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I really am confused by his strategic goal of Milne bay. Is it to be a distraction to the allies? A springboard to more assaults on Australia? A time and aircraft sink that will eat away at the pilot pools of both players?
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Sep 8, 2021 13:34
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He can’t really allow Pharnakes to have it. Control of Milne bay gives the Japanese player significant LBA cover of the great-circle shipping lanes to Australia, and complete domination of the eastern Solomons, particularly if he also holds Guadalcanal. Noumea and Suva become the backstops, and losing either of those puts the Allied player’s whole presence in Australia at great risk, even if there have been no landings on the continent itself. (Which of course, there have been.) Milne bay becomes additionally important as a land campaign for New Guinea starts, since it’s close to the northern coast by air, but is near-inaccessible by land, it’s a safe place to launch fighter sweeps and bomber raids from. TLDR; It’s one of the two or three most important hexes in the southeastern solomons, and a lynchpin of a successful attack or defense of northern New Guinea and Rabaul.
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Sep 8, 2021 13:50
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SIGSEGV posted:Actually Milne Bay is working perfectly well, it's a distraction that has captured both players. sometimes it's just such a good strategic level simulator
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Sep 8, 2021 15:44
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  The usual Liberator raid on Diamond Harbour.  The usual missing of everything.  RO-65 takes a prolonged pounding from a couple of patrolling destroyers, but hopefully no significant damage.  And we have thunderstorms over them in Assam.  For gently caress’s sake, give me some Anns!  Can they do it?  And yes, they continue to out perform our best, most modern bombers.  Wave two is a little better.  Been a while since we had a day raid at Madras.    An inauspicious debut for the P40-K Warhawk.  Back to bombing Broome.  Not quite sure how he chooses which.  Or even why he’s bombing either.  Looks like I hosed up the CAP settings at Gasmata.  Havoc chipper goes brrrr.  Unescorted lighter twin engine bombers are perfect Nick victims really.  Storms near Raipur.  Bombing the tanks today, very rude even if they did all miss.  Onto the real event at Madras.  They mostly get through.  But only do minor damage.  We’re ready with CAP up at Shortlands, but that’s a lot of Mitchells.  Thank you storms.  And no damage taken.  In case you thought they would forget Milne, they haven’t.  OK so far.  The Havocs are back in the afternoon, and somehow with the same number they had in the morning despite taking 90% losses.  With escort they get through easily enough.  But of course they all miss.  Fortresses next in at Milne.  No supply hits at least.  And some more.  And some more more who do get a supply hit   More or less equal.  Creeping down at Calcutta.  And here’s the big one at Howrah. Level four forts but the engineers are on it.  I didn’t really expect to take that in one day, but gently caress yes we did. And they retreat in a bad way that should let us trap them.  Oh yes, that is extremely the good stuff. Twelve Liberators (probably actually more), I think it’s safe to say he was not expecting that.  lol  lmao  Typical day at Jamshedpur.   Howrah down, Calcutta and Jamshedpur to follow, resistance in India to collapse, Bombay by Christmas!  Today was one of those days I guessed everything right  Four new aces from today’s engagements.  No submarines sinking today.  But we lay one down at Kure, due 28th of May.   It is now critical we prevent him from entering Calcutta from the north west. Thankfully we have the Guards Tank division here, who would be perfect for guaranteeing we’ll cross the Hooghly before they can.  The arty will now head straight for Calcutta to get this siege really rolling.  With one division of infantry to force the last crossing.  Whilst the rest turn west and push towards Jamshedpur.  The bombers of course will be hitting the retreat from Howrah tomorrow.  With a ton of fighters cramped into the hex for support.  We’ll retake Toungoo tomorrow.  LRCAP back up on the fast transports.
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Sep 8, 2021 20:06
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This is interesting to follow although it looks absolutely miserable to play, so I do appreciate you toughing it out. What exactly is your goal in India? If you do manage to occupy a bunch of territory there, what do you get from it? Is it just a matter of wanting to dig in such that Alikchi will have to spend a lot of time and effort eventually unseating you, or do you actually get more ships/tanks/airplanes etc by holding the territory (guessing a definite no for ships, planes and tanks seem like a maybe?). In a standard strategy game more territory = more everything, but this is definitely not a standard strategy game.
