Hunting the AuTiger - an AAR (no Tigers please)

[Feinder]

10,000 hits...
 
and 500 posts of worthy reading!
 
Keep at it DB!
 
-F-

[bbbf]

The bugs/features, opponents who view things differently to you, waiting for that trun to hit your inbox...
 
There is plenty to beef about but it is truly a great, flawed gem of a game.
 
I have been playing since just after release, after playing PacWar for many years previous, and there just isn't anything that has had the longevity this game has.

[Dive Bomber1]

December 20, 1942 - Nothing happened during the night phase. No minesweeping, no sub hunting, no naval bombardments - nothing at all. It was very strange.

Things picked up immediately during the day phase as the captain of the Pogy missed the jackpot as CVL Shoho sailed by and the Pogy's torpedoes missed. To add to the Captain's bad day, one of the Shoho's escorts then hit Pogy with a depth charge.

Four dozen Hudsons flew from Lautem to Kendari and attacked a small transport TF that had arrived there the day before. Around half of my CAP of Zeros intercepted the "semi-bombers", damaged a number and shot down six of them. (Considering that my Zeros were on 90% CAP one would think that more than half would have attacked the incoming bombers.) But as is typical of the Game, the Hudsons "just couldn't miss" and they hammered the TF, sinking two out of the three AKs, heavily damaging the third and sinking one of the two MSW escorts. I am always amazed at how well garbage planes like Hudsons do on Naval Attack in this Game, particularly compared against dedicated LBA like Nells and Bettys. My guess is that the "accuracy" for Hudsons is calculated as Level Bombers but the accuracy for the Japanese Naval 2Es is calculated as "torpedo" bombers and is thus much less. I can't see any other explanation for my mid-80 experience pilots to do so much worse than pilots with less experience in the Allied 2Es.

In any event, I left the heavily damaged AK at dock in the hopes that the Hudsons come back next turn and my Zeros can get more practice on them. I should start using lone AKs regularly to "attract" the longer range Allied 2Es in order to give my fighters "training".

So Kendari is now cut off. I re-routed all of the other TFs that were heading towards the base. That's too bad, because Kendari was providing a nice amount of Supplies and Resources. But that, of course, was AuTiger's exact idea in capturing Timor, so that he could cut off my Supplies, Resources and Oil. AuTiger wants to win the Game without slugging it out against my defenses in the Central Pacific, and it appears that he has found a very effective strategy to accomplish this. One has to wonder why the Allies didn't do this in the Real War. There couldn't be some "shortcomings" in how this Game simulates the Allied opportunities, could there? [8|]

In other news my sub I-153 did a miserably bad job of "sneaking" into the base hex at Koepang and was promptly sunk by an uncountable number of DDs. Another of my subs that had just dropped off some mines at an Australian base was hit by a bomb while only halfway to Lautem and so is now on its way back to Palau for repairs. So my stragglers at Lautem are destined for eventual oblivion, although they did survive another ground attack this turn.

My air patrols located a huge number of Allied subs off of Java (in addition to the unlucky Pogy) so I decided to try some "serious" ASW on the horde. First off, I sent out a number of ASW TFs. Then I set all of my level bombers, dive bombers and torpedo bombers at all of my Bases in the DEI to ASW patrol at 1000 feet. That includes the planes from the KB that are sitting in the air fields at Soerabaja. I decided to "re-fill" those Naval Air Units with planes and rookies and let the rookies get some training by having them chase Allied subs. Sure, that's not terribly "historical", but then neither is using 300 to 400 4Es massed together to wipe out bases in 1942. But then, this is a Game, not History.

BTW - it looks like AuTiger is planning to try once more to "make use of" the shortcomings of the Land Movement System in China. So I brought a number of Air Units back and I will start to try to train my pilots on the Chinese troops in the field. It's only a shame that my planes never fly and bomb the troops at the crossroads to the north of Canton. I wonder if that will happen in AE?

[Dive Bomber1]

December 21, 1942 - The night phase saw some minesweeping by my forces and ASW attacks by both sides. Of course, the Allied ASW was fatal as usual, while my ASW did little. I eventually lost another sub that was one its way home after dropping off some mines at Broome. The other night action was by the Yamato and Co as they hit Adak reasonably well, although no planes were caught on the ground.

My big "plan" of using "Massive Air Power" for ASW in the DEI fizzled totally this turn. There were no air attacks on any of the Allied subs in the region. In fact, the great majority of my planes didn't even fly, although they were all set to 100% ASW. That's a couple hundred planes in several dozen air units at a dozen bases, and perhaps 3 planes flew. This is beyond being something to laugh off.

Lashio was recaptured by a small British unit this turn. I had pulled out my troops so the Brits got in for free. The Australian troops at Koepang also finally wiped out the remains of my base force and ground unit.

The only other news of note was in China where a couple of my air units flew, out of a dozen or so under orders to fly. And AuTiger moved even more troops out from his bases. I guess that he is hoping to use the AI to trap more of my units.

BTW - I finally remembered to order the 116th/A out of Haiphong and onto the road to Nanning to rejoin its colleagues.

