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Calling this Bottlenecks+, this variant has some changes (see below) from the original Bottlenecks, itself originally based on DBB-c.

The full changelog & house rules: Also here, for the download-averse ones: https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 5#p5107225

This mod is called Bottlenecks because, well, both sides have plenty of those right from the start! Here is just a few:

Japan:
- Extra hungry industry: 200+k/day resource, 13k/day oil and ~5k fuel deficit in Home Islands (without Hokkaido, since it still has to be shipped). And all the DBB-c ship capacity reduction!
- vastly increased number of bases in China, pretty much all requiring a garrison. Many more bases elsewhere around SRA, quite a few also requiring garrisons.
- Way less developed bases in the Pacific - think Truk with AF 1 on Dec 8th. Supply/fuel stockpiles reduced accordingly.
- The IJN tip of the spear Air arm is much... narrower. There are all of 3 land based air groups for a total of ~90 Zeros active on T1. A5's & Oscars will be needed for a while. Total Airframe production for Japan is less than 250/month at game start & cost of a single factory point is 3k supplies.

Allies:
- While supplies & fuel are plentiful from the start, as is proper and expected, the starting level would be decidedly less so once the Allied reinforcement Juggernaut gets going. To simulate the increased production in the second half of the war without flooding the player with war materials on day one, a LOT of allied production in the continental US, Caribbean & the UK starts in a damaged state. Repair shipyards, Oil centers & refineries are 'very' damaged, representing their potential expansion. The player needs to decide when & how much of these will be repaired, I think the total is somewhere North of 60 million supply needed to repair all production facilities.
- Allied capital ship respawn is off. The US shipyards were going full tilt as it was, building many more large warships would not have been easy to do with Germany First & likely some tradeoffs would have ensued which are beyond the scope of what we can model.
- we decided to use a recommended house rule where Allied player must use troop carrying capacity to carry troops. This means he must use xAP's based on the needed troop lift, and xAK's then as required for the equipment & supplies. Emergency evac on xAK's is allowed, including civilians & DEI etc.
- In the first weeks of the game, 'Civilians' will arrive at various places over DEI. These are units useless in combat but consuming supplies and can yield a lot of points for the Japanese if not evacuated. They need to be transported to Sydney or India for disbandment.

The biggest addition to the usual WiTP-AE Japanese woes is that every supply point and ton of fuel matters. Japan has 34(!) days of resources in the Home Islands at game start & Tracker says I am over 20k fuel a day in the hole. Certainly there are a lot of resources in Hokkaido & China/Manchukuo, but the Home Islands need 213 000 resources shipped in daily to cover industry needs. DBB-c, which Bottlenecks is based on, reduced hull sizes so most of IJN hulls are in 3k ton range or less in capacity, further increasing the need for ships & fuel to run them.

Supplies are only produced by LI, which means very little will be created outside Japan proper, only about 2k/day at game start. Good news is that LI repair only costs 250 supplies, so LI is worth expanding in key areas outside Japan that I expect to hold long enough. HI will also only be expanded outside Japan, if at all.

Given these global constraints, the general strategic goals are clear - capture as much oil as possible as fast as possible, then push the Allies as far beyond heavy bomber range of it as possible. Nothing surprising there, of course & as usual, the enemy will probably have something to say about it as well.

There are some other changes, most notable of mine is allowing all AT guns and few selected field gun types to act as Naval guns during invasions or naval bombardments. The idea is that if a unit tasked with island or coastal defense has direct-fire weapons available, they will emplace at least some of them in positions to be able to engage enemy landing ships, or bombarding vessels brave or foolish enough to come close to unsuppressed dug in guns. I do not see this having too much of an effect when landing against smaller units, but a division sized formation should be able to poke a few holes in a landing force!

December 7, 1921 Afternoon.
The three musketeers (DD's Scout, Thanet & DM Thracian) try to escape Hong Kong but get jumped by CL Isuzu's TF. I braved the Hong Kong minefields, hoping to catch these three before they can cause me grief.

Thanet & Thracian are damaged enough that the TF commander turns back to HK where Army KI-51 Sonias find them in the morning. Each ship is hit by 3 or 4 50 kg bombs throughout the day, hopefully they will get disbanded in port to put the fires out.

My SCTF then catches some more fleeing ships, including a couple of MTB's before DD Imazuma finds one of those mines. She managed to limp to Canton eventually, but she will be out for a while.

The entire Malayan invasion force, which initially headed to Kota Bahru to fool the British, turns and steams South-East, heading for Mersing. They have almost 2 days of hard steaming ahead before the first wave can hit the beach.
Both the light and medium covering forces run into some merchies which are promptly dispatched, but alarm has been raised. Intel suggests that the covering forces have been detected, but not the invasion TF's. Hope to keep him guessing; if he delays switching the Indian Brigades at Alor Setar to Strat mode for a day, I should be able to cut them off.

Force Z is a concern, we may see them tomorrow!

I would suggest expanding LI at Fusan to encourage Resources to travel there for easy and quick shipment to the Home Islands.

December 8, 1941
Throughout the night Allied minesweepers are reported to be clearing mines laid by IJN subs the day before between Singapore and Mersing and at Bataan.
ARD AF9, the massive floating dock from Singapore still found one. Reported as sunk but I doubt a single SS borne mine will do that.

