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Pharnakes posted:Uhh excuse me it quite clearly says I bombed at 10, not 11. Plus I was wildly successful and he hit dick all so clearly I'm a tactical genius and he is a silly dumb dumb poo poo head. Ah, well nevertheless
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Dec 24, 2020 12:58
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  A good start to the night’s hunting. Presumably heading for the Sunda strait from Palembang, I don’t think he’s found the mines there yet so whoever else is in the convoy is in for a nice surprise.  In the north end of the Malacca straits. This is a mod thing so I’m not quite sure what it is exactly but it looks quite big and juicy? We did add a bunch of floatplanes for the RN including the floatfires we have already encountered and later on some french designed torpedo floatplanes. So sinking his AVs is going to be a Good Thing.  And she appears pretty thoroughly hosed.  Remember how I was boasting about sneaking that airHQ in?   Maybe this isn’t actually going to be too bad? Fingers crossed.  A few B-17s decide to bomb an empty airfield in the middle of a moonless night. Unsurprisingly they don’t achieve much, but at least that means the convoy at Kuantan is out of the woods for the night phase at least.  I-23 returns to seal the deal, although I’m pretty sure it was already signed in  It appears he didn’t actually know about the convoy and was just here to bombard the runway. I really need to get some mines set up but damage is relatively minor at least.  Lingayen and for some reason the allied PT boats have come in at daylight rather than in the dark. They are caught by our destroyer screen and handily slaughtered.  The daily raid arrives over Hong Kong and for the first time reports inflicting some damage. This is minor by itself but it does show the effect of the reduced forts, and will be causing disruption that will weaken the assault values of the units come the land phase.  Some more weird Dutch stuff feeds into Ryujo’s CAP.  The first sweep goes in over Clark and reports no opposition at all. This is a very good sign, let’s hope all the bombers fly today.  The first wave of bombers arrives and makes a solid start. This alone should ensure the engineers have no time to put up forts before our infantry arrives and we can start the siege in earnest.  I left one group of Zeros targeting Manila just in case they could grub some easy kills, but they find nothing. This is rather weird as there are plainly still airplanes present at Clark, I wonder what his plan is.  Some Betties fly to attack shipping in Singapore Harbour. That's a decent escort but there’s quite a big CAP still as well…  The end result is less than ideal…  We storm ashore at Tarakan under cover from Harima’s 41cm rifles.  At Hong Kong we reduce the last of the fortifications but stop short of outright victory. Any day now.  Surprisingly there are still enough guns working at Tarakan for the Dutch to knock out a couple of our squads. Still, this isn’t going to change anything, we will be done here in a day or two, three tops. And then we will have some forward fuel available.   Not going to be a good day in the air.      Indeed, ouch. Betties are so good and yet so vulnerable. At least we shot down 2 Scythe IB, whatever the hell a Scythe IB is, but it’s sprite makes it look expensive.  In the end we lost most of that convoy anyway  . But we did bag a decent tanker at least, and in probably that big AV too. The turn by turn view of the ships lost screen seems to only show certain kills, so is rather under reporting.  With the convoy at Kuantan driven off before it could fully unload we are a little short on supplies after patching the damaged airplanes back up. Therefore I assemble a new convoy in Saigon to bring down enough supplies to ensure squadrons at Kuantan can draw new airframes out of the pool.  This time there will be no loving around, both Amagi’s are to escort the convoy.  The situation in the western pacific. The CVs have turned south again after hanging around the Gilberts yesterday. I can only assume that was an attempt to catch a potential invasion of Tarawa? Anyway it looks like Pago Pago or perhaps Fiji is the destination afterall. As you can see we are ashore at Shortlands with no opposition, and will be landing at Rabaul tomorrow. The spotted allied TF is assumedly Adelaide, and I dispatch Hyuga with two destroyers to hunt for her. In the top left you can see a few small transport fleets, there’s a new attempt for Kavieng, and some minor airfield units coming down to Rabaul. The KB itself is ordered again to Truk where they can replenish air groups as well as fuel, and I call off the ridiculous Midway & Johnston attacks. Still not quite sure what to do with them instead though. After rearming I will probably split the slower Kaga off from the KB proper to operate with CVLs in the SRA to counter the RN carriers. The other 5 will stay together and we will either start island hopping towards Fiji or maybe go and force an early Coral Sea. The Wake invasion I had ordered to stop one short to make sure that when they go ashore they get two phases of unloading before they perform the auto shock attack. This is a critical trick for attacking atols, otherwise you perform said mandatory shock attack with only half the troops you could have.  We now have 700 AV waiting on the outskirts of Clark Field, but I decide to hold off for one more day in light of the airfield being thoroughly trashed. We will start attacking in another day or two depending on when the next wave of troops who have now landed march in. But definitely before there can be any chance of the engineers building forts.  The navy paratroopers are almost at Chumphon. That is a IJA cavalry regiment you can see marching to secure the Airfield at Victoria Point. Once they have we will try a paradrop on Port Blair which is hopefully not yet reinforced.
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Dec 24, 2020 19:51
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  I-163 working her magic  Inaba finds a couple of old destroyers trying to sneak through the Philippines.  Pope takes a 41cm hit almost in the opening salvo and Pillsbury doesn’t last much longer.  Contact is made with Adelaide north west of Rabaul but little real damage is inflicted.  This is rather annoying but again little real damage is done. Hopefully he gets over confident and tries it again tomorrow and finds the battleships waiting for him.  Rabaul has 6” costal guns now apparently?? Only minor damage though and this turn we will merge the battleships into the invasion fleet directly to put an end to that bullshit.  The reinforcements for Cagayan have arrived.  We catch Adelaide again in the daylight.  There was only one possible way that could end.  I-173, deprived of anything decent to shoot at, decides to take it out on a minesweeper.  CAP is back up over Manila but for once the sweep manages to arrive before the raid.  A dogfight over Singapore sees a relatively even exchange.  The main raid arrives over Manila sans escort because of course it does.Thank god the sweep went in or this would have been yet another Betty mascare, as it is we sink a couple of subs and some other stuff for light losses.  Some Seagulls make an attempt on the ships crowding in Lingayen Bay but are seen off by our Nates.  His fighters take the offensive over Kota Bharu, but don’t achieve much. I’m not sure why he is even trying this, there’s nothing worth bombing here even if he did get air superiority somehow.  Hong Kong falls, the first major Allied base to do so.  The first day at Tarakan and we have decent progress.   Points continue to tick up nicely, even if we can’t see exactly what it is we are sinking to get them.      A decent day in the air. There surely can’t be much left of the USAAFE. We continue to loose Zeros at an unsustainable rate though. From an initial manufacturing capacity of 56 a month we are now up to 71, but so far we have lost 73 in a week  . C’est la guerre. Kashima Maru there was sunk by a single 500lb hit from a Catalina that I didn't even bother to screenshot because it’s just one hit on a big ship. Learn to fight fires you fucks    Now that we have Hong Kong some lightly banged up destroyers will test out the yards. We also order every small minesweeper in the area to start cleaning out the harbour. Unfortunately it turns out this is one (1) aMC so this might take a while.  The Fusos have arrived at Babeldaob from the homeland, so we are ready to capture the airfield at Ambon. There are decent coastal guns there so Yamashiro is directly integrated into the invasion flotilla while Fuso provides distant cover.  I am briefly outraged that the Wake invasion has once again turned for home without unloading. I am certain I checked the settings at least twice yesterday, and sure enough they are set to unload. Then I notice there are no troops on board.  I’m not entirely sure how this happened, if this is because I somehow accidentally unloaded them somewhere or if it is a mod thing. If this was done deliberately by Alikchi making a TF, calling it Wake Invasion then putting no troops on it is master level trolling though. At least we now know what to do with those invasion fleets I was unsure about yesterday, Except I set them in the end to go for Ocean & Nauru, in completely the opposite direction from Wake of course.  What a clusterfuck. Oh well maybe the 3rd attempt to take Wake will be successful!  With the evacuation of Naga complete we will drop on Ternate next.  Manila harbour appears to be pretty empty now one way or another, so I switch to bombing the airlfield, where there have been reports of a dozen or so Catalinas. It will also help to degrade their general supply situation, although I hope to have won before that really becomes relevant. If they are allowed to dig in a Clark though it can absolutely become a multi month slog of burning through their ammunition before we can take it.  With that in mind we now have over 800 AV ready at Clark, so let’s get this party rolling before they can repair the airfield again and start on the forts. Casualties are likely to be high for the first few days, but reinforcements are marching from Lingayen while extra convoys are a day or two out. Better to throw men into the meatgrinder now and get this over with quickly than let it drag out into April.
