22nd August.

Well, interesting intel. I'm getting told the Enterprise sank near Noumea, rather than where I got it. It's possible she went down when trying to get to base. CCIP is playing coy...:DL Never mind.

Not much happened today. I-174 tried to add to her tally by attacking the same task force again, but she got driven under by DCs (no damage, though.) S-38 popped a torp at my wounded fast transport to no effect. The escorts covered her as she wheezed out of range. The remainder of that FT TF (?!) are going to back in tomorrow night if things go right.....

Grayling continues to taunt my poor ASW guys by diving out of range. I'd like to get that boat in shallow water.......

Map - Developing situation

http://img641.imageshack.us/img641/7588/developing.jpg


KB1 should be in operational range tomorrow. According to recon, CCIP has 70 odd fighters and 30 bombers at Lunga. If this is true he is likely to be overstacked quite badly. Lunga starts with a size two airfield and between invading, getting engineers onto the islands and receiving supplies, I doubt he could have built it up to more than 3 - if that.

I would like KB1 to conduct anti-shipping missions in that general area but I am anxious about dive bombers. My Zeroes out range anything he should have available (with drop tanks, the carrier version, the A6M2, is capable of reaching out to 14 hexes.) The red X on the map shows the maximum range my dive bombers can operate at (or there abouts,) So I will hold short around here, maybe move a hex or so further and see what I can try to hit.

In the meantime, my Bettys are ordered to conduct a daylight bombing raid on his airfield on Lunga. If he is as badly overstacked as he seems to be, he will lose a lot of aircraft. If not I'll probably just annoy him. :)

I feel a bit more secure about this because, with a bit of luck, the carrier zeroes should fly a bit of CAP, which will provide the cover missing two days ago.

Once I know better what is there, I will move forward and try to thump home the natural supremacy of my totally ace forces. However, I am bracing myself for it all to go tits-up in best Admiral Egan style.




In other news, My brave soldiers on Guadalcanal captured a photo of the US troops looting our old positions....

http://img198.imageshack.us/img198/8...collaytion.jpg

Admiral Yamamoto is holding his breath tonight. I always feel a bit nervous when sending in the carriers....

Trust me...I know the feeling... :yep:

Once, in an AI game, I sent a CVTF up towards Truk. I had forgotten my fighters were all set up wrong. I got creamed by Netties. :oops:

Now, I don't know what I'm going to find here, not exactly at any rate. I don't plan to have them operating for long, though. A day or so in the area then they're going to pull back - If I have any carriers left to pull back that is.

Yeah, I'm currently sitting on my objectives in the Pacific waiting for Raptor to begin his counterattacks, I don't know where he'll strike, or when, and when he does I have the feeling that I'm going to be looking at my very own Midway. I've already lost the Mutsu and the Nagato, but I've been very lucky so far with my carriers...probably because I tend to keep them out of harms way whenever I can...and Raptor does the same thing so we're both waiting for some colossal carrier battle that will decide the outcome of the war. :haha:

23rd August

Went the day well!

http://img52.imageshack.us/img52/4730/yamamoto2.jpg

It began worryingly, with Marine fighters and dive bombers coming after my Carriers. My CAP butchered them. They lost 7 Wildcats and 7 Dauntless with 6 more unlikely to make it home. I lost none. A very good start.

A little later, we launched the first of three raids:

This was followed by slightly smaller attacks by Val with escorting zeros in which I believe three more ships sunk. Our losses were a total of three Vals and one Zero. Not a bad days work. I think AK Ara will go under too. one torpedo hit is usually fatal for AKs. So, 6 ships, maybe, in total. I think Pensacola may have been beat up too as she had a fire break out under the deck, which is not usually a great sign.

The one irritation was the Bettys again grounded themselves due to weather. I think they are lying to me. They have been banned from listening to Tokyo Rose until they do something to justify their flight play.

Even better, supplies reached Rabaul and the various fighter groups received replacement aircraft. It will take a few days to unpack and sticky tape them together, though.


Orders

I had hoped to find a battleship at anchor but I can't complain. Cheered by a much reduced allied CAP over Guadalcanal (the intel I had was dodgy to say the least, 70 fighters...pffft,) I have decided to let KB1 stick around a bit longer. They will move a few hexes further south east, out of the way of a couple of subs, and conduct one more day of raids before heading back north.

The Fast Transport group will head back in tonight. This will probably be the last we shall see of them as working those ships seems to be some sort of death sentence but I really need to get those troops on Tassaforonga resupplied. Bettys have been stood down until the flight leads have handed in 100 lines each: 'I must fly when it is a bit windy.'

He may have a battleship in the area. My worry is that he might pounce on me in a mad rush to protect his flank. One BB would probably not achieve much between my own battlewagons and my Long Lances but it still causes me pause for thought.

NOTE: My strike aircraft were a bit thin on the attack. I tend to keep a portion of them for scouting and naval search. Once this turn is done I might put a few more on straight out attack. I've been most impressed by the huge waves that CCIP has been flying from carriers. If anyone has any tips on getting them all to fly together let me hear them. best suggestion wins a bacon buttie.

