Cuttlefish
Posts: 2454
Joined: 1/24/2007 From: Oregon, USA Status: offline
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I propose to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer. - U.S. Grant: Dispatch to Major General Halleck, from Spotsylvania Court House, 11 May 1864 7/19/1942 – 7/22/1942 Our game is now patched up to the 1.00.95 official version. On with the war! The siege at Noumea continues. He either had a huge stockpile of supplies there or is managing to fly in enough to keep his troops in beans and bullets. I haven’t managed to intercept anything flying in, though, so I don’t know. But I am going to keep it up until he either lifts the siege by force or his units surrender. There are more units on the way. I have broken off attacking lately because on of the divisions there, the 53rd, had become almost entirely disrupted. It is back at La Foa now, resting. I’m not sure why it got into such a state; my other two divisions there are in good shape. When the 53rd is back on the line along with the new troops I hope to compel a swift surrender. Burma: I am getting more and more worried about this area. Aside from infiltrators there are lots of troops at bases just over the border and if Q-Ball initiates a general advance I will be hard-pressed to stop it. The Imperial Guard Division is disembarking at Rangoon now, however, and more divisions are on the way, so my position should be more secure soon. I don’t think I have to worry about amphibious assaults down the coast yet, maybe not for a long while, but it bears thinking about. I should at least start building up the forts at places like Tavoy and Victoria Point. You can get forts to level 3 in this game practically overnight but getting forts above that requires a lot of time and engineers. I like this change from WITP a lot, by the way, even though I think Japan is the side primarily affected. Down Under, Redux: I am sending mini-KB, along with the Nagato/Fuso battle group, on a long run through the Indian Ocean to the southern Australia coast. They will wind up at a point between Exmouth and Perth, close enough to the coast to attack anything transiting the area but far enough from any major air bases to avoid attack. The move is not without risks. My last foray Down Under stung Q-Ball a bit and it isn’t beyond the realm of possibility that he might have some carriers in the area. The RN carriers in particular seem like a possibility. But no risk, no reward, and maybe it will provide some of the those fireworks Capt. Harlock wants. Under the Sea: no sooner did I put my newly trained ASW air groups into operation around the Home Islands when not one but two Sallys put reported putting bombs into SS Gudgeon off Sasebo. Could be fog of war, of course, but it’s an encouraging sign. I have the groups flying at 60% ASW, 20% rest, altitude 2000 feet. I need to keep an eye on them, as flying at that frequency and altitude seems to generate a fair amount of fatigue. The Shipping News: as I mentioned earlier in a reply to Mike Solli I have some of the Std-class xAKs converting to TKs. By now a total of 10 are undergoing conversion, with the first group due back in action any day. These will join the smaller TKs in the DEI, hauling fuel to Singapore. Right now I have three TFs hauling fuel from Palembang, one from Miri, and one from Balikpapan. I will add another TF to the Balikpapan run and assign another to work where ever fuel is piling up. Right now there is no way I can haul fuel away faster than it accumulates. Resource and HI levels are slowly but steadily climbing again. It takes a lot of work. Hauling resources is almost kind of a mini-game in itself. I was looking at converting some of the t-xAKs back to cargo hauling. For the moment I am not too pinched for cargo space, though, so I have decided to put it off. I’m still moving large numbers of troops around and the extra troop capacity is handy. Later, when my posture is more defensive and subs are taking their toll on my convoys, I will probably do these conversions.
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