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Dec 25, 2020 22:23
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  The US has invented convoy escorts   Britain though has apparently forgotten how.  The nightly Kuantan bombardment. This should be the last one as tomorrow night th battleships will have arrived. If the pattern holds that means we should catch the modern CL Mauritius which is a much nicer kill than two old WW1 scout cruisers.  Despite Ise’s presence the coastal guns at Rabaul still get a couple of shrewd hits in.  I-164 staying on form.  Make that exceeding form.  In a stunning display of coordination sweep arrives before strike for the second day in a row over Manila.  The Betties, perhaps confused by their suspiciously good fortune, mostly miss their targets, but oh well. Any day we don’t lose 20 beties is a good day.  Singapore goes distinctly less well. It is possible being Kuantan bombarded three nights in a row has something to do with this.  The afternoon raid over Manila goes rather better, if unspectacularly. There are now so few planes left it is not exactly a target rich environment for our bombers.  The Dutch fly a decently coordinated raid from Balikpapan to our ships at Tarakan, but are seen off by CAP from the nearby Zuiho.  The RAF decides to start tactical bombing in North Malaya. Luckily there was some random CAP present from somewhere to see them off, if they are going to do this I will have to tweak settings a bit.  The afternoon sweep at Singapore fares little better than the morning.  A third wave at least attains a positive kill ratio.  The Dutch try for Zuiho directly but have no luck.  I-1 turns the tables on a sub hunter. This is why your ASW patrols should operate in at least pairs, if not triples.  A very poor showing by Harima. Haruna is almost certainly doomed.  We arrive at Kavieng for another go.  A solid start at Rabaul.   Not so hot at Clark Field though. Here we have a clear demonstration that about the only factor that really matters in WitP ground combat is the terrain defence modifier, which for Clark Field is Jungle Rough’s 4x. We do at least confirm they have been unable to build significant defensive works, and plenty of reinforcements are on the way for us. We are just going to have to pay the price here and there’s nothing for it, I might experiment with some tactical bombing though now the USAAFE is destroyed.  And we carry Tarakan. Lets hope this is in time to save Haruna Maru, and that the oil isn’t too badly damaged.  We are back in the game at Cagayan, but he has managed to march reinforcements in from elsewhere in the island and the result is a stalemate that will probably require capital bombardment to break.  At Ternate the paratroopers quickly overwhelm the aircraft mechanics and cooks to take the base, catching a couple of Dutch flying boats in the process.   Points.      We just squeeze ahead in the air. As per usual we lose far too many Zeros, but at least today we lost more Oscars than Zeros!  For a pleasant change we don’t lose any xAKs or xAPs.  Yet. Haruna Maru isn’t surviving this. Seven and a half thousand tons, and sunk by a burst of 40mm Bofors. Please design better fire extinguishing systems guys. At least the oil here at Tarkan is intact, and we capture 12k barrels of fuel. In an attempt to break the Cagayan deadlock Maya & Ashigara will bombard overnight. Their 8” guns may or may not be enough, but with no battleships in the immediate area it’s worth a shot.  A new Army paratroop regiment is raised. I think we will send them to the Central Pacific to replace the SNLF regiment sent to Rabaul.  Mogami & Kumano are ordered to make ready for sea. They will head for the yards at Hong Kong, while a naval support regiment is being loaded at Nagasaki to get Hong Kong setup as a major base for Are Navy.  At Rabaul we have 18k supplies ashore so I decide to pull back the ships to Truk before anymore get burnt out. The battleships will bombard then head for home as well.  The KB is now securely behind our lines only a couple days from replenishment at Truk. I put the carriers onto my default “safe” stance - maximum ASW for the strike craft while the Zeros train in mock dogfights. The aircrews are untrained at ASW but sheer volume of planes might achieve something, and they will (extremely) gradually learn on the job. At Kuantan the battleships have arrived, so that should be the end of the bombardments. Sadly they have been spotted though so we probably won’t catch an over confident cruiser. I set all fighters at Kuantan back to cap, while sending all flyable bombers back to Saigon to ease the burden on the mechanics until things are running smoothly again.  I contemplate a day of rest at Clark but I can see troops marching from Manila to Clark, and 2 more of our regiments have arrived. As I keep repeating Clark is the most defensible hex in Luzon by a factor of 2, so I decide to push on the attack in the hopes of winning before he realises it would be a good idea to stack all his units here. I do set every bomber in Takao to close support, although in rough jungle they rarely achieve very much. If we can’t win in a week here, it will become a siege where we must whittle down his supplies through airfield attack and ground bombardments. In case this becomes necessary I have the Lizs start on airfield attack. Lets see how they do with empty skies.
