War in the Pacific AAR Thread - ML vs JFranzen

[Molon Labe]

10 October 1942
USS Sims pounds enemy subs off Efate

Luganville invasion
Sending the light cruisers to bombard Luganville kicked up a hornet's nest of enemy sub activity. The task force faced two attempted attacks on the way out and one on the way back. The first enemy sub was engaged by USS Sims, which connected solidly with multiple depth charge patterns, causing severe damage to the enemy sub. I doubt it survives. The second enemy sub was also engaged by the Sims for light damage. A pair of enemy subs was spotted by subchasers patrolling near Efate, but they failed to hit them.

The bombardment of Luganville caused about 40 enemy troop casualties.

Our marines attacked the enemy forts at Luganville, causing 341 enemy casualties while taking 73.

China
I'm moving all three Liberator squadrons currently in-country to the northern airbase to prepare for the attack on Port Arthur. Due to poor supply lines up there, this will probably be a single attack, I doubt we can sustain operations for any length of time. But a single, large attack might be devastating, especially if there are ships in harbor. I have at least 2 more B-24 squadrons on their way, but I think I'm going to leave them in India for now. It makes more sense to me to focus on Port Blair to try to reopen the supply route to Rangoon than to try to run them in China when my supplies are dwindling.

[Molon Labe]

11 October 1942
IJN airstrike massacred over Luganville: 65 to 0!

Luganville Invasion
My invasion task force (4 CL, 7 DD, 3 transports) made it to Luganville without meeting any resistance, subs or otherwise. 1 CA and 1 DD joined them at the beach. As the troops unloaded, a sub tried to enter the area and ended up being moderately-heavily damaged by the USS Reid. Then the airstrikes came, the results of which were shocking:

Wave 1: 29 Zeroes, 30 Betties vs. 20 P-38s, 8 P-40, 11 F4F
Losses: 18 Zeroes, 10 Betties (1 to flak)
23 Betties in total made it to the targets, 4 of which were not armed with torpedoes and bombed from 20k feet. They went after the cruisers and destroyers, and they all missed.

Wave 2: 6 Betties vs 6 P-38, 4 P-40, 2 F4F
Losses: 6 Betties

Wave 3: 3 Zeroes, 4 Betties vs. 6 P-38, 1 P-40, 2 F4F
Losses: 1 Zero, 1 Betty (flak)
Mostly a failed intercept. 3 Betties attacked our AMC and missed.

Wave 4: 9 Zeroes, 6 Betties vs. 6 P-38
Losses: 3 Zeroes
The Betties attacked the cruiser Adelaide and a destroyer, all missed.

Wave 5: 12 Zeroes, 18 Betties vs 18 P-38, 8 P-40, 8 F4F
Losses: 8 Zeroes, 18 Betties
YOU SHALL NOT PASS!!

Totals: 30 Zeroes, 35 Betties
No Allied aircraft shot down (ops/damaged losses still possible)
No Allied ships hit.

That enemy cruiser force wasn't headed to the Gilberts after all. It turned south, approached Ndeni, and drew an airstrike from me of 6 B-26s, which missed.

China
We've liberated Sinyang, there were only 500 troops defending it against our 11,000.

[Ostfriese]

So either your opponent had a very bad day or he is in serious trouble. I doubt he can afford to take such disproportionate losses.

[Molon Labe]

Originally Posted by Ostfriese

So either your opponent had a very bad day or he is in serious trouble. I doubt he can afford to take such disproportionate losses.

I'm trying to have a conversation about this. Right now his position is that he's training his pilots properly, but attrition has been a problem, and the game just makes the Allies ridiculously good. But from my campaigns against the AI playing either side, I never saw such lopsided results. I'm watching two sets of AAR videos on youtube, and I don't see such lopsided results there, granted they're not in this phase of the war yet. But still. I don't think this should be happening, not in Oct 1942 anyway.

