War in the Pacific AAR Thread: ML (Japan) vs. Leo (Allies)

[Molon Labe]

2 March 1942
Yorktown turns north to avoid ambush, raid on southeastern Australia begins


China
That pesky I-15 took advantage of some bad coordination and got to my bombers near Nanyang, shooting down a Sally.


Java
He tried to hit my troops at Bandoeng with Falcons again, we shot down 1, the rest ran. A pair of 139WHs followed that up, we splashed them both. A raid on our forces on the east side cost them a Buffalo.


SOPAC
The KB took station off the southeast corner of Australia and launched sweeps of Melbourne and Sydney. We had no joy at Melbourne, while encountering 23 P-40s protecting Sydney. We shot down 10 of them while losing 1 Zero. The enemy also sent waves of B-26s and B-17s after me, losing 3 B-17s and 7 B-26s to our CAP and another 3 B-26s to flak. This took a toll on our fighters though, with no shootdowns in combat but 4 Zeroes not making it back to the carriers or being scrapped due to battle damage.


CENTPAC
Yorktown was spotted again, but well north of its reported east trajectory to Pearl. Apparently he took notice that his CVBG had a detection level and responded. This puts about half my subs out of position for an intercept, making adjustments for the rest. But he now has a smaller amount of space to sanitize.



Reinforcements
10th Garrison Unit arrives at Nagoya
The Marshalls' fighter squadron has converted from Claudes to Zeroes at Guadalcanal. They'll fly back to their home base in about 3 days.

[Molon Labe]

3 March 1942
Australia industry raid


CENTPAC
No luck ambushing Yorktown on the second possible day. She's only a few hexes away now, we've got maybe 2 boats in position and they have a lot of ASW patrols.


SOPAC
With yesterday's sweeps confirming the amount of enemy resistance is low enough to proceed with strategic bombing, I attacked Melbourne with 89 Kates and 90 Vals, targeting "manpower" sites, which yielding 61 hits and a firestorm level of 26946. This earned 320 victory points as the fires damaged/destroyed light industry in the hex. I lost 6 Vals to flak. 9 Kates and 9 Vals went after a small surface task force including 2 cruisers and a destroyer at the adjacent hex, Geelong, the Vals scoring 3 hits on the Achilles and 1 hit on the destroyer Vampire. 7 more Kates peeled off to sink a minesweeper south of the task force.

A Jake flying off a battleship near Noumea claimed a hit on a submarine.


Java
We made an armored attempt on Tjilatjap, reducing fortifications but not taking the base just yet.


China
Yet another attempt on the Nanyang stack. Same result (he's taking way more squad destruction casualties), so it's working for me...just working slowly.

We captured Kukong.

[Molon Labe]

4 March 1942

Java and Banda Sea
An American sub picked off an AKL near Ambon.


CENTPAC
Safe to say the Yorktown has arrived at Pearl at this point, we do not hold contact.

A American seaplane tender was caught trying to set up shop in the Gilberts; Mavises from the Marshalls attacked twice, scoring a hit on the second run.


SOPAC
B-17s attempted a strike on the Mutsu near Nomea, they shot down a Zero but our Zeros got one of them too, flak added a second. And of course they missed the battleship.

Australia strikes were scrubbed by weather. The fires added another 30 or so VP. Strikes today were intended to go after massive numbers of transports and tankers spotted in Melbourne's port, as well as the 2 cruisers in the port next door.


Java
Tjilatjap has been captured, with a loss of at least 5 aircraft on the ground. The tanks are now headed back to Bandoeng. On the east side, we've captured Loemadjang and Malang.

We made an attack on Bandoeng as well, finding level 2 forts and achieving only 1 to 2 assault power ratio--not enough. Hence why the tanks are heading back.

[Molon Labe]

5 March 1942
Melbourne Port Strike

SOPAC
A bad decision on my part: I shelled Melboure with the Hiei and Kirishima. There was a substantial minefield that I should have expected. 2 escorting destoyers and the Kirishima were all hit. Damage on one of the destroyers is pretty bad. The task force destroyed a minesweeper on the way in. The shelling did substantial damage to the airbase, blew up 1-2 Wirraways on the ground, and damaged a tanker, subtender, 2 cargo ships, and a transport. Overall not great.

That was followed up by a port strike of Melbourne, 77 Kates and 34 Vals, damaging 22 different ships, I'd say sinking between 5-10 of those. 15 Vals separately attacked Resources at Sale, scoring 4 hits, which apparently did negligible damage.

6 Wirraways attacked the KB, with 5 being shot down. The survivor tried to drop 2 100-lb bombs on Hiryu and missed. That was followed up by 13 Banshees with 17 P-40 escorts attacking that battleship group. The were out of range of my CAP, so they only lost 1 bomber to flak and scored a hit on Kirishima. Another reason why the bombardment was a bad call.

