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Washington Post
today

"Japan
Kagoshima has been captured by our brave Marines yesterday. Japanese base fell to our hands after third wave of attack. Japanese troops tried to make a counteroffensive in the beginning, but they have been stopped my Maj. Gen. Geiger forces. Then after heavy fire given by both Scott's and Merril's battleship forces accompanied by two separate carrier forces of Mitscher and Spruance Japanese army given the field. More than 3000 japanese soldiers were killed, 1000 allied, proably including also Gen. Geiger who is reported as MIA. No clear reports are available at the moment.
Mitscher carriers used all available forces to pound factories in central Japan as no enemy's fleet presence was detected. This resulted in further heavy damage to many industrial facilities.
Reports say that Japanese routine convoy system has stopped to work definitely 6 or 7 weeks ago, and is consisting now of no more than 10 ships every week. Some submarine commanders have already ordered to be transfered to air units. Everyone wants to score before war ending. No clue of Yamamoto's carriers and battleships also, so they have a right to be bored.


Australia
In Australia, no major land actions, the same as in Sorong, at the northeast tip of New Guinea.

Pagan Island
A devastating raid happened near Pagan Isle, half a way between Iwo Jima and Mariana Islands. A small task force carrying one of our infantry divisions was caught by 50 japanese kamikazes. 5 troop transports were sunk for a price of only few enemy planes. No detailed reports about the looses so far. The problem of Saipan and Pagan must be solved quickly.

Washington
US goverment denied the latest rumours saying that there are some peace talks conducted at the moment. Our alliances demand that the only condition of ceasing the hostilities is unconditional surrender of Japanese army."

Especially for our weekend readers, there's a map of entire combat territory, with main strike directions shown.

The Japanese government has offered the allies a final chance to surrender. However, the allies do not seem to understand that all those allied divisions in Kogashima, are actually in a giant POW camp. Some one needs to tell them, that it is against the Geneva Convention to operate B29s from a prison camp.

Japanese Navy still trying to intercept Allied task force for final decisive battle, appeared to sail right throught the port of Kogashima without stopping or hitting anything.

The only bright spot for the Emporer, was a single division in Pagan is undefeated after five waves of assault hit it

Oil stocks exhausted. It will be very interesting to see the effect of no oil over the next months. However, Japanese scientists are working on a process for making oil from the bodies of allied Air Pirates.

Ah, yes, oil--one of my favorite subjects to harp on. It used to be that when the Japanese National Oil Reserve dropped below 4,000 units for several months or more, the entire Japanese economy would slowly collapse. Heavy Industry needs oil, and without Heavy Industry the rest of the factories slowly shut down. But in version 3.0 and beyond it doesn't look like that's the case any more. I think that the major problem will be that the fuel levels at the Japanese bases will dwindle, because (according to the manual at least) the mainland Japanese bases only get re-supplied with fuel if the Oil Reserve is above 4,000.

A rather silent week.

US 1st and 4th Marine divisions landed in Nagasaki.
The base wasn't indended to be captured as the landing there was designated to cut Kagoshima from new troops arrival. The divisions arrived without problems. Japanese airforce is resting somewhere else.
No land battles in Kagoshima. Paradoxally, the base is isolated and noone knows why. Any Japanese flying or swimming soldier wasn't seen there for two weeks. The base is full of planes as well. Another bug or what ?

Some land battles occured in Cloncurry, but the base remains in Japanese army's domain. An amphibous landing in Darwin isn't possible due to lack of carriers nearby. Suicidical G4M crews are waiting for easy prey. Let them wait ...

Btw, where from is Graham getting fresh planes ? Japanese factories are regularly bombed from all nearby US bases and carriers, no oil. Weird.

Pagan Island was hit hard by two packs of big flattops supported by heavy air raids from Mariannas and Iwo Jima, allied divisions there made another attempt to secure the island, but they had failed. The good thing was that not even single Japanese kamikaze made it through CAP. Land forces have to be taken back again and try another attempt.

Some heavy Japanese ships were seen on their way to Midway, but it is proably the last Japanese way not to keep them stationed in northern ports, which are now in US carriers range.
Scott is also able to reach Karafuto in three days.

Adm. Geiger is still MIA. Vice Adm Callaghan (7th Fleet leader) was promoted. Halsey returned to active command, and took his TF50 (5CV + 3CVL) to Pagan. He was quite bored with bureaucratical work at Central Pacific. Nimitz will do it better.

SIGINT wasn't used yet, so no information about Japanese activities. They are still on defense.

Several hundred aircraft bombing Japan every week now.....that is not supposed to happen until 1945. Emporer has commanded Japanese engineers to relocate all remaining factories to central Australia....it will only require a very small convoy to carry them there.

