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Hello All! Many of you know that Moses and I have had a campaign going for the last 6-8 months and we now have over a year of game time played. We had both talked about doing an AAR for our Campaign but then it didn't happen. I pposed to him that we do a 'one year later' sort of review. Once my stuff is here, he will contribute his perspective to this thread.

I will first go through the statistics of the campaign. We are at Mid-December 1942:

Score:
Japan 26,979
Allies 16,990

Breakdown of VP Am listing Japanese first---Allies second
Bases J 317 for 5,630 A 132 3,560
Ships J 381 for 3,484 A 448 5,807
Army J 3,872 A 10,086

Detailed Sinkings:
Japan
CVs Hiryu and Junyo
BB Haruna
5 CA, 10 CL, 45 DD, and 31 SS

USA/Britain
CVs Saratoga, Yorktown, Wasp, Hornet Brit CV Formidable 2 CVE
BBs Colorado and 3 Brits--Warspite, Ramilles, Resolution
7 CA, 9 CL, 58 DD, and 24 SS

The naval battles have really fallen in my favor. We have had several CV Battles and I have come out on top each time. I ambushed his CV Fleet on the 1-3rd of December and sank 2CV without a HIT coming back on my decks--lost a bunch of planes though...I think it should be noted that most of the Capital Ship sinkings have occurred either exclusively through or with help from LBA.

Japanese Economy
Supply 2,297,728
Fuel 2,356,371
Manpower 807 (869,100)
Heavy Industry 15,056 (905)
Resources 17,746 (1,485,532)
Oil 2,599 (1,140,711)

I made a colossal mistake by expanding my industry TOO quickly at the start of the game and it has NEVER recovered. Haven't been able to produce enough of ANYTHING for the last 6-8 months. It is really bad...

Shipyards
Naval Shipyards 1,347 (9)
Merchant Shipyards 971 (0)
Shipyard Repair 1,301

Due to the supply situation, mentioned above, I have had a hard time getting ships finished and repaired. It is mid-December and Musashi is still 120 Days from completion! Though I have done well in our battles, the repair yards a re full and repairs are proceeding at a snail's pace.

Armaments 789
Vehicles 183
Aircraft Engines 1,238
Aircraft Assembly 1,133 (277-rd)

The single most crippling problem in my economy is aircraft production. Most of my factories have been unable to produce regularly very many aircraft. Most of my active squadrons are not getting replacements for lost planes and new/disbanded units are waiting FOREVER for new aircraft.

The War by Theatre

DEI
I took the DEI pretty quickly. Moses fought me tooth and nail throughout the advance and bloodied my nose several times. Tried to make a quick grab for Singapore and failed due to not enough troops landing. This then bogged down my Burma Operations.

BURMA
Took Southern Burma pretty quickly as well as Akyab. Got completely stalled at Mandalay and we are still brawling there. Moses re-took Akyab, lost a bunch of shipping, and has air superiority in the theatre. I am primarily flying out of Moulmein, Christmas Island, Sabang, SUM, and Victoria Point. Will hold here but who knows for how long...

CHINA
UTTER DISASTER! I did not grasp the fundamentals of large-scale ground combat when we started. Moses has destroyed the Japanese China Army. He control ALL of China except the coast ports of Shanghai (and several nearby towns there) and Hong Kong. He has driven my northern portion of the army to the edge of the Manchurian Border. Nearly 3,000VP worth of Japanese troops have been destroyed. If it wasn't for China, I might feel pretty good about my current situation...

NORTH PACIFIC
I moved into the Aleutians pretty quickly. Grabbed Kiska, Adak, and Dutch Harbor pretty quickly. Moses put up a GREAT fight for Kodiak before it fell. In one of the most horrific mistakes of the Campaign, I tried to land at Anchorage and lost nearly 50 ships to CD and Air Attack. It became quickly obvious that I could not take the city so I evaced as many survivors as possible.

