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

[Crackaces]

ORIGINAL: Itdepends

Where in the manual does it say how far you can overstack a carrier before flight ops are impacted? I assumed it was 110% as per the recovery of aircraft following the loss of a parent carrier.

7.0.1.1.1.1 EMERGENCY LANDINGS

Planes attempting to return to a Carrier that has been damaged sufficiently to prevent aircraft
operations will instead attempt to land on another Carrier or airfield that is within its remaining
range. Planes won’t make an emergency landing on another Carrier in such a way as to cause
it to exceed 110% ........Also, carriers may never carry more than 5 air units at one time.


BTW) The manual does not mean the code works that way [;)] But I think this is true ...

[jeffk3510]

ORIGINAL: GreyJoy

He has indeed! But Rader isn't concerned about a/c losses. He knows he can trade 4 a/c of his own for every one of mine and still be able to stand...he's producing tons of modern a/c and all his strategy is based on this statement. I'm achieving a 2-1 exchange ratio...but it's never enough...he always have more fighters than me and, despite his pilots quality has clearly decreased, it's easy to get pilots with 70 Air skill and with his numbers he knows he can sustained more prolonged losses than me...and this strategy is sound and it's working

Possibly... but what about his pilot losses...his skill in the air has to be well below what it started out as...

[Crackaces]

As I have read through this .. and I might have missed it .. but I do not see the submarine actions interdicting the home island .. is this happening? I have found soe success in 1942 with USN subamrines .. I have to think in late 1943 the merchant marine force could be attrited GreyJoy Homelands and industry are hungry souls ..

Just an uneducated thought from the other much more newbie AFB ..

[Canoerebel]

Rader does seem to be overly profligate (that's a word inserted for Cribtop's viewing pleasure) in his use and loss of aircraft and pilots. He's also making (IMO) mistakes.

Why?

Knowing that GJ was a newb, and having whacked him nearly back into the Stone Age at the start of the game, I believe rader kept thinking that just one more good push would clobber GJ and set him back. Rader probably thinks many of his ills are due to Allied "uber weapsons" (like the PT boat, as he has noted in one thread, and 4EB). He's also probably reached the point where his pilot and aircraft losses are so high, with pilot quality now so low, that all he can do is throw massed waves of aircraft at GJ in hopes of overwhelming him or striking a decisive blow.

Rader probably doesn't realize just how good a player GJ has become.

I think GJ's top-priority mission at this point should be the air war; to continue prodding rader into flinging massed waves of planes flown by inferior pilots into the fray. IE, the worst thing that GJ could do would be to stand down to reorganize, giving rader time to recover or reorient. Not that GJ has any such notion - there's certainly no evidene he wishes to stand down for awhile.

[House Stark]

So it just occurred to me that there's a maximum number of pilots allowed in the game right? And that even after fixes and such the pilot limit can still be reached? If that happens Rader's doomed.

[paulkenny]

"He's also probably reached the point where his pilot and aircraft losses are so high, with pilot quality now so low, that all he can do is throw massed waves of aircraft at GJ in hopes of overwhelming him or striking a decisive blow."
 
hmmm quite reminiscent of RL

[Nemo121]

I think the point is being missed here....

Yes Rader is throwing planes and pilots away right now but don't think that's his only option. He can, with just three months notice, begin graduating crops of 70 Skill pilots. I'm sure he has a plan to transition to a lower HI-cost airward strategy when the time comes.

Right now though his maths is simple: Instead of building 600 fighters a month at a cost of 21,600 HI per month ( or 720 HI per day ) he is building perhaps 3,000 fighters per month at a cost of 108,000 HI per month ( 3,600 per day ). It looks like a huge investment but by the time you factor in all of the Indian HI he has captured AND the huge savings in pilot training HI cost due to his running the pools down to zero and you'll find that, actually, this strategy actually makes quite a bit of economic sense. He is leveraging his HI to compensate for his perceived inability to train quality pilots as quickly as the Allies can train them.

As to GJ becoming better. Absolutely he has but let's not go overboard here. GJ is better but he is singularly failing to bring concurrent pressure to bear in multiple different theatres and so he is falling farther and farther behind the timeline he needs to be following in order to reach the Home Islands by mid-45. The excessive focus on the Solomons and aircraft losses is causing operational-level issues to cloud the greater strategic assessment which should be going on.

