Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

ORIGINAL: obvert

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

Innovative use of navy planes in a pdu off game. Well done.[:)]

PDU-off is teaching me a lot. Everything must be used for something.

I'm wracking my brain to figure out what to do with the many TBD that are getting replaced now, but A) I don't want to waste pilots in them and B) only the CV groups will fly them, so I can't really do anything there either.

Open to ideas!

Obviously, train. I have also found TBs useful in the Aleutians.

I'll have to look around. Not sure that with PDU-off any groups other than than the CV group will take them, but I guess I could use the Marines on a CV as well and use the Enterprise group for training. It's the only one not yet upgraded.

[font="Times New Roman"]CHINA[/font]

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Here is a look at China right now. The entire southern area is collapsing. Not great.

The area I'm now concerned about is the top of the Southern yellow road toward Kunming area. There is a broken road crossing a river there, marked in white hexes on the map. How long will it take tanks to cross this hex? I have units that will be there in 8-9 days (luckily I'd started them well before the breakthrough farther South), but if he comes sooner I can most likely still block the place off and max out the hex, hoping the supply draw will be sufficiently poor to keep them here indefinitely. Any ideas on timing?

For the rest of the SE area I'm going to pul back toward the trees in a few days unless he goes quickly for the river crossing at Liuchow. I don't want to be pounded for days here and then have a massive retreat forced by a shock over the river. Rather fight in better terrain. The blue mark the potential new road blocks. I thought about going even further back, but I want the advance to take as long as possible here, so giving up too much territory, even for better spots in +3, probably won't help in the long run.

Personally I would abandon the x2 hexes. The difference between x2 and x3 is quite big. And with supply starting to run short you will soon start to see your AV cut in half. When it does the extra defensive multiplier will be everything. Better to hold for two weeks in x3 terrain then 1 week in x2 terrain and then try to stop him again at the x3 terrain with shattered troops and overstacking due to the retreat.

How much supply do you have at Chungking? With this renewed offensive your supply will start to drain VERY fast. And what is your last stand plan? It will be interesting to see how this plays out with the benefit of having 7 months of extra preparation in China. But I think the end is inevitable and you need to decide if you will make a last stand around Chungking or run to the mountains. If the latter your top priority must be to keep the road open and make sure you don´t lose Kunming!

ORIGINAL: obvert

[font="Times New Roman"]CHINA[/font]

---

Here is a look at China right now. The entire southern area is collapsing. Not great.

The area I'm now concerned about is the top of the Southern yellow road toward Kunming area. There is a broken road crossing a river there, marked in white hexes on the map. How long will it take tanks to cross this hex? I have units that will be there in 8-9 days (luckily I'd started them well before the breakthrough farther South), but if he comes sooner I can most likely still block the place off and max out the hex, hoping the supply draw will be sufficiently poor to keep them here indefinitely. Any ideas on timing?

For the rest of the SE area I'm going to pul back toward the trees in a few days unless he goes quickly for the river crossing at Liuchow. I don't want to be pounded for days here and then have a massive retreat forced by a shock over the river. Rather fight in better terrain. The blue mark the potential new road blocks. I thought about going even further back, but I want the advance to take as long as possible here, so giving up too much territory, even for better spots in +3, probably won't help in the long run.

Tanks are ridiculously slow when crossing that sort of terrain. You have enough time. That is if you spotted him in time. He could have already been there for a week or more.

ORIGINAL: obvert

I usually start in So Pac and move out from there, but that's not a definite either. Depends on what is going on. I check ops toward the end to make sure I do the little things listed there, and check SIGINT last to make sure I'm not missing something critical.

I follow a strict regimen.
I start with the Ops report list of base upgrades and determine which are ready to be switched to a new task.
I then review the reinforcement arrivals and set each on the path I want them.
I then go to the North PAC and work my way down the West Coast being sure to check off map bases for arrivals that need new orders and work my way counterclockwise around the entire map after jumping from Cristobal/Balboa to Pearl.
I go up the west coast of OZ address the eastern DEI and then to the PI as long as I have troops there to command.
Then back to the Western DEI and into Malaya as long as I have troops there to command.
Then it down to Capetown, Diego, over to Aden up to Abadan, across India, then Burma and on to China last.

ORIGINAL: JocMeister

Personally I would abandon the x2 hexes. The difference between x2 and x3 is quite big. And with supply starting to run short you will soon start to see your AV cut in half. When it does the extra defensive multiplier will be everything. Better to hold for two weeks in x3 terrain then 1 week in x2 terrain and then try to stop him again at the x3 terrain with shattered troops and overstacking due to the retreat.

How much supply do you have at Chungking? With this renewed offensive your supply will start to drain VERY fast. And what is your last stand plan? It will be interesting to see how this plays out with the benefit of having 7 months of extra preparation in China. But I think the end is inevitable and you need to decide if you will make a last stand around Chungking or run to the mountains. If the latter your top priority must be to keep the road open and make sure you don´t lose Kunming!

