Greyjoy,
First of all, I'd like to say that this has been one of my favorite AARS so far. I'm an AE newb with eventual Allied PBEM ambitions, so I'm watching this closely to learn as much as possible. So I'm going to throw a couple thoughts out there, but that they might very well be horribly wrong.
1) For all that's gone horribly wrong, as people have said you have had two major successes: the holding of Karachi and excellent kill ratios against the Japanese air forces, and the preservation of you're carriers. Imagine what Rader might have done with his navy if you're carriers were out of the picture; or maybe you rather wouldn't.
2) The constant air combat is keeping your pools drained, but is probably keeping his experienced pilot pool drained as well. He has planes, and you have pilots. If you can maintain a good kill ratio until you get good planes, then he might start to be in trouble. Coupled with the fact that if you can retake some of the Indian industry he might begin to lose the ability to manufacture so many aircraft. At the very least, he surely will have less obsolete aircraft to turn into kamikazes later.
3) He clearly has the fuel to move entire armies and fleets across halfway across the map at will, but can he really have that much of a fuel reserve?
4) What's your situation in northern Australia? Do you know how his naval search/attack capabilities are in his resource routes? He clearly has powerful ASW, but could you take advantage of the 2 day turns to send in small destroyer TFs into the Java Sea, or Kuriles, or somewhere? Experienced posters seem to think his air force must be spread thin. If most of his planes outside of India/SWPAC are ASW/Search, could a small surface force maybe get through to hit a convoy, or at the very least force him to withdraw bombers to defend against such raids?
Keep up the good work, even if you're barely holding now, imagine how you'll be doing once you get more stuff to play with.
Welcome aboard HouseStark! I see we share the same taste for books [;)]
I'm starting to build N-W Oz in these days. it will take time.
He has good Naval Search assets in DEI. My subs operating there from Perth are constantly spotted and attacked. Pretty impossible to slip through with a CL...and however i badly need every decent combat ship at the moment. i've lost a HUGE number of cruisers and i need them on the line.
Karachi was indeed important. Without it now i'll be in deep trouble...but he has more than i could handle in the Pacific anyway so it's going to be a bloodbath for the allies
Rader doesn't seem to do half measures. If you can threaten somewhere else decently important and far away, maybe you can make him burn a lot more fuel as he ships hundreds of thousands of troops and entire fleets across the map, preferably over a line of you subs. He really can't have that much fuel in reserve, can he?
What would be "decently important"? It would be much more important for Radar to shoot over anywhere and wipe out more ill-prepared invasions.
Radar likely has more than enough fuel to wander around the Pacific several times over because he has conquered so much of Asia.
Right now, every ship, plane and LCU that Radar destroys means that a serious Allied counterattack is delayed even more. That's the huge risk in sending off Allied forces to isolated bases when the Japanese still have a major combat capability.
Look at the situation in PNG and the Eastern Solomons. What has it gained Greyjoy to have sent his troops there? He is in the process of losing incredibly valuable forces at almost no cost to Radar except for some fuel and supplies.
Radar will get excess Supplies out of China and India that he can send to the big DEI oil bases to repair the refineries and oil fields. This will give him even more fuel. And Greyjoy can't do anything about that.
Until Greyjoy can defeat the KB, every time he sends forces out to isolated bases he risks losing his forces to overwhelming Japanese counterattacks. And even if he hangs on, his forces are then trapped.
Allied players can't afford to waste their forces in 1942 and in early 1943, because that will push the Allied ability to field credible threats into 1944.
There are plenty of places and ways to plan out the Allied counterattack, but random invasions in the hopes of "scaring" an opponent are not the way to do it and essentially just don't work in AE.
I agree ADB. The planned attack against Tarawa remains in the book for the moment.
However things have moved so fast that i really cannot follow your suggestion of abbandoning the Solomons. Won't let 100k men rot there and the last 4 days showed that, even if we lose, we can inflict some serious damage to the japs if we put up a fight. If i was more lucky some of those torpedo attacks against the 2BBs operating without air cover at Russell Island would have gone better...PM was an easy task for him. Too easy. I made several mistakes and i paid the price of it. The Solomons are going to be more difficult for Rader. he will win at the end, no doubt about that, but i wanna make him bleed as much as i can to get those bloody islands
Am i able to Naval Bombard enemy units landed at Tulagi?
Yes.