[Dive Bomber1]

December 22, 1942 – The night phase was fairly quiet with a few of my MSWs sweeping mines and a few of my ASW TFs chasing Allied subs unsuccessfully. The most notable happening was that another of my heavily damaged DDs sank at Tarakan. So all of the badly damaged ships from the Naval Battle of Lautem are now reefs.

Things are heating up in China again. AuTiger is moving huge numbers of Chinese troops around to threaten all of my Front Line Bases. Fortunately, the 43, 40 hex is the only location where my bombers won't attack, so I have ordered more planes into China and am trying to attack in too many places for AuTiger to either ambush my planes in the air or blast my planes on the ground. Never-the-less I still expect him to try since he has once again brought fighters into Changsha and has plenty of fighters and bombers in Chungking.

I've grown totally frustrated with my inability to get my weak fighter units to do any training. I've had units sitting back in the Home Islands on 90% training for weeks and weeks without any of the rookies getting a single Training Mission. So I decided that I would try something a bit more radical and started to bring all of my worst fighter units to China. Since there are no "safe" targets for my plane to attack, and I didn't want to just get them wiped out by flak while trying 100 foot Strafing attacks on Chinese troops, I instead set my bad fighter units to fly 20,000 foot bombing attacks on some of the smaller Chinese air bases.

To my pleasant surprise, this plan actually appeared to work to an extent this turn. Several of my Daitais of Fools actually flew and dropped their pitifully small bombs on places like the air fields at Wuchow. Since the planes flew in at 20000 feet when they dropped down to 2000 feet to release their bombs the flak damage was tolerable, particularly when you compare it against a 100 foot Strafing Attack. And Thanks Be to Kami-sama, my losers with zero missions actually flew this time!

So with that encouragement I brought more of my lousy fighter units into China. It will now be the "Battle of the Frauds versus the Gods" once AuTiger sends his fighter squadrons into action. BTW – I also had a number of Sonias bombing various locations as well as some 2Es. This won't stop AuTiger from doing whatever he is planning, but it makes me feel like I am actually "playing" the Game rather than my usual feeling that I am simply "watching" the AI screwing around with me. [8|]

I gave up on my other recent "Test of Tactics" and pulled all of my planes in the DEI off of "ASW" attack. Not a single plane attacked any of the many Allied subs that are in the area. So I set my bombers back to "Naval Attack" with a 20% "Search" setting. At least I've observed that with those settings that my planes will occasionally attack an Allied sub. [8|]

In the "real" action, AuTiger sent out hundreds of planes from Koepang and blasted the air fields at Maumere into a giant crater. Surprisingly, most of my Recon planes at the base survived so I flew them out to Kendari and set them to spy upon Lautem. The air fields at Lautem also reached Level 4 this turn so AuTiger will now have his choice of two air bases from which he can wipe out my bases in the region in a single attack.

The "Big News" from my p.o.v. was that my recently planned "Sweep Wars" against the CAP at Mandalay actually flew. Unfortunately, my INTEL was as bad as usual and there turned out to be many more Allied fighters on CAP than I expected. So although I sent in my six best Zero units from nearby bases, the first couple of attacks were pretty much wiped out. Fortunately, the "sequential attack" rule came into play and my later attacks did much better. Never-the-less, at the End of the Day AuTiger's P40s, Spitfires and Hurricanes shot down twice as many Zeros as they lost. In addition, my two best Aces went MIA. So I had to disband two more depleted Zero Daitais into a third semi-depleted Daitai once I moved all of the units to the "relative safety" of the airfields at Hanoi. Now I intend to move those remaining four Zero Daitais to China and have them back up my Tonys and Tojos as I attempt to interfere with AuTiger's plans.

BTW – if you are wondering why there were no P-38s on CAP over Mandalay, that was because AuTiger had them flying Escort with some B-25s that again attacked at low altitude some of my retiring troops in Burma. Once again the Mitchells took a lot of flak at 1000 feet and five of the bombers were eventually lost. Those are better results than I would have gotten with CAP over my troops.

[Dive Bomber1]

December 23, 1942 - There was a lot of ASW action by my ships during this evening turn, and finally one group of my ships turned out to be effective in this role - my APDs. A half dozen of them ganged up on a US sub between Tokyo and Bonin and whacked the sub pretty hard. That's one Allied sub that will be out of my hair for some time, assuming that it doesn't eventually sink.

In the other night action, the Allied transports that were heading for Adak were "scared off" by my Combat TF. This is yet another of the truly "funny" (actually, extremely stupid) oddities of the Game. My TF ended up back only one hex from Kiska, because it couldn't "reach" Adak in one turn, so it is now positioned so that it can reach Adak in the next turn. So, was my TF really close enough to scare off that transport TF or not? The logic here reminds me a bit of Quantum Mechanics, but in a poorly implemented form. In any event, there is no point in having my ships continue on to Adak since they are low on fuel from the near-round trip, so I ordered them back to Kiska.

