General Patton v. Larry Fulkerson Scenario #76

[larryfulkerson]

Using my tool from the post above I found an entire division, the 17th division near Shanghi that I can move to Shanghi and then use
it in Java or somewhere. It cost me 1600 PP's to buy it out, changing it's HQ to the Southern Army. He should show up in Shanghi
in about a day or two. I'm not sure I can arrange transport that fast.

[larryfulkerson]

I've got a TF at T-town just south of Singapore that's loading RES as fast as they can to move it to CRB. After I get the mines cleared
out from Singapore I'll start shipping them out from there too. Sumatra is still a threat and Palembang is still a threat but I think it's
worth the risk to get a TF in there, get the RES, and get out of town quick. I've got some SCTF boats nearby to scare Brian with. I'm
giving it a tour of the Batavia area right now just to get a gauge of the air power arrayed against me.

[larryfulkerson]

That BB that got hit by a torpedo finally made it to Hong Kong where I shoved it into the shipyards and it looks like it's going to be
laid up for about 37 days. I could accelerate that a bit but the need isn't especially pressing right now. Maybe I should finagle the
priority to get it rounded off to 30 days. A round number.

[larryfulkerson]

I've finally gotten some boats to Manila to move the troops out even though the minesweeping isn't finished at Bataan yet. I'm
attaching a DMS to the TF's traversing that hex in or out for now. The first load of troops leaving Manila is the 11th Air Fleet
HQ unit which I'm moving to Singkawang for the ability to dispense torpedoes. That plus the airfield support it's got.I find that I'm
running out of AF dudes for the new airfields I'm grabbing. Some of my planes are sitting on the ground because of the lack of
AF dudes. I can't see the need for very many in the PI so I'm going to move the majority of them south and leave a skeleton crew.

[Bif1961]

Leaving a BB in the shipyard at Hong Kong with Chinese airbases so close is asking for it to be bombed.

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: Bif1961
Leaving a BB in the shipyard at Hong Kong with Chinese airbases so close is asking for it to be bombed.

You're correct of course. I've already done my blitz on the airbases around HK and so far I've been bombed
infrequently by 5 Hudsons and I've placed air cover over the area so I think I've got the situation covered. The
reason it's in HK to begin with is that the BB wouldn't fit in the river to make it to Saigon and CRB doesn't have
enough shipyard to repair a BB and HK is the next nearest repair shipyard. And I'm in a hurry. Sort of.

[larryfulkerson]

Monday about noon near Tucson, new moves from Brian. The combat replay showed me pounding Sumatra and Java with air power
and not much else. Kinda quiet for a change. Here's the stuff at Manila awaiting transport. There's a whole lot of INF headed for
Manila from Bataan that is going to need transport too. I'd like to get the divisions put back together from their pieces while I have them
relatively close together even if I have to divide them to load them. Makes it easier to get them back together after invading somewhere.

[larryfulkerson]

All those troops at Bataan have made it to Clark Field and I expect them to arrive at Manila tomorrow. There are some ships there
but probably not enough, and besides there's no escorts left to tack onto the TF. I'll have to scrounge around and find some more.

[larryfulkerson]

Monday evening about 17:15 tucson time and new moves from Brian. I'm checking out Manila and I noticed just now that the work
expended on the next fortification level is 333% already. Anybody ever see that before?

[Mike McCreery]

You have a lot of units there with a lot of engineers. My guess is you had enough building points to do lvl 1 3 times over.

Next turn it should go to lvl 2 and you should still probably have a big percentage above what you need for that one too.

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: Wargmr
You have a lot of units there with a lot of engineers. My guess is you had enough building points to do lvl 1 3 times over.

Next turn it should go to lvl 2 and you should still probably have a big percentage above what you need for that one too.

I think so too. Brian just now posted something on the forum so I know he's still up. I'm tempted to send him my moves
just to see if he'll stay up until midnight to do HIS moves. I like to post in the AAR when I'm doing my moves because I can
post about the discovery when I discover it. You guys are getting the news about when I do. Plus, I'm having trouble
remembering the details about a post unless I do it right away after I make the image I want to post. I like to have pictures
in my posts to help explain what I'm talking about.

[ny59giants]

TF composition - Why are you putting a 10 knot xAKL with a 19 knot DMS and 18 knot xAP?? [&:] It's like pulling a U-Haul with a sports car. They don't mix!

[larryfulkerson]

TF composition - Why are you putting a 10 knot xAKL with a 19 knot DMS and 18 knot xAP?? It's like pulling a U-Haul with a sports car. They don't mix!

I'm improvising. I ran out of escorts so I'm sharing an escort vessel from another TF so to speak. I'm improvising.