51 Vals attacked Geelong, scoring single hits on the Dorsetshire and Achilles. Achillies has to be hurt pretty badly by now. 27 Kates made a 2nd run on Melbourne but missed everything due to a storm.

7 Banshees flew a 2nd mission, this time targeting the KB--apparently too far for the P-40s as they came in without escort. We shot down 5 with the CAP and a sixth by flak. One bomber made an attack on Akagi and missed.


Philippines
The minesweeper clearing Bataan was insufficiently careful. I have two DMSs on the way to take her place.

[Molon Labe]

6 March 1942
Heavy losses over Australia

Java and Banda Sea
We lost another AKL to a sub, this time off Koepang. That ship was intended to pick up some SNLF troops to land on Dili.

We got even, picking off an AKL off Darwin.


SOPAC
The American destroyer Porter shelled Ndeni. We really don't have anything there anymore.

Now for the bad news. I divided my attacks up again between Melbourne and Geelong. The Geelong mission was cancelled. I had one squadron of Zeroes escorting each strike, so the Melbourne strike flew with just one squadron of escorts, and the enemy CAP only had to deal with the one package. So that was a 12 Zeroes vs 17 P-40 fight when is should have been something more like two 12 v 8 fights. We shot down 2 P-40s but several made it to the bombers. We lost 12 Kates. We did a second sortie, this time with even numbers between the Zeroes and P-40s, still enough to let a couple P-40s through; 4 more Kates went down.

The strikes hit 5 more ships, with a confirmed sinking of a transport, two other merchants likely to have sunk. Overall I think I sank about a dozen ships between all these strikes. It might be significantly more because there were several loaded tankers that we ignited on day 1 that didn't seem very damaged, but we didn't see them there for the second day.

These losses mean it's time to go, though. I'm also pretty sure the enemy is forming up a wall of subs to greet me on my way out, and the longer I stay the thicker that wall is going to be. I'm heading south around Tasmania while sending the Zeroes back to sweep Melbourne. This should help reduce their numbers a bit so I can hit Sydney on the way out.


China
Another attack on the Nanyang stack, and although we didn't break through this time, we did get the most disproportionate loss ratio so far, with just 7 devices destroyed for us, but 282 of his, and adjusted assault ratio of 1.35 to 1, which is really close to an overrun. The next one might finally do it. On paper, this force is down to 56,000. I think it used to be something like 130k!

[Molon Labe]

7-8 March 1942
Kido Butai picks off evacuating merchants as it repositions for Sydney strike

Unless specifically mentioned, all events were on 7 March (8 March was quite uneventful)


Philippines
The 2 DMSs are hard at work on the Bataan minefield, clearing at least 120 mines between these two days.

Java and Banda Sea
We picked off another AKL near Darwin with a sub.
Anns flying from Ambon claimed two hits on an enemy sub (subs?).


SOPAC
The merchant raider that was not torpedoed upon leaving port encountered an enemy convoy near the Tonga islands. So, some good news, we have a pretty good idea where their supply lines are running. The bad news is this convoy had 2 CLs and 2 ASW ships escorting it. My raider was sunk; we got some hits on empty tankers in the convoy.

Meanwhile, the KB picked up several small task forces at it went around Tasmania to the south.

The resulting airstrikes eliminated 4 AK/AKL, 5 AP, 1 AM, all confirmed.

On 8 March, an attempted SSX attack on Geelong failed, probably due to me using the wrong type of orders. The SSX ran out of fuel and is being recovered by the mothership to return to Noumea for refueling.

Burma
Port strike on Rangoon damaged a cargo ship; might have sunk it.


China
The pesky I-15 presence near the Nanyang stack got another Lily today.
I found another pair of opportunities to change garrison units; it will take weeks but once they arrive it will free up about 350 AV to use offensively in the southern central area.


Reinforcements
CVE Unyo arrived on the 8th. I'm sending a few DD over to bring her to the Marianas, where there are carrier-trained aircraft ready to board her.

[Molon Labe]

9 March 1942

Philippines
Mine clearance operations at Bataan and Manila have completed. Time to start moving troops again.


Gilbert Islands
I sent a small SAG (1 CL, 3 DD) after a bogey that turned out to be a PG. Not sure what he was up to, but he's on the bottom now. One of my destroyers took a hit for moderate damage.


SOPAC
I swept Sydney with 18 Zeroes, opposed by 9 P-40s; we shot down 6 of them and damaged the other 3 with no losses. Strategic bombing to follow.

At Noumea, we lost a pair of Zeroes to 4 B-17s attacking the battleship Yamasihro. No damage to the ship.


