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AFTER ACTION REPORTS FOR 02/22/42


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Ground combat at Wuchow

Japanese Shock attack

Attacking force 268865 troops, 2867 guns, 173 vehicles

Defending force 24603 troops, 93 guns, 0 vehicles

Japanese engineers reduce fortifications to 0

Japanese assault odds: 20 to 1 (fort level 0)

Japanese forces CAPTURE Wuchow base !!!


Japanese ground losses:
1195 casualties reported
Guns lost 57

Allied ground losses:
943 casualties reported
Guns lost 43


Defeated Allied Units Retreating!

2 chinese Corps and 2 Divisions remain for the final battle

February is complete:

Since the fall of Wuchow the Chinese forces have retreated in good order toward Kweiyang. Kweilin was abandoned and captured without a fight. Forces have broken contact and there has been no significant fighting for the last week.

My bomber offensive has shifted to the north for the moment with attacks on Sien and Langchow. These have been less successful then my attacks in Kumming as allied air resistance appears to be stiffening.

6 March:

Japanese forces have redeployed from the Wuchow offensive and have now crossed the river in force NW of both Hengchow and Changsa. Small Chinese units have been retreated from these hexes. Clearly the focus of this offensive is the river crossing which leads to Chungking. The bulk of Chinese forces from the Wuchow area have made it to Kweiyang.

The air battle has heated up in the north with my units continuing to bomb Langchow and Sien. Dude actually bombed Homan with several squadrens and did some damage as I had nothing flying CAP. It seems that the bulk of the AVG in now at Sien.

My forces are now advancing into Burma unoppossed (per prior agreement) and will cut the Burma Rd before the end of the month. I have transfered the first Kwantang area Division to China command and sent it toward China.

Those Japanese units that crossed the river shouldn't have much supply since they went off-road.

As far as I can tell supply means nothing for Japan in China. I have had no problem no matter where I go.

I think this is just a myth that people believe because it makes sence historically. I'll check the supply levels when I get home but I did not notice that they were short at all.

Usually when units go into the wilderness they don't get 100% supply. Plus there is 200,000 out there, it should be hard to supply such a force without roads.

8 March:

I sent a detachment of mongol cav across the river near Changsa to do a recon. Dude drove me out with 11 corps and 5 divisions. They are mostly in bad shape. I only saw one or two corps with 200 AV. I checked the supply of my units off of the road and they are fine. Perhaps I'm losing some supply in transit to this force but enough is getting to them. It would be a nice time for Dude to post a screenshot.

Dude's aircraft have left Sien and I bombed it and destroyed 6 more resourse pts. I'm not sure why they were pulled out as they seemed to be doing good work there. Perhaps they had low m,orale due to all the fighting.

13 March:

I have encircled a large force of Chinese at the river crossing near Changsa. He has been unable to shift forces as fast as I was able to over the rail line and my armor units were able to exploit a gap in his lines. My armor units are at great risk and will quite possibly be destroyed in the next week or two but I have cut the retreat route to Chungking for about 11 corps and 5 chinese divisions. The only thing saving them is I have had some problems with the follow command which caused the coordination of my attack to break down. Ultimately I had to reset everything and start over from zero movement.

This battle has the potential to be the decisive battle of the war if this chinese force can be destroyed or retreated to an uncomfortable hex. On the other hand I've had the 59 mile bug crop up once and while it has gone away for the moment, I'm having nightmares of the chinese destroying my armored units while mymian body sits for turn after turn at 59 miles.

My Sallies continue to bomb Langchow unopposed.--In Burma my troops should take Mandelay tomorrow and I expect to close the Burma road by about the 20th.

ORIGINAL: moses

8 March:
I only saw one or two corps with 200 AV.

How can you tell? I've never seen more detail than "xx,xxx troops xxx guns xx AFV's" when doing a mouse flyover.

I get that data from the combat report. I had a detachment from the mongol cav enter the hex. When he attacks to drive it off I read of the assault values.

15 March: His main body is still encircled. One of my surrounding armored units fought an amasing battle. Two Chinese Corps entered the hex and were both driven out at 5-1 odds by a single armored unit with no HQ.

His forces trapped next to the river are doomed if I can get my troops to move. At two points I have units that have been at 59 miles for two turns. My main attack has not reached 59 miles yet but when it does I have no idea if it will move or not. If they move they SHOULD go all at once and the Chinese forces will not have a chance. However for the last 10 days I have been fighting bugs more than the Chinese.

This 59 mile bug tends to appear when the enemy is low on supply and is extrodinarily frustrating. I had this bug 5 or 6 turns ago and it cleared up on its own eventually. Hopefully my attack will go through. Dude has got to be wondering what the heck I am waiting for.

ORIGINAL: Feinder

[:-]

Ok. So I went back and added everything up. I wasn't accounting for the individual planes... [;)]

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Japanese spies have somehow uncovered documentation as to which Allied squadrons are actually participating in "Operation Rice Drop". This huge airlift reprents anything that Prime Minster Feinder could grab. He's even got his eyes on a few sqdns of B-17s, but has feeling that Knavey won't let him have them...

4 Flgts Hudson (4x8x1600) = 51,200
2 Flgts Beufort V-IX (2x8x2000) = 32,000
1 Sqdn Beufort V-IX (16x2000) = 32,000

2 Sqdn Blen IV (2x16x1320) = 42,240
1 Sqdn Blen I (12x1000) = 12,000
1 Sqdn Blen 1 (16x1000) = 16,000

1 Sqdn Lock-212 (8x1000) = 8,000
1 Sqdn C-60(8x3000) = 24,000

1 Sqdn IL-4c (16x5510) = 88,160
4 Sqdn SB-2c (4x12x2205) = 105,840
*these sqdns have max at 16, but they're not fleshed out yet.

