The Good The Bad & The Indifferent

[JohnDillworth]

BTW and sorry if this has been asked. What does John have at Battan?

[HansBolter]

ORIGINAL: JohnDillworth

BTW and sorry if this has been asked. What does John have at Battan?

Very soon it will be the retreating survivors of the Manila/Clark battles.

[Canoerebel]

Bataan currently has 3.7k troops - nearly nothing. They probably don't have any forts, either. The base was vacant until about a month ago.

John probably isn't seeking siege warfare anywhere else on Luzon. He just wants to Dunkirk.

[Reg]

Can you turn that desire into an opportunity to bleed him????

...and escalate it into that confrontation you are after??

[Canoerebel]

Death Star will take position to control each Luzon port; the Allied army will advance to attack the battered remnants of the IJ army; the Allied airforce is sweeping and bombing; subs ring Luzon.

If John is desperate enough, that's what he'll have to deal with. I doubt he'll take on that combination.

And there are the usual risks for the Allies; especially subs, drat them.

[Canoerebel]

6/26/44 Intelligence Screen

Encouraging trends in the points-game continue. I think the largest lead John had was about 23k, before the Great Naval Battle of Wake Island. I think (all of this is fuzzy, dim memories) that he had a lead of about 19k when Big Tent kicked off in November 1943. Thereafter, it dropped slowly to about 13k. Since Fun House and the breakthrough in Burma, it's dropped rather precipitously. I think that trend will continue (though not as pronounced) as the Japanese defensive lines are rather exposed to attack. I think John has a more difficult time defending this weird perimeter than I'll have attacking it. I hope.

[BBfanboy]

I vaguely recall partial points for disabled devices and damage to major warships. Recovery of disablements and repair of damage would account for a change in the LCU points lost.

[Canoerebel]

6/27/44

A momentous day.

Battle of Miri: A sharp naval engagement (did the side that lost the most ships lose or win?).

Battle of Luzon: Death Star will move strongly towards northern Luzon tomorrow, hopefully imposing a blockade on John's further Dunkirk efforts. He's withdrawn perhaps 50k to 60k to this point, with perhaps 100k remaining.

Allied tanks took an interior base and will fan out, threatening John's flanks. Tomorrow, a USA division attacks a much bigger but bedraggled force in jungle-rough terrain. And it looks like the weather will allow the air force to lend a hand, unlike today.

Thailand: Opening attack at Pisanoluke tomorrow. One African division will cross the river and attack a much bigger, but also bedraggled, IJ army.

A momentous day.

Tomorrow may be, also.

[Canoerebel]

Miri is an excellent gas station, though "on the frontier" where it's hard to defend and open to attack. I'll fight hard for it as long as I think I can attrition John's navy efficiently.

But I'm not desperate over Miri. Balipapan is a better gas station - bigger and less exposed (or that'll be the case by the time it falls).

41st Division is 80% prepped for Balikpapan. Other units in the DEI are similarly prepped for Kendari, Ternate, Manado, Loewoek, and Makassar (the latter I'm not yet sure I'm interested in, at least through the medium term). Most of these targets are to further clear the LOC from Oz to the Phiippines, but Balikpapan is for fuel. These ops probably won't take place until after Peep Show, unless Peep Show is delayed for any reason.

[Lovejoy]

Can you send ships to Manila if he still controls the Bataan Peninsula ? I know that when the allies control it at the beginning of the game, it's not a good idea for Japanese players to try and landdirectly at Manila (as a part of a Coup de Main) because CD at Bataan can shoot at ships sailing.

[Canoerebel]

I don't think John has CDs at Bataan, but I'll test the path first with PT boats.

Bataan was vacant until a month ago. John then moved to garrison it to prevent a para-assault. I don't think he had a CD unit in the vicinity - I think he was just sending whatever he could to hold the base (this was just after Cabantuan, in the middle of Luzon, auto-flipped because it was vacant, showing him the vulnerabilities). I'll test it, but I bet the way is clear.

[Lowpe]

I am curious if Japan has DL on the DS?

Get some night naval search on the area to help the PT boats pick their targets![;)] Double check your TF commander.

[Canoerebel]

I double-checked my PT commanders...the mostly stink and the pool was of the same quality.

Good idea re: night search. Some of my BB floatplanes are set that way, but I'll tweak to optimize.

John's patrols didn't pick up DS well today, but I just think he knows where it's at. It's lumbering along, protecting merchantmen, taking an obvious course.

[Lowpe]

From a JFB perspective, it gets demoralizing when you are hit via different avenues of attacks over and over again.

San Fernado: PT boats at night. Daytime: Sweeps, Bombing, Deathstar strike. If the coordination is there, and the DS a surprise, well then the carnage is going to be absolutely stunning.

I would position a few subs on the route back to Pescadores to catch stragglers.

[Lokasenna]

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

I vaguely recall partial points for disabled devices and damage to major warships. Recovery of disablements and repair of damage would account for a change in the LCU points lost.

Partial points for damaged ships is in non-campaign scenarios, IIRC.

[Canoerebel]

Busy turn, including Death Star getting a shot at a big troop TF north of Luzon. John didn't like it. Get a load of this email:

"You pulled a surprise coming north with the 1.0^6x10.  Try coming a few hexes further north and I’ll give you about 1,000 lessons in the Divine Wind.  Guess it is time for that since I cannot fight you any other way.  How about we try a grand experiment?  Truly have no idea what might happen other then losing a crap ton of aircraft."

Death Star will head north, so we'll put it to the test. But I don't think I'll be quite close enough to Formosa's big fields to give John a really good test case. At least, not yet.

He keeps referring to "the 1.0*6x10." Death Star is a booger, no doubt. But more than a third of Allied carriers (including about 25% of the fleet carriers) are elsewhere or out of commission (two CVs far away, two damaged). This isn't "everything including the kitchen sink."

And he hasn't done much to whittle Allied carrier power. He just waved off a chance to contest Mini Death Star from making a rendezvous. I know the environment didn't suit him, but he's almost never going to get that kind of environment. Earlier in the game, when he had carrier superiority, he didn't create an environment in which I had to commit my carriers. When I finally did, he was in the midst of that crazy raid blind, with no idea of where my carriers were until the morning he lost eight CVEs.

John's in a tough position, but "the 1.0*6x10" is the product of the way the game has been played by both sides.

[jwolf]

I assume he means 10^6, not 1^6. Reminds me of one of the old Star Trek shows where they are trying to find and catch some bad guy aboard the Enterprise. They set up some kind of tech mumbo jumbo which is supposed to magnify sounds -- as explained by Kirk, Spock, or Scotty, I don't remember which one -- "by a factor of one to the xxxx power." [8|] Amazing that not one person in the whole production understood why that was wrong.

I'm anxious to see how much damage the Death Star did. [8D]

[paullus99]

They used the computer to isolate the heart beats of everyone on the ship. They eliminated everyone they knew....leaving one sole heart beat, which was the guy they were looking for.

[BBfanboy]

You don't mention the PTs, so I am betting that they could not make it from Batangas to San Fernando in one turn. Their range is 12, and the distance between points was 7. At six hexes they would have to turn back because of fuel issues. Re-base them to Manila and it is only 5 hexes to San Fernando.

[Canoerebel]

6/28/44

Fun House: Death Star strikes and the Japanese army on Luzon may be isolated. See map for details.