Kylaer fucked around with this message at 20:55 on Sep 8, 2021 |
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Sep 8, 2021 20:53
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I wonder why he didn't evacuate the liberators and hawks?
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Sep 8, 2021 21:16
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Cimber posted:I wonder why he didn't evacuate the liberators and hawks? He probably didn't expect ~80k angry Japanese to overrun the airfield all of a sudden after weeks of everyone just sitting around. 
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Sep 8, 2021 21:44
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The pilot loss ratio today was 29:1 
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Sep 8, 2021 22:24
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You had a THOUSAND guns at Howrah? That's eastern front numbers, yikes
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Sep 8, 2021 22:34
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Cimber posted:I wonder why he didn't evacuate the liberators and hawks? Rail lines cut, damaged planes got stuck on the ground is the most likely answer.
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Sep 8, 2021 23:30
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uPen posted:Rail lines cut, damaged planes got stuck on the ground is the most likely answer. i was wondering if there was a supply issue, no fuel to take off or that sort of thing. Makes sense.
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Sep 8, 2021 23:36
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Wow that was a pretty good day. Another hex around Calcutta taken, that's a /lot/ of dead Allied planes (including Liberators)! Guess it's the IJA's turn to showcase it's dominance in all things.
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Sep 9, 2021 03:35
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  No more night bombing at Diamond Harbour   Effectively no night bombing here either with 0% moonlight.  The Mitchells are going to Trincomalee tonight.  Where they hit nothing.  Then some Fortress that also hit, you guessed it, nothing. Notice also how the Forts are only carrying 2/3rds the load of the Mitchells. Initially when we invaded India he built large airfields at Calcutta, Madras and Trichinopoly, but since we have taken them he seems unable to build more, or maybe he’s just focusing on fortification instead.  Thunderstorms for the Anns.  But that only encourages them.  Terrible outside Raipur too. What a shame.  Are these guys coming all the way from Delhi? That would explain the half load.  A light rain of rain, but that might mean a heavy rain of bombs for Milne Bay.  Not really.  So far we can live with this.  We’re sweeping over the remnants from Howrah, but there’s no opposition.  Clear for the bombers anyway.  Storms at Broome too. Honestly I’m not entirely looking forward to the end of the monsoon, we’re currently benefiting far more from the poo poo weather than he is.  Not much.  And even less.  Ahahaha, what are you idiots doing?  At least I assume this is unintended behaviour on their part.  We’re getting them again on the way out. Die die die!!  They died   Marauders at Milne Bay aren’t any better than the Fortresses.  I-166 is paying more attention than RO-65 was yesterday and escapes un attacked.  We’re wearing them down.  I’m disappointed the siege train didn’t cross today.  The Guards Tank on the other hand has definitely crossed.  And they rip straight into the disorganised mess, prompting a couple of units to outright capitulate.  Now it’s our turn to shock attack at Toungoo.  Surrender you absolute fucks.  Quiet at Jamshedpur.   I know I’ve said before we’re going to break the line in Bengal, but this time we’re really doing it.  RIP the raid on Rabaul.  Quiet at sea though.  Chikuma and Mikuma are ready again. For their next trick I think we will send them around South West Australia.  The entire KB is now stood down in a very overcrowded Truk lagoon. We should have enough repairs done to reactivate a group in three or four days.  It looks like our plan to force him to withdraw from Bangalore could be working?  The PB hit a mine at Milne, because of course they did  Looks like half the supplies were spoiled in the process but the rest are ashore and Choko Maru ought to survive. Note that their search somehow failed to find them, and that would be the cause of the attack on our shipping at Rabaul. In my head cannon I like to think those two Catalinas that were lost were assigned this sector and had a mid air collision.  I think he’s struggling to maintain this massive operational tempo against Milne Bay, and we’re actually making progress on repairs.   The runway being repaired means we can use our transport planes as an emergency boost.  I am not pleased with the rate of progress of repairs at Tarawa, we are going to have to start hitting it again and just hope to duck under the LRCAP.  Although now that I look at the map I see it is just within sweep range from Mili. Maybe this isn’t so bad afterall.  Clearing them away from Darjeeling tomorrow.  I split the Guards Tank in three and start maneuvering to surround what’s left of them.  We’re going to push on for Nagpur.  The aviation battalion has arrived so they can have air cover.  And some quick and dirty CAS too.  Chasing these fuckers around is getting kind of tedious. WitP: It’s getting kind of tedious  The MKB is getting close to position, and thus far unspotted. I order a recon flight of Addu from Koggala, the only base we have in range.
