Matrix Games Forums

October 6, 1943

Now that xargun is back from holiday we are plowing through the turns

I bombed Balikpapan's port at night for two turns, it looks like there are no
fighters left there, so I will switch my B-17s to daylight runs to see about
closing the port down. His TKs only spent one day there so I guess they are
small tankers, but with the port well damaged they will have to spend longer
loading up.

I sent a lot of heavy bombers to Lashio, pretty much closed the runway down
with 95% damage and destroyed 24 Ki-45 KAIa Nicks and 16 Ki-30 Anns on the
ground.

He sent 184 Ki-49IIb Helen bombers against three AFT units in Burma,
He bombed from 12000 feet and destroyed on support squad and disabled
4 more support squads. He did raise their disruption to 10.

No ground attacks today

October 7, 1943

I sent a lone minesweeper to Balikpapan to check for mines and it found a few,
no shore battery fire so it will stay and sweep more mines

In the air he swept Oosthaven and again I lost out.
I am sending a huge air armada in at night to bomb the airfield and a mass
of sweepers at different altitudes to see if I can eliminate his airfields

I bombed Lashio again, more airbase and airbase supply hits

He is bombing my troops in Burma and doing minor damage, not a lot
I can do, I do not have the supply I need to fly many fighters there, so I
have to rely on AA, which is stretched a bit thin.

October 8, 1943

Not as big a flash as I expected. Many of my bombers did not even attempt to fly
this turn. Some of my B-25D1s flew and my B-17s flew, but no B-24s of any kind did
fly. But the ones that did fly had good luck. It would seem that he does not have
radar or at least not an effective one. The time to target for the bombers was in the
1 to 9 minute time frame, so only 1 B-25D1 was lost and one George was shot down at night

In the daytime, 21 fighter sweeps went in. Only the first 7 met any resistance and all the
later ones were small sweeps. Again the time to target, while longer, was not good.
The times were in the 7-15 minute range. The first two sweeps were about 1:1 lost
ratios, but the next 5 were definitely my advantage.

The totals are in the screenshot. I am sending my night bombers in again tonight
except 5 B-24s squadrons that will go in the afternoon to bomb the airfield.
I will need a bit of luck but it should work out.

At sea we both fired and missed a few times and I swept a few more mines at Balikpapan.

October 9, 1943

My B-24s did not fly in the afternoon and my attack bombers did not fare as well today as they did yesterday.

Not as good as yesterday, but effective. Mouse over show only 7 aircraft left at Palembang and airfield damage of 27
I will assign all the heavies to bomb the airfield in the day, with one B-24J set to bomb the port.
I want to close the airfield and port

No ground action today.

I bombed Lashio again, still trying to eliminate his supply.
I am moving ground forces into Lashio.

October 10, 1943

None of my heavy bombers flew to Palembang today, weather I expect
In a surprise I left 2 B-25G attack bomber squadrons on daylight airfield attack
and they did good, the airfield is at 45 damage and while they lost 3 aircraft to flak
they destroyed 16 aircraft on the ground.
============================================================

I bombed Lashio airfield again, more supply hits. I am changing to ground attack even though
it probably will not do much. I have units moving to Lashio that should arrive in two turns.

On the ground I probed Toungoo with a bombardment attack, it will be a bit tough to take

Ground combat at Toungoo (57,50)

Allied Bombardment attack

Attacking force 91331 troops, 815 guns, 514 vehicles, Assault Value = 3913

Defending force 50460 troops, 608 guns, 1549 vehicles, Assault Value = 1959

Allied ground losses:
134 casualties reported
Squads: 2 destroyed, 28 disabled
Non Combat: 0 destroyed, 2 disabled
Engineers: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled

Assaulting units:
1st Chinese Corps
9th Indian Division
86th Chinese Corps
14th Chindit Brigade
8th Chinese Corps
20th Indian Division
70th Chinese Corps
Gardner's Horse Regiment
50th Chinese Corps
5th Indian Division
26th Indian Mountain Gun Regiment
20th Indian Mountain Gun Regiment
25th Indian Mountain Gun Regiment
16th Group Army

Defending units:
1st Tank Division
12th Tank Regiment
2nd Tank Division
25th Division
17th Division
14th Guards Regiment
15th Ind.Medium Field Artillery Regiment
46th JNAF AF Unit
108th JAAF AF Bn

========================================================

But at sea, things looked good

Sub attack near Bikini at 131,111

Japanese Ships
PB Nikkai Maru, Torpedo hits 1, on fire, heavy damage

Allied Ships
SS Apogon

Japanese ground losses:
4 casualties reported
Squads: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled
Non Combat: 0 destroyed, 1 disabled
Engineers: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled

SS Apogon launches 2 torpedoes
Apogon diving deep ....
Sub escapes detection
--------------------------------------------------
ASW attack near Mili at 136,121

