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It depends on how damaged each individual plane is, how much aviation support is available, what level the airfield is and how damaged the airfield services are. The TLDR from that is 90% of these single engine fighters will be back in the air in ~3 days or less, probably. And so will most of the Betties. There is also the service rating of an aircraft measured from 1-4, with 1 being best. This makes a massive difference to how often and for how long a plane undergoes maintenance, but I'm not sure if it's a factor in repair times or not.
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Jan 3, 2021 17:59
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| # ? Apr 25, 2024 23:26 |
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  Well look who’s here!  That will do nicely. Sorry Sum  After squishing those annoying cruisers the battleships do a brief and ineffectual bombardment. Better than nothing though.  Finished with Brunei we are landing at Jesselton, the last garrisoned outpost in Northern Borneo.  A Dutch sub lines up on Mutsu outside Mersing, but misses. She takes one solid hit in return but subs are not that easily killed.  I-1 misjudges her approach to a large military transport and is forced to dive without firing torpedoes.  The air phase opens over Clark.  The Port Strike portion of the KB pushes through the CAP at Soerabaja easily enough.  Nothing spectacular but no losses is good enough. Note the fulmars present in the CAP: I’m hoping that means Ark Royal is in that TF just outside Soerabaja.  Unfortunately it seems most of the escort chose to focus on Soerabaja, or maybe the main wave is a bit behind. Do your best Zero pilots!  Not bad for such a small wave. They have thunderstorms over them because of course they do but at least the Kates should be carrying torpedoes this time.  Here’s the Royal Lady herself! She has brutal amounts of 20mm & 40mm weapons for this stage of the game however.   Somehow they are out of fuel as well?????  Stop attacking irrelevant poo poo! There’s a loving stationary carrier right there *sobs*  Somehow I fumbled and skipped the rest of the animations so you don’t get a blow by blow, but this is a very solid result, especially for such a small raid. And probably more waves to come. Of course, now I am extremely paranoid that my carriers might also be dead in the water… Their fuel situation must certainly be critical.  At first I was very angry to see a raid going after what I assumed was probably some aMCs or some poo poo in Soerabaja, but it turns out it’s Hermes. CVs (and I think CVLs too, not sure) take stiff penalties to their ability to dodge attacks when in coastal hexes, so catching carriers in TF & in port but not disbanded at anchor is the ultimate prize really.  Boosh.  This is shaping up to be what I would regard as a good day.  This raid achieved nothing of course but the fact it was able to slip in unmolested at 5000ft is extremely worrying. I’m sure I set a properly layered CAP.  WTF are you two doing here. There’s not supposed to be any ships at Mersing now. Is the day about to swing against us?  This time the CAP does not leak. Instead I now start panicking that Ark Royal’s strike will arrive and find the CAP rearming, Midway style.  At least it seems like there is nothing too big here at Mersing. Really don’t know what these DDs are doing, how they got here or where from though. v0v  Low level strike with no attack bombers is ½ bomb load. Extended range is ½ bomb load. To be attacking with only 1 bomb therefore means these Hudsons are coming from Cagayan probably. Very annoying since I’m not going to win there any time soon, but at least it is way out of fighter range so I can scrounge up some old Nates from somewhere and they won’t just get slaughtered by sweep. On a positive note at least it will be burning his supplies there.  Some Wildebeest have a go but hitting destroyers that are almost as fast as your torpedoes is a tricky proposition. I am now relaxed that there isn’t anything big and easily hit here, and at least they are drawing planes away from Kuantan that may well not have been able to put up a good CAP after the pounding they took yesterday. On the other hand if they did manage to get up a decent CAP then these are planes that could have been slaughtered easily. Double, triple, quadruple guessing yourself is a staple of WitP.   Today the P-35s are trying 100. We hit them all but don’t down any of the tough all metal planes.  For a change the B-10s do manage to (very lightly) hit something.  The Kingfishers line up on a small patrol boat today and sink her despite frantic return machine gun fire.  And we are landing at Nauru at last. Ark Royal’s strike never came.  We smash through the Aussies at Mersing, and the tanks manage to maintain contact, despite only having a minor road to travel down. An excellent result, usually there are only second line troops at Johore Bahru and we can sever the rail line tomorrow.  The usual tons of ammo are thrown into assorted jungles to little if any effect. Ambon, Cagayan, Taiping, ect.  The SNLF paras easily push the New Guinea Rifles militia out of Lae.  We take Nauru as well. Historically Nauru was absolutely critical to the Japanese as a source of phosphorus, however since all industrial inputs (sans oil) in the game are abstracted to resources, it’s rather irrelevant for economic purposes.   I am, as you can probably imagine, feeling rather smug about this turn.       