The result was a minor victory to me. But that’s because I made a gamey move in the very last turn. Towards the end it was looking like a draw – which would have been a fitting result.
Uncommon Valour is a terrific game – all those who worked on it ought to be very proud!
We played a 3 month scenario named Operation Mo. It runs from 1st May 1942 to 31st July 1942.
We set the turn length to one day – so effectively we played a 92 turn scenario.
He played ad the Japanese and I played as the Allies. It began with the Japanese expanding quickly all over the map.
For the first 2 weeks I pushed everything to the front – but had to be cautious due to his superior firepower.
At about this time, I tried to make some small scale reinforcements and re-supply missions to the troops on Guadacanal and I held my CVs back some way, to give air cover to the ships – but they got too close.
The Japs swooped and one CV was sunk and the other badly damaged – it just limped back to port.
As a result half my Wildcat F4 fighters went down with the CV – Lunganville is now in deep trouble!
However his main push was Port Moresby. He bombed the hell out of the airfield and the port, he sent infantry over the Kokoda Track, and used surface fleets to bombard the place. After a while Port Moresby was in deep trouble.
In these early stages the allied aircraft are very poor at locating and attacking enemy fleets, and this allowed his ships to dominate. The battle was waged all over the map, under the sea, on the sea and in the air and he certainly had the initiative. He won each and every fight though I caused damage along the way.
About a month into battle, I had 2 new CVs arrive with full compliments of aircraft.
Too terrified to face his CVs again, I placed them just to the south of Papua New Guinea. They provided air cover for the supply ships running between Australia and Port Moresby. Historically 30,000 merchant seamen were killed off the east coast of Australia and I had no intention of allowing it to happen again.
Without those supplies, Port Moresby would have fallen.
Anyhow, at this point I retained a points lead but he was closing fast. He spotted the CVs and sent his own CV force down to engage - and the superior Japanese flyers sunk both CVs and many of my aircraft went down with the ships.
He quickly followed up and the escorting ships, without air cover, went to the bottom. Suddenly he had a points lead!
According to the manual, if he achieves 105% of my score, he achieves a minor victory. And if I achieve 120% of his score I achieve a minor victory – else the result is a draw. Neither of us was going to achieve a major victory!
At half way through the scenario, with him in the lead – its not looking good
I have been busy building up my airfields and ports but I concentrated on those needed to sustain combat operations. At about this time they reached optimal size. So I checked which airfields and ports are the most valuable from a victory points perspective and switched to building these. It took only a week and I regained the points lead – admittedly only a small lead.
So I had to find a way to invade/capture more airfields and ports to increase my points score without losing any more CVs – and an opportunity arose.
I noticed, that marine paratroops are due to arrive only 15 days from the end of the scenario and I decided to make use of them.
For the next 5 weeks, or 35 turns, I send Fast Transports to Irau, carrying engineers and stores. I did not allow the engineers to begin building because his recon would have spotted the work.
But he did spot the ship movements. I can’t tell whether he knew what was going on but he never sent a surface fleet to Irau (just north of Luganville). Instead he sent them into the shipping lanes leading to Irau. We had a few engagements here and he seemed to get the better of it. But I had land based aircraft and this helped to scare his ships away.
Ultimately , one week before the paratroopers were due to arrive I started to build up the airfield and pretty soon he had spotted it.
He sent further surface fleets there to bombard and to harass the shipping and much damage was done. Many aircraft and supplies were lost. Fortunately I had the engineers there to quickly repair the damage.
Some of the bombers there were set to Naval Attack but ultimately had little success. But others were set to ground attack. They bombed Guadacanal so soften it up for the coming assault by the paratroopers.
But his constant naval bombardment of the airfield, toghether wit air attacks friom his CV based aircraft, caused so much damage, the larger aircraft had to be withdrawn.
While all this was going on, I had recon flying over Guadacanal to try to determine his strength there. Ultimately the paratroopers arrived at Irau together with their C47s. But by this time, from recon reports, I felt Guadacanal was too heavily defended – and I wondered about jumping on the valuable Shortland Island instead!
I sent many recon aircraft there and some B17s to bomb the place. Sure enough, the garrison seems weak. But alas, after a few turns of recon, I discovered he has fighters based there! Fighters cannot escort C47s that distance and so the jump is cancelled.
But I discover they can jump somewhere else………
In the meantime I needed to distract him from the activity at Irau Island. So, whilst all this as going on I planned a surprise attack. I planned to bombard his naval base at Truk!
This operation took 4 weeks to plan and execute. I sent 3 task forces, each of 2 tankers, up the right hand side of the map. The first TF stopped a part of the way up the map, the second stopped somewhat further north and the third sailed to Naru.
Just before the TF arrived in Naru I sent a bombardment TF to Naru to meet them.
From Naru the TF set out and successfully struck at Truk. I hoped to catch some damaged ships limping their way home and to destroy some aircraft on the airfield but ultimately I don’t feel I did much damage.
The homeward voyage was very tense. I imagined he might send a CV TF to the top right corner of the map to try to catch the ships heading home – this would take the pressure off my troops building up Irau Island. But he did not. Instead he sent a surface fleet to lay ambush and ultimately I felt I came out on top in the battle – a first for me!
The balance of the TF together with the waiting tankers all arrived home safely. But ultimately the 4 week mission was not a success as I failed to make him reduce his actions around Irau – he failed to take the bait.
In the meantime the scenario was going to end soon and it looked like we were heading for a draw.
But he holds some victory locations in the islands just north of Lae. The paratroopers could start from Port Moresby and jump into these locations!
Unfortunately the distance is to great for the C47s to transport troops all the way to Australia. The paratroopers had to be transported by a very slow ship to Rockhampton where the C47s awaited them. The last few turns very tense as I wondered whether the paratroopers would get there before the scenario ended!
This took a few days and it was the second last turn when the C47s finally delivered their precious cargo to Port Moresby.
On the very last turn the paratroopers jumped on and captured a number of low value bases that were not defended – and the additional points we ere enough to clinch a minor victory.
Great game!
The next scenario is now underway – and he holds a huge lead – fortunately the paratroopers await their orders
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