Fools Rush In Where Angels Fear To Tread: Panjack (A) vs. Q-Ball (J)

[Panjack]

Below is how things stand as of January 20, 1942.

Of note:
* Singapore is still holding out, but forts are now down to zero and the next attack will likely capture the city.
* Clark Field (and Bataan) are still holding out with, for now, a good level of supply. Clark still has a 2 level fort. Japan took Subic Bay but I now have 200 AV there as I wanted to move them out of Clark/Bataan. We're taking the PI back!
* Palambang fell long ago.
* Batavia just fell.
* Soerabaja is now seeing fighter sweeps
* Rangoon and Pegu are being evacuated. But Japanese troops are headed that way and I can't be sure how pretty this evacuation will look. I foolishly didn't act soon enough to get folks moving out the these doomed cities.
* Luganville has been occupied by Japan.
* Oh, and Darwin will be in Japanese hands in a turn or two. [:(]

In recent days I've received intel that Japanese units are preparing to attack Karachi and Brisbane. And then there's this intel: "272 ships are based at Cam Ranh Bay (64,72)." Egads. Is that possible?

[Panjack]

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58
I don't know how the rat bastids do it, but they seem able to pull supply through the Himalayas when needed.

That's good to know. I'll defend that approach, then, more than I previously planned. I didn't know about the Yak Express running supplies over the Himalayas!

[Panjack]

ORIGINAL: Sangeli
I agree with Moose. Best plan is to retreat to upper Burma via Mandalay. You can then dig into the 3x terrain on the fringes of the Burma plains. Since you are retreating before you are destroyed, you may have a shot at stopping the Japanese if they try to capture the heavy terrain north of Mandalay. Supply won't be great but it may be enough to get by. 3x hexes which are adjacent to 1x hexes under enemy control are great staging areas for attack and should never be given up without a good fight by the Allies. It will make the inevitable counterattack much easier.

Interesting. I'll have to look at the map more closely.

[Panjack]

EDIT: Actually, this post replaced by the next one below.

Sangeli,

Were you referring to the hexes circled in orange (which seem to be mostly 2x)? The ones circled in yellow are attractive but it seem a Japanese landing at Akyab will be very bad for units there. The hex with the purple circle around it looks really good, but might have to rely on supply from China (although maybe supply could be flown to Lashio).

Edit: I see the purple hex would be hard to hold given the roads coming from the south behind it. And I bet Moose will say, "you should have your navy stop a landing at Akyab...you have a navy you know!"

Would the "inevitable" (I wish!) counterattack come along one of the three green arrows? (Hard for me to look so far down the road at this...I'm still trying to stop my troops from getting run over by the Japanese steamroller!...but I see that is exactly what I need to do.)

[Panjack]

Is this a plan? The white hex is a dot base. I guess placing an HQ might draw supply to it. The red line is the defensive line including two Jg (2x) hexes. But they would be relatively well-supplied (for such hexes) due to the closeness of the dot base. Well, they might not be really well-supplied but likely better than any Japanese troops that enter the hex given the distance from Rangoon. Those two Jg hexes give good entree to CLr hexes at the top of the valley.

[Sangeli]

ORIGINAL: Panjack

EDIT: Actually, this post replaced by the next one below.

Sangeli,

Were you referring to the hexes circled in orange (which seem to be mostly 2x)? The ones circled in yellow are attractive but it seem a Japanese landing at Akyab will be very bad for units there. The hex with the purple circle around it looks really good, but might have to rely on supply from China (although maybe supply could be flown to Lashio).

Edit: I see the purple hex would be hard to hold given the roads coming from the south behind it. And I bet Moose will say, "you should have your navy stop a landing at Akyab...you have a navy you know!"

Would the "inevitable" (I wish!) counterattack come along one of the three green arrows? (Hard for me to look so far down the road at this...I'm still trying to stop my troops from getting run over by the Japanese steamroller!...but I see that is exactly what I need to do.)

Well jungle is 3x so everything you circled is 3x. I don't think the hexes in yellow can really be held I think the Japanese can probably outflank you. I was referring to the hexes in the orange circle as you surmised. You can may be able to hold one of those...maybe.

