Ocean of Blood. FatR (J) vs. Bigred (A).

[FatR]

Victory Screen

As you can see, I forgot to take it on December 8th... not much happened on the next day though, so the overall picture remains the same. Japanese point lead is slightly below 2.5:1 and is slowly decreasing, mostly due to air losses, which recently favor Allies. I might get close to 4:1 and auto-victory in 1943 if (or, more realistically, when) China falls, but as I do not want an auto-victory, I'll probably just remove garrizons from a couple of minor bases to take some VP hits, if the threat becomes real, just to not have the game ending prematurely, in case AE does not allow to run turns past the point of selecting the winner.

[FatR]

The Perimeter

I'm still slow with updates... For now, take a look at the approximate extent of Japanese control zone on December 8 of 1942. I still have a lot of dot bases in my rear to clean... will probably use paradrops now to recolor some of them, as you cannot split small units and send a dozen guys in a boat to raise Japanese flag on some Middle Nowhere Island otherwise.

[FatR]

Burma

Southern Army marches on Kunming with five divisions, including 2nd Tank. Chinese and a separate American regiments are driven before them. Save for annoyance air raids and attempts by mere batallions to cut the road to Lashio, which were easily repelled, Allies offer no signs of coordinated response. I think I'll be able to pull back some of the forces participating in this offensive soon enough.

Air war, though, goes less than successfully. For a time, bigred was pounding Magwe by nighttime air raids, with considerable success. My Ki-45s were overwhelmed by masses of Allied bombers, including 4Es. However, after three nights of this he abandoned the campaign and returned to small raids against varios airfields, that serve as a very mild annoyance at best. Possibly the fact that I noticed he has no big airfields more distant than Calcutta and started nightbombing Allies back with my Ki-49s, killing some Liberators on ground, prompted him to pull the heavies back.

In Andamans, meanwhile, bigred has a laid a huge trap for my routine bombing runs against Little Andaman and inflicted brutal losses, before pulling out on the next day. This prompted me to stop regular air attacks in this theatre and to pull back from the frontline all units, using bombers older than Ki-49-IIa, to train until they can be refit with these modern bombers.

[crsutton]

It is not a bad perimiter. I would not consider his foothold in the Adaman Islands to be such a threat. As without a fleet, he is going to have as much trouble supporting his forward bases. As long as you hold Sabang, you are fine. Is this scen#2?

[FatR]

It is Reluctant Admiral mod. I consider it to be about halfway to Scen 2 in terms of enhancements given to Japanese. Compared to Scen 2 Japanese get more fleet carriers, about as much value in extra surface units, and some useful plane types, but WAY less resources/oil at the start (less than in Scen 1), only one small extra oil center, very little extra ground forces (and then only support units, not infantry), no boosts in pilot quality and much fewer improvements in airframe avaliability. Bonuses are less front-loaded as well. In addition, we're playing the initial build of Scen 70, that is full of bugs and results of misundersandings within the team. The biggest bug in my favor is +10-20 mph of speed on Zeros/Oscars/Frank. The biggest bug that helped Allies was the entire Chinese army starting with full-strength units (I still wonder how this happened...). They are fixed in the current build of Reluctant Admiral.


China

I've failed to break trough to the north from Changsha region and divided my forces incorrectly when trying to evict Chinese remnants that were left in Changsha and on the road to northwest of it. So, Japanese advance has been slow in November. However, by the end of the first week of December Changsha and Nanning were doomed (they fell since then, and I even managed to seize some industry intact). With advance from Burma and two divisions from Hawaii about to land in Canton to hit Chinese from yet another direction, my advance will soon sweep their remaining forces. My opinion of bigred's ground tactics is very low, I must say. Seeing how many reserves Chinese still can field, he had every opportunity to hold his line in the south even against the Kwantung Army reinforcements. Maybe even decisively defeat my main force at Hengyang after I vastly underestimated consequences of a river crossing against a huge stack. And right now he should have been forming everything he can into roadblocks on the way to Chungking. Every road to Chinese heartland from the south leads to a river crossing in x3 AV rough terrain - even a battered and starving army can hold there. But Chinese troops are still scattered around far to the south of any sensible defensive line, with many groups being small. His attempts to infiltrate and cut roads around Sian area and elsewhere are clearly futile, because I can shift my forces faster to hold hexes and/or defeat his roablocks. I can't say that bigred does not try to improve his tactics at all, but how long it should take to grasp the importance of concentration of force?