I don't have a last stand plan! I'll think about that later. It'll be largely determined by how the defense goes. Because of the SL the mountain roads can be held by fewer troops that it would normally take, and hopefully there is a long time before worrying about that anyway. [:)]

Even though it's seven months since the war began, that is not exactly seven 'extra' months without combat to prepare for a Japanese offensive. That was three very intensive months of heavy combat followed by a lot of attempts to rebuild shattered forces and sequester supply. I built almost no base forts, just tried to recoup units, and that still with daily bombardments in a few spots draining supplies. Then this last month has been a lot of combat again, so yes, supply is waning. Only about 7k in Chungking now, but no units taking replacements outside of Wenchow either, so nothing more I can do other than try to avoid combat.

After further thinking I do agree that it's probably better to just move back to +3 as there are so many places to cut off the retreat paths and force a move back anyway. It's really so much about maneuver with stacking limits.

I think the important thing to do is get back to +3 and sit building forts to at least by the time the Japanese arrive in the hexes 2 forts are built.

Any thoughts about the white hexes and the time a tank division would take to move this distance? I think it's jungle rough to mountain but the disconnected yellow roads confuse me there.

ORIGINAL: crsutton


Tanks are ridiculously slow when crossing that sort of terrain. You have enough time. That is if you spotted him in time. He could have already been there for a week or more.

In this case I do know when they arrived there at least, and they can only have been moving across for a day when this map was made. I just bombed the unit with Lysanders, and it's a tank division, still showing no movement, and two other units, most likely the two tank regiments that crossed the river farther south with it previously.

I hope you're right about the time. Just worried about the roads there.

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

ORIGINAL: obvert

I usually start in So Pac and move out from there, but that's not a definite either. Depends on what is going on. I check ops toward the end to make sure I do the little things listed there, and check SIGINT last to make sure I'm not missing something critical.

I follow a strict regimen.
I start with the Ops report list of base upgrades and determine which are ready to be switched to a new task.
I then review the reinforcement arrivals and set each on the path I want them.
I then go to the North PAC and work my way down the West Coast being sure to check off map bases for arrivals that need new orders and work my way counterclockwise around the entire map after jumping from Cristobal/Balboa to Pearl.
I go up the west coast of OZ address the eastern DEI and then to the PI as long as I have troops there to command.
Then back to the Western DEI and into Malaya as long as I have troops there to command.
Then it down to Capetown, Diego, over to Aden up to Abadan, across India, then Burma and on to China last.

Very meticulous!! I am not so disciplined unfortunately! Depends on the turn of course, but sometimes there are things you have to look at right away, and that is usually when I forget something far off elsewhere.

[font="Times New Roman"]MATILDA[/font]

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Getting a good number of these in the commonwealth tank pools but there seem to be no takers as yet. I can't find among the Aussie, British or Indian Armies any units that take the Matilda.

On Wikipedia I found that the the 4th Army Tank Brigade used them in several regiments right up to the end of the war, and some units should have upgraded to them by now according to their info. I've just looked through the Aussie armor units and it seems all of the ones currently there upgrade to Stuarts and Grant/Lee.

Who gets Matildas?

ORIGINAL: JocMeister


And what is your last stand plan? It will be interesting to see how this plays out with the benefit of having 7 months of extra preparation in China. But I think the end is inevitable and you need to decide if you will make a last stand around Chungking or run to the mountains. If the latter your top priority must be to keep the road open and make sure you don´t lose Kunming!

If you do make the last stand in the mountains, you MUST keep the Burma road open to get that trickle of supply. That means protecting NE Burma against all comers!

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

ORIGINAL: JocMeister


And what is your last stand plan? It will be interesting to see how this plays out with the benefit of having 7 months of extra preparation in China. But I think the end is inevitable and you need to decide if you will make a last stand around Chungking or run to the mountains. If the latter your top priority must be to keep the road open and make sure you don´t lose Kunming!

If you do make the last stand in the mountains, you MUST keep the Burma road open to get that trickle of supply. That means protecting NE Burma against all comers!

Well, in my case that's not an option. I'm slogging through to try and reclaim India currently, so NE Burma is a long way off. [:)]

It does make sense to try to keep the Japanese out of the mountains, but I'll not give up the Chungking region to do that.

I looked at several units in my stock game and found Matilda IIs and Valentine IIIs replacing the Improv (Heavy), but with
the 1942 TOE upgrade the Matildas are scheduled to be replaced by Grant/Lee or General Lee tanks.

Check the NZ 1st Army Tank Rgt. , the Aus. 2/10 Armoured Bn. and the Indian 254th Armoured Bde.

The Matildas and Valentines are much better than the Japanese tanks, but unfortunately you cannot directly choose
what comes to your TOE from the pools! (curse those HQ weenies who decide these things!)[;)]

I have my Indian armoured Brigades at large bases with huge amounts of supply and HQs nearby but they rarely draw
more than a couple of replacement tanks a week from my well-stocked pools. I have resigned myself to poor replacement
rates of devices in India! [:(]

ORIGINAL: obvert

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

ORIGINAL: obvert




PDU-off is teaching me a lot. Everything must be used for something.

