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

[KyzBP]

Whoops.  Turns out I did mod it.  I didn't see the icon art reworks in the mod package I installed. Thankfully it should be an easy fix.

I'll bet other AARs don't offer our level of customer service.  ;)

[jomni]

Whoops.  Turns out I did mod it.  I didn't see the icon art reworks in the mod package I installed. Thankfully it should be an easy fix.

I'll bet other AARs don't offer our level of customer service.  ;)

SDR! Don't distract KyzBP!

[KyzBP]

December 19th, 1941

I expected big things this turn.  Some happened, some didn't.

At Balikpapan, UCG continued his bombardment.

Our shore batteries managed to return fire and do a little damage of their own.  It's not much damage but every ship
he has to send back for repairs is a ship I don't have to worry about for awhile.  Plus, his harbors will be mined soon so
these ships may be knocked out within sight of home.

Operation Strawberry Hill kicked off.

And it looks like we've bitten off more than we can chew.  The IJN will have 4 CAs, and 10 DDs vs. our 2 CLs and 5 DDs.
This can't possibly end well.

Here's the damage the Japanese took:

Only 4 of his 14 ships didn't get hit.

Here's the damage the Good Guys took:

Six of our 7 took hits with 2 DDs going under.  What I've noticed from these screenshots is the difference in damage
control.  Only 2 of our ships are currently battling fires while nearly all of his damaged ships are burning.  I think this battle will end up being
a victory for us considering the odds and the amount of damage he took.  The hard part will be getting these guys back to port.
His land based air already smells blood in the water.

The bad news here is this:

Although the PoW wasn't hit, UCG now knows where the PoW is and will make every effort to knock her out.  I'm still going to
try to engage his surface fleets one more time and then try to get the PoW out of there.

[KyzBP]

Not wanting to be shown up by a bunch of Cat pilots, the Vildebeest crews went on the offensive.


and another:

I know it's only transports and cargo ships but those become important when trying to supply your rapidly growing
empire.

The Sally onslaught continues.

That was one of 3 raids.  The Sallies continue to take damage yet show right back up the next day.  I don't think MY ground crews
are that efficient.

Hearing of the Vildebeest's success, and never wanting to be outdone, the few Cats that aren't assigned to Operation Doolittle
decide to remind everyone they're still around.

Operation Doolittle kicks off next turn.  I'm waiting on recon reports to tell me whether or not there's a fighter presence on BJ.  If there
is then it will be a night raid.

Speaking of Night Air Raids, they've been an across the board failure so far.  It may have something to do with there being no moonlight.
I'm suspending the night raids until the moon is a little fuller.

[Barthheart]

Very interesting that both sides have claimed victory from the sea battle of Operation Strawberry Hill.  ^-^

[KyzBP]

The no screenshot recap:

His subs continue to sink everything they hit.
We lost Temuloh, Balikpapan, and Butaun.
Everything east of Hawaii is quiet outside of 2 subs terrorizing the West Coast.


So here's what's in the works for our next episode:

A little unexpected (fingers crossed) port raid:

I managed to save some of the PT boats from Hong Kong and had them work their way along the coast to Pakhoi.
I then brought some Chinese bombers to Nanning and put them on Naval Search just in case something wandered into
the area.  At Haiphong Harbor, an unsuspecting group of transport/cargo ships came a wandering...

The Sub Pens at Dutch Harbor are now in operation.  This should reduce the travel time to the Home Islands.

I'm still working at getting a Base Force to Umnak so Dutch Harbor can have air cover.

[KyzBP]

Very interesting that both sides have claimed victory from the sea battle of Operation Strawberry Hill.  ^-^

I'm only claiming victory because I was outnumbered 2 to 1 and he should lose some of those ships before they get to port.  If nothing sinks then he wins that round. >:(

[Barthheart]

Very interesting that both sides have claimed victory from the sea battle of Operation Strawberry Hill.  ^-^

I'm only claiming victory because I was outnumbered 2 to 1 and he should lose some of those ships before they get to port.  If nothing sinks then he wins that round. >:(

Well his claim on victory is equally as tenuous...  O0

[KyzBP]

The game may be on hold for a bit while I figure out why it suddenly won't load.  If anyone needs me, I'll be at the Matrix forums for awhile.

[jomni]

Very interesting that both sides have claimed victory from the sea battle of Operation Strawberry Hill.  ^-^

It's really like a real war.  These two sides cherry coat their reports.

