AcePylut
Posts: 1494
Joined: 3/19/2004 Status: offline
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If it's empty, I'll take it... at the very least, it would threaten the Marianas and the supply lines to the South Pacific... and cause CB to "retrace" his steps a bit. From Grand Strategic point of view – if I can put 3-4 divisions on the Mariana’s in mid -42, I’ll have wrestled the initiative from CB. To do so, I need Marcus Island otherwise all my ships and troops will be sunk as they come into view of Saipan. If I do invade the Mariana Islands, I won’t have to “wait for carrier parity in ‘43 to shift initiative" – no… it’ll be all mine and from this point on, he will be on the defensive and I will be on the offensive. While I have no doubt that it could cost me a boatload of ships and all the troops I land, if he’s focused on protecting this vital bulge in his lines, I can move forward in other places. And if he takes Marcus back before this can happen – that’s fine too, it makes him backtrack. I want to take Marcus Island, then “do nothing” with it to lull him to sleep and make him believe I ‘just wanted this base because it was cheap for me to invade and I got trigger happy to do ‘something’”. If I take the island, if he doesn’t take it back, and if I lull him to sleep by doing nothing for a couple of months, then perhaps I can invade the Marianas and shift initiative. I know the changes of all this falling into place is a long-shot … please understand that what I’m really doing is creating an option for the future. I’m doing these “creating options” plans in a bunch of different places. I hope that one or two of them will pan out. I know the Japanese can go where ever they want in ’42 and my chances of stopping a well coordinated assault are close to nil….. but I dgaf. That’s all tactical and operational level stuff, and this game is won or lost at the Strategic and Grand Strategic level. The KB can only be in one place to “go where it wants” and if the KB is “here”, it’s not “there”, so “there” is where I will push… until the KB goes “there”, then I’ll move forward “here”. I need to drive that s.o.b. all over the map putting out “Allied generated fires” until that one critical mistake is made….
< Message edited by AcePylut -- 11/30/2018 1:48:30 PM >
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