Aussies v Aussies - Being clubbed like a baby seal (No Jrcar or Tony)

[aoffen]

Surviving AP's
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[aoffen]

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[aoffen]

Surviving AK's
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[aoffen]

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Obviously many more xAK's and xAP's

[aoffen]

Sorry messed that last file up. Here it is again.

[aoffen]

Have been using pickets on the SFO - PH route, but not in the SOPAC so much. So much area to cover!!

[Nemo121]

What are your capabilities?

If I were you I'd suggest that you look at the whole Northern Oz operation as one huge delaying action conducted by two competent army officers. The thing with delaying actions is that they usually allow solid defences to form behind them --- meaning, in turn, that the best thing to do is to try to go around. How averse are you to risk?


Have you figured out the division of territories between them yet? The armour raid in China strikes me as more of a light cavalry type action - I believe one of your opponent's is light cav isn't he?

[aoffen]

I think they are switching control to play to their strengths. Rob is the logistician and defensive warfare man. Tony (the Cav guy) is the go to guy for the offense. I know for sure they switched in China not long before Panzer Armee South struck. Its a smart way to tag team me and one thing I have learnt, is that these guys are smart.

I am absolutely sure they are occupying Darwin in order to deny it to me and give themselves time to fortify in the DEI. I am up for some risk but probably do not have the capability to do anything too adventurous right now, being 4 carriers down already. Lose the other 2 and I am hurting big time for the rest of this year. In 6-12 months it will be a different story I hope - by which time the opportunities will have diminished of course but not sure the is much I can do about that.

You have an evil idea?

Regards
Andrew

PS : Those 2 raiding IJN CV's and the CS all look to have gone down with each taking 8 x 1000lb penetrating bomb hits and the CS a couple of torps as well. They don't yet show up on the sunk ships table allthough their aircraft are showing as Ops and ground losses. May have also bagged 4 or 5 DD's which is nice. The BB Washington is badly hurt - she has 30 sys, 49 float and 18 engine damage. One of the torp hits was a critical and so she out of the war for a quite bit.

[Nemo121]

Evil idea? Perhaps.

Going dark now.... PM on its way

[CaptBeefheart]

Well done on attriting the KB.

Can't wait to see the suggestion from Nemo. A feint in the Aleutians while you land in force at Moulmein? A Timor grab cutting off the North OZ expedition? A seizure of Tabi and Tarawa to inderdict the supply of the Fiji/Pago cluster? Some sort of KB trap?

Cheers,
CC

[Nemo121]

I'm posting the text of the mail I sent aoffen - with his permission... This email contains my "low risk" approach to freeing things up as initially I thought aoffen would only be up for low risk operations.

" OK I've had a preliminary look and in the first round there are changes you can make without any force allocation changes:
1. China
A. You have a good line of supply from Chungking to the Changsha pocket but you haven't actually sent a force down the road to open it. Hence your forces in Changsha are really low on supplies. You could detach 10 AV to open this road and it'd boost the combat power of about 4,000 AV by 200%. So, well worth doing.
B. I recommend you destroy the IJA forces trapped south of Chungking. That will re-open your interior lines and allow you to shift forces more rapidly than the Japanese... which opens up options for you.

In the medium term you should make sure to move the 5,000+ AV in the north to pin down a large IJA force and then launch an offensive in the south aimed at Hong Kong. Based on what I see there you have more than enough AV to make a serious push to Hong Kong.


2. Burma:
You have 1800 AV at the front but could have 4,000 AV quite easily with just a little stripping of garrisons from places which will never be invaded - or which can be adequately defended by a combination of air and naval forces. I'd push them across the river from Kalemyo and towards Shwebo.

At much the same time I'd use paras to take Kathka or BHamo and then fly additional Brigades in by air. You do need to recon more in order to see what is there though first obviously.

The goal would be to open up the Burma front, open up the Burma Road and to get your forces toe to toe with the IJA where you can begin attriting them and forcing them to commit forward. Ideally, once committed forward you'd Inchon them behind and force them to rout to avoid getting cut off.


3. Nicobar Island and Trinkat are still yours.
Why not sub-land and air transport engineers and troops there and begin building them up? They are unlimited in terms of troop size and make a great jumping off point for an invasion of Northern Sumatra AND for Phuket ( which makes a great jumping off point for an invasion of Malaysia --- the threat of which helps win you Burma ).