[Molon Labe]

I convinced him to share some information this time around. It's even worse than I thought. He's been training all his pilots with "general training", which means they train a little bit of every skill. So instead of say, pilots in fighters who are really good at air-to-air combat, he has pilots in fighters that are so-so at air-to-air, so-so at bombing, so-so at ASW, so-so at flying cargo planes full of rubber dog **** out of Hong Kong, etc.

So once he started taking losses among his elite pilots, these jacks-of-all trades started replacing them, which has been leading to even worse losses, and more of these unprepared replacements....

And that's how you get Turkey Shoots in 1942.

[Ostfriese]

A jack of all trades is a master of none.

Basically he now has the kind of pilots Japan would send into war in late 1944, and even if he changes his training system now it will take months before he sees any positive effect.
Well, I think he fully deserves the results of this decision. This won't hand you victory on a silver plate, but should make the road to victory easier.

Btw: did you tell him how collossal this mistake was or are you leaving it for after the end of the game?

[Molon Labe]

Originally Posted by Ostfriese

A jack of all trades is a master of none.

Basically he now has the kind of pilots Japan would send into war in late 1944, and even if he changes his training system now it will take months before he sees any positive effect.
Well, I think he fully deserves the results of this decision. This won't hand you victory on a silver plate, but should make the road to victory easier.

Btw: did you tell him how collossal this mistake was or are you leaving it for after the end of the game?

I'm helping him set up a better training program.

[Ostfriese]

Originally Posted by Molon Labe

I'm helping him set up a better training program.

A decent move

[mapuc]

Originally Posted by Molon Labe

I'm helping him set up a better training program.

Way to go

Markus

[Molon Labe]

12 October 1942

Luganville Invasion
We tried to raid the cruiser group near Ndeni with 12 B-26s and 14 P-38Fs--and these P-38s are acting as bombers, not fighter escorts. There were 10 fighters on CAP over the cruisers, which was good enough to shoot down 1 P-38. We got 2 of the Oscars. Another P-38 was lost to flak over the target, and we didn't get any hits. It looks like the P-38s didn't even drop any bombs. So checking the database now, and yes, the drop tanks use the same hardpoints as the bombs, so by giving them the drop tanks they needed to reach the target I precluded them from having a bombload. And apparently they didn't feel like strafing. Now I know.

Reinforcements
7th Marine Defense Battalion arrives at San Francisco
272/273rd Bty 80th AT Gun Regiment arrives at Aden

------------
13 October 1942

Japan
Off the coast of Kyushu, the USS Growler made me with this game had a tactical layer like Falcon4 that would let me jump into the sub and take over. It encountered a light cargo ship escorted by a PB, and put a torpedo into the PB. Great! But instead of waiting for the PB to go down and then killing the now-unproptected AKL, it just scittered off. BE MORE AGGRESSIVE!

China
The enemy sent 3 Sonia light bombers to hit the troops that just took Sinyang from them. They went unescorted. Well, we had 6 P-40s there, they shot all 3 bombers down. Unfortunately, probably because they were chasing that group down, they missed a second group of 6 planes. Their 50kg bombs did nothing to our troops, protected in the base and by terrain.

Luganville invasion
I meant to turn these raids off, but forgot. The B-26s tried to hit the cruisers again. We lost 4. No hits.

Our marines attacked and brought down the forts to Level 1, 205 enemy casualties to our 48. It's almost over.

Malaya
Looks like its finally the end for Singapore. Two tank regiments crossed the channel. The enemy took heavy casualties, but my troops have very little fight in them, and there will be more troops right behind them.

Burma
Our reserve forces have finally caught up with one of the last paratrooper units in western Burma. We've probed them and found them to be vastly inferior in number to our forces. Shock attack tomorrow.

Reinforcements and Refits
SS Nautilus beginning refit in shipyard at Brisbane
SC-646 arrives at Los Angeles
No.62 Sqn RAF arrives at Aden
42nd USN Naval Construction Battalion arrives at Port Hueneme
6th Australian Division arrives at Sydney
25th Australian Brigade arrives at Sydney
--The Aussie army units will be great some day, but they're empty commands being reformed and I have very few troops available to assign to them to rebuild the units.

