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my orig estimation was 2 turns tops. (4 days) 5 turns (wasn't it 6?) was a boon! [:D] Great return for a two battalion defense against brigade strength assaults.

a week? hmmmm, sounds like its time for more uberbomber B-17's! [:D]

moses, care to elaborate on that?

Bombardments directly reduce your defence strength. I believe it cuts your defensive strength in half. I discovered and tested this long ago.

Go ahead and run your own test. Play allied against AI Japan. Go fast and don't spend time on it. Just run through a couple quick turns (annimation and stuff turned off) until you get to where you have 5 or 6 defending stacks where the AI is attacking each turn.

Now save and run the turn in two ways. First set all groups to bombard. Run turn and observe results. Now reload turn and set all groups to defend. Observe results. You will see. Odds against bombarding units will be about double, allied losses will be higher, Japanese lower.

You can exploit this while attacking. When you have units fighting at a coastal location and you can't get good enough odds to win. Just land some troops amphibiously and attack the same turn. The landing triggers a defensive bombardment which reduces defence strength allowing your attack to be more effective. Works with para's as well.

I think of it as the defence has to react to new threats and so is less effective.

A proper defensive stance (i.e. don't bombard) is huge in holding Burma. It effectively requires 2 added divisions to defeat you Malaysia if you simply defend. So if he sends 3 divisions up to Burma early on he will not have enough to take Singapore and you'll have Malaysia forever.

If you bombard and let him drive you out of Malaysia quickly then Burma is doomed.

In my current game I held Singapore against a very aggressive attack into Feb. He was unable to make progress in Burma because everything had to go to Malaysia in order to make progress. By the time his forces got around to Burma his troops were a bit tired, mine were dug in and I had bombers in place.

I still hold Madalay in Dec 42. We are fighting there every day and my morale is under 20 across the board but I suspect his is just as bad. I think he is going to take it someday but maybe not. In any event if it falls it will be too late to do anything with it.

Well Moses, it may be too late for me. I am doing okay, but not as good as you did! As long as I can make it tough for him...

Lack of air power is going to kill me, I am sure! Niceguy made a nice suggestion:

I try to send a lot of my evacuated units from PI and DEI to SEA, in particular the air units. YOu will need all the level bombers you can get your hands on to slow the Jap andvance and to move supplies around. India has an extremely long coast line to defend so you will need additional support.
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Only problem is I can't get them to evacuate! I am sure this is just due to my inexperience with the game mechanics, but if anyone knows why i can't evacuate them feel free to chime in!

not expert for the Allies but think you have to pay political points for them. They are assigned to restricted HQ which means you cant load them on transports/subs before you change them to non restriceted HQ (Southeast Asia for example).

PI and most DEI units are restricted commands. You have to change commands to pull them out.

I see. Now it makes sense! Thanks.

India has an extremely long coast line to defend so you will need additional support.

Defence of India is not too hard unless you let Singapore fall in December. If you have until February you can set up solidly.

1.) Don't send any forces to Burma that don't start there.
2.) Evacuate supplies and fuel from all bases other then Karachi. (why let Japan operate off captured supply.
3.) Transfer two bomber groups to India. (after Singapore falls this will not be so easy so get on it).
4.) Send some ground force to each Indian coastal base and start prepping and digging in.
5.) Have some AO's in Perth so that you can bail with your fleet in that direction if KB goes headhunting along the Indian coast. I might even evacuate to Perth and operate from there for some period to avoid being trapped. Use PG's and MSW as pickits to make sure KB is not in bad places.

I really don't think anyone can defeat this defence unless they send the whole KB and leave it in India for several months. In that case you attack elsewhere.

Hint: turn replacements off in your air units and wait until your units have taken a lot of losses before switching commands and withdrawing them. You pay 4 PP per plane currently in the unit, so wait until they have taken casualties. Once you have transferred the planes then turn replacements back on and watch your unit magically return to full strength.


Edit: an exception to this might be the unit that has all the B-17c planes. I don't think there are replacements for that plane type. Your choice what to do. I switch them to B-25s

Moses, thanks for the detailed information. I didn't doubt your initial report. Still want to play with it and get a feel for what is really going on. I figure it must be temporary disruption that is causing the problem for the defenders.

