Run for the Endzone

[Raverdave]

Had a crack at S15 playing from the Japanese side......was it possible to launch an attack on Noumea? So I gave it ago.
Within the first month all but the big E were at the bottom and 60,000 troops had been put on the beach at Noumea. My fleet ruled the waves.

Two months later the land battle for Noumea was still being slugged out ! And by the end of September all of my troops had been routed, and were fleeing north. The 60,000 plus force had by now been reduced to 45,000.

The Naval war had been won, but the land war had been lost. My question is this, has anyone else tried this ?

[John Carney]

Playing Operation MO as Japan 7 July.
30 June had landing at Noume crushed, one unit with engineers. Had second wave delayed and land on southern beach 1 July and support land 2 July while shock attack took beach. Landings at all northern locations by sub units lightly opposed. Used Division from 8th Area Army. All solomons bases taken in May with expiditionary forces. Combine Fleet landing forces diverted to Esprito Bases, concured mid June. Preparing for second overland assault on Noumea, schedualed 14 July.
This was made possible by Coral Sea victory (US carriers Sunk) and second landing at PM Success. Landed at Buin, Gili, and PM similtanous. Took heavy losses at repulsion of PM invasion (allied did not defend others). Rabaul Bombers hit PM day and night, while cruisers took air attacks to prevent resupply of PM. Second wave succeded.
With mop-up ops on New Guinea complete, landed at Beach south of Caines and Cooktown to begin invasion of Australia 4 July.

[John Carney]

31 July, Scenario ended. My assault on Australia, Cooktown was an operational IJN base and Cains was a 1 to 1 Attack that was beginning to go my way. It was tough keeping PM supplied while conducting offensive operations in Australia, but not impossible. I was able to sink four US CV's and damage the other two. HOWEVER, it seems the Noume base is an impossible nut to crack. After a month of two air TF with 2 CV's pounding the airfield & port, two bombardment TF with 3 BB's 2 CA's hitting every other day (alternating to allow resupply), and repeated ground attacks from my forces on the island, the base had 80000 Fuel/Supplies ( no stopping the resupply even with 6 DD's parked at the port ) 8917 INF 447 Guns 48765 Troops who's assault value of 710 was backed by their lack of fatigue. A small flaw in the game. However it was still a resounding Victory, as the invasion of Noume and Australia were outside the scenario scope.

[Raverdave]

Yup, I reloaded the game and tried again last night....had 3-1 troops on N in my favour....still not able to crack it, even after reducing the fort level to 0. It is not possible to fully take N.....wonder if you can therefore also not take Truk?????

[kaleun]

In the original WIP, I found that you could not take Tokyo or LA.
You could take the port, but in the next turn, arriving reinforcements would simply appear there and take it back, lose it again and take it back over and over. Because of this you could not use the port facilities to supply your units, and thus you ended up having to withdraw, or actually evacuate.
May be its the same problem here.
K