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[edit] Nemo121 - has kindly decided to take over from Floyd. He's kicked my butt in previous games and I don't expect anything less in this one ... but at least, I have naval superiority for a bit ;-0

I say potential post-game because my Tracker mate has to weigh his options after enduring 252 days of pain with little relief, all of which culminated on the 253 day with a really nasty turn of events. But more on that later...

Let me digress to where the war began and how it all fell apart for my long suffering, but good humored foe. Forgive me for any omissions or mistakes in chronology ...

The parallel dimension of the Pacific was invoked with a mod molded out of the scenario 1 template, JWE's ASW mod and much harder economics for me including; multiplier changes, resource accumulation at longer distances to the Home Is. pilots starting at 20, no freebie planes, more difficult R&D etc. The Allies got a little more supply in China, but otherwise everything else was static.

I prayed to the gods of witp, sank a few warm sake's for good measure and waited for Dec 7 to roll in ... kicking the tires and lighting the fires (yes a bad top-gun ref.)I threw KB into the fray at Pearl and got some heavy doubts from the gods of war. So, not sinking any BB's I drank more sake and threw them in for a second wave..failure smacked me down hard again. The gods were laughing at me. Throwing away the sake bottle,I turned my back on those fickle entities and turned my rage in an all out offensive on my unsuspecting foe. I'll show those electrons who's boss!

Later FOW revealed that I had actually sunk the California at Pearl and Pennsylvania at sea a little later. I felt some remorse, but I was on a roll and it's hard to reconcile after such betrayal.

In Malaysia I landed at Kota Bharu, and then leap frogged down to Kuantan and eventually Mersing. Singapore fell Jan 12 '42 and the British & Dutch had escaped with their tails between their legs. Yes, the British BB's weren't sunk and remained a clear and present danger to all op's. But not without taking severe losses across the SRA first near Guiuan and Cagayan around the 26/12 and then great losses especially Sth of Denpassar on the 9/1 when mini-KB went to take care of fleeing transports from Soerabaja.

This was after taking Palembang just after the fall of Singapore and then landed at Semarang(Java) and quickly split the Dutch into a Nth-south divide. With their fait accompl, a task accomplished by taking Borneo and the Celebes out of action beforehand, I moved to the planned invasion of Australia. Just to back up a bit, Soerabaja ended up with all industry destroyed. Something, that fueled my chagrin.

Meanwhile it was all pretty quiet cat and mouse in the pacific. The usual capture of Rabaul and Port Moresby was more by good fortune than design.I had been ruminating for some time on whether to actually bother with these bases. It hung heavily on my mind and the indecision lingered while I gathered my troops in Truk.
Meanwhile, Mini-KB had been doing a lot of the heavy lifting up until this point with escorting some BB runs into Ceylon to keep the British quiet and runs to the Nth of Australia to sink fleeing ships and keep the Allies land based. The capture of Port Blair and Rangoon early Jan helped these efforts immensely.
A failed attempt to land on Attu Is, SW of Ceylon, still yielded results drawing out some BB's which were scuppered by my following mini-KB. This is the last real action in this region as I felt the British had been dealt with as some of the British CV's had been holed in previous runs.

Later, having herded some CA/CL/DD's using my red cattle dogs "mini-kb" from the Darwin region into the awaiting jaws of the Abattoir "KB" lingering SE of Rossel Is. I decided that it was worth the effort if nothing else but to draw out those American CV's.

So, at the same time, I struck Darwin with the troops that had just taken Soerabaja, I landed on Rabaul, Port Moresby and then down the Island chain to Suva. Suva was taken fairly quickly and I moved out to Pago Pago. Sometime later the Allies landed a small force on Pago, not enough to take the Is. though. Accompanied by some Allied CV, I went hunting, The Yorktown was found and sunk late April '42 E of Auckland. Additional searching was put on hold by fuel considerations. I was in trouble logistically. Fuel and supplies were at a premium, If only the Allies had known how close I was to having no operational capacity. I was mad at myself because I had the chance to go after the fleeing American CV's heading NE back to Pearl...a mistake I thought might come back to bite me.
Back on Pago, I was in the process of destroying the units when I decided to take the honey trap which is Noumea.
Marching troops down from Koumac, then having to bring more in let the New Caledonian expedition go much longer than I liked. Fuel arrive at Suva just in the nick of time to resupply KB and sight a heavy Allied TF looking to resupply New Caledonia. All the transports were wiped out by flights or subsequent naval action off of Noumea. Intel indicated that no new troops offloaded and it was a major victory.

