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Pharnakes posted:Sounds like you've got a pretty decent idea of what you are doing, but just remember when you are losing your main goal is not to lose more, so go for low risk engaments even if they are also low reward. And don't give up on your submarines, although the bonks are fustrating sooner or later they won't bonk, and a detonation against any ship is as goood as sinking it for you. Anything small will sink but even one torpedo hit could easily knock a carreir out of the fight since he has no way to repair flooding above 5. He just retook Guadalcanal (in part because my reinforcement TF hosed off for some stupid reason). The thing that grinds my rear end was he was able to bombard almost nightly my troops with 5-6 BBs or CAs. How exactly he was able to do that I'm not sure, but there was no real way I could reinforce/resupply/protect myself when he has a massive fleet of 5 BBs including Mushashi and Yamato and I had two 14inch BBs. My CV were badly mauled fighting off his CVs, and while I got some licks his carrier zeroes chewed up my dauntlesses and avengers really good. Then on the way home i got torpedoed a bunch I couldn't get the Cactus Air Force running because there was no supply and my airfields were trashed. Early in the campaign I managed to land a bunch of Seabees and 15k supply, that night he wiped out _all_ my supplies and left me with nothing with a massive bombardment. The only way I've been able to last until now (end of October) is by massive airlifts using basically all my Cats and B17s to supply drop. But now that's come to an end and he's gonna be in for a rude shock. I've lost a shitload of transports and resupply ships to his subs, mine just loving bonk. In retrospect I should have port bombed his staging bases much earlier with my Cats and B17s rather than trying to feed the grunts for a few turns. Having him move his massive fleets back to Rabaul probably would have done me good. HOWEVER, I am not giving up. He's gotten all his combat strength already in reinforcement and has been running them hard. I've been hitting him as well, and I'll get 4 more BBs in late November. My airforce is taking horrible losses, where i might be losing 7-8 p40s a day, however he's losing 3-5 zeroes a day. I can replace those losses. he can't. His fleets have to be pretty much worn down and having damage he can't really repair. I know for a fact i've sunk at least two CVs and massively hosed up his other CVs. He might have one or two CVLs running around, but thats basically it. My B17 fleet is getting set up for a great day of port bombing, as I've noticed he's moved basically all his fighters onto Buna, where I'm taking those massive losses. I have a fleet ready to bombard there one night and hopefully mess up almost all of his available fighters. The next day my B17s will be port striking where I've found he's got his BBs/CAs parked without any fighter defenses. Oops. He's got 30-40K troops on Guadalcanal which will be 'fun' to remove, but he's not going to be having much fun watching them starve after I'm able to cut his supply lines. Its hard playing allies, seeing him run balls to the wall like he has been for the past two months. But I think he's pretty much exhausted himself and has no real way to recover. He got all his combat strength early. I get mine later. This game ain't over yet. 
Cimber fucked around with this message at 01:31 on Feb 13, 2024 |
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Feb 13, 2024 01:18
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Yeah if you don't decisively lose very early, you've basically already won as the Allies, because Japan has absolutely no ability to win a fight on parity and they can't match the American industrial engine once it starts chugging.
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Feb 13, 2024 13:20
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  RO-68 attacks a RAN escort, and rather surprisingly, hits her.  With no companions, RO-68 is in the clear.  The carriers bump in the night with a couple PT boats.  Gove is getting it again tonight.  They shouldn't hit much in these conditions.  We could really do with getting some AA here, but we are really limited in the quantities we have.  Another wave misses.  Of course, when they do hit, they hit a plane.  More.  Despite catching her in shallow water, we miss KXVI.  RO-103 surfaces to attack.  Various forms of small landing craft, or in our case barges, can be very useful for short range transfers, but they are very susceptible to being attacked by submarine guns.  I-180 tries her luck in RO-68’s hunting grounds, but Breese is having none of it.  RO-66 is likewise foiled.  And we’ve caught the Balao in shallow water on what must be just about her first patrol.  Even unmodified t95s could do some damage here.  But in the end we only get the one hit.  With no bombing missions queued today we can sweep freely.  If not particularly successfully, so far.  Let’s try again.  Better.  Even trading one for one is a win for us at the moment, for whatever reason he’s definitely putting a lot less planes in the air recently.  Low intensity combat today.  And even this is burning supplies at least.  Low intensity my rear end   Why do I always forget his propensity for doing this.  First sign of any offensive air from him in India.  Just movement harassment, although we aren’t actually moving in this hex anyway.  Mitchells at Gove.  Wait, they’re going for ground attack?  Ohh, they must have been targeted at the 65th brigade, which is no longer on the map. If I’d know they would load that quickly I would never have sent the carriers in   We haven’t seen the heavies over Mili for a few days.  To be honest we didn’t miss them.  And it’s the afternoon! No morning strikes on the carriers is a very good thing, let's hope it holds.  Light damage at Tarawa.  Much worse from the Avengers.  Lae…  The tension is getting unbearable.  Why did I send the carriers there   And we’ve got almost no CAP    OK, we’re out of the airphase.  A brisk exchange at Jubbulpore.  With no bombing, we cross the Ganges into Aligarh in good order.  And smash them, this time what looks like mostly Indian frontline units attempting to rest.  We’ve caught the Chindits!  Well, that was only going to go one way. Of course, we would do this immediately after we got those Hellens killed, but such is war.  And the 6th Guards is crossing the Ganges to complete, and hopefully collapse, the pocket.  OK, not quite so much.  That is a lot of disabled squads for us, yikes.  A good result by Bangalore standards.  Well, we didn’t get the surrender we wanted outside Cawnpore, but apart from that today has gone pretty well.   Eleven Mitchells makes up nicely for five Hellens.  An escort a day keeps our submarines, err, not away?  These things are hardly glamorous, but are very solid submarine hunters all the same.  We launch an LST at Hirosaki. We’ll never have very many of these, but they might be useful occasionally. Noticeably at 16kts they are a lot faster than their US counterparts, albeit with a greatly reduced capacity.  The US version for comparison.  Abemama has been developed to level five airfield today, the maximum possible.  All surviving men of the 65th, which is the vast majority of them, are safe and nearly back at Gove already.   He doesn’t seem to have sent any reinforcements towards attempting a breakout, but now that the 6th Guards division is here to hold the pocket, we can send the /C regiment of the Guards tank to reinforce the /B regiment and deny any possibility of a rescue.  There’s only really one hex I’m worried about being bombed in now, our armoured raiding party at Aligarah. This means we will have enough planes to spare that we can start resting the pilots a bit.  Without bombing of our own to slow them down, we probably can’t catch up to them before the next base, but we’ll drat well continue our rampage until Alikchi manages to find some way of stopping us. I'd love to go straight for Delhi, but although I’m sure it’s held exclusively by rear line troops, there’s 22k of them and it just isn’t going to work.  The threat of a breakout is now dealt with, but that leaves the task of hunting the Chindits down and dealing with them for good.  I’m very glad we didn’t have the carrier’s CAP tested again, and we shall now be withdrawing post haste.  An assortment of more or less crippled ships for the yards at Singapore. We’re going south about Java to dodge the worst of the submarines.
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Feb 28, 2024 19:24
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Well, a somewhat messy blunted offensive. Looks like some of your ships will be in dry dock for awhile and you'll have to draw up your plane pools. Least you were able to pull most things out...