As for the "inevitable" counterattacks, those are all pretty good options. Although attacking from China will probably be a lot more difficult depending on the situation there. I will say, however, that for your counterattack in the center I would probably move it east of that river so you don't have to cross it. As a result, holding that hex SE across the river from Kalemyo (the dot hex connected by road to India) is probably the key hex. It's only one hex removed from a road network and is a jumping off point to two hexes in plain.

It's definitely too early to plan counterattacks but never too early to identify potential staging areas. Especially staging areas which are good defensive positions as well.

EDIT: I think you got it right in the post subsequent post that I missed. Atlhough you don't really need to worry so much about a "line" as moving 2+ hexes through jungle with no roads is quite a challenge and takes forever. Just need to make sure you maintain control of the roads in India leading to Kalmeyo.

EDIT2: I was wrong abut the jungle hexes...only rough jungle is 3x. Even after years of this game I learn something new every day!

[Cribtop]

Canoerebel set up a very interesting Burma defense in this area in a game against John 3rd if memory serves. You might dredge up that AAR and do something similar.

[Panjack]

ORIGINAL: Cribtop

Canoerebel set up a very interesting Burma defense in this area in a game against John 3rd if memory serves. You might dredge up that AAR and do something similar.

Thanks for the suggestion. I'm guessing it's:
fb.asp?m=3224205
The Good the Bad & the Indifferent.

[Encircled]

I'm sure you've been warned about this, but if he is going for India, then there isn't much point defending the Burma border in strength.

If he's got units prepping for Karachi, then its a possibility he could be going for a quick knock out blow.

[Panjack]

ORIGINAL: Encircled

I'm sure you've been warned about this, but if he is going for India, then there isn't much point defending the Burma border in strength.

If he's got units prepping for Karachi, then its a possibility he could be going for a quick knock out blow.

Ah, yes. Thanks for the reminder. It will be hard to strike the right balance. If intel is to be believed (that is, Q-Ball isn't faking something), he's going for both India and Oz (he's taken Darwin and he's prepping a unit for Brisbane indicates).

From my perspective the problem is too many places to defense with too few units and with too little of the relevant knowledge on my part! What I really like, though, is that, with the great help of folks here, I'm coming to slowly acquire the relevant knowledge necessary to defend different parts of the map. Even more slowly, I'm starting to be able to see more of the big picture. It is, however, kinda taxing on this middle-aged brain of mine. [:)]

[Bullwinkle58]

I'd say he's faking you out. Any JFB past his first game does deceptive prep. Don't let it drive your plans. He might be doing one or the other, but I doubt both.

[Panjack]

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

I'd say he's faking you out. Any JFB past his first game does deceptive prep. Don't let it drive your plans. He might be doing one or the other, but I doubt both.

Good advice. Actually, as my intel says he's prepping IDs both for Karachi and for Brisbane these two bits of intel kinda cancel each other out, and is the same has getting no intel about these two places at all! Both ID involved are of about the same quality (toward the low end for Japanese ID as far as I can tell) and so differences in quality don't make one bit of intel more compelling than the other.

On the one hand, my inclination is to put most of my emphasis on India, if only because it seems to me the Melbourne-Sydney area is more straightforward to defend than the urban/RR complexity that is India. India just seems to require much more attention. On the other hand, the Brisbane intel seems more likely to be true (than that for Karachi): if he wanted to fake me out about OZ it seems he'd have a unit fake prepare for Sydney or Melbourne. Unless he's being clever by not fake preparing for the more obvious fake places! So I don't know. [&:]

[Cribtop]

I generally agree but recall loss of Brisbane is bad, loss of Karachi is a one way ticket to auto victory. Make sure Karachi and Bombay are secure whether you are getting intel or not, IMHO.

[Panjack]

ORIGINAL: Cribtop

I generally agree but recall loss of Brisbane is bad, loss of Karachi is a one way ticket to auto victory. Make sure Karachi and Bombay are secure whether you are getting intel or not, IMHO.