There was a lot of rain most everywhere on the Map this turn, but despite that many of my air units in China flew their missions. My idea of having my "worthless" fighter units fly "high altitude" bombing attacks continues to work and my pilots are starting to accumulate a few missions and some experience while their losses remain acceptably low. I lose more Trainees doing "Training" missions than I have while I've been doing the nuisance bombing in China.

However, I am starting to get more serious about the situation in China because AuTiger is now moving giant masses of Chinese troops against my main forward bases. All of my bases are at Level 9 Fortifications, and I have substantial troops in all of them, so I don't quite understand why AuTiger is bothering. I would have thought that he would have learned this lesson "painlessly" from watching me throw away masses of my troops against his Level 9 Forts earlier on in this pbem. Either AuTiger has forgotten that lesson and now thinks that his Chinese troops will "beat" the Ground Combat Rules, or else he is doing this in order to prevent me from pulling my Southern Command Forces out of China. In any event, I hope to cause AuTiger plenty of casualties and cost him a lot of Supply in this Operation of his.

In other news, in Timor AuTiger finally has troops marching overland to relieve his paratroops in Dili. So Timor ought to fall completely under Allied control fairly soon.

BTW - the 116th/A is marching along the road from Hanoi to Nanning, so it will reach its compatriots within a few days. If I hadn't forgotten about it for a couple of days while it was in Haiphong, the 116th/A would have reached Nanning by Christmas.

Finally, My latest attempt to get my new pilots to fly in the rebuild KB air units by setting them to "Naval Attack" with 50% "Patrol" didn't work any better than having them on "Training". The new pilots still haven't flown a single mission. So I've now set my fighters to "Sweep" a next door friendly base and I set the bombers to fly 100% "Search" and I'll see next turn if this "helps". This can be such a badly designed Game at times.

[Dive Bomber1]

December 24, 1942 - The night phase was quiet other than a bit of minesweeping along the Malay Coast, and then the naval portion of the day phase was almost equally dull with only a bit of lackluster sub chasing by my forces. The day phase did show that the Allied transport TF reached Adak this turn, but my combat TF at Kiska was in no position to race back to try to catch the Allied ships - maybe next time.

There was more air action to make up for the lack of naval action. A number of my secondary 2E air attacks on unimportant Chinese bases flew, as did a number of my secondary air-to-ground attacks that were targeted against secondary Chinese LCU targets. But my main multiple air attacks planned for the Chinese besiegers of Nanchang, which were scheduled to fly from multiple bases with multiple air units, didn't budge. Why am I not surprised? The Allied Mitchells from Akyab did fly again against my retiring troops in Burma, and once again the low flying bombers took a fair amount of flak damage and another plane was brought down.

So without any air support the job of defending Nanchang from the Chinese Hordes was left solely up to my foot soldiers. My troops got off a nice bombardment first which caused almost 400 Chinese casualties. Then it was the turn of the quarter million Chinese troops to mount a Deliberate Attack on my forces, which were half the size of the Chinese forces, but were sitting behind Level 9 Fortifications.

Well, as things should go, the Chinese troops were spanked badly as they obtained a 0:1 result and took over 9000 casualties compared to just under 1100 casualties for my troops. I can only dream of how the situation might have unfolded if any of my many bomber units had flown during the turn.

In any event, that unpleasant reminder of how Ground Combat Works ought to make AuTiger think a bit deeper about running nuisance operations in China.

[Dive Bomber1]

December 25, 1942 - The night phase brought the usual minor minesweeping and some lackadaisical (and unsuccessful) sub hunting by my ASW forces. The day phase brought some aggressive airborne ASW by AuTiger's air units in the Aleutians, where, despite the Weather being "Blizzard", one of my subs was hit twice by Allied aircraft and sunk and another was hit hard and is now limping home with lots of damage.

BTW - the Glen on board the sub that was sunk ended up being listed as a "Ground" loss instead of as an "Operational" loss in the Aircraft Losses Chart. I thought that I remembered seeing that sort of thing in the past.

The weather appeared to have some effect in China too, where a number of my air units made fragmentary raids on the Allied troops that are besieging Nanchang. My other units that were set to bomb airfields and troops elsewhere in China flew normal raids, with the exception, of course, of those air units set to bomb the Allied LCUs at 43, 40 which, as usual, didn't fly.

I watched that part of the Combat Replay more closely than usual and interestingly enough, during the Combat Replay no enemy troops were shown at 43,40. So it looks as if the "Detection Level" for that hex has vanished into a Twilight Zone of some sort. In order to test this out a little better I decided to bring more Recon planes in to try to add more "Recon Power" to that hex next turn.

In the meanwhile, AuTiger set his troops at Nanchang to just do an artillery attack, and despite outnumbering my troops, the Chinese troops only caused a couple of dozen casualties, compared to over 200 casualties caused by the bombardment by my troops. AuTiger also brought a big force of troops in to besiege Chengting, so I set my troops there to do a bombardment too, and as well brought some bombers in to hit the besieging troops from the air.

At the same time, as part of AuTiger's overall plan to overwhelm me at multiple points, Allied troops captured Pagan this turn, and my patrol planes spotted something like 22 Allied units on the road towards Rangoon. So it looks as if most of the troops that captured Mandalay are on their way to attack Rangoon.