[Molon Labe]

14 October 1942
Submarine service terrorizes

Luzon Strait
USS Thresher may have just set a new record for number of duds in a single fight. It scored 12 hits on an unescorted cargo ship in a night surface attack. Hits number 10 and 12 were the only ones that exploded.

One hex to the east, USS Spearfish also engaged an unescorted cargo ship on the surface--this sub mostly just missed. Might have been a few dud hits in there, but it ran itself completely out of torpedoes and took a hit from the enemy ship's guns. It's headed home in shame.

Since these were both night attacks this wasn't a factor, but the British Hudsons with naval search radars are now operational and patrolling the Taiwain and Luzon straits. My subs are going to be much more effective here now.

Japan
Near Shikoku Island, the USS Whale made a gun attack on an AKL, getting close enough to use even its .30cal machine guns. It took some light damage from the AKL in return. The AKL was damaged badly enough by the Whale's main gun that it should sink.

Luganville Invasion
An enemy submarine decided to try to get into my staging area at Efate and hit 3 defensive mines. No way it survives that.

Ceram Sea
The O24 torpedoed an escorted cargo ship off Ternate. Vehicle losses were reported.

Burma
We wiped out the paratrooper unit fragment we probed yesterday. I think there are at most 2 more. One of them is adjacent to the unit that just destroyed this one, and is actually moving toward us. I'm happy to wait for them.

Reinforcements
DD Fletcher arrives at Eastern USA
AM Strahan arrives at Newcastle
SC-630 arrives at San Francisco
223 Group RAF arrives at Aden
503rd Parachute Regiment arrives at San Francisco
RAF 221 Group Base Force arrives at Aden
--The British reinforcements in Aden are empty commands, but I expect I can bring base forces and such to full strength pretty quickly. It's infantry I'm short on.

[Molon Labe]

15 October 1942
Luganville captured

Philippine Sea
USS Grunion spotted a cargo ship near Chichi-jima while it was in transit to its patrol area. It made a night gun&torpedo attack, with 2 successful Mk14 detonations for a confirmed kill. Intel reported high operational losses for Sonia bombers today--I think it was either 6 or 8--much higher than you'd expect to see on a day where Sonias weren't in major battles. So that's probably what was on this ship.

Burma
Moulmein suffered another shelling. Nothing bigger than light cruisers, so it's not much damage, but we're also not repairing it. Repairs in Rangoon are progressing slowly but steadily, I'll send a CB here when they're done in Rangoon. One enemy cruiser took a single hit from a shore battery.

CENTPAC
A 2-CA bombardment of Canton Island resulted in over 200 enemy troop casualties.

Malaya
Over 100,000 troops attacked Singapore. Forts are down to Level 3--I think they were 6. Casualties were 9000 to 2000 favoring us, but that's actually horrendously bad for a bastion being shock attacked over a channel/river. I think the next attack takes it.

Luganville Invasion
We attacked at Luganville again, and pushed the enemy troops out of their base. Luganville is finally ours. There are still about 2000 dead-enders left on the island that are going to make us kill them instead of surrendering. Which is good, I want to kill them after they wiped out so many of my troops in the early months of the war. Payback time.

Now we just need to land the base forces and construction engineers without getting my boats blown up. Recon flights are reporting the bombers have all left Guadalcanal, but that they have 160 fighters. I'll still need to be prepared.

Reinforcements
SS Haddo arrives at Balboa
SC PC-581 arrives at Portland
37th USN Naval Construction Battalion arrives at Port Hueneme

[Molon Labe]

16 October 1942

Luganville Invasion
The enemy tried to attack some subchasers operating off Luganville, with Mavis floatplanes. Our P-40s on CAP shot 3 down, the rest ran.

For the first time, I let the USMC Helldivers on Efate participate in the bombing of Luganville. Figured I can get them some experience with a very low risk of flak losses now that the enemy forces probably lost all their flak guns when they retreated from the base.

