Warpsite gets withdrawn at some point. I remember ending up sending her all the way to the Falkland islands to try and get her to leave in a previous game. I lost hundreds of PPs because I hadn't realized I could have just sent her to Sydney and done the same thing.

Anyways.....

12th Dec (I think,)

Not much happens. Well, Vigan and Appari in the PI both fall and he's started landing troops at Iba too, neatly bypassing a minefield I had there. I'm going to try run a convoy into manila, I think, to up supply but it will have to come from Soerbaja so it won't be getting there any time soon.

A couple of Indian Brigades have disembarked at Colombo where they will stay for the foreseeable future. A Gurkha brigade (Part of the 17th div for those who have read 'Quartered Safe Out Here,' and another couple of brigades are heading to Madras from where they will head to Chittagong and Cox's Bazaar. the 18th Div is still a couple of weeks out but will also prepped for the Burmese border when they arrive.

A convoy is loading for Suva right now and the 8th Marine regiment at SF is prepping for the same location. I checked the PP cost for changing to an unrestricted command: 330. I have 300 in the bank so far.....and I'm going to need a bunch of them to unlock some of the squadrons in the PI. Those B-17 squads are going to be very important in the coming months.

Speaking of which, the two B-17 squads at Butuan on the big island of Mindao (?) have been given order to hit the port at Babeldaob (crazy name! crazy place!) where a dozen ships have been reported. I had been hoping that was the Baby KB I picked up but it seems to be north of Vigan covering the landings.

I'm going to have to get some fighters into Oz ASAP too. At the moment it appears all air power there is concentrated on a 2 seater biplane crewed by Mr. Jimmy Eccles of 17 The Gardens Canberra, and an Alsatian called Kevvo. It probably won't be enough, as brave as Kevvo is.

Air Losses

http://img64.imageshack.us/img64/6412/losse.jpg



Totals so far. Not too bad.

Other News

My subs are being strangely quiet. I've altered a few patrol zones now but I'm not sure what's going on. Never had this problem before.

Both the Big E and the Lex are at Palmyra awaiting orders but everything seems quiet...too quiet. No sign of any attacks at Wake or even Guam yet. It's a little bit disconcerting.

@Oberon: What's the story behind your comment about Warspite's steerage problem? I promise I'll try my best not to replicate it in-game. :)

12th Dec (this time!)

Invasions at Nauru, Guam. Nauru falls. Again, not much I can do about them.

Dutch Sub KXI sinks a minesweeper off Malaya but gets hit bad by Depth charges in return. She'll have to pull out for repairs. North of Pearl an ASW TF attack I-4 without much success.

My B-17 strikes at Babeldaob hit an xAK but all my flights in Malaya are hemmed in by bad weather, although a few sortie in the afternoon for no effect.

An invasion fleet seems to be on it's way to Davao. Maybe time for Force Z to get busy...

Thoughts

Glad to have a sub hitting something. There are a bunch of boats heading to Pearl from the west coast so I'm optimistic I can start hitting his shipping in the near(ish) future.

The Warspite had a steering problem which dogged her throughout her entire naval career. It started IIRC at Jutland where during the battle her rudder got stuck and her captain decided to keep at speed and circle until the problem could be fixed, at the same time, nearby, HMS Warrior was under heavy shelling but the shelling subsided as the German fleet started targetting the more tempting Warspite, Warriors crew thought that the Warspite was steaming around her on purpose to save her but Warspite couldn't do anything else! :haha: The problem was eventually fixed but it would keep coming back throughout her life, at one point IIRC whilst she was being towed out of the Med after catching a Fritz-X she broke her towing lines and landed up drifting sideways through the Straits of Messina.
Quite a colourful ship, read a fantastic book on her once, alas can't recall the precise title, but it's a terrible shame she wasn't saved like the Belfast was. Still, at least she didn't go quietly into the scrapyard. :up:

Lol....Cool, drifting sideways. I was doing that last Sunday night after the pub. Maybe that's why she starts in the shipyard in WiTP.

:haha: Her in the shipyard has a bit more to do with these guys:

http://www.world-war-2-planes.com/im...8_infl_550.jpg

She took bomb damage during the Battle of Crete, so she was sent to Bremerton for repairs in August. The repairs finished in December and there she is. :salute:

Why Bremerton, out of interest? Seems a very long way to go to get patched up. My knowledge of a lot of the RN during WW2 is woefully short. I really must rectify that.

Well, I'm sitting here waiting for Juha to send me the next turn. For some reason the Japanese player has two files to send: the combat resolution file and the actual turn. The resolution file generates all the various intel and combat reports for the next turn and is pretty interesting in itself. It's actually kind of cool because it allows the Allied player to view the results and formulate his moves before he even receives the next turn as long as the Japanese player sends them out separately, of course.

