herbie goes bananas again

[herbieh]

Finding myself a bit disjointed as the fleets head in towards Cairns and cooktown, the CVs are way south of the transports, still unspotted[:@]
Will this next turn return them to their charges, and cover the transports agaian closely, Im going to put marilum? forces into cooktown, while the other fleet sails down the coast with the cvs.
Somewhere south of townsville the big fade away will happen.
Cairns continues to be bombed into the stone age, the last cripple, a DD will now attract a million bombs, as I understand it she will go to 99 system, 99 flood, but still attract bombs, thats ok by me, means other more valuable targets wont be bombed
Veritable trickle of forces now headed towards cooktown[8|]

[herbieh]

No action today as the imperial fleet mills about the ocean north of Townsville like headless chooks
Got to get my .......in a sock!

Nothing else to report that turn
Starting to suspect that this fishing exped is going to be a bust[:(]

[herbieh]

No action really, if you ignore the sky going black over cairns and cooktown with allied bombers[8|]
Transports tomorrow have the sub guantlet to run as thet enter cooktown area, the rest of the fleet gets it .........together and re forms up NE of townsville, pretty sure wobbly has sighted them, one more day(maybe 2) of sailing south toward rockhampton, and then its east for the fleet.
All PNG forces safely delivered, combined fleet at sea moving to PM.
The fishing is crap here of the reef[:(]

[herbieh]

The action begins. I dont know what wobbly is thinking or posting, but what I hope he sees is this:
transports entering Cairns, covered by LRCAP from carriers north of cairns, and a bigger CV,invasion force parrallel to townsville.
Hopefully his conclusion is Im headed towardsRockhampton or Brisbane big time, and it is time to deploy more LBA to Aussie (not that there isnt heaps already there[:'(])
Action saw my 1st 3 transports of operation "Trickle" as Ive called it (and told wobbly) enter the gap in the reef and arrive south of cooktown
A sub attacked, LBA hit them, more sub attacks, and the 3 unescorted ships have all arrived at the beach damaged, but not yet sunk[:)]

KB is ordered to do its fade, she begins to move west, and Juno moves to cover the decoy convoy headed south.
KB will refuel right on the word Coral sea.
I have finally spotted some unknown ships of noumea.
The plan, after refuelling hypo herb will come out to play...if the weather turns bad Im going to go for a CV strike on noumea.
The Allied CVs must be brought to action, must be[:@]

Sub transports are at Irau, headed south for lunganville or espirito, and south sea detachment also begins her very long run south.

Now to Email wobbly and tell him Im going to do everything to preserve KB[:D]

[herbieh]

that didnt go too well, all 3 aps are not just sunk, but turned into iddy biddy bits, still, some troops ashore, hope wobbly comes out to play.
The fade seems to have worked, zuiho is spotted , and decoy ships spotted.
KB steams east, and now is charging due south, straight down the middle of the coral sea, looking for bear.
Elswhere subs advance, and ships crawl towards santa cruz.

Its going to get nasty I think.
Personally think Juno is on borrowed time[:(]

[Luskan]

Just keep doing the unexpected! E.g. In my newest PBEM I started scn 19 by getting over 10 aps sunk because I just assumed that my opponent wasn't going to leave any aircraft at PM.

boy did he get a shock! [8|]

[herbieh]

wobbly castigates me via E mail about wasting 3000 tonners, how humiliating!
This fishing exped is a total bust me thinks, as I have been well and truly spotted, both the decoy force, and the KB.
With ships now unloading at santa cruz, subs unloading at espirito, and transports approaching lunganville, Im on the wrong side of the map, feeling very very indecisive.

NOT GOOD!
So have ordered CVs full speed towards lunga, and cancelled the fishing exped, no way a surprise strike will happen now on noumea.
If wobbly wants to fight Im here!
Dont think he will.
Big problems percieved with fuel, lots of tankers enroute , but very vulnerable .
Action over last 2 turns, lost a tanker from a sub at lunga, she took 6, repeat 6 torpedoes.
Cant remember how I killed all his subs last game, this is yuk .

