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SIGINT will have to be your pal and alert you when he starts moving things to central and western India. look for those reports of radio or heavy radio traffic at bases you haven't seen anything in SIGINT in months or weeks.

Yeah, I've had Intel Monkey running a lot lately.

Lots of traffic at Truk and Rabaul. Traffic analysis is rather tough in this game.

The only CV report was 4 months ago, in the Gilberts.

14 December 1943

4 days until Kickoff. Waiting for one more CVL to arrive. I'll have 3 CVs and 6 CVLs by then. Another 5 CVEs will tag along. Not enough to fend off KB, but enough for any land based air. When I take Diamond Harbor, I'll have two squadrons of P-47s loaded onto AKVs, so they be up almost instantly.

He seems fairly light in bombers in India, which is good. Diamond Harbor is consistently showing about 1,000 people present, so I'll overrun that pretty quickly. Calcutta's in the 85,000 range, many of it probably being support forces. Intel Monkey had indicated 4 divisions for sure parked there. (18th, 19th, 2nd and 33rd as well as the 21st mixed brigade, though that intel is at least a month old.)

Regarding the sub war, I'm starting to wonder how he's getting fuel to Japan. I've got lots of subs surrounding the home islands, but contacts seem very infrequent. I usually have something watching Port Arthur also.

This game is coming close to overtaking my game with SierraJuliet, as I'm a little past Christmas 1943 there.

19 December 1943

Invasion kicked off. Invaders in two task forces. One for Diamond Harbor and one for Calcutta. A third for all the support units and some follow-on combat units, and a fourth for the Amphib HQ to supervise it all. With these are a replenishment TF with AOs and three carrier groups. Still have to get a big TF loaded with aircraft. AKVs already loaded with Jugs and P-51s.

Amphibs will arrive on-map in 13 days. Probably 7 days before they arrive, I'll get the big invasion group from Ceylon loaded and headed to Cuttack. I'm hoping they'll draw out any forces at Calcutta.

4 divisions with high forts will be a very tough nut to crack. Good luck. Will probably need repeated bombardment so if you can capture Madras with its port and plant AKEs there and fuel, might help. You can't bring your BBs in to bombard Calcutta unfortunately, but repeated CA/CL/DD bombardments does have an effect.

Good luck will be on pins and needles here. [X(]

ORIGINAL: Bif1961

Good luck will be on pins and needles here. [X(]

I prefer to be on Piña Coladas!

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

ORIGINAL: Bif1961

Good luck will be on pins and needles here. [X(]

I prefer to be on Piña Coladas!

I don't drink so I will also be on Coke Zero.

ORIGINAL: Bif1961

I don't drink so I will also be on Coke Zero.

If you don't drink, don't you get dehydrated? [&:]

I was about to send the Brits to Vizagapatam. I pulled them back after a couple days.

I was worried that if I landed there, he would tighten up his naval searches south of India. Two days out, he didn't see these. I don't want any preps for my landings.

I was looking for places to dump paras. Apparently you can only drop them on actual bases, not actual empty ground. That completely sucks.

They can be dropped on dot hexes as well. And I do drink but not the devil rum-grog.

ORIGINAL: Bif1961

They can be dropped on dot hexes as well. And I do drink but not the devil rum-grog.

Okay, that just leaves more for the rest of us!

This game is driving me to drink.

ORIGINAL: Mundy

This game is driving me to drink.

That is how to describe designated drivers.

About two days until I hit Calcutta.

He's been spotting my ships for the last couple days. CT isn't quite sure where they're headed yet. I've been killing plenty of Dinahs the last couple days with my CAP.

This game just passed up my Bottleneck game on the timeline. Not hard to understand, as we're sometimes hitting 20 turns a week.

20 January 1944

D-Day + 2

Got everyone there. This is turning into a mess. Stuff's slowly unloading at Calcutta, but about everyone's ashore at Diamond Harbor. Took that the next day, easily. I've got like 6,000 AV there, and they're marching to Calcutta now.

Unfortunately, KB decided to show up about 2 days ago. He had my forces spotted about 5 days ago, and he was able to react quickly. It's disheartening facing a group that puts over 800 fighters up in CAP. He also is loaded with Graces too. My CVEs are getting wiped out badly, and lots of transports are getting hit. Lots of base forces are already set up at Diamond Harbor, and I've just sent over 200 P-38s and P-51As for air cover. I'm hoping this slows things down a bit. I wanted to get the Jugs over, but their max range is short by 1 hex, which completely sucks.

I took the chicken way out with my carriers. They attempted a couple raids on KB, but very few survived the CAP. Oddly his never struck back at mine. I ran them full speed past Madras to get back to Colombo. They did get away and are currently unseen, so they should be safe. I need to keep a core to build all my new carriers around.

One oddity I've noted: When traversing between off-map bases (Panama to Cape Town), I can set the TFs to max speed and they don't take any damage or excess fuel hit doing so. Shortens transit time quite a bit. Even works from Cape town to on map to Ceylon. Two New Jersey battleships are now enroute to Colombo.

By the time the rest of my troops reach Calcutta, I should have 3-1 on him in numbers. Lots of combat engineers are also going along, plus lots of armor. Several armor units have Shermans, too. If I can take Calcutta, this war will take a turn.

Forgot to add...

I kicked off an invasion of Tabiteuea, near Tarawa.

KB's away, so I might as well play...

ORIGINAL: Mundy
One oddity I've noted: When traversing between off-map bases (Panama to Cape Town), I can set the TFs to max speed and they don't take any damage or excess fuel hit doing so. Shortens transit time quite a bit. Even works from Cape town to on map to Ceylon. Two New Jersey battleships are now enroute to Colombo.

Just a heads up, running ships at full speed off-map is considered an exploit by some players, since (as you say) you gain all the benefits of full speed movement while incurring none of the penalties. I have no idea how your opponent feels about it, but it's worth keeping in mind that this quirk is unique to the Allied side.

Yeah, I'm going to talk to him about it next turn.

The way this war is going, I tend not to care, but I do want to be right with him.

Don't know if this has been brought up before. New to me.