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Here is a look at the Solomon Sea.

Here is a look at the Bismark Sea. Now that the allies have conquered the Marshalls, I need to defend the Solomons from both the south and the west. I also have garrisons guarding against airdrops on rear area bases on New Guinea.

Here is a look at Cent Pac. Truk is maxed out with troops. The island will hold a max of 60,000 men. We are at 57,000+. Forts are 87% of the way to level 6. We have 243 engineers there, so any airfield damage should be able to be repaired fairly quickly.

I am considering moving more troops into the Mariana's. This is where I would like to see a decisive carrier/naval battle. I also need to think about where to base reserves for these islands.

Ulithi and Wolei are garrisoned to make it harder for the allies to get bases from which to attack the Mariana's with 4E bombers and to make it harder for them to isolate Truk.

Here is a look at the area around the Celebes Sea. The idea here is that any allied thrust that breaks through the Banda Sea or makes its way west across the north coast of New Guinea will aim for Mindanao and into the Sulu Sea. This disposition is meant to slow down any such thrust. OTOH, should the thrust come through Cent Pac using primarily carrier support, it will most likely aim for the central Philippines.

Since you are doing amazing so far, any chance in building the Shinano?
BTW, thanks for an incredibly enjoyable AAR!

MrPlow

ORIGINAL: MrPlow9

Since you are doing amazing so far, any chance in building the Shinano?
BTW, thanks for an incredibly enjoyable AAR!

MrPlow

Thank you. I just checked: if I were to accelerate Shinano next turn and keep it accelerated until finished, it would take 541 days to complete. During that time it would cost 471 naval points a day which would be 1413 HI points a day, which is the equivalent of 2826 fuel points per day. I think not. [;)] Now if this were a scenario two game and the Shinano were a Taiho class ship, I would have built it.

Thank you. I just checked: if I were to accelerate Shinano next turn and keep it accelerated until finished, it would take 541 days to complete. During that time it would cost 471 naval points a day which would be 1413 HI points a day, which is the equivalent of 2826 fuel points per day. I think not. [;)] Now if this were a scenario two game and the Shinano were a Taiho class ship, I would have built it.

Ouch, I think you make some good points there haha! Though if you did build it, I think you would make WITP: AE history by being the first. [;)]

Here is a look at western Sumatra. I was very, very concerned about this area before the big carrier battle of Ponape. I am less concerned now. I am maintaining regimental garrisons of many of these bases, but the aviation support here has been evacuated to bolster other regions.

I am going to skip a picture of Java, but I will mention my dispositions there. I have reconsidered my positions on Java. I had regiments garrisoning the southern/western port cities to guard against an amphibious invasion from Australia. I decided that I don't need to do that. First, the allies ability to launch a long range amphibious invasion has been severely crimped because of the battle of Ponape. But another reason is that I can have units reach these bases very quickly should an invasion fleet appear by leaving the units in strat mode while sitting in Sorebaja. That way, they can act as reserves for both Java (using rail move mode) and the rest of the DEI (by ship). This gives me 3 divisions on Java that can act as a theater reserve, plus three naval guard units needed to meet garrison requirements. I also have 6 tank regiments on Java. I am not sure what to do with those. Maybe move them up to Thailand.

Nice and detailed. Thanks from a Jap beginner.

ORIGINAL: cookie monster

Nice and detailed. Thanks from a Jap beginner.

Glad I can be of help. That is part of my goal in doing this AAR.

It does look pretty good. There isn't any area that I could say you are weak in. Great job distributing so many units and building up all those myriad bases!

Dec. 3, 1943

Kasagi made it back to Yokohama two turns ago, but that port is busy fixing other carriers. So then it was further up the harbor to Tokyo, but going into the shipyard there would slow down Junyo considerably. So now she will head over to Nagoya, or maybe Hiroshima. At least I don't have to worry about her sinking. Amazing. She survived 3 torpedo hits. I think the key here is there were not many fires or much system damage. It is torpedo hits combined with bomb hits that are most deadly since the torpedoes open up the hull, while the bombs start fires and break the bilge pumps, making it very difficult to do anything about the flooding.

Now for some more info on the state of the war after two years of game time. This post will involve the economy, specifically the state of heavy industry and resources.

Global
Oil . . 2 million
Fuel . . 3.5 million
HI . . 1.5 million

Honshu
Oil . . 1.5 million . . 195 days
Fuel . . 2 million . . 200 days at full production
Resources . 18 million . 212 days at full production
Supply . . 880k

For convoys:
one resource convoy between Fusan and Shimonoseki
two tanker convoys of ~185k each move fuel and oil from Singapore to Fukuoka.

