The Power of Inexperience / GreyJoy(A)-Rader(J)

[GreyJoy]

unfortunately no. My AFs are closed and my squadrons have no planes in India, and i'm restraining myself from refilling the squadrons cause i need to have first a decent pool of fighters in order to be able to defend my air space...plus, in order to defend against those 400 bombers that daily pounds me in India i need to have the AA back at Karachi and Hyderabad...while at the moment the biggest part of it is with the Eastern Army fleeing from the trap....[8|]

[GreyJoy]

It seems that most of his navy has fled the Solomons, leaving the fight to his air force. The first goal will be to get a stable foot into TLT airspace before thinking of something else.

In the meanwhile troops and planes are flowing towards SOPAC and NOPAC. The second half of the 43 will be decisive

[obvert]

I'm already sending couple of DDs to engage his raiders.... have to fear his betties thou...

My feeling is that you have to take losses as you have been to keep Karachi at all costs. Not worry about the Betties, bring in as much as possible, knowing even half the ships will go down. Also, you must have some more AA you could bring in by ship as well?

If I were you, (and I know you've dealt with all kinds of opinions telling you everything throughout this GC), I would forget about the Solomons and anywhere else in the Pacific until you know Karachi is going to be safe from the flanking that's happening in India right now. If you lose Karachi, you're totally screwed!

Can you imagine what Rader could do with his entire Indian Army and airforce unleashed on the Pacific, and no way for you to EVER get a foothold in India, China, or Burma in this game?!? You'd most likely lose Australia in 44! Or he'd just wipe Russia completely back to Irkutsk (which he has a lot of experience with by the way).

Get fighters back there, and get supply in, then slow him down!

[USSAmerica]

GreyJoy, is it possible for you to sacrifice a small unit or two from your India stack in a rear guard defense while the rest change over to move mode and haul ass out of there?

[GreyJoy]

I still have more than 200k supplies in India and, despite Rader's effort, i'm still able to deliver 5/10k supplies every 3/4 days.
I will take some losses (as i'm doing) but i don't wanna lose my mind and my coolness. I still think i can avoid the flanking using in a smart way my tanks.
And about fighters, i'll move them in when Rader will be forced to attack my ground troops with whatever he has at hand in order to try to break my lines... don't wanna risk to be destroyed on the ground again.

Karachi still has 2000 AVs and Hyderabad 400. These forces can be used to stop his flanking advance and his eventual encirclement. But i don't wanna rush. Tomorrow my units will get out of the contact with enemies again...and we'll see what to do

[GreyJoy]

ORIGINAL: USS America

GreyJoy, is it possible for you to sacrifice a small unit or two from your India stack in a rear guard defense while the rest change over to move mode and haul ass out of there?

Yes, i can do that, but with the "pursuite" option this can become a boomerang, making his tanks jump like a frong one hex every two days...

There's only one main road. The other one, the northern one, is a secondary road. Then only desert. I can easily shift my tanks on the secondary road (1000AVs), while the rest of my Infantry army (7000 AVs) will march on the main road. Tanks will be able to disangage faster if needed....

Let's see...

[GreyJoy]

And for those who were pushing me to advance as fast as possible in India...well, Rader is giving us all another lesson of strategically and tactically masterpiece[&o]

[crsutton]

GJ,

You are going to have to " sweat" this reatreat. Especially if he gets on the road north of the river. I don't know if you can fly recon out of Karachi but you had better be reconning that road between Jodhpur and Hyberdad. And hope that he is not sending a force down that road to cut your line of retreat. I would consider that the most serious threat and would think that it would be the first thing Rader would think of. He can easily use the rail net to shift troops to Jodhpur.

Probably the weakest portion of the land combat design is that there is no penalty for massing all of your troops in "million man" stacks. Rader seems to like to do this and you only choice is to do the same to counter him. The reality is that such masses of troops in one 40 mile space would just hopelessly mire any road net and make any sort of movement impossible. Not to mention supply. A better design would have every hex with a stacking limit just like an atoll and exceeding that limit would just suck up supplies or pehaps any attack vs overstacked unit would incur massive losses. I don't know, but the way it works now just looks wrong.

[GreyJoy]

CrSutton. In fact RAder with his tanks wanted to do just that gamble. And he still does. Now i need to counter this and cover my retreat. Tomorrow, when we'll move one more hex west, we'll know what to do. I have 3 recon planes still operative...not much but that's all i can efford...and he's closing my AFs so i don't know how long i'll have this opportunity...anyway, i still have some reserves and some aces in my sleeve. The first one is my mobile units. They can be sent forward to open the retreat path....they will suffer badly due to being out of the AA cover but they may be able to do that...as far as i can tell right now the units you see in the screenshot are the only ones "on the front"...there should not be any enemy units not showing...so hopefully he's still "behind me" in this race for life...


