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 Hello! Welcome back to War in the Pacific. You may have followed this game through Pharnakes’ thread that ended recently. I’ve been halfheartedly LPing the Allied side on twitter and elsewhere, but with Pharnakes too busy to keep up here on SA, I figure it’s time I picked up the torch. It is April 1943. Japan controls a vast swathe of territory, extending beyond her historical limits to include northern Australia and most of British India. China is out of the war. The main body of the Japanese carrier fleet, the Kido Butai, still rules the Pacific, having won a streak of battles against the USN and Royal Navy. The American war machine is on the cusp of major achievements, though: the first Essex-class carriers are due within 90 days. The first F6F Hellcats were delivered today. An infusion of Commonwealth reinforcements has arrived in India from Egypt. The tide of the war could be about to turn. So: a quick recap, then an overview of the current situation, and then we’ll go into day-by-day post mode. The War So Far December 1941 Pearl Harbor was bad, but quite a bit better than reality - no battleships were outright sunk, though all 8 were damaged to some degree or another. The loss of USS Saratoga to a Japanese submarine off San Francisco on December 10 was far more detrimental to the war effort. The British carriers Ark Royal and Hermes sunk the Japanese battleship Yamashiro near Celebes on December 19, amidst a wild ABDA melee. Wake Island was seized by the enemy, though the garrison put up a good fight. 1942 The Philippines fall relatively early, thanks to MacArthur’s (read: my) incompetence. Japan moves quickly to conquer Malaya, Singapore, and all the Indonesian islands other than Java and Sumatra. The Dutch hold out surprisingly long at Palembang and Bandoeng, tying down troops. Bandoeng, in central Java, resists until August 9! The Japanese light carrier Ryujo was torpedoed and sunk by Dutch and American submarines February 9 1942. An invasion of Midway Island by two SNLFs was defeated on March 10. What first appears to be a raid on Ceylon begins March 12, 1942. It quickly becomes evident this is an invasion force. HMS Indomitable is sunk in Colombo harbor March 15, 1942. Landings follow, Ceylon falls quickly. India braces for invasion. The brave Dutch and Australian defenders of Ambon surrender on March 24. The Japanese immediately turn their gaze southwards… Thus, Northern Australia is invaded, with landings at Darwin on March 30 1942. By the end of April, they’ll have advanced to Katherine and beyond against weak, undersupplied Australian resistance. The Japanese invasion of India proper (well, modern Bangladesh) began at Chittagong on May 3, 1942. Burmacorps abandons Burma and withdraws, leaving only a token force behind to stall the IJA. May 8: A Midway invasion scare prompts me to heavily reinforce it and build up the small islands in the chain between Midway and Hawaii. June 28-29 1942 saw the Battle of the Yasawa Islands, another USN defeat - losing Hornet and Lexington in return for apparently-superficial damage to Zuikaku and Hiryu. On July 1, Jessore falls, and Calcutta is under siege. The IJA begins to encircle the whole region, pushing north and east and conducting additional landings. August 4 1942: HMS Prince of Wales sunk near Trivandrum by Betty bombers. Tabiteuea was seized from Japanese control August 7 1942, giving the USN a proper base in the Gilberts. Tarawa itself is haphazardly grabbed on August 10, but is eventually retaken by a Japanese counteroffensive. December 3: Calcutta falls to 100,000 Japanese troops. Jamshedpur and Ranchi surrender shortly thereafter, gutting the Allied army in India and freeing up hordes of enemies to advance into the interior. 1943 January 19: Yorktown and Wasp (along with 5 CVEs and modern fast battleship USS Indiana) are sunk in a major carrier battle versus Shokaku, Zuikaku, Tairyu and Donryu east of the Gilberts. Of the American carriers, only Enterprise, one CVE, and Ranger (in the Atlantic) remain. A few IJN carriers are damaged in return. This is a bad one. January 25: As part of the response to the battle of January 19, hybrid battlecarriers Hamilton and Scourge begin conversion into full CVs. February 1, 1943: President Roosevelt succumbs to a sudden cerebral hemorrhage shortly after returning from the Casablanca Conference. Vice President Henry Wallace assumes command. February 10, 1943: Hyderabad falls. February 17, 1943: Surprise attack on Tokyo! Enterprise carefully traced a route through the weakest search coverage to slip into SBD range of the Japanese capitol. A slap in the face to the enemy! A demonstrative strike is made on the city, targeting enemy aircraft factories. After sinking a fully-loaded Japanese transport for good measure, they head northeast towards Adak Island to escape the IJN's wrath. Feb 21-22 1943: Enterprise and her task force are caught just southwest of Adak Island by Shokaku and Donryu, along with CVLs Hiho, Shoho and Kuroho, and perhaps others. One bomb hit is scored on Kuroho, and Enterprise flees towards Amchitka Island. On the 22nd, the carriers trade airstrikes again - Enterprise takes a torpedo but miraculously survives. The enemy withdraws, and Enterprise spends the next month repairing at Adak Island, under the protection of RCAF Hurricanes. Goa falls February 22. Bombay falls February 27. After months of prep work, the Australian-American offensive north towards Katherine in 1943 fails disastrously. Allied aircraft were suppressed and unable to provide CAP, their airfields bombarded. Lilies, Helens, Nicks and Anns had free rein on the retreating Allied column. As a result, the US 32nd and 40th Infantry Divisions, along with several Australian brigades, were almost entirely wiped out by March 10, 1943. The Japanese have continued to make rapid progress on the Indian subcontinent, snatching up the west coast and turning deep into Gujarat, while launching sieges against British strongholds in Central India. They took Surat on March 12, and Ahmedabad shortly thereafter. The fall of Ahmedabad, however, triggered the scripted British emergency reinforcements... Current Situation: April 1, 1943 .png) The rollover of the new month means a slew of new ship upgrades. 8 cruisers, 9 destroyers and several auxiliaries immediately go into the yards. These refits almost universally include additional 40mm Bofors guns, 20mm Oerlikons, and radar. India .jpg) The emergency reinforcements - XXI Indian Corps - have arrived and are moving into position. I think I have a strategic opportunity here. The enemy is spread out conducting sieges all over the subcontinent, and I have a strong new reserve. One of these new divisions (the all-Indian “Waziristan Division”) is laying siege to the recently-captured Ahmedabad (1). It’s an annoying but necessary diversion of force. The 5th and 6th Indian Divisions have been railed in to relieve the siege of Bhopal (2) and are preparing their first bombardment attack. Finally, the 8th Indian, 10th Indian, and 31st Armoured Divisions are marching from Gwalior (3) towards the crossroads at Hex 47, 22 (4), not far from Bhopal. My plan is to win this engagement, relieve Bhopal, then move on towards Nagpur (5) and Jubbulpore (6). In the south, the 41st US Division (7) broke out from the siege of Bellary (8), along with a few other units. Bellary and Bangalore (9) are tying down large numbers of Japanese units, particularly artillery and infantry. Bellary won’t last much longer, but Bangalore is well supplied and will remain a thorn behind enemy lines for some time. Finally, in the north, Japanese tanks are banging at the door at Gorakhpur (10). The air situation is also trending favorably here. I got a big infusion of aircraft in that emergency convoy which is allowing me to reequip multiple squadrons. Spitfire VIIIs might change the game because I’m allowed to fly them at 25,000 feet under our house rules. His advance is also working against him perversely - at this point, I can easily bomb his advancing troops from Delhi without having to worry much about enemy CAP. I’m sure he’s working on setting up airfields (at Indore and Ahmedabad, for example) to fix this. He’ll also rearrange troops to deal with my reinforcements. I only have a brief window of local air and ground superiority to exploit, but I will see that it’s exploited. Australia/SWPAC  Perth (1) remains a major sub base, but no longer hosts any warship larger than a light cruiser. American P-40K sweeps flying from Port Hedland (2) caught a few stray Zeroes over Broome (3), but he seems to be no longer contesting the place. The Gulf of Carpentaria continues to be a war zone. Groote Eyelandt (4) is slowly being resupplied by sea and air. In northeastern Australia and Port Moresby(5), bombers attack Milne Bay(6) daily. An invasion force centered around the US 43rd Infantry Division is gathering at Cairns(7) to take the place in the coming months. South Pacific  I consider the most recent Japanese raid in this theater a mixed bag. His bombardment was devastating to Luganville (1) and the aircraft stationed there, but the multiple mine hits on destroyers and torpedo hit on Ryuho (by TBFs stationed at Ndeni (2))even things out. A failed Nell attack on March 31st and a failed Kate attack on April 1 help level the score, as well. He’s nailed some transports in the Ocean Island (3)/Tabiteuea (4) area with Judies and Kates, but nothing too valuable. Ocean Island was very recently seized, incidentally. I have forces prepped for Nauru waiting for the heat to die down. Long term plans here involve skipping Tarawa for Makin and then Mili. There are also US and ANZAC forces prepped for Guadalcanal if the opening arrives. Central Pacific Preparations for a Wake invasion sometime this year continue. I’m also working on moving my sub base up from Pearl to Midway, having fully upgraded it to a level 4 port. North Pacific  As it has been since the beginning of the war, an Allied-dominated theater. The damaged USS Enterprise (1) slowly heads for the West Coast. She just spent two weeks at Adak Island (2), a major sub base, getting her most serious damage repaired by the repair ship USS Vestal. Her departure means the Vestal is free to fix up the half-dozen subs that also need servicing at Adak. A series of mutually supporting airfields have been built on the western end of the Aleutian chain. A convoy (3) heads west for Adak Island (4), carrying the 18th Canadian Brigade and the 27th Canadian AA Regiment. Carriers .png) .png) The loss of the core of the US carrier fleet demands cooperation with the Royal Navy, at least until the Essexes really start rolling out. The RN and friends don’t have a lot of safe bases in the Indian Ocean to operate out of, anyways. So, a joint US-Commonwealth Pacific carrier force to confront the undefeated Kido Butai. As of April 1, 1943, HMS Hermes is the only fully operational aircraft carrier in the entire Pacific theater. Well, the CVE USS Sangamon is hanging around Australia, too, in position to support a landing at Milne - but the January 19 battle has taught me a bit about relying too much on CVEs. .png) Look at all the flight decks we get over the next six months. The key is going to be avoiding the temptation to take a fair fight. That’s what’s been getting my carriers sunk. I gotta finish the Death Star before I fly it to Alderaan. Air War .png) In other great news, the Hellcat has arrived. The first four F6Fs are sitting in the pool right now. As they trickle in they’ll be used to fill the USN VF groups in priority, starting with Enterprise’s deadly VF-6. The Japanese already have the A6M5 in some of their CAGs, so that complicates things. In general, time works to my advantage - the later into 1943 I prosecute a full-scale carrier battle, the better the odds are. Even if he’s likely to have built at least two new CVs by the end of the year. You can see that my Corsair pool is exhausted - I’ve been putting them into front line service with the Marines as quickly as they arrive, most recently over Ndeni. I’m also basically out of SBDs, after dozens were shot down attacking IJN carriers recently. The upcoming introduction of the SBD-5 should help there. .png) April 1 was a great day in the air - the Japanese carriers sent what seems like a whole Kokutai of Kates off without escort, and P-39s of the 18th Fighter Group had a little turkey shoot. That’s it for the OP. I’ll be editing an index in as we go!
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Aug 8, 2022 05:12
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Thanks all! And sorry for the immediate vanishing. I had the normal response to starting a thread, which is to immediately start puking and then spend a week in the hospital. But we're back in business now! April 2, 1943 .png) The Japanese submarine I-33 is sighted by the Flower-class corvette HMCS Dawson. I-33 was attempting to line up a shot on the elderly Dutch auxilliary tanker TAN 6, formerly MS Josefina. The enemy has gotten wise to my use of the Vancouver/Seattle->Adak Island convoy route and many subs have been spotted here lately. .png) Thousands of miles to the west, one of the greatest and greatest-named USN subs, USS Wahoo, spies a rare opportunity for a sub-on-sub engagement, but her two torpedoes miss I-38. .png) And finally, the USS Hake, patrolling off Shikoku, evades a Japanese destroyer. The sub war is really only getting hotter as the number of American submarines increases and their torpedoes become increasingly less and less awful.  Memories As the sun rises, previously damaged ships struggle to make it home. .png) .png) These two won’t make it. .png) Despite the heavy enemy air and naval ASW, I can’t stop sending subs to hover off Soerabaja. He’s clearly using it as a transshipment point for his best tankers and oilers. .png) Sweeps of Bangalore by Zeroes help continue the siege and discourages me from sending squads down to surprise his bombers with CAP traps. (This has happened several times.) .png) I mentioned CAP traps? Today’s is over the US 41st Infantry Division, which has been getting hammered by Helens the past few days. The Beaufighters and Hurricanes staged into Bellary, currently under siege, for this hit, and will have to fly back out immediately to avoid immediate retribution. This is a juicy one, though. They had a big, strong formation, but I believe we got at least 15, and their strike was completely disrupted. .png) Another few bombers trickle in and get chewed up, with one being destroyed outright. .png) And then Pharnakes’ Zero sweep arrives. When the mechanics of the game happen to work in your favor, you gotta laugh. One Beaufighter goes down, but the damage is already done. .png) I’ve directed a lot of bombers to strike the enemy tank regiments attacking Gorakhpur. These three Dutch DB-7s don’t accomplish anything, but more effective aircraft should be coming. .png) Thunderstorms throw off these Beauforts’ aim. .png) With the enemy runway at Milne Bay completely demolished, Allied flyboys have proceeded to bombing the occuping ground troops. .png) Wirraways follow up, but also do no perceptible damage. .png) And even more, this time with a P-50E Skyrocket escort flying from Terapo. .png) Yes, Ansons. .png) RAAF bombers gets caught attempting to crater the enemy airfield at Derby. Half a dozen fall to a murderous swarm of Zeroes. Not doing that again for a while. (In fact, the tattered Hudson squadron brings in a dozen new pilots and transitions to the Beaufort VIII in the aftermath of this engagement)     A flurry of Allied airstrikes are launched against enemy spearheads across the Indian subcontinent, despite mediocre weather. Japanese tank units in hex 47,22 (where I expect a meeting engagement en route to breaking the siege of Bhopal) and Gorakhpur (which is vulnerable to an IJA tank shock attack) receive particular attention.  The RAF Vengeance dive bombers performed especially excellent service estroying or disabling dozens of IJA tanks here at Gorakhpur. Their shock attack is repelled by the remnants of the 3rd Indian Brigade and a scratch force of AA gunners, engineers and base troops. I think I’ll be able to rail in a brigade from Karachi to bolster my line here.  The siege of Bangalore grinds on, as it has since last year. Its defenders sit happily on 45,000 supplies, level 5 fortifications, and “Jungle Rough” terrain. They’ll continue tying down roughly a division’s worth of infantry and oodles of heavy art for the foreseeable future.  While three allied divisions advance on Bhopal from the northeast, the 5th and 6th Indian were railed directly into the city, and today begin testing the strength of this siege. Looks like a narrow 2:1 advantage. Time to start grinding the enemy out.    More bombers (mostly B-25s flying from Cooktown) softening up Milne's SNLF defenders.  The day ends with a sad coda to how it begun. The I-33, having tracked the northern fuel convoy all day, nails AO TAN-3, which sinks almost immediately. These weird old slow Dutch oilers are very vulnerable, hence their banishment to the North Pacific.. Can’t hide them here anymore. Summary & Orders .png) Solid day, another batch of Japanese bombers shot down, an enemy tank attack broken up by air support and repulsed. Level 4 airfield built at Gorakhpur, our beleaguered little fort on the Nepalese frontier, plus improved facilities in Exmouth and Normanton, Australia.  Probably overreported, but still juicy.  Strategic map. As for next turn: I’ve rejiggered my bombing targets in India - I expect a quick reaction to my heavy bombing and CAP traps over the past few turns. The US 7th Infantry Division, bought with political points for service in India, begins the very long journey from Los Angeles to Karachi by way of Suez. USS Enterprise & friends pause at Dutch Harbor on her long journey to Seattle. HMS Hood, HMS Warspite, USS Washington & MN Lyon pass through the Bass Strait, en route to Brisbane.
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Aug 20, 2022 02:35
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SIGSEGV posted:How do you feel about the failure of the cow commando to take out Admiral Yamamoto? Yamamoto will be dealt with humanely in a court of law. The Wallace Administration will bring the enemies of freedom to justice! Jobbo_Fett posted:Excited to see this prosper like Pharnakes' thread. Thank you for this blessing! CannonFodder posted:Welcome back! .png) Safely in Seattle. Finally about to finish repairing a 53cm submarine torpedo hit from August 13, 1942. ThatBasqueGuy posted:drat you're getting hosed up, was this with one of those turbostart Japan mods? Yep, a custom mod with a bunch of boosts for Japan - extra goodies on top of the Scenario 2 boosts. The Allies have a few things too, ofc. Pirate Radar posted:Awesome to see this return. Looking forward to finding out more of what the mod you’re playing with adds. Are there any big alt-hist planes and ships that are showing up soon? .png) The two G3 battlecruisers, Invincible and Caledonia, will shortly be pulled from the North Atlantic in favor of escort duty for the Allied carrier fleet assembling over the coming months at Pearl Harbor. As for alt-hist aircraft, the next one coming's the P-75, middle of next year. Then we'll start to see lots of wackiness in rapid succession, and not just on the Allies' behalf.
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Aug 20, 2022 03:13
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Foxfire_ posted:"Task force out of fuel" notifications in the end of turn summary seems bad? SerthVarnee posted:Those are sometimes the game spazzing out about a convoy not having enough fuel to go from San Francisco to Sydney and back again without refueling. Even though you specified that they should refuel in Sydney... It was option 2 this time - an S-boat coasting into Pearl on fumes. And yes! Always have, to a certain extent. April 3, 1943  A few hundred miles off Shikoku, USS Tullibee fires two Mark 14s at destroyer Yamanagiri, a modern Akizuki-class. Unfortunately, both miss in the darkness, and Tullibee slinks away.  India. Bad weather in the north breaks up and cancels several Blenheim strikes. In the south, the daily sweep over Bangalore. .png) The Helens and Nicks are out, strafing and bombing two small, retreating Indian base forces. .png) MIght have to ambush these guys again in a few more days. A few more scattered Helen and Tojo strikes across the south, minimal damage. .png) The RAF gets in on the bombing, sending Blenheims and Wellingtons against the IJA forces at hex 47,22. The 31st UK Armoured Div should arrive here today, as well. .png) The Vengeances have been retasked to 47,22 as well, and pummell the vehicles of the IJA 4th Tank Regiment and 48th Recon Regiment. Blenheims and others help to slow down the advancing enemy 4th Guards Division just west of the 47,22 crossroads. .png) Pretty impressive for six Liberators. I absolutely must keep him from repairing frontline airfields and deploying his Tojos and other shorter-ranged fighters. .png) Another six B-25Ds sprinkle Indore airfield with 500-pound bombs. .png) Three more Liberators.. Maybe another day of bombing like this and Indore will be 100% damaged. .png) Weather’s not great, but the bombers just keep coming. .png) Zero sweep above the retreating 41st US Infantry Division - hoping to catch the Hurricanes and Beaufighters that themselves caught that batch of Helens yesterday. They’ve been pulled back. .png) Lucknow-based Blenheims miss a bunch in the rain. .png) Yeah, if I’d left any of that CAP trap above the 41st, they would have all been shot down today. Pharnakes’ vengeance is swift. .png) Meanwhile in the South Pacific, a Catalina reports a high-speed large enemy task force, then is shot down. Another PBY is sent to replace it and is also immediately shot down. Smells like an enemy carrier group to me! .png) Land combat. Bangalore, just another dreary bombardment. Sometimes I think about flying in the Chindits under cover of darkness and trying to break out from here.. But the Chindits and other parachutists are entirely tied down fighting as basic infantry in central India. .png) The fleeing base forces he sent the Helens after today scurry southeast. Kind of impressive they didn’t surrender. .png) This one is forced east. .png) Frustratingly close to a 2:1 assault value ratio here at Bhopal. Need more guns. Though I guess it wouldn’t be the worst thing to simply extend the siege while the other new Commonwealth units defeat the 4th Guards Division & friends up the road to the north. Then forces combine, relieve Bhopal and advance on Nagpur. Crack the big overextended Japanese line right down the middle and roll it up. This is a very “MacArthur” plan (naive, messianic). .png) Quick little bombardment at Jubbulpore to see if he’s pulled back at all. He hasn’t. Note the Chindit brigade and IV Indian Corps - led by the best General in India, Bill Slim. .png) Fort up at Bhaunagar. .png) Humphrey and Sands are old Clemson-class destroyers. [img]https://lpix.org/4352719/2022-08-20 21_18_34-WitP Tracker AE [wpae005].png[/img] A quad Bofors and a few single 20mm Oerlikons in this upgrade. Not bad. .png) .png) .png) .png) Today’s production from the American shipyards… .png) … and a stray Brit, the Umtali. Summary & Orders  Zero ships sunk, a lot of stuff happening. B+ day. .png) Losing two PBYs might actually be the harshest part of April 3. .png) Strategic map. As for next turn: .png) More bombing in India. Forever bombing in India. Also, I have Gardner’s Horse Regiment (3-ish squadrons of Stuarts) on their way to southeast from Lucknow to Gorakhpur. From Gorakhpur, maybe I can raid a bit? .png) That’s definitely a big Japanese carrier group blasting through the Gilberts, with a surface/bombardment force along for the ride. Many PBY crewmen died to bring us this information. I activate some PT boats at Tabiteuea and fly in Corsairs, Avengers and Dauntlesses. His carrier aviators are still elite enough to trade evenly with Corsairs, but I gotta keep grinding him down. Plus, you never know. A lucky torpedo hit or two could work miracles for Allied morale. .png) A few interesting tidbits in today’s SIGINT.
