el lobo
Posts: 825
Joined: 7/20/2013
From: Khon Kaen, Thailand (orig: Sacramento, CA)
Status: offline
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I'm just not sure how I want to go about this AAR so for now I will just throw some stuff out and see how it goes.
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PREFACE
I know that I am not telling most of you anything that you don't already know so I am going to preface this whole AAR with,
As you know----
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Here is the first turn, Dec 7, 1941.
I have sand-boxed this first turn many times and you get used to the AI doing certain things fairly regularly so the turn was not quite what I expected but it was OK.
I am doing the Mersing Gambit partly a la Quixote's “A Road Less Traveled”
( http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=3380330&mpage=1&key=� ) with a couple of my own twists.
The Magic Moves TFs are there for a historical start and a few Japanese players leave them as they are, others change them and others treat them like live snakes. You can move ships between them, add ships to them, redirect them, add ships and then load more troops, change their missions and make more of the missions types that you want. A brief rundown:
At Etorofu I split the KB and sent TF1 with the four fast CVs just east of Mersing. TF2 with the other two CVs went just east of Manila. I created an extra replenishment TFs, and the MM one went with TF1, and a SC TF went to San Fernando, P.I..
At Pescadoris TF8 ended-up as a twenty-one ship Amphib TF to San Fernando and TF12 ended-up as a thirty-nine ship Amphib TF to the same hex as TF1. (More on this later.)
At Takao, TF14 ended-up as an eighteen ship SC TF that went to Lubang. (TF19 disappeared.) TF 90 lost all of its SC ships added some more ships and troops and went to San Fernando accompanied by TF 96 which also added more ships and troops.
At Samah TF4 ended-up as a seven ship SC TF and went just south of Hong Kong where it did this,
Allied Ships
DD Scout, Shell hits 9, heavy fires, heavy damage
DD Thanet, Shell hits 22, and is sunk
DD Thracian, Shell hits 19, and is sunk
TF7 took all of TF125's ships (not a MM TF) and went to the same hex as TF1. TF85 took a coupe of ships from TF108 and went to Kota Bharu as scheduled. TF91 went to Singora as scheduled. TFs 92 and 97 went to the same hex as TF1.
At Babeldaob TF3 dropped its DDs and went to CRB where is will upgrade its a/c and then act as an escort to Muri and area. TF98 at CRB went to Kota Bharu.
So now at hex 55,82, one hex north-east of Terempa Island, sits TF1 with its replenishment TF, and five other amphip TFs. I stopped the amphib TFs there for two reasons. First of all that's too many TFs at a time in one port trying to all unload at once. Second of all, nine times out of ten against the AI, force Z is sitting two hexes east of Mersing and even though the amphib is MM, it plowes through force Z on the way to Mersing, and they end-up at Mersing as if having been in a surface battle. Many damaged and sometimes some don't make it. The amphib TFs don't even phase force Z but the Air Combat TF usually does a number on them.
So I stopped them where I did, I will let TF1 clean-up the area, and will bring TFs 5 and 11 down to bombard and escort. I will split some DMSs out and send them in first and then send the amphip TFs into Mersing one at a time and have them unload troops only. (I'll bring the supplies back in a couple of days.)
This time no force Z. I think Rio's strategy is to bug-out and come back to fight another day. That doesn't always work. For example, at Babeldaob TF13 turned into a twenty ship Amphib TF but still had its original SC ships embedded. On their way to Cagayan they ran into a ship bugging-out and here is what happened.
Day Time Surface Combat, near Siargao at 83,88, Range 20,000 Yards
Japanese Ships
CS Mizuho
CS Chitose, Shell hits 1
CL Nagara, Shell hits 12, heavy fires, heavy damage
DD Yukikaze, Shell hits 2
DD Tokitsukaze, Shell hits 1
DD Yamakaze
DD Kawakaze
DD Umikaze
DD Suzukaze
xAK Myoko Maru
xAK Shinanogawa Maru
xAK Shinryu Maru
xAK Kanko Maru
xAK Yasukawa Maru, Shell hits 1, heavy fires
xAK Hasuna Maru
xAK Meigen Maru
xAK Yamafuku Maru
xAKL Kakyu Maru, Shell hits 1, on fire
xAP Haruna Maru, Shell hits 1, on fire
Allied Ships
CL Boise, Shell hits 12, Torpedo hits 2, and is sunk
Rio's email to me after I sent him the Combat Report. I no have Boisie no more? *pouts and throws computer out the window*
TF1 did help the war effort with this.
Afternoon Air attack on TF, near Lingga at 51,87
Japanese aircraft losses
D3A1 Val: 4 damaged
Allied Ships
xAK Tai Sang, Bomb hits 2, on fire
xAK Zannis Cambanis, Torpedo hits 3, and is sunk
xAKL Tatung, Bomb hits 3, heavy fires, heavy damage
xAP Hong Kheng, Bomb hits 6, and is sunk
xAK Wulin, Bomb hits 3, and is sunk
xAK Neleus, Torpedo hits 2, and is sunk
xAK Silverbeech, Torpedo hits 4, and is sunk
xAKL Bust, Bomb hits 4, and is sunk
xAK Demodocus, Bomb hits 4, heavy fires, heavy damage
xAKL Lyemun, Bomb hits 3, heavy fires, heavy damage
xAKL Marudu
All empty, no troop-loss.
My other focal point on day one was Manila and it was a miserable effort. This is typical.
Morning Air attack on Manila , at 79,77
Weather in hex: Severe storms
Raid detected at 97 NM, estimated altitude 12,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 32 minutes
Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 36
B5N2 Kate x 54
D3A1 Val x 45
Allied aircraft
no flights
No Japanese losses
Allied aircraft losses
P-40E Warhawk: 3 destroyed
Allied ground losses:
18 casualties reported
Squads: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled
Non Combat: 0 destroyed, 4 disabled
Engineers: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled
Port hits 5
Port supply hits 1
I had all of the fighters and bombers out of Takao targeted for Manila with very few flights and TF2 as above. Even on my worst day against the AI I would get a half-o'-dozen ships and subs but today, nada.
To me this means that the Wx was to bad or he bugged everything out. Rio loves his subs. Tomorrow will tell.
I am going to stop here. I can do maps or whatever else anyone wants so let me know. Tomorrow I will post my basic strategy.
Thanks to all who made it this far.
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