4. You hold Enggano 6 hexes from Palembang.
I would suggest sub-landing a Bde there and then amphib landing at Cocos Islands ( which is low risk as it is totally on the edge of his perimeter and likely to be poorly held ). Using Cocos you can air transport in more to Enganno and build it up into a major base ( Size 8 Airfield ) which could dominate Southern Sumatra - in combination with landings in northern Sumatra at Sabang.

I think that these 4 actions co-ordinated together would completely blow open the Northern DEI/Burma/China portion of the map ( 9pm to midnight as it were ).



In the south/Australian axis.
You are about to retake Darwin and they've been VERY sloppy in allowing you about a half-dozen useful island bases in the midst of the DEI which are within PBY range of Darwin. So, take Darwin and begin flying troops into Bara and Obi. Once you take Babar ( within FT range of Darwin ) you can extend along an axis running from Darwin through Babar to Bara and Obi and then on to Manado. Once you've gotten Manado you can begin moving on Mindanao.

This axis maximises the utility of FT TFs and PBYs which acts to minimise the risk to your navy in developing this axis.



In the Pacific I'd simply try quick raids on Wake and Marcus with a view to dumping a couple of divisions on each and taking them.

Once you've done that what you'll see is that you'll have rendered everything south of the Marcus/Wake axis irrelevant to Japan AND you'll be threatening Mindanao AND you should be threatening landings in Sumatra ( north and south ) and Malaysia. Personally I'd go for Malaysia since that will collapse the Burma theatre and if handled right could allow the British and Chinese to join up allowing a grand land campaign into Korea proper. Plus, once you have Singapore there's no real problem in shutting off shipping into or out of Palembang.

So, basically, I think your position is good and there are many low-risk options available to you.

I think you could win the war even quicker with one or two high-risk gambits but if you want low to no risk then the above with the exception of the Marcus and Wake ops is the best low to no risk "water flowing around rocks" approach I can see.

Overall they've been sloppy in allowing small bases within PBY range to remain. You should take advantage of this and begin infiltrating into their operative depth before they even realise anything's happening."


After this Aoffen indicated an interest in some more high risk options. Without going into properly high risk I think the moderate risk options are as follows:
1. There are 1500 to 2,000 AV in Oz available for re-allocation at this instant. I would move them north to Ceylon ASAP. You could leave 500 AV behind to exploit the Darwin to Manado axis. So, 500 AV in Oz, 1,500 AV to Ceylon.

2. Push the attack into Burma with 2,000 AV ( no tanks ) with a view to getting the IJA to commit ground troops into Northern Burma but gather the other 3,000 AV ( including all the tanks ) in India.

From India/Ceylon you can then sail down (using evasive routing to avoid naval search missions ) and land at two places:
1. Victoria Point
2. Georgetown

You'd have to decide how you want to weight it... Do you want to take Singapore OR do you want to make a serious effort at taking Bangkok and actually really cutting off the IJA in Burma.

Personally I'd head for Singapore since once you can take that you can insert the Royal Navy into his SLOCs into Palembang and begin FT TFing units onto weakly held islands and begin infiltrating west along Northern Borneo with a view to linking up with the Australians working north to Mindanao from Darwin. Additionally if you got held a little south of Bangkok - which is what I'd expect if you weighted your advance towards Singapore - I would advise that once you had the IJA battled up in Canton and Hong Kong that you would cross the Chinese border with Vietnam and begin pushing eastward with a view to creating a vice for the IJA there:
1. 2,000 AV pressing south through Burma.
2. 1,000 AV stopped just south of Bangkok.
3. 4,000 AV+ pushing west from China through Vietnam.

Supported with aerial bombing of IJA ground forces eventually the Japanese would have to begin considering a naval and air evacuation of their forces and that'd be a great opportunity to really attrit them, pin the navy in place for a long-term ( 1 month long ) operation and conduct some optional offensives in the Pacific.

The key would be co-ordination. Basically you want to force him to react to:
1. The offensive in northern China with about 5,000 AV of Chinese troops
2. The capture of Marcus and Wake - which will necessitate garrisoning a whole new set of islands which are probably only weakly garrisoned now.
3. The invasion of Northern Burma
4. The attack into the Canton/Hong Kong axis by about 4,000 Chinese AV
5. The drive north from Darwin to Mindanao
6. The surprise landings at Victoria and Georgetown

within a fortnight of eachother. It could stretch out to a month if necessary but basically you want them to look at their reserves and say - we don't have enough to do everything, let's shorten the line and voluntarily withdraw.


