Hunting the AuTiger - an AAR (no Tigers please)

[Dive Bomber1]

Okay, it's February 14, 1942, in the fourth pbem start between me and AuTiger. AuTiger was the first person to play pbem against me when I started last Fall, and we are still going. The first game we started went a month or so and then we stopped so that we could recover from all the mistakes that we both made. The second game was stopped more quickly because it turned out that I had our set our agreed upon settings all wrong. The third game went into April 1942, but we stopped after Tiger found a way to lose most of China and I found a way to lose half of the KB.

This fourth game is different from the rest because it is a Historical start, while the other three were what we called "quasi-historical" starts. The other big difference in this game from the others is that PDU is off, while it was on in the others. That has been a big shock to me and I am still trying to figure out how to use all those Nates and Sonias in some valuable manner.

The early part of the game went as usual with me attacking all fronts simultaneously. Also, as usual for me in pbem my attack on Pearl Harbor didn't sink any ships. Only against Aussem have I had a start where my raid sank some BBs. Tiger delayed his escape from Manila a bit, and also tried sending ships in various directions, such as across the central Pacific. But since I had decided to split my forces right from the start I caught all the ships that didn't escape via the southern route.

My forces captured Wake on the first try, which was a bit of a surprise to me, because it usually doesn't fall for me with the historical troops. Hong Kong made up for this and took a couple of weeks to take, which helped Tiger move his blocking forces into position.

The big thing that I did differently in this start was that I sent the KB to Kwajalein, then to Truk, then to Palau, and then deep into the DEI to attack the ships at Java. I only had my float planes on scout duty during that trip, so any sub reports that Tiger got were no different from those he was getting from any of dozens of cruiser and battleship TFs that I had sailing around.

So I was able to surprise Tiger's forces at Java, wipe out his air force and hammer the ships that he had successfully extracted from Manila. Then I sent the KB on to hit Singapore where I was able to close the airfields and catch a fair amount of the AVG on the ground - Tiger had brought the AVG in to harass my bombing attacks.

Then after refueling at Saigon, I sent the KB up the Straight of Malacca without it being noticed because I had been able to close the rest of the Allied air bases in Malaya and Sumatra after Singapore was closed. I was hoping to catch some of the RN in the Bay of Bengal, but I missed them by a couple of days. However, the KB did catch and sink the Dutch MLs as they were leaving the Andaman Islands.

So that was the highlight of my early progress. From then on things became very tough as Tiger used some very good strategies against me to tie up my forces on the ground. In Luzon Tiger was able to extract all but one of his combat units into Bataan and fortify the base strongly before I was able to move my troops in for the siege. Here is the first point at which using the Historical start slowed me down because I wasn't able to bring in troops so quickly.

In Malaya Tiger used a similar strategy in which he slowed down my forces with minor units while he brought his best units down to Singapore. Because of his early use of the AVG to protect Singapore he gained the time he needed to build up the fortifications fairly high. So by the time I started to do regular bombing of the airfield and port it was already too late. Tiger also took the risk to send a number of single ship transport TFs to Singapore with supplies, and so when I moved my forces in for the attack I hit unexpectedly strong defenses.

Essentially, in both Luzon and Malaya my strategy of going with minimal land forces hurt me in this game, while it allowed me to capture Manila and Singapore early in my non-historical starts because my troops were in position to attack weeks earlier. Also, in the earlier games Tiger tried some counter-attacks which weakened his forces and allowed me to split out more of his units.

In China Tiger used an "in-your-face" approach again, as he did in our earlier pbems, but this time he didn't overextend himself and he made certain that he covered his flanks so that I couldn't flank him and trap his expeditionary forces like I did in the previous pbem. So this time Tiger has my forces split and neither of us is strong enough to break the stalemate, which is a good situation for Tiger.

In Burma I made a really stupid decision and sent my invasion forces overland to Bangkok instead of sending them by transport ships. After the units were stuck for three weeks with hardly any progress I finally relented and sent them back to the ports, and from there shipped them to Bangkok. But I lost a month which gave Tiger all kinds of time to set up his defenses.

So once my forces moved into Burma Tiger played a very good stalling game while bombing every base that I captured with his LBA which he massed in India. Tiger was planning a stand at Mandalay, but he was caught by surprise when I sent a brigade along the trail towards Akyab. Here is where Tiger came up with a very sharp idea - he flew one of the SEAC Chinese units into Akyab, so by the time my brigade got there I no longer had enough forces to capture the base.

In the Pacific I was again hurt by the difference in time frame between the non-historic and historic game. In the non-historic version I was able to get the 4th Division to Rabaul early and capture the base with minimal extra help. In this game I got it there later and had to bring more troops into the battle, which allowed Tiger to build up Port Moresby significantly. I was able to grab Gili Gili, which is some consolation, and I have been able to keep PM pretty much closed ever since, but it is a pain because this way I have had to bring base forces to the north coast of PNG to build up bases for the an eventual battle either for PM or for PNG.

Tiger didn't try to interfere with my moves in the Central Pacific and I didn't get too ambitious there. He hasn't appeared to be over-building his outlaying island bases - I'm guessing that he is shipping a lot of forces to Australia.

When this game started I set all of my forces in Manchuria to attack Siberia, and moved all my assault units to forward bases. Tiger didn't notice this in his Sigint until January, and he got quite worried about it. We agreed to the standard one month's notice before I do any attack, but once I went back and examined the Soviet positions at the start of the game I decided that it would be foolhardy for me to try to attack with only the Manchurian units, so I have ordered them back and am sending the artillery units to Jehol from where I'll release them for battle in China as I save up enough political points.

I have imposed upon myself a number of constraints, such as not moving Manchurian units out of Manchuria without spending the political points to change their HQ to a non-restricted HQ. I'm also not pulling Home Defense units out of the Home Islands, except for a few float plane units that I had to change in order to move them to the northern islands. I'm also not pulling the Chinese units out of China.

I have not only left all of the Home Defense units in the Home Islands, but I have also sent a number of unrestricted reinforcement units to bases in the northern islands. This allows me build up the bases there sooner, gives me some protection against a nuisance attack on the north by Tiger, and also positions my forces for nuisance raids of my own against Alaska.

