Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: styer27

Hi guys, recently purchased the game, loving it so far, im playing IJN and am in the middle of 1942, though ive experienced a big dilemma with an invasion of Midway. I dont understand whats happening, ill explain.

I landed 3 SNLF first, was suprized to see they are shock attacking every turn after unloading, did some reading, found out about the atoll penalty, so thats fair enough. After a few turns i notice my supplies are at 0 for all units, wierd becuase i included 30,000 supplies on the transports. So i load up another supply run from Japan with another 30,000. They get to Midway, unload under heavy fire, but my supplies are still at 0 for all units! Figured they might be wasting into replacements so i turned replacements off, still nothing for 3 turns. So in desperation i load a entire division into a transport fleet and send them in with another 30,000 supplies, exact same thing happens, 0 supply for all squads, i dont understand whats going on. I cant afford to waste 90,000 supply as IJN.

Anyways ive lost abut 20 transports from the CD guns, thousands of men and havent even scratched the enemy units, maybe 1000 casualties in total. They seem invincible. Bear in mind i have 2 CV fleets constantly bombing them, have bombarded 3 times now with BB fleets. But the worst part is, now my transports have stopped unloading, and are now LOADING troops to retreat, i cant stop them. 2 weeks have passed, 90k supply down the drain for nothing, and the icing on the cake is i get the message "Units at Midway destroyed by attrition!!" I look and my entire force is vanished, with only remnants loaded onto the transports and they are heading back home to Japan. I really dont understand this, can someone please give me some advice on what im meant to do in this situation, this is a real gamebreaker for me, killing my desire to play anymore, even though ive been loving the game so much thus far.

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120k supply lost along with 20 thousand men and more than 30 transports, ... I had some losses yeah,

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and the IJN's best trained pilots.

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This is a misnomer, Japan lost a lot of pilots, but by no means all. Actual losses were about 25%, give or take. Read Shattered Sword.

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ORIGINAL: spence

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This is a misnomer, Japan lost a lot of pilots, but by no means all. Actual losses were about 25%, give or take. Read Shattered Sword.

According to "Shattered Sword" it was the great Japanese tactical victory in the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands off Guadalcanal that cost the Japanese the largest number of their veteran aircrew.

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ORIGINAL: styer27

Finally took it!

The amount of men was defiantly the issue, i pulled out everyone leaving only remnants of that one division, next supply run boosted thier supplies instantly, and i took the Island on the next deliberate attack. After 5 battleship fleet bombardments, about 50 squadron attacks from 7 different CV's, 120k supply lost along with 20 thousand men and more than 30 transports, ive finally taken that accursed Island! I had some losses yeah, but no way near the losses on the historical invasion, so im happy. Also looking forward to seeing how history unfolds from here.

Thanks again for the help guys, knowing what problem to address finally, helped a great deal in taking the Island. I knew visiting the IJN high council would solved the issue .... BANAII!!!

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ORIGINAL: styer27

It will be my unsinkable aircraft carrier of course. Emily from midway will almost reach to the US coast. It will also replace Wake island as my northern submarine base, halving the time it takes for subs to get it US west coast and Pearl.

I did plan on leaving it at first, hence the late attack, but when the allies landed troops ships in the northern island chain near Sapporo, that was my "doolittle raid" which changed my mind about taking it. Im not sending more troops to defend it, ships, subs and aircraft will do that job. Im only sending a base force, a naval guard and an AF company. AV, AS, AD and a few subchasers will be all i send there. And ill keep a CV closeby for a few months to cover any counters attacks if they come.

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ORIGINAL: pontiouspilot
I do not advocate trying an atoll invasion as Japan after the magic Ap 1st date. The IJN never possess the specialty landing equipment/ships to do a good job of it.

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Most the pilots were blasted on the deck of the carriers while they were about to take off, Kaga, Akagi and Soryu suffered hits directly onto the assembling aircraft. The reason why the Marinaras were such a turkey shoot is for that exact reason, there were no good pilots left after Midway, apart from those on the Shokaku and Zuikaku, the only IJN carriers to cause any trouble after Midway.

I think stating 75% of pilots survived the devastation of the Kaga and Soryu especially, is a far stretch. They were blazing infernos within minutes. Kaga lost 800 men of 1700, Soryu lost 700 men of 1100, these are HUGE percentages! Even the Hiryu lost 400 of 1100 and thats one of the better ratios.

Kaga - 4 hits, 1st of which lands directly on parked aircraft rdy to take off.

Akagi - 2 hits, 2nd hit landed directly on parked aircraft, quote from Battlefield Midway documentary "The second bomb, fell among the parked aircraft on her deck, fuel and bombs ignited immediatly, killing the elite of the Japanese airfleet, in thier cockpits"

Soryu - 3 hits, 2 of which land on parked planes yet again.

i dont think as many pilots survived as you might think. 25% survived, seems more realistic.

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ORIGINAL: spence

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Most the pilots were blasted on the deck of the carriers while they were about to take off, Kaga, Akagi and Soryu suffered hits directly onto the assembling aircraft. The reason why the Marinaras were such a turkey shoot is for that exact reason, there were no good pilots left after Midway, apart from those on the Shokaku and Zuikaku, the only IJN carriers to cause any trouble after Midway.

I think stating 75% of pilots survived the devastation of the Kaga and Soryu especially, is a far stretch. They were blazing infernos within minutes. Kaga lost 800 men of 1700, Soryu lost 700 men of 1100, these are HUGE percentages! Even the Hiryu lost 400 of 1100 and thats one of the better ratios.

Kaga - 4 hits, 1st of which lands directly on parked aircraft rdy to take off.

Akagi - 2 hits, 2nd hit landed directly on parked aircraft, quote from Battlefield Midway documentary "The second bomb, fell among the parked aircraft on her deck, fuel and bombs ignited immediatly, killing the elite of the Japanese airfleet, in thier cockpits"

Soryu - 3 hits, 2 of which land on parked planes yet again.

i dont think as many pilots survived as you might think. 25% survived, seems more realistic.

You really should read "Shattered Sword". Your facts come straight out of LCDR Fuchida's 1950's book (Midway: The Battle that Doomed Japan or some such). As the first Japanese account of the battle published in the West (and for a long time the only published in English) his book remained the go-to source for information regarding the battle from the Japanese side for more than 60 years. It's only fault is that most of the facts are false or at best the result of a faulty memory. Much the same can be said of "The Nagumo Report" which was one of the IJN's attempt to conceal the magnitude of its loss from the IJA. (With little exaggeration it can be said that most of the survivors of the sunken carriers were subsequently assigned to "one man observation posts in the Aleutians and it really $ucked to be one of those assigned after the IJN ran out of islands).

Because the long series of air attacks the Japanese had continuously recycled the CAP which required them to keep their flight decks clear. The bombers were basically all still sitting below on the hangar deck and their pilots were in their ready rooms or grabbing a bit of food on the mess deck when the bombs hit. The point is that the pilots and aircrew were not sitting in their bombed/gassed planes. A quick check of the rosters of the 4 ships fighter squadrons (squadron records survived the war) shows that 17 out of 71 fighter pilots died at Midway: the heaviest losses from those 17 being from the ones who escorted the strikes against Yorktown. A couple of others were wounded. Extrapolating the losses to the fighter squadrons to the other squadrons the 25% seems about right.