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Well there was this one time when I got Lord Windy to surrender before Christmas... Horribly botched Mersing Gambits aside it looks like throwing everything you have forwards. If I was him I would have raided the Marshalls day one, tried at least one version of a Doolitle, every time I exposed the KB in a position hit somewhere else, doesn't really matter where, just anywhere. Instead we have had a pretty free reign at sea, even as he has formed a forwarded defence by land. Had he aggressively supported his troops with carrier raids, and in particular carrier escort of emergency resupply, we could be in a very bad way. Alikchi has been surprisingly passive, I expected him to for example use carriers to get more supply into Ambon (had he done that we would still be there and could well still be there forever just about). I can only assume the Port Moresby almost loosing two Yorktowns thing has given him cold feet.
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# ? Mar 11, 2021 10:54 |
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# ? Apr 23, 2024 19:53 |
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Alchenar posted:Last I checked (about 5 years ago) the meta discussion was that going full 'brave sir robin' was a bad idea for the Allied player because not doing enough to slow down the Japanese player as they sweep through SE Asia results in them having enough time in 1942 to take a free swing at India or Australia while the Allies are too weak to stop them. You don't let the reinforcement divisions Churchill sent actually go into Singapore, but you don't try to evacuate what's there either. Yeah this is about right - the landing bonus means Japan can simply stretch their legs even further once they realize the Allies are pulling out entirely, and even if there's always going to be enough time and forces to prevent an outright autovictory in 1942/43, letting Japan take a lot of territory with little or no resistance can make the retaking very painful. tatankatonk posted:What does the most aggressive Allied strategy possible look like? Political Point limits make it difficult at best to organize a counter-striking amphibious assault earlier than what the Allies historically did, and it takes three months to even just prep for a landing, but an aggressive strategy would be something like packing forward bases with as much air power is available, refusing to retreat any units, sending rear-area units forward to make stands at points like Rangoon and Palembang and Port Moresby, and using all available carriers to make concentrated and dedicated strikes. Historically, the Allies planned for something like: * capture Eniwetok (or another Marshall Island like Jaluit or Kwajelein) by D+180 * develop Eniwetok into a forward base by D+360 * capture Truk by D+360 * develop Truk into a major fleet base for an indeterminate amount of time * use Truk as a springboard for isolating the Home Islands Things obviously did not work out this way, but it's interesting to think about how they imagined that they'd be on the offensive almost immediately and would be launching moves against Japan itself a little over a year after the start of a war.
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# ? Mar 11, 2021 11:01 |
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Here we go at Oosthaven. 11 return shots, resistance should be minimal. The Betties at Ambon open the airphase. Not as dramatic as yesterday, but we will take every supply hit we can get. The Nells don't manage any sadly, and merely further trashing the runway isn’t really helping - it’s all just damage we will then need to repair. There is CAP at Tjilatjap Today we lose eleven That’s a small cruiser worth of Liz! Then we lose one more in the second wave for a round dozen. And we bomb the poo poo out of the fuel tanks just to put the cherry nugget on top of the poo poo cake. How will Singkawang go? There was supposed to be a bombardment here but it doesn’t seem to have manifested. Extremely poorly apparently. That’s presumably the bombardment force just outside Singkawang, which means they won’t bombard at the end of the day phase either and the ground troops are going to attack with the only damage dealt being that one disabled support squad. Not shaping up to be a good day. A second wave of Lillies does not snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. A second wave of Sallies at least disables a combat squad! It’s starting over Oosthaven. A nice number of Zeros here at least. A good start, let’s hope we can keep it up when the actually threatening planes attack. It seems like he is also trying to bomb our troops at Djokjakarta. We don't even really have anything here to bomb, but whatever. They are back to the bombing of Papua New Guinea. They haven’t managed to move out of this hex yet, so we must be doing a reasonable job of delaying them. The southernmost unit has managed to retreat into this hex though. The Banshees are on port attack rather than naval today it would seem. Sadly they pussy out once we shoot up the escort a bit. Squad destroyed?!? This is going to be horrible, probably. No? What? Maybe he has been air evacing troops from here? Other than Liz is the new Betty, a quiet day. Landing at Oosthaven is kind of a big deal I guess. We really need to stop losing Liz like this. “We” This is all you guy’s fault, I hope you’re happy. Indeed. Their