Playtest of Pacific at War 3 25 14

[thomasharvey]

Japanese losses.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the face of Vietnam now. Already one division is cut off and isolated and surrounded and may be in serious trouble.

[larryfulkerson]

New moves from Thomas, new turn. I'm expecting Thomas to come across the river with some more troops. That's all I need right
now. The defenders down south are being pushed backward and are being worn down and are about to give way sometime soon.

[larryfulkerson]

I've found a Nate unit that has only just over a dozen planes and the inventory screen shows that we're not making any Nates any more
so it's not going to get a whole lot of reinforcements ( or replacements ) anytime soon. I'm keeping it parked at the Home Islands to
keep it out of the fight. It would get chewed up and destroyed in air to air combat as bloody as the furballs are lately.

[larryfulkerson]

I just had a brain fart. In WITP-AE you have more control over your squadrons. You can add or release pilots to the squadron and
you have the ability to withdraw the unit and or disband the unit at any time. It's pretty handy if you're not making some specific type
of plane and you have too many squadrons to support the few planes that are left so you disband one or more of the squadrons to
put more planes in the surviving squadrons. That would be handy to be able to do that in TOAW. Or something like it.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the results of a Jap airstrike on some Allied ships. I got some of them. But I lost a lot of planes. And I was using a one-dot
attack.

[larryfulkerson]

New moves from Thomas. Here's what the war in CBI looks like now. The group in Vietnam is out of supply and will eventually be
surrounded and destroyed. Hanoi is open to invasion.

[larryfulkerson]

I was checking out the South Army formation and I was startled to learn that the supply level for the formation is in the teens.
That's not a very good thing. Most of these troops are serving in China.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's a close up of what's happening in Vietnam. I've sailed into Hanoi about three divisions and I've made an LOC for the supply
to start flowing again and maybe I can save some of those troops that were isolated. Thomas has indeed come across the river and
has moved into good offensive positions and is about to lower the hammer.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the next turn in Vietnam. The new Allied troops have kept isolated some of my troops so it looks like curtains for them. The rest
of them are backing up toward Hanoi giving ground to the Allied attacks. I'm outgunned and outnumbered and Thomas is slowly
regaining China.

[larryfulkerson]

I'm probably not supposed to do this with the spotter planes. I'm tasking the spotter planes to do airfield attacks and ground support
attacks because doing so causes other aircraft to join in the fight and the spotter plane doesn't actually shoot at anything so he only
rarely gets shot at and losses are less for the Japs and significant for the Allies. Everybody wins.

[larryfulkerson]

The first of the many P-47's has arrived at the Celebes. The first P-47 furball happened and a few of the losses were the
Thunderbolt and I expect a lot more as time passes.

[larryfulkerson]

This is what happens when you have no borders turned on. Thomas sneaked ( snuck ? ) two land combat units moved up to and
captured Padang. The first I knew about it was when I went to get a cab to go back to the base and the cabbie told me there wasn't
a base anymore. I had to catch a plane to get back to Hanoi. It was a hassle.

[larryfulkerson]

This is the face of Hanoi now. Thomas is pushing and shoving his way north from Saigon and he's isolated some of my dudes and
I'm backing down from the front lines in China so as to facilitate a better getaway. I've got plenty of planes on CS missions and lots
of AS to provide top cover and still the Allies advance. It's looking like curtains.

[larryfulkerson]

There's a situation at Davao that's been going on for about 10 turns now. The Allies have gained bases in the Celebes and nearby
so that they have airfields galore and can gang up and overpower Davao so that any squadrons I base there need to be rotated out
frequently and replaced with a fresh crew. The fighting is fierce and there's lots of furballs every turn almost.

[thomasharvey]

Here is a shot of most of the Allied fleets resting and repairing for future operations. Note the several carrier task forces which have ships with them for flak. It is important to spread out the valuable ships so the Japanese can not sink them all with a single strike.

On the next turn another CV comes in and soon the Hellcats will be in production so I can take on the Zero fighters with an advantage.

It is getting close to the time when the allies can start the march forward to take Islands.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's what the Hanoi area looks like now that it's a new turn. Thomas is squeezing my dudes into a bottleneck just north of Hanoi.
It's looking like curtains for the troops in the city if I can't float them out of there.

[thomasharvey]

Here is a shot showing turn 81 with the Allies reaching the sea on the Hanoi front. This splits his Hanoi front off from his China front.

[larryfulkerson]

I went to a lot of trouble to make this next image ( not ) so I hope you like it. It's the face of the conflict right now. Hanoi was put
under siege and I'm going to have to start floating people out of there to save them. And the planes will have to be flown out of
the city no matter what shape they're in. It's looking like curtains for the city.

[thomasharvey]

I attempted an invasion of Guadalcanal but the full Japanese division is too strong for the two American divisions attacking. The screen shot shows the attempted invasion, the carrier fleet covering the invasion and an island with fighter aircraft to add to the defense of the carriers in the event of air attack.

Depending on the Japanese response, a decision will be made whether to continue the invasion attempt or pull out. The Japanese will have to decide do they attack the transports or attack the carrier fleets.