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Canoerebel -> RE: The Good The Bad & The Indifferent (1/13/2017 6:59:05 PM)
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4/01/44
April Fool's in the Pacific! Fun House is aimed strait at the heart of Hokkaido and is 14 hexes away without detection.
None of which is true. April Fool's!
As mentioned earlier, all factoids provided regarding Fun House are true, though mixed with white space or negative space or presented in such order or fashion that the whole truth remains uncertain and concealed.
Fun House: Death Star and the Herd rumble into the far southwest corner of the Pacific Ocean, ending the turn two hexes from Taulaud-Eilanden. From whence do they go from here? Stay tuned.
But the day went very smoothly, without interaction with enemy forces. All indications lead me to believe that the op will achieve strategic surprise, though probably not operational surprise. If John wants to stop this, he'll have to attack. But I know he doesn't want to risk his carriers and capital ships in a banzai charge. So I think he'll continue to hang around the edges, looking for an opportunity that gives him an edge.
One of the most satisfying aspects to this point is how tight the grouping of ships in - just two hexes (and that was simply a choice). When the move began ships were spread out from Merauke to Townsville with the LSTs far in front. But it was timed pretty well so that all drew close together by the Banda Sea. One thing that helped was that I left behind all the short-legged ships (SCs with 1500 endurance) so that refueling wouldn't be a continual drag on progress.
Death Star Junior and Herd Junior, which are the second most powerful, remain in Shangri-La, their mission undisclosed for the moment. Death Star/Herd III through V are similarly remaining "in the shades," as Greyjoy would say.
Celebes: John's army hasn't reached Palapo yet. I was right that distance between bases was my biggest asset on Celebes, from the aspect of that campaign serving as a distraction. 100 AV of 14th Kiwi Brigade has been pulled out, with 20 AV remaining.
Burma: The Allies moved behind John's MLR at the same exact moment that enemy units did. So no real advantage gained there, yet. 59th IJA Div. vanished today. 12th Div. remains hung up in the jungle.
Minutae: There have been several critical behind-the-scenes decisions, deployments, and configurations that I won't go into. Some of these are in the nature of very important "rocks - paper - scissors" decisions, where making the wrong one could be lethal. Some of these don't have a right or a wrong answer - it's a matter of whether I choose "scissors" and whether John chooses "paper" or "rock."
April Fool's Day should be the last quiet day in what has been a blessedly tranquil move through the Gulf of Carpentaria and across vast reaches of the Pacific. Things will begin happening tomorrow.
Rocks. Paper. Scissors.
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