I have about a quarter of my surface ships in various ports around the Home Islands, mainly so that they can be repaired but also to get some upgrades. I also sent a BB TF off to hit Dutch Harbor early with a naval bombardment, just to see how long that it takes, and to keep Tiger honest. If Tiger tries something like what was recently reported in the Forum of an early Allied invasion of Hokkaido, he will be in for a nasty surprise. [;)]

As in all of my games, I have a ton of transport ships moving everywhere simultaneously. I don't leave my forces in malarial bases any longer than I have to and try to have my main combat units rested as much as possible between invasions. We agreed not to use submarines to drop off "five men in a rubber raft" to invade and capture small bases, or to block retreat paths, or to spy on enemy bases. The Game mechanics leave too much to be desired and I am concerned about having too many fragments around due to experiences that we had in our earlier pbems with disappearing leaders and getting each other's leaders. This way we both have to risk our ships, planes, and reasonable numbers of troops in order to probe each other's positions.

In my previous game against Tiger, and in my current game against Aussem, I split the KB and paid for it. In the game against Aussem I lost half of the KB in early January 1942, and in the last game with Tiger I lost half of the KB in mid-April 1942. In both cases my forces only sank one US CV. (BTW, it is now late March 1942 in my game against Aussem and we are still playing, and I am still advancing. It has been an interesting lesson for me to operate essentially with "one arm tied behind my back".)

So, have I learned my lesson? Of course I haven't. After the KB's early successful sail across the Pacific I left the three most heavily damaged CVs in Saigon and sailed the other three back across the Pacific to Kwajalein, where they sit right now. The Mini-KB is in the Solomons and is busy keeping PM closed.

So now for an update on the current status of our game. My forces are finally starting to make some progress against Bataan, but it will still take some time and I'll have to be patient. The situation in Singapore is much worse, and I will likely be unable to capture the base until I am able to free up the troops at Bataan.

I have the northern coast of Borneo and all of northern Sumatra, but I haven't gone after any other parts of the DEI except for the region around Amboina where I am picking off small bases while my main invasion force rests and builds its strength. I have all of the Solomons and all of PNG except for Port Moresby and those two small bases on the south coast of PNG.

Burma and the Bay of Bengal is where the action is right now. Tiger started out well as he withdrew in an orderly fashion to Myitkyina and had my unit stuck at Akyab. Then he started bombing raids against my bases. But the ever-present bad weather and his decision to switch his raids against different bases allowed me to build up air strength at Rangoon. I had grabbed Lashio in a para-drop, and then moved those troops to Rangoon where they were joined by the rest of their units which didn't fly. Once the units had recovered I looked around for some opportunities to try to put pressure on Tiger's airfields in India. My recon showed that he had his bigger bases well defended, so I decided to take a chance and sent a paratroop raid against Diamond Harbor.

This really caught Tiger by surprise! Unfortunately, he hadn't removed that Indian Division that starts out there, so my paras couldn't capture the base. The one good effect of this is that Tiger immediately redirected his attention to my invasion force, which allowed me to send my remaining paras to grab the little base to the northwest and give my troops an escape route. After that I pulled back my transport planes and built up my air defenses in Rangoon.

Surprisingly, and likely again due to the weather, Tiger didn't send his 4-E bombers against Rangoon, which allowed my engineers the time to repair the base and get more fighters into the air. I had already decided to gain a beachhead somewhere in India, so I had the transports from my invasions of northern Sumatra on the way to Rangoon. I had also pulled back most of my combat troops from northern Burma and had them resting in Rangoon.

So I sent an armored regiment off first in a TF to attack that little base that is in the middle of the south coast of India. I also sent the smaller of the two paratroop regiments along the road just in case it can get there first. Now I've loaded a good Division onto transports and I am sending it to the same base. I am hoping to be able to capture Madras from land, since I don't want to go up against any short defenses. Since Tiger has most of his troops at the Burmese border, and several more large units in the Andaman Islands, I'm betting that he doesn't have much in the way of forces at that point of the mainland.

I made one dumb mistake in northern Burma when I sent one Division north off of the railway. Sure enough, Tiger caught on and has sent a unit to cut my forces off. So I am moving counter-attackers back onto the railroad. Central Burma ought to become quite a mess for a while, but I am moving some good forces there quickly, and Tiger will soon enough have to deal with some serious interlopers along the coast of the Bay of Bengal.

I also have two cruiser TFs operating in the Bay of Bengal. This past turn they hit Akyab and the Andaman Islands simultaneously. That ought to give Tiger something to think about. I am also sending out every Nell and Betty I have in the region to recon various bases. When Nells and Bettys perform recon missions the Game reports that they are "bombing", although they don't. So Tiger is laughing at the ineptitude of what he thinks were my bomber "attacks", but I've received the info that I want.

BTW - you might be wondering what I will do if the RN comes into the Bay of Bengal to dispute my landings. Well, just south of Rangoon is the other half of the KB, which again made it through the Straights of Malacca without being spotted, other than a failed sub attack on the BB in the TF. So I am hoping that Tiger does send the RN around the bend at Ceylon, I'd love to give my pilots some target practice. [:D]

[Cpt Sherwood]

OK, DB is back on with another good AAR. I think you will have a long and enjoyable game with AUTiger. Good luck to you.

[Dive Bomber1]

February 15, 1942 – The "Bamboozle in the Bay of Bengal" continues with both sides struggling for position with insufficient forces. Some British bombers in Madras spotted the transport TF that is heading in to Yanan but they didn't get any hits. Yanan is a poor choice for dropping off troops because it is a level "0" port, but it was undefended and it is a ways away from any concentrations of Allied forces, so it the best choice for trying to establish a beachhead.

And Yanan is now mine, because my paratroops landed unopposed and grabbed it. This is just in the nick of time because Tiger was able to get two half-way decent Indian army units to Jamshedpur this turn and re-capture the base with a deliberate attack. But since I had already sent one of the two paratroop units along the road to Yanan, the remaining unit wasn't driven out and remains as a blocking force. Now that I have Yanan under my control it provides a safe haven for my forces once Tiger drives them away from Jamshedpur.

My Betty and Nell recon flights continued, and as I suspected, there is only a base force at Madras. So if I can get the armoured unit into Yanan safely I should be able to grab Madras which will then give me a real port on the Bay of Bengal. I also now have a full Division on the way to Yanan; if I can grab Madras first I will divert it to there.

