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[Journier]

I actually still own the island, they landed like 5000 guys on it before my battleships got there to stop any more from coming.

and i cant really kill the defenders since i have mostly support and engineers on it but they cant take it from me either since fairly near on troop strength.  I gotta bring reinforcements from the home islands for it

edit-

Apparently i can kill the defenders by just setting all my battleships in a fleet and bombarding every turn, since they apparently reload their ammo from truk every turn afterwards.

thats nice.

oddly the first few bombardments killed 200+ infantry, and now they are only doing 100 or so a bombardment :/

ok training up my carrier fleet some more to around 50+ exp average ground bombing for all my planes, and i killed 200 enemy infantry after about 2 weeks of training. Much better result...


and finish this up with another question....

Best IJ navy bomber? To me the G3M2 and G3M3 Nells are both the best bombers to go with until around 1944 and even then... they have incredible range.

[EuchreJack]

oddly the first few bombardments killed 200+ infantry, and now they are only doing 100 or so a bombardment :/

Considering the compexity of this game, I'd assume it's calculating the fact that the least-protected and most-bunched up defenders die first.  There is also less people to kill, so the results are less spectacular.  Subsequent defenders are more spread out and better fortified.  It's fairly standard in many games with bombardment.

[Erkki]

April 27th, 28th, 29th

China: we're advancing. Slowly...

DEI: Koepang falls! 5 more islands secured in 3 days.

Burma:

Air war keeps going, approx 40 more Ki-43s are traded for similar-ish number of P-40s and P-39s. So it seems the enemy likes to rotate his air units in and out...

Not wanting to fight in the air means he is paying dearly for keeping Burma supplied: for the last 10 days G4Ms have torpedoed 2 ships a day on average.

[Erkki]

April 30th, May 1st

China: now cut in half! Northern half should not be economically self-sustaining, and its oil and fuel no longer runs south's industry...

Burma:

Air war over Burma culminates when Carrier Division II comes to visit Rangoon and the afternoon tea goes down the wrong throat. The enemy throws everything he has in the air: P-39s, P-400s, P-40s of 2 types, Hurricanes of 2 types, Wellingtons, Blenheims, even Buffaloes!

All in vain. In 2 days the enemy loses at least 60 fighters for 20 Japanese(50% OPS losses and about 10 lost pilots), and loses about 12 ships. A convoy tries to make it out, runs into carriers, turns back to Rangoon and gets attacked by both carrier planes and Bangkok's G4Ms.

May 1st, Wellingtons raid Bangkok in the night, losing 1 to AAA. Ki-43s sweep Rangoon, lose 3(and 5 writeoff/ops) to 18 confirmed and 15-ish damaged allied fighters. When G4Ms go in, there are no more Allied fighters... Then in go carrier planes. Then the shock: every single Blenheim the enemy has, about 40 in total, attack Japanese carriers! 1 Zero is lost to escort P-40s(5 P-40s shot), and 10 Blenheims get through. They score 2 hits on Kaga: 1 doesnt penetrate the belt armour, the other penetrates deck but its a small 250lbs one, no fires, damage is minimal, fixed in day or 2. Enemy loses about 20 Blenheims.

Very good day to the IJAAF and IJNAF! Just 3 Ki-43 pilots are traded to about 60 enemy aircraft and at least 4 ships, 3 more took torpedo hits but are not confirmed. 

[Sheb]

Great game!

What's the consequence of China being cut in half? Is northern China one giant pocket? Also good for you on rangoon. With so many planes shoot down, he must not have many left, and with no way to bring in more, you'll have a free sky! Keep up the good work.

[inteuniso]

It means that he can probably take all of China now. Get the North pocket first, then take down the rest of China! Congrats, you've done more than the Japanese could have ever done in real life!

[Erkki]

Great game!

What's the consequence of China being cut in half? Is northern China one giant pocket? Also good for you on rangoon. With so many planes shoot down, he must not have many left, and with no way to bring in more, you'll have a free sky! Keep up the good work.

On China, I hope it will make the already bad supply situation the enemy has even worse... It will have long time effects in his ability to keep fighting and especially replacing losses. Once the oil storages are used(if there are any), it will get even worse.

We are making it extremely costly to him to keep Burma supplied... And the road to China, and that way, partially the China front as well. He needs to keep his air force at Rangoon to protect the shipping(which it at the moment cannot do), meaning the air force is not where it could be offensive.. Say, New Guinea and Solomons. Or China...

G3M3 super long range bomber and Ki-45 now in production, 3 first examples out of the factory already. A wing sized unit at Osaka receives its first Ki-45 "Toruys"... I hope the unit to be ready to be sent to Rabaul in a week. Pilots will be fresh graduates of my training program, with no combat experience but good skills.

[Erkki]

It means that he can probably take all of China now. Get the North pocket first, then take down the rest of China! Congrats, you've done more than the Japanese could have ever done in real life!

I dont think its possible... The northern pocket alone is huge, and conquering it provides little resources and not that much oil. Trying it would tie up forces for long time. I'm going for southern part first, as its the one that is supplied from Burma and produces the fighting units and supplies. What I hope to happen is that they run out of supplies and cant fight a war any more, so that I can move less needed units to Burma.

IRL Japanese managed to conquer Burma(although just temporarily). I havent got to Rangoon yet... But those Allied air and ground units are away from other fronts.