CL Sendai and 4 Shikinami class DD's were patrolling off Tioman Island, tasked with covering the flank of the Mersing landings & being a tripwire if Force Z sortied. And it did!
Prince of Wales, Repulse and 4 escorting DD's were detected & both commanders were spoiling for a fight! The Brits fumbled a bit when DD's Vampire & Express collided, perhaps dodging imaginary Long Lance torps. It must have been Express' fault, Vampires are supposed to be able to see well at night after all!
The TF's closed to within 2000 yards with very few hits landed, then DD Isonami was blasted by a 14' shell from Repulse. The hit caused a catastrophic damage & the ship went down almost immediately.
Sendai also took one hit from one of the BB's heavy guns, while on the other side poor Vampire was getting pummeled. I think the earlier collision must have reduced her speed, she then got a hit that caused a fire & then as usual, everyone was firing at a whatever it was burning in the night. Eventually she went down after 15 hits.
By this time I thought all Long Lances were expended, but looks like someone still had a salvo left as BC Repulse ran into one, with 'promising' secondary effects. After this the Allied commander decided he had enough & moved to disengage.
To top it up, a small flight of Betties in the morning managed to sneak in under the air battle happening above Singers & put a couple more torpedoes into Repulse. The ship was reported as on fire/heavy damage, but 3 torps are probably not enough to sink it.

Elsewhere, TB Otori & Hayabusa caught up with a couple of xAK's from Hong Kong escorted by PG Cicala (Insect class) & taken them all out. Interestingly there were 3 guns onboard as cargo, looks like the allies were trying to evac someone from Hong Kong. Lateron they also caught another couple of xAK's that also had guns loaded.
Off the coast of Mindanao my TF led by CA Myoko sunk xAP Legaspi higtailing it on its own across the ocean, that was also loaded with troops, apparently a base force of sorts, judging by Engineers & vehicles being amongst destroyed. The USN assets from Cagayan?

First sweeps against Singapore & Manila. I am glad he decided to contest the skies, he's got about 30 planes less to do it with tomorrow . DD Scout in Hong Kong and DD Peary in Manila both took a bomb or three in port, as well as a few other ships did. Happy to see SS Seadragon taking a 250kg bomb too!

The first 'amphibious' (this is IJN, after all) TF's arrived off Mersing and RAF was ready to pounce. Air cover provided by Oscars on LRCAP from Kota Bahru and some F1M2's from the escorting AV ships took down a number of attacking planes, but he sent in all there was. The CAP managed to disrupt all level bomber raids enough that they got no hits, in the end it was the old biplanes that got through & scored a couple of torpedo hits. No ships were lost and unloading proceeded, so good to go so far!

xAK Osaka Maru with General Yamashita and his whole HQ on board had the honor to be the first IJN ship hit by an Allied sub torpedo. Someone messed up the logistics, loading the entire unit on a single ship!!! Flooding is real bad, like "will sink soon" real bad and they are a hex away from Mersing.

No ground combat anywhere yet, Para's grabbed Aparri and a shock attack with pursuit is scheduled for tomorrow in Mersing.

RangerJoe wrote: Tue Jul 18, 2023 6:11 pm I would suggest expanding LI at Fusan to encourage Resources to travel there for easy and quick shipment to the Home Islands.

Yep, I have done that, from 40 to 80 for now. Fusan alone is not enough to supply the res needs, even after port is fully built up but after the last game I got the ports pretty much planned out. Not that there is that much choice if one wants to be as fuel efficient as possible!

Give the xAK Osaka Maru some empty ships to help rescue survivors, they should then unload them at the next possible port. Just make sure that you do NOT buy the unit back until all said ships have a chance to unload survivors.

RangerJoe wrote: Tue Jul 18, 2023 6:23 pm Give the xAK Osaka Maru some empty ships to help rescue survivors, they should then unload them at the next possible port. Just make sure that you do NOT buy the unit back until all said ships have a chance to unload survivors.

She was alone in the hex with just a DD for escort. She made it to Mersing before sinking & Yamashita now has a chance to fulfill his destiny. Well, maybe not the way he ended up IRL but...

December 9, 1941
Usual night skirmishes between subs & ASW on both sides, today IJN gets the better of it, sinking a couple of small ships (including two torpedoes wasted blowing un a motor launch), and even scratching up KXIII sneaking in Mersing hex and later on S-36 in Aparri. The Allied player is on the ball as far as sub positioning goes. I am routing many of my ships through shallow water so the Type 95 DC's have at least a chance of retaliation.

Landing in Digos - the merchant sailors drowned a bunch of troops & dropped a Type 95 light tank overboard.

CL Natori + DD's swept bases on the West coast of Luzon to clear out any raiders, found a bunch of PT's which during daytime and nice weather are in a slight disadvantage against proper warships. MTB 7,8 & 10 already looked pretty beat up & reported dead in the water, looks like the crews have rowed them at least part of the way from Hong Kong after running out of fuel. The locals were seen collecting the flotsam for firewood afterwards. There was lots of it.

SS Sturgeon found a working Mk 14 and a little xAKL went down... 90% dud rate is NOT 100%!

In the air, more sweeps of Singapore, more Buffaloes going down in flames .
I messed up & overstacked Takao airbase which caused no offensive strikes to be flown from there today. Netties in Saigon & Kompong Trach decided to attack motor launches in Georgetown harbor instead of Singapore & the plentiful shipping in the Strait of Malacca.

PBY-4's from Luzon jumped CL Natori who dodged 20 torps and 15 bombs total, suffering an unlucky 500 lb bomb hit. She 'will be OK'.

