Playtest of Pacific at War 3 25 14

[larryfulkerson]

Okay, this is the next turn from the above shot and now the Allies are after that little island between China and PI. There's virtually
no chance that the defenders are going to survive. I have some airpower ready to go but last turn's airstrike gutted the air force.
I'm not sure what's flyable but everything that's ready to go will fly.

EDIT: Oh yeah, I meant to say something about the Carrier Fighter Group being in that stack with only a CL to land on. That's a
highly skilled crew there. A fighter group without a carrier in a stack violates a house rule and so therefore I win. LOL.

[larryfulkerson]

And of course I did an airstrike against one of his carriers and got some hits.

[larryfulkerson]

New moves from Thomas, new turn. During the night and early morning hours the Allies stormed the beaches of Formosa and he
captured the place. Almost the whole thing. It was amazing.

[larryfulkerson]

Hey Thomas: You still have a fighter group stationed with a CL instead of a carrier. If it's not gone by this time next turn I win. LOL.

[larryfulkerson]

New moves from Thomas, new turn. This time the Allies are gunning for the mainland and have made some serious incursions
along the coast and some paratroops have captured a lot of airfields. Needless to say the Allies aircraft fleet has moved into
southern China. Another game changer.

[thomasharvey]

The invasion of China has begun. It is a long term project but the Navy has been pulled from the battle due to heavy losses to Japanese naval bombers. While the navy is repairing and rebuilding more stress needs to placed on the Japanese Military Complex. The allied forces and weapons need employment as much as possible to keep the Japanese from building up massive forces for the fight of Japan itself.

As for the CL with the naval group, the air unit stays on reorganization. It refuses to get off! So I think in this version I can disband the CL and it will be replaced somewhere else without the air group. I will try that if it refuses to get off.

That is the one hassle having cruiser float planes, if you move the ships over or through a hex that has any naval aircraft the computer picks up hitchhikers. Or mixes and matches and you have to constantly sort them out again.

I am losing so many ships it is becoming less of a problem all the time!

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: thomasharvey
As for the CL with the naval group, the air unit stays on reorganization. It refuses to get off! So I think in this version I can disband the CL and it will be replaced somewhere else without the air group. I will try that if it refuses to get off.

I wasn't aware that we can disband ships now. I thought they were like aircraft and refuse to be disbanded because of the lack of a
menu option to do so. I learn something every day.

This is a close up of the Allied incursion on the mainland of China. I'm going to start a general pull-back and see what I can salvage
from this. Thomas will probably land some more troops and equipment yet.

[larryfulkerson]

As you can see the supply level for the Japs in China has collapsed. This is because the Allies have dropped their paratroopers
in the spots that will cut off the ports from the interior. Schrewd

[larryfulkerson]

Here's how the air war is going right now. It's probably because I've pulled probably close to 70% of all the aircraft back to the home
islands. They are beat up and worn out from all the constant fighting. I've moused over some Allied aircraft and they are in the
shiney red stage a lot of them.

[thomasharvey]

I was wrong, the ships can not disband. I thought they were like ground troops and they are not. I forgot that. The aircraft can not disband either. My mistake!

I can scuttle it by sailing into a shore battery. To take Formosa I noticed only the shore battery guarding the port so I grouped up over 20 DDs and sailed in there and destroyed it. All the DDs took damage. The turn after they were sailing south to get repaired when another sea interdiction strike hit them and sank 4 of them. I also lost another 2 DDs by sailing too close to the battery at Honk Kong. Once the shore battery was eliminated I walked ashore and moved inland unopposed.

If the plane will not get off I will sail it to Ceylon for an extended vacation.

[thomasharvey]

The screenshot shows the China fronts from the Allied view. The Chinese armies are facing the Japanese line except in the north where they have taken Peking. The Americans have landed in the Japanese rear into central China. I am attempting to cut off the Japanese from their supply ports on the coast. Then they can be attacked when out of supply.

