General Patton vs. larryfulkerson Focus Pacific #75

[larryfulkerson]

TF 270 has left Tokyo and is headed to Palembang and it's going to take about, well, about 2 weeks. I guess. I'm going to add
more escorts when it enters the CRB area for the final run-in on the target. I've been applying some aerial bombardment and I've
added a recon plane to the project. Still no good numbers. I'm not sure what's there. Anyway, TF 270 is carrying the entire 98th
division. It took 27 ships to hold it all but I'm thinking it's going to take that much to push over the Allies there without damaging the
facilities too much. Hopefully. Miri had severe damage and it's operating at a deficit so far but I'm optimistic.

[larryfulkerson]

Port Moresby - I would look at taking nearby "Lae" b4 you go for this base to offer a closer than Rabaul AF for possible LRCAP.

Excellent advice. You've done this before or something. I'll do it.

Your efforts here seem to be done without much planning and just throwing together what forces you stumble across. Why??

I'm new to this game and new to thls mod and I'm not aware of what assets are available
and I've moved all the Southern Army assets.....now I'm hunting around for some simple
unrestricted units to use. They exist all over the map. I donno it just seems more fun
this way. I COULD throw together some plans but I would need more experience than I have
right now to make it work right.

OT slightly - In my game vs GP, Brian now has 23 LCUs at PM in mid-Feb and over 100 fighters. Rather than get upset or react quickly to this news, I've left him alone in this part of the map as I've expanded down the Solomons to Luganville with future sights set on Koumac and eventually all of New Calendonia. Some Allied players, but not me, will try to make a major stand at PM (you just ran into some of his CV to reinforce my thoughts here). IMO, it cannot be defended and most importantly reinforced easily once Japan takes Horn Island and Milne Bay (along with building them up). So, you can decide that you want PM now or do like me and make it a short term POW camp. I'm thinking of using the 14th Army on Luzon for the task in Apr/May.

I like this idea. I'm going to see if I can't do the same thing. See if I can make it
work.

2 weeks in - What is headed for Palembang right now? You cannot afford to let this base be in Allied hands for too much longer. He has a couple of Indian brigades at sea on the west side of India as the war begins. I would try to get them to Oosthaven and RR them into Palembang.

Oh yeah, there's Allied reinforcements headed that way. They are probably close if they haven't
arrived already. I forgot all about that. Anyway, TF 270 ( see post above ) is enroute
even as we speak.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the aftermath of the incident at Milne Bay. It appears that Brian has put his carrier group at full speed and ran away to the south.
There's only one thing for me to do and that's chase him. He's already close enough to a port that he can park it underneath some LBA
somewhere and be partially immune to airstrikes. I'll just have to defeat his CAP to get to the ships.

[larryfulkerson]

The 4th division finally reached Tokyo and I didn't think I had the ships to load the entire division so I broke it into three parts and then
proceeded to load all three parts. D'oh. It's too late to undo eveything and load it as a whole division. I'll just have to put the parts
back together when it arrives at it's target. Which reminds me, I haven't decided where to send it yet. I'm thinking Java or Sumatra.

[larryfulkerson]

I just moved a large Oscar unit to Patani to be closer to the fighting so they wouldn't have to use drop tanks any more. I'm having them
sweep Georgetown to kill the fighters. Notice the experience level of these ;pilots. This is just one of several squadrons that have lots
of TRACOM qualified pilots. I'm slowly trying to move them either to TRACOM or to the later models of aircraft. Best pilots with the best
planes, kind of thing. I don't know how advisable it was but I disbanded such a squadron after I had moved all the TRACOM pilots to
TRACOM and made instructors out of them. I have yet to discern a difference in the training operations. But it's been only two weeks
from the beginning of the war....maybe it takes longer for the training boost to kick in.

[larryfulkerson]

Okie dokie.....I'm in possession of new moves from Brian and I'm watching the combat replay and I just now saw how my carrier TF has
caught up with the Enterprise and launched an airstrike and it looks like the big E took another torpedo in it's side. It's probably fighting
to stay afloat by now. I'll just HAVE to continue the pursuit. It's soooooo close to sinking.

[larryfulkerson]

Now I'm investigating all the leads Tracker has and I find that I've captured Wake. I need to extract about 800 troops from the atol so as
to satisfy stacking requirements and there's damage to the facilities and no engineers present yet so I need to look around for some of
those and some AF dudes for the airfield. Lots to do yet.

[larryfulkerson]

The victory point level finally dropped below 4.0 and I guess I'm almost out of danger of an auto victory, maybe.

[larryfulkerson]

Brian keeps launching strikes at my TF sitting in the harbor at Port Moresby and it's usually Hudson's and Whirraway's and they seldom
get a hit but they did get a hit on the Mutsu this morning. It's minor damage but the damage is starting to accumulate and I'm wondering
how much longer they can stay there. I need to replace them with a different TF, that's plain to see.

[larryfulkerson]

I decided that two weeks was too long for TF 97 to reach Palembang from the PI so I looked around for another TF that had a divisioin
ready and found one at CRB. It's the 4th Guards division and it's leaving CRB now for Palembang and will be there in about 5 days.
I'm including some warships in the escorts of the kind like CA's and CL's and the rest are DD's. I wondered if I should include a DMS
but decided against it. I don't remember why. So the Battle for Palembang is about to begin.

