You should see the Sen Toku. It can carry three planes and travel around the world 1 and a half times!

Do you get access to the I-400 class in this campaign?

They go into service long after it ends, I believe.

Ah, alright thank you Raptor1!

Also, I'm surprised at how long the campaign is. Reading this AAR I was under the assumption it was almost over :haha: Now that my worries that the action will not stop anytime soon means I can sit back and stop trying to find other AARs similar to this :D

:haha:....Yeah, when I started my GC as the Allies, I was freaking out because I was getting reports of Japanses aircraft here - there - everywhere. It took me a little while to figure out that even the IJN didn't have THAT many carriers.

My subs provide very little intel. It seems they have to stumble accross fleets at sea; no special recon missions. Advantage Japan. :-?

I'd hope in any AE2 we'd get Allied subs able to carry out harbour recon as one of it's mission types. Heck, if they can code it so that a sub in the same hex as an enemy base that your bombning can act as lifeguard and pick up shot down pilots, I'm sure they could do this.

Is there anything suckier than being back at work after Christmas? :nope:

Being back in school :haha:

Like you'd find anyone else willing to write so much inept, paranoid gibberish. Got that market covered. :DL

I'm looking forward to readinig CCIP's thread when we're finished. I expect far higher production standards than sticking up a picture of A Glaswegian Yamamoto twice in a row and hoping no one asks me for a royalty.

9th Oct

Very quiet today. weather continues to affect KB1. I'll leave her out one more day and then bring her back.


Some aircraft totals for you:

http://img828.imageshack.us/img828/3780/totalsi.jpg

I'm quite amazed by the amount of carrier based aircraft CCIP appears to have lost. A pile of the ground losses for both would have been because of the Yamato strike, but it's the A2A figures that strike me. I'm also slightly surprised that he seems to have lost more Wildcats than I've lost Zeroes in dogfights. I also notice the very high figure for Ops losses for the Wildcats. Also worth noting is that I haven't seen any P39s for a while. All their losses came early. has he upgraded them to something else?

Subs

Turns out I only have one C1 class sub, the I-16. She's back at Rabaul and will take in a mini sub with a view for sea trials. I have two prospective targets...

According to the stockpile figures, I have about 140 of the Sub carried type 88 mines but, try as I can, I can't seem to get any subs to carry them. When I create a Sub Minelaying task force it tells me the sub already has mines loaded, but when I then check, it shows as empty. I'm doing something wrong but I don't know what. The manual hasn't been much help. I have more than enough Naval support at Rabaul, and the port size is good enough to rearm Yamato so I don't know what the problem is. Wrong type of subs? Are they only specific classes again? Or do I need a sub tender (which I don't have available)? I'm wondering whether it's a bug? I never seemed to have this problem with Allied subs.

I have other problems too. I am running into a wall with regards to fuel. I just can't get enough to the fleet to keep things going. it's not a question of shipping either, I have plenty of fleet oilers and tankers. It's simply that I cannot produce enough to keep up with demand. By the time tankers get back to Truk and reload, Rabaul is empty again and getting a chain of them working is proving hard as there is rarely enough fuel to load up more than one or two medium sized convoys at a time. The Battleships drain fuel like a Japanese soldier goes through cheese sandwiches. I'm going to have to cut back on any ops lasting more than a day or so. It's too costly just now and I need a stockpile for amphibious ops.

In case anyone's interested in how the above method works in practice, the silence ended with a big bang :D

According to intel the AI came with four CVs and CVE. Sara, Wasp and Enterprise, operating in the configuration described above, performed extremely well. I messed up my movement calculations and entered combat earlier than expected, with CAPs at only 30, but they still repulsed enemy strikes with damage done only to Enterprise. All three then responded with big strikes of their own, resulting in Shokaku, Zuikaku, two covering CAs and a DD received extremely heavy damage. Attempts to pursue them and confirm the sinkings were unsuccessful, but the reported damage was heavy enough for them to be effectively out of the scenario, if not sunk. On my side Big E will probably be out for a month or so, while the other CVs are undamaged.

Nice! Taking out carriers is the most satisfying feeling in the game.

I would recommend to strike Tulagi and Guadalcanal with the mini-subs first then moving on to bigger targets like Sydney or Fremantle.

:haha: That's probably why I enjoy reading your AAR so much. Makes me realize how many different possibilities are open.

Well, i don't have much intel of anything worthwhile at either Tulagi or Lunga just now. At best there might be one of the ships I hit with the carriers at anchor but, to be honest, I don't think it's worth the hassle to waste a minisub on it.

Sydney is definately a possible target. Freemantle, unfortunately, is off-map in this scenario (being a west Oz base,) but Brisbane and Townsville are both a decent size, and I did have some sightings of capital ships at Townsville a few days ago.

Of course, they are not the only possible targets.