Or i can just send SCTFs to sweep the enemy transports?
Yes to that, too.
Something else to keep in mind for other times. It is quite likely that you did not see when his troops actually started marching from Buna. FOW extends quite well to on-map icons and very often you do not see movement on icons that are, in fact, moving.
Thanks mate. I'll keep that in mind. However i'm pretty sure that it didn't take longer than 3 weeks for him to march to PM...the number units present at Buna moved from 2 to 32 only in mid december...
How far is he positioning the KB from the landing sites? Would it be possible to move your CV's into range to strike at the landings on day1 then retire day2 before the KB gets a shot at you?
Saros, my CVs are in the WC R&R at the moment...even if i move them out they won't be able to give an hand before 20 days...and probably by then the solomons will be already lost
The reaction was stiff as foreseen.
Waves of bombers and fighters attacked Tessafaronga and swepts Tulagi. Both have been emptied from allied planes...Cat&Mouse again[:D]
The Army Fighters did provide some leaky CAP, exchanging blows with zeros and Oscars and Tojos.
Lunga however wasn't touched.
His ships fled both Tulagi and Russell Island...so we didn't catch any enemy TFs....however we did bomb Tulagi's beachheads and we went away without a scratch[:'(]
The KB didn't show herself today...
Russell was heavily bombed by a coordinated strike on the 15th...but bad weather on the 16th prevented any flight [:(]
His troops at Tulagi, left alone, are probably recovering, while 2 xAKs of mine managed to get through and are delivering 10k more supplies to the Tulagi Garrison...[&o]
Now we have to decide what to do...keep on bombing Russell Island? Send again another naval strike against Tulagi? Move back my Cactus Force from Lunga?
While all of this happen at Karachi 360 Tojos are sweeping everyday, killing lots of allied fighters...
To coordinate this strike we spent 600 PPs in order to attach the Air HQ at the SWcommand (Ndani is attached to the SWcommand) and all the 4Es groups to the Air HQ...but results were good enough[:)]
Now my guess is that he's not attacking at Tulagi cause, knowing Rader, he wants to have a massive striking force in order to be sure of getting the base. So probably his troops are in a bad shape after the landings and he wants more supplies for them and more fresh troops...so we have to expect a brand new massive landing anytime soon, fully supported by Bombardment TF, KB and SCTFs...what shell i do?
The last turn was a good turn again in the air. We shot down 44 enemy planes over Tulagi, only losing 17 of ours.
Now the enemy convoy unloading base forces and Engeneers at Russell Island has finally arrived and we've ordered another attempt to catch them with their pants down.
The Achilles TF will move south of Guadalcanal and should strike at the very first night (the 17th), while the Ramilles BBTF will take the northern route and should bombard Russell Island on the night of Jan 18th.
100 fighters are moved back on Tulagi to cover the unloading operation of more 7500 supplies and to provide a strong CAP for 160 C-47s that will start an air-bridge bringing supplies.
10 Wildcats will try to provide LRCAP over our slow BBTF in order to keep the Netties away...
The KB is refueling at Rabaul along with his BBs...i hope to get out fast enough to be away from its striking range...
The 4Es will hit again Russell Island, and this time the P-38s won't escort but sweep Russell, in order to demolish the Rufe CAP he has placed there.
130 2Es will attack the Tulagi beachheads. Cover will be provided not by Escort but by CAP present at Tulagi.
As you remember, on the 1st Jan 1943 140k japanese marched out on Buna, taking the Owen Stanley route.
In 12 days of marching they reached PM in a very good shape, despite having suffered 2 days of bombings by 70 Allied bombers taking off from Cairns.
On the 13th 50k japanese delivered the first fist on the undersupplied and badly distrupted 2nd Aus Corp, composed by the 27th U.S. Division and the 87th NZ Bde, supported by 2 Artillery units. 3 level of fortifications crumbled down on the first assault.
On the 14th the fate of the PM defensors was already written. 13,000 allied are sent to POWs camp in Luzon and 3 Japanese armies were already able to march back towards Buna.
What really surprise me is the fact that Rader was been able to march on one of the possible worst terrain in the whole pacific with the equivalent of 7 Divisions in making 90 miles in less than 2 weeks!...
Are GreyJoy and I the only ones to find this absolutely ridiculous?
What's the solution to this logistical absurdity please anyone?
