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This will be an AAR for a game between Mr. Pink (Japanese) and myself (allies) playing a modded version of DaBigbabes – C extended map scenario with stacking limits and lowered cargo. The only modification made to the scenario is a change to supply in China to try and address the problem of China collapsing in most games.

We will be using the following house rules:

Fighter and fighter bombers may never operate above 30k feet.

No 4e naval attacks below 10k.

No suicide picket task forces designed to draw off carrier strikes allowed.

Must pay PP to cross national borders with restricted units.

No more than one 4e group (3 squadron’s equal’s one group) operating out of China per year. So one group in 41, two in 42, three in 43, etc.

In all things try to avoid gamey play if possible




The changes I’ve made to the scenario give each base in China with Chinese nationality a minimum of 80 daily supplies no matter who controls it at start. Bases that had higher daily supply incomes remained unchanged except for urban hexes. Dense urban hexes get 400 daily supply and light urban hexes get 200. Chungking remains unchanged at 400 daily supplies. Due to the nationality setting of the bases, only the allies can make use of the supply.

This is my first time playing a PBEM game with these supply changes to China, but I’ve been working on the issue vs. the AI for quite a while now and have gone through many different mods to try and address the issue.

Initially I tried putting a lot of extra supply in and around Chungking, but after a 6+ month play through, I found supplies were still not getting out to the perimeter bases where the fighting was going on even though there was lots of supply in the rear area bases. Some supply did trickle out, but for the most part the perimeter bases remained in the red and the Chinese were fighting most battles with the nasty (–)supply hit.

So then I shifted gears in my approach and decided to try the harder to implement procedure of putting a smaller amount of supply into the system, but spreading it out among all the bases. I tried using lower amounts of 40, but it proved too little to allow even a single larger Corp from being able to stay out of the red during fighting (larger Corps use in excess of 1700 per month in combats).

I only played a test run into January with this new version giving each base 80 supply before the opportunity for a PBEM game came up. So it wasn’t tested for long but in the short time I tested it, the results were looking good. It was keeping most of the bases out of the red, but not a lot of really heavy combat had occurred yet.

The reason I’ve added supply to every base with Chinese nationality instead of just allied controlled ones is to try and simulate the guerilla war in China better. Historically Japan had to contend with hundreds of thousands of Chinese troops operating in their rear areas in the backcountry behind and between their main logistics lines.

WitP has always been a poor simulator of this reality due to the fact the only supply available to the Chinese in those areas of the map were the hexes with industries in them and they are all heavily defended. So capturing someplace that could feed the smaller guerrilla units in the Chinese OOB was pretty much impossible so units that moved behind the lines would simply starve. Now any base hex in China can potentially feed the guerillas so the strategy of sending a unit behind the lines to capture some out of the way or lightly defended base to use as a base for launching harassing attacks at least has a chance of succeeding if players choose to try it.

I beefed up the urban hexes supply incomes more as a deterrent to Japan than out of any expectation they should ever be captured. If Japan wants to send too many of his larger more combat capable garrison troops to the rear to chase down the partisans and replace them with the weaker Chinese allied troops, he will risk giving China the chance to capture an urban center that can truly add a significant boost to the Chinese war effort if taken.

Because the intent of the mod is to make China historically defensible, I’ll be fighting tooth and nail for every hex. No running away to the hills to try and simply survive, China should be able to hold what it has or at a minimum put up a spirited defense that takes years to break.

My opponent and I have agreed if the mod proves to be too advantageous to the allied cause to simply go quiet in China and have the lines go static. The intent of the changes is to make China defensible but not too strong. It’s a work in progress and I don’t expect that this will be the final solution by a long shot, but I’ll link the scenario here so anyone who wants to try it out can give it a whirl. If you do try it out I strongly suggest you use the 4e group limits for China spelled out in our house rule above.

I’ll be tracking supply in game each month on the 7th and will post the results in the AAR to see how the supply available in China is growing or falling.