4 Sqdn C-47(4x16x10000) = 640,000

Total Lift Capacity = 1,051,440 units per turn

-THAT- his how much I'm hauling into China on a turn when it doesn't rain.

I have no idea how much supply that translates into, but that's what I'm doing.

[;)]

I'm not kidding when I talk about setting up a big air-tran net. It take a LOT to feed a billion Chinamen.

-F-

hm.. it seems to me that your transport squadrons get over half of the job done by themselves, as your bombers are so woefully inefficient (except the Il-4's and SB-2's) i'd suggest using them instead to bomb advancing japanese units to have a chance of keeping burma road open

Surprised those 140 tanks could win so easily against the two Chinese Corps. Will be tough to counterattack with these kind of odds. Some more reinforcements are on the way but I don't think they will arrive in time.

The tanks surpeised me too. Maybe they get a big bonus for attacking in clear terrain which would make sence. They only had 60-70 Assault points against around 400-500 for your guys so I don't see any other explanation for me to have 5-1 odds.

One of my 59 mile units released pinning the forces that would be headed toward the armored unit. I noticed that a couple of your units at the river withdrew which may explain why my guys aren't moving. This bug might be caused when cut off units try to retreat. When your last unit pulls out my guys will move. So probably you will get away.

It takes 2000 transport pts to move 1 supply pt so even with this massive airlift you get 525 supply points per turn in good weather. Maybe you can average 300 pts a day. Also a lot of this is moving supply within China (for example all of the SB-2's. which are 10 % of the total.) This drops him to 270 per day. The SB-2's are using supply in China (est. 48 sp per day plus whatever it takes to replace SB-2's losts to ops so say 55sp per day. I estimate that the net effect of this massive airlift is about 230 to 240 supply points per day. Not enough to make much difference and certainly not worth wasting all those bomber aircraft.

Does seem historically accurate. 7500 SP per month supplies about 10 chinese Corps. Thats a lot of troops to supply by flying over the hump.

20 March:

My forces have finally occupied the river crossing hex north of Changsa in force after weeks of marching and counter-marching. Assuming the follow command works properly practically my whole army will be there on the next turn. To oppose this WITP_DUDE has about 12 Corps and 4 or 5 divisions all in sub-optimal condition. I have an armored unit on the road between the Chinese force and Chungking so their supply path goes through several non-road hexes so they cannot be very well supplied. My armored unit is in some danger and may well be destroyed before this phase of the campaign is over but it has accomplished its task.

It appears that Langchow has been evacuated as I now have a unit adjacent to the city and have had several recon flights of the hex turn up nothing. I have bombed the city down to between 40 and 50 resourse pts and as Sien has been bombed to less than 5 resourse pts Dude may have concluded that it is no longer worth defending.

The Burma road has been cut. The allies have only about 750 resourse pts operating once Langchow falls which gives him 1500 supply pts per day assuming industry is operating. With 200 sp coming via air this gives him a maximum daily supply of 1700 per day or 51,000 sp per month. He will get a little more for a while until he burns off his excess resourses. This is starvation rations for the Chinese and his situation should start to deteriorate quickly.

His planes are still flying and he has been bombing my armored units with good effect. My air has for the last weeks been bombing the cities in the north and keeping the pressure on the Chinese units guarding the river crossing around Changsa.

22 March:

I have over 12 divisions, with supporting arms, at the river crossing site NW of Changsa. I've bombarded for two turns with good effect and I almost certainly will drive the Chinese out on the next turn. My choice then will be to drive north to Chungking or to deal first with the rather large forces to the west (40 units??). For the first time some of my units are not at 100% supply as large numbers of previously idle divisions suddenly switch over to assault mode. I expect that this will be a temporary event as I have tons of supply which have accumulated along the southern coast and it should begin to be drawn north. But who knows, maybe Mogami is correct and I will have severe supply problems as I leave the rail.

I tried another armored shock attack but this one failed. Reasons?: It was not a clear hex, it was against another armored unit, and he's been bombing me for several turns. It was worth a try though after the stunning success of my last armored shock attack.

Langchow has fallen unopposed to a single independant brigade. His only remaining supply production in North China is 3 or 4 resourse pts in Sien.

March 23rd

24 March:

Cool Map which pretty much sums up the situation. The key battles are below. My supply situation has normalized with all my units being at 100% supply. Some of my units have high fatigue from all the off-road marching but are otherwise in good shape.

An interesting note on the combat system. The battles below cost the Chinese about 100 army loss points compared to 54 that the Japanese have taken during the entire China campaign. Retreats are the prime and nearly only killer in this system.



AFTER ACTION REPORTS FOR 03/23/42


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Ground combat at 45,35

Japanese Deliberate attack

Attacking force 351691 troops, 3995 guns, 55 vehicles--I have a lot of troops here!!

Defending force 71227 troops, 269 guns, 0 vehicles

Japanese assault odds: 19 to 1


Japanese ground losses:
1528 casualties reported
Guns lost 38
Vehicles lost 1

Allied ground losses:
4943 casualties reported
Guns lost 37


Defeated Allied Units Retreating!

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Ground combat at 44,33

Allied Shock attack

Attacking force 1680 troops, 0 guns, 72 vehicles

Defending force 1460 troops, 0 guns, 97 vehicles

Allied assault odds: 5 to 1


Japanese ground losses:
25 casualties reported
Vehicles lost 2

Allied ground losses:
5 casualties reported
Vehicles lost 1


Defeated Japanese Units Retreating!

I don't like my chances at this point. The Japanese may have supply problems when they go to attack Chungking but the Chinese supply situation will be a lot worse. Maybe I can counterattack somewhere before you recover.