In July 43 when you get proper CVs with Corsairs on board I'd make the jump from Marcus to the next set of islands with a view to basically linking the northern Borneon axis, the Darwin to Mindanao axis and the PH to Marcus to Iwo Jima axis up via a co-ordinated action to take Luzon. Luzon would be the fulcrum around which the three other axes turn. They also render irrelevant any IJA holdings south or west of them.

At the same time I'd have the Brits and Chinese - who would have joined up by this stage - fighting a land war through China with a view to taking Korea and establishing airbases within range of the Home Islands.

Lastly I'd then march up the island chain from Northern Luzon to Okinawa and from Okinawa via the island chain to Korea.


At that point you pick your place to invade.

This would take about 18 months but is basically a variant of what I did in a WiTP game vs Damian IIRC. There's nothing risky there until you have CV superiority in August '43. Victoria Point and Georgetown can go ahead without CV cover. You'll take losses but combat loading and immediate setting up of CAP should prevent the worst from happening.

[aoffen]

deleted

[aoffen]

21 - 29 Jan 1943

Pacific
The Battle of Gisborne ended up as a qualified success. We bagged 2 of the smaller IJN fleet CV's (Hiyo & Junyo) together with a CL and 4 or 5 DD's. During the second day of action as we cleaned up the surface combatants a CAP of 60 A6M3's suddenly appeared over his surviving DD's meaning KB was on the way. We turned hitched our skirts and ran. Fortunately (and it was a close run thing) the CV's got away but the BB Nth Carolina which had been badly winged in the previous day CV fight was caught and despatched by a 6 CV KB. The CA San Francisco and 3 old DD's were also caught too far north and all sunk by the hot pursuit. So in the end it was 2 CV's 1 CL, 5 DD's lost for the IJN vs 1 BB, 1 CA 3 DD's for me. A good win but not without some pain. My CV's ran around the south side of NZ and are now on the way back to Sydney to refit and recover all the damage incurred with their sprints and the air losses from the KB CAP.

Over at PH we have formed the mother of all convoys stuffed full of goodies. It contains 200k of troops, 15 squadrons, 200k of fuel and 200k of supplies packed into 170 ships and escorts including 3 new BB's and 6 CVE's. These will take the long route to Australia and provide the basis of offensive action out of Oz for the rest of this half year. I will send the 2 CV's from Sydney to meet them and escort them in. Need to make sure we don't get sighted here so caution in the watchword.

Australia
I am having problems here. I tried an assault on Darwin with 7th Aust Div plus numerous armour and inf brigades.. Total AV was 1100 and I got well and truly spanked at 1-26. The IJA then counterattacked and threw me back with very heavy losses. See below

Ground combat at Darwin (76,124)
Allied Deliberate attack
Attacking force 26091 troops, 368 guns, 1151 vehicles, Assault Value = 1100
Defending force 20591 troops, 228 guns, 468 vehicles, Assault Value = 667
Allied adjusted assault: 127
Japanese adjusted defense: 3381

Allied assault odds: 1 to 26 (fort level 5)

Combat modifiers
Defender: forts(+), leaders(+), preparation(-)
Attacker: disruption(-), supply(-)

Japanese ground losses:
208 casualties reported
Squads: 0 destroyed, 12 disabled
Non Combat: 1 destroyed, 18 disabled
Engineers: 0 destroyed, 19 disabled
Guns lost 7 (1 destroyed, 6 disabled)
Vehicles lost 67 (6 destroyed, 61 disabled)


Allied ground losses:
2300 casualties reported
Squads: 25 destroyed, 274 disabled
Non Combat: 24 destroyed, 32 disabled
Engineers: 2 destroyed, 26 disabled
Guns lost 32 (5 destroyed, 27 disabled)
Vehicles lost 104 (12 destroyed, 92 disabled)


Assaulting units:
7th Australian Division
Gull Battalion
2/7th Armoured Regiment
4th Armoured Brigade
2/6th Armoured Regiment
2/9th Armoured Regiment
3rd Motor Brigade
2/10th Armoured Regiment
6th Aus Cav Brigade
3rd Army Tank Brigade
1st Australian Army