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Feb 29, 2024 01:07
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  Herring misses a shot outside Gove.  Fairly crowded waters here at the moment.  And we miss Tjerk Hiddes.  Ouch.   Well Herring got pretty lucky to avoid damage in the shallows but then Shiranesan Maru also got pretty lucky so fair enough.  He’s spreading out to other bases in the area.  First sweep of the day.  Well that could only go one way, but we’ll take it.  I’m liking these odds.  I doubt they got away freely.  Another.  Every loss is really going to be hurting for him now.  And here comes his strike.  Not one through!  Vengeances in the next wave.  And we have blow through.  These losses must be unsustainable for him now.  Sweep?  No?  I don’t understand how they could dive on us when they were at 100ft, but whatever, a fat lot of good it did them.  Going heavy on the LRCAP here was definitely a good choice.  Although we’re finally starting to run dry.  Some of his best fighters waste their time escorting Boomerangs on an irrelevant mission.  Yikes, this is a lot of Liberators.  But we’ve bled them.  Two dead Liberators per crater in the runway, yes please.  Very glad these two waves didn’t manage to coordinate ToT.  And it looks like the CAP is already pretty depleted.  We got a good amount of hits in. Hopefully those planes aren’t flying for a while even if they aren’t destroyed.  !!!!!!!  No CAP  Not that Liberators are going to hit anything.  If he’s managed to get more Avengers into the theatre Taiho might have a rather ignominious career…  Even in the Central Pacific he’s surging the heavies.  More supplies are on the way already, nearly here.  He’s sweeping too, but in the wrong place.  He does still have some fighter presence then.  And of course, Broome.  Carriers???? Ballsy, but our fighter groups aren’t that exhausted.  We are sufficiently exhausted I wouldn’t have ordered a counter strike even if I knew their carriers would be in the area.  Hon hon hon!  *Twirls moustache*  More Liberators on naval strike.  The danger is in the heavies stripping our CAP away for naval strike to come in later.  The heavies themselves pose really no threat at all to a ship at sea, and are at considerable risk of getting flaked.  There’s more heavy AA guns in this fleet than there are in all of the mainland army defence batteries, probably.  Well at least he hasn’t moved these Dauntlesses.  And even if he has got some more naval strike in the Gulf of Carpentaria, it’s now afternoon and our CAPs will be renewed.  Lae doesn’t get it until the afternoon.  Light damage.  Still more heavies in the afternoon.  Now I am getting a little nervous that our CAP isn’t going to be able to handle a second carrier strike.  Not what I want to see.  Ten Zeroes in the CAP at the start of this wave   Dauntlesses, but they’re going for Gove. That’s the army’s problem.  How the hell did they get seven through??  What is the army playing at?  Probably on purpose.  Army   Welp, apparently the CAP got so hammered this morning they could only get five up this afternoon.  More heavies. At least they came after the Dauntlesses.  Tankers getting bombed is never comfortable.  Hopefully that’s it starting to wind down.  Jubbulpore.  Bangalore, still dragging on.  Yeah, no, you aren’t getting out.  And it looks like he’s trying to break a path in, too.  Denied.  I think that’s the pocket’s fate sealed.  Well that escalated from an easy to a rather scary day in the air at the end, but we got away with it.   It might have been a little dicey, but we loving trounced them in the air. I think that’s basically us having air superiority in India now, and with no capacity to bring in reinforcements, only a matter of a few weeks until we have supremacy.  Nothing burnt out yet, then.  Etorofu, the lead of her class, arrives at Tokyo today. Escorts might not be sexy, but she is a very solid example, with good speed and excellent endurance to go with a very considerable quantity of depth charges. By far and away the best escorts we have, we will build another 51 over the next year or so. By no means a negligible number, but not even close to enough either.  And at Nagoya, we launch a Standard “B”. These kind of slow ships will be escorted by our lesser patrol craft, the Etorofus will be saved for tankers and escorting capital ships in rear areas.  I’d have thought we’d see more aces than that, to be honest.  The RAF is getting very thin on the ground now in India. In comparison we have over 300 fighters alone at Lucknow. Granted that’s maybe ~80% of our fighters in the theatre, but we can now just overwhelm them with numbers without having to worry much about finesse.  It would appear he’s building another base at Maiana. Fine by me, I’m quite happy for Alikchi to be slow and methodical. Whoops   As incredibly tempting as it is to pincer these guys by swinging the Shokakus around New Guinea, I think we won’t. Currently we’re winning, so let’s not do things that might result in losing. If only I hadn’t sent the battlewagons back to Darwin yesterday I’d have definitely tried a lunge for a surface fight, but oh well.  Our guys have fought very well, but we’re down to less than a third availability, whilst still needing to cover a lot of extremely valuable shipping. Hopefully he’s also more or less exhausted himself with today’s effort.  So far their charges have survived, but there’s still some unloading to complete.  Here we have Kumano Maru, hit today by a 500lb bomb but holding up OK.  And here is Fukuoka Maru    All but one of our tank units managed to move out of Aligarh, which is a great result. I kind of expect the enemy here to have retreated before we can attack them again, but let’s see.  I think it’s safe to say we can digest this pocket tomorrow.  In addition we are going to capitalise on the 31st Armoured/C’s mistake and counter attack hard.  This will involve dropping the Hellen hammer as well, of course.  And we’re going to start making moves to interdict his remaining airfields. Depending on how big his supply reserves are here, it’s entirely possible he could bounce back, but he only has a handful of airfields left. By bombing them we both burn his supply and make it impossible for replacement planes to be assembled.  Time to find out just what is going on here.  We’ve had to totally empty Katherine to prop up the CAP over Gove. If he does bomb Katherine that’s unfortunate but the stakes are much lower there, and to be honest with so few planes dispersed on such a large airbase the damage should be minimal.  I cancel all other port operations and send everything but the amphibious ships back to Darwin. This will at least free up what passes for a port as much as possible to finish unloading the men.  I-180 has definitely had enough for one patrol.
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Mar 6, 2024 17:03
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I keep expecting the Gulf of Carpentaria fleets to get nailed by dedicated naval strike aircraft and it keeps not happening, this escalating suspense is going to have a wonderful denouement. (The denouement will be US submarines in the Japanese Inner Sea in late 1944 at this rate.)
