General Patton vs. larryfulkerson Focus Pacific #75

[larryfulkerson]

You guys ever see this before: It's an HQ with about 20 static devices in it. So I'm guessing it'll lose the static devices if it moves and
that's not permissable? Can I ditch the devices and move the HQ? I suppose I could save my game and do a trial and error sort of
process to find out.

[larryfulkerson]

I need an HQ unit at Singkawang when I finally capture it, if ever, and I've settled on the 1st Fleet HQ. It needed to be transported into
the CRB area anyway and it's moving around the north coast of PI right now and I expect it to land in about a week, maybe a little over.
Singkawang seems right for it as I want to make that location a sort of port-away-from-port kind of place. I need to base an AKE there
and maybe an AD, and all these plans depend on me getting some air cover in there to protect all the surface assets and that means
I'll need some AF dudes, etc. There's a lot to do yet to make it work. There's some AF dudes at Samah that I can move to
Singkawang. to fill in until I get some permanent dudes to that location. Better than nothing.

[larryfulkerson]

I've still got three full divisions at Cam Rahn Bay and I'm wondering where to insert them. I'm thinking I need them at Singapore ultimately
but before they are really needed there to assault the city hex I'm wondering if I can't use them to grab Palembang. They are almost
there already having come from Tokyo ( I think ).

[larryfulkerson]

Here's what's going on around Singkawang......I'm not quite strong enough to push over the Allies there so another bombardment is
in order I think. I've got more people headed that way, they're just not there yet. I need more recon of the Palembang area to discern
what kind of fortress Brian has built there. I've never gotten this far playing this mod so I don't know what to expect.

[larryfulkerson]

I'm moving the 4th Fleet HQ to Rabaul and I was hoping it could dispence TT's but I see it's just naval support. Better than nothing at
all I guess. But I'll need another HQ, one that has TT's in it. Maybe there's one nearby that I can move, like from Kwajalein. I'll look
around some.

[larryfulkerson]

I started out this image to explain how the 24th air floatilla HQ was at Kwajalein and that it had torpedoes and that I bought 5 more of
them just now and then I noticed that there's an Allied TF in the image and then I found TF 3, my CV's in this area and it looks like I'm
moving in for some kills. He's expended his planes and torpedoes on that transport TF he just got through destroying and I've got
several carriers worth of planes. It doesn't bode well for Brian unless something happens to let him get away. I doubt that it's a trap.
Not this early in the game I don't think.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's what is going on at Babeldoab: The transports from the first wave are unloading all the excess supplies they carried to their
target preparatory to my loading some more troops and do a second wave. This TF I'm planning on sending to Ternate so extend
some airpower further south. It's in range of Allied air power so.....sorry, the phone rang and I needed to go pick it up and then hang
it up. Telemarkers 99% of the time. So I'm going to see if I can't find a carrier group for air cover until the airfield is built.

[larryfulkerson]

Okay.......I've been holding back for long enough. I'm through with the Tracker stuff now I'm using Combat Reporter to evaluate my
attacking altitudes and so on. Here's an air strike on an Allied TF near Tarawa and I'm thinking I need to follow up and destroy the
surviving floaters. Plus there's another TF further south that I need to investigate.

[larryfulkerson]

And there was a second strike later that afternoon after they got a drink of water, smoked a cigarette, and maybe used the facilities while
the aircraft were being reloaded and rearmed. About two hours.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the results of a couple of strikes on the Allied shipping at Milne Bay. There's at least 5 transports there and I damaged 4 of
them. I think maybe a follow up series of strikes might be called for.

[larryfulkerson]

Okay, I'm through with Combat Reporter and now I'm going through the list of ships putting AK's into TF's carrying something somewhere.
There's a lot of ships that have minor damage that I stand down at the pier to repair, most requiring a single day for the task. And
there's ports that have too many AK's so I shuttle them off to the next port that has goodies to move. CRB is low on supplies again so
I task a TF at Pescadores to carry some to CRB and when I get done with the ships I need to look at all the planes to make sure they
have a good morale ( if not they get stood down ) and the fatigue levels are okie dokie and they have enough planes to make a decent
flight. Too few gets them relegated to a training mission. There's been so much fighting going on for so long that I've got lots of
involuntary training squadrons now. I try to move them to the high level airfields or one with an HQ so they will fill out again but
production hasn't caught up with demand yet and they are still with only a few planes, most of them. New air groups are appearing all
over the place and I need to look them up and give them a mission and or move them to a better spot etc. There's a lot to do still and
it's only 21:02 here in Tucson.

