A chippy day... (Full Version)

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ADavidB -> A chippy day... (9/20/2005 12:41:38 AM)

March 12 -

This was a rather chippy turn, with Tophat pushing in many directions and my forces trying to push back, albeit much less successfully. To start off, Tophat sent his big five-battleship combat TF to bombard Kai Island. He succeeded in shooting it up rather badly and destroying all of the supply there. I'm going to try to fly in some supply to allow the planes to be repaired. Then the Dutch Blasters ran out of luck as they were shot up by the escorts of the transport fleet that was sitting in Palembang harbor. One of the Dutch PTs was sunk and the other hit nothing. However, later on during the daylight hours my bombers in Java did take off and attacked several Japanese transport TFs, hitting and setting on fire an AK and a DD.

My Blenheim IVs didn't fly again - I guess that their pilots are "made of sugar" and are afraid to go out in the rain. My B-17Es did fly to Amboina and claimed a Zero shot down, but they didn't achieve anything as far as the bombing mission goes, so they are being put back on air patrol.

Amongst other activities, Tophat started to land troops at Emirau, told me that he has sent fresh troops to Manila, and my SIGINT told me that he is sending fresh engineers to Mersing - undoubtedly to prepare for a renewed attack on Singapore.

All of the ground combat consisted of artillery duels. I'm pretty certain that Tophat will take Manila very soon, so I finally pulled out my good leaders from the LCUs in Manila and replaced them with my poorest Army leaders. This may well hasten the fall of Manila, but in reality there isn't anything more I could do to hold it much longer anyway. So, for example, General Short will get to surrender the troops at Manila. [&o]

And for the good news, there are only two more days until I get my next big round of reinforcements.

Dave Baranyi



ADavidB -> Aircraft Status Mid March - 1 (9/20/2005 5:22:30 AM)

So Tophat and I have been at war for just over three months and I've been following a strategy of deliberately husbanding my forces. Let's see how well this is working out for aircraft. First, Fighters. So far, so good, I've built up some nice full units. P-40Bs are still a bit of a problem.

Dave Baranyi




[image]local://upfiles/4267/EE8FCAE5EAD0416BAF69581C29AD1D7C.jpg[/image]



ADavidB -> Aircraft Status Mid March - 2 (9/20/2005 5:25:05 AM)

Now for fighter bombers. And there is one group of P-39s that isn't showing here because it is sailing on some transports and thus shows up in the "Naval Air" table. ([&:])

Dave Baranyi




[image]local://upfiles/4267/233CCC99C6524B8E8D989DFFE81676F3.jpg[/image]



ADavidB -> Aircraft Status Mid March - 3 (9/20/2005 5:26:35 AM)

Finally, level bombers. Note that I am going for a diverse mix and full groups rather than trying to focus on one main type.

Dave Baranyi



[image]local://upfiles/4267/3E9E74A632634D2C829D98B46D1919F2.jpg[/image]

Note - the "damaged" planes are due to those air units being recently moved, not due to combat.



ADavidB -> Mid-March assessment of sorts... (9/20/2005 10:52:35 PM)

March 13 -

My Blenheim IF night fighters finally accomplished something - they destroyed an Oscar on the ground at Mandalay. But my Blenheim IV bombers refused to fly again, which was a real lost opportunity because Tophat has reduced the number of fighters in Mandalay. However, since my IL-4c bombers attacked Mandalay from China Tophat will be warned and probably put more fighters back in for next time.

The rest of the air war was all Tophat. His air units continued to bomb all the usual places: Singapore, China, Luzon and the DEI. My Dutch bombers didn't go after any Japanese naval targets. And the ground war was again a matter of artillery duels, with the exception of Tophat's capture of Emirau Island off of New Britain. He is still taking a fairly laissez faire approach to the New Guinea, the Bismarck Archipelago and the Solomon Islands.

However, something is brewing in Tophat's mind in the Central Pacific. SIGINT just informed me that Tophat has over 85,000 troops in Ponape. Hmmm - What does he intend to do with them? Will he send them to the Southwest, to the South, to the Southeast or even due East? That quantity of troops suggests at least two full divisions and associated support, and maybe even three divisions. And the KB has been very "conspicuous by its absence". But seven of Tophat's battleships and a lot of his heavy cruisers are still busy at work in the DEI, so if he launches an attack on any of my bases he will do so with only a fraction of his surface combat capability.

If I am right and Tophat is really preparing two or three divisions in Ponape for an invasion, I don't have the forces right now in the South Central Pacific to stop him. And I won't be prepared to face the KB until mid-to-late April at the earliest. So if Tophat attacks any of the outer island bases in the Central or South Central Pacific in the next few game weeks I will have to sit back and watch.

However, if he were to attempt to attack Hawaii, I would probably be able to cause him a lot of damage. I now have three infantry divisions, two armoured battalions, two artillery regiments and lots of support in Pearl Harbor. As well, I have a base force, a CD unit, an AA unit, an engineering unit and an RCT in each of Lahina, Hilo and Kona. I also have over 400 aircraft spread across the four bases - half bombers and the other half fighters and fighter bombers. I have more fighter bombers and bombers on the way, along with the first units heading for Molokai. So in another week I will have my fifth airbase being set up in the Hawaiian Islands. And, oh yes, I have plenty of combat ships in Hawaiian ports.

