Moses vs WITP_Dude--China AAR

[WiTP_Dude]

The Chinese aren't ready to give up without a fight. Supply is fine, it should take many months before the Chinese begin to starve. Moses has begun airfield attacks to decrease the supply level.

[moses]

Crap, Dude has learned about the shock attack and now retreated another small brigade. This one 2 hexes SE of Kwieyang. Now I have to redeploy all the little units that i normally use to monitor the front line. Normally I am more careful than these but I really thought that with Chungking occupied that his supply situation would preclude offensive ops in the vic of Kwieyang.

For the first time in the war almost the entire Chinese army is in close contact with my forces. Its quite a frightening thing to have 100's of thousands of Chinese swarming all over the place. And now that he knows about the effectiveness of the shock attack I have to be very careful.

By agreement we have both brought in some additional bombers and fighters since we assume by this time in a full game the SRA battles would be about over and both sides would have a little more forces to commit. The problem for the allies in the air war is that for the most part Japan can pick and chose where to fight. The Chinese have to fly cap over a number of locations each turn. Japan can rest its fighters for days and then mass against one portion of the Chinese AF. He has hurricans in theater now but so far they have not been effective.

[WiTP_Dude]

I lost a lot of supply at Chungking a few turns ago. I don't know why that happened, maybe the airfield attack or maybe some supply has been moving south along with the units near Kweiyang.

[moses]

I've been trying to figure out how those guys were getting supply since they are separated from any supply sourse by wooded and mountain terrain. I think I remember reading that when the supply path value gets high then supply is not sent every day. I don't recall if its every 7th day or what but it sort of goes in spurts. I just assumed that you had somehow stored a big chunk of supply at Kwieyang and your troops were living off that.

[moses]

AFTER ACTION REPORTS FOR 05/07/42

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Day Air attack on Chungking , at 43,32

Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 3
Ki-21 Sally x 18

Allied aircraft
P-40E Warhawk x 36--I spoke too soon in my last post. Only 3 of my zero's fly on the turn that Dude rotates a fresh P-40 group in. Ouch!!

Japanese aircraft losses
A6M2 Zero: 6 destroyed
Ki-21 Sally: 8 destroyed, 13 damaged

Allied aircraft losses
P-40E Warhawk: 4 destroyed, 5 damaged
B-17E Fortress: 2 destroyed, 14 damaged
SB-2c: 7 destroyed


Allied ground losses:
87 casualties reported

Airbase hits 5
Runway hits 20

Aircraft Attacking:
12 x Ki-21 Sally bombing at 6000 feet
3 x Ki-21 Sally bombing at 6000 feet
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Day Air attack on 116th Division, at 44,35


Allied aircraft
IL-4c x 4
SB-2c x 6


Allied aircraft losses
SB-2c: 1 damaged--Dude has begun using his bombers more aggressivly as the game has gone on. Its difficult to intercept these guys since my nates don't have the range and my zero's have other things to do. I have 1 group of Oscars and it plays a guessing game with the bombers and hasn't gotten lucky in quite a while.
Japanese ground losses:
49 casualties reported
Guns lost 1

Aircraft Attacking:
6 x SB-2c bombing at 1000 feet
4 x IL-4c bombing at 6000 feet
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Day Air attack on 27th Division, at 44,35


Allied aircraft
IL-4c x 3


No Allied losses

Aircraft Attacking:
3 x IL-4c bombing at 6000 feet
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Day Air attack on 4th New Chinese Corps, at 43,35

Japanese aircraft
B5N Kate x 7
Ki-36 Ida x 2

No Japanese losses


Allied ground losses:
35 casualties reported

Aircraft Attacking:
7 x B5N Kate bombing at 7000 feet

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Ground combat at Chungking

Japanese Deliberate attack

Attacking force 341963 troops, 3540 guns, 43 vehicles

Defending force 293481 troops, 1583 guns, 71 vehicles

Japanese engineers reduce fortifications to 6

Japanese assault odds: 0 to 1 (fort level 6)


Japanese ground losses:
2814 casualties reported
Guns lost 150
Vehicles lost 4

Allied ground losses:
1802 casualties reported
Guns lost 44


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Ground combat at Chungking

Allied Bombardment attack

Attacking force 92274 troops, 648 guns, 0 vehicles

Defending force 344349 troops, 3348 guns, 34 vehicles


Japanese ground losses:
5 casualties reported
Guns lost 1

[WiTP_Dude]

There is a road that goes through Kunming. Supply goes through that area.

[moses]

I have a unit there. Right on the road SE of Kumming. I noticed it doesn't show on your map but I assumed you know about it. He's headed home now as I thought any second you'd have a corps sent there to drive him out.

[WiTP_Dude]

How did you get a unit there? [X(] Not that long ago I sent some units through there and haven't seen anything come by since then.