A very solid day in the air, although you can really see the Val showing its age. 2 Kates lost, 11 Vals. A new model is in development but it won’t arrive until the early summer, and will only offer minor upgrades at best. In a year’s time the D4Y should have worked through it’s prototyping issues, but that’s well, a year away.  Intel, I know you are a joke but at least try to be a funny one. It was Soerabaja we raided, Pearl was three weeks ago. Maybe lay off the sake? Atsusta Maru has settled in Lingayen Harbour before she could be tied up alongside  So close.  Ayup. Very, very glad we did not get seriously attacked.  Mystery solved, no wonder they couldn’t go anywhere. Ikazuchi essentially has a pile of scrap metal instead of an engine. I disband them into Mersing where they will have to wait for us to capture Singapore, no point trying to limp back to Saigon.   I order sweeps to begin over Soerabaja, flying from Balikpapan. We’ve hurt the Dutch airforce badly, but neither carrier is confirmed sunk, and Ark Royal is reported by search planes still on the surface. They have no option but to return to Soerabaja and we are going to have to sink them in the harbour there by Btties flying from Balikpapan probably. He obviously knows all this and will be preparing so we need to start swatting fighters ASAP.  At Johore Bahru reconnaissance is reporting far more troops than the tanks will be able to handle. Instead the Imperial Guards will have to march due west to try and cut the line there, at least on a major road they should make it in two days. The other transports are ordered back to Mersing to unload the next waves. I order every fighter that can get in the air at Kuantan to do LRCAP over Mersing tomorrow. There will be nothing left worth bombing at Kuantan anyway, Mersing is obviously where the showdown is going to be.  He genuinely seems to be retreating at Clark, it’s shown like this for several days now. I really couldn't begin to guess why he would do such a thing, which makes me think it must be a trap somehow. All the same I take the entire airforce at Takao onto Catalina bashing at Manila, if he is retreating I don’t want to stand in his way. Then I put them all back onto ground pounding because incase he is really making a mistake here I don’t want to make him suspicious. Then I stand some of them down to at least save on bombs. Triple guessing
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Jan 3, 2021 21:16
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Could WW2 fleet carriers launch planes without airspeed from the ship moving?
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Jan 3, 2021 23:17
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Foxfire_ posted:Could WW2 fleet carriers launch planes without airspeed from the ship moving? Yes, but this is dependent on specific planes. Also having a headwind helps.
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Jan 3, 2021 23:35
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Catapults help too, but the Japanese never managed to develop effective ones. This is all beyond the scope of the simulation, though I think an out of fuel carrier either doesn't launch at all or else launches no strike craft.
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Jan 4, 2021 00:14
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not sure if your commentary was facetious or not, but DD Paul Jones is named after a rather famous american naval commander
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Jan 4, 2021 00:56
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I like that this game expects you to click on a two-ship task force to check on their damage, figure out that the engine damage is bad enough that they can't sail anywhere, order them to dock at the hex they're currently at just to bed down, and then weeks or months later, click back into the port of Mersing, and order them to sail to Singapore to have a shot at getting repaired and the trip to Singapore is going to take the better part of a week at the pace of one hex per turn, so you then have to click back into the task force four or five days later to order the ships to dock and Singapore to order the repairs to get carried out and then you have to click back weeks or months later once the repairs are done so that you can send the ships back into the fighting
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Jan 4, 2021 02:49
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gradenko_2000 posted:Japanese subs are always going to attack merchant shipping when given the opportunity, but I guess the Japanese AI isn't programmed to place its subs appropriately.
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Jan 4, 2021 02:53
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Loving this, that was some serious excitement. Also, what is your plan for the KB's fuel?
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Jan 4, 2021 03:12
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Hot drat! Hopefully at least one of those RN carriers is done for.
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Jan 4, 2021 04:05
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Guper posted:So, could a WW2 buff tell me how effective PT boats were in the real world? I recall learning that MacArthur escaped the Philippines on one but other than that don't remember much. They seem to be fairly effective here in WitP. There is a surviving one here in Portland Oregon. I have seen it a couple times on the willamette. They are larger than you would expect. Took me by surprise the first time I saw it.