I have the Imperial Guard Division at Rangoon, as well as a lot of support troops, but I never had the chance to build up the fortifications to Level 9 because of pretty constant Allied 4E bombardments over the past 12 months. Also, I never expected AuTiger to be able to bring together so many Chinese, Indian and British units in Burma this early in the Game. So unless I get some lucky dice rolls I expect AuTiger to sweep through Southeast Asia like "grass through a goose" because my Forces are too spread out and there are no natural defensive points in the region.

[Dive Bomber1]

December 26, 1942 – The night phase was fairly quiet from my p.o.v., but the Allies were busy trying to sweep mines in the Aleutians and Northern Australia. The Allied MSW efforts were reasonably effective, but a couple of mines were missed and an AP hit one at Umnak and a DD hit another at Derby.

AuTiger got his 4Es into the air for the first time in several days. Bad weather split up the attack on Rangoon, but a 151 B-17 attack hit my poor starving troops at Dili, causing massive losses. AuTiger does like to use overkill.

In China a few of my secondary Bombing missions flew. There was an odd result over the Chinese troops that are holding the road just to the northwest of Nanchang – two Spitfires showed up to contest my incoming attack, but I actually had a decent Zero Daitai on escort so one of the Spits was shot down and the other didn't engage my bombers. My INTEL says that AuTiger has 60 fighters nearby at Changsha, so I guess that those two Spits were "lost" from the rest of their compatriots. Oh well, I'll take the kill – my fighters don't get easy kills very often any more.

I ran this turn on a different PC with a different Install of the Game, and interestingly enough, a Recon group from Canton actually flew and spotted the Chinese troops at 43,40. But none of my bombers in the region flew against that hex despite that. Nowadays, I use Canton and Hong Kong as "way stations" for air units that I am moving between Fronts, and while the air units are at those bases I set them to attack the Chinese troops at 43,40 just in case there is some "magic" in one of those units and something actually attacks.

In any event, AuTiger now has masses of troops at both Nanchang and Chengting, so my troops at both bases got off good artillery attacks, particularly at Chengting where the attack caused over 1100 Chinese casualties. This gives my troops experience and uses up Chinese units and supplies, and my planes do fly and get experience against enemy troops at those two bases, so I'll take this as a "present" from AuTiger as long as I can have it.

[Dive Bomber1]

December 27, 1942 – The night phase only saw a single sub-chasing incident by my forces, and then the day phase started with more minesweeping by Allied forces.

There was lots of rain and bad weather most everywhere. Only odds-and-ends bomber attacks on secondary targets flew in China; the main attacks on Nanchang and Chengting didn't fly. And of course, nothing flew against the Chinese troops at 43, 40.

Despite the lack of air support my troops at Nanchang and Chengting still achieved solid artillery attacks on the besieging Chinese troops. AuTiger has apparently had enough of the situation at Chengting and most of his troops pulled back before my troops were able to fire upon them. So the effect on the remaining Chinese unit was even stronger.

AuTiger got clear weather in the Timor region so he was able to send off a massive overkill attack on my forces at Dili. A total of 530 Allied planes, of which 186 were 4E bombers, strafed or bombed my two pathetically understrength Base Forces. Afterwards, AuTiger sent in fresh paratroops and they were easily able to capture the base with a Shock Attack. The already shattered Base Force that had retreated from the invasion of Lautem was destroyed by attrition. The original Dili BF will have to be finished off by Allied troops, and will provide some measure of additional training for the Allied fighters already on Timor.

Finally, the first bunch of Allied troops reached the crossroads to the northeast of Rangoon this turn. What I don't know is if AuTiger will attempt to attack Rangoon directly or if he will isolate and bypass it while going further along the railroads into Malaya and French Indo China. In any event, I'm not committing any forces until I see more clearly how AuTiger's plan will develop. In any event, with bad weather across the entire "top third" of the map it is unlikely that any of my planes would attack any Allied forces on the road anyway, and also AuTiger has a huge number of fighters at Mandalay that are providing LR CAP over his forward troops and the bases such as Lashio and Pagan that he has captured and left. So I'll bide my time and see if AuTiger outruns his supply lines and CAP.

[Dive Bomber1]

December 28, 1942 – The night phase was typically quiet. There was the usual limited and unsuccessful sub hunting by some of my ASW forces, and Roti Island, which is a dot base next to Koepang, became "occupied" by the Allies.

The day phase saw lots of rain everywhere on the Map. A few scattered bomber attacks flew against secondary targets from my bases in China. As usual, there were a fair number of Recon flights from both sides. AuTiger also sent a number of P-38s to strafe my survivors of Dili, causing a fair number of casualties. Surprisingly enough, when the now re-joined US Paratroop unit eventually attacked my stragglers on the ground only the Paras suffered any casualties.

AuTiger decided to pull back again in China after wasting troops and supplies checking out my Forward Defenses. All of the troops were gone from Chengting and Nanchang, and the number of Chinese LCUs at the crossroads to the north of Canton was cut in half. So I relocated my planes in China to wait for AuTiger's next move, if any, in the region.

