ORIGINAL: House Stark
Considering what when down in the transports, what you'll destroy at Benkolen, what was destroyed in Australia, and what you will destroy at Cocos, I don't think the emergency reinforcements should worry you terribly. So I say go for New Zealand, since that's done seen less often.
No offense intended to your opponent John, but this looks like what the AI would do if it knew how to concentrate its forces.
Naaah, I think AI would have screwed up much much worse, and would keep sending tiny TFs with entirely insufficient reinforcements now piecemeal into this fray.
It would be very interesting to read Lew's thoughts on this. I would bet he had a general plan in this region, a bold one, starting with the staging on Cocos. Already that has raised many eyebrows here, and was not understandable easily. I bet this Bengkoelen plan existed for a while, and it got screwed at the moment when he realized that focusing all three OZ IDs between Darwin and Kathrine was a bad idea. But then it was too late.
Seems Lew is very aggressive in his style, and this time tried to wrestle the strategic initiative from the IJ side too early. I would describe 1942 more as being about sticking needles into the IJ side, where it is not showing up in force, and delaying everywhere else. Essentially just counterattacking once it is clear the IJ assets are busy far far away. But not planning such a major offensive while it is not even clear where the KB and all the LCU freed after the collapse of OZ are going next. He probably should have just evacuated Cocos, and consolidated even with a grudge about his losses there.
It really will be interesting to hear from him after this AAR what he really was after. I hope he'll comment some time!
Else, I would say Pago Pago and so on sound more like a follow up campaign to either NZ or LI, or both. I probably would try both. As said, even from his emergency reinforcements there won't be much to fear for the next year plus, as long as there is no Allied Navy and lifting capacity. I have no lists, but from the losses so far you've taken away the majority of his amphibious capacity for the better of 43. I guess you'd even have time to take LI and Ceylon at leisure, and then shifting forces from both to an assault of NZ?
One thing I wondered about Ceylon, maybe some experience Allied players can answer: if you'd lost Ceylon, but the air battle there was finally turned in your favor and you could retake it with an invasion, would you do so at the expense of forces feeding the Burma offensive? Or would you invest Ceylon and use it as a bombing practice, rack up VPs and experience, and take it later? It would sound like taking it must delay the progress into Rangoon, but is that truly so?
