PAW with Sarsfield as Allies, Larry as Japs

[larryfulkerson]

I ran some troops up to the Alaskan island chain and captured Attu and Kiska. I have no idea what I'm going to do with them but maybe I can stage an attack on some of the Alaskan cities from there. I'm thinking of sending some aircraft up there for a CAP and to defend from Allied counterattacks.

[larryfulkerson]

I saw some Allied ships down in New Zealand and thought I'd run a CV down there to maybe attack them and Allied LBA intercepted me and sank half of my Zuikaku CV unit so I flew the planes to safety in case there are more attacks and he sinks the other half and sinks it too. Then I'd lose all my planes entirely. I gave up on thinking about sailing down to NZ to attack a couple of Allied ships. I'm going to need more than just one CV to fiend off all the Allied air strikes just to get down there.

I've also seen some Allied ships near Ceylon and I'm wondering if I should go engage them as well. He's probably got loads of LBA on the island to protect them. They are just 2 Allied light naval units instead of the big guns or a CV so it may not be worth the losses to get close enough to strike them. I'll put this on the back burner for now.

[larryfulkerson]

When I lost half of the Zuikaku the planes on her deck were lost but it seems as though I'm going to get those planes back on T7. It's too bad that I can't get the other half of the Zuikaku back as well.

I'm not even close to attacking any cities on the island of Java but according to the expected reinforcements as soon as I get around to capturing Batavia the following turn I'll get some CD guns there to guard the harbor. Some incentive to capture Batavia.

In T10 I'm eligible to get some Indian National Army troops at Imphal in India. I have to capture the place first but that's a good inducement to try to capture it soon.

[larryfulkerson]

I'm railing a lot of unemployed Engineering units to Malaya to expedite the repair of the rails leading to Singapore. My LCU's fighting in south Malaya need some supply badly so it's important to accellerate the repair process. I'm going to see if I can't use some of the Corps HQ units to repair rail too. That will help a lot.

[larryfulkerson]

I've succeeded in repairing the rail from Lingayen to Manila and I'm starting work on the rails in the southern PI area. As you can see I'm going to attempt a probing attack on the northern Allied group to see if I can't start the squeeze this early. I haven't started bombarding them with the ships yet and he's got so much AAA in his stacks that I hesitate to stike him from the air. The bombardment of Corregidor continues. I get a couple of guns with each stike but he's got a LOT of guns there.

[larryfulkerson]

I'm in the slow process of clearing all the islands I've captured so far. I'll be done soon. I'm planning on trying to capture all the islands down to Guadalcanal and garrison all the ports with a piece of a division and maybe some arty for insurance. I've invested Wake but I see that Midway is already a fortress so I'll put that on the back burner for now. I'd like to capture all the smaller islands down to Tahiti to help isolate Australia from Pearl and the West Coast. That will make the take down of Australia a LOT easier.

[larryfulkerson]

There's a terrific battle going on in Malaya. I'm trying to clear the rail lines as fast as I can so I railed in a couple more divisions to expedite the process. The project to capture and repair the rail lines from Bangkok to Singapore is called Operation "Black Water Lilly". It's difficult to predict how long it will take but I'm guessing off the top of my head maybe 20 turns or so. Which is about 5 months game time so we'll see. I've found at least 4 more engineer units that I can recruit yet. They are found out in the Pacific for the most part. Rather than defend a small island port I'd rather use them to repair the rails so I need to replace them as a garrison so I can move them here. That might get tricky because of all the Allied sea INT that has formed over the last few turns. Around Java, Port Moresby, and Davao I have to provide escorts to any LCU's being transported via the sea or else they evaporate before they arrive at their destination. I had an AA unit attempting to move from Truk to Rabaul and it evaporated as a result of an Allied sea INT strike. I've learned to provide more AA support for my floaters. DD's are good for that.

