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Scenario: May 1st, 1942 through Dec. 31st, 1943
Side: Japan

May 1st: I do some rearranging of my base airgroups, dispatching a Mavis squadron to Lae and setting them to Naval Patrol.
I form 2 routine convoys (computer controlled) at Truk and let them go to work on their own.
Also I create 6 submarine patrol task forces and order them to patrol a very wide semi-circle from Bougainville to Port Moresby.
I create an Air Combat task force comprised of Shokaku, Zuikaku, Shoho, 4 cruisers and a handful of destroyers and order them to steam to Rabaul (also basing them there).

May 2nd: Create transport task forces at Shortlands and Truk, and begin loading naval construction units, engineers, and SNLF units to take Guadalcanal and Tulagi.
2 more computer controlled transport task forces created at Truk.
2 Squadrons of Rufe's (seaplane zeros) ordered to Shortlands and set for long range CAP.
Seaplane tender TF ordered from Shortlands to Santa Isobel to conduct Naval Patrol operations with its 2 search squadrons.

May 3rd: TF 201 (Carriers) arrive at Rabaul and top off their fuel.
Search planes from Lae spot an allied TF approaching Gili Gili (allied base at Eastern tip of New Guinea). Rabaul launches air mission to interdict task force.
36 Zeros, 18 Bettys and 30 Nells strike allied task force at Gili Gili. CL Hobart and CA Australia sustain heavy damage from two torpedo hits each. CA Chicago sustains light damage. No Japanese planes shot down. As the airgroup leaves the Hobart and Australia are both on fire.

Submarine screen and Search aircraft spot Allied TF of 2 CVs and 4 CAs steaming East from New Guinea. TF 201 is ordered to intercept and leaves Rabaul despite some of the ships having used up to 300 operation points in their refueling.

May 4th: TF201 manages to get within 100 miles of the Allied Carrier TF before they simultaneously spot one another.
The attack on Japanese TF201 is resolved first. 26 Zeros fly CAP over TF201 and manage to shoot down 5 or 6 Dauntless SBDs and Devastators out of 55 and 40 respectively. 15 more Allied bombers are lost to flak but some of their bombs and torpedos manage to hit home. The Myoko takes a 1000 lb bomb near the bow which penetrates the deck armor and sets the magazine on fire. Shokaku is hit by two torpedos and 2 bombs, sustaining moderate damage to systems, flooding, and light fires which will soon be put out. The Zuikaku isn't so lucky and is pummelled by 3 bombs and 2 torpedos which cause critical damage to ships systems, serious flooding and fires.

The riposte against Allied TF arrives in the form of about 50 Vals and 40 Kates with a strong escort of Zeros. I'm thankful for the extra 30 planes on the Shoho at this point, which are predominently Zeros but also include some Kates. The Yorktown and Lexington are identified as the two carriers, and they become the main targets of the air strike. The New Orleans also takes some light hits but nothing it wont recover from quickly. Three 18" torpedos launched from Kates hit the Yorktown along with 3 250 kg bombs. Only 1 of the bombs penetrates the deck but the 3 torpedos tear through the belt armor to cause serious flooding. The Lexington is ravaged even more badly by torpedos and bombs and I'm shocked that they both manage to stay afloat.

Meanwhile a follow up airstrike from Rabaul hits the TF at Gili Gili and sinks the Australia.

May 5th: Zuikaku splits off from the task force with a destroyer escort, and she is only able to make 6 knots. She is ordered to return to Rabaul but it is in serious doubt whether she will make it or not. Shokaku remains with the main force, her speed is down to 22 knots and they also are sent back to Rabaul. I'd like for her to stay and finish off the Allied carriers but she is battling fires and flooding, and it seems too dangerous to try to sustain air operations with her. The Shoho and two cruisers split off to follow the crippled American flat tops which have broken off from most of their cruiser escort and are limping back towards Noumea.
3 Submarine task forces are sent to follow the American TF and keep tabs on their locations.

May 6th: Shokaku makes it back to port, her fires are out and flooding is under control.

A squadron of Vals is transferred from Zuikaku to the Shoho, the rest of Zuikakus aircraft have landed at Rabaul and Lae.

Lunga and Tulagi fall to Japanese ground forces.

