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Since Marky is writing an AAR about our scenario 15 game, I decided that I would write some comments too on an occasional basis. I'm not looking at Marky's AAR and he isn't supposed to look at mine either.

This is my third pbem as Japanese player. I've got one going against Aussem and another just restarted against Autiger. (We both agreed to learn from our mistakes and see if we could make fewer this time.)

Although I used a non-historic start for this game against Marky, I kept my initial attacks limited to the historical Japanese attacks. So I don't have troops landing in Java or things like that. What I wanted to do was to re-organize the Japanese shipping so that it was where I wanted it. The historical setup has ships where I don't need them, parts of units left behind in backwater bases, troops loaded in AKs and supplies loaded in APs, all of which slow down the Japanese advance. So by sending ships to various Japanese ports during the initial phase I am now set up better to try a blitz in the Philippines.

I also set up the KB to try to get two strikes at Pearl Harbor by setting some of the planes to naval attack with port/airfield attacks as the secondary missions. This approach worked, and I got two attacks in the first turn, and even got torpedo attacks both attacks, but no ships were sunk, although plenty were damaged.

The air attacks on the airfields at Singapore went pretty much normally, as did the attacks on Clark Field, although it looks like the attack on Clark did a little less damage than usual - I did notice that some flights were scrubbed due to weather.

My plan is to do all the usual advances in the Philippines, Malaya/Burma, Dutch East Indies, as well as northern New Guinea and the Solomons. If Marky doesn't get aggressive in China I'll let him be for a while. I'd rather not get involved in a troop-crunching battle there like I did against AuTiger.

I've decided to prepare all the Manchurian divisions for an attack on Vladivostok. If things are going well elsewhere, once the troops reach 100% preparation I'll attack and see what happens. I'll also go after those two isolated island bases. From the look of the stock map, it appears that I can land on the Siberian coast at a road that ends at the ocean and maybe cut off the Siberian troops from the rear.

I'm also hoping to save up a few troops to occupy some of the Aleutians. In both of my other games I had the Philippines and Malaya captured by mid-February, so if I can do that again I'll send some troops up north.

What I have to avoid is losing the KB piecemeal in this game. In both other games I lost three fleet CVs for one US fleet CV by splitting the KB and sending half of it out beyond my search patrol regions where I then stumbled upon the US CVs at close enough distance to let Devastators strike. But I still like to be able to attack with my forces in multiple places, so I'll have to balance off what I want versus what I'm willing to risk.

December 8, 1941 didn't turn out as good as I had hoped that it would. I had set most of my air units to naval attack, but Marky didn't send his ships out of Pearl, Manila or Singapore, so there was nothing for my planes to attack. The only place I did a port attack was at Hong Kong where I was surprised to find that the British DDs were still in port. So my Army dive bombers got lucky there and hit and damaged all three ships.

My subs missed some opportunities to attack, but a Dutch DD did hit a sub-laid mine, so that sort of counts. My sub at Johnson Island was hit hard by the ASW ships and will have to limp home. I'm hoping that the KB catches those ASW ships on its way by. I'm not leaving the KB around Hawaii because I want to use it to hunt ships in the Dutch islands.

The British planes in Singapore were very busy attacking my ships at Khota Bharu. Marky even had his fighters strafing my ships and got a couple of shell hits on a DD. The Kongo also received a 500 lb bomb hit, but on its top armour, so the damage was almost non-existent afterwards. I had Oscars on long range CAP over the TFs which helped to disrupt the British air attacks, but I am resting them this turn. I'm leaving that combat TF in place in case Marky sends the British BBs to attack my landing forces.

I'm landing a lot of forces at those friendly Thai bases. In one of my other games my opponent sent Malaya forces north and caused me all sorts of headaches, including destroying some air units on the ground. I'm determined to avoid this sort of thing this time. I'll march these forces to the various British bases instead of trying to land them against shore defences.

My ground forces had a very successful second attack on Hong Kong and reduced the fortifications down to 1. I'm only doing a bombardment attack this turn in order to rest my troops a bit, and then I'll do another deliberate attack next turn. For the moment Marky doesn't seem to be doing anything too aggressive with his forces in China. In my other two pbems my opponents both invaded Thailand, giving me those extra Thai divisions. I'm attacking Yenen, but nothing else in China this turn.

My other land attacks captured the usual bases – Legaspi, Guam, Tarawa, Vigan and Aparri. Why Tarawa and not Makin? Because I split up that so-called Fast Transport into three separate TFs. I sent the truly "fast" TF that contained the two DDs to Tarawa. I send the second "sort of" fast TF with the two faster MLs on its way to Makin – it ought to get there in another turn or two. And I sent that slow, short range ML back to Kwajalein because otherwise it would slow down either of the other two TFs.

