Divebombing "The Mark" (Marky keep out)

[Dive Bomber1]

January 28, 1942 – The weather cooperated this turn and almost all of my plans worked out quite well. First and most importantly, my parachute assault on Lashio worked flawlessly and there was no opposition in the air or on the ground. Marky's troops in Mandalay will now have to retreat to the north and I am now in a position to send troops to block the Burma Road.

My air attack on Mandalay also worked well. Marky only had two Hurricanes on defense with the AVG nowhere to be seen, so my Zeros made easy work of the CAP and my bombers hit the base hard, causing plenty of casualties and damage. I will be sending them back next turn, weather permitting. And to add to the success, my ground troops caused even more casualties during the subsequent artillery attack. I am planning another artillery attack next turn so that my troops rest up some more.

My other invasions worked equally well as both Tarakan and Babo were captured without opposition. There is almost no damage to Tarakan so I will be able to extract oil as soon as I can get tankers to the port.

My other air attacks worked well too. Teloekbetong was hit hard with no opposition, and my bombers in Luzon finally flew for a change, causing a lot of damage at Manila. But the subsequent artillery attack at Manila still didn't cause much damage. I am getting the feeling that I will have to eventually send an additional infantry division to the siege in order to capture the base. I may also pull back enough troops to capture Bataan first, while leaving Manila under siege.

And in yet another surprise from Marky, he has abandoned the crossroads two hexes north of the river crossroads on the way to Chungking. I guess that he is intending to make a "Last Stand" at Chungking. But once I cut the Burma Road that Last Stand could turn out to be a lot less pleasant for him than he expects. So for now I will continue to only move forward enough to gain the positions that Marky is abandoning, but in a while I intend to put the pressure back on his forces in China by moving more units into positions where they can cut off his forces.

Things remain fairly quiet in the South and Central Pacific. I've got small invasion TFs about to land at those isolated bases on the south coast of New Guinea, and the Amboina invasion force is about four days away from landing. Therefore, I am sending a bombardment TF in to hit Amboina again, and to then provide cover for the invasion TF.

I've also sent my first small invasion TF out from Truk towards that cluster of dot bases to the northeast of New Caledonia. I'm also sending a combat TF to Tulagi so that they can be in position if Marky decides to react to my provocation. I am still waiting for my new troops at Kwajalein to rest up a bit before I start to send them to the islands due south of Nauru Island. Also, Marky has a small TF meandering to the northwest of Palmyra, so I want to keep an eye on that just in case he tries something silly like a raid on the Gilberts or Marshalls.

[Dive Bomber1]

January 29, 1942 - The big surprise this turn was that most of my air units had good weather again and flew their missions. Having that happen two turns in a row is amazing, and very welcome. Bombers hit various targets throughout China, and there was another good and unopposed air attack on Mandalay. There was even air attack on Manila that utilized almost all of my bombers. Only in Borneo did my planes fail to fly due to bad weather, and those were nuisance raids so it doesn't really matter.

The artillery attack on Mandalay went well too. Marky has a very large number of base forces at Mandalay. It would be very nice to be able to trap them there before I attack so that I could eliminate them rather than just have them retreat and rebuild in India. Since the disruption and fatigue levels of my attacking troops are still a bit higher than I like when I order a deliberate attack, I decided to be patient and have the units do an artillery attack again next turn while I scout around and see just what units Marky has in his bases at the India/Burma border.

I am suspicious that Myitkyina is vacant, and if I were to grab that I would not only cut off the Burma Road but I might even be able to induce a surrender of the British troops at Mandalay. But I don't want to just para-drop some troops in there blindly - I am doing that enough in my other games. [;)] Fortunately, one of my base forces has made it to Pagan, so I moved a long-range recon unit in, along with a Zero Daitai and I will recon Myitkyina next turn to see if I can grab it safely with a piece of the 2nd Paratroop regiment. (Half of that unit is in Lashio.)

