Islands of Destiny: RA 5.0 Japanese Side

[John 3rd]

Done for the moment...

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: John 3rd

Backwaters
June 25, 1944

The backwaters of the war can see some interesting activity. For the last few weeks Allied troops have been hung-up trying to take Luganville from a particularly solid SNLF unit. No luck so far. The Allied Landing was thoroughly disrupted by a Daitai of Judys flying out of Ndeni where the Allies lost several AP--AKs were sunk.

It seems to me that this would be a great place to dry run some Kamikazes. No known Allied LBA or CV coverage in the area? Laden troop transports? What could be better?

[Chickenboy]

That Thai hex in clear terrain? It's gonna get plasternated(TM) by air as part of a combined air:ground assault. I wouldn't expect it to hold long.

Also why are you still holding Chang Mai in force? Where will they go when that hex (referenced above) falls? You may want to seriously consider getting them out by rail while that is intact.

When Tavoy falls, everything north of there will be cut off. Expect Bangkok to be invested within a fortnight. Anything north dies and will be entirely useless to you in an Allied POW camp or dead.

[John 3rd]

Chaing Mai is held by just a Base Force that is presently bugging out. The other units north of there are all broken down Thai Inf units that are about to be withdrawn.

He does not have enough force at Tavoy to take it. It should stay Japanese long enough...

Pisanloke is highly vulnerable to air attack. Am planning on it...

There is some potentially dastardly chuckling coming from this side of the computer.

[John 3rd]

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

ORIGINAL: John 3rd

Backwaters
June 25, 1944

The backwaters of the war can see some interesting activity. For the last few weeks Allied troops have been hung-up trying to take Luganville from a particularly solid SNLF unit. No luck so far. The Allied Landing was thoroughly disrupted by a Daitai of Judys flying out of Ndeni where the Allies lost several AP--AKs were sunk.

It seems to me that this would be a great place to dry run some Kamikazes. No known Allied LBA or CV coverage in the area? Laden troop transports? What could be better?

You read my mind. Have a couple of Kamikaze's hopping that way. They might be fun but aren't the promised show.

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: John 3rd
There is some potentially dastardly chuckling coming from this side of the computer.

Ah. So. "Don't throw me into the briar patch brer fox!"

[John 3rd]

It could be a brilliant move. It could be a STUPID move.

It is, after all, late-June 1944...

[Chickenboy]

The CAP trap you clearly have planned will neither make nor break your regional defense strategy. If you pull it off, it will be a nice way to bag some 2EBs. If not...meh. But neither outcome should dictate what you plan on doing with your LCUs in the area. IMO, these should be redeploying en masse to keep the Allies out of Bangkok for as long as possible.

I'd deploy along the rail corridor from Bangkok north in the woods. Make him go hex by hex through the forest and jungle and root you out piecemeal. I'd also reinforce that jungle between Tavoy and Bangkok. Same basic premise. In these places, you'll have interior lines and good defensive terrain. If you'd been digging there, you'd probably already had some defensive forts built. Having such defenses a couple-three lines hexes thick would slow his progress to a crawl.

[John 3rd]

THAT is sound thinking and advice. Have done some of that already. Do you CHARGE for your services Mr. Chickenboy?

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: John 3rd
Do you CHARGE for your services Mr. Chickenboy?

Will Banzai for beer.

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: John 3rd

Chaing Mai is held by just a Base Force that is presently bugging out. The other units north of there are all broken down Thai Inf units that are about to be withdrawn.

Thought about these guys some more. Looks like you have a unit trying to come around the back side and snitch Pegu in Burma? It probably won't work, but it's worth the try to disrupt his rail down the Malay peninsula to Moulmein.

If you have two more of these withdrawing Thai units, keep one at Chang Mai to fend off a coup de main there and put one on the rail line 1 hex NE of the dot hex due east of Rahaeng. That'll be a month or more of jungle combat walking before he can get anyone there, even if he takes either of these hexes. The rail will be cut until you can be forcefully evicted. So you can deny any benefit (other than the airfield capture) to holding Chang Mai for the duration-and on the cheap.