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Jan 4, 2021 05:22
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  He is actively patrolling the Java > Ceylon route it would seem. Maybe that means there is valuable stuff around to kill.  An ASW TF arrives at Tarakan to clear it out, but fails to make contact.  On the one hand, good job I-5. On the other why the gently caress did you not fire more tubes against such a target!  I-7 joins the fun.  Submarines: Ask yourselves; what would I-26 do?  As expected there is a heavy kitchen sink style CAP over Soerabaja. We start beating it down.  And continue.  This is highly irritating.  CAP over Mersing seems hopefully adequate despite Kuantan’s difficulties.  Plenty of kills, but the big question is can we cycle planes to Kuantan and back for fuel and ammo fast enough to keep up with incoming waves?  Nope! We’re already leaking and no sign of the Wildebeest yet.  A good chunk of the Wildebeest are unescorted though, this is fantastic.  Half of them are down before they can approach the ships, and the remainder in their panic try head on attacks. But there is now no significant CAP left.  But we are through the AM phase. Opening this afternoon's show are some Anns harassing an artillery battalion. Now that it is PM the CAP should be renewed over Mersing.  Not as strong as the morning but hopefully the attacks won’t be so large either.  The P-35s go for an APD today and do rather well. Doubtless she will burn out.  I’ve been keeping this up for the last 2 weeks or so in the hopes of convincing him I was serious about breaking through here. In that time I dont’ think a single casualty has been registered for either side, but hopefully it burns some of his supplies at least.  We take Jesselton but the defenders retreat rather than surrendering. Now we have to waste time chasing them.  He launches a very ill advised attack at Cagayan, that falters in the face of our tanks and artillery.  Ambon goes a little better for him but not much. He seems to be getting rather desperate to throw us back from his advanced positions    A less wildly exciting day than yesterday but very solid progress all round. We are getting movement back in every front that his forward defence had stalled out in the middle of December, and soon we will cut off a huge quantity of men & material in Northern Malaya.       Very nice for us in the air, as it was always going to be with him throwing the kitchen sink at our Mersing landings. The only question was would the CAP hold, and it did, just about.  Who knows if any of these are real. Well, Shinsei Maru is of course  We launch a couple of big ships today; at Kobe the Heian Maru, a large and ultra precious submarine tender. Operating with an oiler she can keep our subs fully resupplied from atol dot hexes with no harbour at all. Extremely useful, and we don’t get many.  And next door at Osaka, the Akagi Maru, an armed merchant. Less exciting but still a solid addition to our sealift capacity.  Please welcome our latest ace, the excellently named Bando, B. Operating out of Kuantan and scoring two of his six claims in today’s fun over Mersing.   The Imperial Guards have only managed to march 12 miles?!? We now have a second tank regiment ashore and they can speed ahead, thankfully recon is reporting no movement of British troops to secure the communication between Johore Bahru & Malacca. The plan is on track (more or less).  Holy poo poo he’s really done it, the madman. Shock attack! With keeping up appearances no longer being a concern I switch every plane at Takao to pounding what’s left of the Catalinas at Manila. I hate Catalinas.  We did very well at Cagayan, but not so well I think we can counter attack without support. The Amagis will come over to say Hi, and then we can try and take the place. In the meantime we will try bombarding.  North of Pearl I adjust subs to try and harass this troop convoy further. Also you can see the midget subs will be in position to try tomorrow or perhaps the day after. Pharnakes fucked around with this message at 20:04 on Jan 4, 2021 |
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Jan 4, 2021 12:47
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pthighs posted:Loving this, that was some serious excitement.
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Jan 4, 2021 12:53
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Last year I read through the war diary of a coastal artilleryman on Corregidor from before the war through his first months of captivity and it was pretty interesting to read disgruntled rumblings about MacArthur, stealing alcohol from a wrecked barge that drifted on shore and the garrison hoping the Dutch Navy pulls out a miracle. Wonder what he's up to in this universe.
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Jan 4, 2021 19:12
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Poor De Ruyter is still stuck in that time loop 
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Jan 4, 2021 19:15
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Grammarchist posted:Last year I read through the war diary of a coastal artilleryman on Corregidor from before the war through his first months of captivity and it was pretty interesting to read disgruntled rumblings about MacArthur, stealing alcohol from a wrecked barge that drifted on shore and the garrison hoping the Dutch Navy pulls out a miracle. Wonder what he's up to in this universe. At the moment I'd imagine he is bitching about Mcarthur giving up Clark without much of a fight, leaving him exposed to us whenever we feel like marching down Bataan.
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Jan 4, 2021 19:40
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  We have arrived at Manado. Let’s see if the garrison really has left.  The coastal guns are still active, but being imobile that is only to be expected.  A couple of our ships, damaged by yesterday and retreating from Cagayan have a close encounter with two PT boats, but are unspotted in the rain.  One of the midget sub carriers decides to get in on the action herself. All 5 midgets are “lost attempting to penetrate Pearl Harbour”. Oh well.  Will you lot gently caress off. At least we down one of them.  I split the KB yesterday into capitals without fuel, and those with. Those with fuel to reach Balikpapan went ahead, and the Dutch try for them but are seen off by a rather lacklustre cap. They should be out of range of anything truly nasty at least.  Now this is how I like to see my CAP. Kuantan AF is obviously back in business.  They all die. Interestingly they seem to have come from Malacca, not Singapore.  Mind you , according to the red line, this raid came from Saigon, so maybe it isn’t too reliable.  Unescorted torpedo biplanes, our favourite.    The P-35s add to Macassar Maru’s problems.  It appears he is intent on contesting Port Blair, at least with second quality stuff.  Why is the CAP not working????  “Ship dead in the water” is not a good thing when being bombed. Thank god they lined up on a battleship who can take 500lbers.  And we have Clark. A regiment of artillery fell behind in the retreat and we chase them off to Manila sans their guns. The combat odds here were 731:1 and we still took casualties. I am kind of looking forward to ‘44 and ‘45 when it’s his turn to dig me out of rough jungles.  The bombardment at Cagayan goes well. We will keep this up for a few days then try an attack, there’s no particular rush now.   Looks good in the air.       I love it when it’s our turn to be on the tactical defensive.    Hurry the gently caress up guys. Still, I don’t think there are any independent armour formations in Malaya so he shouldn’t be able to get there before us. Still want them to hurry up. After checking in game it turns out the major road drawn on the map is actually only a minor road. This explains the delay, but they do have a major road to move on so now I’m doubly nervous.   The partially fueled portion of the KB will put to sea again to cover the cripples. This time on 100% CAP.  The Renewed Mini KB puts to sea again. They will of course be going to hit Soerabaja - I am by no means certain either carrier has actually been sunk, and recon is reporting a CVL in harbour. We also have this “Previous report of sinking of CV Ark Royal incorrect. Ship sighted and engaged at 56, 104” - This is a report by a search plane who claims to have spotted Ark Royal at Soerabaja and attempted to bomb her.  I move in a fully rested Sentai of Zeros from Takao. They will start aggressive sweeping over Soerabaja tomorrow, hopefully by the time the Mini KB arrives their CAP will be severely degraded.  I also send two more small detachments to Babeldaob. Flying at extreme range they should be able to LRCAP over the convoys retreating from Cagayan - maybe they will manage to get rid of some of the harassment.  They expand Christmas Island airfield again - at some point the KB is going to have to pay them a visit.  With the pickup complete from Lae we will next drop on Wau.  Now that Clark FIeld is taken I am emptying Takao of support troops. Here we have an air HQ, 2 heavy AA units and some airfield units for Balikpapan. And I load the other Air HQ and base force unit amphibiously to move to Lingayen and commence operations at Clark field, which they have been nice enough to mostly repair for us by now. Deprived of their support units all of the bombers are stood down for some well earned rest.  I-124 loads mines at Rabaul and sets off for Christmas Island. A long shot to be sure but if he is using it as a fueling station we could catch something nice.