[herbieh]

Wobbly iether remains in his shell, or his CVs aint on the map yet, and I am being bluffed big time[&o]
date is 30/6/42
144th regiment and south seas detachment support troops land and capture nevea, heaps of engineers are on the way
Sub unloads at Port Vila, that should jolt him
transports are lurking one day away from lunganville
Death star races towrds rennell island, where fuel awaits
several small surface task forces lurk in the area, set to react
Lunga still hasnt a field, concentrating on irau 1st, lunga later.

Elswhere aussie targets are still being bombed, but more troops enter PM, including base support, zeros move in[:)]
We may fuel, lurk about a bit while convoys to irau, nevea go in, before we try another fishing exped.
Went real fishing sydney harbour today, why it is the best city in the world, 10kg yellow tail kingfish, salmon and mackeral, all in a harbour of a multi million people city.[:D]
No wonder the japs wanted it[:'(]

[herbieh]

lets see, all quiet still action wise, but plenty happening in the wings
espirito is mine.
santa cruz next turn
going to go for lunganville, I dont think it will be contested
irau is building very well
pm now has betties and full support, building well

CVs lurking, plenty of fuel

So why [:@]
We talked about how other games influence you, I just watched my death star loose 160 plus bombers in unescorted strikes against his CVs, for no hits, and this on cap of only 30%
What am I doing wrong!!!![:(]
They were fully rested, but the range was a fairly long.
After this mission I will break the death star into smaller supporting units, it was so painful to watch all those trained pilots flamed for no use.
This game is only a little way in, to lose KB now would kill me!!!!

[herbieh]

The southern advance is finished in all but details, Im unloading at lunganville, the last invasion convoy is headed towards wunpunko.
No attempt to land additional troops other than by plane or fast transport will occur
The death star will now await its chance
Piority targets are no longer the CVs, this has failed, we await a rash move from wobbly, the piority is now his APs and msw

His LBA can pound to the small garrisons to dust, but to advance back up the map he must expose himself
Max effort now going into building a field at nevea, lunga and a second one at irau
PM will soon become active
every tanker I have is south of irau, supporting the ships there, please wobbly, give me an opening![&o][&o][&o]

Im thinking of a BB run, all the BBs into noumea
That should be fun![:D]

[herbieh]

Thunderstorms everywhere, so tried to sneak a transport into cairns, the only base not affected by the storms on the entire map was townsville
Elswhere troops begin to unload at lunganville, under lrcap from juyno, and lots of ships lurk about waiting for a bite, that aint going to come I think
Wobbly might have got a clue now as a regiment invades the hex next to irau, if I was going for the big invade why waste troops there?

Anyway, we have grabbed what I want, the plan is now to lurk about and dig in at irau, lunga, nevea, PM and GG, the other dots south are trip points, at some stage he will committ a regiment to take back one of these small bases south, and then I plan to drop a full division back into it, and start a brawl
( havent got a division yet to spare for another 40 days[:'(], so I have to play death star approaching stuff for a while me thinks)

[neuromancer]

I don't think the DS had much chance of remaining undetected. In fact you pretty much showed it when you WANTED it detected.

The big factors on detection of fleets seems to be range, size, and speed. Even when in detection range, but at the edge of it, a slow medium size fleet is hard to spot. Even your large DS when loitering around waiting to be seen wasn't spotted mostly because it was barely moving.

But when you sped towards the other side of the map, it was like a big arrow pointing at you (literally).

Realisitcally I think the wake and smoke trail of the ships were easier to see than the relatively small chunks of grey metal. So I think the game uses the speed of the fleet as the primary spotting variable. And then the number of ships (a lot of fast moving ships will put out a lot of smoke and leave multiple overlapping wakes). And range of the spotting unit is in there somewhere.


At least that's my theory. I could be wrong.

I've been wrong before.

Once or twice. But it happens.

