Marshalls-Gilberts Raid, Debriefing, February 26th, 1942
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| Figure 1 - Final Turn Overview |
Figure 1 is the final Turn Overview pop-up. All secondary objectives have been accomplished and there's $258 in the bank for next mission.
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| Figure 2 - Cashflow report |
Figure 2 is the cashflow report. I spent $90 more than I had available at the start of the mission on activations and purchases and there were 2 Naval CP and 4 Air CP to spare throughout most of the mission. That's what I mean when I point out that "War Economy" and "Female Labor" are good to have when you have the resources to actually flesh out those extra Command Points.
I could have repaired damage on my surface units via the Support Ship but that would entail losing hard earned experience. Thus only air units were repaired and the bulk of the expense was on fighters. Half of the $28 spent on auxiliary fighters' repairs will be refunded. By the end of the mission repairing aircraft had become such a given that I spent $46 repairing my fighters on the last turn. That was wasteful as I'm going to purchase "Pilot Rotation" just before the next mission and that grants discounted repairs.
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| Figure 3 - Unit performance |
Figure 3 is the unit performance report. Some things of note:
a) Yorktown and Enterprise earn 470 and 450 XP; as per the manual, that's just from landing aircraft;
b) Minneapolis earns 2'001 XP while Plunket manages 1'500; the cash-for-experience mechanic isn't necessarily the automatic best choice, as you are left with less resources to purchase or activate units; it is debatable whether I would have saved the resources spent on 5th "Hickam" Sqdn to buy VF4 earlier or if I would have spent it on repairs during "War Plan Orange 3" or "Battle for Bataan";
c) VB2 and VO1 weren't fully repaired because they were still airborne by the end of the mission otherwise I might be regretting those repairs too;
d) VO1's XP sent me on a wild goose chase: I didn't remember losing and reviving it in this run (I didn't); turns out it ended the Tutorial without any experience and when activating it it earned the "Flight School" bonus; VO2 ended the Tutorial with 88XP and was thus deemed ineligible;
e) as there was only one (light) cruiser on the map, seeing three cruisers on the kill roster might seem strange: Support Ships are classed as cruisers; similarly Gunboats tally as destroyers, Supply Ships as transports and land units aboard transports count as transports until the final killing blow when they are tallied as land units (e.g. SS198 Tambor);
f) Minneapolis kills a fighter (at Maloelap) and Niblack kills a strategic bomber (at Mili), VB2 heavily damages both a fighter and a strategic bomber (at Makin) that were killed by VF3; that's how one can deduce which aircraft (types) are inside hangars if they haven taken off.
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| Figure 4 - A peek behind the curtains |
Figure 4 is the Strategic Map at the Deployment Phase with the Fog-of-War lifted. There's datasheets for JP units at that time, I didn't bother with the 25mm AA Gun that is deployed at "Wake up call". I also didn't bother with the location of IIRC an Infantry '41 escorted by a DD Kagero that show up at the southern edge of the map (SS198 Tambor's second kill). I used as unit ID plates the respective tooltips from the map but I neglected to screenshot the one for Hangars. Those are highlighted with the large yellow squares. Smaller gold squares mark the positions of the "Wake up call" AA Guns.
Final thoughts
This was a fun mission to play. So much so that I played it a number of times afterward while I wasn't (am not) tempted to replay WPO3 or Bataan. Not to say that I wasn't worried when I kept killing aircraft and destroying depots but the ships' sunk counter was stuck at eight.
Lifting the FoW at the end of each turn and seeing the JP ships that start at Kwajalein move steadily South towards the exit points was disconcerting. I didn't notice any ship actually leaving so maybe that was an option discarded by the designers. Once they reached the bottom left corner and started moving North again I relaxed a bit and trusted that the designers weren't intent on setting the player to fail.
Another disconcerting moment was the JP Infantry landing at Wotje. One less ship available to be sunk. Then IIRC SS198 Tambor spots a new Infantry plus escort at the South edge of the map. At the time I thought it was triggered by the landing but it appears it is a fixture.
I mentioned before that I was worried about my ships' and aircraft ability to deal damage in a timely manner. I didn't keep records (other than the screenshots) but it didn't feel like I was unduly delayed by lack of firepower.
I think that's it for now, on to "Coral Sea". Hope you will join me there.