AuTiger's main move is being set up in Southern Burma where more troops have arrived near Rangoon, but none have actually moved into Rangoon yet. I am continuing to wait to see what AuTiger does. He now has a huge number of fighters and bombers in Mandalay, so if the Weather gives him a break I can expect some heavy air attacks in the region.

Things were still quiet in the Timor region too. AuTiger now has a huge number of air units in Koepang too, so I decided that it was a good time to pull the KB out of Soerabaja and move it a little farther away. None of my CVs are badly damaged, and my air units are rebuilt, so that last thing I want right now is to have either the planes caught on the Ground or the ships caught in Port by massed 4Es.

It will be only a few more days until I start to receive Oscar IIs. I have plenty of Nate units that have had nothing to do but train in the backwater bases for the past eight game-months, so it will be nice to upgrade them. Of course, thanks to the totally incompetent "Training" subroutine for planes in this Game, few of my Nate units are at a better than mediocre experience level, but at least once they have Oscar IIs they will have a better chance to try to train against enemy targets and survive.

[Dive Bomber1]

December 29, 1942 – This was an overall quiet turn. There was only a little bit of unsuccessful sub hunting by a few of my ASW ships during the night phase. The day phase followed with some successful mine-clearing by the Allies and some successful aerial ASW by some of my planes in the Java area. The only actual attack this turn was by some bombers and fighters from Lautem which attacked my stragglers at Dili.

AuTiger's latest advance in China appears to be over as all of his forces have pulled back to their bases. So I have a few LCUs out to "re-connect" my Zones of Control. The weather is generally terrible over most of the map so AuTiger hasn't been attempting any bombing campaigns either.

Allied troops continue to build up outside of Rangoon as I continue to sit back and watch. My troop re-assignments continue unchecked in the region, so the longer that AuTiger waits and prepares, the more I get to prepare. I suspect that AuTiger would have been better off trying a Blitz in the region, but I'm glad that I'm not finding out.

So it's mainly a matter of Wait-and-See for me as I await the arrival of Oscar IIs and also the mass of HQ units that will arrive in a couple of weeks. Many of those HQs are Air HQs, so that ought to help me a bit as I continue to rebuild my Air Forces.

BTW - Real Life has become very busy and complicated for me so I won't able to spend much time on Game Life in the near future. So this pbem and my AAR will be somewhat intermittant for a while.

[Dive Bomber1]

December 30, 1942 – The night phase was quiet again except for a couple of unsuccessful ASW attacks by some of my DDs on the multitude of Allied subs in the waters off of Java. The day phase then brought some minesweeping by my ships at Rabaul.

Air attacks were limited to Timor again as AuTiger was able to get a couple of hundred bombers and fighters off the ground in Koepang and Lautem and put my stragglers at Dili out of their misery. The last message was "Japanese unit(s) surrounded at Dili".

I received a surprise during the ground phase. The 35th Brigade, which had been driven out of Akyab some time ago (and thanks to the AI and the Movement Rules ended up in the mountains to the east of Akyab instead of along the road to the south), finally moved a hex to the south towards Rangoon. But since there is a river along the south side of that hex, my unit was forced to do a costly and totally futile "Shock Attack" against the small British unit that had occupied the hex. Of course, the AI is programmed to ignore the location of the "river" and just treat the entire 60 mile hex as a "River Hex". I wonder who thought that this would be a "good" idea?

Nearby, other British troops captured Taung Gyi which was empty and had been abandoned after the fall of Mandalay. And at Rangoon, AuTiger moved one unit to the east of Mandalay to cut off the supply route while 36 or so Allied LCUs waited to the north. I am surprised that AuTiger hasn't been bombing Rangoon into dust; it's unusual for the Allied planes to be grounded by bad weather.

My final AI surprise of the day came at Batavia, where I had some damaged carrier fighters being repaired while the KB sailed there. When I disbanded the KB into port, the fighters at the base were automatically loaded on board CVs - but not the CVs where the parent Air Units sat! I re-ran the turn several times but I couldn't come up with any combination of steps that would result in the planes all ending up on their "own" carriers. Fortunately I was able to unload the errant fighters off of the overloaded CVs. I then left the partially empty CVs in port while I sent the rest off in a new TF.

I never cease to be totally astounded at how many little bits of code work illogically in this game (if they work at all) and give results that waste the player's time and efforts. [8|]

[Dive Bomber1]

December 31, 1942 – Nothing happened during the night phase and very little happened during the day phase, other than lots and lots of rain falling over most of the map.

Burma continues to be the main area of Allied movement. An Allied LCU moved towards Rahaeng while the bulk of the Allied advance remained outside of Rangoon. I don't mind that because all of the Allied troops are sitting in Malaria zones so they will use up supplies and accumulate disruption faster that way. I don't know how much LR CAP AuTiger has over those troops so next turn I'm sending some Recon planes over to check out the situation.

