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So how do you counter that sort of thing? I understand it wound be costly in time and supplies, but a minefield and coastal artillery defence might help, right? Either that or swearing off using airfields in coastal hexes forevermore?
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Jun 3, 2021 21:33
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SIGSEGV posted:So how do you counter that sort of thing? I understand it wound be costly in time and supplies, but a minefield and coastal artillery defence might help, right? Either that or swearing off using airfields in coastal hexes forevermore? Meaningful coastal artillery is all static and in place at the start of the scenario. The traditional counter is to have sufficient naval strike in play to stop anyone doing a run at you as well as having your own cruiser forces hanging around. Also not having that many strategic bombers that far forwards.
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Jun 3, 2021 21:39
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There's a reason so many of the Solomon Islands surface forces naval battles were about attempting or defending against bombardment of Henderson Field.
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Jun 3, 2021 21:50
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SIGSEGV posted:So how do you counter that sort of thing? I understand it wound be costly in time and supplies, but a minefield and coastal artillery defence might help, right? Either that or swearing off using airfields in coastal hexes forevermore? Have your own surface forces in range to threaten an interception, or if you control the air over the base you can park them right in the harbor. If your bombardment force is at risk of being caught in a surface engagement they may not make it back out of naval strike range before daybreak. If you've got a huge airfield with dozens of very valuable planes in a coastal hex you want to have a surface force somewhere nearby that you can sortie when you detect the bombardment TF. Alikchi's search seems to be spotty so he may have a force of old capital ships in Townsville or Brisbane for exactly this but never sortied because he didn't spot the Japanese fleets in time.
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Jun 3, 2021 21:59
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SIGSEGV posted:So how do you counter that sort of thing? I understand it wound be costly in time and supplies, but a minefield and coastal artillery defence might help, right? Either that or swearing off using airfields in coastal hexes forevermore? Small coastal artillery detachments can help somewhat - they won't stop a bombardement force this size, but they can disrupt it and draw fire. Mines and torpedo boats are also good for this. But to fully stop a major bombardement force, you need enough air recon and naval strike and/or a significant surface force to intercept it before it gets there. Alchenar posted:Also not having that many strategic bombers that far forwards. And this really needs to be emphasized. B-17s have enough range that you can put them on airfields well behind the frontline and still operate decently enough, only with a few more ops losses over time and potentially reduced bomb loads in some scenarios. Putting them this far forward was kinda unneccessary, and with how much other stuff he's operating out of Port Moresby it created a rather target-rich environment when the 14- and 8-inch shells started raining down. You can operate out of forward airfields in risky positions, but you really want to limit the amount of stuff you operate out of them at any given time lest you end up eating a body blow like this. Magni fucked around with this message at 22:04 on Jun 3, 2021 |
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Jun 3, 2021 22:00
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 Edit: goddamn, I need to go check this from the allies perspective now mercenarynuker fucked around with this message at 23:09 on Jun 3, 2021 |
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Jun 3, 2021 23:07
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Remind me again, if the game reports '121 B-17 damaged', that doesn't mean there were at least 121 B-17s, but rather there were 121 instances of a B-17 getting damaged, right?
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Jun 4, 2021 00:37
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The more stacked an airfield is the more damage bombardments can do, so spreading out your planes among more airfields and building those airfields bigger is a good tactic to start. That's disregarding range, as everyone has pointed out you can base long-ranged bombers farther away. Then go hard on recon around any major coastal targets you have and have some naval strike to punish. Note how the bombardment mission had to turn back once due to getting detected, even for a smashing success like this if it costs a BB it's not really worthwhile. Finally recon will help you intercept bombardment missions with fleets aimed to destroy them, or slow them / have them expend ammo. That said sneaking battleships into Port Moresby is actually a lot harder than it seems after a huge success like this, the approaches are super risky, long-range, and linear.
