Nomonhan Redux: Seydlitz (Japan) vs. MBatch729 (Allies)

[PresterJohn001]

Nice AAR.
 
In my game vs the AI i seemed to have been able to march into Russia along the main road SE of Yenki and kick off the war that way. I didn't withdraw any units
from the region. The trans siberian rail look easy to chop up and stop the russians moving units around easily.

[Rob Brennan UK]

Great AAR , just joined in the audience.

Good Luck

[seydlitz_slith]

ORIGINAL: PresterJohn

Nice AAR.

In my game vs the AI i seemed to have been able to march into Russia along the main road SE of Yenki and kick off the war that way. I didn't withdraw any units
from the region. The trans siberian rail look easy to chop up and stop the russians moving units around easily.

I thought about doing this but I was having trouble getting the Soviets to activate and my units diverted along the road to the north. All told though, the current plan with me hooking through the valley should reduce the benefit of terrain on his defense and will hopefully herd his troops southwards into Vladivostok instead of north or east.

My opponent is very good at ground tactics and I fully expect him to try some stuff on me.

For what it's worth, I finally figured out how to trigger Soviet activation without moving any troops out. To do this, all you need to do is have about 4500 AV worth of troops swap to strategic mode at the same time. That should trigger them.

[seydlitz_slith]

ORIGINAL: Rob Brennan UK

Great AAR , just joined in the audience.

Good Luck

Thanks. It is a bit of work, and my wife ribs me about the time it takes to do a turn and AAR, but I feel like an illustrated AAR goes a long way to helping people understand the game. With the pictures, people are able to give me better comments and advice. If the info in my AAR helps others with the game by showing flow, strategy, or tactics then it is worth the time. I know that I have learned a lot from other AARs both here and in the witp forum so this is a chance to give something back.

Glad to have you aboard.

[stuman]

ORIGINAL: seydlitz

ORIGINAL: PresterJohn

Nice AAR.

In my game vs the AI i seemed to have been able to march into Russia along the main road SE of Yenki and kick off the war that way. I didn't withdraw any units
from the region. The trans siberian rail look easy to chop up and stop the russians moving units around easily.

I thought about doing this but I was having trouble getting the Soviets to activate and my units diverted along the road to the north. All told though, the current plan with me hooking through the valley should reduce the benefit of terrain on his defense and will hopefully herd his troops southwards into Vladivostok instead of north or east.

My opponent is very good at ground tactics and I fully expect him to try some stuff on me.

For what it's worth, I finally figured out how to trigger Soviet activation without moving any troops out. To do this, all you need to do is have about 4500 AV worth of troops swap to strategic mode at the same time. That should trigger them.

That is very interesting. I have never seen anyone mention that before. Seems like it would help a lot to not actually have to move forces away, then back.

[seydlitz_slith]

ORIGINAL: stuman

ORIGINAL: seydlitz


I thought about doing this but I was having trouble getting the Soviets to activate and my units diverted along the road to the north. For what it's worth, I finally figured out how to trigger Soviet activation without moving any troops out. To do this, all you need to do is have about 4500 AV worth of troops swap to strategic mode at the same time. That should trigger them.

That is very interesting. I have never seen anyone mention that before. Seems like it would help a lot to not actually have to move forces away, then back.

It took me by surprise when it happened as well. Japan starts with almost 4000 AV over the minimum in Korea. I actually ordered the army to cross the border in two places (east of Yenki and North from Hailar) and in both cases I was all ready to go on the turn that they should have crossed. However, when I went in on the crucial turn to issue orders the Soviets had not activated and the units had deflected their movement into a hex that did not cross the border. It kind of screwed me up and left some stuff out of position. In fact, I ordered a bunch of units to strategic mode to speed up their movement plus other units in strat movement to go west, just over the border into China. When these units packed it read an immediate AV drop which then triggered the activation.

[seydlitz_slith]

Turn 22 December 28, 1941

During the turn there was very little conflict. As such, I didn't need to snap any maps.

As predicted, my forces took Alor Star in Malaya and Shortlands in the Solomans.
All other combats were ineffective and no ground changed hands.

Very few of my planes flew in Korea although the Soviet planes were active. The weather showed Blizzard and that may have had a lot to do with it. For whatever reason, he has continued heavy air attacks against Kotou on the border. I believe that he thinks that my attack will come from there.

In a surprising development, Russian destroyers bombarded Rashin. I almost think that this was a bait tactic to suck any surface combat task forces into following him into the minefields at Vladivostok or for bombers on Naval Attack to fly into the heavily defended hex. Neither happened.

[seydlitz_slith]

In China, the AVG made their first appearance by attacking my bombers over Wuchow. I lost 1 nate in the attack and didn't kill any P-40s.

[seydlitz_slith]

I left most of my Korea aircraft on the same orders as last turn in hopes that the blizzard abates.

Here are the aircraft losses for the turn.