Will i ever learn not to get overconfident!?!?!?!?[:@]

[crsutton]

Well, without air superiorty, troops can move down that road from Jodhpur without you spotting them. It happens to me all the time in China. Japanese troops just pop up out of the blue. If you have a light mobile unit, you might want to send it down the road towards Jodhpur just to be sure. Better than being caught unaware. Like I say, it would be hard for me to imagine him not trying such an obvious gambit.

I also just learned something very important. You need to push that "R" button and examine the road net as not all roads are on the map but all roads are important. Read PzBs AAR for a good example of this where he got cut off in Burma due to his misunderstanding of how movement worked.

[GreyJoy]

ORIGINAL: crsutton

Well, without air superiorty, troops can move down that road from Jodhpur without you spotting them. It happens to me all the time in China. Japanese troops just pop up out of the blue. If you have a light mobile unit, you might want to send it down the road towards Jodhpur just to be sure. Better than being caught unaware. Like I say, it would be hard for me to imagine him not trying such an obvious gambit.

I also just learned something very important. You need to push that "R" button and examine the road net as not all roads are on the map but all roads are important. Read PzBs AAR for a good example of this where he got cut off in Burma due to his misunderstanding of how movement worked.

Always do that mate, thx!

The road that leads to Jodpur is a dirty road that goes thorugh the desert...it's almost impracticable...believe me. I've tried that long time ago during one of my tests and it's not feaseble.

No, the real threat is the northern route...however at Hyderabad and Karachi i have enough "emergency" troops to counter these moves...at least that's what i hope!

[wpurdom]

Your immediate question is whether you have the strength to hold Hyderabad. So as not to be misleading, I'm afriad you can't do this without air cover and a lot better recon than you have to assess the relative strengths. To do it, you would have to be able to hold both Karachi and Hyderabad, plus have a stronger mobile force to keep the supply lines open in the crunch. Without having air parity its hard to be comfortable you would have the stronger mobile force.

If somehow you could determine you had the strength to hold both, such a defensive position would be a huge asset to you due to his large force being immobile with no city to rail from. I think in the end, without air parity, you will not be able to determine whether you can do this, in which case, I think you have to give up Hyderabad.


If you consider me one of the ones pushing immediate action in India, I apologize for being unclear. This wasn't my intent. When India fell off the reports, I thought from your last comments that you had given up on your current offensive due to the indications of the size of his force and your air inferiority. What I was and am pushing for is that you have a decision tree for how to determine when and how you can retake India. After you determine your defensive plan and see if there is an immediate assault, you will be back to that central problem.

I don't see how you can reclaim India without air parity. As you point out the move/combat mode speed differential puts the person without an airforce at a big disadvantage, especially in the presence of a well established rail network. Can you regain air parity operating from one base Karachi? If he takes Hyderabad, he may then do a close investment of Karachi. If this happens, the forces committed to the siege are out of the rail network, but after getting established in the square, he can probably hold there with less AV than you have in Karachi. If you can maintain a decent air presence, though, it also lets you bomb his siege force there under the best possible circumstances - without separate fighter coverage and with the lowest possible pilot losses.

Without a close investment of Karachi, you need to develop multiple threats plus disruption of the rail network by raiding mobile forces. But with the move/combat mode differential, it's hard to see that happening without a decent air presence that can bomb his units as well as yours.

If you can't undertake the land option, you have to go the sea route. Indeed, I think an invasion of Diego Garcia may be overdue. In 2 weeks the Med opens.

The following would be my approach to analyzing your amphibious options. You should be able to get local superiority popping out of the wormhole either at DG or Socotra. Make sure your CV's (or CVE's) or surface fleet are in a escort fleet that goes the same speed as the amphibious fleet so everyone goes the same speed (or doublecheck the mechanics of forming an amph fleet out of an escort fleet - I think it works but I haven't tested it - and put everything in one escort fleet in the sea corridor). Someone like Canoerebel could probably give you good advice on wht sort of land force to estimate for taking Diego Garcia. A quick bombardment plus recon can let you decide if you brought a big enough hammer the turn before you invade.