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Aug 21, 2022 04:54
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April 4, 1943.png) Minekaze hanging around Tulagi. I should try for her with B-25s tomorrow. .png) USS Lapon is driven away from a Japanese convoy. .png) Tullibee, meanwhile, pops another shot at another Akizuki, this time the class namesake. .png) Another four Mark 14s from Tullibee scare the crap out of a poor destroyer captain. Tullibee’s CO is displaying impatience and inaccuracy, but he’s very frisky, so that’s something. .png) Day breaks over the South Pacific and PBY spotting reports start rolling in. Looks like the Japanese are still charging southeast here. .png) An angry flock of Tojos buzz the 41st Infantry Division. Again, I’ve provided them with no targets. .png) Far to the north, over hex 47/22, a squad of P-40s sweep and also find nothing. Our bombing can continue unmolested today. .png) At least Allied ambushes have forced the Japanese into sweeping nothing all the time? These guys are based at Madras. .png) Nicks strafe and Helens bomb. Weather keeps casualties low. One low-flying Nick is shot down. .png) More Helens. Look like these are based at Mangalore. .png) Four late Tojos fly aimlessly above 37,31. .png) Seven over Bangalore. .png) This flock of Helens goes for the 41st Infantry. .png) Zero sweeps maintain enemy control of the air here, too. .png) Fine.  Oh poo poo! .png) Not a small CAP, but Corsairs give me a chance. .png) We shoot down a nice number of Zeroes - even a few A6M5s.. .png) ..but not enough to keep the bombers safe. More Zeroes join the CAP, the SBDs are all knocked down, and the last two Avengers turn for home after watching their squadmates hit the water. .png) Back to India. No apparent effect here. .png) Over to New Guinea. Again, no apparent effect. .png) Maybe I should bring the Wirraways down even lower? .png) No. 73 Squadron RAAF flys the Anson flag. .png) Cooktown Mitchells disable a squad. .png) Another. .png) Three Ansons lagged behind the others. .png) Oh, this is a good one! Look at that coordination. 27 Vultee Vengeances and 3 Wellingtons. The RAF knocks out a batch of IJA antiaircraft guns and spreads the damage around several enemy units. I’d like to pin these guys here at 47,22 and defeat them with my oncoming three divisions from the northeast. .png) A baker’s dozen Wellingtons pile it on. .png) Another nine Delhi-based Wellies harry the two tank regiments forced back from Gorakhpur a few days ago. .png) Seven more. Can you tell that the British emergency reinforcement convoy included 72 Wellington Is?  Plus a bunch of other stuff. Those Spitfire VIIIs are taking their sweet time getting combat-ready. .png) A break in the unusually heavy clouds over 47,22 aligns with the arrival of another RAF Vengeance squadron, which knocks out some IJA engineering vehicles. Not too shabby. .png) Even flying low and heavily escorted, Blenheims just don’t cut it anymore. But beggars can’t be choosers. .png) Let’s keep grinding away with the Anglo Libs here. Want to KO all his potential frontline airfields and turn them into supply-sucks. .png) I should probably expect him to raid Delhi soon, if he does capture (or build) a solid base. It’s obvious that a major fraction of the RAF’s bombers are based at Delhi. .png) Sometimes you just miss. .png) More Cooktown Mitchells… .png) Cairns B-24s. Good damage, gotta keep the airfield knocked out even as I send the medium and light bombers after the garrison. .png) Somehow these guys all make it through the CAP and score a hit. .png) Solid. .png) Nice casualties here. I’m hesitant to fly bombers out of these besieged bases in central India, it runs down supplies, but it’s really useful to be able to go deep and bomb these units marching towards the front or in pursuit of our troops. Slows them down. .png) Helens flying from Mangalore. Thunderstorms keep casualties low. .png) The PM air phase rolls around, and no strikes are launched. Three Jakes and a couple of PBYs are killed off flying around the Gilberts. .png) Land combat! The 10th Indian is still in Move mode and so doesn’t really contribute to the bombardment at 47,22. .png) No casualties but I’ve got a big artillery advantage in Bhopal proper. It will tell, eventually. .png) Daily Bangalore grind. That’s it! Summary & Orders .png) Reasonable day. .png) Iffy losses, though. Part of the price of attacking so much - ops losses are going up. No significant orders changes today - shifting targets in India, B-25s fly to Ndeni for a raid on Tulagi, a supply convoy diverted to Pago Pago.. few other little things.
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Aug 24, 2022 05:56
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tunapirate posted:Wait -- is that a carrier-on-carrier engagement in the Gilberts? You were so casual about it that I wasn't sure, but aren't those carrier-based planes on both sides? He's got carriers - my planes are land-based at Tabiteuea. Some of them are part of squadron fragments from the sunken Hornet and Yorktown, though.
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Aug 24, 2022 22:17
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tunapirate posted:Ah -- okay, that makes a lot more sense! I assume he's just trying to shore up the defenses of Tarawa, then? Tabiteuea is too heavily defended to be invaded, I would assume. That's my assumption, or maybe just general raiding. He has carrier superiority in 1943, the man would be insane not to take advantage. Though an actual invasion of Tabiteuea would be suicide, it's packed to the brim with Marines. Anyways. Back in business! April 5, 1943 .png) Oh this is a FANTASTIC start to the day! USS Amberjack nails a high value target in the Banda Sea. Shimaron is the namesake of the best and newest class of Japanese oilers. They’re one of Pharnakes’ ideas, a fast fleet oiler similar to the US Cimarron class. Shimaron has three sister ships, and they’re the other AOs spotted by Amberjack. So that’s really good. What’s next? .png) Amberjack circles back to the now-isolated Shimaron and finishes her off with one of a spread of four torps. .png) Off Hawaii, I-5 takes an ill-advised shot at USS Laffey. .png) Many depth charges and K-gun attacks later, I-5 is damaged and driven off. .png) Finally, the sun rises over the Sea of Japan, and USS Steelhead promptly chases down and sinks a lone xAKL. Even hoses her down with the 20mm Oerlikon, which is a little grim. .png) The air phase begins and scouting reports start rolling in. Only really interesting thing: PBYs report the Japanese are still charging southeast through the Gilberts. .png) Twenty A6M3as sweep Groote Eyelandt from Gove. I’ve got nothing there, but he’s probably noticed that the place is fully repaired and resupplied. Bombers coming back soon? .png) A sadly effective run. Gonna eat up lots of supplies in repairs. .png) Late sweep, but it doesn’t matter. .png) The first attack on Milne Bay of the day. Probably one of the few. The foul weather is canceling missions all over the theater. .png) Wirraways navigate the storms to chip in. .png) Nobody’s hitting anything, but trying is half the battle!  .png) Cooktown Mitchells (of the American and Australian varieties) have a bit more success. .png) Another trio of Ansons. .png) Two Hurricanes charge ahead of their squadmates and encounter two dozen Tojos over the retreating Japanese tank units near the Nepalese border. They get away, thankfully. Worried about what those Tojos could do to the following waves, though. .png) 16 Wellingtons descend on 47,22 and inflict casualties on the IJA 4th Guards Division, despite crappy weather. .png) Vengeances begin to join the Wellies. Still storming. .png) Blenheims enter the fray. .png) One of those follow-up raids flies from Delhi right into that gang of Tojos. Bad news for these Wellington pilots. Only one makes it through the CAP. .png) These guys see no opposition and do no apparent damage. Still, at least I spread out the targets today, so I won’t lose THAT many bombers. .png) The waves of British bombers continue. .png) Liberators to Indore. .png) 6 more Mitchells for Milne. Weather impedes attack. .png) Back to India. American P-40Ks maintain air superiority over 47,22. .png) As they do over Broome, Australia. .png) Pharnakes has these Tojos patrolling at 15K, to better destroy my bombers. But it leaves them vulnerable to diving attacks by these Hurricanes. Good stuff! .png) New Guinea. P-50Es flying from Terapo check Lae for hostile fighters. .png) Action in the Gilberts! The Japanese carriers that have been hovering around for a few days take a direct shot at Tabiteuea. My CAP is depleted and largely reliant on outdated Army fighters, but still bags a few kills. .png) Unfortunately, we don’t succeed in disrupting the Kates. (I wonder how long until Jills and Graces, now?) 250kg bombs rain down on USS Wichita. She doesn’t sink, but is in serious trouble. .png) There’s the rest of the Corsairs! Escorting two Avengers into murderous IJN carrier CAP. .png) The attack is defeated by superior numbers and crack pilots. Our Corsairs are very roughly handled. The enemy aircraft are identified to be from Shokaku and Zuikaku, as well as light carriers Shoho, Zuiho, Kuroho, and Hiho. I probably shouldn’t have tried to attack, but it’s tough to resist going for a lucky torpedo hit on a Japanese carrier, especially when we have Corsairs available for escort. .png) Near the western entrance to the Korea Strait, USS Lapon fires two Mark 14s at a Japanese freighter. One malfunctions - the other doesn’t. .png) Ground combat time. Daily Bangalore bombardment.. .png) That’s really bad!  Oh god.  I was expecting at least some bombardment before a major attack. And I definitely wasn’t expecting a shock attack so powerful it dropped 3 levels of forts. I had been vaguely aware he was moving troops into the hex by the increasing number of units, and occasionally bombarded to check his numbers.. But clearly I haven’t been paying enough attention recently. Big ouch. Lots of aircraft caught on the ground. This will set me back in India for sure. .png) I need to wrap up Bhopal ASAP, concentrate my forces against that 3100 AV army… .png) .. which also means defeating the enemy at 47,22. I think I’m ready for a shock attack here. The rough terrain concerns me, but I need to move. Summary & Orders .png) Mostly fine day, but losing Nagpur is a big blow. I expect Bellary and Jubbulpore to fall soon, too. Very dangerous moment in India. .png) Those Beaufighters aren’t particularly good in a fight, but their long range forced him to escort his ground attack planes or be ambushed. Skytrains and Mitchells too. At least the Corsairs and Wellingtons went down fighting.  .png) Scratch that bit about Wichita being seriously hurt - she’s basically fine and can make thirty knots! Seems like a good time to send her to Pearl for repairs and upgrades. And get that 5”/38 gun replaced. She and the other fast ships at Tabiteuea will dash south tomorrow, to avoid any follow-up port strikes. Then the usual convoy route - Christmas Island, then north to Hawaii. A large task force finally arrived at Brisbane from Perth, led by the USS Washington, HMS Warspite, HMS Hood, and Free French battleship Lyon.. Several destroyer-escorts and aircraft transports enter Brisbane’s yards for overdue refits and upgrades. .png) These modernized Clemsons are extremely useful ships. Dedicated high-speed long-range escorts are treasure. .png) SIGINT reports heavy enemy radio traffic in the vicinity of “Tokyo.” Concerning.
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Aug 31, 2022 03:34
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wedgekree posted:What's the last post for your twitter account thread on this if you're still keeping it up? I've had major scroll/lag issues so can't go all the way down! So just seeing what's been up if still using it on occasion to check in! No problem! The full thread should be readable with this link. Sorry I've been slow with updating this, real life is intervening in the war. I should have more time soon!
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Sep 27, 2022 05:08
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It’s over. We are back. April 6, 1943 .png) Decent number of hits for a night strike! .png) Morning breaks. Tojos sweep over the 41st US Infantry (and two other units attempting to escape). .png) Further north, we do the same over Nagpur with a squad of Hurricanes. I want to knock Nagpur airfield out of action now that he’s seized it. .png) The American Warhawks go in for more dogfights with the Tojos and Zeroes northwest of Benares. A very good engagement. The Tojos are still patrolling at 15K! .png) Another squadron of P-40Ks sweeps in and brings down more enemies. Today is great so far. .png) He’s bombing the 41st US Inf Div with impunity. The loss of Nagpur (and those Beaufighters) means I don’t have the ability to protect them with long-range CAP anymore. It seems unlikely they’ll escape south-central India… .png) Northern Australia - Groote Eyelandt. I’ve set a CAP trap here, but I was expecting fighter sweeps, not unescorted bombers. As such, my fighters are largely patrolling at 25,000 feet, and his Nells come in underneath, drop their bombs, and escape almost unmolested. The Aussie Kittyhawks, patrolling at 15K, damage one. .png) Over to the Gilberts. A badly-escorted Avenger strike flies off towards Tarawa and thankfully encounters no enemy CAP. Too many of them bring bombs! Am I running out of torpedoes at the Tabiteuea air HQ? .png) Back to India. Some of the few remaining Dutch DB-7s attack the retreating IJA tanks, with Spitfire escort. This is actually the combat debut of the Mark VIII Spit in India. They do very well, all things considered, but sheer enemy numbers ensure the Dutch are savaged. .png) Beauforts miss in thunderstorms over 47,22. .png) A sweep over Nagpur to maintain superiority here while I destroy the airfield. .png) Cooktown Mitchells keep grinding away at Milne. Just waiting for some APAs finish refitting, the invasion force is ready… .png) A nice coordinated bomber attack on 47,22 is tarnished by continued nasty weather. .png) Another sweep in the north, another good trade. The Hurricanes and Warhawks wisely bug out as a cloud of enemy reinforcements appears. .png) More Delhi Wellingtons into 47,22… I’m not liking how all the bombers seem to be targeting a naval construction battalion, but hopefully the damage is more spread around than is apparent.. .png) More RAF bombers trickle in, doing little damage. .png) Two wings of 13 Vengeances do a bit better. .png) This engagement goes very poorly. The Hurricanes are escorting at low altitude (instead of sweeping at high altitude) and suffer from enemy diving attacks. .png) Four Mitchells accomplish little in bad weather. .png) 14 Blenheims at least manage to kill something. Maybe just someone. .png) Delhi Wellingtons get in on it. Lots of flights from the Allied bomber force in India today - shame about the lovely weather. .png) A couple of late Hurricanes sweep in west of Allahabad, nail a Tojo and leave before the enemy can respond and swarm them. Very smooth. .png) More American bombers in India. These Liberators will hopefully deter him from turning Nagpur into a serious airbase for a while. .png) .png) .png) A flurry of American bombers based in Australia hit Milne Bay. .png) Surprisingly successful attack here! I was hoping to catch a ship in Tulagi’s harbor, but supply hits work too. .png) Back to India. Good hits. I need to keep his forward airfields suppressed. .png) We catch unescorted Nells over Groote! They destroy one P-40 on the ground, but we rack up quite a few kills. Makes up for some of the losses today. .png) Continuing to control the airspace over Nagpur. .png) Despite suffering horrendous losses in the past few days, we scrounge up another dozen Corsairs and Avengers to make a run at the Japanese carrier force, still believed to be Shokaku, Zuikaku, and 4 or more CVLs. Numbers tell, and our aircraft are badly chewed up. We can’t be sending in strikes like this that just feed the enemy CAP… .png) .png) Mildly effective Wirraway strikes on Milne Bay. This is good training, at least, and these pilots can be put into more effective aircraft as they become available. .png) USS Jack flubs a difficult shot. .png) We’re in the ground combat phase! The turn is almost over! Typical bombardment here at Bangalore. The siege grinds on. .png) I don’t quite have the force to push them out of the hex here at Bhopal. Here comes the shock attack just up the road at 47,22! .png) Ouch! Obviously premature. Thankfully more squads disabled than destroyed. We’ll have to soften them up before trying again. .png) Some outlying base upgrades today. Summary & Orders .png) Oh, a collision! I didn’t notice that in the replay. .png) Ouch. Well, neither will sink, but some Seabees and Marines will have to kick sand on Christmas Island until their transport can be replaced. .png) Losing a squadron of Avengers a day doesn’t seem sustainable. But a 53:51 loss ratio is disastrous from Japan’s perspective. Good day. code:
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Oct 21, 2023 01:25
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Pharnakes and I have picked this up again and are at April 10, 1943. Hooray! I'll be cleaning up and updating this thread.SIGSEGV posted:Your twitter account appears to not to display tweets to non logged in users. Seeing as Twitter has entered full collapse since I last posted, I've backed up the Tweeted portions of this LP. Will figure out a good way to repost them (probably just as screenshots of the thread, linked in the OP? idk).
