Gutted - Hartwig (Allied) vs Nemo (Japan)

[marky]

ORIGINAL: Hornblower

ORIGINAL: hartwig.modrow

This is a bit out of sequence, but may be important as background information, thus I will show it here:



This is part of the reason why running a counterinvasion here is not quite free of problems even though we have a few Marine fighter units on the map which might be used to make use of the effects of a massive CAP (>200 Wildcats) to cover this type of op.

Hartwig

OH MY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

o my indeed [X(]

[modrow]

2ndACR,

ORIGINAL: 2ndACR

Sorry for the bad state of affairs I left you with. I really should have studied his mod before firing off. But once the game commenced, I really looked it over in depth.

I had no idea that in his mod he would have about 20 div's to put into play anywhere on the map. That really hurt, plus all the extra CV's etc.

India, well he threw the kitchen sink and smashed anything I threw in his way. Those huge armor brigades he has really destroy units during pursuit. FYI.......he destroyed the full strength 18th UK Div in 3 days of pursuit. From 300+AV down to 30 in 3 days. I was prepared for armor reg.....ala witp mod's etc......not mini armor div's everywhere. His tactic of bombing just to prevent fort building stalls any defense (pet peeve of mine that has always been there since release).

Russia, I had Kuyshvka fort 9 and heavy forces there, he went overland completely undetected by mass recon planes and well, the mass airlift began back to Skovdo. Kind of hard to stop 8000+ AV.

Exmouth I should have counter invaded right off the get go. But since we went completely out of synch first turn (and this is the first and only time I have ever been out of synch) and nothing would recover it, I just stopped watching the combat replay's. Could not trust anything in it. So, missed his first invasion of it, and only really noticed it about the time it hit level 1. Let us just say it was a shock.

I have saved as many units from across the map as I could. He has about 2500AV down at Noumea, but really do not think he will make a play for NZ......He knows I have been fortifying it like crazy and he will not be able to really take the place.  At least not with just the troops from Noumea. I saved 2 1/2 PI divs from the PI......plus some Dutch troops. These are in Perth and Timor.

The naval losses are from PH, the fleeing of PH, the PI and all the first turn port attacks he did. Every allied port was hit turn 1 Singapore, Manila, PH and Russia. He caught alot of the RN fleeing Columbo area and the rest of Southern India.

I have tried to build up troops and supplies anywhere he cannot easily reach or take.

I will be watching to see if you can turn this around. I wish I could have continued, but a pending divorce has basically sucked the life from me.

not a problem that the map does not look nice. I doubt that I would have done / will do better. If things turn around, this will be due to the arrival of new forces and better toys for the Allied, not necessarily good play on my side. As a matter of fact, I hope for input and advice from you simply because you know the situation on the map better than me.

Also, I think that playing nemo is a shock to every player out here -his ability to time and coordinate his actions leads to a highly efficient use of his forces, plus he is the designer of this mod and thus knows all about it, whereas we don't have half the knowledge. The same holds for strategic issues - he knows soviet doctrine in depth thus uses "professional" methods.

Many stratagems (sp?) that work in most cases don't apply in this mod. Look e.g. at the info re. critical nature of HI - I never bombed the crap out of HI so far, only either oil or resources. Thus I would like to stress that I am convinced that in another mod and/or against another opponent in this mod, the strategies you applied might have worked.

Sorry to hear about the divorce. Good luck for that fight !

Hartwig

[modrow]

Alfred,

thanks for the detailed advice. I agree to most of what you write, specifically (9). Paradrops are allowed everywhere (unfortunately, sub invasions are not, which is a slight setback for what I had intended to do in India) This is exactly the reason why I fear paradrops which may immobilize me and why I want to retreat. If I was Nemo (and had the paratroopers), I would paradrop into the hex NE of Borzya, denying supplies to the base and pinning down the troops there and a few turns afterwards to another place on the railway line. Note that you don't need a sizeable force of them. You just can't move out of the hex any more, and supply flow is at least reduced (some people say it may still leak) for a few turns until the obstacle is removed. If supply at Borzya goes into the red, it will hurt my adjusted AV (which I did not list) more than temporarily removing a division. Maybe part of a division will suffice as well.