Rader has clearly adopted a delaying strategy using his most renewable asset to keep GJ at bay for as long as possible before collapsing his perimeter in a planned manner before GJ can cause it to collapse ( this is a function of his greater experience and GJ's relative inability to advance quickly due to inexperience ). Given that Rader is undoubtedly building the IJN up to full capacity using the additional HI he has to play with he stands a good chance of being able to conduct this sort of delaying action in the face of GJ's inexperience with amphibious operations and GJ's apparent inability to bring concurrent pressure to bear in multiple different theatres.


The strategic layer is unfolding very much to Rader's advantage. The excessive focus on the operational layer is stultifying and gifting Rader ever more gains for his overall strategy.


CR,
I think Rader would love to have GJ focus on the airwar as you say. It would be entirely the wrong focus. If this were being played against me I'd be trying to fake my opponent ( GJ ) into precisely this sort of focus on the air war in order to prevent him conducting a root and branch re-analysis of the strategic situation. Why? Focusing on and optimising his conduct of the air war won't win him the overall war while a thorough re-analysis of the strategic situation could just free things up.


GJ,
With SC TFs you need to do the following:
1. Ensure the speeds of the various ships are compatible. IOW don't stick a 21 knot ship in with lots of ships doing 32 knots or they'll all move along at 21 knots.

2. Ensure you have compatible gun ranges and penetrations vs the expected opposition. There's no point having a mix of calibres each with utterly different best ranges. Have one or at most two ranges at which your TF can bring its main guns to bear and then ensure all ships co-ordinate around those ranges.

E.g. for a BB TF that means having the BBs have the same max range for their guns and the DDs escorting having roughly the same max range for theirs. If you have too few BBs then ensure the CAs have roughly the same max range. The IJN is very good for this as their 8 inch guns and BB guns have quite similar ranges while the USN and RN are abysmal for this.

3. Decide on the mission.
Are you going in for torpedo strikes? If so then there's probably little point, as Allies, bringing along CAs and CLs. If you want to get in and out quickly without getting clobbered in a long-range gun duel ( which will become more possible if you send along CAs and CLs who will try to actually stick around and fight a gun battle after the torpedoes are launched ) you may wish to go in with nothing but DDs.

4. Look at TF size. Smaller TFs are more likely to slip in and out of range without becoming decisively engaged. In some circumstances you want this.

Conventional wisdom is that in 1944 and 1945 the IJN cannot go toe to toe with the Allied fleets but I believe there are AARs showing how carefully composed and phased TFs can achieve results out of all proportion to their size. In one 1945 scenario the IJN TFs achieved a 20:1 kill rate ( and an even more favourable exchange rate in terms of tonnage ) during a series of naval battles.

So, while luck plays a part you can do a lot to have luck favour you. Some players actively do that and I'd wager that those players often achieve much better results than they would otherwise do.

I would suggest that if you want to learn how naval battles work and how to do better at them that you might want to search out AARs in which players consistently achieved favourable results and then either examine those battles and draw your own conclusions or ask those players what they took into account in order to get those results.


Edited to put in the correct ship speed for a slowed down TF. Thanks Crackaces.

[Crackaces]

Ensure the speeds of the various ships are compatible. IOW don't stick a 21 knot ship in with lots of ships doing 32 knots or they'll all move along at 32 knots

I think you meant to say they will all move at 21 knots ? and the fast DD's won't chase and torp ..?

[Canoerebel]

I think GJ is fine on his timeline. His main need right now is to attrit the enemy, and that's something rader is willingly doing. By preserving his most valuable assets (carriers, fast battleships, and the best transports) and attriting the enemy (air and combat ships), GJ will reach the point sometime in 1944 where he can advance to nearly any target he chooses to overwhelm the enemy. Like Japan in 1942, he'll have the ability to select where he wants to go and overhwelm the enemy at any single point.

As Nemo says it would be preferable to have more than one front operational, but it's not absolutley essential. In the first place, rader is playing into GJ's hands. Secondly, as a relatively new player who has lost a great deal of territory in the game, GJ might be better off concentrating on one vector and getting it exactly right as opposed to deriving a more complicated plan that might include such a complex interplay of AE eccentrities that the risk of loss would be heightened considerably.

[Nemo121]

CR,

Attacking along two ( or more ) axes doesn't have to be complicated. Just make two ( or more ) simple plans and enact them. I've always said that in my games any plan which can't be written down in 3 or 4 lines is just too damned complicated. All GJ needs it about 10 lines worth of plans and he can spread Rader.

