The First Team: Take Two!

[John 3rd]

DRAT--The turn went out before it could be caught.  I just emailed Michael a few minutes ago to not use Kates on Naval Search since that is a waste of their firepower.  The other concern is a General Longstreet concern that without Junyo/Hiyo, we are going in with "one boot off."  Makes me highly nervous.  Want to hit the Americans with massed, overwelming firepower.  While 6 CV and 3 CVL is good----8 CV and 4 CVL would be BETTER.
 
Crossing fingers and preparing to sacrifice one of my children AGAIN for the next turn or two...
 

[ny59giants]

I forgot to mention that 7th Mixed Bde (assault value - 325) is loading in Korea and will be heading east. [:)]

[Hornblower]

This seems to be comming to a head
 

[Canoerebel]

If they want the game to end so that they can focus on AE, they'd most likely come up with a plan that would involve something akin to "drawing an inside straight" in poker.  IE, a long shot that would get them back on track if, against all odds, it managed to succeed.
 
How close are you guys to auto-victory now?  I think you have a legit shot at it and your opponents might consider it an act of mercy if you do achieve it.  With Bombay cracking and with the Allies making no progress anywhere else, they appear to be on the ropes.

[Q-Ball]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

If they want the game to end so that they can focus on AE, they'd most likely come up with a plan that would involve something akin to "drawing an inside straight" in poker.  IE, a long shot that would get them back on track if, against all odds, it managed to succeed.

How close are you guys to auto-victory now?  I think you have a legit shot at it and your opponents might consider it an act of mercy if you do achieve it.  With Bombay cracking and with the Allies making no progress anywhere else, they appear to be on the ropes.

VPs right now are 33,906 to 7,848, or 4.32 to 1

Problem is, the ratio keeps going down, because in order to keep it over 4 to 1 we have to destroy 4 planes of theirs for every one of ours, 4 ships to 1, etc. Not easy. Without a major event, I think we will fall just short.

I think any of these will rack up enough to put us over the top:

1. Capture Bombay: Surrender of about 100K UK troops
2. Capture Manila: Surrender of 35K or so US troops, plus deny 1200 pts to Allies for base
3. Sink USN CV's. That's alot of points.
4. Force surrender of 30K or so troops at Cold Bay

Any of these would probably do. That's why I think if any of those happen, coupled with AE coming out, they would probably throw in the towel.

[ny59giants]

Capture Bombay: Surrender of about 100K UK troops

Nice to see our armored division is unloading at Madras. [8D]

[flaggelant]

ORIGINAL: ny59giants

Capture Bombay: Surrender of about 100K UK troops

Nice to see our armored division is unloading at Madras. [8D]

don't tell John!!!

i believe he made that division go sightseeing somewhere in the Indian mountains in his last single game [:D]



and what is the plan with the small CV force that's tracking KB?
will they join, or escort an AO force towards KB?? (whats the plan!?!)

[ny59giants]

and what is the plan with the small CV force that's tracking KB?
will they join, or escort an AO force towards KB?? (whats the plan!?!)

The AOs had to refuel CV Hiyo & Junyo and 1 CVL's DDs just outside of Adak. They will move SE and in 2 days all 12 carriers (8 CV & 4 CVL), plus a SC TF will be together. John and I spoke about breaking down the AO into 2 or 3 TF. This way if the Americans come out they will have to choose between 6 carrier TF (2 CV x 4 & 2 CVL x 2), SC TF, and 2 or 3 Replenishment TF. This will increase the chance of survivability of the 8 heavy CVs.

[Q-Ball]

Sept 17th Combat Report

Quick report: Not much to report Combat-wise, but a couple items:

1. I am ordering an attack at Bombay tommorow; the troops are rested enough. I expect another 0-1, but want those forts down to 5. The plan here is pretty basic, keep bombarding with BBs, bombing, and attacking, until the forts drop to Zero, and hope by then they are out of supplies. They haven't had ANY new supplies in at least 3 months, and we have been bombing every single day, so I bet it's getting critical there.

2. Up North, the USN CV's are at Kodiak. All the other ships at Kodiak, including BBs and AK/AP TF's, appear to be gone; just CV TFs. (there are still ships disbanded in port, just transports it seems). I think they are NOT going to fight for now.

Ideally, we want them to take us on, but Plan B if they aren't going to come out and play, at least we can resupply, reinforce, and do whatever at Cold Bay at our leisure. That's what we'll do. Forts are almost to 5, we need more supplies there. Ultimately, we want to wipe out those troops, which is a real possibility if winter rolls around without a change of situation.

[Q-Ball]

Sept 18th Combat Report

India
The Bombardment run on Bombay caused 3300 casualties; the day attack dropped the forts to 5. We suffered 6K casualties to 2500, and the adjusted AV still isn't close; nevertheless, we are going to keep going until the forts get to Zero, and then see what happens.

