A Road Less Travelled

[Cap Mandrake]

Mid January '42 and you haven't even captured the Boeing plant in Seattle yet? [X(]


Bah, I'm losing interest.

[Quixote]

ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake

Mid January '42 and you haven't even captured the Boeing plant in Seattle yet? [X(]


Bah, I'm losing interest.

Tough crowd around here. [:)]

[Quixote]

January 16-18, 1942

China - Yenan forts to go zero, the end is near. The last 5000 Chinese troops trapped in Sinyang surrender. The 1rst IJA Panzer Army (as Cannonfodder calls them) is pursuing the former defenders of Sian northward towards Lanchow.
Indian Ocean - Port Blair is captured by the 33rd division. Half the Japanese CVs are off of Goa (just south of Bombay), escorting a small landing force destined for here. A base force will land on (hopefully) unoccupied Male island next turn and set up air search.
Malaya - The last Allied base on Malaya is taken (Temuloh.) There are still three or four small Allied units remaining on the peninsula, but all are in the jungle.
Oz - Daly Waters taken by the 8th Tanks. All the Allied base forces surrendered on this drive, so the the Japanese are lonely down here for the moment. In the waters off of Exmouth, Cannonfodder scores his best naval engagement to date on the 17th. A SCTF built around CL Marblehead intercepts (not once, not twice, but three separate times) an IJN AV and two DDs and sinks them all on the third try. About 40 points lost, but you can't win them all.

[desicat]

Mid January '42 and you haven't even captured the Boeing plant in Seattle yet?

Maybe not capture WC cities but if you are playing for Auto-Victory have you considered strategic bombing in Oz? This gets mentioned occasionally but is rarely done.

PJH did do some bombing on the WC in his game against Canoe Rebel. Too gamey?

[Quixote]

I don't think it's too gamey (OK, maybe the West Coast is), but gamey or not I'm not sure it's a worthwhile use of either the KB or of Japanese fuel. If the KB found itself down by Oz in the normal course of the war I might think about it, but I can't see sailing down there just to Strat bomb.

[Quixote]

January 19-22, 1942

China - Yenan falls. The Chinese for some reason retreat SE, directly away from the nearest Chinese bases? The Panzer army continues to roll north to the mountains, with the bulk of the infantry following close behind. Further south, Cannonfodder pulled back into the Changsha pocket, but for some reason also left a very strong garrison at Kukong (the city just NE of Canton. Japanese troops near Changsha have already cut the rail/road line from Changsha to Kukong, and are now marching south to surround and capture Kukong.
Indian Ocean - Goa falls on the 21rst to a tank unit. It was undefended, but the harbor was mined. A single Japanese DD hits a mine, but should survive. Other than continued bombing of the airfield at Madras, things are quiet here. I'll start ramping things back up in this theatre in two or three more days.
Phillipines - Manila falls on January 21rst. Japan had two divisions just sitting in Manila with the Allied defenders for the last four or five days. No Japanese bombardments or attacks, and no Allied probing either. (I was waiting for the Japanese units in Lingayen to march into Clark before ordering and attack on Manila so that the Manila troops would have nowhere to retreat.) I think Cannonfodder assumed that the two Japanese units in the hex were just the little SNLF units I used to walk up from Naga/Legaspi with, and he may not have really looked at troop counts. On the 20th I guess he finally did, since after five turns of nothing he all of a sudden started marching out of Manila. I was hoping to be able to wait two more turns for the troops moving on Clark, but with Cannonfodders movement I didn't have much choice. Given only one Allied combat unit in Manila (but also a lot of support troops), the city was taken on the first deliberate attack.
Noumea - For several turns now, we've fallen into a pattern down here.
Step 1. Allied ships arrive to bombard Noumea.
Step 2. Japanese subs fire torpedoes at these ships.
Step 3. All torpedoes invariably miss.
With one or two exceptions, Japanese subs have done poorly thus far. I was very lucky last PBEM with subs, but I think the law of averages may be catching up to me in this one. C'est la guerre....

[Quixote]

January 23-27, 1942

China - North of Canton, the city of Kukong is captured. Roughly 800AV in Chinese troops get surrounded. Further north, IJA tanks are now one hex from Lanchow.

Java - Slowly working north. Progressed to Malang (one hex from Soerbaja) as of the 27th. Moved the Air HQ from Denpasar onto Java itself (the AF4 base at Loemadjang) though the complete absence of Dutch shipping in the area makes this sort of an afterthought. (Not sure Cannonfodder has anything larger than a PT boat left here.)

Oz - Broome is taken and Mavis's flown in.

