IJN Report: This is my 3rd game in this T10. I am playing John Sharp with a bid of 4.5 w/options 1 and 2. Outstanding raids by my boys (Much better than I did vs John Pack in game 2)! All 8 BB's at Pearl, along w/the New Orleans are sunk. The New Orleans was sunk by the I-Boat. In Indo, it is a clean sweep as the 5th AF, POW and Repulse are destroyed. Groups W,X and Z arrive in Hawaii while group Y comes on in San Diego. John elects to place only 2xCV (out of 4) in Australia. He must be up to something...  POC is at 7.

IJN Report Pre-USN Raiders: The stellar raids from T1 means that I can attack both home ports of the USN depending on what the USN does w/their LBA. A big fight is always in the best interest on the IJN, especially while they are low on ships! I also decide to boost my CS placement to 2xCA in case I decide to go there. With John only having 2xCV in Australia, I actually go a little conservative and place 4xLBA there. This was after I had seen John place his 3xLBA in the USM, which was a good move on his part, lest he face a big IJN raiding force. However, knowing that I now had "extra USM slated" ships, I decided to not to go w/a 3xLBA/CVL move in Indo. It had the double effect of not losing a CVL in Indo while placing a CVL in one of my flag-defense areas on the front line. I also decide to go with a fast carrier (Soryu) in the CS instead of Hosho. This is a lot more threatening and will hopefully draw in an American CV! If not, I will have the option of nailing the patrolling USN CA on one round and beating a retreat if the odds are not good. If it is a night action, I should be able to decontrol the area with my 3 shots (2 are bonus). Hawaii gets a number of extra surface ships along w/3 big CV so I feel that is certainly safe. I also sprinkle carriers all along my defensive perimeter. My weakest area, as far as bonus shots, is the Marshalls. I just finished my game w/John Pack (where he flagged the Marshalls) and this defense is better than the one I had against him. Still, it is the spot where John Sharp would stand to lose the least amount of CV's. My next weakest spot is the SPO, it is a little stronger than the Marshalls and is the area that I think John might pick. It would save Lae but could cost him 2xCV right there. It is a tough call between the two, as the Marshalls, if it is a day action, might not cost him any CV if I feel the need to shoot at his patrollers (this would happen if his suicide CV in HI also got a day action). If the CS draws a CV, then I think John will go to the SPO or somewhere in the north. If not, then John could try the Marshalls block attempt or risk his CV's in the CPO or AI (where Sasebo is heading for DH). No matter what he does, I hope to have a chance at sinking a CV or two.

 

IJN Report Post-USN Raiders: John decided to attack the Marshalls and send a suicide CV into HI. Well, I was wrong. In fact, I should have known better. Why? Well, John took this very same option in our last Top Ten match! He also brought in the identical number of raiding ships, 4xCV, 2x453 and 4xCA's! I'll hold my breath as I await the pref rolls to come back. No worries, the entire pacific is a night action with the exception of the CS. Five night actions! Just like our last game! See post 4873 on consimworld.com. These are terrific for the IJN! However, unlike our last game, I make the most of them with the following results: I sink all three Aussie CA's, two in the Marshalls and the last in the NPO. In the USM and Indo, each of our respective ships slip away into the night. In HI, the poor Hornet takes 58 damage, just a bit more than she can handle. In the CS, Soryu sinks the Houston and threatens control of the area. The CS is going to be a bit dicey as John still has a 4 CA wrap on the Soryu but doesn't want to risk many more CA's (23.5% of his CA force has already been sunk this turn). The I-Boat then tops off the hit parade with its second kill of the game, the Enterprise. Wow! I am awaiting John's return fire...  Note- Unlike our last game I will probably let my LBA make a stand against John's 3 remaining CV's in the Marshalls. This is different from last time...perhaps I have learned something since then! It may give the Mutsu and Nagato, if not disabled in the first round (remember, John will probably concentrate his fire on the Soryu), a shot at additional CA's during a night action. If a day, I'll get a 30%shot to sink a 3rd USN CV. Not a bad deal either way.