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Dec 26, 2020 20:35
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  The second bombardment of Cagayan again focuses primarily on civilian areas. Hopefully it at least disrupted the defenders even if it didn't cause many casualties.  Alikchi for some reason seems to be mad about Ternate and sends some destroyers to bombard it. Since there is nothing here this achieves nothing.  Then Boise turns up too. Personally I feel that the waste of ammo (and knowing where Boise is!) heavily outweighs damage to a base I have no intention of using anyway.  The guns at Rabaul are still active it turns out. I’m not even sure where these xAKLs came from, but whatever, it's only an xAKL.  Target rich environment boys.  I-171 makes the best of what she has available.  We launch a massive, well coordinated raid on Clark but the storm prevents us from hitting anything much.  A second wave of Liz achieves a few hits through sheer luck. If you carpet bomb hard enough eventually you will hit something after all.  We bomb that RAF Kittyhawk squadron that has been harassing us out of Taiping.  Light bombers operating out of the forward field at Vigan are starting to make direct attacks on the troops at Clark, but get nowhere. Jungle Rough!  What is it that he thinks I’m doing at Ternate?? There’s literally nobody there but a half dozen paratroop squads, nor could there be since we only took it yesterday. It doesn’t even have a good airfield or port, it’s only any use as a seaplane base.  This, on the other hand, is no bueno. You do not touch the oil. I had already had it in mind to load up the troops at Tarakan after a day or two of rest and move down the coast, if he is going to do this kind of stuff that becomes Urgent to put in hand.  And we conclude the naval phase with a rather lacklustre bombardment at Rabaul. Let’s hope those 2 guns were the 6”s at least.  Lol nope   Loaded on wooden improvised rafts our tanks cross the nearly 3km to Penang and take GeorgeTown.  Solid progress at Rabaul. Disruption is a very painful combat modifier, let’s hope we did enough damage to keep them disrupted next turn.  Clark on the other hand is a hot disaster. A prolonged siege is looking more and more likely I’m afraid.  At Cagayan results are good despite the odds. Hopefully we won’t need to bring in a third wave here.   Points for Allied ground troops are going up nicely at least. Our own are rising quicker than I would like though, almost exclusively due to Clark I should think.      A very quiet day in the air. Only 1 Zero lost!     This is a mess. At least we have Kavieng now, and I order the worst hit ships to head there in the hopes tying up alongside will be enough to save them. Spoiler: lol no it won’t.  I remembered that we have Nells at Truk that were pulled back from the Marshalls incase of a possible raid. Hitting Rabaul will be right on the edge of their range but better than nothing.  At Cam Ranh I assemble a convoy for Miri- an aviation company, a construction battalion and 35k supplies. This will be enough to repair the damage done and start expanding the oil. (Miri starts with half the wells damaged, I assume to represent Japanese expansion of production there). Some Nates are rounded up to provide CAP, but are just short of the range needed to reach Miri today. They will spend the night in Cam Ranh and fly down tomorrow.  With the situation in Clark going nowhere I decide to try and get ahead of it and spend most of my available political clout to pull the veteran 104th division out of Canton. This will cause a minor garrisoning crisis in Canton, so I make the appropriate orders to shuffle other units in from the surrounding area. We also have another 700 AV ashore at Lingayen and marching to Clark now. This should bring our total AV in Luzon up to around 3k once everyone arrives.  At Tarakan we stuff the men aboard as best we can. Unfortunately without the large APs this isn’t very well, but Samarinda is not believed to be heavily defended and we need the field at Balikpapan shut down STAT. I also load 3 companies of aviation support at Babeldaob to set sail tomorrow. I would rather avoid taking Balikpapan only to immediately get bombed from Soerabaja At least he doesn’t seem to have chosen to pay to extract the B-17s from the Philippines. I decide it is time to restart sweeps over Singapore, using the largest Oscar group currently and a couple of bought in Zero squadrons.
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Dec 27, 2020 13:15
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I recently finished reading "Kaigun: Strategy, Tactics, and Technology in the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1887-1941", and I wanted to share this excerpt with the peanut gallery:quote:In 1941, however, a force structure that still gave primacy to the battleship and a strategy that relied on luring the enemy into fighting a decisive battle line engagement on sharply disadvantageous terms represented thinking that was at once fanciful and outmoded. One flag officer who had seen this clearly was Vice Adm. Inoue Shigeyoshi, chief of the ministry’s Naval Aviation Department and one of the trio of increasingly isolated moderates in the high command discussed earlier in this chapter. In January 1941, about the same time that Admiral Yamamoto was penning his thoughts on a radically different strategy for war with the United States, Inoue had attended the staff-ministry consultations to revise the Circle Five plan. Listening to staff representatives insist on the construction of still more Yamato-class battleships, Inoue exploded with exasperation at what he considered the staff’s outmoded and unimaginative assumptions in making such a proposal. Attacking the plan as a preparation for past, not future, conflicts, Inoue pointed out that rather than providing a rationale for naval construction based on a careful analysis of the kind of war that Japan would have to wage and the kind of weapons necessary to win it, the plan simply constituted a blind, unthinking response to American building programs. Inoue’s outburst stunned his colleagues; so flummoxed were they by his denunciation of their schemes that the meeting broke up without further discussion of the plan or of Inoue’s scathing critique of it. Several weeks later Inoue, demonstrating that he was not merely a destructive critic, submitted a lengthy memorandum to the Navy Ministry outlining his own alternative scheme for a naval armament program that would give Japan a greater chance for victory in a war with the United States.  I'd like to think that this person having a much larger influence on Japanese military strategy and development played a role in the alternate universe that our good LP finds us in.
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Dec 27, 2020 13:45
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That was interesting and lead to me googling the man to see if he survived the war.wikipedia posted:After the war, Inoue became an English and music teacher to children at his house in Yokosuka. The site of his home is now a public park.
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Dec 28, 2020 02:58
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Obviously I agree with all of the correct in hindsight bits of his theory and disagree with the rest The particular takeaway for any Japanese player looking to win is that tactics must take second place to strategy. Every time you sortie a major asset (or even a minor asset really) you must be asking yourself how this fits in the grand plan, or if you are just making a tactical reaction to an opportunity you see. A good example of this is Pearl Harbour. Now I had agreed in a house rule with Alikchi that I would not do a Mersing gambit or hit Manila with the KB, so that leaves no target worthy of the KB other than Pearl. Had I not signed that rule I would certainly have chosen to strike Manila instead. Now in hitting Manila I would sink probably ~10 subs which is scarcely much compared to an average Pearl result of 2 battleships, but strategically the KB would then be right where I need them pushing the one goal that truly matters - the oil. Instead we are over a week in, stalled out at Clark Field, Cagayan, unable to land closer to Singapore or at Palembang for fear of Force Z and land based air, ect. The arrival of the KB will swiftly rectify all of these issues, but it will be the better part of another week until they arrive. Had they burn here on the 7th we could already be in Manila & Singapore, have all of Borneo and be landing on Sumatra and maybe even Java. Instead we have a few maybe dead battleships.
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Dec 28, 2020 15:51
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Pharnakes posted:Obviously I agree with all of the correct in hindsight bits of his theory and disagree with the rest You don't need the KB to hit Manila. Literally just set all bombers to like 1000 feet and sweep aggressively. Sink at least 6 subs every time, most others are damaged.
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Dec 28, 2020 16:38
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That doesn't help with the week or two of steaming necessary to get from Pearl to where the action is.
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Dec 28, 2020 17:26
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Jobbo_Fett posted:You don't need the KB to hit Manila. That's the whole point I'm making, it's not about needing to use the KB to hit a tactical target, its about making sure they are where they are strategically needed, then hitting tactical targets of opportunity in the area. Since the KB can't quite reach Singapore turn 1 it might as well hit Manila. Also I like your implication that you can rely on sweeps to arrive before the strike
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Dec 28, 2020 18:32
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Pharnakes posted:That's the whole point I'm making, it's not about needing to use the KB to hit a tactical target, its about making sure they are where they are strategically needed, then hitting tactical targets of opportunity in the area. Since the KB can't quite reach Singapore turn 1 it might as well hit Manila. No what I'm saying is that you literally just use everything in range on Day 1 to strike at Manila and gently caress up everything there. Busy yourself with Clark Field or whatever from Day 2 onwards, but knocking out all the shipping on Day 1 is huge. (Throw the KB somewhere else, I don't care about the KB, I'm not talking about the stupid KB)
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Dec 28, 2020 18:35
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Oh right, I agree that Manila is higher priority than Clark on day for sure. A few P40s aren't going to change much. A quick google suggests the US lost 52 subs in WW2, on a good Manila run you can get more than half of that in the first turn.
