In China, I would.....bomb bases, especially Chungking to destroy supply and any enemy LCU in clear terrain regardless of whether it is in a base or not. CFs supply situation will be the deciding factor here as he probably has the troops to hold you off.
The old OOB has China getting only 220 Rifle Squads per month. If you started with the newer OOB patch, then it is either 300 or 350 per month. The question again is supplies to feed all those mouths.
Logistics....Logistics [;)]
Chinese supply is the key, kill the supply and the rest will take care of itself. In hindsight, I'd be bombing every supply producing base still occupied by the Chinese. I'd contest every Chinese base you can that produces resources with a holding force to prevent resource production. Kill the supply by any means. A large Chinese force in rough terrain with adequate supply will cause you nothing but heavy losses dislodging it. All your actions should be focused on forcing the Chinese to use up as much supply as possible. Starve them and it won't matter if they get 200 squads or 1000/month. As ny59giants says, logistics will win you China.
Crush 'Em!
Luck is the residue of design - John Milton
Don't mistake lack of talent for genius - Peter Steele (Type O Negative)
Was wondering when you'd stop by to gloat, nygiants. Can't blame you. Of course, the 'Boys still control our own destiny. All we have to do is win 2 of 3 including the Giants game in New York. Yeah, right. Worst thing is I think we're actually talented this year and we still lose in December.
Let's resume talking about my ultimately doomed war effort. So much more uplifting than Cowboys football. [:D]
Subs
A Pete from the Barracuda force spots an Allied sub near Bassein. Cribtop Intel is concerned surprise is lost, but we opt to continue the bombardment approach as our ships show no DL. Tough tradeoff between not flying ASW patrols and losing surprise or getting torpedoed by a sub you could've chased off.
4th Fleet
Analysis of our patrol arcs using the Z key shows a hole near Ocean Island. We will plug it with a newly "Jakeified" patrol unit.
SE Fleet
No change.
14th Army
No change.
16th Army
Komodo invaded. Resistance by large, poisonous lizards is significantly less than anticipated.
25th Army
The Z key analysis mentioned earlier shows another hole consisting of pretty much the entire west (map) coast of Sumatra. We desperately need more 4E patrol groups.
15th Army
We can't quite get to the necessary 7 hexes to hit Chittagong tomorrow night. DL for our ships is nil, so we'll close up to 6 hexes out just to get a little closer for the main event.
China
Chinese bombers make a rare appearance at Kweilin. As anticipated, the 3rd enemy LCU to march into Kweilin is a KMT corps, and they DA, destroying the paratroops who bravely held the railroad station for days. However, the new enemy unit is not sufficient to dislodge the tank regiments that will arrive in the hex tomorrow. This stalemate serves the operational purpose of preventing reinforcement by rail from the central front. Still no reaction to Red Dragon other than shifting of some local units from Nanning.
Gato duds on a CS convoy near Toyohara. First sub attack in these waters of the war.
4th Fleet, SE Fleet, 14th Army
No change.
16th Army
Komodo occupied. Katherine makes level 2 airfield and our Nicks will try for the "washing machine Charlies" that regularly bomb Daly Waters tomorrow.
25th Army
No change.
15th Army
Final preparations are made for Operation Barracuda. Our ships are in position with no DL. It appears that CF has no nav search missions in the Bay of Bengal. 100% moon tomorrow night. Banzai!
China
Bombing of Liuchow confirms Cribtop Intel's suspicion that there is only 1 Corps and 1 HQ present there. An armored car unit dashes into Changsha to capture a hexside and frustrate any attempt by CF to withdraw his partially encircled army by the easiest route. Chaos here remains our friend.
5th Fleet
The Operation Kraken force has re-fueled at sea and will begin sailing due East. Hopefully our CVEs will again have good luck on a raid.
Operation Barracuda does well on the naval side, but the air elements are grounded by bad weather. Damn.
Subs
Grampus duds on an xAK near Tokyo. Second attack in home waters in as many days.
Cribtop HQ recently launched several sub wolf packs. They will move to their targets and cover a large sea area hoping to flood the zone and really nail enemy convoys before moving on. Initial targets are the waters off Karachi, the passage between the west coast of India and the Bay of Bengal, and an area east of Fiji that Funafuti based search planes indicate is CF's sneaky convoy route into Suva. Let's see if the new strategy pays off.
4th Fleet
Moving a base force to Ocean to plug the gap.
SE Fleet
We'll soon get two more bases up and building on Bougainville, which will be a major second line bastion in the Solomons after Munda Point. MKB's ships are repairing nicely, all air groups at 100%.
Over the past several days we've had SigInt, often of the "heavy" variety, in Melbourne and Adelaide. Is CF preparing his first counter-offensive in the Pacific here? We'll keep watch and order a third wolfpack to focus on the eastern entrance of the straits between Oz and Tasmania.
