Canoerebel
Posts: 21100
Joined: 12/14/2002 From: Northwestern Georgia, USA Status: offline
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Your ship losses are heavy, as you know better than anyone. That makes you feel like you've been whacked and good and that there's nothing to stop your opponent from advancing. Most of us have been right there. I have. I lost nearly all fleet carriers in my first game against John III and he had all of Australia except Sydney and Melbourne. Many other Allied players can tell of similar experiences. It's a hard and daunting position to be in. Some kudos to you for facing up to it, opening an AAR, and expressing a willingness to figure it out and fight it out. You're like England in June '40. It's you against the enemy now and he seems mighty and threatening. The first thing you want to do is to abandon any notion of using your carriers. You don't want to lose another, especially Wasp and the Brit hardtops. (There may be exceptions, but just avoid like heck using your carriers.) You'll have to be very cautious in using your combat ships since they've been lost too. You don't want to go head to head against his schwerpunkt, but you want to look for chances to nibble at his flanks, where you might be able to commit four DDs against a supply TF etc. Mostly, you'll have to suck it up now and let him advance. If it's June '42 he has three or four more months in which he'll be very strong compared to you. You'll need to trade space for time, willingly giving up most of Oz or SoPac or whatever while you watch the calendar flip. What can you do proactively? Use your subs. Use small, affordable combat TFs to nibble deep. Send two, two-DD TFs towards the Kuriles to raid - see what you can find (and post a couple of xAKs in NoPac to handle refueling (don't use valuable AOs). Or try something similar from the Indian Ocean towards Java. More than anything, begin to look far into the future to think where you want to be in a year and a year and a half. And then start prepping units and gathering all the merchantmen and supply that will be needed to support such an operation. For instance, if your plan is to one day invade Sumatra or Malaya in force, you'll want to start stockpiling immense supply and fuel in India towards that day (by October '42, if it's clear your opponent doesn't plan to invade Ceylon, you can begin stockpiling there). You can begin building up Diego Garcia and other bases that can take supply and fuel. And while you're doing that, pick some random set of islands on the far side of the map and begin to build them up, doing the same thing, so that your opponent begins to wonder if that's where you're coming from. If you want to move on New Guinea or the Solomons next, begin by building New Zealand (when you're sure your opponent isn't coming for it, say by Sept. '42). Build Tahiti and Pago Pago and Christmas Island etc. a bit later, as you become sure they aren't threatened. If your hope is CenPac, make sure you build out your Hawaii bases and stock them with fuel. Send lots of supply. Begin to work on Johnston, Christmas, Palmyra. If your hope is NoPac, build up Prince Rupert and your upper Aleutians islands (once you know your opponent isn't coming for them). Stockpile fuel at Kodiak, etc. Right now, your emphasis is on preparing for the future while looking for chances to sting your opponent in small ways while trading the ground he takes for the time you need. And for goodness sakes don't lose any more carriers! So just forget you have any until around late 1943 or 1944. That's a lot of generalities meant to show you that you can be working towards the future even while things are dark. As time goes on, circumstances will quickly change so that some of the generalities I've written no longer apply and new ones do apply. So keep reading other AARs and keep asking questions here. Mostly, though, know that if you play it right, by mid 1944 you may be reveling in power and strength and feel then just how your opponent feels today - that the map is wide open to you and you can go almost anywhere.
< Message edited by Canoerebel -- 8/26/2017 5:53:29 PM >
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