Burma 42-43 revised

[larryfulkerson]

The first thing I notice about this scenario is that it's a small one of about 35 turns and a small map. But looks may deceive.....this may be
a harder scenario to play well than it looks. The Allies just have to press south and see what happens. I've not played this scenario
before so this will be a learning experience. I'm going to play the Jap PO as the Allied side but I'd be curious to know what the Jap
side plays like. I may have to play the Jap side once too.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's a list of all the Allied equipment that starts the game active. Not much to work with. We'll see a list of the Jap side later.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the Jap forces at the start of the game. Curious placement of units but I guess that's where they really were back then maybe.
I need to check w/ the expected reinforcements for both sides to get a better idea of what's coming down the pike.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the entire expected reinforcements for the Allied side. Not much to work with. But we'll do the best we can.

[larryfulkerson]

There aren't many Japanese expected reinforcements but at least they DO get some. There's no naval vessels or aircraft in this
scenario so that will simplify things a lot.

[larryfulkerson]

I've noticed something about the engineer unit that starts the game as active on the north edge of the map. It's maybe good for
placeholding in the front lines but I doubt that it would ever repair a bridge and it doesn't have any ferry-bridging equipment so it can't
cross a river or help another unit do so. I'll use it for recon I guess.

[larryfulkerson]

I split up the TRIP force into three parts and advanced them. The south one captured a supply point and the other two have found some
Jap units in the mountains to the NW of their departure point. I'm not sure how strong the Japs are and I see that the strength of the
separate parts isn't all that much. So I'm thinking the prudent thing might be to send out some patrols to see if we can't get some idea of
the strength of the opposing unit(s). I'd hate to lose some people for a useless cause. I'm in no particular hurry here. These are 1/2
week turns I think, and so I could probably round up some intell in a couple of days.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's my moves for turn 1 and the next thing will be the combat phase. In other words, this is the image just before combat. I've made
some comments on the image to explain my thinking and what I've considered. The three parts on the east side are more or less
defending the supply point for the Allies there. The units that pressed south from the north west column edge are going to do some
probing to see what the strength of the units is by making one-dot attacks. We don't expect to force anybody back yet, this is just for a
recon probe.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the combat result of the attack on one of those 'I' ( irregular ) units. These are evidently Burmese Partisans and now there's
three separate ones instead of just one to attack. Great start larry.

EDIT: It just occurs to me that I killed 2 of the squads and that would leave 11 to be divided into the three separate parts that
survived the attack. That would leave an enemy Burmese Partisan, three of them, that would have at most 4 of the irregular squads
and that the strength would be about 1/3 that of the parent unit. That's about 2 or 3 I estimate. In other words, I might be able to RBC
those bad boys now. Something to keep in mind for round two, if there is one. There are more combats to resolve.

[larryfulkerson]

So this is the positions at the beginning of round two: The RBC's destroyed two of the three Partisan pieces so there's just one left.
The bad news is that chasing the partisan pieces has revealed the presence of another regular Jap combat unit to be defeated. This
is going to be tricky trying to go south on both paths rather than just one. Maybe just one at a time. Until I get some more units.

EDIT: I've reviewed the expected reinforcements again just now and I've discovered that there are two INF units and two ART units to
become active in T2 which will help out a lot in defeating the Jap roadblocks ( one on the river the other south near the road ). I'm going
to postpone any more attacks until the arty can be properly positioned.

[larryfulkerson]

This is the image showing the positions at the beginning of T2. I still don't have enough intell about the possible strength of that stack
on the river. There's another main-force unit south on the road that I could possibly attack to get some ballpark figure for the strength
of the one on the river. And there's two more INF units coming south to help out. And two ART units will do the recon for us w/ their
tubes. Save the people I've been probing w/.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the positions at the end of T2: Which brings up another question. The Japanese half of T1 went by like a flash. I don't think the
Japs moved anything at all. I'm wondering why not...why didn't they react in some way that would be revealed during the playback of a
turn? The obvious conclusion is that they didn't move anything. I'll just try to live with it.

[larryfulkerson]

I targeted the arty on the Jap units w/ a one-dot attack just to do a recon probe. Anything destroyed is icing on the cake. Now we have
an accurate view of the opposition. Wish I knew the exact strength of the stack.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the result of the arty attack on the lone Jap unit at the south of the AO. I'm beginning to think that these Jap units are going to
need a pounding by the arty for a couple of turns because they have Mortars and MG's and so on. These are serious units and can't
be just pushed around. Not w/ the meager forces I have to do the job.

EDIT: It's becoming clear to me that I'm going to have to try to surround this lone Jap unit before I can serously begin to destroy it.
Any supply it receives just makes the take-down take longer and more expensive.

[larryfulkerson]

A couple more arty strikes on the two Jap targets and I put the arty on 'T'. They were about 65% supply and readiness now. Then when
I ended the turn the Jap half of the turn flashed by again, they didn't move anything at all AGAIN. Still no reaction. I'll have to keep that
in mind.

[larryfulkerson]

Ok. Here's the T3 moves. I've parked the HQ unit next to the arty to be adjacent to them, thereby lending some supply assistance and
I've used the new INF unit to move south of the south Jap unit and I've successfully surrounded it. Now for some one-dot attacks to
drain off the supply the Jap unit might have. It'll be easier to kill once it's out of supply.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the result of the attack. I'm amazed. Not absolutely amazed but dazzled enough. That arty is deadly. I'll have to try this out
on the stack on the river now in round two. But first some more arty strikes.

[larryfulkerson]

After another arty strike the arty was hurting in the supply department so I decided to shut down the turn after moving everybody who
needed to move. I've pushed south a lot w/ my Detachment A and Detachment B units because I wouldn't lose much if they run into
trouble. Everybody else moved to convert hexes and rest.

[larryfulkerson]

Finally, a Jap reaction. They piled a lot of units into the hex on the river and actually attacked me. I had some arty to back me up and
evidently they didn't bring any to the party and I didn't lose anything and they lost a lot. I'm impressed with their effort however, so I'm
going to see if I can't back up those two units guarding the river and just block any Japs further south for the time being. I'm rapidly
approaching situations where I'm going to need some more troops.

[larryfulkerson]

OK. Here's my T4 moves. I thought it'd be cool to cut off the Jap units from their supply points and finish the surround on the south
dude. I see there's a Jap HQ unit nearby. It's probably got some arty organic to it. And all my arty is further north. I'll see if I can't
afford to peel off one of the tubes and drive it south.