Turnaround? Lowpe (J) vs Tiemanj (A) Stock

[Lowpe]

Feb 10th, 1944

Marks the combat debut of the Frank a over Ominato.

Lots of night action, as we manage to sink a DE off Ceylon...

[Lowpe]

Allies plant mines at Fusan, move the Deathstar closer to Honshu, and bomb Tokyo where the Nicks and Irvings do a wonderful job, stopping about 10 attacks...except for this one at 2000 feet.

The AA can't even drop one of them. The damage done is horrific to the HI at Tokyo, doubling all the previous damage done. I guess I will see a lot more 2000 foot bombing runs. Wonderful.

Not sure if there is any counter to this.[&:]

[Lowpe]

Here is what my Oscar raid on the Deathstar looks like.

Every single Kamikaze is shot down, not a single escort plane is damaged. Doesn't bode well for Oscars as Kamikazes.



In Hindsight, maybe I should have attacked at 1000 feet.

[Lowpe]

During the day there were lots of sweeps and counter sweeps. Allies hit Ominato and Hirosaki. I mistakenly left the Tonies on 1 hex range, and 20 of them were butchered in sweeps at Hirosaki, but at Ominato we fight well.

Also 4 Thunderbolts killed for the day...

Nice 4E losses, but worth it when you consider the amount of damage those 4 planes did at 2K.

Subtract 40 Oscar Kamikazes from the list and not that bad, certainly levels of plane losses I am comfortable swapping with the Allies, but that 2k attack has got me down.

[Lowpe]

A minor success.

[Lowpe]

Just not sure what to do here....I feel so toothless.

[JocMeister]

ORIGINAL: Lowpe
Just not sure what to do here....I feel so toothless.

I don´t really get it. Where is your LBA? Erik could mass thousands of planes. If I had been doing what your opponent is currently doing I would have lost every single ship including every single carrier.

470 planes isn´t a deathstar. Its a small CV fleet. I had 3000 planes and Erik still punched through on several occasions.

Get every plane you have to the HI and smash him! You should have thousands of planes hitting him.

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: JocMeister

Hitting factories (especially at night) can be fickle though. I tried doing this against Erik but more often then not I wouldn´t hit anything at all or the wrong target. When you lose 30-50 B29s per night and can only attack perhaps 2 times per week that is really not acceptable. Hitting MAN on the other hand was pretty sure way to do good damage. At least initially until some of the HI/LI had burnt down.

Its not impossible your opponent IS trying to hit your factories but he simply misses and hits something else. Have you checked if you have any important factories where he is bombing?

I agree. It's also possible in tandem he doesn't KNOW where each aircraft model is being produced. Factory size is disclosed before the model, and air recon, even in early 1944, is not that great. Later on when he gets the B-29 recon variant his powers of observation will increase. But for now he might just be hitting the biggest factories he can reach with non-B-29s.

Remember, he doesn't have to be in a hurry here. He isn't racing VJ Day. He's already made you abandon defense of the Pacific to race all those LCUs home. He can harvest a lot of VPs in the next 6-8 months for cheap.

And night bombing that takes out HI does help him with the pilot tax and hurts your aircraft production in the longer run. He's got two years if he wants them.

Sorry.[:'(]

[Lowpe]

ORIGINAL: JocMeister

ORIGINAL: Lowpe
Just not sure what to do here....I feel so toothless.

I don´t really get it. Where is your LBA? Erik could mass thousands of planes. If I had been doing what your opponent is currently doing I would have lost every single ship including every single carrier.

470 planes isn´t a deathstar. Its a small CV fleet. I had 3000 planes and Erik still punched through on several occasions.

Get every plane you have to the HI and smash him! You should have thousands of planes hitting him.

I'd say 90 percent is on the Honshu. The problem is when I throw 1500 planes at him, I lose 1000 and for no real gain. I have done it two or three times now. Everything goes in fragmented and gets shot down. Tired of throwing a away thousands of planes.

My kamikazes are busy training up from 55 to 70.

[Lowpe]

Turn is away; I have set up several CAP traps; perhaps I will try Jocke's idea and throw another 1500+ planes at the Deathstar tomorrow. They aren't going anywhere.

To counter the 2000 foot 4E bombing runs, I flew a squadron of Rufes into Tokyo, and set them to 2000 feet, 40 percent CAP. They will die, but hopefully they will disrupt the bombing run.

Over in Indochina, I am trying more flanking moves. Many thanks for Alfred's suggestions on this, as it has worked very well for me in the past and I see an opportunity here now. I have paratroopers ready to hit empty bases, but so far no joy there just the failed attack a month or so ago on Tuang Gyi.

In the Pacific I have two Brigades fully prepped for Marcus, and several more still preparing. I am keeping an eye out on the Marianas and Kuriles trying to get a handle on his convoys/ports/runways. Saipan still has good supply, and a strike at shipping or ports or runways at Guam and Tinian may make sense.

But all this is just sideshow; need to figure out how to take down the Deathstar.