In November--to my surprise--Moses re-took (after one heck of a fight) Kodiak and is now trapped there. I have turn Ditch Harbor/Cold Bay/Unmak into large AFs and I control the air over these bases (more or less). He controls the air over Anchorage. Kodiak is up for grabs and I have regularly hit the AF there to keep it from operating. So far this has worked. If he can get it operational, then I am in REAL trouble! Have periodically thought of a counterlanding to try to kill off his 2 1/2 Inf Div there...

Our biggest naval battle have occurred here. He must be frightened to place ANY American CV near these waters---ALL his US CV losses have occured in this Theatre of Operations! [:D] Moses can come on back ANYTIME he wants!

CENTRAL PACIFIC
I have taken the normal bases here. Didn't grab Midway/Palmyra due to his LBA. I have made Kwajalein and surrounding islands into a Fortress. Looking forwardthe the counter-offensive in this area.

SE PACIFIC
Have been VERY agressive here! Took Solomons and PM early (by March I think). SHOCKED Moses when I made a complete grab of Luganville/Efate/Suva/Canton in May/June. It was the single best operation I ran. Had just enough troops to take all these sites within about 10 days of each other.

Countered this brilliance by getting cocky and trying to grab Noumea. DIDN'T WORK! Got spanked hard. Had to stage an evacuation from New Caledonia and nearly lost two Inf Div. Have had to rebuild them.

I have used these bases to stage raids along his supply lines and have been quite successful. Most wonderful event was sinking nearly HALF of a 100 Ship Convoy north of New Zealand.

Without getting Noumea, Moses has built-up his LBA to such an extent that I have pulled all planes from Efate and Luganville. Troops are there with good Fort levels but little to no supply. I expected to be hit here instead of Kodiak!

OVERALL SUMMATION
If my economy would get its' crap together, I would feel pretty decent right now. The Imperial Navy is intact (though I have to train my avaitors back up), I have got substantial troops spread throughout the Pacific waiting for the American counter-offensive, and am confident that the US Navy does not have the strength to begin a serious move for least 3-4 months.

This is my first campaign PBEM and I have had a monstrous learning curve against an excellent opponent. The knowledge I have gained has been used on poor Wolfpack in my other PBEM (AAR: John III vs. Wolfpack).

Moses and I are getting ready to switch sides and start a new game with him as Japanese and me as the Allies. I am REALLY looking forward to the contest. We will keep this one going and see what happens.

Anyone got any thoughts???

Greg---YOUR TURN!

ORIGINAL: John 3rd

Shipyards
Naval Shipyards 1,347 (9)
Merchant Shipyards 971 (0)

Aircraft Engines 1,238
Aircraft Assembly 1,133 (277-rd)

You've drastically increased your shipyards, yet you have no extra points. Are you accelerating a lot of ships? It's too much. Turn off all of your accelerations for a day and see how many extra points you have. Then decide how you want to spend those points.

Just comparing your engines vs. airframes, you definitely have an engine shortage there. Take the time to count up exactly what type and how many of each engine you need. Adjust your production to make it work. That is probably part of the problem you're having with plane production.

Ahh where to start. I guess China which is near to my heart and one of the few pleasant things which I have to reflect upon.

In the beginning John3rd launched simulatainious attacks at Yenan, Homan and Ichang. No doubt he believed all the hype about China's weakness and thought he could push hard and rout the Chinese. But with the 100 prep points that the Chinese got with the new, at the time, patch this was no longer possible. At all three locations he launched disasterous 0-1 shock attacks. At Ichang and Yenan he was stuck in a long term stalemate while at Homan I was even able to retreat a couple of his divisions.

With large amounts of his troops tied up in these battles my large army at Changsa sat with nothing to do. So at the proper moment I sent the chinese hords toward Nanchang. In about a week I had taken this city and routed a couple more of his divisions. Worse I saw that a bunch of his troops which he had sent to help found themselves in the woods due to a movement quirk. The one where you plot to a location 5 hexes away by rail but on the second turn an enemy unit blocks the rail path. So your guys take the long way.

Seeing that things were getting out of control I offered a truce and John quickly agreed. Under the terms all forces would return to their prewar territory and after 10 days we would start again. This was nice for me because my troops in Yenea were wearing out and may have lost the city in a couple weeks time.