East China Sea
Our Hudsons spotted a tanker docked in northern Taiwan--there's a small oil site there. The port is big enough to be protected from subs, so I've moved two subs to greet them when they depart for Japan.

China
I'm at a point where I probably have enough B-24s gathered for the strike (3 squadrons, probably 30-35 aircraft) There are still several aircraft down for maintenance, but that's how it goes with B-24s and their high service rating. I'm watching the weather now, when we expect clear skies over Korea, we'll flatten Port Arthur.

Reinforcements
DD Barton arrives at Balboa
SC-647 arrives at San Francisco
7th BG/492nd BS arrives at Karachi (2/12 B-24s--we're going to have so many B-24s in Burma and/or China!)

[Molon Labe]

17 October 1942
An unfavorable situation in Burma

Burma
Rangoon got shelled again overnight. That's really bad news; I appears he can just keep doing this and stop me from ever repairing my airbase, and sucking my supply in the process.

It's Port Blair that's giving him the sea control to do this, so to change the status quo I'm going to have to do something about Port Blair. My best option for now is probably to build up Raheng. It's inland so it can't get shelled and it's already at a size 4; size 5 should be enough for the B-24s.

I also managed to sneak an AKL from Calcutta to Rangoon, so he may not be searching the seas all that robustly. I'm going to try to get more engineers in by sea and then start sending small supply runs.

Sumatra
The O19--a minelaying specialist sub--set up a minefield just outside Palembang in the narrow channels that connect the harbor to the Java sea. I don't report here every time a sub drops some mines, but this is a big one. And also... spoilers...I already watched the turn after this.

Reinforcements
SS Sawfish arrives at Balboa
SS Tunny arrives at Mare Island
7th BG/492nd BS arrives at Calcutta (2/12 B-24)
34th USN Naval Construction Battalion arrives at Port Hueneme (unrestricted)
48th Light AA Regiment arrives at Aden (empty command, will take time to equip)
6th Armoured Division arrives at San Luis Obispo (restricted)

[Molon Labe]

18 October 1942
Large transport convoy sails through minefield, carnage ensues; subchaser squadron eliminated by blitzing cruisers

Taiwan Strait
USS Gudgeon got into a gunfight with a cargo ship, dealing fairly serious damage before breaking off.

Espiritu Santo Islands
The cruiser force that's been hanging out near Ndeni sprinted south to Luganville at night, locating the group of 3 subchasers we've been using to try to clear our the subs there. We now have an accurate classification of this group: 1 CA, 1 CL, 5 DD. But the subchasers were no match for them, all were sunk without doing any damage to the enemy. The cruisers escaped before sunrise could bring an airstrike--which is actually good, because we had phibs on the way to deliver engineers and base forces. We dodged a huge bullet there. I think I had 1 CA, 1 CL, and 4-5 DD escorting, so it would be an even fight, but I'd rather not have an even fight with loaded transports in close proximity.

One sub tried to attack the phibs but was spotted and driven off with light damage.

Celebes Sea
The KXIII made two separate attacks on an unescorted AO near Manado, hitting it with a torpedo in each salvo. The AO was carrying fuel, so it burned violently and quickly sank.

Sumatra
There are some subchasers operating off Palembang that started spotting mines and clearing a few. But apparently they did not get the word out in time. A large transport convoy moved through the mined channel--10 of them hit mines, including 3 minelayers that were acting as escorts. Live by the mine, die by the mine I guess. I'd expect about half of these to sink. No troop casualties were reported, so they were probably empty.

CentPAC
Wasp arrived safely at Pearl, exchanged fast battleships and dropped off a light cruiser for an upgrade, and is now headed for a drive-by recon of Midway.

Reinforcements
CVE Prince William arrives at Tacoma
AM Requisite arrives at Seattle
SC-631 arrives at Los Angeles
36th USN Naval Construction Battalion arrives at Port Hueneme (unrestricted)
85th British AT Gun Regiment arrives at Aden (empty unit, another one that's going to take time to outfit)