Return of the Sheep! - JocMeister(A) vs. MrKane(J)

[JocMeister]

[font="Verdana"] February 28th -42 [/font]
______________________________________________________________________________

The KB mission is made painstakingly obvious as the KB crushes the Tasmanian industry. Worst case he may walk away with something like 4-5000 VPs once all the industry is in ashes.

Not only am I powerless to stop him but these are permanent VPs. Unlike base VPs I can´t take these back...very clever move. Not seen this before!

[Lokasenna]

ORIGINAL: JocMeister

Not only am I powerless to stop him but these are permanent VPs. Unlike base VPs I can´t take these back...very clever move. Not seen this before!

Is it too early for me to claim indirect credit? [:D]

[JocMeister]

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

ORIGINAL: JocMeister

Not only am I powerless to stop him but these are permanent VPs. Unlike base VPs I can´t take these back...very clever move. Not seen this before!

Is it too early for me to claim indirect credit? [:D]

Ha! [:D]

[JocMeister]

[font="Verdana"] 1st of March! [/font]
______________________________________________________________________________

Finally reached March. Just one more month of the Amphib bonus. Still no indication of a major Japanese 2nd phase.

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China
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Since the all out assault on the 27th things have been reasonably quiet. Only bombardments. I also picked up a possible flanking attempt between Sian and Ankang. See map for details.

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Philippines
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Selected troops are slowly moving towards Manila for the last stand.

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DEI
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Not much to report. Japanese troops have annihilated the evicted defenders of Batavia. Only smaller troops remain. Soerabaja will have only a token defense while the remnants fortify in the mountains.

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OZ
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KB continue to hammer against targets in Southern OZ. This time they strike at Melbourne causing 86 HI hits. Frustrating doesn´t even come close to describe this. Give me 100 P40s with trained pilots. I will have to do one more serious effort. Need a couple of more days to recover morale after the last attempt.

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Turn Pace
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Will drop dramatically for at least this week. I´m back at work (). Might be able to pick up the pace again next week as I will be home to take care of the kids for three weeks while Maria is have surgery done to her arm for the second time.

Here is a day old map of China. Its pretty crappy and cluttered but thats all you get today! [:D]

[Sangeli]

Well I'll give some advice on China since I have found that I am rather good at managing this beast:

Losing Sian and the region to the south and east of it is not nearly as debilitating as you have implied. Sian and Yenan have some industry but it's not very significant. On the other hand, there is a bottleneck on the road to Chungking that spans over 3x terrain at multiple places. You have plenty of time to establishing an unbreakable roadblock with 1200-1500 AV dug in somewhere on that road. Having 1000 or so AV in reserve and/or on the flanks can make it near unflankable. Also anything north-west of Sian is basically irrelevant in my book; there is no real need to keep the far NW in contact with the rest of China. If he wants to march his units thousands of miles to capture useless bases go let him.

In the south I highly recommend active reconnaissance by splitting up some of those corps (be sure upgrade is OFF when this is done so you can rebuild the unit later without issue) and sending them in the direction of the Japanese positions to get a better idea what's going on there. Maybe even bombard a few bases there to get AV values but be sure to do this safely (don't get routed trying to scout a base with 1000 AV). But in the end pull back to form some sort of outpost defense along the key routes. In turn this will allow you to free up your units guarding key defensive hexes and put into operational and strategic reserve. Should the Japanese try to make a move towards those hexes your outposts will detect movement and allow you to position reserves to secure those hexes before the Japanese can reach them. It requires more micro-management to do so but active reconnaissance and forward outputs will simultaneously keep your opponent off guard (he doesn't know what your plans are and may react to probing) and will alert you to Japanese movements and troop concentrations before they can pose a true and imminent threat.

So really the Chinese situation isn't all that bad right now. Frankly I would be surprised if you are unable to stop him in the north once you consolidate your lines a bit and pull back. And luckily for you disengaging from the Sian front for the Japanese and repositioning the units further south will take weeks because of the lack of usable railways.

[Spidery]

Some thoughts from my experience of taking China against MrKane.

My drive in the North run out of steam against 3 good Corps in the hex East of Kienko. It was very difficult getting supply to my troops and I couldn't break through. The river to the North prevented bypassing.

