Ground combat at Soerabaja
Japanese Deliberate attack
Attacking force 222413 troops, 2134 guns, 32 vehicles, Assault Value = 4267
Defending force 34514 troops, 171 guns, 44 vehicles, Assault Value = 501
Japanese engineers reduce fortifications to 5
Japanese max assault: 3749 - adjusted assault: 3968
Allied max defense: 460 - adjusted defense: 901
Japanese assault odds: 4 to 1 (fort level 5)
Japanese Assault reduces fortifications to 5
Japanese ground losses:
1997 casualties reported
Guns lost 27
Vehicles lost 1
Allied ground losses:
1296 casualties reported
Guns lost 30
Vehicles lost 4
I reread the manual about reducing of forts. The only way to reduce fort levels by more than one with your attack you have to SHOCK ATTACK. With a shock attack I would have reduced the forts by 4 this turn (one with my eng and 3 for the odds over 1:1). Of course if you are lucky also your engineers can reduce multiple fort levels in one turn. BB bombardment going in next turn and I also have ordered a shock attack. Want to see Soerabaja falling next turn. Far too late anyway! Tough nut, never needed the equivalent of 9 Japanese divisions to take Java. Seems the only possible way to bring so many troops when you face all your enemies in one hex right from the start. Lesson learnt...
Looking at what happened so far I really can say that the "stack everything into one hex tacitc" worked perfectly. Though this tactic only works if you face a "dumb" player like me who never experienced such a tactic. It´s probable that I will start PBEMs in the future and if I would face the same tactic again then my opponent will be screwed pretty fast. Manila? I would place 1500 assault points (instead of 4000) there and let the Allied rot. Never order an attack, if an Allied attack comes then they will just be bleeded in the urban hex. No chance in the urban hex! So it will be bypassed and bombed by training units. The freed troops will go to Java, the more than 4000 points there will take Java easily then (like it is now). Not needed troops would go to Burma also which makes Burma fall far earlier than now. Then the troops from Java would land in Northern Australia.
All I can say is, if your opponent stacks everything in one place without trying to fight for the area he has to defend then either just block and bypass it (like the urban hex Manila) or come in brute force and the Allied stack will fall soon (like Java and Burma in my game). Just don´t hesitate to bring twice as many troops as you are used to. Take Burma, or Java, and then bring brute force to the next area. Against super stacking the "normal" numbers used in the game, not to talk about historical numbers, are not worth a try and all you get is shredded divisions like I´m having them.
The putting everything in one hex philosophy is because the Allies don't have enough LCU/assault point strength to fight it out in the other hexes. [:(] On Java, I can "try" to evac the British/Commonwealth troop from Malaya and then make it a fight. However, a "smart" Japanese player will take Kuching early and place Ms. Nell and Ms. Betty on that size 4 AF and use there endless supply of torpedoes to sink just about every AK/AP I try to use. [:-] The third choice is to try to get large LCU's from India and/or Australia to Java to put up a fight.
In Luzon, an AAR from long ago had the Japanese player place enough LCU's in Manila that the Allies could not shock attack him out of there (and thus stopped him from getting more supply from the Resources in the hex)and used it for training his pilots until 5/42 when the Allied supply had been used up. Then, he brought in more troops to finish it off quickly. Hindsight works well for the Japanese player and thus the Allies are limited on counter strategies.
There is a thread about CHS and restricted commands on Malaya to prevent the evac of so much LCU's to India. The good part of that was El Cid's comments about him having only a certain about of the Nell's and Betty's being able to carry torpedoes. A needed balance IMO. If I don't go with BigB's v1.4, then I am strongly considering RHS level 7.
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). Would the Blens be already 4Es then they would have suffered 0 losses... nada. And in real life Rabaul was called dangerous to attack because of all it´s flak guns... haha
And my positions around the sieged base are looking good so far. All I have to do is just defend them, not trying to attack the Chinese as the attacker always seems to suffer more so far.
