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This thread is for a game between me and my friend Miller. It is not intended, and will not be a in detail AAR.

It will be made up of 99% pictures. Miller is making his own AAR and he can fill in the details. So here is the first post...me and Miller's month of May...or as I like to call it...

The May Massacre!

Hope that sounds dramatic enough. [:D]

Ouch! And I was upset over the losses I took in our game?!

Hi Ike. Rather than have two separate threads I may as well contribute my reports here.

We are playing scn 17 both 100% ship commitment and other usual settings. NO house rules, so pretty much anything goes......

As Ike has displayed in pictures I have had a bit of a beating in the first month. Normally when playing as Allies I am patient but thought I would chance my luck with a carrier raid near Lunga early in the game, hoping to catch his transports. However, I ran into his carriers....

Needless to say I lost both Yorktown and Lexington in return for Shokaku and Shoho, with Zuikaku badly damaged. I would have claimed a draw but he also sank 2 escorting CA's so overall a minor victory for Ike.

My next move was rather silly[8|] Knowing that he had no operational carriers I though it would be a good idea to sneak the American division onto Lunga with an engineer unit to hopefully build up the airbase there and make any attempt to retake it costly.....fine in theory but it did not work out.

As the transports were unloading he sent a large cruiser force, all 6 of his CA's to attack. My covering fleet of 3 CA and 4 DD's were all sunk trying to protect them[:(] As usual the long lance torpedo did most of the damage. All I sank in return was one of his weaker CA's (Aoba). As my transports retreated the next morning they took heavy losses from his Betty's and Nell's, I think I lost 8 or so.

Most of my troops got ashore but with little supply. I sent a couple of FT fleets north to try and land supplies but by bad luck they ran into his cruiser's again.....result half a dozen destroyer's lost and no supplies landed.

He has just retaken Lunga and what few troops I have left there will soon surrender. Elsewhere my a/c based at PM raid Lae and gain experience.....at least my sacrafices at Lunga have held up Ike's forces from attacking in the New Guinea area yet, but he gets his big boys to play with next month [X(]

Not all bad news however. My carrier a/c sank one of his large minelayer's early in the game, always good to sink these as mines are leathal in UV! Zuikaku is currently stuck in Shortlands port and must have very high damage after taking many hits from my B17's attacking her.....even if she survives to get back to Tokyo she will be out of the war for well over a year.

Lets see what June has in store (more pain for me probably).

I suppose because Miller is not making his own AAR thread I should at least make a somewhat serious post here on my strategy going into this game.

Going into this game I knew Miller was a very good and well experienced player. I didn't know much else besides this reputation. So I went through and read his AAR reports to get more information on him, a profile if you will. I read his AAR thread in his game with Canoerabel.

Reading through that AAR I picked up Miller likes being aggressive.[:@]

So here I have a very good and well experienced player who likes being aggressive. What will he do? He will try to hit me from the start with a quick knock out blow was my answer.

Normally in most games I send in the  transports down to Lunga & Tulagi right at the start...but this game I didn't. Because he is so aggressive and believed I knew what he was going to do I waited on this to trap him. This is why when Miller game up with his carrier force looking for my transports he ran into my warships instead.

Once that battle was over and his carriers out of the way I sent some troops down to occupy Lunga & Tulagi. Tulagi was empty and captured but I discovered a Rgt. of the ¨American Division¨ on Lunga. This was the 17th I believe. I then calculated roughly the speed it would have taken to get that unit there at the most fast speed. I believed that unit landed with no supplies as to get it there that fast he wouldn't have had time to get supplies loaded.

I went to make available all my warships available to blockade Lunga and load my available regiments at Truk to capture Lunga and destroy that Regiment.

So I did, and after a few nightime surface battles I discovered he was landing all 3 Rgt`s of the ¨American Division¨ and a Engineer unit. Well my superior Cruisers and Destroyers with those deadly torpedoes in a series of night time surface actions savaged his cruisers, destroyers and tranports. As well, Nells and Betty's assisted.  Once the Japanese from Truk got there in force the outcome was never in doubt.

All 3 Rgt's of the ¨American Division¨ have been destroyed along with his 200 aviation support engineer unit and the Japanese have a size one airfield on Lunga.

It is no great stretch to say the starting Allied fleet was destroyed in 3 weeks and 1/4 of their total land strength in four.

How this game will end up I don't know but certainly this is as good a start as I could have hoped for.

[&o]

You know, don't you, it's actually the "Americal" division. The Cal part referes to New Caledonia where the 23rd was formed. 

