Your thoughts on how to approach "tweaking" CBI for v2.4 are right on target. As you point out, the devil will be in the details.
1. Incentives: Definitely add resources (and maybe a little oil; "5" would be about right) to India's coastal cities.
2. Middle East: Sounds like an ingenious solution to two problems: solves the "India out of supply" bug, and adds depth to the Brits in India. Some (unnecessary) advice: playtest this thoroughly to check for 'unintended consequences,' like, oh, the U.S. West Coast going out of supply.
3. 7th Armoured Brigade. I guess there's no easy solution, then. If you can't make it go away, maybe you should eliminate one of the three Indian tank bdes (50, 254, 255) that arrive later to keep the Brits at the historical number of armour brigades (3) available for late-war offensives.
4. LCU paths: IMO, the best the IJA could hope to do in India was what they were doing in Southern China -- hold the coastal cities. They did not have the troops nor the logistics to drive inland and capture the entire country. Months ago someone suggested it was possible to create "one-way" march paths. A one-way march path from Delhi to the coastal cities would keep the British in the war -- and allow them to eventually recapture the coast as new Indian divisions are trained.
5. I was thinking of IGHQ as sort of a "holding pen" for Indian divisions restricted to defending India. After SEAC arrives in 1943 these divisions are transferred (like ANZAC to SWPac) to reflect the forces available for offensive operations in '43, '44, and '45. The goal is to find a way for the Brits can have enough forces to put up a fight for India in '42, but not be able to launch major offensives.Originally posted by Major Tom:
The problem with creating an Indian GHQ is that there were not many units attached to it. The 32nd Armoured Division was, but that was then merged with the 43rd Armoured Division to the 44th, which I have just included in the game as the 44th Airborne Division (which was to be used on the assault on Malaya). Otherwize, I could not find any large units beyond Batallions that garrisoned these new bases I created:
New Delhi
Bombay
Madras
However, if anyone has any information regarding larger units used exclusively for guarding India from 1941-1945, either Division or Brigade sized, let me know so that maybe an Indian GHQ could be created.
6. It's hard to find information about formations in India. As you pointed out with the example of the Indian 2nd-32nd-43rd-44th Armored, then Airborne, division, the British cavalierly renamed units, swapped brigades among divisions, and batallions among brigades. At the end of 1941, 700,000 Indians were serving in British forces, most of them in North Africa and the Middle East. By the end of 1942, there were 2,500,000 Indians under arms -- mostly in India. If the Japanese had actually invaded India in 1942, the British would have formed a lot of ad hoc brigades and divisions out of the dozens of semi-trained independent batallions across India.
7. I don't know what to suggest about giving the Japanese incentives to capture inland cities like Mandalay and Lashio. Is it possible to create "contigent" reinforcements or resources? (e.g. if the Japanese capture Lashio -- and cut the road supplying China -- they get extra reinforcements, or Shanghai gets extra resources, reflecting Japanese gains in China.) I'm guessing you can't do that. My only other braindrizzle would be a land path Rangoon-Mandalay-Imphal-Delhi as the only way to conquer India. That would give a Japanese player bent on conquest an incentive. But for this to be an effective incentive, you'd have to break the land path from Dacca to Imphal.
Wow, way too much typing here. Sorry for the info/ wish-list overload.
