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Nemo121 -> RE: Operation Damocles (9/4/2011 8:13:19 PM)
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Its been a while.
Well, the game began and so far things have gone pretty nicely:
1. Over half the IJN tanker fleet was trapped and sunk in the Yellow Sea. That'll hurt his ability to transfer fuel from Hokkaido to the mainland.
2. IJAAF and IJNAF attacks on the fleet have largely been ineffective. CAP works as planned.
3. Forces are moving into position for the various "spokes" of the advance. In the south-western spoke I've taken Daito Shoto and Amami Oshima and am about to take Tokarra Retto ( probably it'll fall on the 25th of September ). In the South a several thousand AV strong force has been assembled and will begin pushing north from Iwo Jima using several USN CV TFs which have, so far, sat the war out. IN the east Addak is being built up into a Level 8 port fitted out to support the CV and BB fleets. Once that's completed I'll begin working my way down the Kuriles in October.
Tokarra Retto:
Once Tokarra Retto falls I can withdraw my CVs from this theatre and begin advancing northward towards Korea along the Japanese coast using nothin but land-based LRCAP as cover. It'll cost me a little but it'll also free the US Navy's CVs for decisive strategic action elsewhere.
Kuriles:
Same as Tokarra Reto. Once I get the first base or two I'll be able to withdraw the CVs and proceed under land-based air cover. My CVs can then begin participating in strategic raids on the Home Islands' means of production.
I've lost 1 CVE to a submarine. Elsewhere, apart from subs, I've lost nothing larger than a DD. In the air I've destroyed some 2,300 planes in return for 1,000 of my own. It should have been 3 to 1 but unfortunately a rather strange situation led to the Japanese getting a good air raid in on Amami Oshima. Basically I was expecting a raid and had 150 P-51 Hs and 75 P-38s at the base ready to destroy the expected raid. I even had about 50 night-fighters in the air. What happened was that 60 Bettys came in at 100 feet and bombed the field. They didn't take a single loss to FlAK ( which was the weird bit ) and their bombing utterly closed the field. So, the next day, when the IJAAF came into action all my fighters were stuck on the ground and got slaughtered.
I'm moving AAA Regiments forward as the only reason I can think why the Netties might have gotten away lightly was that I was relying on AAA from US Army and US Navy BFs and a Marine Infantry Division and didn't have an AAA Regt there. Moonlight was very low and so maybe that played into it also?
In terms of the naval war, I've sunk about 250 ships in return for 70 of my own - 40 of which are subs, ASW is uber-lethal at this time of the war. In terms of the air I have 2,300 kills in return for 1,000 ( over 200 of which resulted from that strange AAA-less raid on Amami Oshima ). IN terms of the ground forces I've destroyed 4 divisions worth of IJA troops and haven't suffered any significant troop losses myself. A single CV has been damaged by submarines and a CVE was sunk by them. Apart from that the USN is intact.
The plan is fully on track as is the maskirovka. PH seems to want to keep me fighting in south-eastern Japan focussed on hitting airfields etc instead of HI. Since I don't want to fritter bombers away attacking Kobe and Osaka etc until I can conduct massive sweeps co-ordinating sweeps by USN fighters, USMC fighters and USAAF fighters operation from coastal islands AND USN CVs I am happy to hit the peripheries whilst letting him think he is diverting me from attacking his core HI targets. It allows me to kill airframes, test my airfield-closing capability and gives the medium and attack bombers something to do ( I also divert the B-29s from time to time to keep up the appearance of strategic dissaray ).
In the meantime since he thinks I'm playing to his tune he isn't opposing the apparently non-threatening forays I'm making which are actually laying the basis for his defeat. In his emails I can tell he's really pleased with how things are going. Obviously he expects me to try to mislead him so I sell him the occasional ploy he's expected to see through and as he sees through them he is convinced his assessment is correct... and he relaxes and he enjoys the HI he is amassing and he doesn't oppose the slow knife being slipped in because he doesn't see the threat or feel the pain. In the end he should only notice it once his strategic situation has become irrevocably worsened.
Once I have the coastal islands though I'll sweep from them and even though, by then, he'll have Ki-94s and J7Ws in large numbers since I'll have 3 axes of advance from which to project land-based air at short range ( from coastal islands ) ( plus multiple CV TFs to support any individual axis ) that should negate his qualitative superiority.
I also don't mind giving him an HI cushion since I wish this game to go into 1946 and result in an actual land invasion of mainland Japan.... if he has no HI then the game will have to be called early and I won't get to conduct a mainland campaign... I'm very interested to see how that goes since in my in-scenario testing I've used dive-bombers to obliterate over 400 AV of Japanese forces without ever having a land battle. These 400 AV of forces just disintegrated after about 5 days of solid dive-bomber attack. I'd like to see that sort of thing in operation vs forces on the mainland. It'd provide and interesting and unusual datum point for the air ground interaction and might help guide future improvements.
The only bad point so far as the 60 Netties on the 100 feet night bombing raid. They proved hugely effective closing a Level 3 airfield with 500 engineers in a single raid and for over 24 hours. I'll have to keep on eye out for that if it recurs, although I think I've found the solution in terms of dedicated AAA Regiments, one to a base. We'll soon find out.
PH told me after I sent him back the turn an hour ago that he was going to hit another one of my bases.... Well, I'm expecting him to hit Manilla. It has over 200 daytime fighters and 100 night-time fighters. I don't want to put more since:
a) I can't cover everything and
b) I am fine with just damaging the Ki-264s and letting ops losses take them down.
If not Manilla then I expect it to be Naha. I think he'll hit Manilla though, he has been good at hitting front-line bases and he has been nerving himself up over the past couple of days to strike into my rear areas. I think he's found enough success in that to try for Manilla now - which is why I boosted the night CAP by 50% yesterday.
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