BTW – I haven't sent any base forces along so far, so I can't put any air cover in place in my Indian toeholds. At this point I want to get combat troops there to capture bases and to put pressure on Tiger before I commit significant forces to the fray. I also don't want to give Tiger any easy targets for his 4-E bombers while he has local air superiority. Air attacks can bother land units, but they can't stop them – in the end only other land units can do that.

Oh yes, and my Bay of Bengal carrier attack group refuelled at Rangoon this turn; and it is still undetected. So it is being sent at flank speed to a location offshore of Yanan. I noticed that Tiger pulled all his planes out of Akyab after last turn's naval bombardment. He likely thinks that my Indian "adventures" are a diversion. But once he sees the transport TF off of Yanan he will know differently. Never-the-less, I am sending a cruiser TF to bombard the Andaman Islands again, primarily in the hope of destroying more of the patrol planes that are sitting there.

And I have re-sent combat units along the railway north from Mandalay. I want to re-establish full contact with my Division that is now split into three and is heading to Imphal and Kohima as well as back to the railroad. My recon tells me that there are small Allied forces at both bases, but once I start to besiege them Tiger will have to commit more forces or have my troops close in with a pincer movement.

The nice thing about all of this action is that Tiger now has too many targets to use his local air superiority successfully. He can turn his air units to attack one target in force, which leaves the rest of my units happily chugging along, or he can split his air attacks and try to attack everywhere at once. But at the same time he has to look over his shoulder as I build up my own air units in southern Burma, and also wonder where I will para-drop troops next. Interestingly enough, Tiger still has a large number of fighters flying at Myitkyina, so he is obviously still worried about an attack on the Burma Road.

BTW – I suspect that that RN is at Bombay, which means that it will take them a while to get into the fray, and I have subs placed along the way to try to give me some heads-up on any movements.

So with all this fun and games in the Bay of Bengal, I haven't forgotten my plans elsewhere. Troops landed at Kiamona this turn as I continue to grab any Allied territory in New Guinea. Other troops captured Dobodura this turn. I now have four base forces on the north shore of PNG with float and recon planes at each that are keeping an eye on PM. The damage at PM doesn't seem to be decreasing very quickly, which makes me suspect that Tiger is short of supplies there. One of my subs also spotted a small TF leaving Townsville this turn – I wonder if it is a Fast Transport that is trying to bring supplies to PM? Just in case, I've sent the fast ships of the Mini-KB out of Shortlands to intercept anything that tries to sail to PM.

In other news, the sieges of Bataan and Singapore continued without anything unusual happening. Both bases were hit by strong air and artillery attacks. I am having my troops at Bataan do another artillery attack this coming turn, and will try another deliberate assault the following turn. I don't intend to do anything at Singapore until I have some of the troops from Luzon available.

BTW again – a Nell recon flight over Palembang received a rough welcome. Tiger has obviously built up his defenses there well during the time that his stand at Singapore has held me up. When I eventually go after Palembang I will need to mount a serious attack.

My planned controlled withdrawal from Yenen didn't work as I had expected, and a number of units, but not all, re-set their marching orders. I am guessing that the units need a friendly base as an objective in order for them to move. That doesn't make any sense, since they are not moving from one enemy zoc to another, but the ground movement in this game is so odd that I'm not really surprised at much of anything anymore.

Things are very quiet in the Central Pacific as my forces continue to build up bases and my reinforcements make their long slow passages to my forward main bases. It will be weeks before I am in a position to resume operations in the region, so I'm in no hurry to overextend myself there too – one potential "bridge too far" at a time is enough for me. [;)]

[USSAmerica]

Good stuff, Dive Bomber!  Your writing is fun to read.  I look forward to following this war from both sides.  [:)]

[Dive Bomber1]

February 16, 1942 – The "Chaos in the CBI" continues. Nothing happened in the night phase but our air forces were busy during the day. Tiger sent his B-17s and B-24s against the Port at Yanam. That's kind of odd, because the port is already a level 0. He also had a bunch of 2E bombers fly naval attacks out of Madras. The morning flights didn't do much, but the afternoon fights did better and sank two MSW escorts. Tiger has lucked out and he is getting reasonably clear weather for a change at the Indian bases, after two months of pretty much constant rain. But I have Tanaka in charge of the transport TF and they are only one hex away from Yanam, so they ought to land.

Tiger's air patrols spotted another of my incoming transport TFs, but it didn't spot the third, and more importantly, it didn't spot the CV TF. So who knows, maybe the carrier boys will get to sneak in and hit some targets undetected. If Tiger doesn't send in any combat TFs I'll have the carrier planes attack the airfields at Madras. BTW, as expected, the troops at Jamshedpur kicked out the remnants of my paratroop unit this turn. So my guys are heading towards Yanam.

It appears that Tiger had second thoughts about sending troops back towards Mandalay, because the SNLF unit that I have heading up the railroad towards Myitkyina hasn't spotted any troops. If that remains true I'll just use the SNLF unit to clear the railroad of "A" marks and leave it as a blocking unit. I have another Division in reserve that will move up if Tiger wants to challenge me on the railroad. In the meanwhile, the parts of my split division continue along towards Imphal and Kohima. I will be sending recon flights against the next base along the line just to make Tiger more nervous. BTW – I still have airborne troops available if I can find another good blocking opportunity.

In China one of my Divisions crossed a river and kicked out a small Chinese unit from the blocking position to the southwest of Ichang. I want to keep Tiger nervous about flanking manoeuvres in China. BTW, as I had figured, the units besieging Yenen that didn't have a friendly base as an objective re-set their movement orders again this turn, so I've now given all of them base objectives. In the meanwhile I am shifting the axis of my pressure further to the north. I'm hoping to stretch Tiger's forces so thin in China that I eventually find a spot where they will break.