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Sep 9, 2021 16:29
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After the Quiet China setting, it is time to implement the Quiet India setting.
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Sep 9, 2021 17:52
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I bet Alikchi wishes it was a quiet India…
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Sep 9, 2021 18:43
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A good big raid on Rabaul would hurt a lot, right? Can he send in 60 Fortresses and just flatten the place?
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Sep 9, 2021 19:24
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aphid_licker posted:A good big raid on Rabaul would hurt a lot, right? Can he send in 60 Fortresses and just flatten the place? Sure, if he had someplace big enough to base 60 4E bombers, an air HQ to coordinate the strike, oh, and it has to be within range of Rabaul. Oh ya, and it has to be at least AF size 5 (IIRC) to allow missions over a certain range. There’s basically no islands currently in his hands that have all these boxes checked. And as we’ve seen, he has a hard time providing local superiority to ensure a SAG doesn’t cruise up at night and drop naval gunfire on his bomber bases. That’s all a non-trivial effort this early in the war, and particularly as spread out as his defense is. The India campaign in this LP is rough as gently caress, and he’s committed a ton of aircraft there that he’d otherwise probably commit to the southwestern Pacific. WitP isn’t a war game, it’s a logistics simulator.
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Sep 9, 2021 19:41
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I wonder what the heavy bomber output is going to look like in 1943 and 1944 once the industrial output of the allies really cranks up.
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Sep 9, 2021 20:38
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Cimber posted:I wonder what the heavy bomber output is going to look like in 1943 and 1944 once the industrial output of the allies really cranks up. Most of them go to Europe.
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Sep 9, 2021 20:43
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gohuskies posted:Most of them go to Europe. Ya, B-17 replacement rates stay pretty low until VE Day, and then one day in 1945 you literally start getting 250 B-17Gs a month, in addition to the entire 8th Air Force transferring in already at full strength. You get a bigger number of B-24s, but those are pretty small numbers too.
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Sep 9, 2021 20:45
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Beyond the regular replacement rate you get reinforcements of full squadrons that have a complete complement+spares. I think the first big one is around when the IRL Solomans campaign kicks off and is like 80 heavy bombers over the course of a few days. Probably where a lot of the Milne Bay pain train came from.
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Sep 9, 2021 20:50
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gohuskies posted:Most of them go to Europe. Per wiki, at peak there were 168 b17s in the pacfic, but were found to be unsuitable due to the extreme ranges they would have to fly. Perhaps they are in this game more useful in India than bombing Milne bay. [edit]Though I don't know how they would get there. I don't think they have the range to fly from Oz to India. Cimber fucked around with this message at 21:09 on Sep 9, 2021 |
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Sep 9, 2021 21:04
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That's a lot of ships at Truk due to upgrade. 44? Is that something you need to send them back to Japan for or are the upgrades super minor and not worth doing anything with until you need to do some really big refits?
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Sep 9, 2021 21:45
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Fortress seems to have broadly the same range as our Helen, was that not adequate?
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Sep 9, 2021 21:45
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Cimber posted:[edit]Though I don't know how they would get there. I don't think they have the range to fly from Oz to India. Load 'em on boats and send 'em via Cape Town.
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Sep 10, 2021 01:01
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Can you load them on boats? I kind of thought they always flew between airfields when they were rebasing.
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Sep 10, 2021 03:33
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Pirate Radar posted:Can you load them on boats? I kind of thought they always flew between airfields when they were rebasing. Ya, you can ship them. Heavy bombers have the range to island hop like 90% of the time though, which is safer and a ton faster.