Right now I've got about 10 little TFs sailing with NLF forces to capture various empty bases along the front across the Central Pacific. Marky has no forces there to stop me and this sort of blitzkrieg ought to keep him off balance while I set into place my main invasions. I'm already loading up a big invasion force for Davao as well as sending serious invasion forces to the north shore bases of Borneo. It will be several days before these forces start to land, so I'm hoping that Marky stays distracted by my other main attacks as well as by the multiple small raids while I attempt to grab some strategic bases early.

For the moment Marky appears to be standing and fighting, which means that I won't be getting any "freebies" except for those that I can "steal" away from him. I also want to find his ships – the only Allied ship that I've sunk so far is the Penguin! I've got surface combat and light carrier TFs spread around the Philippines in the hopes of finding some ships and in order to try to stop any counterattacks.

If the weather permits I am going to try to wipe out the remaining US planes in Luzon and British planes in Singapore this coming turn. So far the weather in this game has been better than at the start of my other two pbems, so I want to try to take advantage of this while I can.

The British Air Force taught the Japanese a painful lesson this turn as various out-dated British planes swarmed the Japanese combat TF at Khota Bharu, causing all sorts of damage including a torpedo hit on BB Haruna. [X(] This turned out to be the wrong day to rest my LR CAP. Fortunately some Japanese Army Nates were nearby and helped out a bit, but they couldn't do it all themselves.

In the meanwhile, Marky moved the bulk of his air units so my naval air attacks caused little damage. And the KB continued to play "peace maker" - ignoring US ships and sailing along without doing a thing. This makes me think that I am doing something fundamentally very wrong with my CV TFs - I had the same problems in my other pbems too. It's no wonder that I keep on losing my CVs early… [8|]

My Japanese Army planes continued to pound Hong Kong harbor hard, and one of those British DDs sank. I've ordered my ground troops to do a deliberate attack this coming turn so I ought to capture HK. The other major ground effort at Khota Bharu continued well as my troops reduced the fortifications to 3 while still keeping their fatigue and disruption low. So I'm trying another deliberate attack this coming turn.

My other invasion forces are just about ready to start to roll down the west coast of Malaya - I'll probably send them off from Songhia next turn. And I should have an invasion of Kuantan in place next turn too. It looks as if Marky has abandoned the base. Now if I can only avoid too many losses to British air I ought to be okay.

Things are coming along in Luzon too. I am building up forces so that I can make a strong and fast push on Manila. I ought to be able to start in a week. In the meanwhile, Marky has started to send his ships out of Manila harbor. I wonder if my LBA can catch any of them. I have my doubts…

Elsewhere, Makin was captured this turn and my forces started their invasions in the northern New Guinea and Solomons area. Marky's forces are noticeable by their absence. I wonder what he is up to… If his fighting in the Philippines and Malaya is any indication, he will stand up and fight in the South Pacific too.

ORIGINAL: Dive Bomber1

In the meanwhile, Marky moved the bulk of his air units so my naval air attacks caused little damage. And the KB continued to play "peace maker" - ignoring US ships and sailing along without doing a thing. This makes me think that I am doing something fundamentally very wrong with my CV TFs - I had the same problems in my other pbems too. It's no wonder that I keep on losing my CVs early… [8|]

You probably aren't as scatterbrained as I am, but one mistake I have made with KB is to forget to take the planes off of their Pearl Harbor attack setting. The only other thing I can think of that can make them consistently peaceful is if they are out of sorties...maybe it's time to load some more bombs and torpedoes?

You probably aren't as scatterbrained as I am, but one mistake I have made with KB is to forget to take the planes off of their Pearl Harbor attack setting. The only other thing I can think of that can make them consistently peaceful is if they are out of sorties...maybe it's time to load some more bombs and torpedoes?

They are all re-set properly to do naval attacks, and have plenty of sorties available. The floatplanes in the TF are even spotting enemy ships. But so far the DBs and TBs that are on "search" haven't spotted any enemy ships, and in my not-very-lenghy experience so far, carrier air attacks tend to go out much more frequently when DB and TB search planes find enemies than when there is only a single float plane spotting them.

In my other two pbems, the more sightings that I get, particularly by carrier DB and TB planes on "search", the more likely CV TF is to send out attacks. In both other games where I lost half of the KB at once, I was blind-sided and the Japanese carriers didn't spot the enemy carriers until after the initial enemy attack. What I need to do is figure out how to turn that around so that I am spotting the enemy before I am spotted.

