Sniping an EMU

[Dan Nichols]

DivePac88 asked for a slow paced game using his modified scenario 2. He was looking for an Allied player. I volunteered, why I have no idea. I figured that all I could do was loose with dignity. So this will be an AAR, planning, boasting, whatever thread. The scenario files have been modified a bit, mostly Japan has tree additional HQs with Torpedoes at the start and I have 3 additional base force units at the start. I had my choice of placement and I chose Rangoon, Townsville, and Auckland.

The house rules and first turn rules are:

- Air Combat TFs to contain no more than 500 aircraft (no death stars).
- Allies cannot form new TFs in turn 1, but can alter orders for existing TFs.
- Allied LCUs and Air units in China can be moved on turn 1.
- Fighter sweep or CAP altitude is restricted to the band of their second best maneuver rating.
- Invasions are only allowed in hexes with bases.
- No Carrier Hunting by KB after the Dec 7 strike.
- No naval attack bombing below 10k feet for 4E bombers other that for navy 4E bombers.
- No night bombing if moonlight is less than 50% other that for B29s.
- No strategic bombing in or from China before 1943.
- No using fragments of Para units to take bases.
- Only one Japanese port attack on turn 1.
- PPs have to be paid to release units from restricted commands.

The ones in red are ones I have to keep in mind every turn, I do not want to cheat inadvertently.

I have found in my few PBEM games that the AI can teach bad habits, but it does help to learn the mechanics of the game.
I do hope to rectify some of those bad habits this game and give DivePac88 a good game. Des is still doing his extensive first turn and I expect to get it in a day or two. My input for turn one will be minimal, but turn two will take some timeand entail a lot of thinking.

[Dan Nichols]

I was thinking about that minimal input for my part of turn 1 and I realize that is in error. I will be giving most Chinese LCUs orders. This game is being played with the optional stacking limits and I feel that China can be held, but I need to get my troops into good defensive terrain and not over stacked.

[obvert]

Another game! Great to see. Good luck Dan!

I'll be interested to watch how you do in China with the limits.

[Dan Nichols]

Hi obvert, I'm still waiting for turn 1. Des sent me the 001 file instead of the turn file and now I guess he is sleeping. [:)]

[Dan Nichols]

I got the turn. As per house rules, I redirected most of my TFs and set many Chinese units in motion, they are heading for the forests, mountain, rough, etc. It will be a couple of days until Des gets the turn back to me.

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: Dan Nichols
I have 3 additional base force units at the start. I had my choice of placement and I chose Rangoon, Townsville, and Auckland.

Interesting choices. I'm wondering why you didn't pick Darwin instead of Townsville. Maybe Darwin already had a BF there? What criteria did you use to chose those places anyway? I'm still learning and I'm looking for some good advice you see.

[Dan Nichols]

I wouldn't pick Darwin, it does not get enough supply to support more flight ops. Townville is close to Port Moseby and that is a priority for me. I did not want to put it into Port Moseby because I want to see what Des does the first few turns.

I chose Auckland because it was a US Marine units assigned to the South Pacific and I can move it to Noumea if Des doesn't take it early.

Rangoon was chosen to give more Aviation Support for sorties out of Rangoon. It can also retreat back into either Burma or India.

[Dan Nichols]

Interesting December 7, 1941 turn. He put his DBs and TBs from KB on Naval Attack/Port Attack. 52 TBs and 14 DBs were used to sink DD Ward, an AG and 2 AMcs. Not a very good exchange really. This is really a scenario 2 game, so he will probably attack PH again. I have to think about whether to sortie my CAs and DDs. I have 2 BBs with no damage and they could be useful in a surface fight.

He did do one thing I think is a bit over the edge, but with no house rule against it, I will lodge no protest. I will only post it here. This is a screen shot of MiniKB South of Jolo on 7 December, 1941.

I have only watched the replay, made sure Tracker and Reporter were functioning and some quick looks about. I now need to formulate my overall plan as much as I can. As the Allied player in scenario 2, I am constrained to wait and see what Des does. My initial goal is survival. But that doesn't mean any kind of Sir Robin at all, but I do not see any need to lose assets needlessly. Anyway, time to think and ponder a bit, there is a lot of things I know I will be doing, and some new wrinkles will be used.