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Jun 4, 2021 10:54
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Yeah, he was horribly over stacked there, at the moment Port Moresby is only level five out of it's potential six, and if he wants to put that many planes there safely he needs to over build it to at least seven if not eight. The Fortresses being based there is a recent development, I suspect leading up to him trying to bomb Rabaul, or possibly wanting to use a full load against Gasmata, neither of which he can do from the Australian bases. And, to be fair to him, the Australian fields are all coastal also, the difference is Port Moresby is in recon range for us, so we can both see his buildups, and get the better die rolls from having high recon values on the base when we do attack it. As to what he could have done to prevent us doing this, short of stationing a couple of battleships outside Port Moresby more or less permanently, nothing really. Like The Demon said, Hyuga was spotted a couple of days ago, but not attacked. This made me realise that he didn't actually have any meaningful naval strike around, and we could just waltz in whenever we please. Actually, that's not entirely true, Hyuga was again spotted yesterday as she set up for the attack, at which point he should have flown at least the Fortresses out of Port Moresby, because what other reason would we have to send a battleship into the Torres strait? Perhaps he got complacent because last time we turned around on being spotted, I don't know. Ise on the other hand was never spotted at all, and if we look at the numbers of Catalinas damaged relative to other things, it strongly suggests he has at most one under strength squadron present, which is frankly just inadequate for an exposed but critical forward base. The only "hard" counter as the Allies to this is to have a base at Milne Bay with search and Avengers, there is no way for us to be safely out of reach of Avengers from Milne Bay day one, whilst still being in reach of a night run at Port Moresby. Unfortunately for him, he doesn't have Milne Bay  Velius posted:That bombardment was fantastic. Almost 100 planes killed on the ground. Does the game model murdering all the pilots hanging out playing beach volleyball, too? Through some dark pact, pilots can only be killed when they are in their plane. The plane can be killed without the pilot, but the pilot can only die in glorious aerial jousting. Or by crashing, of course. Oh, and if they are on a ship, be it a carrier or a cargo transport they can die when it sinks, even though they wouldn't be in the airplane at the time. Magni posted:Yikes. Full airfield and seemingly no coastal artillery. That hurts. Actually you can move planes off a damage airfield no matter how trashed it is, crashes in WitP can only occur on landing, not takeoff  Of course, he does still need to repair them, and that will take a while with the hangars in their current state. A repeat is sadly not really on the cards, we don't know where his carriers are and it's not worth losing battleships to an ambush just to stop him harassing Milne Bay. smdvogrin posted:Something funny going on with those numbers... 34 destroyed on the ground today, 26 total destroyed on the ground? Does the total not include the "today" numbers? Just intel getting over excited, it'll all even itself out in a day or two.
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Jun 4, 2021 17:12
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Pharnakes posted:
He'd also have to have a non-US airHQ at Milne itself, or a US airHQ at PM, to be able to fly with torpedoes out of Milne. (Milne is 5 hexes from PM. The US airHQs have a command range of 5 hexes, the Brits just get 3, and torpedo bombers have to be within command range of an airHQ to fly with torps) As allied airHQ are few and far between at this point in the war, placing one at a forward base like Milne would be risky in the extreme. He almost has to have one at PM though, to help alleviate the overstacking and help with coordination, but the US doesn't get any Marine TB squadrons untill '43 unless the mod added some. Would he even have a single non-swordfish/vildebeest land-based TB squadron atm? The rebuilt devastators from the sunk carrier I guess? Aussie Beuforts also show up later.