I am still suffering from placing the paradrop-capable SNLF units at the front lines, although I finally have one of them back at a non-malarial base to rest up, and another is on its way to Palembang from where it can cause all kinds of mischief. Unfortunately, another paradrop-capable SNLF and the 1st Paratroop Regiment are stuck at Bataan where they are keeping an eye on Marky's troops.

My reinforcement engineering regiment is a day's sail from Naga, and the port at Naga is almost up to level 3, so I ought to be able to get those troops into the fray at Manila within a week. The attack level of my troops at Manila has risen well, and they have taken on plenty of reinforcements thanks to all of the supply that I have poured into Luzon, so I am hoping that the addition of the extra engineering regiment will make a difference. If it doesn't I am going to pull back a couple of divisions and an engineering regiment and send them over to Bataan to finish off the Allied troops there while I send another infantry division over to Luzon. I don't really want to do that, but I also don't want the siege of Manila to drag on too much longer.

In other news, an NLF unit started to land at Thursday Island on the south coast of New Guinea this turn. I intend to cut off the straight between New Guinea and the northeast tip of Australia. I am also getting tempted to land some units at that road that ends at the sea at the very northeast tip of Australia so that I can start to move down the coast and keep Marky busy. This won't be a serious invasion, but if Marky doesn't respond I can change that quickly.

[Dive Bomber1]

January 30, 1942 - This was a turn where most of my forces spent their time setting up for upcoming moves. My bombardment TF at Amboina hit that base hard again, then I switched it to a combat TF roll with a react distance of 6, just in case Marky decided to try to rush an Allied combat TF in to hit my invasion TF next turn. That's a low probability, but I don't have a better use for that TF so there is no reason not to use it to assure the success of the invasion.

My invasion of Thursday Island ended with its successful capture. I pulled the NLF unit out immediately and am sending it into the DEI to grab other empty bases out there. I can afford to pull out immediately because Marky isn't moving an eyelash in Australia, and anyway I've got a full Betty unit sitting in Port Moresby just in case Marky does decide to show up anywhere in the region with some ships.

It appears that most of Marky's ships are still in the Eastern Pacific, although I no longer have much of an ability to find out for certain because my Eastern Pacific sub fleet is either sunk, in dry dock getting damage repaired, or limping back to port. Marky's ASW was fierce and effective in the region and he certainly took me to the cleaners.

Most of my air missions flew again, including in China, against Mandalay and against Manila. The engineering regiment is landing at Naga, which is now a level 3 port, and will be sent immediately to Manila upon disembarkation. After a third straight day of heavy aerial bombardments my artillery attack at Manila finally started to cause some decent damage too, but I'm still not confident that I will be able to crack Manila without further reinforcements. My experience in my other pbems is discouraging me when it comes to attacks against the Allied forces - if my best land units do so poorly against weak, inexperienced and isolated Allied units, what will happen when I run up against good Allied LCUs? [&:]

At Mandalay my ground troops followed up the aerial bombardment with a strong artillery bombardment, and the disruption and fatigue of my attackers improved again. Never-the-less, I've decided to continue with more artillery bombardments, at least for the next couple of turns, because I realized that I was about to make a big goof with my plans for Myitkyina.

As luck would have it, the only recon flight that didn't fly this turn was the one from Pagan to Myitkyina, so I'm still not certain that the base is really empty. However, when I looked more carefully at my paratroop regiment I suddenly realized that there were no combat troops left at the embarkation base! [X(] That would have been a real mess if I flew only support troops into Myitkyina. [:-] So I set my transports to pick up the combat troops out of Lashio and will have to wait two more days before I can try that paradrop on Myitkyina.

In more encouraging news, Marky's retreat towards Chungking has suddenly revealed the potential for me to be able to cut off Ichang, and maybe even the eastern Chinese cities that remain in Marky's hands. So I am starting to move some serious forces up along the road to Chungking in order to push Marky's remnants out of the way and make a move to cut the road to Ichang. If I can do that I will resend my now-rested forces against Ichang.