Vals from Shoho attack the Yorktown, hitting her with a 250 kg bomb which detonates an ammunition supply. Miraculously she stays afloat.

May 7th: Overnight we receive a report from our subs that the Lexington has sunk. Huzzah!!!

Another strike against the Yorktown from the Shoho and another 250kg bomb hits her, managing to destroy a 5" gun turret and seemingly nothing else. Is this ship unsinkable?

I order the Shoho to retire, and prepare the Shokaku to take her place at Rabaul.

May 8th: Shoho is sailing towards Rabaul, while Shokaku with an escort is trying to intercept the Yorktown before she makes it within air cover of New Caledonia.

Two more sea plane tenders are sent to the Eastern Solomons to increase air patrols.

Overnight we get the report from our subs that the Yorktown has sunk. Hooray!!!

May 9th-17th: I spend this time consolidating my gains in the Eastern Solomons and trying to figure out how best exploit the Allies who are now down two carriers.
The Zuikaku does manage to make it back to Rabaul but has sustained 81% systems damage and it appears it will be more damage then Rabaul can repair. She may have to be withdrawn to Japan.

I only made it to the 17th last night, more to come if it stays interesting <img src="smile.gif" border="0">

A busy week!

If you send a ship back to Japan or the US(Hawii?) for major repairs does it show up in the reinforcement "pipeline" somwhere so you'll know when it will be back?

Also do reinforcements arrive at a pre-determined point, on a pre-determined date, on the edge of the map?

Can this be easily exploited by human players? (hanging out at the reinforcement hex to sink anything that shows up?)

Is there any skewing of damage reporting, like ships reported as having been sunk that aren't, etc?

Thanks for the AAR. It sounds like air patrols on both sides are very effective at locating the enemy. Do you think they are too effective compared to history or were you just getting lucky? Along that line, are coast watchers modeled in some way?

elmo3

Coast watchers are in the game. However, given the operational level of the game perhaps they should be factor in overall detection level calcuations rather than specific game objects. SIGINT was equally effective but I as a gamer cannot choose to deploy SIGINT sites.

Thanks for the AAR. I was transfixed as I read it!! Need game... Need game... Need game...

I too am curious about the Fog-of-War aspects. I asked (a couple months ago) about the game's ability to deliver false, inaccurate, and/or "exuberant" recon reports.

What do you think? Did you get lucky? Were your unit's placed well for info gathering? Or was the Fog-of-War a little too clear?

Well, I think in this case I was very lucky with FOW but it was also due to my placement of search planes and submarines where I felt the most likely avenues of approach would be.

If I hadn't kept the 3 sub task forces actively trying to shadow the Carriers after the air-naval battle I most likely would have lost them as they withdrew and not been informed that they had sunk.

Several games I have played I have hit enemy ships really hard and not had a clue whether they sank or not because I lost track of them after the battle.

Hello Thanks Snigbert for your wonderfull AAR keep them comeing. Have you been able to play a 2 human game yet?

Thanks for the detailed recap....Every little bit helps as we wait for the release. I want this game bad! Anyway, how do the commander rankings work in UV...is it similiar to Pac War or are there any new twists?

Ah, they have ratings like 'Inspirataion' and 'Leadership', if I recall correctly. I didn't really look at it closely but I will tonight when I play. I also didn't notice if their ratings improved.

I did notice sometimes you get stuck with 'Staff Officers' when you form a tf or airgroup and they have seemingly random ratings. I don't know what criteria they use to assign staff officers.

Does the manual indicate how much the leader's ratings affect combat(or anything else for that matter), or contain any of the algorithms for combat resolution?

[ February 06, 2002: Message edited by: ratster ]</p>

Hey Beta testers - I know you're super busy and all, but I had a quick question. When you set your recon squadrons up, do they patrol all over, or can you assign sectors to patrol? If you get a chance, thanks in advance for an answer.

Hi Madflava13!
It appears that they patrol a 360 arc but you can control what percentage (in increments of 10) of the squadron actual goes into Naval search.

Mike

You can also control what elevation they patrol at, I believe.

You can select between Recon and Naval Patrol as well.