Lastly, do you have a mobile reserve in the area? Something to respond quickly to a paradropped unit on an unoccupied base on the Gulf of Siam or in inland Thailand?

[John 3rd]

One could definitely state that I have a MASSED Reserve available here.

[John 3rd]

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

ORIGINAL: John 3rd
Do you CHARGE for your services Mr. Chickenboy?

Will Banzai for beer.

My kind of man. What is your favorite beer?

I, personally, love both beer and wine. The wine side can be expensive but I like GOOD stuff.

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: John 3rd
My kind of man. What is your favorite beer?

I enjoy beer, but given the choice I'd opt for a nice bourbon or Irish whiskey any day. Us 40+ fogies have to watch that sort of stuff, so I must content myself with the odd beer or glass of wine instead. Sigh...

For beer, I'm not too picky. As a group, I like most of the Mexican beers very much. Some of the Belgian ales are fun, with their 12% A/V. For 'premium craft beers' I would reach back to one of my favorites from Cali-Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. It ticks most of the boxes for me. I was drinking that stuff before drinking that stuff was cool. If we meet one day and you buy me a beer, I'll tell you a couple 'drinking cheap beer stories' from days of yore. [:D]

Yourself? Living in Colorado, are you the product of the "Banquet Beer" that is located there? [:D]

[John 3rd]

You have expensive tastes Sir!

This 50 year-old loves Nevada Pale Ale. Pretty much any Pale Ale is along my lines. As for wine I love the German dessert stuff--Spatese, Reisling, and Auslese. YUMMY!

Example: We're having BBQ T-Bones tonight and I have a good, strong red wine ready to go.

What do all our readers of this fine thread like for their boozilishishness fun?

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: John 3rd
Example: We're having BBQ T-Bones tonight and I have a good, strong red wine ready to go.

Example: We're having handmade nopal, pepper and chicken enchiladas and steamed pork tomales. I'll wash those bad boys down with some Modelo Especial.

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: John 3rd
You have expensive tastes Sir!

Not really. I drink Old Milwaukee, Stroh's, Lone Star, Coors and Budweiser with no real preference (what's on sale?) too. The Irish whiskeys and bourbons are the more expensive treat. At least I'm not a fan of Scotch...[X(]

[Lowpe]

ORIGINAL: John 3rd

One could definitely state that I have a MASSED Reserve available here.

If this means you have plentiful troops in Thailand/Vietnam, I cannot begin to tell you how far you are out of position.

Your supply line back to Shanghai is one hex wide (south of Lang Son).

Case in Point (graphic): You are going to get pummeled from bases you gave away for next to nothing.

[John 3rd]

Well...that is totally depressing.

The simple reality is I cannot defend EVERYWHERE and I must hold the door open as long as possible in Thailand and Indochina so we can move TKs back-and-forth to the Home Islands. We continue to haul troops back from the Outer Perimeter and will fill in those locations as we go. That said though, a single Brigade cannot do crap vs. whatever he brings. He'll move in the 1.0^6x10 with a badzillion Fighters and a quintellion Troops.

He'll be occupied in Luzon for another month THEN the hammer will fall in this direction.

Prior to that I wager he'll continue to work on Borneo or try to jump over to Indochina. My .02s..

[Lowpe]

Kochi is easy.[;)] You can use restricted troops there but you have to march them there. Should be 2 divisions there now plus support troops.


You can also move an 9AV Eng unit to any of those islands and switch the island to General Reserve and fly in troops.

A brigade or regiment does force the Allies to prep and prepare and not just parachute troops in or fast transport troops in.

You are absolutely correct that you can't defend everywhere, but you can delay.

Look at the islands, and build up those that have the biggest potential runways first. Buildup I mean get some troops there. Anything, even a snlf can stop a paratroop.

Since none of them have troops, I am guessing they don't have runways either limiting your ability to fly in reinforcements, plus they probably don't have any fort levels either.

You should have a ton of construction engineers and aviation engineers to get something on those islands. I think if you look around you will be amazed at the amount of units available between China/Manchuko/Korea/HI.