[Andav]

Hey Larry,

Change the Prep on all those units marching from Bataan and those in Manila to their next target. Every little bit helps.

One thing I found useful was to set units prepping for fake target to try to throw off Allied Signet. Depending on where you really want to go during the next 6 months (Oz, India, Nor Pac, etc) you can pick something else to try to make him divert forces. For example, if you have plans to invade the Aleutians and no plans to invade Western Oz, find restricted units and set their target to logical bases in Western Oz. Signet will find these and might help mask your other plans. It might force him to send units to this area which might help weaken another area. I did this where Oz was my intended target and I had no plans for India. This had the unfortunate side affect of having a strong Allied army in India which helped him conquer Burma. This is why I would suggest Oz or New Zealand or the area around Suva instead of India as a deception location. I would not use the Aleutians as deception either since a strong army at your northern boarder is not much fun either.

Wa

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: Andav
Hey Larry,

Change the Prep on all those units marching from Bataan and those in Manila to their next target. Every little bit helps.

One thing I found useful was to set units prepping for fake target to try to throw off Allied Signet. Depending on where you really want to go during the next 6 months (Oz, India, Nor Pac, etc) you can pick something else to try to make him divert forces. For example, if you have plans to invade the Aleutians and no plans to invade Western Oz, find restricted units and set their target to logical bases in Western Oz. Signet will find these and might help mask your other plans. It might force him to send units to this area which might help weaken another area. I did this where Oz was my intended target and I had no plans for India. This had the unfortunate side affect of having a strong Allied army in India which helped him conquer Burma. This is why I would suggest Oz or New Zealand or the area around Suva instead of India as a deception location. I would not use the Aleutians as deception either since a strong army at your northern boarder is not much fun either.

Wa

That all sounds like good advice. I wonder how badly I can confuse Brian with tricks like that. Very good.

New moves from Brian, there was an ASW attack on the east side of Pearl with the Allied ships headed east. I'm thinking I've
stumbled upon a trip to the west coast with several of the damaged ships from the Pearl strike. I think this announcement of the
sinking of a BB is just fog of war. I don't think I hit anything with my torpedoes and it's a false report. I think maybe I should tail them
with the sub just to see if I can get another chance to hit something.

[larryfulkerson]

Back on 5Feb42 when I traded blows with an Allied carrier TF and the both of us lost a CV, well actually
he lost a CV and I lost CVL Shoho and CV Shokaku was badly damaged but managed to limp into
Shortlands and laid up in the port there for a while and I'm thinking it's safe to maybe transfer it to Truk
or maybe Rabaul. There's at least one more Allied sub between Tulagi and safety and I don't have the
best escorts available for this trip.

[ny59giants]

Shokaku - If that is all you have as escorts, DON'T move her yet. Rather, send an AR, Naval HQ, and other BFs high in Naval Support there (Shortlands) to get sys damage down. Your being too impatient and risking her to subs. I would get 4 escorts high in ASW and have the TF follow another ASW TF of 3 or 4 ships.

[larryfulkerson]

Shokaku - If that is all you have as escorts, DON'T move her yet. Rather, send an AR, Naval HQ, and other BFs high in Naval Support there (Shortlands) to get sys damage down. Your being too impatient and risking her to subs. I would get 4 escorts high in ASW and have the TF follow another ASW TF of 3 or 4 ships.

Sounds good to me. Unfortunately, I've already sent my moves to Brian and it's already in motion. My impatience has put another
good carrier at risk. I can probably catch it before it's gone too far and move it back to Shortlands. I've got some escorts at Truk that
I can recruit to perform their services at Shortlands. It's going to take a couple of days to get them into position though.

I'm probably trying to do too much again. The invasions in the Celebes area has priority but I would really like to get the war started
in Milne Bay or Port Moresby to see if I can capture either one of them without too much effort. Brian has built Milne Bay into a
fortress probably.

[larryfulkerson]

That wounded CV that was moving from Shortlands to Truk made it about 1/5 of the way to Truk when next we get some moves back
from Brian. I've re-routed it to Kavieng just so I can get some more escorts onto the TF before it makes the leap to Truk. And I've
just discovered that Rabaul is out of fuel again. D'oh. I've dispatched a TF from Truk with about 20K of fuel. It's going to be a few
days to load it and move it and then unload it so I'm guessing Rabaul will be out of fuel for the better part of a week.

[larryfulkerson]

I was checking out the number of planes and engines just now and I noticed that I need to bump up the production of the Ha-35 by
at least one engine per day and the number of Zero's is growing but not very fast. I'm especially interested in the growth of the Betty
levels but I don't see that on this image. D'oh. I'll have to make a special trip and look it up.