And yet I haven't stripped the West Coast or Alaska bare. I still have the 2nd Marines, two Central Pacific infantry divisions and all of the West Coast Units in place along the West coast bases, along with half of the Pacific Fleet. So I'm not worried about an invasion of the West Coast. And all of the Northern Pacific units are in Anchorage or nearby, along with a nice "surprise" if Tophat happens to decide to go into the Aleutians.

On the other side of the World, the 2nd UK Division arrived at Karachi and will be immediately shipped to Trimcomalee. Both big Brit infantry divisions will then be in Ceylon and I will continue to spread my other Brit units around India. What I'm really looking forward to receiving in this theatre are the Brit and Indian engineering units that are due soon. I have plenty of bases that I want to build up quickly and I need all the help that I can get.

Dave Baranyi



ADavidB -> Mayhem over Mandalay... (9/21/2005 12:42:23 AM)

March 14 -

All of the action has been in the Far East recently. I'm not even getting submarine reports in the Central and Eastern Pacific. Has Tophat pulled back his subs? Is he planning an attack in the Eastern Pacific and doesn't want to telegraph it? Or has he sent his forces into the pretty much vacant South Pacific? I guess I'll find out sooner or later, but it still feels odd.

Never-the-less, there was sufficient action in the Far East to keep me busy micromanaging my forces. That lone Dutch Blaster went into Palembang harbor at night and scared off the transport TF that was sitting there, but the TF came back during the day and one of the AVs in the TF shot the Dutch PT out of the water. At the same time, my bombers in Java flew against a number of naval targets but only achieved one hit on an AP near Balikpapan. Tophat has a number of TFs in the DEI and it appears that he intends to use them soon. For example, Japanese troops started to land at Noemfoor today while Mussau was occupied by osmosis in the Bismarks. Tophat is slowly but surely expanding his lines.

My Blenheim IVs finally took off to hit Mandalay today and were escorted by a contingent from the AVG. A number of Oscars rose to meet the incoming attack - the Tomahawks shot down three Oscars and the bombers damaged a number more. But despite the large number of bombers (67 flew in) the combination of altitude (I had them at 20,000 feet), interference from the Oscars (3 bombers were shot down) and the presence of heavy cloud cover meant that they achieved no hits.

However, to my great surprise, I noticed that Tophat has pulled back most of his fighters from Mandalay. I'm not sure why - maybe he expects me to rest my bombers. (Which was exactly what I was planning to do.) But now that I've seen that there are only 10 fighters in Mandalay, I'm sending the Blenheim IVs back in at a lower altitude to see if they can do some damage this time.

Back in the DEI, Tophat sent a big Zero sweep against Batavia that wiped out most of my Demons there. But as long as the base is operable I will continue to move Dutch fighters around and attempt to hit some of the transports that are swarming in the region.

BTW - I got the third British CV today, along with another BB. I would definitely welcome a Japanese foray into the Bay of Bengal at this point in time. [;)]

Dave Baranyi



ADavidB -> More Mayhem over Mandalay... (9/21/2005 4:50:34 AM)

March 15 -

This turn started out very nicely as one of my S-boats put two torpedoes into a tanker that was departing Kendari. Then my air attack on Mandalay finally worked well, despite the fact that my recon intelligence was off and there were more Oscars there than reported. Never-the-less, my P-40Bs took care of the CAP and the Blenheim IVs did a creditable job of bombing the airfield. But I'm not trying this trick a third day in a row, despite the fact that most of my bombers and fighters are still in good shape. First off, Tophat tried a Zero sweep of Imphal, but his fighters couldn't find the target. Then I noticed that the numbers of fighters in Mandalay went up substantially. So this appears to be a good example where "discretion is the better part of valor" holds quite true.

While trying to occupy some of Tophat's planes and troops in Burma, I am also trying to sneak individual transports full of supplies into various ports on the Indian Ocean side of Sumatra and Java in order to help the troops there last longer. This turn the transport at Padang was discovered, after which some Nells and Zeros from Palembang tried to attack but missed. I'm astounded at this - usually Japanese torpedo bombers always get hits. I kept on feeling that if instead of a transport had been a carrier or a battleship there those Nells wouldn't have missed…<L>

In land action Tophat kept up his bombardments, with the exception of a deliberate attack that captured Noemfoor. I wonder why he is waiting so long again to try to take Manila?

In the "reinforcement war", the types and quantities of US replacement aircraft continue to cause me to change my upgrade plans on the fly. For example, a few game-days ago the 46th Fighter Squadron re-appeared after having been disbanded subsequent to the Pearl Harbor attack. The squadron came back with zero planes because it was scheduled to get P-40Bs. Fortunately, I was very close to having 24 P-40Es available, so today I reached the "magic number" and was able to upgrade the squadron. Now I'll have to wait another couple of weeks to have enough P-40Es again to upgrade another existing P-40B squadron so that I can have some P-40Bs in the replacement pools.