[JocMeister]

ORIGINAL: Lowpe
I'd say 90 percent is on the Honshu. The problem is when I throw 1500 planes at him, I lose 1000 and for no real gain. I have done it two or three times now. Everything goes in fragmented and gets shot down. Tired of throwing a away thousands of planes.
M
y kamikazes are busy training up from 55 to 70.

I know it really sucks. But if you don´t do anything you have already lost. Right? [:(] You have to keep trying and hope for a miracle. Chances are slim at best but you are running out of time where you actually CAN do something. In a couple of months time you won´t be able to any longer because supply will be gone and your factories in ruins.

Go read Eriks AAR. He put up a very effective defense right up until the end. [:)]

[Lowpe]

I have forgotten Mr. Kane's excellent advice about flying high altitude level bombers at the Deathstar with heavy fighter escorts to act like sweeps. My bad.[:-]

[Lokasenna]

Try torpedoes [;)].

[Lowpe]

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

Try torpedoes [;)].

I did once. One Sentai of Frances escorted by several hundred Oscars. 7 Planes survived the run in with the CAP, and all missed.

So far, Judy and Myojo kamikazes seem best at penetrating CAP. But I have to wait to get 70 plus lowNaval pilots.

[Lokasenna]

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

Try torpedoes [;)].

I did once. One Sentai of Frances escorted by several hundred Oscars. 7 Planes survived the run in with the CAP, and all missed.

So far, Judy and Myojo kamikazes seem best at penetrating CAP. But I have to wait to get 70 plus lowNaval pilots.

I'm wondering if two successive days of massive strike packages would do it. His CAP has to get worn down at some point. What about subs? And if you do succeed in wearing down his CAP on day 1, KB on day 2...?

[Lowpe]

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

Try torpedoes [;)].

I did once. One Sentai of Frances escorted by several hundred Oscars. 7 Planes survived the run in with the CAP, and all missed. Which makes me scared to throw surface ships in at him...I always seem to guess wrong.

So far, Judy and Myojo kamikazes seem best at penetrating CAP. But I have to wait to get 70 plus lowNaval pilots.

I'm wondering if two successive days of massive strike packages would do it. His CAP has to get worn down at some point. What about subs? And if you do succeed in wearing down his CAP on day 1, KB on day 2...?

I have a dozen subs chasing him, just seem to miss with most each turn.

[vicberg]

Can you afford to wait? His deathstar is out of land based air covverage. Take it out and you have a *chance* to cutoff Hokkaido. Throw everything at it.

[Lowpe]

Feb 11, 1944

Allies bomb Tokyo, and try Mitchell assault bombers for the first time. Why they were flying at 17K, other than to draw the CAP up that high is beyond me, but we shoot down a half dozen. It does draw the CAP up, and the low level attack scores many hits.

For the day we shoot down 11 B24s and 6 Mitchells, for 6 Nick and 6 Irving losses.

As always, the first day after moving a NF squadron it won't fly. Makes juggling the NFs more difficult.

I produce 7 NF a day, and have 117 Irving Sa in the pool, but only 5 Nicks which started production last month.

Deathstar moves in; and I neglected to move a troop transport carrying AA & Engineers which gets trashed. A five hex strike by the Deathstar.

So the consensus is to hit the Deathstar...not sure where it will go now.

[Lowpe]

Turn is away, and there are three possible locations that the Deathstar is likely to go. Direction one, 1500 plane attack, Direction two and and three 18 plane Kamikaze strike with Zekes. This is a test, since the Zeke can fly higher than the Corsair CAP they might all get to make runs, they will suffer from AA, but still it might work.

Not sure how much damage a Zeke with two 60kg can do to an Essex, but you never know, and as far as experiments go it is rather inexpensive. Probably 65 average Low Nav in those 18 planes. The Deathstar most likely will see a High Altitude strike escorted hopefully by Georges (good attack range). The Helens are going in at 30K or so, while the Georges are escorting at 41K, hopefully they will be able to dive on the Corsairs.

Also sweeping Hokkaido, setting up to sweep Guam and Andamans next turn. Moved subs in to try and capture downed flyers.

The strike at Hokkaido also features a well escorted Betty strike on the BBs gathering there.

Bought out an excellent 43 IJA Infantry Divison, is on trains and should arrive at Fusan shortly. I cheated and paid a fraction of the cost by transferring into a free Chinese HQ (the 11th Air Flotilla I think...seems really cheesy).

Plus subs and all the usual hustle and bustle.

Tomorrow a new 42 plane Army fighter squadron shows up; over the next 30 days I get close to 1000 planes.

[JocMeister]

IMO flying at 1-2k ALT is pretty makes the engine go a bit nuts. I did some testing on this a while back (although not very thorough) and it seemed the low alt makes it almost impossible for CAP to intercept. Detection time gets so low the CAP even at the same altitude rarely can intercept.

As I said I havn´t tested it enough to say something definitive but I would avoid flying under 4k.

PS. How come your AA don´t wreck him?! I took some horrendous losses to AA even at 15k.