Here come the Rebels! (Canoe v. Q-Ball)

[Cribtop]

Whatever you do with your CVs, remember that losing the reinforcements in transit would be a strategic disaster. KB can re-position very quickly indeed if he gets even a hint of what's up. Beware the assumption that your slow moving thin skins are out of range on the way in to Karachi. Losses of empty ships is acceptable, but lose the UK troops and you will never replace them.

[witpqs]

Something about the game engine to keep in mind:

Course changes when off-map TF's are enroute are not allowed.

So if you send a convoy set to appear at a given hex on map and the enemy appears near that hex a few turns before, you can't do anything about it until your convoy actually shows up on map.

IRL you could just reverse course for a day or hang out 25 hexes away until you deemed it safe to proceed.

In game you can't. In game your convoy appears on schedule and gets attacked.

[Canoerebel]

First, I have found that you CAN recall ships in transit from Aden or Abadan to India. I've done it a half-dozen times in the game already.

This makes it easier to try to work a way to slip shps into Karachi.

First, I'll send some ships loaded with engineers and base forces (they were already in strategic mode and ready to go). We'll see how Brad reacts. He may conclude that they are the infantry units and this could possibly discourage him from some of his plan.

Second, the ships carrying the British units will split between fast APs and slower xAKs. This will hopefully facilitate getting ships in more quickly.

It will be a week before the ships arrive, so the position of the KB may change and affect my plans, but at the moment I'm going to try some blockade runniing.

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

First, I have found that you CAN recall ships in transit from Aden or Abadan to India. I've done it a half-dozen times in the game already.

Cool.

I forget the details but they had some bug that really messed up the units/ships in transit when some people did this (obviously doesn't happen all the time if you did it successfully!) so the developers' advice was "don't do this".

[Bullwinkle58]

Deleted double post.

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

ORIGINAL: witpqs

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

First, I have found that you CAN recall ships in transit from Aden or Abadan to India. I've done it a half-dozen times in the game already.

Cool.

I forget the details but they had some bug that really messed up the units/ships in transit when some people did this (obviously doesn't happen all the time if you did it successfully!) so the developers' advice was "don't do this".

Don Bowen said:


"This might be it: fb.asp?m=2179384

There are issues with turning around a TF when in an off-map pipeline. Lots of conditions, many work, some don't - best to never do it. Been like this since original release, when the "some don't" raised their ugly heads. Very difficult to address - off map TFs are, well, off map. They do not have actual x,y coordinates and their relationship to the map is maintained by calculations involving the arrival point/departure point on the actual map and the distance traveled/to travel. There is (a lot) of code to handle such routings but it has been found to have holes the size of (exageration of your choice) when basic control values are invalidated.

Hard to tell what might happen. Post a save in the tech support forum and I'll take a look (probably tomorrow)."


tm.asp?m=2342187&mpage=1&key=off%2Dmap%2Cmovement? is where he said the quoted matter above. The link he posted in the quoted matter contains a list of DO NOTS concerning off-map movement.

Given this, playing shuffle games on the Aden--Karachi transit is really difficult for an Allied player fighting an India invasion. You must COMMIT to the inbound transit at least erupting into the IO for a minimum of a turn. You can turn tail and run then, but you lose that TF for an entire turn-around cycle. If you seek to hide out in Aden or Abadan, perhaps to save old RN BBs from a northward cruising KB, you must COMMIT to a couple of weeks of loss of those ships.

As I said last week, what off-map giveth, it also taketh away.

[Halsey]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

Something about the game engine to keep in mind:

Course changes when off-map TF's are enroute are not allowed.

So if you send a convoy set to appear at a given hex on map and the enemy appears near that hex a few turns before, you can't do anything about it until your convoy actually shows up on map.

IRL you could just reverse course for a day or hang out 25 hexes away until you deemed it safe to proceed.

In game you can't. In game your convoy appears on schedule and gets attacked.

I do it all the time.

You'll get a message stating "this many days"to change destination, then voila!
On their way someplace else.[;)]

[Smeulders]

ORIGINAL: Halsey

ORIGINAL: witpqs

Something about the game engine to keep in mind:

Course changes when off-map TF's are enroute are not allowed.

So if you send a convoy set to appear at a given hex on map and the enemy appears near that hex a few turns before, you can't do anything about it until your convoy actually shows up on map.

IRL you could just reverse course for a day or hang out 25 hexes away until you deemed it safe to proceed.

In game you can't. In game your convoy appears on schedule and gets attacked.

I do it all the time.

