Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Well, that's an incomplete understanding of what I'm doing, why I'm doing it, and why knowing my opponent made doing it the surest route to victory.

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Southeast Asia HQ (command HQ, radius 9) under Lord Mountbatten is at Rangoon, 100% prepped for Rangoon. Does that have a positive influence on matters at Moulmein?

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ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

My focus is on the Japanese navy because that makes everything else easier - the choking off of supply/fuel, the taking of big airfields from which to strategic bomb the Home Islands, logistics to maintain things, isolating and later taking important bases, and the elimination of the space in which the balance of John's ships can hide. IE, doing so puts the horse before the cart, where it belongs.

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ORIGINAL: obvert

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ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

My focus is on the Japanese navy because that makes everything else easier - the choking off of supply/fuel, the taking of big airfields from which to strategic bomb the Home Islands, logistics to maintain things, isolating and later taking important bases, and the elimination of the space in which the balance of John's ships can hide. IE, doing so puts the horse before the cart, where it belongs.

I don't dispute that eliminating the IJN will make your job easier. I don't quite understand how you can focus on the Japanese Navy if the Japanese Navy choses not to show up.

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ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

+1

similar to the IJ player stating his goal is to annihilate the USN in '42 ... ok, but the USN has to agree to play for this strategy to work.

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ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Creating situations in which there was high pressure on John to commit his navy was the way I accomplished that. When he declined to respond, though, I just proceeded with the plan.

Since January 1, 1944, John has only committed his navy three times. (The first time, Yamato and Mutsu blundered into range of Death Star; the second he lost ten DDs in the Philippines; the third, he committed KB and bombardment TFs far from Death Star.) Basically, in five months there have only been the highly valued clashes twice. But the objective of destroying his navy doesn't get in the way of pursuing other goals, like taking key bases, building infrastructure, destroying ground units, attending to logistics, and getting ready for the next big clash, whatever it happens to be and wherever it happens to take place.

Destroying the IJN was the highest priority but not the only one.

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ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

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ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

+1

similar to the IJ player stating his goal is to annihilate the USN in '42 ... ok, but the USN has to agree to play for this strategy to work.

Not when you know your opponent as well as I know John. We've played so many times over 14 years that we know each other pretty well.

If I was playing somebody I didn't know well (meaning: anybody else), I wouldn't have known enough to utilize this specific strategy from the beginning of the game.

I've said all these things before, and laid them out in detail. But readers who pop in now and then may miss them and fail to understand the context in which things are said. And I write so much that I'm reluctant to keep repeating these things over and over because I'm already taxing the patience of many readers.

But those who do manage to keep up and read regularly know why I've done what I've done.

You can't set out to destroy the IJN because your opponent may not cooperate? You can if you play John III.

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ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

You seem to have the impression that I spend all my time hunting Japanese combat ships. I can't think of the last time I specifically went hunting, but it was long before calendar year 1944.

But I did engage in a long series of operations from 1942 through the present designed to compel John to act rashly. I felt like that was the surest way to attrition the Japanese navy. And attritioning the Japanese navy was the surest way to victory.

I'm still concerned about the IJN because it's still a force to be reckoned with, especially considering the very long and narrow LOC I'm using. If John was still comfortable and his navy still large, I'd be facing repeated DD/CL raids that would make things much more risky. Therefore, I'd have to slow down a lot while protecting every convoy. But the state of the Japanese navy has made John reluctant to commit it in battle for the past five months. That's been very helpful.

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ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

In 1942, attritioning the Japanese navy is the clearest and surest route to victory. Strategic bombing is a distant possibility and hurting the Japanese economy via fuel and supply is indefinite (you can post fifteen subs in the South China Sea, but whether they hit anything is uncertain and whether anything they hit is carrying anything or is otherwise important is also uncertain).

Damaging enemy ships has a clear and definable impact. Clearing enough of them makes the objectives of strategic bombing and interedicting the main Japanese LOC much more attainable.

That remains the case into 1943.

Every aspect of the game is easier when the Japanese navy is weakened or destroyed.

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Damaged CV Lexington pulled into a port today. All of the aircraft squadrons were pulled off.

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ORIGINAL: BillBrown
And a side note, I would not have RADM Fredrick Sherman in command of a CV, he should be in charge of an Air Combat TF.