General Patton v. Larry Fulkerson Scenario #76

[larryfulkerson]

Okie dokie, I've done a cursory check of everything especially where it's happening quickly and so on and sent my moves to Brian.
So now I have time to check out the map, do a tour of the hubs and some of the spokes. I just happened to have the map open to
the spot depicted so I'll do it first and then go clockwise I guess. As you can see I've picked almost clean this part of the theater for
RES and so on. There's not a whole lot of traffic through here except ships leaving CRB for HK or Pescadores depending on which
port is the most busy at the time of arrival of the TF, and some traffic from CRB to Miri and vice versa moving supplies and fuel to
and from. I'm having maverick TF's out rounding up the stray pieices of divisions. For example the 16th Inf Reg at Manus near
Rabaul is part of the 20th Division, I think, now forming at Singapore, or at least somewhere west of Manus. So I have had to load
the separate pieces of the regiment into 3-one-ship TF's combined into one huge TF with escorts and so on, and have it moe from
Manus to Singapore a trip of almost two weeks. It's going to take a while to get these divisions put back together. I wish I had put
more thought into where I was sending units in the early part of the war. It would have helped a lot at times like this.

[larryfulkerson]

I changed my mind about going clockwise, I thought I'd choose the next nearest instead. This is the CRB area now and as you can see
with the single exceptions of Singapore and T-town ( just to the south of Singapore ) this area seems just about picked over for RES
already. I've been going as far as Bangkok for RES and collecting it at CRB and shipping it from there. I've collected enough at CRB
to justify another load moved to Hong Kong or Pescadores. I'm mostly waiting for the escorts for such a TF though because the waters
are still tretcherous with Allied subs. I'm going to have to deploy some CS's and or AV's with Pete's on them to look for subs in the
waters around my hubs. I'm planning on making Singkawang one of my minor hubs because of it's geographic location. It's positioned
just about right for the next phase of the war. I'm headed to Sumatra and Java simultaneously if there's enough manpower available.
I've got the Bataan people headed for Manila and the Singapore people are collecting division parts and resting. I say resting but they
are really in 'combat' mode and probably should be placed in 'rest' instead for the refit and training they might achieve.

[larryfulkerson]

Oops: time for an interruption in the hubs tour. One of my prize BB's took a torpedo and I had a CA that needed some yard time so
I made a TF with escort and sent them to Hong Kong where they will be repaired. I couldn't get the BB to fit to go up the river to
Saigon and CRB has no repair shipyard so Hong Kong is the next nearest port in the storm. I expect them both to be laid up for a
significant amount of time. The time when I need their services the most. Good thing I have more BB's to go around. I'll have to call
for one of those around Truk to replace this one that's broke.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the Celebes area now. There's still a battle going on at Tarakan and it may or may not resolve quickly. The facilities have been
slightly damaged by the fighting I guess. I've captured Balikpapan which was another of my goals so now I guess I can concentrate on
grabbing all the little ports around the waters surrounding Java and cut off the escape route to Darwin. I've got troops moving on
Ambon even as we speak. I want to grab Boela while I'm at it for the oil there.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the Rabaul area now. I've relaxed in this part of the world, partly because I'm out of available troops and I'll have to use these
troops that have already been used already again. That means the port they guard has to expand so I can load them on ships. That
means a couple of weeks time needs to pass. That's why this area has slowed down in operational tempo. Most of the action is going
to take place around Sumatra and Java in the near future. I'm already pounding Sabang because I want to land there in one of my
invasion prongs. Also, I've been hitting Palembang with ground attacks. There doesn't seem to be many fighters there yet. I expect
some more as time passes. Brian is probably planning on moving more planes into Palembang as soon as I'm committed to the attack.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the Phillippines now. I've got scores of units that I need to rebuild into divisions and engineers to move to Manila for shipment
south. These guys are those going to Sumatra and Java. They still have the majority of their strength, they're not tired, not disrupted,
so they are in relative good shape. Ready to ship out. I just need to clear the mines out of Bataan's hex before it'll be safe to
transit the waters thereof.

[larryfulkerson]

I captured Balilkpapan yesterday and now about noon today I've started loading the first of the RES to be had there. The transports
that brought troops to B. are being used to convey RES now. They are going to carry their goodies to Babeldoab and then other
transports will carry it to Tokyo or some southern port on the Jap home islands. If Tokyo is crowded then I'll send it to Osaka. And
if Osaka is choked up then it goes to Kobe. There's lots of suitable ports. I'm hoping to find enough RES in Sumatra and Java to
fit the needs of the Jap economic effort. Or at least most of it.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's a list of all the auto-convoys. I'm rather relieved that it's working so well because it takes off some of the load from those I have
to monitor. I've been moving a lot of ships to Osaka and a lot of them are working their routes now. There's only about 10% of the
last load of ships I sent from Tokyo to Osaka still left in port at Osaka. I sent about two dozen of them and there's, like, four left in port.
I'll have to scrape more transports together and use them this way. Oh. wait, I have to have some of the transports to move the pieces
of divisions from here to there. Probably about twenty to do that. I think I have 20 boats left over from somewhere. I'm all the time
finding one or two too many ships in my RES ports. I usually just send them back to Tokyo for reassignment but I CAN send them
somewhere else of course. Lots of troops in Manila to move. Lots of RES at Singapore to move. I'm playing this by ear because the
ground plan is relatively set in stone but the details change from turn to turn and I have to be ready to adopt to the new conditions.
The conditions are changing relatively slowly right now, the eye of the hurricane.