encirclement at the east end of Java continues with the capture of Probolinggo. The Kurama sisters are commissioned in a dual ceremony at Tokyo Bay today. After the Tone’s attempt to combine the roles of a heavy cruiser for escort and a seaplane tender for scouting, the Kuramas are a rationalisation to be buildable by our extremely busy yards, at 12,500 tons the smallest cruisers we have built since the Aoba class in the 1920s. Nevertheless they fulfil our main doctrine requirement of being superior to any allied cruiser afloat, with their only real weakness being slightly mediocre speed. Well, and liquid oxygen of course For a wonder Nanman Maru has been saved! This is fantastic news, we really don’t have large cargo ships to just throw away on confused orders. Kinugasa and Kashima are now well behind our lines, and turn for home and the drydocks at Yokosuka. We have caught some probably small unit here and will kick them in the teeth tomorrow. The KB is going to be in range to hit Colombo again tomorrow. I doubt he’s left much there but you never know. I wasn’t planning on declaring our presence this early, but with the invasion fleet spotted today the cat is pretty well out the bag. And Mini KB is well within range of a lunge at Ndeni. Ndeni is still airfield size one, so we don’t need to worry about getting hit by land based air. What we might need to worry about is the possibility of a carrier(s) (oh god don’t let it be s) turning up. To deal with this we are going to stay on heavy CAP, with our top cover providing a little sweep but otherwise no escort for the Kates. They will go in at 1000 though to try and duck under whatever CAP might be there. quote:Allied Recon sighted over Tulagi But of course our loving Mavis are down to a single operational plane Extremely poor timing for that guys. This is extremely not good, I really want Milne Bay for reasons. However, notice the range 9 from Rabaul there? Well, Port Moresby is 11 from Rabaul. So can stand up the Betties but range restrict them so they can’t suicide at Port Moresby. Of course, he can still fly LRCAP there, but the short ranged Allied fighters will really struggle with that. The troops at Singkawang are not badly disrupted so we are going to keep the pressure on. And there's no excuse for the battleships there to not bombard this time. We will pull the bombers up to 10k though, that flak was rather unpleasant. With nothing but some second line troops here, Oosthaven should be a forgone conclusion. We had to withdraw a unit of Betties from Koepang, so I bring in some Sallies to replace them. Although range 12 is max for the Sallies and they consequently carry a lighter load, the Sally’s reduced load of two 250kg is not much worse than a Betty’s land target load of two 250kg and four 60kg. I also change the mission from airfield to port. I don’t know why I didn’t think of this earlier, but hitting the port at only size two should still generate supply dump hits but won’t take so long for us to repair as the size four airfield. We will put LRCAP up over the battleships tomorrow, maybe the float planes will attack them. In case we don’t take Singkawang it would be nice to finally get rid of those loving things. We are going to start running a pain train on Darwin. I would really like to take it, but without carrier support available that requires thoroughly trashing the airfield.
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# ? Mar 11, 2021 18:31 |
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Excited to see how this round of gambles plays out! Losing G5Ns in such numbers seems like it hurts, though. Is there a safer way to employ them? Are they better saved up for mass raids? What will they do later in the war when the Allies have even more and even better fighters?
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# ? Mar 12, 2021 02:56 |
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That Kurama class sure seems like a lot crammed on to small tonnage (IJN.txt). I guess it's pretty much a shrunken Takao that trades some speed for smaller displacement?
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# ? Mar 12, 2021 02:59 |
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Pharnakes posted:
Service Rating.jpg You almost want to divide the unit so you can stand down a section completely so that they'll ostensibly have a plane that can fly when you really need some eyeballs. The planes will still be broken.
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# ? Mar 12, 2021 03:07 |
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You can! Increasing the squadron's rest percentage will reduce the number of airframes that fly each day. With some tweaking you can find the right balance that will allow you to keep a relatively constant number of aircraft available at any given time. The downside is the squadron is only effectively a fraction of its real size, but you don't get caught with your pants down. (As someone who doesn't play a ton of wargames, one of the fascinating things this game exposed was the tradeoff between all out attack and sustainability). This is assuming there isn't a larger issue with aviation support or supply that is keeping the planes from being repaired. Also, this timeline will have a Memphis Belle-type movie released in Japan called Osaka Liz or something. The maudlin story of the legendary ill-fated raid over Tjilatjap, with a dash of hope. War is hell.
