Palembang 80% damaged

[seille]

In my AI game (me japs) i just captured Palembang in early april and i was very disappointed to see
about 80% of the oil center and refineries damaged.
It will need YEARS and tons of supplies to repair that damage. Very disappointing.

Was it just bad luck or was the 3-day fight (instead of fast victory) the reason for the high damage ?

I cannot remember that i ever read about such a enormous damage to that important place.

What was the damage you guy´s found when you captured Palembang ?

[CapAndGown]

Bad luck I would say. I also took several days to capture the place but only suffered about 33% damage.

[seille]

Yep. 33% and even 50% was the "normal" damage i found so far, so i was a bit shocked when i looked at Palembang.
 
153 Oil and 747 damaged. Exactly 83%....
Think i need additional oil sources.

[ny59giants]

It may be because of my own bad luck reflect yours, but the early capture of this base may be the most important thing for Japan to do by the end of Dec 41. You get over 250,000 fuel per month when it is captured relatively intact.

[seille]

I forgot: it is my first witp GC ever, so you should not expect a "professional" advance.
I´m more careful and tried to avoid any very risky moves. Learned many lessons while playing.
A new game would be different i think [:)]

Palembang didn´t look like a easy target to me in december when i conquered Malaya. Had not enough troops
and no KB support, so i decided first to grab Singapore, then attack Sumatra. Maybe a mistake. But i think
it was more or less bad luck overall.

PS. Please don´t think i don´t know about the importance of the Palembang oil. I sadly know it....

[jetjockey]

Luck does play a roll, but don't forget enemy engineers. [ 13.6: If defending engineers were present in the hex, the chance and severity of damage is increased with the number of engineers...] If your opponent stuffed the city with engineers, then...

I would also say that the longer it takes you to capture a city the greater the damage. I've not found this in the manual, but it makes sense and seems to be a common result. Earlier in my PBEM I stormed Palembang with a SNLF and two fresh Rgts from Korea, suffering about 12 total industry damage (early Feb) , but Batavia was trashed when the battle took about a week.

[findmeifyoucan]

With regard to enemy engineers you can suppress these guys by air bombardment limiting their effect of damaging the base. The more disrupted they are the less damage they can do to the base while retreating.

[treespider]

Shock Attacking will also damage facilities...IIRC

[jonreb31]

In my current Jap game I was able naval bombard, land 350 AV at Palembang, shock attack the next day, and got the facilities in my hands at %100. Very elating and worked out much better than expected ... the method I use is don't attempt to attack the oil facilities unless you have a big enough hammer to take it quickly.

[Q-Ball]

I've shock attacked and captured it intact. But like JonReb, I did it with a whole bunch of guys.

Having 80% damage in a PBEM would be VERY bad!

[RUDOLF]

I have played around a bit with different tactics capturing/defending Palembang and in my experience, you need overwhelming odds and a good shock attack to take it intact if the Allies defend it.

[FatR]

ORIGINAL: RUDOLF

I have played around a bit with different tactics capturing/defending Palembang and in my experience, you need overwhelming odds and a good shock attack to take it intact if the Allies defend it.

In my current Japanese PBEM I went for Palembang very early (remembering what happened when I stuffed it with engineers when playing as Allies), and initial force launched two unsuccessful deliberate attacks against the initial garrizon, then on the third day reinforcements took the city. There was about 6 damage to oil and 7 to refinery. Looks like the most important factor is the number of defending units and engineers in them.

[Sardaukar]

What I have seen in previous discussions, some players deliberately bombard defending units with air attacks quite some time do disrupt engineers in defending units. Apparently this will help to keep damage down quite a bit. 

[Deca]

ORIGINAL: findmeifyoucan
With regard to enemy engineers you can suppress these guys by air bombardment limiting their effect of damaging the base. The more disrupted they are the less damage they can do to the base while retreating.

ORIGINAL: Sardaukar
What I have seen in previous discussions, some players deliberately bombard defending units with air attacks quite some time do disrupt engineers in defending units. Apparently this will help to keep damage down quite a bit.

Is that information disclosed anywhere (specifically about the correlation with disrupted enemy engineers and that lessening their ability to damage the infrastructure)?

[seille]

Mhh, then i must have really bad luck with defending engineers. In one of my last turns i captured
Hengyang in China and it is completely damaged.0(40) light industry and 0(110) resources.
In the actual case i captured the city in the first attack without any serious bomb attacks before.
 
