Climb Mt. Niitaka - Xargun vs Mr Kane

[Xargun]

Philippines

Only bataan remains on Luzon. Troops are now moving to Bataan to begin the final push. Bombers have been hammering the troops there daily and AA fire is non-existant leaving me to believe they are completely out of supplies. The fight should be fairly quick - depending on the fort level.

I have captured all the single island bases with no enemy troops nearby.

I expect Mindanao to fall within a week as his forces are all retreated to two bases along the northern coast.

Once Bataan falls I will finish off Mindanao (if help is needed) and tackle all the island forces. Then the troops are free to be deployed elsewhere.

[Xargun]

Southern China

The coast of China is all mine and my troops are slowly marching westward to finish off the couple pockets of resistance and capture the last 2 bases in southern China. Then they will march north to capture the rail.

IJA troops are approaching Ichang as well.

[GetAssista]

ORIGINAL: Xargun
I will be going to Lashio via rail for the incursion into western China and (hopefully) the capturing of the 3 Chinese bases (Paoshan, Tsyung (??), and Kunming).

I bet there will be a nasty dug in horde of Chinese waiting for you around Paoshan. On the allegedly best bunch of defensive hexes on the whole map if you count very rugged supply route up there from Burma. If you attack from Burma it is hardly possible to dislodge determined Allied defence of those bases critical for China airdropped supply. You will only badly maul your unrestricted divisions. Get them when you approach from within China

[Xargun]

China

Not much going on here as I am still busy in the south. I have troops at Nanyang and hope to capture it soon. Recon shows 30+ units at Sian !! What the hell? Either Recon is off or everything he has is there. I won't know for sure until my units make it there. I was going to shock across the river, but when recon showed that I decided to play it safer and take the land route.

You can also see my forces approaching Lanchow along the trail.

[Xargun]

Northern China

Not much is going on here other than some small tank units chasing down a fleeing Chinese unit as well as capturing Hami and moving north for Urumchi.

[Xargun]

South-West Pacific

Been slow going here. Recon have spotted a bunch of Allied APs / AKs at Port Moresby - so he either evacuated it or reinforced it. I'm guessing reinforcements. I will recon it soon and determine how much strength I will need to take it.

[Xargun]

Intel Screen

Here's the Intel scoreboard.

[Xargun]

CVs

Just a quick look at the CV build screen. I am accelerating all the CVs and only losing 30 points per turn. Once the Yamato arrives (in 13 days) I should be back to positive naval points. I am also accelerating a bunch of DDs.

[Xargun]

ORIGINAL: GetAssista

ORIGINAL: Xargun
I will be going to Lashio via rail for the incursion into western China and (hopefully) the capturing of the 3 Chinese bases (Paoshan, Tsyung (??), and Kunming).

I bet there will be a nasty dug in horde of Chinese waiting for you around Paoshan. On the allegedly best bunch of defensive hexes on the whole map if you count very rugged supply route up there from Burma. If you attack from Burma it is hardly possible to dislodge determined Allied defence of those bases critical for China airdropped supply. You will only badly maul your unrestricted divisions. Get them when you approach from within China

Thanks for the warning - I will scout them out and see.

[Xargun]

I am way behind schedule and have decide to throw it out the window. I put all the blame on my lack of experience with the game (been 2 years since I played last) and my innate ability to not take chances. So far I've been doing good capturing bases mostly intact - especially Oil. Miri just received its last shipment of supply for the for-seeable future and has enough supply to repair the rest of the damaged oil.

I also now have Palembang's Fuel level down below the spoilage mark. Now that the fuel is under control I will alternate moving fuel and oil out of there to Singapore using the smaller 8k tankers. I will then run the big boys from Singapore to the Home Islands.

[Aurorus]

ORIGINAL: Xargun

I am way behind schedule and have decide to throw it out the window. I put all the blame on my lack of experience with the game (been 2 years since I played last) and my innate ability to not take chances. So far I've been doing good capturing bases mostly intact - especially Oil. Miri just received its last shipment of supply for the for-seeable future and has enough supply to repair the rest of the damaged oil.

I also now have Palembang's Fuel level down below the spoilage mark. Now that the fuel is under control I will alternate moving fuel and oil out of there to Singapore using the smaller 8k tankers. I will then run the big boys from Singapore to the Home Islands.

You will probably have to take some chances at some point as Japan. It is the nature of the thing. It is May so I am certain that Bataan is out of supply, completely, as in 0, which means all of his units will be reduced to 1 combat value. It should be like attacking a large stack of construction engineers, with about half of them disabled.