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Mar 6, 2024 22:55
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Wow, drat. ~ 80 allied plane losses vs ~ 20 for you. That's a meatgrinder in India - and all those heavy bombers down is extra nice. Though how effective of a CAP can you get up with your carriers withdrawing? They out of the danger zone now and good for a retreat? And I guess everything not on CAP is on ASW for them? Also how many Helens do you think that you'll lose in the coming days (all of them is an acceptable answer) It worth it perhaps to consider expanding the port at Gove for the future? wedgekree fucked around with this message at 00:09 on Mar 7, 2024 |
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Mar 7, 2024 00:03
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  No submarine action tonight, and we start with a sweep over the Cawnpore pocket.  There’s a little bit of LRCAP up, but they escape.  Next he’s sweeping Lucknow?  I didn’t really expect that, but it looks like we got away with it.  Now he’s sweeping over our tank spearhead. This is more expected, but will probably get gnarly.  Like so.  No CAP up over Jodhpur.  And here come the bombers.  Not too shabby.  We sweep Gwalior.  He’s definitely running out of steam in the air.  Lots of little sweeps today, but we’re probably doing more damage than advertised.  Another wave hits our LRCAP.  Wait, no, we were attacking? With one Nick that didn’t bring bombs???  The main effort moves to hit the 31st Armoured where they threaten a rescue of the pocket.  Good bombing conditions.  Looks like the HQ soaked the majority of the damage, but hopefully the tanks are taking disruption at least.  Still sending the heavies to Gove, but are they tasked with Gove itself or the task forces?  Gove.  At least with this wave. And half loads too, look.  Foul weather in this part of the world today.  I could withdraw this garrison, but I think on the whole they are more use as a speedbump.  The next wave at Gove.  And this time they are going for the ships.  This is dangerous work for them.  But as we all know that’s not the real issue.  Again.  CAP is holding well, so far.  Liberators out in the Pacific in strength.  Not achieving hugely much, though.  Now they’re going for Kwajalein??  But rather than bomb the incredibly valuable tenders at anchor in the atol they go for the non existent “airfield”  CAP looking healthy enough for now.  But how long can we keep it up for? How many Liberators does he have to throw at us?  A quick interlude.  The Dauntlesses are back, but this time we still have CAP. Hopefully.  We did.  But he still has Libs.  Sending your battlewagons out to own the Libs or something. I don’t know.  The point is that Liberator isn’t going home.  More action in India.  Closer to even this time.  And that’s the afternoon. CAPs will be renewed and we are safe at Gove.  Unlike these sorry bastards getting a rough one in the clear weather.  As long as he doesn’t bomb the port it really doesn’t matter.  An afternoon wave for Lae.  Probably because the Dutch are on anti shipping as a primary.  We get a little extra sweeping in.  Very nice.  Jubbulpore opens the ground phase.  And they haven't escaped, or at least not all of them.  A nice batch of PoWs.  Almost all frontline troops. If they’d managed to rest and recover these are actual significant combat units.  And now to try and collapse the pocket.  It looks like a tank unit got ambushed in the push, but solid progress for all that.  Only one surrender, but they can’t hold out much longer now.  Bangalore is distinctly less exciting.  And let’s see what exactly he has smuggled into Nander. https://lpix.org/4678315/tagu.gif Despite the odds we come out ahead, clearly they have no AT weaponry.  The real prize here is the RAF units, and judging by the amount of men total they are probably mostly intact, not empty evacuated shells.  Tagula Island has clearly been chosen to be an airfield. This is in some ways a more significant move than Milne Bay, Milne Bay doesn’t really let him do anything he couldn’t already do from Port Moresby, but this will make shipping in the Solomon Isles a much risker proposition for us.  Back to India.  And that’s the end of any hope for them of breaking into the pocket.   I’m feeling good about today.   We held our own in the air despite our ridiculously over extended LRCAP.  And no naval action.  A hard day for the aces.  The 43rd engineer regiment musters at Nagoya. In a couple days once they have packed, we will be able to form the 43rd division and then, as they are purchasable, consider deploying them.  And at Tokyo the 1st Guards artillery regiment is formed.  This is the last piece of the 1st Guards Division, which is duly formed.   I think we’ll drop the army hammer on Gwalior tomorrow.  We’re getting pretty tired, but then the defenders of Bareilly shouldn’t be in much better shape either. We’re pushing on.  If recon is to be believed, there’s only one straggling unit left in this hex now. I’m not at all sure recon is to be believed, but gently caress it we’ll try.  The blockade is going to need to be rotated soon, but we might as well spend some sorties first.  Everyone else is safely away, so the carriers can leave Gove too.  Under cover of the carriers we are going to move a coastal gun battery down to Guadalcanal. It’s not without considerable angst that I make this deployment, we really don’t get many of these units and if I send them to the wrong places then they will just rot and contribute nothing. Let’s hope those bombardments of Lunga weren’t one offs.  Bombing our outlying positions is one thing, but we can’t have him bombing Kwajalein. Thankfully he went for the “airfield” that is actually just a handful of seaplanes rather than the shipping in the atol. Happily the situation in the Gulf of Carpentaria is winding down now, so we can afford to shift some Zeros east.
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Mar 7, 2024 18:45
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I wonder if the bombing of Kwajalein was recon by fire and he's going to shift to the port tomorrow.
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Mar 7, 2024 18:59
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Looks like a pretty even day in the air, but Gove has everything of use out of there and it looks like your transports didn't even sink! So are your carriers considered safe now that are going north?
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Mar 7, 2024 22:54
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  I-160 has been caught near the Ellice Islands.  What?? Well that was highly unexpected. I don't think we’ve lost a submarine in blue water until now.  I-157 has an excellent opportunity to get revenge.  And squanders it entirely.  He’s got aeroplanes at Groote again!  You were worried that the Vc was too good Jobbo?  Now P-38s on the other hand.    Airacobras we can surely handle.  Barely.  He’s back with a vengeance, that’s for sure.  But we do better with this wave.  Oops, he’s moved some CAP to Jodhpur.  Not too bad.  And to get a Mitchell it’s practically worth it.  If we can now push bomber raids through without horrible losses that’s a very significant change.  Sweep is late at Gwalior, but we have the escorts.  The weather ain’t great, though.  And our Zeroes paid a very heavy price to get the bombers through.  It didn’t even deplete the CAP!  Where is that sweep  Well, we had several good days in a row  He launches a sweep of Cawnpore, but we really don’t have anything much to defend here.  This isn’t the only sweep though.  Welp. I’m pretty sure these are his only six Spitfire VIIIs remaining, but he’s getting his money worth out of them.  He’s not short of the Vcs though.  Although this time they do pull ahead, just.  We haven’t seen him at Gasmata for a few days.  Not bombing the airfield? Interesting.  He can’t be planning an attack here anytime soon, surely.  Kwajalein again. The Rufes are up but where are the Zeros??    No Zeros needed, apparently.  Still more Airacobras.  We’re running out of CAP. At least there’s nothing much here to be bombed, now.  Today is a day to be swept.  Not too bad on this wave.  I’m really surprised he’s manage to fit so many planes into what’s left of Groote Eylandt.  loving ouch. And we were doing so well at Gove until now.  Warhawks in India this time.  And we win this bout.  It’s the afternoon, and we’re finally flying our sweeps.  Wait, there’s no CAP at Jodhpur? How is that possible?  Or Gwalior??  Nothing to oppose the CVLs at Karachi.  Only two supply hits.  Makin receiving the USMC’s attention today.  Misdirected attention.  Crossing the river into Jubbulpore. This will be rough.  I didn’t think it was going to be that rough  At least we didn’t get bombed!  But we’ve finally stalled out.  No disaster, though.  It was just a straggler here.  Don’t fall behind the herd!  The third attempt to digest this pocket.  Today it’s the engineers who get hosed up.  Bangalore is quiet.   Well, we got absolutely shafted in the air, but so it goes.   Not even three to one? Not as shafted as I thought, then And check out those four! Liberators our Rufes somehow got.  Well supposedly we got adequate revenge for I-160, but I’m not convinced.  Three dead, two wounded and one missing, better than I expected to be honest.  We took a hammering here, even if we did mostly hold our own in loss ratios.  With our failure to take Bareilly today, we are of course open to getting surrounded, because we only possess the one hex side. We are not exactly in fit fighting shape either, and we can’t double back because we will be pursued by his stack from Agra.  If I was Alikchi I’d throw every bomber I have at Bareilly tomorrow, but after today there isn’t really anything we can do about that other than hunker down and hope for the best.   It’s possible we will manage to take Bareilly, but I’m very far from relying on it. We will send a regiment from Lucknow to open up a line of retreat.  We need to shift tactics in the air war in India. As ever the ultimate goal remains to put bombs on enemy ground pounders whilst keeping ours safe, but the best way to achieve that is now by suppressing enemy airfields, he only has five airfields size four or larger left - Delhi, Bareilly and Jodhpur near the front and Hyderabad and Karachi in the rear. And of those five Karachi and Jodhpur are already close to being out of action whilst Bareilly is too dangerous to use. Which is all a long winded way of saying we will no longer bother with dangerous LRCAP. For some reason we got away with it for a few days, but today was a punishing return to the average. Instead it’s all about sweeps over his airfields, then bombing once the Hellens have had a few days to get over this latest trauma.  With the majority of the burden for aggressive sweeps inevitably falling on the navy, the army will target closer, less important air bases.  We don’t have air superiority yet, of course, but it is full moon and Delhi really has minimal defences. We could try a low level raid on the airfield with the navy.  Rather than just leaving our artillery to rot as we have at Bangalore, now that we have Jubbulpore surrounded I’m going to pull the bulk of our force out and send them to fight somewhere relevant.  I’m pretty sure he’s using these transports at Gwalior to evacuate from Nander. If we can’t safely bomb them on the ground at Gwalior we’ll render the Nander airstrip unusable instead.  And the 7th tank brigade is rested, so they can attack again.  With her sister out of action for six months or so, Hiyo is going to the Arabian theatre for lack of anywhere else her speed fits in. Since I feel like he isn’t going to deploy the G3s there, the Inabas will go too to replace the Yamatos.  Tennant Creek appears to be vulnerable to a raid.  As does Cloncurry. I’m not sure what he has at Tennant Creek, but Cloncurry is definitely hosting Liberators.  I decide to buy out the 1st Guards Division, who will form the basis of the garrison of Java.