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Oct 21, 2023 01:31
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wedgekree posted:Yay! Good to see this going again! Will Pharnakes be doing his own thread? I don't think so. He may resurrect his old one? I imagine he'll wait to see if we actually build up any sustained momentum, which is reasonable. quote:I was just debating like yesterday whether or not to unbookmark this. Hooray, procrastination! My own procrastination (along with a new job, etc) was what made this ripe for unbookmarking, so it all evens out. quote:That shock attack wasn't completely wasted. You took out half of his vehicles in one go. This is very true. If I can grind down his armored units I'll feel a lot safer. Pharnakes is straight up better at ground warfare in this engine than me, and his good use of tank maneuvers is a big part of that. April 7, 1943 .png) I-5 is severely handled by destroyer USS Grayson. I’m counting this as a probable kill, that’s heavy damage and she’s far from home. .png) USS Lapon and a few others have been kicking around the Tsushima Strait area for a little while, taking potshots. Not much luck yet. .png) The Shinkyo Maru briefly spots Lapon and drives her under before moving on. .png) Actually a very busy search phase, here in and around the Gilberts. The Japanese carrier gang is obviously still kicking around.  An American P-40 squadron sweeps the skies over Bhopal and finds nothing. Shame to waste a sortie, but our bombers should have free reign and decent weather. .png) Another decent little engagement from a sweeping American squadron. This P-50E gang is based on Horn Island in the Torres Strait and trades evenly. .png) The next wave runs into an alert and angry swarm of Tojos and gets mauled. .png) These Zeroes are continually sweeping to keep me from flying in fighters overnight and pulling a CAP trap on his bombers here. .png) The Japanese carriers go straight for the port at Tabiteuea! There’s heavy rain. Radar warns Allied fighters. Based on the numbers and messages during the combat, I believe this is a heavy swipe from Shokaku and Zuikaku. .png) The Zeroes are shockingly handled by the Corsairs of VMF-111. A6M3a pilot “Sakai, S.” gets blasted out of the air - RIP Saburo. The Wildcats, P-400s and Skyrockets get among the Judies and bring down at least a dozen. Almost everyone gets away clean and the enemy bombs hit nothing. There wasn’t even much to hit! Beautiful. .png) Back from the epic to the personal. The Zero piloted by Kamihara N., flying from Gove, nails a P-40K and a Kittyhawk III and flies home victorious, having cleared the sky over Groote Eyelandt. .png) My turn to fly into a woodchipper. Leaving the Mitchells on cruise control bombing Milne Bay doesn’t work out. These are Junyo and Hiyo’s fighters. Are the ships in the hex? I think they are, probably covering the resupply effort necessary to repair the airfield. .png) Another day of 500-pound rain at 47,22. .png) And more good hits here. Nagpur must stay out of action for me to win these land battles in eastern India.  Two more waves of Vengeances, one escorted, hit 47,22. .png) Getting successfully bombed by Blenheims is a real “now Martin’s scoring off me!” situation. .png) More unopposed strikes in India. These Blenheims don’t hit anything at 47,22, but we get a few more hits on Nagpur airbase. .png) Back over New Guinea, the B-24s shoulder their way through the thunderstorms and CAP to actually drop a few bombs on Milne Bay runway. It’s not worth it. .png) In the last act of the AM air phase, Shokaku and Zuikaku (I think) north of Tabiteuea send out a sweep. I suspect Pharnakes intended this to come before he lost a bunch of well-trained dive bomber pilots. Ahh, WitP. .png) Bad weather over India cancels a lot of missions in the PM phase. But in the Pacific, Zuiho and the other CVL(s?) tagging along with Shokaku and Zuikaku launch their own escorted port strike at Tabiteuea. Our afternoon CAP is weaker, but their escort is smaller, and the Kates are particularly easy pickings. An xAK and a minesweeper eat 250kg bombs. Good exchange. .png) Oooh! Port Moresby gets into the action over Milne with a well-escorted torpedo bomber strike! If I ran Junyo and Hiyo’s CAP down with all those fruitless bomber attacks and actually score a hit now, I’ll seem like a genius. The escorts take losses but mostly protect the Beauforts. Eight break through to make runs.. .png) =All of the torpedoes miss and I do not seem like a genius. .png) Here’s Junyo and Hiyo’s layered CAP. Interesting altitude choices. .png) Now the Wirraway milk run turns deadly. Their P-39 escort is shot down and only 7 of the 10 Aussies back it back. .png) The Siege of Bangalore continues. .png) Bad effect at Bhopal. .png) Look at all these juicy armored units that have outrun their infantry support. Hmm… .png) Things are looking great at 47,22. The 4th Guards is dropping AV rapidly. Summary & Orders Nothing super interesting in the Operational Report today, but I can’t screenshot it because it’s pages and pages of this: .png) .png) Here’s a more normal selection. The RAAF and USAAF pull replacement aircraft into the squadrons that took losses today. Port Hedland gains another airfield level. .png) Another very bloody day. Even worse than yesterday. Is it gonna be like this until 1946? Still, we came out ahead. Again. Thank you, 1943. As for tomorrow, I’m going to stand down in New Guinea and the Gilberts and let my squadrons replenish. Allied bombers will continue pummeling the IJA in India though. code:
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Oct 23, 2023 04:23
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I've been informed that Pharnakes is posting again so I need to get off my rear end and catch up with the game. Onwards! I may cut down on the meticulous screenshot-cropping and subject you to big lazy JPEGs for a few updates. Not yet, though. April 8, 1943 .png) A pack of Wellingtons get lost in the night trying to bomb Ahmedabad airbase. .png) USS Herring dives after being spotted by the escort Ishigaki in a faintly horrifying coincidence. .png) Jack, which has been prowling around the same area as Lapon, is unfortunately not as lucky as Herring today. Two hits inflicted by a determined subchaser. I’ll have to wait until the turn ends to see how serious the damage actually is. .png) Scouting reports start coming in. Looks to me like he’s pulling his carriers out of the Gilberts. .png) A wing of Zeroes from Gove contests the skies over Groote Eyelandt. Our guys do fine? I expect a little better from the Lightnings. (Those are Aussie and Kiwi brands of Kittyhawk III. They’ve been putting in sterling service but they deserve to upgrade ASAP.) .png) Daily Bangalore sweep… .png) Two Gove Zeroes arrive late, realize they’re heavily outnumbered and run. .png) A couple decent waves (27 and 9) of Helens hit my troops near Ahmedabad. Maybe I can arrange some CAP here. .png) The poor poor 41st. I’m building a level 1 airfield at that little dot hex. Maybe I can march there and fly some of them out? I’ve had decent success with airlifts in this campaign, even if it has absolutely wrecked my transport and bomber pools. .png) These Zeroes ensure that I can’t thoughtlessly send fighters down for cover. .png) Our first wave of bombers to hit 47,22 today. The weather isn’t great. .png) Good, good. .png) Well-escorted Lucknow Blenheims take a turn. .png) More. .png) More! .png) More!! .png) … .png) Alright, Nagpur. A daylight raid. Lots of bombers turn back when they see the huge enemy CAP, but not enough. .png) Still unopposed over Ahmedabad. .png) Ditto. .png) Stragglers! .png) Speaking of stragglers. These retreating troops of ours are transforming into a refugee column, aided by the IJAAS. .png) Surprise! More 47,22! .png) A PM sweep over Nagpur gets mauled. 1943 is just not the year to be using Hurricanes as fighters, but beggars can’t be choosers. .png) As the day ends, USS Jack once again gets caught screwing around. .png) Bangalore siege continues. .png) I’m considering pulling a division out of here to defend Cawnpore/Lucknow. Or cut off the enemy retreat from 47,22, whichever seems most expedient. .png) Ahmedabad, continued. Yes, this is another typo on the map. Dutch Habor… .png) We go for a Deliberate at 47,22. It’s a failure, but not a horrible one. Look at all those destroyed vehicles - the Indian 31st Armoured continues to wreak havoc on the poor little Japanese clunkers. Summary & Orders .png) Minor base improvements in backwaters of Northern Oz and NORPAC today. .png) 1941-rear end loss ratio. Whoof. Bad day to be a Hurricane pilot. I need to keep them on the defensive and leave the sweeping to better fighters unless I can be sure of a numbers advantage. Hurris are still the majority of my Indian fighters, though… In the background, I am revamping my fuel transport operations to Australia. I need to get decent stockpiles built up in weird places like Townsville and Port Hedland to move forward in SWPAC. code:Alikchi fucked around with this message at 07:48 on Nov 3, 2023 |
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Nov 3, 2023 06:14
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Plek posted:How is that assault not a victory? You fed the Japanese troops into a woodchipper and then blew up their tanks for good measure. Alchenar posted:Yeah I'll always count a battle where enemy elements are destroyed and yours are only disrupted as a win. Destroyed stuff is gone forever and needs a big supply dump to pull from the reserve pool, damaged stuff needs far fewer supplies, a few days of rest and some leadership rolls to be back in the fight. Yeah, I can't call it a defeat, exactly, but I'm really hoping to push him out of this tough hex and into clear terrain where my bombers can properly work. And every day I fail to do that - and all my forces are tied down at 47,22 or the various sieges - he advances in the north, near the Nepalese border. Really hoping I didn't spread the emergency reinforcements too thin! That's the strategic dilemma in India right now. Pirate Radar posted:That wasn’t a victory on the day but it might set up a victory down the line now that there are so many fewer tanks on the other side. Here's the 31st as of April 15th: .png) So, a decent number of Stuarts, but more Valentines. Catch up posts coming shortly...
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Nov 6, 2023 04:29
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April 9, 1943.png) One hit. I’ll take it! .png) None for this wave. I hope I don’t have too many ops losses in these storms. .png) Daybreak. USS Pompon takes a shot at a subchaser way up north of Hokkaido. Playing cat & mouse with ASW.. not too productive. Time to move? .png) !!!! .png) God drat it. .png) I swear this has happened to Shokaku and Zuikaku more than once. Misses, duds.. These would have been solid Mark 10 hits too. Shame. .png) Can’t start the morning without a Bangalore Zero sweep. .png) Bombay-based Helens absolutely plastering the poor guys contesting Ahmedabad. Nasty hit despite the weather. I’m building an airbase up at Jodhpur to contest this more easily. Maybe there’s something I can do? .png) We’re still more focused on denying the airbase at Ahmedabad and destroying what supplies he can bring forward. Bombing night and day with Wellies now. .png) And Mitchells. Yes, Japanese troops are roughly a dozen hexes from Karachi. Ha ha, I’m in danger, etc. .png) We’re really trickling in today. Weather, I guess. .png) A Spit sweep. This is a good trade, but not worth it in the long run. I should’ve flown this squadron back. The IJA is about to storm their airfield. .png) Jubbulpore.. Sitting pretty here, supplies are high. .png) Ditto Bangalore. .png) We’re keeping the 35th pinned here at Bhopal. Need relief to push them out. .png) .png) We close out the turn with another fort level at Bhopal and some miscellaneous reinforcements. Summary & Orders .png) Decent, if relatively quiet, day in the air. Iffy weather limits both sides. .png) A few interesting things here. .png) Poor West Virginia has been patching up at Sydney for months, limped to Noumea for final tweaks, and is finally ready for the long, slow trip to the West Coast shipyards for extensive work. .png) At Pearl, USS Scourge is less than a month from being fully operational as a carrier (she was previously a half-baked hybrid). VF-2 prepares by ditching their Wildcats for brand-new Hellcats. .png) Shokaku, Zuikaku and friends continue fading off west towards Truk, their airgroups decently depleted. We continue. Alikchi fucked around with this message at 07:54 on Nov 10, 2023 |
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Nov 10, 2023 07:52
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April 10, 1943.png) USS Spearfish is briefly spotted in the night, south of the Philippines. .png) The RAF’s first wave of Wellingtons gets lost in the darkness, but at least one Blenheim manages a supply hit on Benares. .png) These Wellingtons both find and hit their target at night, a rare feat. .png) This is impressive bombing for 39% moonlight. It’s a clear sky and they’re flying low with no opposition, but still. .png) Off Hokkaido, USS Pompon spots a convoy with at least one tanker in it. Unfortunately, she fires on an escort and dives prematurely. .png) Lapon continues blueballing various Japanese patrol boats. .png) Time to clear the skies over 47,22. The Nicks do surprisingly well against my sweeping Warhawks.. .png) P-38s duel with Tojos over Gove. A thunderstorm limits losses on both sides. .png) The daily Bangalore Zero sweep. .png) Groote Eyelandt and Gove are just trading fighter patrols today. Three national brands of Warhawk go up, a Kiwi and an Aussie come down involuntarily. .png) I finally find a use for my radar-equipped night-fighter Beaufighters. They’re flying from Hyderabad, which a single-engined fighter couldn’t accomplish. Most of the Helens get through, but it’s still a nice little fight. They’ll be escorted tomorrow, if they come at all, so I can’t repeat this. .png) Picking off one or two more. .png) These poor guys - an American infantry division cut off in central India - are in serious trouble. .png) Another wave. .png) The Scythes do a bit better than P-38s against Gove’s Tojo contingent. .png) The Vengeances go in escorted to 47,22. We lose in fighters, but the bombers get through unscathed. .png) This wave is NOT escorted and suffers accordingly. .png) Once again. Concentrating on 47,22. .png) More! .png) Trio of Lucknow-based Blenheims miss some IJA tanks at Bhopal. .png) A diversity of British bomber types are plastering various IJA units at 47,22 today. Nice to see. .png) Must remember to point enough recon planes at Nagpur to track the damage we’re doing here. I want the airbase 100% knocked out and I want to keep up with his repairs. .png) We sprinkle Ahmedabad runway as well. .png) Three Mitchells with a very strong escort hit 47,22 again.. If there had been any enemy LRCAP left, this would have dealt with them. .png) Really a solid day for our bombers in India. .png) Lapon hits another target with another non-dud torpedo! 1943 is really a wondrous time. .png) Japan continues to bombard at Jubbulpore. They’ll need a lot more time or a lot more artillery to make any real progress. .png) Ah, he’s finally made it over the river into Allahabad.. And there’s the mandatory shock attack, and he’s got more than enough to blow through all my forts before I can rail in reinforcements. Not that I have anything to reinforce with beyond a shattered brigade or two. I need to fly my planes out. Unfortunately, this is right around when we set down the game for most of a year… I do not end up remembering to fly all the planes out. Spoiler alert. .png) The Bangalore siege continues… .png) The 41st US Infantry Div tries a desperate shock attack to push through the encircling Japanese. They catch the enemy still disembarking from their trains, but terrain and supply problems limit us. It looks bad. .png) We still have a big artillery advantage at Bhopal, so the bombardments continue. .png) The 47,22 grind. .png) Summary & Orders Today’s aerial losses are tilted our way. Thumbs up. .png) We’re still frantically building forts and airfields in western India. Pujab and Uttar Pradesh states today. Meanwhile, our stranglehold on the North Pacific is very tight, and tightening. .jpg) Here’s a map of almost all of the India theater. Alikchi fucked around with this message at 21:53 on Nov 10, 2023 |
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Nov 10, 2023 21:23
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Pirate Radar posted:The modded scenario gave the US a pair of hypothetical hybrid battleship-carriers. They’re currently being converted to full carriers. wedgekree posted:IIRC they'll basically be CVL's with better armor and not quite as high speed. .png) They are loosely based on CanisD's old "Flightdeck battlecruiser Bunker Hill" design, but yes, I pushed the full-conversion button after losing most of our proper CVs. They're both ~three weeks from being fully operational! They'll be one of the stranger parts of a very hodgepodge carrier force that will include three British CVs and the new Essexes. Essex herself is due in 38 days, the next in 79. ThatBasqueGuy posted:Close shot on the Carrier! How are we feeling about holding onto a chunk of india atm? Actually feeling pretty good in India, despite being absolutely rolled up to this point. I don't think he can make it to Karachi. wedgekree posted:Good luck holding India! And 1943 means competence in your subs and equal ground in the air! God, the lowered dud rate on Mk. 14s is already amazing. The Corsair and Hellcat are here, I just need more modern Army fighters. I believe I start getting P-47s in July... Alikchi fucked around with this message at 06:31 on Nov 12, 2023 |
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Nov 12, 2023 06:28
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Gonna try and catch up with the actual game date (April 16 43) during my break for the next day or so. Then things should flow much more easily! April 11, 1943 .png) Let’s start with some night bombing. I’ve had a minor epiphany and realized that I can make use of Blenheims and other especially vulnerable bombers at night. He has too many bases in India to provide night CAP for. .png) Way off between Truk and Guam, USS Drum misses a damaged Fubuki-class, Tatsuyuke. This destroyer hit an American mine off Luganville just before Yamato, Musashi, & friends’ bombardment of the airfield there on March 28. Looks like she’s still slowly making her way back to the home islands for serious work. Would have been a nice kill for Drum - ah well. There’s more torpedo fodder where that came from. .png) Sunrise, and our dawn sweep of Hurricanes finds clear skies over the 47,22 battleground. Overcast, though. .png) Empty over Milne Bay too. Again, weather will probably limit our ability to take advantage. .png) A three-base attack! Very impressive coordination and escort. Not particularly impressive results. What’re ya gonna do. .png) Days and days and weeks and weeks of this.. Adds up. Will continue to add up. .png) Plink. .png) Plonk! .png) Really an impressive showing by the RAF today. .png) I keep pulling these Blenheims out of the backfield and into the frontline. It is tempting to hoard their decent pilots until the pools for the new Wellington models fill up a bit.. but I’m so desperate for every aircraft here. At least I’m not using the Westland Wapitis at Karachi for ground support. Hopefully that never becomes necessary… .png) It’s going to take a few more lessons before I learn to stop flying into the flyswatter of his Bhopal CAP. Those Nicks are deadly bomber hunters. .png) Thunderstorm hits! .png) The Delhi airfields must be absolutely buzzing with half-trained bomber pilots today. Air traffic controller nightmare material. .png) Stragglers to the 47,22 show. Plink, again. .png) Ahmedabad. .png) Broome: still clear. .png) I have gotten a lot of American infantrymen needlessly killed in stupid places (northern Australia, central India) but at least the rain protects them from IJAAS bombs today. .png) .png) Still nothing to fight over Milne or Broome, of course. I really want him to divert fighters (from Gove or Darwin?) to defend Broome. Time to start bombing. .png) .png) Nine Zeroes sweeping from Gove run into my beefed-up Groote defense. They flee after losing two. .png) This isn’t a good exchange. Might be best to switch to night bombing here until/unless I reorient the heavy bomber force in Australia towards the Solomons. .png) Onto the ground phase. Jubbulpore is still favorable to us. Look at all that artillery - and two prime Guards divisions - we’re tying up. I’ve been playing with the idea of pulling back from here and trying to join the fight at Bhopal, but leaving the forts would be insane. Gotta stay. Stick with the original plan: encircle and crush at 47,22, then relieve Bhopal and Jubbulpore in succession. .png) Major screw up here. The 32nd Div crosses the river from Benares to Allahabad and does the auto shock attack that river crossings require. It’s enough to overcome the forts and defenders. A forward-deployed squad of precious new Spitfires is caught on the ground. Time to start scrounging for reinforcements up here. Cawnpore is the next defense point. .png) Same old at Bangalore. He really has so much artillery tied up in these sieges! .png) Bhopal. It really feels like both of us are stretched to the absolute limit. But he can still advance in the north, up by the Nepalese border. That’s not good. .png) 47,22 proper. That 4th Guards Div of theirs is not looking healthy. .png) They’re running. Hope they get away. .png) Base upgrades! Socotra is the final fallback position if India falls completely. Summary & Orders .png) Ugh. Losing those Spits was a stupid bungle. .png) Busy operational report today. Gonna see a lot more of those VP losses to missing garrisons as I strip India even more bare. I lost the VP war a long time ago, what’s a few more to stave off the IJA? code:Alikchi fucked around with this message at 03:55 on Nov 16, 2023 |
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Nov 16, 2023 02:59
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Doing a quick catchup with a three-day summary, then back to full writeups. April 12th-14th, 1943 April 12th combat report / air losses April 13th combat report / air losses April 14th combat report / air losses In India: Three bloody days in the air. On the 12th, Hurricanes LRCAP-ambush a big wave of Helens and take them down. Simultaneously we dispatch our long range bombers into a daylight attack on Nagpur and a vicious Zero/Tojo/Nick CAP of 90+ aircraft. Pharnakes calls this ‘symmetrical incompetence’. His losses in Helens almost cancel out my Wellington losses, but I’m desperate for British/Commonwealth bombers and can’t afford to lose airframes in this theater like he can. Bad day in the air, on balance. Thunderstorms on the 13th preclude most combat. The 14th is a solid day, though, with our Spitfires outperforming Tojos and more Helens bagged. We do lose another set of Vengeance bombers, unfortunately. Ground combat is the usual bombardments, mostly, over these three days. In Australia & SWPAC: Our fighters continue sweeping over Milne Bay and Broome, keeping them clear while I shuffle bomber squadrons around. On the 14th, we recommence aggressively sweeping over Gove and discover that our P-40s and P-39s can do shockingly well against modern Tojos and Zeroes. The naval war is uneventful, the ground war grinds on indecisively, and we receive no notable reinforcements. Onto the 15th. April 15, 1943 .png) The hero of the story, USS Lapon, scores a hit! One torp is a dud, the other does massive damage to Nitti Maru. Kamitsu Maru fails to find the culprit. .png) Oh this isn’t good. Cawnpore airbase is very crowded right now. .png) Another 7. No hits.. If this is it, I’ll consider myself lucky. .png) We get a little back before the sun rises. .png) Ope, four more Helens. .png) Lapon finishes off her target. .png) I’ve been alarmed by reports of Japanese floatplanes from various merchants operating off Canada in the past couple weeks. Here’s one of the culprits, an extremely modern sub carrying a Glen, lurking off the Salish Sea. USS Radford (a Fletcher-class) reports multiple direct depth charge hits before losing contact. Maybe I-38 will have to be scuttled? .png) 6,100-ish nautical miles away from Vancouver, USS Herring wriggles out from under a much less accurate depth charging. .png) The daily sweeps of the sky over Milne Bay begin. I’m almost ready to take this place. Few more weeks to get the last pieces in place, maybe. .png) We keep the heat on at Gove, too. Even Airacobras do their part. It’s time to pull back the better fighters from here in prep for some serious LRCAP of the Milne invasion force. .png) Tojoes keep the sky over my flanking Stuarts clear. Will he bomb them? .png) Our Level 2 airfield at Jodhpur (look, another typo on the map!!) is already proving useful. .png) Aussies and Kiwis continue patrolling over Milne. .png) I’ve got some Wirraways doing escorted bombing of the unused enemy field at Salamaua. If it draws in enemy fighters within range of the Port Moresby LRCAP Death Star, great. If not, I’ll get to knock out a potential field, waste enemy supplies and train my pilots. Win-win for me. .png) This wave targets the garrison, a Naval Guard unit. .png) Cooktown boys pitch in on the field. .png) If it’s only a construction battalion holding this hex.. Maybe I can vaporize it with bombers? I have tank brigades coming down from the north to isolate 47,22 as well.. .png) Oh dear. 47,22 has LRCAP today. A small escort of older-model Kittyhawks is totally insufficient. No Vengeance makes it through, few of our aircraft make it home. .png) The poor bastard construction battalion at 46,22 gets further mashed by Vengeances - the ones lucky not to be hitting the main front at 47,22 today. .png) Yes, very glad to have slightly shifted our focus today. Those Blenheims would have been Nick meat. .png) These poor guys.. Well, they slowed down an enemy division, maybe. I need all the time I can get up here by Nepal. I’m scrounging every last lovely garrison scrap and rebuilding, shattered unit to send to Cawnpore in an attempt to stem the tide. .png) Ah poo poo. Wellingtons in daylight at 47,22. Unescorted, they’re perfect Nick targets. A dozen make it through to drop their bombs. Pretty horrid. .png) These guys are only mildly scathed. .png) Oops, that’s too high. .png) Continuing to season Milne in preparation for the big cook. .png) These guys are based at Portland Roads. .png) Coastwatchers reported ships docked here. Knew it was probably BS, but I appreciate the port supply hit. .png) Another nine Libs for the port. .png) More dead guys in India. .png) Sprinkling Salamaua a bit more.. I’m beginning to take the offensive in New Guinea. .png) And another drab of bombs for 47,22. All misses. .png) What a juicy little fight! Seven Warhawks breeze into Gove, pick off three enemy fighters, and make it out with a few scratches. .png) But we’re still sweeping empty skies over here. I wonder what he thinks I’m doing? .png) A pair of Airacobras show up late over Gove and confront a fully alerted and staffed CAP. They’re lucky to escape alive. .png) In the Marshalls, Trigger drives off a patrolling Nell with her AA. Another shows up and misses Trigger. .png) No change at Jubbulpore. .png) Or Bangalore. .png) Can I break through here? Should I leave a holding force and use a division to close the trap behind 47,22? .png) The Indian Armoured div is already breaking contact in the hex itself. .png) An AO and an APA on the same day? Lovely, very nice. Summary & Orders .png) I really can't be bleeding Wellington and Vengeance airframes like this. Literally unsustainable. At least new Wellington variants (the B.X among others) are beginning to crop up and supplement our stock. Moonlight is projected to be 89% tonight. I lay in a bunch of night bombing orders across the Pacific. Alikchi fucked around with this message at 11:09 on Nov 21, 2023 |
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Nov 21, 2023 11:04
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April 16, 1943.png) Moving my sub bases forward to Adak and Midway has enabled us to hug the Japanese coastline for even longer. It’s paying off, lately. .png) Annoying little RO-boat. .png) It’s good to have a sub or two patrolling the route between Truk and Rabaul. Helps keep an eye on his fleet movements, occasionally bequeaths a potshot on something juicy. Today Pollack misses and earns a depth charging for her trouble. .png) Cmon guys. They’re gonna come in in dribs and drabs and this will take forever to screenshot. .png) This scares the hell out of me - Lucknow airfield is crowded and he knows it. Seems like the weather is the only thing that saved us from serious damage here. .png) He has way too much AA at Lunga to make bombing below ~6,000 feet or so viable. Even at night! .png) These three Libs miss too. .png) Late arrivals. .png) Still no night CAP over Rabaul. If I really concentrate my Australia-based heavy bombers I can do some damage there… .png) These tiny little strikes are making zero impact. .png) More damaging than all of the above is a quick little bombardment by the three fastest destroyers in the South Pacific: Fletcher and the two Frenchmen. Those Le Fantasque class destroyers have 5.5 inch guns and 37-knot speeds. They’re perfect for this and will have scurried far away by morning. .png) Morning comes with another failed Japanese sub attack (east of Brisbane this time). Sicard scores a near-miss. .png) Our three destroyers are well on their way to safety. .png) A few scrubbed bombing missions over New Guinea today. .png) Broome. .png) Thunderstorms can’t keep the weight of numbers from telling here. .png) Another wave of Hurricanes, this time against a slightly less sleepy CAP, still pulls out a win. .png) Snooze! He’s not biting, is he. I might fly these guys east to support the Milne operation. .png) This is why he wanted to clear out the airfield at Lucknow. It’s the launchpad for the ongoing Allied Tojo murder spree. .png) The guys being bombed, Gardner’s Horse Regiment, amount to a few dozen Stuarts behind enemy lines. They’re probably doomed - it was clever of me to cut the enemy rail line with them, but I went too deep. Now they’re making a hail-mary run for Patna. .png) Why did I do this?? Well, that’s today’s slaughter. .png) Cold comfort, but a good run. .png) Boomerangs are still too high. .png) When this flock appears with only a single Kittyhawk escorted I brace for another Vengeance massacre. Maybe it’s the weather, but the only losses are to flak, and a Vengeance even nails a Zero with its .30 cal tailgunner - something I don’t think I’ve seen happen before. .png) There’s the second massacre. I really thought I would have cleared out this hex, but six Tojos are enough to nearly wipe this strike out. .png) ChaosDragon posted:Shouldn't the RAF do flying thing instead of infantry stuff in Bhopal? Wellingtons in the continued bad weather vs the enemy dug in around Bhopal. Not very productive, even down at 7000 feet. I think Chaosdragon is right. .png) Blenheims at 6000? Also no effect. .png) The Hurricane lucky day ends at 52,25. .png) This makes me feel marginally better about all the dead Vengeances. .png) Can I stop sending my guys to their deaths over Indore and Nagpur now please? .png) That’s more like it. The Zero is more of a threat than the Tojo today, one brings down our only loss. The bombers get an unobstructed run. .png) A good rule for aerial combat is the same as my bad rule for classroom attendance: “If you’re going to show up late, don’t show up at all.” .png) These two do the smart thing and bug out immediately. .png) A combination of good luck and bad weather avoids casualties here. .png)  Our focus on these hexes - and the enemy’s failure to knock out either Cawnpore or Lucknow - is contributing to these really lopsided kill ratios today. .png) Yes… ha ha ha… yes! .png) PM air phase time. .png) A good start. I haven’t forgotten about 47,22, although I’ve given up on trying to annihilate the IJA troops there by air. The terrain makes it not worth it. At least until they’re surrounded…  … and that’s it in the air. Everyone’s exhausted from their morning effort, I guess. On to the ground combat. .png) Same old grind at Jubbulpore.. I’ve decided my withdrawal here is feigned, not real. But I’ll keep up the feint for a bit longer. I just can’t justify leaving good terrain and forts outside of LRCAP range under any circumstances. Not after what is happening to the poor Americans in central India. .png) It’d be very funny if the Bangalore force survived long enough to be rescued. A pipe dream, but this siege feels like it could go on forever. .png) Great casualties at 47,22 today, despite the failure of my CAS efforts. .png) Yes, I have scratched an airfield out of a dot hex in central India with some fleeing base forces and laborers.  I think I’ll use it to more efficiently evacuate via C-47 and maybe pull off some CAP traps..png) Yes, she’s arrived well ahead of historically scheduled, what of it? Let’s hope I don’t get her sunk in deep water like I did poor Oklahoma. Summary & Orders .png) Okay. Shooting down all those frontline fighters feels fantastic, and yet. Those Vengeances might have been pieces of poo poo, but they were my ONLY dive bombers in India. I keep talking about how fragile the Commonwealth bomber force is and continue feeding it into the CAP woodchipper. Very frustrating! wedgekree posted:Good luck! The air is bloody but it looks like it's starting to stabilize - you seem to be holding your own ratio-wise for now! But I do come back to this. We're really picking up the pace. code:
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Nov 24, 2023 04:53
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Jobbo_Fett posted:It really doesn't seem right for the allied planes to be so well against Zeros and Tojos... These particular Tojo and Zero airgroups are really ground down, I think. Probably both fatigued pilots and airframes. .png) .png) This is one of the most successful airgroups I have at Lucknow right now, the pilots themselves aren't that tired (though they are more tired than I suspect his are), but the planes themselves are just worn out. His aircraft are in similar shape, I'm sure. Add in being outnumbered, fighting near an enemy base, and facing a real threat in the Spit Mk VIII and we have a streak of good days going.