EDIT: and the current top pilots situation. The KIA/MIA ones listed as being in "reserve" were in a withdrawed Zero unit, now reformed as Genzan Ku S-1(at Truk, as in the list), but the killed and missing pilots didnt make it.

[Hyo]

I have a question: How much damage does the recent losses - 60 planes and 12 ships - do to the allied forces? Is it a considerable one, or is it just a minor setback that they can recover from within a week or two?

[Erkki]

I have a question: How much damage does the recent losses - 60 planes and 12 ships - do to the allied forces? Is it a considerable one, or is it just a minor setback that they can recover from within a week or two?

The last 3 or 4 days casualties in fighters alone require about a month, at least, to build up. The fact that last 4 days they have even been using Buffaloes says a lot: at least the RAF Far East Command is running low on fighters. The American units in Burma seem to be seriously understrength as well.

But those losses will be replaced sooner or later, so in the long run the true loss is in the pilots. Today, the Hurricanes only got 2 Ki-43s, when they have been the best enemy fighter just weeks ago. Even the P-40s and Hurricanes that had the cohesion and position advantage against escorting carrier Zeroes were just annihilated, so there cant be many well trained pre-war pilots alive.

Of course failure to achieve even temporary air superiority will cost them even more planes and pilots, and now also big transport ship or 2 every day, and probably loads of supplies and troops aboard those ships. They dont run "The Gauntlet"  to Rangoon and back for fun!

[Journier]

heh nice.

it seems to me, Once you have air superiority its easier to hold it since you kill off enemy pilots before they get trained very much. thereby giving you very ace pilots with 10+ kills and the enemy few if any.

Ive actually been dissapointed with the Ki-61b,c,d. The range gets fantastic at the Ki-61d tony, but my inexperienced pilots in rangoon all 150 of them are getting smoked daily by enemy air power sweeping daily :/

they are continuously whittled down to their ace pilot core, then i set them on stand down again and repilot and rebuild the planes in them once every week or so.

[Erkki]

heh nice.

it seems to me, Once you have air superiority its easier to hold it since you kill off enemy pilots before they get trained very much. thereby giving you very ace pilots with 10+ kills and the enemy few if any.

Ive actually been dissapointed with the Ki-61b,c,d. The range gets fantastic at the Ki-61d tony, but my inexperienced pilots in rangoon all 150 of them are getting smoked daily by enemy air power sweeping daily :/

they are continuously whittled down to their ace pilot core, then i set them on stand down again and repilot and rebuild the planes in them once every week or so.

Do what they do, use Ki-44 and Ki-43, service rating 1 planes, for CAP. Sweep with Ki-61s, fields in range, or try to catch "leaking CAP" by sweeping adjacent hexes for maximum numerical advantage. CAP, often even with radar, is at small disadvantage as sweep is likely to arrive together but defenders are scattered patrols, or scrambled, but it goes both ways.

What do the Allies use, P-47? If you can locate a flak-less field(maybe sacrificing a Ki-21/49 squad or two), hit it with Kido Butai or massed bombers and every fighter set to sweep and escort. They'll maul your fields but you'll kill their planes and relieve pressure. Thats the best way to kill bombers too.... I got some Wellingtons and Blenheims raiding Rangoon's fields with G4Ms(at 21,000ft), when the RAF refused to fly its fighters. 

[Journier]

it looks like im gonna lose rangoon, its mid 1944 in my game now, and the allies are now pounding me with b-29 superforts throughout rangoon area from 4 different airfields arghghgh.

 I gotta try the sweeping them while they are sweeping me though, see how effective it is.

I have cleared out china by the start of 1944, and have 140,000 men crossing over the mountains in the west of china to go relieve rangoon currently, since the allies invaded burma with something like 80,000 troops, and made my lvl 5 forts fall down faster than an 90 year old woman on ice. Pushing my 20,000 man armies south into rangoon. And they need like a week of rest and training since they battled for 2 weeks in the northern burma cities with fortifications holding off this giant stack they had no right to.

actually... Rangoon is cut off completely currently, and i have nearly 250 level bombers (g3m3's and ki-49IIb helens) bombing all there troops in open flat land killing 500+ troops a day (fantastic results)

 I really need to evacuate or hope the AI is dumb enough not to push on rangoon for another month so my reinforcements can reach there! Rangoon will have a lvl 6 fort before the main group gets there but i dont know if its gonna hold long enough... arghhh.

However, Burma is the only place in danger since the AI is so retarded.

It sends it major fleet to circle Kwajolein island every week or so, which i send all my carriers to intercept and kill most of the large ships, then it does it again in a week and a half or so, and i do it again.

It has yet to take any of my major islands, and its super concentrated on kwajolein + roi namur. thats all it wants to kill. Truk was invaded 3x and ive destroyed something like 15,000+ invading troops across those 3 invasions now.

my current score is along the lines of 75,000 japan, vs 25,000 Allies :/

[Erkki]

May 2nd

Looks like the enemy doesnt want to fly. Well well. 18 ships reported in Rangoon's port... 80 G4Ms will strike it tomorrow, if the Gods of weather co-operate.

Cruiser Concord and 2 escorting destroyers sweep up The Solomons Chain, probably in hopes of catching transports.. But they find death. G3Ms and G4Ms from Rabaul hit them, scoring 2 torpedo hits on Concord. She most likely sank, and if not, closest Allied port about 250 nautical miles away.

[Sheb]

What kind of ships? Mostly empty transport I guess?