Parry and Spar, or is it... Reluctant Admiral 4.2 Fulkerson(J) vs Moore (A)

[larryfulkerson]

I received Jim's moves yesterday and right now I'm working on Rob's moves but I thought I'd interrupt that long enough to at least do the
combat stuff from Jim's game. This Tracker Alerts shot is from 22Jan42 and shows the number of ships sunk overnight and what's even
better, a lot of my LCU's finally reached Manila. So I can finally start the beat down of Manila seriously. So the game is moving along
nicely and Jim and I are having a blast.

Jim has moved about 10 CV's closer to the home islands and I expect to lose a lot of my transports and patrol boats but I've got some
backup dispatched and they should arrive there within about three weeks or less I figure. Plus there's the strategic reserve I have
handy, 1 BB that I can use in an emergency but it's looking grim near the home islands.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the latest combat report for those of you interested.

[larryfulkerson]

Jim evidently dispatched some of his smaller boats to annoy my DD's and I brushed them off my sleeve.

[larryfulkerson]

I finally caught up with that Allied TF south of Tarawa and sanitized it.

[larryfulkerson]

There was a night-time minor scurrmish but nobody got hurt this time. At least we've located the Boise.

[larryfulkerson]

I'm going to have to find out who the captain is of my attacking sub and give him a metal for attacking on the surface when there were
so many other Allied combatants around and getting 31 hits on an AK. I need more guys like him.

[larryfulkerson]

Jim has moved at least four subs into home island waters and if that weren't bad enough I've spotted at least two surface groups
approaching the home islands, one of which has multiple CV's. The next few turns could prove to be exciting to say the least. I'm
dispatching some back-up to the area but it'll be at least a week before any of them can get there so I expect to lose quite a few ships
in the interveining days. I can run but I can't hide from Jim's planes and there's not all that much in the home islands to defend every-
thing that is threatened. This was an excellent move on Jim's part. Caught me with my pants down.

[larryfulkerson]

This is the first of two separate night-time ship-to-shore bombardments of Kuantan. Not too much damage was done in this one but
every little bit helps I guess.

[larryfulkerson]

I thought I'd bombard Darwin just to see what's there and see if I could cause some damage and the answer is that I didn't find out any-
thing I didn't know before and no visible damage was done. Oh well, it was worth the effort I guess.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the second of the two ship-to-shore bombardments of Kuantan and this time we scored some helpful hits.

[larryfulkerson]

Jim has posted so many DD's near Midway that I may have to back off my subs before I lose them.

[larryfulkerson]

And as the sun rose above the horizon I did a little mop-up on that Allied TF near Tarawa. I let the DD's run in among the survivors
and machine gun them so we didn't have to pick anybody out of the water.

[larryfulkerson]

And a little more mop-up in the hex next to the last one above.

[larryfulkerson]

I'm attempting to capture a base a little closer to Java so as to facilitate some more captures of the smaller islands nearby. Jim has some
assorted PT boats but so far nothing all that threatening.

[larryfulkerson]

SS Pollack is being a pest near Truk. I'll get him one of these days.

[larryfulkerson]

One of the Dutch subs is still nosing around Singkawang. I'm going to have a problem w/ subs for the rest of the war probably.

[larryfulkerson]

And there was another minor surface scurmish during the day. I seem to have sunk a PT boat.

[larryfulkerson]

There seems to have been a delivery scheduled for Christmas Island. The Luckenback is listed as one of the ships sunk during the day
so I guess maybe it's really gone.

[larryfulkerson]

Palmyra has been the scene for sub action for a couple of days now. I have another sub headed that way.

[larryfulkerson]

I got a hit on another AK coming out of the San Francisco port. That makes about three of them in the past week or so.