So, where will he strike next? It would seem that he is following the traditional route through the Philippines and into the DEI. From there he has several options: Attack northern Australia, go for New Guinea, or turn west and go for India. The question is: is he going for a better than historical outcome or is he going for autovictory?

Autovictory is achieved when a player gets a certain amount of points. I think in 42 it is activated when one player gets 4 times what the other has. It's not that easy to achieve and, usually, if the Japan does not get it by the start of 43 there is really no chance.

Points are gained by taking bases, destroying military assets and so forth. Various strategies are thought of as good for Autovic wins: Taking Australia should generate enough points eventually, as would taking India (which has never been achieved as far as I know.)

I have a suspicion - a gut feeling really - that Happy Times may go for Australia. It might not be for Autovic reasons, but I just have this recurring thought. That might be my own paranoia playing up as it is far too early to say. we are only a few days in, after all, and everything is still to play for.

Myself, I am happy enough to have got the bulk of the shipping out of the DEI and PI. I lost more against the AI in fact. I am torn between reinforcing Palembang (The Festung Palembang gambit is garnering interest from some of the games better known players over at Matrix,) and reinforcing Oz. I don't want to go into a full 'Sir Robin' Defence at this point but it's difficult not to. The role of the Allied player, after all, is to be the whipping boy for Japanese aggression for the first six months.

So many choices!

I think she was due to go over to the Far-East squadron for a bit post repairs, that and Bremerton was one of the safer locations, being relative far away from any of the fighting, plus she could have done her post-repair trials in the Pacific, relatively free of uboats. That's just my guesswork, there were reasons for it, but I can't recall them off hand. I think a few of our ships went to the states to be fixed up, pretty sure the Illustrious went there too. *reads* Yeah, she went to Norfolk for her repairs after some Stukas banged her up off Malta and then she got bombed in port as well at Malta. So eventually they managed to withdraw her to Egypt, and then send her to the states.

Well, Juha got my last turn but couldn't open it. I've sent it to him again but I don't know what the problem is. worst that happens I guess is I run the turn again from the last save I got from him. Didn't do too much anyway so shouldn't take long: B-17s switching from naval strikes to see if I can slow down his advance in the PI and Force Z heading towards Davao for what looks to be an under defended amphibious convoy. Hudsons at Singers switched to land attack because they are truly awful at naval strikes. The rumour that the Australian minister of defence is suggesting arming pigeons with sticks of dynamite is nothing but slander....

My resent turn worked and Juha sent me the combat report which, fittingly for Subsim.com was full of subs....

Highlight was the Dutch sub KXVII operating of the east coast of Malaya. She hit a XAK carrying artillery and vehicles with two torpedoes which is usually enough to put them under. Even better, as she was clearing the area she stumbled into a small task force and put a torpedo into a light cruiser. Beer all round when the crew get back to port! :yeah:

In comparison, there were a pile of attacks by US fleet boats in the crowded waters around the PI. so many dud torpedo hits that it must have sounded like a Caribbean Steel band playing death metal.

Pickeral took some damage but should be able to get back to Pearl.

From the other side, I-4 tried a couple of attacks near Pearl but had one dud hit and a miss. My ASW guys kept her down but no hits were registered.

I-123 hit a fleeing xAKL in the DEI and put her under. Not a major loss but a reminder that he is beginning to task subs into the area.

I-166 was caught in the shallow waters off Osthaven in southern Sumatra. I don't think she's going home. She bottomed out and was properly battered by a Destroyer.

Landings.

Guam fell, which triggered Tokyo Rose talking nonsense, as she is want to do. The invasion cover (several cruisers,) sunk a tiny minesweeper trying to get out of dodge. Rose claimed we had lost several Carriers and a Battleship. :D

Airstrikes

B-17s hit and hopefully sank a fleet oiler at Babledeboob or whatever it's called, but it seems I forgot to change the Hudson tasking out of Singers and they got cut up. Later on, in the afternoon, a lone swordfish spotted the mighty BB Kongo off the Malayan coast and tried to sink her with the good old British standby weaponry of irony and wry understatement. Kongo is impervious to such hi-jinks, it seems, and blasted the little thing out the sky.

Not bad, all things considered: a couple of merchies, a sub, a cruiser probably going to the yards for a while all for a little tramp steamer.

Just a question, whats an XAK or xAKL?