Most of my air missions flew this turn and both Singapore and Bataan were hit hard. I've set my troops at Bataan to try another deliberate attack next turn. But the weather forecast is calling for thunderstorms, and I've got a suspicion that T-storms reduce the effectiveness of ground attacks as well as air attacks. Maybe it simulates the presence of mud? In any event, we will see if the gods of war smile upon me next turn at Bataan – having those units available will upset the current balance very nicely. [;)]

Elsewhere, my air patrols have spotted a good-sized TF at Cairns. I guess that it was the one that was at Townsville last turn. The patrol boys are insisting that it contains lots of CAs, but I haven't received any float plane reports from my subs in the region, while I did get several from a minelaying sub way down at Melbourne. So I'm betting that it is a sizable DD Fast Transport TF. My fast Mini-KB will be in position to strike next turn, and I'm also sending out my "slow" Mini-mini KB along with a surface combat TF to be in a position to catch any ships that get by my main attack. The Coral Sea could turn interesting next turn, particularly if Tiger has snuck a couple of US CVs into the region with his scout planes not flying. [X(] [:D]

BTW - thanks to Cpt Sherwood and Mike (USS America) for the nice comments

[ctangus]

One div, one tank regiment and a para unit to take Madras? Yikes - it's urban - if he's reinforced at all you could have trouble. And with no air support... You're ballsier than I am. [;)] How much supply have you brought along?

Well, good luck & Banzai!

[Dive Bomber1]

ORIGINAL: ctangus

One div, one tank regiment and a para unit to take Madras? Yikes - it's urban - if he's reinforced at all you could have trouble. And with no air support... You're ballsier than I am. [;)] How much supply have you brought along?

Well, good luck & Banzai!

BTW - I do have a full Division on the way too.

As far as I can tell, Tiger hasn't reinforced Madras - all that is there is a base force. It appears that Tiger moved most of his Indian forces to the Dacca region.

As far as supply goes, I'm "living off the land" - this is Sherman's march (appropriately against a Southerner... [:D] )

Essentially my model is the German Norwegian campaign... [;)]

Like I wrote to Tiger, in a couple of game-weeks either I'll have negated his aerial threat to Burma by redirecting the action to the Indian mainland, or Tiger will be enthusiastically relieving his forces at Singapore... [:D]

Thanks for the comments.

[princep01]

Wow, India in Februray with Sing still kickin'.  Dive Bomber pilots have brass balls, for sure!  Good luck, amigo.

[String]

ORIGINAL: princep01

Wow, India in Februray with Sing still kickin'. Dive Bomber pilots have brass balls, for sure! Good luck, amigo.

Blitzkrieg at its best. Horribly vunerable to a well organized and determined enemy, but oh so efficient when dealing with one thats out of balance and disorganized [:D]

[Dive Bomber1]

ORIGINAL: princep01

Wow, India in Februray with Sing still kickin'.  Dive Bomber pilots have brass balls, for sure!  Good luck, amigo.

Those Brits in Singapore aren't going anywhere... [;)]

And anyway, the longer I wait, the more forces Tiger will have to stop me...

Thanks for the comments! [:)]

[Dive Bomber1]

ORIGINAL: String

ORIGINAL: princep01

Wow, India in Februray with Sing still kickin'. Dive Bomber pilots have brass balls, for sure! Good luck, amigo.

Blitzkrieg at its best. Horribly vunerable to a well organized and determined enemy, but oh so efficient when dealing with one thats out of balance and disorganized [:D]

Here's hoping that Tiger is "out of balance and disorganized"... [&o] [:D]

Thanks for the comments!

[Dive Bomber1]

February 17, 1942 – The theme of this turn was "Battling the Brits", although half of the battle was against Commonwealth forces. The night portion of the turn was fairly quiet, other than my naval bombardments of the Andaman Islands and Amboina. Both attacks caused good levels of damage and the attack on the Andamans destroyed a Catalina too; it's always a bonus to get rid of enemy patrol planes. But it was the daytime action that was really significant.

First off, while no 4E bombers attacked my forces at Yanam, LBA attacked my ships, as did carrier air. Yes, Tiger has brought up the RN, but for an air attack instead of a naval attack! Allied LBA attacked another incoming Japanese TF and was driven off by Zeros. Allied patrol planes then spotted the Japanese CV TF and the cat was totally out of the bag.

RN fighters and bombers got to attack first. The Japanese CAP was good, but one swordfish got through and put a torpedo into the Kaga. Then the IJN air responded. The Brit carrier Indomitable took 15 bomb hits and 4 torpedo hits during the first wave, and CLAA Caledon took two torpedoes. Then the second wave hit. Caledon took two more bomb hits, but Indomitable took 5 more torpedoes and 4 more bombs. There were two massive explosions and the Indomitable was gone, with all of its air groups along with it!

So I've sent Kaga on its way back to Rangoon with a DD escort. The damage isn't bad, but I don't want to take any chances. In the meanwhile my remaining CVs are continuing on to their assigned position and will take on any and all forces. BTW – most of the armoured regiment disembarked safely and I am sending them on their way to cut communication and supply lines, and to generally cause trouble. The wild card next turn will be the weather since thunderstorms are forecast for the entire region.

At the same time, the Fast Mini-KB set up off of Cairns to find a very interesting surprise – the TF there actually did contain a number of cruisers, including Adelaide, Canberra, Perth, Australia, Enterprise, Danae, De Ruyter and Hobart. The bombers from the Mini-KB put two torpedoes into Adelaide, and one each into Perth and De Ruyter. The Allies were caught totally by surprise and there was no sign of CAP.

The unfortunate aspect of the attack at Cairns was that the general experience levels of the pilots in the Mini-KB aren't very high, therefore a lot of Kates were damaged, and it will be hard to get off a decent attack next turn. But I am moving the TF one hex and sticking around, just in case I can cause more damage. I've also sent the Slow Mini-KB at flank speed to try to join the battle, along with the SC TF that reached Gili-Gili this turn. If Tiger doesn't pull out of Cairns I'll definitely challenge him there.

The other major action this turn was my deliberate attack on Bataan. The attack followed strong aerial bombardments and the results weren't bad, but they weren't good enough. The fortifications were reduced to level 4, but my troops only achieved a 3:1 attack ratio, so I will have to do artillery bombardments for a few more turns then try again.

The only other ground action was my troops landing at Timoeka, the second "dot" base on the south-west coast of New Guinea. Tiger remains very quiet in the region, so I will continue to capture small bases while I prepare for my next major invasions. My Amboina force ought to be ready to go in three or four more days.

In Burma my SNLF confirmed that Tiger didn't leave any troops along the railroad, so the SNLF will clean up the last "A" mark and block the road just to the west of Myitkyina. My recon suggests that Jorhat is vacant, but I want to check it again before I commit to another paratroop drop. Tiger has been ignoring Burma while he scrambles along the Bay of Bengal, and so I am working diligently to take advantage of the situation.

