Notes from a Small Island

[Canoerebel]

10/27/44

Port Blair: Allies overwhelm enemy garrison at Port Blair. Erik brought in part of a naval guard unit by air transport, but it wasn't enough.

How will this affect Erik's perception of his defensive line in Burma? I'm anxious to see.

[Canoerebel]

10/27/44

Ketoi: This good division took its lumps at Ketoi. Then it was pulled out in a single night, transported to Shikuka to recover. It's gonna take awhile.

[Canoerebel]

My P-38 squadrons at Shikuka are correctly set to provide LRCAP. I can't figure out why none of them helped provide cover for the BB Alabama TF. Dunno.

[Canoerebel]

10/27/44

Burma Theater: This graphic is meant to show why I think Port Blair is key.

Up until now, I haven't pushed hard in Burma. Erik has a vast army forward. If and when his MLR cracks, the Allies may be able to beat up on the army, unhinging everything. Erik may have defenses in depth, but I don't know yet.

[Lokasenna]

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

The lack of counterbattery fire could indicate a supply shortage.

Or, more likely to me, range. If your artillery is firing from out of the range of his, his won't shoot back.

There are some Allied units that in one of my games I just had to turn off from bombardments. None of the British "Medium" regiments were allowed to shoot. The range on their guns was too short and they just ended up getting shredded by massed counterbombardments.

[crsutton]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

My P-38 squadrons at Shikuka are correctly set to provide LRCAP. I can't figure out why none of them helped provide cover for the BB Alabama TF. Dunno.

I use LRCAP all the time. However, there is always the chance that it won't show up. At that range it will show up 90% of the time so I would not give up on it.

[HansBolter]

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

The lack of counterbattery fire could indicate a supply shortage.

Or, more likely to me, range. If your artillery is firing from out of the range of his, his won't shoot back.

There are some Allied units that in one of my games I just had to turn off from bombardments. None of the British "Medium" regiments were allowed to shoot. The range on their guns was too short and they just ended up getting shredded by massed counterbombardments.

Agreed, but if he was getting counterbattery fire previously and those same guns are no longer firing it would either be supply or disablements that are preventing fire now.

CR is likely correct in guessing disablements. The siege has gone on long enough now that the accumulation of disablements will be affecting the defender.

Accumulated disablements. combined with high disruption and low morale are what eventually trigger the collapse.

Appears to me that with forts reduced to three and the lack of serious counterbattery fire that the collapse may be imminent.

Bringing in a fresh division may be what finally triggers it.

[Encircled]

No way that Erik hasn't got that coast covered.

It cost him thousands of men when he lost there to Jocke.

[Lokasenna]

ORIGINAL: Encircled

No way that Erik hasn't got that coast covered.

It cost him thousands of men when he lost there to Jocke.

Unless he is gambling that CR doesn't have the ships to invade there after invading so heavily in the Kuriles.

[Lokasenna]

Going back to your attack on Ketoi... I seem to recall you were only going to attack with a portion of your troops? The adjusted AV for your guys in the screenshot is very, very low.

As a general rule, I never send combat engineer units into the attack with few other units participating. They recuperate slowly compared to divisions, which you can split, and they don't have as many devices to spread the hurt around either.

Your raw AV is much higher than his. You need to figure out why your adjusted AV is so low. Is it leaders? Disruption/fatigue? There's no harm in waiting a week or more before your next attack.

You could find bringing in an HQ unit beneficial. IIRC, GetAssista did some tests a while back and even an underprepped (though I think not unprepped) HQ's presence provided a boost to adjusted AV.

I think you may need to employ your beasts on ground bombing missions - drive up his disruption and supply usage.

[Canoerebel]

Only two of the four divisions present attacked. Disruption and fatigue were fine. The combat engineer unit is resting and will be for some time to come. The 4EB are hitting the ground troops there daily (when weather cooperates, which is most of the time).

I'm not sure why the adjusted AV is so low. The raw AV is higher and most of the units are 100% prepped.

Short term, I plan to rest the ground troops while to let the bombardment TFs and bombers work on things. I have a feeling that Erik's troops are in trouble, but my guys need some rest.

I'll look into the HQ situation.

[HansBolter]

I've found that attacking a large siege stack with a single division + engineer + tank + all the artillery on the hex can be effective as long as you get sufficient odds to allow the engineer to reduce the forts,

What the minimum odds are is still a question I have not answered.

I had one attack set up as described reduce forts with 1:9 odds.

I had another fail to reduce forts at 1:14 odds.

For a large siege like this and what I encountered at Tinian, I like to have multiple independent engineers to be able to rotate.

I had three combat engineer regiments at Tinian so the ability to rotate and rest speeded up the siege reduction process.

[Canoerebel]

10/28/44

Ketoi: Enemy shore-gunfire sporadic and ineffective - a far cry from the opening days of the campaign.

Allied ships at Ketoi are largely without air cover, as Death Star pulled close to Shikuka yesterday. There's not much shipping - a few AKs, a few DDs, and some patrolling minesweepers and ASW. Safety comes from the threat of LRCAP - Erik is understandably reluctant to send in strike aircraft that might get savaged by DS CAP. Indeed, DS is coming back this way today or tomorrow, depending on the loading speed of some amphib ships at Shikuka set to follow.

[Canoerebel]

10/28/44

Burma: The first of a number of raids targeting 2nd Tank Division in open terrain. Overall, the attacks probably disable more than 50 tanks. But the attacks fail in the chief objective - to slow down this division and keep it from reinforcing the tuckered out Japanese stack near Toungoo. 2nd Tank Division will arrive before the Allied deliberate attack at turn's end.

[Canoerebel]

10/28/44

Kunashiri Sweeps: The first of a series of Corsair sweeps against a large enemy CAP concentration. This is a good start - no Aliied losses (though some damaged planes undoubtedly go down on the way home).

I wanted to test a theory that Erik may be having trouble warding off sweeps by good fighters. The Japanese air force is large and strong but showing some signs of fighter fatigue.

[Canoerebel]

10/28/44

Kunashiri: Round 2 goes well.

[Canoerebel]

10/28/44

Kunashiri: Round 3.

[Canoerebel]

10/28/44

Kunashiri: Round 4.

[Canoerebel]

10/28/44

Kunishiri: Round 5

[Canoerebel]

10/28/44

Kunishiri: Round 6 - the last of the day.

Best sweep results of the war, so far. Erik isn't employing his Randy fighters, yet. He'll be able to fight hard and effectively for a long time, but things are beginning to change. I'm still having to marshall my fighters carefully, as the pools are low. But the new F4U-1D is making a difference...and the P-51D comes online in three days.