Dave Baranyi

BTW - to give you an idea of the scale of things at this point, here is the combat report for the Mandalay raid:

Day Air attack on Mandalay , at 33,30

Japanese aircraft
Ki-43-Ib Oscar x 26

Allied aircraft
Blenheim IV x 52
P-40B Tomahawk x 15

Japanese aircraft losses
Ki-43-Ib Oscar: 6 destroyed, 5 damaged

Allied aircraft losses
Blenheim IV: 1 destroyed, 6 damaged
P-40B Tomahawk: 2 destroyed, 3 damaged

Japanese ground losses:
22 casualties reported
Guns lost 1

Airbase hits 1
Airbase supply hits 3
Runway hits 19

This is the biggest air battle we've had to date.

Dave



Speedysteve -> RE: More Mayhem over Mandalay... (9/21/2005 4:20:18 PM)

Hi Dave,

Forgive me if you have mentioned this before but what do you intend to do with your CV's? Keep them in West Coast ports? Noumea? etc

Regards,

Steven



ADavidB -> Manila Holds Again... (9/22/2005 12:28:30 AM)

March 16 -

Tophat continues to be busy in the Far East. His forces occupied Butung Island, southeast of Kendari, via "osmosis" and started to land troops at Wasile which is northwest of New Guinea. He also has troops marching from Tarakan to Samarinda where all of my troops from Tarakan and Balikpapan have gathered for a last stand. It is interesting that Tophat has decided to march his troops instead of landing them from ships - by doing this he is exposing his troops to more effects from malaria. And Tophat may be sending a small TF to Bulla, which is the other base on the island where Amboina is located. My survivors from Amboina are either at Bulla or headed there.

I find Tophat's invasion strategy a bit odd, but I'm not going to tell him that. [;)] In the Philippines Tophat has not invaded Iloilo or Cebu - I have troops at both bases. But he hasn't invaded Guiuan, Tacloban or Ormoc either, and I don't have forces there. In Borneo, in addition to still holding Samarinda, I also still hold Singkaweng, Banjamasin and Sanpit on the West Coast, but don't have any troops in Sanpit. On Sumatra Tophat still only holds Jambi and Palembang and he hasn't attempted a landing on Java yet. Despite this Tophat has nearly reached parity with me as far as victory points go - and as soon as he captures Manila he will go well ahead of me.

Speaking of Manila, Tophat continues to have problems there - and I have no idea why. His planes bomb it and his artillery bombard it every day. My troops are deep in the red as far as supplies go, and I pulled out my better leaders recently. Yet when Tophat's forces attempted a deliberate attack this turn against a fortification level of zero, they still got a 0:1 result and equal casualties. SIGINT tells me that Tophat has the 4th Division sailing on the way to Naga - I guess that he hopes that "fresh blood" may finally make the difference.

The stalemate continues at several locations in China too. I added to the entanglement by moving three Chinese units back into that crossroads hex between Changsha and Hengchow. Of course, since it is a "river" hex my units had to do a shock attack at bad odds, but Tophat had already moved all but one of the units that were in that hex to Hengchow, so my troops survived and stayed in place. This should now cut down on the supply flow to Tophat's troops in Hengchow. On order to drive my troops out of that hex Tophat will have to weaken his defences at Changsha, and if he does I'll send troops back to there. [:D]

The air war was pretty quiet this turn as I was resting my bombers everywhere but in China. Tophat tried a sweep of Batavia with 27 Zeros, but Sorry Charlie - nobody was home. <g> Tophat also put a ton of additional fighters into Mandalay, so I set all of my bombers in that region back to "naval attack/naval search". Tophat doesn't have any ships in the Bay of Bengal, so this just means rest for my pilots.

In the reinforcement war, I am moving a few troops from here to there, but not a lot at this moment. Most of my forces are where I want them to be. I will get a few more reinforcements in two week's time, and will receive my next big quota of reinforcements in a month's time. Since I am sticking to my "Backwater Build-Up" plan, this isn't a problem for me. Oh yes, I've also got most of my ships in position to take advantage of the April 1942 upgrades too.

Once those April upgrades are in place the temptation for me will be to consider having some US forces go west to "snoop" around the situation in the DEI. It would be nice to find some "easy pickings" to practice on, or even a bombardment TF that is outside of air cover. We'll just have to see how the next few game-weeks unfold.

Dave Baranyi



ADavidB -> RE: More Mayhem over Mandalay... (9/22/2005 12:40:32 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Speedy

Hi Dave,

Forgive me if you have mentioned this before but what do you intend to do with your CV's? Keep them in West Coast ports? Noumea? etc

Regards,

Steven


Currently I have my US CVs in various ports in the Eastern Pacific and my Brit CVs in Ceylon and vacinity. I'm trying to leave them in position to get behind any major invasion in either area. I'm also leaving the three US carriers that are due for the April upgrade in ports with shipyards so that they can get those upgrades right away.