Java and Banda Sea
The day before they were due to withdraw, I raided Darwin with a Nell squadron, doing light damage to the port facilities.

[Molon Labe]

10 March 1942

Bay of Bengal and Burma

I-28 torpedoed and sank a minesweeper off the southern coast of Ceylon.
An HDML was spotted near Rangoon; Oscars made a low altitude attack and sank it with small bombs and gunfire.


Gilbert Islands
The SAG that sank the PG yesterday found a PC to sink today out to the east near Baker Island. They snuck up on it in a storm at night and sniped it with a torpedo.


China
The only air to air shootdown of the day was an I-15 getting a Lily over the Nanyang stack that lost its escort.

The enemy now has a significant presence in Kukong; it's safe to call this a counteroffensive at this point. Our garrison is outnumbered 22k to 10k--bad enough that we could lose it. I'm trying to build forts and hope that the combination of wooded terrain (2x defensive bonus) and air support will help us hold.


Java
Our western force made a deliberate attack on Bandoeng, reducing forts to level 1; disablements/destroyed squads favored us, 80 to 181. We should get it soon. The eastern force captured Madioen, along with a significant number of aircraft destoryed on the ground including 18 75A-7 Hawks, 2 CW-21 Demons, and somewhere between 5-8 Buffalos. The base had only a token force defending it.


SOPAC
Vals from the KB picked off a minesweeper near Newcastle. Storms caused the Sydney strike to be scrubbed.

[Molon Labe]

11 March 1942
Strategic bombing of Sydney, Bandeong falls

Indian Ocean and Burma

I-27 torpedoed and sank an ML off the coast of Karachi. Kind of pointless to pick off a small ASW craft when they didn't even know I had a sub up here until now.

We lost 2 Betties bombing Rangoon today, enough that I think it's time to make this an army-only mission. Too little damage to them, too many aircrews being lost.


SOPAC
After the disapointing scrub yesterday, our strike on Sydney flew today; 40 Zeroes escorting 76 Kates and 82 Vals. They had 10 Kittyhawk IA fighters on patrol, one was shot down trying to get past the Zeroes. We lost 2 Vals to flak as our only losses. The raid scored 26 manpower hits, setting off fires with a rating of 16725. At the end of the turn those fires accounted for industrial damage worth 116 victory points.

17 of my Vals went north towards Brisbane where they obliterated an APD that had been harassing my subs. 10 of the Vals scored hits. If I could only have that kind of accuracy for my port strikes.

6 B-17s from (probably) Brisbane went after the KB, followed by 4 Bolos; Zeroes took care of 1 B-17 and all 4 Bolos; flak added another 2 B-17s. No damage to any ships. Another 6 B-17s from Fiji attacked Noumea, losing 2 to the Zeroes on CAP.


Java
I attacked Bandeong again and captured it this time. 488 devices destroyed to 2. That was likely the biggest group of defenders. Surabaya looks weak--I'll be attacking tomorrow and expect to capture it easily. That that pretty much just leaves Batavia.


China
The enemy tried to take back Kukong, forts were reduced to 0 and our casualties were higher at 96 devices disabled/destroyed to 21. That's good enough to take it from me in as little as one more day. I'm adding some bombers to help out but there isn't much I can do. It's of little consequence, especially compared to the slow massacre going on outside Nanyang.

[Molon Labe]

12 March 1942
IJA forces occupy Surabaya, finding it reduced to rubble by retreating Dutch forces; 2nd day of strategic bombing in Sydney

Aleutian Islands
I laid 40 mines at Adak by submarine. This base in going through rapid expansion so there will probably be traffic to hit.


SOPAC
I launched two strategic bombing raids; the first trying to stoke the fires in Sydney a bit more (which might have been mitigated by rain) and another targeting heavy industry. The Sydney raid was 76 Kates and 15 Vals, which scored 31 manpower hits and caused 9107 level fires, dealing 160 VP worth of industry damage. No losses. 61 Vals then targeted Heavy Industry in Newcastle, scoring only 3 hits which disabled 9 HI units--basically negligible damage, they can repair a point per day.


I lost a mini-sub trying to penetrate the harbor at Portsea.


China
We lost an Oscar to an I-15 above the Nanyang stack. We suffered a deliberate attack at Kukong but held it off; the enemy took more disablements but we had more squads destroyed, which basically means they can get us if they're patient.


Java
A flight of 9 Do-24s tried to attack Kalidjata, our western landing area. They were mostly routed by Oscars on defense, with 1 being shot down.

We then attacked Surabaya with 2+ divisions, taking it easily. The capture destroyed 11 Do-24s, 3 T.IVas, and 2 Buffalos. However, the base was completely demolished by the enemy's engineers.