Another day of massed air attacks against shipping off Mersing. Same scenario as yesterday, KI-43Ib Oscars did well against Blenheims, took down a few Wildebeests and Swordfishes this time as well.
The butchers bill was 2 xAK's hit by aerial torpedoes and a 500 lb bomb that bounced off BB Kongo, as well as xAK Meiten Maru, an Ehime class cargo who took 4 torpedoes & went down with close to 500 men from one of my INF regiments.

The landings are all done and ships will be withdrawing, most should be beyond range of the little pests tomorrow, if he still has any left able to fly. The shock attack at Mersing carried the day, with a good amount of units in pursuit. trouble is that the Aussie brigade retreated SW to Johore, instead of East to Kluang, and Johore shows 15 Allied units. Most of them will be battalion sized but if he started the Indian brigades moving from Singapore on day one, anticipating Mersing Gambit, then they will have just arrived to Johore, or will do so tomorrow. The problem is that I need to cut off Kluang and capture Johore first, so anything that rails down the peninsula has no chance to retreat to Singapore. The other way is less than ideal. I have enough forces to capture one & hold the other, but if Johore has all the combat units from Singers and I take too long to get to Kluang, I may not be able to capture either. More forces are en-route but it will be a while.

Where is Kido?
Kido has returned to Pearl Harbor. After lurking just beyond detection range I brought them back in to see if he thought they went home. Two Zero sweeps over the harbor found empty skies. Looks like the thunderstorms made the US pilots stay down. And all those holes on the airfield from the Dec 7th attack.
B-17's were not deterred though & launched a few high altitude raids, but Kido's CAP was up in force and even managed to shoot down two beasts outright.
Kido air controller then launched a small strike of Kates & Vals against a weird little TF in the harbor containing a couple of DD's, an xAKL and some LB (barges), sinking the little guys but missing the DD's. I guess they thought the 100 or so ships in the harbor was not worth it...

December 10, 1941

DMS W-2, a small minesweeper protecting the last amphibious TF leaving Mersing became the latest underwater feature off the harbor, courtesy of KXII (if Intel is to be believed).

Another Dutch sub took out a small xAK in Brunei and again a US fleet sub (Saury) found not one but two working Mk14's! An Ansyu class xAK that was heading for a refit as PB headed for the bottom instead. So far the number of booms vs bonks is definitely skewed in the Allies favor. I hope it will be like counting the low cards in Blackjack & will get a nice run of high cards when it will really matter.

There is nothing much to do about the Dutch subs, or subs general as JFB, with as many (or few) escorts available as there are and as many targets needing to be taken. One just barges through & takes the licks. I have NAV search up & I can see the subs, yet I still need to go in and invade regardless. The air training schools are going full tilt but it will be a while until the pilots are at ASW 70.

A number of small skirmishes happened in the air & sea across the map, 10 + small ships were taken out on the Allied side.
In an unfortunate incident in Cagayan some Jakes attacked a pair of small xAPc (inter-island ferries) and pecked them to death with 60kg bombs. Only later it turned out they 'may' have been evacuating civilians. I choose to believe they were USN support staff instead!
Catalinas from Manila or Bataan tagged CL Naka with a torpedo so off she goes to the docks.

Several landings were executed, including Wake (Taken!), Rabaul (no attack yet), Sidate (next to Manado), Naga, as well as empty Digos (Southern Mindanao) and Brunei were occupied.

I felt like emulating JochenHeiden in one of his videos today when BOTH morning and afternoon Pearl Harbor strikes from Kido were cancelled due to bad weather. Pearl is now showing 40+ fighters so it may be time to evaluate our continued presence in this area. Or not Many strikes in Malaya were also cancelled and most of the air groups that flew focused on popping little xAKL-s which were placed around the map for exactly this reason, no doubt! The one group of Sallies that flew against Manila harbor managed to hit AS Canopus. Interesting that he is considering Manila a viable sub resupply point.

Massively bloody battles are raging across Guam as the heroic troops of the Empire are battling the enemy's elite. (read 5th Base force of IJN is duking it out with Guam base force) No counterattack against the lone Recon regiment in Johore, but I noticed some Indian brigade(s) railed into Kluang today. We shall see, engaging & hopefully mauling the British Malaya army outside Singapore is still worth more than letting them settle down & spend weeks recovering & training!

December 11, 1941.

Don't you love it when the Allied opponent actually fights back!?

Lots of Sub action today:
S-38 pokes a hole in a medium sized xAK off Luzon,
S-41 sneaks through a good sized escort & hits CVE Tayo whose meagre 9 elderly A5 fighters are the sole protection of the South Luzon landings from the torpedo-toting Catalinas. Crap!

A few bongs today on other IJN ships (phew).

On our side:
RO-63, lurking on the approaches to Rabaul to ambush any RAN sorties takes on xAP Macdhui, a good sized transport. A worthy prize on any other day. Three torps may be a bit of an overkill though, and I suspect this made her fail in the primary mission...
Glorious Thai navy makes their first contribution to the war effort as SS RTN Vilun hits a small transport not far from Singapore.
KXII gets her just due when she smacks into a freshly laid Type 93 mine in Mersing. Hopefully she is gone, that is a lot of mine for a small ship.

Very eventful day for surface and air action too!