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# ? Mar 12, 2021 07:45 |
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Pirate Radar posted:Excited to see how this round of gambles plays out! The safe way to employ them is when there is no aerial opposition If we are still producing them in 1943 I'd be surprised, but right now they do have their niche as a bomb truck. KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:That Kurama class sure seems like a lot crammed on to small tonnage (IJN.txt). I guess it's pretty much a shrunken Takao that trades some speed for smaller displacement? They're also 10 years of welding development, ect, younger don't forget. uPen posted:Service Rating.jpg Over time Mavis availability trends towards roughly 1/3rd. What has happened here is as a fresh squadron arriving, they have all hit the maintenance threshold at roughly the same time and thus clogged up the limited facilities at Tulagi. In a couple of weeks things will have evened out, it's just very poor timing for them to be in this slump just when we really need them.
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# ? Mar 12, 2021 11:41 |
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Are you also going to get Ritas in any numbers or is that a secret?
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# ? Mar 12, 2021 12:06 |
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So the KB is back at columbo again? That should surprise the allies at least since they just freakin’ left. Maybe they kept a lot of the damaged ships in port? Could be good hunting!
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# ? Mar 12, 2021 12:09 |
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It seems the USN has finally cracked convoy escorts - make the Canucks do it for them. So close and yet so far. RIP Itsukushima. 24 hours late, but here come the big guns at Singkawang. Ground casualties are mediocore, but we score one of the loving planes! That should help incase we don’t take it today. Ok now this is good. Here comes the adrenaline, so much that I missed the action shot. Or well, the non action shot. But this means Indomitable should be in range of the KB come the air phase. She must be sallying out against the invasion he spotted yesterday I suppose? God only knows where he thinks the KB is. One way or another this is a buckle in turn. The airphase opens with a sweep at Milne Bay. As expected there is LRCAP here, also as expected there isn’t much of it, and it is down low to protect against torpedo runs. So far so good. Note down in the bottom there, the Allied TF has left Ndeni. But it is only range five from our CVLs, well within torpedo range for the Kates. I should really have seen this one coming outside Sabang I suppose. That could have been very much worse! Thankfully the airfield at Ambon is too cratered for that to be much of a concern here. We do like us some supply hits. More weirdness with mission splits. It seems when you put a squadron on sweep with 80% CAP and 20% rest, somehow this isn't totaled as 100% by the game and a few planes continue on sweep. Thankfully there is no CAP here or at 4000 the Zeros would have had a hard time. Please god let us have caught the carriers in port! We don’t know yet if this is an anti naval strike or if the KB has had a brain fart and decided to attack the port instead. The presence of carrier is fighters is a good sign though! It's naval! And the strike is through with minimal losses! Thank you God like KB pilots. No fuckups this time, please!!!! Light rain over target! And the first sub group puts a bomb in her! Oh yes oh yes oh YES!!!! This is how the KB is supposed to work. This is only the second group of four to attack btw, and already Indomitable has taken a 250kg bomb and two torpedoes. More like Dominatable if you ask me. Lyon is here too it seems. Half the Kates are dropping bombs (I told them to do this for reasons that elude me now) and the Vals are set to not dive bomb because I was scared of the flak at Colombo, but this is still going ok. God drat armoured decks!!! Dorsetshire doesn’t have so much armour though! Don’t use your torpedoes on destroyers Apart from that first wave, 90%+ of the torpedo armed Kates tried to torpedo destroyers. Most of the bomb armed Kates of course bounced bombs off Indomitable’s deck. I have run out of ways to express my outrage at how lucky Alikchi is. Still, Indomitable is not pulling an Ark Royal on us. The KB is here, full strength, nearly full fuel and a ton of torpedoes available () Aerial bombardment at Singkawang next. It’s something at least. The Sallies do OK over Ambon too. I could really do with some flak here at Pisanuloke. How the gently caress did sixteen Blenhiems do that well?? Definitely need flak. CAP was stood down for fear of him sweeping. But he escorted instead The Banshees try for the fleet at Oosthaven. Unsurprisingly without escort they have a hard time of it. A pair of Martins fare no better. Here we come at Milne Bay. Stop attacking destroyers! *Sobs into pillow* One flight of four goes for one transport, one lone Betty the other. The remaining 19 try to torpedo destroyers. Usually from behind. What devil pact has Alikchi signed? I want in on that poo poo. There’s a brisk CAP up at Bandoeng still. Now that our sweeps are actually flying from Kalidjati they shouldn’t last long though. Seven Kates is the best the CVLs could do?? If these guys attack destroyers I swear I am ragequitting. Three on the AMC, four on the destroyer minesweeper. All from astern of course. Oh ok the rest have found