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I am a bit confused here. In scen 17 and 19, can the automatic victory hexes be taken at any time for a win or only after January 1st?

Uhhh....any of my opponents. Ignore this post.

Only after January 1st. Otherwise I would have won my current PBEM game already...

Hi, Captured anytime. Checks begin on 1 Jan 43

That's more precise, thnx Mogami.

Take the base early and cling to it til Jan 1st - that's what I tried with Luganville. Now I have two Divisions starving down there which I cannot supply and cannot evacuate and its only Nov 42...

Hi, I think TV is a better base for Auto victory then L'ville. I've fought off 3 L'ville attacks so far as allies (Japan captured the base twice but I was able to recapture prior to 1 Jan 43.
Townsville on the other hand will usally have around 50k supply when captured. Is out of range of medium bombers from Brisbane and can support a decent number of fighters (go ahead and take Charter as well)
If the Japanese can move 100k troops there the allies can not recapture the place (Arto proved this to me)

When you say 100k troops, what number(s) are you using?

A IJA regiment has something like 2.2+k INF and 4.4+k second line troops. Does this count as 2.2+k or 6.6+k?

Originally posted by BillBrown
When you say 100k troops, what number(s) are you using?

A IJA regiment has something like 2.2+k INF and 4.4+k second line troops. Does this count as 2.2+k or 6.6+k?

Hi, That would be 6.6k If Japan can get 5 div to TV it is very hard to root him out prior to 1 Jan 43. He can't carry that much all at one time. So he captures TV in August (or there abouts) and spends the rest of the game hauling troops (and supply)
(Note it is possible for the allies to dislodge 100k Japanese just not prior to 1 Jan 43. And TV is a much better hex to defend in compared to Lunga. with the exception the allies can walk to Townsville)

I think Rabaul and Shortlands should be made auto victory bases for the allies. (If Japan piles everything in TV SOPAC should be able to exploit the situation. (unless SOPAC is set to help recapture TV)

That is a lot of troops considering that the 8th Area Army only gets 4.3 divisions in that time frame. You would have to rob at least one division from 17th Army, not to mention the 7 Base Forces you would need for TV alone plus 7 more for C-T. It doesn't leave much for other duties. Maybe I need to revise my plan.

Originally posted by Mogami
Hi, That would be 6.6k If Japan can get 5 div to TV it is very hard to root him out prior to 1 Jan 43. He can't carry that much all at one time. So he captures TV in August (or there abouts) and spends the rest of the game hauling troops (and supply)
(Note it is possible for the allies to dislodge 100k Japanese just not prior to 1 Jan 43. And TV is a much better hex to defend in compared to Lunga. with the exception the allies can walk to Townsville)

I think Rabaul and Shortlands should be made auto victory bases for the allies. (If Japan piles everything in TV SOPAC should be able to exploit the situation. (unless SOPAC is set to help recapture TV)

Putting that much in Townsville doesn't leave much to keep anything else.

Do you write off Shortlands to attempt this stategy?

No, but 17th army only gets 3.3 divisions plus some garrisons and SNLFs. You do not have much to defend with, you had better win the air and naval battles or its lights out.

Originally posted by BillBrown
No, but 17th army only gets 3.3 divisions plus some garrisons and SNLFs. You do not have much to defend with, you had better win the air and naval battles or its lights out.

So decisively defeating the USN carrier force is a pre requisite.

I have seen PM taken without a decisive carrier battle, but no sense in trying TV until you have a decided naval advantage it seems, or you get it someplace else.

To me the problem with TV as a target for auto-victory is that it is a all or nothing deal. If you don't succed the Allies will be in Truk very soon.

Well, then at least you are spared the agonizing defense against the ever strengthening Allied forces.

Thats a point I've been mulling over. As a Japanese player is it better to go for it all early, and win or lose gloriously, or is it better to build a defense in depth and hang on as the allies slowly grind you down?

I don't really like the auto victory idea very much as I don't believe that such occurences would have had much affect on the over all war effort. Oh sure further advances by Japan would have lenghtened the war a bit but I don't believe it would have been by an amount of time that would have affected the final outcome significantly. On the other hand I realize that wargames often need abstract methods for measuring success.

At this point I've only played the early months of Scernario 17 and have not yet experienced the allies of 1943. Thats why I'm still undecided about this question.

I don't like the automatic victory idea either. It generates strategies totally unrealistic.

Would be far better for me to have a rule like 'any turn you own Luganville after 1st Jan 1943 you score 50 victory points' for example. Or 100, or anything. These points are not lost when you lose the base.

So the Japanese could not throw everything in this attempt. Because if he holds Townsville for one month, for example, he wins 3000 points more. That could be enough to make the Allied player recognize his defeat in the game, not in the war. Or the Allied player could take the challenge and attack the rest of the map that should be underdefended. And retake TV because his opponent is scoring 100 points a day while doing nothing.

Or at least, without changing too much the rules, automatic victory works for Japanese only if they still held Shortlands, Rabaul, Wewak AND Truk.

If 100 000 Japanese troops are starving in TV in December 1942, it is far more interesting for the Allied commander to seize Rabaul than to attack them.

Remember the rule. They most certainly cannot be starving. The must be extremely well supplied.

One of the advantages of going for one of the bigger bases is you generally capture it with tons of supply. Using too many troops puts you in the situation where this supply gets eaten so fast that you do not get an auto victory.

Also, capturing Townsville to gather points in the full expectation that the expeditionary force is going to be annihilated can not be called a "realistic strategy".
The auto-victory rule gives the Japanese hope -- something they sorely need.

If 100 000 Japanese troops are starving in TV in December 1942, it is far more interesting for the Allied commander to seize Rabaul than to attack them.

I agree. IMHO it doesn't really matter how much success the Japanese have in 1942. If they could have taken Hawaii, or invaded Austrailia, or even California, the final outcome still would have been the same. There was no way Japan could match the industrial output of the U.S., or even come close for that matter.

Also, capturing Townsville to gather points in the full expectation that the expeditionary force is going to be annihilated can not be called a "realistic strategy".

I'm not sure I can agree. Isn't this exactly what happened at
Iwo Jima, and Okinawa, and to a lesser degree at many other locations across the Pacific starting at Guadacanal. I suppose one could argue that it wasn't the Japanese strategy to leave behind garrisons commited to suicidal defenses, that this situation was forced upon them by the allied strategy, but in the end this was the result.

Industrial Might is one thing. Political will is something entirely different. One can loose the war either way.

The point behind the auto victory is that Japan has made enough progress to cause re-thinking of the "Europe First Policy" at a political level due to (a) embarrassment & (b) political pressure by Allies.

Forcing the Allies to take Japan more seriously then Europe should be considered a success for Japan.

No one is debating the final outcome as it is quite obvious that even without the Industrial Might of the USA, fighting a war on your own land is always a loosing proposition. You've got to take the fight to the other guys land to be effective otherwise it is your factories and ports and Industrial Might under the gun.

Since the USA never felt any of this, it could continue to ramp up exponentially. Germany, England, Russia, etc, were all too busy rebuilding from constant damage to actually build up. The USA got to sit back and fight the war on their Allies turf. I am not belittling their contribution, just pointing out that production values are dramatically different when bombs are falling on your head constantly.

The USA has not actually had to deal with that type of situation since the their own civil war.