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Phax said:
Wonder if USA will reinforce that landing with 20 divisions or not :p

Correction: it should be "Wonder if USA will try to reinforce that landing with 20 divisions or not :p"

@Remble: Could you please give us the current ocean level? Having sunk so many ships in such a short time could lead to the US secret plan coming to fruition. :D
 
Panzer6 said:
If I'm not terribly mistaken, the oil fields were not discovered until the late 1960's so Paradox has it right. Though there was oil in Alaska during WW2, it was not known to be there.

Ah that explains it, but still the geography of Alaska is pretty bad in this game (although better than in HOI :p ).
 
Sokraates said:
Having sunk so many ships in such a short time could lead to the US secret plan coming to fruition. :D
well, the mariana trench has a depth of almost 11 km so the americans have only 10 km left or something like that...
 
I've made the experience that carriers are much better for convoy raiding than subs, maybe you could try that. But i think that they have more than enough convois to deal with some losses. Or do you plan to build more bombers to deal with the USN?
 
cjwet said:
I've made the experience that carriers are much better for convoy raiding than subs, maybe you could try that. But i think that they have more than enough convois to deal with some losses. Or do you plan to build more bombers to deal with the USN?

Generally, submarines are dedicated to convoy raiding because they are cheap, they are "stealth" and they have long range... but not really because they can sunk many convoys in one shot...
For that, any surface ship (and not only carrier) is better.
When I use BB groups for convoy raidings, I sunk 10 to 20 convoy by shot.

The only problem is you cannot cover many zones with surface fleets.
You can only do local supply interdiction: for example, I often starve Malta with surface fleets.
IMO, In Pacific, there are too many zones to patrol to achieve a convoy raiding warfare.
 
alan_le_cowboy said:
The only problem is you cannot cover many zones with surface fleets.
You can only do local supply interdiction: for example, I often starve Malta with surface fleets.
IMO, In Pacific, there are too many zones to patrol to achieve a convoy raiding warfare.

I think the only problem is the lack of a blockade ability. I mean, if a small island has around 4 battleships, 2 carriers and a bunch of little ships around it, very little convoys will make it through at all.
The way we have it though is that every single convoy USA owns must be sunk to have any effect against an island.
 
Personally i use cruisers (CA) and to a lesser extent BC as i think that they just get in the way of CV's and BB's as it means more supply and they dont really add any much protection, yet they are big enough and ugly enough to be a pain to convoys, though it will mean losing some of your valuable escorts (Just give them the rubbish ones)

But im sure that what ever choice Remble makes will the right one as he hasn't really gone wrong yet

Keep up the good work

and Happy Hunting :D
 
alan_le_cowboy - Thank you. Its not pacific at all right now :)

rampagingmouse - Thanks. The total ships sunk will be included in the January 1st update. I will use White Daimons sunk ships calculator for that as it makes things easier :)

BoemsiBoemsie, Funkatronica, Maj. von Mauser, Midge - Thank you :)

genbrad - Thank you and welcome to the boards. They are running low on Battleships.

robou, Panzer6 - They are walking into my most powerful Air fleets certainly. The IJN is still refusing almost all naval action of any size.

cjwet - A good old fashioned land war does keep things interesting certainly. Stalin seems a little reluctant to oblige.

Von Uber, Reado - The American Carriers are licking their wounds from the early beating they took but some do get a mention in the next update. I fear Battleships a lot more than Carriers most of the time simply because Carriers have a huge weakness at night. Good intelligence, provided by my interceptors, allows me to pick the time I fight in most cases which invariably puts the Carriers at a disadvantage. The USN had an estimated 5 Carriers on September 1st according to intelligence reports.

Sokraates - Thanks. September has gone fairly well so far.

thatguy - Alaska is a long way off yet I think. I have to take a long route to be able to get there, which includes taking the islands in the north of the Pacific, as I know from my previous AAR that Pearl Harbour is out of range of the U.S.A. for an invasion.

Nathan Madien - The AI does seem to have a fascination for feeding an invasion even if its useless :)

Panzer6, Phax, thatguy - Interesting information on the Alaskan oil fields or lack there of. Thank you for providing it :)

Deus, Fgorginator - I could probably manage to do something really stupid and hand it over to the USN but I doubt I will.

