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Nathan Madien - Fortunately the USN made a large mistake towards the end of March. They lost half of their Carriers around the New Hebreides before Operation Mystery was anywhere close to being underway.

intruder alert - I may or may not fortify the islands. Probably not as if I do capture them there is little chance of the Americans taking them back for some time. I have had problems with coastal forts in the past where they didn't actually work during an invasion so I am a little less inclined to use them now.

elbasto - Thanks. It was a decent option before the USN lost half its Carriers, it became a certainty once that had happened.

robou - Hopefully so. It is rather tiresome to have to continually reinvade islands all over the Pacific and this should give the Americans a single purpose in life.

cjwet - I have to capture it yet which is by no means certain.

stnylan - I try not to be too logical all the time but this was a chance I could not afford to risk.

Middelkerke - We shall see :)

Leumatiello - If I capture Hawaii I probably won't clean the entire Pacific just yet but I might. Middle East would open another front with the Soviets which I do not wish to do right now.

Lascars - Hirohito never got involved until june 1944 so he could have been this good all along :) Only Pearl Harbour has an airbase with all of the other islands not even having a port.

zdlugasz - Uh huh.

alan_le_cowboy - The biggest give away was the amount of force I used for the Marshalls. I did not need anywhere near that size a force to take and hold those islands but it was used prior to Operation Mystery as the forces assembled.

A little aside that gave me a laugh at the time. When my bombers attacked two destroyers north of Midway several people asked me to attack Midway. As you will see it was already well in hand.

Update to follow ...
 
Operation Mystery

2





1100 March 4th 1946.
BB Division 1 Flagship. IJN Yamashiro, In Transit.

The first reports to arrive at Fleet Headquarters were from the Submarine Flotilla that had been dispatched to ascertain the defences of the various islands targetted by Operation Mystery.​

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Admiral Inoue had sailed at the beginning of March to conduct his mission and arrived off Midway Island on March 4th. The island was undefended and he moved on to his next target.​

mar8461100gr1.jpg

At 1100 hours on March 8th he took up position to the south of the Hawaiian Islands and began to observe the defences. All of the islands had at least one garrison division with what looked like two protecting Pearl Harbour. The defences were not considered sufficient to postpone Operation Mystery and as a result a major Japanese build up began in and around the Marshall Islands. The clearance of this island chain was a natural predecessor to further operations, and gave the early forces to arrive in the area something to do while they awaited the fleet units from the south where they were concluding Operation Obsolete.

By mid to late April the first steps could begin. The news that half of the American Aircraft Carriers had perished during operations to capture the New Hebreides made the chances of a successful move towards Hawaii a lot more likely.​

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At 1400 hours on April 21st two Infantry divisions were embarked from Wake Island and headed towards the West Hawaiian Rise. Carrier Groups C and D accompanied the invasion force to protect it in case the remaining American Carrier Task Force tried to intervene.​

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The invasion began at 1500 hours on April 23rd. Two days would be required to land the Infantry and seize the island. The port facility was critical to future success as it was close to Hawaii.​

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A single Destroyer Flotilla entered the West Hawaiian Rise as the invasion progressed. There had originally been two Flotillas but one had been sunk the previous day to the north east by Naval bombers. IJN Hiyo sank the 14th Destroyer Division.​

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Lt. General Kuroda led Japanese troops ashore on Midway Island at 2100 hours on April 25th. This battle for the island had been almost without incident and the island was finally under Japanese control.​

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8. Kaigun, commanded by Admiral Mikawa, had left the Solomon Islands several weeks earlier and headed back to Japan. He embarked three Infantry divisions that had been part of the home island defence forces. He sailed for Midway at 0000 on April 26th and would take about a week to arrive on Midway to strengthen the defences. His troops were to be used for the attack on Hawaii.​
 
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By May 9th the Marshall Islands had been completely secured which allowed all of the forces to become available for Operation Mystery. Two Transport fleets embarked most of the troops from islands around the Marshalls and headed to Midway along with both Carrier Groups and BB Divisions 1 and 2. Almost all of the offensive firepower of the Imperial Japanese Navy was in one place and would support the upcoming operation.​

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Once the fleets had been resupplied on Midway they set sail for the East Hawaiian Rise to check the defences of Hawaii and conduct an invasion if there had been no further strengthening of the defences. Additional reconnaisance missions could have been undertaken but it was decided that the less actual activity around Hawaii the better as no clues would be given to Japanese plans. Three Transport fleets contained a total of eleven Marine and Infantry divisions which would hopefully be enough to capture and then secure the islands.​

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The Combined Fleet arrived shortly before dawn on May 18th when General Imamoru led the assault force towards the weaker island of Maui. The mountainous defensive terrain could be a problem but this island was adjacent to Pearl harbour and gave the best overall assault point as Pearl Harbour itself had been reinforced with a mechanised division. There were another eight divisions available should this first invasion fail. The need to protect the invasion fleet meant that only one assault point could be used and this entire feet would remain together as much as possible until the whereabouts of the remaining enemy Carriers was known.​

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A small enemy fleet entered the area at 1200 hours on May 18th. Both Destroyer Divisions were destroyed before they could close with the Transport fleets. Aircraft from IJN Unryu and IJN Ryuho would claim one enemy Flotilla each. If the Americans had not known the size of the Japanese forces off Hawaii before they certainly did now.​

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After eighteen hours of bitter fighting Imamoru's forces overcame the garrison on Maui and the full assault force began moving towards the island to unload. The sooner all of the troops were ashore the less danger there would be to enemy activity. So far no enemy aircraft had tried to attack the fleets to the south of the islands.​

