WW2 Grand Strategy Question SEA BASING - Pacific At War PO Version

[larryfulkerson]

Speaking of Mindanao, this is what it looks like right now. I'm trying to hide all the Coast Watchers in the mountains and to keep them split up so they aren't all caught in the same hex. Most of them are going to be caught by the Japs eventually.

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[larryfulkerson]

Here's what the Chinese are doing. The Japs are out of supply in northern China so the Chinese are doing well. I'm the blue dots in this image. I still have partisans in Saigon and Bangkok.

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[larryfulkerson]

I finally managed to wipe out the Jap defenders at Henderson Field on Guadalcanal. Now to take Tulagi. We're finally making progress.

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[larryfulkerson]

I think I may have found one of the Jap carriers but the strange thing is that I've found more aircraft than can be carried by one CV so I think this is a multiple CV kind of unit or something. And there are other TF's that I believe have some major class of ships like BB's and maybe heavy CA's. I broke out the British CV's and sailed them out to south of Java looking for Jap ships and found some Jap DD's, launched an attack and sunk them. Hooah.

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[larryfulkerson]

I thought I'd run the Enterprise, Yorktown, and Lexington and their aircrews close enough to the Japs to hit one of their stacks of ships to see if I can sink some of them in a raid, one strike and back out of there. I'll probably lose a lot of planes ( and pilots ) but it will be worth it if I can whittle down the strength of the Jap fleet.

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[larryfulkerson]

I attacked with a British bomber unit at minimum losses just to get a list of what is in the hex with those Jap CV's and I hit the jackpot. There's three carriers in the hex but there's over 200+ planes present and that's not something I'd care to tangle with right now. So I find it prudent to retire with those three British CV's in range.

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[larryfulkerson]

I was sailing eastward from Colombo and discovered a couple of Jap DD's minding their own business and attacked it with my Stringbags and sunk both of them at a lost of two aircraft. Those British aircrews pulled it off again. A metal for all of them.

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[larryfulkerson]

I attacked Wake Island with a couple of Marine units and I lost more than I anticipated. I needed more ship support than was present. I won't make that mistake again.

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[larryfulkerson]

I lost a hell of a lot of aircraft but I sank 20 Jap ships so maybe it's not that bad after all. I attacked with my three American carriers ( Enterprise, Lexington, and Yorktown ) in addition to the British CV Ramillies and now that the Jap ships are gone I can pull back to safety.

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[larryfulkerson]

This is the beginning of T17 which is March 25th of 1942. Springtime, time for some better weather. I've lost a lot of Irregular Squads but I'm making a lot of them too. I'm down to my last 8 bazooka's and I'm not going to make more of them until T50 whenever that is. I've decided to post another zip file of the 'save game' action in case there might be somebody who wants a more in depth look at everything. Or to play the rest of the game from here.

PAW41-45Axis PO 17.zip

(896.57 KiB) Downloaded 1 time

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[larryfulkerson]

I drove the Japs out of Madang into the jungle so they are probably low on supply by now. The Australians are tired but still in the fight. I need to get a squadron of fighters up here when I can. I hesitate because the Japs are still adjacent to the airfield there and can inflict damage on anything in the hex and I love my airplanes more than to treat them like that. I'll get my 2 BB's in there to support the 4th and 5th AUS Regiments in fighting what amounts to a regiment with some SNLF Jap troops mixed in.

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[larryfulkerson]

I think I've found most of the Jap ships and I'm trying to think of a way to get the jump on the Jap CV's at first and then the BB's after that. Each turn the Jap planes attack my ships and they lose a handful of planes and I usually lose nothing. So I'm using them as bait to whittle down the Jap Air Force.

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[larryfulkerson]

I got attacked by a large Jap SCTF that went after my little Subchaser and sank it but I was surprised by the amount of damage the Japs got. It looks like several squadrons of my naval bombers sprang to the defense. None of the TBD's were damaged so I surmise that they weren't within range and didn't take part in the attack. If we look at the Jap losses starting from the top: The Yamato BB got 7% damage, a Nagato class BB got 76% damage, I sank one of the Yugumo-Kagero Class DD's and got 3% damage on a Fuso Class BB, and it looks like 80% damage on an Aoba/Furutaka Class CA. Plus a couple of Jap aircraft. I'm thinking of attacking these ships next turn if my planes are rested enough.

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[larryfulkerson]

Port Moresby was hit by a medium size raid and lost nothing but the Japs lost a handful of bombers but didn't include any fighter escorts so the fight was one sided. I think the E13A Jake is a small float recon kind of plane and I assume the Japs were using it as escort and they were battered.

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[larryfulkerson]

I neglected to move my CV's out of range of Jap land-based air power and as a result I got hit and suffered some significant damage. Both CV's took damage and I lost a significant number of planes. This is what happens when you don't pay attention.

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[larryfulkerson]

I found a naval unit that's almost useless in that it has no AA strength and that's a killer in this environment. It has 5 DD's of two separate types: 4 Farragut/Mahan Class DD's and a single Gleeves-Benson Class DD and only the last one has any AA defense. The Sumner Class DD and the Fletcher Class DD both have AA defense over 100+ but I won't get any of those until later in the game.

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[larryfulkerson]

The USS Colorado, a BB, got hit by itself by most of the Jap Naval Air Force and was lucky to get out of that situation with only 2/3 of it's strength missing. I've got it parked at Brisbane and it looks like it's going to be there healing for the next 60 days or so. Maybe more. Too bad I can't sail the CL Omaha by itself.

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[larryfulkerson]

I've decided I want to track the growth in proficiency of this aircraft unit. So I'll leave this in my notes to remind me I'm monitoring it. It's 43% in T19 ( 12Apr42 ).

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[larryfulkerson]

I thought I'd do a save game and take a look at the Jap side to see what the air losses are for the two sides. I notice that the aircraft most produced is the A6M Reisen (early) Zero at 623 per turn. I gotta get that rate down somehow. That means I need more furballs in which I win. The Japs don't have very many aircraft on-hand which is a good thing.

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[larryfulkerson]

After reducing Tulagi I thought I'd show some love to Bouganville and see if I can help the Army take down the island. I'm glad I captured an airfield so I can base bombers and fighters there. There's a boat load of Jap aircraft around the Rabaul area so I'm getting a lot of interference in my attacks and I need to back up everybody with a lot of CAP to temper the Jap aircraft effort.

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