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Dec 28, 2020 19:03
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  loving Dutch submarines. At least it was only a destroyer.  We throw the last of our ammo ashore at Rabaul and head for home.  Living in Cagayan right now must suck. I do wish our captains would stop doing war crimes and shoot something militarily significant.  And they’re back at Ternate.  Joined by Marblehead and a bunch more destroyers! This is really quite hilarious because there is now literally nothing for them to shoot at, all the paratroopers (all 50 of them) left yesterday. The base is so small that even at max damage it won’t take a construction battalion more than a day or two to fix it up, if and when I ever do actually want to use the place for something.  Oh you beautiful thing.  The CAP has reappeared over Manila,   As usual the RAF is a tougher prospect, but we are ahead so far. A large wave of Oscars continues the good work.  The Nells hit Rabaul. Largely ineffective, but any casualties at all indicates disruption is also being caused, which might just be enough to tip an assault over the edge.  The first raid over Clark contrives to hit absolutely nothing, but at least the CAP is summarily dispatched.  The Ternate tunnel vision continues. I wonder if I could get a CAP trap up with Zeros flying from Peleliu…  The Fuckers can carry 2 tons of bombs??? That’s the same as a god drat B17!  Singapore is proving as much of a meat grinder in the air as Clark is on the ground. At least the hex is only Urban Light for 2x modifier though, once it comes to the ground assault.  The Liz do OK, although what I am really wanting to see is airbase supply hits. Still every bit of damage does require supplies to repair, so they will run out eventually.  I’m not really sure if we are winning here or not. The odds are heavily against us but the results have again come out in our favour. We should probably rest for a few days to try and recover some of these disableds at least.  A bombardment at Clark goes poorly, as to be fair I expected it to. The Americans have a lot of guns here, and although we have even more theirs are much better than ours. We will cease all offensive operations on the ground until we can bring up the 104th and the heavy artillery that was used to break the gin drinkers line.  Inland from Kuantan we push the British back again. We will be at the railway line in probably two or three days.  A third wave is needed at Cagayan  The paratroopers chase the Dutch out of Sorong. Let’s see if this makes Alikchi as mad as Ternate apparently did.   Not much PP left today.      On the one hand, 32 for 14  On the other, 10 of those 14 are Zeros   Oh come on, surely we sank something    The KB has arrived at Truk and rearmed. With no pressing need for them I briefly contemplate hauling them all down to fix the minor damage inflicted by their sprinting for a turn, but decide instead to use them to break the Rabaul deadlock. Maybe we could even catch an attempt by the Allies to bring in reinforcements. Kaga however will not be joining them. She will remain in Truk an extra day or two to convert her torpedo squadron to Kates, and then sail to the Celebes to join Zuiho & Ruyjo.  Joining them instead will be the large seaplane tender Chiyoda. With her large complement of long range float planes for search, the carrier groups will be free to concentrate entirely on offensive missions. Usually I would convert all my CS to CVL ASAP, however since in this mod I get a lot more carriers built, I may well keep two or even all three as CS for this purpose.  It seems like we have actually managed to save these three freighters at Kavieng. Nobody is more surprised than me, I can assure you. I haul them all down for repairs. Once we have Rabaul built into a decent base they will probably be sent there for further repairs, and then eventually all the way back to the homeland, hopefully.  Wake tomorrow, for reals this time. Probably.  I redirect some of the less productive subs around Pearl to try and catch this large convoy I-17 was flirting with earlier.  The cavalry has finally arrived at Victoria Point. Somehow the paratroopers have also managed to arrive on the same day. I don’t order them to join the attack though in the vague hopes of maintaining surprise. Although I can also see some ships at Port Blair so it may very well already be too late anyhow. Ohh, and don't forget to sign up for a lucky ship here. It's always funny when someones lucky ship gets merked, and I can assure there are a lot of ships about to get merked.
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Dec 29, 2020 00:35
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If as believed one of Lex/Sara has been sunk, what are his current carrier assets in theater? The one that was sunk (probably Sara) was NE of Hawaii so wasn’t one of the ones operating near the Marshalls earlier, so we can figure that those were the other one (let’s say Lex) and Enterprise. For the UK, Ark Royal is believed to be somewhere near Singapore with Force Z. Has the mod added any carriers save for Ark so far?
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Dec 29, 2020 03:54
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sorry if this is off-topic, but what exactly does one do to a Hurricane (or Spitfire) to make it "tropical"?
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Dec 29, 2020 04:06
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Other people who actually know about this stuff may have a more detailed answer, but I found this: http://spitfiresite.com/2010/12/tropical-prototype.html, and some brief mentions in wikipedia suggest that a lot of it had to do with taking greater measures to keep the engine from overheating. The spitfires also seem to have received extra fuel tanks, which wasn't specifically for tropical operation per se but was needed in the Pacific for them to cover the longer distances and is probably included in the game's stats for the tropical subtype of the plane.
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Dec 29, 2020 04:13
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gradenko_2000 posted:sorry if this is off-topic, but what exactly does one do to a Hurricane (or Spitfire) to make it "tropical"? Filters for sand, different internal gear (medkit, etc) for pilot survival. (Edit: Should mention that Tropical included desert climates at times) Jobbo_Fett fucked around with this message at 05:28 on Dec 29, 2020 |
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Dec 29, 2020 05:17
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The dust filter under the nose is the most prominent.  Cons: -Many pilots believed it reduced performance -Ruins nice lines of aircraft Pros: Makes aircraft look like they're saying "awoooo" at all times
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Dec 29, 2020 05:20
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Grumio posted:The dust filter under the nose is the most prominent. I mean it rarely ever ruins the nice lines of an aircraft, unless you look at a specific angle (left-side filter for Bf-109!) There is a slight performance loss, but like the nice lines its not a huge drop in most cases.