[Dive Bomber1]

January 31, 1942 - There was a lot of air action again this turn; everywhere but over Mandalay. However, my recon planes from Pagan finally flew and reported back that there are at least two Allied units at Myitkyina, so I'm calling off my paradrop. If I had both parachute regiments whole and available to use I might try it, but I won't with just one unit. [:-]

So instead I set my land units at Mandalay to do a deliberate attack next turn. Their artillery attack this turn was very successful, so they may well be able to capture Mandalay next turn. I am also scouting some of the other bases along the Indian border to see if Marky has any garrisons in place or if there is an opportunity to cut off Marky's troops via a paratroop assault. I am also snooping at Ceylon, just in case Marky hasn't reinforced it. [:D]

Things in China remain reasonably quiet as I move more forces into position for my next round of advances. The artillery attack by my three Mongol units at the crossroads NE of Yenen revealed to me that my troops are only facing that little Hopei Militia unit. So I switched the leaders of my Mongol units to good assault leaders and set them to do a deliberate attack next turn. This attack ought to drive out the Militia unit, after which I'll have my Mongols advance along the northern trail to harass the Chinese troops.

Despite a very strong aerial bombardment this turn the artillery attack by my troops besieging Manila was rather weak again. I haven't figured out what the factors are that control this, but once again I suspect that bad weather has something to do with it. The reinforcement engineering regiment is now fully unloaded at Naga so I have given it marching orders to Manila. In a couple of days I will find out if my plan is sufficient.

My troops arrived at Amboina this turn and started to land. There was no response from any shore artillery, so it looks like my repeated bombardment attacks did their job. I am landed a strong brigade and a strong Special Base Force, so they ought to be able to take the base next turn.

Elsewhere things are relatively quite. Marky is making odd remarks about my "blitzkrieg across the Pacific", which suggests that he is finally looking at his Intel and seeing some of the future objectives of my forces. I am also beginning to get tempted to try something very wild later in 1942 - a blitzkrieg across Alaska, followed by an invasion of B.C. and a paratroop attack on the "United States" base, just to see if it can be done. Sure, Marky will get all kinds of reinforcements in the US, but it will still be interesting to how he reacts. [;)]

[AU Tiger_MatrixForum]

ORIGINAL: Dive Bomber1

I am also beginning to get tempted to try something very wild later in 1942 - a blitzkrieg across Alaska, followed by an invasion of B.C. and a paratroop attack on the "United States" base, just to see if it can be done. Sure, Marky will get all kinds of reinforcements in the US, but it will still be interesting to how he reacts. [;)]

[X(]

[AU Tiger_MatrixForum]

The way he has been playing, he is likely to mass all his troops together and move them to Mexico.

Could you post a screenshot of the China situation, I would really like to see that, unless you think it might give away information that might help me in our game. Now that I think bout it, it wouldn't matter if you showed me a screenshot of our game in China. I couldn't do anything anyway.
[8|]

[bradfordkay]

"ut what bothered me the most about the screen shot was not that Marky had spotted my TF, but that he is not using the "standard" map. I'm just hoping that whatever brightly colored map that Marky is using doesn't have any substantial changes in the "guts" underneath the pretty pictures. I asked Marky about this but he hasn't commented back to me about it yet."

It sounds like he is using Subchaser's map, which does not change any of the map data, but does put icons on the map showing resource and oil centers, among other details. It should not cause any problems with the game for you to use the original map and for him to use Subchaser's.

[Dive Bomber1]

ORIGINAL: bradfordkay

"what what bothered me the most about the screen shot was not that Marky had spotted my TF, but that he is not using the "standard" map. I'm just hoping that whatever brightly colored map that Marky is using doesn't have any substantial changes in the "guts" underneath the pretty pictures. I asked Marky about this but he hasn't commented back to me about it yet."