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Mar 8, 2024 22:07
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Bloody day int he air. They can't be all good.
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Mar 9, 2024 00:45
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SIGSEGV posted:I keep expecting the Gulf of Carpentaria fleets to get nailed by dedicated naval strike aircraft and it keeps not happening, this escalating suspense is going to have a wonderful denouement. It's not easy to pull that off in the best of circumstances, and Alikchi isn't in the best of circumstances in this theatre after a couple of weeks of bombardments and having his naval strike shot down picemeal. Unless you get very lucky you need overwhelming numbers of LBA to hit carriers, simply becuase they never coordinate their strikes the way carriers do. Or, well, they might do, but that's where the luck comes in. It's not predictable or reliable. wedgekree posted:Well, a somewhat messy blunted offensive. Looks like some of your ships will be in dry dock for awhile and you'll have to draw up your plane pools. Least you were able to pull most things out... We got out without any significant permanent losses, and are ahead on points from the whole opperation by at least 3:2 I think. On the other hand we do have significant units in drydock because of this, whereas Alikchi didn't have anything important hit at all. Overall a pretty even stalemate. wedgekree posted:Wow, drat. ~ 80 allied plane losses vs ~ 20 for you. That's a meatgrinder in India - and all those heavy bombers down is extra nice. Though how effective of a CAP can you get up with your carriers withdrawing? They out of the danger zone now and good for a retreat? And I guess everything not on CAP is on ASW for them? We're past Gove now, and yes, that's safe. I suppose he could base strike from Mornington Island and extend that range, but even if he could get any of them to fly at all, he can't get the numbers into such a damaged airfield for a week or so at least I think. We'll loose 100 Hellens a month because that's how many we make and the pool is empty so they're straight off the factory and into the frontlines. Really showing the diference with the custom scenario here, given that in reality Japan only built 819 Hellens total. And we've already lost well over 500 The port at Gove will be expanded eventually, but it's bottom of the priority after forts and finishing the airstrip. Ports are only really needed for timely loading, unloading can be done perfectly well with amphibious TFs. wedgekree posted:Looks like a pretty even day in the air, but Gove has everything of use out of there and it looks like your transports didn't even sink! So are your carriers considered safe now that are going north? Back under the Darwin CAP umbrella, it's all safe now.
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Mar 9, 2024 23:31
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So what are your other operational plans now given your forces have retreated to Gove and the India offensive seems to be going well? Are you going to be standing down things for a bit to let ships repair/planes replenish or have other ideas for offnesive things?
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Mar 9, 2024 23:41
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  RO-68 bonks a minelayer.  Six torpedoes, one hit and a bonk   I forget he has night fighters now   They don’t seem to have done much.  Not too scary then.  Two kills and a supply hit, I’ll take it.  Probably not really worth a torpedo anyway.  But now she’s back to use the deck gun, a much better idea.  Every LCT we sink here is an LCT he can’t invade somewhere important with.  We open with a sweep over Delhi. Let’s finish this.  That’s not how it’s supposed to go!  Attempt two.  I am confused and disgusted.  All the CAP we can muster at Gove is a lone Nick.  Or two, apparently.  What the gently caress are they doing up there?  No wonder we’re getting our poo poo pushed in  Stop it! You’re not allowed above 25k!!  And I’m not sure what’s up with that Shroedinger’s Hurricane.  The Hellens arrive at Nander.  Come on, I know it’s raining, but that’s an easy target if ever there was one.  Not one of you got shot down!  At this point maybe they need to be shot at to focus properly?  So much for cratering the runway.  And the Tennant Creek idea is a wash.  Literally. That’s annoying, he clearly has vulnerable heavy bombers here and it’s not like we can risk doing this again tomorrow.  Mitchells coming under our CAP at Gasmata.  But we get one on the way out.  The Dutch next, with an escort.  And the weather here is no better than Tennant Creek.  We get some Kittyhawks anyway.  loving bombers having actual defences!  Oh well, two Zeros for a Mitchell isn’t the worst trade, I suppose.  And then the Libs, who miss.  What we have left at Gove is sensibly staying down.  Now sweep at Gasmata.  Today is not our day.  Where has he found all these fighters from? I suppose I should just be grateful he didn’t manage to find them last week.  They’re up in the stratosphere at Jodhpur too  Somehow we salvage it.  Even the Airacobras are too high.  It doesn’t save them.  I don’t know why we waited until the afternoon for these sweeps, but since we aren’t bombing it doesn’t really matter.  Not that the sweeps are really achieving anything.  Makin again with the USMC.  Makin really is a pretty irrelevant dot.  It is a (1) (2) but then so are Tarawa to the south and Mili to the north, making Makin pretty pointless.  And the Liberators are back at Mili.  This is inhibiting our efforts to finish the fortifications, but surely he needs to take at least Tarawa first before he tries to attack Mili.  Attempt # whatever, I’ve lost count.  Getting there!  Notably, the odds have doubled compared to yesterday.  Bangalore drags on.  At Nander we are again able to push without losses, presumably due to their total lack of AT capability.   Well that was less than ideal.   Actually, it seems like his losses were being massively underreported for some reason. Still, he’s cheating, I tell you, cheating  Landing craft aren’t big enough to display on the records, but I’m pretty sure they’re still worth a point apiece.  We lay down a new escort at Shanghai. These are quick and nasty builds, she’ll be ready in exactly one month.  The 43rd Division is complete today. THey will rail to Tokyo where we will buy them out and send them to New Britain, I think.  It’s gone quiet (ish) in the Gilberts, that buildup must really have been only about taking Maiana. Obviously he’ll be back at some point, but for the moment I’m happy to take the chance to finish the remaining 30% to maximum forts on Tarawa.  He’s just loving begging to get bombarded here.  We can’t really know why he just lost those C-47s, although it seems a little coincidental he’d lose them the day I decide to crater the runway they are flying to (probably). On the other hand the BDA now is no more optimistic than the combat reports were, so maybe it is pure coincidence.  He’s beaten us to the punch here, and could break into the pocket if he wanted to. Fortunately we are already moving, so all that would happen if he did that is an extra unit stuck in the pocket.  I don’t really understand why he doesn’t just use this immense doom stack to march down the road to the rescue, it’s not like we could possibly stop him. I can only speculate that either they really are running out of supplies, or our recon guys are high and massively over reporting.   Disruption has come down alot, we will attack tomorrow. We can also see he is retreating, and Aligarh has been occupied, but hasn’t auto flipped. This buys us another day before his counter attack can catch up to us.  We’ll do recon by bomb of whatever this is moving into the pocket with the Hellens.  There’s now more stuff parked at Hyderabad than at Karachi, so we will shift the CVL’s strike for tomorrow, if they feel like flying it.
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Mar 10, 2024 12:37
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Pharnakes posted:
Is that a breach of your house rules to be up that high? I know some PBEM games say that planes can go only to the max alt band before they get their dropoff, so no p-39s at 40K, they have to be down at 10K.
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Mar 10, 2024 14:07
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Yeah, that’s the implications plus the use of the heavy bombers to melt the carrier CAP was also prohibited. Sounds like Alikchi is feeling like those rules are more like guidelines, really.