[larryfulkerson]

There's a lot going on in the Rabaul area. I'm attempting amphibious assaults at several of the smaller islands east of Guadalcanal. Not all of them are likely to succeed. I've annotated the image to give you an idea about what's happening in this area. I've moved a division from the home islands to Rabaul because that's as far as they could sail in one turn. I'm going to use it to grab Port Moresby. I have some DD's bombarding it right now for all the good they might do. Not much I'm afraid. I'm using them to try to prevent any reinforcements from reaching Port Moresby.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's what the DEI looks like now. I've captured a port on the south side of Sumatra so now I need to float somebody into that hex to garrison it. Otherwise the Allies might float somebody in there and take it away from me. I'm still in the process of clearing the PI and Mandano and there's a terrific fight going on in Malaya. The Allies tried to float some of the isolated remnants off the PI to somewhere else but my sea INT sank both of them. My troops at Balikpapan are in reorg so that will delay the takedown. I'm fighting partisans to the NNW of Saigon in the jungle. The fighting in southern China is still going on. The low supply levels slows down any progress that might be made.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's what Malaya looks like now. I'm only just getting started repairing rail evidently. I've managed to surround a small group of Allied units and that's a good thing. I'm in a small hurry to clear the rail lines down to Singapore to give those folks some supply. My bombarding group turned yellow so I had to sail them into a friendly port to refuel and rest a tiny bit. It's going to be a long time before Singapore falls. I'm going to need another 20 turns or so to make that happen.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's what northern China looks like now. I'm in a Mexican standoff it seems. I'm not strong enough to push him back and so far the Allies aren't attacking in this area. I need another couple of divisions up here to gather enough strength to make a dent in their lines up here.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's what it looks like north of Hong Kong. Some small progress is being made. I still don't have control over the rails and that's my goal here.

[larryfulkerson]

I managed to push some troops ashore at Port Moresby and now I need to gather a lot more ships to provide some support and try to push the Allied troops out of the hex. I'm thinking of moving one of the regiments to the NE to capture the port and airfield to bring in some more troops yet. And some arty. I'm thinking I should own the port in a couple of turns. Then I can start the bombing of Australian ports and airfields. Now that I have some troops at New Caledonia I can use that to push toward New Zealand.

[larryfulkerson]

I'm having problems with partisans north of Saigon. They were getting close to the rail so I had to ship at least one division to prevent interruptions to the train service. The partisans were successful in breaking the rail just SE of Phnom Penh but I've got some engineers busy fixing the damage and then it'll be a go from Bangkok to Hanoi. That's as far as it goes so far.

I've found some Allied ships parked at Rangoon and I've scheduled an attack on them for later in this turn. The Allies have the AVG parked there at Rangoon so it's going to probably be costly to make this raid but I need to damage those ships enough so the Allies have to leave it parked for a long time to get it fixed. Either that or sink it.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the strike package for the hit on the Allied ships at Rangoon. 12 of my finest anti-ship planes and fighters to see what can be done with those three Allied ships parked there in the port. Seven bomber units and five fighter units for a total of close to 200+ planes.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the results of the strike on the Allied ships at Rangoon. I seem to have sank one of his two CL's and a BB. So another strike is in order to get that last CL. I lost only a handful of aircraft so the strike was worth doing.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's what the theater looks like right now.

[larryfulkerson]

I've landed a lot of troops at Port Moresby and now the fighting has started and the forecast is that I'll soon own the ports and airfields there.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the area to the east of Rabaul. I've been landing people on the smaller islands and fighting for those that are occupied. I've got plans on going as far south as Tahati. I'm trying to isolate Australia from the west coast and Pearl.

[larryfulkerson]

Karl moved some of his ships in his turn so they are visible this turn for me. I count 6 visible ships but he's got plenty of aircover nearby so I hesitate to take this group on with only a single carrier. I'll have to pool several CV's together for this task. In the playback I saw some Allied troops leaving the west coast and I assume they are going to Pearl as the first stage of their travels. Curiously, they were headed due south so maybe Karl thinks my aircraft can reach that far. I have patrol aircraft that can reach to just east of Pearl but so far that's as far as I can patrol. I've moved some long distance patrol aircraft to Guadalcanal and New Caledonia so I can see the tip of New Zealand and a fair section of Australia including several ports and airfields. As you can see in this image the extent of my patrol aircraft can't quite reach Ceylon so I need airfields further west.