The at start supply levels for China upon opening the scenario before the first turn’s execution are:

Supply held in bases at start: 82980

Supply held in units at start: 113151

Unfortunately I cannot get Tracker to work with my 64 bit version of Windows 7 pro, so adding this all up is very time consuming. If anyone has this exact map and scenario already installed and has a working version of tracker going and wouldn’t mind using tracker to open the game and get these totals for me, please post here in the thread and I’ll send you the save and my password on the turns I need the tallies. I’m not even sure tracker can even give these totals as it’s been years since I’ve been able to use it so I no longer know exactly what it can do.

Edit: I had to rename the scenario file to .txt in order to upload it, rename it to .rar to be able to open it. To download it, right click the file and 'save target as' to the location you want it.

Jim

Unfortunately I cannot get Tracker to work with my 64 bit version of Windows 7 pro, so adding this all up is very time consuming. If anyone has this exact map and scenario already installed and has a working version of tracker going and wouldn’t mind using tracker to open the game and get these totals for me, please post here in the thread and I’ll send you the save and my password on the turns I need the tallies. I’m not even sure tracker can even give these totals as it’s been years since I’ve been able to use it so I no longer know exactly what it can do.

Jim,

This advice has been posted several times in the tracker thread, and the reason I mention it is that there it included illustrations to help point out the correct file to download from Oracle. Look for my posts in the Tracker thread. BTW, Floyd and Damien provided it, I just made some illustrated posts laying it out.

Basically, there is no problem running Tracker on any newer version of Windows, yours included. The lynch-pin is that it requires the 32-bit version of Java 6. As you know, Java 6 is long discontinued by Oracle (Java was formerly Sun, Oracle bought them). Note that the correct version of Java does not need to be installed, it just needs to be present so your .bat file that runs Tracker can point to it.

In fact, Java 6 is so old an insecure that you don't want it to be accessible from your Internet browser, you only want your local programs to be able to find it if the know where it lives.

Two parts to getting tracker running. 1) Have Java 6 there, and 2) have your tracker.bat file (or whatever the bat file is named) point specifically to the correct version of java. Here is the contents of my own .bat file (I use the nomap option):

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jre6\bin\java" -Xms512m -Xmx768m -jar "WitPTracker.jar" nomap
pause

Notice how instead of simply runnnig "java" the file looks for "java" in a very specific place.

That takes care of part 2. Part 1, have Java 6 there, requires you to either have or download the last Java 6 installation file (Java 6 version 33) and get it installed. Go to the Tracker thread and look for my posts on that. You might have to go back a few pages.

Jim, I think there are many problems with supply in China.

I tried to wrap my head around those problems in this thread:
tm.asp?m=3428992

Some new thoughts:

-China Command HQ is static, so it traps 25,000 supplies in Chunking even if you don't want supplies there.

-you have got main railroad from Tuyun to Changsha and Kukong, so you can move lots of supplies by rail in one day by manipulating supply levels in bases, but you CANNOT store much supply in those bases because they are mostly underdeveloped (check their spoilage levels) - Tuyun, Liuchow and Kukong are the worst offenders. On the other hand, Changsha can hold 20,000 supplies without spoilage

-you could try to move Burma supplies by air within China. Fly from Kunming to Tuyun (develop airfield there) so the supply leaves the Kunming area and can be distributed by rail from Tuyun via base supply manipulation. Moving supplies by main railroad results in the least spoilage of supply.

BTW, 80 daily supplies for each base seems generous.

Jim

I`ve been away too so I`ll be following this for your China supply tweak, although I thought one of the official AE patches/updates of past years partly fixed the China supply issue collapse for the Allies in the stock GC scenarios 1 & 2 ??

...or was it in one of the DB`s scenarios GC`s ?

RL

PS: Nice to see ya back..[;)]

@witpqs Thanks I'll dig up the posts and try and get tracker working. It would be great to get to use that tool again.

@Richard III Nice to see you back as well. I've missed WitP, I'm really looking forward to this game.

I know 80 seems generous at first, but that is the minimum level that will allow a single larger Corps or several smaller ones to remain in supply and out of the red at a front line base. Also testing with my earlier attempts proved to me there are some major issues with supply distribution moving between bases in China so focusing supply at only a few bases probably won’t address the problem.