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Nov 24, 2023 05:23
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April 17, 1943.png) Conway and Cony, along with the CL Montpelier, are escorting a couple of tankers (technically, an AO and a TK) to Tabiteuea. .png) With 92% moonlight, that is.. pretty bad. Here comes a big wave of night bombers anyhow! .png) Still no night CAP over Rabaul? Let’s keep poking at him here. That port and airfield are stuffed. .png) These guys at least score a few hits at Guadalcanal. Gonna have to raise their altitude though. .png) Indore and Ahmedabad airfields will be incredibly dangerous to me. Difficult to decide between working on them and bombing the IJA. .png) This trio flies from Portland Roads.. Again, gonna need to up the altitude to avoid getting mauled by flak, even at night. .png) Nice! .png) Six more B-24s… .png) Daylight, finally. That kind of hurts (Trento is carrying supplies). Need to set up a dedicated long-range ASW force for NORPAC and the Canadian west coast. He’s got his big subs with Glens around here. .png) More nothing here. .png) No CAP over Gove?? Is he ditching the place? I am alert. .png) Those Tojos are gonna kill a lot of our bomber pilots if we don’t clear these skies. This Hurricane squadron does poorly. .png) I really thought he’d have more fighters for me to kill about Gove today… .png) I’m surprised none of the Tojo CAP from one hex over leaks into this one. .png) A shame. We’re clawing at a lot of empty air today.. .png) That’s more like it. .png) Our Airacobras have been doing shockingly well lately. .png) Really, really thought I’d score a bunch of kills over Gove today. Blueballs. .png) It’s 1943 and I’m still using Wirraways? On the front line? .png) This is the main reason for all the seemingly fruitless sweeping over Broome. The bombers will grind the garrison down. .png) The next wave is escorted. .png) These fellas are flying too high, actually. .png) Meh. Maybe I’ll put these guys on Indore night bombing duty. .png) Heroes. .png) Nothing still. .png) He’s trying to cut off my theoretical retreat from Ahmedabad with this recon regiment.. Can’t allow that. .png) Nice, but I’m gonna focus on the enemy troops approaching Lucknow next turn. I hope he diverts some fighters to CAP these guys. .png) Ouch. Yeah, I absolutely can’t afford to get my medium bombers slaughtered like I lost all the Vengeances. Gotta be more methodical, more focused. .png) One last Broome sweep. .png) Surprise CAP trap! That will even today’s score a bit. .png) A long flight for one hit. .png) More. I’m starting to think I can work my way into, up and through New Guinea - and avoid the Solomons and New Britain altogether. .png) He gets a smidgen of revenge for those Helens. .png) I wonder when he’ll actually push at Jubbulpore? .png) Bangalore. .png) He’s using mobile units around here to chase down and clean up fragmented units, mostly base forces. .png) 47,22 proper. My AV drops as I push units through and around to encircle the place. .png) More buildup in NW Oz. Port Hedland needs that bigger airstrip! Summary & Orders .png) Hell yeah. I think I’m finally getting a grip on whittling down his fighter force. Lots of dead Tojos lately… code:Alikchi fucked around with this message at 07:53 on Nov 26, 2023 |
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Nov 26, 2023 07:49
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mercenarynuker posted:What was the timeline on the Milne Bay invasion? Taking that really gonna strangle his sealanes between the eastern and western theaters I can't be precise but it's maybe 2-3 weeks away. I want to concentrate the modern APAs and LST/LCI/LSI(L)s.. all the freshly built 1943 amphibious assault ships, essentially - at Cooktown and the other launch points. The troops and aircraft are all well-prepared.
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Nov 26, 2023 20:12
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Velius posted:How is the overall balance looking as far as CV strength? You’re at a point where the tide is certainly turning in land based air, at least in India, it seems. My impression from other AARs has been that mid ‘43 and beyond Japan starts to really suffer from a lack of armor and marines (and landing craft) such that invasions once they’re ashore are almost impossible to dislodge, even if the naval control can’t be maintained; is that what you’re counting on? I'm in a holding pattern until I receive at least a couple of Essexes in the next few months. To be specific, I currently have Enterprise, Hamilton and Scourge for the Americans, and Victorious, Illustrious and Formidable from the RN. Also CVL Hermes, which is literally the only one I've listed that is undamaged and operational. (I am not counting the CVEs Sangamon and Prince William as good for much.) I want to advance as far as I can until land-based cover and only push the naval side under the best circumstances. I've lost too many carriers to gently caress around! April 18, 1943 .png) I’m being very brazen, sending the subs in hugging the Japanese coast like this. It is costly. Sunfish will have to return for repairs, probably. .png) Let the night bombing begin! .png) We just can’t hit Rabaul. Maybe it’s the flak. .png) One hit! .png) Rabaul: no hits. .png) Ever Tojo Counts (™). .png) !!! .png) Well, that makes this a good day. Hake fires four Mark 14s. One is a dud, one misses, but the other two strike home. Ryuho was almost all the way home. A TBF torpedoed her off Lunga on March 30th. After nearly three weeks of limping back, she (probably?) sinks within a day of safety. .png) One silver lining of having most of our surviving carriers in drydock is the number of fleet destroyers freed up for long-range ASW and escort work. .png) Stingray almost makes today a two-blessing day, but BuOrd rips it away. What is Myoko doing down here, anyways? A heavy cruiser in this theater makes me nervous about bombardments. I’ve lost more than enough aircraft that way this year. .png) Sweep arrives first, but there’s nothing to sweep out of the way. The Beaufighters are long gone. .png) Our carefully-husbanded Scythes lead today’s attack on the enemy fighters covering the Guards Tank Div. They do poorly. Starting to think we may have overcorrected in nerfing this fighter. Incidentally, Rex’s Hangar released a good video about this never-built fighter recently (the Scythe is based on the Type 325). .png) No news is good news at Broome. .png) And Milne. .png) Maybe the Scythes softened them up or something? Loosened the Tojos up so the Hurricanes could come over and pop them open? Great result. .png) Predictably, if Hurricanes do great, Spits absolutely slaughter. We’re cooking now. .png) A tentative poke at Gove airspace reveals nothing. Recon is reporting fighters on the ground, though? Weird vibes all around northern Australia lately. .png) I’ve pulled back the P-38s, the RAAF Scythes and Kittyhawks, and other fighters from Groote. More useful elsewhere. .png) Still no Beaufighters for them to kill. .png) !!! I just pulled those fighters from Groote back to get them bombed on the ground here “safe and behind the lines.”  The damage isn’t as bad as it looks. Shocking losses to flak and balloons among the Nells. There are enough engineers in Normanton to fix the place in about fifteen minutes. Let’s see how many frames we actually lost at the end of the turn.. If those damaged numbers are accurate, losing the Lightnings and Liberators for a while will hurt. .png) Missing Gardner’s Horse. .png) Oh that hurts and slows me down. This is much more concerning to me than that Nell Normanton hit. Gotta rejigger the CAP. .png) Back to absolutely killing them over the Guards tankers. Lost one P-40 in this engagement. .png) This really is a good day. No hits, but he’s on notice. More Beauforts are coming. When I have Milne, I’ll have three great airbases for more torpedo bombers and whatnot. .png) Nice casualties here, but I should have had them dropping torpedoes off New Guinea with the others. .png) I brace for a Beaufort massacre but the Nicks just let us breeze on through. Cool! .png) Daylight + 5,000 feet = finally getting results out of the Boomerang. Mediocre results, but still. .png) Good of the Vengeance squadron to wait until the coast was well and truly clear before launching their strike. .png) It’s nice to not lose a pile of them. .png) Yes, good! .png) I cannot wait to replace these guys with Wellingtons. .png) Gotta keep Milne fully suppressed and eating up supplies on repairs. .png) He hits right back with yet another massed Nell raid, this time to Cooktown. But there’s not much there to blow up. Great damage to the airfield, and supplying Cooktown is somewhat annoying, it being off the railroad network. But again.. Let’s see how much damage there actually is. .png) Another wave. If they’d sent a squadron or two on port attack, they could have done my Milne plans serious harm. I get off easy today. For the rest of the day, sweeps over Gove and the Guards Tank div approaching Lucknow all find nothing to engage. .png) Protagonist of reality USS Lapon continues her frolicking. This time no duds, honest misses. .png) Poor Trento fails to limp back to Vancouver and goes down. .png) Jubbulpore. .png) Sucks. This was a decent unit with a fair number of Stuarts and I frittered them away on an end-run to nowhere. .png) Bangalore. .png) Kinda funny watching tank regiments chase these useless little fragments around. .png) 47,22. Summary & Orders .png) .png) Friendly little haul of ships today. .png) Normanton is fine! .png) Cooktown will take longer than 2 days to repair. code:
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Nov 30, 2023 08:29
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SIGSEGV posted:I don't know how to properly describe how I feel about the plane the scythe is based on being designed as a twin engine fighter with guns entirely in the wingtips instead of the centerline. It is kind of insane and I have to assume that they'd move them to the centerline eventually (like they planned to do with the 20mm versions). We created a special .303 MG Device with lowered accuracy just for the Scythe after Pharnakes pointed this out! April 19, 1943 .png) Well, he can’t miss that I’m trying to reoccupy New Guinea by air now. A few hundred infantrymen so far. More flying in every day, by C-47 and DH.84. .png) The feast in the East China Sea continues. .png) And continues! .png) Another one of his deep raids, enabled by the G3M3’s incredible range. This one fails mostly for lack of targets. .png) I finally wise up and bring the Boomerangs to a low night altitude. Good. .png) Plus a decent night performance against Tulagi by the Ndeni B-25s! Today is great so far. I’m bracing for the first screwup or bomber massacre. .png) Next Nell wave at Cloncurry does more damage. The Kittyhawks being wrecked right now were on their way to the east coast, I believe. Providing daytime CAP while they rested at Cloncurry. .png) Another wave, this time at Cooktown on the east coast - where those Kittyhawks were bound, incidentally. They’re not very effective. I’m bemused and concerned. If he goes over to port attack, I have a lot of valuable shipping stacked up in the northeastern ports for the Milne Bay operation. And not a lot of night fighters or night fighter squadrons. How will I respond to this? .png) This is incredibly insignificant compared to those Nell strikes. And I’m not sure why I’ve put the Beauforts over to night bombing anyhow.. .png) Ah well. They trickle in, and I honor their service by cropping screenshots. .png) Remind me to send some recon planes to Gasmata. It kind of looked like the Nells that hit Cooktown flew from there. This attack fails, incidentally. Should I give up night bombing Rabaul at this range? I bet the strikes would hold together better if flown from, say, Port Moresby. .png) This gang flies from Terapo and don’t do any better. Hm. Maybe I should give up on poking Rabaul for now.. .png) Well, I hope we gave Shiratsuyu’s crew a scare. .png) *still* no hits over Rabaul and now we’re losing Liberators .png) At least he hits things!! .png) Like, yeah, these are pinprick strikes that’ll get reverted in a day by my endless Allied pile of supplies, replacements and engineers. But they make concentrating any large number of aircraft at any airfield anywhere NEAR the frontlines a bit nerve-wracking. .png) Not all his night attacks are impressively coordinated relative to ours. This Cooktown one broke into many, many waves. .png) Good eyes on USS Sims spot I-170 and force her under before she can do any damage. Some near misses keep her down and the convoy proceeds. .png) Nothing. Does this mean Pharnakes has ceded the air over the Guards Tank Division to me? Or is he about to cross over and make the shock attack? :nervous: .png) Still nothing. Oh geez I really hope I don’t lose aircraft on the ground in a base overrun again. .png) Look at all these Spitfires! A bit of a waste. I really was so enjoying mulching his fighters here. .png) Here are some decent night fighters. Unfortunately they’re in India, not SWPAC, but they’re still useful. They get a daylight use here hoping to catch some Nicks that have unfortunately not made themselves available. .png) Yeah, I really have Lucknow full of fighters. Again, feeling nervous about this. .png) ANOTHER wave! I’m punching so much air today. .png) Oh that hurts. That’s gonna gently caress up the shock attack I ordered. Hurricanes did nothing, booo  .png) Yeah Indore airfield is a major threat now. This is bad. .png) Lucknow finally launches a bomber strike on the exposed Guards Tank Div.. and it’s these dinky little obsolescent Dutch guys who miss everything. I actually love this. .png) This looks like an overkill escort, but I want to give him zero opportunities well within LRCAP range of Rabaul. .png) Back in India, Lucknow gets off another strike, this time our PTSD-riddled Vengeance pilots. .png) Wellingtons flying from further north even cause observable casualties! Yay! .png) Cooking with gas now. .png) Jack Nicholson The Departed nodding GIF. .png) Good job little guys! .png) Even Blenheims. .png) We finally get a big strike on the Guards Tanks like I want but they do no apparent damage.  .png) How about fifteen Blenheims? Nope. Must be the severe storms. .png) The Australia-based heavy bomber force is so much better in daylight. Coordinated strike. A few hits. Can’t fly in daylight over Rabaul, though.. Not yet. .png) Finally starting to chip away at the Guards vehicles. .png) Another wasted sweep. How many of these guys will I send to cover the 47,22 area? .png) Recon reported a bunch of fighters here yesterday. Are they all just.. Stood down? Should I be bombing Gove? .png) Nobody’s home. .png) Hake is spotted and dives to safety. .png) Onto the ground combat phase and we have a narrow escape. This third of the Waziristan division holds off the IJA tanks. .png) Same old at Jubbulpore. I think I’m losing AV faster now. .png) Bangalore. .png) The shell of the 50th Tank Brigade runs into an entire IJA division and is forced to surrender. That ain’t good. .png) At Gorakhpur, base troops and AA gunners manage to hold off an IJA infantry regiment for another day. Not bad! .png) More Central India cleanup. .png) My turn. This doesn’t make up for the surrenders lately, but it’s a start. .png) Good damage at 47,22 today as well. .png) We counter-shock attack here and force them back! Summary & Orders .png) Mild day in the air, wild day on the ground. .png) What a goddamn mess. Am I getting a grip on it? code:Alikchi fucked around with this message at 04:43 on Dec 1, 2023 |
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Dec 1, 2023 04:32
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Tiger Crazy posted:Yeah, India is chaos. How easy would it be to invade from the north and go through the Kuriles? It doesn't seem like you have any easy path through the central or southern Pacific. It's something I'm seriously considering, especially if the latter half of 1943 doesn't see some advances. But it's a dangerous shortcut. And Enterprise's raid on Tokyo probably permanently ended his neglect of the Kuriles area. We'll see how it goes! April 20, 1943 .png) Begin 4/20 with a little anti-submarine warfare. The New Caledonia area is full of Japanese subs and ANZAC-American ASW teams. .png) Not a great start to our night bombing. .png) I was too slow to screenshot it, but we apparently damage some Nicks on the ground with this strike. .png) Gasmata! Decided to send in the heavy bombers before I even reconnoited the place. Nothing there, probably. .png) Another solitary hit on Indore. .png) I thought the night phase was over but oh! .png) The aircraft are very replaceable. The supplies.. Not so much. It was hard enough to supply Groote as-is, with its big Australian garrison and regular air sorties. Now the 3-4k supplies that were there will be sucked into repairing the airfield and facilities. Pharnakes is always thorough with these things, getting all the floatplanes on his battleships out assisting the bombardments. .png) Daybreak brings us a Tojo sweep in India that absolutely swats aside the RAF. A bit of revenge for the past few days. .png) We’ve forward-deployed some Spits to besieged Bhopal, and they do their own sweep. No enemy fighters protecting the IJA 21st Division. The 21st is one of the elite, incidentally. .png) Hate to see wasted sorties like this. .png) Maybe I’ll have these Airacobras start strafing and bombing. Gotta look busy, right? .png) Somehow, lately, Warhawk trumps Tojo. These are some of my best pilots, yes, but still. .png) No CAP over the IJA 13th Division just “east” of Indore, either. Lots of options for bombing targets tomorrow, as usual… .png) Looking busy. .png) Fitzgibbon brings a Tojo down before he’s overwhelmed. RIP and o7m8. .png) He can now bomb and strafe the hex to his heart’s content. The KAIa Nick’s 20mm is decent against trucks and stuff. .png) 71 Helens and no destroyed vehicles? I’ll count myself lucky. .png) Speaking of the 20mm centerline Scythes! This pair shoots down two Tojos and escapes. .png) An astoundingly impressive performance by the escort is not enough to save the poor old CW-22s. Only one survives to drop its payload of.. two 50kg bombs.  Let’s say they died an honorable death as Tojo bait. .png) Well, the Groote runway must be serviceable. Still no signs of life at Gove. .png) Cmon man, that’s a British torpedo! They’re not supposed to be duds! Those Nicks really mastered the Kittyhawks with their dive advantage. Need more & better long range escorts at P.M. And more Beauforts. .png) We somehow get away with this. .png) This is really stupid. I don’t even remember ordering this  .png) whyyy .png) Ah yes, this is the “series of painful mistakes” part of the turn. .png) No dead Vengeances this time, good. No escort, bad. .png) Oh yes. With eight 500lb bombs apiece, these guys always do well on ground attack missions. .png) Respectable. .png) ‘Twould be unfair to expect anything of Blenheims. .png) The B-25 is a reliable damage dealer. Starting to worry about a big strike on Delhi now. It’s so important as an airbase - and getting closer and closer to the frontline. .png) Sure, the Blenheims don’t hit anything, but still! That Tojo CAP over Lucknow is looking ragged. .png) My thinking with these sweeps was that if he didn’t have fighters here in particular, we’d at least engage some bleed-over CAP from Indore. That’s clearly not the case. .png) Good! .png) A followup hits the division, too. Again, I am dreading a decapitation strike on Delhi. He can see how many strikes I’m launching from there! .png) We do a sweep over Benares and find the skies clear. Hmm.. I need to reshuffle my recon. He’s obviously rebased a bunch of aircraft to Indore but there’s a lot I don’t know. .png) Lots of this today. .png) Gotta keep Milne knocked out, keep them repairing, keep sucking up their supplies.. Also helps to appear unfazed by those Nell strikes. .png) This is one of several kind of inexplicable attacks I’ve made today. A hit is a hit, I guess. .png) Oh, I still have some Warhawks here? Need to send them east with the Beauforts. Leave Port Hedland and Corunna Downs to the Airacobras and Boomerangs. .png) So many juicy bombing targets for tomorrow. Choosing which IJA division to hit will come down to a balance between range, terrain, and expected enemy CAP. .png) This is decently impressive for an airbase that was under bombardment not too long ago. .png) Is this the first time we’ve engaged an A6M5 in India? So far I think I’ve only seen them flown off carriers. Am I having a stroke? He’s really serious about air control over Lucknow. Maybe tomorrow.. Spits to Cawnpore, LRCAP over Lucknow? .png) Impressive. .png) Some of the aforementioned Spits that are about to go A6M5 hunting. .png) Looks like he’s pulling some troops out of the siege of Jubbulpore. I wonder which units? If my feigned withdrawal delayed whatever move he’s making now, I’ll consider it a success. .png) Bangalore. .png) This will confirm to him what I’ve done here: divide the Waziristan Division into three and send the third part looping around. Unfortunately, this also shows me that he has enough troops available to stymie me here. Hmm.. .png) RIP, stragglers. Well, not RIP, more “good luck in the labor battalions” .png) I wonder if I can pull another division out of this battle, keep contesting the crossroads.. Send the freed up div to Cawnpore/Lucknow? Summary & Orders .png) Gnarly. .png) Lots of base upgrades today, but Port Moresby’s the most important. And decent ship arrivals too! .png) Groote is okay. Only ~2K supplies, but enough for now. I shuffle airgroups around in northern Australia into something a bit more rational. I hope. .png) Enterprise is a few days from Seattle. code:quote:65th Brigade is loaded on AMC Asaka Maru moving to Darwin. And from today’s… quote:7/33rd Division is loaded on xAP Taizan Maru moving to Darwin. What’s he building in there? edit 12 hours later: I just saw the "33rd Division is planning for an attack on Groote Eylandt" bit. I think I know now 