Another problem is that the one mobile unit is at Skorovodino and you see a push is running there already. I cannot allow that base to be taken any time soon (before I managed to airlift core units out of Kuyshsyevka to keep the Bear's fangs and claws), that is why it is difficult to reinforce Borzya directly. This may change if the units on the railway move 1 hex each during the next turn.

I will check for the arrival of paratroopers and consider in any case.

A further problem is 4/5. I agree that I need to pull out core units asap and putting strike AC there will lead to a waste of supplies. But I am not completely convinced about the fighters.
a) putting an insufficient number of fighters over the base (which is all I could do during the next 2or 3 turns) will lead to sweeps which wipe me out of the skies, increasing Mig3 losses without achieving much.
b) I think LRCAP and CAP forces do not attack each other (for LRCAP vs LRCAP I am quite sure about that), but still planes entering the hex will be attacked. If this is the case, I will lose fighters in return for hardly anything.

I think I need to time this in such a way that by the time a sweep comes, I have my 200 fighters at the relevant base. Not sure about the exact timing yet, but that is what I'll aim for - if I cannot unite this and moving troops out in the next turn, I may have to wait a turn or two.

Also, I would like to use the dive bombers to attract LRCAP to places from which it can be swept away. Fighter losses for Nemo have been high so far, I would like to add some more. I will accept losses whenever I achieve something that hurts Nemo more than me.

Please let me know if you think any of my above reasoning is wrong. I'm here to learn from you and others.

Thanks again for your input

Hartwig

ORIGINAL: Alfred

From the Pacific coast up to and including Skovorodino along the Amur, every Soviet base is expendable.  Even though the Japanese harvest of raw materials and industry will be huge, based on your current position in eastern Siberia, you have no choice but to retreat.  Here are a few salient points for you to consider.

(1)  Under no circumstances can Borzya be allowed to fall to the enemy.  Lose Borzya and all Soviet troops along the Trans-Siberian railway to its east are lost.

(2)  Nemo will be very happy to see strong Soviet garrisons "checking" his advance along the Trans-Siberian because they will be easily rounded up when Borzya falls.

(3)  You are correct to stop the Kuyshsyevka relief column - those troops are needed in Borzya.

(4)  Immediately start air lifting troops out of Kuyshsyevka.  At Kuyshsyevka, you currently have at least 1500 AV surplus to defensive requirements.  Eventually the cadres left in Kuyshsyevka will have to attempt a breakout by themselves to Skovorodino.

(5)  Station only fighters at Kuyshsyevka to cover your air transports evacuating troops from that base.

(6)  From your current position, a significant Allied achievement in Siberia will be to hold (a) Borzya and the base to its east (and immediately to the west of Skovorindo) pinning down huge Japanese forces, and (b) Madagan and Petroplavotsk (sp) which two bases provide a constant threat to the Japanese position in and SLOC to the Kuriles/Aleutians.  Whilst it is tempting to view Sovetskaya Gavan, Nikolaevsk nu Amur and Okha as valuable, in your present situation they are not.  You should thin out their defenders and relocate them to the other two locations.  The Kamshatka Pensinsula in Allied hands, if well defended and supplied will force Nemo to keep assets in theatre, particuarly if there is a complementary allied offensive from Alaska, which he would otherwise prefer to use elsewhere.

(7)  Check to see when the next sizeable Japanese para unit is due to arrive.  Until then, it is unlikely that Nemo could spare substantial forces to para drop to cut the Trans-Siberian Railway.  Accordingly your one mobile unit will probably suffice to destroy his favourite tactic of para dropping 6 squads.  Also, check your HRs - you may find that he can only para drop on bases, not on non base hexes.  Under no circumstances move out a rifle division out of Borzya - you are already weaker there and visually one can see additional strong enemy forces are moving to Borzya.

(8)  Do not waste your IL-2 Shturmoviks operating against enemy bases (or ground units located in enemy bases).  You will suffer appalling loses to enemy CAP and fritter away both pilots and your fighter airframes.  Your fighters are needed to provide defensive air cover over your own bases and protect air transport evacuations(note point 5 above).  A possible use of IL-2 is CAS against enemy units on the Trans-Siberian Railway one hex out of Skovorodino where there may be minimal/no enemy LRCAP (and if there is, he will suffer increased operational losses to both pilots and airframes.

