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With significant reliance on land based aircraft I managed to knock out most of the Japanese CVs relatively early in Scenario 17. At the same time I kept my CVs out of harms way most of the time, darting in to savage transport convoys from time to time. By July I had Port Moresby and Lunga secure and expanding. My 6 carriers were now able to stand up to the aircraft at Rabaul and perform sorties north of Shortland to pounce on convoys in the area. Eventually I had things built up enough to consider an invasion and chose Kavieng. I think normally this would be untenable, but my large carrier group is able to dominate the theatre and I could escort the invasion force (and any re-supply efforts) right past Rabaul. The invasion went off relatively easy and it took no time for the 1st Marines Div to overwhelm a couple engineer units. Resupply and reinforcement has gone well also, with only sporadic air strikes from Rabaul which have caused neglible damage.

The best part of this operation is that now I can reach out with my level bombers and interdict all the shipping from Truk. In combination with assets at Port Moresby and Lunga, there are very few sea lanes that aren't covered by friendly air. As an example, the AI sent a large surface force (2BB 5CA) to bombard Lunga. It was met by my own surface force (1BB 8CA) and traded blows. In contrast to my ships (which immediately docked and underwent damage control for the loss of a single cruiser) the enemy group had to head back north, hammered nearly the entire way and trailing disabled/sunk ships. My goal is to destroy all the Japanese transport assets and eventually starve the enemy bases. I'll post the results.

-Scouters

I'm interested in how this will go on. Normally, the Japanese player should have no trouble in getting Kavieng back with a determined move. My fear is though, that the AI will not be able to "see" the extreme strategic importance of Kavieng and will plodd along, thereby loosing its supply convoys in short due. I really hope I'm wrong, though.

Hartmann

PS: I'm beginning to think about some more house rules for my future games against the AI. One of the most pivotal ones is

"Don't do anything you wouldn't dare to do against a human opponent".

At the moment, I'm still testing things, too, though.

At this point in the game the Allies have such a lead in carrier power that I think even a human opponent would have found it very difficult to effectively oppose the invasion. That being said, I think you have a valid point - there's little doubt I would never have been able to achieve such supremacy facing a human opponent. It will be interesting to see how the AI responds to this incusion.

-Scouters