Taxcutter
Posts: 389
Joined: 4/4/2016 Status: offline
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Update: Game date - Nov.1, 1942 So far, so good at Guadalcanal. My initial invasion force is ashore and very well-supplied. My invasion force is almost completely unloaded. a couple more days and i will decamp to get the next lift (the last regiment of the 1st Marine Div. the americal and the 37th need more prep time, but they are prepping quickly with both the SoPac and I Amphib Corps HQ in Noumea. Although he outnumbers me 2:1 with seemingly good combat units, Ironman's LCUs simply cannot work up any decent odds against me. Inexplicably the Ironman script has let KB ignore this invasion. I was afraid it was a potential disaster, (if I were the Japanese player I would have gone for the US carriers and transports) but KB only brushed by once and has seemingly disappeared. Only two transports were sunk and one was a small xAP. Only two combatant shisp were hit and both are on theirway to bigger shipyards and seem to be in no danger of foundering. Still it is a long way to anywhere from Noumea and anything can happen. Ironman's timidity in light of his assets is puzzling. If KB does not intervene, I will eventually push him out of Guadalcanal. Once Lunga is taken it gives me another "point of contact" to grind down his air power. Beyond consolidating my hold on Guadalcanal, the rest of 1942 and the first two months of 1943 I will try to take the Rossel Islands and maybe the Ellice Islands. while on a limited strategic offensive, my fighters stay in a point defense strategy. I am building up a good staff of 80+ experience fighter pilots. At range = 0 my fighter piots are rarely ever killed when shot down. to a great extent, the short-legged nature of my fighters dictates this. I only have one squadron of P-38Fs available right now. I am moving the very experienced 49th FG to Brisbane to re-equip them with P-38Gs. Big picture, my force build-up accelerates about Feb. 1942. By the fall of 1943 I'll be ready to go KB-hunting, and get ready to start invading the Marshalls. Warspite is at 34 FLT and will make Sydney easily. I'll have Sydney knock about 10 FLT off then shift her to Capetown for withdrawal. Honolulu should be available by Feb 1943 at worst. The Great Fighter Grind continues at the India/Burma border but it looks like I may getting the upper hand. I have managed to keep the airframe strength of my P-40K squadrons up but it looks like I can see the end of the P-40E pool. Ironman's Oscar escorts are getting thinner and thinner. In China the reduction of his Kweilin pocket continues. The one-time 80,000 IJA force are now down to 18,000. In a sideshow, I'm knocking on the door to Nanning with three decent (AV= 250+) chinese corps against two weak IJA forces.
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