Beckles -> (5/29/2002 11:00:22 PM)
|
I'm playing the big one, 17. It's only my second game, and I'm about four months into it. I'm down to two carriers, Wasp and Enterprise, having lost one and sent the rest back for refits. The appearance of the enemy carriers in the numbers that showed up, 2 CV's (Kaga and Akagi) and a CVL, was actually somewhat surprising since I hadn't seen an enemy carrier in months since I had sent Shokaku, Zuikaku, and Junyo (The Shoho having been sunk at the Battle of Milne Bay in the first few weeks of the game) all to the bottom a few months earlier when I had five carriers on strength (I lost my one carrier at that point). They had sortied past Gili Gili in force, ripped apart the LBA that attacked them from Rabaul and made short work of the three Jap CV's (and this was before I figured out how to use my TBD's/TBF's ... can't set them at 100 feet!). I'm now in firm control of New Guineau, controlling all the way up to Lae and moving in on that one base just beyond it (the Japs can have what's North of there for now), so I figured it was time to take back Lunga and I landed the 1st Marine Division, and that has turned out to be a serious mistake. They are now landed, but my transports got ripped apart by the defenders. I also made an error earlier in the game sending a carrier back to Pearl with flotation damage, which is a very bad idea, you can fix it much faster in theater than Pearl does. I'm also didn't quite figure out the supply thing until a little while into this game (didn't need to worry about that on the Coral Sea scenario I played first), but I've got the hang of it now, but have already dug myself into a bit of a hole there, Cooktown, Cairns, and Townville are all out of supply pretty much, so now all supplies are moving up from Brisbane (which I should have started doing first thing) ... One thing I also did was "bust out" an airfield and port on Santa Cruz, I now have a level 3 port and level 4 airfield there which is serving me well for going at Lunga, but I'd probably try and put it on an island closer to Lunga next time and just plan on defending it pretty well ... get it close enough to run fighter sweeps from. If I start it early enough, it shouldn't be a problem. I also had trouble with the Japs running in and bombarding Gili Gili, but my carriers and a few surface engagements appears to have pretty much gutted the Japanese surface fleet for now, the last battle was between 2 CA/1 CL/8 DD's on the Jap side vs. 2 BB/2 CA/3 CL/8 DD on the US side and should hobble them pretty good from here on out (sank two DD and the CL outright, though the CA are still around but hurting). I also had a surface battle in Gili Gili with my carriers there actually at one point, covering some transports landing supplies, but the Japs never got a shot off at my carriers (my escort fleet was much larger than their bombardment force). Oh, back to your original point, like I said, I didn't expect three Jap CV's to be around and I had already gutted the enemy LBA to the point that two CV's should not have had a problem defending themselves, so I did not have a problem with them being "where the bombs were falling". :)
|
|
|
|