EDIT: Oh, yeah, I wanted to comment about the picture......here's me dispatching some DMS's to Hong Kong to clear out all the Allied
mines in the harbor. I've had ships going in and out of there without incident but it's just a matter of time before somebody hits a mine.
It's best if they are gone.

[larryfulkerson]

Okay, I think it's time to invade Tarakan so I'm dispatching the 90th Guards Brigade and they are leaving now on the trip and it'll take
about a week I think by the time they get there. They don't have much in the way of escorts so I need to remember to match them up
with some SCTF when they near the area. Maybe I should put them on a patrol just outside the mouth of the harbor there so they don't
try to go in alone. Yeah.

[larryfulkerson]

So the TF dispatched in the image above has been assigned to go into a patrol in the Celebes Sea and transport TF's on patrol are
rare so I'll be sure to spot it in the list and get them some surface forces.

[larryfulkerson]

My valient attackers on Wake have run into a situation where they are in over their heads and I'm sending them some help. It's going to
overstack the hex and I'll have to remedy that through a ruined port no doubt. I'm pretty sure I've already shut down the runway and
the planes are all damaged, down for maint., or destroyed. I've been bombing periodically, depending on the weather, and I don't think
it's doing much good. So I'm sending more troops yet. They should arrive in about three days or so. I hope my boys can hold out that
long.

EDIT: I'm going through my moves, posting whatever I discover so as to share it with you guys. So the news is still fresh when it's
published.

[larryfulkerson]

I have so much confidence that the Milne Bay incursion is going to work out okay that I've dispatched another invasion TF, this one
for Finshaften. I've included some road construction dudes in with the infantry so maybe the airfield can possibly be operational
soonest. I've got to remember to send them supplamental supplies to keep the expansion going. I wouldn't be disappointed if I happened
to capture a hex that a RES center in it. Something like that. That would be good. I should look around and find such places and
make some plans.

[larryfulkerson]

I am now going through the list of land-based planes and I've come upon a squadron flying night time port attacks and I noticed that
they were carrying torpedoes and I wondered how many were left so I opened up Saigon's LCU list and found two separate HQ's in
there and one was moving to CRB and the other one was completely out of TT's so I bought 5 more. I'm thinking it costs supply from
Saigon to pay for the torpedos and I have no idea how much supply Saigon has so I thought I'd keep it down for now.

EDIT: I did some experimenting and found out that torpedos cost 10 supply each. There's no summer sale and no returns.

[larryfulkerson]

So far there's like 0.1K Allied fighters at Singapore and that's a bit much to fly into the face of so I've been doing night time airfield
attacks at 10K and so far the losses are acceptable but I'm not getting a lot of hits. The lower I fly the more hits I get but the losses
are higher. Sometimes much higher. So I'm depending on the number of squadrons flying the mission to get cumulative hits that
are effective considered as a whole. In other words, I have no idea what else to do. I'm thinking that maybe driving some of the
older BB's into the Singapore hex to do bombardment missions on Singapore might work but if it ever went wrong it might be costly.

[larryfulkerson]

Brian sent me an email yesterday saying that he was having a stressful day and wasn't able to get
his moves out. And now it's yesterday's tomorrow and I haven't heard from Brian yet. I've sent an
email to solicit news but haven't heard back. I pray he's okay. He has bad days sometimes.

EDIT: He finally sent me an email. He had done his turns and then forgot to send them to me.
All's well.

[larryfulkerson]

So I watched the combat replay and there were sounds like ships were hitting mines but I didn't know where and Combat Reporter said
it was at K-town near Hong Kong. My minesweepers went in without their escorts and got slaughtered. The escorts enter AFTER the
DMS's were already lamed. I have no idea why they didn't go in together. Maybe I should have had the DMS's follow the escorts?

[larryfulkerson]

Here's something strange.....the game reports that Catabantuan is occupied by the Japs but on the map is shows as Allied still.
Makes you go "huh".