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Jan 4, 2021 22:51
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Crazy how easy it is to move around those Japanese naval planes. It will even out a little when all the pilots become good in 2 turns, right now the Allies lose half their planes during a long range rebase like that because all their pilots are poo poo.
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Jan 5, 2021 00:35
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  An ancient gunboat tries to chase us off at Zamboanga but takes a couple of hits from Tatsukaze and drifts off busy with her own problems. Yasukawa Maru is technically still afloat but probably won’t make it through the night.  With Kuantan fully engaged providing cover for the Mersing landings and a good moon I decided to try night bombing Singapore Airfield from Saigon, but we don’t hit much.  The disaster that I’d been fearing all this time happens - a Dutch submarine penetrates the escorts and lines up on a capital ship under tow. It doesn’t look too bad though maybe?  We get a dud torpedo. Occasionally it does happen, even to us.  The Liz start smashing the seaplane park at Bataan peninsula. They hit the supply dump 5 times too which is very helpful.  The light bombers have taken over air support duties over Luzon now that the Takao airforce is being stood down and dispersed.  Today the CAP over Port Blair is not present.  A ferocious dogfight over Soerabaja goes mostly our way.  Only two seagulls hitting Zamboanga. Maybe that means some of the others will try to hit the TFs that have LR CAP over them.  Even the loving Hudsons manage to hit something. Hudsons never hit anything! This is cheating!.  This very much looks like the B-17s are basing out of Koepang. All the more reason to take it.  The P-35s go for I’m not sure who this is. Probably Amagi & Atago on the way to bombard Cagayan.  We are ashore at Kudat  And at Davao. Incidentally those SNLF paratroopers have been squatting in the jungle this whole time without resupply, and doing ok on the whole.  It turns out Manado was, in fact, almost deserted.  Zamboanga is going to be a tougher prospect but we should manage.  The paras take Wau and the garrison surrenders. Although Lae there looks like it has reverted to Allied control in the absence of our troops.   Kirishima aside, a quiet day.       The problem with running long range sweep is even when you win the dogfight, it evens out in Op losses on the way home.  Piet Hein there is presumably being claimed by a banana boat on patrol. Yakasuka Maru has burnt out from a handful of 100lb hits.  So the big question on everyone’s mind, how is Kirishima getting on. Not too bad all things considered, that’s six months in the yards at least, but considering she had four torpedoes fired at here while she was under tow I am in no way complaining. This will all be worth it as long as we do actually sink Ark Royal.  Fuso is in the yards at Nagasaki. Seventy six days, not too bad really.  Ise has needs 106 days, engines are time consuming to repair.   Singapore is apparently down to fourteen bombers, so I restart sweeps. A quick turn, but happy new year goons and we’re nearly caught up now! Pharnakes fucked around with this message at 10:03 on Jan 5, 2021 |
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Jan 5, 2021 09:51
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Love these WITP screenshot threads. Thanks for running this, I hope you can keep it up! Also this mod definitely adds some neat twists. In most AARs of WITP the first six months are pretty standard - attack Pearl, besiege the Philippines, take the DEI as quickly as possible, slowly grind Singers and Rabaul down... I'm glad that this is already adding some variety.
