge supply route, which would have won him the battle. Even now his fighter bombers strafe barges every turn - usually costing me 1 or 2 a turn as they ferry supplies into Buna or Lunga. GG will be reinforced before Raver can arrive so he missed an opportunity there.

The second big mistake Raver made was to waste allied airpower on airfields and ports when a: those at PM and GG were already closed, b: there weren't enough supplies there to dent anyway, and c: he SHOULD have been bombing my relaxing combat troops.

Raver's decision not to force a CV battle will remain one of the stranger decisions of the war. He had corsairs and hellcats - he had 4 big cvs, 5 CVEs and is now getting two CVLs (he might have already had some anyway) - sure, when you consider I've got every single CV, CVL and CVE on the IJN OOB, completely undamaged with unattrited aircrews, it is daunting, but he should have sailed his CVs north of GG, or west of Irau - and had the fight.

If he had completely lost it (by not scoring any hits on my ships), he would have lost the game. But any result better than that - damage to both sides, sunk CVs to both sides, or lost aircrew for both sides (especially mine) or maybe magnificent USN victory - would have ensured that his invasions would have succeeded, as my CVs would not have been able to niggle at the stragglers as they have done. My cvs have sunk a BB, 2 CA, 1 CL, 12 DDs, 4 APs, 7AKs, 4 MSW, 2 DMS and lots of SCs AFTER Raver's troops were ashore and they were doing supply runs.

Gee this bloke likes to flap his gums alot:rolleyes: :p

[Raverdave]

Seriously, I would love to go into some detail of why I did this and why I didn't do that, but at the moment this sort of information is just too sensitive. If I were to "chat" it would cost me. The old saying applies here...."Loose lips sinks ships".

[Luskan]

Well I've been flapping my gums as you put it - and you haven't, and yet you are the one with all the sunk ships! Loose lips obviously don't sink ships then

Was a big turn sports fans - lots of low level action as the battle for air superiority drops down to the deck.

My last badly damaged destroyer sneaks out of Lunga and is caught by the ever successful s-39 - just like the last damaged destroyer was. The result is the same, and Raver has about 110 ships sunk.

My boys launch on Irau, but they were all under 10 morale, so plenty turned back. Rotated them out.

Just took a chance to catch the fast transport group to Lae Lae - didn't find them so I guess they weren't running.

Ned Kelly dies on the bridge of his ship, the MSW Revenge - the one ship my vals did sink at Irau. D Freedman shows that he has japanese ancestry.

AFTER ACTION REPORTS FOR 07/25/43

Weather: Overcast

Sub attack at 36,39

Japanese Ships
DD Uzuki, Torpedo hits 3, on fire, heavy damage - sinks.

Allied Ships
SS S-39


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Air attack on TF, near Irau at 42,43

Japanese aircraft
D3A Val x 43
Ki-43-IIa Oscar x 34

Allied aircraft
F4U-1 Corsair x 24
P-40E Kittyhawk x 11
P-38G Lightning x 4

Japanese aircraft losses
D3A Val x 5 destroyed
D3A Val x 1 damaged
Ki-43-IIa Oscar x 3 destroyed


LT D. Freeman of VF-8 is credited with kill number 8
This nasty bastard got ALL 8 in this one dogfight. Shows that at least one of Raver's pilots can fly. Wonder what the stats on this guy are.

Allied Ships
MSW Revenge, Bomb hits 9, on fire, heavy damage


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Air attack on TF, near Irau at 42,43

Japanese aircraft
Ki-45 KAIb Nick x 3

Allied aircraft
F4U-1 Corsair x 24
P-40E Kittyhawk x 11
P-38G Lightning x 4

Japanese aircraft losses
Ki-45 KAIb Nick x 1 destroyed
Ki-45 KAIb Nick x 1 damaged


2LT R. Bong of 9th FS is credited with kill number 2


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Air attack on TF, near Irau at 42,43