AuTiger attempted a Deliberate Attack on the now fully-trapped 35th Brigade this turn, and as is usual in Land Combat, his troops suffered more casualties than my troops. Land Combat is different in Malarial Zones than it is in Temperate Zones like China, so AuTiger will soon start to learn some very unpleasant lessons. The 35th still has supplies, so it ought to last a while unless AuTiger bombs it into oblivion. But just so that I don't "throw good after bad" I turned off the replacements to the 35th and I also changed its commander from a reasonably decent General to the worst General in my Inventory. This way when they are eventually eliminated I won't lose a General that can be useful to me elsewhere.

With the arrival of January 1, 1943, I finally get some more new plane production turned on, including Oscar IIs, Nick Fighter Bombers and Dinah III Recon planes. I have 299 planes worth of production built up and waiting for the Oscar IIs, so I ought to be able to start to upgrade my Nates pretty quickly. Of course, Oscar IIs might turn out to be Garbage too, but I'm being optimistic that they must be better in some manner than Nates, which can't even compete against the Chinese biplanes.

January 1 also brought the opportunity to upgrade a number of my ships. Most are already sailing towards ports with Repair Shipyards, so the upgrades ought to go quickly. I wonder what the upgrade will be for the CVE?

Interestingly enough, AuTiger "paid" a Political Points penalty of 600 points for not sending ships back to England.

[Dive Bomber1]

January 1, 1943 – The New Year started out quietly as there was only a single unsuccessful ASW attack by my forces during the night phase. The day phase brought some air action as the weather cleared over Burma and Northern Australia so AuTiger was able to send out some of his air force.

First off 221 Forts hit Waingapu and hammered the air fields. But since the air fields are pretty small any way, it didn't matter a lot. AuTiger won't easily capture the smaller bases like Waingapu by air power alone; he will have to send in ships and take his chances with the IJN. Actually, if he is willing to risk losses now he stands a good chance of knocking out the IJN in a head-to-head confrontation, which will make his other plans in 1943 much easier to pursue. So it will be interesting to see what he does.

The other air attacks were out of Burma where 100 Forts and Libs hit an LCU at Rahaeng. AuTiger is trying to soften up my ground troops prior to sending in his LCUs. He is still keeping the bulk of his forces outside of Rangoon.

My Recon flights over the Allied forces around Rangoon didn't meet any LR CAP. That was because AuTiger used this turn to give his fighter pilots some training on the trapped 35th Brigade. Over 200 Allied fighters, comprising of 10 different makes, strafed and bombed the hapless troops. Fortunately for AuTiger my troops have little AA capability left so the Allied attack only had one plane that received flak damage and none were lost to Operational damage.

I currently have nothing in the region that can stand up to the massive Allied air presence, but I am slowly moving my better fighter squadrons out of China and into Southeast Asia. I don't want to throw them piecemeal against the Allied air power, so I'm trying to accumulate a force of my own that can do something more than just get wiped out on the first encounter.

My Oscar II factories are producing planes as planned so I already have 10 new fighters in stock. I am going to upgrade my Nates and Oscar Is in order of pilot experience, so by the end of January I ought to have a handful of Army Air units that should be able to hold their own in combat. Unfortunately, AuTiger can still easily put into the air three times the number of modern fighters with skilled pilots in both Southeast Asia and the Timor region than I can, so I will have to try to rely upon ambushes to blunt the Allied Advance.

[Dive Bomber1]

January 2, 1942 – The night phase started out fairly quiet, then there was a nicely satisfying attack by a number of my escorts on a Dutch sub at Singapore where the sub suffered a couple of good hits.

Then the Combat Replay Display went nuts! [X(] [&:]

While still centered over Singapore, the Combat Replay Display momentarily showed the prows of a number of ships at the right of the Center Dividing Line in the Display. The next thing that I knew, another ASW attack was being reported, but CVEs were appearing in a list.

Huh?!!!!! My only CVEs are sitting in Osaka! BBs, AVs, ASs, CAs, CLs, and DDs all showed up in the list on the screen. Two "Smoke Plumes", as if from burning ships, showed up on the lower left hand corner of the map. I was getting reports of hits on a ship.

But the two combat screens on the right were stranger than strange! There was nothing in the upper "Periscope" view, and the lower "Underwater View" showed one of my DDs firing mines!

Then the Display cleared and went back to normal for the rest of the Combat Replay. I stopped the Game after the Combat Replay finished and looked at the Combat Report. Look at what I found:

ASW attack near Singapore at 23, 50
Japanese Ships
CVE Taiyo CVE Chuyo
BB Kongo
BB Haruna
BB Kirishima
BB Nagato
BB Mutsu
BB Fuso
BB Hyuga
AV Sanyo Maru
AV Sanuki Maru
AV Kamikawa Maru
AV Kimikawa Maru
AV Kiyokawa Maru
AV Akitsushima
CA Tone
CA Takao
CA Atago
CA Maya
CA Chokai
CA Myoko
CA Mogami
CA Suzuya
CA Kumano
CA Aoba
CA Kinugasa
CA Kako
CL Katori
CL Kashima
CL Kashii
ML Tsugaru
ML Okinoshima
ML Ikitsushima
AS Jingei
AS Chogei
AS Taigei
AS Nagoya Maru
AS Rio de Janiero Maru
AS Yasukuni Maru
AS Manju Maru
AS Tsukushi Maru
AS Heian Maru
CL Naka
CL Isuzu
CL Kinu
CL Abukuma
CL Kuma
CL Kiso, heavy damage
DD Akigumo
DD Makinami
DD Naganami, heavy damage
DD Shiranuhi
DD Urakaze
DD Michishio
DD Natsugumo
DD Minegumo
DD Asagumo
DD Kasumi
DD Yudachi
DD Akatsuki
DD Yamagumo
none, Shell hits 4
DD Hamakaze
DD Tokitsukaze
DD Isokaze
DD Yukikaze
DD Hatsukaze

Please Note: Of those ships listed above, ONLY the following ships that participated in the first ASW attack were in a TF in Singapore:

DD Yamagumo
DD Hamakaze
DD Tokitsukaze
DD Isokaze
DD Yukikaze
DD Hatsukaze
DD Oyashio
DD Makigumo
DD Kazegumo
DD Yugumo
DD Akizuki

ALL of the other ships were In Port at other bases around the map. For example, CL Kiso and DD Naganami that showed "heavy damage" were sitting in Tarakan; and yes, they have "heavy damage" but that's from the Naval Battles at Timor.

BTW - During the "ghost" battle, DDs Yamagumo and Hatsukaze were the ships that showed up in the "underwater" screen.

BTW II – I'm guessing that the "none" ship in the list was the Allied sub.

Although I ran this turn on a "fresh" start of the Game with no other save files in the "Save" folder, I pulled out the files, shut down the Game, and started up all over again. I re-ran the turn and got the exact same results. I then ran the "Combat Save" file and sure enough, it gave the same result as running the turn that my opponent sent to me. Later on I ran the turn on a totally different PC and got the exact same results.

I'm totally baffled as to what happened, but I'm going to send the Combat Save to AuTiger anyway and have him run it so that he can see what I saw.

The rest of the Turn appeared to be "normal" as it ran. The only other action was yet another large scale air-to-ground attack by the Allied planes at Mandalay on the trapped 35th Brigade.

When I prepared the next turn send to AuTiger all of the "Ghost Ships" were back in their ports and only the ships that were supposed to be at Singapore were there.

If anyone would like to view the Combat Save for themselves, please let me know and I will email it to you.

[Dive Bomber1]

January 3, 1943 - The night phase went without any "Ghost Fleet" action this turn. There was some minesweeping by my forces, as well as a number of unsuccessful ASW attacks by my forces.

Then the RN swept in and hit Rangoon. I have a CD unit there, so a number of British DDs and CAs received hits from shore guns, but I suspect without much effect. What particularly surprised me was that the RN Bombardment TF not only got in without detection but also got away without detection, despite having a number of DDs hit with multiple gun hits. The overall damage to the ships must have been light.

Afterwards during the day phase Forts and Libs finally flew in and hit Rangoon, causing a fair amount of damage. Once again one of the Game's Real Sci-Fi factors came into play as AuTiger took no bomber losses due to Operational or Flak damage. I continue to be astounded at how few Operational and Flak losses AuTiger's planes take, despite flying so many missions turn after turn after turn. It's only too bad that the Game doesn't model cumulative fatigue on planes and instead simply does a "dice roll" in which pilot experience has a very big (and totally unjustifiable) effect on Operational and Flak losses. BTW - Allied fighters and light bombers also hit the trapped 35th Brigade again and once again the air losses were negligible.

AuTiger surprised me by launching a Shock Attack across the river at Moulmein. Despite my troops being reasonably prepared, the massive numerical superiority of Chinese troops in the attack meant that the base was captured handily. Once again, I stand totally amazed at the incredible number of Chinese LCUs that AuTiger has at his disposal in Burma, and yet he still has more than enough troops to keep a stalemate in place throughout China. It's only too bad that the Designers put in such a handicap for the Japanese player in the form of the Soviet Activation Rule because a few of those Manchurian Divisions would have been a great help in Burma.

[Dive Bomber1]

January 4, 1943 - The night phase was quiet other than some minesweeping by both sides. The day phase then brought an attack by 221 Forts on the air fields at Waingapu. AuTiger's usual luck took a bit of a holiday and he actually lost two B-17s to Operational damage. The Air Training exercise against the 35th continued and as usual the planes didn't take losses. AuTiger's Operational Air Losses have been pretty steadily down in the 1 percent or less level for most of the pbem.

Otherwise, things were pretty quiet during the day phase, other than some aerial ASW by both sides. For once AuTiger's bombers didn't hammer my sub when the hit it - it must have been a "glancing" blow. The only other action was an artillery attack on Rangoon by some of AuTiger's besiegers. It didn't cause much damage.

I finally got some of my better air units in place in Bangkok this turn and I am going to send out a couple of Helen Daitais, escorted by Zeros, against the air fields at Moulmein. I'm guessing that AuTiger isn't currently flying LR CAP over Moulmein.