The net result of the first two months of war was that the chinese forces were now redeployed, dug in, and more experienced. Better still my industry was still at full production after two months so supply would never be an issue. BTW when you have good supply in China all the movement bugs go away. I haven't had a 59 mile bug or any movement anomoly in a full year!!

Strangly after the truce the same thing happened. The allies massed a little better but my forces were much stronger and the same thing happened. I counterattack and take Nanchang. Latter he regrouped and tried an attack toward Homan. My large force at Changsa headed north up the road and cut his army off. They had to retreat north across the river into the woods to survive. The result was that the whole river vally between Peking and Shanghie was occupied by my forces.

More recently I attacked north toward Chengting and have just taken that city and have a couple divisions trapped in the mountain village north of Chengting. The campaign goes slow because a much greater part of my force is needed for garrrison duty. It also takes a very long time to kill surrounded Japanese troops. But I believe the Japanese army is nearly impotant and so I can take my time.


Oh well any questions?? Oterwise I shall have to address area's in which perhaps I have not been so successful.[:(] Oh I guess I could talk about Burma??[:)]

The SRA

I fought a full on defence with everything I had. While my troops died my transports carted off everything the could load off to Austrailia or in many cases the bottom of the ocean. So I lost tons of transports as John3rd gleefully slaughtered them on a daily basis.

In Malaysia John attacked aggressively and made two landings in force south of Kuntan in the first weeks. For a bit it looked as if he might blitz me off the penensula but I managed to stabalize the defence and for a while it looked as if I could hold forever. He brought in added forces and began to wear me down but I held into February with a withdraw stable enough to allow me to get out large chunks of ground units to India in the last weeks.

In the PI John went in a bit light. So the battle there dragged on I think until May or June. I had those squadrens of light fighters doing amazing duty dropping 100 lbs bombs on his transports. It was incredable as he never really found an answer to these. I would hop them about to different airfields and even when he did bomb the right airfield with only a dozen or so planes he never really could kill any. I don't know how much damage the 100 pounders did but I believe that I hit over a hundred transports with these crap fighters. Finally his troops closed in and my men died bravely.

Everywhere else was a rout. By the time he got to Java he had learned about mass and went in heavy. It didn't last long. He cleared the island from west to east in rapid fashion.

As for the naval battles much is lost to memory. I fought as aggresively as I could and lost many CA's trying to raid his landing sites. But I was unable to kill any big ships. Jhon3rd did lose tons of smaller ships both by my actions and due to my CD's.

Of course the SRA is now soundly in Japanese hands and only the occasional allied sub can be found in the area.

Pacific

Well he has taken most of it. I hold PH, Palmyra, Midway, Johnson Island, and Numea. Thats about it. Wasn't anyway to hold these once KB shows up.

I did manage to hold Numea as I got several divisions there and his initial landing at Kumac was crushed. After a short period of fighting he had to evacuate. Around that point I think John decided he had to rest his navy at some point. He had been running full out since Dec 7 and by May/June his system damage had to be pretty bad.

Our carriers were dancing around Numea without actually meeting and finally my LBA tagged one of his carriers and he called it quits.

Currently I hold Numea in great strength while he holds Luganville and Effete and from there to Palmyra. I control the air around Numea and he has everything else. I have no way to keep track of his carriers and so sending anything to Austrailia is a bit dicey and he has killed several convoys.

The CV's

Well I managed to go around 350 turns nursing the US CV's until the day when they could fight on equal turns. I had lost one US CV but he had lost two smaller CV's so not so bad. I used my CV's, but carefully, trying always to stay away from big carrier TF's.

Then in Dec 42 6 Jap CV's show up 5 hexes from my 4 carriers and 4 hexes from my escort carriers south of ankorage and about 10 hexes off the west coast. My escorts go down like rocks and two of my CV's are hit. Not a single plane of mine attacks. (range 5)[:@]

So now I sit with 2 carriers with KB has lost only two all game.

Its going to be a long road back.

One more year and you'll be able to go wherever you want whenever you want.

Burma.

I've done pretty well here as I still hold Mandelay.

