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I think Alfred got it right, CR lost the battle for Sabang, but JIII wasted the victory.

No Alfred got it wrong.

CR took the initiative away from John and kept it.

He has not relinquished and will not from here out.

At Sumatra John started reacting instead of acting. He has been reacting ever since and will continue doing so for the remainder of the game.

Regardless of what he lost he tied down the bulk of the Japanese army and navy and forced it to spend '43 reconquering already conquered territory instead of either expanding further or building up defenses.

Sumatra was an Allied strategic victory.

My wife and I will be out of town today. John will be out of town tomorrow and Friday. So I'll probably get the turn from him when I'm back tomorrow. But other than that we're on a brief hiatus.

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

No Alfred got it wrong.

CR took the initiative away from John and kept it.

He has not relinquished and will not from here out.

At Sumatra John started reacting instead of acting. He has been reacting ever since and will continue doing so for the remainder of the game.

Regardless of what he lost he tied down the bulk of the Japanese army and navy and forced it to spend '43 reconquering already conquered territory instead of either expanding further or building up defenses.

Sumatra was an Allied strategic victory.

Too early to tell...if John spent the time preparing his defenses within a 25 hex circle of Honshu...well, then perhaps he hasn't lost. But he has lost the initiative (how many JFBs have the initiative in 44?).

I don't see the point of Japan using 43 to extend their borders. John did seek a carrier battle in 43 and was chastised for it...but is still in strong CV shape. But he seems to be looking for another fight which argues against a turtle defense.

John earned a boatload of victory points that won't go away, and with prudent use of supplies, plane r&d, and ground troops, he could set up a really strong nest style defense while trading space for time elsewhere.

Just a thought. I am always wrong about these kind of things however.

John earned a boatload of victory points that won't go away, and with prudent use of supplies, plane r&d, and ground troops, he could set up a really strong nest style defense while trading space for time elsewhere.

The problem is that CR has been taking more space in less time than John can afford. The constant pressure has made it difficult for John to tidy up his perimeter when John has been forced to focus on preventing its collapse. CR's efficient, and quite effective, use of the initiative he gained at Sumatra has been writing the tale of this game for the last year. John is just along to play the foil.

ORIGINAL: poodlebrain
CR's efficient, and quite effective, use of the initiative he gained at Sumatra has been writing the tale of this game for the last year. John is just along to play the foil.

No initiative was gained in Sumatra. Period. The IJ shouldn't be expanding in late 43. They should be doing exactly what Lowpe and Alfred have mentioned, along with others including myself over many iterations of this discussion; preparing for defense, counterpunching judiciously and conserving economic resources for the future.

What I think upon further consideration is that (obviously) Dan played this entire game catered to JIII and it would have been very different had it been a different player. This psychological understanding of an opponent is probably his biggest strength as an AE player. He also doesn't get too rattled when something (even major) goes wrong and he simply plans a creative solution to counter the problem (the almost Hokkaido and actual Aleutians and Cent Pac invasions after Sumatra).

In a subjective sense, playing against JIII, Sumatra may have been a positive for the Allies psychologically, as it somehow led him to believe he could pleasure cruise the KB anywhere and disregard his preparation behind the lines. Had it been njp72, Lowpe, Lokasenna, me or just about any other Japanese player at that point, they would have conceded the Eastern Aleutians and Cent Pac and used the time to avoid what is now happening in game by reorganizing and allocating forces to likely Allied invasion vectors; No Pac, So Pac and Cent Pac. They would have also tucked away the KB for a surprise moment later.

I'm beginning to understand Dan's idea about Sumatra, because I see that he is only seeing this in a subjective sense, playing this game against JIII, where some of us see other possibilities outside of that dual psychology.

Whatever. He's kickin serious ass now, and it's fun to watch. [:)]

ORIGINAL: Jellicoe

Indeed!

Greyjoy ground Q-ball into the ground and made him pay for every tiny gain in pretty much exactly the same spot on the map that Canoerebel has just waltzed in and taken without a by your leave. If I recall Q-ball ultimately conceded the game after Greyjoy bled him dry with multiple KB ambushes and shocking CVE losses. Q-ball also had the advantage of holding the whole Australian coastline including Darwin which Greyjoy had evacuated.

Truly a study in contrasting Japanese play styles

IIRC there was a change made in response to 'impregnable cap' complaints that that limited the # of attacking passes (200?) made by the cap. With adequate escort is was easy to overwhelm the formerly impregnable cap without having any attacking bombers touched. Needless to say, the results were devastating. Anybody for a 20mm vs. .50cal argument? Good times. Good times.

ORIGINAL: obvert

No initiative was gained in Sumatra. Period. The IJ shouldn't be expanding in late 43. They should be doing exactly what Lowpe and Alfred have mentioned, along with others including myself over many iterations of this discussion; preparing for defense, counterpunching judiciously and conserving economic resources for the future.

Stating categorically that the initiative didn't change hands won't change my mind on the subject.