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Jun 4, 2021 18:01
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    But it’s daylight, so we’re fine.  The simplest solution to this is just going to be to unload at Derby instead.  He continues to harass our attempts to advance on Dacca.  And our sweep at Port Moresby finds no opposition.  Light bombers leading the way again at Calcutta.  The Audax is definitely a light bomber.  The real bombers are causing some damage today however.  We’re back at Rangoon.  We hit something at least.  Whoever is in charge of their raid coordination over Calcutta sucks.  Today the Hudsons come to the west.  At least today we have confirmed where he is keeping the bombers. Just next door at Howrah.  It drags on throughout the day.  Mitchells hit nothing today. Notice they are using a half load, Howrah only has a level three field.  Oh dear, I think we’ve pushed our luck too far at Tabiteuea.  It’s the French seaplane carrier. At least I think there’s a French seaplane carrier, you’d need to ask Alikchi.  Owie  At least they only went for one ship.  Our first air raid over Port Moresby. An historic moment.  Unfortunately weather intervenes to make it rather a flop. It does confirm we didn’t kill everything here though.  It’s a little bit better at Port Blair, but not much.  Good enough to do something though.  Bandoeng goes OK, as well it should given we have the extra artillery here now.  And we blow through whatever silly remnants these were.  Surely they are going to run out of ammo eventually.  It will be at least a week to march up here and kick these guys out I should think.  Flag planting at Tarawa goes without a hitch.   A very quiet day really.  If he was only going to lose one plane, a Scythe is as good as it gets I should think.  No changes, although that AMC of ours is surely hosed.  Rabaul reaches port size six, enough to rearm 8” guns without needing tenders, so a very useful milestone for us, and with the naval support we have here, enough to service Ise & Hyuga with their 14” rifles.   Yes, this is definitely what you call hosed. However, rather than scuttle her we are going to use her as bait to help her sister escape.  I want to test what range he has the CAP over Calcutta set to, so we are going to sweep over ourselves at Diamond Harbour to see if he will have anything here. If he doesn’t then we will try bombing Howrah.  We are of course keen to kick them out of Djambi ASAP.  Derby really ought to be out of range of his PT boats from Port Headland, and allow us to unload in peace.  We have arrived with engineers at Ailinglaplap. At potential size of two, this is actually the best site in the Marshalls for an airfield, so obviously a priority for us to develop.  It’s been long enough for me to forget how much these stupid things suck, so let’s try them again
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Jun 4, 2021 18:27
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I have a good feeling, the Liz' are def going to redeem themselves. e: the Audax is a good-looking plane 
aphid_licker fucked around with this message at 21:46 on Jun 4, 2021 |
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Jun 4, 2021 21:12
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What's the AMC have on it? And can you 'relieve' the captain or not just so he doesn't go odwn with it when it sinks?
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Jun 4, 2021 21:39
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The French navy had some really neat ships. Love that giant seaplane carrier launching seaplane torpedo bombers
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Jun 4, 2021 22:00
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aphid_licker posted:I have a good feeling, the Liz' are def going to redeem themselves. I'm curious where they're going. Straight south from Rabaul = New Caledonia, or Luganville?
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Jun 5, 2021 01:04
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 e: wow I'm dumb, Moresby is right there in the screenshot
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Jun 5, 2021 01:11
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smdvogrin posted:I'm curious where they're going. Straight south from Rabaul = New Caledonia, or Luganville? They're going to ineffectually bomb Port Moresby for a few days before the entire flight gets stood down for a week of maintenance.
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Jun 5, 2021 01:32
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uPen posted:They're going to ineffectually bomb Port Moresby for a few days before the entire flight gets stood down for a week of maintenance. Right, I'm dumb. I was looking at the hightlighted hexes, which is ship movement, not their flight plan. Doh.
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Jun 5, 2021 03:05
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Ah I also thought that was the flight plan. Finally the Liz gets to show the Fortress who's really boss.
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Jun 5, 2021 03:16
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  Maybe one day we will actually attack a submarine. Then we would need to actually hit it. Then to damage it enough to sink it. It’s never going to happen is it   Oh my god thank you our lord and saviour MK14s.  The hitting it bit is proving problematic  I thought I was being sneaky by routing the tankers down “his” side of the Flores, but apparently not sneaky enough.  Never mind us sweeping Diamond Harbour, he is at it himself.  I would hope we did better than that.  Warhawks next.  Hmm.  The Liz have of course managed to arrive at Port Moresby pre sweep   We only lose two.  And they do make up for it.  What the hell is a Kittyhawk doing up at 27k??  Whatever it is, it’s not enough.  We shoot down an Audax over Calcutta.  Weather is universally bad across the theatre today.  We get our supply hit in anyway.  Even worse at Bandoeng.  No supply hit but some casualties.  Is he still bringing in new planes, or has that been here all along?  Just because nothing has happened here for weeks doesn’t mean it’s ok to turn up late for work!  Well, technically they did sweep ahead of this wave I suppose.  As per the usual pattern, raids continue throughout the day. Not much CAP here today   I’m sure it will be back tomorrow though.  Given a sufficiently target rich environment, even Hudsons can hit stuff.  Mitchells remain the primary threat though.  Lightnings in the sweep next.  I don’t much care for lightnings.  LRCAP at Milne is getting results.  Good ones too.  Sadly it seems the Nells aren’t going to attack whatever those ships are, since here we have a rather bloody day at Bandoeng.  This is our recon regiment pulled back from the Meghna. Minimal defences here, they might just take it.  Not quite, but that infantry regiment must be here soon.  Sibolga Sibolgas.  As does Djambi.   A quiteish but solid day.  After it all shakes out we are ahead 2:1 in the air. Good enough.  No surprises here    We are a bit disrupted, but they should be more so. We will press the attack.  And we are ready to start clearing the road between Derby & Darwin.  I feel we have enough fighter presence at Diamond Harbour now we can expand our CAP to range one, and start interfering with their bombing of ARE BOYS.