Japanese Ships
SS I-7, hits 24, heavy damage

Allied Ships
BB Tennessee
BB California
DD Halford
DD Ringgold
DD Philip
DD McKee
----------------------------------------------
Sub attack near Pescadores at 84,62

Japanese Ships
xAK Tyoko Maru, Torpedo hits 2, on fire, heavy damage
E Hirashima
xAK Kotohira Maru
xAK Genzan Maru
xAK Ryuzan Maru
xAK Kenzan Maru
E Ishizaki

Allied Ships
SS Redfin, hits 1
---------------------------------------------
Sub attack near Sorong at 82,107

Japanese Ships
SS I-2, hits 34, on fire, heavy damage

Allied Ships
DE Peary
DE Gilmore
DE Paul Jones

SS I-2 launches 2 torpedoes at DE Peary
/snip
Sub slips beneath the waves
The DC attack was made by DE Gilmore, one of the new special built DEs
she is an Evarts 'GMT' class and does pack a wallop.

October 11, 1943

Distressing news today, the A7M2 Sam is now available to xargun, that will be a game changer,

At sea I took care of another enemy sub

Sub attack near Namorik at 132,120

Japanese Ships
SS I-19, hits 20, heavy damage

Allied Ships
DE Dent
DE Kennison
DE Talbot

SS I-19 launches 2 torpedoes at DE Dent
/snip
Sub slips beneath the waves

I also sank a small freighter near Nagasaki

My heavy bombers flew today and bombed Palembang, the airfield is about closed and the port is well damaged
He has complained about how slow it is to move fuel and oil out of Palembang, it is now much harder

I bombed the troops at Lashio, recon says there are three units there and I have identified them as
11th Garrison Unit, 59th Infantry Brigade, and the 70th JAAF AV bn

October 12, 1943

Not much happening right now, many of my ships are in port repairing minor damage, LCUs are marching, and air units training and repairing air frames

We did bomb the airfield at Palembang some more and the units at Lashio.

October 13, 1943

At sea SS Gar gets another xAK off of Nagasaki

Sub attack near Fukue-jima at 100,58

Japanese Ships
xAK Kokai Maru, Torpedo hits 1, heavy damage
E Ukishima

Allied Ships
SS Gar

On the ground we take an undefended Bhamo in Burma

A bombardment attack at Lashio shows I need more troops and something
other than two mid sized Chinese units.

A DA at Toungoo shows I do not have near enough yet, I need to wait for more
All my units do have full supply so that is not a problem. About 90% of the losses
suffered there came from the 1st Chinese Corps

Ground combat at Toungoo (57,50)

Allied Deliberate attack

Attacking force 188195 troops, 1879 guns, 1124 vehicles, Assault Value = 6509

Defending force 50488 troops, 608 guns, 1549 vehicles, Assault Value = 1962

Allied engineers reduce fortifications to 5

Allied adjusted assault: 2652

Japanese adjusted defense: 3625

Allied assault odds: 1 to 2 (fort level 5)

Combat modifiers
Defender: terrain(+), forts(+), preparation(-), experience(-)
Attacker:

Japanese ground losses:
1879 casualties reported
Squads: 3 destroyed, 223 disabled
Non Combat: 1 destroyed, 32 disabled
Engineers: 2 destroyed, 28 disabled
Guns lost 39 (1 destroyed, 38 disabled)
Vehicles lost 31 (2 destroyed, 29 disabled)

Allied ground losses:
12260 casualties reported
Squads: 128 destroyed, 1404 disabled
Non Combat: 6 destroyed, 145 disabled
Engineers: 1 destroyed, 82 disabled
Guns lost 113 (7 destroyed, 106 disabled)
Vehicles lost 33 (4 destroyed, 29 disabled)

Assaulting units:
1st Chinese Corps
86th Chinese Corps
23rd Indian Division
10th Chinese Corps
14th Chindit Brigade
Gardner's Horse Regiment
70th Chinese Corps
9th Chinese Corps
50th Chinese Corps
20th Indian Division
8th Chinese Corps
9th Indian Division
26th Indian Division
2nd British Division
5th Indian Division
103rd RAF Base Force
20th Indian Mountain Gun Regiment
25th Indian Mountain Gun Regiment
26th Indian Mountain Gun Regiment
16th Group Army

Defending units:
25th Division
1st Tank Division
17th Division
12th Tank Regiment
2nd Tank Division
14th Guards Regiment
15th Ind.Medium Field Artillery Regiment
46th JNAF AF Unit
108th JAAF AF Bn

Since they all have full supply they should reenable their elements fairly quickly

I am now able to get some supply in to Ramree Island and that will help. The Brits get some LSTs in
late 1943 and in 1944 also. The can unload quite quickly. I am having a bit of a problem getting
supply to Chittagong. I guess it is the fact it is at the end of a long minor railway.