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Jan 5, 2021 20:34
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  This could probably be regarded as a waste of time. The Betty just doesn't carry enough bombs to hit much at night and the flak over Singapore is brutal.  Look who turns up at Ambon. The mini KB is just next door, but unspotted last turn or I’m sure he would never have ordered this. There’s a decent chance they will be in range come daylight.  Sorry 86 dudes getting asploded, let’s hope your sacrifice is worth it!  Fighting over Soerabaja continues to be extremely intense.  The Liz continue to burn Catalina’s and supply. I’d use them elsewhere but no other airfield is big enough for them  The LR CAP flies, but the loving Seagulls come in under it. Need to lower it right down to 2k feet.  Whenever Scythes are around it seems the only thing we can kill is Buffaloes, and trading Zeros for Buffaloes is not good.  Where the gently caress is the CAP this time???? I’ve got CAP set from the land in Balikpapan itself set to range zero, there is no excuse for them not to be here.  Cagayan continues to go quite nicely.  As does Zamboanga.  And we take Davao.  As well as Kudat. The fuckers refuse to surrender, but there are no longer any potential PT bases within range of Miri, which is what we were trying to achieve here.   Quiet enough day.       More even than I thought it would be in the air, but still, twelve Zeros. Ouch!  And the obligatory arson victims  Bando B. is joined at Kuantan by Kanno K. our next ace.  We have taken the road and rail between Johore Bahru & Malacca! 500 assault, they aren’t getting through that. 22k men are now reported in Johore Bahru and none in Temuloh, which makes me think maybe one division or even two managed to rail in before we cut it. Oh well, a lot better than nothing, and the men in the north will now starve.  Thankfully B-17s drop GP bombs, so the damage is significant but largely superficial. One of the 8” mounts is destroyed but I am not too upset about that. The engine damage is self inflicted from all the abuse we have been giving the KB recently.  We have lost track of the ANZAC BCs, a major problem. The root cause of said problem is the Mavis being such a loving hangar queen, here we have a typical squadron managing to fly 1/6th of their inventory today.   On a positive note the mini KB remains unspotted, I move them deeper to be in a good position to ambush anything returning to Soerabaja after a bombardment in the coming night. I contemplate a sprint to try and catch up to the BCs (presumably) retreating to Soerabaja, but two of the DDs with them are too low on fuel to do so.  On the other hand Shokaku & Soryu are now refueled at Balikpapan….  Hardly the Kido Butai in all its glory. Soryu is low on sorties, Shokaku is short on sorties and only has enough torpedoes for one flight, Hiei has lost 2kts off her top speed, we are forced to draught in a TB that doesn’t even have depth charges… It’s pretty funny how this hunt for the Ark Royal is escalating. Both sides are exhausted and have nothing left to escalate with but it doesn’t stop us rolling around on the floor trying to hit each other with anything we can. And of course it’s always possible Ark Royal isn’t even above the surface anymore, although recon flights are now consistently reporting a CV in the docks at Soerabaja.  The plan to catch them goes something like this. I am using a random sub that was in the area to draw the route between Ambon & Soerabaja. Or of course he could have exited stage south and gone to Darwin. In fact that is very likely, he would have to be pretty crazy to be bringing stuff into Soerabaja now. But I’m not passing up the chance to sink another couple of capital ships if it does manifest.  I draught every ready Zero Squadron into Balikpapan and point them at Soerabaja. Every not ready Zero squadron is stood down to recover, Singapore is a side show compared to winning air superiority over Soerabaja. This is going to be brutal but we will win in the air. Some of their planes can match the Zero, but they don’t have many of them compared to our Zero numbers. After this though we are going to have to wind our necks in for a few weeks, probably.  I gamble that his CAP over Singapore is range 0 restricted, and tell the Betties to try some tactical bombing over Johore Bahru.  The residents of Cagayan sigh and abandon what is left of their homes for the hills. They know what is coming by now… We will also try a ground attack here tomorrow in the vague hopes that something militarily significant gets hit.
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Jan 6, 2021 00:01
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ManifunkDestiny posted:Love these WITP screenshot threads. Thanks for running this, I hope you can keep it up! Also this mod definitely adds some neat twists. In most AARs of WITP the first six months are pretty standard - attack Pearl, besiege the Philippines, take the DEI as quickly as possible, slowly grind Singers and Rabaul down... I'm glad that this is already adding some variety. Thanks! It's only any fun if you guys are enjoying it too 
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Jan 6, 2021 00:02
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Yeah, these are a real treat to find after work.