Any such offensive has to be with the understanding that Radar can reclaim the Indian Ocean by sending KB. So you have to pull out the invasion force lickety-split. But you can afford to leave a garrison of a similar size to what you destroy. If Radar is willing to commit KB, you can let him have the island back. If you leave an ambush force for a counterattack by less than KB, they need to be lurking away from the island, away from search planes, with AO's and ready to hit the wormhole. How you decide that KB is there or not, is up to you [:D]

Then you have the wait to see what happens. No reason you can't trade invasions back and forth if you don't have a better use for the assets you would use. If the invasion goes unanswered, then go after another island (or bolder, go after both Diego Garcia and Socotra at once). If the invasions go unanswered, then you have the freedom to operate in the Indian Ocean with recon superiority and you can start thinking about Ceylon. (if you ever go after Ceylon you likely need to take all the ports at once. You don't want a situation like Port Moresby where you have only one isolated base).

Of course the bolder option is just to suddenly descend on Ceylon - all ports at once from Austrailia with overwhelming force. It's something Nemo might do. Too risky for my taste, especially if you don't have a better understanding of the mechanics and the correlation of forces than your opponent.

[GreyJoy]

ORIGINAL: wpurdom

Your immediate question is whether you have the strength to hold Hyderabad. So as not to be misleading, I'm afriad you can't do this without air cover and a lot better recon than you have to assess the relative strengths. To do it, you would have to be able to hold both Karachi and Hyderabad, plus have a stronger mobile force to keep the supply lines open in the crunch. Without having air parity its hard to be comfortable you would have the stronger mobile force.

If somehow you could determine you had the strength to hold both, such a defensive position would be a huge asset to you due to his large force being immobile with no city to rail from. I think in the end, without air parity, you will not be able to determine whether you can do this, in which case, I think you have to give up Hyderabad.


If you consider me one of the ones pushing immediate action in India, I apologize for being unclear. This wasn't my intent. When India fell off the reports, I thought from your last comments that you had given up on your current offensive due to the indications of the size of his force and your air inferiority. What I was and am pushing for is that you have a decision tree for how to determine when and how you can retake India. After you determine your defensive plan and see if there is an immediate assault, you will be back to that central problem.

I don't see how you can reclaim India without air parity. As you point out the move/combat mode speed differential puts the person without an airforce at a big disadvantage, especially in the presence of a well established rail network. Can you regain air parity operating from one base Karachi? If he takes Hyderabad, he may then do a close investment of Karachi. If this happens, the forces committed to the siege are out of the rail network, but after getting established in the square, he can probably hold there with less AV than you have in Karachi. If you can maintain a decent air presence, though, it also lets you bomb his siege force there under the best possible circumstances - without separate fighter coverage and with the lowest possible pilot losses.

Without a close investment of Karachi, you need to develop multiple threats plus disruption of the rail network by raiding mobile forces. But with the move/combat mode differential, it's hard to see that happening without a decent air presence that can bomb his units as well as yours.

If you can't undertake the land option, you have to go the sea route. Indeed, I think an invasion of Diego Garcia may be overdue. In 2 weeks the Med opens.

The following would be my approach to analyzing your amphibious options. You should be able to get local superiority popping out of the wormhole either at DG or Socotra. Make sure your CV's (or CVE's) or surface fleet are in a escort fleet that goes the same speed as the amphibious fleet so everyone goes the same speed (or doublecheck the mechanics of forming an amph fleet out of an escort fleet - I think it works but I haven't tested it - and put everything in one escort fleet in the sea corridor). Someone like Canoerebel could probably give you good advice on wht sort of land force to estimate for taking Diego Garcia. A quick bombardment plus recon can let you decide if you brought a big enough hammer the turn before you invade.

Any such offensive has to be with the understanding that Radar can reclaim the Indian Ocean by sending KB. So you have to pull out the invasion force lickety-split. But you can afford to leave a garrison of a similar size to what you destroy. If Radar is willing to commit KB, you can let him have the island back. If you leave an ambush force for a counterattack by less than KB, they need to be lurking away from the island, away from search planes, with AO's and ready to hit the wormhole. How you decide that KB is there or not, is up to you [:D]

Then you have the wait to see what happens. No reason you can't trade invasions back and forth if you don't have a better use for the assets you would use. If the invasion goes unanswered, then go after another island (or bolder, go after both Diego Garcia and Socotra at once). If the invasions go unanswered, then you have the freedom to operate in the Indian Ocean with recon superiority and you can start thinking about Ceylon. (if you ever go after Ceylon you likely need to take all the ports at once. You don't want a situation like Port Moresby where you have only one isolated base).

Of course the bolder option is just to suddenly descend on Ceylon - all ports at once from Austrailia with overwhelming force. It's something Nemo might do. Too risky for my taste, especially if you don't have a better understanding of the mechanics and the correlation of forces than your opponent.

No need to apologyse mate! It's me the one who took the decision to advance, well before you asked.