some transports still at Ndeni. This is good stuff. But of course they still find time to go after the backbone of the allied war effort, the destroyers. loving really?! Enough already, it’s not funny anymore A reasonable haul anyway. And they might fly PM strikes against Ndeni at range three. Or against that AMC apparently? *Sorry, against the destroyers escorting that AMC. *Throws keyboard across room* Why do I still play this game. Some Hudsons are flying against the Ceylon invasion. Whatever. I’m paranoid that that is another CV off Ceylon and it is going to gently caress up the invasion fleet though. Apparently all that was just the morning! The afternoon opens with what will doubtless turn out to be more torpedoes dropped at destroyers. At least we have escort. Naturally. From astern too, just to guarantee they can’t hit. This is just disgusting. We know there are transports here because a few Betties accidentally attacked them in the morning. And it's not like there are so many destroyers here that they end up getting targeted through sheer probability. The KB is flying a PM strike though! That’s good news at least. Easily through again. Who’s hype for some not dead destroyers? I know I’m (Borat voice) NOT! In the afternoon the Kates mostly attack capital ships, and mostly from the broadsides, but mix it up by missing everything anyway. This does eventually happen though. The fact the Vals all missed is excusable because they aren’t dive bombing, but the Kates are just dreadful. PM strikes from the CVLs is mostly against the AMC it seems. I need a gun, someone get me a gun. The one flight that managed to attack the only ship here worth anything of course attacked from astern. I mean it’s not like I expected to win this game but I thought I could get a few knocks in first. Once again we have caught Alikchi totally by surprise and completely exposed all across the theater, and the result is at best one heavily damaged RN CV and some small transports at Ndeni. Sorry if I am bitching too much, but gently caress me this is fustrating. I-9 surfaces to strafe a French merchant with her AA gun. Well, if it works I am far from complaining. Ambon is looking promising these last few days. The 38th secures the surrender of a base force. They surrender at Oosthaven too, and we catch a couple of flying boats. And we take Singkawang too, destroying the last of those loving tIVas. The defenders here do not surrender however, preferring to try and march 500 miles into a roadless jungle. I suppose I concede today was a good day. But gently caress it could (and should) have been so much better. Certainly a bloody day in the air. We lost a lot less Oscars than I was worried we would on the ground though. Yeah not yet she isn’t. But we’ll get her! That's the first ship actually lost to a mine I think, despite plenty of hits. Mine sweeping is dangerous, although not nearly as dangerous as torpedo sweeping. I can’t believe he brought this much stuff back to Ceylon. Where the gently caress did he think the KB went? At least she tried, but that hurt quite a bit. We are going to do something hopefully rather unexpected with the KB. By parking them right outside Jaffna like this they should be in strike range of anything fleeing up the Indian coast, and hopefully he expects us to come south about Ceylon and chase. I also set the Vals to divebomb properly, but take away their port strike secondary. And of course switch the Kates to full torpedoes. Well, on the carriers that haven’t already run out anyway. And then we take all of the capital surface ships and most of the destroyers and send them to act as a blocking force to cover both the KB and the invasion in the event he decides to go for a charge of the heavy brigade with those old battleships. Kongos aren’t ideal for this task by any means but they are what we had fueled and ready in Singapore. Yes I know this is the attitude that got Hood sunk. Shut up. Hood didn’t even get sunk in this timeline anyway. One unit at Singkawang will march down the coast to help at Pontianak, while the other two will head inland to kick those losers around a bit. And we have caught up with a few of the wandering lunatics that constitute the remains of the Makasar garrison. It seems these guys are headed for Brisbane not Noumea, and I adjust the local submarine accordingly. There is even more aerial activity reported over Tulagi today, and I really don’t get it. It can’t be a carrier or she would surely have intervened in today's activities. There are no planes reported at Ndeni and we got a good look there today. So where are they coming from?? I do know that we are going to have to get the gently caress out of here before we discover first hand just where his carriers are though. The reinforcements for Tulagi are going to have to turn back. Now we’ve cracked Singkawang, the Sallies will start the long and immensely tedious process of running down his supplies at Palembang. We stand down the Nells at Georgetown and send sweep in instead. We are going to shift to direct ground support at Ambon for a day or two, then attack. We don’t really need AAA at Singapore at the moment, so we will send it to Pisanuloke. Our response to Pisanuloke is going to be to remove all the bombers to Saigon, send all the fighters to Chiang Mai and start aggressive sweeping of Rangoon. And then the medium bombers from Bangkok will hit Rangoon airfield. Or maybe it will all be a disaster like last time. We are going to try with the tanks again at Djokjakarta. A field construction battalion to start putting Medan back together.