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At 0800 on May 20th Japanese troops seized the island of Maui and provided a foothold on the main United States base in the Pacific. All they had to do now was capture Pearl Harbour and cleanse the remaining islands.​

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Seven hours later all of the remaining American Aircraft Carriers were spotted approaching the Japanese Combined Fleet. The USS Hornet was showing signs of damage from a previous encounter but the remaining Carriers were undamaged and well escorted. Admiral Stark was commanding the enemy fleet and both he and Nagano decided to keep the battle at Carrier range. Unfortunately the weather conditions were perfect for Battleships to attack the enemy Carriers but the range remained outside that of their guns during the entire encounter. Almost no damage resulted from the engagement as Stark left to the north as soon as he could. The heavy rain mixed with night rendered the Carriers and their Aircraft almost impotent.​

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The entire Japanese ground force was ashore by 1300 hours on May 21st which allowed the Combined Fleet to move north to cover the main enemy base of Pearl Harbour. Whether Nagano's eight older Carriers, which had still not completed upgrading their Carrier Air Groups, could defeat the four more modern American Carriers under ideal conditions was unknown but it was likely that such an encounter would occur. Only the IJN Shinano was as modern as the enemy fleet Carriers but her aircraft were not as modern.

Ozawa knew that he could not hope to chase the much more modern and faster American ships but he could force them to come to him. Ozawa's two Battleship fleets were slightly faster than the remainder of the fleets being used and would arrive under cover of darkness five hours ahead of the main force.​
 
This is it! The success of this mission will mean a lot for the Japanese war effort in terms of strategic defense of the Pacific and morale. :cool:

You could probably send your BB fleets back to Japan soon to provide some shore bombardment for the defense of Manchuria.
 
But more important than that is that even knowing the objectives of the operation, Remble's enemies couldn't do skat to prevent it.

Except of course, a fleet showdown that would probably end in a (constly) victory for Remble. But the AI doesn't grasp the concept of Pyhrric victory :)
 
Finally the fog has lifted and a mystery is revealed. Thankfully Midway is already secured. So if you should fail to capture Hawaii, only half of my head will roll. Lucky me.

And if anyone wonders: Half a brain can be better than a whole one.
 
Ok so the troops are ashore. That's the importnat first step.
 
I'm perplex:
- on one side, some elements that you gave on June 12, 1946 let us know that things went well,
- on the other side, if you did not do June monthly report, it means Operation Mystery needs more than 10 days to be finished which is not so good...

:confused: :confused:
 
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alan_le_cowboy said:
I'm perplex:
- on one side, some elements that you gave on June 12 let us know that things went well,
- on the other side, if you did not do June monthly report, it means Operation Mystery needs more than 10 days to be finished which is not so good...

:confused: :confused:


10 days is not that bad. Theres a large Carrier force near the landing zone and the islands are defended by mech forces so...
 
Well perhaps you will have two birds with one stone if Ozawa can pull off a victory against the carriers.
 
how do you know after you capture Hawaii, then US AI is going to push for just Hawaii and ignore the other islands in the Pacific? is it coded somewhere as the first priority in the Pacific or just you know from your ex-plays? and i think you said that this is your first Japan 44 game playing ???

good luck with Hawaii and i hope you will capture Pearl Harbor before USAF arrive there. we all remember what happened to your NAVs :wacko:
 
naw, its just a bit of logic: the closest air and naval base to the mainland, worth a victory point, and garrisonned: the ideal target for a proper AI to launch waves of infantry against it. (USA going to play with Human Wave? GUNG HO SEMPER FI)
 
there was something a little weird about that update, but i cant work out what ??? :confused:

dont worry it was still a very good update :D
 
And a Mystery no more!

Glad to see the covers off this baby, look's like it is doing fine?

Hopefully your BB's get some action in the next battle.


Also it looks like Britian and the Soviets are starting to wake up again.


Good updates overall.
 
THE_SMASHER - Japan certainly has its problems :)

Fgorginator - Oh it still has some Mystery left, you don't know how it ends :)

germanpeon - Success would be good certainly. Failure would be pretty painful. I don't think my BB fleets will be going anywhere anytime soon.

elbasto - The loss of one Carrier fleet was extremely painful for the USN about now. Who is to say the IJN Carriers can win against the US ones? Remember right now I have absolutely no choice about when attacks occur which is a bad situation but needed here. So far its all been under good conditions for me where no Carriers can fire effectively.

cjwet - I doubt they thought Japan would try Hawaii but your are correct no human player would leave it that badly defended.

Sokraates - Operation Mystery calls for the full conquest of Hawaii. Anything less is a failure and I will withdraw if the Americans reinforce the islands enough. I am not playing super stacks with the US that far from Japan.

Middelkerke - Oh they are defending it alright. It gets a little painful.

stnylan - Safely ashore yup. The next parts are not much easier.

alan_le_cowboy - I think I said somewhere along the line that it ends towards the end of June.

Nathan Madien - They respond as the AI is programmed to :)

robou - We shall see.

harezmi, Juan_de_Marco - If the USAAF shows up in force I am toast. It is logical to assume that they will concentrate on Pearl Harbour. The AI is extremely single minded about certain places, you only have to look at what they threw at Guam to see the pattern. Pearl is a lot more important than Guam so I expect them to visit it frequently.

rampagingmouse - Thanks, let me know if you work it out :D Maybe its because it was under BB Division 1 and not an Emperor briefing.

Maj. von Mauser - Thank you. Yes they are waking up which is all to the good. I am fairly glad they remained quiet long enough to get Mystery sorted out as it was a little chaotic jumping around keeping an eye on everything. Even micro managers like me can get flooded sometimes :)

Update to follow, time for some of that bloodshed you like so much ...