First, at night just N of Rabaul, CA Louisville and CM Yaeyama have a 'close encounter' where they come to within 2k yards of each other at night. Lucky for us, Louisville either does not yet have radar or the operator was napping! Yaeyama takes an 8" shell and a few lighter ones, but still manages to escape into the night. She just finished laying eggs into Rabaul harbor, sad to say they did not do much in the morning either...
A TF of small Insect class 'boats' came out of Singapore to bother my guys at Mersing. They have a single 6" gun each (I think), so really just a harassment. Will need to post a couple of DD's to watch out for such next time, the amphibious TF's were all gone to get more troops.
A group of our river boats paid a visit to Changsha, scored a few hits on the city & damaged a plane belonging to Flying Tigers - good piece of info there!

As the sun was rising, a TF consisting of CA Canberra, CL Perth and (my favorite ship) DD Le Triomphant sailed into Rabaul & feasted on the IJN Amphib force some foolish admiral (me) left exposed for a day longer than was necessary. CL Kashima with all of her 18 knots top speed was the only 'warship' present so the end result was only a matter of them running out of shell or me out of ships. The one dubious silver lining was that all the ships were empty apart of some supply, and that most of them were small xAKL's. The loss of 5 PB-types however will not improve my ASW efforts.
I suspect he sprinted them throughout the night & day cause I have double-cover NAV search way past Rabaul. Regardless, still a costly blunder, I just hope they will find some mines on the way out, like KXII did above! (15 ships lost in total)

A good number of port strikes has gone in successfully today, some less so like one over Bataan where Betties arrived just before the sweepers & the flight got gutted by Warhawks on CAP. Zero sweepers right after the raid downed a few of the CAP, perhaps they were low on ammo by then.
Port strikes on Manila hit a number of ships, including SS Seadragon (reported sunk after 2 hits during the raid) & Sealion (also 2 hits), DD Peary (got 3 bomb hits) and AS Canopus (2 hits from 250kg bombs, should be just about finished).

The CVE Tayo covering a landing at Naga was not as heavily damaged as I feared and the brave 9 little A5M4's managed to turn back the first wave of PBY-4 Cats, shooting down a few. There were only two in the air for the second flight and the flying boats managed to score a torpedo hit on xAP Haruna Maru. The ship is large enough to survive, barring the arrival of further explosive devices.

The main event of the day happened over and around Pearl harbor.
A morning sweep only found 4 P-40B's on CAP which would have been comforting against a more conservative opponent. Here... well, keep reading!
They came out of the rising sun. The first wave:
Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Reisen x 40

Allied aircraft
P-36A Mohawk x 18
P-40B Warhawk x 22
F2A-3 Buffalo x 34
F4F-3 Wildcat x 6
SBD-2 Dauntless x 6
SBD-3 Dauntless x 16

My first thought when I saw this - USN Carriers! Turns out he must have flown the airgroups from the carriers (I suspect they are somewhere around Line Islands) into Pearl Harbor yesterday to ambush Kido without exposing the valuable carriers themselves.
The first wave was coordinated pretty well, see the mix of USAA and USN fighters, 70 strong escort!
Throughout the day Kido was attacked by no less than 13 waves of aircraft that threw everything AND the kitchen sink at them. I was having images of IRL Midway as waves upon waves were being engaged by an ever-weakening CAP. By wave 6 or 7 I was... ****ing bricks, to be honest. Luckily enough the Allied coordination is not yet where it will be later on so a number of the attacks were unescorted Dive bombers.
At the end, through superior skill (and just 'a bit' of luck) the Zero and the able hands of IJN's best pilots won the day, without a single ship being hit! My cap has scored ~80 aerial victories today, with the total of downed allied planes today topping 100 for the first time in this game. Japan lost 40 planes today, not great overall, but only about 10 from Kido, including some Kates & Vals. Yeah, the Japanese controller was somehow still able to assemble two strikes against Pearl!
First a smaller attack in the morning against a (presumably) sacrificial TF containing DDs and PT-boats (?) scored a bomb hit on DD Dale and Aylwin.
In the afternoon, a more substantial air attack against both the same TF and the Pearl Harbor (harbor) managed to land some good 800kg hits on the moored battleships and finished off Dale & Litchfield:

Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Reisen x 24
B5N2 Kankoh x 88
D3A1 Myojo x 29

Japanese aircraft losses
B5N2 Kankoh: 4 damaged
B5N2 Kankoh: 2 destroyed by flak

Allied Ships
DD Dale, Bomb hits 4, heavy fires, heavy damage
DD Litchfield, Bomb hits 7, and is sunk
DD Aylwin, on fire
BB Maryland, Bomb hits 3, heavy fires
DM Gamble, Bomb hits 1
CA New Orleans, Bomb hits 1
BB Tennessee, Bomb hits 5, heavy fires, heavy damage
BB Nevada~, Bomb hits 1, on fire
BB Pennsylvania, Bomb hits 3, on fire

I decided to enjoy today because tomorrow it will surely get worse!

On the land front, a shock attack across the river into Tuguegarao eliminated the PI battalion there, got my first size 2 airbase on Luzon!

The Indian brigades from Alor Setar railed away so the 5th Div Recon regiment pushed out the base force from there as well.

Bombardment probes in Johore indicate the presence of 4 enemy brigades and some battalions (400+ AV) so operation Mersing Gambit is not looking very good. I have enough troops to hold in Johore; we shall see if I can still take Kluang though, at least before everyone that matters escapes down south. There are 3 brigades in Kluang that I can see today.

