ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58
Without taking away from your very good play in China, GJ has let you off the mat. It's odd too, as the thread I read was his, started in his game with Q-Ball when he was on the other side. He's thought about Chungking sieges a lot. But here he screwed the pooch. Your screen shot shows how badly he failed to build the needed AFs to do Chungking well. At this point, given you have open hexsides, supply, and can operate a 150-plane CAP in mid-China (!!!) with 3rd gen fighters, he should give up on Chungking, withdraw to a defense line, and wait for you. SLs do work well in the bush, forcing a maneuver war. He can use that for a time. The one place they're crippling is Chungking.
I think he's simply played a different kind of war here. He's moving to contain, separate then squeeze, like a python, rather than a quick viper's strike. (At least after the debacle in Sian in early 42).
In not building more big airfields he may be thinking of his supply constraints, and those might dictate some things, the PDU-off might dictate others. To be fair, hitting Chungking is not as easy as in a stock game. I've had CAP here intermittently throughout the game, often including very good airframes that he'd have to overwhelm with numbers. He's done that on occasions, and he probably should have hit the industry, but we do have HRs on strat bombing allowing onl manpower attacks and an increasing scale of bombers for night strikes, (50 for 42 and 100 in 43). I know you're not a fan of HRs but this one will help the Japanese more than me over the course of the game, I'd say.
Even the comparatively poor Chinese AA will do some damage. He loses several planes a day from 15k when bombing Chungking with 100 2E, and gets decent hits on the fields but not as much on the manpower. (This still hurts me, as the AA takes a good bunch of supply).
[font="Trebuchet MS"]
Strat bombing:
manpower strikes allowed during
daylight
manpower strikes allowed during
night with sliding scale:
25 planes/target in 41
50 planes/target in 42
100 planes/target in 43
200 planes/target in 44
400 planes/target in 45-46. [/font]
In an SL game it is strategic malpractice to invade India.
If Calcutta's industry was taken intact taking India would have been a good move in this game. Rader proved what that could do for the Japanese, using the extra supply to both spur second tier objectives and to push industry and RnD beyond normal levels. (Too bad he left his back door open!)
To use your list you'd have to have some different conditions than the DBB game we're playing. These are very good ideas, and other than the strat bombing, similar to how I took China in my two games as Japan. I'll tackle this out of order as some things require explanation first to get to the others.
6. Take an AF in bombing range of Chungking. Proceed to burn down its industry. This should take at most six weeks. During this time the armored spearhead, whose function is hexside control, moves to Chungking. Probably generally west and then SE from Kienko. Alternatively NE from Kwieyang. Just get there. The Chinese have no AT weapons to speak of. Routing casualties will be massive.
In DBB the Chinese have 37mm AT guns in most big Corps to start as well as two independent units with these guns. It makes a big difference. They won't kill as many tanks as I'd like, but they do damage them, and that ends up making him rotate units and rest others, taking time.
1. Form IJA armor into a spearhead. Aim it at Chungking. Follow with infantry. Leave the arty behind.
The heavy siege arty the Japanese possess is their best weapon in China with SL. In a stuck spot he brings in 27-32 inch siege guns and blasts away for weeks until supply is gone, units are totally disrupted and have 100s of disabled squads, and then the tanks come to push through, once the AT guns are less effective.
2. Form a combined-arms spearhead in the SE and move aggressively west, taking the RR. The target is a stopper at Tsuyung.
The SL in the mountains is hex after hex of 20k and x3 terrain. You don't move through that quickly. Period. That's one division
or one tank division with some arty. That's all. The Chinese can put 500AV in each hex and build a few forts. It often takes a month to blast through each hex with concentrated air power and bombardments, plus rotating units in and out.
3. Destroy the Chinese air force. This takes a month, tops. They're flying biplanes. Nates can even work.
The Chinese air force never fights in China. It moves to India immediately. There they train and take a rear CAP role. The bombers hunt subs.
The AVG moves into China as opportunity allows. If the Japanese are flying anything other than A6M with expert pilots the AVG racks up kills each time it appears, taking out lightly defended bombing runs and forcing the Japanese to move in their best fighter groups. Then they fly out before facing them. Upgrade airframe. Repeat. With PDU-of the Tojo groups are limited and the P40K seems to do well against them in defense.
4. Leave Sian and Changsha alone. They're for later. Chungking is the target.
After the first battle of Sain, Nick did leave both of these alone until he could no longer leave Changsha. That base gets a ton of supply and can rebuild units, supply the areas around it and also support the air infusions of the AVG right in the middle of the country where they can strike any number of areas.
5. Run xAKL supplies up the river and establish a large supply node at Wuchang. The AI does this every game. Maybe Japan players do it, but I see few mention it.
Not necessary, as supply moves well from Shanghai into central China. Wastes fuel. Also, if my opponent was doing this I would have sunk those xAKL if Changsha was left untaken.
7. Move non-AV LCUs out of the M. Garrison and into the SE sector. Proceed to mop up lone Chinese LCUs and set them into the resurrection queue. Begin this on 12/8/41 as well.
There are few lone Chinese Corps if the Allied player is diligent in moving them back behind the lines. Early I let 4-5 tiny ones die blocking the rails. After this anything small is in the rear.
8. Close Chungking's hexsides with armor and air power. The city should be on stored supply plus 420/day organic by now. This is about two months in now. Chinese LCUs should still have terrible leaders, terrible morale, terrible training levels. This step cannot wait until June-Aug. February is the month. As I said, don't dink around at Sian, Lanchow, Changsha. Leave them alone. If Chengtu looks easy, take it. It's very valuable right away. Otherwise wait.
For all of the above reasons you never will get there in two months. Or four months. Or six months. In SL it takes much longer with good play. Even with good play from both sides it should take a year, minimum, to get near Chungking. Then even it's difficult to close all hex sides.
Another issue with the quickness of your schedule is that the IJA doesn't have the components of the tank divisions to buy out immediately from Manchuria. They come throughout the beginning of 42 and into April or around there. You don't have tank divisions in the beginning and the little regiments can't hold up to sustained combat.
Right now Nick is fighting with a maxed hex between Kweiyang and Chungking, and none of the four Corps there are full of supply (one has none). Only three of the four have forts built. Yet still in two attacks he's gotten negative results costing 300+ disabled infantry squads to about 50 for the Chinese. This is even with air strikes and very experienced Japanese units. One of my units is a zombie with no arty at all even, but I wanted to see how the Chinese 43 squads would do. Seems like they're good! [:)]
If I had an air bridge it wouldn't even matter that he takes out the industry at Chungking. I just keep applying more transports as they arrive.
"Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm." - Winston Churchill
