Matrix Games Forums

Well it is mid March 1943 and I am well established on New Gu9inea. I have Woodlark Island maxed out and well supplied. It is now full of Medium bombers with a couple squadrons of SBD's and Avengers for close work. I have taken the entire Lae cluster and have succeeded in cutting off virtually all traffic by the Japanese to the remaining New Guinea bases. The woodlark base is hammering Shortlands and has isolated Lunga. My question is what now? Should I continue my blockade of Wewak and all or should I move up and try and take it? Should I take Tulagi and strangle Lunga? I have a nice base at Gavigama but that is my closest base to Lunga. I believe I have sufficient forces to take both Wewak and Tulagi, but taking Lunga would be exceptionally costly. My other option is to take Tulagi and get some planes in there and or build an instant base in the island chain between Shortland and Lunga. I am definatly looking to starve Lunga. The other option would be to invade Buin, it has a good garrison but, I have two full Marine divisions I could throw at it. Any suggestions? Oh I am not planning to do any invasions or serious ops for at least another month. I need to let my Transports repair a bit. Also I want to set up some large supply depots in woodlark and Gili-Gili to support any plans.

BTW when does the F6F start to show up?

UncleBuck
TANSTAAFL!

Hi, You can build a size 4 airfield on Irau. This will provide aircover for Lunga and tulagi operations.

Hi... If you can provide aircover for the landings, I personally like the option of taking Russell Islands or Vila. If you land some Sea Bees, I find the airfields build rather quickly, and you'll be right on there LOS. So long as you can supply them of cource And I'm pretty sure that the Wewak will shortly be getting large amounts of air reinforcements- I forget what date- But if you take it, you'll deny this to the Japanese..

Taking Wewak does not stop the reinforcements slated to appear there from arriving - they just apppear at Truk.

Then I wonder if I should take Wewak after they arrive? If I do it now then they get the reinforcements at Truk. If I get them after they arrive at Wewak, I kill them. I know that Wewak is low on supplies as I have plenty of planes at Lae interdicting those sea lanes. On the other hand, if I take Wewak I could keep the planes out of the area by pounding the bejesus out of Rabul and shortlands. Decisions Decisions.
UB

wobbly wrote:Taking Wewak does not stop the reinforcements slated to appear there from arriving - they just apppear at Truk.

- You are right! I assumed that Wewak was treated like Brisbane. So i took a look and the manual. and lookie here! 18.2.. And I thought I read the whole manual.. My bad. Thanks for the correction.. That being said, I still think Wewak and or the Russell/Vila spots are good objectives

UncleBuck wrote:Then I wonder if I should take Wewak after they arrive? If I do it now then they get the reinforcements at Truk. If I get them after they arrive at Wewak, I kill them. I know that Wewak is low on supplies as I have plenty of planes at Lae interdicting those sea lanes. On the other hand, if I take Wewak I could keep the planes out of the area by pounding the bejesus out of Rabul and shortlands. Decisions Decisions.
UB

IIRC only aircraft are slated to appear at Wewak - you will have to go through the usual rigmarole of squashing an airbase in order to stop them from just flying away.

Hi, if the Jap. AI has a nice large base at Shortland, I would try to take Lunga next and then Shortland. If you can keep his bases suppressed by B-24/B-17 based at Lunga (as soon as your Marines captured it), you need not to worry too much about G4Ms based at Rabaul/Shortland. And with Shortland at your mercy you can hammer Rabaul. But keep in mind that SBDs from Lunga cannot reach Shortland!
What's about the Jap. carriers? Are they still a threat for your invasion?
What can the AI throw at you? Betty/Nells, BBs/CAs or even many CVs with trained aviators?
What are your primary intensions (besides of winning )? Are you going straight for Rabaul or do you want to use the "backdoor" Kavieng?

IIRC the first F6F Sqds. will arrive in first week of July/43.

