Papua New Guinea 42 revised

[larryfulkerson]

OK. It's T3 already and I've gotten my air fleet back. They can now fly and attack and I've assigned them missions to do that. I'm
sweeping w/ the Zeros and using the Oscars for back up AS. A lot of the planes are attacking ground targets.

[larryfulkerson]

I was going to sail the 1st of the 3rd to Samaria SW and found my path blocked by an Allied DD and so I tried another path and found it
blocked too so I ended up sailing to where it is now. I've tasked the Vals and Kates to take out the DD's. I need that path to get to the
SW port.

[larryfulkerson]

OK. So I started the combat resolution phase and here's the results of an airfield strike on Townsville, Aust.

EDIT: I've found out from this attack that there's no fighters there at T. So I can strike w/o an escort.

[larryfulkerson]

According to the results of this airstrike I'm not sure that the Japs won this battle. It's looking like an expensive strike to me.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's a result of a strike on an Allied DD. No joy.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the result of the airstrike on the other DD. Joy at last.

[larryfulkerson]

OK. Now it's round two and I was sailing the 2nd of the 3rd to the SW port and discovered 2 more Allied DD's. So more air strikes are
on order.

[larryfulkerson]

I had just enough Jap planes that would still fly to make another airstrike on an Allied DD. I made the mistake of shooting at it w/ my DD's
and lost one of them. D'oh.

[larryfulkerson]

OK. It's T4 and I'm doing air strikes on the Alllied DD's that survived last turn. Also, there's some airfield strikes on order for Horn Island
and Townsville. Most of the fighters I have are on their way to Horn Island since that's where there's a lot of Allied fighters. As soon as
I get rid of the fighters on Horn Island I'll tackle those on New Guinea. I think those have some P-38's if I recall correctly.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's an airstrike on one of the Allied DD's. It bit the farm and bought the dust......something like that.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the airstrike on the other Allied DD. It's gone too.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the results of an airfield strike on Horn Island.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the result of the airfield strike on Townsville and I'm wondering where the escort was. There were P-38's at T. and they probably
tangled w/ my planes and that's why I lost so many. D'oh. I need to do sweeps on T. now too. I'll watch the type of combat that Elmer
does now to see if he includes any planes on any of his strikes to see if his planes are in reorg now or not.

[larryfulkerson]

I drove a couple of my DD's to a station just outside Port Moresby and I thought I'd do a little airfield bombardment. Getting a couple of
the Allied planes is worth the loss of one of my DD's I think. I'd rather not lose any ships but I'm saying that if his mission is a success
in destroying or damaging some planes then it might be more worth it if the ship is lost.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the result of the DD's bombarding the airfield. Pretty cool. I think I can afford to lose that DD now.

[larryfulkerson]

Since I got two of the ports of Samarai there has appeared a Seaplane Base and it has an aircraft carrier as part of it's equipment.
I can park some Zero's on that bad boy.

[larryfulkerson]

The Allies did a strike on my TF and destroyed two of my three DD's. And to think I was going to bombard them too.

[larryfulkerson]

Operation Draino has made some progress. There's only two Allied units to deal w/ now. And I've imported some more arty so it's
looking good.

[larryfulkerson]

I'm going through the OOB moving units and I've come to a unit that appears to be able to move onto an Allied airfield but for some
game engine reason there's no way to do so. It feels like there's an exclusion zone around the hex. D'oh. And I went to a lot of trouble
to get that unit close enough to overrun the place.

[larryfulkerson]

OK. Operation Draino has past phase one, dispatching the Allied roadblock in the mountains, and is not embarking on phase two:
clearing the path to Port Moresby. And then phase three will be the actual take down of Port Moresby. They may need some help
doing that. I've got some combat troops I can ship in there but it's going to take a turn or two.