Speaking of the Bay of Bengal, the paratroop fragment that was kicked onto the road to Yanam last turn is sitting there very nicely, blocking the road, so Tiger shouldn't be able to easily bring any troops in on the ground to bother with my units. I expect that he will attempt to bolster his defences instead by transporting troops via air, as he did in the defence of Akyab.

I've decided to get rid of those forces sitting in the Andaman Islands, so I redirected the three transport TFs that are carrying my units that captured northern Sumatra to land at the island. Two brigades and a regiment ought to be enough to take care of whatever Tiger has there. Once they capture Andaman I'll send them along to Akyab to turn the odds there in my favour.

BTW – I didn't forget to hit Singapore from the air, but I won't be doing more than air attacks until I capture Bataan and can send two of the Divisions from there to Mandalay to finish up the job.

I also haven't forgotten about the Central Pacific. I still have three fleet carriers sitting at anchor in the lagoon at Kwajalein, and plenty of LBA in the region. I'm hoping that Tiger decides to make a move in that region now that he has seen two Japanese carrier forces operating a long ways away.

[Dive Bomber1]

February 18, 1942 - AuTiger has a big exam today, but I was the one who was "taken to school" as I learned some very painful lessons from this turn.

The first lesson came early, as Tiger surprised me by sending his Australian cruiser squadron to intercept my Fast Mini-KB off of Cairns. I had given the TF orders to move, so either Tiger found out the orders via SIGINT, or he guessed very well. Fortunately for me my DDs and cruisers fought a good screening fight, although all three CVLs caught a shell or two.

The next lesson came during the day phase, as Tiger's LBA easily fought through my CAP and hammered more of my ships, including the ships of the incoming Slow Mini-KB. I did not expect that the Allied bombers would do so well - I had expectations that their accuracy, particularly this early in the Game, would not be very good. I also expected that my CAP would do much better, particularly since there were no Allied escorts. This will definitely cause me to re-think my tactics regarding raids on strong Allied land bases.

The most important lesson that I learned is that Tiger will respond very aggressively to attacks, rather than retreat. My big mistake was that I expected him to try to pull his ships out of harm's way rather than to try to counterattack. I should have been happy with the results of the previous turn and pulled back to strike again later. I will definitely have to keep this lesson in mind.

So I have all of my ships limping home, although I will likely loose a CL and a DD, and maybe one or more of the light carriers if I can't get them to safety quickly. Fortunately, the weather forecast is calling for thunderstorms along the path home so it should be harder for Tiger's LBA to find my retreating ships. BTW - my light carriers did get off a few attacks of their own and damaged more Allied ships, but all-in-all the results were quite poor even when you ignore my losses. My naval air offensive capability is a lot weaker than I supposed, and I'll have to adjust accordingly.

On-the-other hand, things were quiet in India thanks to heavy thunderstorms. This just means that Tiger's LBA will be more rested if and when the weather clears. Tiger sent a surface combat TF into Yanam, but my transports detected it and escaped. I'm guessing that the SC TF was made up of the remainder of the escorts from Tiger's air combat TF.

It looks as if Tiger has pulled his air units out of Trimcomalee, although more air signs have shown up in bases in the center of India. The speed with which those air signs are appearing suggests that Tiger is airlifting air support units around, as I expected.

Otherwise, things were relatively quiet elsewhere, other than my daily bombing attacks on Singapore and Bataan. Akyab and Amboina received naval bombardments again, and Timoeka was captured. I will start to load up the Amboina invasion force next turn.
The combat TF that I was sending towards Cairns is too far away to get in and out this turn, so I decided to send it to bombard Port Moresby again instead. There is no point in letting Tiger get more shots at my ships with all of the LBA that he now has at Cairns and Townsville.

[Dive Bomber1]

February 19, 1942 - AuTiger did something this turn that I'm usually guilty of doing - he tried the same thing twice in a row. Instead of pulling back his cruisers that were off of Cairns, he sent them out again after my retreating light carriers. But this time he missed and my carriers still have some "teeth", so two more of Tiger's cruisers took torpedoes for their trouble. Unfortunately, for all of the damage that his ships have taken off of Australia, none have sunk.

More unfortunately, while my LBA continues to sit back and do nothing, Tiger's Hudsons continue to be the Kings of the Air as at long range today they were still able to get through the CAP and flak of the retreating Japanese TFs, put two more bombs into an already heavily damaged Japanese CVE, and also finish off the Japanese CL who's desk was awash after last turn. I'm quite amazed that Hudsons can do so well. The ironic part is that if we were playing PDU Tiger would have likely already have changed the Hudsons to "better" planes.

One thing that did work out well was my naval bombardment on Port Moresby which caused a lot of damage again and should help to keep the air fields closed until I can withdraw my ships past Gili-Gili. In my game against Aussem, my failure to close the airfields at PM cost me three CVs that were damaged but were not beyond saving.

Tiger has been brandishing his "new improved" highly aggressive in-my-face defense ever since he started his other pbem as the Japanese and found out what the Japanese dispositions are really like, and he hopes to attrite down my forces early so that he can counterattack early. If my LBA doesn't pick up the slack soon Tiger will certainly get his wish.

In India the weather broke a bit and a massive attack of 48 B-24s and 60 B-17s hammered the airfield at Yanam. Fortunately, I didn't have any planes there. I did have a good Zero Daitai on LR CAP over the base, and they destroyed 10 bombers and damaged an equal number. But for now I don't really have an answer to the Allied 4-E "Deathstar" and won't until I start to get better Army planes in late 1942. My only hope is to have too many bases running for Tiger to be able to close down all of them.

No anti-shipping air flew last turn because Tiger pulled his bombers out of Madras and replaced them with his P-40 Bs and Es. Although I only had part of one Daitai on escort my pilots still held their own quite well and my bombers did get through to hit the airfield, although not hard enough to close it. I have more Zeros than Tiger has P-40s, so I'll take the exchange for now.

The battles off of Australia and India demonstrate clearly the danger involved with splitting the KB. In both cases if I had the entire KB I would have stood a better chance of controlling the air and may well have sunk a few more Allied ships. But then, Tiger has realized that half of the KB is missing, so knowing this does make him a bit more restrained in his actions elsewhere, although he does have all of the US CVs sitting back at anchor elsewhere. I have little doubt that if I had the entire KB off of India Tiger would be blasting the Marshalls and Gilberts right now.