Over in Nth Australia just before the landings on Rabaul, I took Port Headland and drove inland from Darwin until a perimeter had been established. Then from Port Headland an amphib assault of Carnarvon yielded that base and my troops drove south. CV Junyo was struck by multiple torpedo's from the dutch SS, which have proved to be a pain in this campaign. CV Junyo made it to Port Headland and disbanded for long repairs. Port Lvls had to be built and AR's were dispatched. Eventually, she limped to Koepang and is as I write in Batavia en route to Singapore.
The Allies fought back by retaking Carnarvon with another amphib TF in a period of lull when mini-kb was back at Soerabaja, cutting off a Div that was on the outskirts of Geraldton. The retreat back to Carnarvon has been harassed by LB and LCU's. The Allies had caught me with my pants down and I am still paying the price for that fumble.

Meanwhile, with KB having to return to Rabaul for minor repairs and then splitting off Zuikaku and Shokaku to Kobe for upgrades to radar etc, Noumea fell and the region became quieter, but defeat was stolen from the Jaws of victory, Troops from Noumea were sent to Pago but were turned back 2 days from Port with a large American fleet arriving. Pago was taken, LB from Suva has kept the airfield suppressed and the CVL Shoho was left in the region to patrol Pago and the surrounds. She has proved deadly to replenishing TF's heading for Pago. But essentially, I can't keep this region much longer with the long supply/fuel chain.

So, while a lot of this operational report looks like it was one way traffic, Floyd has kept fighting back and putting his forces into harms way, turning the screws on me when he got the chance but as you all know there is not much that can stop the IJN in the first few months.

Then came the Allied hail mary ...to take the Kuriles in mid-July '42... an audacious plan... and that will be the subject for tomorrow's post

DAMN. Like the ratio of your losses to his!

Signed up as a reader SIR!

ORIGINAL: John 3rd
DAMN. Like the ratio of your losses to his!
Signed up as a reader SIR!

Thanks ... well the good news is the game is proceeding and Floyd is dodging, ducking and diving .. but more on that later. I'm still about 30 days behind the actual game and I'll catch up slowly over the course of the next week.

The focus of this AAR for the next 30 days of game-play will be primarily in the Kuriles as I hope this will be interesting for the readers.

16 July '42
Prior to this, I had spotted some forces coming from the East, and as Floyd later told me he was lingering waiting for loading to end.

The next 2 days saw heavy losses of aircraft for me and some heavy losses for the Allies. Seeing the BB's heavily damaged or sunk I was placing my forces for a nice surface engagement.

18-19 July, '42
Then came the SCTF encounters, two days of them. Yamato was severely damaged on the 18th but it was worth the effort of using Full Speed in and out forces.

After the first two days of heavy aerial losses, they were rested mostly for the BB's to have Zero-Oscar coverage and replenishment.

Bombardments did the business.

20-21 July, '42
A day of nothing followed by KB hitting Uruppu-jima again. I had made sure not to vector into the almost stationary Allied CV's.

It was about this time that I realized that the Allies had not offloaded any planes and that I had possibly sunk all of them on transports by my BB's earlier in the piece. I also noted that even at Shimushiri-jima offloading seemed to be taking an age.

Floyd and I exchanged emails later about offloading supplies; seems that he had had a large deal of problems with it and was a result of poor initial loading as well as the engine wanting to offload troops rather than supply and aircraft. Anyway, had I not sunk his transports with aircraft this battle could have gone another direction & it wouldn't have mattered. But given the need for quick offload in the initial days ... it was a crucial mistake that I think Floyd would play completely differently next time.

Time for some sleep ZZZzzz. More tomorrow. It has gone badly for Floyd, but honestly had he had more BB's here, offloaded in a better fashion and got a CAP up quickly, this would have been a much more even fight.

This might seem like folly on his part but I actually see it as a possibility that should be explored more. Sure it may take half the US navy but if he had started by not delaying his approach and giving me time to scramble into position, taking 3-5 bases instead of two. The interlocking of air, would have made naval operations a much more dangerous proposition for me.

Ultimately, I would have had to make BB runs to destroy supplies and wade through the gambit of SS's and air attacks.

Lastly, this would have meant that I couldn't cover other area's which are vulnerable to attack.

More thoughts tomorrow, as I bleed him a bit more

25 July - 5 August

A second bite of the Cherry.

6 - 7 August ' 42

8 August, '42
Bad play on my part. No sweeps, bad weather, bad co-ordination due to some bad leader choices and resulting heavy losses. Oh, I did sink a fair amount of AK's though

Damian, there are room for a zillion opinions, but I'd say it's nearly impossible for the Allies to land in the Kuriles in mid '42 and hope to make it stick - at least against an experience opponent. It's just too hard to keep the LOC open and too close to the Japanese homeland. From my own experience and from what I've seen in other games, early Kuriles landings against a good and experienced opponent nearly alway succeed early, then turn into "lost cause" maroonings. So I don't think your opponent would have succeeded even if he had loaded properly and brought BBs and aircraft.

