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apbarog -> RE: Wedge Donovan Wins the War: Apbarog(A) vs Aurorus(J) DBB-B (12/12/2017 7:11:06 PM)
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Recap of the War So Far
Glad you are following Lowpe.
Here's a bit of an outline of the war so far:
No Pearl Harbor. I have all of the slow battleships, and more importantly (to me), all of those Catalinas. I've had excellent coverage of the South Pacific and southern Marshalls because of that. I've known where KB has been 80% of the time.
Mersing landing. Defenders did not flee to Singapore, but held out in the jungle as long as possible. Only a few fragments were flown out of Malaysia. Repulse sunk on day 1 by KB near Singapore. Prince of Wales escaped.
No Luzon landing, and none to date. Mindanao is enemy held except for the inland mountain base, which still holds, and still has supply. Several attacks by 2 enemy regiments have failed miserably over the months. Some shipping did escape the Philippines, notably a couple of AS and big transports. Slower ships generally did not.
Java was invaded very early, but still hasn't been conquered entirely. 3 enemy divisions were used. One division remains, along with about 15 heavy artillery units, pounding Bandoeng, the inland mountain base near Batavia. Supply is plentiful here, but the big guns are taking its toll on the defenders.
Darwin and nearby bases were taken. Tennant Creek was not.
There was no enemy move to Burma until about a month ago. I had already pulled what I could out of Burma, leaving it minimally manned. 3 enemy divisions, along with plenty of support, are rushing north in Burma now.
China has been fairly stable, with most of the time taken up by the enemy clearing out Chinese behind the lines in the south. Just recently the big enemy stack approached the lines south of Changsha. There have been lots of enemy recon and bombing to find my weak spots. It now looks like the push will be in the very south from Canton. My defense is weak north of there, relying on the poor transportation net of trails to give me time to react if needed. I still fear a breakthrough new Changsha or just south of there, as there is no reserve.
The big push so far for the enemy has been the South Pacific. Tulagi, Ndeni, and Luganville were taken quickly. When enemy ships were heading toward Luganville, I decided to send the 2 Marine regiments of the 2nd Marine Division to Noumea. They made it there in time, but being in Strat mode, I didn't have time to unload the guns and support. 4 US carriers tried to sneak around the flank, but were spotted east of Luganville. Yorktown was hit by a torpedo. I decided that 3 carriers with bad planes and terrible pilots weren't enough to do much, so all carriers retired to Pearl Harbor with Yorktown. The enemy landed at Koumac. KB hovered around Koumac for a long time. Prince of Wales sortied from Sydney and caught a big transport force SW of Milne Bay, sinking 2 of 3 huge transports. It appeared that 2/3 of an infantry division was destroyed. A flanking move by a big US TF of heavy cruisers failed in a big way, as it ran into a CL and DD TF, sinking most of those ships, but then ran into a heavy cruiser TF while having low ammo, and got hurt. Then, with daylight, KB appeared in range, and did a lot of damage. A bunch of CAs lost, along with a couple of CLs and 5 or 6 DDs. Painful, and my biggest error of the war so far. KB then made a series of moves to the north, toward Milne Bay, where it would rendezvous with more tranports forces heading to Koumac. Koumac was then being built up faster than Noumea was. KB has moved as far south as Norfolk Island, but did so twice in a sweeping movement, isolating Noumea. Then enemy bombardments started with ships running from Koumac to Noumea, at night. I countered with mines, which haven't worked, and running cruisers into Noumea at night, with limited success. Noumea's airfield is now out of action. I'm flying out base support units with Catalinas. The Marines will stay until it is hopeless, then I'll fly out what I can of those. The 3rd Marine regiment for that division is at Vavu, SE of Suva, where the division will rebuild if necessary.
3 enemy divisions were headed to New Caledonia, or already there, so Noumea won't hold forever. But it has been the speedbump to the enemy expansion. My thoughts are if I hadn't defended Noumea, the enemy would be at New Zealand or Suva or Australia already. I knew that it was too early to defend anywhere that the enemy really wanted, but it had to be done. Delay and defend is my motto.
I've recently gotten SigInt about an enemy regiment prepping for Townsville, and another for Cairns. Could be real, could be fake.
From December 8, I've been prepping regiments and combat engineers for Kwajalein, Roi Namur, Wotje, and Malelop Islands in the Marshalls. Given the right circumstances, I was going to do an early invasion. KB had to be far away. I gathered everything I needed at Pearl Harbor, and when KB was down by Norfolk Island last month, I pulled the trigger, and everything loaded up at Pearl. Over 30 TFs were involved. 5 US carriers and 1 Brit. All of the APs that become APAs. 10 US slow battleships. The gaggle went west, but just one day out of Pearl, they ran over a sub. A slow battleship took a torpedo, and many invasion TFs were spotted, with a slow battleship embedded in each. Pretty obvious what was going on. I changed course to the north for a day, then headed west, going north of Johnston Island. However, KB immediately went north for 3 days toward Tulagi, then turned NE by Ndeni. They were going to the Marshalls. I called off the invasion and everything returned safely to Pearl, where they remain. KB went all the way to Tarawa, then turned around, and went back to Ndeni, when nothing had materialized. Now KB is east of Koumac, and southbound. I will do this northern Marshalls invasion sometime, just not now. I hope to add armor to the landings next time.
April is a huge refit month. I decided to put everything into refit ASAP. Most of the US fleet is at Pearl now. 3 US carriers are in refit, as well as 1 Brit carrier, some heavy cruisers, lots of light cruisers, and many destroyers. It'll take over 3 weeks to have everything complete. I chose not to rush down to Noumea to intervene there. I will be more willing to fight a carrier battle in another month. Another Brit carrier is leaving Panama now, headed to Pearl.
Aurorus is a tough opponent. He was aggressive strategically, skipping Luzon and moving to Java and the South Pacific quickly, but he's careful tactically, usually protecting his assets. When I've surpised him with something, like the Prince of Wales ambush, he adjusts and doesn't allow a repeat performance. I have learned certain tendencies, like leading his carriers with combat ships, with the screening force in the direction that he perceives to be the greatest threat axis. This is a good move, but it tells me which direction he thinks is most threatening.
I've done enough minelaying that he is very careful now. Invasions have been preceded by minesweepers. And AMcs show up very quickly after bases are taken. I've had some success with the submarine war, even with US subs and their dud rate. One enemy carrier ate a torpedo, and several heavy cruiser have. I've flooded the zone near Koumac and Noumea, trying to interdict the nightly bombardment runs, with an occasional success. I haven't seen signs of any enemy ground based ASW aircraft, just carrier ASW. Aurorus uses his bombers heavily, and against units in clear terrain at every opportunity. But I'm just not seeing a commitment to ASW with aircraft yet. I'll have to check how many subs I've lost. Very few. Maybe one US sub, not sure.
I'm sure that I left a lot out, but that's what I've come up with off the top of my head.
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