Japanese aircraft
Ki-45 KAIb Nick x 23

Allied aircraft
F4U-1 Corsair x 24
P-40E Kittyhawk x 11
P-38G Lightning x 4

Japanese aircraft losses
Ki-45 KAIb Nick x 1 destroyed

LTJG D. Rehm of VF-8 is credited with kill number 2

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Air attack on TF, near Buna at 12,38

Japanese aircraft
A6M5-B Zeke x 7

Allied aircraft
Beaufighter VIC x 4

Japanese Ships
AG 2066, Bomb hits 1, on fire, heavy damage


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[Raverdave]

Aw bloody hell! I've lost sight of his friggin CVs again! One turn they are sailing in the middle of the coral sea, then next turn *poof* they have gone....and am yet to spot them. Just in case he is sailing south I have cancelled all transport TFs on the east coast of Australia. As soon as he docks, one of my coast watchers will spot them and report back in. But until then I have to plan for the worse case.....and that Luskan is such a sneaky little shite that I would not put it past him to try and interdict the shipping between Aussie and Noumea.

Nice to see **** Bong with his second kill.

[Mike_B20]

Raver, what are the stats on D. Freedman...or is that information classified?

[Raverdave]

Originally posted by Mike_B20
Raver, what are the stats on D. Freedman...or is that information classified?

Lt D.Freedman of VF 8:-

Exp: 91
Fat: 33
Mis: 328
Kills: 8

And he is a nice bloke to boot!:D

[Mike_B20]

327 missions a virgin and he goes berserk on 328th and scores 8 kills !

[Luskan]

Not sure what ship VF 8 comes from but what the hell is he doing off his CV and on Irau?

Raver launched a 200+ medium bomber raid at Fort moresby and the result wasn't pretty. The new eng units i moved into the place got pulverised in one sweep. Guess the fort will stay unbuilt.

In other good news topsies have reinforced the garrison at GG and transports have completed unloading supplies and several small nif units at Vila.

Raver did a bloody sneaky thing last move -loading barges with troops - sending them from irau to a little dot just opposite the end of the slot, and taking it. it isn't any good as a base or an airbase, so I let him do it (rather, I moved my CVs real close but they didn't launch and then the storms started etc.) and this turn, he sent some back. To drop off more troops or supplies - in fact they picked up his little inf unit, and are now unloading at Taivu (**** **** ****). he has his first troops on G.c. and I didn't even try to stop him.

[Raverdave]

Relax....they are just a recon unit.

[Luskan]

Raver now has about 50 barges at Irau under lots of fighter cover so my pathetic fighter bombers (zekes have 10 morale, all the other Nicks have already been pulled back for their crappy morale - only the zero pilots, my nell squadron and my betties are holding their morale high).

Dauntlesses from Irau prevent me from any serious surface action (that and my ships are all beat) but I am thinking about mustering up a storm of PC craft to roll right over this little invasion.

One of the Empire's finest regiments is marching from Lunga to defeat the invaders. I'd tell you which regiment if i could remember.

More replacement sub units arrived at Truk today, lots of Eng replacements for all the units Raver has culled in his game long airbase/port bombing campaign. As such the IJA troop OOB is looking pretty healthy at the moment. Lots of troops, plenty of base forces and engineer units to go around (except at PM) and the AA and CD units are all where the should be - at the front.

Raver is trying to attempt to land troops at Taivu without risking any of his transports - by using barges and then flying the replacements in from Irau or Rennell via catalina.

This turn was a rainy turn, and as such Raver's saliors couldn't see so well and ran into lots of mines at Lae Lae (2 DDs hit a mine each), Irau (one dd hit a mine) and at Taivu 1 barge hit a mine and sank, taking the ever promising commander Glass to the bottom with it. That is a big result from one of my first, and smallest minefields. Mice to see that mine (really cheap pun) works of art at Irau and PM are still threatening.

July is now over - August has begun and there are just 120 turns between my victory or my defeat.

[Raverdave]

Only 120 turns left!:eek: But I need at least 200 !:(

[Luskan]

10000 views WOOT!

This last few turns has shown that Raver's troops haven't been idle.

