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ORIGINAL: DesertWolf101
The fun little operation in the far northeast corner of the USSR has concluded as well with the successful capture of Magadan.

ORIGINAL: GetAssista

ORIGINAL: DesertWolf101
The fun little operation in the far northeast corner of the USSR has concluded as well with the successful capture of Magadan.

What was your approach to amphib landings? Every one of Soviet coastal bases (excluding Okha IIRC) has a pesky CD fort included, that can maul anything up to and including CAs. So all that mopping up is pretty painful

ORIGINAL: Alfred

Your opponent has made a routing mistake.  The TF should have come on map from Mombasa with Karachi as destination and then, when on map, immediately changed destination and home port to Aden.  From Aden travel off map to Abadan,  Then from Abadan the short on map jump to Karachi under air cover.

Alfred

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

ORIGINAL: Alfred

Your opponent has made a routing mistake.  The TF should have come on map from Mombasa with Karachi as destination and then, when on map, immediately changed destination and home port to Aden.  From Aden travel off map to Abadan,  Then from Abadan the short on map jump to Karachi under air cover.

Alfred

+1

Not to mention having apparently having no Naval Search or surface pickets to see any potential threats to this large and important convoy.

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

Well, that was a nice ambush for you. Not so much for the pixelated troops and seamen, however.

ORIGINAL: DesertWolf101

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

ORIGINAL: Alfred

Your opponent has made a routing mistake.  The TF should have come on map from Mombasa with Karachi as destination and then, when on map, immediately changed destination and home port to Aden.  From Aden travel off map to Abadan,  Then from Abadan the short on map jump to Karachi under air cover.

Alfred

+1

Not to mention having apparently having no Naval Search or surface pickets to see any potential threats to this large and important convoy.

Before we judge too harshly, let me add some context to the story.

Too ease him into a sense of security, I had pulled out my submarines from the area and weakened my naval search for about ten days beforehand. His ASW forces had the run of the area and found no subs and were not intercepted. He also ran two test convoys beforehand which I detected with my recon flights over Karachi. He reinforced the CAP, has extensive naval search, and brought in naval bombers.

The reason he didn't pick up the KB was because it was hiding beyond the range of his nav search and darted in at flank speed for the intercept.

ORIGINAL: Ambassador

I finally managed to catch up, but I’ve had to jump over the middle part, I think I missed a major carrier battle, so I’ll have to find that part. Tahiti looks like a weird place to accept a carrier battle... Anyway, here are my thoughts...

With all due respect to Andy, I have to say I’m a bit surprised by certain errors he’s made, the last of which is indeed the routing of this convoy KB just hit. Even if lulling him in a false sense of security, given the reach of your invasion of India, he should never venture any ship from Mombasa/Cape Town to Karachi directly. The detour by Aden or Abadan, skirting the coast of Somalia, drastically limits the risks of interception. And escorting a CVE with a YMS ???

The extent of your victory in China, and the speed you achieved it, is also surprising. Congrats on that ! I found your opening moves, with KB striking Australia, to be quite gutsy. I do believe though that you overestimated the effect the losses will have on the Allied buildup.

As for the Soviet, I concur with the opinions that the heavy fighting hasn’t started yet. The heaviest usage of supply I saw was during the various sieges of strongholds, and during the protracted battles. A lot of supply is also lost to push it further north on roads. Taking Komsomolsk (and Nikolaev) is a good way to provide a supply hub, to push enough supply along the rail lines. The major flaw of your strategy, IMVHO and according to the experience I conducted, is that fielding a decent-sized force (and yours is really big) for a push towards Lake Baykal so far from the rail lines will make them suffer from lack of supply after one or two days of a big battle. As Andy seems to have retreated a lot of forces up there, you’re bound to have a big battle, and I found it easier to supply the Soviet in Ulan-Bator than the IJA.

You have seen what the Soviet artillery is capable of - but this was on the field. Beware the sieges, with heavy forts. Bringing the artillery in the open is risking its destruction - sure, there are replacements, but not enough to reconstitute more than one brigade per month.
However, he’s had nearly a year of replacements to accumulate, including over 4000 infantry squads. The losses the Soviet have taken until now are good VPs, but can’t put a heavy dent in the stockpiles. Additionally, remember that Soviet Rifle squads upgrade in ‘43 - with the 600 replacements/month, given how upgrading squads work, he’ll have most of his divisions upgraded by February at the latest. It might make a northern battle much more expensive, as those ‘43 squads have 50% more firepower than the IJA squads. And if he upgrades the Vladivostok defenders (will depend on his supply level I guess, but I would at least let the high XP units upgrade), this will hurt too.

