Tankerace
Posts: 6400
Joined: 3/21/2003
From: Stillwater, OK, United States
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Hold the Philippines, Dutch east Indies and Singapore as long as you can with your dutch and US cruisers, and your Limey BBs. Get as many 1st line troops out of the PI and SIngapore as you can (Australian and Indian Brigades, and regular US army units) once defeat is inevitable (Dec. 20 nearabouts). Early on, get most of your transports out and to Australia, and when the time comes pull back the US fleet in the PI to Australia/Noumea, and the Dutch/Brits to Ceylon.
Try and hold Wake, and commit your CVs Lexington and Enterprise to it. With luck you can knock off a few CLs and a couple of DDs early on.
If you have taken losses at PH, get them to the West Coast as soon as they are seaworthy. It'll be roughly until May before they are all somewhat combat ready, so the sooner the better.
The PI is where the main action is going to be. You can't use your ships there too often, as the enemy will be using lots of Bettys and Kates. However, you can easily intercept APs going for Borneo and Singapore. You have a small potent force early on here, comprising for the US 1 CA, 2 CLs, and 10 4 stack DDs; the Dutch 3 (later 4) CLs, and 6 or 7 DDs, plus 12 PTs, and the Brits a BB, a BC, 4 DDs, reinforcable by a number of CLs and DDs and another BB from Ceylon. Don't sacrifice them, but don't use them piecemeal. If you can do it right, you can nab about 10 to 20 APs with minimal loss. Once the Japanese get a good foothold on the PI though, fight a delaying action and start withdrawing.
With such a potent force, you need to keep a good part of it to form a "fleet in being" after withdrawing, to keep the Japanese from going into the Indian Ocean and delay them from the South Pacific. However, if you "throw them to the wind", you are gonna have to scrap up anything that can float later on to beat off the Japanese.
Submarines
These are going to be your life blood. Deploy the fleet boats (Ps, Salmons, Tambors and later) around the Japanese homeland and China. Deploy the Dutch, British, and US S class subs around the PI and East Indies. Doing this, you can start putting dents in the Japanese war machine, and the more APs you sink, the less offensive ops the Japanese can do.
Also, remember that when Manila and/or Bataan are surrounded, be sure to change over all your Asiatic fleet subs to have home bases in the South Pacific, or PH or other places. If they are in dock and the base falls, they will be scuttled.
The Japanese are going to be expanding. There usual path goes something like this: PI, then Malay, then East indies, and then South Pacific. It might be advisable to creat a good size force (a few CAs, CLs, and DDs) near Nomea, and try to interdict troops landing at Rabaul, Buka, and the Shortlands.
Those are just my tactics, Im sure other people have better ones. Hope they help.
< Message edited by Tankerace -- 7/20/2004 1:55:09 PM >
_____________________________
Designer of War Plan Orange
Allied Naval OOBer of Admiral's Edition
Naval Team Lead for War in the Med
Author of Million-Dollar Barrage: American Field Artillery in the Great War coming soon from OU Press.
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December 41 into 42 as Americans Advice needed. - 
), and, of course, Pearl. 
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