Now, to be fair, I deliberately didn't stop the KB anywhere in the Hawaii area to give the search planes a better chance - I was hoping to catch some enemy ships "on the way by" instead. So I suspect that it is better to be "waiting to pounce" in a good spot than dashing around at full speed. Maybe I've been using up too many of those "other" points ("preparation" points or something like that?) that TFs have to have in order to have a better chance of launching attacks.

And of course, we are using Advanced Weather, so my air attacks get rained out pretty frequently in all three games. In one of my starts against AuTiger I left the KB within a couple of hexes of Pearl for three or four turns after Dec 7 and I never did get another port attack on Pearl - instead there was one feeble attack on a transport in one of the other ports, and that transport wasn't even sunk. [:(]

Never-the-less, thanks for the ideas.

This was a turn full of surprises. First off, Marky abandoned Alor Star, which then switched sides via automatic occupation. This is great since that meant no extra damage to the base. [&o] So I'm marching in my troops from Songhia without any delay. Alor Star has given me some headaches in my other games, so I'm quite happy with this turn of events. Marky has also abandoned Kuantan, so my troops landed unopposed there this turn. I'll have to capture the base next turn, but hopefully there won't be a lot of damage to it.

My troops captured Hong Kong as I predicted last turn, but the industries all suffered lots of damage. I'll have to send in engineers and supplies to fix the place up. My troops also captured Khota Bharu this turn, which surprised me a bit because Marky didn't pull anyone back and I expected the defenses to last a couple of days longer. The facilities at Khota Bharu are pretty badly messed up so I'll have to land engineers there to get things ready to operate air craft.

And operating aircraft is a real priority for me because of the other big surprise for me this turn - Marky is sending out all of his fighters in anti-shipping strafing attacks! [X(] So all my fighter sweeps were for naught since Marky didn't have any fighters on CAP. I had more planes on CAP and LR CAP this turn than last, but Marky's fighters attacked my TFs everywhere that his planes could reach.

Fortunately, although the fighters are getting plenty of machine gun hits on my ships, they haven't been doing much damage. And I can tell that the constant attacks are lowering the morale and raising the fatigue of Marky's pilots a lot because more and more Allied attacks are turning back at the first sign of Japanese CAP. But it is a very challenging tactic to counter and I am bringing forward my Army planes a lot more quickly than I had planned to do. (I've also been caught a bit short of planes because I upgraded a number of Nate squadrons to Oscars and they are taking a bit of time to get back to fully operational status.)

In other action, as I had suspected last turn, Marky sent his Philippine PT boats to Legaspi to try to interfere with my transport TFs. I didn't happen to have any surface combat TFs around, so instead I formed one out of the PGs that happened to be in the transport TFs. (The Game starts out with a huge number of small escorts in the Philippine invasion TFs.) The strategy worked fairly well for me - my PG TF surprised Marky's PTs and sank one immediately. But Marky had a fairly brave TF leader in charge and the PTs stuck around for another round instead of running off, and succeeded in damaging some of my PGs but not sinking any. The end result was that my transport TFs were unmolested and the US PTs were sailing off to look for fuel and supplies.

In the meanwhile, some of my anti-shipping air units started to attack some of the fleeing Allied ships in the Philippines, but not many, and without much success. Rain, a scarcity of patrol aircraft in the region, and not particularly skillful pilots combined to make things interesting but not terribly painful for Marky. Still, I'm pressing on to see if I can catch at least some of the ships.

In other action, Emirau and the Admiralty Islands were captured by my NLF invasions. My troops also landed at Kavieng and will capture it next turn. More such attacks are on the way so it looks like my plan to grab a double handful of empty but strategically located forward bases right off the bat is working. Things remain reasonably quiet in China, which is fine with me. I need some time to prepare my units before I start any campaigns there.

Hmmmm.....it could be either one of two things with Marky pulling out of Malaya early. Either he wants to evacuate his units or fight to the death for Singapore. Either way, I have a funny feeling he is going to put up a good fight around Singapore.....

Anyway, Banzai! For the Emperor!

ORIGINAL: Japanese_Spirit

Hmmmm.....it could be either one of two things with Marky pulling out of Malaya early. Either he wants to evacuate his units or fight to the death for Singapore. Either way, I have a funny feeling he is going to put up a good fight around Singapore.....

Anyway, Banzai! For the Emperor!

Sure, having undefeated troops helps Marky to defend Singapore, but he has given me two level 4 air bases in Malaya very early in the game, which means that I can and will bring Army bombers and fighters in right away. I've already landed two base forces in Songhia so I'll move the bigger one immediately to Alor Star. I don't have a base force landing in Kuantan right now, but I'm sending one immediately. Then I'll be able to move more planes in right next to Marky's remaining bases.