You'll get a message stating "this many days"to change destination, then voila!
On their way someplace else.[;)]

There are issues with turning around a TF when in an off-map pipeline. Lots of conditions, many work, some don't - best to never do it. Been like this since original release, when the "some don't" raised their ugly heads. Very difficult to address - off map TFs are, well, off map. They do not have actual x,y coordinates and their relationship to the map is maintained by calculations involving the arrival point/departure point on the actual map and the distance traveled/to travel. There is (a lot) of code to handle such routings but it has been found to have holes the size of (exageration of your choice) when basic control values are invalidated.

As said, it works often, but I've had some serious problems with it as well. One transport TF that had it's arrival hex changed started looping from "20 days until arrival" to "one day until arrival" and back up to 20 again. Eventually it did return to CT when I told it to do that, but from now on I'm very wary of changing destinations for off-map TFs.

[Canoerebel]

3/31/42

Gents, thanks for the information about "in transit" issues. I had no idea. The ships I have recalled thus far have acted perfectly fine, but they were also low value supply TFs. I don't really want to lose a bunch of troop transports to some unpredictable bugginess.

India: The unit coming ashore at Calicut, on the southwestern shores of India, is 6th Guards Division (I think this is one of the four "extra" divisions given Japan in Scenario Two). That's too much to evict with what I have in the area, so I'll shift my units a bit north and prepare for a defense around Bombay or Bangalore or someplace like that. I can't imagine Brad would be satisfied with landing in force at India's southern tip. To do so turns this into a long, drawn out land campaign. If Brad's coming for India - and I'm almost sure he is - then Goa, Bombay, or Surat make the most sense. The only other possiblity, which I consider pretty unlikely, would be if he got cold feet and decided to just go for NE India.

KB: Remains in place south of Karachi some eight to ten hexes.

Weighing Things: It is still possible - unlikely, but possible - that Brad could make a sudden shift and hit Australia or some other region. Each day makes such a shift that much more unlikely. So, as time passes, the Allies feel less need to garrison places like the Line Islands and correspondingly more need to garrison forward bases - like Fiji and the Western Aleutians - that were basically indefensible early in the war if the Japanese committed to major operations. So we are entering a phase where the Allies will try to secure the Aleutians and Fiji as new reinforcements arrive on the West Coast. That may take several months, but once accomplished we will be nearing the point of equilibrium in the Pacific. I still expect Japanese moves here - Midway in particular - at some point, but the absence of the KB combined with Brad's lack of knowledge about the position of the Allied carriers, is giving me alot of time to work with.

[Canoerebel]

A brief word to explain why I've chosen this strategy:

Following the initial conquests of Singapore, Luzon, etc., an experienced, capable Japanese player has a big decision to make: Where next? Done properly, he has the means to conquer a major territory like Ceylon/NE India, NW and NE Oz, New Zealand, Suva/Pago Pago, and possibly Hawaii and India, though I don't think either have been vanquished in a PBEM yet.

An experienced and capable Allied player has to decide how strongly to oppose the Japanese. He can do so vigorously and may succeeed. But there is the distinct possibility that he will come out on the short end, which risks a Japanese auto-victory or, at a mininum, many, many months of inertia as he faces a war in an ocean without the one asset he needs - carrier superiority - to fight that war.

Knowing my opponent is very good led me to choose a soft - very soft - defense early in the game. I am willing to concede a heck of alot of territory if, in doing so, I can (1) protect my carriers; (2) develop my infrastructre - troops, supplies, bases - to facilitate the eventual Allied offensives; (3) use any territory gained by Japan to my advantage later - for deception purposes and/or a fight that favors the Allies; and (4) not lose anything vital - like SE Australia (Melbourne/Sydney), NW India (Karachi), and Pearl Harbor.

So, to this point, I haven't been pushed beyond where I'm willing to be pushed. I'm getting nervous about India, now, but had Brad landed in strength at Townsville, I'd probably be equally worried about Sydney now. I have alot of territory that I can yield in India, but it's going to be a battle.

[HMS Resolution]

Historically speaking, of course, the loss of Ceylon would have been an immense blow to the Allies; it was the last major source of natural rubber available to the allies, and its loss likely would have caused the collapse of Churchill's government.

[Canoerebel]

The Situation in West India, 4/3/42.

[Canoerebel]

The situation in South India, 4/1/42.

[Canoerebel]

The situation in NE India, 4/1/42.

[crsutton]

He simply can't keep those carriers there forever. There can be no operations elsewhere. He may not be able to move far into OZ, but the Japanese player has to take Darwin and some of N Oz. If not, sooner than later he is faced with an Allied push into the DEI.