Defending units:
8th Tank Regiment
Sasebo 6th SNLF
1st Ind. Engr Rgt /2
1st Engineer Co
38th Division
4th Tank Regiment
2nd Tank Regiment
19th Ind. Engineer Regiment
146th Infantry Rgt /2
106th JAAF AF Bn
26th Air Defense AA Regiment
1st Naval Construction Battalion
107th JAAF AF Bn
16th Army
30th JNAF AF Unit /1
46th JAAF AF Bn /1

then the counter attack

Ground combat at Darwin (76,124)
Japanese Shock attack
Attacking force 15257 troops, 156 guns, 385 vehicles, Assault Value = 638
Defending force 24047 troops, 361 guns, 825 vehicles, Assault Value = 627
Japanese adjusted assault: 874
Allied adjusted defense: 126

Japanese assault odds: 6 to 1

Combat modifiers
Defender: disruption(-), preparation(-)
Attacker: shock(+)

Japanese ground losses:
1143 casualties reported
Squads: 4 destroyed, 41 disabled
Non Combat: 0 destroyed, 22 disabled
Engineers: 8 destroyed, 50 disabled
Guns lost 9 (1 destroyed, 8 disabled)
Vehicles lost 33 (1 destroyed, 32 disabled)


Allied ground losses:
4819 casualties reported
Squads: 223 destroyed, 20 disabled
Non Combat: 410 destroyed, 52 disabled
Engineers: 15 destroyed, 6 disabled
Guns lost 70 (49 destroyed, 21 disabled)
Vehicles lost 206 (157 destroyed, 49 disabled)
Units retreated 7

My force is badly roughed up now with AV reduced to 600. My main issue is supplies. I took forever building Tenant Creek up to AF level 7 and have brought 2 army HQ's into the theatre to help attract supplies. Even still I just can't get enough through the system. Daly Waters and Katherine won't repair build mainly thru lack of supply and I can't figure out how to support a force up here. I need at least 2 full divisions plus armour and support to retake Darwin and it looks to be impossible. Anyone with any good ideas?

Burma China to follow in the next post

[aoffen]

Burma
The offensive into North and Central Burma has begun. He doesn't seem to have appreciated the size of the force I have in the centre, or at least hasn't reacted to it in any noticeable way. We are now across the river and moving on the rail hex from both crossing hexes. A Cav unit is already across the rail to the south as a sacrificial blocker to stop troops heading north or south. Para's are in Dimapur ready to go. I opened the air offensive with attacks on Mytkina & Lashio to distract him as the main thrust and have now hammered Katha for 2 turns. Will go back to attack Mytkina next turn. In a couple of turns we will have 6 div equivalents next to Katha and astride the rail way. Its going well but I am suspicious of the reaction.

China in next post

[aoffen]

China
On the Burma frontier Paoshan fell. He sent 4 Divisions so I was unable to resist effectively. An IJA unit appeared at Kunming confirming he is trying to link up with the Paohsan force. We have moved on on the armoured thrust at Kweiyang with sufficient strength. Will wait for the remaining troops to arrive so I can attempt a crushing blow rather than a weaker attack that will allow him to retreat intact. After taking care of these guys we will have to march a fair proportion of these troops to Kunming and stop this drive. Retaking Paoshan may be too tough unless the Western Allies have good success in Burma.

[aoffen]

Response to Nemo's strategy suggestions coming in a few hours.

[aoffen]

Re : Future Strategic Developments

First of all thanks to Nemo for all the thought and effort he put in to that response. It is really really appreciated.
[&o]

The following quote from his post really summarises the Nemo Strategy.

The key would be co-ordination. Basically you want to force him to react to:
1. The offensive in northern China with about 5,000 AV of Chinese troops
2. The capture of Marcus and Wake - which will necessitate garrisoning a whole new set of islands which are probably only weakly garrisoned now.
3. The invasion of Northern Burma
4. The attack into the Canton/Hong Kong axis by about 4,000 Chinese AV
5. The drive north from Darwin to Mindanao
6. The surprise landings at Victoria and Georgetown

The suggestions are great - I particularly like part 6. Man wouldn't that cause some serious puckering on the other side of the table?

The Burma / China strategy is achievable. The Burma offensive is underway with 3500 AV and strong air support. I hadn't considered offensive action with the Chinese but Nemo is right. I have enough AV's in the south and north to push him harder than I currently am - especially at the same time as we are pushing in Burma. After the Kweiyang pocket is reduced we will send some forces to Kunming to shore up that flank but the rest will head south to join a push towards the coast. In the north I am nervous about leaving the terrain but a push on Nanyang in conjunction with the move in the south is worth a crack. Hopefully the effect of 3 co-ordinated pushes will stretch him.