Alikchi fucked around with this message at 09:57 on Dec 2, 2023 |
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Dec 1, 2023 20:56
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April 21, 1943.png) Starting the day with a rare Dutch dud. .png) Here comes the night bombing! I keep getting coastwatcher reports that there’s a floatplane carrier (AV) docked at Tulagi. Shiratsuyu was there, too. Hoping to get a hit on something, but just one bomb hits the facilities here. .png) Shiratsuyu is still there!! .png) Alright, I guess he’s not using Gasmata. It’s a level five airfield, but seems empty. I have recon missions lined up for daylight that should clear things up a bit. .png)  .png) KXVIII goes for another bite at the apple, whiffs the shot, and is gently depth-charged by Ayanami for her trouble. .png) Two Admiralty S-class destroyers and the more modern HMAS Napier hit Tulagi in conjunction with the aerial bombardment. I’m enjoying using my fastest destroyers for these little bombardments. So long as he doesn’t use MTBs or mines, it’s very low risk. Also: hopefully diverts attention to the Solomons, if not resources. .png) Oh my god. Imagine dying in a daylight submarine attack like 60 miles from Seattle. With four torpedo hits, I doubt anyone survived. Where’s the escort? .png) Daytime air combat begins with a sweep over 45,22. I have no CAP here. Fighters elsewhere. I hope I don’t punch nothing again. .png) Another wave. Glad these Tojos aren’t being useful elsewhere, but nervous that this means the 254th Armoured is about to get bombed into oblivion. .png) That is a terrible performance from the Hurris. .png) Our turn to sweep 45,22 and find nothing. .png) And 46,22. .png) Swinging wildly at nothing up here.. .png) But so is he. A bit. .png) It begins.. .png) That’s a brutal hit, but I’m glad it’s here and not in the 47,22 area - and targeting this Punjab battalion, not elements of the Waziristan division. Still. I gotta get CAP to those guys. The airfield at Jodhpur is stuffed full and only level 2 or 3. Working on it.. .png) Nagpur remains a major base for him, clearly, despite Indore’s capture. This poor battalion got targeted by nearly a hundred Helens! .png) Bhopal is able to send up one fighter which promptly gets shot up and lands. .png) Not bad. Can’t do this again tomorrow, though. I’m sure he’ll LRCAP with those Derby Zeroes we saw. .png) Distressing battle. We almost shoulder our way through the CAP, but enough Tojos survive to shoot down every bomber but one Vengeance, which is immediately popped by flak. RIP to all involved. Still, lots of destroyed or damaged Tojos, and that’s not our last hit here today. .png) Good! Slow em down. .png) And keeping the division at 47,22 pinned down. Excellent work from Vengeances today. .png) Those Spitfires are absolutely mulching the Tojos, even when escorting (as opposed to sweeping). It’d be nice if the Wellingtons had hit anything, but there was enough damage to disrupt their runs, I think. .png) Storms, too. .png) Still nothing here. Maybe I ought to pull some of these fighters out of Bhopal. That giant stack of Helens that can annihilate any of my airfields in a day makes me very nervous. .png) No CAP over Benares. .png) Yeah, Bhopal is definitely overfilled and too obvious a target. Also I’m running down their supplies with these sorties. But it’s so nice having a proper airfield behind his frontline… .png) Hello Nicks! We breeze by them. Where are they flying from? This can’t be Rabaul LRCAP, surely. .png) This is a lot messier than the combat report shows. We lose two Spits to A6M5 fire, their worst performance in days. In return, we take down at least half a dozen Zeroes. If the A6M5 really is only marginally better against 1943 allied fighters, he’s in trouble. I wonder if he regrets some of his research/tech choices? He has the N1K1-J George coming in July. That very well could even things out for the IJNAS. But the Army will be stuck with the Tojo and maybe a few Tonys until the end of 1943. Then I’ll start getting Franked, I expect. It’s been ages since I’ve seen an Oscar. He’s really gone all-in. .png) Anyways. Check out all the squadrons participating in this beatdown - some based in Lucknow itself, others next door in Cawnpore, and still others flying long LRCAP from fields south of Delhi. Murderer’s row of elite squadrons, here, and their morale and kill tallies have blossomed over the past week or so. .png) Ouch. That’s what I feared. I can only really effectively provide CAP over Ahmedabad with Beaufighters and maybe P-40Ks flying from Jodhpur, nothing else in theater has the range. He’s forcing me to do something to provide air cover But Ahmedabad is also only four hexes away from Indore. That’s within Tojo sweep range. He could stand down the bombers tomorrow and send the Tojos in to slaughter the Warhawks and Brits flying LRCAP. This is the mind game. .png) You know if our RAAF pals in their Boomerangs had actually encountered Zeroes over Broome they would all be dead because you Airacobra jockeys showed up way late. .png) Good! .png) Oh no. We’re in the PM phase now and his Tojos are fully replenished. And this escort isn’t nearly strong enough to deal with two dozen of them. The bombers suffer accordingly. With, as usual, the Vengeances getting the worst of it. .png) Some more mild peppering of the enemy. .png) And again. This is mundane, but if I’d ordered them to hit the Guards Tank div at Lucknow, they’d all be getting massacred right now. .png) Could have been a lot worse, but it won’t be safe to bomb here tomorrow. I gotta sweep the skies clear for a few days. Focus the bombers.. Maybe on their airfield at Benares? (I think these Tojos are based at Benares, anyways..) .png) A surprising success here! Maybe it’s the storms that allow this flight of Liberators to get in and out without a casualty, but they certainly don’t affect their aim. .png) Good good. .png) Well, that settles that. They need the air cover, but to cover their retreat. And the retreat of their third regiment moving to flank. .png) Jubbulpore. We hover near the 2:1 AV ratio. .png) There goes the 254th. We didn’t lose as many tanks as I thought we would! Hell, I thought they might surrender. .png) Continued stagnation here. .png) 47,22 proceeds. Summary & Orders .png) Messy, messy. I know I’ve said stuff like “an even K:D is a win for the Allies” but losses in particular, finite categories (like British bombers) hurt a lot. I do a lot of logistical work behind the lines this turn, and order a few new attacks. Recon has revealed an enemy airbase building at Umboi Island very near Lae - I think it's where those Nicks over Milne Bay earlier flew from. I'm gonna bomb it. I also have some P-38s and P-50s ordered to sweep directly over Rabaul, see what kind of CAP he's got these days... I push two squadrons of Corsairs forward to Abemama, right next door to Tarawa and Milne, as well as TBFs and Airacobras. I've let things go quiet in the Gilberts and it's time to reassert the Allied presence. Maybe grab Nauru and Milne soon.. In India, I pull most aircraft out of Bhopal and redirect the bombers away from Lucknow. We will keep sweeping and hopefully burning through his Tojo stockpile. I also make good use of my shattered Liberator squadrons in Delhi, sending them on recon missions. I reconfigure and retarget lots of recon squads across the Pacific this turn, actually. I've been blinding myself through laziness. Also: .jpg) HMS Hermes (one of the true survivors of the Pacific War so far) and friends move to join the horde of ships assembling at Townsville and Cairns for the imminent Milne Bay operation. code:Alikchi fucked around with this message at 04:32 on Dec 10, 2023 |
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Dec 7, 2023 05:49
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ThatBasqueGuy posted:chaos and blood, just what I like to see in a turn It's really heating up, and we are now actually wrestling over the initiative instead of me being prostrate and rolling over. Feels good! wedgekree posted:What's your timeline on hitting Tulagi? You have it fully 'planned'? Yes, and Lunga. But I'm going to be purely opportunistic about Guadalancal and the Solomons generally; I'm deeply ambivalent about getting sucked into island hopping there. All that said, so long as much of the KB is out of action, I need to take advantage. If Milne Bay goes exactly as planned (deeply unlikely) Guadalcanal is next on the list. There's no shame in taking the historical route of New Guinea and the Solomons at the same time, even if we're 9 months behind schedule. We'll see how the next few weeks shake out. April 22, 1943 .png) Poking Guadalcanal. .png) Poke. .png) Hellcats have the range (with drop tanks) to sweep Guadalcanal from Ndeni. There’s a VMF squadron of Marines uncrating their new F6Fs at Noumea right now. Once we clear the skies, we can transition to daylight bombing and do real damage. .png) Daylight, and protagonist-of-our-story Lapon is still active. .png) Sailfish is one of several American subs based in Perth prowling the DEI. The cream of his ASW ships seem to be here (sensibly). Sailfish is pretty badly damaged, but she hits one. .png) … After what happened to Ryuho, I had this coming. .png) I guess we each lose a useful, modern escort and Enterprise gets an extra couple of weeks in drydock. I wonder if I-23 is returning from a West Coast patrol, or has been here for a while? .png) A red-letter day for I-23. .png) They’re targeting Cawnpore today. Will bombers follow? The RAF does very well - even the Hurricanes. .png) I’ve pulled nearly all the Allied aircraft out of Bhopal, but nearly all isn’t all. Poor guy. .png) No CAP over Umboi Island. Maybe I was wrong about the Nicks flying from there. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a level four airfield last I looked, though.. .png) A less surprising lack of resistance. .png) Another win! .png) Not a win. That’s a lot of Tojos. I hope I didn’t send too many bombers to 46,22 this turn - I think I retargeted them all, but there’s probably a few still going in.. .png) Our troops can’t stand bombing this intense for much longer. I need to fly in CAP - forgot to do that yesterday - and start bombing Bombay. I think Liberators can hit it from Karachi. .png) More. This giant stack of Helens is incredibly destructive and dangerous. .png) A squad of Indore Tojos supports the Helens. If I can scrape together enough decent, single-seat, long-range fighters I could take them. In India, that’s basically just the P-40K and the Hurricane with drop tanks, and nearly all of them are fighting up north right now. But I can’t just let the Waziristan div melt under infinite bombs, so I will do something. .png) No Nicks lying in ambush over Milne today. .png) Hopefully I can get him to contest here and fight my very short-ranged Spitfire Vs. Also: I think it’s time to march over the mountains. From Terapo to Lae, perhaps? .png) Yes! We switched targets and didn’t fly into a wall of Tojos. .png) Can’t be wasting precious Spit VIIIs like this. Don’t stray ahead of your squadron, guys! Maybe I should convert this particular squad to Kittyhawks and free up the airframes for replacements. .png) Thumbs up. .png) Spreading the damage around! .png) And no RAF bomber massacres yet! .png) This is good. .png) And there it is. I knew I hadn’t retargeted them all. Oof. .png) He puts up a CAP to fight our impotent little sweeps over Benares and somehow we get away with it. .png) The rest of the Bhopal Hurricanes are on escort duty today. It’s probably time for them and the Boomerangs to skedaddle… .png) Amazing work for just six bombers. And there are casualties! He’s got at least a base force here. Yesterday’s recon was done by bombers, today’s photos will be taken by specialized recon aircraft. Hopefully we can see how many ground units are at Umboi. .png) This squadron will fly north to Horn Island tonight and help bomb Umboi tomorrow. Milne is cooked nicely enough for the moment. Maybe they have enough supplies left to repair the airfield for me before I seize it! .png) These Libs are already helping with Umboi! .png) Still sucks to be these guys. .png) This could have been a lot worse (see the Beauforts). .png) The rest of the squadron shows up and that’s more like it. .png) Jubbulpore. .png) Another day bought here! .png) Bangalore. .png) Another surprising hold! .png) This wild goose chase is over, and a Japanese mobile infantry regiment is freed up. .png) We are now at rough parity at 47,22, as one of the two divisions here heads up through Agra to help with Cawnpore/Lucknow. .png) Speaking of, that’s handy! Summary & Orders .png) Not bad. Except for that entire Beaufort squadron getting slaughtered. As satisfying as knocking down all those A6M3s was, I’ll be pulling the Spits out of Corunna Downs once they’re fully repaired. .jpg) I’m transferring more fighters and bombers up to Horn Island. New Guinea is heating up now. Groote Eyelandt is being resupplied by landing craft. Recon (as you can see) reports 3 enemy units at Umboi. Figure a base force, a garrison and some engineers or AAA? I’ll step up the bombing, including from Horn. In India, I switch up the targets yet again and send Beaufighters to LRCAP the Waziristan Div. Oh, and Enterprise is fine, don't worry. Six destroyers will take her in to Seattle and her aircraft will bomb anything that looks vaguely periscopic. Also, why didn’t any of my strikes in the Gilberts on Tarawa and Milne launch? Stupid weather. code:Alikchi fucked around with this message at 04:31 on Dec 10, 2023 |
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Dec 10, 2023 04:28
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Uncropped JPEGs instead of cropped PNGs for this update, sorry. I’m short on time and I want to keep the turns flowing! April 23, 1943 .jpg) Not bad for Blenheims at night. I got some “aircraft damaged” messages too. .jpg) Night thunderstorms, no effect. .jpg) I-23’s frenzy continues. A miss, thankfully. .jpg) All the Kittyhawks, P-40s and Spitfires are gone or going from Western Australia. P-39s remain to listlessly buzz Broome. .jpg) These Warhawks, and a lot of other aircraft, are flying from Gwalior, just up the road from 47,22. The Indian division that disengaged from 47,22 will use the rail network from Gwalior to reinforce Cawnpore/Lucknow. .jpg) That went well, but this CAP won’t stand against a serious push. I’m focused more on Cawnpore than Lucknow. .jpg) The Beaufighters are convering the hext next to Ahmedabad, I believe. Or maybe they just didn’t fly. I hope they flew! .jpg) Brutal. .jpg) Good. I have a bunch of bombers targeting this hex on the presumption that it wouldn’t have air cover - it doesn’t. .jpg) Port Moresby Kittyhawks. .jpg) No CAP over Gove and our bombers are finally flying (they’ve had orders for like three days now).jpg) Continue! .jpg) No Tojo LRCAP over Lucknow proper either. That is good. Time to bomb the poo poo out of the Guards Tank Div. Assuming we can hit anything… wait, they’re still set to 20,000 feet from when I was using them for recon duty. Oops. .jpg) … Continue! .jpg) Gwalior Vengeances getting some uh revenge for their colleagues. .jpg) Thumbs up. The damage is kind of superficial, but this slows his movement. .jpg) Triple coordination! .jpg) I had to cobble together three shattered squadrons in Karachi for this attack, and it isn’t even that impactful. But it is something. I’ll keep bombing until he puts up CAP. Maybe those Nicks that were strafing our troops a couple days ago? .jpg) Again, not very effective. Bombing the IJA at Bhopal never seems worth it. .jpg) Nice chunk of damage. .jpg) Given the weather? Also nice. .jpg) Fantastic work. The American Mitchells follow the Aussie Mitchells to Gove. Fourteen B-25s at 6-7k feet with no opposition can be very dangerous. .jpg) And we’re not done with Umboi yet today, either. If I can keep Milne and Gove knocked out, and prevent Umboi and Gasmata and Lae from being used, then the future looks bright here. .jpg) I have a feeling a gazillion Rabaul Zeroes will be flying CAP over Umboi tomorrow. Maybe I should bomb Rabaul? .jpg) Busy day for B-24s in the Pacific. These guys are based in Delhi. I remembered that we have to keep the Ahmedabad airfield from being repaired. .jpg) Yup, he has that gazillion of fighters in Rabaul. Surprising number of Tojos, too. Where are all the navy squadrons? CENTPAC? India, I guess? The Skyrockets and Lightnings are lucky to be merely driven off and not swarmed to death. .jpg) Ow! .jpg) Our Hurricane IIAs get messed up pretty bad in this engagement, but the other fighters make up for it. .jpg) I still have a Hurricane IIC half-squadron available to keep prodding at Benares. If he drops the Zero cover, I’ll know I can bomb out the airfield. .jpg) This is good attrition for us. I have a lot of Hurricanes, and they’re overperforming today. .jpg) A little late, guys. .jpg) I was really hoping all the Lightnings and Skyrockets would fly together. Even if they had, this probably wouldn’t have gone well. We bring down a few enemy fighters, at the cost of some of our valuable and rare long-range fighters. A bad trade on balance, imo. Tomorrow we’ll sweep Umboi instead. .jpg) Ugh. P-38s aren’t superfighters. .jpg) Tomorrow the B-25s and Wellingtons around here should hit Benares. I have him on the backfoot here. .jpg) It’s been a bit since I lost a freighter to Betties or Nells. Still stings. Maybe I can scrounge up more bombers to hit Bombay airfield. .jpg) The Terapo-based P-38s are being used properly, escorting this strike. .jpg) Jubbulpore. .jpg) Bangalore. .jpg) The Japanese can’t quite muster the Assault Value ratio needed to force the /B section of the Waristan Div into a rout like the others. We lose 102 men to their 24, though, and it won’t be long. .jpg) Gorakhpur does finally fall, and the enemy takes a thousand prisoners. This frees up one IJA Tank and one Infantry regiment, but more significantly is a decent airfield very near Cawnpore/Lucknow, to complement Benares. .jpg) Still coming out on top here. Summary & Orders .jpg) Seven enemy aircraft on the ground! Good day. I have learned, once again, that I don’t have the strength to go at Rabaul directly. .jpg) Enterprise is safely in Seattle. Two months of repairs ahead. Essex becomes available in 28 days. 
