wpurdom
Posts: 476
Joined: 10/27/2000
From: Decatur, GA, USA
Status: offline
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quote:
I think this thinking is wrong, wrong, WRONG!
The Solomons aren't very important. It's nice that you have a strong network of bases there. It's even better that rader is sending in lots of reinforcements.
But he's the strategic winner if a big meeting engagement develops in the strategically irrelevant Solomon Islands. Why would you pin down your most important offensive assets (carriers) in a largely irrelevant region for months? Rader isn't going to risk his carriers unless the odds favor him, so you may up steaming around looking for chances for months with nothing to show for it.
You sure want to keep him focused there, but mainly by using smoke, mirrors, and some escort carriers. Meanwhile, you need to figure out where you really need your carriers in a month or six weeks and get them moving. And if you don't know where you really need them....well, get working on it.
quote:
To clarify, GJ, you've done a good job in the Solomons. You've built up a network of bases that have drawn rader's full attention (thus serving as a major distraction). There's no way he can afford to take on 500 or 1,000 well supplied and well fortified AV, and let him try if he wants to. The Japanese aren't very good at major landings in late 1942.
There are circumstances in which you might wish to keep your carriers in the vicinity for awhile. For instance, you might be putting together a massive invasion of some strategic spot, getting your transports and combat ships into position...and just when the time is right, extracting your carriers from the Solomons and sending them sprinting (but concealed) to the invasion site, so that they arrive before rader knows they are gone and where they went. Then you achieve supririse and operational air superiority and he's left guarding what you knew all along was a pretty unimportant region of the map.
It's that kind of thing that might net you a strong lodgement in Timor or Java or Sumatra or the Kuriles or India. You'd seem to be letting him call the shots and control the tempo while in actuality you are doing so.
But for goodness sakes don't bog yourself down into a massive, lengthy engagement over some sector of the map that doesn't really mean alot.
quote:
I won't bog me down! promise!
But first of all i want to get the Solomons safe. I want to make him spot my CVs with his Mavis...wanna let him know i'm there at full strenght...and CR, i like the idea of using the CVs in that way...
1. CR was clearly too belittling of your Solomons campaign in his first comment, but he's on the money with the second. He's trying to make the point with you that Nemo was with him - don't commit your strategic assets to non-strategic goals.
2. Your Solomons campaign is properly considered as a parallel to the historic Solomons-New Guinea campaign. Like me, you don't have experience in the logistics and timing of an offensive - for instance the feel for the required force level to take several bases at once in a brief period. Like MacArthur and Halsey, this a good theater to work out the kinks and do good work with your land forces, surface force, LBA, xAK's, APD's, xAP's, etc. - your non-strategic forces. Eventually, you can force Radar into a misallocation of forces or come up to truly strategic terrain as you get far enough west on New Guinea and islands north. And you don't have the experience or dexterity to fool him with smoke and mirrors alone.
3. But your promise to not get bogged down shows that you are missing the point that the more experienced players are trying to convey. As Nemo might say, your strategic assets are your CV's, and to a lesser degree your AP's and even less AK's. These need to be husbanded for a decisive blow, which can't be achieved in the Solomons. No plan survives contact with the enemy, and it is overly optimistic that you are going to dazzle your more experienced opponent with your footwork.
4. The problem with the employment of the CV's is that there are so many ways it can go wrong - PzB style ambush - miscalculating their reach. Sub attrition. Surface ambush. And for what? A minor victory in a secondary theater.
5. Risking attrition to CV's to accomplish deception only makes sense if you are going to accomplish a major coup de theatre elsewhere. (It's the same fallacy as the Japanese fell into at Midway.) And for that decisive blow, aren't you going to want the CV's in support.
Husband your carriers for the decisive blow. And be very careful of your AP's also - Nemo showed us that lots of xAK's and small xAP's and APD's can substitute for AP's in an area of attritional warfare.
4. Think of yourself as the Soviets - you're going to
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RE: India is doomed - 
....will climb on walls waiting for his return
. Cat & Mouse, Cat & Mouse. 
. 
Maybe he is really coming to this place who knows. 
RE: India is doomed - 
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