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# ? Mar 12, 2021 20:23 |
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Those 11 bomb hits that didn't kill Indomitable are really making me think back to Rule the Waves 2 and how loving hard it is to kill CVs with armored flight decks there.
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# ? Mar 12, 2021 20:39 |
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The Ndeni raid seems successful to me, you didn't sink every ship but 3 APs is a good haul for the smaller carriers. In the Indian Ocean you've effectively sunk Indomitable, even if she's still afloat she won't be within a turn or two. The battleships are all WW1 era tubs so they aren't going anywhere fast. If he does try to intercept the invasion with them the Kongos should be enough to slow them down until the KB pastes them. Not a bad result in the rain.
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# ? Mar 12, 2021 21:04 |
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Also just in terms of intel this seems to show that the Allies clearly didn't expect any sort of push in this area, which bodes well for future ops.
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# ? Mar 12, 2021 21:08 |
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uPen posted:The Ndeni raid seems successful to me, you didn't sink every ship but 3 APs is a good haul for the smaller carriers. After Ark Royal, Hermes and even Repulse apparently I'm not believing that one until I either see "and sunk" in a combat report or get the points in the bank.
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# ? Mar 12, 2021 23:47 |
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Great turn- exciting and frustrating in equal measure. It's maddening how bone-headed the AI is when it comes to escorting or prioritizing targets. An extra layer of orders where you could prioritize certain ships or task forces above a certain size could be interesting, but would add even more complexity to an already complicated game.
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# ? Mar 13, 2021 07:39 |
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The fairy tale of the little engineer, or, the birth of the Billy. So let me tell you a little story about a poor Japanese aviation engineer. One day he was approached by the army to develop a new and modern fighter plane using technology recently shared by Germany. Although he was poor he was a good and honourable man, so he agreed to work for the Army, and didn’t even ask to be paid. Unfortunately, on a dark and stormy night just as he was putting the finishing touches to his masterpiece his workshop was raided by some treacherous SNLF and he was kidnapped. Waking up in a dark room he was sure he had been impressed into the Navy to work as a coiler in the oldest and filthiest ship they had, but it turned out that the jealous Navy had heard of his project and wanted it for themselves. The evil Captain Unchigao, chief test pilot for the perfidious Navy came to his room and, refusing his pleas to be returned to his kind and generous masters in the Army demanded he convert his design for carrier operations. Much as he wished to escape their wicked clutches he was guarded closely as the Navy demanded he fit arrestor gear to his design by day and cruelly beat him by night. Despite his entreaties that this was impossible they refused to listen, and in the end, fearing they would beat him to death, he produced a version ready for production with a tail hook made of string and balsa wood to please them. Of course, the stupid Navy officers were too cretinous to realise the trick and rushed the plane into production. As the designer watched Unchigao take off from the small strip outside his house on a tiny island in Tokyo Bay, he realised this was his only chance. Soon Unchigao would try to land on the carrier Zuiho, home for repairs. He rushed over to the head guard, a particularly inbred Commander by the name of Bokonge and explained that he needed to take spare parts over to Unchigao. Bokonge agreed to take him over in his launch, but as soon as he started the engine the brave designer threw a spanner over the side. “Oh no!” he exclaimed, “If I don’t take that engine accelerator to Zuiho Unchigao will crash and be killed” Bokonge immediately dived over the side and the clever engineer steered the launch straight for the nearest army base. Arriving just in time to explain the situation to his master, the kind general who had been sitting on his porch every day awaiting the loyal engineer’s return, they both enjoyed a hearty laugh watching Unchigao shoot off the end of Zuiho and splash into the sea, never to be seen again. Although disappointed the engineer hadn’t thought to include a bomb on the prototype to hopefully sink the Zuiho too, the handsome general quickly grasped the opportunity and that afternoon while the navy were all running around waving their hands in the air and wailing with grief, the first raiding regiment paradropped onto the small island, and, after executing every navy traitor they found, seized the designs and 36 completed prototypes.