[FatR]

Western DEI

This region is pretty scarcely garrizoned at the moment. Oosthafen is the only big airbase with enough support for several airgroups between Soerabaja and Singapore. However, with KB-1 and the Japanese heavier battleships at Singers, this is not that much of an issue. Allies won't have a fleet capable of challenging them until second half of 1943. Still better be safe than sorry, so I'm trying to ship more troops to Java and Southern Sumatra at the moment, and plan to release a good division from Home Islands for both. In fact, one division is already being shipped, but I might use it to take Little Andaman first.

Oh, and as you can see, Allies have indeed occupied Cocos Island, as I learned after getting Irving recon planes. The garrizon does not seem to be big, and considering how isolated Cocos is, I think taking it and killing troops stationed there would be a nice and cheap way of keeping Combined Fleet's skills sharp. I'm preparing a brigade and a regiment, both experienced, for Cocos now, but they will need at least another month before they will be able to land without massive disruption.

[FatR]

Eastern DEI

All is quiet on the southern borders of the Empire... no air raids, no significant Allied buildup, almost no observable activity after liberation of Port Hedland, in fact. (Well, actually on second week of December there was major Allied convoy activity which even resulted in a battle between an Allied destroyer TF and one of my battle squadrons next to Port Hedland, which will be remembered more for Admiral Nishimura's indecisiveness, than for any actual results, due to absolute lack of the latter).

Meanwhile, Timor-Java line is almost entirely garrizoned, even if with thinly-stretched troops, and airfields/forts are being gradually built up across it. But in the following 6 months at least I expect this theater to remain a strategic backwater too.

[janh]

Not sure whether a brigade and a regiment will be sufficient to quickly overwhelm Cocos I.  But I completely agree with your plan -- a cheap catch, and maybe it will draw in some naval forces for the icing as well. 
Your progress in China is quite stunning, especially around Changsha I find.  Just make sure your are not running into a trap at Kunming, it is very far behind any line.  Your forces could be cut off at Lashio by the British and Indian units, if BigRed pulls his aces in the right fashion. 

Can you post a screen of the most recent air losses at the Adamans?   Probably crsutton is right, it is more of a major annoyance and attrition rather than an acute threat.  Should be dealt with, but given the generally limited capabilities of the British Fleet and air force, I would still propose that Pearl ought to be the major fruit to be picked.  Maybe a hard pick, but I am quite sure it will worth any effort in the end.  I just cannot see BigRed performing any offensive successfully anywhere in CentPac without retaking Pearl, so taking it is probably equivalent to securing a huge perimeter.  Anything East of New Guinea appears to be a huge risk without having clear control of Hawaii and the deep SEPac.
What is your present taking on Pearl?

[FatR]

I don't have screens from the last big battle. I think I lost over 60 planes to 30 or so Allied fighters. Bigred currently (December 14th) is trying to push another convoy to Andamans, and it is carrier-covered. I lost 13 Kates in the opening attack against ships at sea and, unless Allies pull back, a huge air battle is going to take place tomorrow. KB-1 (4 CVs + 1 CVL) rushes to the scene at full speed as well, I really want the garrizon starving, and an opportunity to bag more CVEs cannot be passed. But it probably still won' be able to participate immediately.

I don't think Allies have strength to seriously assault Lashio right now. They were relatively recently defeated in Burma, and a lot of their LCUs are pocketed on isolated islands. Still, I have two brigades + one Thai division in and around Lashio at the moment, and more can be railroaded from Burma proper in case of an isolated offensive.

About Hawaii, well, I'll lay out my view of the situation in more detail tomorrow.

[FatR]

The move of bigred's convoy to Andamans was a feint, meant to draw my aviation into attacking, and Wildcats seen on the first day apparently were flying LRCAP from somewhere. However, as flying rate of my squadrons, including those from KB-1 was the worst I've ever seen, only a limited battle happened, and results were in my favor. Most of the rest of the hapless Saeki Ku got slaughtered when their Kates lost contact with escorts, but those escorts got an upper hand against LRCAP, even though it included Spitfires, and overall losses were 29:27 in my favor. Also, one of the decoy xAKs was found and sunk by I-5.

Meanwhile, take a look at the damage KB-1 suffered from one turn of running at full speed (if you wonder where is Akagi, she's still undergoing repairs after taking a torpedo when KB-1 covered operations against Port Blair). All ships were in perfect condition before sortying:

[FatR]

Solomons

Save for very limited air action, mostly night raids by small groups of Allied planes against Horn Island and Milne Bay, the region remains quiet, which suits me just fine. I think it still needs reinforcements, as at the moment only Milne Bay, Tulagi and Rabaul have more troops than a single NavGuard unit, but fortifying DEI takes precedence. Solomons are very roundabout path to the Empire's vitals, and I don't really mind Allies attacking here, particularly now, when any attempts to maintain the initial foothold are very likely to turn very ugly for them. But I don't think they can muster enough troops for a serious effort right now, anyway.

