I haven't even started on the whiskey yet, but the port has certainly helped. Hope you feel better soon. Mine lasted about 48 hours and then I started feeling a lot chipper. Mind you, turns like this helped......

12th?/13th? Sep

So, yeah...I should start with yesterday, shouldn't I? Well, TF Yamato was out again and got strafed by low flying Beaus. They did virtually no damage to anything as they only used cannons, and a lot of them ended up getting damaged. Virtually nothing else happened yesterday except I gave orders for a Betty unit to upgrade to Nells. I'll do this with another one when I can as it will allow me to keep more than one unit fully loaded at a time.

So...today....Was a weird one, but very, very good. Yamato reached Milne Bay again and unloaded on the units there - an Oz infantry unit is also there which is useful to know. The airfield is pretty battered as well, so that's good. I had thought about sending her around the headland for a raid at Moresby. I could see a small TF heading up that way so I thought it might be a good opportunity to hit a supply convoy. But, I decided I needed to focus on creaming the morale of his boys at Milne so I put a bunch of Betties on the job instead.

They took off, for a change, thinking to hit one or two xAKs and be back for Tokyo Rose's afternoon feelgood swing and jazz hour. The first flight got near the ships and discovered one of them was CA Australia. They also flew right into a huge ball of Wildcat CAPping badness and lost a couple of zeroes and several Betties..

Just as I was trying to work out why he suddenly had 60 Wildcats flying near Moresby my second sortie went in - and spotted the USS Saratoga (still carrying obvious damage.) The large CAP took the huge flight of 3 - yes, 3 - Betties out.

Then, as the light was beginning to fade, 20 more Betties hit the task force. They had no escort what so ever and almost every single one of them were damaged but for the loss of only one of their number they put 4 torpedoes into the Saratoga. At least one pilot claimed seeing a big explosion (ammo Storage,).

KB1 is operating on the other side of Bugavilla but has now been given orders to get herself over towards PNG. CCIP has at least one more carrier in the area, I think, and quite possibly at least one escort carrier. If Sara isn't down yet I think it's reasonable to assume she will be shorty and even if she isn't there is going to be a considerable amount of shipyard time. She's out of the campaign, I think. We'll see if my subs can hit her as she tries to get out.

Yamato will rearm and head back out again. There are other ships out there - including battleships - other SCTFs will be sent out if they are needed.

My Betty losses were high but not badly so, especially in light of what they have managed to do.

http://img577.imageshack.us/img577/7038/sit1e.jpg

I am not sure what he is trying to do by bringing his carriers up this way. Maybe it's as simple as fearing a Betty mauling...or perhaps he thought he'd get a blow in on the Yamato. I've seen that big guy take a quite phenomenal amount of damage in previous games so I hope one of his ships was a torpedo factory if that was the intent.

Should KB1 get into the area on time, we could have quite an eventful few turns ahead of us....

14th Sep

Well, Admiral Yamamoto has had two drams of 15yr old Dalwhinnie (the Distillery is about 10 miles from here so it's a local whiskey I suppose,) and half a fat cigar and STILL does not know what the hell just happened. My intel is now claiming that Saratoga is still afloat, which is kind of miraculous. KB1 is closing and has been given orders to move closer still to the Australian coast before returning to Rabaul so her escorts can refuel.

CCIP threw a lot of 2e bombers at KB1 today and lost a lot of airframes...They don't do so well at that height when there is a big amount of flak. I yet again had problems with my fast transports at Tass. They finished the turn at sea, two hexes from their destination and got pounded on by allied Divebombers. I didn't lose any shipping but two of their number are returning to port. This annoys me as there was no reason for them not to work as they should. Last time it went flawlessly and they were in and out before anyone other than the minefield knew about it. The remainder will dump their supply and see if they can head back out again without being damaged....

I-1 got a destroyer near the Oz coast. There was a lot of sub activity on both sides today but little was achieved aside from that.

