General Patton vs. larryfulkerson Focus Pacific #75

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the news roundup for the Celebes area: Balikpapan finally fell and the facilities were damaged but not so badly. I think I can
make this work. As soon as I can find the transports I'll start pulling fuel and oil out of there to Babeldaob and thence to Tokyo.
Fighting still rages at Tarakan, Zamboanga, Davao, and Sambas. But I've successfully spread out to several of the smaller bases
on the way to Darwin. I need to spread out more yet.

[ny59giants]

Balikpapan - Good news on its capture!! Minesweepers, please. [;)] Now, do you have a BF or two there or on its way? Next, I would place one of those 9 or 12 plane air groups that I told you to train up in ASW there. Setting are 1000' range 2, 50% ASW, 30% Training, 20% Rest. Also have a small FP group sent there and have it set to NIGHT NavS with range of 3 or 4, 2000' and 50% Search, 30% Train, 20% Rest. Make sure both have good leaders. You could go to 60/20/20 if they have good skills, but this early in the game you need to train them up. Hold off on trying to get TK/AOs there as I would have a few of those Dutch subs or American S-boats stationed 1 SW of base to get a shot at anything coming and going there. You need to get the DL up from both night search and then day ASW to hit his subs and worse case to give your escorts a chance to sink them.

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: ny59giants
Balikpapan - Good news on its capture!! Minesweepers, please. Now, do you have a BF or two there or on its way?

I've got several at Babeldaob that I can ship there without a problem. I'll get on it.

ORIGINAL: ny59giants
Next, I would place one of those 9 or 12 plane air groups that I told you to train up in ASW there. Setting are 1000' range 2, 50% ASW, 30% Training, 20% Rest.

1K feet instead of 100'. Got it.

ORIGINAL: ny59giants
Also have a small FP group sent there and have it set to NIGHT NavS with range of 3 or 4, 2000' and 50% Search, 30% Train, 20% Rest. Make sure both have good leaders. You could go to 60/20/20 if they have good skills, but this early in the game you need to train them up.

I don't understand why you would put a naval search mission at night time. Could you
illuminate me?

ORIGINAL: ny59giants
Hold off on trying to get TK/AOs there as I would have a few of those Dutch subs or American S-boats stationed 1 SW of base to get a shot at anything coming and going there.

Makes sense. I'll do it.

ORIGINAL: ny59giants
You need to get the DL up from both night search and then day ASW to hit his subs and worse case to give your escorts a chance to sink them.

What's DL stand for? Emphasis on ASW for the waters of Balikpapan. Got 'cha.

Thanks for all this valuable advice. How's your game going with Brian?

[Mike McCreery]

You do night searches to improve the DL of ships, particularly subs.

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: Wargmr
You do night searches to improve the DL of ships, particularly subs.

Oh. Of course. So what does DL stand for?

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson

ORIGINAL: Wargmr
You do night searches to improve the DL of ships, particularly subs.

Oh. Of course. So what does DL stand for?

Detection Level. [:)]

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the situation near Manila. I haven't brought enough troops to the PI. I'm outnumbered everywhere and it seems Brian has
enough AV to go on the offensive should he desire to do so. I'm going to ship another division to the PI to help out because I'm in
sort of a hurry but not THAT much of a hurry really. I want to avoid the high losses involved in brute strength attacks on the ground.
This is going to take a lot more bombardment before it's going to be doable to grab one of the bases under contention.

[larryfulkerson]

Sambas and Tarakan fell to the Japs overnight. And the facilities at Tarakan are pristine. What a boon. It's ready for harvesting
already. Cool. I'm wondering if I should chase down the Allied remnants, those units I've chased out of the new Jap holdings into
the jungle. I suppose I should. They could cause trouble later if I don't. Maybe lots of bombing will make them go away.

[larryfulkerson]

There's a TF that didn't get the memo that the Port Moresby invasion was called off and landed at PM and actually got ashore. Now I'm
wondering what I should do with them. I suppose I should re-embark and skedaddle.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the TF that delivered some troops to Port Moresby. It's had better days. I'm going to sacrafice the troops already ashore and
just stop the unload and just back out of the harbor. Imagine the beeping noises as the ships back out of the harbor. It's my fault that
the TF landed there. I forgot to turn off the invasion for ALL the boats. It's why I keep losing this game, little mistakes.

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson

Here's the TF that delivered some troops to Port Moresby. It's had better days. I'm going to sacrafice the troops already ashore and
just stop the unload and just back out of the harbor. Imagine the beeping noises as the ships back out of the harbor. It's my fault that
the TF landed there. I forgot to turn off the invasion for ALL the boats. It's why I keep losing this game, little mistakes.

Well, most of those ships won't be carrying any troops. What are you thinking of doing?

[larryfulkerson]

What are you thinking of doing?

1. I've still got the 21st division at Tokyo that I can move somewhere but I've elsewise
used up all the readily available troops pretty much. I need more troops in the PI
and Singapore's forces could use another division.

2. Palembang was a disaster. I think maybe I invaded before I was really ready. Singkawang
hadn't been captured yet for crying out loud.

3. This has been a huge learning experience for me and ss for Port Moresby......I'm thinking
that there's such a formidable Allied garrison there that it's going to take more than just one
division to take it down. At the very least I need to do a blockade and prevent supplies and
troops from moving in or out for a long time to see if I can't degrade their AV and make a
take-down more possible. I'm not sure exactly what is the best course of action here. There's
the option to land at Milne Bay and attempt an assault overland. I haven't done nearly
enough naval bombardments of PM to date. I'm open to advice.