[Canoerebel]

Last week somebody asked why the Allies are preoccupied with NoPac when all the action is in India. This map illustrates the reason. The Allies can select a more historical route of advance through CenPac/SoPac/SWPac in which case they have a LONG way to go to reach the Japanese vitals.

Or, the Allies can leap across the Berring Sea right to the Japanese heartland....as long, that is, as the Allies control the western Aleutians. If the enemy takes them, it creates a critical buffer and tripwire. The Japanese would get plenty of advance notice of any Allied move in NoPac. Therefore, the failure of Japan to take the western Aleutians, and ongoing Allied efforts to occupy and secure them, is the second most important operation taking place in the game.

NoPac is huge, though most players on both sides ignore it - probably because we, as WWII buffs, just *like* the idea of re-creating the real war. By late '43 and early '44, the Allies can deposit vast amounts of troops and supplies at major islands in the Kuriles and vicinity that offer potentially big airfields in close proximity to northern Japan. To stop this, Japan has to strongly garrison these islands and have airfields built up and base forces present.

If the Allies fall really far behind schedule, for some reason (India, *cough* *cough*), NoPac offers an almost instantaneous route to get back into the game. I've had success doing this very thing in a WitP match in the not too distant past.

Brad knows all this - in fact, he gave me some friendly advice and counsel when the idea first occurred to me to invade Hokkaido and the Kuriles in that WitP game. When he sees the western Aleutian bases growing in our game, he'll have to beef up his NoPac defenses considerably. I think I can use this to my advantage as the game wears on, either for decoy purposes or to actually invade NoPac.

NoPac important? Put it this way - nowhere else can the Allies get close to the Home Islands in 1942.

[Bullwinkle58]

All true, but there are the winter penalties, the small bases for loading and supply dumps, geographic difficulty in supporting/redundant LRCAP, and relatively long trips to shipyards.

I know you must be considering that Q isn't seemingly paying much attention to the North because he intends to win the game in India "pretty soon now."[:)]

So I won't remind you.[:)][:)]

[Canoerebel]

It's a long game, and it's even a long time before auto-victory comes into play, so there's no "pretty soon now." Of course, Brad may accomplish things now that lay the groundwork for victory later, but we'll see.

I think for Brad to achieve auto-victory will require the conquest of India. How many IJA divisions will that take? The Allies currently have something like 5,000 AV present in India. They're not the best troops, but I would think a minium of ten IJA divisions will be necessary to have a decent shot at it. Furthermore, Brad will have to keep the full KB nearby or else he risks the Allied carriers disrupting his supply lines.

And if he keeps the KB present near India, the Allies will be in a position to move forward in the Pacific theater well before the end of the year.

Yes, I'm nervous about India, but we have a very, very long way to go.

[Capt. Harlock]

All true, but there are the winter penalties, the small bases for loading and supply dumps, geographic difficulty in supporting/redundant LRCAP, and relatively long trips to shipyards.

The winter penalties apply to Japanese operations as well. In fact, it's a great early war equalizer: the Netties aren't nearly as lethal when the snows are blowing. As for trips to the shipyards, it's actually a shorter trip to Pearl from the Aleutians than from Fiji or the southern Solomons. Finally, even if no invasion is planned, fast bombardment runs of CA/DD forces to Sakhlin or Hokkaido can make this sector impossible for the Japanese to ignore.

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: Capt. Harlock

All true, but there are the winter penalties, the small bases for loading and supply dumps, geographic difficulty in supporting/redundant LRCAP, and relatively long trips to shipyards.

The winter penalties apply to Japanese operations as well. In fact, it's a great early war equalizer: the Netties aren't nearly as lethal when the snows are blowing. As for trips to the shipyards, it's actually a shorter trip to Pearl from the Aleutians than from Fiji or the southern Solomons. Finally, even if no invasion is planned, fast bombardment runs of CA/DD forces to Sakhlin or Hokkaido can make this sector impossible for the Japanese to ignore.

Point one, yes. He can airlift supplies to some extent, but the winter is hard on both. Shipyards--I'd use Sydney and Brisbane, not PH, from the Solomons. The Aleutians can use Seattle, but it's also pretty easy for th eJapanese player to flood the Yukon coast with subs. And bombardments only works if there's something to bombard. Heavy bombardment TFs eat fuel, and again open to sub attacks for not much return.

If the Allied player sets foot in the Kuriles, he gets a big, free Japanese troop activation for his trouble. Plus, I believe, early activation of kamis.

There's a reason the Allies didn't go to the HI through the Aleutians.