(9)  Check your Soviet theatre HRs.  As important as maintaining Borzya is, and I cannot emphasise it too much, your HRs may well  show that the Russian bear retains its claws as long as the army can fall back on to Irkutsk.  It is the destruction of the Soviet field army, not the loss of the Siberian resources and industry, which ultimately constitutes an Allied disaster of the highest magnitude.

Alfred 

[modrow]

Alfred,

short addition: Nemo gets his parachute division in 13 days. In view of that, I am confirmed in my believe that 1 mobile unit to cover the length of the railroad that needs to be covered won't suffice. Specifically not one located where it is.

Hartwig

[modrow]

I had promised a few more comments relating to my present ideas for what I want to pull off. To illustrate this, I put some rough indicators on the strategic map. Don’t analyse it in detail, I may have misplaced the lines relative to a base…

Green structures show areas in which I will be in the defense for now.

You know already my plans for defense of remnants of India and Russia, as indicated by the green circles. For India, I hope to bind as large a number of troops for as long a time as possible using Festung Madras and Festung Calcutta. In Russia, Alfred has described very well the minimum solution (keep a bear with fangs and teeth) and the optimum solution. Russia may presently also be the best chance for me to hurt Nemo’s air force.

In Southeast China, I’ll need to retreat a bit – roughly behind the green line. Almost all units beyond that line are almost completely out of supply.

NZ and OZ will continue prepping for defense against a possible attack, but it is unlikely that I will strengthen these places a lot right now.

Pink arrows indicate harassment attacks. I will try to harass the West coast of india, and stir up trouble in the Timor area. I doubt that any of this will be very effective, and I can only use small amounts of troops, as I am not going to throw good units away for this purpose.

I will also try to harass towards Luganville/Efate. It will take a while until I got forces in place to do so, but I will work there with higher intensity, but in the end this is not my real aim – just trying to suck forces there.

The Aleutians are a region where I need to push – that push is indicated in light blue. Unfortunately, this axis of attack will not be a big surprise. I have sufficient troops available for (not yet in) this theater to do this, but I might pull of a (blind) quick first step with a fast transport TF after trying to suppress Dutch Harbor . Cold Bay does not show any units; Dutch harbor is heavily guarded (11 units), Umnak lightly (2 units) defended. I am not sure whether I want to do that. The alternative is a more systematic approach, including systematic activities indicating I will strike at Umnak (which is probably not my first target). Problem with that is that I don’t have much transport capability up north, nor many ships for surface combat, thus it would take me precious time (the summer in the north is short, I would like to try to push Nemo back as far as possible before winter closes in.) to get everything into place. Therefore, I will probably give the risky quick approach a try. If I fail, I will have shown a degree of aggressiveness that my play usually does not have, thus another brick to build Nemo’s ( wrong) analysis of his opponent.

In the long run, I think about a second axis of attack as illustrated in violet, isolating Japanese outposts without the need to take them all back. I need to build bases and relocate significant forces to enable this thrust, let’s see whether and if at all how quickly that can be done. Starting operations there while activity in the Aleutians still bind assets of Nemo’s would be excellent, not sure whether that can work though. At the same time, I believe (correct me if I’m wrong) that build up in this region will be beneficial for making sure that Panama is save. Even though I am aware that Nemo would need bases on the way there which he presently does not own, in I am worried about Panama. If he takes that base, crucial naval reinforcements will not appear and I will have severe problems to use the reinforcements I get in CONUSA anywhere else on the map.

If someone has other ideas, please make suggestions. The problem right now is that I do not have sufficient means to CAP an invasion TF properly, thus a thrust to retake the vicinity of Pearl is not likely to succeed at present. Maybe such a move may be faked in early 43 to cover the violet axis of attack. Also, depending on whether I am allowed a build up of the Maledives or not, an attack on Ceylon may become feasible late this year or early next year.

Note also, that I (still) need to coordinate all of these actions properly on the time line. I want Nemo to move his reaction forces one way and then strike at the other flank…

That much as theory. Please do comment. Praxis is about to start tomorrow or Wednesday.

Thanks
Hartwig

[Ketza]

What a fine mess you have wandered into.

How is your new daughter doing?

[Mistmatz]

Hartwig, I don't know the mod nor your style of play. I read a few of Nemos postings so I have an idea about his style, but I might be wrong here. Anyway it seems you've taken on quite a challenge and thats something I like.