More of the AAR:

I spend the remainder of May working to increase my stranglehold on the Eastern Solomons, reinforcing the bases there and trying to build them up. Lunga is converted to a level 2 airfield and Tulagi is a level 2 port.

2 Fresh infantry divisions arrive at Truk, and I ship them off towards Rabaul, and send the Yekaza (sp?) and an independent infantry brigade to Lae.

I also notice that the rest of Japans carriers have arrived back in Japan from their sorties into the Indian Ocean, and get some good news. The Akagi, Kaga, Hiryu, Ryujo, Kongo, Haruna, 8 cruisers, 5 light cruisers and about 20 destroyers are being dispatched to Truk. They will arrive in 11 days.

Early June is spent using the Yekaza brigade and the Indie brigade to take Wau and Buna (the latter was undefended). I now control all of New Guinea except Port Moresby and Gili Gili.

The Zuikaku which had been badly damaged is sent back to Japan, and I'm told she wont be available for 327 days! Ouch! Well, I take solace in the fact that the Americans will never have use of the Lexington or the Yorktown again, so I can wait a year for the Zuikaku.

While I'm impatiently waiting for the carriers to arrive from Japan, Shokaku and Shoho sit in port at Rabaul. The Shokaku is slowly having the systems damage repaired she took in the battle with the Lexington and Yorktown. It was a bit more serious than I had initially realized, Shokaku has about 30% systems damage...but she should be much better in 11 days when the rest of the fleet arrives.

Also in this somewhat passive phase the Allies sneak cruisers in twice and bombard Lunga at Guadalcanal. I decide I'd better not let it happen again, I'm trying to keep those guys busy building airfields and they can't do it while being shelled by those pesky Americans. I gather a Surface task force consisting of 5 Heavy Cruisers, 3 Light Cruisers and 5 Destroyers and send them down from Rabaul to patrol Iron Bottom Sound.
Sure enough in a couple days the American cruisers return looking to hit their easy target once more, and my cruisers pounce on them in a daylight battle. The Americans brought 3 Cruisers and 5 destroyers to the fight, and we duked it out for quite a while at about 10000 yards.
At the end no ships were sunk, but several ships on each side were smoking and trailing oil in the water behind them. I think I at least showed them that Lunga wasn't a 'soft target' and they wouldn't return in the next few weeks to take another whack at it.

Soon enough my reinforcements arrive at Truk (which has also been receiving a steady supply of tankers, minesweepers, subs and cargo ships).
I send all of the carriers, battleships, cruisers and bunch of destroyers down to Rabaul in one task force and they go into port there.

Now I have a dilemma. I have 4 Fleet Carriers, 2 Light Carriers, and a considerable surface force with 2 battleships and lots of cruisers and destroyers. What do I do next? Are there any American carriers in the theatre? If so, how do I draw them out?
I decide to form to air combat task forces, one with the Akagi, Kaga, Kongo, CAs, CLs and DDs. Then next with the Hiryu, Ryujo, Shoho, Haruna, CAs and DDs. I leave the Shokaku behind because I'm not expecting a tough fight and she is still repairing. I also form a surface TF of Cruisers and Light Cruisers.

The Surface Combat TF is sent to bombard Port Moresby, while the two air combat TFs will move to positions about 100 miles East of PM and launch airfield attacks. PM has been the main thorn in my side as far as a land based air threat, and this should help reduce that and soften them up for an invasion.

Unfortunately things dont go quite as well as I'd hoped. Our two waves of attack on the base took a seemingly inordinate amount of flak and CAP casualties, and both dropped some bombs on the airfield. I think I lost around 30 aircraft totally, which was much more then I was expecting.
Also, they launched a counterstrike against the Hiryu/Shoho/Ryujo TF with their wimpy little Chickenhawk planes or whatever they are, and got a lucky hit on the Shoho which nearly sent her to the bottom.
So I quickly recalled the Air TFs to Rabaul, and diverted the surface TF to bombard Gili Gili instead since it looked much less dangerous.
However, in the good news department, two more battleships have arrived at Truk with some more cruisers and destroyers.

Now I am at this situation where I have another carrier in rough shape, and I made zero progress to show for it.