Thanks. I'll do that.

But "luckily" I might soon start to get more intel about Q-Ball's future plans: Singapore just fell (on January 22, 1941) and I guess I now need to look for any future plans of the fine Japanese units below.

Ground combat at Singapore (50,84)

Japanese Deliberate attack

Attacking force 76295 troops, 798 guns, 417 vehicles, Assault Value = 2016

Defending force 42748 troops, 455 guns, 294 vehicles, Assault Value = 413

Japanese adjusted assault: 1724

Allied adjusted defense: 767

Japanese assault odds: 2 to 1 (fort level 0)

Japanese forces CAPTURE Singapore !!!

Allied aircraft
no flights

Allied aircraft losses
Vildebeest III: 1 destroyed <---- sat all ready to go on navel attack for a couple of weeks but the pilot seems to have always had a tummy ache. Now he'll be sitting in a prison camp for a long time.

Combat modifiers
Defender: terrain(+), leaders(+), preparation(-), experience(-)
Attacker:

Japanese ground losses:
3141 casualties reported
Squads: 13 destroyed, 261 disabled
Non Combat: 2 destroyed, 28 disabled
Engineers: 1 destroyed, 32 disabled

Allied ground losses:
46512 casualties reported
Squads: 962 destroyed, 0 disabled
Non Combat: 4026 destroyed, 0 disabled
Engineers: 79 destroyed, 0 disabled
Guns lost 473 (473 destroyed, 0 disabled)
Vehicles lost 147 (147 destroyed, 0 disabled)
Units destroyed 36

Assaulting units:
38th Division
5th Division
113th Infantry Regiment
1st Tank Regiment
23rd Ind Engineer Regiment
55th Infantry Regiment
56th Recon Regiment
Imperial Guards Division
15th Ind Engineer Regiment
22nd Recon Regiment
12th Engineer Regiment
148th Infantry Regiment
114th Infantry Regiment
41st Infantry Regiment
2nd Division
3rd Ind. Mountain Gun Regiment
56th Engineer Regiment
56th Field Artillery Regiment
3rd Mortar Battalion
25th Army
18th Mountain Gun Regiment
3rd Medium Field Artillery Regiment
18th Medium Field Artillery Regiment
5th Mortar Battalion
1st RF Gun Battalion
14th Ind.Art.Mortar Battalion

Defending units:
15th Indian Brigade
3rd Cavalry Regiment
1st Manchester Battalion
6th Indian Brigade
3/16th Punjab Battalion
2nd Argylls Battalion
SSVF Brigade
28th Gurkha Brigade
27th Australian Brigade
22nd Australian Brigade
2nd Loyal Battalion
2/17 Dogra Battalion
5/2nd Punjab Battalion
109th RAF Adv Base Force
272/273rd Bty 80th AT Gun Regiment
22nd Indian Mountain Gun Regiment
109th RN Base Force
AHQ Far East
Singapore Fortress
III Indian Corps
Malayan Air Wing
110th RAF Adv Base Force
111th RAF Adv Base Force
223 Group RAF
1st HK&S Heavy AA Regiment
24th NZ Pioneer Coy
Singapore Base Force
1st Indian Heavy AA Regiment
112th RAF Adv Base Force
137/155th Field Regiment
11 Battery/3 HAA
29 Battery/3 HAA
2nd HK&S Heavy AA Regiment
Malaya Army
224 Group RAF
5th Field Regiment

[Sangeli]

Well moves on India or Australia require a few preemptive moves to enable their success. For example, you can rest assured that Japan will grab Ceylon before trying to grab Karachi. If you're paying attention you will see the signs before big moves. At the same time, however, you will also see a fair amount of "white noise" that could lead you to the wrong conclusion. Being able to process your intel and determine what is Maskirovka and what is legitimate is the challenge commanders have been facing since the dawn of war.

[Mike McCreery]

ORIGINAL: Panjack

ORIGINAL: Cribtop

I generally agree but recall loss of Brisbane is bad, loss of Karachi is a one way ticket to auto victory. Make sure Karachi and Bombay are secure whether you are getting intel or not, IMHO.