IJN Report End of Turn: The turn ended with John winning both pref rolls in the Marshalls and CS. My fire whiffed and John was able to shoot down the 22nd and sink the Mogami. The Soryu was also disabled to prevent a nasty situation there. I retreated in both areas, splitting the Nagato and Mutsu in the Marshalls. Not wanting to risk any further CA attrition, the USN declines to pursue.

 

So far the game is a lot like a WAS game where fairly low amounts of dice can decide the whole game. However, this is VITP, where there will be a lot more dice are thrown and there is still a lot of game left. Still, it has been a very rough game so far for the USN. My good fortune will leave me many options for T3...

IJN Report: Two of my goals for this turn were to flip Pearl and try to get some additional attrition against John's USN CV/surface fleet. CA's are pretty important for the USN in the late game so I wanted to continue (I sank 4 on T2) this if I could. To accomplish this, I decided to fight in 2 areas, Hawaii and the SPO. 

 

Unfortunately, I made a beginner mistake with my LBA placement that cost me in a big way. Let me explain. I often place 2 LBA on T3 with my patrol move in PBEM games. It can give me the option of slowing down my "3" LBA placements as this does not count as one of those. It normally is fine. However, I blew this simple move by misplacing the 2 LBA! I sent one to the SPO and one to Hawaii. It should have been SPO/Marshalls as I had one going to each of them regardless of what John did w/his LBA. You see, I would have been able to react to what John did with his LBA BEFORE I placed a 3rd LBA. This simple mistake would end up costing me 2xLBA, Hosho and 4 POC (That is just on THIS turn)!

 

This came to bite me in the butt as John ducked from Hawaii with his LBA and went elsewhere. This now left me one LBA shy in Indo, where I had to add Hosho to my 2xLBA defense. A defense that should hold the majority of the time, especially if John chooses to target just Hosho. However, John ignores the Hosho and tries for the long shot odds of getting both my LBA's. And this was after knowing that he would only have a single 027 left for round 2 as I had sunk Hermes and disabled the other 2x027's on my first pass. Hand it to John as it paid off when he shot down one LBA on rd one while dinging the other for 2d. On the second round, after the 027 is crippled, his 26% chance comes through and he downs my last LBA(2d). Arg! Before the dust settled, and Hosho is sunk by surface fire, Hosho sinks the crippled 027, thus eliminating the British CVL Indo threat for the rest of the game. At least there was a bright spot to it!

 

In Hawaii, things go fairly close to plan as I sink both marines, NC and MS on 46 air raid shots. CO gets away with 3d. The Hosho may have made this a clean sweep... Still, a good result for the IJN.

 

In the SPO, I tried to set up a chance at getting the CV/surface attrition that I was looking to get. However, my big CV's and LBA can only sink one CV and ding Lex for 2d. John comes back with sinking Akagi, LBA and crippling Kaga(4d). Another very good result for him! Since I had disabled all his CV's, the I-Boat doesn't have a real good target but I shoot at, and disable, the NM. I then retreat as a single group in a chance at either 1)protecting Kaga(4d) or 2) get a shot a John's CA's. I thought that John may decide to pass, as he did on T2, but the lure of sinking Kaga(4d) was too great. I can't blame him either! During the pursuit rds, John finishes off the Kaga(4d) and sinks 2x436 as well. My guys are not w/o teeth as they manage to sink 4 USN CA's.

 

Overall, I feel that John won this turn due to my LBA blunder. John was able to flag the SPO and Indo as well as his home areas. On the POC front, he limited the IJN to picking up only 3. Had I been able to hold Indo, the POC would have certainly maxed out at some point. So the USN still has a chance at holding the POC below 29. From the IJN point of view, things are not quite as bad as one might think. They did sink a CV and 4xCA's, cutting both of those classes of ships in half going into T4. They captured Pearl w/o a fight and avoided losing carriers in Hawaii. The IJN fleet will be free to explore opportunities next turn. While the loss of the Indo LBA will hurt on T4, they will be back while the Brit CVL's will not. As far as the POC and Indo loss? Well, Indo is often given to the USN anyways on T3 and if the POC maxes out at some point, all will be OK. Hey! I have to put some kind of positive spin on my error!