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Dec 11, 2023 07:20
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wedgekree posted:So what's your offensive plans in the Solomons and do you have a tentative timetable on it? No firm timetable. I have units planned and available, just not the shipping - everything handy is devoted to Milne Bay and Nauru right now. I'd like Pharnakes to believe an invasion is imminent, though, hence the bombing and bombardments. (More of that stuff coming soon.) April 24, 1943 .jpg) A single solitary hit is pretty good for Blenheim night bombing. .jpg) These Fortresses all miss for the second night in a row. .jpg) Sunfish is being very ballsy. But being ballsy has paid off for both the IJN and USN sub fleets lately, so why not? I’ve lost the screenshot of this next fight - Zeroes flying from Katherine sweeping over Mornington Island - so here’s the combat report: code:.jpg) Almost sixty of his best fighters on LRCAP.. He’s all-in for Lucknow today. .jpg) Our Warhawks are too high at 25K, the Helens slip beneath at 6k. Elements of the 8th Indian Div marching to Gwalior are bombed and slowed. .jpg) This raid inflicts another 37 casualties on the 8th Indian, but a couple of P-40s are low enough to shoot down a Helen. .jpg) We have lots of supplies in Jubbulpore. I spotted that unit marching away from the siege and spied an opportunity for one of our shattered Vengeance squadrons to be useful in a “no enemy fighters anywhere near you” environment. Thus, this weird little attack. They all miss, what’re you gonna do. .jpg) The four Beauforts are shot down immediately by A6M5s, with their Beaufighter escorts failing to intervene. .jpg) Nothing at Milne. .jpg) Nothing over Umboi Island either, but we are able to identify 2 of the ground units there (the DB-7 pilots swooped down and grabbed prisoners to interrogate with big hooks). If there really is no garrison at all, I’m tempted to grab this place with paratroopers. No, no, I wouldn’t be able to supply it and he’d be able to counterinvade immediately. But it’s a fun idea. .jpg) Yep, still nothing. .jpg) If you’ve got it [obsolete bombers], flaunt it [tempt enemy fighters to come out & play] .jpg) That is absolutely fantastic work from a mere FOUR twin-engined bombers. .jpg) See? Three times as many just did half as well. .jpg) Nearly all the Lucknow engagements have been minor debacles today. This one is nearly major. Those Hurricane IIDs are the version with 40mm cannon - ground attack aircraft, flying at very low altitude. Not good! .jpg) Please stop accumulating debacles. .jpg) Thank you. .jpg) I think we might be done with Benares for a few days. .jpg) Gove target practice! .jpg) At this rate, I should be able to keep Umboi AND Milne inoperable. .jpg) I even have spare B-24s to buzz Katherine a bit. Those Dinahs are serious and rare anti-bomber machines, and we already know dozens of Zeroes are based here. Katherine’s pretty important! .jpg) He will have to put up CAP over Gove or evacuate it. .jpg) Stragglers, but every hit helps. .jpg) Very pleased with our bomber force today! .jpg) And we’re cutting nicely into his Helen supply. .jpg) The weather finally allows for these attacks to begin. On the center left edge of this screenshot is Nauru Island: an invasion force is loading at Pago Pago and I expect Nauru to fall within two weeks. .jpg) I think I’d prefer to skip Tarawa and hop on straight to Makin. Troops are already planning for this. .jpg) The poor Punjabis lose 133 men in this attack, but hopefully the Beaufighters will force him to either divert Tojos or stop. .jpg) I get nervous about stuffing too many aircraft into any one base reachable by naval bombardment. Being able to divide our forces between Arorae, Tabiteuea, and Abemama really helps. .jpg) This is shaping up to be the most aircraft we’ve destroyed on the ground in quite a while. .jpg) Some Spitfires are here but don’t show up in the combat report, I think because they were on LRCAP from a different base? Regardless, we somehow get away with this. .jpg) The Beaufighters shield the Vengeances from Tojo and Nick attack, mostly. .jpg) More Umboi stragglers. .jpg) And Gove. .jpg) It doesn’t stop! .jpg) That hurts. We’ll fly out the survivors from the little coastal enclave they’re retreating to. And I have to move quickly. There’s a speedbump at Jodhpur, but if he rushes with sufficient force he could take Karachi. And I’m incredibly vulnerable to paratroopers. Nearly everyone is at the front, there are lots of empty bases. .jpg) Jubbulpore. What is there even left to say about this? With the forts, supplies and terrain all in our favor, this feels like it could go on forever. Remember how Bandoeng in central Java lasted until August 1942? .jpg) Deliberate attack at Lucknow! Over a thousand assault value. He could probably shock and take it tomorrow, but I think he’ll wait a day. Our reinforcements won’t make it in time, I think.. .jpg) Bangalore. .jpg) We bombard at Bhopal to have a look at the IJA here. The 35th Div is nasty, but if I can bomb its AV down I should be able to force the enemy out of the hex, with all the troops I have converging on Bhopal.. Maybe. .jpg) 47,22. .jpg) This was a very stupid waste. I toggled them both units over to shock, remembered there’s an enemy division here, but only toggled one of them back Summary & Orders .jpg) .jpg) Did we really shoot down that many Helens?? Surely not. The days are getting so bloody that I have to splice screenshots together to fit all the aircraft losses.. .jpg) Four of our Adak Island-based subs, all damaged enough to warrant time on the West Coast. .jpg) The Nauru Island invasion is already on its way. I’m anticipating little resistance. Hopefully the winding route the convoy’s taking will make it look like a resupply run to Tabiteuea until the day the troops land. code:
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Dec 13, 2023 02:26
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Pirate Radar posted:That was a hell of a day in the air war! How’s your air production looking? Any new models coming up that you expect to make a difference? I'm scraping the bottom! Seriously, the pools of frontline aircraft are very empty. The only bright spot there is the quick accumulation of Corsairs, and that's mostly because there's nothing in range of their bases to fight (yet). Here is a screenshot from witptracker. This is allied aircraft, sorted by availability date, with the P-47D2 (arriving in 43/7) selected:  The P-47 is the thing to look forward this year, both for the obvious quality and the build rate (56/month). I'm very excited about the two Warhawk models arriving in the same month for similar reasons, they're solid fighters and will help refill shattered squadrons and replenish the front line. More immediately, the SBD-5 Dauntless (May) and B-25G (June) will be useful. We'll start cranking out carrier-capable Corsairs in October, and the Seafire and Barracuda will help FAA squadrons become relevant again.  The next alternate history aircraft available to me will be the P-75 Eagle, in June 44. It'll be interesting to see how they perform.
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Dec 13, 2023 04:23
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wiegieman posted:Life can be a little rough on the US player until that good old US industry starts turning out infinity planes. I got my first taste of that this month with the Hellcat and its obscene build rate of 167. Already filled out multiple squadrons! April 25, 1943 .png) Lovely way to start the turn. Some damaged aircraft messages too. .png) Good Blenheims, useful Blenheims, not-getting-massacred Blenheims, yes-s-s. .png) These three particular B-17s have had bad luck for several nights running. You can hit the airfield guys! Keep trying!! .png) Daylight. I have enough fighters at Port Moresby to spare for this. .png) The sweep goes in before any bombers!!  Nicks are great bomber slayers. Not a match for the Spitfire..png) These Vb Spitfires were providing CAP at Port Moresby yesterday. I flew them over to Groote for the day to make sure the skies over Gove were safe for our bombers. Looks like they are.. .png) Airacobras too. Overkill, but I wanted to be sure. .png) Can’t forget Broome! .png) Our Spitfires eliminated the Nick threat, but the weather is nasty enough to throw off the Vengeance pilots’ aim. .png) Can’t forget Milne, either! .png) We’re getting a lot out of these ex-Dutch DB-7s. .png) These giant escorts are deterrence as much as anything else. And with the range of the P-38 and the B-25, I can send escorted bombers very far. .png) The two Zeroes are too high and our Wellingtons get away clean. .png) Well now they’re here! .png) Ah, here’s today’s fuckup. Didn’t I order a sweep here? No? .png) Good. .png) This is a backhanded demonstration of the value of the Beaufighter as an escort. Two of them go down, but the enemy Zeroes run out of ammo before they can think about engaging the Wellingtons. .png) The second RAAF Spitfire squadron sweeps an empty Gove. Where are the bombers? .png) Right on time! There must be a lot of damaged aircraft grounded here. .png) Minor hit on 47,22. .png) More ground kills! .png) Sent these Mitchells along with the Spitfires. .png) Jack Nicholson Nodding. .png) My expectations have been raised. Do better! .png) Slightly better. .png) The B-25 .50 cal gunners do incredibly well, shooting down a Zero and driving off the rest. .png) A good start. There should be more sweeps over Lucknow coming. I think the weather canceled a few.. .png) Aussies don’t want to miss out on Gove. Probably some complex feelings about bombing their own country? vOv .png) Five more American Mitchells follow them. .png) Not great. I need more recon aircraft here. I don’t have enough to keep tabs on Gove, Katherine, Rabaul, Umboi, and Milne at the same time. .png) These little hits do add up. .png) Sometimes we even get another plane! .png) He’s got so many subs around New Caledonia. I have several ASW task forces and a decent number of aircraft on the case. We find and immediately lose this one. I’m looking forward to the coming flood of Allied minesweepers, corvettes, patrol craft and escorts. It’s annoying to use first-class destroyers like this, but for now it’s situationally necessary. .png) Jubbulpore. .png) Lucknow has maybe one turn left. Bad news. It’s a level 8 airbase. I was really hoping that overwhelming Allied fighter sweeps would mean I could feel secure sending all the RAF and USAAF bombers in India after the IJA outside Lucknow next turn. Not sure how comfortable I am with that idea right now. .png) Bangalore. .png) The reinforcements are beginning to arrive at Bhopal. I’m desperate for a big ground victory and I’ve maneuvered away from the 47,22 fight to relieve the siege here. Time to start finding out if that was a good idea. .png) 47,22 itself is stable. I may even pull out the Corps HQ and engineer battalion to help at Bhopal, come to think of it. Summary & Orders .png) Another positive day for us! God, it sucks to be a Vengeance pilot who has to take orders from me. Oh well. Positive! .png) The key piece of data in this image is “airfield damage 97.” Gove is knocked out and I need to refocus my B-24 and B-25 efforts. Where next? Rabaul is too heavily defended, Umboi and Gasmata seem empty, Milne is bombed out too.. Actually, Milne could probably use a freshening up, but let’s try not to draw too much attention in that direction… code:
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Dec 13, 2023 09:15
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wedgekree posted:Yay for the slow gain of air superiority! Go you. It's nice, but very tenuous! That giant sledgehammer of Helens and Tojos he can wield in India is so much more coherent and effective than my little dribs and drabs of shattered squadrons. I will admit this knife's edge feeling is much more engaging than the fatalism of late 42-early 43. Maybe an artifact of taking a year's break from the game... April 26, 1943 .png) Another night of hounding RO-66. Get away from my Noumea! .png) The IJN gets some back against O27. That was an accurate depth charging; I hope they can limp home safely. .png) I ordered a bunch of night bombings for today, so.. Prepare to be underwhelmed, probably. .png) Not bad! .png) Bad. I wonder if there even is any daytime CAP? .png) Night bombing is a lot safer, but it’s so ineffectual under most circumstances. .png) I can do nasty bombardments too! This was intended to draw attention away from New Guinea, but if the combat report is anywhere near accurate it was worth it on its own merits. Seven modern American cruisers can do a lot. .png) Two light cruisers can’t do that much, but it’s better than sitting in port. Tarawa is underdeveloped and overgarrisoned. That Assault SNLF is very tough. More and more convinced that I can skip it and go straight to Makin without much fear. .png) Pretty brazen, operating this close to San Francisco. Time to put all the training squadrons on ASW duty for a few turns and vaporize this I-boat. If we can. .png) I’m not even sure how I left a Warhawk here. Is that even what happened? .png) This is very bad. The 31st Armoured is the most valuable unit I have in India right now. I absolutely can’t allow him to keep doing this, so LRCAP will be required. .png) Less concerning, still bad. .png) Better than we could have hoped for. .png) The solution may be to fly in a few squadrons to Bhopal for a turn or three. I hate to pull the A-team away from Cawnpore and Lucknow, though… .png) Over to New Guinea and New Britain. Gasmata is still empty, but so long as it has a base force it’s a threat. I want to bomb it out or at least force them to burn supplies repairing the field. .png) More of this. These B-24s fly from Horn Island, I believe. .png) Why only one escort? Why would anyone voluntarily get into a Vengeance under my command? .png) If he’s moved his giant pile of Helens forward, I need to be hitting somewhere other than Bombay. Can’t really tell yet. .png) I forgot about the Nells! They’re worth blowing up. I have some reinforcements that will need to travel by sea into Karachi soon and I can’t have them getting drowned. .png) Very worth it. .png) Making the point that I can hit the Shortlands too. .png) Point reinforced. .png) What I really want is for him to divert fighters and try to contest all these bombing runs. Preferably to somewhere close, like Salamaua or Gasmata, where I can take them down with my own fighters - but Shortlands would be fine too. Whatever it takes to thin out the herd over Rabaul. .png) These B-24s were sitting idle on Hawaii yesterday. With Abemama fully supplied and building into a fine base, we can start projecting power. Mili is one of his more important bases in the Marshalls, I gather. .png) Misses. .png) The weather is definitely screwing our bombardiers. .png) Lightly bomb drizzle. .png) Impressive CAP for a place that just got bombarded. The three B-17s, transitioning from night to day bombing, still miss everything but do lose one of the trio. .png) This is all good, we like blowing up Nells, but we need to focus everything on winning the ground war. That means blowing up Helen bases, not Nell bases. Gotta retarget. .png) Sweeping the Broome. .png) The Helen Menace. At least he’s not bombing the Waziristan Div and those Punjabis anymore. .png) The difference between the 10 Tojos sweeping and the 75 fighter total is LRCAP. .png) Spitfire Mk Vs only have a four-hex range. They can’t even reach Milne Bay from Port Moresby! They can reach Salamaua. I like to occasionally switch up my orders like this on the off chance he moves fighters into New Guinea. Starting to think that may never happen… Also visible in this image: some of the many resupply and reinforcement convoys traveling between Terapo and northeastern Australia. It’s one of our most important airbases and it has ZERO port facilities. Everything has to be transported via amphibious task force and dragged up the beaches. .png) Nasty weather scuppers most strikes in this theater, but these guys make it through to terrorize the Makin garrison. .png) This should present him with two choices: contest the air over Makin and get chewed up by Corsairs, or give up the air and let us grind that SNLF into oblivion. .png) Thumbs up. .png) Protagonist-of-reality USS Lapon somehow still has torps left, goes after an IJN destroyer. Time to go home for more ammo, I expect. Also: he’s building up Saishu To (visible) and Ominato (northern Japan) airfields. They’re great ASW chokepoints, obviously. .png) Jubbulpore. Still typing down the IJA 22nd Infantry Div and the Imperial Guards Div, along with a huge artillery train. .png) These little fragments don’t quite get out of the hex in time, but they don’t surrender, either. .png) Lucknow falls tomorrow, surely. .png) Bangalore isn’t falling anytime soon. .png) Uh oh. .png) Uh oh uh oh! .png) We close out with 47,22. Summary & Orders .png) Good ratio today, but inconsequential, I think, compared to what’s going on in Madhya Pradesh. I have got to do more to protect my troops from those Helens. And now it’s starting to look more like I need to rescue myself from Bhopal and pull out. Ejecting the Japanese may no longer be an option. In fact, the more I think about it, pulling back under my own air cover and into good terrain seems like the right call. I’m just now getting the upper hand in the air. Why blow it by risking everything on the ground, when I have decent reinforcements a few months away? So. The Bhopal relief operation becomes a Bhopal breakout operation. Tomorrow we start marching back towards Gwalior and Agra. Some other reactions in India. The Karachi B-24s (and British Liberators) move on from Bombay to hitting Indore airfield. They will be savaged by the CAP, but it needs to be done. Five fighter squadrons based in Lucknow strap on drop tanks and switch to providing air cover for the 31st Armoured and other units in the Bhopal-Indore area. If he spreads out his bombers a bit like he did today, I ought to bag a few tomorrow. .jpg) The bombardment task force partially rearms at Ndeni and starts on a crooked path to perform a similar attack on Nauru. Hopefully tomorrow the Hellcat is blooded over Guadalcanal by VMF-122. .png) It’s nice to give the Canadians something to do. They love working in this weather. .png) He has a squadron of.. Probably Emilys or Mavises at Mili. Doesn’t appear to have flown in any fighters. So the B-24s keep bombing. Of course, it only took a day of full-bore aircraft operations for Abemama to dip into the Red Exclamation Point level of supplies. More is coming! code:
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Dec 16, 2023 08:54
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Cimber posted:What are you hoping to get at Nauru? How big of an island is it, can you put a decent airfield in there to support longer range bombers to interrupt his lines of communication to the Solomons/Rabaul? Not big enough for any decent bombers. We'll have to build the meager Level 2-3 airfield possible from scratch, though there are finished Level 2 port facilities. Nauru will mostly be useful as a fighter and floatplane base, covering the gap between the Solomons and Gilberts. Still, it's worth taking. Tarawa is too well garrisoned, and I'm not willing to go straight at Makin until I have at least a few proper CVs available. Neophyte posted:WHERE IS RPT WHERE IS TOKYO BAY FORTRESS RR THE WORLD WONDERS I can't believe he moved it. Sacrilege. April 27, 1943 .png) Oh dear. Those P-70s need to wake the hell up. .png) Wait, was that it? No more night bombing of Cawnpore? .png) I guess so. My night bombing is, as usual, ineffectual. .png) Frustrated by the P-70’s inability to deter the Helens at all, I pull up WitPTracker’s Aircraft Comparison tool.  I think the problem is the narrow margin of speed. Or the altitude is too high? A bit of both? .png) Back to business. Rabaul’s flak is very, very nasty, even at night. .png) Pretty good! .png) At least this wave didn’t blow up any more Warhawks on the ground. .png) Alright, I guess the Groote invasion is happening now? Predicted and acceptable losses (Airacobras). Those supply hits are the worst effect. .png) The most important thing to win today is the fighter duel over the Agra-Bhopal-Indore triangle. This is a solid start. .png) These guys all damage each other and fly off. .png) The Hellcat scores its first kills. A blessed day. Please, send more fighters down here! .png) Why. I know this is my fault, but I swear to God Vengeances are just drawn to enemy fighters like mosquitoes to a bug zapper. .png) I need to put some of these Kittyhawks on LRCAP over Milne. Even with the airfield totally busted, he could be using flying boats to bring supplies and/or troops in. .png) Umboi needs further seasoning. .png) As does Gasmata. .png) Flying all the way from Horn Island into bad weather, these Libs do poorly. .png) Another ill-advised strike on Lucknow - a bunch of sweeps from Cawnpore failed to launch, so there’s a huge Zero CAP. The RAF overperforms against terrible odds, as usual (when they’re not flying Vengeances). .png) They (and some B-25s) don’t get away so cleanly this time. Argh. These are the most useful bombers I have, getting chewed up. This is a hard day for us. .png) I’m feeding. Make it stop. .png) It’s not stopping but it’s getting less terrible. .png) If only I had sent all the Wellingtons on this mission.. .png) The Portland Roads Liberators will keep working on Shortlands until it’s fully knocked out. .png) More for Umboi, too. I think that as the Allied bomber force becomes more deadly, this game will feel more and more like Airbase Whack-A-Mole. .png) Stragglers. .png) You get the idea. .png) Working on the port at Gove, now. No easily shipping supplies in from Darwin. .png) I have a few of these little 2 and 3-ship B-17 squadrons. Might as well put them to use. .png) Yes. Of course you sweep now, after everything. .png) Pfft. .png) Good, we still have the supplies to keep this up. .png) Is that a task force I see up there? I bet he’s tempted to bombard Abemama like he just did Groote. .png) Very bad day to be on Tarawa. Can’t be that many good days, really. .png) We keep the heat on Mili, too. .png) Etc. .png) And a third wave. Good progress! .png) That settles it, the Ahmedabad part of our Indian Reinforcements operation has been a bit of a debacle. In the center, things are confused, and at Cawnpore/Lucknow.. Well, let’s see. .png) Jubbulpore. .png) Ooh, he’s bombarding back at 47,22 now! Doesn’t go well for him. .png) He’s finally starting to work on the isolated US Infantry Division here in central India, and their friends.. I don’t think he brought enough guys to finish this quickly. I’m airdropping supplies in… .png) Bhopal. He can see I’ve concentrated over a thousand AV here. Tomorrow I will send in the remaining Wellingtons and B-25s and try a deliberate attack to push the IJA out of the hex. After that succeeds or fails, we retreat northwest. .png) I am actually shocked they held on here. .png) Bloodless day at Bangalore. .png) Not as deadly as our counter-battery fire earlier. Summary & Orders .png) Lot of B-25s that managed to limp home only to be declared unsalvageable wrecks upon landing. And, of course, another Vengeance massacre. Rough day! .png) The operational report is just pages and pages of this. .png) Also this. I’m missing several British & Commonwealth units because I’ve lost their arrival bases in India. .png) The timing has worked out well, and the Nauru and Milne invasions are going off almost simultaneously. The 1st Marine Regiment is loaded up and will depart Tabiteuea in the morning. The second wave is not long behind, and the third and fourth waves of engineers and aviation troops are also at sea. Everything looks good! Except for that mysterious spotting report, 4 enemy ships in the rain, moving southeast, taking the path that Pharnakes’ carriers and battleships always take when they’re about to gently caress me up in SOPAC. Not ideal. I’m sure it’s nothing. The amphibious forces will stay in range of the Corsairs and Hellcats based in the Gilberts as long as possible. If it is the enemy carriers I can duck into port. Hopefully. I hope he’s heading towards Ndeni, I hope he thinks I’m going to invade Guadalcanal - that would buy me a crucial day or two. I’m typing “hope” a lot, which doesn’t bode well. .jpg) The Milne operation is running slightly ahead of Nauru. The route taken by the amphibious force (the 43rd US Infantry Div and elements of II Australian Corps) will keep it under a dense layer of Lightnings, Skyrockets and Warhawks (based in Cooktown and Port Moresby) all the way in to Milne tomorrow. There’s a misfit “covering force” of HMS Hermes, USS Sangamon (an escort carrier) and the French seaplane tender Commandant Teste, as well as more muscular surface combat and bombardment TFs. Hopefully ( ) I don’t get too many of them sunk.code:
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Dec 18, 2023 06:36
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Terrifying Effigies posted:Are you going to try for any naval bombing in the Gulf of Carpentaria? You've certainly got a lot of level bombers in the area although I'm not sure which if any are decent at naval missions (outside of skip bombing). This screenshot is a few turns old, but: .png) You've hit on the main problem, level bombing is no real deterrent. I have ~30 Beaufort VIIIs with torpedoes set to naval attack based at Mornington Island, with Warhawk/Kittyhawk escorts. They're vulnerable to bombardment, obviously, but the most dangerous thing I have against shipping in SWPAC. Although now that you mention it, I do have a TBF squadron fragment leftover from the carrier battles sitting idle in SOPAC, along with a couple of Marine SBD units. They should go to Normanton. Dance Officer posted:Is Groote worth taking in any way? Cimber posted:I would imagine that as an airfield it would be rather annoying and could be a bombing site to hit eastern australia sites. It's not worth that much in and of itself, though the airbase could be very annoying. It does make sense as a target for a 1943 counterstrike. It's exposed at the end of a tenuous supply line, a hard-to-reinforce island. Losing it would set us back and destroy a full Australian division and supporting troops to boot. Just received the next turn, let's see how all this goes..