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Jun 5, 2021 17:15
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  Tonight we get decent weather over Calcutta at last.  A little underwhelming, but maybe it will be enough to scare him into putting up a night CAP.  We still have our CAP up at Trincomalee.  A typical result of basically, nothing.  S-36 is at Milne Bay.  The best possible conditions for submarine hunting with her in a base hex, and we can’t even find her let alone hit her  A sub chaser in the Java Sea forces a modern Dutch submarine down.  And she’s actually hitting her, what??  Can she manage what eight of our modern destroyers could not?  No, but at least she did something.  S-37 is also at Milne Bay! We should set out a loving buffet for these arseholes.  Asagiri has a contact at least, but I’m not getting my hopes up.  Well, it’s better than nothing.  This though is good. This is how it’s supposed to be when you catch a submarine in a base hex.  Flatten the little bitch.  Now that is a kill. I think that’s our first truly confirmed submarine kill  S-36 is back for revenge, but doesn’t get it.  A rather half assed attempt at revenge really.  She’s persistent though, and why wouldn’t she be? It’s probably another six months until we can sink another submarine.  Or not?   Three direct hits and she’s coming up!  Ahahaha gently caress YOU S-36.  And don’t come back!  That was a good day’s work.  The first air action is a sweep over DIamond Harbour, but we have a lot more up today.  Being Lightnings they still trade evenly.  They are sweeping Trincomalee too.  Oscars might not be much better than Warhawks, but outnumbering them by three to one definitely helps.    I am quickly remembering why I gave up on Liz in the first place.  The Lysanders are trying to weaken us at Dacca, but they would need to actually hit us for that to work.  We have indeed pushed some CAP over Calcutta it seems.  A confused melee produces no results but one geriatric biplane however.  But there’s more where that came from!  It’s whittling them down at least.  Port Blair.  We are now bombing from 5k feet, and encountering no flak. I’m pretty confident they are out of supplies now.  Clear skies over Bandoeng.  No supply hits though, and definitely plenty of flak.  Not such great weather at Rangoon.  Good enough to finish this “tanker” though.  More sweeps at Trincomalee.  The Oscar’s maneuverability at least makes it quite good at not dying, even if it lacks punch.  And a pair of Airacobras at Diamond Harbour.  Who immediately pounce on a poor Nick and escape.  Yet another wave at Trincomalee.  After a full day of this our pilots are exhausted, and one slips up.  More bombers over Calcutta.  Evens here also.  This is going to change nothing.  Haven’t had any action at Tulagi for a while.  I don’t think we even have any ships here at the moment. We did have a submarine pumping for a few days, but that was a week ago now.  I suppose he’s just hoping for supply hits.  Speaking of, he’s still trying to keep the pressure on at Milne.  Fine by me.  He’s not swept out yet.  There can’t be much more to come though.  At Trincomalee there is.  Winding down anyway.  Alternately, saving the best for last.  We lost both, but at least we only had two to lose. And this is all just the morning!  Second wave at Bandoeng.  I would really much prefer supply hits.  Our sweep arrives at Port Moresby.  Their numbers are steadily recovering, and this bad weather favours them significantly.  Some Blenhiems are trying to bomb Diamond Harbour, sans escort. A bold move.  But it seems to be working for them!  I can only think these endless sweeps sucked all our CAP up to 20k, allowing the Blenheims in underneath. Thankfully they were Blenheims not Wildebeest.  Ground phase at last.  This shouldn’t be hard.  It wasn’t.  We punch through them easily at Dacca. This is why a few weeks ago I was saying he was insane for basing planes here.  Blank.  Nothing.  And we grab Makin.   A busy day is a good day.   Overall good, but nine Liz? gently caress these things.  Two guaranteed sub kills in a day is very nice.  We have some AAA ashore at Milne Bay now.  A quick lick of paint, and the fleet will be ready for Pacific operations. This is pretty good timing, because sooner or later he is going to have to bring carriers into the Coral Sea if he wants any hope of regaining air superiority over New Guinea, and avoiding Port Moresby getting the Port Blair treatment of being bombed out and then ignored.   