Next Chapter: Invasion of Port Moresby (to be played tonight)

Great summary! Keep them coming as this is all we have until release date. Oh yeah...nice job on the American Carriers.

snigbert

Are you playing each impulse or are you using continuous mode? Just wondering how long a "typical turn", if there is such a thing, takes and how much micromanaging you are doing. Is it safe to let the AI take over some of the functions like resupply? <img src="smile.gif" border="0">

Thanks for the AAR,
elmo3

I have been playing on 1 day turn impulses, and I would say it is about 50% orders, 50% turn resolution.

I set up 5 or 6 resupply convoys under AI control and haven't had any problems with supplies, so I figure it is working fine. Of course I didn't really know how many TKs and APs to put in AI convoys, I might be using way too many but it will probably take some trial and error to find the ideal.

Thanks. Keep that AAR coming!

Snigbert is my Hero <img src="eek.gif" border="0"> <img src="eek.gif" border="0"> <img src="eek.gif" border="0">
The Japanese version of Ernie Pyle keeping us poor folks on the homefront up to date on the news. (He better not let anything bad happen to CA Mogami!!!!) Unless you plan to land troops I think it very risky to send ships into LBA controled space, so what if you blow up a few aircraft they fly in more and repair the airfield in a day or two but the poor ship stays sunk. (The IJN contray to popular belief is not made of ships unlimited) If your covering a landing then the risk is required but No joy bombardments
<img src="mad.gif" border="0"> (think of the fuel) Good luck on Port Moresby <img src="biggrin.gif" border="0">

Well, the invasion of Port Moresby has been overtaken by events.

I looked at my scheduled reinforcements and saw that I had even more help on the way. The Soryu, Junyo, Zuiho, Kirishima and Nagato had left Japan and were heading to Truk to fall under my command. They would arrive in six days.

In the theatre I now have the following:
CVs Kaga, Akagi, Hiryu, Shokaku (damaged), Shoho (heavily damaged), Ryujo. On Route are the Soryu, Junyo and Zuiho as I just stated.

On the arrival of reinforcements I will have a total of 6 Battleships, about 20 CAs and CLs, and loads of DDs and other smaller ships.

I have been beefing up the ground forces in New Guinea, however each time I send transports to Lae they come under attack by Allied air units and it is starting to take its toll.

So as I'm sitting there plotting how to take PM, I notice an allied task force moving from Northern Australia towards Espiritu Santo. I check on it, and, lo and behold, there are two carriers. Decision time...I only have 3 carriers which I feel comfortable sending out to intercept the Americans with, and a light carrier. I could wait for my reinforcements to arrive and then try to find the American Carriers again later. Or I could act now.
I assemble an Air Combat TF consisting of the Kaga, Akagi, Hiryu, 2 Battleships and some cruisers and destroyers. I'm going to go after them. I set their course South to intercept the Americans.
Unexpectedly, the American carriers fall off the map during the resolution phase and suddenly show up about 100 miles from my TF as it steams South. They had made an unpredictable turn North...perhaps having spotted my TF and wishing to engage as well. At this point, the Miracle at Bougainville happened. (As it will go down in Japanese history books)
The Americans manage to launch two strikes at me before we locate them and attack them back. Each strike consists of at least 70 bombers and additional escorts. All they manage to hit with is 2 1000 lb bombs on the Mikuma. The Kaga takes -eight- near misses from bombs and torpedos, but in the end both air strikes fail to hit a Japanese carrier. We manage to shoot down about 40 American carrier planes as well.
Our counterattack is more severe and has more effect on the Americans. Both of their carriers, which turn out to be the Enterprise and the Hornet, take serious torpedo hits.
With their air wings crippled by losses attacking us, and their carriers now badly damaged, the Allied Admiral decides to abandon the two ship and try to save the rest of his surface vessels in the TF. My unharmed (except for the Mikuma which I detach and send home) task force follows the two crippled American carriers and we finish them off at our leisure.
All the world hails our great victory!

Now, I mentioned in the last part of the report how the allied Cruisers had been sneaking up to Lunga and bombing the airstrip, then I sent them packing. Well, the impertenent little bastards start doing it again, but at night this time and with strange frequency so I don't know when to expect it. So I detach a surface force to deal with them once and for all. Some people just dont know when they've been defeated.

Next installment, the massive surface battles off of Guadalcanal.