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[Erkki]

March 25th


Burma: A squadron strong unit of bombers appears to have been moved to Dacca. Japanese troops will secure Katha in northern Burma tomorrow. Troops to invade Great Nicobar island start boarding ships at Singapore - the island is unoccupied but I'm going to build it into a small airbase so just 1 aviation support company and a construction battalion.

East Indies: Christmas Island captured, Dutch 139WHs fly 14 sorties against Japanese transports unloading at Samarinda and manage to score a hit on a transport. I give it 50-50% chance to sink tomorrow.

Philippine Islands: Guiuan captured, Cebu invaded tomorrow.

SOPAC: 2 transports collide off the northern coast of New Guinea. Both of them were carrying aviation support units to Horn Island and are pretty heavily damaged now... They'll try to make it to Hollandia and unload the troops. Those troops will then be picked up by another convoy that will set sail at Rabaul tonight.

Submarine I-27(BishopX): Reached its station near Perth today. For tomorrow, I-27 and the nearby I-29 are tasked to fly their E14Y floatplanes to reconnaissance Perth's port.

PO2 Nishiura, P.(Burnt Pies): With a supporting Air HQ now at Buna, the Kanoya Ku K-1 is transferred to Port Moresby! 2 planes crash at landing but they can be repaired, and nobody got hurt. The unit's task is to patrol the Coral Sea and Australian coast as long as to Cairns, and to attack shipping sighted. For any offensive sortie they will be escorted by the crack Zero unit 3rd Ku S-1 also stationed at Port Moresby.

[Burnt Pies]

Hooray! Let's cause some explosions!

[Erkki]

Hooray! Let's cause some explosions!

I think all the shipping on the Australian eastern coast has been evacuated long ago, but Japanese bombers overflying Cooktown, Portland Roads and Cairns daily should keep them honest. Even the fastest warships trying to use the Torrest Strait will be within G4M1's range for at least a full 24 hours, even longer if they're allowed to fly without escorts...

Ki-46 reconnaissance unit gets flown in tomorrow, if opportunity arises we'll bomb some ports and airfields, but I'm not going to risk the bombers against fighters, even if they're escorted, if it can be avoided.

[Anvilfolk]

Damn this let's play. I've been reading "A Dawn Like Thunder: the true story of torpedo squadron 8" and I see so many of these events in it. It's making me want to bloody buy the game...... (and then never play it).

[Erkki]

Damn this let's play. I've been reading "A Dawn Like Thunder: the true story of torpedo squadron 8" and I see so many of these events in it. It's making me want to bloody buy the game...... (and then never play it).

Why not? 

[Anvilfolk]

Takes too long with too much micromanagement, unfortunately. It's a big commitment, and I end up never going through with it! Again, I'd love to command a single task force in a big campaign, but every ship and every squadron of every task force is a bit too much

I'll get it one day when I'm rich, if only to support the existence of such games

[Erkki]

Fair enough! 

No turn in the mail this morning, I hope my opponent has the time for hid orders in the afternoon or early evening.

[Anvilfolk]

So, right now it seems like Japan is pretty much doing whatever it wants. Is this mostly the opponent, or is it normal until the US's production starts pumping out more and more vessels?

[Erkki]

So, right now it seems like Japan is pretty much doing whatever it wants. Is this mostly the opponent, or is it normal until the US's production starts pumping out more and more vessels?

Japan is not doing what it wants - if I'd do just that we'd find Japan get unopposed in most places but defeated  horribly in others. Even now the Dutch are delaying the Japanese on Java and I'm scrapping up units on Honshu for the next targets. After the battle of Makassar I dont think my opponent will be doing much more resistance in the East Indies as long as Japan keeps using Kido Butai to support its offensives there, but that means those naval, land and air units the Allies will choose or have chosen to not use there will be available later.

Compared to most other games the tempo is fairly slow... While it may now seem that Japan marches from easy victory to another that is far from being the case. We must remember that the Allied navies in the Indian Ocean and Pacific put together already outnumber the Imperial Japanese fleet, and that their air forces are already equally numerous. However Allies are still reorganizing and consolidating their forces, looking for an opportunity to strike back without getting defeated piecemeal.

Its a long war ahead and Smeulders clearly doesnt want to lose too much hardware early on - each ship the Allies lose will be replaced by a dozen others, but not instantly, so each one-sided loss will push back the day when the Allies gain the upper hand. I cant blame him for not fighting against hopeless odds.

[Erkki]

I think I promised screenshots for today(in the WitpAE forum thread).... Okay.

Next turn is 110th's so its time to do an analysis. Lets go first through the map, clockwise.


Kuriles:


I decided to not invade Aleutians. In 7 days we'll have some units at Paramushiro together with battlewagons and search planes. I'll later also move units to Onnekottan-Jima and at least a 3rd battalion of infantry to Paramushiro and an engineer unit to build up the forts quicker.