So...what was he doing? Where is Saratoga now? Will KB1 all die next turn? Is there more whiskey? Find out soon! I'm off to watch the Father Ted Christmas Special. For the millionth time.

Don't you just love the fog of war aspect of the game. You never know for sure what's going on.

Sometimes it goes slightly overboard though, especially with ship sightings: In my "learning to play" runs of The Thousand Mile War I was constantly getting reports of huge Jap task forces just off Dutch Harbor... strangely appearing every time one of my own convoys left the port :hmmm:

Merry christmas! All I want is confirmation that Saratoga sank.....

Yeah, FOW is well done. Maybe a bit overdone at times. Having floatplanes report their own task forces as probable enemy shipping is something I've seen many times, as is reports of convoys that are inland.

But the way the game hides knowledge of sinkings is pretty good. Sometimes you hear the hull break up noises that tell you, for sure, that a ship has gone down but at others there is no way to tell other than to let intel do it's job. I once waited nearly two years game time for a ship to be confirmed sunk.

This one annoys me, though. Enterprise is still on the sunk list despite having only taken one torpedo. Sara takes 4and an ammo storage explosion and is apparently still afloat?

Well, if KB1 gets close enough we might find out for sure. I really wish I'd sent Yamato on towards Moresby...might have had some fine old fireworks...now is an interesting time. Did he get more carriers or is he simply concentrating on PNG for the time being? Regardless, it's getting interesting now.

15th Sep

So...again Merry Christmas! Yeah, I know, I should be mixing with the family but Chrissy lunch is still a wee while away. The Gf got me a couple of good books (The First Team about US naval air power between Pearl Harbour and Midway in particular being one I'm looking forward to reading, and an awesome coffee table book about the development of graphic arts used by totalitarian regimes, Nazi germany, Italy, the Soviet Union and China in particular. It's called 'Iron Fists: Branding the 20th century totalitarian state'. If you have an interest in that sort of thing like I do you should check it out...) and I'm just chilling....ho hum...

Look, I'll be honest, I'm trying not to send CCIP his turn back because, well, it's not the sort of thing you want to get on Christmas day. It wasn't nice and I feel sort of bad.

KB1 closed on the US ships during the night and hoped to find and finish Saratoga once and for all. The day of blood started with Betties sinking a xAk that was bound for Moresby and loaded with what looks like an armoured unit. They lost 66 vehicles.

But that was nothing, barely even an appetizer. I'll say this much: If his CAP had not been so porous, and my CAP and flak not been so incredible, I would be sitting here crying into a Glenmorangie right now and screaming about how much some elements of this game suck.

Well, I think I'm just going to post the highlights from the combat reports:


This was followed by massive US strikes at KB1 - the first alone had 40 Dauntless and 27 Avengers. They flew without escort. They flew into my CAP. They flew into my flak. They flew against KB1, died in numbers and never landed a single hit. Not one. This pattern was repeated all day by his aircraft, both carrier based, big 4e bombers and land based air. My Betties launched a series of raids both at his wounded fleet and shipping at Moresby (I think this is where Sara is,) A lot of pilots died on both sides today but little was achieved...

And then a little one...

The Betties got lucky. We swapped a few more pointless attacks and then, well, I got lucky again. We came back for that same TF...


I don't know how many ships he has lost. In terms of air craft he lost nearly 70 Dauntless today and My veteran carrier groups have lost a lot of good, highly experienced men, but nothing compared to what he lost. Likewise, he has lost some important ships today. if not sunk then needing shipyard time. I never even had one of mine hit. Totals are 96 aircraft lost for CCIP today, 78 for me. Ouch all around.

The weather was bad - severe storms across the Coral sea. CCIP talked about this once or twice in our emails and we are both - even me with my experience of the game - are still trying to work this side of the game out properly.

