ground attack help

[stretch]

I need advice on how to improve my situation....

landed 5, count em 5, full divisions on Saipan, along with 2 RCT's.
bombarded with an multi-BB TF every turn for 10 turns (2 of them taking turns when one needs to replenish)
attacked ground troops with 100+ bombers for over 20 consecutive turns (from Guam)
a mountain of supplies is present with the troops
there is an HQ on the ground with 100 turns of prep for Saipan
there are adequate base forces for support
there is a combat engineer regiment
ive checked all the leaders and made them all as good as I can

and yet...

Ground combat at Saipan

Allied Deliberate attack
Attacking force 81397 troops, 897 guns, 13 vehicles, Assault Value = 2071
Defending force 73188 troops, 585 guns, 2 vehicles, Assault Value = 1177
Allied max assault: 1204 - adjusted assault: 663
Japanese max defense: 923 - adjusted defense: 4813
Allied assault odds: 0 to 1 (fort level 9)

Japanese ground losses:
248 casualties reported
Guns lost 8

Allied ground losses:
1807 casualties reported
Guns lost 50

even if my adjusted assault were my full assault, until I bring down the Japanese adjusted assault I'm not going to make any headway agasinst those nine fort levels.

What next ?

[DuckofTindalos]

You're going to have to siege them out... I recommend three to five days of bombardment attacks, followed by a deliberate attack. Repeat the cycle until his fortification level starts to come down, and then switch to daily deliberate attacks, until he surrenders...

[tanksone]

Hi, I would also have  2-3 combat engineers if possible. Like Terminus said it's gonna take a few days and be rather bloody.
 
 
 
 
 
 

[niceguy2005]

Agreed with the above posts. Also, you need to figure out why your adjusted assault is so low. I suspect disruption. What are your disruption levels? You may need to give the troops a couple days rest before throwing them back into the meat grinder. If you improve your odds then the fort levels come down faster I believe.

[Ian R]

Looks like you can rotate your assault troops as well so his accumulate fatigue and disruption faster - resting troops keep bombarding though.

Ian

[stretch]

holy cow.. rested everyone for 5 days, bombarded with BB's each night and 2 100+ LB raids from guam and tinian every day.
 
next deliberate attack.. my adjusted attack is quite good.. but wow...his adjusted defense got BETTER.   Geesh..
 
Ground combat at Saipan
 
Allied Deliberate attack
 
Attacking force 127750 troops, 1489 guns, 139 vehicles, Assault Value = 2917
Defending force 71132 troops, 613 guns, 4 vehicles, Assault Value = 1192
 
Allied max assault: 2915 - adjusted assault: 2458 
Japanese max defense: 1049 - adjusted defense: 8980
 
Allied assault odds: 0 to 1 (fort level 9)
 
 
Japanese ground losses:
531 casualties reported
Guns lost 22
Vehicles lost 2
 
Allied ground losses:
1902 casualties reported
Guns lost 119
Vehicles lost 7
 

[alaviner]

Give us a screenshot of your ground forces involved

[Sardaukar]

Saipan can take *months* to take even against AI. it's usually one of the heaviest defended place. You just have to fight until Japanese are out of supply. Then their adjusted assault value starts to drop considerably. And if you don't own the base, have lots of port and airfield attacks by planes. That eats up supply very quickly because he has to repair those facilities (no way to turn that off in game). Port and Airfield attacks are your friend in siege-situation like this. Just make sure he cannot bring lots of supplies by convoy. You often cannot stop sub or air supply (can try LRCAP) but that's not enough for lots of units involved...just makes it bit more prolonged.

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: stretch

I need advice on how to improve my situation....

landed 5, count em 5, full divisions on Saipan, along with 2 RCT's.
bombarded with an multi-BB TF every turn for 10 turns (2 of them taking turns when one needs to replenish)
attacked ground troops with 100+ bombers for over 20 consecutive turns (from Guam)
a mountain of supplies is present with the troops
there is an HQ on the ground with 100 turns of prep for Saipan
there are adequate base forces for support
there is a combat engineer regiment
ive checked all the leaders and made them all as good as I can

and yet...

Ground combat at Saipan

Allied Deliberate attack
Attacking force 81397 troops, 897 guns, 13 vehicles, Assault Value = 2071
Defending force 73188 troops, 585 guns, 2 vehicles, Assault Value = 1177
Allied max assault: 1204 - adjusted assault: 663
Japanese max defense: 923 - adjusted defense: 4813
Allied assault odds: 0 to 1 (fort level 9)

Japanese ground losses:
248 casualties reported
Guns lost 8

Allied ground losses:
1807 casualties reported
Guns lost 50

even if my adjusted assault were my full assault, until I bring down the Japanese adjusted assault I'm not going to make any headway agasinst those nine fort levels.