Rabaul Deliberate attack resulted in 1:1 odds, at least the forts are now gone & we took less losses that the defenders.
Sidate & Vitoria point were taken, as expected.
Hong Kong, however, the fortunes of war turned 838 vs 276 raw AV to 919 vs 941 (!) and 1:2 odds. At least the engies lowered the forts and the losses and disruption were 'not too bad'.

December 12, 1941

Just a quick update from memory as I am travelling & the log is on my home PC...

CA Louisville did found a mine on the way out of Rabaul in a (very) small payback for last turn. A single Type 4 won't do much but she still needs to sail down to Sydney eventually.

An S-class sub takes down xAP Haruna Maru in Naga harbor, just one of those things...
A sweeping force of cruisers enters Tarakan and finds 3 small HDML boats and a Dutch tanker Aldegonda. I saw ships & wanted to provoke a response from the expected Allied squadron around Balikpapan before the Tarakan invasion arrive.

A bunch of ships boiled out of Pearl Harbor in the night, trying to force a surface action with Kido. A small squadron of PT boats actually managed to intercept but my DD's were on the ball & drove them off, sinking one.

During the day several several TF's were observed to the NE of Pearl, outside strike range. (I went W around the Big Island & he sortied mostly NE).
Port Strikes to Manila continued, but weather is... not cooperating...

December 13, 1941

Small ships duked it out in the night, my DD blocking TF patrolling the approaches to Bataan engaged a small minesweeper, a nice juicy fleet oiler (AO Trinity) and ARD Dewey which took 41 shell hits & a torpedo to finally go down. Time to head back to Takao to rearm, I guess!

During the day another DD TF engaged & sunk 3 PT boats off Bataan. There is still plenty of shipping closed in inside Manila Bay so we will continue to patrol for a while still.

Air raids to Manila port finished off another sub, allegedly SS Sealion & damaged a small craft.

Pretty big sized aerial engagements around Hawaii, as usual if the weather permits. This time our sweeps over Pearl found some F3 Buffaloes. Just a single air group, not sure why he put them up like that.
Later on a flight of 14 B-17's at 20k escorted by 40+ fighters of various types appeared over Kido but CAP was on the ball, even shooting down a heavy bomber outright (a B-17 D variant, but still!). In the afternoon they came back for more, with noticeably diminished escorts.

The surface raiding TF's that tried to find Kido yesterday returned to Pearl where they were jumped by our strike aircraft before they were able to disband in port.
A total of 16 bomb hits and a single torpedo strike were reported, with CA New Orleans hit the hardest with 6 bombs. I don't think any of the ships will go down, unfortunately, but at least the yard dogs will be kept busy for a long time. In the afternoon a smaller strike returned and despite severe storms the planes were able to hit several more ships, including 3 hits on CL Honolulu and 3 on DD Worden which may be the only ship actually in danger of sinking.

In DEI my probe into Tarakan did in fact provoke a response and planes from Mini KB found an SCTF at the entrance to Makassar strait. In a lucky hit a Kate managed to plant a torpedo into CL Boise (Yes!) and E13 Jake float planes flying from my CS ships scored 4 hits with light bombs on CA Houston, damaging at least some of her 5" secondary guns.

On the ground a tank regiment crossed the river into Cotabato, routing a PA battalion and a base squadron. I am pushing north towards Cagayan and the level 4 airfield there.
On Luzon the Southern force has just taken Binahian (NW of Naga), the Norther force is heading SW of Tuguegarao and into San Fernando.

In Malaya we pushed FMSV Brigade (initially in Kota) another hex S on the railway with a single regiment of the 18th Div. The 5th Div recon Regiment has taken Butterworth/Sungei, a nice airfield across from Georgetown. I will detach a regiment to take that base from the follow-up forces.
Johore now has 500+ AV vs a bit over 200 of mine; my second force is a day out of Kluang. Not great but there are still a few enemy units left North of the (future) roadblock. Not sure why, but the Kuantan brigade has not moved at all yet.

In China the operations are slowly starting, more info will be available in the coming days.

December 14, 1941

Little AMc's are clearing up my blocking minefield in Tanjoengpinang (just off Singapore), may need to do something about them. Since they are in singleton TF's, the air controller does not consider them worth of a strike. Perhaps one of my roving DD patrols.

Brunei Bay & Miri are now both captured with light forces & have a bit of air cover (I wonder where he had taken the one half of a British battalion that was there, perhaps reunited them in Kuching?). Unloading xAK's continue to be pestered by Dutch subs, with a large one today taking a torp. She was mostly empty so hopefully she will make it... Now I 'only' need to get 240k supplies in to repair the oil wells in both bases...

In San Fernando on Luzon, my brave Paras are about to get in contact with 'something' blocking their way to Lingayen. I decided to drop an arty unit for support directly into the base, just in case.
In one of the first few examples of the AT gun changes in this mod, the 37mm AT gun battery of the 11th PA Div started poking holes into a small xAKL that was trying to land the guns. They scored 9 hits throughout the day, causing 5 points of SYS and 2 points of minor FLT. Nice ambush!

Morning sweeps against Luzon & Pearl encountered very little opposition, as usual, and the crews of the bombers heading for port strikes were again treated to beautiful displays of the Thunder Gods' fury... looks like ALL of the Thunder Gods were out in force again...

Singapore, Hong Kong, Manila, Bataan/Corregidor, Pearl Harbor, Tavoy. All of them at once!