==============================================
Air wise I bombed Lashio some more and Palembang

He sent Nells and Bettys at night to bomb Oosthaven. I had 6 aircraft destroyed on the field.
I moved my night fighter squadron there. Maybe they will help

A picture of Southern Sumatra, I am moving on Lahat which is empty. It looks like he is moving out of the
base to the SW of Palembang. If so, I will occupy it. I plan on moving units to the hex NW of Palembang
so I can move in without crossing a river. I know the base will be tough to take, it is a swamp hex and
I assume at least level 6 forts. I may have to see about bombing the units themselves in the future.
At this time I am bombing the airfield and port to keep them suppressed. I can use the oil and refineries
I have lots of fuel, but it is in the USA and I do not have enough TKs to move as much as I would like.

October 13, 1943 continued

A bit more information and reflection of the combat at Toungoo.

Counting up, I actually lost 118 squad type devices and 99 of them were from the 1st Chinese Corps.

I only lost something like 5 British and Indian Squads outright and the rest were from the other Chinese
Corps.

And again, I didn't count that closely but I did not have 1404 disabled, more like about 1200 and
fully half of those were from the 1st Chinese Corps. The rest were spread about fairly evenly
amongst all the units present. the 1st Chinese Corps went from and AV of 695 to 2.

Even though 118 destroyed squads seems a lot, most of them are Chinese and I have 423 in the pool
and 350 more each month. I lost very few guns and vehicles destroyed, a good number disabled,
but like I stated earlier, I have supply available so they should get repaired before too long.

Interesting also that the 1st Chinese Corps has one of the better leaders, LTC Teh A.

• Leadership is 55
  Inspiration is 54
  Aggression is 51
  and Land is 67

I would have to guess that being first on the unit list is why it took so many losses

Something to always keep in mind is that the Combat Report is the same for both sides
so FoW has to be present. So looking in depth at a seemingly bad result can be very useful.

Isn't it also the case that:
- you can get reinforcements right after the battle & before you get to see the state of the unit
- some disabled squads get auto-repaired at the end of the turn, again between the combat and the time you can see the unit
More supply available = better results for both of the above (considering the other factors, of course)

FoW is a factor for sure, but also your units will recover some & so the destroyed/disabled number will never match up 100%.

October 14, 1943

It could be that some do, but I doubt it is that much

Not much happened, on the ground I did bombardment attacks at Lashio, Toungoo, and a hex to the NE of Lashio.
Mostly to asses what I face

At sea only a swing and a miss by his ASW near Lingga

In the air, he put up some LRCAP over Palembang, it did not go well for him
The score was 50 A6M5c lost( 39 air-2-air and 11 ops ) to 6 P-47s lost( 5 air-2-air and 1 ops )

October 15, 1943

It is with heavy heart that I announce that SS Gar was lost today.
She and her crew did fantastic work and took one last enemy ship with her

Submarine attack near Fukue-jima at 100,58

Japanese Ships
E Kanju, Torpedo hits 1, heavy damage
E Mutsure
E Matsuwa

Allied Ships
SS Gar, hits 12, and is sunk

SS Gar launches 2 torpedoes at E Kanju
Gar diving deep ....
/snip
Sub slips beneath the waves

No ground attacks this turn

but again he opposed my sweeps over Palembang and lost more Zeros
He lost 18 more A6M5c Zeros( 15 air-2-air and 3 ops ) and I lost
3 P-47s ( all air-2-air )
He also lost 6 Helen bombers night bombing Oosthaven's airfield

October 16, 1943

Not a lot happened. I took Benkoelen by paratroop.

He flew some night bombers against Oosthaven and Batavia. I lost 2 C-47s and he lost 3 Helens.

I obliterated the 6th Java Militia Regiment SW of Palembang

Morning Air attack on 6th Java Militia Regiment, at 48,92 (Praboemoelih)

Weather in hex: Light rain

Raid spotted at 19 NM, estimated altitude 5,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 5 minutes

Allied aircraft
B-25D1 Mitchell x 138
B-25G Mitchell x 6
P-47D25 Thunderbolt x 25

No Allied losses

Japanese ground losses:
752 casualties reported
Squads: 41 destroyed, 15 disabled
Non Combat: 16 destroyed, 10 disabled
Engineers: 3 destroyed, 3 disabled
Guns lost 14 (8 destroyed, 6 disabled)