The 6+ month test I did saw hundreds of thousands of supply produced in and around the Chungking area, but bases like Chuhsien, Pucheng, Yenen and other bases out on the perimeter of Chinese control rarely if ever pulled any supply (I had them all set to pull the extra 25k, but it didn't make a difference). Even with rear area bases flush with supply, the major combat areas still had Chinese units fighting in the red. The net effect would mean China would still have to fall back simply to survive in a PBEM game, so putting supply in the rear and hoping it will get out to the troops that need it simply won’t work in China.

So as far as I can tell the only way to make China more defensible is to get the supply out into all the bases. Granted 80 at every base is pretty generic, but I’m still in the testing stage. 40 proved to be too little to help, 80 may be too much, I don’t know yet. In the end after considerably more testing I suspect certain bases will end up getting more and others less, but I simply don’t have enough in game data to make any calls about what will work and what isn’t needed yet.

That’s why I’m going to go through the process of tracking supply stockpiles on a monthly basis. Once I have a working tally of supply needs and usage through several years of game play, making final conclusions about how much to add without adding too much will be a much easier task (don't forget the Chinese army almost doubles in size once everything repairs, it could take years to get a final monthly supply consumption tally for them). But first enough supply has to exist to let China make a go of it so it can last long enough to build the long term data needed.

I do like the effect of having any and every base being able to feed at least a single large Corp on its own, so Japan can’t simply threaten to surround a base with small ant sized units to get China to flee due to supply concerns. That in my opinion is a game engine exploit and having every base able to feed a small but defensible force helps fight that exploit.

Jim

Remember, at start, there are free 37,500 supplies in China in bases which do not need them:

32,000 supplies in Chungking
3000 supplies in Kwangchowan
2000 in Tsuyung
500 in Mengtze

Make a test and try to manipulate the the supply needs in bases like Sian, Changsha, Kunmning (up their need to 7,000 supplies so they try to gather 21,000 supplies). Select one base and process the turn. Here are my results for December 8, 1941 :

Changsha – collected 18,000 supplies (had 3000 at start) = 21,000 supplies on December 9.

Liuchow - collected 17,500 supplies (started at 500), could not get new supplies on Dec 9.

Sian – collected additional 3000 supplies in one day.

Kunming – collected 700 supplies (Kunming has max draw limit of 800 supplies)

In those tests, the supplies in Chunking dropped from 45,000 supplies to 13,000-11,000 supplies

You can shuffle big quantity of supplies using the main railroad from Tuyun to Changsha, but you can hardly push supplies to bases off the railroad grid.

A lot of supplies start in units, far more than they require, so the first few turns will see that excess supply dumped into the local bases. Also remember, supply that moves in China loses 10%-20% or so per hop due to spoilage (less along the few good transportation lines), so moving 10k from Chunking to Sian means probably less than half arrives ultimately if it makes enough different hops on the journey.

Jim

8 Dec 41

We are playing an historical start and my opponent got a pretty good Pearl strike in with 44 torpedoes finding their mark. The Oklahoma and Arizona are sunk outright and the rest of Battleship row is in tatters, all six remaining battleships suffered very heavy damage. None of them have less than 50% float damage.

I put the three battleships with the heaviest damage in the shipyard, the rest go pierside to clear away the minor damage first along with the dozens of other vessels smashed up in the strike. I’ll cycle ships into the shipyard to fix their heavier damage once their minor damage has been cleared away at pierside.

With only 22 Japanese planes downed by flak, my opponent may decide to stick around, so I’ve placed all available fighters (perhaps 60-70 total) on CAP with a range setting of zero. All other planes are stood down.

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Morning Air attack on Pearl Harbor , at 180,107

Weather in hex: Clear sky

Raid detected at 120 NM, estimated altitude 9,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 40 minutes

Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 68
B5N2 Kate x 144
D3A1 Val x 126

Allied aircraft
no flights

Japanese aircraft losses
A6M2 Zero: 9 damaged
A6M2 Zero: 14 destroyed by flak
B5N2 Kate: 13 damaged
B5N2 Kate: 4 destroyed by flak
D3A1 Val: 21 damaged
D3A1 Val: 4 destroyed by flak