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Dec 29, 2020 06:07
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  Apparently he still has some PT boats active around Luzon, or maybe he disbanded some into the pool from somewhere else. Sadly they manage to get a hit in, I will need to step up screening efforts if this is going to be a thing.  Escorting your convoys is so last year. I-9 surfaces to attack a very nice looking freighter, planting two torpedoes and plugging her with the deck gun too just to say they did.  I-157 gets in on it too. Seriously, where are all his destroyers??? Could they be on their way to bombard Ternate?   Seriously, those ships one hex south are 3+ DDs apparently out to hunt subs, but here we have a very big tanker totally unescorted.  I-7 promptly slams a fish into one of said destroyers, so maybe in fact it wouldn’t have made any difference anyway.  The wanton slaughter continues.  I think we know where this universe’s Jaws will be set.  Speaking of slaughter. We are wearing them down though.  The RAF’s use of superchargers on their planes is extremely dishonourable in my opinion. Not looking forward to Spits with any enthusiasm.  Hit the loving supply dumps damnit.  Not a good day over Singapore. We are going to have to draft in the Zeros from Formosa to deal with this. At least that is now an option.  The Dutch make an attempt on the Samarinda invasion convoy, but are seen off by Zeros from the CVLs.  Our CAP trap at Miri fails to produce kills but does at least protect the wells.  We sink yet another AKL in the Celebes.  Occasionally even MK 14s work. Japanese ASW of course never works at all ever.  I have loving had it with this Rabaul nonsense. Here comes a full army regiment that will surely, in conjunction with the KB flattening the place tomorrow, secure us victory.  South of Kota Bharu the shattered remnants nevertheless manage to slam us to a halt. Jungle Rough   We take Victoria Point, but the SNLF somehow manage to out themselves despite not taking part in the attack. Presumably they sent a politely worded note to the Allied CO explaining that this was an Army attack, and that as such they as Navy troops would not participate. But on the other hand if the gentleman was interested they could send someone to point out the location of the army Colonel…   They are down 30 army points from yesterday with no significant fighting on the ground occurring. The sharks have fed well today.      About even in the air, which is as good as you can hope for when running an offensive really. I just wish I could work out a way to get something other than Zeros to be taking the brunt of the losses for a change. Unfortunately the Oscar just isn’t up to the job of taking a speartip role.  This is much more heartening, although who the gently caress decided Repulse sank today I really do not know. I would love to hear their reasoning for that one.   With the USAAFE fighter strength reduced to zero, (or by Zero  ), it is time to sort out the Philipinne air offensive. I move the Lizs from Clark to Manila, maybe they will have better luck hitting supplies there. Plus there are still reported to be a bunch of Catalina’s they might be able to hit. All Zeros at Takao are stood down for a day’s rest prior to shipping to Kuantan, whilst all twin engine bombers are committed to tactical bombing at Clark.  With a convoy spotted at Port Blair and 2000 men being reported by the recon flights I decide to call the paradrop off. Wanting to do something usefulish or at least irritating with them though I decide to drop on Langsa, where some allied shipping has been reported.  Like I said I am over this whole “defence of Rabaul” thing. Today we will be hitting Rabaul hard with the KB, followed up tomorrow by bombardment from 4 heavy cruisers and then the decisive assault, lead by the 144th here once they have recovered some of the disruption. High disruption like this is a result of spending too long on ships, and the 144th has been loaded since the game start.  Guess who else has been loaded since game start? That’s right, these troops about to hit Wake. This may well turn into a clusterfuck yet again, and all without Alikchi lifting a finger.  I load the last of the spare troops at Takao, a reinforced infantry brigade and a tank regiment.  At Hong Kong the 38th and the heavy arty batteries are loaded for Lingayen. The 104th is still two days' march out, which is fine because the transports to carry them haven't arrived yet.
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Dec 29, 2020 11:00
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Pirate Radar posted:If as believed one of Lex/Sara has been sunk, what are his current carrier assets in theater? The one that was sunk (probably Sara) was NE of Hawaii so wasn’t one of the ones operating near the Marshalls earlier, so we can figure that those were the other one (let’s say Lex) and Enterprise. For the UK, Ark Royal is believed to be somewhere near Singapore with Force Z. Has the mod added any carriers save for Ark so far? Lex and Enterprise are somewhere around Pago Pago/ Fiji area (probably). Might be heading to base out of Townsville, might even be going around Australia to meet up with Ark Royal. Ark Royal is presumed stuck at Singapore or perhaps retreating from the area as she no longer has capital ships to guard her against our battleships - unless PoW recovered very quickly from that long lance hit. She might also be trying to, or quite possibly already has, meet Kortenaer. I am somewhat nervous of the possibility of Ark Royal and Kortenaer engaging the Samarinda invasion, and I can't bring the CVLs in too close as they only have heavy cruisers for escort.
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Dec 29, 2020 11:05
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The Repulse sinking is likely false. There's no corresponding jump in points.
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Dec 29, 2020 20:27
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She was definitively sunk by Nells, being hit by 5 torpedoes on the 10th. Why intel refused to admit this until today is anyone's guess.
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Dec 29, 2020 22:17
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Pharnakes posted:She was definitively sunk by Nells, being hit by 5 torpedoes on the 10th. Why intel refused to admit this until today is anyone's guess. Sometimes you save a kill claim until the Army does something good so you can overshadow them anyways.
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Dec 29, 2020 22:49
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Jobbo_Fett posted:Sometimes you save a kill claim until the Army does something good so you can overshadow them anyways. Conversely if you lose 4 aircraft carriers you can just not mention it for a year or so.
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Dec 29, 2020 23:00
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Pharnakes posted:Ohh, and don't forget to sign up for a lucky ship here. It was legitimately hard to pick a good one. Definitely wanted one of the added ships, and wanted to pick a hilarious, as opposed to good, one. Still unsure if I should have gone for Kortenaer instead on the grounds that because it's slower than carriers it's less likely to end up spending the whole war in carrier escort duty and therefore more likely to actually fire it's main guns.