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Damian, there are room for a zillion opinions, but I'd say it's nearly impossible for the Allies to land in the Kuriles in mid '42 and hope to make it stick - at least against an experience opponent. It's just too hard to keep the LOC open and too close to the Japanese homeland. From my own experience and from what I've seen in other games, early Kuriles landings against a good and experienced opponent nearly alway succeed early, then turn into "lost cause" maroonings. So I don't think your opponent would have succeeded even if he had loaded properly and brought BBs and aircraft.

CR -
I do agree with you, but I'm not 100% convinced that in a scenario 1 game this couldn't be pulled off by a very good Allied player bringing 3x more than enough and getting a little more luck than my opponent got. [edit] I've been lucky-unfortunate to play Nemo121 ... I know we can differ on this as I'm not an experienced Allied campaigner, but as a pretty good Japanese commander, I can see how this could work or prove so costly, tip the game in the Allied favor much more quickly.

I should really play the green machine, some time soon.

Actually, Floyd is a pretty good player usually, I've played him in numerous scenario's, but even he knows that this had ended in a train wreck. Something he doesn't want to look at, but also something he can't take his eyes off. He has been good about it all and I appreciate that. It is going to be a long way back, but time is on his side and I'm a slowly dimming light. Depending on the next turn or three, he'll decide if he wants to continue to return turns waiting for his '43 CV's. I hope he does, but the game is about having fun and learning and 300+ turns are a long wait.

Either way, it has taken my eye off other theaters; which if he hadn't lost so much beforehand would be in jeopardy now.

Very bloody but very cool! [&o]

Interesting move by your opponent. One he surely regrets now! [:D]

Do you know what LCUs he landed? By glancing through his losses I can´t find anything critical? Presuming the NC makes it home the only significant naval losses are the Nevada and 4 APs? I would personally mourn the 4 APs more than the Nevada.

To be honest i think that if the allies pull this kind of invasion while the KB is operating far away...say Oz or DEI, and the allies bring some 500k supplies with them, Japan is screwed, even in 1942. Japan doesn't start with big AFs in that region and usually the sentais are busy fighting in Burma, Oz, DEI or Solomons in the summer of 42. If the allies manage to land there and estabilish a good CAP (say some Marine Wildcats and some P-40s) over their landing sites, it's gonna be impossible for Japan to dislodge a dug in American division from one of those rocks. Say you bring the Americal, along with the I US Corp, a couple of Artillery regiments and a tank regiments... behind 4 forts at Uruppu Jiima... how in the world the japs can hope to counterland and conquer the island before october 1942?

If it was done in late September or preferably in October '42, then he would have winter to help him survive. I look at this as a lesson that if you go here, you need more bases that extend Allied control even more to the east. I would have avoided Paramushiro-jima, but taken the four bases from Onnekotan-jima to Shimushiri-jima. Place at least a regiment to a division with needed support at each and supply last for a month or so. Combat load the xAP/APs with very little supply and lots of xAKs with just supplies and some with aircraft. The xAKs would be sacrificed, but it could be done.

I'll weigh in once more, briefly, and then bow out so that I don't hijack the thread.

I'm confident when I say that a major Allied invasion of the Kuriles in summer '42, even if successful at first, is doomed to fail. (I concur with Michael that one in autumn might succeed, though even that would be tough against a good opponent). The biggest problem is that these are small bases, so you can't stock enough supply due to the limits on small bases. It is quite possible for a good Japanese player to react strongly within a week to ten days. Then, further out - weeks three to six - it becomes seriously impractical to impossible for the Allies to feed supply into these bases in the face of frequent bombardments, aerial bombings, and the presence of lots of subs and the KB.

I've seen it tried. I've tried it later myself, discovering how hard it is even in '43. July '42? No way, unless I'm playing a young'n.

It's all about the SLoC. If Japan can cut it, the invasion is doomed. If the Allies can maintain it, Japan is doomed.

9-11 August
Good discussion guys, thanks for that. Dan and Michael, I tip my hat to your experience and thoughts on the subject.

12-13 August
Started sweeping the Allied bases. Heavy air losses for me and each day or two I had to rotate F units. Also, as I have killed the experience levels in this mod, I have very few experienced pilots. Good Air Skill, but low experience meant that it was a killing ground for pilots. Why did I throw these units in ? It will be revealed soon...