Army in Pagan is surprizingly maintaining its strength after bombardment, and in fact has increased in experience. The boys are not surrounded, they are in a very target rich environment

Another round of bloody battles against TERRORISTS in Japan.

Three Marine divisions are now in Nagasaki, equal looses.
The one and only Japanese fighting force in Kagoshima is now the 4th (Tank by name) division. Japanese General Headquarter must have withrawn the rest to Nagasaki. As for now odds are significatly in favor of US Marines. Yellows surely lack experience at the moment, same as roundeyes.

This week, Japanese Combined Fleet made unsuccesful attempt to invade Adak Island. Unluckily for them, the task force was spotted in SIGINT and repelled with land based planes, loosing two or three ships.
More interesting was, that Maj. Leslie Hawsbrook from Attu heavy bomb wings group became first man ever to sink Japanese ship using his B29 Superfortress as a dive bomber. A big Japanese cargo convoy south of Uruppu was hit by large formation of B29, four ships damaged, one AKA sunk.
Japanese fleet tried also to reach Pagan, currently under siege by 1st AUS Panzer Division's elements, but allied air zones complicated their movement a bit so they didn't reached the base.

Nothing special anywhere else, Japanese factories are still bombed at will both from carriers and land based planes.
Main problem for allies is now supply level at Kagoshima. The base is still isolated, regardless of fact, that it hasn't seen any Japanese ship or plane for long time ... Was it easier to reinforce troops ashore ?

Akagi accompanied by two other carriers appeared near Rockhampton. No action except allied land based strike of some medium bombers. None has made it through the CAP of 38 fighters, then Yamaguchi withdrawn his fleet back.

Japanese industry is proably nearly collapsing, but Graham still haves many of these hated Ki-84 Frank fighters. They cause much looses among F6F Hellcats. Corsairs are doing better.

B29 production still cannot fill all recently deployed squadrons, same as P61 Black Widows. There's no way to produce more than 3 per week, no idea why. Maybe the plane is too good, and could shorten the war - which isn't the most wanted by Aerial Industry.

US officials say that the final stage of war will be to kill the head of hated Japanese terrorist regime - the Emperor. The plan is to hit one of his "houses of pleasure" with surgical strike of 120 B29's. Some also say that the Emperor may have already escaped to Canada using a network of tunnels.

Especially for our dear spectators, we are inviting for an one in kind, never before shown, great and dangerous




DUEL !!!




It is planned in Nagasaki.
One surface combat TF vs One surface combat TF.

Result tomorrow.
Stay tuned!
There's gonna be some action !

Washington Post, 14-08-1944

The recently foretold duel between US and Japanese navies was cancelled. Our Foreign Policy Secretary told us in confidence, that Japs withdrawn their support of the idea in the last moment, claiming that it wouldn't be a duel but rather a Turkey Shooting. This gesture confirms some latest rumours about the falling fighing spirit in Japanese Navy. Japanese battleship group has been withdrawn to Philipines area proably, shooting down well over hundred allied planes with flak guns, no serious hits taken.

US ships did heavy pounding on Nagasaki then, no confirmed reports are available at the moment, but the looses were heavy, both due to naval & aerial bombardment and the land attack.
Also, instead of killing Nagasaki defenders Scott task force of modern battleships pounded Pagan Island, guaranteeing the fall of Japanese presence there.
The terrorist lair at Pagan is finally ours after intense fighting and more amphibous landings plus carrier actions.

On other fronts:
Rockhampton and Cloncurry are still holding,
allied task force of 12 APD's carrying the 102 engineering group was smashed by terrorist kamikazes from Palau on their way to Manokwari in desperate effort to build up a base in this crucial area, no data yet about if any ships escaped. Liberation of Palau and Ulithi seems to be more important than it was considered before as Japs can harass our movement in the area.
As a revenge, US navy pilots made a mess of large Japanese transport task force departing from Saipan, many ships were sunk (details unknown), no information as well about their cargo. Regarding to troop transport sightings among the cargo Marus it maybe was an evacuation attempt rather than reinforcing one.

Some reorganization of major naval forces is in progress. We should see new allied offensive this september. Further offensive operations are also planned in Austrialia, in order to have some allied units. Without a new conscription to Army, there'll be not enough divisions to man every captured base.

Awww, rats! I was so hoping to see a big surface fight. Well, I can't blame Graham for not wanting his ships slaughtered.

About the date: if I'm reading your last entry correctly, it's 18 April, 1944. Aren't you actually in August?

(According to the Iternational Standards Organization 8601, dates are to be displayed as yyyy-mm-dd. In other words, August 1 would be: 1944-08-01.)

