Q-Ball
Posts: 7336
Joined: 6/25/2002 From: Chicago, Illinois Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Chickenboy Seems as though the area between Lunga and Ndeni should be a fine hunting ground for Allied submarines now, Q-ball. Got anything en route? I only see one Allied sub north of Munda now-probably off the mark for the amphibious assault troops headed south. I wouldn't worry too much about Ndeni. Yes it sucks that your reinforcement troops got nailed en route. Making him fight you like heck for an undeveloped malarial rock off of the strategic path is playing into your strength though. RE: Subs, I am in process of shifting alot over there. There wasn't much traffic until just recently, so most of my subs were in the SRA, particularly around Darwin. Now that that's done, we are redistributing. I am basing some of the Dutch Fleet boats at Brisbane; nice to have torps that actually work! In general, my sub kills have way dropped-off. Part of that is a turn in luck on duds; the USN boats were getting alot of hits early, way more than 10%; now, they are all duds, so luck is evening out. Greyjoy is also concentrating his shipping more I think. Not sure how much radar helps, but the 4/42 upgrades maybe will give me more chances. RE: Ndeni, I am comfortable writing them off. You can't base units forward as Allies, without being resigned to their possible deaths early. Cocos is doomed for sure, but with 300 AV there behind lvl-4 forts, with 300 mines and 40 CD guns, I hope to make it a real mess in the meantime. 3/28/42: OK, so there are exactly 3 days left of invasion bonus (the 29th, 30th, and 31st)....either Greyjoy plans to land right on the 31st, or he isn't invading Ndeni yet. Most of his ships are around Lunga, and it's 3 days sail by slower transport to Ndeni. He's got to move very soon, or I am in the clear....because I think it's a safe bet none of his guys are prepped more than 20 or 30 days for Ndeni, if that. China: Greyjoy forced me out of hex near Sian, but there are mountains and fresh troops behind them, so I am not worried. I think we are stabilized, for now, which probably means a big bombing campaign is in the works, to starve me out. I can still move fuel from Lanchow to Chungking, so keeping that path open is a priority. I am also flying in supplies from Ledo. Other than that, Chinese are on their own. Supply problems are not extreme yet; most cities are in the white, but that can change under a rain of IJA bombs Burma/India: I control the air over the border, for now.....the "Calcutta Express" bombardment runs on Akyab have kept the airbase burning and useless. I probably need to stop this for two reasons though. First, the cruisers all have close to 10 ops damage, and are fried. Second, an IJN TF including BBs was observed transiting the Malacca Straits. He also attempted to mine Akyab. So, if he brings the IJN hammer, I need to park in Calcutta and wait. At least we forced him to send some ships into the Bay of Bengal. Anyway, he'll try to re-assert air control at some point, hopefully we'll be ready for that. SRA: See below; Greyjoy has been a little tardy in cleaning-up the SRA. Batavia is a tough nut, but the rest just needs a landing, and with the bonus gone, makes things a bit more complicated. I suppose it doesn't matter a ton, since I can't really hurt him; the KNIL airpower is long disbanded, except for flying boats. But I'll be able to keep airsearch over the DEI for awhile, which means I can sustain a sub campaign. I can't get torps once Soerbaya falls, but fuel and airsearch makes things easier. Also, Balikpapan needs to be cleared for Fuel purposes pretty soon. Soerbaya should fall as soon as he clicks "Deliberate Attack" on that stack.....there is hardly anyone there, just CD guns and typists.
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