I havent seen Allied submarines here for a while. There were 2 or 3 a month ago but Skipjack got shot up by an xAK south of Hokkaido and havent seen them since.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Central Pacific:

I decided to not invade Wake, using that force to at New Britain instead. I have moved away most shipping to minimize losses against a possible raid, but reinforced Marcus and Tarawa. Once Solomons have enough units we'll start reinforcing some key islands and atolls here.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

South Pacific:

We have captured everything we've wanted with minimal Allied interference. Port Moresby was invaded simultaneously with KB raid to Brisbane that sunk CA Canberra and CL Achilles with her escort DD and at least heavily damaged 3 other CLs. From now on we will be on the defensive here.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

East Indies:

Still a lot to take here... The Dutch are delaying us at Bandoeng where they have 950 AV vs. 2800 Japanese behind 2 forts in mountain terrain. When forts were 3, 2100 Japanese AV still achieved 2:1 so I'm carefully optimistic that we might retreat them in 3 or 4 attacks. Invasion fleet with a fresh division and lots of support units will set sail from Kove to Timor in 8 days - once Koepang is ours the Japanese carriers are free to do some raiding! [8D]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Andaman Sea:

We're building up some airbases to monitor Allied traffic in the Bay of Bengal... I dont want them to invade Sumatra either. Fortifying this area will rise in my priorities by late 1942 but I dont think the Allies can attack here before early 43.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Burma:

Allies retreated after little fighting and Burma is ours. I'm expecting the Allies to start bombing Magwe's oil wells any day now, and we're building airfields... Lots of Ki-43s here. I really, really need more troops in Burma but there arent really any available before the East Indies is secured - will take several months more. []

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

China: front stabilized and semi-ceasefire in effect. The road from Indochina to Shanghai is clear and looking at Tracker all the fuel from Burma and Sumatra-->Singapore seems to flowing all the way to Korea as or almost as quickly as it gets produced... Nice! I might be able to shorten my sea lanes from Sumatra/Singapore to Kyushu to Shanghai/Port Arthur/Pusan-Kyushu!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Naval losses so far: (not counting PH raid where I know I got something, but nothing is confirmed)


Japan:

3 x DD (1 old)
1 x TB
1 x DMS

Half a dozen small ships, 3 xAP, some 7 xAK - losses are very light


Allies:

CV Yorktown
BB Royal Sovereign
CA Canberra
CL Achilles
CL Mauritius
CL Danae
CL Enterprise
CL Marblehead
7 x DD

Probables:
CL Java
CL Dragon
1 x DD

Damaged, some might even be sunk:
CL De Ryuter
CL Perth
CL Adelaine
CL Durban
1 x DD

Also AV Langley, 3 big xAPs, dozen-ish xAKs, 2 submarines, 4 big TKs, some dozen tenders and loads of small ships(xAK, xAKL, xAP etc.) from various classes

Air forces of both sides are practically intact. KB's air units got a bit roughed up at Pearl, but so did AVG over China and Burma. Dutch air units have been attrited a little but they should still have lots of planes left.

Industry: I recently managed to finally stop the Home Islands' resource levels from dropping. Resource and fuel levels have been growing for a few days, although the fuel isnt growing fast enough for the time when I run out of oil. HI points are increasing at a nice 3500/day and I'm accelerating all but 2 CVs(Shinano canceled and Aso still in queue). I'm expecting the HI increase to lower to around 2000/day once the Ki-44 and Ki-49 mass-production programs start together with other aircraft. I rather defend my oil fields harder than reserve HI for the time I dont have those fields any more. That means with my skills its game over by 1944. []

[Fishbreath]

The tag here is [img], not [image]. >.>

[Erkki]

The tag here is [img], not [image]. >.>

Oops. Just copy-pasted it. 

[Zrk2]

The East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere shall reign supreme.

Or not. Do you have any idea what the Allies are planning?

[Sheb]

Yeah, I cannot wait to see the counter-attack. Seems that they must have a huge fleet building up somewhere that will strike you soon. Either you'll manage to sink/damage their CVs and buy some time, or it'll be really painful.

[Erkki]

March 26th 1942


East Indies: Japanese forces advance on Celebes. Deliberate attack ordered at Bandoeng tomorrow: 2780 Japanese AV(21 more joining in 7 days) faces 920-1,000 Allied, forts 2(should be), mountain hex, Allies cut off from supply and bombarded for soon 3 weeks. Last attack with forts 3 and still with supply the casualties were 1:2 and forts dropped - high hopes!

South Pacific: Japanese forces land at Woodlark Island, Tulagi's airfield is expanded to size 2 and Rabaul's port is now size 4 and building.

Home Islands: Timor invasion fleet ready, now waiting for the political points... 3 A6M3 R&D factories are fully ready so if my understanding of R&D mechanics is right we should be able to accelerate the plane by 1 month to 5/42. 4th factory is 5 points away from ready at 25(5).

Submarines: Dutch submarines try their luck at Christmas Island and Port Moresby - they get attacked by Japanese escorts but managed to get away. I-29 and I-27 recon Perth: no units at port and very little troops. Lets see if we get better info tomorrow.

Yeah, I cannot wait to see the counter-attack. Seems that they must have a huge fleet building up somewhere that will strike you soon. Either you'll manage to sink/damage their CVs and buy some time, or it'll be really painful.

Yes the Allied fleet is hiding somewhere... But I dont believe Smeulders will be risking a direct mano et mano fight against KB and Japanese surface units quite yet, and not in the East Indies where Japanese fuel and repair facilities are close but Allies' closest are at Perth and Indian western coast.

I'm expecting the first Allied counterattack to be against Solomons, Gilberts or Marshalls.