I cannot simply abbandon Hyderabad cause the latter is foundamental in the defence of Karachi. his air force is clearly a problem cause he has masses that i only can dream about and i don't have any USN or USMC squadron in India unfortunately, so i cannot count of those 130 Hellcats or 45 Wildcats or 30 corsairs every month....
Anyway, he cannot bomb everything at once with 200 bombers...he needs to chose what to bomb...and as soon as i split my forces he will have to give Karachi some breath...breath that could be used to move in some fighters...but i really don't know if i have any hope against georges...
However i'll try that.
Now the prority is to get my army safely back. I made up my mind and decided to split the armoured units and send them on the northern road. At the same time 2 divisions will get out of Karachi and will move to defend the northern approaches to Hyderabad. he will bomb me to dust, i know...but again, as long as he bombs my LCUs he's not bombing my AFs...

The situation grew grimm in front of my eyes and i didn't notice that...i'm really pissed for being so overconfident and, in the end, plain idiot. Again and again i make the same mistakes as always...

We have to assume also that the KB, which is disappeared from the Solomons, is moving to India to support this new, mighty effort...

At least he cannot count on all those LCUs brought to the Solomons and on those 5 divisions stuck at Tulagi...a little consolation but still...

[GreyJoy]

about the "sea option"...Rader knows...He knows i'll have to take that option...and he'll be ready with the whole KB, 1000 LBA fighters and 1000 LBA bombers. My CVs will be outnumbered by 2-1 in terms of planes...whatever landing i chose he'll be ready. i think once he considered "lost" those troops at tulagi he had already decided to shift back to India again....probably already in Jan 43....
I assume he has moved his CVs back to Singapore by now...waiting for me... that defeat could really end the war...and i cannot risk such a terrible outcome!
God...i HAD to see the risks i was running...i had to play conservately and wait for better days...impatient. Stupid and impatient.
 
But this battle is yet to be lost!

[wpurdom]

All I can say is that if you can hold both Karachi and Hyderabad, this could be your big break. It looks like he's committing the bulk of his force to one location where it's tied down off the rail network. With air parity you could get him tied up in a mobile battle where's he gets isolated and you outrace him.

A big if. Exciting times coming. Maybe. He's probably got a better idea of the correlation of forces than you do - he knows what you have and what he has. You only know what you have basically, though that could change soon. He could back off at last minute. Although given the Russian invasion in another AAR, crossing the line of death so late here, and his approach to the Solomons, it doesn't sound like Radar. We will all have a laugh if he meekly turns back to Multan.

But if you're going to take the chance of holding both towns, be ready for following up on success. Don't be like Meade after Gettysburg. If you hold both towns and establish an air force, don't just say Whew! Be ready for victory.

I will stay tuned.

PS Radar hopes to make Hyderabad a replay of Caesar's siege of Alesia. You hope to reenact the Russian triumph at Stalingrad. Whoever can win the mobile battles around Hyderabad has an excellent opportunity to isolate the other's army there.

[GreyJoy]

... will be exiting! For sure... For which side is not that clear to me yet [:D]
However see Japan still on the offensive run in mid 43 is somehow a guinness [:)]
 
Looking forward for the next turns... will be a hot week end

[Canoerebel]

GreyJoy, due to my work schedule, I haven't read your posts in depth over the past few days - rather, bits and pieces.  So it's possible I've developed an inaccurate estimate of what is going on.
 
I don't think Rader has any intention of try to take Karachi.  The only thing that might change that is if he were somehow able to destroy the bulk of the Allied army forward from there (which seems unlikely).
 
He's making alot of noise, wasting alot of energy (IMHO).  He made a mess of India and now he's making a mess of the Solomons.
 
While you rightly have to give careful attention to India to make sure your troops don't get cut off, be sure to look for opportunities and ways to go on the offensive by either threatening his flanks or by actually cutting off his army.
 
You do have an air force in India, don't you?  You've got to have aircraft in order to wage a successful war in a land mass that large.

[GreyJoy]

CR, as far as i can tell he could have easily 15k AVs in India right now. if he manages to destroy the bulk of my army he may be well able to take hyderabad and Karachi...
 
...and i know i need an air force...but to do that i need to get some decent fighter pools...that i don't have right now[:o]...and however i won't be able to counter his masses of 1000 LBAs in India with few outdated fighters....the brits are still stuck with HurriMkIIc...and the USAAF till the arrival of the P-47 only has P-40Ks to fight with....not a good trade against Georges, A6M5s and Tojos

[Canoerebel]

15k AV cannot take Karachi if your army makes it back there.  If he besieges Karachi and you have 7k or 8k AV plus 200k supplies (or more, if possible), he's going to get his arse cooked eventually.