Sokraates, Manziel - I doubt the USN has enough ships to fill the Mariana Trench but it is certainly trying very hard to do so :)

Deus, cjwet, alan_le_cowboy, Panzer6, rampagingmouse - All good points for a way to deal with Palu and convoy raiding. My own experience shows that large fleets of any kind, be they CV, BB, SS or CA dominated, work best for sinking large amounts of convoys. Small SS fleets are very good at sinking convoys over time as are just about any small fleets. Subs are usually used because they are cheap and expendable.

In this case I will not try and attack American convoys as blockading does not work in HoI and the US has far too many to sink for it to work against Palu. My plans for removing the threat are fairly normal and the beginnings are in the next update.

As you may have guessed I took a day off yesterday :)

Update to follow ...
 
A Pacific War

3





0000 September 21st 1945.
BB Division 1 Flagship. IJN Yamashiro, Saipan.

The initial invasion of Palu by an American marine division had been reinforced by an infantry division. Japanese response had already begun.​

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Nakajima's Close Air Support Aircraft were the first to arrive on Makassar airbase and began to try and remove the invaders. Other aircraft were not far behind.​

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At 1400 hours the marine division attacked the defenders of Makassar led by Lt. General Shimomura. The attack would fail but highlighted the precarious position the Japanese forces were in.​

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Yamamoto had ordered some more detailed reports of the defences of New Guinea. Submarines and aircraft were dispatched to provide this information. Sorong had seen two divisions leave, probably to reinforce Palu, and other defences were considered weak with just a marine division guarding Hollandia.

September 22nd would see a daring move by a United States Navy Carrier Task Force.​

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At 0400 hours aircraft from USS Lake Champlain took off and headed for the naval base on Palau. By 0700 hours the defensive aircraft from the two Light Carriers had reduced the attack to nothing and caused moderate damage to the Carrier.

BB Division 2 and 3 were placed on alert to sail at short notice once the exact composition of the Carrier Task Force was known.​

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The information did not arrive until 2100 hours and showed the vunerablilty of the American fleet. Both Battleship fleets were ordered to sail immediately but Lockwood would be out of range before they could break port. 3. Kaigun was ordered to sail for its destination and would be escorted by both Battlefleets.

Japanese bombers would be split as a result of the next report. Another fleet needed their attention as they also pursued Lockwood and the USS Lake Champlain.​

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Cooley's Carrier Task Force had been spotted in the Sape Strait and was supporting the invasion of the Celebes. Ozawa would be leading the hunt for the USS Antietam.​

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At 0800 on September 23rd the Submarine fleet that had been sent to try and halt reinforcements to Palu was discovered by Cooley and his Carriers. Admiral Kato had tried to leave the area undetected but had failed. He would lose 4. Unterseebootsflottille to aircraft from the USS Antietam as a result.​

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By 2200 hours on September 23rd a third American division had landed in Palu and the risk of losing the island increased. The bombers were doing their best to reduce the marine division that had begun the invasion but the jungle terrain was making it difficult. The only way to stop more troops arriving was to move the Carrier Task Force to allow a Submarine fleet to patrol the Sape Strait.

Ozawa, Genda, Onishi and Tsukahara were given the task of driving Cooley away from the Celebes.​
 
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In less than twelve hours they would succeed in their mission. They arrived over the target at 2200 hours on the 23rd and by the time they returned to their bases at dusk to rearm and refuel the Carrier fleet had suffered badly.

The first target had been the Light Carrier USS Wright which sank just after midnight. The bombers then turned their attention to the USS Antietam. She would sink before 0900 hours on September 24th and Cooley was left with no choice but to head east away from further punishment.