EDIT: OH. And I wanted to mention that I notice that the auto-convoy system built a TF of seven individual ships for a trip somewhere.
That's encouraging.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's that 7-ship auto-convoy TF mentioned in the post above. I notice right away that it's using cargo instead of transport and they
didn't fill up completely. I'm not complaining all that much because so little cargo is missing and besides, it's better than nothing at all.
This is a shipment of supplies headed for Singapore, I wish the developers had made the game engine able to allow the player to
designate the auto-convoy port(s) and make them dynamically changable as conditions change. For instance, it might have been
better for the supplies to come from CRB instead of Osaka. Shorter trip and escorts besides.

[larryfulkerson]

I just happened to notice just now that Port Arthur is gaining it's oil level back at the rate of about 160 per day. What tons, barrels,
gallons? So I should be able to turn on the refinery pretty soon. Oh, but maybe I should let it build up a small reserve first before
I turn it back on so that it can straddle the dip in oil that can happen when you turn a refinery on after it's been off a while. I'm probably
imaging that.

[larryfulkerson]

Task Force 22 from Truk finally arrived at Rabaul and in addition to the much needed supplies it brought two AKE's for the port to
be able to turn around the larger ships, BB's and CA's without them having to go all the way to Truk for services. That's the theory.
I'm looking around for some AG's and AD's and maybe an AVP or two for Rabaul as well as the AKE's. They can make this port
really serviceable for the next phase of action, the take-down of Milne Bay and Port Moresby.

[larryfulkerson]

The port at Balikpapan has 20% damage and I need some engineers to repair it ASAP and I just happened to find some willing and
able engineers at Samah who volunteered to take on this next challenge. I'm loading them now for the trip which will take the better
part of a week I think. As soon as they are finished with the port I'll see if I can't find something else for them to repair. There's lots
of places in Malaya that need boosting and there's going to be a lot of places in Sumatra and Java to repair. I should be able to keep
them busy for a long while yet.

Brian sent me his moves in my early evening about 17:00 or so and he usually goes to bed shortly thereafter since he lives east of me
here in Tucson and that gives me the rest of the evening and overnight to work on my moves and post some stuff in the AAR. It's about
01:10 local and that means I have about another three hours or so before I have to send my moves to Brian so he'll have them when
he gets up in the morning. Which means we can sometimes do four turns in one day. Three or four, most days. Sometimes either he
or I have some kind of real world issue to deal with but it's been going rather smoothly so far.

[larryfulkerson]

I found a transport at Shanghi that was unemployed and after I explained the need it voluntered immedately to undertake the new
mission, which is to move to Manila to help transport the troops to their destinations. I'm sending it now from Shanghi believing
that it'll take approx 4 days to arrive there, because the Allied mines haven't been completely cleared from Bataan's harbor yet
and I have no idea how long it will be yet but I've had a multi-ship DMS TF sweeping Bataan and Manila both for about two days
now. I think they are almost through. So by the time the transport arrives at Manila the mines will be gone and all will be well.
That's the theory. And I will have saved a lot of time instead of waiting.

[ny59giants]

No Auto Convoys, make it an CS Convoy instead and add at least a PB as escort. Without an escort subs will fire their guns at you day and/or night. You can control it better and use waypoints. There is a small button below the three possible waypoints that you can click on so the TF returns follow the waypoints in reverse. Once set up, you can let CS go by themselves.

I have CS convoys going to Japanese ports from Shanghai, Port Arthur, Keijo, and Fusan with Resources. I have a small TF (20k) to/from Shanghai that I set to return with supplies from Japan. You cannot control this with Auto Convoys, which I've never used.

[larryfulkerson]

No Auto Convoys, make it an CS Convoy instead and add at least a PB as escort. Without an escort subs will fire their guns at you day and/or night. You can control it better and use waypoints. There is a small button below the three possible waypoints that you can click on so the TF returns follow the waypoints in reverse. Once set up, you can let CS go by themselves.

I have CS convoys going to Japanese ports from Shanghai, Port Arthur, Keijo, and Fusan with Resources. I have a small TF (20k) to/from Shanghai that I set to return with supplies from Japan. You cannot control this with Auto Convoys, which I've never used.

All good points........I stand corrected. CS convoys are definately better. I'm all the time having to cancel auto-convoys because their
path is too dangerous. I like your ideas.......thanks a heap..

[larryfulkerson]

...you can let CS go by themselves.

I just thought of a question: How far into the minor repair situation do you let the ship(s) degrade before you "fix" them? I've been
standing down even those (1) SYS damaged ships to repair them. Most of my ships have only minor damage because of this. Lots
of ships have no damage at all. Am I chasing the black swan? Maybe I should let them get into the teens before I fix them?

[ny59giants]

I fix them when they lose a knot of speed and slow the TF down. Most CS Convoys are set to cruise speed to minimize this. Most of your TF move at Cruise speed even if you set them to Mission speed. [;)]

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the pools values today compared with the pools values from 5 days ago. I detect some increase in the values especially the
Zero and the Ha-35. At this rate of increase I believe I can aim for a pool value of 510 engines and about 500 airframes in the pools
for the Zero's and engines both. Should be doable.

[larryfulkerson]

I've had some cities turn on their stockpiling to get the supply level high enough to repair the ports and airfields and they, the cities,
haven't even reached 10K on their supply level even though they have had stockpiling turned on since the beginning of the game.
I spent at least an hour going through all the cities setting the stockpiling and supply requested levels and now most of the bases
have about 11+K supplies except for these refuse-nicks. I'm going to have to carry some supply to them I guess.

[larryfulkerson]

You experts might have known about this but I just now discovered the Garrison and Garrison Required columns on the city display.
I can compare the number of people who are there with the number of people that HAVE to be there to find the places where there
may be some available troops for invasions somewhere. I usually just look through the INF units trying to find the Southern Army
ones. I now have a new tool to play this game with. Brian beware.