-Two convoys ~56k shuttle between Palembang and Singapore.
-One convoy ~46k shuttles between Miri and Singapore.
-Balikpapan is used to fuel replenishment TFs and general purpose tanker TFs that send fuel to various front line bases line Rabaul, Truk, Guam, etc.
-One CS resource convoy from Billiton to Batavia.
-One 39k convoy for resources from Balikpapan, Kendari, and Makassar to Sorebaja.

9470 HI is produced per turn. This is allocated as follows:

Airframes (1740/month): 1039 HI/day
Engines (2123/month): 1260 HI/day
Vehicles (90/day): 540 HI/day
Armaments (110/day): 660 HI/day
Naval Shipyard (211/day): 633 HI/day
Merchant Shipyard (865/day): 2595 HI/day

As can be seen from the picture below, I have begun to shutdown on some factories to save on resources. Now that the major carrier production is over Naval Shipyards have been scaled way back. Merchant Shipyards are gradually being phased out as well and will become a very small consumer of HI by next March. Most armament production was shutdown in the fall of 1942 leading to a rapid climb in the amount of HI in the pool. Vehicle production has been scaled back some as well. The reduction in HI usage by Naval Shipyards has somewhat been offset by a rapid and continuing increase in airframe/engine production. The big Tokyo HI factory has been shutdown in order to help build up fuel stocks. This has had an unfortunate side effect is causing a drop in supply levels as engine and airframe factories are expanded. OTOH, a great deal of supply has accumulated at Miri, Balikpapan and Palembang due to the refineries. I am picking up this supply with xAKs and redistributing it to needy bases.

Later posts will discuss aircraft and ship production.

Now for a discussion of airframe/engine production.

The D4Y3 Judy becomes available in February. This model uses the Mitsubishi Ha-33 engine rather than the Aichi Ha-60. Therefore, when the new model Judy become available the two Aichi factories become obsolete. One of them will be switched over to the Nakajima Ha-35 and the other will be switched to the Nakajima Ha-45. This will give me 3 factories for these two engines. Ideally, I would like to have 3 factories for each type of engine.

The Frank and the Tony Id airframes will become available in January. The Frank R&D factories will go straight into production and be expanded. The Tony R&D factories, however, will be upgraded to researching the the Ki-100 as soon as they make the next research advancement. Meanwhile, the factories producing the Ic Tony will upgrade to the Id model.

I expect the J2M3 Jack to become available in February. Once the next advance occurs, these factories will be switched over to the A7M2 Sam. The IJNAF desperately needs a better plane than the Zero and most squadrons cannot upgrade to either the George or Jack.

I am looking to build large stockpiles of engines over the course of 1944. I expect a steady expansion of engine factories for quite some time to come.

Dec. 5, 1943

Not much happening. So on to a discussion of my Naval ship building program.

Now that the major carrier construction is done, the number of active naval shipyards have been cut way back. In order to get the 6 Unryu class carriers as early as I did (I accelerated them on Dec. 8, 1942) I did two things: turn off production of all subs, and expand the naval shipyards somewhat. I do not believe subs can help the Japanese cause all that much since allied ASW is very, very deadly. I view the role of subs as mainly intelligence gatherers and as vultures picking off cripples. The IJN starts with 56 subs. These will last a long time if used cautiously. At any rate, I have not spent one naval point on sub construction since the beginning of the war.

Right now my naval shipyard points are being used mainly to build E class boats. I am accelerating the CVL Ibuki. Acceleration on that ship began after the last of the Unryu's came out of the yards. I also have one more CL to build. It will be done in just a few days. Mostly, though, I am accelerating E boats up to the point where they start to build at which point I change them back to normal. I have not had any success with surface ASW. My planes have been killers. But my ASW ships have accomplished very, very little. Nevertheless, I continue to pump out E boats in hopes that they will accomplish something at some point.

I would build MTB's, except that there is a bug that prevents them from being built. Probably, they should arrive at Hiliar like barges. That way they could be built by expending supplies. By arriving at bases other than Hiliar, the code seems not to recognize that they are part of the pool.

A discussion of Merchant Ship Building.

My merchant marine has been more than adequate to meet my needs. Indeed, a few hundred xAKs and xAKLs have sat idle almost since the beginning of the game. Even TKs have not been a problem in a long time. I have about 60 TKs sitting idle at Singapore. These are the small ones or ones that were converted from xAKs and so are less efficient than purpose built TKs.

Since I am awash in xAKs and TKs, rather than build these ships all the way to completion, what I do is build them up until they reach one day delay, at which point I halt them. Should I need an infusion of xAKs or TKs, I will have dozens that can arrive in just one day.

The only xAKs I am building are the Std A types, 19 durability. For TKs, I am building Type 1 TM (19 durability) and Type 1 & 2 TL (30 durability). I was using spare Merchant build points to accelerate the big TKs when I still had all my merchant shipyards working at full production. But I reached a point where I said: after this Date of Arrival I will not build any more TKs or xAKs. So now any new xAKs or TKs that reach the point where they start building are halted. And as xAKs and TKs currently being built reach the one day delay mark and are halted, the number of merchant shipyards producing is reduced. So, for example, when a Std A xAK hits one day delay, it is halted and 20 merchant shipyard points are turned off, saving me 60 HI points per day.