Allied aircraft losses
P-40B Warhawk: 2 destroyed, 56 damaged
P-40B Warhawk: 10 destroyed on ground
PBY-5 Catalina: 93 damaged
PBY-5 Catalina: 19 destroyed on ground
B-18A Bolo: 23 damaged
B-18A Bolo: 5 destroyed on ground
B-17E Fortress: 11 damaged
B-17E Fortress: 1 destroyed on ground
R3D-2: 1 destroyed on ground
P-36A Mohawk: 10 damaged
P-36A Mohawk: 2 destroyed on ground
O-47A: 16 damaged
O-47A: 3 destroyed on ground
SBD-1 Dauntless: 33 damaged
SBD-1 Dauntless: 8 destroyed on ground
B-17D Fortress: 33 damaged
B-17D Fortress: 5 destroyed on ground
A-20A Havoc: 11 damaged
A-20A Havoc: 6 destroyed on ground
C-33: 1 damaged
C-33: 1 destroyed on ground
F4F-3 Wildcat: 4 damaged
F4F-3 Wildcat: 1 destroyed on ground
OS2U-3 Kingfisher: 2 destroyed

Allied Ships
xAKL Manini
BB Tennessee, Bomb hits 7, Torpedo hits 3, on fire, heavy damage
BB Maryland, Bomb hits 8, Torpedo hits 6, on fire, heavy damage
BB Pennsylvania, Bomb hits 7, Torpedo hits 4, heavy fires, heavy damage
DMS Perry
BB Oklahoma, Bomb hits 2, Torpedo hits 5, and is sunk
BB Nevada, Bomb hits 8, Torpedo hits 4, heavy fires, heavy damage
BB California, Bomb hits 9, Torpedo hits 3, heavy fires, heavy damage
BB Arizona, Bomb hits 2, Torpedo hits 4, and is sunk
CL Helena, Bomb hits 1, Torpedo hits 2, heavy damage
xAP St. Mihel
DM Ramsay
BB West Virginia, Bomb hits 3, Torpedo hits 3, on fire, heavy damage
DD Phelps, Torpedo hits 1, on fire, heavy damage
CM Oglala, Bomb hits 2, on fire
CL Detroit, Bomb hits 1
DD Chew, Bomb hits 1, on fire
CA New Orleans, Bomb hits 2, Torpedo hits 2, on fire, heavy damage
DM Montgomery, Torpedo hits 1, and is sunk
CA San Francisco, Bomb hits 3, Torpedo hits 1, heavy fires, heavy damage
CL Raleigh, Bomb hits 2, Torpedo hits 1, on fire
SS Cachalot, Bomb hits 1, heavy damage
PT-24, Bomb hits 1, and is sunk
DD Aylwin, Bomb hits 1, on fire
CL St. Louis, Bomb hits 1, Torpedo hits 1
AK Alchiba, Bomb hits 1
DD Hull, Bomb hits 1, heavy fires, heavy damage
DD Cassin, Torpedo hits 1, and is sunk
DD MacDonough, Bomb hits 1, on fire, heavy damage
AV Curtiss, Bomb hits 1, heavy fires
CL Honolulu, Bomb hits 1
DM Sicard, Bomb hits 1, on fire
DMS Zane, Bomb hits 1, heavy fires, heavy damage
DD Bagley, Torpedo hits 1, on fire, heavy damage
DD Selfridge, Torpedo hits 1, heavy damage
DD Farragut, Bomb hits 1, on fire

Allied ground losses:
11 casualties reported
Squads: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled
Non Combat: 0 destroyed, 1 disabled
Engineers: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled

Airbase hits 57
Airbase supply hits 2
Runway hits 80

CAP engaged:
18th PG/19th PS with P-40B Warhawk (0 airborne, 0 on standby, 0 scrambling)
0 plane(s) not yet engaged, 0 being recalled, 1 out of immediate contact.
Group patrol altitude is 10000 , scrambling fighters between 0 and 10000.
Time for all group planes to reach interception is 43 minutes
15th PG/47th PS with P-40B Warhawk (0 airborne, 0 on standby, 0 scrambling)
0 plane(s) not yet engaged, 2 being recalled, 0 out of immediate contact.
Group patrol altitude is 10000 , scrambling fighters between 0 and 10000.
Time for all group planes to reach interception is 3 minutes

Training flight from 18th PG/19th PS has been caught up in attack
Training flight from 15th PG/47th PS has been caught up in attack
Massive explosion on DM Sicard

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Force Z is attacked 3 times and the Prince of Whales is hit by a total of three torpedoes, BC Repulse manages to avoid the torpedoes launched at it. Damage to the Prince of Whales is 24/62/7 and I’ve ordered it to Singapore for repairs. I doubt I’ll have time to finish repairs before it’ll have to leave port, but the idea of trying to make Cape Town with 62 float scares me, so I’ll repair as much damage as I can before sending it on the long voyage.