Its been awhile since I tested the bombardments and maybe something has changed in a patch. But it sure looked to me as if bombardments cause a direct halving of defence strength.

Please report any test results you do as these are always fun to analyze and like I said its been a while.

I'll let you know. If the actual defense strength were halved, it would have to be coded that way. Of course, there seem to be a lot of special rules coded into the game that aren't in the manual. [8|]

Your ability to defend Burma, depends on how long you tie up troops in Malaya.
Your ability to defend India, depends on how long you tie up troops in Burma.

And it all depends on how much Japan is willing to throw at you in the first place. If Japan does maximum effort early on, you're screwed. But let's say your opponent is fairly conventional in what he's willing to commit, and when.

Malaya is going to fall. Just make a fighting withdrawl down the penensula to delay Japan as long as possible. In my games, Sing usually falls in the first or second week of February (historical was 02-13 or 02-15, can't remember). Save what you can, if you can. It's worth some "daring", but not "stupidity" to try and get whatever troops out that you can. The point loss can be fairly substantial if you're playing for points. Either way, the troops you pull can be used elsewhere (either in SRA, Oz, India, wherever). Of the Malaya RAF, everything fights a long as reasonable. Does some time in SRA when real estate gets tight in Malaya. All the fighters and Blen IVs go to India. The Blen Is, Vidlys, and Stringbags continue their service in SRA (eventually to retreat to Oz, and then get packed onto ships and shipped back to Inida).

From the SRA, I send as many Hudson squadrons (and the 8-plane flights) to India as available. Your Hudsons need to be doing what they can in the SRA first, but again, as you start to lose airfields, I sent the Hudsons to India. I also include the OzCom Hudsons. If I can get them converted, and sent to India, so much the better. Frankly, the USAAF will have plenty of planes to allot to Oz/SwPac/SoPac, they don't need the Hudsons that badly.

In Burma, I fight for Moulmein (where you have a few forts). While you're delaying there, bomb with whatever planes you have from your Burma AFs. In the meantime, I shuffle around the BFs a bit. you don't need that many BFs in Burma, so I move them to Rangoon and evac them by naval transport to India. You should also have been reinforcing Akyab since 12-07. Also, put SEAC in Mandalay or Chadpur, so the radius doubles your defense strength. Commmit what you think you can afford (kinda depends on what you were able to evac from Malaya). Delay him at every river (there are several crossings that need to be made). Don't get trapped in Rangoon, I evac what I can thru the port, but I hate surrenders, so it usually ends up being an "open city" eventually. There are 6 or 7 Bdes in Burma, start prepping for Myt on 12-07. You should have exectuted an orderly retreat to Mandalay. Hold Mandalay long as long as you can, without being retreated, then retreat to Myt. At Myt, you'll have 100 prep points, and double defense from SEAC. I also airlift that Indian III Corps into Myt : It'll draw supplies (you'll need them), and makes up the support deficit of your 6 or 7 Bdes.

While all of that is going on, if you've moved in your RAAF Hudsons and the Blen IVs, you've got a fairly substantial airforce. Pound his RESOURCES. His resources are his supply in Burma. Kill them, and he only gets the trickle thru Moulmein and the port at Rangoon. Supply is everything for an overland attack into India. Yes, your Hudsons and Blen IVs can kill most of the Resources in Burma, without even the help of 4e bombers. If Japan heavily commits airpower to Burma, you're not going to get away with it. It also means he's going to heavily commit troops, so you're probably screwed anyway if he does. But "normally" by the time that Japan has the resouces to commmit to stopping your air campaign, you're already well on your way (and you haven't even used 4e heavies yet, they come in soon).

By now, Japan is annoyed. It's Februarly, you might still hold Myt. You've clobbered 2/3 of the resources at Pagan/Tangry/Mandaly. You probably can't do much vs. Rangoon, because he's going to protect that AF.

Here's where the 4e bombers came in. I send 2x 48-plane groups of 4e bombers to India, just keep 'em idle for the initial anti-Resource campaign. Wait for the "bright red X" to appear over Rangoon or Mandalay. It means you finally pissed him off. Then send over the 4e bombers and blow the crap out of the air-field. That'll -really- piss him off. You then happily play "whack the X" until there is no more "X" in Burma. Meanwhile you finish off bombing the Resources/Oil in Burma.