Regarding Marcus, the drive from Darwin and the end run in Malaya, I have been racking my mind as to how to proceed and my issue is do I really have the capability to achieve all these goals in the the next 6 months? I fear not - I can't even see how I am going to capture Darwin at this point! KB turns up and sows havoc and destruction at at will and we are reduced to hiding in the shadows (ala the Gisborne battle). My LBA pools are more or less empty at this point and we will take heavy losses in Burma. Until the Hellcat arrives and the Warhawk/Thunderbolt availability surge in mid '43 I am struggling to keep my squadrons at full strength.

Am I being too cautious and conservative? I just can't see leaping long distances without CV parity resulting in anything other than cut off troops and heavy shipping losses. What am I missing? If I could see how to take Darwin things might be clearer for an LBA based drive into the DEI but that eludes me at present. That would also allow me to free forces to send to Ceylon for the Malay end run. How the hell do I take Darwin??????

Regards
Andrew

[Nemo121]

Hook left from Melbourne to Port Hedland and then to Derby +/- Wyndham.

With a brute force approach focused on dumping several hundred thousand tons of supplies + four or five additional divisions of troops ( which you DO have available within Australian Divisions ) either landed by ship or just marched up from south-eastern Oz you can take Darwin. I've had success in similar situations by just dumping huge gobs of supply at Wyndham etc and lettting it trickle into Darwin.


Of course, if you're really ballsy you could just ignore Darwin once you take Derby and the base to Darwin's north, put 300 fighters on CAP there and dare the Japanese into a force on force fight with you. From that base you can exploit north and bomb and bombard Darwin until it runs out of supply and then take it at your leisure. You never see people talking about taking that base but in one game I did just that and cut off ten divisions in the Australian hinterland ( after luring them there with a show of weakness ). That base can be built up to a very respectable AF size. I put BBs and CAs etc at it to defend it, shredded his air force whenever it tried to take them out and traded him BB for BB and CA for CA when he came bombarding.

Eventually he brought his CVs into action to really reduce it. I fought him tooth and nail, losing about 300 or 400 planes in return for gutting KB's flight wings ( killed about 300 of them ) and then unleashed my invasion of Marcus/Wake and the Aleutians a week after he'd just gutted KB in a sideshow. A week after that my opponent resigned. Your opponents won't resign but there's no absolute need to take Darwin, you can use it as a potential fulcrum to draw him in, get him to commit KB and then allow you to unleash your blue ocean offensives without fear of KB.


Really, if you look at the position you don't NEED Darwin. You need A base in that region from which to springboard.... it being Darwin would be nice but not essential. Hell, if you were all maskirovka-y and sneaky it is actually better for that base not to be Darwin since that plays into a narrative whereby a counter-invasion ( and commitment of the reserves you want to be out of place when you hit Marcus and Georgetown ) is possible --- and indeed, subtly, encouraged by you.

The easiest way to lead people is to make them believe that there's an opportunity and that they are following their agenda. Manage their concept of what is and isn't achievable and, assuming you understand their motivations, they'll happily do whatever it is you wished them to do under their own steam, wasting their initiative to do precisely what you wished them to do.... opening up opportunities for you to do what you wish unto them in other theatres.

[aoffen]

Nemo

You are a bit of an evil bastard aren't you? [:D]
(Not to self : Have him my side rather than as an opponent in future)

I am pretty sure Rob and Tony are rather worried about an assault into the DEI and Sumatra. A few things they have said in emails and in various conversations have indicated that and its a good reason for them to have taken out Darwin, Pt Headland etc as a forward defence strategy. Essentially you are saying I should make a show of playing into their hands by obviously moving on Darwin whilst quietly preparing a major blow elsewhere timed to coincide with a major fight in the Darwin area.

The old suck him in with China, Burma and Darwin and then sucker punch him in Malaya trick eh?

I love these forums [:)]

Cheers
Andrew

[Nemo121]

The easiest way to mislead anyone is to show them that which their prejudices/beliefs are leading them to expect. Very few people are disciplined enough to look more deeply when things are unfolding precisely in accordance with their own, brilliant masterplan.


So, one option I always have is to find out my opponent's masterplan and feed it back to him until he chokes on it before disemboweling him with a knife he never saw coming. Simple, brutal, effective.


So, if Darwin and the southern DEI are their own expectations which you feed back to them, what's the knife you are going to disembowel them with while they're busy chewing on their own brilliance? [:D]