What next ?

saipan is mountaineous terrain, so the defender gets a 3x bonus. Add to that the 100% prepped and perhaps a HQ and not to forget the level 9 fort and voilà, a place that you can´t take with only about the same number of attackers like defenders on the island. You said you´ve landed 5 divisions and 2 RCTs but your cr shows only 80000 troops? Are they so worn out that only 80000 are combat ready? If so then I don´t think your troops will achieve anything. ALWAYS land on Tinian first! Saipan and Guam are mountaineous but Tinian isn´t. More combat engineers and bring some tank battailons with them. If you have all of those things mentioned with you then ONLY numbers seem to count....[8|]

[AmiralLaurent]

With 75 000 Japanese on the island, fort 9 and so on you will need more than 200 000 combat troops IMOO. And also to have a Command HQ (Central Pac or whatever) dropped on a nearby base to be in range.

As for combat engineers regiments, I would say you will need 10 of them, 5 being active in each active and 5 resting or recovering on nearby bases. Combat engineers will be necessary to destroy fort but are disrupted very quickly in 0 to 1 attacks, even when they manage to reduce forts by one level. By the way I don't know if the Allied side has so much combat Eng units...

As someone said, the way to do it is to bomb the enemy. Naval bombardments are not very efficient in my own experience to reduce a base, but air attacks (targetting at the same time the port, base and troops) will east enemy supplies and eventually reduce its fighting capacity... but it will take months.

By the way the official US doctrin in WWII was that each amphibious operation needed a 3 to 1 superiority in troops to succeed.

The good news for you is that the number of able Japanese troops had been reduced by 2000 in the 5 days between your two attacks, so things are going in the right direction.

[tsimmonds]

Ground combat is dependent entirely on supply, disruption, fatigue, and disablements--particularly disablements among combat engineers. Unless you show us the state of your LCU with regard to these variables, we can only speculate.

You should not attack units in forts unless your disruption/ fatigue is something like 20/50 at worst, and you have a good number of undisabled combat engineers to participate in the attack. You also need to have supply in the green for each attacking LCU.

[Chad Harrison]

ORIGINAL: AmiralLaurent
As for combat engineers regiments, I would say you will need 10 of them, 5 being active in each active and 5 resting or recovering on nearby bases. Combat engineers will be necessary to destroy fort but are disrupted very quickly in 0 to 1 attacks, even when they manage to reduce forts by one level. By the way I don't know if the Allied side has so much combat Eng units...

Do they have any but the three that start out on the West Coast? I just looked thorugh my current units (PBEM March 1942, stock, Sc. 15) and the only engineer units that I have with combat engineers in them are the three that started out on the West Coast. I did not see any coming down the road either.

Am I missing something? Since you need ENGINEERING SQUADS, not just engineers, an EAB or SeeBee's unit is worthless in bringing down forts right?

Thanks

Chad

[tsimmonds]

Am I missing something? Since you need ENGINEERING SQUADS, not just engineers, an EAB or SeeBee's unit is worthless in bringing down forts right?

That's right. Two kinds of engineers, combat engineers and construction engineers. If it says "engineer squad", it's a construction engineer. For IJA, the combat engineers are "IJA engineer squad." Don't know what they are in the USA/USMC. Probably something similar though.

[Chad Harrison]

ORIGINAL: irrelevant

Am I missing something? Since you need ENGINEERING SQUADS, not just engineers, an EAB or SeeBee's unit is worthless in bringing down forts right?

That's right. Two kinds of engineers, combat engineers and construction engineers. If it says "engineer squad", it's a construction engineer. For IJA, the combat engineers are "IJA engineer squad." Don't know what they are in the USA/USMC. Probably something similar though.

It says the same thing, just BLANK Engineer Squad, where blank is USA, USMC, ANZAC, ect.

I am still curious though, unless I am missing something, I only see three USA 'combat engineer' units (the three that start on the West Coast). So as the Allied player are you stuck relying on using the integral engineer squads in a unit? The Marines have an impressive number, but everyone else leaves much to be desired.

Chad

[DuckofTindalos]

There are two types of engineer squads:

- "Engineers" - Construction troops, don't use to attack fortifications.

- "Engineer Squad" - Assault engineers.