BTW, the escort TF Southwest of Jolo is CL Boise.

[BBfanboy]

Did Boise get damaged by that Mini KB or ??

[Dan Nichols]

I'm sorry, that would be me being a bit cryptic. CL Boise took 3 torpedoes. She most likely will not make it.

[Dan Nichols]

After spending the night thinking about this, I feel I need to make something clear.

This is a private discussion of DivePacs first turn moves. I do find the movement of
MiniKB to its present position a bit 'gamey,' in that it uses game mechanic features
to do something that probably could not have been done historically. But, I have no
desire to convey that to DivePac in any way. I did not ask for a house rule prohibiting it
and if I had known he would do it, I would have protested. But, it is past that now and
the game goes on. My interpretation is that anything the game code allows and is not
prohibited by house rule is fair.

I can lose all of the ships in the PI and DEI combined and it would not be game ending.
It would curtail operations for a bit and would require some adjustments, but any competent
player can cope with the situation.

To wrap up, I am a bit unhappy and disappointed, but not dejected. I will not protest, and
my wish is that DivePac not know about my feelings at all.

[Mac Linehan]

Dan -

A admirably restrained, professional and measured response.

Your estimate of the situation - that any and all shipping losses will be more than recompensed in the long run is spot on. While you may not personally - as the Allied Player - be pleased with the initial turn one results; my feel - after reading both sides - is that you are both pros - and thus this will be an AAR to follow.

The Boise is an all time favorite for us all; I do hope that she makes it to port.

Mac

[KenchiSulla]

If you ask me, that move with those few light carriers would have been possible if Babeldaob had been used. It is about 18 hexes (a full speed run) from there..

[jb123]

I love your AAR title, I hope the game goes better than most snipe hunts!

[Dan Nichols]

I am still doing my first turn. I had an extensive eye exam yesterday and I was not able to do much on the turn. I expect to finish it up tonight or tomorrow morning and will be updating the AAR with a number of ideas, questions, summaries, etc.

[Dan Nichols]

Finally I have finished my first real turn of this game. It is always an epic procedure. Since this is a scenario 2 with a slight modification, I have to be extra careful. In my other 2 games I have not even tried to do everything the first turn, just the important stuff and then slowly caught up on things away from the immediate battlefield.

CL Boise, she has a chance. She was one hex from Jolo so I put her on cruise speed and auto disband and directed her to Jolo. We will have to wait and see what happens.

Because of the way Des set up KB, I did not suffer much damage at PH. I am expecting a second strike and will have to weather that storm. I sent out all of my Subs, two BB-2DD SCTFs, and 3 4xPTs to see if I can engage him on the surface. The BB-2DD SCTFs have orders to go to a hex within the nights cruise speed distance and return to PH and auto disband. I am also using two 2xDM mine laying TFs to lay mines at Lihue and Niihau. Who knows, maybe I can put a mine into one of his ships. They are also set to auto disband.

Most everywhere else I have done the usual. The Chinese are continuing to move into good defensive terrain. In Malaya the Commonwealth troops are falling to Singapore. On Luzon I will be trying to make a major stand in Manilla. I have a large TF at San Francisco loading an Inf Rgt, USN Base Force, FA Bn, and a CD unit with loads of supply all headed to Noumea. I have shops in route to San Diego to carry a Marine Rgt and a USA Base Force to Pago Pago and a USN Base Force and the 2nd marine Def Bn to Suva. I will be trying to hold the Noumea, Nadi, Suva, Pago Pago, Christmas Island(PO) line. the 1st Australia Rgt is loading and moving to Port Moresby.

I think one error in my previous games was to not make many AKEs at the start of the game. This has made it hard to rearm my combat TFs without going to a major port. I converted 10 Harriman and Hog Island freighters to AKEs this turn. I will be putting them at bases near or on the front lines. I will convert all of my C2 Cargo ships to AEs, but they are too valuable to risk in the early going. I get 28 Harriman and 25 Hog Island freighters in the first few months of the war and I can risk those. They are both large enough to rearm my CAGs, load Torpedoes on CVs or any other ship, rearm main guns of all my CAs. The one place I am short on AKEs right now will be the DEI. I have 4 conversions in Australia and in 12 days I can move some to the DEI.