Well, in Poland we are using the older format of date, as follows:
dd-mm-yyyy. It is hard to swith for alternate one. We are currently in 8th month of course.

Intensive air battles over Japan. Many factories bombed (including the P-61 japanese factory ??? in Nagoya - they got good industrial spies ).
A lot of carrier reactions.
First - small escort carrier force from Kagoshima (led my Sprague) reacted to attack an evacuation task force going from Tokyo to Philipines. They were engaged south of Japan both by carriers and land based planes from Kagoshima and Bonin. Four heavy cruisiers plus some destroyers escorted by a fleet of PFs and DEs lost few minor ships, no major damage was done to cruisiers.
Second - more successful strike was done south of Okinawa, where Halsey's TF50 with big flattops sunk 7 AKAs and one TK from a gigantic task force retreating to Philipines.
The Japanese high command is proably withdrawing last ships from Japanese waters.

As intelligence services report - Japanese stock of oil is 16 barrels, 4 more than quantity of A6M2 fighters in pool (US command feared those planes to be used as cheap - long range kamikazes) so proably there will be no more naval action in Japan. The only Japanese fighting force in homeland is the land army, althrough without much preparation points their situation is dire.

As planned before, US navy was splitted to two theatres. Old veteran battleship force together with Halsey's carriers remained in Japan to support land actions, and the rest - with Lee and his fast battleship force and Spruance leading 5 CV 3 CVL carrier force are now in Port Moresby - ready to support liberation of Australia. US carriers struck Rockhampton last week, downing 30 japanese bombers operating from there.

A diseaster happened to 93rd engineering battalion heading for Manokwari. Despite fierce attempts to disable Palau as an airfield made by all bombers nearby, terrorist kamikazes from there have sunk all 4 remaining APA class ships at sea. May they R.I.P.

For next week a huge amphibous landing is planned in Japan. Not yet decided which city is the next target, but everything is prepared for massive landing with carrier and battleship support. Even Tokyo is on list of potential targets.

Second wave will strike Australia.

Then an quarter scale offensive should go through Palau to liberate Philipines, but it may wait for taking Darwin first.

USS Essex (with smoke still blowing) together with another Iowa class superbattleship - USS Winsconsin accompanied by some escort carriers are in Hawaii area, giving all speed to join Australian theatre battles.

War is coming to the end.



/Graham is off for few days, so the resolution is planned for Monday/

Heavy battles took place last week.
First, Osaka, Hiroshima and Nagoya were attacked by huge battleship and carrier forces supported by minor heavy cruisier group.
Then US soldiers have landed in Osaka, Hiroshima and Nagoya, bleeding hard in 7 days of fighting. The besieged cities held. Then a diseaster happened. Whole 81st infantry division surrendered after Japanese general Horii attack in Hiroshima, leaving the Osaka's flank undefended. 2200 men are on POW. The reports are unclear but the situation doesn't look good. Supply level very low. Despite heavy naval support US soldiers may be unable to take the cities. Even the evacuation option is being analysed.
The good thing is that this landing prevents Japanese army from moving in Japan which may be helpful in securing other cities.

B29 did excellent job with another wave of surgical strikes, killing only 20000 civilians while inflicting further heavy damage to Japanese (the remnants of) industry.

There's a long way to Tokyo still.

Bright news - Rockhampton fell finally. Scott's battleships with Spruance carrier forces made it at least. US troops are now in Brisbane, flatties are still in the area.

US Marines at Sorong are still bombed by Japanese planes at will. 200 soldiers are dying regularly, week by week. Antother engineering attempt must be made quickly, it will possibly use carriers & battleships returning to Japan after playing their role in Australia.

US transport convoy was ambushed by Japanese terrorist kamikaze airforce from Tokyo (last week Tokyo hadn't planes based so stupid leader went straight into lion's mouth on his way from Attu Island). Two escort carriers have been reported sunk.

Saipan is under heavy air bombing all the time. Japanese garrison there is proably consisting also with women - they're surely reproducing in that jungle.

Intelligence services have finally broken the phenomen of Japanese plane industry. As revealed yesterday - they can produce up to 7 fighters using remnants of one downed B29.

RECYCLING is the way :p !

Nasty as it may sound, you WANT massive civilian casualties--they're worth a Victory Point for each 100. (Last turn you got 200 VP's)

What's the current score?

The Japanese emporer was pleased to read in the Washington post, that "the war is coming to an end". He is prepared to accept the allied surrender at any convenient time.

The Japanese are not yet beaten on land....just ask the US 81st Division, which is currently swimming home from Hiroshima (The emporer was so pleased with Horii, that he has offered the hand of his princess daughter to the good general. However, the general has vowed to clear minor allied forces from Osaka, Nagasaki and Nagoya, before taking the princess in 1945).

