Where does the offensive in Burma start

[jtareb]

Im still playing out a game without the patch--invaded burma in late 43 after the jap ai had worn 5-6 divisions out trying to take Akyab and Imphal. I invaded burma via akyab and down through imphal as well--there was little opposition till i got to rangoon which lasted about 3 months before i could take it.
 
SEAsia does get alot of LSI's from 43 onward that can be used for amphib assaults but little in terms of apa's. In my new game with the patch im going to try to stick to the historical timeline in SE asia and not get too overagressive.

[El Savior]

I managed to hold Rangoon. Japan AI made landing on Moulmen and took Pegu but their offensive was stopped in reinforced Rangoon.

May and June 1942 I made succesfull counterattack and took Pegu and Rangoon easily. I'm not going to advance any further until I receive more troops.

[Central Blue]

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Per the conditions you describe, I'm not making any plans to go anywhere, anytime soon.

My folks are digging in along the line from Ledo to Chittagong. They spend their spare time training. Most of the ground units are of poor quality, and train slower than the pilots everyone complains about.

And what of any significance lies inland, anyway?

If you can't get their amphibiously, just stay home.

ORIGINAL: JohnDillworth

I am starting to mass troops in Burma as the Allies in late 1942. Have an Army at Impal and another at Chittagog. Some good troops and building airpower and supplies. Where does one start the offensive? Seems there is no way out of Impal. Just rivers and jungles. Where does one start? I think amphibious is out of the question for a while. Japanese just have too much airpower for now.

[vlcz]

ORIGINAL: Central Blue
...
And what of any significance lies inland, anyway?
....
If you can't get their amphibiously, just stay home.

I see some advantages in advancing if japan sits idle ,better so if he is soundly crushed in the india frontier..

Burma production, secondary, really not needed and posibly even can be denied by succesfull blockade of malacca.

Reopening of Burma road to supply chinese army, dubious.

And the good reason (IMO anyway)...

Keeping occupied japanese assets with your own, bounding IJA troops in this backwater theatre seems wiser than let them put a skeleton army and garrisonig bases/homeland or smashing chinese. Can be argued you are wasting troops too, but many of those are unusable anywhere at this stage of the war at least.

If he ignores the thretah and retires the troops anyway you will eventually come to places he dont want you to stay.

More blatant against IA of course, as it keeps literally hundreds of low-quality planes over there, those are not smashing chinese troops and he is spending pilots running deeper in his pool.

[Chijohnaok2]

ORIGINAL: El Savior

I managed to hold Rangoon. Japan AI made landing on Moulmen and took Pegu but their offensive was stopped in reinforced Rangoon.

May and June 1942 I made succesfull counterattack and took Pegu and Rangoon easily. I'm not going to advance any further until I receive more troops.

In my game against the AI, I've thus far managed to hold onto Rangoon (It's mid-April 42). For a while I had a steady supply of xAKLs steaming into Rangoon to keep her supplied (~12,000-15,000 supply range). Now the Jap. have sufficient LR air to where I am losing approx. 1 out of every 2 cargo ships I send in. My supply level is now hovering at around the red zone. They even sent in a BB TF to take out some of my shipping. I have 3 fighter units in Rangoon & the base one hex over. I can't risk keeping a surface TF there for fear of the Betty's & company. The IJA has pushed up the railroad line and taken a few cities there.

I don't want to risk the 2+Hermes British CV assets to fly cover since they will likely get pasted. The immediate future for Rangoon seems iffy.

[vlcz]

ORIGINAL: chijohnaok
....I am losing approx. 1 out of every 2 cargo ships I send in. My supply level is now hovering at around the red zone....

Dont you receive land supply? I´m in the "way back" (Oct41)just assaulting rangoon... the resource flooded from akyab to the last base I taked two hexes north(prome?) ...even if the road appears broken. perhaps if you try altering supplys demanded?

[crsutton]

I found that once Rangoon is lost, the Allied supply situation is pretty dire. You need air transport to fly supply to Burma and there is none to be had in 1942. Pretty much mirrors what really happened. I have two emails going as the Allies. I am tempted to move some LC and APs to India to try and end run late in the war, but only if the Central Pacific campaign is going well.