The heroes of these battles are the British fighters who unexpectedly showed up and flew LRCAP over the fleet during the last two attacks. The turn loss page shows 5 Nell’s lost and 8 Betty’s lost for the turn in total. 3 Nell’s and 6 Betty’s were lost as a result of air to air, so the reports below must be FOW.

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Morning Air attack on TF, near Mersing at 52,82

Weather in hex: Clear sky

Raid spotted at 25 NM, estimated altitude 26,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 9 minutes

Japanese aircraft
G3M2 Nell x 9

Japanese aircraft losses
G3M2 Nell: 4 damaged

Allied Ships
BB Prince of Wales, Torpedo hits 2, on fire

Aircraft Attacking:
9 x G3M2 Nell launching torpedoes at 200 feet
Naval Attack: 1 x 45cm Type 91 Torp

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Afternoon Air attack on TF, near Mersing at 52,82

Weather in hex: Clear sky

Raid spotted at 17 NM, estimated altitude 26,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 6 minutes

Japanese aircraft
G3M2 Nell x 9

Allied aircraft
Buffalo I x 2

Japanese aircraft losses
G3M2 Nell: 1 destroyed, 3 damaged

No Allied losses

Allied Ships
BB Prince of Wales

Aircraft Attacking:
8 x G3M2 Nell launching torpedoes at 200 feet
Naval Attack: 1 x 45cm Type 91 Torp

CAP engaged:
No.488 Sqn RAF with Buffalo I (2 airborne, 0 on standby, 0 scrambling)
(2 plane(s) diverted to support CAP in hex.)
2 plane(s) intercepting now.
Group patrol altitude is 10000 , scrambling fighters between 0 and 10000.
Raid is overhead

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Afternoon Air attack on TF, near Mersing at 52,82

Weather in hex: Clear sky

Raid spotted at 24 NM, estimated altitude 26,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 8 minutes

Japanese aircraft
G4M1 Betty x 13

Allied aircraft
Buffalo I x 7

Japanese aircraft losses
G4M1 Betty: 4 destroyed, 2 damaged
G4M1 Betty: 1 destroyed by flak

No Allied losses

Allied Ships
BC Repulse
BB Prince of Wales, Torpedo hits 1, on fire, heavy damage

Aircraft Attacking:
6 x G4M1 Betty launching torpedoes at 200 feet
Naval Attack: 1 x 45cm Type 91 Torp

CAP engaged:
No.243 Sqn RAF with Buffalo I (2 airborne, 0 on standby, 0 scrambling)
(2 plane(s) diverted to support CAP in hex.)
2 plane(s) intercepting now.
Group patrol altitude is 10000 , scrambling fighters between 0 and 10000.
Raid is overhead
No.453 Sqn RAF with Buffalo I (2 airborne, 0 on standby, 0 scrambling)
(2 plane(s) diverted to support CAP in hex.)
2 plane(s) intercepting now.
Group patrol altitude is 10000 , scrambling fighters between 0 and 10000.
Raid is overhead
No.488 Sqn RAF with Buffalo I (2 airborne, 0 on standby, 0 scrambling)
(2 plane(s) diverted to support CAP in hex.)
2 plane(s) intercepting now.
1 plane(s) not yet engaged, 0 being recalled, 0 out of immediate contact.
Group patrol altitude is 10000 , scrambling fighters between 10000 and 18000.
Time for all group planes to reach interception is 15 minutes

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This was the big turn for doing all the initial allied orders, and I found I am really rusty having been away from PBEM play for so long. I spent a good 8+ hours doing my move, but now the vast majority of busy work is done so turns should go pretty fast from now on.