My plan is to not engage the Japanese forces until I have upgraded my ships significantly as well as have large numbers of "modern" aircraft where I want them. I am hoping to draw Tophat into committing his forces against one of my heavily defended areas, engage him with LBA and surface combat ships, then come around from the back to hit his supply and/or transport ships.

This means that I am reinforcing and building up areas where I can have multiple mutually-defending bases with lots of supply and firepower at hand. At this stage of the game that means the US West Coast, the Hawaiian Islands, South Eastern Australia and the Bay of Bengal. Everywhere else is expendable, although I will do my best to hinder Tophat's progress or ambush him with local forces.

Tophat seems a bit frustrated by his lack of progress in the Phillipines, Singapore, China and even the DEI to an extent. I'm hoping that frustration turns into impatience and he makes a mistake or two.

As I mentioned in my March 16 report, once I've got the April ship upgrades in place I may well send some forces to the west if I feel I can get some "cheap hits" in with little or no risk. But since I don't know where the KB is located, and I do know that Tophat has at least 300,000 troops in the Central Pacific, I'm not in too much of a hurry to split my forces at this time.

I am essentially comparing my progress against a "May 1 Start" and although there are six game-weeks left to meet that date, I am pleased with how things are stacking up for me. When I finally face Tophat in a serious manner I want to hit him hard enough to shake him.

Thanks for the comments -

Dave Baranyi



ADavidB -> Creeping expansionism... (9/22/2005 4:04:15 AM)

March 17 -

Well, this is interesting - Tophat has a sub about six hexes south of Christmas Island, moving eastwards. Does he think that I still have task forces moving that far south? Is he setting up to catch task forces that go south if he sends the KB out again? Is he trying to sneak back into the Eastern Pacific from the south? In any event, I'm sending an AVD after that sub just in case I can hit it and get it out of the way. There haven't been any other Japanese sub sightings in quite a while. I suspect that Tophat thinks that I am rushing reinforcements to Australia and the DEI.

Otherwise, Tophat is back to doing lots of aerial attacks, particularly against Manila and Singapore. He also started to unload troops at Guiuan and captured Wasile this turn with the troops that he landed last turn. In China we continued to exchange artillery bombardments and build up forces against each other.

My bombers in Java took off this time after another Japanese TF off the south coast of Borneo. The Dutch bombers missed an AP in a task force but did set an MSW on fire. It's not much, but every little bit helps.

Tophat has a couple of engineering units in Mandalay so they were able to increase the airfield size from 2 to 3. Soon I will have to contend with Japanese bombers in Mandalay too. But that's okay; I'm more than willing to let Tophat take air losses over my bases in India.

Dave Baranyi

Here's an interesting bit of additional information I got while I was compiling the SIGINT into my Intel spreadsheet - the 1st Parachute Regiment is in Palembang now. I wonder where they will try to go?

ADB



ADavidB -> There is a price... (9/22/2005 4:32:13 AM)

I decided to post a mid-March update of the main score page to point out a couple of things. First off, Tophat has come within a couple hundred points of me, even without taking Manila and Singapore yet. One thing to keep in mind is that I'm not actively increasing the size of too many ports and airfields right now (which give me more points) but I am building up fortifications like crazy (which don't give me more points).

But more something more interesting is showing up in the air stats - Tophat is now almost a hundred loss points ahead of me. Look at his losses due to anti-aircraft fire. His current campaign to try to get experience through bombing my troops is costing him dearly. I am definitely better off keeping my planes out of the line of fire and letting AA and operational losses be my "secret weapon". [:D]

Dave Baranyi



[image]local://upfiles/4267/4037AAF7A10B445A97B495A5AD3E74AD.jpg[/image]

BTW - the reason that I don't have any political points is that I have been changing leaders like crazy recently, all over the map.

ADB



ADavidB -> Doubts in the DEI... (9/22/2005 10:23:11 PM)

March 18 -

I'm not sure what Tophat is up to in the DEI. This turn there were no air attacks on any of my remaining Dutch bases, nor any bombardments, nor any task forces heading in directions that suggest invasion. In fact most of the Japanese task forces were headed away from the DEI, with the exception of that five-battleship TF that is sitting in Amboina. Maybe Tophat is just taking a breather in order to pull some fuel, supplies, oil and resources out of his recent acquisitions. Maybe he is repositioning his forces - he did start to land troops at Manokwari this turn and captured Guiuan with the troops that he landed there last turn.

A breather in the DEI is not bad from my perspective. I need to rest my Dutch air units and I'm certainly not going to try to contest the "high seas" against his big combat TF with my remaining Dutch surface forces. Anyway, Tophat is not being totally quiet - he continued with his daily aerial bombardments of Singapore and Manila along with an artillery bombardment of Manila.

In China Tophat kicked my two Chinese cavalry units and one Chinese infantry unit out of that crossroads hex between Changsha and Hengchow with only one Japanese infantry unit. However, he only achieved a 3:1 ratio, and my troops were pretty heavily fatigued, so I've decided to try again by sending four rested, strong Chinese infantry units forward along with a Chinese headquarters unit. I'll set them up at that hex just up the road towards Chungking from that crossroads and wait for an opportunity to try again.