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# ? Mar 13, 2021 11:33 |
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more like the DOMITABLE amirite
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# ? Mar 13, 2021 11:52 |
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Hey, it’s my lucky ship! I didn’t expect to see her yet. Really exciting stuff around Ceylon, despite... everything.
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# ? Mar 13, 2021 12:21 |
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Yeah seeing you try all this cool stuff is insanely fun.
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# ? Mar 13, 2021 18:06 |
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Did that story really happen?
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# ? Mar 13, 2021 19:42 |
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The KB bumps into a couple of merchant ships in the night. Neither side wishes to engage of course. Although a suicide charge by a pair of xAKs against the KB would be pretty badass. Until one of our girls burns out from a couple of 4” hits of course. What is more interesting is we can see the enemy fleeing Colombo, with at least something heading past Trivandrum and potentially into our trap. Not to be outdone by I-9, I-172 is using her 13.2mm MG against this freighter. I think there were some large calibre hits mixed in as well. I-16 engages what is probably an ASW TF and takes a couple hits. While RO-67 has a half assed swipe at a DMS from the AMC convoy. I-172 has found what is almost certainly Enterprise, although she can’t directly confirm it. That’s ok, the CVLs are well out of harm's way from here. The CAP is looking a little thin at Rangoon. It also seemed to be down low, which is nice. The weather however is appalling, shame. Colombo on the other hand has, uh, vigorous CAP. Our poor guys didn’t really stand a chance, but they get a couple kills in all the same. Whatever that is off Cochin is perfectly placed for the KB to reach it. Things are maybe starting to happen at Ambon? The second wave in at Rangoon finds no opposition. Let’s hope the storms keep his planes grounded where they will be bombable. No opposition at Milne Bay today, which presumably means the TF has left. Let’s hope they did so without completing unloading. The first bomber wave to Rangoon claims a kill despite the weather. As does the second. One kill per wave seems to be the rule. The Betties however are determined to show the Army up and claim two (they probably made one up) The Sally wave at Ambon doesn’t do as much as the Betties, but this is still two weeks worth of bombardments damage done in a day. Uhh, I would really have liked more CAP over the invasion flotilla please guys. The Zeros claim five however, and the sixth falls to flak as it lines up a run on Husimi Maru. The Hudsons prefer to go for the battleships. Hudsons are even less of a threat to battleships then they are to anything else. Subsequent waves are supposed to draw more of the CAP into the hex in question, but that doesn’t seem to be happening! Please let those Swordfish have been the only effective bombers they had here. The mystery planes over Tulagi declare themselves. It was they, Hudsons, all along! The one virtue the Hudsons have is the ability to fly (by allied standards) crazy ranges. This doesn’t help much if they can’t actually hit anything when they get there. The Banshees come in over the CAP today, but they still aren’t dive bombing so they miss. Six on seven over Bandoeng today. Warhawks, more like suckhawks. Batavia has only two planes flying. The Hawk manages to dive away, but the Demon goes down in flames. This is a light strike and encountered no CAP, so we can’t expect anything juicy At least it’s some decent sized transports. And a tanker. What a difference dive bombing makes! This on the other hand has heavy LRCAP over it. Could it be battleships? Only nine Kates make it through. Sorry about the plane display bug, witp gonna witp. Now I get why the KB didn’t launch much here, but why did he put LRCAP over these? At least we shot a Warhawk down I suppose. Now there is at least a bit more CAP over the invasion, excellent. One does get through, but lol no a Bolly is not hitting ships from 12k feet. He’s taken the CAP down over Sumatra. And that was it for the morning, PM opens with bombing Palembang airfield. Heavy cloud cover keeps the results fairly mediocre. The Blenheims are back at the Battleships. 