Some things I'm wondering about:

Is he going take PH or is he's just suppressing it. Given the state of your navy supressing is probably enough for quite a time as you don't have much left to get rid of his forces on the surrounding islands. Also supressing PH gives him operational freedom for a lot more assets than an invasion would do.

Learning that there are far more divisions available for the japanese to play with I wouldn't be so sure he's not going for NZ to cut your connection on both ends and again gain some time on the long run.

Why are you going for two fortresses in India? Is supply being generated in Madras to support your troops? Also is enough supply generated to hold out around Calcutta or is India eventually already a lost cause?

Do you know if he's travelling big stacks of LCU's from battle to battle and eventually leaving territiry undefended? If so this might open up harrassemnt opportunities like the ones in India you already mentioned. On the other hand I doubt he'll fall for annoyance attacks. Quite the contrary, given his vast naval superiority every attack will be a substantial danger for the limited forces you have left and also there is always a danger to tip a well concealed trap. So for the moment I assume you're better of with defending what little is left and prepare for '43 rather than loosing more assets in battles fought by his rules.

[2ndACR]

Be careful around India......nemo has been sailing a CV force back and forth from Karachi to Bombay to prevent and catch any small invasion forces. Or he did against me.......caught 2 FT groups that were heading to the southern India tip......scratch 3 CA's and a slew of DD's. He IIRC has 2 CV groups around that area.......1 always prowling back and forth up and down the coast. Then he ports them to refuel repair and the next group sallies forth.
 
I will tell you that 60-80% of his CV's are lurking around Luganville area. I have seen and felt them on previous attempts to cause trouble etc.
 
Just about any base you take to harrass him with will be shut down within 2 turns by airpower. He uses it non stop to prevent fort building, so you either have to land in huge force to with stand the counter attack or hit, move.
 
Watch the flanks in Russia.......as in west of Boyrza........he will pin you there and sweep around. His armor units will crush anything you place in front of them. And he has and gets a slew of them. His army is on par with Germany's. He can not launch any offensive air ops into Russia. NONE.......except the coastal bases. So no sweeps to worry about. Bug. He has a slew of AA units in Russia to safe guard his ground forces. They hurt.

[pat.casey]

Just some observations having read a number of Nemo's AARs:

Tactically:

1) He's opportunistic, and a huge fan of fast transport, paratroops and air transport. A favorite tactic is to fast transport in invasion forces (or paradrop them) then air transport in reinforcements before you can counterinvade.

2) He likes to mass his troops heavily at the point of decision, so if he comes, expect him to come with everything. If he runs a fighter sweep, he'll bring every fighter he's got. If he wants to defend a base, he'll stack 400 fighters on it, etc.

3) He's very good at spreading his losses across his aircraft pools and isn't at all afraid to use fighters outside their historical zones of operation (sturmovics over rangoon).

4) He knows the land combat routines very well and isn't afraid to draw down his garrisons if the land routines let him e.g. if you've got 1500 AV facing 1000 AV of his in a city, he might very well draw that down to more like 300 AV and happily use the force elsewhere, content that the urban bonus is going to let his 300 AV hold out regardless.

Strategically:

1) He fights an attritional war. This may seem odd since he's prone to very bold operations which risk (and often) take huge casualties to secure their objectives. These objectives though usually come down to shaping the battlefield such that he can kill lots of your guys as cheaply as possible.

2) If he sees a situation where he's getting favorable attrition, he'll draw it out e.g. he'll let you keep a shoestring base going even though he can close it if he believes it costs you more to supply it than it costs him to suppress it.

3) He's not a huge navalist. He's not prone to major "invade from the great blue sea" sort of operations, and he doesn't hoard his ships like they're his children. He prefers amphibious warfare, and he's not at all afraid to put ships in harms way.

[Alfred]

hartwig.modrow,
 
1.  If it is true that your HRs allow for paradrops to occur on non base or non dot hexes, then in this mod the Allied position is unplayable in 1942.  You should immediately request a new HR.  Do not accept anz counter argument that historically such drops occurred, this game engine and mod is not a true historical simulation or mod and simply cannot cope with such action.
 
2.  The HR which prevents sub borne invasions is also a mistake.  Whilst not as critical as the paradrop of point 1 above, you should also negotiate to allow for sub borne invasions of base or dot hexes.
 