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Sep 10, 2021 04:07
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  A lovely starlit night at Madras.  Of course, starlit implies not moonlit.  Thunderstorms over Ceylon.   Rude!  No CAP again here.    Here come our bombers to make it miserable for whatever’s left from Howrah.  And they deliver a pounding.  So does wave two.  Big dog fight outside Nagpur today.  The Anns get through OK.  DIsrupted their movement a bit at least.  The Delhi Hudsons are going for our push on Patna today.  Now they disrupt our movement :arghh:  Lots of Fortresses at Milne.  But only light damage.  And some more.  A good bombardment at the Assam pocket.  We’re crossing the Hooghly from Howrah into Calcutta!  Poor engineers, let’s hope they’ve recovered by next week, we’re really going to need them.  The final push to reach Nagpur.  OK not the final, but that’s a large chunk of men who won’t be helping defend it.  Contact with the Darjeeling garrison again.  The terrain gives them massive advantages, but we still make some progress.  Quiet day at Jamshedpur.   A decent day - wait 9 air losses what?  14 dead Zeros for none reported at all in the combat logs? That’s just unreasonable, even by our standards of optimism I assume it had to have been our LRCAP near Nagpur.  Quiet at sea.  Yup, it was these guys, three killed, five missing, including a 7 kill Ace, ouch. They did get one new guy up to Ace though at least.  Choko Maru’s pumps have actually gained on the flooding by a tiny amount, so she should be good to get back to Rabaul by tonight.  I don’t get what’s taking them so long to move out of their hex, unless he is cancelling and restarting movement. Anyway, if he doesn’t get there tomorrow then we will be there first with the Kimura Det. and then maybe we can contain him to the current hex afterall.  As we kind of sort of wanted, Nagpur now has a division+ of men defending it. Where did he find yet another division you ask? Well, look at the colour, they’re American  The MKB isn’t spotted, but there’s nothing at Addu. This isn't really a possibility I was prepared for. Expecting to find his carriers just waiting to die there was unreasonable, but I thought there would at least be some supply ships or Catalinas or something. I’m not really quite sure what to do with that.  Milne Bay is repairing the damage, but even with all available transport planes we can’t keep up with the supply demands.   We now have some 600 artillery pieces pointed at Calcutta, and will bombard them heavily for a week or so while we mop up after Howrah and fully contain the Jamshedpur pocket. [img]https://lpix.org/4083995/[ush.gif[/img] Speaking of which, we are going to clear the last road into Jamshedpur. Hopefully they will retreat into Jamshedpur where we can neatly contain them, but if not it doesn’t really matter.  I think we’ll actually send the bombers to Darjeeling. Hardly the most critical fight but it’d be nice to wrap it up and free that naval guard unit up to garrison somewhere.  And of course we can’t leave the Anns in central India without support, back to Assam for them.  That’s alot of tanks reported at Raipur, and if they’re American they won’t be stupid tractors covered in coregated iron either. I think we might send our AT regiments up to Raipur, I’d already sent one more Guards Infantry regiment up after Howrah fell. I can’t emphasise enough what a huge difference owning Howrah makes for us, the guns will be at Raipur in less than a week, before it would have taken us three weeks if not longer to get from Asansol to Raipur.  Clearing the way before we can attack Ramree Island.  If there’s nothing at Addu, I suppose we go and raid Diego Garcia instead  Sadly there’s no way to get reconnaissance in advance, so we’ll just go in blind and hope our guys can hit something, if there’s something to be hit.
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Sep 10, 2021 12:56
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Alikchi's one weird trick to defeat your aggression: Just Don't Have Anything! Zero losses, guaranteed
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Sep 10, 2021 19:34
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da share z0ne's art of war: you can leave! if it sucks, hit da bricks
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Sep 10, 2021 19:48
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I hate to be the bearer of bad news Pharnakes, but "today" (September 10, 1942) is when the first complete, Ford-built B-24 rolled off the lines at the bigass Willow Run plant that became famous for churning out a plane every hour (in 1944).