Having read some AAR’s recently, it appears the predominate Japanese strategy in most PBEM games now is to bypass the PI and go for an overwhelming fast strike at Singapore and then on to India or Australia. I wracked my brains trying to come up with a way to punish Japan should my opponent do this, and I’ve found I’m at a loss to counter this strategy. At best I can get some dive bombers into the PI within a week or so, but that only gives me a reach of 6-7 hexes.

So I’ll have to be prepared for a possible counter-attack into northern Luzon to get me back to the north coast if my opponent fails to bring a large land force to Luzon. That’d let my dive bombers close down the sea hexes south of Formosa, but Japan will still have a free hand north of Formosa, so even should I manage to take all of Northern Luzon back, I don’t see myself being in a position to punish Japan for a bypass move. Has anyone come up with a good counter to this early bypass and rush strategy?

Baring a good strategy to force him to deal with Luzon, I think my only alternative is going to be to fall back to India/Australia with as much stuff as I can save as he’ll be coming at me hard and fast before I get enough stuff on map to defend either location with adequately.

Singapore will never hold out vs. 6+ divisions so it seems a waste to let the third Corp simply die there if there is no chance at all it can hold out till February. And a quick fall of Singapore means Burma will likewise collapse under the weight of an early Japanese rush, so staying there just to see the units die seems dumb as well.

A quick perusal of the changes to the Australian OOB has me a little concerned as well. No divisions are available to the Australians, brigades only, and most of those vanish within a year or so. So getting some serious US force onto the Australian continent before Japan can land is imperative I think.

My personal play style is to fight anywhere and everywhere, so it really bugs me that Sir Robin appears to be the only smart option left to the allies if Japan decides to bypass the PI. So can anyone point me to an AAR that demonstrates a successful allied defense vs. a Japanese bypass move?

Jim

ORIGINAL: witpqs
requires you to either have or download the last Java 6 installation file (Java 6 version 33) and get it installed. Go to the Tracker thread and look for my posts on that. You might have to go back a few pages.

Hi witpqs,

I tried to get tracker running and got this screen. I’ve installed both java and C++ as recommended, but no luck.

Jim

If you make China stronger doesnt it change the balance of the overall game?

More and harder fighting in China will lead to the associated supply usage for the Japanese.

One of the things that fascinates me about this game is it is not designed to be "fair" or "equal".

It will be interesting to monitor this game.

I believe if you copy the pwsdll.dll file from the main directory to the tracker directory it should work.

ORIGINAL: EHansen

I believe if you copy the pwsdll.dll file from the main directory to the tracker directory it should work.

Thanks Ezra, it was already in there. I tried copying over it with the one from the game, still no luck same screen as before.

Jim

ORIGINAL: Wargmr

If you make China stronger doesnt it change the balance of the overall game?

More and harder fighting in China will lead to the associated supply usage for the Japanese.

One of the things that fascinates me about this game is it is not designed to be "fair" or "equal".

It will be interesting to monitor this game.

I’m not trying to make China more difficult in the sense it can hurt the Japanese offensively, I’m just trying to make it survivable. China was about right in the CHS versions of WitP, most games played under CHS resulted in a stalemate in China. AE changed all that and China has been a pushover ever since. I do not believe it was by design though, I just think some assumptions were made about supplies in China that were wrong so China starves to death.

If we can find the knifes edge that gives China enough supply to not starve to death, but not so much that 4e bombers can operate without a major air lift operation, then I’ll be happy. But finding that point will probably be a multi-year effort and this PBEM is my first serious venture to collate enough data to begin that process.

You can only go so far in trying to fix China playing vs. the AI, it simply isn’t aggressive enough to put the needed long term pressure on supply consumption in China. China will probably burn through 4 or 5 times the supply in this game as it was using vs. the AI in my early test games.

Japan will probably see some uptick in supply needs in China, but it probably won’t be much. Being in combat is what increases supply demands, not winning or losing the combats (though retreats do force you to burn more supplies). Supply consumption does not depend on the difficulty of the fights, so tougher fights shouldn’t see Japan’s combat needs go up by much if at all.

Whether Japan is steam rolling the Chinese or just bashing heads with them, the supply consumption will be close to the same. More casualties will force more equipment items to get produced, so there will be increased demands, but I doubt it’ll change balance much. But if it does we can easily make changes to compensate if needed.

