Straight Into the Teeth: A Story of Logistics, Patience, and Firepower

[Sangeli]

Just bought out a bunch of medium bombers on the West Coast to use in Hachinohe. I have 140k guys on the ground but the Japanese have brought reinforcements and could bring even more. I don't think I will get stuck for too long but I want to speed up the process. The Japanese are sitting ducks sitting in 1x terrain, especially if I can reduce the fort more. There's no diminishing returns on the number of bombers here. Most of my surface fleet is bombarding it as well.

[Sangeli]

August 26th, 1944

MTBs aren't giving me as many issues. I'm getting a couple of battles like this:

Night Time Surface Combat, near Ominato at 119,55, Range 7,000 Yards

Japanese Ships
MTB G-168
MTB G-175
MTB G-187
MTB G-188
MTB G-189
MTB G-192
MTB G-193, Shell hits 2, and is sunk

Allied Ships
DD Heywood Edwards
DD Lewis Hancock
DD Lardner
DD Fanning
DD Stewart


Maximum visibility in Partly Cloudy Conditions and 53% moonlight: 9,000 yards
Range closes to 25,000 yards...
Range closes to 20,000 yards...
Range closes to 15,000 yards...
Range closes to 10,000 yards...
Range closes to 7,000 yards...
CONTACT: Japanese lookouts spot Allied task force at 7,000 yards
CONTACT: Allied lookouts spot Japanese task force at 7,000 yards

Never sinking more than one MTB per engagement though.

Launched another attack on Hachinohe:

Ground combat at Hachinohe (118,55)

Allied Deliberate attack

Attacking force 93840 troops, 1936 guns, 2211 vehicles, Assault Value = 3133

Defending force 131697 troops, 1517 guns, 239 vehicles, Assault Value = 3495

Allied engineers reduce fortifications to 3

Allied adjusted assault: 1888

Japanese adjusted defense: 829

Allied assault odds: 2 to 1 (fort level 3)

Allied Assault reduces fortifications to 3

Combat modifiers
Defender: forts(+), disruption(-), preparation(-), supply(-)
Attacker:

Japanese ground losses:
11587 casualties reported
Squads: 301 destroyed, 549 disabled
Non Combat: 81 destroyed, 69 disabled
Engineers: 45 destroyed, 81 disabled
Guns lost 162 (80 destroyed, 82 disabled)
Vehicles lost 37 (21 destroyed, 16 disabled)
Units destroyed 3

Allied ground losses:
7970 casualties reported
Squads: 114 destroyed, 729 disabled
Non Combat: 10 destroyed, 239 disabled
Engineers: 17 destroyed, 81 disabled
Guns lost 224 (22 destroyed, 202 disabled)
Vehicles lost 402 (104 destroyed, 298 disabled)

Bloody for both sides but progress with the forts.

Here's how much firepower I'm using on Hachinohe:



I have about 80 destroyers and 12 cruiser bombarding every day, 8 BBs every other day. That plus around 1500 bombers attacking in the air. Truly awe inspiring.

[Sangeli]

August 27th, 1944


More progress with Hachinohe:

Ground combat at Hachinohe (118,55)

Allied Deliberate attack

Attacking force 84094 troops, 1938 guns, 1679 vehicles, Assault Value = 2298

Defending force 108883 troops, 1292 guns, 199 vehicles, Assault Value = 2617

Allied engineers reduce fortifications to 2

Allied adjusted assault: 758

Japanese adjusted defense: 391

Allied assault odds: 1 to 1 (fort level 2)

Allied Assault reduces fortifications to 2

Combat modifiers
Defender: disruption(-), preparation(-), supply(-)
Attacker:

Japanese ground losses:
5511 casualties reported
Squads: 135 destroyed, 390 disabled
Non Combat: 40 destroyed, 64 disabled
Engineers: 16 destroyed, 71 disabled
Guns lost 102 (52 destroyed, 50 disabled)
Vehicles lost 29 (18 destroyed, 11 disabled)
Units destroyed 1

Allied ground losses:
3208 casualties reported
Squads: 19 destroyed, 339 disabled
Non Combat: 4 destroyed, 65 disabled
Engineers: 5 destroyed, 101 disabled
Guns lost 55 (6 destroyed, 49 disabled)
Vehicles lost 84 (9 destroyed, 75 disabled)

Level two fort now. Not much longer until the base is mine.

[witpqs]

How goes it at Hakodate? There is a small-medium sized shipyard there which can be useful.

[Sangeli]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

How goes it at Hakodate? There is a small-medium sized shipyard there which can be useful.

That's going a little more slowly. Not applying firepower to it. But soon northern Japan will be under my control and they will be cut off and out of supply.

[Sangeli]

September 2nd 1944


The final attack on Hachinohe

Ground combat at Hachinohe (118,55)

Allied Deliberate attack

Attacking force 97850 troops, 2301 guns, 2237 vehicles, Assault Value = 2718

Defending force 79386 troops, 1039 guns, 45 vehicles, Assault Value = 1230

Allied adjusted assault: 1227

Japanese adjusted defense: 175

Allied assault odds: 7 to 1 (fort level 1)

Allied forces CAPTURE Hachinohe !!!

Combat modifiers
Defender: disruption(-), preparation(-), experience(-), supply(-)
Attacker:

Japanese ground losses:
29292 casualties reported
Squads: 955 destroyed, 0 disabled
Non Combat: 749 destroyed, 0 disabled
Engineers: 331 destroyed, 0 disabled
Guns lost 349 (349 destroyed, 0 disabled)
Vehicles lost 38 (38 destroyed, 0 disabled)
Units retreated 14
Units destroyed 2

Allied ground losses:
2791 casualties reported
Squads: 44 destroyed, 265 disabled
Non Combat: 7 destroyed, 52 disabled
Engineers: 14 destroyed, 38 disabled
Guns lost 49 (7 destroyed, 42 disabled)
Vehicles lost 59 (9 destroyed, 50 disabled)

Defeated Japanese Units Retreating!

Now the base is mine:



With a foothold on Honshu, the collapse of the Japanese empire is imminent. The plan is to land fresh units and push south as far as I can. Not sure how much longer we will play. I don't have the 2x VP ratio for autovictory yet but the Japanese have nothing left in the tank.

[Bif1961]

Defeating Japan nearly a year early is a real feather in your cap.