The main lesson that I've learned at this point is that I can't run multiple offensive operations simultaneously across the map because a good Allied player like Tiger can pull together more than enough land-based air to cause me heavy casualties. It appears that the best place to try a single major combined attack would be Australia, as long as I left the KB together. But I would still be risking the Central Pacific.

So at this point I'm stuck rather badly most everywhere:

- In China I've pulled my forces away from Yenen in order to regroup and try to attack elsewhere. Tiger has stopped me from capturing any bases in China, and unless I can cut some of his supply lines at the peripheries, I have no chance to improve on the situation.

- In Burma/India I can't cut off his forces and I can't touch his heavy bombers, while he can bomb me into oblivion.

- In Singapore and Bataan he has stopped me cold while he builds up his bases in the rest of the DEI. Unlike the previous games we played, Tiger hasn't pulled back because he has found out that he can hold bases for extended periods of time.

- Tiger built up northeastern Australia and got a lot of troops into Port Moresby while I was struggling to capture Rabaul. He now controls the air over NE Australia and will over PNG the moment that I relent from sending in bombardment TFs, or the moment that he sends the US CVs in to stop my bombardment TFs.

- The Japanese defenses in the Central Pacific are a "paper tiger" at best, Tiger knows that, and if he brings in all of his US CVs he will outnumber the fleet CVs that I have in the region.

- I obviously haven't figured out how to use my LBA properly, and my Nells and Bettys continue to be no threat to anyone.

So at this point I'm at a severe disadvantage. Not only I haven't figured out how to use my forces effectively, but Tiger is learning how to use his forces much more effectively and much more quickly than I am.

Therefore, in the absence of a clear idea of what to do to turn the situation around, I'm going to continue with my plans and hope that Tiger overextends himself somewhere. As such, I've got the following things on the go:

- I sent off the Amboina invasion TF
- I ordered my troops at Bataan to try another deliberate attack
- I started to land troops at the Andaman Islands
- I've still got troops marching towards Imphal and Kohima
- I am reconning yet another base along the trail between India and Burma in case that Tiger doesn't have troops there (he does have troops at Jorhat)

The weather forecast is calling for lousy weather most everywhere next turn - maybe that will give me the breather that I need.

[princep01]

DB, instead of swiping at India, at the end of a very long supply chain, wouldn't you be better off finishing off Singapore and the Phillipines and going for the resources of the DEI.  I've never played the Japanese, but it would make sense that they must start getting oil and resources to the Home Islands relatively quickly or start losing production.
 
Your last post was most interesting.  But, your thought process is very un-Japanese.  It is he would should be scambling and worrying about reacting to you, not the other way around.  Hold your sword high and chose your objectives carefully...then apply massed force to achieve it.
 
About those Nells and Bettys.  Have you checked your commanders to ensure that you have good bomber formation, aggressive guys at the helm?  How about their air fields?  Are they large enough to handle the planes with good AV support?  Just some thoughts.
 
And remember ...free and unsolicited advice is worth what you paid for it. 

[Dive Bomber1]

ORIGINAL: princep01

DB, instead of swiping at India, at the end of a very long supply chain, wouldn't you be better off finishing off Singapore and the Phillipines and going for the resources of the DEI.  I've never played the Japanese, but it would make sense that they must start getting oil and resources to the Home Islands relatively quickly or start losing production.

Your last post was most interesting.  But, your thought process is very un-Japanese.  It is he would should be scambling and worrying about reacting to you, not the other way around.  Hold your sword high and chose your objectives carefully...then apply massed force to achieve it.

About those Nells and Bettys.  Have you checked your commanders to ensure that you have good bomber formation, aggressive guys at the helm?  How about their air fields?  Are they large enough to handle the planes with good AV support?  Just some thoughts.

And remember ...free and unsolicited advice is worth what you paid for it. 

The whole thing about going into India was to see if there were any weak points from which I could start to put pressure on his major air bases. If there aren't then I will lose access to all of Burma because of his 4E bombers. I wasn't expecting the 4E bombers to be such a force so early in the game, so I reacted in an attempt to shift the balance. To an extent, that has succeeded, but now I have to find out if I can develop a lasting presence. The major problem came about because I chose the wrong location for my initial attack, so instead of Tiger scrambling, I am scrambling.

I thought about using the forces in Burma to reinforce the attack on Singapore, but I didn't want to wait much longer before moving, otherwise Tiger would have even more time to prepare. Anyway, I wanted to use the forces at Bataan instead.

As far as production and supplies go, I am still doing quite well, so I don't have to rush into things. And, importantly, Tiger was already bombing my resource and oil supplies, so that gave me even more incentive to try to disrupt his long range bombing campaign. If this were a PDU game I would be changing my Nates to Oscars and swarming his bomber attacks with hundreds of fighters. But that doesn't work with Nates, and I won't be able to change them over until late 1942. So I felt that I was caught between a rock and a hard place.

Essentially, right now I am paying for underestimating the force that I would need to take Luzon and Malaya in this game. In our earlier games I was able to capture both very quickly - but those were non-historical starts, with PDU on, and Tiger hadn't developed his defensive strategy yet and had withdrawn from a number of bases that he is fighting for in this game. And early Allied withdrawal really helps the Japanese advance in multiple ways. Whenever I eventually play the Allies I'll definitely keep that in mind.

As far as the LBA goes, I changed the leaders long ago and have plenty of air support and decent sized bases whereever they are located. But I'm wondering a bit if what the leader table calls a "good" bomber commander is really as good as the commander that the game puts in command? I am tempted to try a game sometime when I don't change air leaders and see how things go - after all, the AI uses the initially assigned leaders very effectively (or so I assume).

So in summary, what I believe are the factors that have hurt me the most in this game are that I underestimated the defensive capabilties of the Allied land forces early in the game, and I also underestimated the offensive capabilities of the Allied LBA, while at the same time that I overestimated the offensive capabilities of my land forces and also the defensive capabilties of my fighters on CAP. This has caused me to lose time and has dulled the force of my attacks. The next time I play pbem I'll keep these things in mind and play to increase the force of my attacks earlier in the game.