Corsairs from Rennel, lightnings from irau, heavy bombers from Luganvilel flew straight over Lunga and the world biggest AA batteries - to hit Russell. Fortunately, Russel is just that bit too far for them and didn't take too much damage, while it cost Raver 9 heavy bombers, 2 corsairs and a ligthning to the betty, sally, and 7 tonies he destroyed.

Another big hit on PM from Raver's medium bombers - damage units are all AA or Eng - INF units are fine. Since the laelae beachhead isn't getting any smaller I won't be withdrawing any troops from PM, as much as some of the battered AA units need it.

if I had any surface punch left I'd go for some bombardment missions to Cooktown or Luganville to try and catch some of Raver's airpower on the ground - and at least cause him a supply nosebleed.

Hopefully Irau, Rennel, Nevea and Lae Lae are a drain on his supply lines - even Luganville has to have supplies shipped in so i'm desperately hoping for a slackening of the enemy air offensive.

My fighter squadrons are ready for more battle - and I'll be shipping plenty of them down to Russel, Vila and Shortlands, but Lunga is going to be too hard to supply the extra amounts needed for planes (especially since the barges have been totallyed and my two idiot APD drivers decided to spend the night at Lunga (why I'll never know) and surprise surprise their ships were sunk first thing in the morning).

STILL NO REINFORCEMENTS - I thought maybe since I had a billion barges that they were the reason I wasn't getting **** all from the fuckers in Tokyo. Now that all the barges are sunk I'm beginning to wonder if I'm getting ANYTHING at all. Just 5 transports and I'd be able to rotate my troops efficiently. Just 5 destroyers and I could start smacking Raver's barges up nightly.

Raver sent his pt boats into Lunga to try and catch my minelayers that were hurriedly dumpnig smoe mines overboard. There wasn't a combat but two pt boats hit mines and sank. Can't be too many of them left.

Couple of enemy transports at Wupenko, no doubt trying to supply Irau or Rennell. Also a couple of transports sighted sneaking up the aussie coast past rockhampton (or sneaking down it - important information that search plane pilot should have included hmm?) so there is something afoot.

This game has gone very very very fast (150 turns to go - not 120 as I first thought. If Raver plays his invasions smart, fast and accurate, he might have Lunga in 100. After that I can't stop him taking Russell, Efate, (and he'll already have GG, unlikely to have PM). Should finish up about even on points which means it is down to the great CV vs CV battle. At this point of the game I'm not sure if I can win it.

[Raverdave]

The ONLY thing that is slowing me down at this point is the lack of transport ships. It is really causing me headaches. If I had enough shipping I would have launched tha attack on Lugna by now. I have plenty of troops all fresh a ready to go.....at last count I had 8 BBs and heaps of CAs CLs and DDs.....but I need to build my supply up before I can move foward. looks like the invasions of PM and Irau have cost me more than I had thought.

[Luskan]

You have 8 BBs, half a dozen CVs worth of points just sitting around and you wonder why you don't have any transports???

I have 1 sick and twisted BB and less transports than you do. Still no reinforcements.

As the allied player I have never found it difficult to find transports to land troops (barges, fast transport, APs, AKs etc) and my dakota fleet certainly helps supply them once they're ashore, but after I took PM and Lunga, and settled my heavy bombers in at both airfields with loads of deadly new allied fighters, I could NEVER supply them enough - especially to keep them at the 4X supply requirements they need to fly at 100%. Medium bombers aren't supposed to take that much supply either but they ate through it just as fast with more op losses!

Only supply efficient bomber the allies have for small airfields is the dauntless, only prob is it only carries 1 bomb. Does the game take into account the size of the bomb when deciding runway hits? 50 1000lbs bomb hits from 50 dauntlesses (better aimed as well) should hurt more than 50 bombs hits from 8 B 17s shouldn't it?

[Raverdave]

My P-47s made their debut....pity they could find no Japs to shoot at:( Other than that is is quite.

AFTER ACTION REPORTS FOR 08/04/43

Weather: Thunderstorms

Air attack on Russell Islands , at 35,39


Allied aircraft
P-47C Thunderbolt x 72


no losses


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