Rather than pursue from Dacca we are going to turn north and try to reach Rangpur, the dot base south of Darjeeling. Doing so will cut the rail lines into Eastern Bengal, and mean the men still there cannot be strategic moved out.  The chances of making it there on time are pretty slim though, so we will try a paradrop again. In order to avoid last time’s experience we will do a little recon first  With how much flak we encountered at Calcutta we will try bombing Howrah instead, although with the moon fading we probably won’t hit much anyway.  We all know how this goes now. Another lovely jaunt through the outback.  While we lovingly sprinkle them with bombs.  What we don’t want him to be able to do is LRCAP over Port Moresby, so we are going to hope he hasn’t garrisoned Terapo.  We are loading up for the final landings at Vizgapatnam.  And we are loading up all of our armour to exploit the landings as fast as possible, if they are successful.
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Jun 6, 2021 16:39
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IRL S-36 had one, pretty cursed, patrol: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_S-36_(SS-141)
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Jun 6, 2021 17:08
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Imagine being one of those Japanese marines. You've trained for years for amphibious assaults, working with the fleet. You've been assigned to one of the most powerful SNLF formations. You have now spent weeks, possibly months hundreds of miles from the ocean, stuck in apocalyptic wasteland chasing Australians around a desert.
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Jun 6, 2021 17:17
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Are you gonna do a landing at Port Hedland or have you reached the extent of your conquests on that side of Australia?
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Jun 6, 2021 17:18
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Dead S-boats this early hurts. The old tubs take a backseat later on, but right now they're the most useful USN submarines he has - they're using older torpedos that actually work. YOLOing two of them into Milne was kind of a bad attempt to get revenge for Port Moresby. Overrun P-50s are a pretty nice one, too. Those things seem to be almost up there with Scythes and Lightnings in terms of utility, and there's more of them than either of those two. And yeah, I think the Liz should be limited to areas where there's no allied fighter presence. I hope the mod has a better IJN strat bomber later. uPen posted:Imagine being one of those Japanese marines. You've trained for years for amphibious assaults, working with the fleet. You've been assigned to one of the most powerful SNLF formations. Australians and a bunch of severely angry Dutchmen. (And the Dutch are the actual infantry in there, the Aussies are all cooks, clerks and assorted base personnel.) And I think they're even more rare than just normal marines - they're an elite SNLF parachute unit. Magni fucked around with this message at 21:55 on Jun 6, 2021 |
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Jun 6, 2021 17:26
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uPen posted:Imagine being one of those Japanese marines. You've trained for years for amphibious assaults, working with the fleet. You've been assigned to one of the most powerful SNLF formations. Just proof that the Navy can do anything better than the IJA.
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Jun 6, 2021 17:33
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Nice! Two dead subs are wonderful. How's the air war in India holding up? You keeping enough fighters there to hold your own or having issues with numbers? And surprised that Port moresty got stuff up so quickly.
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Jun 6, 2021 23:31
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Pharnakes posted:
????????
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Jun 7, 2021 16:00
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Quiz posted:???????? The tiny grey, green or red dots in some hexes that aren't named. Those places can be developed into airbases and (in case of coastal/island hexes) ports.