I realize that's the opposite of what Irrelevant posted, but it's correct nonetheless, working off the data, as I just looked it up in the editor.

[niceguy2005]

ORIGINAL: Terminus

There are two types of engineer squads:

- "Engineers" - Construction troops, don't use to attack fortifications.

- "Engineer Squad" - Assault engineers.

I realize that's the opposite of what Irrelevant posted, but it's correct nonetheless, working off the data, as I just looked it up in the editor.

Your divisions also have engineer squads (10 I think). But you will probably need more if you want those forts to come down anytime in the near future.

Obviously resting your forces did you some good.

I would seriously consider switching your air attacks to Ground Assualt. THere are really two ways to go here since you are playing a PBEM...try to run the enemy out of supply, in which case you want port and airfield attacks...or try to disrupt the enemy ground forces in which case you want Ground attack...your best choice will be dependent on what you think the supply levels are and if your opponent can resupply.

Getting more artillery ashore may help your assaults a lot. They create disruption during and attack, armor would be useful to for the shock value.

How is it you are invadinig Saipan in March 42? Do you have an AAR going?

Good news is your casualties aren't all that high considering the 0:1 odds.

[tanksone]

ORIGINAL: Chad Harrison

ORIGINAL: irrelevant

Am I missing something? Since you need ENGINEERING SQUADS, not just engineers, an EAB or SeeBee's unit is worthless in bringing down forts right?

That's right. Two kinds of engineers, combat engineers and construction engineers. If it says "engineer squad", it's a construction engineer. For IJA, the combat engineers are "IJA engineer squad." Don't know what they are in the USA/USMC. Probably something similar though.

It says the same thing, just BLANK Engineer Squad, where blank is USA, USMC, ANZAC, ect.

I am still curious though, unless I am missing something, I only see three USA 'combat engineer' units (the three that start on the West Coast). So as the Allied player are you stuck relying on using the integral engineer squads in a unit? The Marines have an impressive number, but everyone else leaves much to be desired.

Chad

Hi, there is also one in the Phillipine Islands at the begining of the war which one could withdraw I believe.

[Nikademus]

Allied Deliberate attack
Attacking force 81397 troops, 897 guns, 13 vehicles, Assault Value = 2071
Defending force 73188 troops, 585 guns, 2 vehicles, Assault Value = 1177
Allied max assault: 1204 - adjusted assault: 663
Japanese max defense: 923 - adjusted defense: 4813
Allied assault odds: 0 to 1 (fort level 9)

This says it all to me. You have less than 2:1 odds in numbers in all three categories and are facing a well supplied enemy entrenched behind 9 fort levels.

As has been said....siege and/or reinforce is your only option. Blast his supply base and punish the support unit's while your at it. Sprinkle with attacks to reduce forts. Engineers help here. I'd suggest landing an additional HQ....their effects are cumulative up to a point. Time delib/shock attacks to coincide with very heavy bombardments from sea as well as air to up the disruption and fatigue.

[Wolfie1]

You need more engineers to reduce the forts.

[tabpub]

ORIGINAL: niceguy2005

ORIGINAL: Terminus

There are two types of engineer squads:

- "Engineers" - Construction troops, don't use to attack fortifications.

- "Engineer Squad" - Assault engineers.

I realize that's the opposite of what Irrelevant posted, but it's correct nonetheless, working off the data, as I just looked it up in the editor.

Your divisions also have engineer squads (10 I think). But you will probably need more if you want those forts to come down anytime in the near future.

Obviously resting your forces did you some good.

I would seriously consider switching your air attacks to Ground Assualt. THere are really two ways to go here since you are playing a PBEM...try to run the enemy out of supply, in which case you want port and airfield attacks...or try to disrupt the enemy ground forces in which case you want Ground attack...your best choice will be dependent on what you think the supply levels are and if your opponent can resupply.

Getting more artillery ashore may help your assaults a lot. They create disruption during and attack, armor would be useful to for the shock value.

How is it you are invadinig Saipan in March 42? Do you have an AAR going?

Good news is your casualties aren't all that high considering the 0:1 odds.

I love reading threads where confusion sets in:
Niceguy; it was Harrison that mentioned March '42, not the thread starter. 'sides, it would take the player mismatch of the century to land 5 supported divisions on Saipan in 3/42...
Castor; re-read again, he took both Tinian and Guam first.
Personally, having 2 of the 3 sisters would be enough for me for the moment, given the level of the oppostition there, I might consider just blockading Saipan while moving on to greener and less occupied pastures.