I'm wracking my brain to figure out what to do with the many TBD that are getting replaced now, but A) I don't want to waste pilots in them and B) only the CV groups will fly them, so I can't really do anything there either.

Open to ideas!

Obviously, train. I have also found TBs useful in the Aleutians.

I'll have to look around. Not sure that with PDU-off any groups other than than the CV group will take them, but I guess I could use the Marines on a CV as well and use the Enterprise group for training. It's the only one not yet upgraded.

I meant move them en masse to the Aleutians, leave them as Devastators, and substitute in a newly arrived Avenger squadron on the ship. Don't remember when you start to get independent Avengers. Might not be worth it to leave them on the CV a little longer.

ORIGINAL: obvert

[font="Times New Roman"]MATILDA[/font]

---

Getting a good number of these in the commonwealth tank pools but there seem to be no takers as yet. I can't find among the Aussie, British or Indian Armies any units that take the Matilda.

On Wikipedia I found that the the 4th Army Tank Brigade used them in several regiments right up to the end of the war, and some units should have upgraded to them by now according to their info. I've just looked through the Aussie armor units and it seems all of the ones currently there upgrade to Stuarts and Grant/Lee.

Who gets Matildas?

You probably have upgraded all your Australian units to the later M3 tanks which means you will have no use for them. You can't reverse upgrades. They cannot be used by any other nationality. Seems a shame but truth is you get plenty of the M3 Lee/Grants and they are way better than the matildas anyways, so don't worry about them too much.

The ideal scenario is to keep the three small Australian tank regiments that will eventually withdraw filled with matildas and use the M3s to fill the three that you will keep throughout the war. The three Australian Cavalry brigades eventually convert to tank brigades. However, two are due to withdraw eventually so you will lose a crap load of tanks if you upgrade them. I generally just upgrade the one that stays for the whole war. In late 42 it is probably the most powerful ground unit in the game with 150 medium tanks. However, if you keep the three Australian regiments with matildas that gives you enough M3 tanks to fill out another cavalry brigade if you choose. (You will lose them so only if your tank losses have been low) With six tank regiments and two full brigades, plus any American units you throw into the mix, you can really put together a powerful armored force in Australia, which can come as a nasty surprise to an unwary Japanese player. The three Indian tank brigades once built out and the Australian brigades are the best Allied units in the game (well save for the Marines). There is nothing in the Japanese OOB that can stand up to them.

And turn off all upgrades for tank units in NZ. You don't want these units stealing stuarts and valentines that are better used in India.

ORIGINAL: crsutton

And turn off all upgrades for tank units in NZ. You don't want these units stealing stuarts and valentines that are better used in India.

Are they using the same pool? The Grant/Lee seems to be exclusive to NZ, so I thought the Stu's and Val's might be too?

Edit: Clarification - not those models exclusive to NZ, but a separate pool of those two types for NZ?

ORIGINAL: crsutton

You probably have upgraded all your Australian units to the later M3 tanks which means you will have no use for them. You can't reverse upgrades. They cannot be used by any other nationality. Seems a shame but truth is you get plenty of the M3 Lee/Grants and they are way better than the matildas anyways, so don't worry about them too much.

And turn off all upgrades for tank units in NZ. You don't want these units stealing stuarts and valentines that are better used in India.

Interesting. I don't recall even seeing an upgrade option for Matildas, but maybe I just missed it. They certainly haven't been in any of the units.

Ok. I won't sweat it. I'll just fill out the ones I can keep and see what I have left. So far the Grant/Lee upgrades are going well.

I did turn off the NZ tanks.

ORIGINAL: obvert

ORIGINAL: crsutton

You probably have upgraded all your Australian units to the later M3 tanks which means you will have no use for them. You can't reverse upgrades. They cannot be used by any other nationality. Seems a shame but truth is you get plenty of the M3 Lee/Grants and they are way better than the matildas anyways, so don't worry about them too much.

And turn off all upgrades for tank units in NZ. You don't want these units stealing stuarts and valentines that are better used in India.

Interesting. I don't recall even seeing an upgrade option for Matildas, but maybe I just missed it. They certainly haven't been in any of the units.

Ok. I won't sweat it. I'll just fill out the ones I can keep and see what I have left. So far the Grant/Lee upgrades are going well.

I did turn off the NZ tanks.

A lot of the tanks, despite being the "same" tank, have different device pools. The Stuart is an example, but I think the "General Lee" and "M3 Grant/Lee" may be another... Really wish it was just one combined pool.

I agree. Upgrades are like trying to plan out Japanese airframe and engine factories!

I also think it's odd that since the Grant/Lee upgrade is available the units that still haven't upgraded can't upgrade to the Matilda first before the Grant/Lee, but it's not an option for any of my Aussie tank units.

Hmm, I have Matildas in all OZ Armor units I have allowed to upgrade! And all others are showing they upgrade to the Matilda?