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Dec 18, 2023 23:46
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April 28, 1943.png) We begin with a miss. Shame, sinking a ship called Tokyo Maru would have been a morale-booster. .png) This wouldn’t seem silly if they’d managed to blow up a Zero on the ground, or hit anything. But they didn’t, so. .png) Keeping up the facade that we are going for Tarawa, right until the very end. All this bombing and bombarding has revealed a very nasty garrison that I have no desire or reason to fight. .png) Tullibee might have to pull back. .png) No kills, but the Hellcats damaged a lot of aircraft. Hopefully that’s enough for the B-25s to get through later. .png) Horrifying potentialities here in that many bombers escorted by that many fighters. Today that force is applied to units that were about to get demolished anyways. He’s made sure of it, I suppose! .png) It would have been nice to shoot down some of these bombers, but I think I’m glad I didn’t put an LRCAP through the grinder of those escorts. Let’s see how our sweeps go. .png) Where is the CAP?? I hope he doesn’t exploit this. Thank God he already shot his Helen wad. .png) Not entirely shot, I guess. Good lord. .png) At this rate there will be like two dozen guys left for the IJA to overrun at the end of the turn. .png) Another bloodless duel. The Hellcats have to fly their full, extended drop-tank range to initiate these dogfights, so I get why they bug out quickly. .png) This isn’t very effective, but it does slow the enemy down. And the Beaufighters do their job: all the bombers make it home. .png) I also need to degrade the forces besieging Bhopal and slow them as I pull out. .png) The Karachi B-24s force their way through bad weather to find Indore very well defended. We get away nearly unscathed and with the knowledge that now isn’t the time to bomb here. .png) Always nice to wrangle good work out of the Blenheims. .png) I haven’t left off Shortlands entirely. .png) Three B-17s fly a tentative raid on Katherine from Normanton and run into a very impressive fighter force. One Fortress gets popped by a Nick almost immediately; the other two limp home as probable write-offs. .png) Yes, the Hellcats did well enough over Guadalcanal - the B-25s get through, lose only one, and shoot down a Zero on their way in. Bad effect, though, and won’t be repeated tomorrow. .png) This is NOT the fireworks factory. .png) Alright, I think that’s all the Portland Roads B-24s. .png) After several days of weather-related cancellations, the Normanton B-24s try for Darwin, hoping for a weaker target than Katherine. Unfortunately, the CAP is determined and the flak is extremely powerful, with two B-24s brought down. It was worth a shot. .png) It’s just the B-24’s time, I guess. .png) Yes. .png) More! .png) I was really hoping the other sweeps from Cawnpore would, yknow, launch.. Poor Airacobra jockeys. They’re genuinely skilled pilots in that squadron, but the Tojo is just better. .png) Keeping busy. .png) The whole Gilberts area is full of Allied transports and warships. .png) Not very effective, but it’s mostly for show and practice. .png) All I can really say is that it’ll suck to be a resident of Tarawa for the foreseeable future. .png) Recon yesterday reported runway damage of only ~46 at Umboi, so I’ll need to keep up with his engineers and supplies. Also, check out all those Japanese task forces. Looks like he’s responding in force. .png) Of course, there are always more B-24s. .png) And B-25s! .png) Horn Island is SUCH a useful little base. .png) .png) .png) .png) Shad is perfectly placed to catch one of the task forces rushing towards us in SOPAC. She fires a spread of six at Hiei and hits with two. One detonates. The counter-attack from angry first-class destroyers is VERY severe, and I doubt Shad will make it home. .png) Jubbulpore. .png) Didn’t make it across the river in time, poor guys. .png) 47,22. .png) Bhopal (of which the evacuation has begun). .png) That’s Lucknow fallen, with the survivors retreating into Cawnpore. Expected, but still hurts. 900 AV that I can’t stop, that close to Delhi. You see why I am pulling back from Bhopal instead of charging desperately at Jubbulpore. .png) (filing nails, whistling, etc) .png) Maybe I should just stop bombarding at 47,22. Summary & Orders Unclench. .png) A mid day. Tomorrow, more fireworks. .png) Shad is probably doomed, but I’ll give her a day to see if the flooding can get under control before I scuttle. Maybe she can limp into Ndeni? .jpg) The Milne invasion hits the beaches in the morning. Looks like a big Japanese response coming down from Truk through the Bismarcks to me. Plus a major task force assembled at Darwin. Fingers crossed. code:
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Dec 20, 2023 01:43
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wedgekree posted:Gonna be a tight next few days! How badly you think you hurt Hiei with that torp? I really doubt one torpedo did more than drop her speed 4-6 knots, but judging by my scouting reports today, that was enough to turn that task force around. Or maybe I'm having a Fletcher moment. I'd send her back to Truk in Japan's shoes, anyways. Cimber posted:I gotta admire the level of detail they put into this game. I idly looked up the USS Shad on wikipedia, and the name of the captain they have in the game is the actual guy who captained it at this stage of the war. Rogue0071 posted:That level of damage is totally survivable if it doesn't roll really badly on DC checks or get depth charged again. She has a high chance of making it, I think! Rolled well today & just has to make it the 3-4 days to Ndeni. April 29, 1943 .png) I had a few submarines transiting to and from the DEI in this area, and they’ve all been redirected towards Darwin and Groote, to do a little scouting and hopefully disrupt his invasion (if it happens). O20 fulfills the former role here. .png) If these Boomerangs could hit something it’d be easier to pretend this isn’t pointless. .png) The weather and minimal moonlight make most night bombing futile right now, but I still want to try in a few cases. I saw he’s flown aircraft into Ahmedabad and decided to start work on the airbase there again. .png) To no avail. .png) For the second day in a row, we see one obvious downside of parking a submarine in the likely path of decent, upgraded IJN destroyers. I love the Dutch subs dearly, especially the O-boats, and I hope O20 gets away. .png) Here we go. This reconfirms that he only has a Naval Guard unit here. Should be a walkover for the Marines. Also yes, Nauru has resources, but they are of zero interest or strategic value. .png) I’ve been using expendable little xAKLs to resupply Groote, and one gets expended here. She was on her way back to Normanton having unloaded the full 1000 supplies in her hold. A worthy trade. A full size xAK is unloading at Mornington Island right now, as well, so we should be supply-secure in the Gulf of Carpentaria for a minute. .png) NO!! Central figure of the universe USS Lapon is in trouble! .png) Don’t like seeing that many A6M5s - they’re a genuine improvement over the A6M3a. This could have gone a lot worse, to be fair. The Hurricane IIC is giving sterling service. More sweeps should be en route.  If Japan goes all in on the A6M5c in January 44 (it adds “armor”), they might even be able to save some elite Navy pilots’ lives. But I believe, based on his research choices at game start, that he’ll be leaning heavily into the George. The N1K1-J debuts in July. I’m not looking forward to that. Anyways, back to the game: .png) We are messily attritting them. And ourselves, but Warhawks and Hurricanes are two airframes I do actually have plenty of. .png) “A Hundred And Two Helens” by The Decemberists. I flew out all our planes yesterday night, so he’ll catch nothing on the ground at Cawnpore, but I was hoping the Warhawk LRCAP would kill a few bombers. No such luck. Maybe in a subsequent wave? .png) I don’t have the fighters to provide acceptable air cover to both the Cawnpore and Bhopal areas, so I’m constantly shifting between them, trying to anticipate where he’ll bomb and sweep. He’s taken advantage of this a few times already. .png) I see those armored/motorized units trying to cut me off! Gotta slow em down. .png) Let’s hope the lovely weather impedes them more than us today. .png) Nice coordination at least! .png) Also good. It is a weird, intuitive process, trying to pick decent targets for these Wellingtons that won’t get them all killed. .png) He has lots of fighters based at Gorakhpur, but at this moment they’re all either flying over Lucknow or on the ground, I suspect. Spitfire blueballs. .png) Another good attack here. Slow down the 6th Guards, slow down Cawnpore’s fall. Maybe. .png) B-24 down! But look, he’s come out to play at Gasmata finally! Within good fighter range of Port Moresby! .png) I don’t think we’ve killed a single Milne defender yet today. Hopefully we’ve driven their disruption up? .png) He’s done letting me bomb for free over the Shortlands, too. .png) Nothing over Mili yet! Suits me. .png) I want to definitively knock it out and then work through the other islands in range. Keep the pressure on. .png) The Spits make it to Lucknow and do outstanding work against formidable odds, as usual. .png) These Avenger pilots will be pretty good at CAS after a couple weeks of this. .png) These guys, too. Nice to have a target for the SBDs that they can sling 1000 pounders to. .png) This Nauru Island attack is much more vulnerable to an enemy air and carrier attack than the Milne operation. It’d be nice if those Hellcats and Corsairs were providing LRCAP for the invasion as it went in. Unfortunately, Ocean Island doesn’t have an airstrip yet (imagine trying to build one here) and Abemama isn’t quite capable of supplying drop tanks for the Hellcats. So the invasion goes in a bit naked. .png) Speaking of the Milne operation, here we go! Did I mess up my naval bombardment? There should have been a naval bombardment… .png) Uncontested unloading, good. Nary a Nell. .png) Jubbulpore. .png) 47,22. I like this! .png) Already a decent amount of AV unloaded. A couple of battleship bombardments tomorrow and we have this in the bag, I think. .png) Cornered at 38,31. .png) Bhopal. I’m leaving, bye! .png) Bangalore. .png) I’ll keep trying! .png) I had been wondering when he’d get around to this. I’ve been flying out everything I can from Bellary for a while - the units remaining are hollow shells, except for the artillery (difficult to fit on a C-47). Should fall tomorrow. .png) Other than supplying Groote Eyelandt (when it’s not getting bombed), C-47s have mostly been busy airlifting in small Australian units and supplies to Wau and Lae. It’s been a sneaky little success over the past couple weeks that I am reinforcing as quickly as possible. Look, forts level 2, he might not be able to take it back with paratroopers immediately! We also finally have a brigade marching over the Kokoda Track to secure Buna. New Guinea is looking very, very interesting right now. Summary & Orders .png) Five Liberators and two Spitfire VIIIs shot down! Nasty. .png) Groote is back up to over 7000 supplies, the facilities are half-repaired, and I’m sending two big groups of PT boats over to bolster the defense. .png) I feel like Shad is gonna make it! .png) And of course, USS Lapon is invulnerable. Time for a little R&R at sunny-&-fun Adak Island. code:
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Dec 20, 2023 22:34
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Terrifying Effigies posted:Good job so far and fingers crossed! Does Milne Bay have an airfield already? I know in the real world the USN built it up into a significant naval base for the Solomons Campaign but not sure how much Pharnakes has poured into it. It does, and he's built it up to a level 4 airfield! As well as a level four port, which makes for interesting possibilities, using barges and landing craft for short hops up the coastline, maybe even over to New Britain. Alchenar posted:It's one of the many issues where at the level of command WitP goes for, knowledge of 'what works' and what doesn't is extremely powerful. That's why the MP community has a long list of standard houserules, there are a bunch of custom scenarios that turbocharge Japan, and you can't just use your 4e bombers to fill every major port in Japan with mines. Rogue0071 posted:I believe the game does have air dropped mines but they are not able to just shut down Japan's ports nearly as effectively as they did OTL and are more effective in wearing down ASW forces and such. Yes, we have minelayers, destroyer-minelayers, and submarines that can lay mines. I was really focused on them in the early stages of the war, especially in the DEI when it seemed like he was landing at a new port every turn. One of the classic gamey tactics back in the day was to flood Palembang harbor with thousands of mines, and it's still a good idea to build up as many decent fields as you can. They've most recently been effective for me at Luganville and Ndeni, I believe, but I also have some small fields at Groote (178 mines) and Abemama (108), as well as a massive 927 at Tabiteua and 783 at Ndeni. The destroyer-minelayers USS Breese and USS Ramsay, both converted Clemsons, are about to lay down a field of 80 Mark 6 mines at Milne Bay to hopefully catch any Savo Island-style counterattack off guard. That's all defensive - I haven't been doing much offensive mine warfare lately. Something to think about. April 30, 1943 .png) The unloading continues. I think I’ve worked this all out. Fingers crossed no gently caress-ups today. .png) I believe Hake is also heading home to Adak. .png) And now we also begin unloading at Nauru! .png) Three digits isn’t great. .png) More Milne. .png) Daybreak and we’re still getting away with it at Nauru Island. Starting to feel a bit more confident. .png) Most of the American infantry should be onshore by now, maybe a couple thousand personnel left? .png) Hake is spotted again, dives again. The IJN has definitely reacted since Ryuho got torpedoed. .png) I hate using Hurri IIDs to flesh out the CAP, but we don’t pay for it here. .png) We saw this little CAP of Tojos yesterday and flew the Scythe squadron down from Delhi to Gwalior for swatting duty. It is effective! .png) The combat report lies, this Warhawk squadron is chewed up. Was the weird, magical week when these guys couldn’t stop shredding Tojos just a weird, magical week? .png) Two more Zeroes show up over Bareilly - we scare one off and shoot down another. Pretty impressive stuff from the D team here but I am nervous about that giant stack of Helens, as usual. Where are they today? .png) Meanwhile, Bareilly and Delhi launch a coordinated strike on the IJA in 47,21. The Scythes shooed most of the Tojos here away earlier, and the bombers have clear runs in decent weather. .png) Look at that LRCAP. Almost fifty fighters? I feel pretty secure. I hope the shock attack isn’t premature. .png) 47,22 in thunderstorms. .png) Again, the combat report is deceptive. Our fighter squadrons are being ground down to nubs. .png) Blenheims… .png) No Tojos left to shoot down here, alas. .png) Another three Wellingtons trickle in. .png) Still trying to smash Mili. .png) We’ve sent one wing to prod Maloelap, though. .png) Continuing the theme of Warhawks returning to the mean today. .png) The Rabaul Nells have been unleashed. We slaughter this entire wave, but a torpedo slips through. Not perfect. A large escorted strike could go very poorly for us. .png) Or a large unescorted strike, apparently. poo poo. I needed those engineers. Poor Fillmore will not survive to be a hospital ship. .png) This wave goes for the small destroyer escort task force, thankfully. .png) The RAF is really giving their all today. Terrible odds face them over Lucknow. .png) More practice. .png) This is attriting them at a pretty decent clip. .png) Thumbs up! .png) Oops. All the long range fighters at Port Moresby are busy over Milne, there’s nothing to escort these Beauforts… .png) We are in the PM air phase now. If anything, the CAP over Milne looks stronger than in the morning. .png) American Mitchells miss too. .png) Maybe this is related to high fort levels? Wow, I really hope I don’t get hosed in this shock attack. .png) That big beefy CAP lets a wave of Nells through and apologetically shoots them down after they make their runs. Those APAs are more valuable to me than Standard type battleships. Losing even one of them really hurts! .png) Five Nells of this wave turn away after seeing two get shot down ahead. The rest make doomed attacks on USS Mustin. .png) Ten of these thirteen turn around. Morale collapse! .png) Unloading continues. .png) And continues. What the hell. I had two naval task forces ordered to bombard. What happened? .png) I think this is the last teensy little fragment that refuses to surrender. .png) Jubbulpore. .png) I’m very annoyed that I’ve somehow screwed up my naval bombardments two days in a row. What’s going on here? .png) 38,31. No idea how long these guys can hold out with a trickle of airdropped supplies. It can’t be terribly long. It has taken longer than I expected for the IJA to corral them and get to this point, though. .png) Bhopal. I think I am two days away from pulling out? .png) That’s the full 21st IJA division versus one third of the 31st Armoured Div. Not ideal, he can probably rout us tomorrow. .png) We haven’t unloaded much at all yet at Nauru. Is there going to be an automatic shock attack? I honestly forgot about that rule until this instant. Good at WitP, here. .png) Yes!!! Despite the high forts, defensive terrain, and failed bombardments, full preparation bonus and overwhelming force do the trick. That’s a serious morale booster. .png) Hahaha holy poo poo how did this happen? Leadership bonus? Oh, I know how. Orde Wingate is still in charge of the 3rd Special Force HQ. I need to reassign him so he doesn’t get captured. Still, glory to the heroes for not just surrendering on day one. .png) Yeah, there’s that auto shock attack. And ouch. I really should have used more LSTs and LCIs to land more AV more rapidly. Lesson learned. This is still a salvageable situation, though, the rest of the 1st Marines should be able to clean up, and if not, the follow on troops. The new crisis is that the invasion shipping will be vulnerable for a bit longer than I’d thought.. Summary & Orders .png) That… is pretty good. We have Milne, we didn’t lose any warships. Still hate to lose those transports, still annoyed to have slightly fumbled Nauru, but overall? Solid. Still, too many Nells got through. The Lightnings, in particular, were exhausted by long-range, bad weather flying over the previous two days. Thank god the Port Moresby Kittyhawks were here to thin the herd, and even the Beaufighters acquitted themselves well. There’s more unloading to be done and more Nells to be fended off, I’m sure. Also, I still have no idea why my bombardment task forces just sat there. On the plus side, Milne’s facilities are relatively untouched (37 port damage, 49 airfield service damage, 0 runway damage). vOv, I guess. B-25s and DB-7s will harry them as they retreat. Task forces are loading to take the islands near Milne next. Over in India, the day’s wave of fighter sweeps was exhausting. We need to go a little defensive and give our squadrons time to recover again, but the RAF is running out of places to hide. If he starts seriously attacking Delhi and Gwalior and Karachi.. well. Let’s hope he doesn’t do that! .png) Very useful and important! Though at this point I think by the time I built it up to level 4 the IJA will have almost taken the place. Let’s do some fortification work instead. And look at that, that’s our first month posted in this thread! I think a month-in-review post makes sense. Make some maps, show some plans. I will start working on this. code:
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Dec 22, 2023 08:27