[larryfulkerson]

4th division is loaded on transports at Tokyo leaving the port headed for Port Moresby. It's going to take a while to get there and a lot
can happen between now and then and it might need to be re-routed for a better target. The 4th division is the one that was broken
into three pieces before being loaded on the transports so it'll have to put itself back together at the target.

[Andav]

You might set the home port of that TF with the 4th going to PM to Rabual or Truk or something. All of the red endurance numbers will make the low endurance ships stop to refuel from the transports pretty often. If you send them to go to Truk with Don't Unload and then send them to PM from there it might make the journey quicker. Those troops will be fairly disrupted by the time they get to PM after starting at Tokyo. Invasion bonus should take care of that (I think) but it is something to consider.

Wa

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: Andav
You might set the home port of that TF with the 4th going to PM to Rabual or Truk or something. All of the red endurance numbers will make the low endurance ships stop to refuel from the transports pretty often. If you send them to go to Truk with Don't Unload and then send them to PM from there it might make the journey quicker. Those troops will be fairly disrupted by the time they get to PM after starting at Tokyo. Invasion bonus should take care of that (I think) but it is something to consider.

Wa

I hadn't thought of that but it's an excellent idea, thanks. It makes sense to do that too. I've noticed that Tracker says that the ships
with red numbers are complaining of "not enough fuel for mission" but they seem to keep going all the same.

[larryfulkerson]

Rabaul is finally starting to get some fuel. When the carriers came to visit they emptied the tanks at the base and it's only just now, about
10 days later that some supplemental fuel is arriving. Truk was low on fuel at first so I had to await a shipment. Then there were no
spare AK's but now there's fuel arriving. I'm hoping that Rabaul will become one of my minor hubs. I'm planning on making it a fortress.

I need a large airfield and a fairly large port to make Rabaul what I envision.

[ny59giants]

Rabaul - You need a size 7 AF in this part of the map in order to be able to upgrade any airgroups. They have to be within their transfer range for this to happen. You may have some Claudes in the Marshalls that will need to do so.

Minesweepers - Have you sent any to Truk or further south? In stock and most mods, you don't have nearby, so find a 3 or 4 to be sent here.

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: ny59giants
Rabaul - You need a size 7 AF in this part of the map in order to be able to upgrade any airgroups. They have to be within their transfer range for this to happen. You may have some Claudes in the Marshalls that will need to do so.

I'm guessing that I need a level 7 airfield to receive replacements, to fill out the
squadrons with planes, right? And I want a big port at Rabaul too. One that can fix
maybe some of the major damage of ships. I'm considering moving an AR to Rabaul.

ORIGINAL: ny59giants
Minesweepers - Have you sent any to Truk or further south? In stock and most mods, you don't have nearby, so find a 3 or 4 to be sent here.

I'm using DMS ships for minesweeping right now but you're right, I need a ship smaller
than that, so I can dedicate it to nothing but minesweeping. Assign it and forget it.
I made a lot of PB's and several are converting still but there's a small gaggle of
them at Truk. I'll have to post a picture of Truk. Yeah.

[ny59giants]

I said upgrades. For replacements its 2x the supplies needed at a base.

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: ny59giants
I said upgrades. For replacements its 2x the supplies needed at a base.

Oh. Okie dokie.

On another topic, I just now received some new moves from Brian and I'm watching the combat replay and one of my carriers had a
close call. The sub launched four torpedoes and none of them functioned right. And out of four TT's there's a good chance that there
was a hit on the ship by one of the TT's.

[Andav]

In this mod are the fleet boat torpedoes reliable or do they suffer from the detonator malfunctions? If they are not reliable, then you do not really have to worry about the fleet boats. S boats, the British and the hated Dutch boats are a completely different story. Do you have French subs in this one as well? I guess they probably have working torpedoes.

That being said, you never want them shooting at your carriers. This part of the map offers really nice choke points for subs to operate.

Wa

[larryfulkerson]

In this mod are the fleet boat torpedoes reliable or do they suffer from the detonator malfunctions? If they are not reliable, then you do not really have to worry about the fleet boats. S boats, the British and the hated Dutch boats are a completely different story.

You can choose reliable or not according to your Preferences screen switch. In our
game we have the historical torpedos that don't have reliable torpedos early on for
the Allies.

Do you have French subs in this one as well? I guess they probably have working torpedoes.

I don't remember seeing a French sub but I'm seeing all kinds of other boats so I'm
fairly sure they are in this Mod. We'd have to ask the designer or fire up a copy of the
mod and look for 'em. I'm in the middle of my anti-AI game right now and it would be
inconvient for me to have to switch to look it up right now. Lemme get back to you on
this topic.

That being said, you never want them shooting at your carriers. This part of the map offers really nice choke points for subs to operate.

Wa

Yeah, gotta love those choke points. They are especially handy to bottleneck the Allied
boats fleeing south from Manila in the early game.

EDIT: My anti-AI game is me as the Allies against the scenario #75 ( GP's mod of Focus Pacific ) Japs and I've found a division
of French subs. They just left Tahiti and they are headed for Canton island which I'm going to turn into a sub base.