Jim

I am sorry, I was wrong, bad memory. See this link

ORIGINAL: EHansen

I am sorry, I was wrong, bad memory. See this link

Huzzah! Thank you sir, after all these years it works.

Jim

Thanks for the thoughtful reply!

With all these new supply sources, China may accumulate a considerable surplus of supply. That could translate into a construction boom, as there would be no supply dearth for new forts and airfields. I guess the bottleneck may be engineers - China just does not have enough of them. Actually this boom is inevitable since in order to avoid supply spoilage, one have to build bigger airfields. In my DaBigBabes game, I am already suffering spoilage in Chengchow (airfield level 1). On 20 December, the base have accumulated 8500 supplies (in anticipation of a siege), and the supply spoilage kicked in. You can shuffle the supplies in China using supply levels at bases, but you also need airfields to house these supplies.

9 Dec 41

Japanese subs are a menace around Singapore and conduct several attacks. BC Repulse is hit hard and 2 smaller ships are sunk. I-121 is hit five times by DD Express and once by DD Electra, but the battle replay makes it appear damage to the sub was very light.

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Submarine attack near Kuantan at 53,78

Japanese Ships
SS I-154

Allied Ships
xAKL Dai Tung, Shell hits 2, Torpedo hits 2, heavy fires, heavy damage

xAKL Dai Tung is sighted by SS I-154
SS I-154 attacking on the surface
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sub attack near Singapore at 51,84

Japanese Ships
SS I-121, hits 1

Allied Ships
BC Repulse, Torpedo hits 1
DD Electra

SS I-121 launches 4 torpedoes at BC Repulse
I-121 bottoming out ....
DD Electra fails to find sub, continues to search...
DD Electra attacking submerged sub ....
SS I-121 eludes ASW attack from DD Electra
DD Electra fails to find sub, continues to search...
DD Electra fails to find sub, continues to search...
DD Electra fails to find sub, continues to search...
Escort abandons search for sub
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sub attack near Singapore at 51,84

Japanese Ships
SS I-121, hits 5

Allied Ships
DD Express

SS I-121 launches 4 torpedoes at DD Express
I-121 bottoming out ....
DD Express attacking submerged sub ....
DD Express fails to find sub, continues to search...
DD Express fails to find sub, continues to search...
DD Express attacking submerged sub ....
DD Express fails to find sub, continues to search...
Escort abandons search for sub
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Submarine attack near Tandjoengpinang at 52,85

Japanese Ships
SS I-153

Allied Ships
AVP Poolster

AVP Poolster is sighted by SS I-153
SS I-153 launches 2 torpedoes
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Submarine attack near Tandjoengpinang at 52,85

Japanese Ships
SS I-153

Allied Ships
AVP Poolster, Torpedo hits 1, heavy damage

AVP Poolster is sighted by SS I-153
SS I-153 launches 2 torpedoes
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Repulse and Prince of Whales make it to Singapore and are both placed into the shipyard. Both ships need just under 150 days to repair damage, so the allies have no heavy ships to defend the SRA. Looks like it’ll be up to the US Asiatic fleet to try and dish out a little pain.

I was contemplating sending CA Huston and CL Boise to the area around Cagayan to try and help the evacuating ships from Manila escape, but Mini KB vanished this turn and there is no indication where it is headed. I don’t want to lose the only real surface threat I have in the area right now this early to air attacks, so for now the Asiatic fleet ships will head to Balikpapan to form up the fleet and prepare to engage some Japanese fleets that appear to have light escorts.

At Bataan two minesweeping task forces clear away the mines and AM Finch hits a mine and goes down to the last mine cleared always gets a hit bug. You’d think after all the years they’d have squashed this bug by now.

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TF 157 encounters mine field at Bataan (78,77)

Allied Ships
AM Lark
AM Quail
AM Tanager

11 mines cleared
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TF 154 encounters mine field at Bataan (78,77)

Allied Ships
AM Bittern
AM Finch, Mine hits 1, on fire, heavy damage
AM Whippoorwill

29 mines cleared
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Air to air battles were extremely light this turn (4 planes total lost map wide in air to air), over Luzon I lose 1 Warhawk and Japan loses 1 Betty bomber. Map wide a total of 8 planes are lost to all causes, 3 are allied planes.