Exchanges in mine and Miller's emails have been.... interesting. [:D]
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Hi Miller, how are you?
So here is my first turn.
We are playing no house rules yes?
So you do your worst to me and I do my worst to you and we have no problems with it.
Vale-Tudo, suerte.

You made the exacty 1st move I would do as Allies I think.


And what goes on with S-38?

Ahh...but S38 was hit. Most times I don't trust those reports. Let me write that down in my pad....¨---S38 hit may 3rd---report confirmed by Miller---¨

But on you saying a the word ¨defeat¨, I don't trust you. You may not have left the area. I know you have some cripples and I'm still hunting, maybe the weather will clear up and I find them.

What an Allied disaster this operation has been.

(Hmmmm) Bombarding Shortland? Shokaku is not in Shortlands...Shokaku is not going to Shortlands. Shokaku just docked in Rabaul safe as as a baby sucking on its Mama´s breast.

Tell me, and how goes Astoria and Dewey ¨scratch on the paint?¨

I wish I could have seen your face when they that message came up!

So, scratches of paint and mama's tit. So we both are liars.

Oh my god! You did land a Bde! Je! Je! Je! Grrrrr....

My units retreated and 200ac operating off Lunga! Hahahaha!

Your men will be begging the Japanese to throw them over some bags of rice in a couple weeks they are so hungry.

Land 2 Divisons? For what? If anything I'm thinking about landing the Red Cross to feed those poor souls.

A man is going to be able to walk from Quadalcanal to Tulagi Island on the sunken hulks of Allied ships without getting his feet wet.

My Oh my....what a tangled web we weave

Tell me....have you ever seen those Word War 2 pictures of surrender Allied soldiers getting their heads cut off with samurai swords?

Your not still trying to sink Zuikaku with those bombers are you? It's never going to happen.
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Hi Sequoi, I didn't know that. Those are American in the Division yes?

Yes, three seperate U.S. regiments rushed to the South Pacific after Pearl Harbor and formed into a division.  

By the way it's not Quadalcanal, but rather Guadalcanal.

Similiar or not?

Does that whale have 99 sys damage?[;)]

maybe after all the splinters it will have from eating that boat!

Well after all the action of last month, a very quiet June.

Ike is busy building up Lunga and Irau, sending unescorted transports....my subs have had a great time......sinking 10 or so without loss.

He still has not made any move against New Guinea despite having just about all his big toys to play with....although I suspect he will move on PM within the next month.

Much more to report at the end of next month I reckon....[:-]

Ike is busy building up Lunga and Irau, sending unescorted transports....my subs have had a great time......sinking 10 or so without loss.

¨D@mn the torpedoes....full speed ahead!¨ [:D]

Who said that by the way? Can´t remember. [&:]

That was Union Admiral David Farragut at the Battle of Mobile Bay, 1864.

That was Union Admiral David Farragut at the Battle of Mobile Bay, 1864.

How could he have said that? They didn´t have submarines in 1864...did they?

Ahhh...another quote, and i know who said this one.

¨I`ll be back¨

What we now call mines, they called torpedoes

Yes they had subs back then,  They had spar torpedos.  The CSS Hundley operated in the harbor of Charleston South Carolina.

Not much to report this month. Ike chose to take the overland route from Buna to PM, which gave me plenty of time to evacuate most of the air and ground units there. His transports are very busy in the usual places, around the north of new guinea and Munda/Lunga/Irau.
 
He has lost a few more transports to subs and a/c from northern Aus, I cannot recall losing a single ship this month. I think August will be more of the same. Late 42 is usually when the real action begins.....

JULY 1942

So far in these PBEM games I have used May-June to establish a heavy presence in the Solomon chain, get things starting there, then begin my operations against New Guinea in July.

This game was no different. At the beginning of the month I began an air assault against Port Moresby while making fast speed transport runs into Buna y Dobadura.

An initial mine sweep found no mines at either location so that was a plus. I did run into an engineer unit at Buna. What it was doing there I don´t know. Anyways, as I was landing Regiments it was quickly destroyed.

Once my initial landing force was down a submarine dropped a SNLF recon team into PM to see exactly what I was going to have to work with. After getting Allied strength the unit retreated to Buna.

The ground force was substantial with a very large airforce so at first it seemed Miller was wanting to slow me up a while. As the month went on however he saw my technique, I wasn't making any mistakes and was giving his airforce very little opportunity to do serious damage to warships so he wisely began an evacuation.

Japanese take Port Moresby with no thrills end of the month of July.

yes, Ike did the same recon tactic in our game, and it is quite effective. Glad to see you are pulling your troops out instead of giving him thousands of POW's.