New Guinean co-prosperity
The first attack on Port Moresby reduced the forts, and achieved 1:1 odds. We got a few disablements in exchange, but it looks like it will be short and merciless.
Ground combat at Port Moresby (98,130)
Japanese Deliberate attack
Attacking force 13648 troops, 101 guns, 74 vehicles, Assault Value = 454
Defending force 7268 troops, 84 guns, 51 vehicles, Assault Value = 167
Japanese engineers reduce fortifications to 2
Japanese adjusted assault: 124
Allied adjusted defense: 89
Japanese ground losses:
245 casualties reported
Squads: 0 destroyed, 9 disabled
Non Combat: 1 destroyed, 9 disabled
Engineers: 0 destroyed, 15 disabled
Vehicles lost 18 (1 destroyed, 17 disabled)
Allied ground losses:
808 casualties reported
Squads: 11 destroyed, 42 disabled
Non Combat: 8 destroyed, 6 disabled
Engineers: 2 destroyed, 5 disabled
Guns lost 11 (2 destroyed, 9 disabled)
Units destroyed 1
Also, there were landings in Lae. An infantry regiment (the 33rd) was committed there, which is a good thing, since the area was evacuated early in December. We’re in early 1942, wasting enemy resource is the best I can hope, as the allies.
The trap that wasn’t yet
I was expecting bombers, but in Australia my advance in the woods west of Goulburn went unchecked, Katoomba seems empty, and the enemy is retreating everywhere. I don’t understand the logic of it. Joseph can resist, and moving out of Canberra or Goulburn is not helping him. I am reinforcing this area, leaving enough in Melbourne to defend against a surprise. But I am wary: it makes no sense.
Life of the good boys
I am back at work, a new workplace in a nice district, with an almost cubic office, four meters wide, long… and high. And since I have a lot of free time these days, I have been reading…
I recently realized that despite playing this game for over five years now, I have never read a history of the Pacific war. I did read, decades ago, a good general history of WWII (Weinberg’s world at arms), and some specialized books (Overy’s origins of WWII), but I never read anything specifically focused on the Pacific. So, a few days ago, I bought Costello’s one volume history, in French, hoping that it will teach me some chronology. It should arrive tomorrow, and I will report on it, and maybe ask for other recommendations.
While waiting for Costello, I have been reading another book I ordered recently, a French edition of Paul Valery’s notebooks. Valery is one of the great minds of the beginning of the 20th century. I had seen bright quote upon bright quote of him, and finally bought his “cahiers”, a lifelong diary, written over 50 years, focused on one goal: understanding the mind, and how it relates to language. It is abstract, and brainy, and very French, I have to admit, but if you like ”words of wisdom”, he is one of the best (second perhaps to Nietzsche, La Rochefoucauld or Chamfort).
Another reading, more professional (and which I will comment in a future installment), featured something AE players might like: a map of the java railroads, dated 1937, translated into Japanese, with the word ‘secret’ on top of it (the red character on the top right, “mi” in Chinese), which is said to have helped prepare the invasion.
This is what railroad professional call a “circulation diagram”, the railway is vertical, time is horizontal, and diagonal lines are trains. Those oriented NW to SE are moving south, the others are moving north, the slope is the speed, and horizontal lines are stops in stations… It covers an area from Surabaya to Djodjakarta, in the game, this is the major railway from (56,104) to (52,103).
https://seeingcomplexity.files.wordpres ... /rail1.png
For the richer readers, an expensive, but very nice, print can be bought here (and anyone interested in graphics should have a look anyway, Tufte is a fascinating person)
http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/fineart
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