Thanks for the comments - they are definitely worth reading.

[Dive Bomber1]

February 20, 1942 – As forecast, there was plenty of rain everywhere and it inhibited air missions on both sides. Never-the-less, AuTiger's new-found "romance" with LBA naval attacks continued as his planes not only flew against my ships in the Bay of Bengal but a number of planes flew out of Palembang for the first time in quite some time. Fortunately, those planes were less skilled than their colleagues in India and they didn't hit any of the ships that I had sailing through the Straights of Malacca. But the "easy times" of sailing around the tip of Malaya are gone for now until I can so something about Singapore. In any event, I have enough ships past the Straights to do what I need to do for now.

I finally made a small bit of progress as my triple invasion of the Andaman Islands paid off and my troops captured it easily despite the presence of three Brit units. I used some very heavy overkill to capture the base, but it worked, so I have a better idea of what is needed in the future. That gets rid of an Allied spy base and allows me to put in my own spy base. Now I intend to use the victors of the Andamans to add to my existing attack at Akyab. This time my forces will have local support rather than be simply raiding as they are on the Indian mainland.

Speaking of which, a lone Brit PT boat sailed into Yanam harbor and shot up my transport TF quite badly. It was a real "John Wayne" sort of attack. Another more serious Brit combat TF is setting up at Madras, so I've decided to pull out my main transport TF and only leave the badly damaged ships in port to try to unload a bit more and to act as targets for Allied air and naval attacks. I've got my CVs slowly withdrawing too towards Rangoon. I've got enough forces on the ground in and around Yanam to keep the Allies tied up long enough to allow me to make more significant moves in the region. What I need now is time and more bad weather days.

My deliberate attack on Bataan reduced the fortifications down to level 3 and gave me a 4:1 attack, but that still wasn't enough and both sides took lots of casualties. So I am resting my troops again and will do bombardments for another couple of days. I suspect that Tiger may be flying in supplies from Wuchow, because all of a sudden 40 auxiliary planes have shown up at Wuchow, but no bombers or fighters. Tiger glommed-on early to the nuance of the game that bringing in supply can extend the defense of a base significantly – if he hadn't mentioned it to me I would probably still not understand why my 5 divisions and associated armoured and engineering regiments were taking so long to take the base despite daily aerial bombardments for nearly three months. He has also shipped in supply via submarines, and with the abysmally bad Japanese ASW – both naval and air – he has been able to do so boldly and with little damage to his sub fleet.

So I am trying a two-fold approach to situation. First off, I'm sending all of my planes at Canton on low-level attacks on the airfields at Wuchow, in case I can catch some of the transports on the ground. I've also flown a good Zero Daitai into Manila and I have them set to LR CAP over Bataan. If Tiger is doing what I suspect, I may well catch him this way. On the other hand, Tiger may be moving troops out of Wuchow to other bases – hopefully he doesn't yet have paratroops or he will give me even more headaches.

Tiger may be pulling some troops back to the far northern bases as he finally realized that I have been pulling back from Yenen. My forces are out now, and I am sending fresh troops along the northern route towards Lanchow. I am also going to try to send some troops overland to threaten Homan and Sian. Since I can't effectively break Tiger's city defenses I will try again to cut his forces off, and attack them along the roadways where my armoured units should contribute more.

Elsewhere, things remain rather quiet. My bombardment TF hit Amboina again and is now sitting there and waiting for the incoming transport TF. Tiger has moved some planes to Lautem on Timor, so he undoubtedly hopes to harass my TFs from the air as he has done elsewhere. I should be in a position to have LR CAP in place before my transport TFs appear, and it would be nice to see a few of Tiger's LBA "heroes" enjoy some real flak while they spend their bombs against the deck armor of my BBs and cruisers for a change.

Off of PNG a number of my retreating TFs made it to Gili-Gili safely and are continuing onwards to Rabaul. I have a full Zero Daitai in Gili-Gili to make certain that long-range 2E bombers are "discouraged" from trying further heroics. The badly damaged CVE is still afloat for no particularly good reason – it will probably sink a turn away from port. Fortunately, its planes moved to other carriers and should be saved, but air fragments in this game are also wildcards, so who knows what will happen.

BTW – a returning Allied DD hit a sub-dropped mine at Cairns on its way back into port this turn. Since my subs have been next-to-useless as far as attacking ships goes I've switched a lot of them over to nuisance mining of Allied ports.

[Dive Bomber1]

February 21, 1942 – One of my subs did something uncommon this turn and sank a ship. [8|] The already damaged Adelaide was heading towards Rockhampton when a lurking sub put a torpedo into it and sank it. AuTiger got some revenge as an Allied fast cruiser TF went into the harbor at Yanam at night and sank three heavily damaged transports and a badly damaged MSW before hitting the base with a bombardment attack. Those transports weren't going anywhere, so it was no loss to leave them in the harbor. And my LCUs are already on their way to worry Tiger elsewhere.

Rain hampered air operations in most areas again, which suited me fine since that meant that my forces were spared any big Allied air attacks in the Bay of Bengal region. The rain didn't affect my daily air attacks on Bataan and Singapore since I have multiple bases in operation at each location and so it is harder for all bases to be rained out on the same day.

Tiger must have either finished with his air operation at Wuchow or else he got suspicious of my intentions with the changes in my air unit locations, because there were no Allied attempts to fly to Bataan and there were no planes on the ground at Wuchow when my air attack hit. That's okay; it was good practice for my pilots.

I've decided to try yet another deliberate attack on Bataan next turn. I found out that one of my HQ commanders at the siege was an Air Commander (don't ask me how – I've already optimized my commanders several times in battle of Luzon) so I switched him for my most aggressive Assault commander. The rest of the commanders were still optimized for assault, so I left them alone. It would be nice if my troops finally captured Bataan, but I'm not counting on it – I'll just be happy not to get a bad die roll out of the attack. [&o]

My efforts to pick up small strategic outposts continued this turn as my troops landed at Nicobar Island and at Normandy Island. The troops at Nicobar did an automatic assault and captured the empty base. The troops at Normandy will do an assault next turn. Nicobar is an interesting location because it is a potential Level 2 air base, which means that it could be built up to base 2E bombers quite easily. On-the-other-hand, the Port potential is "0", which means that it would be very slow for Japanese engineering groups to bring it even to a level 1 port.