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Sep 10, 2021 20:09
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Given how disappointing you’re finding the Rita, are you producing the successor 4EB, the Liz I think? You’re in a really weird position compared with most games, where you have China, you’ve got the SRA, and you have significant and growing chunks of India. Does that actually do much for your economy in the long run? I guess I’m wondering if there’s any utility in getting the bombers and harassing either Australian industry or going for bombing the West Coast from the Aleutians, if you’ve got excess capacity right now. Especially once India wraps up. From what I remember the biggest challenges for Japan long term are fuel for ships/oil for industry, supplies, and aircraft factories. You are probably doing really well on fuel, and all the industry you’re capturing should help with supplies at least locally, but is it meaningful for the later stages of the war? I don’t know how much the production in India compares with the home islands (or how much you get from China in this quiet war mod). Velius fucked around with this message at 18:42 on Sep 11, 2021 |
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Sep 11, 2021 18:40
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  No bombing tonight.  Our first sweep of Tarwa from Mili. 340 miles across the open ocean for marine pilots, that they even found the place is impressive.  A very brief engagement, but the Skyrockets are equally at the end of their fuel tether and shouldn’t bother the Nells when they arrive.  Clear skies in Assam.  Not the Anns favoured conditions.  We’ve got CAP still near Nagpur, but hopefully at a better height today.  Not entirely successful at stopping the bombers though.  But not bad either.  We haven’t seen these guys for a couple days.  They go for a passing construction battalion rather than the brigade, which is good. Unless you’re some poor conscripted local who just got his arms and legs blown off.  They’re bombing one of our regiments on the road outside Jamshedpur.  Moderately irritating that I now have to remember to put them back into move mode, but other wise uneventful.  More bombers arriving at Nagpur.  One Zero can’t be expected to do much.  But they can get shot down  Large attack on Milne Bay.  It would seem they’ve forgotten how to bomb.  The MKB has found something!  Not very exciting so far.  More like it.    I like how they hit Jumna twice as much as the loving fleet oiler right there gently caress. Still, if she was ladden one hit would probably have been enough anyway.  The Nells are late to Tarawa, and there’s a new wave of LRCAP waiting for them.  But we sail under them easily enough.  Clear at Diego Garcia as the main wave from the MKB arrives.  They find a freighter and burn some fuel. Good enough I guess.  Bringing the hammer down in Nepal  Unfortunately the weather means some random yak herder gets most of it.  And wave two is no better. In fact they’re even worse.  Decent results.  The guns open up at Calcutta to pretty good effect, but the return fire is rather harsh on our poor battered engineers. I think we’ll stop this for a day or two while we send the engineers to rest at Diamond Harbour.  Pushing them into Jamshedpur.  Pushing our face into a brick wall   Christ, look at all this stuff. This is far more than I expected, we really need to contain them somehow.  Time to finish these guys before they can escape into Nagpur.  But they seem to have entered a weird broken state that shattered units sometimes get, where they won’t retreat but won’t take heavy casualties either, no matter the odds against them. Oh well, it’s hardly a critical unit.  Lots of attacks today, Darjeeling up next.  At least we won here, but they took basically no casualties and now we have to chase them again.  Normal results.  We’re attacking them on the coastal road near Ramree Island.  And they choose to retreat not up the road, but across to Ramree Island. Excellent.   Oh dear, the failure to push them back into Jamshedpur is very disappointing to say the least.  No unexplained massacres here at least.  For some reason we’re not claiming Cimarron, but she definitely went down.  A new Yugumo is laid down at Maizaru, the lightly built ship will be finished on the 22nd of December.  Hiryu is the first carrier to finish work at Truk, and it’s a couple more days until we have enough to form a fleet up. I’m not concerned by the greater timers on most of the battleships because we have the Yamatos available if we can’t find enough 30kt wagons.  No progress on the runway, but all damage is repaired, and we have more supplies now than we did this time yesterday.  Oh dear that is a lot of disruption we have now. I’m still not sure where it all came from in the first place???   The 32nd division is best placed to prevent the breakout. We’ve got 138 miles to march before the enemy can cover 40 or less, but we have a good road for the first 46 and a minor road for the remainder, whereas they are trying to push through roadless jungle. I think we can do it. If we could just somehow magically conjure another division at Jamshedpur it would be easy  We have this regiment who can and will move into Jamshedpur, but by themselves they are neither enough to hold Jamshedpur, or to move though and prevent the breakout to the south west.  