As to Rader playing into GJ's hands. I'm sure he wants GJ to think so. I, often, make a habit of appearing to play into my opponents hands when, actually, they are playing precisely into mine. I suggest that perhaps that same dynamic applies here. I'm not sure Rader is a first tier player BUT, IMO, he is a better strategic player than his current conduct around the Solomons shows. This makes me wonder why he is allowing himself to get dragged into the attrition there. Then I looked into the recent losses. When you look at it that way and you factor in the rate of advance the situation in the Solomons actually fits with a strategic delaying action trading easily replaceable planes and pilots for the most precious of things, time. I think that attrition of Japanese air is, within the parameters of the production setup Rader appears to have, actually meaningless.

I may, of course, be wrong but I think that the possibility that Rader is playing a more complex game needs to be considered here. Focusing on the superficialities may actually yield an incorrect strategic analysis. I think, CR, that you are considering the conventional wisdom and not engaging in indepedent analysis from first principles. With most people you'd get away with that but vs Rader I think you mightn't. Why? Simple, Rader has happened upon a novel way of prosecuting the air war which he must have arrived at through independent analysis of his in-game situation. This shows that he can innovate and when opponents innovate the conventional wisdom is not nearly as reliable in pointing the right way to counter them. In fact, often, the conventional wisdom is simply a way to fall into a trap they've prepared.

Of course this might all be in error but I think that more than a superficial analysis would probably be of benefit here in order to cover all of the bases.

[Bullwinkle58]

I agree with Nemo's analysis, and disagree with CR that GJ is doing fine.

I posted a number of weeks ago a very short, one-line post along th elines of "time is marching on" for GJ. It's the cusp of 1944 and he's fighting over autumn 1942 historical objectives.

Nemo is very correct that rader's ownership of India's HI engine gives him "inovative" economic, and thus operational, options. The math works. Rader can continue to throw away an infinite number of aircraft, and, by accepting low-grade pilots in them, he saves the additional HI a pool would cost in the short run. At any time he feels pressured by a need to prepare an inner-ring defense he can pivot in one quarter to a high-mix air defense for the HI. But, since that will be in kami-time, he doesn't really need to. Low-mix pilots make fine kami crew.

India as an HI powerhouse was a core aspect of Q-Ball's India campaign in your game, CR. He said as much. The Bombay and Calcutta metroplexes throw off some fearsome numbers every week.

GJ is wildly underestimating how long the Allies will need to slog through land campaigns in 1944 to get into strategic range of the HI. He appears to be, by an odd choice, massively stalemated in India, removing both the British and Indian militaries from the game, and thus in the short-term, failing a large US/Canadian/Aussie/Kiwi amphib effort from Aden or CT, in Burma as well. No Burma, no Malaysia. If he chooses to go at Sumatra or Java, both are incredibly draining slug-fests. I've been doing both against the AI, and even with that level of opposition the fighting has been of epic proportions. With China secure Rader can focus on only a few axes of approach. GJ has previously bailed on the Marshalls, and has limited experience with an op of the scale the Marianas presents. A mid-Pac approach minimizes Rader's air forces the best, but GJ also lacks amphib sealift in the quantity needed to do the Marianas with sufficient reserves for tactical hiccups. He'll hav eit by the summer of 1944. Going before that would be difficult.

GJ had said he had a wave of offense ready to go by October. Where is it? Aden has been open for six months, and has added little or nothing to his palette.

As I said over a year of game time ago, GJ loves his airplanes, and I thnk rader knows this by now. Aircraft are the one, key area where GJ CAN'T attrit rader while he holds India, yet that is where the focus of GJ's operational efforts continues to rest. The Solomons are a slow-moving disaster. GJ needs to stabilize, withdraw, re-focus, and get together a 1944 plan which leads to an end-game. If he continues as he is he'll be in the vicinity of Rabaul by mid-1944, and the game will be lost, no matter how well he can attrit the IJN from that point to the end.

[obvert]

Whether Rader is a top tier player or not is beyond my capability to judge, but he has shown in the two games I've read about a certain kind of strategic thinking. I believe that Rader is convinced it's possible for Japan to not only take the game into 1945-46, but to win it there. He is never concerned with auto-victory, and uses tactics to exchange material for time, as Nemo suggests. He also seems very willing to take chances for the purpose of creating complexity and new challenges for his opponents in order to gain time, which in this stage of this game have often appeared to many to be a series of careless mistakes. Many of his recent moves haven't turned out well, but I would certainly take over his position right now. He's also aware that GJ has lost a lot of material himself, and so he can actually attrit the Allies a bit, especially in APs.