The only bases that Des landed at were Batan Island, Guam, and Kota Bharu. I don't see any other invasion fleets at this time, so I do not know where he might be going for sure. I do have sigint that units are going to Laoag. I have two tank regiments at Clark Field moving to Vigan. If he tries to land with small forces I will counter attack. A mouse over at Kota Bharu shows 11 units. My troops did not auto bombard, he must have brought overwhelming force there.

Time to sit back and see where he will make his major effort(s). I did not chose to try a fortress Palembang. I dislike the move. If I succeed the game can be quite short. If I fail I have lost a lot of men and material. Anyway, Des is hopeful we can go very deep into this game and I am trying to accommodate him. I want him to be strong when I kick in his front door in Tokyo. [:)]

[JocMeister]

Good luck Dan! How many games do you have ongoing now? [:D]

Why have you decided to make a stand at Manilla instead of bataan? Are you playing with stackinglimits? And what do you mean by "the way Des set up the KB"?

Oh, and what react setting did you use for your BBs? Arn´t you afraid they will actually react away from PH, connect with the KB which will just speed away and your slow BBs will not be able to return to PH before daylight?

[Dan Nichols]

Jocke I have three games going now. But, this game is slated to be a slow game, about 3 turns per week or sometimes slower. DivePac88 is not the best of health and has some procedures he does and has done that often take up a lot of his time. I could not do this game with my others if I had to do a turn a day. A turn every 2-3 days is fine.

I chose Manila because it has the same defensive bonus as Bataan and produces some supply. I have no idea what my small BB TFs will do, but I do know if the do intercept and he keeps KB together, his ships will not fight as good as they would if they were in a SCTF. It just remains to be seen what happens.

He set the air groups on KB to do a Naval Attack as primary and Port Attack as secondary. He sank 4 inconsequential ships and burned some Kate and Val sorties, along with some torpedoes.

Yes we are playing with stacking limits, I would not play a game without them.

[BBfanboy]

Good luck with the BB TFs vs KB. I wanted to see what would happen if the US codebreakers discovered the Japanese plan the evening before KB arrived at PH, so I sortied BB and CA/CL TFs to saturate KBs launch area. The good news - both TFs of 4 BBs each met KB & Co. The bad news - their gunnery sucked and the Japanese escorts [plus the 8" guns on Akagi and Kaga] scored lots of hits. Then the battle broke off just when the BBs were beginning to get the range. This may have been a blessing as the Japanese never closed for torpedo attack. So 4 BBs with about 44 big guns scored about 5 major caliber hits, only one on a carrier [Shokaku] which seemed to handle it well - minor fire and no explosions. Similar result for the other 4 BBs.
However, in daylight two of the cruiser groups reacted into KB and the escorts must have been running short of ammo. The scored enough hits on Soryu and Shokaku to get them burning [but not heavy fires] and shot up the DDs.
Anyway, that was what I could achieve with an all-out effort - KB is one slippery eel!

[Dan Nichols]

December 8, 1941

None of my SCTFs found anything. CL Boise did not do an auto disband. It had some fires and maybe that stopped it.
Anyway, his Kates hit it again. But, that is 27 Kate sorties with torpdoes, and I think that is all CVL Ryuho holds.

Des is hitting everything on Luzon hard, so forts are not building and my aircrews and aircraft are a mess.

He is also hitting Singapore. I am moving the large AA units into Singapore, maybe that will slow him down some. Buffaloes will not stop his Zero Sweeps.

He hit Pearl Harbor again, not a lot of new damage, no sunk ships there. There were no torpedoes used. He move to the North some and I wonder if he will hit PH again. My SBDs at PH launched a Naval Attack, but were unable to hit anything.

I do not know what is happening, but my aircraft loss screen shows he has lost 15 Mavis aircraft?

I see TFs between Formosa and Luzon, I expect they are amphibious assault ones. I only have a few PTs and some subs to oppose them. Meanwhile, the great diaspora is in motion around the PI.

He captured Kota Bharu.

He landed and took both Makin and Tarawa. Since KB is Northeast of PH, I sent the Lexinton TF at full speed to just a few hexes from Makin. Maybe I can hit some small ships and gain experience for my air crews.