Yamamoto had already managed to sink a sizable number of Battleships over the last two weeks and now the United States Navy had committed some Carriers and had already lost one. He had missed a report and quickly rectified that situation. Bombers had also been sent to hunt down the USS Lake Champlain as it headed south. These bombers had found Lockwood's small fleet an hour after Cooley had been attacked.​

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The United States Navy had lost the USS Lake Champlain several hours before it had lost the USS Antietam. Two modern Carriers were no more and the losses for the American fleet were growing to the point were replacement of the ships would take years to achieve.​

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BB Division 3, led by Admiral Nomura, was Japan's fastest Battlefleet and it had arrived in the East Caroline Basin ahead of BB Division 2 and 3. Kaigun. The remains of Lockwood's fleet and a second fleet containing a Destroyer and Transport Division were found trying to head out of the area. Only the Submarine division would survive as the Heavy Cruiser IJN Takao sank one Destroyer Division with IJN Musashi sinking the other. IJN Yamato accounted for the Transport Division.​

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One of the Transport Divisions that had added troops to Palu had mistakenly headed west instead of east. It would not be leaving the Madura Strait as bombers sent it to the bottom on their way to try and relocate Cooley and the remains of his fleet.​





0000 September 25th 1945.
Diplomatic Offices. Tokyo, Japan.

Mamoru liked to keep abreast of other Countries leaders as it could help with negotiations. He particularly liked to know when anything changed.​

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An American Minister had resigned. Why was unknown but Mamoru did know that it was not a member of the current American cabinet.​





0300 September 25th 1945.
BB Division 1 Flagship. IJN Yamashiro, Saipan.

Reports were still arriving thick and fast at Yamamoto's temporary headquarters on Saipan. The latest report from Palu was looking slightly more favourable.​

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The marine division was close to ceasing to exist as a combat unit and would not survive until dusk. No further troops had been landed.​

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Ozawa had found Cooley again and by 0900 hours on September 25th he had lost another Light Carrier. The USS Saipan had rather fittingly been sunk as that island was no longer American controlled nor had it been for some time.​

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Yamamoto's was paying a lot more attention to New Guinea as the invasion force arrived off the coast of Hollandia. The marines began their assault at 0900 hours with support from BB Division 3 and the massive guns of IJN Yamato and Musashi.

Choosing to launch the attack at dusk was a mistake as had been proven time and again by the Americans. Such assaults could only work with air support, which did not arrive until dawn and would turn out to be too late. The marines defending Hollandia would win this battle despite being weakened beforehand by bombers.

None of the Japanese fleets were going anywhere just yet. 8. Kaigun had already left Davao with another three divisions and they would arrive in a couple of days. In the mean time the bombers would keep the pressure on the defending marines to prevent them from recovering.​

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At 1300 hours on September 26th the four American Destroyer Divisions that had sunk four Japanese Submarine Flotillas already found a second Submarine fleet in the North Magellan Seamounts. Admiral Shimada had been keeping a close watch on Eniwetok which had seen its garrison reduced to almost nothing. The final division on the island looked to be boarding a Transport Division as Shimada ordered his fleet to take evasive action to avoid the Destroyers.

Shimada would manage to escape with all six Submarine Flotillas still afloat, although some were close to being totally sunk. Yamamoto moved his headquarters back onboard IJN Yamashiro as he ordered BB Division 1 to sea to hunt down the American Destroyers before he had no Submarines left.​
 
Poor Germans, they lose THEIR war, yet they still can't get a rest.

Nice job on sinking those American Carriers.
 
alan_le_cowboy said:
But they can increase quickly as US AI is very good at spamming navy units (even on normal level)...

The US can spam all they want but that won't help them in the end. They may have the IC but they are lacking the time to replace all their lost capital ships.

Interestingly, judging by the composition of the two carrier fleets, the US seems to concentrate on rebuilding their capital ships while neglecting the screens. Cooley's fleet was understrength in this regard.

@Remble: Tally-ho!

Would it be too much to ask you to include the true number of allied ships a few months after this campaign has finished? It would be nice to know how effective it truly was. The IJN shouldn't have trouble to pick up some secret document from all thos sunk flagships. ;)
 
Maybe i've missed it, but what slider change you have made in the diplo screen. And how are the sliders of the USA, that could show, how fast they can rebuild their fleet. With hawk lobby they would be really fast. Do you plan to thin the defense line against the SU to have troops for the pacific operations?
Good job as always.
 
Hermann Steiner said:
*they make such lovely reefs* :D

Good job, Remble.
But why did you attack a guarded province? Were there no beaches on the unguarded shorelines of guam?

He already controlled Guam, and I think it's guarded by 3 divisions if I remember correctly :rolleyes: .