All 80 Resource, 190 Oil, 10 HI, 170 Refinery, and 40 LI damaged were captured in a damaged state, while the shipyard had 1 unit of 8 functioning. The port is also trashed, but that might have been my doing.

[Ostfriese]

Originally Posted by Molon Labe

All 80 Resource, 190 Oil, 10 HI, 170 Refinery, and 40 LI damaged were captured in a damaged state, while the shipyard had 1 unit of 8 functioning. The port is also trashed, but that might have been my doing.

Can this be repaired, and -if yes- is it worth it?

[Molon Labe]

Originally Posted by Ostfriese

Can this be repaired, and -if yes- is it worth it?

Yes, and... well, let's work through this. It costs 1000 supply to repair each individual point. The shipyard and oil centers are worth it for sure. Resources... no, it'll take nearly 3 years each repaired unit to generate 1000 supply worth of resources, but mostly, I just don't think I'm going to run out of enough resources globally to keep the industry producing, so repairing them won't matter. Industry... same timetable as resources, but these are the bottleneck in the production chain, it's early enough in the war for that to be a maybe. So, here's how I'm going to decide this--I'll repair the factories up to the level that there are resources on Java alone to sustain them... which it turns out is negative, Java would need to import resources to keep its factories running. So I won't be repairing either resources or industry. I may reassess this after I take Batavia, since Batavia's 41 Heavy Industry units were decisive in the above math.

On the fuel side, I wouldn't want to pay to repair the refineries because it's not a huge loss if I ship the oil to Japan to be refined into fuel there. It's nice to have locally produced fuel so I don't have to ship fuel back out here, but I have plenty of refineries operating in Borneo and Sumatra.

[Molon Labe]

13 March 1942

Java
I targeted Batavia for airstrikes but underestimated their AA, sending my bombers in at just 10,000 feet and losing a Sally to flak. Better make it at least 15,000.


SOPAC
As the KB leaves the Australian coast, I thought I'd hit the port at Brisbane due to it being a very convenient repair shipyard, especially for submarines, so hopefully I'd finish a few off. No such luck. There were 14 Kittyhawks on patrol; we shot down 5 of them while losing 2 Zeroes to them, along with 2 Kates. The port was basically empty, we hit (and probably sank) an AKL but that's it.

[Molon Labe]

14 March 1942
Nanyang stack routed clear of the road to Sian


SOPAC
My destroyer-minesweepers at Noumea detected a minefield in the harbor and got right to work. Sub-laid, obviously.

A floatplane flying from a cruiser with the KB claimed a hit on a submarine.



Java
The Dutch air force lost a Falcon light bomber to my Oscars over Bandoeng. We've captured Tjepoe.


China
We lost yet another Oscar to that small I-15 presence over the Nanyang stack. Time to fix this.

But the big news of the turn was that we finally re-defeated the massive army that we'd pushed out of Nanyang into the mountains, that was blocking my path to Sian, my first major strategic objective in China. We destroyed 1995 enemy devices while losing just 3. Glad that my patience here paid off. We still have to mop up a few stray units before moving up the road, but this is a major breakthrough. There is another stack of 130k or so troops waiting for me in Sian, but they won't have mountain cover the way these guys did.

Lesser good news, we survived another deliberate attack at Kukong. Destroyed devices were nearly even at 5 to 7 favoring him, but disablements were skewed well in my favor 49 to 166. He can only win here if he's super patient, except while he's doing that my airpower is wearing him down. So this is looking much better than after the last attack.

[Molon Labe]

15 March 1942

SOPAC
The Noumea DMSs appear to have already cleared the minefield. And it wasn't small...88 mines swept in 2 days! If memory serves, the Dutch had 2 specialist minelaying subs, looks like he used them both here.

Java
I've captured Djokjakarta with paratroopers, destroying 3 Falcons at the base.

China
The Kukong troops are being displayed on fire when I bomb them, which probably means they're in bad shape in some way or other; low supply, high disruption, etc. Not enough to get me to counterattack just yet.


Australia Raid Summary
Well, let's see if this was worth it.

We did 796 victory points worth of damage to enemy industry, including damaging 90 heavy industry units and 338 light industry units.

Estimated Naval losses:
Allies: 2 AM, APD, 4 AK/AKL, 5 AP confirmed; estimated 10-15 additional AK/AP/TK; 2 cruisers damaged, 1 DD damaged
Japan: 1 BB lightly damaged, 1 DD moderate damage, 1 DD serious damage

Estimated Aircraft losses (not including operational losses)
Allies:
B-17: 5
B-26: 10
Bolo: 4
P-40/Kittyhawk: 29
Wirraway: 5
A-24: 7


Japan
Zero: 3
Val: 8
Kate: 18

All in all, while the loss of the Kates (and their pilots) did hurt me--and it was avoidable--I think I came out ahead.