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Dec 30, 2020 00:01
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   And we’re off at Wake, at last. Lots of guns but Settsu and others successfully suppress them and no damage is done.  The war has arrived for Australia.  I-164 finds the RN cruisers. A little close to Samarinda for comfort but we have 2 CAs there so it ought to be ok.  Those loving Scythes are finally either all dead or withdrawn from Singapore. The difference is immediately noticed.  This probably seems like a ton of effort for not much result, but that fact we are inflicting casualties at all actually indicates he is in poor shape. We just have to keep hammering and bring up ever more reinforcements.  The Lizs visit Manila and,  supply dump hits! Also a dead Catalina. The CVLs sacrifice the daily xAKL.  The Ambon invasion has been spotted, and an ineffectual attack is launched upon it.  And here’s the Scythes. Not quite sure why they are here, but running escort for hopeless attacks in a backwater theatre is much better than lethal CAP over Singapore, so I’ll take it. Let’s hope they get lost and ditch on the way home.  A good start at Samarinda with an excellent showing by Myoko & Haguro.  Well this was utterly unexpected. Troops marching up from Kuantan find resistance at Temuloh in central Malaya. He appears to actually be trying to defend Malaya??? This is just simply not done.  Could he be trying to reinforce Singapore and hold there? I’d almost believe it if it wasn’t for the departure of the Scythes and the apparent exodus of shipping we can see here. Unless of course the exodus is actually an influx.  Further north we are thoroughly bogged down on the rail line despite outnumbering them 2:1. This is the first time Alikchi has genuinely managed to surprise me, although I’m sure it won’t be the last.  As feared disruption causes significant problems for us at Wake. Still, at least the bombardment disrupted the defenders too so the result isn’t a disaster.   Overall a rather quiet day with not much to talk about. Look at what a difference those scythes loving off makes though.      No Zeros lost.   Unexciting but any day we don’t lose something is a good day.   I creep Ryujo & Zuiho down the Makassar Straits. I would like a bash at the cruisers I-164 reported but I’m at least moderately scared of Kortaener with only CAs to protect the CVLs.  The troops are ashore in very good order at Samarinda. They are a little light on supplies but that will be fixed overnight. There is no way we don’t take it tomorrow, and then it is just a case of four or five days to march down the road to Balikpapan, where we can take the coastal defences from behind.  For some reason the KB didn’t do anything at Rabaul today. I check the orders and everything is fine, perhaps it was weather. The 144th has recovered their disruption so I order the troops in, whilst the cruisers will bombard night & day.  The troops at Wake are in rough shape. I order a day of rest in the hopes they can recover quicker than the defenders can, but this is not good. Stalling out an attack on an atol leaves you critically vulnerable. We may well have to awkwardly co-exist with the Americans until I can find some battleships or carriers to settle things.  Most of our subs close to Pearl are sitting at 8+ detection, which makes them effectively useless. I order them to more distant patrols, and also to slightly offset routes in case Alikchi is learning to ASW.  With the end of arial resistance over Singapore I bring the recovered Betty squadrons back in and set them up for torpedoes, tweaking the search in the region to focus on the area between Borneo & Sumatra where the Singapore evacuees must move through. Ideally there will be a slowed & weakened PoW among them, or maybe this whole thing is an elaborate lame duck for a Scythe CAP trap, in which case I will be Mad. And also Sad.  My original plan was a conventional, more or less historical push down both rail lines in Malaya, with the Imperial Guards here remaining in reserve to be fresh to rail in for the actual assault of Singapore. Since he seems intent on preventing this by digging into the mountains in Northern Malaya something else needs to be done. I order the guards into a combat stance, I will send an amphibious TF to pick them up from Singora and we are going to land at Mersing, rush some tanks up the road to Malacca and cut everything in Central & Northern Malaya off. Originally I had signed up not to do a Mersing Gambit in exchange for Force Z staying out of things on turn 1, but I consider that agreement to long since be void, and now that Singapore no longer has an effective airforce I can cover the landings from Kuantan comfortably with LR CAP, no need to wait for carriers.  Nagato & Mutsu will be providing close cover.  In a rather risky move I decide to charge the Amagis into the midst of the ships fleeing Singapore. In theory at full speed they can get in and get out from torpedo plane range of Singapore before dawn, but who knows what is actually going to happen. I do know his planes are either stood down or else range restricted to not attack Kuantan, meaning they must have their mission set to a maximum of 4 hexes. I order LR CAP over the TF just in case though.  Choo Choo, all aboard the warcrimes train. Maybe this will break the deadlock at Cagayn, but it will probably just further flatten the town. I’d like to bring more troops in but we are critically short of sea lift in this area and that will have to wait until the transports return either from the Samarinda/Balikpapan adventure or from Ambon. Ohh and for those of you with the terrible taste to pick an allied Lucky Ship feel free to ask Alikchi on twitter about how they are getting on. Just don't bring that discussion back here where I can see it. Pharnakes fucked around with this message at 00:40 on Dec 30, 2020 |
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Dec 30, 2020 00:36
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  This gives me a temporary heart attack. Escort your carriers folks.  Myoko & Haguro encounter two Dutch PTs off Samarinda but can’t hit them in the dark.  There’s a lot of PT activity here tonight.  We sink the daily xAKL near Ternate, but apparently it was carrying a single Fokker? Bit weird.  I had spotted a probable cruiser raid on Miri last night and split the warships out from the convoy to give them freedom of maneuver. This is not looking like a desirable exchange though. Let us hope that the minimal facilities present at Miri are enough to save Takao.  The first phase of the bombardment at Rabaul.  At Wake an xAKL is sunk by the coastal guns.  PT boats don’t work so well in daylight thankfully.  The cruisers bump into them again, and now they can see what they are shooting at, sink one.  Well these guys were hosed whatever happened to them. Sadly she looks not very big.  The CVLs bump into probably Marblehead. This is definitely a wild ride today, but it should be fine.  In the end nothing very dramatic happens. For their side one rather old CL against three modern CAs was an unideal match up, and on our side the cruisers focus on screening the carriers away and preserving ammunition rather than pressing the attack. Maybe the independent Myoko & Haguro will come down to have a bash though, although they must be rather low on ammo themselves by now.  Fuso steams into Ambon harbour ahead of the invasion flotilla and finds three large troop transports. Are they trying to evacuate Ambon? Reinforce it? Stay tuned!  Ambiguous. But juicy kills all the same.  I had been getting a bit nervous, not hearing anything from the Amagis over night, but they pop up here perfectly positioned as far from allied bases as possible, murdering a large armed merchant ship. Not the most glorious battle but points are points.  The Anns take the first strike over Clark today.  By full daylight the Amagis have passed the corner of Borneo. They are perfectly safe here, out of reach of torpedoes from Singapore even if he did manage to guess to adjust his orders, but inreach of the Zeros from Kuantan to shoot up whatever random Dutch crap fancy their luck.  Assorted random Dutch crap try their luck on various fleets around Ambon over the day, but achieve nothing.  Likewise an attempt on the CVLs gets nowhere, albeit I would have liked to see more of them actually shot down rather than just chased off.  A second raid directed at the transports returning from Samarinda even manages to down a Zero. Rude.  True to form he is bombing the empty paratroop captured base. Somehow one of the bombers manages to get damaged, or maybe that is just FoW.  The Scythes are still at Ambon. This more or less confirms he was reinforcing the base. Ambon has a decent airfield, good coastal guns and defensible terrain, so it is a solid if bold choice. I will most likely end up having to reinforce the Ambon landings I suspect, but ultimately it will be a trap for him as it is far too far forward for resupply.  The Scythes are back at Singapore! This means various things, none of them great. Most obviously he now has at least 2 squadrons of these fuckers, and shipping around Singapore is no longer guaranteed safe with these things escorting. As an aside you can see here just how dramatic the escort penalty is: compare the Scythes performance here to the butchery they managed flying CAP over Singapore. If he decides to start sweeping with them I’m  Marblehead was too damaged to be able to leave the area in time. The Kates from the CVLs have found her, and proceed to almost certainly account for her. A single Hawk from somewhere is unable to meaningfully intervene.  A second strike does encounter meaningful opposition, but is nevertheless able to put two fish in a big tanker.  