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Jan 6, 2021 00:07
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  A couple of the DDs at least decide to shoot the troops. What a waste of ammo.  After Nauru we are now landing at Ocean Island.  Why is it always the modern destroyers that get hit.  A Dutch sub lines up on Hiyodori, and takes a light depth charging in return.  The day opens with one of the biggest dogfights yet seen over Soerabaja.  And continues.  The CAP never engages over Johore Bahru, probably set too high to try and counter sweep.  Apparently there is still some stuff in harbour at Manila.  A late arriving flight of Zeros finds the opposition over Soerabaja severely depleted. This would appear to be major progress here today.  The only good Catalina is a dead Catalina.  Clear skies over Soerabaja!  I would have liked to shoot some down but at least we manage to chase the Seagulls off for today.  The CAP over Balikpapan appears to be functional today   500kg SAP bomb?!?!?!???    Thank gently caress the Allies have no long range escort fighters in theatre yet.  A subsequent wave is destroyed without penetrating.  Who knows what’s going on here but I can set some CAP I suppose if you insist.  Some Vals find a fairly small transport and gently caress her up.  The light bombers continue the good work over Manila.  Well I think they’re dead.  Oshio is still afloat, and this time Seadragon misses. Maybe she can still make it?  I didn’t expect to lose here but I didn’t expect a crushing victory either. Should have shock attacked  We take Ocean Island.  And we are wearing them down at Zamboanga.  The paras continue to chase the NG militia around. They retreated to Lae so now we will need to drop again there.   A very good day in the air, but how many zeros did we lose?       10. Not too bad I suppose all things considered.  Oshio of course did not make it.  Townsville is reported to have expanded the port to size 4. A not very surprising move, but could it mean he intends to use it as a forward base for carriers?  We have Cagayan. Unsurprisingly the place is rather trashed. Oh, and still heavily on fire.  This Sentai gained three Aces over Soerabaja yesterday, one of whom was already shot down and is MIA, extremely unlikely to return.   We have a division, extra artillery and two tank regiments in Johore Bahru, so we will try an attack. Betty support will continue, now (hopefully) preceded by sweeps from Kuantan.  Shokaku & Soryu are going to move in to blockade Soerabaja, but will not launch direct attacks on it yet. Land based air will continue to sweep first. Meanwhile Kaga & the CVLs had to stop to refuel two DDs, and will not round the Celebes for probably another two days. I now feel (realitvely) confident the BCs went to Darwin, and so I am comfortableish putting two carriers with only one battleship and some destroyers that close to Soerabaja. North of the Makassar strait there you can see two TFs, one is auxiliaries, oilers and an AKE that will allow the rearmament of torpedo sorties and 36cm shells, the other is more support troops for the airfield and docks. With this we can abandon Babeldaob as a base and operate everything we need to out of Balikpapan, no need to tanker the fuel around unnecessarily.
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Jan 6, 2021 09:26
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Good job at Cagayan de Oro. I went there back in 2012 - great whitewater rafting.
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Jan 6, 2021 09:37
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I take it the obnoxious Scythes are too short-ranged to do long escort missions? Will he have to wait for the P-38 later this year or is there a modded-in fighter that has the range?
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Jan 6, 2021 10:36
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Grey's Pacific day by day was a great regular thread check for me over the years that it ran, so I am very happy to see another one show up. The only downside is once we get caught up and have to wait for the updates!
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Jan 6, 2021 13:53
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  The screen catches the PT boats, and in the brilliant moonlight they manage to hit one.  A Dutch sub misses for once. Thankfully they didn't manage to penetrate the convoy.  Tambor gets lucky south of Truk.  Slightly to my surprise there is no CAP over Johore Bahru. I was expecting him to try and catch the Betties.  48 Betties sail in and do, well, not a whole lot really.  Today he bombs Rahaeng. He can dance around like this but sooner or later we will catch him, and in the meantime he is achieving very little.  These minesweepers are presumably just bait intended to waste the KB’s time and resources.  We make a good start at Johore Bahru.  Surrender already you little fuckers.  Zamboanga goes less well. I don't really want to go down the whole warcrimes waste of ammo route again so I’ll just bring in more troops.   A very quiet day. The calm before the storm we are about to bring down on Ark Royal!       We lose our 200th Zero   Now this is much more interesting, and even a bit plausible. If he was going to slip the carriers out they would have to go through Banjoewangi, and in order to get out of my sight in 24 hours they would have to go at full speed. Steaming a full speed when heavily damaged is extremely risky, so this does add up. I check Soerabaja, and sure enough, there are no CVs reported in port.   If the CLVs & Kaga go to full speed through the night they could be here by tomorrow, which ought to be a good spot to catch anything fleeing towards Darwin or Perth. If he doubles back along the south of Java they will probably get away. Like I said, Zamboanga actually has a garrison requirement larger than the troop commitments likely required to take the place. Therefore we will load up this Guard Battalion and ship them over - they will surely be enough to help us take the place despite their lack of heavy equipment.  The Mavis squadron operating from Jaluit is getting a little light on supplies, so I send an xAKL down from Kwajalein. Yes that’s how quiet this turn is, I’ve got nothing else note worthy to talk about.