Sure, it's hard to hang on to Alor Star and Kuantan, but delaying the Japanese is always a good idea, and I've been held up byt the Allies at both bases quite effectively in my other pbems. The more time the Allies have to build up Singapore, the longer it takes to capture it. And by letting me move Army planes right in close I can start to do regular short-range air attacks on the air fields at Singapore sooner rather than later. And when the Allied engineers are repairing air field damage they aren't building fortifications. [;)]

So we'll see how it goes, but for now I'm quite happy with this turn of events.

Thanks -

On December 11, 1941 one of my surface combat TFs finally caught up with a couple of would-be escapees from Manila just off the eastern tip of Borneo. The two tankers went down after a number of shell and torpedo hits. Another Japanese surface combat TF is chasing other stragglers. Somehow Marky was able to get a number of his ships out of Manila without me spotting them, despite two light Japanese CV TFs prowling around the area.

It looks as if Marky's PTs are headed back to Legaspi, so my PG combat TF is waiting for them. I've gotten tired of this so I am sending a CL/DD TF down to Legaspi to settle things once and for all.

Japanese troops started to land at Kuching, Sansapor, Hollandia, Madang and Wewak this turn. The only defenders were at Kuching and they hit a number of the transport and escort ships fairly hard. Never-the-less, the troops got ashore and I'm doing attacks next turn at all five landing sites. I'm hoping that I capture Kuching on the first go because Marky's LBA hit my TF fairly hard afterward the shore guns had their go and I want to get some CAP in place a.s.a.p. BTW - my troops captured Kavieng, Kuantan and Morotai this turn.

The weather kept most air operations on the ground during the morning turn, but in the afternoon the Allied air forces took off again to attack everything afloat that they could reach. The P-40Es from Manila attempted to attack the transports at Legaspi again, but this time I had a well-rested and well-experienced Zero Daitai in place and the P-40Es were hammered hard, with many losses and many more damaged. No enemy planes got through to my ships.

It was a different story in Kuantan where the AVG showed up to strafe my transports and escorts. This time, there were so many planes that some of the lighter ships did accumulate some damage, but nothing dangerous. Marky lost one P-40B to Operational damage, and if he sends them out again next time he will lose more.

I'm more than happy to let Marky "fight the weather" while I bring up overwhelming forces. I'd love to be able to catch the AVG on the ground in a massive air attack on Singapore, and with the December 1941 Zero Bonus I might be able to do that in only a few more days. BTW - the current airplane losses are: Allied - 312, Japanese - 73. And a lot of those Allied losses are P-40s, which is great news from my p.o.v. because Marky can't replace them quickly. (The AVG with "no" planes is no threat… [;)] )

One of the bonuses for me of Marky putting the AVG in Singapore is that there now is no serious opposition as my Burmese blitzkrieg gets underway. If Marky isn't careful I'll grab the bases that he needs to move the AVG back to India… [:D]

December 12, 1941 - The weather continues to help Marky out, as my air units are still grounded under thunderstorms while his main air bases have been clear enough to let his fighters and bombers fly their attacks. Marky's bomber pilots must be pretty tired because they didn't accomplish much this turn, but his fighters continue to be a nuisance. This time the P-40s at Manila went after the surface combat TF that I had arriving at Legaspi. Since the TF was a hex away from the base there was only a partial CAP over it. The Zeros took care of the P-40Bs easily, but the P-40Es slipped past and scored "irritation hits" on some of the DDs in the TF.

In the meanwhile the AVG didn't sit still while the TFs at Kuantan rested under rain clouds. Instead the Allied planes flew out to hit a transport TF out in the Gulf of Siam. I've got too many TFs sailing around to cover them all with LR CAP, and I don't want to wear out my pilots in T-storms anyway, so I have to put up with the strafing. At least Marky suffered a few more operational losses.

Marky still has his B-17s in the Philippines. The ones in Manila went after a transport TF in Legaspi and my Zeros shot down one and damaged another. The B-17s in Cebu also tried an attack, so I'm sending a bombardment TF after Cebu to see if I can catch some of them on the ground.

In other news, some Japanese MSWs started to sweep HK harbor. I want the harbor pretty much clean before I start to land engineers there to fix the place up. Speaking of MSWs, one of my long range subs caught and sank an Allied MSW in Suva. And best of all, one of my picket-line subs found at least one and maybe two of the US CVs halfway between Palmyra and Hawaii. The CVs appear to be heading back to Hawaii, which makes sense since there isn't a lot of fuel around the South Pacific islands at this time. That will give me a chance to grab more territory to the south.

Speaking of grabbing territory, Japanese troops landed at Jesselton, Miri, Brunei and Shortlands this turn. The Allied forces at Brunei damaged some of the transport TF ships, followed by more Allied bombing attacks doing the same. I'm not losing a lot of ships, but a lot of ships are getting damaged.