For Sakhalin, from memory, a trickle of supply may travel overland, but you will have to take at least a week between each assault once besieging Okha, and to drop a lot in the souther ports.

In my game, MiG-3 trashed the Tojos. You might have the edge in pilot XP & skill, as well leadership. By now, he should have many more, enough for several squadrons, so maybe he’s been hoarding some to equip a squadron or two of elite pilots later.

ORIGINAL: Ambassador

I finally managed to catch up, but I’ve had to jump over the middle part, I think I missed a major carrier battle, so I’ll have to find that part. Tahiti looks like a weird place to accept a carrier battle... Anyway, here are my thoughts...

With all due respect to Andy, I have to say I’m a bit surprised by certain errors he’s made, the last of which is indeed the routing of this convoy KB just hit. Even if lulling him in a false sense of security, given the reach of your invasion of India, he should never venture any ship from Mombasa/Cape Town to Karachi directly. The detour by Aden or Abadan, skirting the coast of Somalia, drastically limits the risks of interception. And escorting a CVE with a YMS ???

The extent of your victory in China, and the speed you achieved it, is also surprising. Congrats on that ! I found your opening moves, with KB striking Australia, to be quite gutsy. I do believe though that you overestimated the effect the losses will have on the Allied buildup.

As for the Soviet, I concur with the opinions that the heavy fighting hasn’t started yet. The heaviest usage of supply I saw was during the various sieges of strongholds, and during the protracted battles. A lot of supply is also lost to push it further north on roads. Taking Komsomolsk (and Nikolaev) is a good way to provide a supply hub, to push enough supply along the rail lines. The major flaw of your strategy, IMVHO and according to the experience I conducted, is that fielding a decent-sized force (and yours is really big) for a push towards Lake Baykal so far from the rail lines will make them suffer from lack of supply after one or two days of a big battle. As Andy seems to have retreated a lot of forces up there, you’re bound to have a big battle, and I found it easier to supply the Soviet in Ulan-Bator than the IJA.

You have seen what the Soviet artillery is capable of - but this was on the field. Beware the sieges, with heavy forts. Bringing the artillery in the open is risking its destruction - sure, there are replacements, but not enough to reconstitute more than one brigade per month.
However, he’s had nearly a year of replacements to accumulate, including over 4000 infantry squads. The losses the Soviet have taken until now are good VPs, but can’t put a heavy dent in the stockpiles. Additionally, remember that Soviet Rifle squads upgrade in ‘43 - with the 600 replacements/month, given how upgrading squads work, he’ll have most of his divisions upgraded by February at the latest. It might make a northern battle much more expensive, as those ‘43 squads have 50% more firepower than the IJA squads. And if he upgrades the Vladivostok defenders (will depend on his supply level I guess, but I would at least let the high XP units upgrade), this will hurt too.

For Sakhalin, from memory, a trickle of supply may travel overland, but you will have to take at least a week between each assault once besieging Okha, and to drop a lot in the souther ports.

In my game, MiG-3 trashed the Tojos. You might have the edge in pilot XP & skill, as well leadership. By now, he should have many more, enough for several squadrons, so maybe he’s been hoarding some to equip a squadron or two of elite pilots later.

ORIGINAL: Alfred

ORIGINAL: DesertWolf101

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe




+1

Not to mention having apparently having no Naval Search or surface pickets to see any potential threats to this large and important convoy.

Before we judge too harshly, let me add some context to the story.

Too ease him into a sense of security, I had pulled out my submarines from the area and weakened my naval search for about ten days beforehand. His ASW forces had the run of the area and found no subs and were not intercepted. He also ran two test convoys beforehand which I detected with my recon flights over Karachi. He reinforced the CAP, has extensive naval search, and brought in naval bombers.

The reason he didn't pick up the KB was because it was hiding beyond the range of his nav search and darted in at flank speed for the intercept.

It isn't a case of judging too harshly. It was a straight out mistake.

Whether the Allies had picket ships out, or concentrated naval search on, or were lulled into error by your own actions, none of it is particularly relevant. A simple fact trumped all this; the whereabouts of the Japanese carriers was unknown. For years I have said that Japan can only attempt to impose an effective blockade of Karachi if it uses the KB. Knowing this and that the flank speed of the KB allows it to be out of Allied detection range (especially when Bombay et al are under Japanese occupation) means that the prudent play is to assume that the "hidden" KB is able to intercept any convoys destined for Karachi. Especially when it is an important convoy bringing in troop reinforcements.

Alfred

ORIGINAL: DesertWolf101


...Do squads/devices actually consume supply when they upgrade? That would be a very useful thing to conclusively find out. Undoubtedly a question that Alfred knows the answer to if he could chime in!