The Central Pacific remains quiet. I am repositioning a new submarine picket line to the west of the Midway/Johnson Island line. I pulled back all of my subs that are due for April upgrades and am repairing them while waiting for the beginning of the month. However, Tophat continues to do something very odd with his subs in the Southeastern Pacific. That sub that was south of Christmas Island last turn is now 9 hexes southeast and heading in a south easterly direction. (My AVD didn't make contact - I was expecting the sub to continue to the East.) What the devil does Tophat expect to find down there? Oh well, I'm not going to complain about him wasting fuel and putting on system damage out in the Great Vacant South East.

Tophat has another sub that my planes spotted heading east seven hexes due South of Kona. That sub is also out of range of any of my ships, and heading towards the northern edges of the "Great Southern Nowhere", so once again I don't really care. I did swap my Coronado squadron from Hilo with the Midway Catalina squadron, and I changed my Johnson Island Catalinas to Coronados, so I ought to decrease my "blind zones" a bit in the Central Pacific where I really care.

BTW - Another fighter-bomber group and a squadron of Dauntlesses will land at Pearl in another day or too. That will give me nearly three hundred fighters and fighter-bombers along with several hundred level bombers and two dive bomber squadrons on my four current bases in the Hawaiian Islands. And I've got most of my long range bombers still on the West Coast or Alaska where they can fly directly in to add hundreds more level bombers to any fight. So along with the base force and combat unit that are sailing towards Molokai, all these planes are making feel much better about Hawaii. (Particularly in light of Admiral Laurent's AAR of his Hawaiian invasion! [;)] )

BTW II - I now have around 3000 fighters and fighter-bombers, and around 2000 bombers of all sorts. (And no, I don't have them all in one big base… [:D] )

BTW III - The big news in my build-up strategy is that the Port in Anchorage finally reached level 9. This will make mining the Aleutians and supporting future operations in the north much easier.

Dave Baranyi



AmiralLaurent -> RE: Doubts in the DEI... (9/22/2005 10:39:04 PM)

Eat you supper or AmiralLaurent will invade you...bbooooOOOOOOOOOOOO !!!! [:D]

Nice defence Dave, in none of my game had the Allied player still more points than Japan in March. Can you post a map of the main area or the strategic map to help understand what is happening ?



ADavidB -> RE: Doubts in the DEI... (9/23/2005 12:33:49 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: AmiralLaurent

Eat you supper or AmiralLaurent will invade you...bbooooOOOOOOOOOOOO !!!! [:D]

Nice defence Dave, in none of my game had the Allied player still more points than Japan in March. Can you post a map of the main area or the strategic map to help understand what is happening ?



Okay, here is the strategic map.

Thanks for the comments -

Dave Baranyi



[image]local://upfiles/4267/F970565B8A9E471A9D95D899A9E79111.jpg[/image]



ADavidB -> Easy pickings... (9/24/2005 4:50:46 AM)

March 19 -

For the most part Tophat is now going after "easy pickings" - those bases in northern PNG, the Bismarks, or the Solomons that are undefended. So, for example, this turn he landed troops at Talasea and Buka, his troops captured Manokwari and he occupied Samo by "osmosis". But he is trying to capture Samarinda by attack, and things didn't work out that well for him this turn:

Ground combat at Samarinda

Japanese Shock attack

Attacking force 6071 troops, 61 guns, 0 vehicles

Defending force 5234 troops, 62 guns, 7 vehicles

Japanese assault odds: 0 to 1 (fort level 2)

Japanese ground losses:
783 casualties reported
Guns lost 11

Two things happened to Tophat's forces there. First off, his forces crossed a river and so were forced into a shock attack. Second, not all of my troops at Samarinda have retreated from other lost bases and thus are not already combat-shocked. So, who knows, if Tophat doesn’t send in more troops I might be able to create a nice little stalemate in Samarinda too.

Otherwise, things were pretty quiet, other than the usual air attacks in China, Singapore and Luzon. I now have nearly 500 planes in the Hawaiian Islands split among four bases, with another big naval base force just a couple of days sail out from Morotai, where they will soon to be setting up my fifth Hawaiian base. (Sweet! [:D])

Dave Baranyi



ADavidB -> More easy pickings... (9/24/2005 4:25:59 PM)

March 20 -

Tophat is continuing his steady, "risk free" approach to expansion, and quite frankly, there is little I can do but watch and admire it. [:(] This turn he started to land troops at Tacloban and I just noticed that he has a combat unit just outside of Teloebetoeng. I have an infantry unit and two base forces in Teloebetoeng - I wonder if they can delay his forces as well as that base force did in Palembang. In any event, I am sending some bombers after that incoming unit and I'll put some CAP over Teloebetoeng just in case Tophat tries to use his air transports again.

Elsewhere, Tophat sent bombers after Samarinda while he rested his combat troops there. He also sent a lot of bombers after Manila and Bataan. And as a sign of how close to the end are my troops in both bases, there was no AA fire against any of Tophat's planes.