In one scenario (when jap CVs were severly crippled/sunk) I invaded Buka or Bonis (northwest coast of Bougainville) - both can be expanded to airfield sizes of 4 - without taking Shortland. My 4E bombers kept Shortland/Rabaul suppressed and I could use SBDs from Bonis/Buka to decrease the size of Jap freighter-pool reinforcing these bases quite effectively

bye, Gecko

Hi I agree with a number of the writers. With the number of Seabees you have you can take Irau (lets you use 2E bombers and SBDs to surpress/starve Lunga) and then Tulagi and Russel and quickly build airfields on each. With Woodlark you'll have 4 size 4 airfields or space for 800 aircraft. Even if the Japanezse have all their CVs left they aren't likely to approach once these bases reach size 2 and can launch SBD and TBF squadrons. Then just move up the chain, skipping the strong points. Munda, Buna/Buka, Gazmata/Kavieng are all useful depending on troop strength.

Wewak is worth taking (if left largely undefended) because its worth a lot of points. Its also worth FTing a force to take out Momote (for some reason the AI usually builds an airfield and puts a lot of supplies and fuel there).

ell I took Gasmata last night. It was not in my plan but they had no defense there whatsoever. I am now running Sea Bees in to the new base to build it up. I am going to Strip Buna and move it to Gasmata. I have a Monster SBD/TBF force at Lae and Woodlark has both 2E and TBF/SBD force. I have not invaded Tulagi yet. My trouble is transport, I don't have that much. Between mandatory Supply runs I have enough AP/AK power to transport a reinforced division at a time with 15K of supply. I also marched 6th Marine Regiment to Hoskins. So I have cut the island in half. I have turned the Saratoga into a Fighter base. So I have been escorting my Invasion forces strongly. I have DECIMATED (hehehe); I have badly mauled his carrier planes. I have crippled all of his heavy CV's other than Junyo. IN fact during my invasion Rujyo and Junyo made an appearance. I knocked down all of their strike aircraft, and many Zeros. I did get 2 or 3 1k bombs into the Rujyo. The only threat is coming from Rabul itself. They have quite a few diverted VALS and endless supply of Betties and Nells. I have not had much success in suppressing Rabul with my 4E bombers. I get 50 plane missions and lots of runway hits, but my Morale drops badly.

Wewak is heavily defended, but it has to rely on AG's to get supplies in. In fact every base SW of Hoskins on the Bismark Sea is relying on AG's, that is my private lake Those SBD's and TBF's I mentioned at Lae, they are EXP over 85 for each squadron. There are 60 of them each, and they have had quite a lot of practice. The Japanese merchant fleet is rusting on the bottom. I have over 350 sunk ships against Japan. Most are transports and destroyers. I am planning to bring up my DD forces and start blockading ports. My DD's just started coming back in force after a nice time at the Royal Hawaiian. I was thinking that a TF of 10 DD's with maybe a pair of CVE's along for some air cover.

My subs around Kavenig are having a field day. Then the ones around Truk seem to be fairly good at finishing them off as they try to limp home.

I have no real strategy. I was looking at consolidating Gasmata Woodlark et al. I have the 1st Marine Para at Gavigama waiting to para in on Tulagi, which is undefended, at my first chance. I guess my plan is to then open a base up around Vila, so I can hit Shortlands and keep Lunga cut off. The base at Tulagi will close the outside of the slot as well. I have also been thinking about taking a task group up to one of the islands just off of Truk. Establishing a full division there and start bombing Truk. But that may be a pain to keep supplied with my limited transport ability. I did just se that I now have 30 barges available. If I can figure out where I want to set them up to do CS ops I will do that as well. Oh, I am shuttling supplies into Gilli-Gilli to use as a hub.

Also I have a question. I have started getting P-47c replacements, it is mid march, but I have no P-47 squadrons. I am not due to get any for 77 days. Is there a type of plane that upgrades to P-47? Or am I going to just have an awful lot of replacements?

UB

Quote:

"I have also been thinking about taking a task group up to one of the islands just off of Truk. Establishing a full division there and start bombing Truk. "

I think that Pohnpei Is. and Nauru Is., up near top of map near Truk are 0/0 islands which means that there is a big penalty for building ports and airfields (something like 20 times as long to build). The islands are beyond the range of single engine bombers. With your current state the Japanese won't have any forces left to bomb by the time you get the bases up to size 4 (for your level bombers).

