Pacific at War 1941-1945 v.3.63

[larryfulkerson]

The 18th Infantry Division needs something to do so I'm eyeballing Java and I'm seeing two ports close together with
a nearby airfield and directly south of there, across the island is another port/airfield complex and I'm thinking
I could probably defend okie dokie if I had all that stuff. Taking the rest of the island could be done later.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the total losses so far. I got into a knife fight with a Dutch CL and he sank one of my CL's. D'oh. And I
was running around trying to open ports when I ran into an American DD and he sank my subchaser.

[larryfulkerson]

I had forgotten about this before but now that I'm moving the aircraft ( way down in the OOB ) I'll show you how to do
'recon by aircraft'. Select an aircraft, almost any aircraft, and then use your mouse cursor to scan for invisible
targets. For instance I have this bomber unit based near Saigon and I'm running the mouse around Rangoon looking for
things to bomb and when the mouse cursor turns into a cross-hairs then that means there's something worthy of being
bombed in that hex. A unit of some kind. You can give it a probing attack ( one-dot ) and see what's in the hex as
it defends itself. The combat results dialog will list everything in the hex that got attacked.

[larryfulkerson]

Have I mentioned Japan's strategic targets yet? As you can see from this formation there's 10 strategic targets,
Japan's industry abstracted as Biplanes that don't fly as targets for Allied bombardment, naval or otherwise.
Each of the industry units that is lost costs Japan 1% of it's replacement rate and it's permanent. No destruction
of any of the industry units will give Japan a 10% boost in it's replacement rate over that which happened
historically. So it sort of behoves the Americans to do something about Japan's production.

EDIT: I thik there's one each in cities like Tokyo, Nagasaki, Kogoshima, Yokohoma, etc.

[larryfulkerson]

I took charge of that paratroop unit that blew the bridge last turn and drove it into Rangoon's suburbs and captured
and airfield. So I can fly them out of there next turn I'm thinking. I was looking for an empty port that I could
invade and I discovered that Rangoon is occupied. I'll probably have to hang on until reinforcements get there in
about 6 turns or so.

[larryfulkerson]

I thought maybe a little naval bombardment of Singapore might help things along so I split off the 4 BB's and drove
within range of the CD guns at Singapore ( range 2 I think ) and defeated the CD guns with a tiny bit of damage to
several BB's and then drove the BB's off to defeat the Dutch CL at Singkawwang that's threatening my landings at
Java. And then I drove all the little ships, the CA's, CL's, and DD's within range to bombard and I'm wondering
whether or not to include the infantry. I want to do some recon by ship to see what's in that hex before I committ
the infantry to an attack. Besides attacking with the infantry stack would cost me half the turn at least.

[larryfulkerson]

I flew some bombers and some fighters to Tarawa, the airfield there, and moved in a CV, 2 CVL's and assorted small
ships just to stand by for action should the need arise. I'm thinking of driving off to Rabaul to do some refit
refuel and recreation and then do a tour off the east coast of Australia.

[larryfulkerson]

There's landings going on just south of Lae and I can't remember the name of that place. And from what I can see at
Port Moresby it seems that there's just a skeleton staff there. I might have to rush a division out here and take
that place.

[larryfulkerson]

I'm going to attempt a landing at Midway. It might not work.

[larryfulkerson]

After I'd moved everybody I pulled the trigger and captured Guam and Midway. This is Midwaay.

[larryfulkerson]

New turn, new moves. This is what's happening in the Phillippines right now.

[larryfulkerson]

According to this formation report I'm due to get some CD guns
in T5 at Batavia. Why, this is great news. I'll have to get
busy and see if I can't capture that place.

[larryfulkerson]

Instead of moving everybody through the jungle and the loss of supply that doing that might entail, I thought it might
be a better idea to sweep the east side of the river near the border and sneak up behind all the Indian defenders.
It might take a longer period of time but this is a long war. The availability of supply along the route is the
clincher for me. The men must stay refreshed, ready for combat at least relatively. If the Allies are cherry red too
then at least we're even. I want to give as much of an edge as I can to my boys.

[larryfulkerson]

And the battle is on for Balikpapan.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's what I'm calling the "Middle" and it's busy and lots of things are happening as I've annotated.
I'll deal with India and the East in a separate post.

I'm going for the railroad in China so I can move large bodies of troops back and forth as needed. I'm
eyeballing Java and Sumatra. I've thought about landing at Rangoon before it gets built up.

EDITP It turns out that those two CL's near Port Moresby are DD's instead.

[larryfulkerson]

The first thing to move is the Burma Area HQ unit and I'm looking at the unit report and I see where in addition to the
usual minor/major ferry ability, or traffic control, or something to do with engineering, this unit also has some RR
repair ability. I just happen to have some broken rail nearby. I'll get this bad boy busy.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's what's going on in India and Burma and northern Thailand. I harrassed the British naval ships parked at
Ceylon with a squadron of Emily's so the next turn they evacuated to somewhere else probably Australia or New Zealand.
My troops are still making their way along the trail and when they get to the railhead they will have to trek through
the jungle to get to the riverbank and follow the good terrain down to the rails and the broken bridge.

I watched in the combat replay as British and or Indian troops were making their way along the trails as well and
they will probably get to Rangoon before I will. As a matter of fact they will probably arrive at the broken bridge
before I will. That's not a very good thing. But there's nothing to do to expedite the transit.

[larryfulkerson]

Thomas and I are playing PBEM++ and I'm not keeping the files the game engine deposits in my saves directory so I can't
go back to a previous turn to verify but I think there was already some CD guns at Fukuoka, near Nagasaki on one of the
Japanese home islands. But now I see where we have another set of CD guns this one called the Rangoon battery. I don't
remember Rangoon losing it's CD guns for anything I did so I'm not sure why this is showing up in the formation
already.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's a close-up of the Hanoi area right now. The Chinese are backing up slowly and I'm getting some units in their
backfield and I've driven an AA unit to the airfield north of the main lines. It's up there by itself and probably
needs some support so I'm dispatching a large, relatively speaking, stack of units that direction. I'm aiming to
capture the railroad, repair it, and get it working so I can send troops back and forth West to East and vice versa.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's what's going on in the Phillippines right now. I've just discovered that the supply situation is critical and
my boys are losing their strength from low supply. Morale is dropping, readiness is lowering. What to do?