Tophat also sent some Nells after Tjilitjap, but they ran into a flight of Brewsters who shot down two of the Nells and damaged a bunch more. I wonder if Tophat is planning an "end around" and will try to invade Java at Tjilitjap instead of somewhere along the East Coast? I've got every base in Java defended as best as possible, and I'm moving an AA unit and another base force to that inland base that can't be bombarded so that I have a relatively safe place to keep my bombers during any serious attack. Of course, my strategy presupposes that Tophat continues to keep the KB in reserve and doesn't bring it into the DEI to suppress my air units in a big way.

My forces were pretty quiet this turn. Some Dutch bombers flew out of Java and tried to hit transports at Balikpapan, but Tophat has Zeros on CAP and my bombers didn't get any hits (although their losses were remarkably light). I'm going to leave those bombers set to "naval attack" so that they force Tophat to keep fighters on CAP over his TFs. I want to keep his air power split up as much as possible.

Dave Baranyi



ADavidB -> Yet more easy pickings... (9/25/2005 12:26:05 AM)

March 21 -

One of those rare miracles happened during the night phase of this turn - my Blenheim IF night fighters actually hit the target at Mandalay and destroyed an Oscar on the ground. Of course, that's assuming that the buggers aren't just pulling my leg. Tophat isn't having many doubts about the effectiveness of his bombing attacks; he has been spreading his attacks out and getting causing more damage with fewer losses. It's still a case of Oscars against open cockpit Chinese fighters as neither of us has committed modern fighters in China.

Speaking of modern fighters, a strange thing has been happening to mine recently. I have been getting a number of damaged planes in units that are not flying active combat. Sure, they are on limited training or CAP, but still it's very odd how sometimes a bunch of fighters will suddenly become damaged for no apparent reason. And my rate of repair of planes has slowed down recently, even at big air bases with plenty of air support units and even Air HQs present. Hopefully these planes will get over this "unknown damage" stage before Tophat launches any long range attacks.

Tophat's invasions continue to go successfully. This turn he captured Buka, Tacloban and Talasea. He is still bombing and bombarding Manila - I guess sooner or later he will deal the final blow to those defenders. Once that happens I will have to keep my eyes peeled for where his units end up going.

I just noticed this turn that my DMS ships are due for the April 42 upgrade too. I hadn't realized that. Fortunately, most are within range of ports with repair facilities and don't have significant system damage. I have been deliberately moving damaged transport ships out of "upgrade" ports and into secondary ports so that as many of my combat ships are at less than "3" system damage. I can't wait until I start to get more AR, AS and AD ships to help with repairs.

Dave Baranyi



ADavidB -> Tophat takes the lead... (9/25/2005 2:51:55 PM)

March 22 -

Tophat has finally pulled ahead of me on points. I guess that those last three bases he took were enough to push him in front. Of course, once he takes Manila he will get a big point boost, but he does have to take it first. And that shouldn't take much longer. Tophat continues to hit Manila with artillery and aerial bombardments every turn. I would expect that one more shock attack ought to be enough, assuming that his troops aren't too fatigued.

Tophat is starting to put a lot more pressure on Java. This turn he sent 27-plane Zero sweeps against both Batavia and Tjilitjap. My Dutch fighters managed to shoot down one Zero, but that is little consolation for the losses. But my bombers and remaining fighters in Batavia still managed to take off and hit that Japanese unit that is marching on Teloebetoeng.

And Tophat is also getting more serious about Samarinda - he sent a CA-lead task force in to bombard the base this turn. They caused lots of damage but that's okay - I don't expect to hold the place in the long run and Tophat will have to eventually fix that damage.

My frustration with the "mystery" plane damage is continuing to build. I now have one squadron of the AVG that has half of its planes damaged - and that unit was at "stand down" last turn. And that was in a non-malarial base, with lots of supplies, lots of air support, a level 4 base, only around 100 planes, and an Air HQ sitting there. I vaguely remember this problem occurring in earlier versions of the game; I only wish that I remembered what I had to do to stop the problem. I will likely need to pull the AVG out of the border area, recombine it, stand it down, and leave it alone for a while. Gawd, I hate fighting the bugs in this game. [:@]

Dave Baranyi



ADavidB -> Voodoo science... (9/25/2005 11:51:46 PM)

March 23 -

Tophat continues expand steadily. This turn he occupied Muntok by "osmosis" and started to land troops at Sansapor. His troops also tried a deliberate attack on Samarinda, but were rewarded with a 0:1 result and twice the casualties of the Dutch defenders. Tophat doesn't have any engineers in Samarinda to lower the fortifications which stand at 2, on their way to 3.

Tophat's air units continue their domination of the air over Java. I've stood down more fighters just to save and rest them a bit. As long as Tophat doesn't start to send in his planes in on sweeps at 100 feet I will be okay. Tophat is also increasing the pressure on my Chinese air units. Now with the AVG having general maintenance problems, the Chinese flyboys are definitely on their own.