UncleBuck- Game wise the only FG's that will get the P-47 are those that come into the game with it. Historically the 36th fighter sqd traded in there p-39's for p-47's in October of '43. So yeah, you'll have alot of replacement planes lying about. With Gasamata, your now in range of Rabaul for the F4U's. Fighter sweeps with F4U's are fun, so long as your not the Japanese. A few games back I used the P-47's from Gasamata on 100foot fighter sweeps of Kevieng and Rabaul. Many Many jap plane losses and KIA's from strafing- found out later that it could have been from a known bug. Any DD's or APD's you can use to fast transport up some ENG units to Vila, to get the ball rolling?

I took it. It was late in the game and really nothing left for me to take- well shortlands was left, but packed with troops so did the bypass thing. I built up the airfield on Pohnpei Is to a lvl 2. Didn't take as long as i thought, but I had 2 EAB's and 2 SeaBee units on it, and 2 Marine Def Bats for defence. I stationed VMF-213 on it. For some reason the AI insisted on trying to knock out the airfield- like they didn't want me there. Anyway, in a little over 1 month VMF-213 racked up over 200 kills just while being on CAP. I had Rabaul at this point, and based all my B-17/24's on it. Then stationed 2 P-38 sqdrs at Pohnpei for long range escort. It worked. After a few runs what shipping wasn't at the bottom of trunk harbor had flown the coop.

@DJAndrews:
you can't get a 0/0 bsae to level 4 (either port or airfield) . It can be built up to three levels beyond the given max. level. That makes it a 3/3 base that cannot support 2E/4E bombers efficiently.

@UncleBuck:
If there are still plenty of G4M/G3M... what have your P-38 done since october???
Fighting off malaria-mosquitos??
If you still have some P-39 at your hand use them as barge-killers. They are quite good for that purpose

bye, Gecko

Yes I have some APD's and DD’s (man have I got DD's) I also have some LCI's. That’s true about Naru and Phompeniei; I also think I will have trouble supplying them if I do build up there. I am going to land around Villa soon. I just want to get Gasmata up first. I am also toying with the idea of invading the Admiralty Islands and completely cutting NG off. I only have three CV's right now (Sara, Yorktown and Enterprise) along with 4 CVE's, three 31 plane boats and one 28. I am thinking of securing my hold on Gasmata and escort the troops and supplies to Villa. Then instead of heading home, making a foray into the shipping lanes out of Truk. I believe that I have the forces to move around at will in relative safety, but wonder if it is worth the limited risk? I am not getting any of the 4 carriers sitting in Pearl, nor am I getting any more BB's or CA's even though I sent the frail Washington home three months ago. This BB, made a run from Noumea to Gilli-Gilli. IT was at 5 Sys Damage. So I left it at Gilli to repair. I got it to 2 and sent it on a Bombardment run to Lae with North Carolina and a bunch of CA's. Well By the time it got back to Gilli it was at 7 sys damage. I let it heal again but sent it out again at 5 sys to Lae once more. This time it returned to Gilli-Gilli with a sys of 14. SO I sent it to Noumea to get a real repair to 0. Well on the trip to Noumea it went up to 24 sys damage. None of this was from enemy action. So I sent her to Pearl. She is now sitting there, along with some others, but I get Nada.

Anyway; what do I need for a win? Do I have to take Truk, or Rabul?

UB

P.S. I have never played out a full scenario. BTW this is Scenario 25, one from Spooky's site. It is Scenario 19 but with historic ships, i.e. Midway Happened.

Gecko,

My P-38's haven’t been doing much. It has only been recently that they LB's from Rabul have come out to play. The 38's were doing Escort for the Heavies out of Pt. Moresby. I have no 39's left. They are all P-40's. I have had quite a few attacks on bases with P-38's where the Betties come in unescorted and my 38's do not apparently make contact. I have also had several large formations of 38's up, > than 30 of them one time, that intercepted a flight of LB and Zeros and did ok. I have noticed that the quality of the JP Zeros has gone way down.

I was using TBF out of Woodlark to stop the AGS going around Bougainville. They work pretty well as well. Also do not seem to suffer from Morale drops as quickly as do other planes set to 100 feet.


UB