IJN Report: My goals for this turn were pretty straight-forward. 1) Increase the POC, 2) kill USN CV's and 3) either flag the USM or take Guad..

 

For goals one and two, the idea was the same. Set up flag defenses in so many areas that John could not possibly tackle all of them. This should net me the POC I want and nail some CV's! As far as goal three, that would depend on what John's LBA did. When he elected to place only one (He had 6xLBA in the SPO to protect Guad and the perimeter) in the USM, it was a no brain-er to go after him there.

 

Combat-This should have gone much better than it did as my CV's and I-Boat whiffed in both the Mari's and the Marshalls! This led to John being able to actually pursue and sink the powerful Yamato (on 4 hits from Yorktown over 2 rds). For the topper, Yamato's only firing attempt, on a CA, was a whiff. Not even a disable in either of those two areas...Ack!  In HI, I managed to finally sink a CV (Wasp). Unfortunately, the d/n pref roll cost me both CA's. In the SPO, John's LBA shoot well as they sink a 444 and hit the other for 3d. To cap off a less than stellar turn, both the Brit's and the USM LBA get away. Once the LBA got away, coupled with my poor shooting against his CV's, I gave up any hope of a conversion attempt against Samoa on T5. This led to my withdrawal from the Marshalls this turn. So I lost 2xCV, 2xBB and 2xCA while sinking a CV and a CA. The last two turns, have been pretty bad shooting-wise as all of John's CV's could very well be on the bottom. After all, he has faced 19 bonus and 3 non-bonus shots over those two turns with only 2 CV's sunk. So I would say that I have more than made up for my good results on T2!

 

Overall, the game is still going OK. Flagging the USM assured me of gaining a good chunk of POC (5) this turn and pretty much guarantee that I would max-out by the end of T5. This also would make my T5 defense pretty easy as I plan on giving him the SPO. As a giant bonus, the trapped Vicky and the 3rd Marines would be rendered ineffective as both the Marshalls and HI are invasion proof. On John's side of things, he will have a automatic hole for his T6 reinforcements, along with his ships forward based on Guad., which could make for an interesting end game!

IJN Report: My goal for this turn is simply to put up a defensive wall that should make a comeback by John a difficult one. I don't care about the SPO as I don't feel that I need it. I should be able to max-out the POC this turn unless John wins a long shot battle. That could occur in either the Mari's, Marsh or Indo. The Mari's hole would probably set him up the best with much of his force at Guad.. The Marshall does not do him as much good. In order for John to win in either of these two area's, he would need to pass a speed roll with Lex(2d) AND defeat 2xLBA/I-Boat. In Indo, he could do a double CV suicide on my NLF's in order to land a marine at Lae but that would be expensive with low odds. Placing the fleet in Indo, along with the marines, could threaten both the Phil's and Lae. It also will hold my POC down below 29. However, it's odds are pretty low as I plan on having parity on the surface and a 7-2 advantage in the air. I will guard against this by placing a lot of patrollers there, including 3xCVL's. The CVL's should win the area unless John could beat the flag several times in a row while out-shooting me in the night.

 

IJN Pre-Combat Comments: John surprises me by placing his marines in the SPO while bringing his entire fleet into Indo! The advantage is that John could target 2 of my NLF's during the day action that I will ask for. However, he will need to SINK both of them as a disable/miss will send them to Lae. This could enable his SPO marines to take Lae! Meanwhile, his fleet, I hope, will be taking a real pounding during this battle. Stay tuned...

 

John agreed to my preference of a day action on rd 1. I decided to take 6 shots apiece at his 2 CV's while targeting SD, the weakened CO(3d) and a CA. I sunk the Lex(2d) and hit the Yorktown twice...for 2d! I disabled the CA, crippled the CO(Now 5d) and sank the SD! Now for John's NLF shots...a kill against Sasebo but a whiff against Yoko. As two NLF's fortify Lae, the I-Boat hits the IN for 4d. The IJN win the rd 2 pref roll and sink WA, Portland and Pensacola. At this point, John surrenders.