I couldn't agree with you and Alfred more about what a Japanese player should be doing in '43.

However, we see plenty of games with the Japanese continuing to run rampant in '43, mostly due to an Allied player struggling to figure out how to wrest the initiative from him.

Dan accomplished it. Sure the operational initiative swung back to J3 for the duration of the time it took him to destroy the invading forces, but the strategic initiative had been wrested from him and has not been returned.

This is what is supposed to happen, so it isn't the greatest feat ever accomplished in AE, but after seeing so many Allied players struggle to accomplish it, I feel its worth lauding as an accomplishment.

nuff said....I won't belabor the point any further.

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

nuff said....I won't belabor the point any further.

I wouldn't say that, you have very interesting insights that cause me to think.[&o]

The Sabang Campaign and the Carrier duel in the pacific are 2 separate events.

I am not sure whether actions can be defined as right or wrong in this game.

John is not a strong defensive and/or late game player so all the advantages are to CR now.

With the game on hold while John and I were both involved with family matters, I had a most interesting day yesterday.

On Wednesday and Thursday, my wife and I helped move her elderly great-uncle to a nursing home. The nursing home environment was (at it always is to us who are still relatively young and healthy) sad and sobering. As a private way of contrasting life at 55 to the sad spectacle of the nursing home, yesterday I decided to do a 20-mile day hike in the Cohutta Wilderness Area. It was exceedingly hot and the hike began with a stiff 2,000 foot climb up Big Frog Mountain. By mile ten I was out of gas. At mile 16 I reached Jacks River Falls, which has the best swimming hole in Georgia. I swam awhile and then took a two-hour nap, which gave me just enough energy to finish the last four miles. It was a long, tough day, but worth every ache and pain.

I'm not sure I have too many more years of 20-mile hikes during the summer, but I bet I can do it for at least another decade during the cool seasons. I hope.

John is attending to the next turn, I think, so perhaps we resume the game today. I think he's suffering morale problems. The Allies are making progress towards overcoming the enemy's will to fight.

A 20 mile hike with a 2000 ft vertical in hot (and presumably humid weather) doesn't sound like fun to me.[:)]

You seemed to hint that you were trying to prove something.

I think that's a part of the mix. I hike because I love the woods. But one of the pleasures in the testing is that the soreness, the exhaustion, the encounters with ticks and wild boars, etc. prove that we're alive.

The first tick hitchhiker I ever had was slightly amusing. Now I consider the little bastards a net negative.

John is having computer problems with the new turn. One proposal is to back up a turn to before the great Judy slaughter and play that turn again. I'm not real excited about undoing a turn that resulted in a meeting engagement that went the Allies' way. So, when I visit my office this afternoon, I'll open the pre-send save, issue another order or two to shuffle the deck a bit, and re-send.

Morale.

Yes, time for neutral observers to post some subtle morale-boosting comments for the Empire.

Those not involved in PBEM perhaps aren't aware of the many subtleties involved in the exchange of turns that can tip you off to your opponent's mindset. Especially when, as here, John and I have faced off since Uncommon Valor days.

In 1941 into 1943, John is aggressive in his play and in his turn-flipping. He will send turns often, try to make arrangements ahead of time to schedule times when I'm available to flip turns, and is prompt in checking with me if I don't flip a turn immediately (which is rare, because I may be more rabid than him in playing this narcotic-like game).

It's much different later in the game or as things really sour. I'm sure this is true for many IJ players. It must be very hard to transition from "I have the initiative and all the goodies" to "I enjoy taking punishment." In this phase, John drags out turns over many days for many reasons (some of them legitimate, but many of them a reflection of his flagging morale). He become non-communicative, often forgetting to send emails to say when he won't be available or why he'll be holding the turn for one or two or six days. And he sometimes says he'll send a turn at such-n-such a time, only to then delay a day or two or three without apologizing or offering any explanation whatsoever.

If I was a newer player, I might get anxious about the lack of courtesy (sometimes) and the lack of turn around (increasingly often). But in this case it's just proof of tangible progress in reducing the Evil Emperor's will to fight. That's just very satisfying after the "Banzai!" fest of '42, '42, and first half of '43. It's fun to just relax and let the turns come when they may.

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

I think that's a part of the mix. I hike because I love the woods. But one of the pleasures in the testing is that the soreness, the exhaustion, the encounters with ticks and wild boars, etc. prove that we're alive.

The rest I'll go with. The encounters with ticks just prove that we're part of their food chain.

Ticks are hideous. I pulled about ten off yesterday - all crawling, none attached. Spring and early summer are tick season in the south, but the mountains aren't nearly as bad as the piedmont section of Georgia. When I worked in the timber industry in the '80s, there were days when I came home with hundreds of ticks on my clothing. Seriously. Hundreds. It was the stuff of nightmares.

ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake

Yes, time for neutral observers to post some subtle morale-boosting comments for the Empire.

In fairness, John was stretched awfully thin with three games.

But there is a lot of truth in getting pounded day in day out, but the game can still be really fun. Proper mindset.