[FatR]

Central Pacific

No action. The shift of the main fleet base to Mili proceeds as planned. Engineers from Lahaina, which recently have maxed out all of the facilites there, are making their way to Mili right now, to assist in building up the island. 30k troop limit certainly allows to place much more support and auxilary forces there, and to maintain a decent garrizon. While being small enough to severely inconvenience the attacker. As you can see, I've transferred the base force from Majuro to Mili - I cannot build up every island here anyway, so I'm going to concentrate on Mili and Nauru in the near future. Of course, with the Allies fleet in shambles, the possibility of a strong assault here is very small, that's why I'm not moving any major infantry formations to this region. However, I plan to use the time I have to dig on these atolls, just in case.

[FatR]

Hawaii

No changes, except that bigred apparently snuck some seaplane support to French Frigate Shoal. Will evict them once a SNLF finishes preparing. Five bomber groups keep Pearl safely shut. American flak still fires, indicating supplies remaining.

And talking about the big picture, the plan to assault Pearl is buried, probably permanently. The reasons are as follows:

1)Ground bombing wasn't able to reveal much about the American force's composition. However, it appears that fragments from all or most CD units I've already faced on other islands were saved to Pearl... Plus, we all know that Oahu harbor defence is super-hardcore by itself. The perspective of facing such monster coast defense makes me shudder. I guess I'm too fond of my ships to sacrifice (speaking optimistically) several dozens more.

2)Speaking of ships, I don't have enough of them. Not in general, but assault shipping, meaning transports that can unload everyone in one turn (needless to say, two turns against Pearl's coast defences will be unsurvivable for anything, particularly as one day of dueling CD guns is enough to exhaust ammo on escorts). Port Blair, albeit a great success, cost me 8 AKs (goddamn collision-inducing PT boats and some air attacks that hit my ships mid-ocean). And I've lost a lot of AK-convertable fast transports around Hawaii before. Plus usual losses from subs here and there, etc. Judging by experiences at Lahaina, I roughly estimate, that to have an actual shot at taking Pearl, I will need 10 divisions, plus a couple of engineer regiments and 10-15 heavy artillery units. I did not do exact calculations, but, approximately speaking, I can lift, at best, half of that in one go. Sure, I can use xAKLs to supplement AKs, and already used them for my aphibious assault on Lahaina, but, frankly, with their piddly troop capacity they don't help much, not in an operation of this scale, and particularly not can when you cannot have more than one landing TF, because it must be very heavily escorted to mostly survive CD fire for even one turn. And of course, several landings will mean several days of CD hell. Not an exciting perspective.

3)And speaking of troops... I had only 6 full divisions + one division worth of separate units on Hawaii, no combat engineers and very little arty. Not nearly enough. And my logistics was already very stretched just feeding them there, and hauling bombs for the Pearl suppression team. Besides, there are both easier (Little Andaman) and more important (China) ways to use my troops right now...

So, I apologize to everyone who wanted to see the titanic clash for Oahu, but I'm not daring enough to try this gamble. Don't worry, I already have a grand and evil plan for 1943, which might compensate spectators for not seeing this show. More on this a bit later.

Meanwhile, I'll continue to blockade and suppress Pearl enticing bigred to undetake a major amphibious operation to free it, so I hopefully will be able to kill more of his irreplaceable ships with my eminently replaceable planes, without losing any strategic positions that I can't afford to lose. Lahaina now has level 9 forts and two regiments of defenders, and both bases on the Big Island have level 6 forts and a regiment, so an assault on them will be a lot of fun for the attackers. I also plan to reinforce them with several artillery units each (saving fragments, of course), to make it harder for Allies to attrit the defenders through superior firepower. Artillery generally has low experience and I'm not sure it really uses experience for anything, and units are small, so having them destroyed and rebuit from scratch shouldn't have a big impact on their capabilities.

[FatR]

Aleutians

Well, Aleutians are fairly well fortified now. Paramushiro is by far the biggest stronghold, with over 200 AV, level 6 forts and an air HQ. The air ASW patrol line is being formed to cover all entrances into the Sea of Okhotsk. Significant part of the large influx of air support units that will arrive in the next month and a half will also go to Kuriles/Sakhalin/Hokkaido area. The reason for this and to my newfound mild regret for abandoning Aleutians will be made apparent below...

[FatR]

Plans for 1943

I'm willing to bet that Allies won't be able to successfully launch a major amphibious assault in regions covered by Japanese LBA until late 1943 now. The question is, how can I (a)use the time given me to improve long-term strategic and economic position of the Empire (b)provide myself with an interesting challenge without doing something that likely will be detrimental to my position?

