An Idiots Guide To Losing Your CV's Before 1942: WiTP:AE KyzBP vs UCG

[KyzBP]

Ha!  I got the screenshot thingy working better.

Let's take you to the aftermath of Strawberry.

The three TF's near Ternate are the remnants of Strawberry.  I've broken them into 3 TF's to give them a better chance of escape.
The undamaged DD's are headed to Ambon to meet up with the DDs already there and some DDs from Kendari.  His next target will be
either Sorong or Ambon so I'd like to have a reactionary force to meet him as long as he's not too powerful.

UCG's pesky sub.

I don't have any DDs in the area so ASW operations will be hampered.  I have some Wirraways and Banshees at Brisbane set
to ASW but they missed detecting this guy coming in so I don't hold much hope in them knocking him out.

His Carriers headed for Truk.

I'm not sure if he's just going to do a refuel and head back out or if he's going to stay awhile and repair his wear and tear.
If he heads out then I suspect Guam will be the target.  If he stays I may reroute the Mine Subs to Truk.  I'd love to get a low
cost hit on some of his big ships.  Either way this forces me to get the PBYs out of Guam immediately following Doolittle.

The mess that is the Hawaiian Waters.

I just transferred the Carrier based DBs to Pearl to assist with the sub hunts.  Most of the transport/supply convoys have been rerouted around Pearl
but some of them don't seem to get the message until it's too late.

[KyzBP]

The end of the turn looks like this:

My loses this turn:

You can see his growing sub success around Hawaii.

His loses:

The PT raid at Haiphong.  I guarantee there are or will be more there.

And a surprise loss I just noticed:

If he did lose this to a mine then that mine was almost as successful as his Pearl Harbor raid.  ;D

Here's the score so far:


Let's hope the raid on BJ fairs well.

[KyzBP]

December 21, 1941

The war is now 2 weeks old.  Much has happened so far...except last turn.

So little happened last turn that it's not even screenshot worthy.

Operation Doolittle fizzled.  The PBYs set to Port Attack were met by 9 Zeroes that weren't supposed to be there.  3 of the PBYs were shot down and the rest turned back without dropping any bombs.  The PBYs set to Naval Attack never launched, which is what I was afraid of.  All of the PBYs were sent back to their respective bases with the Cats from Wake and Nauru being the exception.  Their bases are no longer in the possession of the Allies.

Nauru and Davao both fell.  Neither base put up much resistance.

UCG has a sub or two near Point Blair that continues to sink ships bound for Point Blair.  I have some ASW assets headed that way but they're still a couple days out.  I'm trying to free up some air support for this but the air base on Blair is at capacity right now.

Singapore saw a much more reserved air raid this turn.  15 unescorted Sallys showed up, only 3 of those returned undamaged...or at all.
I'm down to just 2 Vildebeests near Singapore.  The other 2 met some Zeroes as well.  UCG is putting cap over most of his ships now so there aren't anymore soft targets.

The only other noteworthy event was the pair of mystery ships north of Pearl.  They turned out to be some kind of armored transport or something.  One was sunk by some of my DDs and the other took some hits and then disappeared.  No report of any troop loses.

And there you have it.  That was pretty much the turn from my end.  I have no more offensive operations planned at the moment.  The big part of the game for me right now is getting troops away from the West Coast safely.  A few APs (troop transports) have shown up at Pearl and the West Coast so we can continue our transport activities.

I'll post the end of turn Screens as soon as my kids are done with their computer.

[KyzBP]

December 22nd, 1941

Subs attack!

It was quite a day if you're in the submarine business.

First there are subs off of Australia's West Coast.

There aren't supposed to be subs there yet. :-\  Of course it scored a hit.

Then the Dutch decide to get in the game.

Dutch subs make me happy.

Next the evil sub that's been hanging around Point Blair is dealt with.

I'd be surprised if that one made it home.

Unfortunately one of his subs near Java evened the score and took down a tanker. 

Then THIS happened:

She ended up sinking and I'm sure I lost a very important combat unit.

[KyzBP]

Either there were two groups of AMC surface raiders or my captains lied to me.

I thought we had taken care of those.  I guess I was wrong.

But we did make things right.

This time I believe them.

Now to the Air War:

Nine lowly Warhawk B's took on 58 of Geeks finest pilots...

...and proceeded to get shot down, well two of them at least.  We knocked down a Zero but more importantly we were
able to minimize the damage to Kendari.

I would say the AA Boys at Singapore have a handle on this.

Fewer and fewer Sallies are showing up.  We might finally be making some headway.

I bet next raid these Betties will have fighter cover.

It was nice to finally see the AVG do something.  I have high hopes/expectations for them.

Apparently the Dutch pilots were so inspired they decided to get into the game.

A REAL warship even!!! O0

Of course the Cat's can't be outdone .

One plane, one hit, one ship!  In case you haven't noticed, I really like these guys.