Initially Ithink he wanted to push hard here but had to send troops south when Malaysia got bogged down. This gave me a little time to dig in. Then he tried to envelope Mandelay which just didn't work. Basically a couple of his divisions were stuck up on the trails north of Mandelay probably with little supply and little to do.

Finally he bit the bullit and settled on a brut force attempt to take the city. I was skeptical at first but he has begun making progress and I have evacuated my AF. My forts are down to 2 and the morale of my troops seems to have leveled off in the teens.

I suspect he will take this town in the next week or two and the theater will become quite. He may close the Burma rd but who cares. China has plenty of supply. I've bombed the resourse throughout the area and I guess I'll have to bomb Mandelay as well. His AF has mostly left except for a few fighter units trying to pester me in Rangoon and Mandelay.

Alaska

Japan took all the Alaskan Islands in May?june and then attempted to take Anchorage. This was one invasion too far and his transports were carved to hell by my CD's there and he lost heavily. KB had learned about getting too close to allied LBA and so wasn't much help.

His force in Anchorage was destroyed although perhaps he got quite a bit of it out before the last unit surrendered.

Later I lauched my first major counteroffensive to retake Kodiak. Picking a moment when his carriers were elsewhere (They were slaughtering my convoys of the coast of New Zealand[:@]) I started a massive air and sea bombardment against the island for several weeks before landing the 1st Marine Div + on the island. It fell easily and I lost not a single transport.

This battle has ben sort of our Guadelcanal as there have numerous air and navel battle fought here over the last couple months. The recent destruction of my carrier force changes the situation.

I have been unable to repair the airfield as he sends bombardment TF's and huge 150+ groups of Betties to pound the island. I wasn't worried about this before because I'm happy to fight his AF here and wear out his ships both due to sys damage and occasional surface battles.

Now that he has clear carrier supremacy I don't know what will happen. Can he even retake this island? Maybe but I have a lot of airpower at Anchorage and the 1st Marines won't be driven out in a day.

ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

One more year and you'll be able to go wherever you want whenever you want.

I had hoped to start going places a little sooner.[;)]

My Worthy Opponent's Comments are great!

Let me add the other side to a couple of his points:

BURMA
Dead-On! My initial plan was to hammer my way north through Mandalay with a considerable force. This was being done in conjuntion with a quick grab for Singapore--I was OHHHHHH so close to success there! When I realized that I couldn't take Singapore quickly, I had to re-direct 70,000 troops southwards away from their Burma objectives.

LAND COMBAT
Next to economic issues, Land Combat has been the biggest area of learning growth. I now understand concentration, bombardment, and supply SO MUCH better! Tried to do TOO much in China and made the same initial mistakes in Philippines and Singapore.

I learned from these but not quickly enough. As I sickeningly watched China get carved up (losing supply centers, Heavy Industry, and manpower---worsening my economic situation), I started to adjust but still screwed up in New Caledonia and Anchorage. NOW...I know what I am doing. This can be seen in my other campaign.

Air Power
I made the mistake of getting into attritional situations in China, New Caledonia, and Burma. This has made life much more difficult. MY bomber Daitai are all still very good. My fighters, on the other hand, are in much more desparate shape. Still have a good number of solid Daitai but also have a lot with little-to-no experience. Am trying, through a belated training program, to fix this.

Sea Power
My grasp of this facet within the game is strongest. I have done VERY well! Due to good fortune (planning??), I have bought myself time to regroup and try to fix a lot of the above-mentioned issues.

1943 shall be interesting...Moses fear of a final Japanese counter-thrust in the north may be dead-on...

Mike--Thank you for your suggestions regarding the economic situation! Will give that a try...

1943 shall be interesting...Moses fear of a final Japanese counter-thrust in the north may be dead-on

My B-24D's await you.[:D][:D]

If I have any hope of continuing to slow you down THAT might be a good place!

"Malines--You Die!"

Future Ops.

For the moment I have 2 carriers. I get 3 of the small carriers soon and an essex in a month or two. But for now its fair to say that I am back on the defensive. So while I have a few little operations in planning I will for the most part be interested in blunting Japanese ambitions.