4. This scenario really needs an expert Jap player to execute it well and I don't think I'm
up to speed. The lack of PP's isn't a problem.....I've got something like 12K of them
and there's been a lot of upgrading leaders on the LCU's and planes and some of the ships.
And I've bought out all the immediately available troops. There's some still in Korea that
can be bought out and the Mongolia garrison is still intact but the Soviets are active and
I figure I may need them there for a while yet.

5. I'm wondering what kind of game it would be if I just tried to get Singapore, Manila, and
Malaya, Java, and Sumatra and then just defended what I had. No other major invasions. I
was even planning on trying to assault Darwin at one point. I'm not sure that's even a
possibility.

6. Originally Brian and I were just going to playtest his new scenario and find all the
bugs.....we've found most of the bugs and Brian has fixed them. There's still about four
bases that have problems with their names but that's largely inconsequential gamewise. And
now we're playing for keeps. For the record. We haven't see a lot of Brian's ships. He's
keeping them out of the way for the most part. That Tarawa raid was a real surprise. He
destroyed almost the entire TF that brought the invssion troops there and immediately
after the troops had disembarked. He probably had them pre-positioned prior to turn 1.
I'll have to remember that little trick.

7. I'm playing Brian as a favor from him to me and I really wanted to give him a good
game but he's a much better player than I am. I'm learning a lot and it's still worth
doing for the fun involved.

8. When I'm not working on Brian's game I'm playing as the Allies against the Jap
computer. It's good practice and I've found several hints to use in my "real" game
so it's not a waste of time.

[witpqs]

One immediate question is, can that fragment at Port Moresby defend itself? It has a bunch of AV, but what about heavier weapons?

If the shore guns are that bothersome then you will have to be aggressive with air and naval bombardments to silence them just to extract those troops.

I agree with your notions on strategy regarding taking those essential places and then setting up a strong defense.

Don't worry about whether you are "giving him a good game". Rome wasn't built in a day and the same is true when it comes to the learning curve in this game. The corollary is Rome didn't build itself, and so it is that this is how you learn this game. [:)]

[ny59giants]

This has been a huge learning experience for me and ss for Port Moresby......I'm thinking that there's such a formidable Allied garrison there that it's going to take more than just one division to take it down. At the very least I need to do a blockade and prevent supplies and troops from moving in or out for a long time to see if I can't degrade their AV and make a take-down more possible. I'm not sure exactly what is the best course of action here. There's the option to land at Milne Bay and attempt an assault overland. I haven't done nearly enough naval bombardments of PM to date. I'm open to advice.

Its not that important of a base to go after in the first 30 days and maybe the first 60. For me, "it's the economy, stupid!" Focus on the bases that you need for your economy. Remember, somebody (me) suggested that you just isolate the base by capturing Milne Bay and Horn Island. Steadily build them up to isolate PM. Capture it in late March or later (prepped troops). It's early March in my game vs Brian and I've only sent recon planes and subs there. I'll take it at my leisure as Java is more important to Japan. Focus my young Jedi...Focus!! [:D]

[larryfulkerson]

Brian just sent me an email with his moves. He said he knows I'm having a rough time and
he offered to restart our game but this time he wants scenario #2 with the PP's adjusted
higher per day. He's going to adjust it himself and send me the files. He's going to call
it scenario #72 and it looks like this AAR is coming to a halt. I'm tempted to do another
AAR for the new game. Many thanks to everybody who pitched in their advice and so on.

[Andav]

Best of luck Larry. You are a truly dedicated opponent to do 3 restarts. Turn 1 is such a beast even when you know pretty much what you want to do.

Wa

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: Andav
Best of luck Larry. You are a truly dedicated opponent to do 3 restarts. Turn 1 is such a beast even when you know pretty much what you want to do.

Wa

Thanks for the kind words, Wa dude. As a matter of fact, Brian shipped the files for scenario #76 about 16:30 tucson time and it's 06:20
the next day now and I'm getting to the part of the turn 1 stuff where I look at all the TF's, make sure they have a valid mission, and
build the rest of the TF's from the singleton ships and I'm doing them alphabetically so I can sort of gauge how much I have left to do
and I'm on the port of Nagoya now. About half way done. I took a nap from about 03:45 to approx.04:55 and then started hitting it
again but other than that have been listening to You Tube videos and doing my moves. I'm living through the part of history where
the two worst presidential candidates in US history are running for office and there's not much WE can do about it.

[Bif1961]

Thank for this AAR and if you do another I will be a very eager reader.

[larryfulkerson]

Thank for this AAR and if you do another I will be a very eager reader.

Brian felt bad about my lackluster performance and thought his scenario was a little above my paygrade yet and he has modified
scenario #2 so that both sides get more PP's per turn than stock and he's letting me be the Japs again and this time I'm
using the advice I got from you guys and I'm doing better. We're on turn 12 already, what's that 22Dec41 or around there. Brian has
expressed his interest in our game by returning the moves almost immediately and I'm wondering if I ought to tack on to this AAR with
the new game or start another AAR entirely.

[larryfulkerson]

This AAR finally went to page 2 after 11 days. Interesting tidbit of info.