[Sir Slash]

Game won't load? That sneaky UCG. He sent his Sally's to drop an EMP on your house. That's WAY below the belt.

[KyzBP]

Here's where we're at.  I tried everything I could think of and everything suggested to me from the folks on the Matrix board but no luck.  I've put the game onto my kids computer so I can still continue the game.  The downside is, until I find an easier way to post screenshots with this computer, my AAR will be very light on screenshots.  I will keep working on both getting the game running again on my computer and finding a quicker way to get screenshots on this computer.

Thanks for your patience however, no refunds will be given.

[KyzBP]

Game won't load? That sneaky UCG. He sent his Sally's to drop an EMP on your house. That's WAY below the belt.

I have a feeling the same child of mine that is passing my plans over to UCG just received orders to sabotage my computer.  There will be no Halloween for that child when I figure out which one it is.

Very interesting that both sides have claimed victory from the sea battle of Operation Strawberry Hill.  ^-^

It's really like a real war.  These two sides cherry coat their reports.

As you'll soon see UCG has a greater claim to that victory than I.  :(

[KyzBP]

Here is the "No Screenshot" :( update.  I'll edit screenies into this as soon as I get it working better.

Operation Strawberry Hill was an almost complete failure.  Geeks ships jumped my injured fleet and decimated them.  I believe only a DD and one CL survived.  The P.o.W. and her 3 CLs are trying to get out of the area but are being hunted by planes and ships.  So far they haven't taken any hits but they're still a ways from safe harbor.

The "Strawberry" element also failed almost totally.  The landing force they were supposed to hit wasn't there when they arrived.  I then directed them to Ternate to interrupt the landings there.  Tragically, my little DD force (you almost never see"little" and "DD" in the same sentence ::)) was surprised by some of his DD's and I got beat up.  I think I lost 2 of 6 ships with 2 more damaged.  I don't think I hit a single one of his ships.

On the bright side, the PT Boat raid on Haiphong Harbor went off flawlessly.  It could have only went better if I had more torpedoes.  He probably had 20+ AKs and AKls at anchor.  We sunk a mess of them and damaged a bunch more.  We then left as fast as we arrived with no wounds to lick.  I'll look for a different port to stage these guys from as I'm sure these little boats got UCG's attention.  So far in this game, it's been the normally unsung units that have really stepped up and made this fun.

Speaking of unsung, the Vildebeest squadrons near Singapore continue to get results.  Both squadrons (4 planes total) scored heavy hits on a pair of AKs near Mersing.  I'd like to fly those guys out soon.  They've performed so well, I'd hate to see them captured or bombed into oblivion by Geek's Necro Sallies.  Those planes are fragile and relentless, which usually isn't a good combination.  It won't be long before he begins the ground phase of his Singapore operation.

Things are starting to heat up in China.  His ground forces kill mine at a rate of 5 to 1 anytime they meet.  If I can save enough Political Points this month, in January I'll purge all the Chinese generals I can.  Both of our air forces continue to bomb anything we can find in China.  He may have a slight advantage in this department but it's pretty close.

His subs continue to harass me.  He sinks a ship a night near Hawaii and just sunk one near Brisbane in Australia.  The one that popped up near Suva is being hunted relentlessly.  The nice neat pattern of subs near Hawaii is breaking up and getting harder to chase.  I have some important transport/supply ships coming through there right now and I can't afford giving him easy shots at them.  The strange thing is some random 2 vessel surface force just showed up northeast of Hawaii.  I'm sure it's some kind of Raider Force sent to help disrupt my convoys but now I have to break away some of my ASW DD's and planes to get rid of these guys.  Well played Geek.  Your timing couldn't have been better.

Everything else remain unchanged.

[KyzBP]

Next turn I launch Operation Doolittle (I thougt about renaming it Operation Surprise BJ for Banzai Cat.  Those usually have a high success rate).  I have about 30 PBYs on Guam, half set to Port Attack the other half to Naval Attack.  Since you can't specify what you want attacked while in Naval mode, I'm kind of rolling the dice and hoping they hit the ships that aren't actually in port.  Recon shows no aircraft in the area so we're going for an early morning raid.  It'll be nice if we can get in two raids in one day but given that Guam's supply level is almost exhausted it seems unlikely.  All PBYs will return to their normal missions at their original bases immediately following the raid(s).