[KyzBP]

I don't really have any offensive plans right now, nor should I.  In about two weeks I'll have 4 CVs on the West Coast.  Now this is why I gave the thread the title I did...I'm kind of wondering what the weather's like in Northern Japan this time of year... ;)

Now hear me out before you think I'm crazy.  His carriers are all down south and probably will be for awhile.  If I had 4 CVs, all loaded with as many fighters as they'll hold, and sent them to protect a landing on one of the two top islands they could protect the landings from any land based aircraft.  There aren't any air bases nearby so any fighter cover might be light.  It would force his carriers back north, during which time all ships would head back towards Alaska.  Alaska will have additional aircraft assigned to provide cover in case his carriers come running.  This could buy me more time to put in place my troops slotted for the South Pacific. 

It's just in the "I have an idea" stage but I kind of like it.

[KyzBP]

Here's the end of turn stuff:

Allied ships lost:

Five of the 7 ships lost were sunk by torpedoes.  I need to get rid of his subs!

Jap ships lost:

Neither of the AMCs showed up.  They're nowhere on the map either.  I've got to believe they were sunk.

Current list of Top Pilots:

An Aussie pilot leads the list.  No Aces yet.  I think we may have to be more aggressive.

Score:

[JasonPratt]

Re the PBYs, I seem to recall they played a crucial role in the Thousand Mile War of the Aleutians, too.

I'll be very curious to see if you can get the Chain Gang going up there: the Japanese seized the tail early in real life out of fear the US could use it as a staging area to bomb the homeland -- they even diverted naval forces away from Midway to help secure it against a coming US counterattack, which could have easily proven decisive for the subsequent fight farther south. (Had the Imperials been able to march up the Chain to Alaska, they could have wreaked havoc in much the same way the other way around.)

Geek (from your maps) doesn't seem to have thought of it at all.

[KyzBP]

Re the PBYs, I seem to recall they played a crucial role in the Thousand Mile War of the Aleutians, too.

I'll be very curious to see if you can get the Chain Gang going up there: the Japanese seized the tail early in real life out of fear the US could use it as a staging area to bomb the homeland -- they even diverted naval forces away from Midway to help secure it against a coming US counterattack, which could have easily proven decisive for the subsequent fight farther south. (Had the Imperials been able to march up the Chain to Alaska, they could have wreaked havoc in much the same way the other way around.)

Geek (from your maps) doesn't seem to have thought of it at all.

Because of Fog of War, Geeks units won't show up until I actively look for them by searching or doing recon.

I'm not sure about this idea yet.  I had some downtime at work today and decided to look up the IJN, specifically what they started the war with.  It looks like Geek starts out with 10 carriers of varying size...10!  I'm not really sure if there's anything I can do offensively to draw enough of his carriers away from the South Pacific to make a difference.  That being said, I want to make this a fun game and do things outside the box so in keeping with that spirit it may be necessary to give it a shot.  8)

Here's a link to the page I was using.  It was pretty well organized and very informative. http://www.combinedfleet.com/kaigun.htm

[KyzBP]

December 23rd, 1941

I really wish I would've done some research on the IJN before yesterday.  Because I wouldn't have been so foolhardy and allowed this to happen:

Prince of Wales heads into action!

There seems to be a few more ships than the sighting report indicated.  No worries, we have a Battleship.

Prince of Wales head to the bottom of the sea!


While reading yesterday I learned that going head to head, early in the war, against the IJN with anything less than 2-1 odds was
a poor idea.  I also learned that just because your sighting report tells you it's 9 ships doesn't necessarily mean it's only 9 ships.

[jomni]

Your Big BB does not matter. IJN have better equipment and skill at this stage.

[Sir Slash]

The moonlight part? I assume the battle was at night then? Yeah, I'd give the Japanese a big advantage there but would think there would be more torp. hits from them as that was their speciality at night. Can you choose when the battle is fought-- day or night? I'd think the PoW could handle the Jap CA's in daylight without problem. Still seems kind of screwy to me.

[KyzBP]

First, let me say that I'm sorry these updates are coming in so sporadically.  Since having to switch to my kid's computer I now have only a few limited windows in which to play the game and update.  Thanks for your patience.

Your Big BB does not matter. IJN have better equipment and skill at this stage.

I found that out both the hard way and from doing some reading the other day.   :-\

The moonlight part? I assume the battle was at night then? Yeah, I'd give the Japanese a big advantage there but would think there would be more torp. hits from them as that was their speciality at night. Can you choose when the battle is fought-- day or night? I'd think the PoW could handle the Jap CA's in daylight without problem. Still seems kind of screwy to me.

I don't think you can choose the time for battle.  It seems like most the surface battles are at night.  That battle certainly was, which in hindsight was a bad time for me to have a battle.  I think it was almost 4-1 odds against me even though most of his ships were DD's.  Again, from what I read, Japanese DD's were no joke and bristled with torpedo tubes.

[BanzaiCat]

IIRC the game is divided into turns, each day being one turn, and each turn is subdivided into different phases, which break apart air attacks, surface attacks, etcetera.

[KyzBP]

IIRC the game is divided into turns, each day being one turn, and each turn is subdivided into different phases, which break apart air attacks, surface attacks, etcetera.

Correct.  There's also a night phase...stupid night phase.