Tophat and I agreed to try some "voodoo science" on the game since he is also suffering from "mystery" damage to planes. So we are now both shutting down and restarting our PCs before running turns, and erasing the old saves so that the new saves go in "clean". None of this should make a difference, but we don't know what else to do. [&o]

Just another week and I get the April upgrades. That will be a relief. I am also only a few weeks away from the next big release of reinforcements which will also be quite welcome. Tophat has some serious plan underway, so I am expecting a big hammer stroke to fall somewhere in the near future and I want to be as prepared as possible.

Dave Baranyi



PzB74 -> RE: Voodoo science... (9/26/2005 5:01:03 AM)

Hi Dave,

I've also experienced problems with my Allied air wings - especially 72 strength Warhawk and Tomahawk units.
Even on 30% CAP in a large and well supported base more and more ac became damaged. I've had to divide them or stand them down
altogether.



ADavidB -> RE: Voodoo science... (9/26/2005 5:46:02 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: PzB

Hi Dave,

I've also experienced problems with my Allied air wings - especially 72 strength Warhawk and Tomahawk units.
Even on 30% CAP in a large and well supported base more and more ac became damaged. I've had to divide them or stand them down
altogether.


I'm having this problem both with unified groups and split groups - and also with P-39s as well as P-40s. I keep on suspecting that this has to do with how the program is tracking losses in memory and the database. It seems to happen more when the Allies are losing more planes - it's as if the program sees lots of Brewters get whacked and counts the damage against the P-40s in California instead.

I wish some other company would buy WitP away from Matrix/2x3 and do it again, but without all these bugs. I'm willing to bet that most of the current owners would buy a new, fixed-up version at the drop of a hat if it were available.

Dave Baranyi

(just dreamin' on...)



ADavidB -> Mystery disease... (9/26/2005 6:46:59 AM)

March 24 -

Tophat continues to press throughout the DEI and PNG. A cruiser-headed bombardment task force hit Samarinda, while the big five battleship bombardment TF hit Kai again. There's not much to damage at Kai, therefore not much happened other than the supplies being destroyed. So I'll just fly in more supplies again the next few turns. Tophat also started to land some troops at Sag Sag while his troops from the previous day's landing captured Sansapor.

Tophat also tried another deliberate attack at Samarinda after that naval bombardment but the result was still 0:1, although this time casualties were just about even on both sides. Everywhere else Tophat stuck with artillery bombardments. Who knows, Manila may last until April.

As expected, Tophat's Zeros tried sweeps over Java, but he didn't find any of my fighters - I am resting them all. In fact, I may end up having to rest all of my fighters everywhere because of the ever increasing number being hit with the "mystery disease". Maybe the program can't handle there being 4000 Allied fighters in the game at one time and it arbitrarily sets some percentage to "damaged"?

Anyway, that bug or "feature" (I'm not sure which) aside, the rest of my slow build-up is proceeding as planned.

Dave Baranyi



frank1970 -> RE: Mystery disease... (9/26/2005 3:16:04 PM)

You have enough air support in your bases, haven´t you?



ADavidB -> RE: Mystery disease... (9/26/2005 11:20:44 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Frank

You have enough air support in your bases, haven´t you?


Oh yes, definitely. For example, in one of the more offending cases, I have a level 6 airfield, with something over 300 air support points, just over 100 aircraft in the base, 200 general support points over what is required, 10 times the required supply, a land HQ, an Air HQ, a 70/70 leader in charge of the fighter squadron, and it is in a temperate zone. The 7 bomber squadrons in the base (Brit and Australian Blenheim IVs with 12 - 16 planes per squadron) are not seeing this problem at all - they repair essentially the next day. But my AVG "third" went from 26/0 (repaired/damaged) to 22/0 to 19/7 to 15/11 to 13/13 over consecutive days, with no combat, no raids on the base and training set to 20% at 10,000 feet. Now that I've set training to "0", they have gone back to 15/11.

On a hunch I looked at the air rating of the Air HQ leader and I found that it was pretty abysmal - 20 or so. So I checked out the other available leaders for that Air HQ (a Brit air HQ) and found that most had equally bad air ratings or even worse! (There is one in there with an Air rating of 5!) But I found one with an air rating around 50, so I substituted him. So, yes, I've changed two variables simulataneously, but I am too frustrated at this point to "play scientist" too closely.

BTW - I have been seeing similar things with my fighters and fighter bombers in the West Coast bases too.

Thanks for your comments -

Dave Baranyi



ADavidB -> A busy man... (9/27/2005 12:18:25 AM)

March 25 -

Tophat is really increasing his pace of advancement now. This turn he landed troops at Ormoc, Tomini and Buin, captured Sag Sag and sent a bombardment fleet against Singkawang. In addition he also sent a lot of bombers against Singapore, so he is obviously planning to go back there in the near future. Tophat's troops also reached Teloebetoeng. All of Tophat's other ground attacks were artillery bombardments.