As you can see, besides planning for operations against Little Andaman and Cocos Island, I'm currently going for the kill in China. There is still a hard campaign ahead, but I'm fairly sure that in another 6 months or so I'll be able to take or thoroughly blockade Chungking and to destroy most of the major remnants outside. Accidentally, this should give me some extra oil in northern China, and considering that I'm going to face monthly deficit of HI in 1943 at the current rate of production, this will be very welcome. My existing resources surplus will also increase, and hopefully supply will become more plentiful.

Of course, this will also free about 10k worth of AV. The question is, how to employ them with maximum efficiency? As most of them will necessarily remain restricted, my options are restricted to hitting India with all of my strength... or to unleash war on USSR, instead of waiting for the death by Soviet activation. I thought for a time about the former option, but it does not entice me. Too late and too difficult logistically. I have no shot at completely overrunning India, and a partial conquest will put my troops in a dangerous situation this late in the game, as any defensive position that includes Indian cities worth holding will be too vulnerable.

So... should I invade USSR? In fact, assuming that China falls on time, yes, I think I should. Of course, it is quite late for this campaign too. Soviet bases should be very well fortified, and firepower of Japanese infantry drops in 1943. On the other hand, Red Army will remain stuck with lots of obsolete planes and very few aircraft reinforcements, while my airforce will be flying advanced mid-war airframes, so even against pilots who had years to train, the air war should be quite manageable, as long as Allies are not allowed to fly their airgroups in. Unlike even the invasion of India, logistics of this operation should be relatively simple. And I will have a much bigger, more experienced army, than any Japanese player who have invaded USSR up to date. I think this is going to be fun.

Of course, I need, as I just said, to prevent Western Allies from directly helping USSR. That's the part of the reason why I'm going to strongly build up my northern region. And that's why after deciding on the new direction I started to regret leaving Aleuitians. They can be used to transit longer-ranged aircraft, including dreaded 4Es, to Soviet airfields. I'll need to take a good look at the map, calculating aircraft ferry ranges, to see if it might be worth reoccupying some or all of the currently-abandoned islands.

[FatR]

Japanese Ship Losses For The First Year Of The War

Well... save for CVLs/potential CVLs, and BBs losses are hardly heavy. Japanese Navy is undoubtely stronger now than at the beginning of the war. Only light cruisers and CS aircraft tenders are reduced in numbers, compared to what I started with, and reinforcements included many bigger and more valuable ships than ones lost.

Except for AMCs. These suffered hugely, and I have few left. But they are mostly good as fast transports by this point anyway.

[FatR]

Destroyer losses. Andamans campaign claimed the majority of them.

[FatR]

Sub losses. My opponents should have paid more attention to Air ASW. Considering what havoc my subs have wrought upon Allies (inflicting fateful damage on Enterprise, finishing 2 BBs and 2 CAs which were heavily damaged by other forces, sinking 1 BC and 3 CLs, plus a ton of merchies), this is a small cost to pay.

[FatR]

Naval Summary

Allied losses are obviously subject to FOW. I'm pretty sure that all three British 1942 CVs and five of six USN ones are indeed gone. Because I took a brief look at Yubari's AAR when he decided to quit, if for no other reason. CVE Copahee is also a certain loss. CVL reported is Hermes. She was badly damaged looong ago, in early stages of the Andamans campaign, and recently showed on the list as sunk in December on far edge of the map. Probably FOW. Ships are prone to be reported as sunk when their major flotation increases, and she most likely was transferring to one of the off-map shipyards for permanent repairs.

[FatR]

On USSR Isolation

After checking the distances, I found that the only way to prevent 4E ferry from US to USSR is to take the entire Aleutian chain up to Cold Bay. Well, this certainly takes thing more "interesting"... I smell weakness from Allies in this region, though. Bigred made no move to occupy islands I've now vacated, except Umnak. Most likely Allies lack forces to strongly occupy the area.

Still, this throws me in doubt about the whole idea...


On Economics

We're well into December, so I'll report in detail once 1943 begins... Speaking generally, by shuttting down HI to the level that will allow me to just keep up feeding the pilot training program in 1943, I've stabilized the fuel level, but I'm still bleeding 100k of oil per month. I need that Chinese oil. Also, as Unryus started reaching the dates at which they normally begin building and at which their building cost triples, if they are accelerated, I was stuck with a big deficit of naval points. I decelerated Unryu and Amagi, which will arrive at November of 1943 even at normal build rate by this point, which solved the problem so far.