Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: crsutton

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ORIGINAL: MakeeLearn

Some of the best smallmouth bass fishing in the world. Less than a 2 minute walk from the house. Bald Eagles fish there too, along with otters, kingfishers...ect.... somewhere down the line I try to get in.

Don't know why I gave up fishing. Have not been out in a decade. Smallmouth are the best in my opinion. Probably because you can fish for them in streams that don't require a boat. Funny, I spent ten years on merchant ships and I hate being in boats. I like walking and wading around in water. Largemouth are just to easy.

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ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

The Chinese units have decent experience, decent commanders, and about half with '43 squads and half without.

The real challenge is closing the perimeter around the pocket without letting the enemy units escape. It's far more complicated and time-consuming than it looks. For instance, if I had four good Chinese corps in a single hex moving into a Japanese held hex...and if the Japanese units left just before the Chinese arrived...it could turn into weeks of delay.

Here the Japanese are confined to two contiguous hexes. That means I have to hold eight hexes to maintain the pocket. Hold those eight while also deploying units to advance through bad terrain.

It's complicated but it'll get done eventually.

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ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

2/4/45

31st Div.: This unit has mainly served in garrison roles due to '41 squads. It participated in the landings at Gunzan and has upgraded.

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ORIGINAL: witpqs

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ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

The Chinese units have decent experience, decent commanders, and about half with '43 squads and half without.

The real challenge is closing the perimeter around the pocket without letting the enemy units escape. It's far more complicated and time-consuming than it looks. For instance, if I had four good Chinese corps in a single hex moving into a Japanese held hex...and if the Japanese units left just before the Chinese arrived...it could turn into weeks of delay.

Here the Japanese are confined to two contiguous hexes. That means I have to hold eight hexes to maintain the pocket. Hold those eight while also deploying units to advance through bad terrain.

It's complicated but it'll get done eventually.

A unit in a hex cannot cross an internal hex side owned by the enemy. An internal hex side is owned by whichever side last crossed into the hex across that hex side. Of course the side which had a unit in the hex with no enemy present starts out owning all the internal hex sides.

So if you manage to own all the internal hex sides the only way for the enemy troops to escape by land is another enemy unit comes to their rescue and opens a hex side. But closing all hex sides is very time consuming, especially the fewer units you have available for the task.

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ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Yesterday or Saturday, I provided excerpts of a message from John. I should've included the full message, because the redacted part is significant.

It's clear that he is under the impression that the Allies will/have to invade Japan, sooner or later. I don't think he has a good feel for the points ration, how fast the Allied lead is increasing, and how long the game is likely to last. He's focused on a ground war in Korea that will be largely irrelevant. It's the air war that matters, and that's a near- and medium-termed proposition.

While I'm working the near- and medium-term aspects hard, I'm not ignoring the long-term. If things drag out, the Allies will be in position to attend to Singapore (that campaign would probably bring 25% of the points needed for auto victory today, maybe more). But I'll never invade Japan, unless it turns out I cannot win the war by strategic bombing, taking China, and eliminating hundreds of thousands of troops in Asia. I'm pretty sure I can.

John's full message:


You’ve fully activated the Manchurian/Korean troops.  Never thought in a million years they would actually get a chance to fight.  This WILL be fun to watch.  Part of me—in the AAR---talked about your China move that it would be telling at four points:
 
1. Form the coastal lodgment and use it to directly jump into Japan by Nov 1944.  OR
2. Advance deeper into China and take all of Southern China to the Yangste.  Japan by February 1945.  OR
3. Advance and take all of China but stop short of crossing into Manchuria.  Japan Landing by May 1945.  OR
4. Stay and take the entire Mainland.  No Japan Landing until late-Summer 1945.
 
I hoped for this so the Mainland could continue to develop new ‘toys’ and rebuild destroyed units.  Looks like it is Option 4 so it should be interesting to see just how much TIME and Casualties this decision costs.  You get AFs right next to the Homeland but the troops will be occupied for quite a while.
 
Should be fun to see how it plays out…

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ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

2/3/45

Battle of Gunzan: Mixed shock attack and deliberate attack by Allied army is immediately decisive.

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ORIGINAL: Smoky Stoker

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ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

2/3/45

Battle of Gunzan: Mixed shock attack and deliberate attack by Allied army is immediately decisive.

Happened to notice here that the defender had 72 guns, and then lost 88 of them. How's that work??

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ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

It's 1 a.m., I've just awakened after sleeping for about three hours, and the mood to write is upon me. This may or may not be a good thing. Sometimes the writing flows in a satisfying, fulfilling way. Usually it doesn't, filling the writer with dismay and despair. I may write all night. Or I may succumb to self-loathing, shut down my computer, and toss and turn all night long.

I'm going to do something pretty questionable for a writer. Here's the opening paragraphs. Later, if it turns into something complete, I'll post the final version. If it turns out I was embarking on a task of futility, I'll let you know that too.

I'm hoping this will turn into an article of 1,000 to 2,000 words about beauty and about time. The genesis of the idea came last week, while I was walking the autumn woods shortly after rain had brought down most of the colorful leaves.

The opening paragraphs (all I have, at the moment, except for the outline):

For the poet, there are moments when time seems to stop; occasions when, for seconds or minutes, a thing of surpassing beauty transfixes. With clarity awakened, he contemplates the newly extraordinary – the loveliness of a leaf, the melody of a birdsong, the biting scent of hickory. His mind plays with words and phrases that might do justice to the occasion. Sometimes he succeeds. More often, he doesn’t.

The grand old movie Doctor Zhivago captures this mood perfectly. Yuri Zhivago, the protagonist, is a gifted poet and physician enduring the deprivations and horrors of the Russian Revolution. In one scene, he stands at a dark window frosted with ice. When a beam of sunlight suddenly illuminates the window, he traces with his finger the delicately laced frost crystals. And the beauty of the moment pierces his heart.