If you are wondering why I'm not using more bombers in the attack, that's because I have hardly any bomber Daitais left. Thanks to me doing some really bad planning early on, and also totally misunderstanding the upgrade paths for Japanese bombers in a non-PDU game at the same time, I've ended up with only three Helen Daitais as far as bomber units go that are suitable for anti-air field attacks. I ran out of Sallys in late summer 1942, and the Sally factories all upgraded to other planes, so I can't build more. Thus, thanks to losses, none of my Sally units are anywhere near full strength, so I have relegated them to ASW duty. Of course, with PDU "Off", I can't change the Sallys for anything else until late 1944.

In one bit of good news, I created my first Oscar II Daitai this turn. In another 4 days I ought to be able to create another, and so on. It will be so nice to have semi-useful fighter units for a change!

[Dive Bomber1]

January 5, 1943 – The night phase was a bit busier this turn, with the results of the latest Allied sub-laid mine campaign showing up. One of my ASW DDs hit a mine at Muntok instead of finding a sub and was badly damaged. The good news of the night was that a heavily damaged US sub finally sank while on its way back to Pearl. My forces don't sink Allied subs that often.

In a real change of pace, the only air attack this turn was by my forces as my air raid on the air fields at Moulmein went off perfectly. There was no CAP and my bombers found the air fields. They caused some damage, and although comparatively little by the standards of the gigantic Allied air raids, it was still nice to see a mission flown successfully. This also sends a message to AuTiger that he can't take things for granted in his Burmese campaign.

AuTiger must be planning something in China because he has moved more Allied fighters to his forward bases. Maybe he thought that I was planning nuisance and/or training raids in that region. I'm currently not, but it helps to have the extra air power in the region because I am discretely pulling out the Southern Command ground units that I moved into China during AuTiger's late summer Chinese ground campaign. I don't want AuTiger to get any "free shots" at my transports.

There were only two ground attacks this turn. The Chinese division that is in the Burmese jungle with the 35th Brigade attempted a deliberate attack this turn, but it had little effect, perhaps because AuTiger didn't send out his planes from Mandalay this turn. The Allied troops besieging Rangoon also did a larger artillery attack this turn, but the results were less than last time. Fortunately, the attacks so far have hit my HQ and minor support forces and the Imperial Guard troops are still at full strength with low fatigue and high morale, so if AuTiger attempts to do a ground attack in the near future it ought to be repulsed.

In any event, I'm not leaving things totally to the Imperial Guards, and I have couple of nice forces on their way to help out at Rangoon. First off, I have a battle fleet including 3 BBs on its way to bombard the Allied troops at Rangoon. And to back it up I have the undamaged CVs from the KB lurking nearby in the hopes of catching the RN with its guard down. Things ought to get a bit more interesting in the region over the next couple of turns.

[Dive Bomber1]

January 6, 1943 – The night phase started out with some minesweeping by my MSWs, and then my Northern Bombardment TF hit Adak with a bombardment attack. The damage was fairly light and no planes were caught on the ground. AuTiger may well have pulled some of his planes out thanks to the warning that his Air Patrols gave him last turn.

But next there was a surprise for me as the RN came in once again and hit Rangoon with a Naval bombardment. My CD guns fired back and hit a number of the smaller ships, but once again there was no obvious damage to the British ships, and the RN TF sailed back into the stormy weather and out of sight. I've been improving my Air Patrol capability in that region, but obviously it still isn't enough.

I did notice that AuTiger pulled the bulk of his planes out of Mandalay and put them into Akyab instead. Is that because he is basing his Brit ships out of Akyab, or is he having difficulties keeping supply levels up in Mandalay? In any event, a number of fighters and light bombers flew out of Akyab this turn and bombed my trapped 35th Brigade. Never-the-less, the ensuing Deliberate Attack by the Chinese Division in that hex did little damage. I suspect that at least that Chinese Division is running low on supplies.

AuTiger's massive force at Rangoon may also be running low on supplies, because their artillery attack this turn, albeit by not as many troops as last turn, caused negligible damage. In any event, I am hoping to make the besieging troops at Rangoon even more uncomfortable next turn as my Bombardment TF is now in position to hit them.

Yes, for once my TFs in the region moved into position without being spotted. (However, there was a report from one of my float planes about an Allied sub in the region, so I'm not sure how AuTiger will interpret that.) Just to be safe I even put a good Zero Daitai on LR CAP over my BB TF. But my ace-in-the-hole is the TF consisting of the undamaged ships from the KB, which also happen to contain the remaining experienced IJN air units too.

However, I still almost sailed "Into Disaster", as only at the very last moment did I do a check of my naval air units and found out to my horror that I had ALL of my planes on my Air Combat TF under "stand down" orders.

OOOOOOOOOOOOPS!

I checked my retiring AC TF that has all the damaged CVs and sure enough, I had set the planes there to provide the usual cover, even though the TF is sailing away from the Front. That's all I need at this stage – to lose my undamaged CVs because I forgot to set the planes on patrol!

In any event, the next turn ought to be more interesting.