NorPac - More (apparent) Allied buildup at Unmak. Japanese subs quit missing everything in sight a couple of turns ago, so we sank an AK or two up here.

Noumea - Very quiet since the last update. Engineers raise Koumac to AF2. Subs sink a couple of tankers transitting the area to the south, but no sign of any other surface or air forces.

Indian Ocean - All the IJA divisions are now fully loaded and at sea. It will be another 4 days before they land. The sequence below should give you a decent idea of where Japan will be landing. Remember, loose lips sink ships - no posting anything silly in Cannonfodders AAR.[:'(] (Kidding aside, it's not so much the sinking ships I'm worried about, it's what he does with all those troops in strat mode railroading their way towards Bombay...)

[Richard III]

Wow !![X(]  First I don`t visit his AAR so let me say here what a Grand Sport he is to stay with the Game at this point...hopefully some of his advisors are telling him it`s well past time to go Last Ditch, and pull back and dig in at Karachi and at the Dutch Harbor - Hawaiian Island chain lines.  

[zuluhour]

You JFBs are so manipulative. [:D]

[Quixote]

ORIGINAL: zuluhour

You JFBs are so manipulative. [:D]

Flattery will get you nowhere Zulu![:D]

Wow[X(] !! First I don`t visit his AAR so let me say here what a Grand Sport he is to stay with the Game at this point...hopefully some of his advisors are telling him it`s well past time to go Last Ditch, and pull back and dig in at Karachi and at the Dutch Harbor - Hawaiian Island chain lines.

Cannonfodder has been a very good sport so far this game. He really has the right attitude to play the Allies in the early going - He still makes the occasional joke when something unlucky happens, he's been complimentary of Japanese strategy so far, and despite all the Allied setbacks he still doesn't seem to be panicking. He hasn't done anything rash with his CVs either, darnit![:'(] So far, so good.


Long day today, so just a short update. The invasion is now one day out. It was partially spotted just this past turn (he's seen the carriers, and one SCTF, but I believe not many of the transports.) Troops will hit the beaches tomorrow...

[zuluhour]

I'm reading both and I complimented him some time ago about his attitude. I wish more of the experienced AFBs would offer advice or at least commiserate with him. In ones first AAR it can be easy to imagine yourself on an island in a sea of your own pixel blood.[:D]

[Quixote]

Zuluhour,
I assume from your post that he isn't getting a lot of advice, or even sympathy. That's too bad - he's a very likeable guy. He really hasn't made any huge errors yet, just minor ones (and we all make our share of those), but if he wants to avoid auto-victory he's probably going to have to do a little better than just not making mistakes for the next year. He's going to have to fight back and make an impact, even though it's still 1942. You're right - some experienced advice might be welcomed.

FYI, Cannonfodder isn't new to PBEM. (I wouldn't have chosen anyone even remotely new to AE to play this type of game against. I waited probably two months before deciding on an opponent.) Cannonfodder did a couple of AARs before this one, but since he was considerably better and/or more experienced than both of his opponents, those AARs didn't last very long. Until we started this game, I get the impression that he was never really challenged much in a PBEM. I've more or less looked at it as my job to change that.[:)]

[desicat]

I'm not sure if any advice would have helped up to this point. Not many players have seen an opening like this and with the way the DEI's fell there really wasn't much he could have done.

Points are currently being made in India and China, with the latter being the only theater where he can put up much of a fight.

The trick here is going to be how CF can leverage the undamaged US Pacific Fleet and his CV's (both US and RN) to either take back some VP bases or destroy some IJN assets.

[Quixote]

Agreed. When you look at the game from a victory point standpoint though, all the targets Cannonfodder can realistically expect to take and hold right now are very low point value targets. He could take back Wake, Tarawa, Tabiteueau, and all of the Aleutian Islands and it would amount to a drop in the bucket. His losses doing this would probably outweigh his gains.
He's going to be stuck trying to either:
A - Do major damage to my fleet, without losing too much of his own fleet, or
B - Taking back at least one high value target (Ceylon, Calcutta, New Caledonia, etc.) also without taking outrageous losses.
Tough assignment there...

[Quixote]

January 29 - February 1, 1942

Oz - Massive battle at Port Hedland, where a 5AV Japanese base force is going to to toe with a 4AV defending base force. (Recon showed this to be empty. We'll see if a small naval bombardment and one air attack will be enough to tip the scales, or if I'll have to divert an SNLF.)

Java - Malang captured on the 31rst. The Japanese are now marching on Soerbaja, but it looks like the Allies are leaving the city in a hurry and heading north - presumably to Batavia.