I'm interested to see what you can achieve with the midgets, since the usual AI midgets around Guadalcanal don't usually achieve much at all.

As for targets, how about Noumea? It's guaranteed to contain ships, but then again the surrounding waters are also usually infested with ASW forces. At least it'd provide some entertainment for the AAR :)

I'll be honest, I have no great hopes for the one midget sub I can field at a time :D It's more an experiment than anything else becauase I've never used them before. I'm not even sure I'm loading them right...

Yep, Noumea was one of the bases I'd thought I'd try it out at, Luganville as well.

10th Oct

One of my Vals spotted and got a lucky hit on a PT boat in the Slot. This is the first time I've seen CCIP use PT boats in the game. I'll have to be careful, they're deadly if used right.

CCIp tried to slip a convoy into Moresby, carrying troops and equipment. For the first time, and for reason known only to them, the Vals I has stationed at Lae took off to deal some damage.

They did pretty well, losing only one aircraft during two sorties - and that one went down to flak rather than the CAP.

A good days work for those guys. Bovril all round!

KB1 is pulling back to Rabaul. Goodness knows why - there's no fuel there.

I-16 has taken the Mini sub and gone to sea. I've told her to head to Lugganville first because this is the last place I got a sniff of some of CCIP's bigger ships and I think he was using it as a staging post. Whether he still is I don't know.

The Vals at Lae will hopefully fly again tomorrow. I don't think I nailed all those ships, but they are all seriously damaged. He's moving more troops in. That's fine. All the more to build the prison camp when my guys arrive.

Using xAPs to Moresby at the current situation was pretty much asking for it. It takes ages to unload with that small a port.

I think he maybe got cute and, knowing where my carriers have been for the last week, and knowing that the remains of my level bombers are currently used by the PNG natives to provide, bonfire fuel, decking and roofing he decided to risk it. I guess the Vals bombing his ships surprised him - they certainly surprised me! How big is Moresby anyway? Size 3? 4? I think he maybe reckoned that a small troop convoy, backed up by CAP would be safe enough given that it looked like other factors were in his favour.

Or he might be saving the handful of decent amphibious shipping he has for a half-chance at getting troops onto the beach somewhere quick....Where would be possible, if he has the means and desire to do it?

Tassaforonga? Doesn't yeild much in the way of VP for the Allied player, but he might fancy a quick invasion to consolidate his gains. The fact that he doesn't seem to have moved troops across the island to where my men are kind of suggets he's content to let it lie, at least for the time being. Still, it's far easier to carry out the attack by sea than by land. Wouldn't help him, though, my forts there are level six and I've got a good sized force in place who are well supplied (sometimes...:))

Shortlands? If I was CCIP, and I had enough aircover, I would think long and hard about trying to land on Buganviile. It has a decent harbour that can be built up, and the airfield can also be made useful. Most importantly, it puts him that much closer to Rabaul - I think Wildcats with drop tanks could get there, couldn't they? I know if I was playing the Allies, Shortlands would be next on my target list once Guadalcanal and Moresby were secure. Another thing in it's favour is that the distance from Lunga and Tulagi tends to reduce the need for carriers.

Buna? No, too risky by far. Rabaul? That would be fun, but no....

So, if I was CCIP what would I do? Simple, I would have a force at Luganville with plenty of supply and I would have been training them for a good month now so that they are getting prepped for Shortlands. Then, as soon as I know that the Japanese player has commited to PNG, I would move them out and up and head for Shortlands. It's a very high risk gambit that relies on knowing what the opponent is going to be doing - and knowing where his carriers are - but it's doable, even without the shipping he's lost. If he was successful, it changes the balance by a margin.

Darn it, I've scared myself, I think I'd better get more troops onto Buganville as soon as I can. And more engineers. Building an airstrip takes a geological age if you are starting from size 0.

IIRC the port at Moresby starts at 2 and is already at or over its SPS, which naturally means it takes ages to expand. It can dock a whopping 12000 tons of shipping at the start and cargo handling isn't much to brag about either :D

What I've learned even against the AI is that if you want to resupply PM, Lunga or Milne(all size 1 or 2 ports) early in the campaign you've got no other choice but to send amphibious capable ships with heavy air cover, or tiny TFs that can dock there. It's not optimal, but the huge xAP and xAK task forces take weeks to unload at worst, which means they will get blasted sooner or later. It's not fun having your CVs hang around the same spot all that time either. Tulagi has a size 3 port with the ability to dock 24000 tons, so the situation there is much better.

Fyi I'll be moving on Rabaul in my own AI campaign once everything is sorted out at Moresby, Milne and Lunga. Should be interesting. Preparations will include raiding Truk and Rabaul with CV based airpower :arrgh!:

Remember that the Allied player doesn't exactly have free land units and political points to throw around, which really limits his ability to conduct offensive ops past Guadalcanal.