Aleutians
The USN seems to have mostly disappeared with the appearance of our CVs. For the time being, it makes sense to lurk, and take the opportunity to reinforce/resupply Cold Bay unmolested. The forts there are just about 5. I like our chances of destroying the troops there once winter sets in.

Darwin
An anchor appeared at Darwin a couple days back. I want to discourage it's use as a sub base, so I put together a port attack. We put 2 bombs in an MSW, and shot down 9 Hurris. Tommorow we'll work on the airstrip to keep that base out of commission.

[John 3rd]

ORIGINAL: flaggelant

ORIGINAL: ny59giants

Capture Bombay: Surrender of about 100K UK troops

Nice to see our armored division is unloading at Madras. [8D]

don't tell John!!!

i believe he made that division go sightseeing somewhere in the Indian mountains in his last single game [:D]



and what is the plan with the small CV force that's tracking KB?
will they join, or escort an AO force towards KB?? (whats the plan!?!)

FINE---Comment to remind me of past pain in Dan and I's game! It was no big deal really, the AI simply decided I needed about 25% of my Landing Force to go sight-seeing for nearly 30 days. I was NOT upset!

[John 3rd]

ORIGINAL: Q-Ball

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

If they want the game to end so that they can focus on AE, they'd most likely come up with a plan that would involve something akin to "drawing an inside straight" in poker.  IE, a long shot that would get them back on track if, against all odds, it managed to succeed.

How close are you guys to auto-victory now?  I think you have a legit shot at it and your opponents might consider it an act of mercy if you do achieve it.  With Bombay cracking and with the Allies making no progress anywhere else, they appear to be on the ropes.

VPs right now are 33,906 to 7,848, or 4.32 to 1

Problem is, the ratio keeps going down, because in order to keep it over 4 to 1 we have to destroy 4 planes of theirs for every one of ours, 4 ships to 1, etc. Not easy. Without a major event, I think we will fall just short.

I think any of these will rack up enough to put us over the top:

1. Capture Bombay: Surrender of about 100K UK troops
2. Capture Manila: Surrender of 35K or so US troops, plus deny 1200 pts to Allies for base
3. Sink USN CV's. That's alot of points.
4. Force surrender of 30K or so troops at Cold Bay

Any of these would probably do. That's why I think if any of those happen, coupled with AE coming out, they would probably throw in the towel.

Let us hit these thoughts:

1. Bombay is definitely cracking so there is a real possibility of taking it within the next 3 months.

2. Manila needs to be taken out. Brad--Do you have any weak Brigades in India--Burma that could be pulled and used to finish of the Philippines? As weak as those troops there are, I doubt whether it would take more then 1 or 2 small Brigades to induce the surrender. This is a freebie with NO RISK at the moment.

3. Have no idea as to whether they will fight or not. Cannot control THEIR actions but we can raise some Hell in the Gulf of Alaska and try to force it...

4. I say we try to finish them off at Cold Bay! Michael has a new Brigade coming from China and we have the Imperial Guards Brigade in the Aleutians. Those 2 Brigades would bring about 650 Assault Strength with them. Couple them to about 30,000 supply and I bet we can force the surrender.

If we REALLY want to force it, I would also lift the 56th Inf Div and the Corps HQ from Umnak and add it to the Force to finish the Americans off quickly.

So which of these can realistically happen prior to January 1, 1943?

#1---Manila! Just will take moving the ships and picking up some Infantry for a quick end. Probably gain 3,000 VP just doing that.

#2---Cold Bay--Pull those four units, land them and their supply and CRUSH the American--Canadian troops! I'd wager on gaining 1,500-2,000 points in doing that.

#3---US CVs--If they come out to fight we will win. 12 Japanese CVs versus 4-5 American. The loss of even 2 US CVs will finish the game from a Naval perspective.

#4---Bombay--Even if we drop the Forts to ZERO can we take the hex? Don't know but it will fun to try and watch!

My .02...

[Q-Ball]

Manila I don't think is as easy as that, mostly because it's still an urban hex, and we have hardly any infantry that isn't in India or the Aleutians. We have about 6 Nav Gd units at Clark actually that have been building squads, but not sure they are strong enough. We should give it a try though. They still have supplies there, we know that because they fired flak at our last bombing runs.

Bombay is realistic, though even there, hard to tell until we get the forts down to Zero. Ultimately Bombay will not fall until the supplies run out. We don't know how critical they are, though I suspect they are not in great shape.

Cold Bay is our best chance I think. They either have to take on KB, or allow us to land as many troops and supplies as we want, while they can't land anything. They either have to take on KB on unfavorable terms, or write those troops off.

[John 3rd]

Hey Brad!
 
Could we move those Nvl Guard units into Bataan and finish that first?  I know we just bought that Brigade to move up to Cold Bay.  Is there another laying around we could use?  What about that Indochina (Vietnamese) Division we got when the Chinese crossed the border?
 
I agree with your thoughts regarding Cold Bay.  BANZAI!
 