Attacking through the woods South of that didn't work well because even when I took a hex on the edge of the central plains I couldn't move out from the woods as moving from a low SL hex to a high one would mean the Chinese could mass against me.

I couldn't break through at Chihkiang but was making some progress through the woods at Patung. However, the main breakthrough was in the South and once Kweiyang and the river crossing between it and Tuyun fell China collapsed. The breakthrough was achieved through a mix of infiltration round the end of the river and use of the tank divisions.

I suggest you look at getting a small unit to 72,50, the mountain hex SW of Kweiyang, where the roads are broken by the river. Armour can use the road to move fairly quickly across the river and unhinge the defenses between Kweiyang and Kunming.

I also suggest fortifying and defending Chengtu as well as Chungking. Both need to be taken to prevent Chinese reinforcements. If you can hold Chengtu for long enough you can support it with P-38G and Wellingtons from Ledo and use an air bridge to fly in supply.

[mind_messing]

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

ORIGINAL: JocMeister

Not only am I powerless to stop him but these are permanent VPs. Unlike base VPs I can´t take these back...very clever move. Not seen this before!

Is it too early for me to claim indirect credit? [:D]

[8|]


It's a smart move, though I wonder why more Japanese players haven't did this before. What chase ship VP's that can escape when you can hit a nice big juicy static target for oodles of VP's?

It's confirming my view that house rules smother strategic and tatical creativity. I wouldn't have thought of it, seeing as my past PBEM's have had restrictions on strategic bombing.

[Lokasenna]

ORIGINAL: mind_messing

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

ORIGINAL: JocMeister

Not only am I powerless to stop him but these are permanent VPs. Unlike base VPs I can´t take these back...very clever move. Not seen this before!

Is it too early for me to claim indirect credit? [:D]

[8|]


It's a smart move, though I wonder why more Japanese players haven't did this before. What chase ship VP's that can escape when you can hit a nice big juicy static target for oodles of VP's?

It's confirming my view that house rules smother strategic and tatical creativity. I wouldn't have thought of it, seeing as my past PBEM's have had restrictions on strategic bombing.

Don't roll your eyes at me, I wasn't referring to the raid against you [;)].

[JocMeister]

Thanks for the advice guys. I´ll get back to you tomorrow. Had a horrible night with the kids doing pretty much everything but sleeping...

Early bed today!

[JeffroK]

Shouldnt you have 50-100 B17's which should be able to annoy the KB, even of it only makes him more careful.

If they are on Hawaii still, its only 3-4 steps to fly them in.

[JocMeister]

ORIGINAL: Sangeli

Well I'll give some advice on China since I have found that I am rather good at managing this beast:

Losing Sian and the region to the south and east of it is not nearly as debilitating as you have implied. Sian and Yenan have some industry but it's not very significant. On the other hand, there is a bottleneck on the road to Chungking that spans over 3x terrain at multiple places. You have plenty of time to establishing an unbreakable roadblock with 1200-1500 AV dug in somewhere on that road. Having 1000 or so AV in reserve and/or on the flanks can make it near unflankable. Also anything north-west of Sian is basically irrelevant in my book; there is no real need to keep the far NW in contact with the rest of China. If he wants to march his units thousands of miles to capture useless bases go let him.

In the south I highly recommend active reconnaissance by splitting up some of those corps (be sure upgrade is OFF when this is done so you can rebuild the unit later without issue) and sending them in the direction of the Japanese positions to get a better idea what's going on there. Maybe even bombard a few bases there to get AV values but be sure to do this safely (don't get routed trying to scout a base with 1000 AV). But in the end pull back to form some sort of outpost defense along the key routes. In turn this will allow you to free up your units guarding key defensive hexes and put into operational and strategic reserve. Should the Japanese try to make a move towards those hexes your outposts will detect movement and allow you to position reserves to secure those hexes before the Japanese can reach them. It requires more micro-management to do so but active reconnaissance and forward outputs will simultaneously keep your opponent off guard (he doesn't know what your plans are and may react to probing) and will alert you to Japanese movements and troop concentrations before they can pose a true and imminent threat.

So really the Chinese situation isn't all that bad right now. Frankly I would be surprised if you are unable to stop him in the north once you consolidate your lines a bit and pull back. And luckily for you disengaging from the Sian front for the Japanese and repositioning the units further south will take weeks because of the lack of usable railways.