It seems he's not only using masses of planes, but stalling until the late war planes are available, which based on his recent use of the Ki-100 might be soon. If I were a betting man I would say jets would come into play sometime in 45.

Another front would spread him out and make him treat the air war differently. It's got to happen sometime. But the real threat is hitting the economy, which starts by hitting in the SRA. If GJ could keep the Solomons going without his CVs, and go hit the Nicobars with a quick invasion, the whole game changes dramatically.

[Zeta16]

I think GJ and other are making Rader out to be better than he is. I think GJ is way to scared of what he thinks is going to happen. He thinks every base is going to be to hard to take, every operation will have 1000's of great Japanese planes flying at him. I bet there is less supply at all these bases than people think. Even in being to timid he is starting to move, Japan is a house of cards ready to fall at any moment. Her needs to take the fight to the outer islands that Rader controls so we can finish off the KB, waiting and waiting to fight the KB will mean they will have as many CV's as the US from late 43 on.


Also abusing the research to get late war planes in 43 is a joke and makes me questionmany things.

[Canoerebel]

We need to be very careful about putting pressure on GJ here. Any player - even moreso a fairly new one - is going to get a bit of the "willies" when told he is way behind schedule, especially when the opinions are coming from players of the quality who are posting here. Unless he's some kind of prodigy, he's gonig to experience that knot in the stomach that signals, "Hey, the experts are telling me I'm behind. I better get moving and fast!"

Players who act under pressure are going to make mistakes. Multiply that exponentially for relatively new players.

Everybody will agree that GJ has come very far since he started this game. His growth as a player will continue. I believe he has a good grasp on the situation and will be best served moving at his own pace. I also beleive the Allies are growing so strong that GJ, by the judicious use of his forces (especially carriers and fast BBs) will grow more certain of himself, and act increasingly boldly, as he progresses into 1944.

I would agree with the others if rader wasn't throwing ground units, ships, and aircraft into the campaign on a massive scale. GJ is doing an admirable job of defeating rader. I have said many times before the 1943 (Scenario One) and 1944 (Scenario Two) is the Year of Attrition in AE. As '43 has gone on, GJ has exerted more and more pressure, and rader has responded by pushing back; and thus GJ is making good progress while learning much more about how to do things in AE.

Therefore, I urge GJ not to get antsy in reaction to posts here by excellent players. Their advice would hold much more water for an experience player, not one who is now cutting his teeth on the complexities of offensive warfare.

[GreyJoy]

Wowo guys...it's becoming difficult to keep the pace of your analysis....[:)]

time is running up...i know...but i already knew that i will have been not in scheldue with RL since when he took China and India...it's simply something i have to live with...

The second front is taking some time to be built. Troops and supplies are moving from Aden to CT and from there to Perth...the starting bases are ready but however, right now, i don't have enough 4Es nor fighters to start threatening southern DEI with decent means...

In India we're doing our best...but the situation seems hopeless...we advanced towards Multan with what i thought was an invincible army...only to face 430k japanese well dug in behind the river...our 4Es can't attack his main bases (Jodpur and Multan) due to the presence of hundreds of second generation fighters and thousands of flak guns...

A counter landing is something way behind my capabilities right now...i cannot think to open a new front and keep another front open...

I still thinks an advance on the axis of NG (from the east and from the west) is my best viable option...

Nemo's analysis on Rader's strategy sounds right to me. He's never bothered by his air losses...never...he simply has too many a/c in production that he can easily replace them...while knowing that a single lucky hit can ruin my day and my whole operation...

He's trading space with time...but, at the moment, i cannot ignore his perimeter and simply bypass it and jump towards some juicy targets... I may be overstimating him but, till now, the best solution i found to counter his abilities is to act like a buldozzer...head down and going on...slowly but steady...I bet he'd like me to jump into something like the Mariannas...where i'd find divisions dug in and tons of LBA waiting for me...

Now, for example, at Bouganville he has massed 950 A/Cs, plus 400 based at Rabaul...plus the KB....and, using interior lines, he could easily move those units to wherever i move and shamsh me...

No, i think the best strategy is to jump on a close target, take it with overwhelming forces and then prepare to defend it...repulse his attacks and then move on again towards the next target on the list...