3.  Far more important than launching local offensives in the region of Timor, is the recapture of Exmouth.  With that base in Allied hands, the enemy is blinded as to Allied naval activity south east of Java.  It also provides him with a springboard towards Perth if he is so inclined.  The value attached to it by Nemo is amplz demonstrated bz the fact that it, and not Broome, Derby, Wyndham or Darwin is under his control.
 
4.  I assume that the enemy force blocking the Siberian relief column is not launching deliberate attacks.  That being so, if you give the relief column direct orders to retreat back to Skovorodino, it will get there before the enemy does.  That means you only have to keep an anti para garrison there until the relief column returns to Skovorodino.
 
5.  Your violet arrow shows movement to the Carolines via the Marshalls.  That means you will be moving through some significant enemy bases which is quite dangerous giving your available assets.  It also means that you will threaten nothing vital for the enemz as you intend to bzpass his main local bases.  You should instead investigate a shallower vector based on Nauru into the Santa Cruz and Guadalcanal area because firstly he probably has fewer built up air bases to oppose your thrust there, and secondly such a move threatens something vital to the Japanese, their SLOC to New Caledonia and potentially further eastwards or southwards.
 
6.  Whilst it is important to ensure that Panama can withstand a small opportunistic invasion, you must not over defend it.  The same applies to Australia and New Zealand.  You need to free up infantry for mobile defensive and offensive operations.  There is no point in having too much infantry sitting at a base away from the action drinking pina coladas.
 
7.  I still advocate placing fighters to cover your air transport operations.  In this as in everything I suggest, it is on the basis of using a meaningful quantum, sufficient to accomplish the task.
 
Alfred

[Mistmatz]

Regarding paradrops on non-base or non-dot hexes I thought this was not doable in WitP, at least not intenionally. Am I wrong here?

[Capt. Harlock]

I can offer you two pieces of advice.

1) Nemo is very fond of the Me-264 heavy bomber. He is highly likely to build up numbers of them and launch 100+ raids. A single such raid is often sufficient to close an airfield, and given the range of the Me-264, most of the Allied airfields are within reach. To counter this, you need fighters where firepower, not manueverability, is high. The P-39 is a good choice, especially at airfields out of Zero range.

2) Prepare to get beaten. This is Nemo's mod, and he knows just how to use it.

[modrow]

Wow - once again, tons of excellent advice here. Thank you very much, gentlemen !
I am a bit short of time now, but I'll get back and answer in detail.

Let me start with Capt. Harlock at this time, as I can answer very quickly to him:

re. a) Thanks for the hint. It comes at a most appropriate time, as I think the first variant of these monsters will go into production these days, even though Nemo is unlikely to use just 40 or 50 of them but will go for the truly massive blow with 100 or so. Good to know P39's with their big gun do well against them; at least it's 6 engines per plane...

re. b) Oh, I know that I may be in for a spanking and am prepared to be beaten. But I think I may learn a lot which can be applied later. Hopefully even in AE.

Sorry, got to run for now - will be back later.

Hartwig

[modrow]

Good evening,

as promised in my last post, I will start with additional comments relating to the last posts:
First of all, I have actually started to dish out orders now. I was working at the office till after midnight yesterday, thus I am a bit delayed, but I hope that before the weekend I will finally be able to send the first turn to Nemo. Thus if there are any urgent comments left, shoot…

Thanks
Hartwig

[modrow]

ORIGINAL: Ketza

What a fine mess you have wandered into.

How is your new daughter doing?

Ketza,

nice to see you dropped by in my thread. How is your new PBEM going ? You are right, the situation in unpleasant, but I guess I have a chance to learn a lot and still hope to be able to avoid losing the entire map.

My daughter is doing great, though I still get to see only too little of her till end of March as I still have to spend a lot of time away from home in Munich.

As a side remark (maybe I should start an extra thread for this): Any ideas how I could turn her into a WitP-player ?[8D]

Hartwig

[modrow]

Mistmatz,

If Nemo wants Hawaii, he will be able to take it – it is badly supplied and fully suppressed already. But my guess is that he will use his troops more efficiently. I don’t really see how owning Pearl would improve his situation at present (note that points seem to be irrelevant; I guess Nemo wants to continue this game because he wants to test as many of his new mid- and late-war-toys as possible. Therefore, I believe a) it may be HI he is really after, and other targets (Oz) may provide more of that and b) he wants to make sure it takes a long time till the war reaches the home islands).

