action...
AFTER ACTION REPORTS FOR 04/25/44
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Day Air attack on Chungking , at 43,32
Japanese aircraft
Ki-61 Ic x 106
Ki-84-Ia Frank x 56
Ki-49 Helen x 253
Allied aircraft
Spitfire VIII x 87
P-40N Warhawk x 26
Japanese aircraft losses
Ki-61 Ic: 22 destroyed, 36 damaged
Ki-84-Ia Frank: 10 destroyed, 23 damaged
Ki-49 Helen: 3 destroyed, 51 damaged
Allied aircraft losses
Spitfire VIII: 51 destroyed
P-40N Warhawk: 28 destroyed
C-46 Commando: 3 destroyed
B-25J Mitchell: 1 destroyed
Allied ground losses:
128 casualties reported
Airbase hits 26
Airbase supply hits 6
Runway hits 124
Aircraft Attacking:
13 x Ki-49 Helen bombing at 11000 feet
we decided months ago that it would be time to finish off the Chinese. The fact that B-29s could be based in China as soon as Chungking reaches the requested airfield size just made it more important to deal with the Chinese. Well knowing that we will take horrible losses when attacking the combined Brit/Aussie/Chinese fighters over Chungking (not to forget Chungking´s flak defense) we nevertheless decided that it is a must to finish off the enemy airforce there (something we should have done long ago when they were still flying Hurricanes). Of course, nothing went like planned. We had ordered 84 Tonies to fly a sweep from Hengchow (five hexes range) but not surprising, Hengchow was clouded in. So the combined strikes from Changsha and Kweilin arrived over the base where an undisrupted Spitfire/Warhawk Cap was already waiting for them.
Well, the following aerial engagment wasn´t surprising at all, it just went like it always did. BOUNCE, BOUNCE, BOUNCE, stupid BOUNCE. I took notes and the Spitfires shot down 23 Japanese fighters for not one loss on their side. The Warhawks accounted for another 5 kills for one Chinese Warhawk destroyed. Bringing the total kill rate during the bounce to 28:1. Now if this isn´t off, I don´t know. But I´m bitching about the same thing again and again, it won´t change. The fact that the Tony/Frank sentais that were completely shot up had an average exp of 87 makes it even more ridicoulos. The Spitfire pilots surely are veteran pilots but achieving a 23:0 kill rate is just off. And it is far more off than the 6:1 kill rates of the Japanese you see at the beginning of the game. Once again, it was all about their radar. Radar is magic in WITP.
No less than 10 minutes have I watched Spitfires bouncing on my high exp escorts until it finally ended, then bringing the kill rate back to favouring us. After the bounce we were achieving something like 3:1 in total, 2:1 against the Spitfires. What is really interesting is the fact that the Spitfire has a gun value of 10 but their .33 Brownings only have a penetration value of 1, which should not deal damage to the 2 armored Tony and Frank, leaving only the 20mm Hispano, giving the Spitfire a "real" gun value of 6 vs our fighters. While our fighters carry 12.7 mm MGs and 20mm cannons, all able to penetrate an armor value of 2. In fact, it was exactly the other way around. The Spitfires achieved a kill with every second burst (more or less) while our fighters needed at least four bursts to actually take a Spitfire down instead of only damaging it. So this leads to the question if the "official info" is correct that a gun (aircraft) can´t penetrate the armor of another aircraft if the armor value is higher than the gun value. If so, then this result is completely off because the Spitfire, Warhawk, Tony and Frank all have more or less the same durability and all have an armor value of 2, but the Spitfire knocks out my fighters without any problem, even though only the two cannons should dish out damage. Tony and Frank don´t do much damage with an armament that can penetrate the Spitfire´s armor. Once again, I´m shaking my head.
As you can see in the next post´s aircraft losses, only 18 enemy fighters were destroyed on the ground, proving once again that the enemy got a Cap rate of surely 90%+, considering the fact that surely not all fighters were operational and we should have destroyed more or less all grounded fighters as the airfield is trashed. Half a dozen of my radar sets give me a Cap rate of 45%... [8|] Depressing...
Flak fire wasn´t as severe as expected, the losses within our high experienced fighter sentais are a catastrophy though. It stays the same dilemma, we´re not really in a position to fight the enemy over their terrain. Would we have killed 70 of those experienced Allied pilots it would be ok, but I don´t expect more than 20-30 being killed, in the operations report there isn´t a single pilot with kills showing up as bailing out and being killed. The airfield is knocked out for the moment and there shouldn´t be much of enemy fighter resistance left after today. We will now keep up the pressure on both Kweiyang (to prevent the enemy from building forts) and Chungking (to prevent the enemy from building up the airfield to B-29 size and to take out the enemy airforce in China once and for all) - and to destroy supplies at both places. What we don´t want to see is an enemy Cap of 100+ fighters again, as this would lead to another blood bath within our fighters, therefore the primary goal now is to keep the enemy figther force in China knocked out. Even if Chungking´s airfield would be big enough to have B-29s stationed there, he can´t defend the airfield without fighters.
The fact that Chungking obviously has more than 20.000 supplies isn´t helping us though as the enemy get´s replacements. It´s also a bad timing to fight this atrittion war in China now at the same time the Allied start their offensive on another front.
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Day Air attack on Manila , at 43,52
Japanese aircraft
A6M5 Zeke x 94
J2M3 Jack x 47
J1N1-S Irving x 27
A6M3a Zero x 27
Ki-44-IIb Tojo x 70
No Japanese losses
Allied ground losses:
25 casualties reported
Airbase hits 3
Runway hits 74
Port hits 2
Port fuel hits 1
Aircraft Attacking:
32 x Ki-44-IIb Tojo bombing at 2000 feet
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Day Air attack on Blagoveshchensk , at 69,23
Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 74
A6M5 Zeke x 27
J2M3 Jack x 143
J1N1-S Irving x 108
A6M5c Zeke x 48
B5N Kate x 8
Ki-45 KAIa Nick x 36
Ki-61 Ic x 180
No Japanese losses
Allied ground losses:
12 casualties reported
Airbase hits 8
Airbase supply hits 2
Runway hits 268
Aircraft Attacking:
36 x Ki-61 Ic bombing at 2000 feet
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Day Air attack on 108th Region Fortress, at 65,32
Japanese aircraft
D3A Val x 24
D4Y Judy x 27
B6N Jill x 24
No Japanese losses
Aircraft Attacking:
24 x D3A Val bombing at 2000 feet
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Day Air attack on Chungking , at 43,32
Japanese aircraft
Ki-61 Ic x 80
Allied aircraft
Spitfire VIII x 12
Japanese aircraft losses
Ki-61 Ic: 5 destroyed, 16 damaged
Allied aircraft losses
Spitfire VIII: 8 destroyed
Great, instead of having bead weather in the afternoon too, now it´s fine weather and the damned sweep goes in, just to see another half dozen Tonies shot down, losing all pilots. [8|] Yes, of course the enemy bounced the hell out of my leading sentai, resulting in mostly damaged Tonies this time though.
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Ground combat at Blagoveshchensk
Japanese Bombardment attack
Attacking force 49235 troops, 529 guns, 2 vehicles, Assault Value = 1019
Defending force 50647 troops, 27 guns, 147 vehicles, Assault Value = 1060