In contrast the Allies were pretty quiet this turn. A Japanese AK did sink in port from old damage, but nothing new was attacked. The "fighter disease" continued to spread to most Allied fighter squadrons and groups that weren't set to "stand down", with the exception of the planes in the Soviet Union and Australia. (Go figure that one… [&:] )

Now that Tophat is spreading his troops farther into the Solomons, once the April upgrades show up I may very well send a carrier TF out there to try to find some "easy pickings". Tophat is probably expecting that too, but I can't just let him sail along without any interference.

Speaking of "sailing along" - Tophat's subs have disappeared off of the map recently. He is doing no obvious scouting of the Eastern or Southeastern Pacific sailing routes. This really makes me wonder what he was doing with those subs that were sailing to the far Southeast…[&:]

Dave Baranyi



ADavidB -> Still a busy man... (9/27/2005 4:34:51 AM)

March 26 -

Tophat continued his Pacman approach to taking bases, occupying Arawe and capturing both Tomini and Ormoc. He also sent a bombardment TF to Samarinda this turn. But I got in my own surprise as my Chinese IL-4c bombers went to Taan, got past the Nates that were on CAP and hit three APs and an AK, with one of the APs set on fire. Otherwise, Tophat kept up his usual aerial bombardments and artillery duels. His artillery fire is causing more Chinese casualties, so I will have to reinforce those bases and locations where we are duking it out.

I mentioned last time that I haven't seen any of Tophat's subs recently. Well, one showed up this time - southeast of Pago Pago and heading SE at 13 knots. Huh??? Is he intending to invade the Logo or the Terrain Key? [:D] Seriously, I can't figure out why he is sending his subs so far to the Southeast unless he is hoping to "sneak up" on the West Coast. But why bother? It is so hard to find Japanese subs in the Eastern Pacific anyway.

Less than a week is left until I get my big April ship upgrade and it looks as if I will get it uninterrupted by Tophat. I will also get the "Lost Island" (Long Island) in another couple of days, which will be nice because it will mean that I won't have to put small air squadrons into AKs to get them to the front. I'm still battling the "fighter disease" although things are getting better for those units where I've been able to set them to "stand down" (as PzB suggested). But I obviously need CAP in some frontline locations. I only hope that this problem fixes itself in some manner - maybe when all of those big air groups that I moved by ship are repaired the problem will go away for the other units.

Dave Baranyi



wobbly -> Pago Pago (9/27/2005 5:35:46 AM)

Alot of people circumnavigate PagoPago in the delivery of supplies and fuel to NZ, Noumea and Brisbane South. They do this to lessen the chance of an important TF being found by the KB and despatched. I would figure Tophat is therefore looking to put subs along these convoy lanes.



ADavidB -> RE: Pago Pago (9/27/2005 6:41:21 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: wobbly

Alot of people circumnavigate PagoPago in the delivery of supplies and fuel to NZ, Noumea and Brisbane South. They do this to lessen the chance of an important TF being found by the KB and despatched. I would figure Tophat is therefore looking to put subs along these convoy lanes.



I feel that I've got enough of a warning network in place so that I don't have to worry too much about a surprise by the KB way down there. Also, I don't have a lot of ship traffic in that region because I'm not trying a "rush" build-up of Australia and the DEI.

It will be interesting to see how long Tophat keeps those subs out in southeastern "Never Never Land" with no traffic flowing through. [;)]

Thanks for the comments -

Dave



ADavidB -> March 27 - Manila Finally Falls... (9/27/2005 6:42:44 AM)

March 27 -

Manila finally fell; long after I expected it to fall, and I bet long after Tophat expected it to fall too. Now he needs to rest up his troops and then figure out what he needs to take Bataan and the rest of the Philippines. Of course, he could just leave my remaining troops in place and use them for target practice, but I suspect that he will eventually go after them. Certainly at this stage, and with so little in the way of supplies, my troops shouldn't last too long. But you never know. Tophat's forces also captured Buin this turn and started to land at Torokina.

I turned the tables on Tophat this turn at Teloekbetoeng. I sent all of my Dutch planes in Java after Tophat's troops there (the 4th Mixed Brigade). My bombers did a pretty good job of causing casualties to the Japanese. The air was pretty crowded over that base because Tophat also sent planes in to bomb my troops. I noticed that Tophat now has a combat TF to the east of Toboali heading SW. Is that TF heading for Teloekbetoeng or for Batavia? Just in case I pulled my planes out of Batavia and put them in Bandoeng, which is safe from naval bombardments. I also reset all of my planes in Java to Naval Attack just in case they get an opportunity to strike at that Japanese TF on its way out of whichever base it goes after.

Elsewhere, I forgot those Chinese IL-4c bombers and left them on Port attack on Taan. So they flew again and took more damage this time, but they still got a hit on a transport and on the Port. I've now put them on 20% Naval Search so that they rest up and repair the damaged planes.

BTW - the reconstituted AVG finally repaired itself and is back to its undivided full strength. I now have plenty of other fighter squadrons around India so I won't have to split the AVG again. This way I can keep them in reserve so that I can contest the skies in a serious manner. (I'm also still playing with aircraft reserves and replacements and I prefer not to use up P-40Bs on unnecessary battles at this time.) Now if my other air units in other locations repair themselves too I will feel a lot better.

Dave Baranyi



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