[:D]

[marky]

uhhhh....


wat IS the death star? [X(]

[Ol_Dog]

My guess is that he has all his carriers in one big task force, which, if it goes on the attack, will destroy everything in sight - like the Death Star - planet buster in Star Wars

[Ol_Dog]

Herb & N

I hate to steal you thunder - but I wanted to get my post number up
[:D]

[herbieh]

Death star is when a player puts all his CVs into one group
Think speed is the key to detection, death star remained undetected that turn, as it stayed 2 hexes south of irau refuelling.
Typically Wobbly strikes!

9CAs, 16 DDs enter Lunganville, and find my 3 APs, 1PG and 2 3000 range DDs (piddly little ones). Submarines attack, and one CV at least attacks my "fleet"

The troops were already ashore. Amazingly 1 ap is still there after all that!
His fleet of CVs and everything else?, is about 5 hexes south of Lunganville

My fleet is 2 south of Irau, refuelling

I know what will happen this turn coming
Wobbly will come north of lunganville to hit Nevea, where a heap of my ships are unloading troops, engineeers and base forces, and knowing my luck my stupid pilots will launch long range unescorted crap.
Its going to be a long day until tonights turn[:(]
Lunganville fell to me, lots of supplies for the SNLF that got ashore.
Wunpunko invasion decoy force runs away to the north, it will turn south when some BBs arrive to boost it up.
I packed Irau with fighters and 27 Vals that turn as well
If I survive tonights turn , and finish fuelling from my tankers, wunpunko force will go in, backed by every thing Ive got.

Over in Aus, my new secret anti sub barges take out s-37[:D], and a single AP sneaks into cooktown, combined fleet HQ arrives PM, Ive got a nice chain of barges going now from GG to cooktown, using an AP mid ocean for fuel.

I have a horrible sense of de ja vue from our last game[8|]

[neuromancer]

Wob sounds like he is either a master of timing, or damn lucky.


I wish I could get the performance he does. I usually make some kind of mistake (that kills off two carriers and another that kills five heavy cruisers - sorry, I'm going to be kicking myself for those for a while) or just get rotten luck (I've pulled my Gatos off active patrol duties due to the abysmal record of the Mk 14s).

[jeffs]

When do they start to become better
(I have only played up until 11/42 and I know at least then they are trash)..
I know historically the bugs were worked out during 43 (given the war had been on more than a year, not very impressive)...But does that show up in the game? If so when? Thanks[&:]

[herbieh]

talk about tension!
Got home, flashed up computer, and began to watch the replay.
massive bang!, not on game, but in laundry where hot water service has exploded, talk about assume state one condition zulu[X(]
Flood, Flood, flood!
Isolate power!
try to restore services!
AAAAAAARRRRGH.

So it was not a good night to try to plot a critical turn
But we did[:D]
(Wife not impressed)[8|]

Wobbly retired after his attack, he exposed his fleet for 2APs, 2dds and a PG
But failed to stop lunganville falling
Death star now 4 seperate 2 or 3 carrier TFs, all following one another, all now fully fuelled, they are headed to one hex off wunpunko, where a naval garrison force on 1 AP, protected by 3CA, 6DD is headed as bait.
Irau and Nevea are now almost overloaded with engineeers.
We go fishing again....[8D]

Over in the west, 4 BBs are travelling through the GG slot today, going to lurk off townsville, having a recce of that place today as well
The Recce will be 3 bettie squadrons and 2 zero sqs on port attack[:D]
PM is truly up and running.

Plan is soon to move South seas detachment down from nevea into lunganville, and begin a real defence of the place, have now 3 fast transport TFs available for supply runs.
2 more divisions in 36 days?, if I can suck some wobbly troops into lunganville from noumea, who knows!
Having fun.

PS , anyone got a portable pump, compartment 2-23-1Q, reports 6 inches, steady[:(][:(]

[Shadow of the Condor]

Be careful about looking gift horses in the mouth...

After all, why plot turns on paper when you now have a scale model of the SWPAC theater in your very own home? Of course, that would mean Matrix would have to release patch 2.4 for you, replacing the No-Fly cloud icons with soap bubbles...

(Let me know if that works... [;)] )