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Mar 11, 2024 14:52
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On the other hand, there were some serious concessions made for the Java oilfields being perfectly destroyed, the scythe being way too good too early, the b-17 being murderously effective, the accidental forgetting to enable that carrier/heavy cruiser replacement gimmick and then the fact that China is quiet and thus not tying up a bunch of Japanese army forces and logistics, who'd otherwise be busy curb stomping doomed Chinese formations for ever and ever. The addition of the two extra fleet carriers from the word go on the IJN side also tipped the favor well over to the "here comes the pain train", so I'm not really going to bonk Alikchi on the nose with a rolled up newspaper if he's starting to feel a bit pressured.
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Mar 11, 2024 20:36
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Oh, I absolutely wasn't trying to be critical at all or cause a fuss over HR enforcement, I was just curious if that was a HR in the first place or if Pharnakes was just surprise to see fighters up there that high. More of a 'OMG what are they doing up there being able to do THAT!?!" As far as the quiet China, yeah that's really rough for Alikchi as China really does turn into a black hole of logistics and misery for the IJA after the first six months. Sure, you can crush all those formations but they keep respawning. Meanwhile IJA has to deal with increasingly stretched logistical lines as they get closer to the capital. Also, I think having all pilots spawn in at 65 XP is a huge bonus for Pharnakes, since he doesn't have to go through the excessively long training cycle that sucks up resources. Later in the war it really becomes a case of 'Do i send these guys I just got outta TRACOM to the front, or do I park them in a training group for a few months'
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Mar 11, 2024 20:59
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wedgekree posted:So what are your other operational plans now given your forces have retreated to Gove and the India offensive seems to be going well? I have no opperational plans beyond "win in India" which translates into be as conservative as possible with airframes everywhere else so we can achieve that. So yes, we will be winding our necks in considerably, and soon enough the first Essexes will be out, which won't bring carrier parity but will mean we can no longer just do whatever the gently caress without really worrying. Cimber posted:Is that a breach of your house rules to be up that high? I know some PBEM games say that planes can go only to the max alt band before they get their dropoff, so no p-39s at 40K, they have to be down at 10K. We do have such a house rule, yes, but it's 2nd highest manuever band, or highest +5k. Velius posted:Yeah, that’s the implications plus the use of the heavy bombers to melt the carrier CAP was also prohibited. Sounds like Alikchi is feeling like those rules are more like guidelines, really. We agreed no such rules at the begining, so it's absolutely fair game for Alikchi to be doing that. The only way to make it not happen would be to ban 4e naval strike, which some people do, but I don't like it because the USAF absolutely tried it in real life, it just turns out it sucks. As it does in game, the problem is you can't tell your CAP to leave the non threatning bombers alone and save themsleves for the Avengers. Cimber posted:Oh, I absolutely wasn't trying to be critical at all or cause a fuss over HR enforcement, I was just curious if that was a HR in the first place or if Pharnakes was just surprise to see fighters up there that high. More of a 'OMG what are they doing up there being able to do THAT!?!" Alikchi isn't breaking the rules, I'm sure, it's just the game being weird and sending some flights up higher out of the air combat model's own intative. The weird bit is that this normally happens after the first wave has engaged, presumably in some kind of attempt to simulate pilots gaining altitude for advantage in a dogfight, but for some reason the last few days it's been happening straight away. It's not really going to change anything much in the big picture. Vanila, any half way decent Japanese player will have outright crushed China within 6 months to a massive influx of VPs, and then be able to deploy almost everything there to other theatres. I can't do that becuase the garrison requirements were bumped up significantly, to the tune of 10 or more divisions stuck in China and undeployable. China is an outright liability for the allied player, and we removed them for that reason as well as becuase we didn't want a land war, although I'll admit we didn't really think through the strategic implications of giving the Japanese player nothing to point the army at. I still have to go through that cycle, all of the economic drain is in producing the pilots into the pools. Once they are there they can be trained up with a trival investment of supplies, it's player attention that is the cost there. In fact since neither of us thought to check just how many pilots Japan gets in scen 2, 1/3rd of our economy goes to training pilots, 95% of whom will never see action becuase we can't possibly produce planes for them because 1/3rd of the economy is training pilots
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Mar 11, 2024 23:02
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Pharnakes posted:I have no opperational plans beyond "win in India" which translates into be as conservative as possible with airframes everywhere else so we can achieve that. So yes, we will be winding our necks in considerably, and soon enough the first Essexes will be out, which won't bring carrier parity but will mean we can no longer just do whatever the gently caress without really worrying. I'm on my first japanese playthrough against the AI and I haven't quite cracked the "China code". I've killed 10k Chinese AV, but that just means Chunking now has 6k AV and growing, and I don't see my own 10k AV doomstack cracking that in a timely manner. Do you have to take pains to not kill Chinese units entirely and beeline Chungking and Changsa? I keep worrying that the mostly empty shells will cut me off and stop resupply to my doomstack. I thought I'd go for the northern route from Sian into the Chungking Valley to ignore the dug-in units in the bad terrain in the south, and the river crossing into Chungking itself, but charging though the south might be faster? In my mind there's a clock starting when you nuke Loyang before a lot of units respawn and that timeline is just too tight. I'll trivially win a major victory on 1/1/43 barring a miracle, so I'll have to mod VPs extensively to prolong the war for another time, but I _want_ to conquer China. Caconym fucked around with this message at 12:32 on Mar 12, 2024 |
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Mar 12, 2024 12:29
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Caconym posted:I'm on my first japanese playthrough against the AI and I haven't quite cracked the "China code". I've killed 10k Chinese AV, but that just means Chunking now has 6k AV and growing, and I don't see my own 10k AV doomstack cracking that in a timely manner. I think you basically have to make a beeline for Chunking as soon as possible, nuking anything in your way. The shattered divisions reform, yeah, but at a very low strength. Also China is critically low on supplies throughout the entire war, so the faster you can cut the Burma Road the better. For those who don't know, if the allies can trace an unbroken ground route from Rangoon to Chunking then 500 supplies a day automagically appear in Chunking. Cutting that really screws china.
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Mar 12, 2024 12:55
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Cimber posted:I think you basically have to make a beeline for Chunking as soon as possible, nuking anything in your way. The shattered divisions reform, yeah, but at a very low strength. Also China is critically low on supplies throughout the entire war, so the faster you can cut the Burma Road the better. The Burma road supplies show up on the border, in a base i can't remember. Tsuyung? Chunking gets another 400 supplies/day for free regardless as long as it's controlled by the Chinese, so the respawned units can't really be starved out, and sit behind forts in 3x-terrain across a river. Ugh. Shattered units reform at 1/3 strength, but the max of a chinese corps is 700+ AV and they're never at full strength to begin with, so you basically have to fight them again at about the same strength they had the first time around.
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Mar 12, 2024 15:17
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Caconym posted:The Burma road supplies show up on the border, in a base i can't remember. Tsuyung? Chunking gets another 400 supplies/day for free regardless as long as it's controlled by the Chinese, so the respawned units can't really be starved out, and sit behind forts in 3x-terrain across a river. Ugh. Oh, i thought the BR supply appeared in Chunking too, but I guess it makes sense to spawn at the terminus town. I guess if you can rush across the river quickly then you should be alright. Doesn't the IJN start the game with a few tank divisions in China?
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Mar 12, 2024 15:21
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Cimber posted:Oh, i thought the BR supply appeared in Chunking too, but I guess it makes sense to spawn at the terminus town. Just a few regiments, totaling a few hundred AV. Guards Tank Division with 200 tanks spawns in Cam Ranh Bay in Vietnam in the spring of '42, but that's a bit late and is also unrestricted and better used elsewhere. Tanks are pretty invulnerable to Chinese infantry, but they can be overrun with pure AV and forced to retreat, taking heavy losses from the retreat, so they need infantry support, and ideally open terrain.
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Mar 13, 2024 00:25
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Grey Hunter did an LP as the Japanese where he tried to take Chunking and IIRC eventually gave up because it's extremely hard to pull off if you're not explicitly letting all the other Chinese forces stay alive so they don't reform in Chunking.
