Banzais Don't Make Victories - Anachro (A) vs John 3rd (J) BTS 5.7

[Anachro]

I'm fine with John taking notice of Ceylon and moving part or all of KB to India, btw. He has mentioned in the past weeks that he felt he might be in the wrong position for the real invasion. Then I can strike elsewhere.

[BBfanboy]

Nice serendipity there. I think both those AOs are big ones, well worth the fighter losses.

[Anachro]

Yes, I'm fine with it as long as they sink. Main goal, of course, is to impede John's ability to use LBA against any invasion of Ceylon as well as make it harder for his recon units to see into my interior. One thing I noticed just now that makes Ceylon very enticing is Colombo and Trincomalee alone take 1000 VPs away from Japan, in addition to the ~15-20k men there that might be destroyed in an invasion.

[Anachro]

Can someone tell me, because I haven't looked into this, what's the normal range at which an air raid would be spotted by the Mk.1 eyeball vs. radar? Is 38-28 NM reasonable? This is less of a gripe and more an interest, plus I don't know if John modded in earlier radar for Japan in this mod or something.

[BBfanboy]

ORIGINAL: Anachro

Can someone tell me, because I haven't looked into this, what's the normal range at which an air raid would be spotted by the Mk.1 eyeball vs. radar? Is 38-28 NM reasonable? This is less of a gripe and more an interest, plus I don't know if John modded in earlier radar for Japan in this mod or something.

Mk1 EB is not modeled, but listening devices can detect somewhere between 15-30 NM IIRC. Weather is a factor, I'm sure. I am not sure if Coastwatcher reports and enemy bases on the route of the raiding aircraft are abstracted into D/L on the air raid and therefore greater range or chance of detection. I imagine it as being modeled similar to the way the seas within four hexes of an active air base are assumed to be searched by virtue of air traffic.

[Anachro]

Interesting. Regarding the last turn, John let slip that he was running fuel into Ceylon, which is interesting to me. Not sure if that's attempted misdirection on his part, but if true, would imply he wants fuel there for naval ops as there is no other reason for it there that I can think of. KB coming?

Those boys were running some fuel in and I THOUGHT 150 fighters were enough to protect them for a day or two. NOT! Grrrr...

[BBfanboy]

ORIGINAL: Anachro

Interesting. Regarding the last turn, John let slip that he was running fuel into Ceylon, which is interesting to me. Not sure if that's attempted misdirection on his part, but if true, would imply he wants fuel there for naval ops as there is no other reason for it there that I can think of. KB coming?

Those boys were running some fuel in and I THOUGHT 150 fighters were enough to protect them for a day or two. NOT! Grrrr...

Given your control of India it makes no sense to offload fuel in Ceylon. If he wanted to refuel KB or SCTFs he could station AOs well south of Ceylon or just disband a couple of smaller tankers in a port and draw fuel from them there. Looks like misdirection to me - perhaps he has more TKs or AOs in the area trying to remove fuel from Ceylon ...

[Canoerebel]

Shapiro: "Animal, them Nazis aint kosher."
Animal: "You can say that again."
Shapiro: "Animal, them Nazis aint kosher."
Animal: "I said, 'You can say that again.' That doesn't mean you have to repeat yourself!"

Anybody know the movie?

Yes, John is definitely disassembling there. I think BBfanboy is dead right. John wanted to remove the fuel in prep for evacuation. He's running a tissue thin deception. He oughta know better.

[BBfanboy]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Shapiro: "Animal, them Nazis aint kosher."
Animal: "You can say that again."
Shapiro: "Animal, them Nazis aint kosher."
Animal: "I said, 'You can say that again.' That doesn't mean you have to repeat yourself!"

Anybody know the movie?

Yes, John is definitely disassembling there. I think BBfanboy is dead right. John wanted to remove the fuel in prep for evacuation. He's running a tissue thin deception. He oughta know better.

Stalag 17

Price : Must you two always be last?

Animal : Oh, yeah? You try jumping in those trenches first. Everybody jumps in on top of you.

Shapiro : How do you think I got my hernia?

[coughs]

[Anachro]

January 26th, 1943

I conduct additional sweeps and further bombings on Ceylon, so now all three airfields there show decent damage and I'll divide my bombers to now swathe all three in bombs so he can't repair them one-by-one. The real interesting thing here is the significant forces that the island now appears to have, which is different from a few weeks ago. 15k men at Colombo, 18k at Koggala, and 7k at Trincomalee: 40k men in total between all three locations - that is a significant garrison (that I'd love to destroy)! I am now thinking of allocating additional forces for the landings and I have some questions for that. I'm well aware of the importance of preparation for the initial landings, so as to prevent damage and disablement. Will reinforcement landings in the same hex where a landing has already happened also suffer big penalties or is it like a river crossing hex that has already been assaulted? That is, can I land a 100% preppred division one day and then, say, a 50% prepped division the next day without a serious cost?



Here is John's email with the turn. Again, I find areas (in bold) that are questionable. Namely, I doubt the full fleet is in R&R. Lol.

When the Fleet is getting R&R I like to use my AOs add lift capacity to my fuel and oil hauling ability. Those guys weren’t too far away so I THOUGHT it would be an EASY and somewhat safe trip to Koggala. BIG MISTAKE!