More importantly, Kuching was captured on the first try, which was just what I needed. Now I'll rush a base force there and start to try to close down more of the Allied air bases in the region. Wewak, Hollandia, Sansapor and Madang were also captured.

Japanese troops arrived at Victoria Point to find it abandoned. Surprisingly, when my troops arrived at Naga they found it abandoned too. So both of those bases will be captured next turn. It will be interesting to see what happens first - the weather clearing or my ground troops capturing the Allied air fields…

Good point indeed my good sir, I found in my game as the Allies that delaying the Japanese in Malaya was a good strategy. Unfortunetly though, it does gobble up supplies rather quickly unless you replenish. So, Marky is going to have a decent abundance of supplies to play around with. But, I am sure your planes will tire his troops out. And unless he has replaced Percival, you have a win. [;)]

I am surprised though that he didn't bother fighting for Naga. Most Allied players do fight there and cause a good amount of casualties.

I'm looking forward to seeing how the battles of Singapore and Manila turn out.

Last question too, what are your overall Imperial ambitions, if I may ask? Haiwaii, India, Australia or just generally getting as far as you can?

ORIGINAL: Japanese_Spirit

Good point indeed my good sir, I found in my game as the Allies that delaying the Japanese in Malaya was a good strategy. Unfortunetly though, it does gobble up supplies rather quickly unless you replenish. So, Marky is going to have a decent abundance of supplies to play around with. But, I am sure your planes will tire his troops out. And unless he has replaced Percival, you have a win. [;)]

I am surprised though that he didn't bother fighting for Naga. Most Allied players do fight there and cause a good amount of casualties.

I'm looking forward to seeing how the battles of Singapore and Manila turn out.

Last question too, what are your overall Imperial ambitions, if I may ask? Haiwaii, India, Australia or just generally getting as far as you can?

I'm also surprised that he didn't try to delay me in Naga. Now I'm going to be knocking at the door of Manila before he gets gets the fortifications up very much - a very nice situation for me. Clark Field is still badly damaged so the fortifications there aren't going up, so I may be able to grab the important bases in Luzon very quickly, despite the strafing antics.

As far as Malaya goes, I just have to be patient. I don't want to throw good planes at long distance in thunderstorms against Singapore. The air field and air support damage at Kuantan is bad and is repairing slowly despite the presence of plenty of engineers and increasing amounts of supplies. But it will get down low enough, soon enough, and then I'm moving a lot of bombers and fighters in. Marky can't depend upon the weather to protect him forever. (Although I've seen bad weather stay in the top three map-areas for weeks on end in my other games...)

From a longer term point-of-view? Hmmm - if I can avoid throwing away my CVs as I did in my other two games, in the second half of 1942 I want to grab the Northern Australian bases and some of India, as well as the South-Central Pacific. And if I have any troops left available I want to grab some of the Aluetians too. And if things go well in China I'll invade the Soviet Union.

Of course, that also depends upon Marky making a few errors (instead of me). The key will be for me to figure out ways to get Marky to make those mistakes. As it is I still need to figure out a counter to his current strategy. He is playing quite differently from my other opponents and it is taking me a while to adjust to his style.

Thanks for the comments -

Sounds a good plan. And, from the way things are going on the ground, you could very well end up quickly achieving victory in the ground war, allowing you a good amount of time to expand before the Japanese bonuses start coming to an end.

In regards to your long term strategy, sounds a good idea although I was reading on the forums that the most successful way to capture India is to assault before April '42, otherwise the Allies reinforce the area or something like that.

To be honest, I have always fancied taking on New Zealand as the Japanese, kind of like a "final goal" instead of rushing into Australia. It is a good distance though but it should be easier to take than Australia (just a matter of getting in supplies)

I thought I would share that idea, anyway. Just not confident yet to play the game fully. [:(]

Anyway, looking forward to the next update.

ORIGINAL: Japanese_Spirit

Sounds a good plan. And, from the way things are going on the ground, you could very well end up quickly achieving victory in the ground war, allowing you a good amount of time to expand before the Japanese bonuses start coming to an end.

In regards to your long term strategy, sounds a good idea although I was reading on the forums that the most successful way to capture India is to assault before April '42, otherwise the Allies reinforce the area or something like that.

To be honest, I have always fancied taking on New Zealand as the Japanese, kind of like a "final goal" instead of rushing into Australia. It is a good distance though but it should be easier to take than Australia (just a matter of getting in supplies)

I thought I would share that idea, anyway. Just not confident yet to play the game fully. [:(]

Anyway, looking forward to the next update.