Dec 5, 6 1943

While he keeps reinforcing NG and evacuating the Solomons, we set up a nicely ambush... we moved a 250 LRCAP over Munda, in order to cover my minesweepers.... it ended up with 89 transports and search planes shot down!!!![:)]...he's clearly evacuating everything south of Shortland...

In India he stopped his units movement... while his bombers keep on pounding my Eastern Army...

The first Aus Bde arrived at port Hedland today...base forces and CD guns are on their way from Perth...

PM, now level AF 9, is now the base of my 200 4Es operating in SOPAC/SPWAC...

Our troops are 20 miles far from Buna, while it seems that 40k men are moving from Salamua to Buna[X(]...our bombers will try to interdict their movement...

4 days in order to start the Munda invasion...

Mereuake reached AF 4...soon it will be a fully operative base for my bombers... we reconned from here the islands north east of darwin...they are all garrisoned...no easy picking there...[:o][:-]

[GreyJoy]

A word about the subs... weare sinking something now and then...but only in places where very seldom pass by a convoy...near Marcus...near Menado...but for every ship i sink and for every time i try to get bolder and get closer to the INDIA-DEI-SRA-JAPAN route, i lose subs...he has choke points guarded by tons of Helens and several ASW TFs composed of "E" class... his convoys always move in shallow waters under the umbrella of his air ASW...and when the map force them to move into deep waters, the E class are waiting for them...

I tried to follow all the suggestion (still thanks NY59Giants)...but after some success Rader has adapted fairly fast and has neutralized my moves...forcing me to withdraw my ships...i've lost really too many subs by now... so i forced myself to use most of them (some of them are still hunting in the old way) in a defensive way... keeping my flanks guarded in order to avoid any surprise by the KB... sad but unavoidable

[GreyJoy]

.

[GreyJoy]

ORIGINAL: Nemo121

I think the point is being missed here....

Yes Rader is throwing planes and pilots away right now but don't think that's his only option. He can, with just three months notice, begin graduating crops of 70 Skill pilots. I'm sure he has a plan to transition to a lower HI-cost airward strategy when the time comes.

Right now though his maths is simple: Instead of building 600 fighters a month at a cost of 21,600 HI per month ( or 720 HI per day ) he is building perhaps 3,000 fighters per month at a cost of 108,000 HI per month ( 3,600 per day ). It looks like a huge investment but by the time you factor in all of the Indian HI he has captured AND the huge savings in pilot training HI cost due to his running the pools down to zero and you'll find that, actually, this strategy actually makes quite a bit of economic sense. He is leveraging his HI to compensate for his perceived inability to train quality pilots as quickly as the Allies can train them.

As to GJ becoming better. Absolutely he has but let's not go overboard here. GJ is better but he is singularly failing to bring concurrent pressure to bear in multiple different theatres and so he is falling farther and farther behind the timeline he needs to be following in order to reach the Home Islands by mid-45. The excessive focus on the Solomons and aircraft losses is causing operational-level issues to cloud the greater strategic assessment which should be going on.

Rader has clearly adopted a delaying strategy using his most renewable asset to keep GJ at bay for as long as possible before collapsing his perimeter in a planned manner before GJ can cause it to collapse ( this is a function of his greater experience and GJ's relative inability to advance quickly due to inexperience ). Given that Rader is undoubtedly building the IJN up to full capacity using the additional HI he has to play with he stands a good chance of being able to conduct this sort of delaying action in the face of GJ's inexperience with amphibious operations and GJ's apparent inability to bring concurrent pressure to bear in multiple different theatres.


The strategic layer is unfolding very much to Rader's advantage. The excessive focus on the operational layer is stultifying and gifting Rader ever more gains for his overall strategy.


CR,
I think Rader would love to have GJ focus on the airwar as you say. It would be entirely the wrong focus. If this were being played against me I'd be trying to fake my opponent ( GJ ) into precisely this sort of focus on the air war in order to prevent him conducting a root and branch re-analysis of the strategic situation. Why? Focusing on and optimising his conduct of the air war won't win him the overall war while a thorough re-analysis of the strategic situation could just free things up.


GJ,
With SC TFs you need to do the following:
1. Ensure the speeds of the various ships are compatible. IOW don't stick a 21 knot ship in with lots of ships doing 32 knots or they'll all move along at 21 knots.