Oh god we have found Ark Royal. Or rather Ark Royal has found us. I’m sorry for saying the last turn was quiet!  However the end result is not too bad, could certainly have been dramatically worse. That’s the Ambon invasion off though, I will get the troops ashore as best we can and then they will just have to sit there for a few weeks until another wave can be scraped together from somewhere. We are running short on both sea lift and available reserves in the theatre though.  And that was all morning strikes! The Betties get things off to a quiet afternoon by bombing nothing much, let's hope this sets a pattern for the afternoon, I think I’ve had enough excitement for today thank you.  The Liz do OK despite the consistently terrible weather over Manila.  With all the happenings elsewhere I had rather forgotten about Rabaul. This must be the end of effective resistance, surely.  No Scythes equals eat poo poo RAF.  I suspect these were actually carrying torpedoes Oh well, no Scythes equals eat poo poo RAF so whatever. Or RAAF I suppose probably. At Wake the USMC Wildcats strafe an ancient armoured cruiser converted into a minelayer, and set her badly on fire. Hopefully her armoured deck protected her from anything too structural though, and we did down one with flak.  He did indeed change the orders, the cheeky git. Fortunately this raid is sucked into Kuantan and turns into little more than an opportunity to shoot another Scythe down. gently caress you Scythes.  This is never ending. The afternoon raid from the CVLs fairs better in the air over Makassar but fails to capitalise.  Others take the safe option and go torpedo a nearly stationary, already sinking destroyer. Because gently caress you Paul Jones, whoever you were.  Well this is now officially a disaster. They torpedo the already hit Yamashiro another 3 times, and she quickly rolls over.  With no other option the troops push ashore anyway.  loving thank you.  We crush the defenders at Samarinda as well.  An Allied bombardment at Wake results in not much.  Yup, poo poo’s hosed. This is seriously bad, and going to require the KB’s attention to unfuck, as well as probably half a division or more of infantry I need to find from somewhere. And ship here. And try to save Fuso.  And it looks like I might even need to reinforce Kuantan?? This game is Wild, I’m loving it.   And to think I thought the most dramatic thing to happen this turn would be Takao getting torpedoed. I can hardly even remember that far back.      A solid day in the air at least. But we lose ten Zeros because of course we do. We bag three Scythes though!   RIP beautiful lady, 03.11.1915 - 19.12.1941. I loved you despite your pagoda mast.   OK, how do we even begin to sort this clusterfuck out.  First things first. Wounded ships. Takao is not a happy camper by any means but the fires are out and the pumps are working, she should be ok. I tell her to return to Miri where they can pump some of the water out, hopefully getting her another knot or two for the journey to Hong Kong.  The situation on the ground at Ambon. The troops are actually ashore in remarkably good order, but there simply aren’t enough of them to launch any kind of offensive.  What’s left of the convoy is in rough shape. We have to stay another day though to unload enough supplies for the troops already ashore. We no longer have enough ships to be able to pick the troops back up, even if I wanted to, so the only way forward is through.  On a bright note Fuso is untouched. I move Kitakami over to the invasion flotilla to provide gun cover and so she doesn’t slow Fuso down.  We also have Maya & Ashigara fresh and ready in the area.  And of course the light carriers are nearby in the Makassar Strait, although Ryujo has only enough stores for one more day of operations. He has no, or very few, torpedoes left on Ark Royal, and so she poses little threat to Fuso now. He can see two CAs to his east, and he is too far from Soerabaja to get home in 1 turn, even at full speed. I judge he is likely to do one of two things, retreat to the cover of land based air at Makassar for a day, then on to Soerabja, or steam south west through the Flores Islands then either turn west for Soerabaja or south for Darwin. There is also Kaga to consider, if she sprints she could be 200 miles north east of Ambon by tomorrow. On the whole I consider his best bet is the Makassar option. He could be safe under the cover of the Dutch fighters there, and my CVLs are sufficiently depleted it would be very risky for me to attack him there. However  If Fuso was to sprint she would just be able to make it to Makassar. A dawn surface engagement with Ark Royal is just what the doctor ordered, and Fusos presence would potentially draw some of the heat off the CVLs who could lurk nearby to provide support. Furthermore, if I put them onto bombardment then even if they don’t manage to catch Ark Royal in a surface fight they will at least trash the airfield and reduce her fighter cover. I contemplate having the CAs cover the Flores option or defend the convoy at Ambon against reported destroyer flotillas, but decide in the end to go all in on Ark Royal at Makassar.  Kaga will come down however to cover whatever is left at Ambon tomorrow morning from further depredations. If no naval targets are found she will fly against the airstrip. Ise & Hyuga will then proceed to flatten it the next day and hopefully disrupt the defenders enough to make a counter attack from them impossible. The next big question is the Kido Butai. I contemplate having them raid Townsville or even Sydney just to show him I can, and that if he puts too much stuff to defend the DEI I will just take everything else. I could also lunge for Pago Pago - I’m pretty sure his two active US carriers are around there.  In the end I settle for the tame option of heading for the DEI. There is just too much we need them for here, breaking Ambon, potentially Cagayan given no reinforcements will now be available for a while, the invasion of Palembang and of course landing on Java before he can reinforce it too much. I do route them south about New Guinea though, which should at least give him a minor panic at Darwin.  Rabaul is now ours, a major milestone. We set about expanding everything to make it into a major base suitable for launching further operations from.  I had considered pulling Inaba & Harima off the Cagayan mission to join the effort around the Celebes, however they probably wouldn’t arrive in time to do much. Instead they will go ahead, but after emptying their guns into an orphanage rather than returning to Cam Ranh for ammo they will push on to Truk, then go and break the deadlock at Wake.  I form a small minelaying force at Truk to go and mine Wake. There will almost certainly be something sniffing around there in the near future, even if only submarines. Well that seems to be it. That was a long post and a looong turn. The next 24-48 hours are going to decide the pace of the war in the DEI for the next several months probably. Fingers crossed!
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Dec 30, 2020 09:43
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Aww That’s rough. Hope you can bag Ark though!
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Dec 30, 2020 10:08
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What are the Scythes? Are they based on any historical prototypes/planned aircraft?
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Dec 30, 2020 10:49
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oh my god they got the Yamashiro =( CHAAARGE and sink the Ark Royal!
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Dec 30, 2020 11:13
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looks like the centrifugal offensive has failed. time to start stacking war crimes immunity
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Dec 30, 2020 13:43
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Grumio posted:What are the Scythes? Are they based on any historical prototypes/planned aircraft? They are the pusher variant of the Supermarine 324/325. Thank god they are, as as such have typical anaemic per war British armament of 12 .303s. If they were type 327 they would have six 20mm. The type 327 does of course show up, as the Scythe IV, and I'm sure my screams of impotent rage when it arrives will be hilarious. gradenko_2000 posted:oh my god they got the Yamashiro =( This isn't even close to the spiciest turn in the near future. HannibalBarca posted:looks like the centrifugal offensive has failed. time to start stacking war crimes immunity The defence of Ambon was totally unexpected, yes. In hindsight it becomes a little more obvious when you can see that he is intent on contesting Northern Malaya, but by the time I realised what was happening there the Ambon invasion was well under way, with nothing to suggest Ambon would be defended. I certainly wouldn't say the centrifugal offensive is failing, but it's hit a bump and it's definitely apparent that the headlong rush strategy is not viable against Alikchi. It also has to be said though that the speedrun grab everything approach is a reaction to the allies Sir Robbining, if Alikchi will actually stand and fight I don't need to do it, since I can inflict enough damage on his forces at their set point defences that I don't need to rush forward to maintain contact.
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Dec 30, 2020 14:29
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What's your battleship count for the game? Also CVs I guess. When observing the Japanese side it's one thing to track individual ships but but margin of success/failure is really in counting down on the total size of your fleet.