Some will hold out like the Hanoi line. That will at least keep them out of the final battles in Japan.

I placed DDs to interdict any ships in or out of the area and also have air interdiction.

The new aircraft for the allies is the B29. I had no good targets which would be airfields. The only airfields that have Japanese aircraft are in Japan getting supply and rest.

Well, that will end next turn when the B29 groups move to China and then bomb Japan. The B29s will work best in overcast since they are all weather aircraft. The Japanese have only a few night fighters. Eventually the Allies will have a few and send them as escorts.

[larryfulkerson]

So um.........I put together this collaouge ( my new word, like it? ) of images to illustrate my theory that my air force is taking a hit.
I've cut and paste a couple of formations together in the upper part to show how many formations have been shot down and the
bottom part is the expected reinforcements showing some fighter units scheduled in suspecously high numbers.

[thomasharvey]

Shanghai has been taken along with its airfields. A test of Japan's air defenses resulted in the sinking of 8 DDs. Many Japanese aircraft were shot down but until some DDs can move near Japan there is no point in bringing in the fleet to get slaughtered.

[larryfulkerson]

I've got some satellite airfields, one in Mongolia and one in Korea and they only have aircraft on them because the aircraft went into
reorg and couldn't fly out of there last turn. Most of the other planes are in the home islands hunkered down and mostly resting and
refitting. The air force has taken a huge hit lately and the losses are causing the squadrons to drop out of their veteran status and
now they are untried and have the average national readiness so far. Or about that. I'm hoping their first air-to-air is a good one
so that they end up with a decent readiness. I've taken most of the bombers off CS and put them on Sea Interception ( SI ) because
the fighters that exist now are few and not the best. I don't know if this can continue for another 60 turns or so.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the expected reinforcements for the Japs in a turn or two from now. Notice all the fighters.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's my losses so far. I'm short of mortars. But I've got plenty of Zeros and Oscars. And if I have to I can put them on sea
intercept to help keep the Allied boats away from the home island shores.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's a typical Frank squadron. I've only just started getting the Frank so there's only a few assigned so far. The Frank is a
pretty good fighter and I need a lot of them. I'm keeping them out of harm's way for now. All of them are untried so far. But they
have a pretty good proficiency, 65%, the national average I'm supposing. Another 60 turns to go and I'm already defeated
overwhelmingly. Thomas is really good at this game.

[larryfulkerson]

The Allies have been bombarding the home island bases for the past four or five turns or so and here's the typical B-29 raid
results. Mostly the B-29 losses are extreemly high and my losses are relatively modest. So far so good. I'm thinking that
Thomas is going to have to capture one of the smaller islands right off my shore so that he can possess some shorter range
airfields but taking the smaller islands might be prohibitively costly in terms of ships lost. He can't get all that close to the home
islands without loosing a ship. So far so good.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the typical Tony squadron. It's a pretty good fighter but the range is too short to be of much use in offense. I'm using it in
defense here so it's a good match for this situation. I'm spreading these bad boys all over the home islands so that I'll have a lot
of real estate covered under an air cover unbrella. For the important points. Around Tokyo for example.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the missions and condition of the aerial fleet. And you can see how many squadrons are resting....probably half of them or so.
The rest of them are defending the waters and skies around the home islands. I see in the picture that I've still got one squadron on
combat support and that's a mistake, a fat-finger slippo. I'll fix it as soon as I get the turn back from Thomas. He says he thinks the
assault on the home islands must start soon if he's going to have enough turns to do something useful.

Most of the planes are hovering right around 50% readiness but there's several that are above that. I'm resting those planes that
are lower than 50% readiness. Those planes that are above 60% I put on two-dot attacks and those above 80% are given three-dot
settings. Everybody else is sitting on one-dot settings.

So far it's working out that about half of the fighters are resting and half are defending. So far. Thomas might hit me with another
aerial blitz and do some preparitory air strikes as part of his program to take over the city of Tokyo. It's an automatic win if he captures
the city.