Jan 17, 18 1943
The Achilles didn't move as we hoped.
First of all no enemy ships were found at Russell island...then the Achilles TF didn't have any more op point to move back and got found by enemy Netties still in those dangerous waters... She ate some fishes along with a DD and is now on the iron bottom sound.
The Ramille TF taking the longer northern route arrived exactly on time (night of the 18th), bombed the base, and went away without a problem.
Our 4Es closed Russell Island for few days at least, while our 2Es attacked Tulagi beachheads.
The Japs at Tulagi did try an attack but obtain a bloody nose. Forts down to 4 but lots of enemies disabled.
An USMC Tank Bn is unloading at Tulagi along with more 7000 supplies.
Again the Cat&Mouse game worked. He bombed Lunga with 170 bombers escorted by 200 fighters (sweeping also Tassafaronga) but didn't obtain anything cause we had moved back to Tulagi all our air force. From there we managed to defend the landings and our C-47s against a series of enemy Netties attacks.
The KB is now south of Shortland...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Afternoon Air attack on TF, near Russell Islands at 113,136
Weather in hex: Severe storms
Raid detected at 105 NM, estimated altitude 10,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 41 minutes
Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 21
G3M2 Nell x 4
No Japanese losses
Allied Ships
CL Achilles, Torpedo hits 1
Aircraft Attacking:
4 x G3M2 Nell launching torpedoes at 200 feet
Naval Attack: 1 x 18in Type 91 Torpedo
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Afternoon Air attack on TF, near Russell Islands at 113,136
Weather in hex: Severe storms
Raid detected at 179 NM, estimated altitude 17,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 66 minutes
Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 21
A6M3a Zero x 43
B5N2 Kate x 12
D3A1 Val x 15
No Japanese losses
Allied Ships
CL Achilles, Bomb hits 4, Torpedo hits 2, and is sunk
DD Van Galen, Bomb hits 3, on fire
DD Dale
--------------------------------------------------
round combat at Tulagi (114,137)
Japanese Deliberate attack
Attacking force 56700 troops, 487 guns, 117 vehicles, Assault Value = 2058
Defending force 18442 troops, 342 guns, 440 vehicles, Assault Value = 405
Japanese engineers reduce fortifications to 4
Japanese adjusted assault: 913
Allied adjusted defense: 2086
Japanese assault odds: 1 to 2 (fort level 4)
Combat modifiers
Defender: terrain(+), forts(+), experience(-)
Attacker:
Japanese ground losses:
4770 casualties reported
Squads: 15 destroyed, 424 disabled
Non Combat: 23 destroyed, 276 disabled
Engineers: 2 destroyed, 16 disabled
Vehicles lost 20 (2 destroyed, 18 disabled)
Allied ground losses:
840 casualties reported
Squads: 2 destroyed, 61 disabled
Non Combat: 3 destroyed, 73 disabled
Engineers: 1 destroyed, 12 disabled
Vehicles lost 37 (1 destroyed, 36 disabled)
Assaulting units:
5th Division
52nd Infantry Brigade
4th Division
90th Infantry Regiment
4th Ind.Mixed Brigade
38th Division
13th Ind.Mixed Brigade
36th Infantry Regiment
Ichiki Det.
2nd Area Army
Defending units:
24th (Sep) Infantry Regiment
1st Marine Raider Battalion
23rd Marine Regiment
627th Tank Destroyer Battalion
16th USN Naval Construction Battalion
353rd Construction Regiment
97th Field Artillery Battalion
804th Engineer Aviation Battalion
139th USA Base Force
7th Marine Defense Battalion
21st USN Naval Construction Battalion
102nd USN Base Force
369th Coast AA Regiment
Afternoon Air attack on TF, near Tulagi at 114,137
Weather in hex: Clear sky
Raid detected at 119 NM, estimated altitude 12,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 47 minutes
Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 17
G3M2 Nell x 4
G4M1 Betty x 6
Allied aircraft
Spitfire VIII x 7
Spitfire Vc Trop x 4
F4F-4 Wildcat x 21
Japanese aircraft losses
A6M2 Zero: 4 destroyed
G3M2 Nell: 2 destroyed
G4M1 Betty: 2 destroyed, 1 damaged
No Allied losses
Allied Ships
xAK Meigs
As you remember, on the 1st Jan 1943 140k japanese marched out on Buna, taking the Owen Stanley route.