14th Army
We tediously divide up a 60 point SNLF to meet various garrison requirements. This will allow a regiment to move on Pamakasan and Bali. Lots of resources flowing home from the PI now.
16th Army
DA Corunna Downs forces the surrender of the much traveled Broome base force. 12 Nicks jump 2 B-17s at Daly Waters and only 1 of the enemy makes it back to base.
We've now pulled much of the excess fuel out of Balikpapan and can switch to a maintenance mode here. Still a horde of oil, of course, but that's moving too.
25th Army
We are closing in on Padang, the last enemy held base in Sumatra. Still a few more hexes to go.
15th Army
The Operation Barracuda fleet hits Chittagong pretty hard on a clear night with a full moon, damaging 35 Hurricanes and destroying 8. Good damage to the airfield and other facilities too (for example, 40 runway hits, 13 supply hits, hundreds of fires, etc). Sadly, the clear night gives way to a stormy morning and neither the Zero sweeps nor the IJAAF bombing raid goes through. A real shame because we caught CF by surprise here. The Zeros would've hammered a depleted CAP and then the bombers turn damaged Hurris into dead Hurris. That was the theory anyway. Still, not a bad Op, and we'll follow up tomorrow by air if CF doesn't rail out his survivors.
China
Recon shows only 4 units at Tuyun and 1 at Kweiyang, while no enemy troops have left the Chungking reserve. Nice. So far the biggest opposition to Red Dragon are the poor south China roads. However, this is an effective delay for the enemy that we knew was inevitable. We have to win the race to Kweilin and Liuchow.
Rains again stop the Zero sweepers, but the IJAAF bombers decide to go in. Joy. Fortunately the enemy's CAP was cut from about 60 to 43 by the bombardment yesterday, and our Oscar Sentai does pretty good work protecting the bombers. Still, we suffer losses (14 aircraft, mostly Sallys with few Oscars thrown in). We did have a sub in the hex and that seems to cut our pilot losses, which is a silver lining. Ugh. Such are the perils of trying to co-ordinate in the monsoon season.
Plan for tomorrow is to sweep with Zeros and let the bombers rest.
The Operation Barracuda fleet elements have moved past Rangoon without incident and will retire to Singers.
Pax, I will definitely be legally able to shoot more deer than we will find. However, perversely the drought in that part of the Texas desert has been less severe than the drought in the formerly green hills of Austin. Plus, no matter how many deer we shoot we will take down our daily limit in adult libations. [:D]
Bear in mind Chungking starts with a level 6 fort. In my game the Chinese only have Chungking, the 3 bases in the mountains east of Burma and a few isolated bases in the north left. However he will have between 60-70 units in Chungking in the next week or so..........not sure if it would be better just to isolate it and keep it bombed out of supply. Would be amazing to see the casulty list if it eventually fell............
Indeed. Chungking isn't really on the menu right now, isolating the Chinese into 3 pockets (Yenan, Chungking and the desert west) would be fine. Still, a follow on op might be interesting. Red Dragon is designed to force CF to leave the 45 LCU reserve static there or to stop one of the pincers. If he goes all in against the southern wing we might just sneak in the back door. [;)]
Pax, I will definitely be legally able to shoot more deer than we will find. However, perversely the drought in that part of the Texas desert has been less severe than the drought in the formerly green hills of Austin. Plus, no matter how many deer we shoot we will take down our daily limit in adult libations. [:D]
I was in Austin two months ago to visit my brother. It rained for a day and a half but that was the first rain they had seen in a long long time. Sad to see. He has a house on Lake Travis. It looked like the Aral Sea. Went to ACL to see BB King and Leon Russell. I can't believe the music scene in Austin. Really makes the place... Beautiful city as well.
Bear in mind Chungking starts with a level 6 fort. In my game the Chinese only have Chungking, the 3 bases in the mountains east of Burma and a few isolated bases in the north left. However he will have between 60-70 units in Chungking in the next week or so..........not sure if it would be better just to isolate it and keep it bombed out of supply. Would be amazing to see the casulty list if it eventually fell............
Yep, no way he can feed them so they will never be strong enough to attack and won't take replacements, so just locking them up is viable. However if you take Chunking, they do not come back anymore. A smart Allied player won't allow himself to get bottled up in Chungking but will flee to the west. If he can get his shot up units to Allied occupied Burma or India, then they can rebuild. The point is, once Japan breaks through to the open ground around Chungking then it is all over and time to bail out fast. A moderate garrison in Chungking to buy some time but that is it. Lanchow can hold out but your best bet it to retreat towards Kumming where you can block the Japanese army from pouring into Burma.
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