[Q-Ball]

ORIGINAL: John 3rd

Hey Brad!

Could we move those Nvl Guard units into Bataan and finish that first?  I know we just bought that Brigade to move up to Cold Bay.  Is there another laying around we could use?  What about that Indochina (Vietnamese) Division we got when the Chinese crossed the border?

I agree with your thoughts regarding Cold Bay.  BANZAI!

The troops in the PI are prepped for Manila, not Bataan, though Bataan is probably easier. Manila is more points though. The VM Division is available, and prepped for Manila, I thought of that already. We also get a Brigade shortly on Hainan. We can probably scrape together about 800 to 1000 AV. Won't have any tanks, though.

[ny59giants]

Luzon: We get a Mixed Bde in 26 days with an Assault Value of 150. We need close to a month to get enough PPs to buy another division (AV - 450) from Manchuria. We can start it now to prep for Manila.
We take Bataan first and move in most of the Sally/Helen and Nell/Betty to fill up Clark now. This will pull some of the 30k in supply at Lingayen (there is another 40k in northern Luzon!). This will allow the 5 Naval Gds to accept replacments. This would push our total Assault value to close to 1000.
Tentative Assault date - 1 Nov 42 or slightly before.
We can move 2 of 4 BBs from Ceylon (Ise, Hyuga, Matsu, Nagato) to Singapore to finish repairs. Almost repaired at Singapore are CA Suzuya and Mikuma. In a months time, the 3 CA (Kako, Mogami, and Chikuma) at Shanghai will be repaired or close enough. They can now be based at Bataan and make DAILY bombardments runs into Manila. [:)] I did this in one of my other PBEMs and Manila fell on the first attack.

Cold Bay: The Bde from Manchuria will go in first. The Command HQ is already at Umnak prepping and we can change over the Army HQ at Umnak to Cold Bay. The Gds Mixed Bde can be moved in. We have enough LBA at Umnak and Adak to hit them hard and I would use the KB Kates (set above 15k to save them somewhat from flak) on ground attack. If they don't try anything in the next few weeks, then I can use a CA/CL bases BB TF to be based at Dutch Harbor to start wearing them down now.
Tentative Assault date - second half of Oct 42

Bombay: Yes, it will fall. We can set up 2 x BB TF made up of 2 BBs each and whatever CA/CL Brad has in the area. They will hit it daily from Pangrim. Its only 4 hexes away. There are 4 AFs within 6 hexes of Bombay to place every Sally/Helen on ground attack daily. This target will get priority of naval and air assets over Luzon.

[Q-Ball]

RE: Luzon, the troops available are some Nav Gd on Luzon, 1 VM Division at Haiphong (which is now full-strength, thank you Allies[:'(]), 22nd Mixed which appears in a bit on Hainan, and 1st Eng Regt. at Brunei (we need to put it back on Manila). There is also a Rgt. at Rangoon that was resting from Burma campaign, this is also marked for Luzon now. That should be enough. The plan all along on Luzon was NOT to attack unless we needed the points for auto victory, because destroying units there will result in fragments beginning to rebuild.

RE: Bombay, we should be ready for an attack shortly. We need to put supplies in the pipeline for India, we are OK right now, but we are burning with these attacks, and need to get a reserve built up in a month or two when we want to close out Bombay

I am heading off for the Bahamas early tommorow, so Adm. Benoit will carry the torch through Sunday.

[John 3rd]

Sounds like we can move on all three fronts without too much difficulty!  Thoughts:
 
1.  Philippines--Lets move the VM Inf Div and the new Brigade appearing at Hainan to Luzon and see if they are enough.  If we can add those Naval Guard to the attack, we should be looking pretty good.  The troops up there have got to be in horrific shape and I HOPE will surrender fairly easily.  Moving planes in from China can add to the bombardment.  I would use the repaired CAs for Bombardment runs (as long as it is safe).
 
2.  Cold Bay--I don't have a very good feel for the strength of the Allied troops at this base.  Do we think two fresh Brigades (with support) is enough to take the hex back?
 
3.  Bombay--IF you guys think we can take it then that is GREAT!  I like spitting the BBs into Divisions so the base is hit every turn.  This--plus air attack--should serve to massively damage the fighting strength there.  As long as we can keep dropping the Forts then we have a solid shot.
 
 

[John 3rd]

Brad--You have no idea how jealous I am about you going to the Bahamas!  I haven't been able to leave the STATE of Colorado since September 2007!  Lordy...
 
Have a great time!

[John 3rd]

We got an email from Paul yesterday:
 
So we continue this game when AE comes out? Or shall AE consume us all?!?!?[/align] [/align]My thinking (and this shall be strange for me) is to propose that we play to January 1, 1943 and see IF we can get auto-victory.  It should be pretty obvious by that time as to whther or not Cold Bay can be reclaimed, Bombay falls, and the Philippines get claimed by the Empire.[/align] [/align]Thoughts?[/align] [/align]