It sounds like he is using Subchaser's map, which does not change any of the map data, but does put icons on the map showing resource and oil centers, among other details. It should not cause any problems with the game for you to use the original map and for him to use Subchaser's.

We've confirmed that there don't seem to be any problems with us using the two different maps.

Thanks -

[Dive Bomber1]

ORIGINAL: AU Tiger

The way he has been playing, he is likely to mass all his troops together and move them to Mexico.

Could you post a screenshot of the China situation, I would really like to see that, unless you think it might give away information that might help me in our game. Now that I think bout it, it wouldn't matter if you showed me a screenshot of our game in China. I couldn't do anything anyway.
[8|]

Okay, I'll give it a try:

[Dive Bomber1]

February 1, 1942 – My troops didn't capture Mandalay this turn, but they did get a nice 1:1 result and lowered the fortifications to level 2. So I've reset my troops to artillery attacks and I'll keep on sending in the bombers over the next few days too, before I try again. I'm actually hoping that Marky feels a bit like a "hero" at Mandalay and doesn't pull his troops out because I am now attempting to cut off his troops.

I have decided to send the Paras to Imphal. I had an infantry unit marching along the trail to Imphal, but I have changed their orders to have them cut cross-country to the next hex which is the Burma railroad. If they can get there before Marky pulls out of Mandalay then I'll have most of Marky's Burmese forces trapped.

As I expected, my three Mongol units kicked the Hopei Militia out of the crossroads to the northeast of Yenen. I've ordered those three units, along with another Mongol unit and a Japanese infantry unit, to follow the militia unit along the road to Lanchow and "kick" it along every time that they catch up to it. Along the road to Chungking my first units caught up to the large Chinese infantry unit that is sitting there. I won't attack until I get more forces in place. I wonder if Marky will try a pre-emptive attack or continue to try to retreat.

My invasion of Amboina was very successful and my troops captured the base with no losses. I kept the transport TF nearby, so I ordered it immediately back to Amboina so that it can re-load the infantry brigade and bring them back to Palau for R&R before their next mission. The Special Base Force that is in place will have the task of repairing things and getting ready to support forward air units. Marky is still staying very quiet in the region, despite having an air unit of some sort in Darwin.

Since Marky is doing nothing I will be able to pull back my support troops from the surrounding bases and let them rest up at Palau a while too before I re-deploy them further forward. I don't like to leave units at malarial bases if I can avoid it, and as long as Marky is staying passive in the region it gives me a great opportunity to rebuild all my units and attack with them when they are in top condition. As you can imagine, I've got a huge number of small transport TFs criss-crossing the waters between my main forward non-malarial bases and my bases at the Front. It is also really helpful that I have Port Moresby under my control because this way I don't have to bother with building bases on the malarial north coast of New Guinea.

In other news, one of my cruiser TFs hit the Andaman Islands with a naval bombardment. There are a number of troops there, but no sign of any good shore guns, so I will use it for naval target practice for a while. I may well bypass the Andaman Islands while I press on towards India because I can keep Marky from supplying them. It's actually nice that Marky put a base force and some combat troops into Andaman because this means that they aren't in Ceylon or on the Indian mainland, and thus can't interfere with my plans.

Most of my air missions flew today and hit their targets hard. The Lilies in Palembang strafed the PTs at Batavia again today, but they only damaged one PT and didn't sink any. That's okay, its good target practice for them. As my air crews get more experience they tend to fly more often despite the weather.

One of my subs sank on the way back to port today, and one of my AKs sank in a forward port. It will be another three or four months before I start to get ARs so that I can have a better chance of saving heavily damaged ships in my forward ports, so for now I just have to grit my teeth and accept the losses.

