The Good The Bad & The Indifferent

[CaptBeefheart]

You might want to consider an airborne assault on Tsushima. If he hasn't reinforced it, I'd say the 503rd Para or a Chindit brigade is probably enough, although if 11th Airborne is handy, why not drop it? The island has a nasty CD unit which will chew up any inadvertently passing TFs, but has very little or no infantry at start. Also, as far as I can tell, prep level has little or no effect on airborne assaults.

Cheers,
CC

[Canoerebel]

John attended to garrisons of all his islands more than a year ago - about the time of the Luzon/Foochow operations.

[Canoerebel]

4/6/45

A good day on the ground and in the air, and this time there was a decent haul of points to show for the work. Not great, but decent.

China: Spoiling attack by Allied armored detachment roughs up retiring, beat up, main enemy stack. Shock attack tomorrow should really mess up this big army (and I don't think it can clear the hex as I've been bombing it every day).

I see evidence that John realizes his big army is at risk to be isolated. The pocket is a long one with the only escape at the mouth on the east side. The bulk of his army has a long way to go and he's moving that way. This is a Falaise Pocket situation but I think I have a big head start and the right angles to trap his army.

Korea: Allied shock attack mauls enemy units in what I've identified as the key open hex SE of Keijo. Two Allied divisions plus arty and armor will move north to help with the Kiejo siege. One will remain in place to hold this position. Some Allied armor will move to the coast to sever the road.

Air War: Sweeps clear the way so that Superforts in big numbers get an uncontested shot at Okayama. The damage is great and this base is no longer worth targeting.

[RangerJoe]

About a month ago my hard drive crashed. [:@] A couple of days ago I hot a new one. I just caught up. You are doing very well. I hope that Korea does not turn into a WWII Italian type campaign - but you are a better general than that.

Needless to say, I have learned a lot from this AAR.

[Canoerebel]

Hey, Ranger. Congrats on getting your new computer up and running and for surviving the crash of the old one. No fun.

Korea won't turn into a WWII Italian campaign. The terrain is too open, Keijo is too exposed to attack by sea, and Allied air is overwhelming, close, and mostly unopposed. John is in big trouble in Korea, even if he doesn't know it yet.

[jwolf]

The damage is great and this base is no longer worth targeting.

YES!! Great work! I hope you can begin a chain reaction and knock out more industrial bases in this manner.

[Canoerebel]

4/6/45

Industrial Damage: This shows the extent of the strategic bombing damage at select targets throughout Japan (plus Harbin). Due to space limitations, I couldn't include all of the targets that have been hit hard. Some of those not included: Toyama, Matsuyama, Tokuyama and Kanazawa.

There are only a few major tagets remaining that haven't been hit at all: Yokahama and Gifu chief among them. Maebashi has been hit but still has many aircraft factories in excellent condition.

Some cities are so damaged that they are no longer attractive targets. Okayama and some smaller targets fall into that category.

Some of the major targets still worth hitting in the south: Nagasaki, Shimonoseki, Hiroshima, Kobe.

Tomorrow's raid will target Iwaki resources without sweeps. This is based on recon consistently showing Iwaki and nearby bases unprotected.

Pretty soon I'll have to turn my attention to the tough nuts like Tokyo, Osaka, Yokahama. Those are within extended range of the Lightnings, Mustangs, and P-47Ns (two squadrons now on map and more coming).

The Allies have scored almost 30,000 strategic points. You can see why - a lot of heavy damage. Points have been tough in coming since the first of the year, but John's fighter coverage is also far more sporadic than it once was. He has a core of strong squadrons at Tokyo, Nagasaki and Fukuoka. He'll probably have to reposition those a bit, given recent Allied focus on bases further north.

[Canoerebel]

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy
Fusan will be a tougher place to bombard. It has a starting Naval Fort and might have additional CD guns now. The BF also has DP guns which will fire at ships.
Also expect mines and mini-subs at Fusan. Some probing by minesweepers is in order before sending in more valuable ships. Bombing the LCUs will tend to focus on the Naval Fort and knock out/disrupt squads, support squads and guns - giving the minesweepers a better chance.

Fusan shouldn't require bombarding. It's open terrain subject to immense bombing runs. Keijo, on the other hands, is 4x heavy urban where bombers don't have quite the impact. If my guys can force and IJ army to retreat to Fusan, it's going to be in trouble quickly.

[JohnDillworth]

Can’t figure out why he is defending Nagasaki. It’s pretty banged up and it does not look like he producing critical aircraft there. Shipyard is not important and he probably has engines stockpiled. Selective cap trap? Shipyard has one of his favorites under repair? Just move along to something more exposed I guess

[paullus99]

If I was to guess, I would bet that its not even a question of Nagasaki being an important target for John, but he knows that Canoe is focused on it, so he's feeding his fighters in to kill as many allied planes as he can.

Hence why I believe we're seeing him have problems defending multiple targets at a time - he doesn't know which one Canoe is going to hit next.

When CR is predictable, so is John.