The troops already in contact will bombard to try and slow them down.  Every available plane is of course going to be thrown at them.  Covered by all the fighters I can find, on both LRCAP and sweep.  Then I notice this regiment of the Guards Tank division. They could be in Jamshedpur in three days, four at the most, and thereby relieve the 104th to move south and block his line of retreat. It means abandoning the surrounding of the Howrah remnants, but that’s whatever compared to preventing the breakout of what is now the bulk of the Indian Army.  I don’t know how, or rather whyhe let us get here first, but if we can just now get across the line before he does we will have contained this pocket again. It’s not as hopeless as it might seem, because in order for it to have taken this long for him to move he must have been canceling and reissuing the move orders, so depending on when he last did that we could well beat them to it.  Just loving surrender already, gently caress.  Both units are at Patna now so we will attack tomorrow. A sideshow compared to what’s happening around Jamshedpur, but maybe it will distract him a bit.  We can’t possibly take Nagpur now, so we’re going to start back for Raipur, leaving just one recon unit to finish off these guys.  At least they can’t retreat from Ramree. You can see we’ve caught up with them outside Prome, but we won’t attack today in case he does actually move into Prome, where we could trap that unit at last.  We shot down three Catalinas today, so tomorrow we’ll try bombing the airfield with the Vals. There isn’t much here, but dead Catalinas are always good, and it feels a bit lame to just go home after one day, v0v.  As I’m sure you’ve noticed, he’s been using LRCAP rather than escort at Milne Bay the last couple of days, so let’s sweep it.  We issue the first three Judys to a frontline unit at Rabaul today. Notice that sick 21 hex range with drop tanks, and the extremely respectable top speed that should render them almost uninterceptable. With these girls we will finally be able to see what he is up to at the airfields in Northern Queensland, and later peek at the landing zones. Pharnakes fucked around with this message at 19:55 on Sep 13, 2021 |
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Sep 11, 2021 18:50
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Too bad you couldn't call off the battle once you realized how strong the opposition was. Did recon totally fall down?
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Sep 11, 2021 19:21
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There's a broken image link at Nagpur as well as new bombers, btw.
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Sep 11, 2021 23:08
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Man those are some beefy divisions that bounced off that position. 400+AV
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Sep 12, 2021 00:22
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That's pretty much a totally mauled division or so there. Ow.
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Sep 12, 2021 01:10
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  The usual at Tarawa.  But the usual storms too.  The sweep arrives.  A dead Skyrocket.  But also a dead Zero   Strike before sweep over the salient, but at least the LRCAP is in place.  And doing their job.  Storms we can’t do so much about.  Nice results in the air at least.  More bombers arrive.  They’ve got a lot of AA here.  Rain for the Anns!  What? My faith in you is shattered.  Their bombers arrive over our tanks at Nagpur. How will our poor overstretched CAP fare today?  Certainly too many to stop them.  Ouch.  Still beating the dead, and surely by this point, desiccated corpse of Broome.  Considerably deader now, I suppose.  Buckle up at Bezwada, here come the Vengeances.  Today they go for the airfield though.  Their turn to bomb over the salient.  Did the LRCAP even try?  Storms work both ways though.  What’s left of the CAP is caught out of position by the next wave at Nagpur.   And at Raipur itself, Hudsons.  Very minor damage.  A big attack on Madras with a rather half assed escort.  Most of the bombers get through anyway of course.  A solid trade in the end.  The usual asston of Fortress pile into Milne Bay.  And they do the first real damage for a week or so.  A few straggling Marauders on direct attack miss.  Getting on in the day, but we aren’t done yet with a sweep arriving at Madras.  Bloody on both sides, but supposedly we’ve won.  We pay for it as the next wave catches the CAP out of position.  1:1 Warhawks is not good.  If that’s what passes for a brigade in the Indian Army now we’re in for a chance afterall.  A Brigade should normally be 150-250ish AV.  Slowly but more or less surely. Mostly slowly though.  That’s the whole stack knocked into combat mode if he now just forgets to put them back into move that would be super cool.  Average at Jamshedpur.   