I'm pasting the Intel Score chart for February 1 so that you can see how things are going. Because Marky has pulled most of his planes far back from the Front his air losses have fallen off drastically, while mine continue to creep upwards due to flak and operational losses. But eventually he won't be able to run any further and he will have to fight. The same thing is true with the naval losses – the main contributors to my score were the loss of a BB and a CL. But eventually I'll find where Marky is hiding his ships.

[Dive Bomber1]

Marky sent me the following with his latest turn:

methinks its time for a new house rule >:D

No unrealistic invasions

IE

No Australia
No USA (ALaska is fair game, as is Hawaii, if u dare )
No India

for various reasons

an invasion of the USA would have been impossible for obvious reasons

and an invasion of india or australia wouldve required the cooperation of
both IJA and IJN, and that was nigh on impossible

plus supply lines would be very nicely toasted

and dont even think about using a Battalion of paras to cut off my Righteous
Royal Burmese Army



hehehehe aint i a stinka

I'm tempted to reply, "Thanks, but no thanks. Game over."

What are your opinions?

Thanks - Tony

[Cpt Sherwood]

I would not agree to any of these "house" rules. If he didn't specify them up front, tough.

[tsimmonds]

I might agree to a mid-game house rule regarding tactics, but not strategy. Especially not with someone running as fast as he looks like he is.

[Dive Bomber1]

ORIGINAL: Cpt Sherwood

I would not agree to any of these "house" rules. If he didn't specify them up front, tough.

We never discussed any of this sort of thing at the beginning.

I suspect that he didn't realize what his strategy of "retreat at all costs" would mean.

[Dive Bomber1]

ORIGINAL: irrelevant

I might agree to a mid-game house rule regarding tactics, but not strategy. Especially not with someone running as fast as he looks like he is.

That gives me an idea - I wonder if he would agree to keep all of his 4-engine bombers in the Continental US if I agreed not to invade India, Australia and the US? [;)] [:D]

[marky]

ORIGINAL: Cpt Sherwood

I would not agree to any of these "house" rules. If he didn't specify them up front, tough.

hmm

forgive the intrusion[&o]

but i couldnt help but notice this

RE: Opinions Wanted/Advice Needed

Cpt SHerwood if you dont mind me saying i believe thats bad sportsmanship

while im not the biggest supporter of ultra realism i do like to play with SOME realism

and a japanese invasion of any of the above would never have happeened even if they wanted it to

its just not realistic

they didnt have the trooplift or the number of troops required

besides there is no way on gods green earth that the west coast couldve been invaded, the japs wouldve been slaughtered

as for india the high commands couldnt have cooperated, they didnt even want to invade madagascar and we all know the IJA ran politics and was full of foolish hitleresque hotheads

and irrelevant there is indeeed a method to my madness

as for cutting off my Burmese troops with even a para regt, thats a given

not only that but ive seen in other games where the IJN player has gone bonkers all over the map, and i consider that to be truly "gamey"

[marky]

ORIGINAL: Dive Bomber1

ORIGINAL: Cpt Sherwood

I would not agree to any of these "house" rules. If he didn't specify them up front, tough.

We never discussed any of this sort of thing at the beginning.

I suspect that he didn't realize what his strategy of "retreat at all costs" would mean.

deff not my strategy [;)]

[marky]

ORIGINAL: Dive Bomber1

ORIGINAL: irrelevant

I might agree to a mid-game house rule regarding tactics, but not strategy. Especially not with someone running as fast as he looks like he is.

That gives me an idea - I wonder if he would agree to keep all of his 4-engine bombers in the Continental US if I agreed not to invade India, Australia and the US? [;)] [:D]

not likely [;)]

[marky]

PS im not peaking at any strategic plans if there are any, i dont cheat [:)]

[marky]

besides the fact that every sub under ComSubPac wouldve been firing fish left at right at any invasion force heading for OZ or the West Coast, it never wouldve been allowed

however DB, if ud really like to try to invade the West coast, or indeed even Hawaii, i iinvite u to try [;)][:D]