Japan conducts lots of ground strikes with his bombers vs. my land units in Malaya and China this turn.

Jim

ORIGINAL: Yaab

With all these new supply sources, China may accumulate a considerable surplus of supply. That could translate into a construction boom, as there would be no supply dearth for new forts and airfields. I guess the bottleneck may be engineers - China just does not have enough of them. Actually this boom is inevitable since in order to avoid supply spoilage, one have to build bigger airfields. In my DaBigBabes game, I am already suffering spoilage in Chengchow (airfield level 1). On 20 December, the base have accumulated 8500 supplies (in anticipation of a siege), and the supply spoilage kicked in. You can shuffle the supplies in China using supply levels at bases, but you also need airfields to house these supplies.

I’m actually hoping supply is too plentiful in this current game. That way I can accurately track supply usage for the entire country of China month by month. Once we have an accurate usage figure, it’ll allow me to set a target goal for supply production across the map and then the hard part will be to simply decide which bases get what.

So for example let’s assume China has an average total supply usage of 100,000 a month once its army is fully repaired. Then we simply take that usage number subtract the current on map supply production from the stock scenarios and the sum is the total amount you need to add map wide to China.

Of course the Chinese units and equipment are pretty crappy, so we may find out that even with plentiful supplies China is still a pushover. If that is the case then a total overhaul of the country would be needed. I’m hoping the much simpler supply issue fixes the problem.

Jim

10 Dec 41

Really quiet turn today, guess it’s the calm before the storm. A Japanese sub surfaces and sinks a small xAKL with just its deck guns in the Philippine Islands.

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Submarine attack near Zamboanga at 75,87

Japanese Ships
SS I-123

Allied Ships
xAKL Latouche, Shell hits 6, heavy fires, heavy damage

xAKL Latouche is sighted by SS I-123
SS I-123 attacking xAKL Latouche on the surface
Massive explosion on xAKL Latouche
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Japanese troops begin to land at Aparri, and the British are kicked out of Kota Bharu.

It was a close fight, perhaps if I’d changed the leaders in Malaya with my starting PP Japan might have failed to take the base. But I deemed it too important to get some air cover into China and the two AVG squadrons I sent needed to switch HQ’s to a non-restricted HQ to cross international borders per our house rules, so Malaya got no new leaders.

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Ground combat at Kota Bharu (51,75)

Japanese Deliberate attack

Attacking force 3990 troops, 38 guns, 0 vehicles, Assault Value = 177

Defending force 4079 troops, 40 guns, 1 vehicles, Assault Value = 102

Japanese adjusted assault: 52

Allied adjusted defense: 10

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

Japanese forces CAPTURE Kota Bharu !!!

Combat modifiers
Defender: forts(+), leaders(-), disruption(-), preparation(-)
fatigue(-), morale(-), experience(-)
Attacker:

Japanese ground losses:
83 casualties reported
Squads: 0 destroyed, 8 disabled
Non Combat: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled
Engineers: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled

Allied ground losses:
1256 casualties reported
Squads: 63 destroyed, 19 disabled
Non Combat: 72 destroyed, 0 disabled
Engineers: 21 destroyed, 0 disabled
Guns lost 33 (32 destroyed, 1 disabled)
Vehicles lost 1 (1 destroyed, 0 disabled)
Units retreated 3

Defeated Allied Units Retreating!

Assaulting units:
56th Infantry Regiment
12th Engineer Regiment
5th JAAF AF Coy

Defending units:
FMSV Brigade
8th Indian Brigade
3rd ISF Base Force
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At Pearl Harbor DD Phelps continues to valiantly fight the fires that have been raging out of control since the Dec. 7 surprise attack. With 22 fires still burning and flood damage sitting at 94, it’s really a nail biter on whether or not she’ll survive. Have to give credit to the crew for keeping her afloat this long given how badly off she’s been.

This is my first time using Andrew Brown’s stacking limit map, does anyone know how to display stacking limits for non-base hexes? Is it even possible? I know if you have more than two units in a hex and you click on the unit icons you can see the stacking limits on that page, but how do you check an empty hex or hexes with only one unit in them?

Jim