India is really heating up, but hopefully he’s left it too late to extricate himself from Jamshedpur.   Better than I expected in the air, but still, 17 Zeros  We also avoided our usual problem where we trade 2:1 but we lose Zeros and they lose Blenheims and Warhawks with a nice chunk of Skyrockets and some Fortresses too.  Brutal turnover at Madras though.  No. Just no.  We’ve got almost enough to form a fast strike group at Truk now.  But we’re going to wait one more day for Akagi to be ready. The Nells are doing their best but in this weather are not managing to prevent repairs, not even close.  The 32nd has covered 30 miles out of Calcutta today, and we already have one regiment starting to move into the critical hex. One isn’t even going to be slightly enough though.  How the gently caress do these arseholes manage to stay always one jump ahead of the tanks??   Closing in on what’s left from Howrah.  I don’t think we’re in danger of being bombed at Calcutta anytime soon, so we’ll send the guns to Howrah to get on the rail network for Raipur and Madras.  We’ll go and chase what’s left of this brigade around.  That remnant has managed to escape into Nagpur, where they have found another 4k men. Time to scarper back to Raipur, getting bombed heavily on the way I’m sure.  I think we are now safe to scrape Chittagong’s aerial defences to the bone, so I’m sending another couple of Hikotais to Nagpur.  More mop up in the south.  I don’t know why we didn’t fly today, but he’s pulled the Catalinas away anyhow. No point staying any longer, time to head for home.  I’d sent some tanks off to recapture Daly Waters a few days ago, now they are reporting contacts to their south, so let’s bomb them a bit.  I mean a lot, let’s bomb them a lot.
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Sep 12, 2021 18:23
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  These boys at Mili are early morning types it seems.  Got one, and the storm has broken for the bombers.   Without interference the Nells hit hard, but I wouldn’t care to be in the subsequent waves.  No such issues in India.  They fail to inflict a single casualty, but do at least fail against multiple units.  Wave two does, something.  Anns are dieing.  Bigly.  Lambs to slaughter.  At least it’s only Anns, not Sallies or Nells.  Or maybe not… Only two Beaufighters left though.  One Sally down, not so bad.  Broome time.   Since we have no engineers here and aren’t repairing, eventually they’re just going to be bombing craters.  Storms over Bezwada.  Vengeances are legitimately terrifying.  Patna too.  Hudsons are no Vengeances, but this has slowed on of our units.  Slightly less Fortresses at Milne today.  Two supply hits though  The Marauders make their usual non contribution.  The Nells are very late at Tarawa, but no matter.  Supply hits are good, but we really needed more than one port hit.  Quiet day in Assam.  Banging away here, too either vital or no effect whatsoever, we have no way to tell.  Quiet at Jamshedpur too.     Oh well, it is only Anns.  Wait for it, next one’s Colorado.  A new Akistuki commissions today at Kure.   We have our minimum viable fleet back up, consisting of Akagi, Hiryu and Donryu, escorted by the Yamatos. They are just going to head straight back to resume the blockade of Tarawa.  Why use the Yamatos when we have faster and less fuel hungry ships available? It’s not like I particularly anticipate an attempted surface interception, but the aerial bombardments of Tarawa are in general producing pretty lacklustre results. What has worked before is repeated battleship bombardment, and for that our 14” battleships are very much more suited as they can be rearmed at small ports using our AKE tenders.  Such a plan does of course require our AKEs to be at the right atoll, but fortunately his submarines are mostly hanging around the slot at the moment, and the area immediately around Rabaul is rather quiet.  We’re losing Tabbies at an unsustainable rate, we need to try another surface run into Milne Bay.  Planting the flag at Daly Waters tomorrow.  For our piddly little tank regiment to hold Daly Waters against what’s coming requires extensive air support, which in turn requires us to gain air superiority. I have much less fighters here than I thought I did, because it seems at one point I turned off replacements for them and haven’t turned them back on So until all the new frames they’ve been issued today are up in the air, we can’t do LRCAP or escort, and must stop bombing for a day ro two to allow the fighters we do have to focus on sweep.  I’m torn on whether to wait an extra day here for the bombed unit to catch up, then use one unit set to pursuit to hit them twice in a row, but I think we’ll just attack them tomorrow.
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Sep 13, 2021 18:19
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| # ? Apr 25, 2024 11:49 |
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Oof, when's the replacement model for the Anns coming? Wiki doesn't seem to have that info but says that the Ann was only produced until 41
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Sep 13, 2021 18:42
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