I actually hadn't even considered that I might be able to deal with the Marshalls just by cutting them off. It may be a little tricky because these small islands have limited capacity to base aircraft, and I have limited squadrons to assign--so a blockade would probably be some system of maritime surveillance enabling submarine or surface intercepts. But it is feasible.


Yep, torpedoes are going to get better. The dud rate will still be high, but I think it should come down enough that the subs attacking on the surface will be able sink their targets without depleting all torpedoes aboard in the process. Also more hits on escorted convoys will be nice.

1 January 1943
An uneventful turn after the fireworks of "yesterday". The PTs of Babar tried to attack the shattered enemy task force--and they did put one torpedo into one of the surviving cargo ships, at the cost of 4 of the PTs being felled by the escorting destroyers. The CA is still afloat, but also still engulfed in flames. Enemy sweep attempts over Babar cost them 2 Zeroes.

There's also some enemy army units trying to surround my forces in Chusein, China, but I've been holding back some units of my own for an offensive operation nearby, so I'm just moving them to block the encirclement attack while bombing the enemy manuevering units.

In Mandalay we traded 2 Hurricanes for 5 Tojos, and lost a B-24 to flak.

2 January 1943

We're still moving at a crawl here due to technical problems.


A mostly uneventful day. Scoutplanes are reporting escort carriers headed back to Babar, although I wouldn't be surprised if that's actually the KB. Our ships at Wake were overflown by several scoutplanes, some of which were described as "torpedo bmbers" and "dive bombers". Thanks to fog of war, those reports could be generated by Betties flying out of the Marshalls, but for now I'm assuming they're carrier-based and pulling out.


Our abandoned base at Raheng has been captured, along with about a dozen disabled aircraft. We had a bit of a furball over Mandalay; with just 2 Hurricane losses we got 3 Betties, 6 Tojos, and a Zero. We also got enough replacement aircraft into 2 Hurricane squadrons to bring them back to full strength, so it looks like we're starting to pull ahead in the air campaign over northwestern Burma.


We bombed Rabual with minimal interference from maybe 2-3 Tojos at most. No shootdowns, but damage to the base was light. The Shortlands op is on standby until we get a fix on the KB a safe distance away.

And it starts with numbering the year :D
Sorry, couldn't resist. Hope you can solve your technical problems soon.

Ha. Thanks for calling me out on that.


We're still super inconsistent. And my reporting's been slow...wow, April 10th since I was last here. Yeah, my life got a little crazy the last 2 weeks.


3-4 January 1943 has been pretty uneventful. What is noteworthy is that he's got carriers back near Babar again but it doesn't look like the whole KB anymore (confirmed: Hiryu, Zuikaku, Hiyo). They supported the landing of additional troops, the "A" 1/3 of the 14th Division. Despite the air protection, my Beaufighters got at that troopship and hit it pretty hard. It hit the beach burning and probably sank after delivering its troops, minus however many died on board. The extra troops have started attacking and have taken my forts down from level 3 to level 2. And the carriers are preventing resupply.



Oh, and my SBDs tried to hit their CVBG, and this time the Wildcats didn't bother flying escorts. Had some help from P-38s on patrol over Babar, but I ended up losing 23 SBDs--completely unsustainable losses that, added up with prior losses are going to deplete my reserves. Fighter losses in that fight were 18 to 7 in my favor, so at least I had that going for me--and against his best pilots.

What OS are you running this on? :06:



I've got my eye on, "War in the Pacific: Admiral's Edition", but I'm wondering if it will run on my Windows 10 64-bit OS.


I have, "Gary Grigsby's War in the West" and it runs perfect. No compatibility mode, nothing. It just works. All I did was disable Steam Cloud saves, VR Theater, and Steam Overlay under, "Properties" in the Steam interface, and then did something that I learned from, "Battlestations: Midway". I restarted my computer before touching the new installation.


I figured out through trial and error that, "Battlestations: Midway" is dead on arrival on my modern machine unless I restart before launching. And it will not forgive you. You'll have to uninstall, clean up, and reinstall if you dare touch the game before re-starting. If you re-start before launching, it works perfectly. So I did the same with, "War in the West" and didn't have any problems like so many others have.


Anyway, I'm not sure, but I think, "War in the Pacific" runs on approximately the same engine as, "War in the West". So there may be hope for it to run on Windows 10 64-bit.


:Kaleun_Salute:

We'd both been running it on Windows 7. The transition to 10 caused both of us problems, but it's at least running OK for me now, probably him too.

That sounds very good are really missing your After Action Report.

