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Hey All,

Interested in some strat talk if anyone will entertain me. BLUF: I'm getting absolutely clobbered at PM as the Allies. I haven't really been threatened on the ground - Got the 5th AUS DIV, a couple base forces and engineers, supporting artillery, AA, etc and they're more than holding their own. However, in the last 2 weeks I've absolutely lost the air war and any semblance of air presence over PM. All 10 carriers, including escorts and various surface combat TF's rolled in and promptly wiped out like 5 squadrons of fighters. Just when I was starting to get some damaged planes back, a night bombardment by a BB TF damaged / destroyed something like 45+ aircraft. Wild.

I now have 5 squadrons with no planes capable of flying on the ground at PM. Airfield service damage is 96+, runway damage 90+. Despite the entire Japanese Carrier force slowly withdrawing after a brief skirmish with the Lexington, Enterprise, and Yorktown, they're still launching huge strikes on PM which further negates any type of damage control / rebuilding my engineers can get done. Also, not sure how, but there's been daily sizeable land based air raids that continue to increase damage to the airfield and damage any aircraft put back into service (majority of raids seem to be coming from the north, and my intel is showing all Sz 1 AF's in that area..). I'm stuck.

My dilemma is I can't bring any additional squadrons in. They only last a day before they're completely mauled, either in A2A by the Zeroes, from landing in the nuke crater, or from AF bombing missions that I subsequently can't defend against. I have 42 damaged aircraft on the ground at PM across 5 squadrons with well trained pilots. The only good thing I have going for me is the vast majority of the planes were damaged on the ground, so my premier pilots are still relatively unscathed.

I have a diversionary raid planned for the Marshalls by the Saratoga TF to hopefully relieve some of the carrier pressure from the area. Other than that and parking the Lexington, Yorktown, and Enterprise off of PM (which I'm very hesitant to do) do I have any other options? Also toying with releasing all my pilots into the reserve pools and just disbanding all 5 squadrons on PM to see if that will decrease the amount of daily bombing raids and give my AF a chance to come back from oblivion. I don't want to lose those squadrons for 4 months, but it's not like they're doing much good except bleeding aircraft at this point anyway.

Interested in your thoughts

Possible to sneak more AA in via fast transport or air? Doesn't sound like you'll be able to contest the skies for a while, but try to make his bombing runs as operationally expensive as possible -- bring in as much AA as you can, keep it supplied, and let those units and the slow gears of math and attrition do their thing.

edit: disbanding or withdrawing means you'll lose half the damaged planes, but getting half back is better than getting them all pounded to scrap during a prolonged bombing campaign, you know?

Hikaru wrote: Tue Feb 24, 2026 9:43 pm Possible to sneak more AA in via fast transport or air? Doesn't sound like you'll be able to contest the skies for a while, but try to make his bombing runs as operationally expensive as possible -- bring in as much AA as you can, keep it supplied, and let those units and the slow gears of math and attrition do their thing.

edit: disbanding or withdrawing means you'll lose half the damaged planes, but getting half back is better than getting them all pounded to scrap during a prolonged bombing campaign, you know?

Honestly I can't think of any better options than that! I've played another 4-5 turns and the bombing just hasn't slacked off at all. Time to airlift every AA gun I can find in OZ into the kessel. I agree about the planes too. better to cut my losses and spend some PP to bring some of those PS/FS in to follow up once it slacks off.

I was very, very close to running my carrier groups up the coast and sneaking a quick strike against Lae. Decided against it when 27 of my Devastators failed to score a single hit on an unescorted AK. 0 confidence lol. Safe to say the carriers would get absolutely chewed to bits for no effect.

You won't be able to airlift in anti Aircraft guns. What you can do is load up as much carrier fighters As you can and use them to cover a task force to bring in anti aircraft units. Make sure that you have plenty of naval support there too. If you don't , bring it with you....GP

btd64 wrote: Tue Feb 24, 2026 10:27 pm You won't be able to airlift in anti Aircraft guns. What you can do is load up as much carrier fighters As you can and use them to cover a task force to bring in anti aircraft units. Make sure that you have plenty of naval support there too. If you don't , bring it with you....GP

Yes sir.. was just scratching my head trying to figure that out, so thank you for saving me some time tonight. I do have a couple carrier fighter squadrons in Noumea. Going to give that a go here in the next couple turns once the KB breaks off, looks like they faked me out near Milne and turned back to PM.

There was a similar post a few months ago from another player struggling to hold on to Port Moresby. There might be some ideas there.

https://forums.matrixgames.com/viewtopic.php?t=413001

Are you playing against a human or a computer?

Those LBA bombers are coming from Rabaul.

You can fly in 40 mm Bofors . . .

If his fighters trash yours, let his aircraft eat AA ammo . . .

Bo,

Definitely some good stuff in there, but it seems like I'm pretty secure in holding PM at the moment (at least until the supplies dry up). I pretty much did what you recommended and prepared it for a siege before I got my squadrons rocked.

I know without air superiority and with the AF / supporting infrastructure in ruins it's only a matter of time before supplies start to dwindle tho.

Ranger Joe,

Playing against the AI, 1128 build and the stock scen 1. I've started to mobilize my AA in prep for a quick in and out at PM, but there's so much naval and air cover in the area I don't think it's viable. I've got some transport planes teed up in townsville so I think that'll be the play moving into June.

I know scripts are scripts and there's only so much the AI can do, but i did end up running a diversionary raid and watched some CV's break off towards Truk in response. Probably coincidence but still pretty cool. I've been prowling the Coral sea with the Lexington and was lucky enough to smack the Yamato last night. That seems to have done it for the rest of the Japanese carriers and they've pulled out. So the opportunity to bring the AA in is coming up soon.