And the point of all this is...

He can't come over-land into India. That means you "only" have to defend vs. amphib invasion. You can start converting the Hudsons into Beuforts now (I hope you didn't do that early, otherwise you lose the range that was necessary to bomb Burma). Between your now 80+ Beuforts, 50 Blen IVs, 2x 4e groups, and anything else you can scrounge, it's a "fair" defense vs. invasion. Maybe you've gotten some of those Bdes from Malaya rebuilt by now (March - April). And you've certainly gotten some reinforcements deployed in India. But no over-land attack means you can lessen (but NOT abandon!) your defenses at Imphal/Kohima/Ledo and concentrate on a amphibious defense.

Ironically the point isn't to actually "sucessfully" defend Burma; you're going to lose it. You don't even want to reinvade Burma, because he's going to have a LOT of troops there, and can just as easily cut you off (then you're really screwed). All you're really doing is closing an option, so that you can concentrate on the "real" threat, the amphibious invasion.

-F-

Moses -read my AAR - limited forces - less than half of southern army without KB was able to take east india and keep it strong - as long as you choose place and can block reserves for few days before they can reinforce
it is valid till march /early april

I don't understand why some are advocating building up forces in Akyab as the Allies. It strikes me as a death trap. You can't march in or out fast enough to do anything because of the trails and malaria. If the Japanese are making a serious effort to reach India thru Burma the land route in for supplies is too easily cut and Japanese aircraft will shred any attempts to resupply, reinforce or withdraw by sea.

And its even worse if the Japanese do what everyone here seems to agree is the easier and smarter thing, take India via amphibious assault. Which is also why I disagree with Feinder on "Your ability to defend India, depends on how long you tie up troops in Burma." If the Japanese player wants India, he isn't going to bother getting bogged down in Burma. He'll take Singapore and then just hit India from the sea. It keeps getting pointed out over and over again how easy this is for the IJN.

agreed dtravel....in early march, which is most likely time for a japanese invasion of India, the Brits only have 1 Div, with a 2nd one just coming online at Karachi. If the Brit Div is at Columbo, that leaves only the 7 Indian "divisions" to defend the entire subcontinent vs a concentrated Japanese attack. Seems hopeless for the Allies if Japan really wants India in march

I think part of where we differ, is that I play with a house rule of "only invasions in bases and dot hexes". It does make a difference as to what needs to be defended, and in the case of Akyab, whether it can be cut off or not.

I suppose it depends on who you've played then. In all of my games thus far (some dating back to v1.2, still going strong), the strategy I posted above, has served me well.

To each his own.

-F-

[&:] I was assuming invasions only at bases/dots, Feinder. There are half a dozen bases along the east Indian coast that need to be defended, each in sufficient strength to withstand a multiple division assault. The UK/Indian forces simply cannot do that at the start of the war and can't for some time.

I think it was Mogami who pointed out that for the first six months of the game, in order to hold a base the Allies have to build a defense that can hold off 12 IJA divisions. I can't see the Allies building a defense in any coastal Indian base that could hold out against a six IJA division landing supported by KB. The RN can't get thru to stop the landing and once ashore the Commonwealth forces can't hold the base.

As for Akyab, once the Japanese control Rangoon they control the air and sea around Akyab. And any assault on the Dacca/Chandpur area is going to cut the overland LOC to Akyab. (Not that much is going to filter thru to it over the trails anyways.)

Any rate, that's my opinion.

in any case of invasion of india all north burma and akyab as well troops are trapped - I played this few times and always managed to score on these units

12 Divisions...

And it all depends on how much Japan is willing to throw at you in the first place. If Japan does maximum effort early on, you're screwed. But let's say your opponent is fairly conventional in what he's willing to commit, and when

I'd say 12 Divisions qualifies as "maximum effort". Yes, I completely agree that if Japan throws 12 (or even 8!) divisions at India, you're screwed.

What I was speaking in reference to, was if Japan attacks you with the 4 - 6 in SE Asia early on. But certainly yes, if he yanks troops from the SRA and/or PI, then you most certainly are done for.

-F-