15k feet, that’s a little optimistic I feel. But I suppose it does mostly protect them from the flak. Hudsons try a little lower but without result. We do manage to intercept the afternoon Banshees. But still only kill one. There’s still something here off Cochin apparently. This is one corvette that won’t be bothering our submarines any longer. Sixteen bombs, eleven hits. Not bad. Every military target has left I’m pretty sure. Don’t suicide over some loving AMcs If you must do this at least hit the loving thing! On the other hand we lost distinctly less Vals than I thought we would. I-172, getting the inside scoops today. Air might have gone well today at Ambon, but ground is a big fat nothing. They cling on for one more day outside Tjilatjap. It seems the Dutch have found some tanks of their own at Madioen. The improvised AFVs are no match for even our tin cans, but we will probably wait for infantry support here all the same. The Makassar garrison surrenders! I can’t believe it, war's as good as over boys. Approximate route of their “retreat” marked in blue. I think this took at least 6 weeks and involved us defeating them at least 5 times. Indomitable has not sunk in the night And with this much of his airpower present we can’t chase, we have to stay here and protect the landings. She gets away again. Substantially ahead in the air at least. Sunk ships are sunk ships I suppose Mini KB is refueled, and heading for Rabaul to rearm. I-16 is going to have to pay the floating drydock at Truk a visit. I-172 on the other hand is fine, if a little low on machine gun ammo The balls on these guys to attack surfaced like that practically under Enterprise’s nose. The defenders from Medan have marched south and retaken Tandjoengbalai. Well, they can rot there for the rest of the war for all we care - there’s nothing there and they are cut off from supply so can’t operate planes. If these recon reports are accurate, there is going to be one hell of a fight over Ceylon. The convoy is safe, and in some ways that’s all that matters. By tomorrow we will be ashore at Jaffna and can order an attack, and the day after we will have taken it. If we don’t we will as good as lost the war with how invested in this we are With such a massive CAP over Colombo we are going to have to do something a little crazy to crack it. And that means we are going to have to bombard, again. Let’s hope it goes better this time! To match this the KB is put onto full airfield attack. It hurts my soul to think about how ships are just going to slip away, but we have no choice. The Kates however are going on port attack because: quote:Previous report of sinking of CV Indomitable incorrect. Ship sighted and engaged at 29, 48 We have arrived at the eastern end of Java, so we can attack at Loemadjiang and finish the Soerabaja garrison off. There’s no shipping at Port Moresby right now, so we are reactivating the Betties at Rabaul with maximum torpedo range, just incase something wanders in. The fighters are still here, so we will try sweeping Sabang itself. As previously mentioned we need Milne Bay at the eastern end of Papua. There’s a whole lot of other stuff in the area we want, but Milne Bay we absolutely must have. Prize to anyone who can guess why! To this end an entire regiment of our best SNLF are loading up, to leave as soon as the CVLs have rearmed. This is not as risky as it sounds, we will be operating well under the Betty umbrella and unless Alickchi is 100% confident of his luck (which he might well be given the pattern so far) he won’t bring his carriers deep enough in to bother us over what he hopefully regards as a minor base.
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# ? Mar 13, 2021 19:51 |
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Affi posted:Did that story really happen? Read on to find out.
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# ? Mar 13, 2021 19:52 |
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Pharnakes posted:
Need it for more SNLF paratrooper shenanigans?
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# ? Mar 13, 2021 21:24 |
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Amra is only three years old at this point, and unsurprisingly pretty large: http://www.tynebuiltships.co.uk/A-Ships/amra1938.html e: Oorama on the other hand is a sad little boat and I'm feeling a bit sorry for her: https://collections.slsa.sa.gov.au/resource/B+72423/1 aphid_licker fucked around with this message at 00:44 on Mar 14, 2021 |
# ? Mar 13, 2021 22:36 |
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Good stuff. Do the BBs have enough ammo left for a second bombardment? I thought those missions expended most of the big gun ammo in one night.
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# ? Mar 13, 2021 23:05 |
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They do, but we haven't bombarded yet?
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# ? Mar 13, 2021 23:44 |
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Pharnakes posted:They do, but we haven't bombarded yet? Oh weird, I must have misread. Carry on!