Markus

5-8 January 1943

We've been getting through turns slowly and the turns themselves haven't involved much going on. So, quick summary:

• Babar has finally fallen. That last group of troops from the 14th Division that started coming ashore made the difference.
• The KB is still hanging out in the Babar area
• I'm reluctant to make my move on the Shortlands with the KB still at Babar. I certainly can't make a move on Java.
• The Wake operation got a little spooky with carriers potentially being detached from the KB. I pulled most of the ships out before I got aircraft mechanics ashore. I've since moved back, I'm getting the base force (with mechanics) ashore, and they're supporting a Catalina squadron and a few Wildcat recon variants (with drop tanks, they were able to make the flight from the nearby CVE, the F4F-3s on the CVE couldn't use drop tanks, so they'll probably arrive 9 January. Enemy Betties from the Marshalls have been harassing the transports without success (flying at extended range with bombs instead of torpedoes).
• Once Wake is fully secure, I'll start taking a look at the Marianas or the Marshalls. On second thought, I'll make another attempt on Canton, and Baker along with it. Those are just annoying me.
• 8 January was a good day for us in submarine warfare. After a long dry period, the Snook got a cargo ship off Okinawa, we took out a midget sub attacking a bombardment group hitting Guadalcanal, and we traded a coastal patrol craft for a B1-class sub near Colombo.

The war has been on halt for about three months now. I hope you can sort out your computer problems soon. I'm waiting eagerly for the continuation of your reports.


Good luck to both of you.

This thread and match reminds me of my time in correspondence chess, when it was still done the old fashioned way, with postcards and numberstamps. It was my thing. A match lasted months, over half a year, sometimes almost a year. I won three sequential qualification tournaments in a row and ended up in what in the German Fernschachbund was/is called "Meisterklasse". That was in the late 80s - killer software played no role yet since it did not yet exist.
Having a TBA on the chessboard would have come handy in some matches...:D

9 January 1943
KB still won't leave Babar

Bay of Bengal/Burma Theatre
The submarines that we attacked near Colombo left some presents for us. The minesweepers found them before anyone got hit and they're clearing them out.

Air raids continue on our forces slowly retreating through the mountains. A lot of the squads are already disabled, so we're seeing a lot of them destroyed. But the terrain is helping a lot--this isn't an efficient use of their airpower.

Babar and Arafura Sea

Enemy destroyers are trying to clear our mines here. Doesn't seem like the best approach, do they really not have minesweepers in this area? The KXI took some depth charge damage as their ASW patrols try to clear out our submarine barrier around the little island.

An enemy sub tried to get through the Torres Strait, and did, but got depth charged a bit by a minesweeper escorting a pair of small cargo ships.


Rabaul
B-17s splashed a Tojo over Rabaul--the only shootdown of the turn.

Wake
Betties tried to get my transports again. I had 2 recon-variant Wildcats on patrol, but they were apparently too high to react in time to intervene. No ships were hit. I've since sent the recon variants back to the CVE and sent a regular USMC Wildcat squadron to protect Wake, so the next wave of Betties is going to get trashed.

China
Inflicted 466 casualties and destroyed a small unit that tried to sneak behind Chusein--severing a supply line maybe? If that's the end of the offensive threat to Chusien, it may be time for me to advance and try to seize some industry before the supply situation in China gets worse than it already is.

Reinforcements and Refits
SS Halibut taken out of commission to begin refit at Pearl Harbor
DD Conway arrives at Eastern USA
LCI-62 arrives at San Francisco
6th USN Naval Construction Regiment arrives at Port Hueneme
2/11th Ind Coy arrives at Sydney
2/9th Ind Coy arrives at Sydney
XIII US Fighter Cmd arrives at Noumea

10 January 1943
Heavy B-24 losses in attempted port strike at Rangoon

Burma
We're still working on the minefield at Colombo. As per the headline, I tried to hit Rangoon port after seeing a lot of traffic there, hoping to get troop ships in port. But the CAP was quite strong, including Nicks and Tojos. We ended up losing 8 B-24s while shooting down 2 Tojos and an Oscar. We didn't damage the port or any ships at all.


Enemy airpower concentrated on Uttaradit, which was later attacked by enemy land forces. We significantly outnumbered the enemy, even so, I was surprised that we won that fight as bad as the supply situation is. Casualties 3500 to 130.



Babar
A Dutch sub got a torpedo hit on a destroyer that was hunting it--but it was a dud.


Solomons and New Britain

Rabaul's got 50 fighters now. No strikes this turn due to weather. I'm going to cancel bombing for a bit and just sweep these guys for now.

Got 11 January done today but it was uneventful except for a huge furball over Rabaul. 15 Zeroes, 6 Oscars, and 3 P-38s went down. There are a lot of ships hanging out around Guadalcanal, I'm going to see if the Army can handle a naval strike with medium bombers now there there aren't any enemy fighters based there.

12 January 1943

• The enemy carriers are finally moving off from Babar. And they're leaving a bunch of ships there unprotected. Going to sweep tomorrow to make sure it's not a feint. Day after the SBDs will be flying again if they have targets.
• Splashed two Zeroes over Mandalay, clearing the skies for B-25 raids on their armies in northern Burma.
• Another major air battle over Rabaul: 3 P-38s down vs 2 Oscars, 5 Zeroes, and 1 Tojo.
• We're struggling to move troops efficiently on and off the beach at Wake--enemy Betties tried to take advantage, slipping past the Wildcats flying CAP over them and making a bombing run. No hits.