2. Ensure you have compatible gun ranges and penetrations vs the expected opposition. There's no point having a mix of calibres each with utterly different best ranges. Have one or at most two ranges at which your TF can bring its main guns to bear and then ensure all ships co-ordinate around those ranges.

E.g. for a BB TF that means having the BBs have the same max range for their guns and the DDs escorting having roughly the same max range for theirs. If you have too few BBs then ensure the CAs have roughly the same max range. The IJN is very good for this as their 8 inch guns and BB guns have quite similar ranges while the USN and RN are abysmal for this.

3. Decide on the mission.
Are you going in for torpedo strikes? If so then there's probably little point, as Allies, bringing along CAs and CLs. If you want to get in and out quickly without getting clobbered in a long-range gun duel ( which will become more possible if you send along CAs and CLs who will try to actually stick around and fight a gun battle after the torpedoes are launched ) you may wish to go in with nothing but DDs.

4. Look at TF size. Smaller TFs are more likely to slip in and out of range without becoming decisively engaged. In some circumstances you want this.

Conventional wisdom is that in 1944 and 1945 the IJN cannot go toe to toe with the Allied fleets but I believe there are AARs showing how carefully composed and phased TFs can achieve results out of all proportion to their size. In one 1945 scenario the IJN TFs achieved a 20:1 kill rate ( and an even more favourable exchange rate in terms of tonnage ) during a series of naval battles.

So, while luck plays a part you can do a lot to have luck favour you. Some players actively do that and I'd wager that those players often achieve much better results than they would otherwise do.

I would suggest that if you want to learn how naval battles work and how to do better at them that you might want to search out AARs in which players consistently achieved favourable results and then either examine those battles and draw your own conclusions or ask those players what they took into account in order to get those results.


Edited to put in the correct ship speed for a slowed down TF. Thanks Crackaces.

Thanks Nemo. I was aware of the "speed" issue with SCTFs, but not of the "gun issue"...So i'll try to keep my CLs togheder and leave my modern CAs (only 2 left[:(]) with the fast BBs and with the Fletchers...

About Rader's strategy concerning "air losses"... it may be true what you say...and it makes perfectly sense knowing Rader...however i'm not so convinced that Rader is using pilots so badly trained...they must be something like 45/70/45 at least...cause when they are not escorting (and so, practically, suiciding) his fighters (Franks and Georges but even the Zeros) are still able to get a 1-1 kill ratio against my modern fighters piloted by top knotch crews...

[GreyJoy]

ORIGINAL: obvert

Whether Rader is a top tier player or not is beyond my capability to judge, but he has shown in the two games I've read about a certain kind of strategic thinking. I believe that Rader is convinced it's possible for Japan to not only take the game into 1945-46, but to win it there. He is never concerned with auto-victory, and uses tactics to exchange material for time, as Nemo suggests. He also seems very willing to take chances for the purpose of creating complexity and new challenges for his opponents in order to gain time, which in this stage of this game have often appeared to many to be a series of careless mistakes. Many of his recent moves haven't turned out well, but I would certainly take over his position right now. He's also aware that GJ has lost a lot of material himself, and so he can actually attrit the Allies a bit, especially in APs.

It seems he's not only using masses of planes, but stalling until the late war planes are available, which based on his recent use of the Ki-100 might be soon. If I were a betting man I would say jets would come into play sometime in 45.

Another front would spread him out and make him treat the air war differently. It's got to happen sometime. But the real threat is hitting the economy, which starts by hitting in the SRA. If GJ could keep the Solomons going without his CVs, and go hit the Nicobars with a quick invasion, the whole game changes dramatically.

Obviously i don't have any perfect clue about his dispositions in SRA/DEI...but the intel tells me, for ex, that he has the 61st Division at Coconut Island, 2 divisions at Timor, along with 1 Eng Regiment and 1 Air HQ...at Menado he has massed 2 divisions, 1 Army HQ and several artillery units...this just to give you an idea of what he's able to mass...the conquest of China had opened a can of worms... probably, by now, the less defended is SUmatra...but again, to get there, i'd need Diego...and Diego is guarded by 30,000 men, an Army HQ, and Air HQ and a guard regiment for sure...if i had to bet i'd say that at least another regiment is based there... can i take it? yes, for sure... but it will take time...and by the time i get rid of Diego he could have redeployed his KBs and his LBAs to the SRA/DEI...waiting for me...

[GreyJoy]

my TOP GUNs