If anyone believes Pearl would be a valuable prize for him in the present situation (in a few months, the situation may be different), please explain why.

I actually do expect a move on NZ or OZ to begin soon. But I don’t believe adding more troops for defense at these places makes a lot of sense or is the best use for these units. I think 2ndACR has prepped both places, but especially NZ, well already. Still, given what Nemo has available on the map, I will not be able to defend against a well phased attack. If he can dictate the schedule and the theaters, he will take the places. Therefore, I think that one needs to keep him sort of busy and try to throw him off-schedule. That won’t be easy, especially as honestly I still do not have a really good idea what he will perceive as a real threat, so that he starts feeling not at ease with the situation and will actually start changing plans and modifying operations on the fly, which will increase the likelihood for mistakes.

India: I would very much like to go for a single fortress (Calcutta), but troops at Madras are locked by movement rules. I am going to try to make them mobile again, but that may fail. I am not even sure that I can successfully move the troops from Delhi down to Calcutta, they may be intercepted. I don’t have airlift capability in the theater and need all I could move over in Russia for now. Furthermore, I guess the seas are far from save as well.

There is some supply generation at both places, but I am not sure whether it will be sufficient. Supply situation as of now is good, but that may be changed, especially at Madras (naval bombardment possible as well). What I want to achieve in India is keeping as many of Nemo's troops busy for as long a period of time as possible.

Nemo does have a number of big stacks and can’t be everywhere. I think harassing is important, even if it just means Nemo keeps more assets in the harassed region. E.g., I am happy to lose an AK or DD every now and then if that keeps his CVEs/CVLs in Indian waters. I’m not likely to go for big operations of this type to conserve forces; but if I let Nemo run rampant on the map till early 43 he can phase all he likes to get NZ and OZ as well. I would like to prevent that somehow…

Thanks for your thoughts !

Hartwig

[modrow]

2ndACR,

Thanks for the warnings. Nemo told me he was operating CVEs in the vicinity of India; but as I just wrote, I would like to make him keep them there. Harassing will be attempts to hit and run with small unit sizes. If he always closes the corresponding bases directly after from the air, that is good – means a pattern one can try to work with, e.g. to exert influence on the distribution of his AC. Perhaps later even as a trap.

Also, the information on Russia is very welcome. I am aware of the “pin and flank approach”,will move back and try to find a mobile reserve. But I am not optimistic that will work.

This Bug you mention means in the Russian airspace, Nemo can only LRCAP and transport, especially paradrop ?

CVs in the Luganville area make sense for him – they can support moves on both NZ and OZ. At the same time, I think you accumulated enough fighters especially in NZ for the massive strike needed to break his CAP if one can set a nice trap. I am still unsure where to move the remaining US CVs and how to get them there without being intercepted…

Thanks again

Hartwig

[modrow]

Pat.Casey,

thanks for your observations - I think this is an excellent summary of Nemo's style of play. I would tend to add two more things:

a) he will try to affect your decisions, create threats and confusion (see e.g. his comments in "defeating the devil") and get into your decision cycle (see e.g. his recent comments in John 3rd and Q-Ball's 2x2 AAR).

b) he is near perfect in timing/phasing his ops; they unroll like a clockwork.

Actually, another aspect is that he is willing to share his knowledge. He helped me a lot to understand the effects of the massive airplane use and provided an excellent post relating to the superiority of his concentrated use of troops in one thread when being asked. That's why I hope to learn much by playing against him.

Hartwig

[2ndACR]

Well, I can tell you what he did to me after your start date.........he removed basically every strike a/c from his CV's except maybe 1-2 Kate units........all the rest were Zero's set at about 80% CAP. The first strike my units launched at range 4 was escorted by about 80 fighters.......they ran into about 250 Zero's. Got butchered. Same for strike a/c.
 
Russia......he can LRCAP and air transport only.......he cannot launch any airfield or ground attack missions. He never did a non base para drop against me. Not once. He will land 1 squad in a base to prevent any movement and to test your defenses etc.
 