I'm not considering a full-fledged attempt to conquer all of India unless Marky sends a lot of troops forward and gets them trapped in Burma. But I figure that if I grab Ceylon and some of the other empty coastal bases I can keep Marky busy for quite some time in that region, rather than allowing him to build up without worries.

New Zealand is interesting, but it is a long way from anywhere. On the other hand if I quickly grab lots of those empty bases in the South Central Pacific I can raid Marky's shipping for quite some time. I want to be able to resupply the KB from someplace like Suva for raiding instead of Tarawa.

But hey, that's in the future. For now I've got to grab more real estate and keep the KB in one piece! [:)]

Thanks -

December 13, 1941 – I just realized my first dumb mistake in this game - I had left my sub-based Glens on "training" since the start of the game. When I started this game I stood down all of my air units and then set them up as I wanted them as I went over the map. But I forgot the Glens. That maybe okay however, because this way the subs have been more "stealthy" as they moved to their assigned positions, and also this way I haven't lost any Glens yet. (In my other pbems Glens seem very "fragile", particularly if I try to use them on Recon.)

Despite the lack of active Glens, my subs in the Palmyra region were still busy this turn and provided useful information. The sub that spotted the US CVs last turn had a reasonably successful turn. It was attacked without damage by some US ASW ships, then put a torpedo into DD Bagley, and finally survived yet another ASW attack without damage. That's a good sign to me so far, because in my other pbems the US ASW forces seem to hit my subs hard every time that they meet.

The other bit of interesting sub news was that the sub that I had "parked" at Palmyra was spotted by a floatplane and by a Dauntless. That means that the US CVs are still in the area and not heading towards Hawaii as I had assumed from the encounter on the previous day. I wonder if Marky is going to try a raid into the Gilberts?

I do have a "canary in the coal mine" in the region in the form of a DD fast transport TF heading towards Baker Island. I decided to grab Baker early in this game after my decision in another pbem to take it in April 1942 via a normal transport TF resulted in large and serious "grief" for me. If the US CVs are heading towards the Gilberts the FT TF may detect them and retreat, which will be the warning that I need to pull my other ships out of the Gilberts.

I'm currently landing a large base force in Tarawa and I've also put one an air patrol unit there, so that ought to help out with detection of any immediate threats, but I'm not counting 100% on it. Right now all five map-weather regions where my forces are operating (out of the nine regions) are under thunderstorm alerts again, so there is a very good chance that most of my air missions won't fly next turn.

As part of that I've cut back on a lot of my air missions – I hate to lose planes to operational damage when there is little chance for them to complete their missions. I've also set the DBs and TBs in the KB to naval attack only, with no naval searching other than by the float planes in the KB. I have dozens of TFs sailing around "everywhere", and many have float planes that are searching the surrounding waters. So a float plane sighting could mean anything or nothing to Marky. But if he sees a DB or TB sighting then he will know that the KB is around.

Au Tiger used this to great effect against me in an earlier pbem where I received reports of Kingfishers, and I stupidly (and fatally for the KB) assumed that US 20-knot BBs were lumbering around, forgetting that in PDU games the short range float planes on the US cruisers could be exchanged for longer ranged Kingfishers! [:(]

In the Philippines, some of my air attacks finally flew and hit Manila. There was no opposition because Marky isn't bothering to put up CAP since he has all of his fighters on naval attack "strafe" at 100 feet. Unfortunately, while the air attack went well and a B-17 and a PBY were destroyed on the ground, there wasn't enough damage done to close the airfield, and my other attacks on Clark Field were rained out. The rain didn't affect Marky's strafing very much but thanks to my CAP there wasn't a lot of damage and at the end of the day another 20 Allied planes had been destroyed by various means. Marky is going to run out of planes by the end of December at this rate. (I hope! [&o] )

I haven't been lucky at all in terms of getting rid of Marky's planes the "easy way" via bombardment. This turn I had a BB TF bombard Balikpapan, but although it caused a lot of casualties and general damage, no planes were destroyed on the ground. However, some bombers did get destroyed by flak as they attacked the retiring TF, so it was almost as good.

In the land war, my troops landed at Green Island, Tuguegarao, and Davao this turn. Tuguegarao had been abandoned so I just landed an NLF via a FT TF. The shore batteries at Davao shot back and caused some damage, and the B-17s at Cebu attacked too. This isn't enough to stop the invasion, which I have bolstered from the usually unsuccessful "historic" invasion force. I'm more concerned about surface combat TFs trying to interfere so I've had a cruiser TF sitting there for the past couple of turns to discourage any attempts at heroics.

Speaking of SC TFs, for some strange reason Marky has his remaining PT boats cruising up the east coast of Luzon, but not attacking anything. Now that I've captured Naga there isn't any place for his PTs to get fuel, so I don't know what they will do. I'm going to ignore them for now since I have a good CL/DD TF guarding Legaspi harbour. I wonder if Marky is sailing that TF in that region in the hopes of increasing the detection of any TFs that I have sailing around?