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Dec 30, 2020 14:35
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Battleships I have: Settsu class - Settsu Fuso class - Fuso & Yamashiro (riip) Ise class - Ise & Hyuga Nagato class - Nagato & Mutsu Inaba class - Inaba & Harima Yamamto class - Yamamto & Mushashi (both building, due before summer) Battlecruisers I have: Kongo class: Kongo, Kirishima, Hiei & Haruna Amagi class: Amagi & Atago. Tango class: Tango & Owari (building, due '44) So Yamashiro is definitely the most disposable battleship I have, even Settsu with her 27kts and ton of 127mm DP is probably more useful, my slow battleline consists of only the Fuso & Nagato classes, maybe the Inabas if I choose to. And Fuso with 12 x 36cm is massively overshadowed by Nagato at 8 x 40cm and Inaba with 10 x 41cm. Realistically she would have been invasion support for the first 6 months and then holed up in port for the rest as too obsolete to risk in combat, but I would have liked to have a bit more invasion support out of her first.
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Dec 30, 2020 15:07
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Oh yeah, the modernised dreadnaughts are not fleet combat ships. Counting capital ships is just a good way of sizing up a Japanese player's chances because once they're gone they're gone forever.
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Dec 30, 2020 15:38
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Those Scythes are interesting. Does he get a lot of those or is it just an early war surprise kind of thing?
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Dec 30, 2020 16:01
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Pharnakes posted:Ohh and for those of you with the terrible taste to pick an allied Lucky Ship feel free to ask Alikchi on twitter about how they are getting on. Just don't bring that discussion back here where I can see it. Sorry, but none of the additions to the Japanese forces matches the sheer hilarity of the pre-Jutland British style BC's that the Americans got. I just hope that they get to do a glory ride and hit something with their big guns before you sink them.
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Dec 30, 2020 16:56
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| # ? Apr 27, 2024 02:55 |
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  My heart is legitimately pounding watching this replay. We start off with a failed sub attack to keep the tension high. Are we going to get a night engagement with Ark Royal? Dawn? None? Everyone gets torpedoed???  Unloading continues through dawn at Ambon. No night engagement then…  Somebody somewhere hits a mine. Jintsu sees off some PT boats at Miri. The tension is becoming unbearable.  The cruisers bump into each other.  Looks like we will lose a DD but otherwise rather indecisive.  For a change of pace I-169 torpedoes the Narwhal.  Thresher takes a light depth charging after a failed attack on the Wake convoy.  And we’re onto the Air phase. God only knows where Fuso has gotten to but it is now obvious she hasn’t held up her end of the plan. This could be a disaster to match yesterday.  We bomb a spotted concentration of bombers at Kuala Lumpur but don’t hit much.  A typical session at Clark.  Looks like he has moved the Catalinas away from being bombed at Manila, but now there's some B-17s here for some reason.  Nope, they’re still here and we bag one.  The Dutch try for Kaga but never get within visual of her. Where is Ark Royal?? Where is Fuso??? Where is anything????? Arrghhhh   Could this mean he went to Kendari not Makassar? Did he have the balls to go into Ambon itself?   So Fuso is where she’s supposed to be, but not shooting. This means Ark Royal isn’t here, so where is she god drat it? I’m going to have a heart attack.  Wait wait wait, Fokker T whatevers have torpedoes?? And can carry them all the way from Soerabaja??? Maybe I should actually look at these mod planes…  Just how this tanker got tangled up in the invasion flotillas I really don’t know. I sent her to Samarinda to be under Zero cover last turn but obviously that didn't work.  Our CAP trap over Langsa fails.  He persists in using his Scythes in escort rather than sweep. Fine by me.  A handful of planes from the KB bomb shipping at Port Moresby  Kaga has found Ark Royal! Now the tension really starts.  14 out of 15 make it through the CAP…  But they register no hits.  Is this all they can send against us? Please let it be so but it almost certainly isn’t. The weather in these hexes is atrocious today, which I think is resulting in the raids getting fragmented. I *think* we are out of torpedo range for them though. Unless of course there is a mod plane that can carry torpedoes further than a Kate can. And of course bombs tend to be just fine at loving up Kaga anyway.  Afternoon. Pucker up, here it comes.  The Zeros do a good job, downing 8 of the 24 strike craft. The weather over us is only moderate rain, compared to his severe storms. That isn’t good, but we do have two battleships here to soak up fire and provide heavy AA support.  Nope, he gets torps, somehow. Still this is not a disaster yet. Please launch a strong PM strike Kaga, please   The Fokkers come back to try for Fuso again but this time the Zeros are ready.  Thank god the Scythe escorted strike came in after the CV strike, and thank god they are escorting useless medium bombers.  Our PM strike package looks promising.  But are unable to get more than a single hit on a cruiser. The flak is just brutal, even for RN CVs. He must have a ton of cruisers with DP guns or something here.  The CVLs sink a couple of Dutch DDs.  I-3 spots a troop ship west of Peal. Returning from Johnston island perhaps?  We finally make some progress in Malaya.  The Marines continue to bombard at Wake, and continue to come out worse for it.  At Ambon it goes better for them, but this isn’t significant damage at least. But nearly 500 assault dug into a Jungle Rough hex with coastal artillery and no way to attack overland, ugh.   This loving game. Well was that more or less wild than yesterday do you think?      Ahead in the air at least. Only 1 Scythe though  This is not too bad at all, although I don’t believe Thresher for a second. And I do wish my DMSs would stop getting torpedoed so regularly, I don’t actually get so many of these. So. How are our old ladies doing?  Negligible flooding on Ise. That engine damage is going to take forever to repair though.  Fuso has taken on a lot more water, but should actually be back in service quicker, all being well. So not too bad, but I’m not happy we took damage without really inflicting any in return. Time to pull everyone back from full speed and turn for home.  Takao has survived another day and will effect emergency repairs at Miri for a week or two before sailing for Hong Kong. Hopefully he (reasonably) thinks she went down and won’t interfere with her.  We have enough supply here to hold out for a week or two at least. One disadvantage for him in digging into all these defensible hexes is he can’t easily counterattack. I’ll take what I can get at this point So it has become obvious I need to completely rethink my strategy. I am accustomed to fighting people who will brave Sir Robin everything for at least the first 4 months of the game, and that I therefore need to charge forward recklessly to maintain contact and do as much damage as I can before they can consolidate and match my initial advantage. This is generally agreed to be objectively the best allied strategy but it is also boring. I am very glad Alikchi is choosing to stand and fight. So from now on we will be looking for set piece, decisive battles involving a large percentage of our forces at once, rather than spreading thin. Once we crush his chosen strong points of Singapore, Clark Field and Ambon we can have a more general advance. His reserves are far from limitless at this point in the game, and he must have basically everything he has on the line. With that in mind the first thing to do is outflank northern Malaya by landing at Mersing. The Imperial Guards were supposed to load today at Singora to do just that but there seems to be some weirdness where they won’t load on certain ships. I order the convoy to fully unload again and we will try to see if that makes it work tomorrow.  Aboard Kaga we have our first ace, with 6 kills. Making 5 of them today, he has achieved the coveted Ace in a Day. Order of the Rising Sun is in the post.  Here are our other top pilots.   Always triple quadruple quintuple check your carrier settings kids. If this had been torpedoes things could have gone very differently…  We have been steadily recovering disruption at Wake. I decide to try one attack before the support fleet leaves tomorrow.  Ohh, and this was the mine hit I talked about. Hitting a tanker is always good.
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Dec 30, 2020 21:04
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