Kane and Unable ;] - Game over 1945.

[Mike McCreery]

July 1, 1942

[Mike McCreery]

Strategic situation

Mr. Kane has left India completely alone. Chungking is surrounded and being bombarded daily. It has days to weeks left. AV is dropping steadily.

My strategic plan for this game is a large land war in Burma and into China. I need to threaten Australia and am building up Suva and Pago Pago as we speak.

Japanese subs have been absent the whole game. I am not sure what he is doing with them. He could be using them to detect any reinforcements to Australia of which there are none.

I havent seen any Japanese carriers for months either, I think they likely were part of a blockade or trap. The entire west coast of Australia has been left untouched and I bet carriers are sitting out in those waters. I have a few test ships starting to run now to see. (green dot on far left)

The US carriers with the exception of 1 are at Pearl. 3 will go into upgrade this turn and all should be ready by mid July.

My airforce has been in training. I train to a primary skill of 70 and put those pilots in reserve and train more replacement pilots. At this point I am rotating the experienced pilots to the front line squadrons. Mr. Kane already has Nicks in the air and although I still cannot prevent sweeps I am coming out pretty good against long range attacks.

[obvert]

ORIGINAL: Wargmr

ORIGINAL: obvert

ORIGINAL: Wargmr




Most everything is heading into India. We have no PP to move between borders and when he finishes off China he may just try to take a big bite out of me.

Within 3 weeks there will be at least 3 American ID on continent.


What I need to work on is my air force skills. They are my weakest, particularly bombing with fighters and 1&2eb. Got a lot of crews with 60+ lnav but need to know what else they need and how to deploy them properly.

So you've gotten the reinforcements but asked him to stop the Australian advance? I get your concession on the 4E altitude settings, but in my eyes that is minor compared to the advantage a Japanese player could gain form taking Sydney wiping it's industry and shipyards, and getting a chunk of Aussie troops.

You guys have solved it to keep the game going and make it fun, but as an Allied player you know what you're getting in future. Do you need the concessions about stopping his advance? The reinforcements are pretty good compensation, but also that the Japanese would be overextended, and you could eventually use that against him. Would have been cool to see.

Mr. Kane's objective was not to win, it was to play through 1946. If he chose to continue and destroy the majority of the Australian army and take all of Australia which he could have done easily then I would have surrendered and quit the game.

His concessions were to get to play scenario 2 with PDU on in a stock scenario with basic map and I thought he would not try to wipe me out. I was mistaken but we have rectified the situation.

Interesting. I understand the compromise to keep the game going, but I'm a little surprised you would have quit if he took OZ. It's a blow for sure, but you're an experienced player, and I'd bet you'd eventually use that against him. I would have been into seeing that.

Still very interested to see this one play out though and glad you both are satisfied with the way it worked out. [:)]

[Mike McCreery]

Mid October 1942

After my whining Mr. Kane cleared out the southern part of Australia but did not assault Melbourne or Sydney as requested.

Things seem to have set up without much going on in the last few months. A few of the Japanese cruisers ran into mines at Luganville which stopped that forward motion on the Japanese side. One or two other good air battles caused the Japanese to be on the defensive in the pacific but very active in Australia and China.

Chungking fell a few days ago which will result in the relocation of Japanese air forces into Burma.

Mr Kane is a master with his air groups and I am fighting Tojo's and Nicks with P40E's. Hopefully I can use the LBA as an equalizer once I get enough planes.

[Mike McCreery]

Score mid October 1942.

Mr. Kane seems well on the way for an AV win in 10 weeks or so. There will be several ops but nothing intended to prevent that. We agreed to not quit at AV as part of the initial agreement. I would have set up and played differently and it would have been much bloodier to this date.

[Mike McCreery]

There are 48 units visible in Australia with 3000AV+ I thought that Mr. Kane would back off once we agreed on the Australia rules but he has tightened his grip and continued to strategically bomb the area. He has gained nearly 6000 points off of bombing.

I have to say that the first few months of this game have been more stress than fun. I hope it gets better.

[Mike McCreery]

Late March 1943

Mr. Kane is withdrawing from southern Australia.

My land forces have been mostly upgraded and I notice a significant difference in the combat. This is where I now hold an advantage.

Air wise, Mr. Kane has Tony's flying in large sweeping squadrons at 37,000 feet which I cannot defend against. Waiting for P47's.