If you have the "magic road" set up, the oil should flow east to Port Arthur by road and rail from at least Hong Kong, if not Saigon. You should not have to run the oil all the way from Palembang to Honshu. Getting oil and fuel flowing east is not difficult. Just draw down the fuel and oil at Port Arthur, and everything will start flowing there from at least Hong Kong. You don't have to draw the fuel out of Port Arthur either, though you can if you want. There are a number of nice ports in Korea that you can use that are closer to Japan that Port Arthur. Just set one to "stockpile" oil, then fill a tanker there, and the oil will start flowing. Resources are more difficult to draw east, especially after the early months of the war. Pax has explained why in various posts.

[PaxMondo]

ORIGINAL: Xargun

I am way behind schedule and have decide to throw it out the window.

No worries. You have taken the must have's. now, you need to sit back and figure out where Mr Kane is coming ... be ready for that and really rock him when he does. PzB style.
[;)]

[8D][8D][8D]

[Aurorus]

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

ORIGINAL: Xargun

I am way behind schedule and have decide to throw it out the window.

No worries. You have taken the must have's. now, you need to sit back and figure out where Mr Kane is coming ... be ready for that and really rock him when he does. PzB style.
[;)]

[8D][8D][8D]

Agreed. Once you have the DEI, Burma, the Phillipines, everything else is nonessential: even dangerous. More often than not, large-scale Japanese invasions of India and Australia result in large numbers of very good troops trapped and destroyed. These units then have to be rebuilt at great supply cost and loss of experience. At times, such invasions have netted a nice bounty of supply, but the usual result, in my opinion, is not good for Japan.

My general approach is to try to induce a large naval conflict, a "Kentai Kessen," so I do what I think I must to try to get that conflict going, even if it means invading India or Australia, but I have a "hair trigger" on any such invasion and am always thinking about retreat: ready to pull out at the first sign of trouble. Call me a coward, but I don't like to lose land assets. Every gun, every tank that I have to build is fewer aircraft that I can fly, and the fewer aircraft I fly, the faster the allies roll me up.

[Bif1961]

I notice the Taiho was halted, I usually accelerate it.

[Xargun]

ORIGINAL: Bif1961

I notice the Taiho was halted, I usually accelerate it.

With your comment I looked at the ship and its not the one I thought it was. Some reason I was thinking it was one of those BB / CV hybrids. I have stopped one of the other CVs and accelerated the Taiho now. Thanks for the heads up.

[Xargun]

Probably the best day for IJN Air since Pearl Harbor. Moving south from Singapore to get into position to support the invasion of both Balikpapan and Java, I spotted an allied TF moving north towards Balikpapin. Initial reports listed them as CAs and DDs, but they were not. I noticed he spotted my incoming invasion TF so I figured he was coming to spoil it, so I pulled back the invasion fleet and moved my mini KB further around to approach from behind. Well I got within range and hit the TF at Balikpapan. You can see below the results.

[PaxMondo]

ORIGINAL: Xargun

ORIGINAL: Bif1961

I notice the Taiho was halted, I usually accelerate it.

With your comment I looked at the ship and its not the one I thought it was. Some reason I was thinking it was one of those BB / CV hybrids. I have stopped one of the other CVs and accelerated the Taiho now. Thanks for the heads up.

+1 best CV IJ gets after Akagi ...

[PaxMondo]

ORIGINAL: Xargun

Probably the best day for IJN Air since Pearl Harbor. Moving south from Singapore to get into position to support the invasion of both Balikpapan and Java, I spotted an allied TF moving north towards Balikpapin. Initial reports listed them as CAs and DDs, but they were not. I noticed he spotted my incoming invasion TF so I figured he was coming to spoil it, so I pulled back the invasion fleet and moved my mini KB further around to approach from behind. Well I got within range and hit the TF at Balikpapan. You can see below the results.

I think most of those are small TK's, but even so, TK's are one of the very few ship types that the allies never have enough of ...

[Aurorus]

ORIGINAL: Xargun

Probably the best day for IJN Air since Pearl Harbor. Moving south from Singapore to get into position to support the invasion of both Balikpapan and Java, I spotted an allied TF moving north towards Balikpapin. Initial reports listed them as CAs and DDs, but they were not. I noticed he spotted my incoming invasion TF so I figured he was coming to spoil it, so I pulled back the invasion fleet and moved my mini KB further around to approach from behind. Well I got within range and hit the TF at Balikpapan. You can see below the results.

Very nice.

[Bif1961]

Always nice to stop them from sneaking oil out from those fields which will soon be yours and not moving it to Darwin or Perth to support any fleets he moves in to counter your moves in Eastern DEI.