Thanks. I'll do that.

But "luckily" I might soon start to get more intel about Q-Ball's future plans: Singapore just fell (on January 22, 1941) and I guess I now need to look for any future plans of the fine Japanese units below.

Ground combat at Singapore (50,84)

Japanese Deliberate attack

Attacking force 76295 troops, 798 guns, 417 vehicles, Assault Value = 2016

Defending force 42748 troops, 455 guns, 294 vehicles, Assault Value = 413

Japanese adjusted assault: 1724

Allied adjusted defense: 767

Japanese assault odds: 2 to 1 (fort level 0)

Japanese forces CAPTURE Singapore !!!

Allied aircraft
no flights

Allied aircraft losses
Vildebeest III: 1 destroyed <---- sat all ready to go on navel attack for a couple of weeks but the pilot seems to have always had a tummy ache. Now he'll be sitting in a prison camp for a long time.

Combat modifiers
Defender: terrain(+), leaders(+), preparation(-), experience(-)
Attacker:

Japanese ground losses:
3141 casualties reported
Squads: 13 destroyed, 261 disabled
Non Combat: 2 destroyed, 28 disabled
Engineers: 1 destroyed, 32 disabled

Allied ground losses:
46512 casualties reported
Squads: 962 destroyed, 0 disabled
Non Combat: 4026 destroyed, 0 disabled
Engineers: 79 destroyed, 0 disabled
Guns lost 473 (473 destroyed, 0 disabled)
Vehicles lost 147 (147 destroyed, 0 disabled)
Units destroyed 36

Assaulting units:
38th Division
5th Division
113th Infantry Regiment
1st Tank Regiment
23rd Ind Engineer Regiment
55th Infantry Regiment
56th Recon Regiment
Imperial Guards Division
15th Ind Engineer Regiment
22nd Recon Regiment
12th Engineer Regiment
148th Infantry Regiment
114th Infantry Regiment
41st Infantry Regiment
2nd Division
3rd Ind. Mountain Gun Regiment
56th Engineer Regiment
56th Field Artillery Regiment
3rd Mortar Battalion
25th Army
18th Mountain Gun Regiment
3rd Medium Field Artillery Regiment
18th Medium Field Artillery Regiment
5th Mortar Battalion
1st RF Gun Battalion
14th Ind.Art.Mortar Battalion

Defending units:
15th Indian Brigade
3rd Cavalry Regiment
1st Manchester Battalion
6th Indian Brigade
3/16th Punjab Battalion
2nd Argylls Battalion
SSVF Brigade
28th Gurkha Brigade
27th Australian Brigade
22nd Australian Brigade
2nd Loyal Battalion
2/17 Dogra Battalion
5/2nd Punjab Battalion
109th RAF Adv Base Force
272/273rd Bty 80th AT Gun Regiment
22nd Indian Mountain Gun Regiment
109th RN Base Force
AHQ Far East
Singapore Fortress
III Indian Corps
Malayan Air Wing
110th RAF Adv Base Force
111th RAF Adv Base Force
223 Group RAF
1st HK&S Heavy AA Regiment
24th NZ Pioneer Coy
Singapore Base Force
1st Indian Heavy AA Regiment
112th RAF Adv Base Force
137/155th Field Regiment
11 Battery/3 HAA
29 Battery/3 HAA
2nd HK&S Heavy AA Regiment
Malaya Army
224 Group RAF
5th Field Regiment

Do you want to make educated guesses based on clues or do you want to start making preparations based on evidence?

Go read Qball's previous AARS. Find out what he is comfortable with doing previously and you will have a good idea of what is coming next. Consider it opposition research ;]

I did that with NJP and was prepared for the quick assault on India long before he made the moves. In fact, I was prepping for it from day one.

India hurt me in terms of army victory points but hurt him because I kept him dancing and denied him any big stashes of fuel or supplies and so net net it was probably a loss for him.

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: Panjack

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

I'd say he's faking you out. Any JFB past his first game does deceptive prep. Don't let it drive your plans. He might be doing one or the other, but I doubt both.