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Jun 7, 2021 16:02
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Magni posted:The tiny grey, green or red dots in some hexes that aren't named. Those places can be developed into airbases and (in case of coastal/island hexes) ports. Ah, thanks. I'm very glad it wasn't just a casual slur since the base is Indian. 
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Jun 7, 2021 16:16
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Magni posted:The tiny grey, green or red dots in some hexes that aren't named. Those places can be developed into airbases and (in case of coastal/island hexes) ports. To expand on this, any base that has at least 1 level of airbase or port constructed appears on the map with a small flag of the nationality of the HQ that controls the base. Any base with 0 in both (or inland base with 0 airfield) appears with the aforementioned small dot colored to denote control. You can see this in the map of Burma - Ramree island (3 hexes south of Akyab) starts as a dot base with 0 AF or port. Alikchi has built at least 1 level of either there as it now has a flag. Rogue0071 fucked around with this message at 17:53 on Jun 7, 2021 |
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Jun 7, 2021 17:50
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  Decent weather over Howrah, but the moonlight is only 30%.  Enough to make our presence felt at least.  A second wave doesn’t hit anything though.  Growler hits an empty heading home from Truk.  Fortunately for us, hitting is only half the battle with a MK14.  Somehow these idiots still have enough supplies to keep their AAA working.  That’s a scarily large growth in the CAP at Port Moresby.  But we still manage evens.  Looks like I accidentally set the Betties to ground attack here too.  One well coordinated strike at Bandoeng today.  And we reap the rewards.  By the time the Sallies arrive they have expended their ammo for today it seems.  They’ve already burnt Jaffna to the ground, so I don’t know what this is for. Or maybe FoW makes him think there are still some resource sites intact here.  They come to Chittagong today.  The Lysanders come in at tree top and elude the CAP that way. The damage is irrelevant but it does reveal to him I’ve stripped the CAP from here to send to Diamond Harbour.  Looks like I forgot to stand down the bombers at Rangoon too.  They could have at least managed a supply hit.  If he is going to keep doing this it is going to severely hamper our pursuit efforts, and we are again one hex too far from Darwin for LRCAP.  Ahead again at Bandoeng.  You should start a sweepstakes in the discord about how long this is going to go on for.  We are only a day or two out from here though.  They try a bombardment at Calcutta, but we come out marginally ahead.  And it turns out they do have a garrison at Terapo.   Quiet.  Quiet. But Port Moresby is rapidly becoming a problem again.  Quiet.  The engineers at Milne Bay make steady progress, and have now filled in all the runway. This sneaky bunch of fuckers appears to be an understandable desire to mine Port Moresby.  Another xAP is ready from the Saigon yards.  We activate our first unit of the new and improved Tojo model.   We have all of the equipment and enough supplies for now unloaded at Milne Bay, so I order the TF to return to Rabaul. Still at full speed to reduce the danger posed by submarines, of which there are still plenty around.  With Milne Bay clear this means Ise is free to run into Port Moresby again.  While Takao and Nachi will go hunt the minelayers, then exit stage left. Hopefully not pursued by a Bearcat just yet.  We are seriously short on aviation engineers around here, so these Zeros are quickly going to become unflyable, but in the meantime hopefully we can persuade him to gently caress off.
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Jun 7, 2021 19:06
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wedgekree posted:What's the AMC have on it? And can you 'relieve' the captain or not just so he doesn't go odwn with it when it sinks? We lost a few supplies at most with her, we'd already unloaded all the troops and I knew I was pushing my luck staying to throw ashore the last few tons of supplies, but he's been so passive I thought we could get away with it. smdvogrin posted:I'm curious where they're going. Straight south from Rabaul = New Caledonia, or Luganville? Yes indeed, but that as pointed out is a submarine heading down that way. overmind2000 posted:Are you gonna do a landing at Port Hedland or have you reached the extent of your conquests on that side of Australia? There's no plans currently for pushing any further west in Australia. There aren't really any plans for Australia at all, other than just wait and see what he does, then try to gently caress with it. wedgekree posted:Nice! Two dead subs are wonderful. How's the air war in India holding up? You keeping enough fighters there to hold your own or having issues with numbers? And surprised that Port moresty got stuff up so quickly. Well as you can see from the air summary, we're pretty consistently holding our own, even if sometimes it's very bloody, it's bloody for both sides. What we aren't managing to do is run an air offensive, we are restricted to CAP, with occasional sweep and CAS on specific flash points, and only for a day or two. He is consistently bombing us, but isn't really achieving much with it other than attriting himself via the occasional LRCAP trap, because he's going for our outlying troops rather than providing CAS where it really matters. And in WitP, bullshit with B-17s at 2k aside, you can't bomb an army to death. You can bomb it to the point it can't offer effective resistance on the ground, but you can't destroy formations only via bombing. Hes recovery at Port Moresby is hardly surprising if a bit disappointing, but recon reports 40k men here, and even if only half of that is true he must have 150+ engineer points present, and the airfield is only level five. It won't take so many men that long to repair a smallish airfield.