India and Austrailia are out. Japan no longer has the ground strength. The divisions fighting in Mandelay have to be trashed at this point. So once he takes Mandelay they will not be usable elsewhere for a long time. My Chinese army strengthens daily so it is not reasonable that he can pull units out of there. Rather I should think growing numbers of southern area army units will be needed to keep China in check.

Numea: He could renew his attack here using his unchallanged KB to destroy my LBA and systematically reduce my defences allowing an inventual invasion. This would take probably all of his available ground strength and holds some risk to his carriers. Still there's a lot of good troops to capture there and nice bases for his ships and aircraft.

Kodiak: This seems the most doable as I only have a division+ there. I have tons!!!!! of aircraft at Anckorage and I just don't see how he could suppress that airfield. KB can fight that airbase all it wants but at the end of the day only KB can sink. Ankorage cannot be isolated like Numea.

PH: This would seem at the brink of implausability but he could try. Harder to supress the airfields then Numea but not as hard as Anckorage.

Most likely option: Rest his navy while doing convoy raiding and maybe one or two high profile port raids. I hate not having anyplace to base seaplanes. So I never know where his carriers are going to pop up. For all I know his fleet could pop up at San Francisco, bomb the tar out of it, and then leave before I could do much.

Another note on differing topics within our campaign. I have found the transition from hyper-aggressive offense to give-and-take counterpunching fascinating and rather fun. There is a constant attempt by me to find a weakness in Moses' growing strength and get a swing in that causes some damage without too much loss.

Two recent examples of this are:
1. Convoys I have located Moses' supply lines running from West Coast to NZ/Aust and have exploited them on several occasions. As long as I stay a decent distance from his bases (DAMNED LBA), I am free to do as much damage as possible. Greg has commented that this has been effective in that he doesn't feel like he has a HUGE surplus of shipping. If I could hit one more Convoy (one of his 100 ship convoys...), it might really help me.

2. Naval Battles Our 'Guadalcanal-like' struggle at Kodiak has precipitated a number of air-to-surface and surface fights. We have seen a lot of ships damaged. I watched as Moses pulled these ships back towards Anchorage where I could not finish them off. Numerous American BBs were hard hit but I couldn't put the final touches on them. I knew he would eventually have to pull them out to the West Coast for Repairs.

I use A LOT of Recon elements. At the end of November, I saw several groups of ships leave and head south. Knowing I couldn't get at his warships with my CVs because of his LBA AND CVs, I decided to take the risk and move against the shipping. Instead of coming due east from Dutch Harbor, I decided to move due South for 2 days and THEN swing east. My LBA Recon planes kept a decent track of his ships for 3 days. Once I was sure he was out of LBA range, I shifted my CV TF (6CV--3CV/CVL--300 planes) to FULL SPEED and headed South East. This was a risk since I am dealing with a chronic fuel shortage.

Pure happenstance put me between two TF. His CVs were NE of me at a range of 6--Yamaguchi moved 1 closer and my Vals w/Zero escort attacked. To my South was another TF where my Kates sank two CVE in short order. His CV couldn't attack due to range and wouldn't come closer (I guess react set to '0'). I lost HEAVILY in Zeros but they allowed my Vals to score heavily on 2CV. They narrowly missed hitting Enterprise a few times. Would have been GREAT to have got her as well!

The BIG choice was whether or not to continue the attack on day 2. His LBA might be a factor. I wasn't sure if I was dealing with 3 or 4CV. One (Saratoga)--I think--was crippled and another damaged, if there was just Enterprise undamaged, I felt it was worth the risk to attack again. If there were 2 undamaged CV then I might be in trouble due to my plane losses. Luckily, Moses pulled his CVs back and I was able to sink Saratoga and then Hornet.

To me, this is one of my best actions as a player. I had noticed a pattern, set-up my Recon to watch, and prepared an attack force. Once on-the-move, I followed the principle Nimitz gave Spruance at Midway of 'calculated risk.' It worked and I have helped myself for another 3-4 months of time to prep and raid...

Don't know if this is interesting to readers or not but thought I would throw it out.