The one exception here are LSTs. I am going to build these ships because I would like to have some fast amphibious unload capability for counter-invasions. LSTs will be mated up with reserve divisions in order to quickly deliver reinforcements to bases the allies have invaded.

CNG,
 
I know Kamikazes will factor largely in your future.  There's an interesting thread that Nemo121 and MichaelM started on the tech support page re: training of kamikazes.  You may wish to check it out re: the most effective training regimen for maximum efficiency.
 
I would be very interested in how you're preparing for the Divine Wind.  Airframes, pilot training, how you're planning on using them (as part of a combined arms assault or singlets), locations, etc.  Whatever else you can share would be very helpful.

Dec. 7, 1943, Pearl Harbor Day

An allied ASW TF of PF boats (I am not even sure what these are) hit the SS I-8 51 times, killing it. I need to talk to Milo and see if I can't get some of these guys.

Chickenboy: I have not even really thought about Kamikazes. They seems like they are still quite a ways in the future. I suppose it would make most sense to use single engine armored planes as Kamikazes. Armored because you want them to get through the flak, single engined because you want to build lots of them and so single engine planes would cost half as much as two engine planes. "Training" Kamikaze pilots seems kinda weird. After all, the point of Kamikazes was that Japan had run out of trained pilots and so the Kamikaze mission was something even an untrained pilot could do. (Kinda like the 9/11 hijackers who didn't seem to care about training to land since they would never need to do that.)

More on the 2nd anniversary of the Game: Plane/Pilot losses

Pilot Casualties to date:
KIA 1500
MIA 675
WIA 800

Pilot Reserves
IJNAF Reserves 80
IJNAF TRACOM 60 (all torpedo/dive bomber pilots were removed from TRACOM after the battle of Ponape)
IJAAF Reserves 300
IJAAF TRACOM 60

At one time, the IJNAF had over 600 pilots in reserve, but the battles of Wotje and Ponape depleted those reserves to nothing, leaving only transport and patrol pilots in the reserve pool.

Casualties from the battle of Wotje: (fought over a Japanese base)
KIA 117
WIA 107
Casulties from the 2 days of the battle of Ponape: (Partially fought over a Japanese base, mostly over open ocean)
KIA 234+118=352
MIA 179+40=219
WIA 29+40=69

In the realm of Naval Losses, the IJN has done very well in preserving its fleet. Allied losses have not been terribly high, but they have included some very important ships.

Japanese ships sunk, 153

1x CA Furutaka
1x CL Kashima
12xDD
3x TB
11xSS
10xDMS
2x APD
3x E
23xPB
9x SC
3x TK
8x ACM (tending mines is dangerous work!)
6x AMc
4x AKE
1x AV
5x AMC
4x AK
41xxAK

Allied ships sunk (336 in list)
Telling which allied ships sank is difficult. Nevertheless, here is a conservative guess:

5x CV (positive - Enterprise, Wasp; high probability - Saratoga, Lexington, Yorktown)
2x CVL (high probability, but not confirmed - Independence, Cowpens)
11xCVE
7x BB (at Pearl - California, Nevada, Tennessee; confirmed - Pennsylvania, Indiana; likely - Arizona, Oklahoma)
1x CA Houston
1x CLAA
8x CL (including 4 Dutch and 1 Australian)
31xDD (including 2 Dutch, 4 British, and 1 Australian)
3x DE
5x DM
2x DMS
31xSS (any sub listed as sunk by unknown device was considered not sunk, 40 subs are listed as sunk)
5x AO
17xTK
3x APA
8x xAP
103xxAK/L
Numerous other auxiliary and patrol craft

[quote]ORIGINAL: cap_and_gown

An allied ASW TF of PF boats (I am not even sure what these are) hit the SS I-8 51 times, killing it. I need to talk to Milo and see if I can't get some of these guys.

They are a Patrol Frigate ASW of 11 similiar to a DE. Excellent ASW properties just got my first versus the AI.

Dec. 8, 1943

Uh Oh. A group of xAKs I had standing by to refuel a CVE group west of Australia were sighted and attacked by an allied sub today. The torpedo either missed or was a dud, but it revealed that the allies were aware of our presence. In fact, our CVE group spotted another sub heading in their direction. It would appear it is time to hit the panic button. Even though I checked these groups each turn to see if they had been spotted, somehow the allies got wind of their presence. So now I have to get my CVEs out of there without being sunk. I thought the allies had moved their subs out of the area around Timor because of all the hits my planes were getting. Now it looks like they left in order to flood the Indian Ocean with their vile presence. [:'(]