Notes from a Small Island

[BBfanboy]

With 900 Resources at Sapporo, destroying 12 or so will not hurt him - there is beaucoup excess stockpiled on Hokkaido. You get the points for damaging industry but wouldn't it be more productive to hit HI or LI ? The resources are only useful if they get shipped to Honshu, and I expect it is too risky for ships to make that short hop right now.

The Judys at Ketoi-Jima are there to interdict any supply convoys you might have coming through the Kuriles barrier without a carrier escort.

I like your overall plan to suppress a big chunk of the Kuriles airfields. He won't know whether to guard against another big invasion in the north or a move elsewhere once your carriers are repaired. Keeping his attention fixed is one of the great things you do. [:)]

[Canoerebel]

It's a bit easier/more efficient to target Resources, I think. I'm guessing here, but I think it's easier for bombers to hit Manpower and Resources than to hit "smaller," more specific targets like aircraft factories, light industry, heavy industry, refineries, etc.

The targeting at this point is more about sending little messages to Eric than the actual effect on his economy. That will change when Allied fighters take control of the air - at that point, bombing for points and to reduce specific key industries will become paramount.

[Canoerebel]

8/19/44

Air Losses: A tough day in the air for the Allies. Erik has a strong contingent of fighters over Kushiro to meet waves of good Corsairs on sweep missions. The sweeps do fairly well but plenty of CAP remains to take on the escorts and 4EB. The result is a substantial number of hits against Kurshiro resources, but the Allies lose too many Corsairs, too many Superforts, and too many decent fighters relegated to sub-optimal escort roles.

I think Erik has changed tactics, basing a lot of his fighters at Ominato, set to LRCAP range sufficient to cover Sapporo and Kushiro.

I don't think he had any fighters based at Sapporo today. Since LRCAP doesn't work at night, I'll try another B-29 raid, this one at night against Sapporo.

I'll modify my tactics again, resuming mostly good fighter sweeps and limiting good fighters in escort roles.

Whittling away Erik's good fighter numbers remains a priority, both to limit his land-based air power and to (eventually) aid the strategic bombing mission. But in the medium term the most important objective is to work towards the eventual battle that will take place in and around the Kuriles.

Over at Rangoon, a mishmash of second-tier Allied fighters did a good job against a dwindling number of enemy fighters. Erik may reinforce at any moment, but right now he's down to about 38 fighters from a high of 325. He can't leave Rangood undefended or Allied 4EB will strike there and against his field armies. He's probably juggling between Rangoon and the Home Islands. He'll probably reinforce. But there's no doubt he's feeling a bit stretched.

But, then, I am too.

[Canoerebel]

8/20/44

Air Wars: The war's focus continues to be the air campaign. Eric brought in 300+ fighters to Sapporo. I shifted some B-29s from Kushiro to Sapporo but changed them to night mission. They encountered about 25 Irvings and Nates. Five Superforts were downed in exchange for setting about 30,000 fires. At Rangoon, Erik withdrew all fighters for the first time. I won't bite yet - tomorrow, more fighters will sweep (eventually, a host of 4EB will target this key airfield). In the Kuriles, B-24s and PBY Liberators in numbers hit Onnekotan Jima airfield, doing considerably damage.

Tomorrow, the Superforts stand down with a lot of topnotch fighters to sweep Sapporo. The B-24s will hit Uruppu Jima. Fighters, as stated, will sweep Rangoon.

This air war is important in its own right, but it's building towards a larger plan to be implement in late September.

I keep forgetting to see what the production/replacement rate is for the F4U1-D that comes online 9/1/44. That's a key upgrade, mainly due to the numbers. The F4U1-A just gets three planes a day. I think the 1-D is higher.

[Canoerebel]

8/21/44

Air Wars: Weather prevents massed sweeps of Sapporo; B-24s strike Uruppu Jima effectively; no enemy CAP over Rangoon again.

Recon finds KB at Sendai and Iwaki - a tip-off from yet another SigInt report that an IJN CV (Akagi, in this case) was bound for Sendai.

Allied carrier repairs continuing.

Tomorrow, massed sweep of Sapporo scheduled while the B-24s are to hit Ketoi Jima.

[BBfanboy]

Sendai/Iwaki are 7/8 hexes from Sapporo. I think he might plan on LRCAPing Sapporo with Sams from KB (although I don't know the range of a Sam).

[Canoerebel]

Recon with high detections indicates he might've stripped all of his fighters and many of his bombers off his carriers. He might be using some of them for defense or he might be concentrating on training. Right now he has 300+ fighters at Sapporo, about 180 at Kushiro, about 300 at Ominato, about 400 at Tokyo, and hundreds more at Yokohama and Osaka. That might explain why he pulled the 300+ that had been at Rangoon, although I could be wrong about that. As usual, I have a poor feel for just exactly how many fighters a Japanese player can accumulate and operate.