An xAK is a civilian cargo ship. An AK is a military cargo ship. The game differentiates between the two since a ship designed from the keel up to carry military equipment and supplies is generally more efficient at it than a converted civilian vessel. xAKs also get no amphibious bonus when off-loading troops or cargo in an invasion, or in an undeveloped port or anchorage. An xAKL is just a lighter civilian cargo ship.(Or, like Egan suggested, a tramp steamer. :03:)

The amount of different ship designations and their descriptions has a ten page appendix all of it's own in the manual..:) There are a couple of mods now that further add to the confusion.

Big ships are fine, it's when you get down into the murky world of YMS, YP, HDML, APc, YO's etc it starts hurting my head..

Actually, is 'tramp steamer' the same thing as an xAKL? I dunno, but I just love the term. It always makes me think of the Millennium Falcon for some reason.

I've been thinking about what I said about Juha's future plans. I had a feeling that he might try and go for Australia early on, perhaps not for auto victory reasons but because it's a useful gambit for the IJN player to use that shuts down access to the DEI if done right. I never really thought that he would try to take Brisbane or Sydney because even as a relatively new player I'm sure he knows that doing such a thing would probably trigger the massive Allied reinforcements that come along in such a situation. Isolating northern Oz, though, by taking Darwin, Horn Island and closing the Gulf of Carpentia to me would add perhaps 6 to 8 months onto the war. It's a good move although one that is obviously not without risk to himself as I think he would have to go after Suva or even New Zealand in an attempt to deny me the supply routes I would need to combat such a proposition.

Well, looking at the map this morning in the cold light of a night where I didn't sleep very well (still fighting a horrible cold,) I realized a couple of things I hadn't really thought too much about so far.

Firstly, there has still been no attack at Wake island. This in itself is no big deal; it's a tiny rock that has a stacking limit of 6000 personnel as it is rated as an atoll, and is far easier for me to keep supplied than the other way around. It's main use for the IJN player, I think, is to base patrol aircraft, use as a forward sub base and generally provide a bit of an irritation factor - mostly the same sort of things I would use it for in fact.

Not attacking Wake is not entirely unusual; lots of IJN players skip it and use those troops and transports elsewhere. But there is another factor that is making me a little bit nervous.

That factor is simple: My patrol aircraft flying out of Midway are still reporting the Kido Butai away to the north. I would have expected him to clear off by now, either to port in the Home Islands, or to the DEI/PI to support the landings.

Now, there are a couple of things he could be doing: Refueling at sea from his fast fleet oilers or simply waiting for something. Perhaps he is coming after Midway right off the bat, which would be an interesting move. Perhaps he's going to sweep back to Pearl in the hope that my carriers are there (they're not,) but that would be fraught with danger for him and he would likely lose at least two flat tops to my forces.

Of course, I could be reading far too much into this. By his own admission Juha is still a novice at the game (as am I in fact, even though I've been playing it for a while,) and he could well have simply overlooked the KB with everything else that is going on.

And as if on cue, the next combat replay has popped up in my inbox. To war!

14th Dec 41

Not a good day. All win for him.

CenPac

Tarawa fall. No surprise there. It's the next step after Makin, after all.

PI

Davao falls. Force Z is steaming in that direction as I speak. I'm too late to stop the landings of course, but I'm hoping for an opportunity to batter his shipping. There seems to be a task force between Mindanao and Peliliu, though. Maybe nothing; B-17's hit Boobledabeep for the third day running but the port seemed to empty so he's perhaps decided to vacate the area. Could be the Baby KB, though, and Force Z could be heading into a trap.

Malaya

A swarm of Nells all but destroy a task force at Georgetown which was loading the Punjab Battalion who were going to evac to Madras. Well, here's the comabt report from the morning strike:

A couple of rowboats are picking up the few survivors. Not good. I had hoped the unit would have loaded a little bit quicker than it did and would have been away by now

Sub War

The failure of my fleet boats to engage shipping around the PI continues to frustrate me. Not that it would help if they did because every torpedo hit is greeted with a comedy 'BOINGGG!!!!' noise from a Loony Tunes cartoon.

Other News

I've dispatched supply boats to both Wake and Johnson, and I need to start thinking about building up some of my other CenPac bases. I have lots of cargo ships but a lot of them are in fairly useless places. There are a couple of dozen in Sydney, for example, that I need to get to Pearl but can't really risk as I have nothing in the way of escorts just now.

The Royal Australian Cruisers are heading north to jolly up the troops of Lark Battalion at Rabaul. In Sydney, Leander and Achilles have just arrived from NZ.

Interesting snippet in the sigint read out which I missed:


I'm guessing that's what I'm seeing and not the Baby KB. Phew. Still, I can't confirm until I get get the turn back.