[GreyJoy]

May 03,04 43

Another bloody turn.

An terrible battle over Lunga where we were outnumbered 3-1...Despite the heavy escort his Vals suffered badly and only managed to put a bomb on CL Leander...damages that will be repaired in few days at Sydeny...
My guys did their job, killing 45 enemy planes and losing only 5 (NO KIA!!!!).

In India we moved another hex, leaving behind those 55 units chasing me down...but he deployed his mighty air force against my troops...400 bombers attacked from 30000 ft (above our AA cieling) and inflicted 500 casualities, plus 30 guns disabled and 25 vehicles destroyed...[:(]...however we managed to move 25 more miles in the new hex and i hope to get ahead the next turn...I'm forming an emergency detachment that will move from Karachi to the northern Route, covering the flank of my army...

His midgets subs run havoc against our shippings near Tulagi, sinking 3 LSTs...

His air force is really a powefull instrument...

Another subs sunk by his Helens...it's becoming a butcherhouse...

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Morning Air attack on TF, near Lunga at 114,138

Weather in hex: Thunderstorms

Raid detected at 109 NM, estimated altitude 13,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 40 minutes

Japanese aircraft
A6M3 Zero x 22
A6M3a Zero x 58
A6M5 Zero x 30
D3A1 Val x 32
N1K1-J George x 34
Ki-43-IIa Oscar x 39
Ki-43-IIb Oscar x 36
Ki-44-IIa Tojo x 108
Ki-45 KAIa Nick x 15



Allied aircraft
Spitfire VIII x 9
Spitfire Vc Trop x 6
Hurricane XIIb x 6
P-38G Lightning x 8
P-40K Warhawk x 20
F4U-1 Corsair x 14
F6F-3 Hellcat x 30


Japanese aircraft losses
A6M3 Zero: 1 destroyed
A6M5 Zero: 1 destroyed
D3A1 Val: 15 destroyed
D3A1 Val: 3 destroyed by flak
Ki-43-IIa Oscar: 1 destroyed

Allied aircraft losses
P-40K Warhawk: 1 destroyed
F4U-1 Corsair: 1 destroyed
F6F-3 Hellcat: 1 destroyed

Allied Ships
CL Leander
CL Cleveland
CL Columbia


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Afternoon Air attack on TF, near Lunga at 114,138

Weather in hex: Heavy rain

Raid detected at 116 NM, estimated altitude 19,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 43 minutes

Japanese aircraft
A6M3 Zero x 21
A6M3a Zero x 58
A6M5 Zero x 28
D3A1 Val x 38
N1K1-J George x 34
Ki-43-IIa Oscar x 38
Ki-43-IIb Oscar x 35
Ki-44-IIa Tojo x 106
Ki-45 KAIa Nick x 14



Allied aircraft
Spitfire VIII x 9
Spitfire Vc Trop x 6
Hurricane XIIb x 6
P-38G Lightning x 8
P-40K Warhawk x 19
F4U-1 Corsair x 12
F6F-3 Hellcat x 28


Japanese aircraft losses
A6M3a Zero: 1 destroyed
D3A1 Val: 7 destroyed, 10 damaged
D3A1 Val: 5 destroyed by flak
N1K1-J George: 1 destroyed
Ki-43-IIa Oscar: 1 destroyed
Ki-43-IIb Oscar: 1 destroyed

Allied aircraft losses
Spitfire Vc Trop: 1 destroyed
F6F-3 Hellcat: 2 destroyed

Allied Ships
CL Columbia
DD Conway
CL Cleveland
DD Eaton
CL Leander, Bomb hits 1, on fire



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Submarine attack near Ternate at 76,103

Japanese Ships
TK Matsumoto Maru, Torpedo hits 1, on fire, heavy damage[:D]

Allied Ships
SS Seawolf



TK Matsumoto Maru is sighted by SS Seawolf
SS Seawolf launches 4 torpedoes


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Submarine attack near Lunga at 115,138

Japanese Ships
SSX Ha-36

Allied Ships
LST-19, Torpedo hits 1, heavy damage


Allied ground losses:
Vehicles lost 1 (1 destroyed, 0 disabled)


LST-19 is sighted by SSX Ha-36
SSX Ha-36 launches 2 torpedoes at LST-19

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Submarine attack near Lunga at 115,138

Japanese Ships
SSX Ha-39

Allied Ships
LST-22, Torpedo hits 1, heavy damage



LST-22 is sighted by SSX Ha-39
SSX Ha-39 launches 2 torpedoes at LST-22