[Canoerebel]

8/21/44

Air War: Here's the location of KB and strong land-based CAP. Lots of fighters here, which is probably good. And I think Allied sweeps have got Erik's full attention.

[Canoerebel]

8/22/44

Air Wars: Massed Allied sweep of Sapporo meets large number of enemy fighters on CAP, resulting in another good Allied victory. The combat animation/report showed 4:1 Allied victory (48 enemy planes downed to 12 Allied). But the actual number was more like 2.5 to 1, the difference being (I think) that some dmaaged Allied planes crashed before making it home.

Evey Corsair-heavy sweep is prevailing at around 2:1 or 3:1 now, and even some of the "lesser" fighters (P-38s, P-47s) score well.

Is this math sustainable? I'm losing 15-20 Corsairs a day against 3 replacements. That's not sustainable long term. But Erik's losing 50-100 good fighters each day. He seems to be "flinching" - standing down his fighters sometimes, moving them around, etc. So is the math working against him fast than its working again me, or am I deluding myself? Are Japanese losses sustainable into perpetuity? Surely not. I'm going to try to keep things up another week or so, until the F4U-1D begins production, and then re-evaluate based on it's production/replacement numbers.

At Rangoon, still no enemy fighters. Tomorrow, the 4EB will target the airfield at 14k - I think Erik has tons of flak there.

In the Kuriles, 4EB did good work on Ketoi Jima. So the four or five fields from Onnekton down to Uruppu have been heavily damaged, most of them repeatedly so over the past few weeks. I haven't targeted Paramushiro Jima yet.

KB, which was at Sendai yesterday, has moved away - I think to the east, into the Pacific, based upon an icon I saw early in the replay sequence.

In Oz, an Aussie RCT is about four days out of Darwin, which is lightly held.

[witpqs]

AFAIK many of Japan's fighters have higher service levels than Allied planes. He might stand down squadrons just to get them ready in sufficient numbers to fight better instead of being torn up in smaller packets every day. I don't know enough to speculate if his production can sustain those losses or not.

[Canoerebel]

8/23/44

Air Wars

Sapporo: Massed Allied sweeps meet massed CAP, with the results down around 1:1, which isn't satisfactory. I'm not sure if the better IJ performance was due to some lower quality in the Allied fighters or better enemy fighters or luck or some new tactic. I'm thinking it over.

Kuriles: For the first time in more than a month, Erik employed CAP over a Kuriles base. The target was Shimishura Jima. The B-24s performed pretty well with a few escorts, but the RAF Liberators got chewed up (that's on me - I keep forgetting many of the RAF models are configured for nighttime missions). A decent strike on the airfield.

Rangoon: No enemy CAP, and massed Allied 4EB hit the airfield. Erik can reinsert CAP here. The question is: Does he have to reinsert CAP or withdraw his army? IE, can he sustain an army in Burma if his main supply depot is undefended and regularly pounded?

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel
Is this math sustainable? I'm losing 15-20 Corsairs a day against 3 replacements. That's not sustainable long term. But Erik's losing 50-100 good fighters each day. He seems to be "flinching" - standing down his fighters sometimes, moving them around, etc. So is the math working against him fast than its working again me, or am I deluding myself? Are Japanese losses sustainable into perpetuity? Surely not.

Not indefinitely, but the timeline devil is in the details. Akin to the Allied penchant for spreading out fighter losses among airframe types, is he spreading out his losses 'equally' between IJAAF and IJNAF production? Is he rotating in good-very good fighters with lesser airframes? Is he balancing his '1' SR fighters with his '2' or '3' level SR fighters? There's considerable flexibility in spreading out the losses if one can mete out acceptable punishment across the board.

Having rail access on Honshu is extremely valuable to him as a means of pulling whole air groups out of the front lines and rebuilding them further from the front lines. You've got the Japanese logistics tiger by the tail while relying on 2 land bases-his ability to rotate and renew fighter groups exceeds yours in my estimation.

[Canoerebel]

Another important factor is that the air war wasn't bloody before I recently stepped things up. Losses on both sides were low, so both sides should have deep pools to fight with.

On the plus side, the Allies have achieved a key position from which to prosecute the war - the Sikhalin Island bases are big and secure and close to Erik's major bases. He has to defend.

But I need to take more bases - the Kuriles, to begin with. And then, eventually, bringing my ships to bear in reducing his Hokkaido bases.

By taking Sikhalin, I grabbed a tiger by the short hairs. He's aroused and fighting hard and is very dangerous. I've gotta hold on until he begins to tire or until I can bring greater force to bear efficiently.