My cruisers in the Bay of Bengal hit Akyab with another naval bombardment, and I now have several transport TFs on their way to add to the existing attack. Tiger will face some tough choices as far as where to commit his forces over the next little while in the region – I'm attacking almost everywhere at once, and he can't respond everywhere at once without reducing the effectiveness of his attacks. I also have a lot of land air power in the region that I am reserving for the assault on Akyab.

BTW – the Kaga left Rangoon today with only some system damage. I'm sending it back to Saigon along with my more heavily damaged cruisers and DDs. I may well have it do an attack on the port at Singapore on the way past, just to keep Tiger wondering. In the meanwhile, my other two CVs are casually sailing back to Rangoon at low speed, just in case some interesting opportunities pop up.

Back in the South Pacific my light carrier TFs are still continuing along towards Rabaul. They have been replenishing at Gili-Gili under the watchful gaze of a top rate Zero Daitai. It appears that most of the ships will reach Rabaul without problems, except for the most badly damaged CVE and DD which are still a hex or so away from Gili-Gili. I'm actually surprised that those two are still afloat. Fortunately, Tiger has his subs somewhere else, so I don't have to worry about sneak attacks on cripples at this time in this region.

[Dive Bomber1]

February 22, 1942 – The big news this turn is that Bataan finally fell. I immediately re-assigned objectives for all of my units and I have them marching towards Manila while I send minesweepers off to clear the mines at Bataan. I also sent off a couple of big TFs of empty transport ships from Tokyo to Manila. They ought to get there about the same time as the mines are swept.

I moved my planes in the region to set them off to attack those two remaining Allied bases in the Philippines. I will use one division and an engineering unit to grab each. I am also sending a surface combat TF fresh out of R&O in the home islands to provide naval bombardments of the bases during the "softening up" phase. In my other games I went in unprepared against those two bases and took more losses than I should have. I realize that many players leave those bases in Allied hands so that they can use them to "train" Japanese air units, but I find that tactic to be too gamey and won't do it. I will continue to use my air units against real targets and have them gain experience in that manner.

In addition to sending two divisions against those Philippine Island bases I will send a third Division and engineering regiment pair against Tarakan and send the remaining two divisions will be sent to Malaya to participate in the siege of Singapore. Once those two divisions arrive at Singapore they ought to be sufficient to allow me to finally capture the base.

Despite the presence of rain and thunderstorms most everywhere on the top half of the map, AuTiger's LBA went out on a number of successful naval attacks again. Another of the nuances of the game that I've noticed is that as LBA reaches a particular threshold of experience it will fly regardless of the weather. Also, the success rate increases substantially. So right now Tiger's LBA can do pretty much whatever they want since they have been gaining a lot of experience lately. Thus, Tiger's 4E bombers were able to decimate a retiring transport TF in the Bay of Bengal while his 2E bombers from Palembang hit a passing transport TF at Johore Bharu.

I can't do anything about the 4Es in the Bay of Bengal, except to redirect my TFs out of the main region and have them unload at Rangoon instead. It's disappointing but I will have to fight a war on the ground for a while until I can build up more air bases in the region. Fortunately, tiger still hasn't moved against my existing forces on the Indian mainland so they are continuing along their way. As far as the 2Es from Palembang go, I've redirected a good fighter Daitai to provide LR CAP over Johore Bharu. That either ought to deter attacks or shoot down enough bombers to discourage further interference.

Tiger has moved half of his forces out of Myitkyina against my blocking force on the railroad hex just to the west. I've had a full division sitting back at Mandalay, waiting for this, so I am moving them forward. I want to catch some of Tiger's forces out in the open where I have a better chance to defeat them. My troops on the roads to the north still need more time to reach their objectives.

In China Tiger has moved a unit into a blocking position to the southwest of Ichang. I have a good division there so I ordered them to do a deliberate attack in the hopes of driving that unit out quickly. With ground combat in this game one never knows what will happen, but sometimes precipitous action is better than planned action. I am coming to the conclusion that "brute force and ignorance" is a much more effective strategy in this game than trying to be subtle. My movements to extend and turn Tiger's flanks in China continue and I hope to be able to start to drive in one or more of the peripheral outposts in a while.

Elsewhere, my invasion force for Amboina continues along and ought to land in three days. Tiger is sending more subs into the region but I've got enough ASW there to hopefully keep them under control. I also now have a good Zero Daitai nearby at a level 2 base so I will be able to provide LR CAP for my invasion TF once the inevitable Allied long range air attacks begin at Amboina.

In the PNG area my carrier TFs continue along their way and their damage continues to be repaired. The most heavily damaged CVE and DD made it to Gili-Gili safely and their fires are now out, so who knows, maybe they can eventually make it to Rabaul. Once all of the TFs make it to Rabaul I will pull out the least damaged ships and send them back to Shortlands where they will return to their roll of providing cover for the region. The other more damaged ships will be sent off to Truk for repairs. Only those ships with floatation damage will remain at Rabaul, and they will stay there for as little time as possible. I don't want to give any easy targets to Tiger in case he decides to move some of his LBA to PM. One thing that I need to do is to bring some Army 2E bombers into the region so that I can start to hit the airfields at PM on a regular basis and keep them closed.

The Central Pacific remains quiet as more of my reinforcements make their slow way forward. One of my newly repaired subs did notice a small Allied TF on its way to Canton, but there is no good reason for me to try to do anything about that. I do have a small transport TF with a base force and supplies on board on its way to Baker Island. Once it gets close enough I will send out my CVs to provide air cover in case Tiger tries a raid. I will have to be careful with this, because this is where Tiger wiped out three of my CVs in an earlier game between us. However, this time I won't be sending my CVs in next to Canton blindly like I did in this game.

Tiger loves using air transport and his Dakotas took a number of operational losses this turn again, so he is obviously up to something. I have set a Daitai of Zeros on LR CAP over Akyab just in case Tiger is reinforcing or re-supplying it. We'll see if I get lucky.

[USSAmerica]

Good stuff, Dive!  I really liked the last point you mentioned about Tiger taking op losses to his Dakotas.  Little observations like that can only be made from lots of experience.  I'll get there one day.  Until then, I keep filing these type of tips away.  [:)] 
 
(And usually forgetting them 2 minutes later.[8|])  [8D]