Palembang was bombed by Sallys to weaken the defense and i needed 4 or 5 days to capture the city.
Palembang defenders:
Defending units:
    So.Sumatra Garrison Battalion
    24th NZ Pioneer Coy
    Palembang Base Force
    109th RN Base Force
 
Hengyang defnders (attacked by superior forces):
Defending units:
    4th Chinese Corps
    46th Chinese Corps
 
I can´t see any special reasons for the extreme high damage. Maybe a bonus for the AI ?
Or it is really the later you get it the more damage. No idea.
 

[bigred]

I was playing IJ w/ the Ai as the allies, redirected the north borneo invasion w/ part of the singer invasion group to palembang and it fell on the second day. Should be abe to recreate this everytime unless a house rule is put in place.

[seille]

An old thread, but i thought it would be funny to get it back.

I´m actually in my second GC game as japan which is my first PBEM against a experienced player.
A learning game.
This time i wanted to grab Palembang earlier and faster and landed the 38th Division there
after it captured Hongkong. Landed in turn 23.

My opponent reenforced the location, so my first shock attack failed. Then a enemy shock attack hit Palembang
when some fresh allied troops crossed the river from southwest. After some rest, air and naval bombardments i took
Palembang in the current turn (turn 31). Maybe some guy´s will say now "Puh seille, one week to get that place
is way too long. Too much time for the enemy engineers to prepare destruction".
But look at the picture. Is TOTAL destruction the price i should pay here ? I don´t think so.

Some things i learned:
The early capture doesn´t matter. Next game i´ll attack it in march [:(]
It is more or less a question of bad luck.
Get it as fast as you can. No one week fighting. One Division might not be enough sometimes !

Maybe there is a power that don´t want me to play Japan. 80% damage and now 100% at Palembang.
It´s a nightmare. 900.000 supply alone for the oil and it is repaired about 6/44......arrrghhhhh

[seille]

This is the log for the last combat:

Ground combat at Palembang (48,91)

Japanese Deliberate attack

Attacking force 17778 troops, 187 guns, 85 vehicles, Assault Value = 474

Defending force 9254 troops, 122 guns, 92 vehicles, Assault Value = 202

Japanese adjusted assault: 255

Allied adjusted defense: 112

Japanese assault odds: 2 to 1 (fort level 0)

Japanese forces CAPTURE Palembang !!!

Combat modifiers
Defender: terrain(+), preparation(-), experience(-)
Attacker:

Japanese ground losses:
447 casualties reported
Squads: 2 destroyed, 14 disabled
Non Combat: 2 destroyed, 13 disabled
Engineers: 0 destroyed, 6 disabled


Allied ground losses:
4369 casualties reported
Squads: 163 destroyed, 0 disabled
Non Combat: 209 destroyed, 8 disabled
Engineers: 91 destroyed, 0 disabled
Guns lost 36 (36 destroyed, 0 disabled)
Vehicles lost 87 (87 destroyed, 0 disabled)
Units retreated 13
Units destroyed 1


Defeated Allied Units Retreating!

Assaulting units:
19th Ind. Engineer Regiment
38th Division
20th Ind. Engineer Regiment
2nd Mortar Battalion
9th Base Force

Defending units:
West Borneo KNIL Battalion
44th Indian Brigade
So.Sumatra Garrison Battalion
Riouw KNIL Battalion
1st Manchester Battalion
45th Indian Brigade
2nd Gordons Battalion
2nd Loyal Battalion
48th Gurkha Brigade
West Sumatra Base Force
24th NZ Pioneer Coy
North Borneo Base Force
Palembang Base Force
109th RN Base Force /1

[Misconduct]

I think I was very lucky with Palembang, I landed 2 divisions and without air/sea power, managed to shock attack with only 12% damage. I even landed with 35,000 supply to make sure it gets repaired in time.

seille, quick question sir! If you are playing the AI, you should have a turn saved before the landing at Palembang, perhaps work the turn until you get a better understanding.

I did this to make sure I didn't have any problems at Palembang/balikpapan because in my PBEM I was able to execute flawlessly.

[seille]

Sadly it´s a PBEM this time. Wanted to make it better and got the worst possible outcome.
Two Divisions with Shock attack seems to be a good solution. Hitting hard and fast.
I bet it was the long time the enemy baseforces had to prepare all the destruction.
Imho it has NOTHING to do early or late attack, just with the enemy defense and the time the fighting lasts.