Thanks for the thoughts! [:)]

I´ve never been very attached to Sian. I know some allied players and they probably have good reason. But I think its a hard place to defend. It simply have too many approaches to cover and once the Japanese break through to the clear terrain its a deathtrap.

The problem for me right now is not Sian itself. Its already a writeoff for me but lack of troops is a major concern. The constant pressure on 4-5 locations have exhausted my troops. While Tom can rotate troops back to rest I have not been allowed that luxury. [:)]

Right now I have all available troops on the fronline. I do have a roadblock in place where you mention. While not 1000 AV its close to 900. The problem is that I cannot stop Tom. I can hold him here for perhaps 2 weeks but he will break through using constant artillery bombardments mixed with the occasional deliberate attacks. This will the air force will pound away turn after turn. It will buy me time but not stop him. 1000 AV to secure the flanks or act as a reserve sounds nice. Sadly I don´t have even 200 AV free for reserves right now. Some smashed troops have reached Chungking and are resting up. But its only 680 AV spread out on 13 Corps. I´ve allowed to rest up for 2-3 months they could prove useful! [:D]

The reason for sticking to the NW is the oil. This is absolutely critical for me. Supply is already red among all troops. Once the oil is lost it will become even worse. I´ll defend the road for as long as I can before pulling out.

In the south I´m already kind of doing what you suggest. The units you see in the woods are mostly small Corps. I have some semblance of strength at Changsha with 800 AV. Other then that is about 1 weak corps per base to protect against Paras and keep the garrison requirements met. The rest have already moved to to the Sian sector. Tom has made no effort here in the south and suspect he keeps only enough for garrison requirements.

[JocMeister]

ORIGINAL: Spidery

Some thoughts from my experience of taking China against MrKane.

My drive in the North run out of steam against 3 good Corps in the hex East of Kienko. It was very difficult getting supply to my troops and I couldn't break through. The river to the North prevented bypassing.

Attacking through the woods South of that didn't work well because even when I took a hex on the edge of the central plains I couldn't move out from the woods as moving from a low SL hex to a high one would mean the Chinese could mass against me.

I couldn't break through at Chihkiang but was making some progress through the woods at Patung. However, the main breakthrough was in the South and once Kweiyang and the river crossing between it and Tuyun fell China collapsed. The breakthrough was achieved through a mix of infiltration round the end of the river and use of the tank divisions.

I suggest you look at getting a small unit to 72,50, the mountain hex SW of Kweiyang, where the roads are broken by the river. Armour can use the road to move fairly quickly across the river and unhinge the defenses between Kweiyang and Kunming.

I also suggest fortifying and defending Chengtu as well as Chungking. Both need to be taken to prevent Chinese reinforcements. If you can hold Chengtu for long enough you can support it with P-38G and Wellingtons from Ledo and use an air bridge to fly in supply.

Thanks for the advice.

I´m hoping to put a fighting withdrawal along that road. Its interesting that you say supply stopped you. I have never (that I can remember) seen the Japanese in China suffer from supply problems? If I remember correctly Erik broke through to the Chunking basin without a single road access. He just walked through the woods. Tom seems equally nonchalant about supply and is marching 2 IDs + 1 armor RGT straight through the woods toward Changsha. [&:]

Also a bit perplexed about your opponent being able to make a stand in the clear hexes west of the woods? Standing in the open you should be able to inflict a minimum of 1500-2000 casualties per turn by bombing from the air? His DIS should be in the 80s region within a week and supply should be mostly gone by then?

I´ll give some thoughts to holding Chengtu. Not sure if something has changed in one of the later BETAs but maintaining an air bridge proved impossible in my earlier games. The transports suffered massive OPS losses even with trained pilots and 70% rest. One my game with Erik ended C-47s had suffered over 900 OPS losses flying mostly from level 9 AF to level 9 AF (India - Burma)

[JocMeister]

ORIGINAL: JeffK

Shouldnt you have 50-100 B17's which should be able to annoy the KB, even of it only makes him more careful.

If they are on Hawaii still, its only 3-4 steps to fly them in.

A little bit early for that. [:)] I have 32 unrestricted B17-Es and 7 "Ds". Still need about 4-6 weeks of training before I can get the "E"s into combat. Also have to get AS to OZ before I can stage them there. Already short on AS there!