In 12 days of marching they reached PM in a very good shape, despite having suffered 2 days of bombings by 70 Allied bombers taking off from Cairns.
On the 13th 50k japanese delivered the first fist on the undersupplied and badly distrupted 2nd Aus Corp, composed by the 27th U.S. Division and the 87th NZ Bde, supported by 2 Artillery units. 3 level of fortifications crumbled down on the first assault.
On the 14th the fate of the PM defensors was already written. 13,000 allied are sent to POWs camp in Luzon and 3 Japanese armies were already able to march back towards Buna.
What really surprise me is the fact that Rader was been able to march on one of the possible worst terrain in the whole pacific with the equivalent of 7 Divisions in making 90 miles in less than 2 weeks!...
Are GreyJoy and I the only ones to find this absolutely ridiculous?
What's the solution to this logistical absurdity please anyone?
Other that is than not playing the game?
Roger
I agree.
Marching 7+ infantry divisions, 3 Army HQs, and 1 Area Army HQ overland from Buna to PM is gamey as hell.
Furthermore, where is your oppponent getting all these divisions? Is he simply ignoring the garrison requirements in India and China?
ORIGINAL: Roger Neilson II
Are GreyJoy and I the only ones to find this absolutely ridiculous?
What's the solution to this logistical absurdity please anyone?
Other that is than not playing the game?
Roger
No, you're not. No solution, as far as I know. The latest patches make these shenanigans harder, but supplying large amounts of troops across jungles of Burma or whatever is still possible.
Landing at Tulagi was quite costly for the Japanese. Your PT boats entered the legend (posthumously). As long as you don't allow any units to be eliminated entirely, even if Tulagi falls the whole battle will a Pyrrhic victory for your opponent, considering brutal Japanese aircraft, ship and squads losses.
Don't call it gamey. It isn't as long as i can do the same. It's a problem related to the system engine... that said, it's for sure something that needs to be watched by the Devs.
However FatR i do think Tulagi is getting expensive for him. For sure once that Russell Island will be secured things will be easier for Japan but untill that moment the Iron Bottom Sound isn't a safe place for neither of us.
The last turn was another good day in the air. 70 vs 22 in my favour, with very few planes of mine shot down and only 2 pilots KIA (both were Catalinas pilots).
The first Corsair squadron is being assembled at Ndani[:D]
Now the KB is in a striking position 1 hex south of Shortland, along with a strong BB TF. Pretty sure they'll come for Tulagi. I evacuated my Air Force back to Ndani where now i have assembled 300 fighters and 250 bombers.
I only moved 18 Torpedo bombers and 15 SDBs escorted by 15 F4Fs to Tassafaronga (which is operative again[:)]). The idea is that if my PTs manage to damage or to slow down the upcoming BBTFs, maybe they'll be able to score some lucky hit...you never know...better to try[;)]
Russell Island AF is closed so i'll rest my 4Es for the next 2 days, while my 2Es will keep on bombing Tulagi and my C-47s will start to bring in the 147th US Regiment. Tulagi supply level is up to 27k (it was 7900 one week ago)[8D].
If the KB will come raiding Ndani she'll find a bad surprise waiting for her...[:D] Without his dreaded LBA sweeps i don't think he'll come...anyway i'm well ready to welcome the intruders with 300 crack fighters (among them Spits VIII, SpitsVc and Corsair)
Furthermore, where is your oppponent getting all these divisions? Is he simply ignoring the garrison requirements in India and China?
No, don't think so. He's using garrison units to garrison the biggest Indian cities and in China, having conquered all of it, he can buy out many many divisions...plus it's scen 2 so he has more free divisions to spare since the beginning
Over Karachi and over Ndeni the world watched incredulous at the 2 most incredible bloodbaths of the whole WWII!!!
Where to start?
Let's say that he sent 500 bombers and 600 fighters over Karachi
and the KB attacked Ndeni with 200 Zeros sweeping from Choiseul Bay (how can they sweep so far!?!?!?)
...japanese paras conquered Rennell Island, while our bombers attacked Tulagi facing more than 90 KB zeros on LRCAP....
We tried to counterattack the KB but he had 190 zeros on CAP....We lost some 12 transports at Ndeni and probably a lot of planes on the ground...but the KB suffered badly...don't have the numbers yet but it was a carnage, both over karachi and over Ndeni!