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Mar 13, 2024 03:32
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  RO-106 misses a destroyer off Milne Bay.  I’d been kind of hoping this convoy would stick around long enough to be a target for our carriers once they’re done with escort duties in the slot, but apparently not.  Delhi again.  Well it’s no fun if the night fighters actually work.   They’re at it too, Ahmedabad.  Look at that, half loads. He no longer has any airfields he can operate the heavies from with full bomb racks.  Honestly, at this point I’ll take that kind of trade.  Half loads aside, the weather is going to ensure no hits here anyway.  The twin engined Mitchells are now heavier bombers for him than the big ladies.  The Hellcats are spreading west.  Although they haven’t seemed very impressive from our previous encounters with them.  Corsairs we have yet to really engage, but on paper they look super scary.  Gasmata is presumably intended to become the new Milne Bay, but Gasmata has level six forts, albeit no proper garrison for it yet.  This will need to be fixed, because we clearly aren’t going to be able to defend it from the air.  However, as we are now seeing for India, the “weaker” side in an aerial campaign often ends up with a better kill ratio.  As we are probably about to see a classic example.  Whoever it is here on the ground, they are very wet.  And it’s another regiment of the 31st Armoured, alone and without support, because that’s how the 31st Armoured rolls.  Well, without ground support.    No CAP up here today.  Good coordination from the USMC today.  And a very lucky AA mg on our side.  The army has expanded its inventory in the Central Pacific to include Mitchells.  They might fit on these small atolls better than the heavies, but the necessity to swap bombs for fuel makes it a bit pointless in my opinion.  As long as he can find size five airfields, which are possible on the bigger islands, he can carry full loads on his heavies, albeit I think still with an ops losses penalty compared to a six airfield.  How will the Delhi sweeps go today?    Jodhpur.  Much better.  Nothing here.  Gwalior.  Let’s hope it’s just a reporting issue like yesterday.  LRCAP up at Bareilly.  It helps that he is LRCAP rather than CAP, and we have a slightly reduced range to fly here.  I thought he’d forgotten about Gove.  Gwalior again.  At least we didn’t lose anything.  This strong CAP up in the morning then nothing in the afternoon is very confusing to me. I don’t know what’s going on with the game to make that happen.  Gwalior has CAP in the afternoon, even though it didn’t have much in the morning.  And we claim a Scythe.  None at Jodhpur, but then we did shoot down 100% of the CAP they put up in the morning, which we definitely didn’t do at Delhi.  The CVL strike.  A shame that it’s a Lysander that gets destroyed, but getting those Liberators back in the air shouldn’t be easy now.  Extra sweep at Gove.  Another Hurricane out of the war.  Narwhal has come right into the harbour at Darwin.  But we don’t manage to punish her for it.  Still didn’t get bombed, so this ought to go OK.  That qualifies as OK.  Blah blah blah reducing the pocket, ect.  And indeed that is a nice reduction.  A very minimal reduction at Bangalore.  The SNLF are crossing a river in pursuit of the Chindits.  Who have had enough, apparently.   Minor air issues aside, I’m feeling quite dominant in India right now.   It’s a higher price to be paying than I thought/hoped, but it’s one we can afford to pay for a while at least. At least we did get a Scythe and a Spit VIII.  A submarine did go down, and it wasn’t ours, so maybe it was Grouper?  We welcome a new, and frankly underwhelming, submarine to the fleet.  The next Etorofu is laid down at Tokyo. 41 days to build.  And at Takao a small freighter, two months for her.  A triple ace today, very few men make it that far.   The 32nd Division has been waiting at Lucknow, ready to jump on the trains as soon as we secured the line. They should now have time to reach Bareilly and deploy before Alikchi can arrive in strength. Bareilly is a size four airfield, so I am keen to hold it rather than just raid it. Wait, no, it’s a size five airfield. I’m sure it was four the day before yesterday, thanks Alikchi!  Ten thousand men sounds like a lot, but I’m reasonably confident that the bulk of that is the men we just chased out of Bareilly, ie, of little if any combat effectiveness. The rampage will continue.  So far Alikchi has absolutely squandered the 31st Armoured. If we can just smash another regiment without support here that’s basically the end of them, I think.  If those night fighters at Delhi are going to actually be effective, we’ll take the Nells back to day bombing. I think Hyderabad is the best target at the moment.  And we’ll set the CVLs to have this as a primary mission for today, in the hope they can clear out any CAP Alikchi might put up.  Having cleared out the Chindits, the paratroopers will push on to join the attack on Nander.  A day of rest to clear the disruption caused by attacking against the odds, then attack again seems to be the thing to do.  We now have one and two thirds divisions here, with the final regiment a couple days out. Surely that’s enough?  He seems to have responded to our raid on Tennant Creek by moving the bombers to Cloncurry, so we’ll try again with the Nells. It’s a decent forecast so hopefully they can fly and do some damage.  The 43rd, along with another coast gun unit, is loading for Rabaul.
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Mar 16, 2024 17:53
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Pharnakes posted:As long as he can find size five airfields, which are possible on the bigger islands, he can carry full loads on his heavies, albeit I think still with an ops losses penalty compared to a six airfield. As far as I know, level 5 airfields are the first level that heavies can fly from without any sort of penalty at all, including op losses. How do you manage airframe and pilot fatigue for your squadrons? Do you on/off some squadrons every day, or do you set them all to have a mission with a defined percentage set to rest? I'm trying to figure out the best way to manage my heavies and keep more of them flying consistently.
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Mar 16, 2024 18:17
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Well, looks like those good days in the air are catching up with you. However, smashing success in the ground war makes up for it! ... Admittedly smashing success in the ground war sounds horrifically wrong given how the IJA rolls. And how goes pushing for Dehli? Think you can make a good show of it or they're dug in pretty well there so you'll have to seige it?