Hong Kong

I seem to have a blind spot for Honk Kong for some reason, and have just realized I've said nothing about it. Well, I have some Canadian and Brit troops sitting behind level two forts fighting off what seems to be an underwhelming IJA attack. He hasn't brought enough to the party so far but I imagine that will change over the next week or two.

China

Everything scarper. Hide in trees.

CenPac

My carriers, which had been loitering at Palmyra, have been ordered to move towards Tarawa. Hopefully, they can hit his landing ships as they get supplies onto the beach. They are a couple of days away so I can always change my mind if it looks dicey. They're a little bit under fueled but that's not too much of a problem. I have a horrible feeling I've left Enterprise's airgroups set to training. I'll check next turn. At best, the landings are being covered by the Baby KB but I've seen no evidence of this. Best case? we sink some ships and disappear into the wild blue yonder. worst case? I'll lose two carriers and feel a right mug.

PI

The task forces between Mindanao and Boobledoopbap remains unidentified. As Han Solo would say. "I've got a bad feeling about this."

Housekeeping

I've started the laborious process of sorting out which of my cargo ships are able to upgrade to more useful types. In real terms, it means finding all the ships that can convert to AKA and APA's (military cargo and landing ships with organic amphibious capability,) AE (Ammunition tenders are important for supplying big ships like BB's at small ports,) and AKE's (The same as previous except they can do it while at sea.)

The Allies never get enough of any of these ships, even when they start rolling out the shipyards later on. I need to get them stuck away somewhere safe until they can upgrade. I have plenty of other ships anyway so It shouldn't really hurt me too much.

Convoys

Supply convoy loading at Sydney for Darwin and a small convoy loading at Soerbaja for Manila in which I don't expect anyone to return from. It's only comprised of xAKLs anyway so if I lose them I won't lose too much sleep.

Football

The mighty Glasgow Rangers lost 3-2 to a jammy last minute Dundee United goal. I'm not best pleased and it's probably why I'm going to try sink some of the Tarawa invasion fleet with my carriers.

15th Dec 41 - (I've kind of lost track a bit...)

Quiet turn. The carriers steam towards Tarawa but it looks like they may have missed their chance. Difficult to say, though, as I was counting on coast watchers in the absence of aircraft, subs or troops to keep an eye on the area. I'm sending an AV (an Patrol aircraft tender,) to Baker Island and plan to base a squadron of Cats down their until the bad guys come calling, which they will.

Force Z should arrive in the waters off Davao tomorrow. No idea what they will find - could be cruisers and battleships or it could be a junk out catching shrimp.

A big troop convoy is assembling at San Fransisco; it will carry the 34th and 161st Infantry regiments, the 2nd USMC Para battalion, 8th Marines and a couple of base forces to pearl. The Marines will probably move of from there to Christmas island as soon as they can. On the other side of the world lots of ships are being collected at Sydney prior to heading towards Pearl. Just waiting some Destroyers from Soerbaja where there are lots.

B-17s hit an AO at boogoloodoop. The same one. Sucks to be him.

15th Dec - For Real!

Meh,

Davao

Force Z arrives ready to rock and finds......two lowly minesweepers. Force Z sinks them both out of frustration.

Hong Kong

IJA launches a deliberate attack with 26,000 or so men. Only one infantry outfit, the 38th div, is involved although there are lots of engineers. He reduce forts to level 2 with odds of 1:2, but loses 900 men in the attempt. I expect he'll either try a shock attack next round or let them recover from disruption.

PI

B-17's from Clark Field bomb IJA troops at Aparri, killing about 150 of them, which is none too shabby. B-17's again hit bongolybumph and hurt an AK this time. I'll probably stand them down now as I need to think about swapping their command and moving them to Oz.

Sub War

8 or 9 attacks by fleet boats around the PI cause not a single hit. This is pathetic. Surely the law of averages would suggest that at least one blooming torpedo should have done what it was made for by now and actually blown something up.

On the plus side, my ASW teams out of Pearl continue to torment poor little I-4, a submarine almost as useless as mine. She launched two attacks against destroyers without success.

Fog Of War

I've just noticed that the light cruiser that KXVII torpedoed is listed in the ships sunk sections as a sunk ships. Haven't recieved points for her yet so the chances are that she survived and this is a false report.

Did you pull the three British destroyers out of Hong Kong yet? With all there is to do, I always tend to overlook them too. As for the slow shipping docked there, it's pretty much doomed with all the Japanese naval bombers in the neighborhood. The MTBs might be able to make the Philippines.

Ow. Almost as bad as losing a carrier.