obvert
Posts: 14050
Joined: 1/17/2011 From: PDX (and now) London, UK Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: John 3rd June 8, 1943 Aleutians The weather clears over Dutch Harbor and the Kido Butai throws every Jill it has at the anchorage. The TB are set for 11,000 Ft Bombing. Three successive waves attack: 181 Zero--96 Jill, 13 Zero--83 Jill, and 14 Zero--37 Jill. They find an anchorage crowded with shipping AND CRAPLOADS of Flak Guns. Recon showed 4 units present here and they all appear to be heavy flak units. Jill after Jill is blasted. It is terrible to watch the cherry blossoms fall. Nearly SIXTY planes are blown out of the sky. Luckily only 35 pilots die. This is bad but not horrible. Even as the planes fall, their bombs find targets throughout the anchorage. A summary of 12 AK, 5 LST, and 3 AP are hit. Two of the LSTs sink and several others will probably join them. Stung by the unexpected resistance--and badly in need of fuel--KB retires towards Attu and the tender ministrations of 8 AOs. Thoughts: 1. OUCH! 2. OUCH!! 3. I have stewed all day over the question of should KB stay here? The answer is no. We've slowed/stopped the expansion in time for reinforcements to arrive. The remaining bases are safe and LBA can deny Dan further trouble. After fueling, Kido Butai will head back to Saipan. There they shall get some R&R, train, and wait. Several CVs need their upgrades and just might pull them out to do this. I'm not an endgame guru, but there are people here who have played that part of the game successfully. They can help you get ready for it. I can just warn you about some of the mistakes I made going toward 45 and how they screwed me up in the endgame. This is the kind of thing that I think fits into an early war, non-strategic tactical move in your use of the KB which at this stage becomes a more serious mistake. Sorry to be harsh, but I'd for one like to see this game go to the end, and for you to be successful in getting Japan there your use of the KB and other assets will have to alter sightly. Your thoughts about defending rather than attacking, or re-invading, will have to develop. You have to be willing to give non-essential territory and hope to take a tithe for it every time. The less he knows about what you're doing and what you have and where it all is the longer his prep takes, the more chances you'll have to fight him on your turf, and the more chances you'll have to thwart the next invasion. So ports strikes should be seriously off limits in this mod with the DBB flak against the Allies. You not only lost all of the pilots, but lost an opportunity to make him have to consider a fully stocked and ready KB was there and able to thwart any next efforts. You also lost a portion of the VPs you harvested the day before.
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"Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm." - Winston Churchill
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