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So a new month. Air wise nothing too exciting. The B17E is replaced by the B24D which gives me a bit of better range.
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China
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Chungking is turning out to be a nice little VP generator for Tom. [:(]
Ground combat at Chungking (76,45)
Japanese Bombardment attack
Attacking force 9018 troops, 754 guns, 758 vehicles, Assault Value = 1425
Defending force 95690 troops, 155 guns, 0 vehicles, Assault Value = 2451
Allied ground losses:
685 casualties reported
Squads: 17 destroyed, 37 disabled
Non Combat: 1 destroyed, 3 disabled
Engineers: 1 destroyed, 0 disabled
In the East the IG ID blast its way towards Paoshan. No problem pushing aside a 450 AV Corp dug in with level 3 forts in x3 terrain. Have no hope of holding on to Paoshan as supply is 0.
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Burma
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I´m moving engineers forward and start building up the airfields close to the border. This will take a while though as engineers are very short in the theater.
Tom has done some sweeps but I´m not meeting them right now.
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SOPAC
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Tom has stopped bombarding Nadi and looks to be moving towards Brisbane. Guess he still wants Brisbane... Still no sign of KB. Could he have started moving them towards the HI and the 7/42 refits?
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Air War and PDU OFF.
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Still to early to try and make any kind of assessment. But so far its been a PITA for me. This has especially hurt the training program. You have to be REALLY careful on what you upgrade. Once you do you cannot "undo" it. So if you later find yourself wanting those P39s you upgraded to? Nope.
Want to use those lovely P38s? Nope. Only 1 unrestricted squadron can use the "E" model and 1 the "F" model.
Want to use all those nice USMC DB squadrons that arrive? Ah, they upgrade directly to the SBD-3 version. Same as your CVs...this while you have 58 SBD-2s in the pool. But the SBD-2 can only be used by some of your CV squadrons. Did you upgrade those to "3s"? Aaaw too bad! Now you wasted 50 DBs...
I can´t tell you how much of a headache this is. I made so many mistakes and I will continue to do them. I´m very, very, VERY careful when upgrading stuff. Its fun though. [:)]
A good example of why this is much better for the game: My P39s have done some heavy fighting in OZ lately and I want to spread the load on the pools a bit more on the P40. I now actually have to ship the planes and squadrons there. No magic move!
I want to use the P38E. Yep...you guessed it. I have to SHIP the ONLY unrestricted squadron that can use it to wherever I want it. That squadron is actually a very good example of the dangers with PDU OFF and upgrading. Its the 51st/25th FS that actually starts with 4 P38s. At the time I moved them to India I didn´t have nowhere enough "Es" to fill the squadron out. So I almost upgraded them to the P40Es which is their next upgrade. Good thing I didn´t or I would never have been able to use the P38E at all...
I know most people believe PDU OFF is an instant win button for the allies. After playing for 8 months I still don´t agree with that. That opinion might change the further we get though. But as I look through tracker right now I can see for example I will by flying P39s, Mowhawks and Lancers well into 43. Some of 13th USAAF (SOPAC) P39s don´t upgrade until the P38J comes online in 12/43! I have at least one P39 Squadron that doesn´t upgrade until the P47-25 (44/3).
So it does go both ways. But the big difference is that PDU ON together with the ability to control the industry make Japan an immense powerhouse. This is taken away to an extent by PDU OFF. The Japanese side still gets almost unlimited numbers but can no longer focus and drive ahead a few extraordinary models like the Tojo, Frank and George and rely solely on those.
Another HUGE benefit of PDU OFF is that is will slow down the pace of the air war considerably. At some point in the game a limitation was added on how many AC can be drawn as replacements. I think its 12 per week? This is easily bypassed by simply downgrading and then upgrading the model (can be done instantly in PDU ON). This means that a FS could be annihilated to the last plane only to be fully recover 4-6 days later. Now it would take around 10-12 days instead.
Your 36 plane CV DB squadron got shot to pieces? See you in 25 days or so instead of 5.
The teleporting planes are also gone. I remembered when my first batch of 75 P47 arrived in my game with Erik. I simply downgraded them to P39s and 2 days later I had 75 P47s in Burma. This can no longer be done. The planes have to be moved there physically.
As I said I may very well change opinion about PDU OFF as the game progress but right now the only feel I´m getting is that "this is how its supposed to be" feeling. Things are making sense all of the sudden. And at least so far the air war is looking exactly as it does with PDU ON. Tom is kicking my butt in the air war during this critical Japanese expansion phase.