[seydlitz_slith]

Most of the Nates were lost in a sweep on Voroshilov and were shot down by I-153 biplanes. I do not knwo whatthe deal is, but the I-153 biplane fighter seems to be very strong. It is beating most of the Nates that it fights as well as a couple of zeroes. That just seems wrong since it is a biplane, and in real life when these same aircraft (Nate and I-153) tangled during the Nomonhan incident the Nate was clearly the superior aircraft.

Moving on to more positive things, my subs continue to harrass him.

The Hugh Scott has been attacked for two straight days by my subs. This attack missed, a second attack was "hit but no explosion", and an attack yesterday was also a miss.

[seydlitz_slith]

Not to be deterred, I-26 reloaded, did an end around for a third attack, and this time she sank an AK.

[seydlitz_slith]

I already have several more subs vectoring in on this unescorted convoy and hope to run it down before it reaches the air cover around Pearl Harbor. My first attacks came on the day that it sailed from San Francisco. This attack was on the second day out.

Here is a summary of ships sunk this turn:

[seydlitz_slith]

I have been keeping a running summary of successes with my subs. I have several subs with two sinkings each already.

[seydlitz_slith]

According to my records, he has made several submarine attacks, nearly 20 around the Philippines, but has sunk no ships yet primarily due to dud torpedos.

In addition, I have accounted for 5 of his submarines.

S-37, S-40, S-41 all bombed at sunk at Cavite on the 12th.
Sturgeon sunk by depth charges near Calayan (82,71) on the 18th.
Stingray sunk by one of the mines that I had laid off Pescadores on the 16th.

[Tanaka]

Great AAR! Love the pics and captions! Learning a lot thanks! [:)]

[Smeulders]

Good job on the sub warfare, give the I-162 commander a medal, sinking a cruiser with a sub isn't something you'll see every day. You're opponent should be paying a bit more attention to his subs though, leaving the S-boats in Manilla should be a capital offence, they might not be the best subs, but at least there'll be a 'boom' instead of the so frustrating 'thud' from time to time. (Can you tell I'm playing allies ?)

Now for something I always wondered, do you think it is feasible/worth the risk to infiltrate a small surface force between Alaska and PH and then 'hook' it across the line between PH and SF ? Seems like an awfully long trip, but it seems his convoys there are nearly unguarded and a good surface attack can do much more damage then subs.

His bombardments in the Koutou/Bikin area are to be expected, it is a vital area. Further North the railway is flanked by Major Road, so he can set up counterattacks, but if Bikin falls, returning there will be a long journey for him. Maybe you can try the trick of splitting larger units in Kotou to give the impression that more units are moving that way, if his recon isn't good enough to see manpower totals, then this might draw even more attention/troops. You might also see a local offensive there.

[seydlitz_slith]

ORIGINAL: Smeulders

Good job on the sub warfare, give the I-162 commander a medal, sinking a cruiser with a sub isn't something you'll see every day. You're opponent should be paying a bit more attention to his subs though, leaving the S-boats in Manilla should be a capital offence, they might not be the best subs, but at least there'll be a 'boom' instead of the so frustrating 'thud' from time to time. (Can you tell I'm playing allies ?)

Now for something I always wondered, do you think it is feasible/worth the risk to infiltrate a small surface force between Alaska and PH and then 'hook' it across the line between PH and SF ? Seems like an awfully long trip, but it seems his convoys there are nearly unguarded and a good surface attack can do much more damage then subs.

His bombardments in the Koutou/Bikin area are to be expected, it is a vital area. Further North the railway is flanked by Major Road, so he can set up counterattacks, but if Bikin falls, returning there will be a long journey for him. Maybe you can try the trick of splitting larger units in Kotou to give the impression that more units are moving that way, if his recon isn't good enough to see manpower totals, then this might draw even more attention/troops. You might also see a local offensive there.

Ironically, the S-boats that I sank had returned to Manila for rearming and/or to repair damage to their torpedo tubes. It was the only base that was close enough to do it. He had a real rash of "...torpedoes fail to launch" with his S-boats and even commented about it because he had one hyper agressive captain that penetrated to the landing zone at Laong only to have his torpedoes fail to launch multiple times during the turn.

I don't think that I would bag enough in a deep pacific raid to justify the fuel at this stage of the game. I have tried this with my opponent before and found that he doesn't leave too many easy pickings on the table.

[seydlitz_slith]

We just executed turn 23 (December 29, 1941) under the beta patch and have followed update procedures. That means, saving the game after the combat replay, then applying the patch before issuing orders for turn 24.

*****One point that is very important*********
When you update to the new patch, you will be asked whether or not you want to apply the database/OOB changes to your current savegame. *****you must say no.****** If you say yes then it will reset all ship arrivals in the database to their original dates and you will lose any investment in accelerated arrivals.

Now, on the the turn.

The Russians did another naval bombardment of Rashin this turn and continued heavy air attacks against Kotou.

[seydlitz_slith]

North China is quiet as we manuever.

[seydlitz_slith]

South China