Sqz stands down. The AAR is now concluded. Sqz (A) vs. obvert (J)

[SqzMyLemon]

ORIGINAL: Aurorus

Keep in mind also that you picked this game up in late 1943, and the previous allied player had neglected the long, slow logistic build-up that allows the allies to put continuos pressure on Japan's forces (especially their air force) throughout 1943 into 1944. So, Obvert had more time and comfort than many Japanese players to build his pools, train his pilots, refit his ground units, and develop his R&D program. You have only had 1 year to accomplish what the allies normally do in 2 years.

It certainly didn't help. However 1944 is on me and I've easily wasted four to five months of it. Burma has been a complete debacle on my part. The only positive spin I can put on Burma is the fact Erik has committed a large number of units to it's defence, including pretty much all his armour.

The second eight hex strike really hurt, not in terms of losses, but rather the delay it caused and my reaction to it. The course of how the game might have played out changed instantly as a result, and more importantly how I'd play moving forward.

All the setbacks are behind me and I'm moving forward without dragging along any further baggage. I'm behind, but I now have the logistics in place to support any operation I choose to mount. I just need to avoid providing any more freebies to Erik and finally get at his carriers.

[SqzMyLemon]

The Sept. 14/44 turn is off to Erik.

The British Fleet will join up with the U.S. Fleet at Tulagi today. Then I'll begin conducting dry runs of amphibious lift capacity and naval task force composition, while I await the arrival of CVEs post upgrades. With eight days remaining for the upgrades and a week for the CVEs to reach Tulagi, it will still be two weeks before I can finally move.

In the meantime, I continue to clean up Australia and the Marshall Islands. Eniwetok and Kwajalein are the last bases to deal with in the Marshall Islands. The air force is now concentrating on suppressing the airbases I mentioned earlier.

I'll provide more details as I get closer to D-Day, but the goal remains the same. Use amphibious operations to draw out KB and eliminate the threat of the Japanese carriers. As much as I hope to capture a number of important Japanese strongpoints overall success will be determined by the number of enemy ships sunk. The primary goal of the next three months is the destruction of the Japanese Navy.

[SqzMyLemon]

By being selective in my use of air units, I've been able to amass excellent reserve pools for some crucial airframes.

I have 595 P-47D25s and 242 B-24Js for example.

I've stripped TRACOM and any rear area fighter units of 80+ experienced pilots and added them to forward air units. The carriers have the cream of the crop, the best naval fighter pilots I can muster.

I've switched out all the lower experienced pilots from the B-29 squadrons and replaced them with better pilots.

With few units left to spend PPs on, I've been going through the lengthy process of upgrading units with better leadership.

More details to follow. I hope to have the time to fully document the upcoming battles and all that went into the preparations.

[SqzMyLemon]

On a mission from God, the Blues Brothers enter the fray.

[SqzMyLemon]

Not to be out done. There is going to be big trouble in little China, so says Jack Burton.

[SqzMyLemon]

The forgotten PBEM.

From reading Lowpe's AAR I take it Erik is back from vacation. Not sure when I'll get a turn, as Erik's attention seems to be 100% focused on his other game. Unfortunately, Erik wasn't able to provide me a turn before his trip. I certainly could have used the time to plan out all my upcoming offensive operations that much better.

Oh well. The more successful a Japanese player is, the longer they have to wait for Allied offensives and that gets pretty boring I guess.

[SqzMyLemon]

A note on my previous posts regarding some renamed surface ships. I didn't realize it wasn't only the CV's that could be renamed and I missed out on a number of ships that could have been changed.

I know a lot of players choose certain themes when renaming ships. I've chosen movie characters primarily from action movies. I'm looking forward to seeing if Erik picks up on them, but that will depend on his attention to detail in this one which I fear is waning.

[SqzMyLemon]

Aug. 14/44:

All Allied surface ships withdrew from the Biak area safely. Other than a George sweep over Vanimo, there was no attempt to launch naval air strikes against any of my ships. All damaged Allied ships should make port safely. If that holds true, I won't have lost a single ship from the Biak naval battle.

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: SqzMyLemon

A note on my previous posts regarding some renamed surface ships. I didn't realize it wasn't only the CV's that could be renamed and I missed out on a number of ships that could have been changed.

I know a lot of players choose certain themes when renaming ships. I've chosen movie characters primarily from action movies. I'm looking forward to seeing if Erik picks up on them, but that will depend on his attention to detail in this one which I fear is waning.

I've got a CA named USS Area 51. Not sure it's a theme though. Mostly I do ex-GFs and ex-wives. Easier to watch them sink that way.

[Lowpe]

ORIGINAL: SqzMyLemon

The forgotten PBEM.
I certainly could have used the time to plan out all my upcoming offensive operations that much better.

That sucks. But a lot of times I have the turn and those Europeans are on another vacation I don't spend that much more time on the turn...just kind of let it percolate in the background.

[SqzMyLemon]

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

But a lot of times I have the turn and those Europeans are on another vacation I don't spend that much more time on the turn...just kind of let it percolate in the background.

That's true, but in this case I'm trying to plan and coordinate a rolling offensive. I'm talking a lot of targets with the end goal being landings on Mindanao. I could have used the time to tinker away a little every day. No big deal in the grand scheme of things, it'll just take me longer to complete the next few weeks of turns.

[SqzMyLemon]

Just waiting on the Sept. 18/44 turn back from Erik.

A couple of good days for the Allies since I last posted.

In Burma, Erik tries to bomb Allied forces in clear terrain southwest of Meiktila and it doesn't go well for the Japanese. Heavy Japanese fighter sweeps precede the bombers and face no CAP...it turns out Allied AA is enough. Of 27 Helen bombers, 19 are reported lost to Allied FLAK. Allied troops were unaffected. I learned this lesson a long time ago. The FLAK changes in DBB makes bombing Allied forces extremely costly and there is little need to CAP my own ground forces. As long as I can adequately cover my troops with AA, Erik can try to bomb them to his heart's content.