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# ? Mar 14, 2021 03:22 |
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The bombardment TF bumps into three cargo ships. One turns out to be a submarine tender, that’s nice. O-24 splats a small sub chaser outside Soerabaja. But the other escorts retaliate harshly. The initial attacks are on point but they quickly lose track of her and she will probably survive. It seems he is evacuating Colombo in anticipation of getting port striked. I-165 wastes a fantastic opportunity on a giant AP. Not even an xAP. An AP Here comes the bombardment. Oh yes, that is a good result. gently caress yes it is. Most importantly this confirms Indomitable did not leave port. And here we go at Jaffna! Lol, one shot fired in defence. We lose a lot of men and material in the surf unloading, but that is purely a function of how many we have to lose - it’s just a flat percentage. I know you’re low on ammo, but please engage guys. Those tankers are like 15k tons. Long Lances at 6K yards you say? Oh yeah that's the good stuff. And that’s another submarine tender. This is a fantastic haul. I’ll take it. CAP at Rangoon doesn’t look too bad, although I’m not very hype about three Scythes. Today, it would seem, is our day. The weather at Ambon is too bad to hit much though. Swings and roundabouts, I’ll quite happily accept our luck elsewhere today thank you. The Nells have other ideas though. Three Zeros fell behind the main wave at Rangoon. Well we can’t have all the luck I suppose. His sacrifice has all but cleared the CAP out though. Low on ammo and fuel, they only manage to catch one Sally, and we make up for that on the ground. There’s a few stragglers left at Palembang it seems, and the Sallies get one. The Lillies get nothing though. By the time the Betties arrive the CAP is too exhausted to claim even one. Although they are still airborne when the Oscars finally turn up. Not for long though. The Sallies arrive over Ambon. They also get results despite the weather. He has started Sweeping at Kalidjati. All our CAP is down low for bombers because he never sweeps, so this might be unfortunate. Well that could have been severely worse. Warhawks really are not great planes at anything but shooting down bombers. He has taken the CAP down at Bandoeng, presumably to free planes for this. Batavia still has something though. Well, had. He does indeed have the Warhakws flying CAP at Sabang. We bag ourselves a few. KB if this is the only strike you launch this turn I swear to god. Oh well, let’s see how much CAP they’ve managed to get up. Enough it seems. And severe storms is not what we need here. This though is just what the doctor ordered. That should all but seal the deal. Apparently this is all the KB is doing today. Well, thank god they did that much at least I suppose. Our LSD has hit a mine or grounded or something, not ideal but at least she isn’t on fire apparently. And so it goes. What’s left of the defenders of Soerabaja surrender. And we push them back on the Tjilatjap - Djokjakarta road. Well, I suppose I concede that was an OK day. No sign of Indomitable actually sinking though. Brutal all round in the air. If the KB had only flown properly with sweep in advance this could have been a fantastic day. Some juicy poo poo here though, and more to come. OK these tankers aren’t actually 15k tons, but that is still a very nice pair of ships he’s lost. I have no idea wtf happened here. It wasn’t any weapon, nor was it a collision or a grounding, or it would say so. The battleship TF is thoroughly out of fuel, but by god that was worth it. Actually if we take out the empty destroyers, the rest will make it back OK. Then we can designate the empty destroyers as an escort TF, and take an unloaded large cargo ship and use her as an emergency tanker. A convoy of assorted cripples is put together to head for Singapoe the long way round, because the Java Sea is loving teeming with Dutch submarines right now. If he wants to sweep here at Kalidjati, we will respond by putting the CAP up to 20k feet. We no longer have any convoys here in need of protection, so if he sends some bombers underneath it’s no big deal. The troops are nicely recovered at Ambon, so we are going to try the next push. And of course we are taking Jaffna. The poor bastards here won’t know what hit them.
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# ? Mar 14, 2021 18:28 |
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Holy shiiiiiit
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# ? Mar 14, 2021 18:42 |
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Congrats
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# ? Mar 14, 2021 18:45 |
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Please tell me we're gonna get to harvest some more of those planes parked at Colombo. That is like a fuckin plane kill pinata.
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# ? Mar 14, 2021 18:57 |
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Well that was a good day for you, that carrier is at minimum up for a year of repairs, and most likely two times dead already, and you've killed A Lot of planes.
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# ? Mar 14, 2021 19:40 |
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Will you be sticking around Ceylon with the KB or is it time to repair and refit?
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# ? Mar 14, 2021 19:43 |
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A good day! Well deserved
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# ? Mar 14, 2021 19:48 |
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Very nice turn, I love your aggression and it is paying off at the moment.
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# ? Mar 14, 2021 19:56 |
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You know how you wanted some 800 kg AP to hit Indomitable? Both the planes AND the BBs heard you, considering those bombs were made of converted 16" shells.
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# ? Mar 14, 2021 20:28 |
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clearly we have established the superiority of battleships over planes
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# ? Mar 14, 2021 22:07 |
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Nice work there! Not sure the Indominable can make it out of the port even in her shape. If she can then probably she'll be slow and probably can't launch any plans. HOw many airframes you still think are active around Ceylon?
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# ? Mar 14, 2021 22:37 |
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# ? Apr 23, 2024 19:53 |
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Say Indomitable doesn't sink, but it too damaged to move, and you capture the base. What happens to it? Auto-sank? Auto-scuttle?
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# ? Mar 14, 2021 23:01 |