Just like in the real deal, If you take the Manilla and Clark field back from the Japanese and cut the sea lanes, the war in SE Asia is over and pretty much a side show. So is there really a need to do too much in Burma? I guess it gives the Indian troops some work to do and kills some Japanese.

[mariandavid]

I have no idea (yet) about the AE but note that the CW made no attempt to attack Burma from the Arakan. The only reason for the campaigns there was to take the airfields at Akyab and some smaller villages further south (useful both ways - the IJAA versus Calcutta, the CW to support the attacks on Mandalay). Assuming that the game is accurate, the only ways to retake Burma are against Mandalay using air-supply (historically over 80% !! was obtained in this way); by amphib against Rangoon or by land from China.

[moonraker65]

ORIGINAL: Terminus

If you start a counteroffensive in Burma this soon, you'd better be mindful of the disaster that was the first Arakan campaign.

Quite agree. The 14th Indian Division was sent in to the Arakan and they were summarily forced to retreat back to where they started. No one tried anything then until the first Chindit expedition (Wingate) in March '43 then it was late '43 / early '44 before a major incursion took place with the second battle of Arakan and Operation Thursday (2nd Chindit expedition).

[Canoerebel]

If AE models the real war, the offensive really doesn't begin in Burma until 1945. Until then the battle was just a long, drawn out, muddy, wet, sickly, unsupplied stalemate that was so weird that the Japs were able to take the offensive in '45 and pressure the Allies. So, if it's '42 in your game, it should mean that any offensive is doomed to fizzle out.

P.S. Yes, there were Allied offensives that accomplished some things before '45, but in AE terms we're talking about a single unit advancing one hex in jungle terrain against little opposition. For goodness sake, the Allies didn't take Rangoon until May 1945 in real life!

[moonraker65]

I believe the Allies made better progress once Mountbatten was made Supreme Allied Commander S.E.A. and Bill Slim's appointment as Commander XIV Army.

[Dobey455]

ORIGINAL: JohnDillworth

When available I moved the Australian 7th to Burma instead of back to Australia. They are good troops and will lead the offensive down the coast. Put almost all my artillery there to so I have great hopes.

Interestingly, this is very close to the actual British war time plans.
Churchill was loathe to release the AIF divisions from N.Africa, when the Australian P.M insisted on the AIF's return he came up with a plan to have the task forces that the 6th and 7th AIF Div's were on to stop in eastern India to "Refuel" and disembark the troops for shore leave, then sail off and abandon them there, forcing them to fight in India\Burma as the Australian goverment didn't have the resources to move the troops back to Australia themselves.

For the record the Australian goverment realised....as any player should realise, that the old men, boys and invalids of the Australian militia were totally insufficint for the defence of Australia, and they desperatly wanted their high quality forces back for service in the SW Pacfic.

[dude]

In the two games that I've played now against the AI (I restarted the first after Aug 42 when the patch came out) I was able to hold onto Pegu and all but wipe out the Japs there and take Bangkock by June. In the first game fearing the Jap aircover and the inability to move restricted units by ship to Rangoon, I moved overland via Imphal. In the second game I used the coast road and shipping (which I covered with fighters including some that I shipped from the US way back in Dec.) Since I knew it would be awhile before I could do anything seriously in the South Pacific I shipped some US bombers over too and kept the pressure on the Jap bases.

I moved practically every infantry unit I could find in India that way plus all the reinforcements that came in at Aden. I also moved every Inf unit in Burma to Pegu and I withdraw anything I could from Singapore to Rangon-Pegu (though I had to take the long way around Sumatra.) I had at least 16,000+ (I think I reached over 20k+ at one point near the end) combat infantry men (and even more support) sitting in Pegu by the time the Japs got there with any major force. As soon as a Jap unit moved into Pegu I launched a shock attack, inflicting a lot of damage and forcing it to retreat... rinse and repeat... The Jap units were defeated piecemeal. From about April to June I was able to keep this up and practically wipe out all of the AI's forces in Burma.

Jap shipping was taken care of by careful use of the Brit CV's, surface forces, and MTB's just to the west/nw of Rangoon. Mostly to keep the AI from landing at Akyab.

It's worked twice now for me against the AI... though I wouldn't recommend this at all vs a human player...