In the "what counts" part of the turn, my forces captured Shortlands, Jesselton, Miri, Victoria Point, Brunei, Naga and Green Island. As has happened with my other base captures in this game, all of the bases took a fair amount of damage, even though I deliberately kept the naval bombardments to a minimum and grabbed them all on the first try. I wonder if it helps to wear down the defending troops more? In one of my other pbems I captured most bases with little damage to facilities or industries, while the results in the other pbem was very similar to what I'm seeing here. The main difference that I can think of is that I attacked more in the game where I captured the bases with less damage. Intuitively I would think that the opposite should be true, but then maybe it's a matter of how many engineers are left to do the destruction...[&:]

December 14, 1941 - I made continued slow progress this turn. Hansa was occupied by nearby troops, troops landed at Gasmata, Tulagi and Baker Island, and Davao, Baker and Tuguegarao were captured. It was nice to get Davao at the first try - in my other pbems I had to struggle with it. My troops also found Taiping abandoned. It will be captured next turn.

Marky's Philippine PTs ended up in Lamon Bay for some odd reason. Maybe he is hoping to prevent me from landing there? Lamon Bay is actually a lousy place to land because it takes a long time to march out of there. But I decided that I'll try to get rid of those PTs anyway and so I've sent a CL/DD TF to there in the hopes of finishing them off.

I'm still not really getting Marky's strafing under control. A CA TF bombarded Cagayan, causing a fair amount of damage and casualties, but not destroying any aircraft. My bombers hit Manila again, but once more didn't do a lot of damage. However, a bombing attack finally flew against Clark Field, destroying a B-17, a P-40E and a P-26 on the ground and upping the damage level again. Marky also lost more planes against my CAP, although his planes still found ways to sneak through the CAP.

The most promising news was that Marky finally pulled those four Chinese units out of that crossroads to the northeast of Yenen and has them all traveling along that slow road to try to defend Yenen. This means that the northern route to Lanchow is now open for my Mongols to travel along, and they are already only a hex from that crossroads. It also appears that Marky hasn't reinforced those northern Chinese bases, so I may have a chance to sneak in from behind and grab them before he knows it. And if I get lucky I may even be able to grab Yenen before the reinforcements arrive.

BTW - there weren't any reports of the US CVs around Palmyra this turn, but considering the lousy weather, that's not too surprising.

December 15, 1941 - There are so many things to do in this game that I find it hard to keep track of everything. But I don't want to turn it into something akin to "work", so I'm not yet ready to start to put together checklists and spreadsheets and so on. Therefore, I've got to put up with forgetting things every so often. Hopefully most will be relatively "painless".

So last turn I forgot to set the troops that landed on Tulagi to "attack", and of course, they just sat there. I set them this time, and checked it at least twice. (I think… [&o] ) But my other planned attacks went as planned as my troops captured the now empty Taiping and Gasmata.

Lingayen is now also abandoned so my armored units that rolled in this turn will capture it next turn. It appears that San Marcelino and Lamon Bay are empty too, so I'm sending NLFs into both via fast transports.

And it also appears that Kuala Lampur has been abandoned too. More armored units will roll into it next and capture it once they are there. Evidently Marky has decided to make "last stands" in both Singapore and Manila. I'm a bit disappointed about the Manila situation because it is usually easier for the Japanese player if the Allies try to retreat to Bataan a la the historical situation. Oh well, I'll just have to be patient and try to grind both city/bases into the ground.

It does appear that Marky has pulled everything out of Bataan except for the "static" CD unit. That once again tempts me to try a para-drop. I tried that in my first pbem against Aussem, but I had mis-read the Intel badly and it turned out that he had plenty of units there. Ouch! At least my transports didn't fly the complete paratroop units in and I was able to rebuild from the remnants back at base…

My air units flew this time against Manila and Clark Field. As before, the attack on Manila didn't do much, but the attack on Clark did do more damage including destroying another P-40E. Marky keeps on losing planes every turn - on the ground and in the air, but he still finds planes to fly strafing attacks. The only good thing is that his pilots are getting more and more fatigued and are becoming less effective.