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Mar 16, 2024 22:38
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Caconym posted:I'm on my first japanese playthrough against the AI and I haven't quite cracked the "China code". I've killed 10k Chinese AV, but that just means Chunking now has 6k AV and growing, and I don't see my own 10k AV doomstack cracking that in a timely manner. You don't nescearilly need to take Chunking, nice as it may be. The very fact that it's a 3x hex means that you only need maybe 1/4 of the AV China has in the hex to keep them bottled up, once you've taken all the hex sides. habeasdorkus posted:Grey Hunter did an LP as the Japanese where he tried to take Chunking and IIRC eventually gave up because it's extremely hard to pull off if you're not explicitly letting all the other Chinese forces stay alive so they don't reform in Chunking. China can't manuever warfare and they can't air warfare. So bomb the poo poo out of them, airfield bombing to destroy supplies and tactical bombing to bog units down while you choose one avenue to cut out the heart and pour everything you have into it. Don't forget Japan also starts with significant forts in the major cities around central China, and control over the bulk of the rail network. Don't hesitate to strip the central front to focus on either the northern or southern thrust to Chunking, and once you've done that the rest is just mop up. Cimber posted:As far as I know, level 5 airfields are the first level that heavies can fly from without any sort of penalty at all, including op losses. You can fly any plane from a level two airfield (you can base any plane at a level one airfield, but they won't fly offensive missions, even single engine planes), but a heavy bomber will do so with massive penalties to op loses and numbers flown, as well as the half bomb load. Five gets you a full bomb load for anything other than maybe a B29, I think they need six off the top of my head. Six gets you the ability to opperate more or less anything at nominal service avilability. Getting the best out of your heavies is critically important as the Allies, and requires significant investment in logistics, infastructure and micro management. This is one area where witp really does reflect reality pretty drat well I think, so you want to build multiple level five+ airfields in the area you want to deploy heavies to, so you can disperse your suadrons. This both protects against Japan's best chance of destroying your heavies (on the ground) and means you can more easily deal with stacking limits. Rebase often to cofuse him, and never send them to a base without rail (or port) access, so that if they do get damaged they can be evacuated if necessary. Never overstack your heavies, mediums you can get away with it easily enough, and fighters you can all but ignore it, but never deploy heavies to an overstacked airfield, it will tank their availability. Never fly missions unless the forecast is good and all your squadrons are at least 90% ready, which realistically means maybe one raid a week, and of course always focus everything on one target. Never bomb a base that hasn't had at least 9/10 recon for three days before hand, so you know what yu are throwing them into and to massively improve their bombing accuracy. Save your P38s exclusively for sweep in support of long range bombing, they are the only thing that can do it until the late war stuff arrives, so don't be tempted to use them for anything else. P39s and 40s might be kind of poo poo, but their good enough for less all the other less ciritcal missions. Don't use the P38s for escort, it's a waste of their combat power. If you're tying to hit a base that you feel needs escort to be safe, either keep sweeping it, or bomb at night. Try and be unpredictable in time and place with your targets, and feel free to try and psych your opponent out with false sweeps. Keep all potential targets at high recon levels, so your opponent can't use overflight reports to guess targets, and to ensure you have the best information avilable to choose where to drop the hammer. Don't fall into the trap of thinking you have to use them or lose them, wait for the right target and hit it with everything. If it takes a month before another opportunity presents itself, that's fine. Much better than wasteing them on an unworthy target. Be sparing with strategic redployments by air, it's a very useful property of them, but be aware of the inevitable airframe losses in transfer. For the first year the heavies are really the only thing you have going for you, lavish all the care you can on them and make sure you don't lose a single frame unless it was spent wisely. Obviously use the best possible pilots in them, and don't use them for training, train your pilots in something expendable. wedgekree posted:Well, looks like those good days in the air are catching up with you. However, smashing success in the ground war makes up for it! ... Admittedly smashing success in the ground war sounds horrifically wrong given how the IJA rolls. We can't know until we actually get boots on the ground. There a lot of men there but it looks like it's mostly second line stuff. He's had a lot of time to fortify it, of course, but he has built a level 9 airfield, which will maybe mean he hasn't had the time to build massive fortifications.
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Mar 16, 2024 23:41
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What's the point of him having made Dehli into a level 9 airfield? There a mis-click there and allocation of building? He forget to set it off or something? He doesn't even seem to have a ton of planes based out of there.
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Mar 17, 2024 03:18
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  He’s still got some Liberators air worthy, then.  No hits with this wave.  Bonk.  Narwhal continues to be unlucky/lucky.  I-155 messes up her chance with some auxiliaries.  A good size to our first wave over Delhi.  Even! Haven’t managed that for a few days.  I’m also experimenting a bit with allowing Sentai commanders to pick their targets.  Usually I’m far too focused on a specific goal to do that, but in situations where we just want to suppress an area it’s useful.  A second wave is sent to Meerut.  Very much better today.  We’re not the only ones sweeping.  I’m not contesting Gasmata for the moment.  We’re not even the only ones sweeping in India.  I wonder if that means he will bomb here  The CAP has again been fully suppressed by only a single wave of sweep, it’s weird.  The army doesn’t quite have the range to reach Delhi.  They can absolutely wreck whatever stragglers they can still find over Gwalior, though.  Unsurprisingly, no CAP remaining when the second wave arrives.  They are bombing Bareilly.  Could be worse. The RAF have apparently managed to beg the Americans for some Venturas, but as far as I am concerned that’s just another few hundred tons of supplies expended assembling them.  Only Wellingtons in the second wave.  And no direct casualties, although of course there will still be disruption.  Mili.  That’s really a lot of Liberators he’s throwing at us now.  Things have really calmed down at Gove the last few days.  Nowhere near the 70 odd planes he threw at us on the first day.  The Avengers are still on naval strike, it seems.  Since this is now the afternoon.  And the Dutch continue to focus on Gasmata.  Rude.  He’s really focusing on Mili.  I’m going to have to do something about this, so we can finish the fortifications.  Narwhal is still here, and we still can’t find her.  Did we get enough across the river?  Sort of.  Enough to avoid disaster, not enough to actually take the place. Although some shattered rump unit does throw in the towel.  Could this finally be it?   The first of Alikchi’s jungle rough fortresses falls. Albeit one that he had evacuated all of the combat troops from I’m still not quite sure how he did that, and why, if he was able to do that, he left all of these support troops behind. The final day of the pocket?  Boosh.  Most of the combat units had already surrendered, but two entire AA regiments, in particular, is very nice.  Bangalore. This will not be as easy to crack as Bellary.  Nander again.  OK, so it’s not always a good idea to attack, even if they don’t have AT  Can we get a hat trick?  We can!  Without our air support flying they were able to hold it together enough to avoid total collapse, but that’s a nice chunk of tanks defeated in detail.   It’s not over in India, but I’d say today is maybe the beginning of the end.  It’s very weird, yesterday we’d apparently killed 51 Spitfire VIIIs, today we’re claiming 85. And I’ve seen it fluctuate like that before, just never bothered to track it down and check. Hopefully today is the accurate number but I think yesterday’s is more plausible  No naval action today.  Hello gorgeous.  You what how many ships in port? We have to find a way to raid this, be damned to the cost.  !  If only we’d covered one more mile, we’d have had his tanks surrounded. Oh well, can’t complain today.   With the way the road network is laid out, the 33rd armoured/B can only move down minor roads. If we can bomb them today and tomorrow, we can probably buy the time for our infantry to hit them again.  The first regiment of the 37th Division has missed the party, but the 17th can start packing already to rail north. Another two divisions around Bareilly will be very handy.  The flight mechanics are still a day or two out, but that doesn’t stop us forward deploying planes if we want to. We can set a massive CAP trap here for tomorrow, and do so with a fifth or less of the commitment we needed when we were trying to do it as a LRCAP.  I want to take this stack of around a thousand AV and push back up towards Agra, taking the same route our tanks did a week or so ago, but this time hold Agra. Alikchi will have really dropped the ball if he lets me do that, but by flanking aggressively to the north of his main effort I hope I can turn that side of his line, making the advance for the main thrust of 1400ish AV that much easier.  I am a giant dumb idiot, and somehow sent the coastal guns to Guadalcnal on a transport TF. Obviously they then can’t unload said guns in such a tiny port, so we need to go back to Rabaul, unload, reload amphibiously and redeliver the guns
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Mar 17, 2024 20:02
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Nice job breaking two brigades there! Hopefully those freed up units can be moved around to keep up the aggression as they recover! And how do you think Alichi's plane pools nad supplies in India are doing?
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Mar 17, 2024 23:02
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Are all these units being nuked going to auto reform in the next 120 days and be redeployable?