Aircraft Attacking:
15 x B-25D1 Mitchell bombing and strafing from low level
Ground Attack: 6 x 500 lb GP Bomb
15 x B-25D1 Mitchell bombing and strafing from low level
Ground Attack: 6 x 500 lb GP Bomb
16 x B-25D1 Mitchell bombing and strafing from low level
Ground Attack: 6 x 500 lb GP Bomb
15 x B-25D1 Mitchell bombing and strafing from low level
Ground Attack: 6 x 500 lb GP Bomb
16 x B-25D1 Mitchell bombing and strafing from low level
Ground Attack: 6 x 500 lb GP Bomb
15 x B-25D1 Mitchell bombing and strafing from low level
Ground Attack: 6 x 500 lb GP Bomb
16 x B-25D1 Mitchell bombing and strafing from low level
Ground Attack: 6 x 500 lb GP Bomb
15 x B-25D1 Mitchell bombing and strafing from low level
Ground Attack: 6 x 500 lb GP Bomb
15 x B-25D1 Mitchell bombing and strafing from low level
Ground Attack: 6 x 500 lb GP Bomb
3 x B-25G Mitchell bombing and strafing from low level
Ground Attack: 6 x 500 lb GP Bomb
3 x B-25G Mitchell bombing and strafing from low level
Ground Attack: 6 x 500 lb GP Bomb

The unit does not show up anymore.

October 17, 1943

Not much happened, some bombing by both sides, minor damage.

Nomad wrote: Mon Apr 18, 2022 12:50 pm October 11, 1943

Distressing news today, the A7M2 Sam is now available to xargun, that will be a game changer,

Good thing you added the P-47s

It's too bad the P-47 are not CV capable. Maybe I should ask for that in our next game.

I am just starting to get the F4U-1A that is carrier capable and it should be a bit better against the Sam

October 18, 1943

Another day of just bombing by both sides.

I did occupy Bassein in Burma today

October 19, 1943

Lots of bombing today, no ground or sea action

I am bombing the troops at Palembang and Lashio and he is bombing my troops
in a lot of places, in Burma and Sumatra. A couple of them hurt a bit, but none were
critical. By my count he sent out 416 bombers today. That will burn a lot of his supply
and he complains he has only a few days left of oil.

I did occupy Praboemoelh which is the hex just SW of Palembang. I moved a P-47 squadron in to
provide CAP and I am flying in a Aviation Base Force to support them. I will be railroading in
more Engineers, building types and Av Support types. This base will provide me with a size
9 airbase within normal drop tank range of Singapore for my P-47s.

October 20, 1943

At sea we got another sub off of Batavia
All three hits were reported as direct hits

ASW attack near Kalidjati at 51,97

Japanese Ships
SS I-153, hits 3, heavy damage

Allied Ships
DE Barker
DE Hatfield

SS I-153 is located by DE Barker
DE Hatfield fails to find sub, continues to search...
DE Hatfield fails to find sub, continues to search...
DE Hatfield attacking submerged sub ....
Underwater explosion, debris and oil appear on surface!
Escort abandons search for sub

No ground action today

In the air, he sent out a large number of unescorted bombers. In Burma I put in some Hurricanes
at Meiktila on CAP with a range of 1. They bagged a number of Helen bombers.
My P-47s at Praboemoelih in Sumatra bagged more. In all he lost 71 Helens ( 57 air-2-air, 5 flak and 9 ops )
I lost no fighters this turn

The question now is what will he do? I would probably sweep the bases that had fighters up on CAP
so I moved all of them elsewhere, the three fighter squadrons involved are all on railroads so they
move 100% to another base.
The next question is what should I do? If he does send out a good number of fighters on sweeps, especially
from Rangoon and he has fighters on night CAP, how many will he have on day CAP? My answer is I am sending in
175 P-47D25s on sweep missions over Rangoon. I expect to shoot down a number of fighters. I will look at
sending in bombers next turn.

Recon shows Rangoon has no bombers and the only large air base in the area is Moulmein , so I am sending some
B-24s on a night airfield bombing mission, B-17s can not reach the base

October 21, 1943

Well, I was right that he didn't send out any bombers, but he didn't sweep any of my bases.

He sent in night bombers( something I considered he might do, another reason to move my fighters )
but only to Praboemoelih. They were all Nells and Bettys. Even though I had some AA units, he sustained
no losses of Nells or Bettys.

He did send LRCAP over Palembang, I had a sweeper unit that shot down some fighters, but not enough
The following B-25s suffered some.

My sweeps of Rangoon netted a good number of Franks
It is hard to say how many Franks I shot down over Rangoon since I also shot down some over
Palembang. Total today in fighters are 94 Franks ( 83 air-2-air and 11 ops) and 18 Zeros( 15 air-2-air and 3 ops )
5 Georges ( 2 air-2-air and 3 ops ). The Zero and George losses were at Palembang.
and I lost 41 P-47D25s (31 air-2-air and 10 ops and unfortunately 36 B-25s ( 35 air to air and only 1 to ops )

Total overall shows 121 Japan losses to 83 Allied losses. Rangoon shows only 52 fighters, but Moulmein shows 50 more.
I will just sweep Rangoon again today.