Playtest of Pacific at War 3 25 14

[larryfulkerson]

One of the carriers, the Enterprise, is parked at Midway after having arrived on the map near Alaska and sailing to Midway.
She doesn't have the range remaining to get close enough to any Jap ships to deliver a carrier-borne strike. I plan on getting
the two carriers together, the Enterprise and the Lexington. The Yorktown hasn't arrived on the map yet but will shortly
hopefully.

[larryfulkerson]

Well dear reader, I stand corrected on two diffferent points. The USS Yorktown is in fact already on the map, I just don't
know where yet. And the second point is that I took a better look at Midway and how far away that Jap stack was and it's
possible after all. An attack is ordered by the Enterprise.

[larryfulkerson]

The Yorktown is out in the middle of nowhere ESE of Talugi. Closest base is Ellis island. She's out of MP's so she can't
more anymore this turn. D'oh. And no attack from her is possible this turn.

[larryfulkerson]

I sailed a Cruiser from Pearl toward Midway and there was another Jap ship popped up. I'm looking around for somebody to
handle this situation. Enterprise is busy elsewhere and Yorktown is out of position. Maybe I can put Lexington to work here.

EDIT: Oh, yeah, I was going to say something about the spotting. The Cruiser probably didn't spot the Japs.....it was probably
the spotter plane and that's pretty cool because it's got a range of only 12. So it was probably just a lucky spotting.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the result of the air strike launched by the Enterprise. For the loss of a few planes we got 2 DD's.

EDIT: I just noticed just now that the Soryu Fighter group helped out in the defense. That means there's
a carrier somewhere nearby probably. I hope the search planes can find it.

[Lobster]

Jap Zeros out in the middle of the Pacific? I'd say a lot more than probably. [;)]

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: Lobster
Jap Zeros out in the middle of the Pacific? I'd say a lot more than probably. [;)]

Hey there Lobster dude. Thanks for posting something. I was wondering if anybody was viewing this thing.

[Chattez]

At this stage the Americans have only three carriers in the Pacific (I think); they cannot afford to engage and lose them. If these three are lost, Japan rules the Pacific for the next year, when allied production catches up and more carriers arrive.

So, the best allied strategy is to RUN. Any engagement would be an unequal contest anyway.
The American fighter planes are not yet equal to the Japanese; and in surface combat, the Americans are at a severe disadvantage.

As long as the US carriers are a force-in-being, the Japanese player must take them into account.

So, my advice would be to sail the US fleets over the horizon, and wait until better planes and more ships arrive.

But don't get into a position where you may end up surrounded by Japanese carrier groups and be unable to escape.

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: Chattez

At this stage the Americans have only three carriers in the Pacific (I think); they cannot afford to engage and lose them. If these three are lost, Japan rules the Pacific for the next year, when allied production catches up and more carriers arrive.

So, the best allied strategy is to RUN. Any engagement would be an unequal contest anyway.
The American fighter planes are not yet equal to the Japanese; and in surface combat, the Americans are at a severe disadvantage.

As long as the US carriers are a force-in-being, the Japanese player must take them into account.

So, my advice would be to sail the US fleets over the horizon, and wait until better planes and more ships arrive.

But don't get into a position where you may end up surrounded by Japanese carrier groups and be unable to escape.

Hey Chattez dude: Thanks for that synopsis. Keep those good ideas flowing. I like your ideas.

[thomasharvey]

This is good testing of the cruiser attached float planes because I just put them in without ever testing to determine if anything happens. If they do not do something then they should be deleted because they get in the way otherwise. Be careful that the computer does not switch a carrier bomber unit on to a cruiser in place of its float plane. Keep the cruiser with the carrier if that happens so the result will be same. You will need to stage aircraft around and make adjustments as needed. Japan should keep air groups until they have enough to be competitive before sending them in to action. Same for the allies.

[Chattez]

I would get General MacArthur out of Darwin, too. Darwin can be invaded and taken (probably pretty easily, since I doubt the allies have enough spare troops to place a strong garrison there). The Japanese will have recourse to land-based planes in the Dutch East Indies, once they take those islands; and that would protect their invasion. And that corner of Australia is pretty remote for the allies.

Unless Roosevelt wants to get rid of him, he should probably be moved
to Sydney or Canberra (better) or Melbourne.

[larryfulkerson]

Good catch. You of course are correct. I think I'll move him to Melborne on the coast to a beach house with the lapping of the waves
to guide his thoughts. He's of course planning the invasion of Leyte and other places.

[larryfulkerson]

I'm moving in on the SouthWest Pacific area and spreading out for a better search footprint and when I find something I can
gather all the ships together to make an armada. I intend to move the armada south to grab more islands. But first Wake and
Guam are on the chopping block.