Current score is Japanese 168,000, Allies 107,000. The allies need to kill a lot of civilians yet. The tough part of that score, is that allied production is more than 10 time Japanese production....Japan is 1700*, and the allied production is 17000+.
(Does the star mean half of 1700?)

The routine convoy system is at a complete stop....not a single ship sailed during the last month.......can I swap a division for a few thousand barrels of oil? Lack of oil is tough on preparation points.

The front line Japanese units have now lost all tanks, and lost most artillery, due to massive bombardment. The good news, is that the bombardments dont badly hurt units that are composed almost entirely of infantry.

The * means that your industrial production points are being halved because the National Oil Reserve has fallen below 10,000 units. (See my previous posts on the subject of oil and industry.) If you can get your oil reserve back up to 10,000 you will get another 1,700 VP's added to your total. And while we're at it, why don't we wave our magic wand and make all the B-29's fall down from the sky?

Here again I have another dilemma between informing you about the way the game works and telling you how to play it. It is possible to bing in oil "manually" when the Routine Convoy system is not picking it up. The question is whether your ships will survive the attempt...

When you start counting VP points, remember if production drops below 500 for the Japanese you lose all of your kill points that are multipled. That's why as the Allied player when the B-29s can start hitting Japan they should be used to blast away at the factories.

Captain
I have tried many time to load tankers manually, at ports such as Palambandg and Tarakan, and only on rare occasions did I succeed to load oil. My most successfull attempt was in a game when I captured Alaska, and I was able to load huge amounts of oil.
I thought that the routine convoy system might be keeping the stocks of oil too low at most ports, and I only was able to load when the routine convoy system had not already emptied the stocks? How do you know where you can load oil?

IAs previously stated, I have not had oil above 10,000 since January 1942.

....and the oil industry in Palamabang etc, does it convert local oil into fuel?

At a port with oil resources, such as Palembang, check using the "F6" key. If there is a "*" next to the oil resource level, the oil production for that turn has already been picked up.

(In another thread, where we are discussing oil under V. 3.2, it appears as if 100 is temporarily added to the base's resource level when the oil is picked up during the Routine Convoy Phase.)

As to whether bases with high resource levels can make their own fuel, that I don't know. It would make sense--there was a major refinery at Palembang. But the manual only mentions fuel appearing in the Home Islands cities after drawing down from the National Oil Reserve.

Osaka has seen bloody battles again as two more Allied divisions landed. After few rounds of offensives the looses have been equalled. Over 1500 men killed on both sides. Japanese army hasn't got any tank there and only few guns.
All available carriers in Japan (3 task forces) supported the cause by killing few hundreds of Japanese soldiers, additionally hitting the factories in Osaka and Nagoya, despite orders to concentrate on land units.
Merril's sleazy battleships also delivered some iron as a contribution to Japanese industry raw material hunger.

General replenishment of central Japan forces was conducted also with all available transport forces in the area. Supply level in Osaka and Nagoya is still under 50. Pity, but no problem. US has tons of supply everywhere.

US forces put a good fight in Brisbane, but as for now the base is still under Japanese controll. Btw, Japanese flattops and battleships were spotted in Adelaide region. What a nice decoy for US carriers and battleships operating there ... The pain is that 80 G4M's are waiting there ... I'll Let them be there as long as they didn't disturb me.

A lot of aerial bombardement was made in Saipan, Japan and Australia, no brillant successes.

The famous 201st regiment in Paramushiro was resupplied again at a price of 4 sunk AKA's from famous Adm. Radford task force, but the boys are there for well over a year - surrounded by evil Japs. They deserve it.

USS Essex joined battle of Japan again.
USS Winsconsin is in the area also.

Radio Tokyo today announced a goodwill visit by MAJOR UNITS of the Imperial Japanese Navy, to Brisbane.
These battlefleet units suffered unsightly damage to paintwork in the third battle of Saipan about 18 month ago, and have been in drydock ever since. An allied fleet has been bombarding Brisbane for the past few months. When this allied fleet observed the gleeming paint of the magnificent Japanese fleet approaching, they quickly withdrew from Brisbane.
The good will visit is being extended to other ports in the area.

Meanwhile, the allies are reported to have had good success in drawing the Japanese airforce into airbattles over Japan, Korea and Australia, and the Allies destroyed 800 Japanese aircraft in a single week. This is slightly more than current Japanese replacement capacity.

In other develpoments, four Japanese Divisions landed in Manokwari and overwhelmed the defending brigade. This counterattack leaves two Allied Divisions isolated in Sorong.