Good advice. Actually, as my intel says he's prepping IDs both for Karachi and for Brisbane these two bits of intel kinda cancel each other out, and is the same has getting no intel about these two places at all! Both ID involved are of about the same quality (toward the low end for Japanese ID as far as I can tell) and so differences in quality don't make one bit of intel more compelling than the other.

On the one hand, my inclination is to put most of my emphasis on India, if only because it seems to me the Melbourne-Sydney area is more straightforward to defend than the urban/RR complexity that is India. India just seems to require much more attention. On the other hand, the Brisbane intel seems more likely to be true (than that for Karachi): if he wanted to fake me out about OZ it seems he'd have a unit fake prepare for Sydney or Melbourne. Unless he's being clever by not fake preparing for the more obvious fake places! So I don't know. [&:]

Don't ground-focus. Strat bombing in Oz gets him VPs; it does not in India. He doesn't need to take Brisbane to mess you up. See Jocke's last AAR against Mr. Kane. Over 5000 VPs from strat bombing in Oz alone.

[Panjack]

ORIGINAL: Sangeli
Well moves on India or Australia require a few preemptive moves to enable their success….

I’ll be on the lookout for subtle things that might foreshadow what is coming. But I know those shadows will often be very dark and unclear or even imagined. But, still, I guess that's all I have.

ORIGINAL: Wargmr
…Go read Qball's previous AARS. Find out what he is comfortable with doing previously and you will have a good idea of what is coming next. Consider it opposition research ;] …

That certainly would be helpful, but I’ll likely not do it for two reasons. First, I want to fumble around with only game intel to get experience interpreting/misinterpreting it so that next game I’ll do the interp thing better. (At least that’s the theory!) Second, just before Q-Ball and I started this game I was reading some AAR (not one of Q-Ball’s) in which Q-Ball wrote he would use the Kaga in the first weeks of the war the same way the writer of the AAR was (that is, using it by Malaya). That is exactly what I saw in the first weeks of the war in our game. From that I concluded that Q-Ball changes what he does based on AARs he reads and his old AARs might not provide good guidance for his current plans.

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58
Don't ground-focus. Strat bombing in Oz gets him VPs; it does not in India. He doesn't need to take Brisbane to mess you up. See Jocke's last AAR against Mr. Kane. Over 5000 VPs from strat bombing in Oz alone.

Ummmmmmm. That was scary reading. So the new start-of-the-art is to use OZ to generate VPs not by taking high value real estate but by bombing the heck out of the high value real estate from afar, or at least just a bit outside? The operation name, “let’s burn kangaroo land,” says it all.

I only went quickly through parts of Jocke’s and Tom’s AARs but I don’t remember any comments in them by Q-Ball. But I have to assume Q-Ball read it. And this possibility means I’m focusing too much on India, and my plan to just hunker down in Melbourne and Sydney if Japan that way comes might be a bad idea.I'll need to scamper to come up with some defenses premised on Q-Ball's use of the Kangaroo Barbecue strategy.

[Bullwinkle58]

If he takes bases to the north of the big industry centers you need fighters and AA to defend. Not so many in Oz. Brisbane fits the bill to bomb Sydney.

If he uses the KB to stand off Sydney and bomb you DO have a navy and you should use it. That includes USN and that doesn't mean throwing your carriers away. A damaged fleet carrier now for him takes it away long enough that your naval OOB is wholly different when it comes back. A hard mission kill is good enough right now.

Get creative. PTs, at-sea mines (deteriorate fast, but they aren't expected), DD 2-3 ship swarms hoping for a torpedo hit, etc. Even if you don't hit you make him eat sorties he can't use on the factories

Maybe the best way to keep him away from Brisbane, Sydney, and Melbourne is make him busy somewhere that strat bombing doesn't provide VPs. You can risk a LOT if the other side of the coin is 5000 VPs.

[Encircled]

At the moment, its seems to be the norm for the USN to make an early appearance in the north.

I'm a JFB, and there isn't a lot there at the start!

It could distract him, but he does have air HQ's, so you have to weigh up the pros and cons.