Maybe the aircrews are getting used to it now, since they were still able to score some hits on ships in port, despite the weather being Severe Thunderstorms. DD Peary is still fighting in Manila harbour, today she took another 2 bomb hits. I really think it must be Fog of War, she has been reported to be hit with too many 250kg bombs to still be afloat. The attacking flights are occasionally still getting jumped by fighters but I just do not have enough to sweep, keep covering the bombing raids and the invasion fleets.

The amphibious TF outside San Fernando became the target of the Allied Air today. First a low level level torpedo attack by Catalinas & Vildebeests (pretty sure these are ones originally from Hong Kong) got smacked about by a collaboration between Zeros & Nates. They were having so much fun that they have not noticed a second flight of Cats that were able to launch their ordinance, but luckily the nimble APD's were able to dodge. Then a flight of 10 P-40E's roared in at wavetop, some of them jettisoning their bombs early to mix it up with Japanese fighters to give the rest a chance to get through. Brave little Nates got the s****y end of the stick in this fight, losing 3 until Zeros were able to tip the balance. At the end all 10 enemy fighters were either shot down or chased away so well done boys!

The thunderstorms over Pearl did clear up by the afternoon, so a bomb raid was launched. A total of 5 BB's, 3 CL's and 2 DD's were hit today, BB Tennessee being hurt the most with 8 bomb hits, now showing heavy fires & heavy damage. BB Penn also took 8 bomb hits but they were mostly the lighter 250kg which just stripped a few secondary turrets/AA guns.

26 bomb hits for 80 Kates at 10k
3 hits on manoeuvring DD's for 28 Vals

Not great, not terrible.

Naval landing went in at Tanjoengselor - a dot base next to Tarakan. I do not fancy facing those 120mm Dutch CD guns, I like my transports without holes in wrong places!

In China:
An operation to clear out a large partisan grouping in Yungchen was launched, the lead elements being a couple of Tank regiments sent to soften up a Red Guerila Corps and their Base of operations. They may even be enough to take care of the rest of the rabble tomorrow, we shall see. (Note: The Guerilla corps in this mod can get up to 180 raw AV and their 'bases' over 200. They have very few support or heavy weapons but can and will wipe out the small garrison forces or RGC units the Japanese must keep to garrison the many bases in China.)
Lots of movement pips were spotted amongst the Chinese units all over, I assume the allied command has completed the plan of operations and reshuffling. No matter, we have our own plans to follow!
One of those is to open a shorter connection to Sinyang by clearing out the plains between there and Hefei.
The third angle is going East from Hangchow & it is slowly gathering steam as well.
Apologies for the eye cancer picture, the Tracker shows all dot bases with the flag. The in-game map looks a lot better . Another attack was made in Hog Kong today, the Allied raw AV is now less than 200 and forts are down to 1. We go in again tomorrow.

Remember the Paras in San Fernando? They made a probing attack & run into 11th PA Inf. This is a light formation as far as divisions go but still has a lot of rifles so the elite Yokosuka 3rd SNLF is not in the best shape after today. If I were in the Allied commander's shoes, a shock attack would follow tomorrow; hopefully the 3 arty units we landed there today will be enough to beat them down if they try!

December 15, 1941

An eventful night phase began when a little Thai sub SS Vilun, lurking just outside Soerabaja, got spotted and attacked by escorts. The captain reported seeing a British BB steaming past full speed. It had to be Prince of Wales since Repulse *should* still be recovering from taking a few torpedo hits a week or so ago. Looks like they are heading NE into the Makassar strait. Later on Vilun was chased again by a different SCTF, this time she only spotted a Clemson class DD.

The heavy TF covering Palembang invasion cleared out a few support ships and a pair of Insect class patrol gunboats, with the light covering forces bagging more, including a medium sized tanker Ruthenia. I think our bold move may have surprised the Dutch. The invasion force initially feinted towards Singkawang but then sailed past & sprinted East towards Palembang. The invasion went in, landing an INF & a Tank Regiment, as well as a SNLF unit plus a base force & AF Bn. Should be enough to clear out Southern Sumatra. The Dutch did not or were not able to concentrate all of their forces in the area yet, there is only ~50 AV present so hopefully we will take it tomorrow (more or less intact!).

On Luzon, PT boats skirmished with another landing force bringing 4th Division into San Fernando, but they were driven off by escorts. Little To'su class xPB Choun Maru #18 scored the only hit of the engagement with her single 8cm deck gun, getting raked by mg fire in return. She earned about 20 XP last night!

SS KXVIII was spotted trying to sneak up on our ships unloading in Tanjoengselor (next to Tarakan) and DMS W-18 was able to score two direct hits with DC's. One of them was reported as 'Critical damage' on the engine room, yet the sub status at the end of the combat did not show 'heavy damage'. Too bad but still I doubt she will bother us for a while.

As the day dawned, a bunch of raids got cancelled due to weather, including Singapore (again!) and a critical Pearl Harbor sweep (yep, Kido is still there). The intel report from yesterday was showing many fighters on the ground so I suspected either a strong CAP or many air attacks against Kido today. To counter, I made the CV's stand off at 7 hexes so Kate can still fly with full load and increased the escort % for the outgoing strike. The missed morning sweep turned out to be way too costly. Our afternoon port raid was met by a ready and willing CAP over 70 strong which was able to get past the escorting Zeros, shooting down over 30 Kates. The rest still managed about 20 or so hits across 5 different BB's, but only a few of them were the heavy 800kg bombs. I believe all of the old USN BB's are pretty messed up now, only time will tell if any actually sunk.