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Mar 17, 2024 23:39
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  He’s being pretty liberal with his submarines recently.  Even absolute shitboxes with unmodified t95s could do something in these circumstances.  Nothing too significant in this case, though.  RO-101 should really have brazened this out on the surface.  KIX hasn’t been put off.  And this time avoids detection.  No LRCAP over his tanks.  One (1) Hurricane over Jodhpur.    Sweep of Bareilly, but we are ready.  drat right!  The air over Gwalior is ours.  Delhi of course is still contested.  It’ll be contested a bit less tomorrow!  A second wave comes straight in.   We’ve really hit critical mass here.  Another few weeks and we might even be able to start pulling fighter Sentais out of India.  I think we can now declare air supremacy.  The CVLs are playing today.  Two Liberators? Yes please.  The cloud cover isn’t ideal for tactical air, but it’s more about slowing them down, anyway.  And in the end we do some pretty decent damage.  The downside of commander discretion is they sometimes do stupid poo poo.  We’ve caught their bombers   Uhhh.  Disappointing. I think what’s happened is the sweep of Bareilly ended up drawing most of the CAP there, leaving it thin over Meerut.  The price we are paying for winning in India is he’s no longer even trying to send airframes, I suspect. Meaning we’ll face them in other theatres instead.  Once we’ve won in India we can redeploy too, of course.  Winning, but we haven’t quite won, yet.  The Dutch have been joined by USAAF Mitchells at Gasmata.  Ten supply hits?? That’s just rude.  I much prefer being bombed by the Dutch.  The Mitchell really is his workhorse at the moment.  Not that I’m jealous or anything!  Why would I be jealous of a plane that’s got half again the bomb load and twice the defensive armament of the Hellen? Ridiculous!  Foul weather over Umboi.  We should maybe try for a LRCAP trap here. We can’t possibly defend everything at the moment, but Avengers are high priority targets. Unfortunately the place to launch said trap from is Gasmata  As soon as we can get some carriers out in the Central Pacific we should be able to clip the USMC’s wings.  In the meantime, today they achieve little.  Nor with the second wave.  The bombing has arrived at Gove.  Flying from Cloncurry. That the Nells have been ordered to bomb for the last three days  All your fault, Nells!  The problem is the navy has no heavy interceptor, yet.  And although I can deploy army units to the Marshalls, the Nicks are rather heavy and the Tojos lack range for easy deployment.  Enough sweeping here to keep me from putting up CAP.  I-34 misses a coastal minesweeper in the dusk.  Avoids detection at least.  A good result, by Bangalore standards.   A bit quieter than yesterday   Everything according to plan, at least in India.  And quiet again at sea.  *Pink panther music intensifies* It’s going to be very funny if it turns out these scouting reports are accurate and it’s just one lovely little Dutch oiler and half a dozen minesweepers.  Shanghai launches a sub hunter. To be honest they might as well have not bothered  Of course, you can’t really have too many escorts, however poo poo. What we really can’t have enough of though is random peasants conscripted and handed a shovel. This is one of the good engineering units even, with some heavy machinery. Unlike the allies with their hordes of Seabees (and hordes of bulldozers for the SeaBees to drive), we really struggle to get enough engineering points. And fortifications are the only way for our poor obsolete infantry to be anything but cannon fodder for marines with flamethrowers and machineguns.   As long as the bombers fly again, I’m pretty sure he can’t escape with these tanks.  He’s all but emptied Hyderabad, we will stop using carrier sorties on this target.  And try the Nells on Jodhpur again.  We still need two more days to unpack at Bareilly. Just in case we will use these Anns to bomb whatever is here and slow it down. They don’t have to actually kill anything after all, just show up.
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Mar 21, 2024 19:17
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  Darwin harbour is still infested.  Well, it was going to happen eventually.  Even now our escorts can’t get a kill.  Nevermind!  We rip into them, but all the torpedoes miss, sadly.  Empty large tankers and oilers can take a hell of a beating. Still apart from maybe Bishopdale I’m happy with this.  Round two. you’d think maybe this time they’d expect us.  That should be all three, with any luck.  First sweep at Delhi.  Ok results.  There’s a Spit up at Jodhpur.  Yes please, I’ll take that trade.  Nothing over Ajmer.  Or Gwalior.  We are not the only ones sweeping, of course.  Nice and swept for the Nells at Jodhpur.  Nothing that we can do about the flak, though.  On the whole this is a price worth paying.  2nd wave in at Delhi.  I’d prefer a bit more bloodshed.  Third.  Not what I meant  Mitchells hitting Gasmata.  Ouch.  The Dutch are less impressive.  And he’s starting to bomb Gove again.  The question is, can we keep it up in India long enough before being forced to redeploy to match him in the Western Pacific.  For now as long as he’s happy to just bomb some airfields and grub a few kills like that we can leave him to it.  Annoying as it might be.  Mili now.  At least it’s half loads for the Mitchells here.  Gove is still a very small airfield, which makes for easy bombing, even though we have only a handful of planes still here.  The Liberators don’t get much at Mili.  The Nells have finally decided to attack Cloncurry, and chosen an excellent day for it.  It’ll be months before we get a chance like this again, at a minimum.  The afternoon brings the Avengers out.  Nothing significant today.  Gove is a bit exposed, and awkward to LRCAP, unfortunately.  We’ve caught the tanks.  It’s not surrender as such, but it might as well be.  Bangs galore at Bangalore. Have I made that joke before? Probably.  And we cross the river for the last hex side at Jubbulpore.    I’m getting a little worried about Australia and New Britain.  The Zeros really dropped the ball today, and Jodhpur has a lot more flak than I thought it would.  As we would expect, Arita Maru burnt out. The US aren’t admitting any losses, but I’m sure at least one went down towards the end of the turn.  As Japan AGs are really not very useful, we don’t have the PT boats and landing craft that Allies can service with them. But, hey, it’s a bote, I suppose.  This lovely rear end freighter is probably more exciting.  And an Air fleet HQ is definitely more exciting. Unrestricted, too. ”Intel” posted:Previous report of sinking of CV Enterprise incorrect. Intelligence reports ship is still in service  Our first dedicated float fighters are ready for frontline service. Well, nearly ready.  They aren’t particularly good, or anything. But they are a solid upgrade over the Zero conversion, and we all know the design has potential…  Donryu receives new A6M5s to replace her battered A6M3a group. As soon as most are flight ready, the sisters will be forcing their way back into the Pacific.  The 26th Field AA Gun Company has been wiped out by attrition in the jungles of Papua New Guinea. This is actually good because it means we can reform it.  Those oilers took a ridiculous amount of punishment. Tone has totally emptied her primary armament, and overextended on fuel. It’s only 83 hexes to home, so 80 isn’t a drastic shortfall, but it leaves her absolutely no defence other than to hope she won’t be spotted.   We’re advancing on Gwailor.  Disruption is still higher than I would like, but hey, it’s not a proper blitzkrieg if it doesn’t involve horrific abuse of your own tanks.  It’s time the Army starts pulling its weight in breaking the defence of Delhi.  What’s left of the Hellens will start suppressing the enemy at Gwalior, now that there’s no CAP here.  We’ll give the Nells a hopefully slightly easier target for tomorrow.  I have no doubt Alikchi will have CAP, or at least LRCAP, up at Cloncurry tomorrow. He still has some bombers at Tennant Creek, possibly damaged ones that haven’t been repaired yet, so we will try that.  He’s pretty consistently sweeping with only one Kittyhawk squadron, so we’ll try a LRCAP.  Those Avengers always bomb Umboi Island in the afternoon, which means their primary mission is naval strike. They’re probably range restricted to stop them doing anything too stupid, but if we put our carriers closer to Port Moresby than Umboi Island is, that won't help.  The destroyers have a considerably larger reserve than Tone, so I’m going to detach them and send them home via Wake. This is a more dangerous route but might act as a distraction for Tone.  He hasn’t tried to bomb Kwajalein again, so it’s time to get this Mili situation under control before he completely bombs out the airfield.
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Mar 30, 2024 20:50
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How exactly do float planes have that level of maneuverability when they have giant floats attached to them?
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Mar 30, 2024 21:59
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The floats mean you have to give them a larger engine which can help in a number of situations.
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Mar 30, 2024 22:14
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The N1K has about twice the power of a Zero, at substantially less than twice the weight.SIGSEGV posted:The floats mean you have to give them a larger engine which can help in a number of situations. Which is also why when you realize that your mainline fighter is getting a bit underpowered and obsolete, you take the floats off and suddenly you have a very good replacement. If you can manufacture enough of the better engines, of course. Do I understand right that Tone is now withdrawing at 4 hexes a turn, and won't even make home, but has to meet oilers somewhere along the route? Kinda oof, but if those tankers were good enough, maybe worth the risk?
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Mar 30, 2024 22:32
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Cimber posted:How exactly do float planes have that level of maneuverability when they have giant floats attached to them? The N1K is one of those gems of aircraft design where it started out as a great plane and only got better without the floats
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Mar 30, 2024 22:37
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