[moses]

It went cross country. Crossed the river from the rail hex to the wooded hex at the river bend . Then I moved at 2 MPH for quite a while before moving into the road hex.

[WiTP_Dude]

Good move! I still don't understand why it doesn't show up on the map though. If it is on the road it is either bordering Kunming or Kweiyang. Seems like it would be visible.

[WiTP_Dude]

I've been recording the supply at Chungking for the last several days. The results are a little strange:

5-6: -22330
5-7: +2655
5-8: +393
5-9: +5178
5-10: +433
5-11: +368

So this doesn't mean much and I will probably have to look at all the supply to see what is going on.

[moses]

It was bordering Kumming. I kinda wondered too when I notice in the combat animations that the unit was not visable. I thought maybe you had left Kumming uncovered and actually started the unit marching that way and sent some recon aircraft to check it out. When I saw you did in fact have forces there (like you would leave it uncovered) I pulled out.

It was only a brigade so maybe its small size allowed it to go undetected. Maybe you didn't have enough units in Kumming to raise its detection level enough. Could the woods have helped lower its detection level? Who knows.

[moses]

Are these the changes from day to day. I'm not sure how to read this. Watch your units in Chungking. They tend to breath supply in and out as they combat level changes.

Thats why I bomb ground units. Bomb the unit----supply requirement increases and they breath in. A day or two without combat and the requirement drops and they breath out. The theory is that supply is then lost in transits.

[moses]

AFTER ACTION REPORTS FOR 05/14/42

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Day Air attack on Hopei Militia Division, at 49,25-- I've been fighting this battle for 5 months now and I think my detachment of mongolian cav is almost ready to finish this guy off.
Japanese aircraft
Ki-51 Sonia x 10

No Japanese losses


Allied ground losses:
34 casualties reported

Aircraft Attacking:
10 x Ki-51 Sonia bombing at 2000 feet

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Ground combat at Chungking

Japanese Deliberate attack

Attacking force 315084 troops, 3112 guns, 27 vehicles

Defending force 284764 troops, 1598 guns, 76 vehicles

Japanese engineers reduce fortifications to 5

Japanese assault odds: 0 to 1 (fort level 5)


Japanese ground losses:
4380 casualties reported---This is starting to hurt. This battle seems to be shifting in the allies favor as the last few bombardments have also been in the Chinese favor. I will press on.Guns lost 129
Vehicles lost 5

Allied ground losses:
1212 casualties reported
Guns lost 30


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Ground combat at 43,31--This was a big victory for me as 6 Chinese corps are retreated and it was the first big Chinese retreat in quite a while. a couple of turns ago Dude retreated a full division when the rest of my force fell behind using the follow command. That was the largest force he's retreated and I needed to avenge that loss.
Japanese Shock attack

Attacking force 60067 troops, 715 guns, 15 vehicles

Defending force 46652 troops, 196 guns, 0 vehicles

Japanese assault odds: 6 to 1


Japanese ground losses:
1658 casualties reported
Guns lost 26
Vehicles lost 3

Allied ground losses:
391 casualties reported---The casualty report is almost meaningless here. What is important is that the retreat kills about 20-25 % of his elements.Guns lost 11


Defeated Allied Units Retreating!

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Ground combat at Chungking

Allied Bombardment attack

Attacking force 186869 troops, 1436 guns, 0 vehicles

Defending force 313082 troops, 2901 guns, 18 vehicles


Japanese ground losses:
14 casualties reported
Guns lost 1


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Ground combat at 49,25

Japanese Bombardment attack

Attacking force 1617 troops, 13 guns, 0 vehicles

Defending force 833 troops, 0 guns, 0 vehicles

[WiTP_Dude]

It looks like you've lost 800 guns from your high of 3700 earlier.

[moses]

Yeah half of that is I had to pull a bit out to guard my flanks when it became clear that your guys were not going to quickly collapse. The rest is a whole lot of disrupted artillery. Artillery can be a problem because low density items reach 50 % disabled much quicker than things like inf squads and support troops. So you start taking actual losses and you dont want to retreat because your infantry force is still good.

I'm curious why you did not counter bombard in Chungking last turn? Oversight. Surely your not retreating.

[WiTP_Dude]

I have the vague notion that bombardments work better after some rest.

[WiTP_Dude]

I'm going to swap in a second Hurrican unit to replace the first one. Didn't realize how small these units were compared to Zero units.

[moses]

I tested Hurricans in China a long time ago head-to head and they did no better then yours did. Its so hard for the allies because you have to be prepared every day at every location while I can just rest and pick the days and places that I want to fight.

[WiTP_Dude]

Chinese supply is finally starting to become a problem. There will be an important attack on the next turn, the Chinese need to win the battle to open things up.