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SerthVarnee posted:Finally some solid positive news for your side. It does make a big difference! Can't let it go to my head and get sloppier, but it helps. Thank you all for your festive holly jolly Christmas patience. Straight back into the thick of things! Going for (mostly) uncropped JPEGs today to keep this from taking a week to write.. May 1, 1943 .png) Continuing at Nauru! More troops should begin landing today. It’ll force another failed shock attack, unfortunately, but we’ll finish the island off in a few days. .jpg) .jpg) When I watch these replays I’m constantly wondering why I even bother night bombing but I always manage to justify it in the orders phase. .jpg) This time, at 3% moonlight, I don’t think I’ll be able to justify it. Let’s wait for the moon a bit.. .jpg) Thankfully, no more wasteful night bombing. The second wave is landing at Nauru! .jpg) You fools, you dumped my tractor into the dang ocean! .jpg) Daybreak and the 1st Marine Regiment is still unloading. .jpg) Every day I get away with all this unloading without any real air cover is a blessing, but it’s nerve-wracking. .jpg) LCI down This is what I get for being impatient. She arrived in Panama, I had no escorts available, she would have slowed down the big convoy with USS Massachusetts in it.. Excuses, excuses. .jpg) We’re into the scouting phase, there’s a big enemy task force off Milne, and here come three dozen Zeroes to test the paltry CAP over Port Moresby. He probably suspected that it was very weak in favor of defending the Milne invasion, and he is correct. .jpg) A perfect start to the day for the Rabaul Zeroes. Not ideal for us! .jpg) A good fight over Cawnpore. Some of the best American pilots in the hemisphere are flying P-40s in India right now. .jpg) A6M5s from Benares to my airbase at Bareilly. Mongrel CAP, not much of a deterrent. But there’s still enough of them to kill any unescorted bombers. Isn’t there also a Bellary? These stupid Anglicizations of Indian place names all sound the same to me. I need to read a modern Indian history book to undo what years of playing this game has done to my Asian toponymy. SEAC = Save England’s Asian Colonies :usa: .jpg) Ndeni->Lunga, droptanks in thunderstorms. Ouch! The Tojo masters the Hellcat today. I think I’ll stop prodding here until I have a big numbers advantage. I keep forgetting the F6F is not a superplane. .jpg) Another wave of Zeroes over Cawnpore encounters a slightly beefier Spitfire CAP and pays the price. .jpg) .jpg) I’ve been watching the detection level on these MGBs for a bit, and kept the Hurris on LRCAP to catch Nells. Very annoyed that they just.. flew on past. Sometime in the next month I will need to transfer reinforcements by sea into Karachi from the Cape or Aden, and I’d like to force him to at least temper his Nells a bit. This practically incentivizes it! Thumbs down. .jpg) Gilchrist shoots down yet another Zero today. What a guy. .jpg) Good stuff! Mixed bag of a day so far - those engagements over Lunga and Port Moresby hurt. But in India/SEAC, the dice roll our way today. .jpg) This, plus the Nells in Karachi getting away? I need to do better with my altitudes, I think. This should have been a bomber massacre. .jpg) The second wave doesn’t take a single loss. These attacks have dragged the Allied fighters down to ~10,000 feet, though, a good bouncing altitude for the enemy fighters that are sure to come. .jpg) Speak of the devil. I’ve got nothing over Bhopal to kill, though. .jpg) Two! Only two. He can’t keep getting away with this, etc. If only I had set those Hurricanes to, say, 11,000 feet.. .jpg) Heyy that’s more like it. Given plenty of chances to shoot down unescorted bombers, we wake up on the fourth or fifth opportunity. .jpg) This Hellcat pair shoots down a Zero and escapes. Well done. .jpg) Bareilly isn’t just a base for misfit shattered fighter squadrons. It’s also a home to hodgepodge gutted bomber squadrons! .jpg) Getting pretty good mileage out of those DB-7s. Slows down his retreat from Milne - hopefully I can march over the Kokoda Trail quickly enough to cut him off. .jpg) The Vengeance makes a reappearance in New Guinea. First blood for these Aussies. I really want to train them on naval bombing so I have a good deterrent to cruiser bombardments, but it’s nice to put them to use right now. I have the Marine dive-bomber squadrons arriving in Cairns shortly, anyways. Just gotta fly them to PM (and Milne when it’s ready) and I should have a solid deterrent. The Beaufort torpedo bombers have better range but they’re fragile and not so expendable. They’re far too juicy of a target to do this again tomorrow, though. .jpg) Terapo B-25s get in on the action, too. Maybe they’ll hit Umboi tomorrow. .jpg) Aussie Mitchells from Horn Island as well, why not? .jpg) Attack on the IJA 21st Division at 46,22. Nine Wellingtons can do a hell of a lot of damage. .jpg) Here come another dozen! The name of the game now is slowing down his army here, keeping it dissipated and as strung out as possible while we slip out Bhopal’s back door. The next good place to stand.. Maybe behind the Ganges? Yamuna? Both, probably. .jpg) Hello Blenheims. All those red arrows - escorts and LRCAP from all over the place. My bomber force is fragile enough now, I’m trying not to take any chances. .jpg) Another baker’s dozen RAF bombers. We’ve messed up the 21st Div a lot today! .jpg) Eight MORE Wellingtons. You see why I did not meticulously crop screenshots this turn (this would have taken another week). .jpg) Beauforts, too. Once again, I’m sure he’s thinking about bombing the hell out of Bareilly and Delhi, the source of these RAF attacks. The sweeps lately confirm that. I might be wise to spread my force out a bit more, pull back what should be rebuilding in the rear. It is hard to resist the song of this kind of concentrated firepower, though. If all I have are dribs and drabs, I should point all the dribs and drabs in the same direction, right? .jpg) Same deal in New Guinea, even if the USAAF and RAAF/RNZAF aren’t as beleaguered as the defenders of India. Concentrated bombardment of the least-defended viable target. It’s 1943, but I’m still running my bomber pools dry, he’s still fully capable of shredding a mislaid or poorly-planned or unlucky attack. This is good, and it’s part of what I wanted when we were designing the scenario, but it’s hard not to look back on 2005 WitP’s “Corsairs and Hellcats mean game over” balance with envy. .jpg) Found these three LB-30s lying around being used for training. Put em to use. .jpg) Too big of a fight to avoid screenshot-cropping. The CAP is thinner and more tired than yesterday’s. The Skyrockets somehow pick off a couple of elite Zeroes for no loss, but the enemy succeeds in keeping us entirely away from the bombers. They clean clean runs on the invasion TF and do horrendous damage. Not irreplaceable damage - thank goodness most of the troops were disembarked, we mostly lost heavy equipment on board. But bad and serious! This is frontline attack shipping; at least a couple of those APs were due to convert to APAs or similarly useful ships. I don’t have an unlimited supply of that. I’m torn about what I did here. I have a feeling if I’d tried to defend the task force with HMS Hermes, an escort carrier and Commandant Teste, I would have just gotten them sunk too. But I should have kept the LRCAP at full-blast until every troop had landed, and drat the fatigue and ops losses. C’est la guerre or whatever? .gif) The combat report lies! We shoot them all down (okay, maybe a couple fled). It would be more convenient if the turn played out theater-by-theater, at least within the same phase. The yanking back and forth from India to Australia to India helps convey that all this is happening at the same time, but it’s disorienting to write and read. .gif) It’s not even the afternoon yet and PM’s air cover is down to nothing. :nervous: .jpg) Yep, and I’m still burning supplies doing this. We have these planes, and enemies in range with no air cover.. It’s hard to justify NOT using them. .jpg) Ah poo poo. The Jills of his Air Combat TF have a lot of targets within their range right now, but find the one loaded with troops. I really would have preferred they try to finish off the Milne invasion TF! This is the second wave, mostly base and support troops for Milne Bay. Many of them, along with two more very useful transports, go under. Most of the guns are from an AA regiment. Worst blow of the day by far. .jpg) This turn is about to end, thank God. .jpg) And we completed another day of uncontested unloading here. Nauru isn’t that important, but it’s a nice warmup for Makin and will extend my scouting vision a bit. One of the first things to do when it’s secure is to dock a seaplane tender and fly the Catalinas in. I need quicker and more reliable detection of IJN task forces leaving Truk, and I always need more eyes on the Solomons and New Britain. .jpg) Jubbulpore. .jpg) 38,31. I wonder how long this will last? .jpg) Bhopal. I’ve considered leaving behind a small garrison here, continuing the siege. The forts and terrain would lock down at least some enemy units for SOME time. Sacrificing even 100 AV in a doomed defense like that is not viable anymore, sadly. I have enough doomed defenses going on right now! .jpg) Yeah. I could have kept it going forever at Bhopal like Bangalore here, but that would have been counterproductive. Speaking of, maybe I ought to start flying the troops out of Bangalore. .jpg) I am just now noticing that enemy task force at Mili. .jpg) There’s that Nauru shock attack. Nasty casualties. Still, we knock down a fort level. The Marines can rest a day or two now and finish the enemy off when disruption and fatigue are minimized. .jpg) Surely Bellary (not to be confused with Bareilly) will fall tomorrow. The remaining defenders are cooks and staff officers and aircraft mechanics. Summary & Orders .jpg) What a day. For all my griping about letting Helens fly in unbothered, we bag three dozen of them. A bunch of modern Zeroes, too! Shame about all the sunken ships. .jpg) Okay, sure, that looks pretty bad, but hey! Intel thinks we sunk Hiei! (We did not sink Hiei.) We scuttle the APA Wharton. The damaged-but-salvageable ships (President Tyler, President Taylor and Katoomba) flee for Port Moresby. Recon reports his carriers continuing southwest, towards Australia. Beaufort squadrons fly in to Cairns and Cooktown, Spitfires move to Port Moresby to reinforce its CAP, and about a dozen task forces alter their courses to avoid the potential radius of his Jills in the morning. Busy busy busy. .jpg) I soothe my wounded ego by looking at the reinforcement list.
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Dec 29, 2023 20:30
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Velius posted:The loss of those landing craft would be crippling were you Japan. As it stands you just used that assault shipping to good effect, but how do you get those troops out again with them lost? Are you planning to extract them after landing base forces, or leaving them in place until you can get your carriers in a few months to provide extraction cover? Presumably you'll hunt down the Milne Bay forces in a couple of days. I have the base forces loaded and ready - though the task force has turned around while there are carriers out and about. And I haven't had the chance to unload all the heavy equipment for the American infantry at Milne, either. I could send a regiment chasing the evicted garrison, but I'd rather just cut them off at Buna & let them wander and get bombed in the jungle. They have no roads to march over; our guys have at least the cruddy road of the Kokoda Track. Should be a win. pthighs posted:Things are getting spicy! Absolutely. These posts are just gonna keep getting longer and longer as the US war machine kicks into high gear. May 2, 1943 .jpg) There are still a couple thousand troops left to unload at Nauru. Today will hopefully be a quiet day of consolidation there. .jpg)  .jpg) We’re also going to hammer the garrison some more. Two more bombardment TFs incoming - the last led by two American battlecruisers. .jpg) I forgot to stop these guys. .jpg) Thunderstorms, zero moonlight, it’s a little silly and dangerous. Oopsie. .jpg) USS Phlip lightly swats I-173 and continues on her way. .jpg) Daybreak, and unloading continues at Nauru. Everyone should have sailed away from Milne Bay by now. .jpg) The Dutch are still prowling around their old colonial holdings. The next wave of American subs based at Perth and Exmouth will be focusing on the Java/Borneo/Sumatra area. .jpg) His subs are still hugging the west coast, but we are responding. .png) Having an “am I having a stroke” moment re: escorts lately. .png) I only have two squadrons defending Cawnpore at this point, but they’re a couple of my best. .png) The boys defending Bareilly are NOT the best, clearly. Can’t tell if these Zeroes are flying from Lucknow or Benares, need to do more photo recon. .png) The two squadrons of Hurricanes based in Bhopal all flew out last night. .png) He is wise to start hammering Milne as soon as we’ve taken it. This is a port attack, it’ll suck up supplies and make unloading our support troops (once it’s relatively safe) even more difficult. .png) Another wave. Thank you, Lord, for the thunderstorms. Our damaged transports should get away, and they’re missing a bit more than they would’ve. .png) The Beauforts at PM wake up! Unfortunately, an APD is very difficult to hit with an air-dropped torpedo. .png) Oh dear, he has a strong CAP here this turn. That’s a problem. .png) I guess shooting up the first wave wore them out! The Hurricanes shoot down the Zero remaining and the Wellingtons make unbothered runs. .png) Feeling lucky. .png) Feeling pretty lucky! Once again, the goal isn’t so much casualties as it is disruption and bogging down. .png) Putting these fragile guys to use. .png) Those three LB-30s are still happily pitting the Gove runway. .png) After fantastic targeting yesterday, the enemy suffers catastrophic targeting today - chasing after a task force unloading in Port Moresby and running into the newly-buffed CAP as a result. Three squadrons of Spitfires - from Normanton, Cooktown and Cairns - flew in last night, and two dozen transports and other auxiliaries flew out, in preparation of an expected enemy raid. This is not the expected raid, but we swarm them anyways. This is the kind of shredding that tends to make Japanese players turn their task forces around. We’ll see what happens. .png) This is the target he wanted to hit - the fleeing, crippled transports. Some incredibly accurate bombing, really. Doubt they’ll make it to PM. .png) .png) Scary sweeps! But no Allied fighters over Milne today. It looks like he’s really putting Gasmata to use now. .png) Jodhpur Hurris find nothing opposing us over Ahmedabad. A target for the Liberators, tomorrow. .png) President Taylor, Adoniram Judson, and Katoomba sink before we hit the PM phase. (Side note: Why would you name your son after this guy, maybe the most D-tier Bible character imaginable?) .png) Tarawa target practice continues, and will continue indefinitely. The Avengers and Dauntlesses are set to naval attack primary/ground attack secondary, so if the IJN suddenly pops up within range we can respond. .png) VT-71 is hitting the port, hoping for those supply hits. If I can keep bombing him and prevent resupply for a few months, Tarawa might be worth taking instead of skipping. .png) I need to dump about 15,000 more supplies on Abemama and build the airfield up a couple of levels, then it’ll replace Tabiteuea as my frontline airbase. .png) No.. you need escorts.. ugh. The Cooktown/Cairns P-38s do not accompany them. .png) I’m just feeding him now  .png) I need to keep the heat on Gove and Umboi, deny him alternate airfields. If I can confine him mostly to Gasmata, Rabaul, and Darwin, things become much simpler. .png) I’ve said this before, but Horn Island and Terapo are SUCH useful bases. .png) Third & final wave. .png) Oh right, and he has a major airbase on Guadalcanal at Lunga. These Nells miss, but our few days of uncontested disembarking at Nauru are over. .png) Dangerous, torpedo bombers with that range based at Lunga. This wave goes after the Free French heavy cruiser Algérie and suffers for it. The French AA is solid, brings down a Nell outright and damages a few. .png) Our flak is still a pretty good deterrent, but this wave scores a hit. .png) Another kill for him today. The stretch of ocean between Hawaii and Palmyra is murderous, lately. But this is what I get for being lazy and impatient - it adds a few days to travel up from Panama to San Diego and join an escorted convoy, but.. you don't get sunk. I'm not having a stroke, I'm having an Admiral King moment. .png) More unloading, of course. .png) After fending off the Nells, the big guns come to bear on the island. .png) Jubbulpore. .png) We’re gone! The Bhopal garrison has been extracted and will move with their rescuers towards Agra. .png) Bangalore. .png) Boy, if I’d kept the Americans here, they might have held out a long time, huh? .png) Nauru has fallen!  .png) Pockets of the enemy remain, but the facilities (such as they are) are ours. Summary & Orders .png) If it weren’t for the Beauforts and the sunken ships, this would be a fantastic day. As it stands, it is merely “pretty solid.” I'm dreading the next turn, though; I'm in a bad position in several places, and I'm correcting mistakes I made weeks or months earlier. "Distractible man playing complicated game at a slow pace" problems. Alikchi fucked around with this message at 03:06 on Jan 1, 2024 |
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Jan 1, 2024 02:54
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wedgekree posted:Goonspeed you good Sir! They shall call you the MacArthur of the seas! Cimber posted:Not sure if thats a complement. MacArthur was a terrible general Yeah I'm gonna go with I already am the MacArthur of the seas. In any case, I found a suitable post for The General.ChaosDragon posted:So how the score in the air? Getting better. I should go back, run the numbers, be more specific than that, but the new models of fighter are making a difference. I'm surprised by how valuable the P-40K has been, especially. May 3, 1943 .png) Kongo and Kirishima bully their way past Port Moresby’s PT boat defenders, obliterating poor PT-179 with a single 36cm shell. PT-174 sheers off after receiving a burst from one of Kawakaze’s 13.2mm Hotchkiss MGs. Several PTs launch torpedoes, but none score a hit. .png) Next up are Kota Agoeng (unloading guns and trucks) and the USS Rathburne. Historically, she converted to an APD - and she probably would have survived if I’d gone with that. Here she heroically charges Kirishima and scores a torpedo hit! She then goes down under a hail of 150mm secondary gunfire. RIP. .png) Evade combat? You’re PT boats at night! Battleships are afoot! Well, they probably would get picked apart, but to decline fighting entirely.. Someone’s getting fired. Looks like both Mornington and Port Moresby are about to be bombarded, no point in shoving that many battleships into those hexes and NOT doing it. .png) Kind of funny to destroy anything in particular, with 0% moonlight and storms. .png) Did he ship in more AA here? I’m putting these B-25s on naval search (maybe even naval strike?) tomorrow. .png) He chose a good time to hit PM. At least these ships were carrying only supplies, not men or equipment - and PM is already above 60,000 supplies. Still, this hurts. Kagero shivs Adhara with two torpedoes very neatly, not a shell fired. Kongo cleans up the rest, including the two poor destroyer-escorts. Tough to be a Clemson/Wickes guy today. .png) I’ve been sending a string of single xAKs and (preferably) xAKLs to Groote and Mornington, usually escorted by minesweepers and subchasers, if anything. They’ve been keeping both bases in supply, supplemented by a sustained C-47 airlift. One of those task forces is caught outside Mornington. Destroyer Uzuki puts Alabaman down with a single torpedo. The two minesweepers are rapidly sunk by 410mm and 200mm shells. .png) Back to PM and Kongo and Kirishima do their bombardment. This is an excellent performance for two battlecruisers at night, but not enough to really dent PM. Gunning down all those PT boats and DEs and transports expended time and ammunition. .png) Mornington Island’s turn. This is a truly exemplary bombardment. Look at those casualties! .png) Daybreak! Kagero, Kawakaze and Kongo sink a PT boat apiece. .png) Tamanami picks off PT-180 immediately and it gets worse from there. This engagement is actually in the hex just “left” of PM, towards Australia.. Kongo & Kirishima are heading west, not back east where they came from. .png) Completely understand running away right now. Driving a glorified speedboat at a battleship in broad daylight is stupid. .png) The Mornington bombardment force’s next encounter in the Gulf of Carpentaria: a large minelayer, escorted by another minesweeper. USS Weehawken (originally SS Estrada Palma, a Florida car ferry) and USS Direct are ignored. Good! .png) I turned this one around last turn. Too late. .png) Need to get past these guys and to the sweet, juicy tankers they’re shielding. .png) Interesting little engagement. No one’s shot down, but we damage three of the four Tojos quite badly. .png) The remaining Ki-44 over 46,22 is swatted effortlessly by a Spit. .png) Looks like Junyo and Hiyo are in the Gulf of Carpentaria, too. That’s most of the Japanese carriers accounted for. Six disabled at Singapore. Tairyu and Donryu near PM, Junyo and Hiyo near Mornington. CVLs.. not sure. I bet some are in the Marshalls or Carolines somewhere. This attack continues today’s theme: heavy hit, not a knockout blow. Normanton is full of engineers and AA. He’ll have to keep up the pressure to accomplish whatever he’s trying to accomplish here. .png) .png) .png) The giant swarm of Helens reappears over Bellary. They’re not super effective. .png) The CVE USS Sangamon sailed out of Cairns overnight to try her hand at the enemy. (Along with HMS Hermes, but Hermes carries no strike craft, only short-ranged fighters.) Her air group sticks together and finds Donryu and Tairyu, but their attack is a disaster, with every last fighter and bomber shot down. .png) Excellent! .png) That ought to slow them down. .png) A squadron of Wellingtons peppers Ahmedabad’s runway. .png) Not bad work here, either. .png) Blenheims… you tried. .png) Useful! .png) We’re slipping past them now. .png) Spreading the love around today. .png) A few extra hits on Ahmedabad! .png) Rough day for these Nells. Most of the transports are gone, and the destroyers are very hard targets. .png) Bad weather helps too! .png) Scratch CAP over Terapo is more than enough to fend off these unescorted Nells. The Kittyhawks are at the proper (low) altitudes. .png) Can’t forget Tarawa’s daily raids. .png) This squadron will fly as far west as it can overnight tonight - hopefully to Australia. I need non-Beaufort torpedo bombers in the Gulf of Carpentaria/Torres Strait area ASAP.  More Rabaul Nells. Only one gets away.   Unfortunate. Again, it would be nice if the P-38s set to escort tagged along.  Look who’s back at Gove! One Zero is shot down by a Liberator’s .50 cals, and both somehow make it back to Tennant Creek.   The Lunga Nells may have temporarily used up their stocks of torpedoes? That’s a 60kg bomb hit, not a problem.  Nope, okay, this wave does have torpedoes. All misses, though.  Another wave, more misses.  These Nells are wising up. The Terapo Kittyhawks have been feasting on them all day. Of this wave, the is immediately shot down and the rest turn back.  A pair of wandering Wildcats from USS Sangamon’s VF-37 are unable to prevent these wide-ranging Nells from torpedoing this (empty, returning from Horn Island) transport.  Jubbulpore.  38,31. I hadn’t commented on it yet, but you can see that the Japanese have occupied now-abandoned Bhopal.  Bangalore Forever.  Yet another day I didn’t expect Bellary to hold.  Good casualty ratio too! Summary & Orders  Insane day. All his heavy hitters are out to play, and all my proper CVs are still in the yards. Tomorrow should be even more insane. Also: check out SIGINT. They shifted the 65th Brigade’s planning target from Groote to Mornington. Invasion imminent? He could even land at Normanton, I suppose. We send a brigade from Rockhampton to help garrison it. code:
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Jan 3, 2024 04:10
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