BTW - I am in the process of completing my encirclement of Rabaul and the four peripheral bases on New Britain ought to be invaded in one or two more turns. I want to do this so that my main invasion captures the Australian troops and doesn't just drive them into the jungle. In one of my other pbems I captured the two closest bases before capturing Rabaul and the Aussies were still able to trace a tenuous supply line to one of the more distant bases and escape immediate destruction. [8|]

Oh yes, before I forget, my attack on Yenen went fairly well, I got 1:1 odds, reduced the fortifications to Level 1, and my troops didn't gain much fatigue or disruption. So I'm trying it again this coming turn in the hope of grabbing the base before Marky's reinforcements arrive. In the meanwhile, the first of the Mongols arrived at the crossroads on their way to the northern bases. I may very well catch Marky off guard up there. [;)]

December 16, 1942 – Marky's Philippine PT boats ran into one of my CL/DD TFs at Vigan twice during the night phase of this turn, losing 4 out of the 5 US ships, with negligible damage to my ships. Then in the day phase, in a case of "turnabout is fair play", a daitai of Anns which had been set to Naval Attack at 100 feet found the remaining PT boat and proceeded to strafe and bomb it to very small bits. With this last vestige of US surface combat ships gone from the Northern Philippines, I sent my SC TFs off to various forward bases for reassignment.

Marky's fighters continued to fly out of Manila this turn. Whenever my CAP caught up with them the US planes retreated at the first shots. But they still went after so many targets that my CAP couldn't keep up with all of them. However, the cumulative wear-and-tear is getting even to the lucky ones and they didn't accomplish much damage.

Marky tried a different type of nuisance raid on Brunei this time with regular bombers at 1000 feet. I don't have too many troops there yet, nor much AA or CAP, so the bombers got through and get one hit on the oil. Since the oil in Brunei was already been damaged badly when I captured the base, the addition point of damage is irrelevant.

Marky has been generally so aggressive with his air units that it is probably better that the weather has been pretty much uniformly lousy or else his nuisance raids would be causing me even more irritation. In the meanwhile, because my naval bombers have been pretty much ineffective against Manila, I've moved them out of the Northern Philippines to forward bases where they can rest up and keep an eye out for any naval mistakes on Marky's part. Instead I've started to move in Army bombers, particularly Sallys, which I find make good general purpose carpet bombers if there are enough of them and enough escorts to protect them.

Anyway, the battle of Manila will eventually be settled on the ground, and things started out fine for me. The 16th Division had a successful initial bombardment of Manila, and the Allied deliberate counter attack did no damage. More Japanese ground units are moving forward and yet more are on their way to Legaspi and the road to Manila, so I ought to be able to start serious attacks in a couple of weeks.

My fast transport landings at San Marcelino and Lamon Bay will happen next turn, and I have a brigade moving into the final northern base, so the Bataan/Clark/Manila triangle will be isolated within two days. At that point I think that I will try a double para-drop on both Bataan and Manila simultaneously, since there appears to only be one unit in each base. And this way, if I'm wrong, the paras will be able to retreat to near-by friendly bases.

In other ground combat news, troops landed at Talasea and Sag Sag in New Britain, and more troops will land at Arawe next turn, closing the escape routes from Rabaul. The main invasion force is on its way, along with the fully replenished full KB, and a nice battleship bombardment force. I'm hoping that Marky attempts some silly heroics at Rabaul, but he probably won't. But it's good to be prepared anyway.

My forces captured more bases this turn, including (finally) Tulagi, Lingayen, Sarmi, and most importantly, Yenen! Yes, my plan worked and now those four northern Chinese units on the road to Yenen are cut off from supply. I'll ignore those stragglers at my leisure for now as I rest up my victorious troops at Yenen. In the meanwhile, the Mongols keep on happily riding west towards Lanchow, emulating their ancestors centuries before.

In Malaya my forces reached the now empty Kuala Lampur and will capture it next turn. I've also set the 5th Division, along with support, to attack Georgetown next turn. Since only the fort unit is in place my troops ought to be able to take it on the first try. It appears that Malacca has also been abandoned, so I guess that Marky intends to take his chances with hiding his troops in Singapore. I don't really mind since this gives me plenty of time to bring forward the units that I want to have besieging Singapore. The air fields at Khota Bharu are still not in operation, so I'm shipping a construction engineering unit to help out with the repairs. But since the weather is still uniformly lousy it isn't a big hindrance at this point since I don't really want to fly against the AVG in thunderstorms (that's assuming that Marky has left the AVG in Singapore.)

Very interesting AAR, unfortunately I can't allow myself to read it anymore. I am afraid I am getting unfair insight into future play in our game, although I did enjoy reading what I did.


BTW, I am ready for my turn.

ORIGINAL: AU Tiger

Very interesting AAR, unfortunately I can't allow myself to read it anymore. I am afraid I am getting unfair insight into future play in our game, although I did enjoy reading what I did.


BTW, I am ready for my turn.

True, but you've also seen my scenario 15 start three times now, so there isn't much new I can show you... [;)] [:D]

And the turn is in the mail - Merry (game) Christmas...