[Canoerebel]

The F4U-1D comes online 9/1/44 at 158 per month. The really good news is that the F4U-1A, at 78 per month, also continues production. So, the production of quality Corsairs goes from 78 per month to 236 per month, starting in about a week.

The P-51D comes online with 120 per month 11/44, so still two months away. I have plenty of P-47D25 and P-38L to bridge the gap until then.

As for quality pilots, my reserves look pretty good, especially the Army fighter pilots. I think the Navy reserves are sufficient.

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

The F4U-1D comes online 9/1/44 at 158 per month. The really good news is that the F4U-1A, at 78 per month, also continues production. So, the production of quality Corsairs goes from 78 per month to 236 per month, starting in about a week.

The P-51D comes online with 120 per month 11/44, so still two months away. I have plenty of P-47D25 and P-38L to bridge the gap until then.

As for quality pilots, my reserves look pretty good, especially the Army fighter pilots. I think the Navy reserves are sufficient.

Am only passingly familiar with the Allied OOB in 1944. Do the Corsairs come in at 158/month ad infinitum or is there a relatively short window of replenishment like with other Allied models?

[BBfanboy]

I suspect that the difference in performance is attributable to fatigue. It doesn't take much fatigue to affect a fighter pilot's performance, and as others have noted he may have brought in fresh groups to challenge your pilots.

[Canoerebel]

Chickenboy: Both Corsair models are in production until July 1945.

BBfanboy: I'm giving considerable attention to rotating squadrons, but I probably could do even better. I don't always pay enough attention to morale, sometimes letting squadrons with morale of 60 or so fly.

[Canoerebel]

KB is sliding NE, where it can interpose CAP over the Kuriles. My B-24s have fairly high fatigue, and the RAF 4EBs will need weeks to recover, so I'm going to stand down all 4EB tomorrow. But the fighters will continue to sweep Sapporo, at least for one more turn.

The flurry of Allied activity around the Kuriles, and the time that has elapsed since the naval battle, could have tickled Erik's suspicions that action is imminent. It isn't, only because my damage carriers need another three weeks in the yards. Given that, it makes sense to upgrade CVEs, which can be done on 9/1. Those upgrades will take 21 days and double CVE AA. That's worthwhile.

Nearly all CVE fighter squadrons are upgraded now - mostly to the F4F-3 Hellcat. Since the naval battle, many reinforcing carriers have arrived, including one USN CV, two RN CVs, one USN CVL, and a bunch of CVEs.

[Lokasenna]

I would not be all that reluctant to engage 4EBs, especially B-24s of which you have had ample chance to stockpile production (not sure of your pools; Navy Liberators in particular are easy to stockpile). The Zero drops pretty reliably against the 4EB defensive fire. The Sam may not drop as well and may shoot down more bombers, but at this stage every pilot of his is worth 2 of yours, IMO - almost regardless of the circumstances. The only exception would be your carrier fighter pilots and your Army sweepers (Jugs now, Mustangs and Jugs later). Bombers? Your pilot pools should be enormous and in my experience you don't need bomber pilots in 4EBs to be terribly well-trained. In 1945, your replacement pilots come in with skills averaging in the 40s (as well as many groups coming in with average skill level of 60), so if you can make it that far on the pilots you have now then you'll be fine.

I'm hesitant to guess his pool status, but I'll take a stab anyway. Of the planes he's lost a lot of in that most recent day of action (your screenshot), I notice that they're all planes he should have had in production for quite some time. The fact that there were some Frank-a is interesting, but it's entirely possible that the group flying those was one of those that arrives with Frank-a and he never upgraded them to Frank-r (I've done that; no point spending the supplies - I'll just lose those Frank-a's first and then upgrade). I didn't see any Tojo or George-2 or Jack factories in your industry screenshots, so can't guess his production level... but even if he was building only 30 per month of George-2 and Jack (which seems low by a factor of 2 at least)... the total losses for George-2 and Tojo-IIc look to be about a year's worth of production for those planes. How many years have they been in production at this point, 2? So he's probably got 1000 more Tojos between his pools and his units, and maybe another 700 Georges...

*shrug*

In short, I think this is hurting him but he's probably fine continuing this level of trade for a time. A factor you may not have considered, beyond the pilots/planes/VPs/your pools/your pilots/etc., is that every fighter you shoot down also costs him 12 supplies to replace. Supply on Hokkaido must be shipped in, it is not self-sufficient at this stage of the war with anything more than a minimal garrison.

[Canoerebel]

Thanks, Loka, for sharing your thoughts.

Erik has stuffed Hokkaido and the Kuriles with troops. He's lost the resources production on Sikhalin Island and more than half from Kushiro, along with some of the light industry at Sapporo. And Allied 4EB have been scoring supply hits during the Kuriles bombing missions.

I'll give more thought to how to use my B-24s.