[Bullwinkle58]

Can't be said often enough--AV is not a metric that means anything in China. You have no air, no arty, no AT. Look at the anti-armor rating of your peasant infantry. Forts hold a few days against tanks at best. Then you've got the worst routing casualties of any nation in the game.

You said it yourself above: you're too many places with not enough butter to cover the bread. Changsha looks nice due to the supply generation, but it's Out There and can be encircled easily and rapidly on roads tanks love.

The fuel from up north is vulnerable at multiple points on the long, long road to Chungking and Changsha. It's not tenable to count on it.

Build forts at Chungking as high as you can, pull back, and get ready for the now-obligatory Great Siege. Figure out how to survive the thousands of VPs he will get when it falls. Hold as long as you can, but make other plans. China can't be defended.

[JocMeister]

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

Can't be said often enough--AV is not a metric that means anything in China. You have no air, no arty, no AT. Look at the anti-armor rating of your peasant infantry. Forts hold a few days against tanks at best. Then you've got the worst routing casualties of any nation in the game.

You said it yourself above: you're too many places with not enough butter to cover the bread. Changsha looks nice due to the supply generation, but it's Out There and can be encircled easily and rapidly on roads tanks love.

The fuel from up north is vulnerable at multiple points on the long, long road to Chungking and Changsha. It's not tenable to count on it.

Build forts at Chungking as high as you can, pull back, and get ready for the now-obligatory Great Siege. Figure out how to survive the thousands of VPs he will get when it falls. Hold as long as you can, but make other plans. China can't be defended.

That sums up my thoughts on China pretty well! [:)]

Not sure about defending Changsha though. With a SL of only 160k and the respawning/arrivals there I can end up massively overstacking causing major DIS among the units.

Anyone has experience with that?

[JocMeister]

Question 2:

Does anyone know if its possible to see the total AV for the Chinese? In the game or tracker? I wanted to see how much AV I have now compared to the start of the game. But adding up a couple of 100 units manually doesn´t sound very exciting! [:D]

[HansBolter]

It may be a misleading number anyway.

AV varies from turn to turn dependent upon able devices with firepower.

The Chinese start the game with about 1/3 of their total squads disabled.

As these squads become enabled the AV goes up.

They may well have a higher total AV on turn 20 than they did on turn 1 (discounting actual combat loses of course).

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: JocMeister

Not sure about defending Changsha though. With a SL of only 160k and the respawning/arrivals there I can end up massively overstacking causing major DIS among the units.

Anyone has experience with that?

Do you mean Chungking? I assume you do given use of "respawning."

SL maps, as we've discussed in PM I think, don't account for the resurrection rule at Chungking. A big negative for SLs IMO. I don't have a good answer. At Chungking you get dozens of resurrected corps, but at 1/3 TOE, and then with no supply so they're 25% of THAT AV. Crap. Add disruption too and they're crap squared.

BUT, he can do it to you himself. Just hex-surround Chungking and kill everything in the bush. It resurrects on plan and you can't get out of the city anyway. It's not in your control either way. Live with SLs, die with SLs, at least in China.

"Fixing" China has been discussed for years with various levers proposed. I personally think a bit more free organic supply in more cities, with steeper garrison reqs for both sides would go a long way to keeping the war to the east and south. Garrison reqs for Japan ought to be back-breaking in the west (Reds), and operating heavy mechanized forces through the Himalayas is just crazy. How you prevent that with pwhex files I don't know. Probably can't. But making more Japanese troops be tied to the big cities would go a long way to preventing the Great Siege all JFBs have learned to pursue.

[JocMeister]

ORIGINAL: HansBolter
They may well have a higher total AV on turn 20 than they did on turn 1 (discounting actual combat loses of course).

Thats actually what I wanted to check. I´m pretty sure I´m down possibly as much as by 50% from the starting AV.

[Lokasenna]

ORIGINAL: JocMeister

ORIGINAL: HansBolter
They may well have a higher total AV on turn 20 than they did on turn 1 (discounting actual combat loses of course).

Thats actually what I wanted to check. I´m pretty sure I´m down possibly as much as by 50% from the starting AV.

Tracker.

LCUs.

Filter for Chinese.

Filter for Active.

Export to CSV.

Open in Excel, sum the column for AV.

Done [8D].