I hope he doesn't think is was entirely his fault in setting his air groups wrong, or amything like that. At the end of the day, he brought his big guns right into the range of my LBA (which are still powerful regardless of how many of lost,) and then had this compounded when KB1 arrived on the scene and wasted his carrier fleet.

So...what now? Well, I would love to close and finish off what ever is still afloat but I'm not sure I can. KB1s escorts will refuel from the bigger ships, so they can stay out for a wee bit longer, and air sorties aren't too bad, but torpedoes are running low and the strike aircraft got battered today. I've given orders for KB1 to continue a few hexes south before heading back to Rabaul. We shall see what develops. I don't think it will be anything like today. At best I'll nail a couple of cripples, at worst, he's nail me.

It's worth putting this is in perspective. Thats all four of his carriers that have now been hit. Enterprise took an ammo storage explosion, Sara has had 5 torpedoes in total an now both Hornet and Wasp are very badly hit, if not actually sunk. That's the four fleet carriers he receives before I get my new ones. That's a very good position to be in, I think.

Oh yeah, the troops at Tass have got their cheese, so that's nice. More to come with luck. And three more cruisers just arrived at Truk. Ace!


Turn sent. Hope he doesn't take it too badly. It happens to us all in this game, at some time or other.

I can smell turkey! I'm off! Merry Christmas!

Well a very Merry Christmas to you Egan :)

I think your aircrews have made up for not sortying due to weather in this strike. What do you think about sending in Yamato to clean house?

Whoa, that's a pretty clean sweep there, although knowing the Fog of war in this game all of the carriers probably just had their paintwork chipped. :dead: Yes...might be worth delaying sending this to CCIP until tomorrow...he's already pretty upset about his incompetent CAP that lead to the Saratoga getting hit.

Yeah....too late.....:(

I do feel bad but, at the same time, I know the same thing could have happened to me. Remember, I was planning to send the Yamato TF into that area before I decided to concentrate on Milne bay. If I had, I reckon I would have lost maybe every ship in the task force except Yamato herself. This is really one of those 'if only for the grace of god go I' moments. Sometimes my over-cautiousness pays off.


What was he doing that required three carriers going to moresby? Could he not get enough land based fighters between north east Oz and PNG to supply CAP? My Betties aren't that Impressive...

I don't think I'll release Yamato. Too much in the way of LBA between Rabaul and the stricken fleet. We'll see whether KB1 cleans up and then i'll make a final decision.

What a game WitP is.

16th Sep

My intention was to finish off his cripples and I had moved KB1 several hexes south in preparation of this action. But, and I'm sure CCIP will be glad of the irony in this one, the weather became so bad over the Coral sea that carrier ops were suspended.

But that didn't stop a huge pile of my netties taking off and dieing in the skies over Moresby in a vainglorious attempt to do sweet FA. I lost about 25 of the little bleeders. No doubt their escorts took one look at the weather and went back to bed. Swine.

CCIP is pretty annoyed about what happened. I would be too. I don't think he should concede defeat, though. I haven't sunk any of the carriers, I don't think. I would have if the weather had been better today. That rankles with me a little bit because when you put that much ordnance into a floating runway you expect it to go down. I still expect them to be out of action, though, for the rest of the campaign.

He should still have masses of LBA and a few escort carriers arriving, so the situation is not yet hopeless for him. I wouldn't blame him if he thought this training game was as good as over, but I would hope he'd continue just a little while longer in the hopes of seeing me do something really, massively, memorably stupid. The odds are good on that one.

17th Sep

I sank a couple of transports at Moresby. The torpedo bombers from KB1 decided to fly all the way across PNG to carry out the attack. What the heck. I'll keep them hanging around for a day and see what happens.

Another wing of Betties arrived at Truk and are on their way to Rabaul.

Apart from that, it was really quiet all over.

18th Sep

And most of that wing of Betties are dead now. They flew with an escort to Moresby where the Wildcats knocked them out of the sky in a massive turkey shoot. I'm not sure what exactly happened for such a stupid display, but CCIP can take heart from the fact that we are both having problems in this area.

