Thought the real Japanese were incompetent? warspite1 (J) vs AllenK (A)

[rustysi]

Historically, it was the site of the first setback of the war for the Japanese.

And the only amphibious invasion to fail.

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: Lovejoy

ORIGINAL: warspite1

This game is huge! I am just going to have to take it one step at a time and try and understand what is what.

I will focus my initial attention on Malaya.

The best analogy I've ever heard for learning this game is that its like eating an elephant. You have to digest it one slice at a time.

warspite1

Mmmm perhaps starting with the tusk was a bad move [;)]

[rustysi]

Mmmm perhaps starting with the tusk was a bad move

Hey, hey, ivory trade has been banned.[:D]

[Zorch]

ORIGINAL: warspite1

ORIGINAL: Lovejoy

ORIGINAL: warspite1

This game is huge! I am just going to have to take it one step at a time and try and understand what is what.

I will focus my initial attention on Malaya.

The best analogy I've ever heard for learning this game is that its like eating an elephant. You have to digest it one slice at a time.

warspite1

Mmmm perhaps starting with the tusk was a bad move [;)]

You prefer the other end? [:D]

[rustysi]

Here's something that came to mind. Japan starts the game with exactly one, count it one,[:D]AKE. Now that little ship is gonna be really busy and can't possibly be everywhere at once. It'll take some effort, but I remember that she has two or three other ships that'll convert more quickly than you could get others through normal channels. Problem is I don't remember their names or locations, so you'd have to search to find 'em. It will definitely help with the initial expansion if you could get them into service ASAP.

[RangerJoe]

Mike Solli'd AAR goes over Japan fairly well with ships conversions here:

Once again into the breach

On page 1, there are links to other things in his AAR. There are other discussions elsewhere but his seems pretty good to me.

[PaxMondo]

Part of Wake challenge is that the default commander of the SNLF is lousy. Something like 26 ground skill.

[rustysi]

Part of Wake challenge is that the default commander of the SNLF is lousy. Something like 26 ground skill.

Ah, never noticed that. Yeah, there are others that start the game like that. One more to change out early.

[warspite1]

Kota Bharu, Malaya

I click on the Ground Unit icon in the hex and this provides me with the ground units I have there. Let's see what the manual has to say about this. The screen is a little different to that in the manual but most of the info seems to be the same so I'll plug on. At this stage I am most interested in finding the three divisions of 25th Army so I click on the 56th Infantry Regiment.

[warspite1]

Kota Bharu, Malaya

On the left hand side there are numbers for things such as Leadership, Aggression, Fatigue etc. I can't see in the manual what these numbers sit in terms of a minimum/maximum (100?) but maybe I'll find it in due course. No matter I'll assume these are pretty good and carry on.

Supplies are good in that I need 26 and have 247. I'll need to understand how the supply mechanism works, but for now I don't need to worry about this unit.

The support situation is not so favourable however. This unit is not in a friendly base hex and so support can't be received from other units. Not clear yet how to rectify this but presumably there will be divisional support units or something that I need to get to this regiment.

Assault Strength is 122 - again on its own this number means nothing - and I can't see any table in the manual - but no doubt will become clear in time.

Load cost is pretty self explanatory and I don't need to worry about this for the moment - unless of course AllenK kicks the Japanese back into the Gulf of Thailand (quite likely).

The manual mentions 'Control Zone' but I can't see that on this form so will ignore.



At the bottom of the form I can see that the 56th Regiment is part of the 18th Division. This is what I want! So I click on this.

[warspite1]

So here are the units of 18th Division - one of the three divisions I am going to try and take Malaya/Singapore with.

I am not au fait with the detail of the Japanese Army but according to Wiki the 18th Infantry Division had two brigades and two regiments to each brigade (presumably 3 battalions to a regiment?).

23rd Infantry Brigade - Maj.Gen. Hiroshi Takumi
55th Regiment - Colonel Hiroshi Koba
56th Regiment - Col. Yoshio Nasu

35th Infantry Brigade - Major-General Kiyotake Kawaguchi
114th Regiment - Colonel Hitashi Kohisa
124th Regiment - ?

Here there appears to be on three regiments in total attached to 18th Division. Maybe the fourth is a later reinforcement. Anyway that is no matter so long as I know what I have at the moment, where the hell they are, and where they are going to. As I have part of the 56th Regt. at Kota, I will start here.

Ah no wonder I was confused. I assumed the three parts of the regiment were battalions - but then couldn't understand why a battalion had over 3,000 men!! Answer the three parts are not battalions. The rest of the regiment (support units) are still at sea.

[BBfanboy]

Yes, experience, morale, disruption and fatigue are out of 100, although morale never seems to pass 99. Experience of 85 is very good - crack troops.
How do you know there are three infantry divisions for 25th Army? The screen you posted shows two units reporting to 25th Army HQ, but they are not divisions.

In the next post where you show 56th IR, it is shown as part of 18th Division at the lower left. If you click on the button there, it will show you the rest of the units that make up that division and where they are located. If you intend to bring together the various parts to combine them into the 18th division, it is best to turn off upgrades for all the sub-units. If one of them upgrades one of its devices so that it differs from the other units, the sub-units will not combine into the division. Also note their HQ affiliations. Sometimes one or more of the sub-units has a different HQ assignment, and must be bought out to make them all under the same HQ.

