crsutton
Posts: 9590
Joined: 12/6/2002 From: Maryland Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: pat.casey quote:
ORIGINAL: crsutton Yep, GJ is like King Midas. From now on anything he touches will turn to gold. Two months, four months, six months....it does not matter. Rader is done for and how GJ does it is not material. He is gonna have a lot of fun no mattter. I have pretty much stepped away from giving him advice. We all should be on Rader's AAR now-giving him our advice. I'm not sure I totally agree. GJ is in a great position and has a number of interesting choices in front of him. Its a situation almost any Allied player would love to be in because of the sheer number of plausible options he has on the table. His plate is full. On the flip side though, the Japanese Army, Navy, and Airforce remain undefeated. Radar caught them out of position and grabbed a *great* piece of real estate, but they're still out there and ultimately have to be defeated to win the game. As others have suggested, the optimal path to wrecking the Japanese armed forces at this point is to go after aircraft production. It does not put any allied strategic assets at risk, and it leverages GJ's position on Hokaido. GJ will lose bombers doing it, to be sure, and he may even wreck his 4E force in the process and take them out of the game for months, but frankly, who cares if he takes out the Japanese aircraft industry in the process? Fundamentally the way you win the game is you wreck Japan's armed forces, and the way you wreck her armed forces it to wreck her economy. All the other operations you launch as the allies, the invasions, the fleet actions, the base building, etc, are all just preamble put yourself in a position to wreck her economy. Now clearly there's more than one way to wreck the Japanese economy, at a high level you can wreck it indirectly by starving it of resources, or you can directly destroy the production facilities. In GJ's case he's positioned for a direct bombing campaign, that's his play. Changing his mind at this point and using Hokaido as, say, a springboard for invasions of Okinawa to cut off Japan from her resources is just a risk diversion imho. It might be a heck of a lot of fun, but it doesn't look to me like optimal play. I see what you are saying but my point is that it is Rader who is out options. Rader has to attack now or he is just plain dead. And he has to attack soon before his industry gets slammed. And it better be damned brilliant. It matters little that Rader is relatively intact because GJ is himself relatively intact. He has saved his carriers and that is the key. I would hate to be the Japanese player and have to attack the Allies in mid 1944 but that is exactly what Rader must do. Of course, Rader can hit a home run. But it is a long shot. My money is on GJ and I don't think it is a bet I can lose.. Except for China, the Japanese ability to win a land campaign is virtually nil at this stage. And Rader's ability to win an air campaign decreases with every passing day. It has to be a naval battle and he has to win big time. And it has to happen soon. Like I said, Hokkaido is an open wound. It can't be ignored by Rader. As a result GJ is in a position to do a lot more damage to Rader at a lot more points on the map. Simply because Rader has no option but to tend to his "Hokkaido problem" If it were me, I would drag it out and have some fun. GJ is living every AFBs wet dream here.... I want to be Greyjoy! I want to have his baby.. Wait...what did I just say?
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