[JohnDillworth]

Fair point. It explains loading it up with the best pilots. Hmmmm, I would describe Dan as “deliberate” as much as predicable. He often surprises us with where he offensives start[:)]

[Canoerebel]

I always assign a fighter squadron to probe Nagasaki, to keep John focused there by appearing to have an interest. I haven't targeted the base with bombers in several weeks. Of late, the bombers have gone against Shimonoseki, Kobe, Okayama, and Iwaki. Tomorrow they'll hit Hiroshima.

[Canoerebel]

4/7/45

Malaya: 14th Air Landing Brigade to shock attack at Port Dickson tomorrow. I think it'll succeed, but the infantry and armor are coming up tomorrow, if needed.

The Allies are drawing proximate to Singapore now.

[Canoerebel]

4/7/45

China: Allied shock attack shreds four IJA divisions north of Tsinan, as expected. Tomorrow, a key attack on the west side of the pocket. If successful (whether tomorrow or soon), it will allow a strong Chinese army to leap right into the midst of the pocket.

Asia: Probing deliberate attack by a few armored units at Keijo tomorrow. Is the base going to be tough or is it ripe for plucking? I should find out.

Air War: B-29 raid against Iwaki scores modestly while losing about 15 of the bombers, so not a satisfactory day; and down in Malaya, John's fighters ambushed unescorted SBDs, destroying about 25.

Tomorrow, a massive raid scheduled vs. Hiroshima.

[paullus99]

To clarify, CR showed his hand at Nagasaki & he kept on coming. John did what any rational player would do & stacked the deck, day and after, with everything he had in an attempt to make CR bleed.

But, when CR started going after a multitude of targets, John was unable to concentrate his fighters in a meaningful way - which opened up new opportunities for CR's strategic bombers to really start laying into industry and other important point-value targets.

I guarantee that if CR stages another multi-day effort at a single target, it will draw in John's fighter strength...though, after weeks of intense fighting, I'm not sure how many fighters he has left.

[RangerJoe]

I don't think that it would be the fighters (and their quality) but rather the quality of the pilots and their fatigue level that would be the problem for the Japanese. Although, fighting over his bases will allow some to be saved. Still, if there is bleed over CAP, it would be a nice to concentrate enemy fighters in one location then sweep adjacent hexes.

Joe

[Canoerebel]

After weeks of intense fighting in the air, here are some salient facts:

1. My best pilots in Corsairs flying offensive missions have trouble against John's best pilots & fighters. A 1:1 ratio is about the best that I can hope for.
2. John has a limited number of "best pilots & fighters," so he's taken to protecting mainly three bases (Tokyo, Nagasaki, Fukuoka). He could change these up at any point.
3. At most other bases, John has dedicated nighttime CAP but modest to minimal to no daytime CAP.
4. Many of my good Corsair squadrons have good to excellent pilots but, after weeks of campaigning, morale that ranges from 50s to 70s; I'm resting some of these pretty often.
5. Thus far it has been possible to overwhelm John and inflict considerable damage at bases other than the "big three." The recent raid on Okayama and previous raids on Kobe and Shimonoseki are the best examples. I'm trying to duplicate this but the number of targets is narrowing (many are relatively bombed out now). I'm working on ideas for strikes against harder targets.
6. No Allied fighter is "uber": not Thunderbolts, not Corsairs, not Hellcats, not Lightnings, not Mustangs. I knew not to count on the latter three but I'm a bit surprised at the P-47s and Corsairs. As for the Spitfire, forget it.
7. While the Mustang isn't the hoss that it was in the war (due to the quality of the opposition, no doubt), I have come to rely on it more and more for offensive missions. I use it as frequently as I use Corsairs. I try not to send it against John's elite squadrons, because then they tend to get chewed up. I seldom if ever use Thunderbolts; they're mainly used for defense over key bases.
8. John is bleeding, probably badly, but he's still able to strike hard in select areas on occasion.
9. I've tried layered sweeps but have pretty much defaulted to high altitude sweeps.

[Barb]

Aren't the strategic bombing points scored for industries that are permanently destroyed only? It would make sense to "clean up" the bases already hit with maximum firebombing effort even if the city itself do not contain that much Manpower. As you said the Jap CAP is mainly concentrated, so it should be rather "loss-free", while it should score strategic points and diminish his industry further...

[Canoerebel]

I'm not sure what you're saying here.

Points for strategic bombing comes for damaging the industry. John can rebuild the damaged industry at cost. I think he's rebuilt some of his aircraft factories and perhaps select other industry here and there.

I've used Manpower bombing at night but it's no longer efficient to do so. John has nearly all bases protected by night fighters, making the missions costly in terms of bombers and the payoffs low in terms of fires set.

Daytime bombing against targets that aren't defended, or which are poorly defended, is far more efficient.

[tarkalak]

From the manual (unless my memory is going bad):

You get 2 points for a factory damaged and 18 more for destroyed.

An attack might directly destroy the factory in which case you get 20 directly.