NZ is fortified fairly well that he will have to bring alot of troops to take the place. IIRC, roughly 1500-2000AV there now with more at sea. South OZ is pretty well garrisoned, but could be better. I would move the US navy towards Tahiti. He knows they are based in or near NZ.
 
I would watch for a move on Suva area and Canton. Nandi should be close to fort 9 with Suva right behind. I would pull the engineers there out the moment they reach 9 and redeploy to another base. My object was to cause as much damage as possible if he landed there and slow him down.  Hence the 300 or so AV total on the island. Anything to slow him down.
 
Perth is pretty well built up that he will need 1500 AV or so to take the place from you. I was shipping some troops from Aden south to OZ using the safe shipping channel. But re-check which bases are off limits to invasion. I cannot remember if Aden is a safe haven or not. Been hoping he would kill off the satck in Ceylon, but he also knows that with Southeast HQ stuck like chuck that upgrades and replacements can be spotty.
 
Do not forget the southern Russia bases, I have been sub lifting those units back to a base to re-build them. Surviving Russian subs near Alaska. Was slowly airlifting supplies to Russian base near Nome to build it up slowly. Cannot remember when I started that though. Maybe airlift an engineer reg in with Cats to speed it up.
 
Hit and runs can work at times. I know I was causing him some (small) grief by zipping in with long range torp planes and Pe2's at max altitude in some bases. He will bomb any base non stop to prevent fort building. That really hamstrung my stalling ops. He gets about 300+AV every month in new full strength combat troops. All arrive full strength unlike stock which can take months to fill the unit out. BUT WATCH OUT FOR ALL THOSE ARMOR/MECH UNITS HE GETS!!!!!!! Some of them are uber engineer units. But every one of the armor reg/brigades are really armor div's. I have seen 1500 tanks in India in pursuit mode. They will destroy any unit that retreats.

[modrow]

Alfred,


first of all, I would like to tell you that a) I found that I made a mistake when looking at the roads near Skovorodino, you are absolutely correct re. issue 4) of your last post and b) I found another unit with AV to create a mobile reserve quickly. Thus, I think I can leave Borzya as it is at present and possibly even reinforce it soon.

Re. houserules/paradrops etc: Nemo knowingly created a disbalance in his mod, by strengthening Jap paratroopers (e.g. shock division). This has nothing to do with historic aspects - the Soviets were pioneers for paratroopers, in 41 afaik they had nine brigade-sized units, and their use of paratroopers in 39 when Japan invaded Mongolia indicates that at least part of these units would have been used in a sudden crisis on the Russian-Japanese border. Still they do not exist in the mod, thus the disbalance is what Nemo wants to see.

He found someone who agreed to these rules when this game was started and has an understandable ínterest to try out the mid-war and late-war effect of his changes. That and because I want to learn from him are the reasons why I took over. Thus, I'll accept the disbalance and try to cope with it. Should make me an expert in predicting paradrops by mý opponents...

Retaking Exmouth is an excellent idea, I agree completely about the relevance. The problem may be the small number of Naval assets I got available to do so - not sure whether I can provide sufficient air cover either. Do you think this could work without significant CV support ? Unit count there is 4, and he is at AF level 2 now (not sure when he took it). I will try to look what I can do and then be back with a plan to discuss.

I think that presently garrisions in NZ and OZ look adequate and should not be reinforced significantly in the near future. Actually, I will reduce AV at bases in Northern Oz (mainly by air transport) to be able to release other units for mobile offense and defense. Also, I believe that Panama is not under immediate threat and I believe -correct me if this is not the case- that building the basis (bases) for the violet operation will actually help to make such a threat more unlikely. Panama will not become a sink for troops.

Actually, the violet arrow just indicates the general idea for the region where I want to strike (as compared to other approaches in the Hawaii region or a thrust towards Effate/Luganville/Noumea). Much depends on whether Nemo will allow me to build up the bases I need to perform that op. I'll be glad to look at the vector you propose; it may well be that I was tempted to cut too far into Nemo's back. It is important, though, that this second axis of attack contains an element of surprise and does not follow well-trodden (sp?) paths - Nemo shall (hopefully) be caught off-plan.

If Nemo cannot sweep, as indicated by 2ndACR, the fighter cover may be doable with the forces I got available from the start. I agree that it is a good idea to provide such cover if that cannot be exploited by the enemy.

Thanks again for the detailed and helpful thoughts

Hartwig