Naval situation is pretty good. One of my main carriers took 2 torpedoes and has major flooding in a port off of New Zealand. Once I get the coast cleared up to Rockhampton I will sail her into Sydney for repairs but I am guessing at least 3 months. I just managed to nail 3 of his light cruisers with 6 destroyers at Brisbane. The destroyers did exceptionally well and I am wondering how much having 12 float planes on night naval search set for that hex made a difference.

[Mike McCreery]

Major Troop movements in Burma. This is the 2nd time I have attacked, the first was trying to surge tanks to get to the oil at Magwe. Of course Mr. Kane anticipated this move and spanked my army. The up side was he was unable to surround and kill the tank units so they are moving SW in the forest towards Magwe again.

This time I also have an American army moving south along the coast and british troops in the woods to the northeast to participate. Because Mr. Kane has all the troops from China, he can keep me here as long as he wants. I would just like to make it bloody on the plains.

Magwe got hit a few times strategically and reduced down to 120 oil but Mr. Kane has re-located nearly 900 guns to the site and ones that can hit at 20K really hard so I dont want to try to take it out by air anymore.

[Mike McCreery]

Setting up to move on islands in the Solomon Sea area and pacific. This has been a quiet theater of the war.

[Mike McCreery]

Mr. Kane ghosted out of Australia and except for an unlucky division and a brigade the whole army was able to withdraw. I am not sure where it went but I am becoming increasingly concerned due to lack of capital ships near Port Moresby.

It was easy to fly up the coast of Australia vacated by the Japanese and I did it really quickly aided by the fortunate retreat of a japanese unit off the rail line.

So, Port Moresby has only a small 2K troop at it. I saw troop movements heading southeast from Buna and I decided to try to intercept. My night task force slipped into and out of Port Moresby without encountering anything. Anticipating the course of the inbound task force I set a destroyer group on patrol at the tip of the continent.

[Mike McCreery]

This is going to put a wrench in the cogs of his plan for a bit.

[paullus99]

Holy crap....yeah, I'd say that would hurt.

[JocMeister]

ORIGINAL: Wargmr

This is going to put a wrench in the cogs of his plan for a bit.

[Mike McCreery]

Late April 1943

Troops and technology are catching up to Mr. Kane

I moved fast since February and am threatening the Port Moresby area. Mr. Kane lost at least a division attempting to reinforce Port Moresby. He has a few SNLF at the base at this time with a division moving from Buna to provide additional troops.

I have bombarded PM a few times, one resulting in crippling damage to one of my cruisers 94/74 major. Which may manage to limp into a port next turn.

Mr. Kane probably thinks I am invading Port Moresby but that isnt the case. I have 2 divisions plus 2 armor units, 2 artillery, etc headed for Horn Island. I am hoping to take it cheaply. there appear to be about 7K troops on the island.

If I can open this up it gives me much more advantage than taking PM. Besides, I like to take Buna and trap those troops anyway.

[Mike McCreery]

It looked like Mr. Kane was going to sortie a task force to defend Port Moresby from an additional bombardment so I sortied my carrier task force out into the ocean to see if I could tag some ships. Either the task force was retreated or the weather is too bad to detect them at PM.

My carrier force intercepted several incoming attacks which Mr. Kane lost just over 100 planes. One of my battleships took a torpedo and 20 flotation damage.

[Mike McCreery]

April 29, 1943

The troops go ashore at Horn Island and find 3 disrupted naval units with an adjusted AV of 56 and wiped them out.

Surprisingly, either due to weather or Mr. Kane's play style, no aircraft attacks are incoming. All shipping with the exception of a few mine sweepers will be gone tomorrow.

[BBfanboy]

Shaping up nicely - good show![:)]

[pontiouspilot]

After that debacle at post #50 I'll bet opponent wishing he told you to get stuffed about his coitus interuptus Australatio!!!

*sorry...directed to wargmr not my friend from Portage and Main.

[Mike McCreery]

October 1943

After an ambush involving Mr. Kanes Carrier fleet and my surface and air combat forces the battle lines have stagnated.

Over the course of the last 5 months I have repaired what could be and congregated the reinforcements.

The air war is simply brutal. For example, I swept a base at 5 hexes with 25 P-39D aircobra's last turn. They met 34 jacks.

Of the squadron, 7 pilots were killed outright, 2 were wounded and 6 are missing in action. There are 4 working planes and 3 damaged planes remaining from that one sweep.

On the bright side, other than a few capital ships I have managed to keep my navy in good order.

[Mike McCreery]

Just recently I managed to get the score below 3X. I am fairly confident that MrKane will not win AV a second time in this game.