I've been bombing Woleai periodically and the last few days I was using bombers only. I was targeting the Japanese defenders rather than the airbase. I needed to rest the bombers and decided on sending just sweeps instead. Erik chose that day to load up the airbase with fighters and supporting LRCAP from Yap. Erik used his typical low CAP settings of 5k, 7k and 9k. Considering I was heavily outnumbered in both my sweeps, the two squadrons of P-38L's did ok. Overall I lose 13 against Erik's 20. I'll take it. I lose nine pilots though even with a submarine in the target hex hex.

In the last month or so I have been winning the tactical battles and always coming out ahead in terms of fewer losses. I hope to continue to build momentum for the bigger battles to come.

In Australia, I've reached Perth and will try an assault with a lone Australian armoured rgt. against a single Japanese LCU. Australian 8th Division will arrive in a few days to help if the armour can't get it done.

I'm trying my first attempts to resupply Darwin by sea and will be curious to see Erik's reaction. Japanese air attack from Dili looks to be the most logical threat. There could be some interesting air battles over the coming weeks at Darwin. If I can unload 100k+ in the coming weeks I'll be happy.

Only three more days to complete AA upgrades after the 18th turn is run. Once my CVE's are ready I'll start to post maps on the upcoming Allied offensive plans.

[SqzMyLemon]

Sept. 18/44:

The Australian armour can't get it done at Perth in one go. Despite no forts and only facing a Japanese SNLF force the armour only gets 1:2. However, the Japanese suffered losses and it's only a matter of time.

The first TF of two transports will arrive in Darwin tomorrow and begin unloading supply. There are 162 Allied fighters based at Darwin and Fenton set to provide CAP. I'll keep the first few TF small, but plan on trying a 10 ship liberty TF in a week.

The last few turns have seen me move everything that can move. A massive final reorganization of aircraft and shipping to forward areas. I'm trying to make sure no shipping is idle. Anything that can be moved...is. I have a huge backlog of shipping at Tulagi and Rabaul to get through.

[SqzMyLemon]

Despite all the excitement in Erik's other game he's flipping turns regularly since he's been back. I'm glad because we'll both benefit from the upcoming action and the end to the sitzkrieg.

I've been picking up some interesting SigInt entries and it appears Luzon and Iwo-jima are being heavily reinforced. Of note I received a report of a fragment of the Wake Coastal CD gun at Manila. The main components of the unit are currently based at Hollandia. I will definitely take these reports into consideration in planning my advance beyond Mindanao.

The game is really fun for me at the moment. I've always enjoyed the logistic and planning side to the game. I just wish I was better at it tactically. Anymore one-sided Japanese victories will be catastrophic at this stage of the game.

[SqzMyLemon]

Sept. 19/44:

No Japanese naval air attacks against Darwin or area most likely due to no DL on my transports. My TF actually has four transports rather than the two I previously stated. DL on the unloading transports at Darwin is 8/9 so I'm expecting heavy sweeps and a bombing attack tomorrow. My fighter fatigue is ok so I left my settings the same. I did add another squadron of British Spitfires though.

Pretty quiet turns overall, but it's time to target enemy airbases again. It will be a concentrated effort to knock out around 10 airbases. I've got 100k+ of supply at all major bomber bases to sustain operations.

Rabaul has almost reached 1 million fuel and 2 million supply. There are also large fuel and supply stockpiles at Milne Bay and Tulagi.

A second deliberate attack against Perth fails to dislodge the defenders, but odds were 1:1 and only the Japanese suffered casualties again.

[SqzMyLemon]

Is it common for the upgrade days to change near completion? The reason I ask is that all my CVE's were listed as having two days (2%) left, but on the day they all should have shown 1% a large number of them now show 2% and 3% to completion.

Not the end of the world, but thought it was strange so many changed. Nothing changed at the port and there were no new ships added for upgrades or repairs.

[SqzMyLemon]

I have the next turn in the inbox, but can't run it until I get home. It appears there will be a few days delay getting all my CVE's upgraded, but after waiting this long a few more days won't hurt.

Once they are all upgraded they will rendezvous at Tulagi and the amphibious assault shipping will begin loading.

First amphibious target...Noemfoor.

It appears Erik has reinforced Woleai with three additional LCU's. My small NZ Bde. may not be enough to take the atoll now. I'll have to use the navy to soften up the defence more than initially intended. I'd like Woleai to provide naval air search for an early warning of the presence of KB around the Marianas. The capture of this base will preclude the next jump forward for the Allies, which includes Peleliu, Yap and Ulithi. There is going to be some hard fighting ahead.

The air campaign to close down Japanese airbases over the next 2 weeks begins this turn. Today's targets are Taberfane and Hollandia.

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: SqzMyLemon

Is it common for the upgrade days to change near completion? The reason I ask is that all my CVE's were listed as having two days (2%) left, but on the day they all should have shown 1% a large number of them now show 2% and 3% to completion.

Not the end of the world, but thought it was strange so many changed. Nothing changed at the port and there were no new ships added for upgrades or repairs.

My understanding is that repairs (including upgrades) have random factors built in and the numbers day to day are just estimates.

[Canoerebel]

The fickle gremlins of the forum underworld led me to post an update to my AAR....here! Right here! In Sqz's AAR. I don't know how it happened. I apologize for mucking up the exquisite flow of Joseph's AAR.

[MakeeLearn]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

9/19/44

See map for details.

Is this a Infomercial for "The Good The Bad & The Indifferent"?