Elsewhere in India, we noticed two turns ago that John has significant forces and ~130 fighters at Akyab. We thus have set the British division heading there tro retreat back. Furthermore, sigint implies John is sending another division there (maybe already partly there). I'm not sure what his plans are here, but if I successfully take Ceylon, this garrison can quickly be isolated and is at risk of great suffering from the air, sea, and land.

Chittagong will be in service soon enough and while at risk from bombardment, has a level 7 airfield.

[Anachro]

Forgot to mention we also sink a Lima-class xAK near Soerabaja, which is nice. 2-3 of my subs had numerous attacks in that area this turn, all misses until SS Shad plants 5 torpedoes (all hits) into the Kamoi Maru. In the last month, excluding ships I estimate still in service, Allied subs have sunk 11 xAKs, 4 xAKLs, 3 TKs (possibly a 4th), a YO, 2 large CMs. In addition, they caused heavy damage to a CL.

[Canoerebel]

Each amphib assault (day one, day two, day three) is dependent on the prep % of the unit coming ashore, so you won't get any organic relief by landing the 50% prepped guy on day two (though if enemy defenses were battered on day one, then damaged incurred might be lower).

In my two games vs. John III and Obvert, I have found that you can land poorly prepared (or unprepared) units if you have a highly or fully prepped Amphib Force HQ. I haven't tested that fully, but I'm continuing to gather evidence. If that's true, a player could prep his three AF HQs for three targets and his ground units for any of a variety of other targets and still get some (a lot? all?) of the benefits when going in with an AF HQ at the HQ's targeted base. You don't have the AF HQs yet, but you might keep that in mind for later.

[Lecivius]

ORIGINAL: Anachro

until SS Shad plants 5 torpedoes (all hits) into the Kamoi Maru.

[Anachro]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Each amphib assault (day one, day two, day three) is dependent on the prep % of the unit coming ashore, so you won't get any organic relief by landing the 50% prepped guy on day two (though if enemy defenses were battered on day one, then damaged incurred might be lower).

Well, I'll start conducting some ground bombing once airfields are out of commission. It could be I'm seeing a lot of support troops mixed in with combat units.

[Anachro]

John has a LOT of divisions in forward defense on his periphery. Furthermore, he has made hardly any movement in China in months (I am currently planning an audacious retreat of bought-out 800AV potential Chinese divisions through Japanese occupied Burma). I'm starting to wonder if he is happy with his current position and is moving divisions out of China/Korea to his other fronts.

[BBfanboy]

ORIGINAL: Anachro

John has a LOT of divisions in forward defense on his periphery. Furthermore, he has made hardly any movement in China in months (I am currently planning an audacious retreat of bought-out 800AV potential Chinese divisions through Japanese occupied Burma). I'm starting to wonder if he is happy with his current position and is moving divisions out of China/Korea to his other fronts.

John does seem to have a habit of expanding far and then trying to build a hard shell defence which leaves little behind it. Once the egg cracks he cannot rebuild a line. Defence in depth calls for pulling back far enough that at least two viable lines of defence are built and a withdrawal plan is made to retrieve units when the outer line in breached. John does not seem to have withdrawal plans until it is too late.

BTW, I like your thinking about letting Akyab be reinforced so more troops can be isolated later. That one is hard to supply overland so he will have a tough time feeding all the troops and trying to build forts.

[Bearcat2]

ORIGINAL: Anachro

Can someone tell me, because I haven't looked into this, what's the normal range at which an air raid would be spotted by the Mk.1 eyeball vs. radar? Is 38-28 NM reasonable? This is less of a gripe and more an interest, plus I don't know if John modded in earlier radar for Japan in this mod or something.

He can have radar capability by this point, range up to 44 miles. It doesn't appear that he has changed when radar appears.

[Anachro]

Sorry guys, not much to report at the moment. I am continuing to bomb Ceylon. Ground bombing yesterday revealed that the 6th Guard ADU CD Battalion is at Colombo, which is one of the new CD units John has added to this scenario for Japan. I think he gets a bunch of them and someone said previously in this thread that they pack a nice little punch. Hopefully, I'll get more intel soon. Beyond that, there is heavy radio activity at Diego Garcia - is that where John is keeping any surface vessels/carriers he might use to react to a Ceylon invasion? Over the past month, all of his actions have pointed to a re-focus on the Indian theater, as he probably thinks that is where my main focus is. In other news, John now has 30,000 men at Akyab, so he put another whole division there. Fine by me.

Meanwhile, my various parts are shifting around to various locations.

[GetAssista]

ORIGINAL: Anachro
Sorry guys, not much to report at the moment. I am continuing to bomb Ceylon. Ground bombing yesterday revealed that the 6th Guard ADU CD Battalion is at Colombo, which is one of the new CD units John has added to this scenario for Japan. I think he gets a bunch of them and someone said previously in this thread that they pack a nice little punch. Hopefully, I'll get more intel soon.

Lets us hope it's not 46cm CD guns as leftovers from the mass production for the new BBs

ORIGINAL: Anachro
Meanwhile, my various parts are shifting around to various locations.

Try to not shift your parts too much in an excessively uncoordinated fashion - sprains and twists heal progressively worse with age [:D]

[Anachro]

The composition of a Guard ADU CD Battalion. He gets 10 of these.