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Jan 6, 2021 21:12
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  These sub chasers are the only ASW units we have that can really achieve much. Shame they didn’t manage to maintain the contact.  It’s about time our subs got to work again, we haven’t heard much from them recently.  We land at Jolo - it’s possible he is basing planes here and if so I’m keen to shut that down.  K IX tries for the convoy bringing in support troops to Balikpapan but misses.  A PT boat a day keeps the torpedoes away. (From your squishy convoys).  Looks like it’s not just Ark Royal trying to escape from Soerabaja. Well, even if we don’t manage to find Ark Royal the mini KB is in excellent position to sink everything else trying to flee.  That’s for Oshio!  This is why you fire all your torpedoes boys and girls. Then you might actually hit something. Whatever is being escorted here it must be pretty valuable to be worth at least 5 DDs. Could it be Yorktown? It’s too early for Yorktown isn’t it?  I know I probably over abused this emoji, but: Ark Royal you are hosed, and intel guys I take back everything bad I ever said about you.   No wait, what, this was Hermes?  Oh well, we’re still going to kill her come air phases and maybe Ark Royal is nearby. Or maybe it was actually Ark Royal that sank yesterday?  Now see if you’d fired four torpedoes you would probably have outright sunk her. Now she will likely limp back to Brisbane. Think of the sharks, sharks need to eat too.  I-162 surfaces to shell an xAKL. This definitely the Soerabaja exodus alright.  Sweep comes over Soerabaja today. Interestingly there are no Sea Hurricanes reported, could this mean he put them on one of the carriers? Mini KB down there looks to be in a good position, maybe a little too far if anything but nothing is getting past them for sure.  The morning is an endless series of dog fights as wave after wave of Zeros roar in.  Let the games begin. Here some Vals have found a very large freighter.  Two very large freighters in fact. So large that five 250kg bombs might not even be enough to sink one of them.  Soryu & Shokaku go after some tankers that had made ready for sea but for some reason not actually left Soerabaja harbour.  Today he goes for Bangkok, and despite a well layered CAP breaks through to bomb a factory. You know what would be cool? Having radar would be cool.  In the afternoon the CAP is back and largely disrupts the attack too much for us to hit anything.  Kates from Soryu & Shokaku go after the freighter that wasn’t sunk by the mini KB in the morning, but sadly they do so without escort and find CAP waiting from them, and we lose a bunch.  Today goes less well for us at Johore Bahru. And of course this means the mini KB has launched no PM strike, or any strike at all at Hermes.   We throw some random Philippine unit back out of Davao.   Hardly the slaughter I had hoped for       We would have been ahead in the air but the Kates had to go and get themselves killed.  At least, at 15VPs, the freighters are almost worth it. Let's hope we can get a lot more tomorrow. quote:a Hermes class CVL is reported HIT Search claims to have hit Hermes again today.  Soryu & Shokaku are completely out of stores, so unfortunately they are going to have to turn for Balikpapan.   He has an unreasonable number of submarines trying their luck in the Makassar strait, so I put every Val & Kate left on the carriers to ASW. White arcs on the map are for ASW, as black is for search.  There’s nothing much to be done other than try to guess which way he will break. I’m guessing he will sacrifice Hermes to the east to let the merchants break north west. Hopefully we can catch some stragglers though and we have submarines off Sumatra who should be able to pick a few off as well. As for Ark Royal v0v. Did she ever really exist? Was it all a fever dream? I split the 3 large surface vessels off - Hyuga, Kyoko & Mikuma with a destroyer each and have them patrol close in to Java, while the carriers and the rest of the destroyers stay a bit further offshore. Hopefully this will maximise what we can catch, and if there are any heavy surface combatants here they should bump into ours before the carriers.  Temuloh has flipped to us before we even arrive - confirmation the troops were railed back to Johore Bahru. A shame but we have still caught roughly 30k men outside of Singapore.  The Imperial Guards have reach Malacca and will take it tomorrow. This will deprive the enemy in Northern Malaya of a port for resupply. A bit of a formality since it is well under the Betty umbrella and they can’t resupply anyway, but there you go.  Clark FIeld has been repaired and I bring in a bunch of Sallys to pound Manila. At short ranges the Sally is distinctly better than the navy bombers for hitting land targets - they carry four 250kg bombs compared to the Betty/Nell anti ground load of two 250kg and four 60kg.  The oilers and a single ammunition tender have arrived at Balikpapan. Fueling operations can now happen at maximum efficiency, but that AKE is the only one we start the game with. 10 more that I ordered converted have been, and two are four days from Balikpapan, at which point we can properly start operating the Kido Butai out of here.  I discover, to my great delight, that in Shanghai there are two whole divisions already assigned to the Southern Army and waiting to ship out. I had totally forgotten Alikchi did that. The question is, what to do with them. I’m tempted to start an invasion of Java early with them, but decide that that would be repeating my mistake of the past in assuming that Alikchi won’t be able to defend. Instead they will go by ship to Bangkok, and by the time they arrive we will control at least on rail route down the whole of Malaya. Rather than making slow progress everywhere let’s try making quick progress over an important objective for once.  Speaking of important objectives, all of our troops have arrived at Manila. With heavy air support anticipated we are ready to attack. Feeling ballsy I decide to go straight for the throat with a shock attack, as I know they can’t have more than one or at the absolute most two levels of forts.
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Jan 7, 2021 10:02
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Playing whack-a-mole with the British carriers like this seems frustrating. And did you figure out where New Zealand got itself to?
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Jan 7, 2021 10:21
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It's extremely loving frustrating when mine won't even attack them. That first day was my fault for not putting them on naval strike, but the second day and today the carriers have only launched less than half their strike potential. If the KB had done a full launch on the second day no way either of them would still be afloat. And today they didn't even target Hermes
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Jan 7, 2021 11:54
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How are you doing compared to vanilla Japan? Two-three sunk carriers this early along with what seemed to be a very good Pearl attack should mean you’re doing great right? What is the current carrier lineup? Do we outnumber them at this point in time at least?
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Jan 7, 2021 14:26
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Affi posted:How are you doing compared to vanilla Japan? Two-three sunk carriers this early along with what seemed to be a very good Pearl attack should mean you’re doing great right? If I read the first-page post right then Japan starts with the same carriers as historically. For the Allies, Lexington is still out there, while Yorktown should have arrived in theater by now, but that still means poor odds for the Allies even if the two British carriers get away from this encounter.