Who wants to bet my carriers find the one fleet boat in SoPac that has a working torpedo on board? :D

Great reading chaps, looks like it's about to get interesting! :D

That's an idea. I tend to focus them on one mission and some naval search. My escorts were OK numbers wise. I wonder if i should try to layer the strike aircraft at different altitudes more.


In the cold light of day I'm a little more sober about the KBs achievements, which weren't huge. To be frank, i never expected it to be Pearl Harbour 2. The main role was to provide for bombers that never flew, and to scare CCIP a bit. It will be interesting to see his reaction. Will he evacuate his shipping or will he stand his ground? I'm basing this stuff on the fact i haven't seen evidence of his carriers in the area. My fleet train is such that if he decides to try an attack me in a surface action he'll have a number of battleships and cruisers in the way before he gets to the flat tops.

24th August.

A mass evacuation of US ships at Guadalcanal, looks like. Running south I'm guessing. He put up another fight, hoping to intercept my carriers and, again we butchered him in the air. He lost 5 more Wildcats and what looks like 4 Dauntless, with another 6 damaged. He also lost a P-39.

The Japanese strike aircraft flew again, much reduced in numbers it has to be said, and found only two ships at anchor - the AP's Zeilin and Ara (which has been damaged yesterday.) By the time my aircraft left, Ara had gone under and Zeilin was listing badly and belching smoke into the darkening sky. I would think she'll sink.

I might not have sunk as much as I would like but I still managed to disrupt his supply runs. He will think twice about running ships in without air cover, whether carriers or marine units on the island. Anything that forces him to use extra resources to do the basics is a good thing.

KB1 is ordered to pull back north. She'll loop around and have a sniff over towards PNG unless any juicy targets of opportunity appear.

The fast attack TF miraculously shrugged off a pair of small attacks by Dauntless as the transit along the Slot. They'll reach Tass tonight if all goes well then there will be a cheese-fest the likes of which has never been seen in the south Pacific before.

My air groups at Rabaul and Lae are back up to nearly full strength. The Bettys have been told to get the torpedoes loaded as there appear to be several Allied ships at both Moresby and Milne bay. Extra Zeroes have been shifted to Lae to provide cover.

Thoughts

Well, a move into Milne bay by the Allies is hardly unexpected but not entirely welcome. I don't have enough troops to really commit to an invasion at the moment - and with at least two carriers out there and Moresby needing taken I'm unwilling to expend too much effort on this base. I'll keep an eye on what's going on there and Maybe the Bettys will stop them good.

Sigh... same here, WitP:AE = bought. :yep:

Worth it. :up:

Oh I don't doubt it. Played a bit of WitE some time ago and was quite taken by it. :yep:

It's just I'm trying to find time to learn all these darn games. Already got HoI3
I need to learn for the Great Subsim Noob War II.

Also, need to tell my brain to start planning ahead. Something it has never been
very good at. :O:

Only thing I'm not happy about is the price. IMHO, Matrix Games' pricing has
always been a bit high, even the older games like the Close Combat games
are still 20-30 euros. WitP:AE D/L copy was 53e, some 10e of that was VAT. :doh:

"A bit high"? :haha:

The most expensive dust-magnet in my collection... I'll drag the manual along for this christmas' family visit. Maybe I'll finally get through it. :hmmm:

Christopher Hitchens. 1949 - 2011. RIP. :cry:


A motto, I think, for the next few weeks.



25th August.

And the head-on confrontations continue. I-162 mistakes a destroyer for a whale or something, surfaces for a look near Ndeni, and is promptly chased down into the briny depths. The destroyer works her over pretty thoroughly but she survives albeit with nearly 70% flotation damage. Remarkably, she can still make a few knots so begins a long, fraught journey back to Truk. I am doubtful she will make it.

An S-boat takes a shot at one of the destroyers in the carrier fleet train but has no success. She is chased down but escapes any damage.

I-1, on patrol NE of Cooktown, comes across a small convoy heading towards Moresby and puts a torpedo into tanker, her cargo seems to blow, which is gratifying, but I don't know whether she will go under. She will be very badly damaged, though.

My Bettys finally ran out of excuses and decided to go out today. They swarmed over Moresby where they sank an xAP and sustained minor losses (two damaged, two destroyed.) The allies also lost a couple of fighters. Later on I lost a couple of zeros when they tried to attack some B-17s over Buna.

The fast transport TF appears to be arsing around beyond the Slot. I had expected them to have landed by last night. Lets hope they do it this evening. The situation on Tassaforonga is pretty bad.

Orders

Troops are loading at Truk and will be moved to Rabaul. These are an engineering unit for Shortlands and an SNLF unit who have been earmarked to take part in the eventual attack on Moresby. I have a lack of troop carrying capacity but some of my Cargo ships can convert some of their space for troops. I could do with a couple of APs, though. I have three infantry units, an engineering unit and a naval HQ to move over the next week or two. more units will be shifted forward to Rabaul, Shortlands and Buna when I get the extra capacity. Shortlands gets priority just now because progress on the airfield is going slowly. I'll get another supply convoy away to Rabaul as soon as I can get some escorts freed up - the next three days I hope.