Our daily raids on Manila were quite successful today, the sweeps caught a few Fighters up and then both Navy and Army bombers proceeded to pound the stuffing out of the port. Many ships were hit, mostly light xAK's but a DD (Peary?) and PG Mindanao also got scratched. After this raid the port now only shows 8 ships present, but one of them is listed as a 'CA'. Considering that the only USN in the area is Houston & she was just seen down by Balikpapan, that means something else large is still docked but I have no clue what. Perhaps we will see tomorrow.

The Allied commander did not take the bait in San Fernando & did not try to send the beat up SNLF Paratroopers back to Vigan. I was hoping he would, and landed the 4th Infantry division to give them a warm welcome, but no such luck. No matter, tomorrow we attack and open the path to Lingayen & the lowlands. The armored spearheads of the Aparri arm are about to enter the mountain hex just SE of San Fernando so we should be pushing to both Manila and Clark at the same time. The Southern thrust is a little bit delayed and the Allies have blocking forces in place in all bases, suggesting they are not intending to abandon Manila.

In Central DEI our naval search discovered several Allied Surface TF, including one containing Prince of Wales. Kates from Mini KB attacked, but for some reason only a few were available and 3 out of 5 attacking ones were shot down by flak
. Who needs air cover when you have such eagle-eyed gunners, right? CA Houston was also attack by a lone Kate who easily dodged the torpedo. As a consolation prize a flight of Jakes was able to plant a 60 kg bomb on the deck of DD John D Edwards, leaving her on fire.

In Central Malaya I moved a unit of Sonias into Alor Setar a few days ago to interdict allied Shipping in the Straits of Malacca. They did very well today, sinking several ships and damaged a couple more. The 50 kg bombs don't do much on their own but the plane carries 4 of them so they will peck their target to death if given half a chance: The last important event of the day, apart of Hong Kong surviving another attack (forts now 0), was the attack on Kluang. Several IJA regiments arrived yesterday so today we attacked. We carried the day and the defeated Allied units retreated North instead of South towards Johore. So at least some of the Mersing Gambit objectives were salvaged; now the 8th Aussie div and 9th Indian Division will be unable to recombine. The 11th Indian Div is already combined and currently holding Johore.

You only have a limited number of highly trained pilots for the KB, don't waste them. If any ships recently left, hunt them down and put them out of your misery.

Your units at Palembang should capture the base, there is absolutely no need for a shock attack. But there is a definite need for AAA and radar if at all possible because your opponent should be bombing the oil with everything that he has, if you have fighters there he should bomb at night.

Except for today, so far I only lost less than 10 KB pilots, for many Allied planes shot down, including USN CV airplane crews and all of the BB's in Pearl beat up, as well as a few cruisers & DD's.
This was a bad day for Kate pilots but nothing out of the ordinary in a CV fleet action in 6 months or so. I pulled a lot of the 'extra' pilots from the Nettie squadrons & I am using them judiciously until replacements can be trained.
Air units for Palembang are lined up to fly in, the moon is at it's lowest setting right now so I think it is a good time to take Palembang.

I also wanted to stop him from evaccing unit fragments from Singapore and stealing my fuel through Oosthaven. I can see ships there and he has some CAP up as well. In my other game against LST I as Allied was shipping fuel out for months. It is June '42 there and he still have not actually taken Palembang, only a matter of days now though.

December 16, 1941

First action of the day - A couple of USN CA's catch KM Portland, a German blockade runner. In the middle of Pacific. At night, rain and 0% moonlight, without radar. They close to 1k yards before the ships spot each other... oh well.

A little payback was to be had next when a IJN raiding force of 4 CA's and 4 DD's swept into Port Moresby, catching a couple of minesweepers on the way and a trio of medium sized xAK's in the harbor.

At Palembang, Tatsumiya Maru laid out a beautiful new minefield, but forgot to signal everybody else that she is doing so. CL Kashii and xAK Mikasa promptly struck one of the Type 93' each, later on followed by an Ansyu class PB. Luckily none of the ships are in immediate danger but these larger Type 93 mines will leave a pretty big hole.

The most important surface engagement happened during the daytime in the Macassar strait. Yesterday after a TF led by Prince of Wales and another by CA Houston were spotted in the area, several IJN surface TF's were send in to see if we can get a jump on them. We missed PoW, she was seen steaming back into Soerabaja; but CA Maya, Ashigara, plus CL Kuma and a quartet of DD's engaged a Dutch cruiser force composed of CL's Java, DeRuyter and Tromp, also escorted by four DD's.
The IJN ships were able to keep the engagement at around 10k, an ideal distance where the enemy CL's guns were unable to penetrate, while the 8in guns on the IJN heavies had no trouble going through. The Dutch cruisers limped away after receiving 9, 10 and 11 hits, respectively, with IJN escorts landing a couple of hits on their Dutch counterparts as well. The Japanese ships suffered only superficial damage, DD Matsukaze being the worst off after suffering a couple of hits from the enemy DD's. CL Kuma also took a 6in shell into her superstructure, but the damage may even be repaired at sea (17 SYS).
Intel indicates that at least two of the Dutch CL's sunk after the battle (4 Dutch floatplanes destroyed 'on the ground'). If I had to guess, CL Java was probably the least damaged of the three.