[Chattez]

Your ships around the Solomons, Guadalcanal, etc., look like they are lost sheep looking for a shepherd. Remember, there are wolves out there. No ship should go anywhere that it cannot
call on land-based planes for air cover. A single ship alone can be attacked from the air and picked off. And no carrier should sail anywhere that it is not joined with escort ships (to help provide anti-aircraft fire).

And, if you are going to take the island chains between Australia and the US, do it now,
before the allies can reinforce those islands. Once they have troops and planes on them,
it won't be as easy to take them. And because of the vast reaches of the Pacific, you may have to send your invasion forces beyond the reach of land-based air cover, which can be deadly. Right now the allies are weak--as weak as they will ever be--so hurry to take advantage of this.

[Chattez]

Right now the Imperial Navy is the 800 lb. gorilla. When the carriers (or at least most of them) are combined into one fleet, they are invincible. They can go wherever they please. Group them together and stomp your way through the forest; it doesn't matter if the allies hear you because they can't do anything to hurt you--yet. Just try and keep away from large concentrations of their land-based aircraft.

As the Japanese, you should be itching for a contest with the American carriers. (Midway was a miracle; it won't be repeated in a gaming situation.) You are the pitbull of the Pacific. Let them know where you are and dare them to engage. (But keep away from their land aircraft.)

Use your invincibility now, to take the island bases that you need to take to hold the Americans at bay later. In six months the Americans will be stronger and you will be reduced to being a poodle. Then it will be too late. But now is the time to race the clock.

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: Chattez
Your ships around the Solomons, Guadalcanal, etc., look like they are lost sheep looking for a shepherd. Remember, there are wolves out there. No ship should go anywhere that it cannot
call on land-based planes for air cover. A single ship alone can be attacked from the air and picked off. And no carrier should sail anywhere that it is not joined with escort ships (to help provide anti-aircraft fire).

Yep, good rule of thumb and I agree. I've moved Zero's and Kate's to Rabaul and Bouganville and Guadacanal so there's
plenty of air cover there. I'm turning that area into a fortress, hard to take back. And I've got Betty's at Truk and Kwajalene and
Ulithi ready to take on the Allies. I've based some Nells at Marcus Island and as stoon as we get Wake island I'll move some long
range patrol planes out there too.

ORIGINAL: Chattez
And, if you are going to take the island chains between Australia and the US, do it now,
before the allies can reinforce those islands. Once they have troops and planes on them,
it won't be as easy to take them. And because of the vast reaches of the Pacific, you may have to send your invasion forces beyond the reach of land-based air cover, which can be deadly. Right now the allies are weak--as weak as they will ever be--so hurry to take advantage of this.

I agree and I've got ongoing plans hatching as we speak. I only wanted to grab Guam and Wake first then the island chain.

ORIGINAL: Chattez
Right now the Imperial Navy is the 800 lb. gorilla. When the carriers (or at least most of them) are combined into one fleet, they are invincible. They can go wherever they please. Group them together and stomp your way through the forest; it doesn't matter if the allies hear you because they can't do anything to hurt you--yet. Just try and keep away from large concentrations of their land-based aircraft.

As the Japanese, you should be itching for a contest with the American carriers. (Midway was a miracle; it won't be repeated in a gaming situation.) You are the pitbull of the Pacific. Let them know where you are and dare them to engage. (But keep away from their land aircraft.)

Use your invincibility now, to take the island bases that you need to take to hold the Americans at bay later. In six months the Americans will be stronger and you will be reduced to being a poodle. Then it will be too late. But now is the time to race the clock.

I agree and I'm getting them together as we speak. I was thinking of taking the island chain from Guadacanal all the way down
to and including Fiji. That will help isolate OZ and the southern islands of New Zealand.

[larryfulkerson]

I've been waiting for the Allied turn to come up for about three full minutes now and there's been no response. I hit the
escape key to see what would happen and the ghost screen appeared and the caption line put the phrase "not responding"
in the title.

Okay it's been about 5 minutes now and usually even FITE2 is done by now. I'll give it 15 minutes and then I'm going
to kill it and drop back to the auto.sal and try that.

EDIT: I finally got control back at approx. seven minutes. We're back in business.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the Allied view of the Tulagi area now. Notice all the planes ringing the kill zone.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's what's going on in the Bangkok area now. The different forces have met near the city and the battle has started.
I'm thinking that the Japs are going to need more troops to push to Singapore. And some troops have to push to the
broken bridge if only for a blocking force. Actually there are some troops needed to retreive the paratroopers from their
situation near the bridge.

[thomasharvey]

The original scenario took almost an hour to open up years ago. I thought it was broken but when I just let it go and came back after lunch it was open. I found it always opened. That was years ago with slower computers. I even made the map smaller to help out. Now it is doing it again even with faster computers. Some turns it is faster but I do not know why it is longer or shorter open times. I can leave that to the experts.