China - Up north, Lanchow is taken, and the tanks continue to roll. In central China, Cannonfodder found adequate forces to block both the Japanese push from Ichang and the push from Sian headed west towards the central plain. Both Chinese positions are in good terrain and have significant AV. Looks like he's starting to get at least some of China stabilized after a rocky start.

South Pacific - One turn after saying that Cannonfodder would need to start fighting back more and sinking some of my ships, the crafty bugger sent a small SCTF into Luganville. I've been running mostly fast transports into Luganville, Efate, and Koumac for the past week or two, and any of those would probably have done OK against some Allied DDs. Unfortunately I sent in some regular xAKs with a PB escort a turn or two ago. Alas, I'm out about 60 points worth of shipping now. My fault for getting lax, and well played by Cannonfodder in taking advantage of it.

Indian Ocean - Landed at Diamond Harbor against the 6" CD guns, but there weren't many additional Allied units backing them up. A fairly painless landing this time - not much damage across the board, and maybe only one xAKL that will be lost outright. Japan dropped two different airborne units in conjunction with the landings. See below.

[desicat]

He could take back Wake, Tarawa, Tabiteueau, and all of the Aleutian Islands and it would amount to a drop in the bucket. His losses doing this would probably outweigh his gains.

Of course to avoid a Jan 43 auto victory so long as he loses assets at less than a 4:1 VP rate he would be actually gaining ground.

[Quixote]

ORIGINAL: desicat

He could take back Wake, Tarawa, Tabiteueau, and all of the Aleutian Islands and it would amount to a drop in the bucket. His losses doing this would probably outweigh his gains.

Of course to avoid a Jan 43 auto victory so long as he loses assets at less than a 4:1 VP rate he would be actually gaining ground.

If he could realistically do this, then you'd be correct. Let me put it in perspective, though. In our current game, the base points for Wake, Tarawa, Tabiteueau, and the five Aleutian islands Japan hold right now total 18 points. Think as the Allies that you could take them all back for even four times this amount? Lose even four decent xAPs to mines, CD guns etc. and you're already in the hole...

[Quixote]

February 2-4, 1942

Java - Soerbaja falls on the 3rd. Cannonfodder appears to be consolidating his remaining forces around Batavia - no great surprise here.

India - Calcutta falls on the 4th. Half the units in Calcutta moved out the same turn I moved in, heading west to Howrah to gang up on the trapped 1rst Raiders, I assume. The remaining units in Calcutta retreated east. Japanese units are in pursuit of both. At this point it looks like Cannonfodder is doing his best to strat move all his units out of upper Burma before they get trapped there. Smart play, and there's not much I can do about it right now. I'll just have to settle for the troops left in the Irrawady valley and on the trails heading north.

Miscellaneous - The engine pool for the Nakajima 35 surpassed 500 several days ago, so there's one R&D bonus down. Production has been re-started on the Zero and Oscar Ic. Zero pools were still good, but the Oscar Ic pool was empty. The Mitsubishi 32 bonus will take another two weeks at the rate I'm going. The R&D for the George/Frank engine is fully geared up and has already advanced a month. The engine itself should be in production by June '42. Bought out a divsion from Manchuria on the 2nd, which is now in transit to Luzon. When it arrives, the siege there will start in earnest. Also bought out all of the small engineering units in Manchuria. These guys are extremely inexpensive in terms of PPs, and since Japan doesn't have Seabees it never hurts to start using the few engineers they do get sooner rather than later.

[Quixote]

February 5-10, 1942

China - The north has been completely overrun by the Japanese. Sining and Lanchow have both been taken, and a few tank units will continue mopping up the remaining Chinese bases farther north. The rest of China has stabilized somewhat, and reorganization has started for stage two. On the 7th, Japan did lose its first (albeit small) battle in China when hordes of Chinese from Henyang heading flattened a single IJA regiment that failed to get out of the way quickly enough.

Calcutta - Modest expansion in the area. See the picture below. The only item of note is that the railroad from Burma to India has been cut. No easy way out any longer for Allied troops still stuck there.

Java - Steady progress towards Batavia/Bandoeng. Recon indicates that Cannonfodder has split his defense between these two bases, but since I don't have the AV needed here to lay siege to even one of them right now, I'll worry about this later.

Oz - Progress south has stopped at Daly Waters. The Japanese have no designs on Tennant Creek, so this is likely as far as they'll go. To the west, Japan won the tiny battle for Port Hedland, and the rowboat corps dutifully rowed inland across the desert to take Corunna Downs shortly thereafter.

[Cap Mandrake]

February already and San Francisco is still red, white and blue? Bah!