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Jun 7, 2021 19:19
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Got it, so PM can be suppressed for short periods of time but likely not for extended ones, though you can keep on making it meatgrinder planes?
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Jun 7, 2021 21:37
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How are you recovering after the cow incident? Hope you're on the mend.
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Jun 7, 2021 23:40
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  We have managed to get him to put up night CAP at least.  But they don’t engage, and down at 17% moonlight we miss everything. Still mission accomplished, that's a squadron of Martlets that isn’t flying in the day.  They do manage to engage a second wave.  But can’t manage any significant damage.  S-38 attacks the transports returning to Rabaul.  But misses.  Ise is back at Port Moresby. Do you think they missed her?  Only a couple of kills, but with this we should outnumber the CAP nicely when we sweep.  He is attacking our tankers far too often right now, and sooner or later he will get lucky.  But not this time.  At Port Blair we keep attacking the tiny artillery unit, and then missing.  This was a clever manipulation if deliberate, but they all miss anyway.  He really hates Jaffna.  What did poor Jaffna ever do to him?  He at least is taking this attack on Terapo seriously.  Maybe I should do LRCAP here instead.  The first wave gets little.  But the conditions are reasonable.  I do like to get at least one supply hit a day.  And here comes our sweep at Port Moresby.  Much reduced CAP compared to yesterday, and we see the benefits.  They are bombarding Tabiteuea.  There goes all our supply I should think, but at least they didn’t get any Mavis.  We are definitely doing much better here now we have the extra artillery.  Yawn.  Calcutta goes entirely his way though.  We might not be able to win here, but they definitely can’t.  And we continue flag planting in the Gilberts.   Another day without disasters is a good day.  A much more desirable ratio over Port Moresby today.    Tabiteuea is really not in bad shape at all. A couple of day’s delay to the construction project is all. reports posted:H6K4 Mavis from 22nd Ku T-1 has spotted BC Constellation at 137,134 If they did actually hit her given her non-existent deck armour it might have actually done quite a bit of damage.  It’s disappointing the minelayers managed to slip past our cruisers, but oh well.  There is something reported at Vizagapatnam, but not enough to worry us. However you can see he has garrisoned Rangpur near Darjeeling, so that idea is off.  A rather boring xAK arrives at Osaka.  Teikyo Maru’s sister Teifyu Maru at Saigon.  And at Maizaru a medium tanker.   If he’s going to be like this with the Hudsons we will split the Zeros and have a little CAP at Derby.  Now he has a night time CAP over Howrah, we will use the Sallies for general harassment around Bengal.
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Jun 8, 2021 17:04
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That hit report on Constitution, was that from the H6K bombing her or something?
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Jun 8, 2021 17:07
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Night10194 posted:That hit report on Constitution, was that from the H6K bombing her or something? Yeah sometimes search planes will report back that in addition to sighting a ship, they hit it with a bomb too while they were there. They are usually lying.
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Jun 8, 2021 17:27
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“We have spotted the enemy cruiser, and are moving to engage!” *leans out the window with a handgun*
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Jun 8, 2021 17:28
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| # ? Apr 19, 2024 22:38 |
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Night10194 posted:That hit report on Constitution, was that from the H6K bombing her or something? Mavis on naval search saying they dropped a bomb when they spotted the task force. The foggiest of fog of war reports.
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Jun 8, 2021 17:30
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