He now appears to have a huge amount of aircraft at Moresby - the surivors from the carriers I'm assuming. It's going to make movement towards PNG costly.

One of his boats got a bead on KB1 but blew their chance to torpedo Ryujo. KB1 is now safely back at Rabaul awaiting new airframes.

And now, for the first time in weeks, the troops at Tassaforonga are fully supplied. Work has begun again on the airfield and fortifications.

19th Sep

Things have gone quiet again. I am preparing to resupply Buna as I clean forgot about it with all the recent excitement. I am also thinking of running Yamato back into Mile for a third time but i'm unsure about this. Although she'll put to sea tonight I might well recall her or send her Slot-ward. I think there are a huge number of dive bombers at Moresby and I don't want to give them any targets.

Supply woes are rising. despite regular convoys, it is becoming difficult to keep my shipping at Rabaul ready for action. Truk simply doesn't create enough supply or fuel each day for everything to be kept sweet.

Given recent events, I think I might bring forward my invasion of both Milne and Moresby. I have no new timescale, though. I'm mostly just airing a thought I've had over the last couple of days. I might even think of retaking Lunga but that, if it happens at all, is beyond the end of the year.

20th Sep

USN Destroyer Bagley has a fun morning as she patrols the waters south of Guadalcanal. Three of my subs attacked her before one of them finally landed a torpedo on her. Her mates took this in bad grace and promptly sank RO-63. Booo!

Aside from this is was a day of housekeeping. Troops and a tank company began loading at Truk for Rabaul, and the fast tranports for Buna got themselves ready to run in during the night.

After thinking on it, I decided to keep Yamato in her patrol towards Milne. This isn't a bombardment mission, though, but a normal patrol. I am partly doing it to see how much air cover he has available to throw at my shipping. more than I like, I'm guessing. A squad of zeroes at Lae have been ordered to fly CAP over her just in case.

21st Sep

Yamato returns towards Rabaul. The little flotilla of ships that had been present at Milne scarpered during the night, leaving the big bruiser with no targets. Still, at least she avoided an air attack.

I've decided to send the dive bomber squad from Unyo to Buna, backed up with a detachment of Zeroes. I don't know how much they will be able to acheive but I'm hoping to spook his shipping at Moresby. I imagine they will survive slightly better than the Betties.

CCIP seems to have bought a job lot of submarines because, suddenly, all I can see are piles of the little blighters all haunting the waters between PNG and Rabaul.

He has other shipping about, but none within battering distance.

Thoughts

Well, it's difficult to know for sure the state of the allies fleet. I still haven't had any confirmation of any carriers going down but they are no longer a worry to me. They all took enough damage that they have to be out of the picture.

If I were CCIP I would have gone onto a solid defensive footing and look to launch raids and strikes when I get the opportunity. He might have lost the initiative but he is still in a good position to attrit my forces in any move I make, especially if his carrier airgroups managed to get to safety.

22nd Sep

A flight of Duantless appear over Shortlands but come of badly in my flak. This is the first time CCIP has attacked Shortlands by air and I'm uncertain whether or not these dive bombers came from Lunga or whether he has some breed of carrier in the area. Doesn't make much difference. I have a supply convoy currently unloading here but once they're done they can head off again.

I wondered why my own Buna based dive bombers didn't attack the shipping at Moresby. Turns out they were set to Naval search instead of Naval attack, which is a little bit irritating. Still, this has now been recified.

I got another wing of Zeroes yesterday, and more Betties today. I'd have quite a force if they didn't drop out of the sky like flies.

Aside from this, things are much quieter again. CCIP continues his B-17 raids but they are largely ineffective. I wonder how many of the bombers I'm damaging make it home.

I might not get another one in today. Going out for dinner and the Old Firm game is on too. Hooray!