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Jan 7, 2021 15:40
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Affi posted:How are you doing compared to vanilla Japan? Two-three sunk carriers this early along with what seemed to be a very good Pearl attack should mean you’re doing great right? Actually that was a terrible Pearl attack. For example check Arizona on the 7th & 8th - she tookfive torpedoes on the 7th but on the 8th she isn't even reported as having heavy damage. I'm not at all confident I sunk even 1 battleship  .Overall though we are doing pretty ok; his forward defence strategy has stalled us out for the better part of December, but with our landings at Mersing and the fall of Cagayan cracks are starting to appear, and he can't have any reserves to throw up a second line this strong. Sinking Saratoga was of course a major triumph and so far it's been nearly a month without so much as peep out of his other carriers bar that very brief and ineffectual raid on the Marshalls. Had Saratoga been around he would surely have felt able to be more agressive with the carriers, as it is I'm we've been able to bring the KB right over to the west of the theatre without him then jumping his pacific carriers all over us. And we have surely managed to send Ark Royal to dry dock for six months if nothing else. Surely. Please.
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Jan 7, 2021 16:18
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Also, as a naive observer, kinda surprised that there wasn't surface combat given that it was a only CVL and a DD vs. multiple Cruisers and a BB. I guess that might be a setting for the carrier groups generally to avoid that? Though I suppose it does make sense to avoid that small risk of a surface engagement for the relatively risk-free naval strike - if only they had actually sent all their strike groups!
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Jan 7, 2021 17:22
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Carrier groups will always try to break off combat, regardless of what they face. So you could have one carrier escorted by 6 BBs encountering 6 totaly unescorted carriers and your group would still break off. Just a limitation of the relatively simplistic battle system.
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Jan 7, 2021 17:49
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Pharnakes posted:Carrier groups will always try to break off combat, regardless of what they face. So you could have one carrier escorted by 6 BBs encountering 6 totaly unescorted carriers and your group would still break off. Just a limitation of the relatively simplistic battle system. Anything you can do about that? Set a carrier and one battleship in one group, and a five-battleship group to follow them, or something?
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Jan 7, 2021 19:17
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Gort posted:Anything you can do about that? Set a carrier and one battleship in one group, and a five-battleship group to follow them, or something? That's it exactly. You set up a surface combat TF and have it follow. My recollection last time I checked the rules is that TF's move in combat at the speed of the slowest ship, so it's actually quite dangerous to pair a CV with a BB that's can't match its speed because it won't be able to disengage as efficiently.
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Jan 7, 2021 19:25
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There's some extra considerations that apply here. One is if you have your carriers and battleships in two different groups, there is no guarantee that your battleships will intercept enemy surface combatants before they engage your carriers. < Ask my how I learnt that one Another is coming under air attack. If you have all of your capital ships in one TF, each "attacking sub group" will chose a target within that TF independently with no regard for any hits that might already have been scored. If you are in separate TFs you thus increase the concentration of attack against any one target. Even Japanese carriers can adsorb one torpedo or a couple of bombs without problems, usually. If you double that by halving the potential targets the enemy can attack, you might have problems though. There is also the question of heavy AA. As a sortie approaches a target TF, every ship in the fleet gets 1 round to fire DP guns at them. Once you hit a certain threshold of firepower in the fleet this can be very nasty. Split your battleships off and both fleets lose half their heavy AA. Further DP guns can fire in mutual support at attack groups attacking other ships, although the exact rules for it I don't know. Finally ther are submarines to think of. By putting all your eggs in one basket you can have a much more effective screen around said basket, and since I-19 situations are beyond the scope of the games simulation there is no reason not to concentrate all your eggs together (from a purely ASW perspective that is). Finally there is the "screening" mechanic. Yes by putting 30kt battlewagons in with my 33kt carriers I slow the overall fleet down by 3kts. However, in strategic move most of the time the whole fleet is moving at the 15kt common cruise speed anyway, and if we go to sprint for a turn witp caps movement at a maximum of 9 hex/turn - which comes out to 30kt. So there is no map movment downside to escorting carriers with battleships of 30kt or greater. In the tactical resolution the game is not quite as dumb as all that. When your CV group comes under attack the carriers will turn to run at their own individual best speeds- they will not wait for each other or the battleships. This is hard to see in LP terms, or even when watching the replay, but if you look closely you will see messages like: "CV Akagi, CV Shokaku, CV Soryu screened from combat". This indicates these ships are no longer valid targets for the enemy surface combatants even though the current range quoted might be only 10k yards or so. So to sum all of this up: if you have spare battleships having a separate battleship group accompany your CV group is a good idea, but unless you are very confident there are no enemy major combatants around, do not do so by compromising the direct escort of your carriers with battleships. Also don't be afraid to directly integrate slow battleships into your CV fleets for tactical purposes, although cruising with them for many days will limit your mobility. In this particular case I had no spare battleships available and was unsure of the location of the ANZAC BCs, and so I was not willing to detach the battleships to be independent. Now that I have confirmed the area is clear I am detaching them to hunt.
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Jan 7, 2021 20:17
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I've heard of people using small TFs of destroyers to screen out in front of their carriers to draw out/distract enemy carrier strikes, but it's seen as a very gamey move
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Jan 7, 2021 22:54
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