Next I got an 'interesting' surprise. SS RO-60 launched a couple of torps at CV Enterprise... and missed. The surprising part was that it happened in the Tabiteuea base hex. Why'd he bring her in I have no idea... I landed there a day or so ago & took the dot base but the invasion TF was gone already.

In the air, the usual mix of cancelled missions and trying to bombard in a thunderstorm, with the expected results. The eagle-eyed AA gunners in Hong Kong took down several Sonias. Luckily that was their last heroic act and now they are all chilling in a PoW camp, as the city was taken shortly after!

A trio of Dutch planes tried to bomb my oil in Miri, but got chased away by Nates.
The a couple of squadrons of Buffaloes tried to (I assume) strafe the supply ships unloading in Mersing. The CAP was on the ball today and around 20 Buffaloes were shot down, for a loss of two Ki-43's and a crashed Zero.

On the ground, apart of the Hong Kong success, we also took Palembang, both with only minor damage to industry (phew). San Fernando on Luzon was captured & 11th PA division pushed into Lingayen, as well as Atimonan where 51st PA Inf division lost about a battalion's worth of troops.
Two SNLF units displayed true Bushido spirit in Menado, capturing the base on the first attack against a much more numerous opponent.

December 17, 1941.

After the capture of Hong Kong & Palembang yesterday, there were a lot of enemy mines to be cleared out so the DMS crews were busy today.

The allies keep sending ships out of Singapore and Manila Bay by ones and twos, the IJN does their best to catch them.
Last night we got an AM, a hospital ship AV Wusueh (oops), a little xAPc Isla Filipinas, as well as a medium sized cargo ship in Port Moresby - I sent the raiders back today on a hunch.

Former Malaya Heavy Cover (Haruna, Kongo + escorts) attempted to catch Prince or Wales & friends if they were to steam out of Soerabaja again, but missed them & the allied heavies were spotted in Macassar strait later on. They should not be able to get in, in theory, but at 0% moonlight they could just slip by. The Japanese BB's vented their fury at a trio of HDML boats, sinking them with BB main gun shells... (why does the game do this???)

In the air we begun sweeps of Batavia from Palembang (caught some B-339D's) with the intent of securing the air for Netties close the waters around Southern Sumatra/Western Java. There are many ships visible around, but the Allied commander is way too skilled to not have mined Merak strait so I cannot get to them for now.
There are still fighters in Singapore and on Luzon (mixed results today) so a strong fighter force needs to be maintained for now.

A lone Flying Tiger has been giving us trouble over Dongxiang in China where IJA air is trying to interdict Chinese forces flowing around a single IMB (Independent Mixed Brigade) in a blocking position. Today he shot down 4 planes by himself, just because the escorted Sonia raid always comes after 2 or 3 unescorted ones... I really need to find his base.

A naval bombardment force in Port Moresby did pretty well, scoring a couple of hits on a xAK in port, as well as inflicting a good number of casualties. Intel shows a lot of units present in PM but I know there are many scattered detachments even down to squad-size that can be pulled in from various islands around Southern PNG. I am not yet sure if he is planning to put up a serious defense there, but the presence of larger transport ships could indicate a supply stockpiling effort. A few Cats and a B-17D was also damaged in the bombardment, which is an interesting tidbit.

On the ground front:
In China IJA tanks have almost finished grinding up the nest of vipers (ehm, Red Guerillas) in Yungchen. 110th Division has finally arrived into the hex so it is time to end it tomorrow. There is another nest in Hwaiyin, NE of Nanking just across the river, so in order to reduce the supply amount for them we have taken a neighboring base.

In Bottlenecks most of the Chinese dot bases produce between 1-3, sometimes 5 supply points/day for the Chinese (!), so it is worth denying this to the Allied player even if I do not strictly need that base as such. This simulates how the population in the rural areas would help feed & shelter the the Chinese forces (willingly or not). IRL the Japanese would also try to deny this support, usually with BAD THINGS happening to said civilians.

In Huoqiu, on the road between Pengpu and Sinyang, a IMB and two regiments are squaring off against a couple of Chinese Corps. They are in clear terrain, so we were able to get a 1:1 despite forts lvl 3. Now they are lvl 2 and we will continue the attack tomorrow.

On Luzon our tank units reached Bayombomg, the base with Jungle/Rough terrain blocking access to the lowlands & Manila & run into the 192nd Tank Battalion. After knocking out one of our tanks, the Stuarts withdrew & let us have the fortified ambush position (forts lowered to 0). Tomorrow we will try to flank them with two regiments, hopefully if we force them out, they will lose some tanks on retreat. (Darn, I just realized I broke our HR that only a single Tank unit is allowed to attack unsupported by infantry, unless in Clear terrain).

I applaud you on actually playing this scenario. I have recently opened scen059... It is a hard work even understanding the initial LCU/bases/economy layout. Good luck!

Yaab wrote: Sun Aug 13, 2023 7:02 am I applaud you on actually playing this scenario. I have recently opened scen059... It is a hard work even understanding the initial LCU/bases/economy layout. Good luck!

Thank you! This is my 3rd PBEM with Bottlenecks, and you are right, it does look quite daunting initially. It does create interesting possibilities, IMO the ground game is so much more interesting than stock; China is like a mini-game on its own & so is the whole logistics endeavour. Including how to disrupt your opponents'.
OTOH there is no way one can do 3-4 turns a day like I saw some do with stock scens. That would be just pure burnout, not even to mention divorce papers being served by the end of 1942!