Once the Division has been formed, ensure it has a good leader (the process of combining sub-units gives you no control over which leader will become the divisional leader. The division will likely need to fill out with devices that are not held at the regimental level (like larger artillery and AA support). To make this happen faster you can split the division again and it will split into A/B/C fragments which each have about 1/3 of the total divisional devices. There is no problem to recombine the Division later.

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

Yes, experience, morale, disruption and fatigue are out of 100, although morale never seems to pass 99. Experience of 85 is very good - crack troops.

Thank-you

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

How do you know there are three infantry divisions for 25th Army? The screen you posted shows two units reporting to 25th Army HQ, but they are not divisions.

I don't. I assume that all three divisions - 5th, 18th and IG are part of 25th Army as the real life order of battle shows these divisions are taking part in the Malayan Campaign. Whether this is reflected in the game is something I will see as I go along.

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

In the next post where you show 56th IR, it is shown as part of 18th Division at the lower left. If you click on the button there, it will show you the rest of the units that make up that division and where they are located. If you intend to bring together the various parts to combine them into the 18th division, it is best to turn off upgrades for all the sub-units. If one of them upgrades one of its devices so that it differs from the other units, the sub-units will not combine into the division. Also note their HQ affiliations. Sometimes one or more of the sub-units has a different HQ assignment, and must be bought out to make them all under the same HQ.

I think this has crossed with my post. I am working through the screens and buttons. Thanks for the info on the upgrades. So are you saying that upgrades on should be only activated at set times e.g. when in rear areas?

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

Once the Division has been formed, ensure it has a good leader (the process of combining sub-units gives you no control over which leader will become the divisional leader. The division will likely need to fill out with devices that are not held at the regimental level (like larger artillery and AA support). To make this happen faster you can split the division again and it will split into A/B/C fragments which each have about 1/3 of the total divisional devices. There is no problem to recombine the Division later.

So is it best to move and fight as a division in this game? Should I be looking to combine 18th Division asap?

[warspite1]

Kota Bharu, Malaya

So these are the two support units for the 56th Infantry Regiment.

So I assume that these units are unloading. There is nothing on this screen to say this but the 'Set Future Objectives' is set to Kota Bharu.

[warspite1]

So before I go back to the units in Kota Bharu and attempt to understand what they are up to having landed, I will continue to explore what the rest of 18th Division are doing.

The other regiment of the 23rd Infantry Brigade is the 55th and in post 91 I can see that the 55th and the 114th Infantry Regiments are at sea as part of Task Force 108 - and the yellow hex outlines appear to show they are headed for Singora. I double click on the task force and the Task Force Information Screen pops up.

[warspite1]

TF108 Steaming from Samrah, Hainan to Singora, Thailand

There are 15 ships in this convoy. Five of these are transporting the units of 18th Division previously identified:

55th Infantry Regt.
114th Infantry Regt.

That leaves two units of the division still at Samrah. I will have to see what the status of these are. But first I want to know what else is in this convoy.

I also need to find out if there are any escorts assigned. There appears to be no destroyers or anything other than transports.

It seems that all the units are 25th Army subordinate so that is good. However I can't seem to find the 25th Army HQ to see all the units under it's command....

In the same hex as TF108 is a second task force TF125. This one is heading for Kota Bharu and is called the third wave? What happened to the second wave?

Anyway, this task force appears to contain the 5th Division - or at least some elements of it. Before leaving 18th Division however, I want to go to Samrah because there are two units from this division still there.

These units presumably can't fit on available shipping (I am assuming the remaining shipping at Samrah is required elsewhere) and so will need to be loaded from returning vessels.

[warspite1]

TF125 Steaming from Samrah, Hainan to Kota Bharu, Malaya

Mmmmm seems to be a lot of support troops as opposed to combat troops heading for a hex the Japanese do not control.....

Within this task force is the 21st Infantry Regiment of 5th Division. Some of this division is at Singora, some at Patani and there are some elements on board ship (Task Forces 91 and 92) and it seems both these task forces are there too.

I best have a look and see what exactly is in Patani and Singora to the north.

[warspite1]

Patani, Thailand

So just to the north of Kota Bharu is this Japanese base in southern Thailand. Lots going on here it seems so lets have a look at what all this means.

Patani has both a port and an airfield. Both facilities need support troops to keep the base working at maximum efficiency. Both of these are currently in the red. The manual from what I've read so far does not expand on this i.e. what support troops fulfil this role and where can they be sourced? It looks like the units at Patani aboard Task Force 92 are largely combat units so that won't help.

The next thing the manual mentions are supplies (the daily requirement is shown) and fuel. Supply looks okay but there is currently no fuel at the base. There is no oil or resources storage either. Let's see what the manual says about this. Mmmm nothing much really, I'll have to look at logistics later. In the meantime I'll carry on looking at the bases section.

The Port is size 1 (with a Standard Potential size of 1) - so it could increase to a 4

The Airfield Capacity is 3 with a potential to go to 7. There is no % next to these numbers so no engineers are working on increasing the size. There are no fortifications either. I don't know about the value of increasing airfield/ports/fortifications for Patani at this stage.

There are 4 patrol aircraft (Mavis) located at the airfield. I will look at aircraft later.

There is not currently much by way of troops at the base - which is a shame as I was hoping to move on Kota Bharu.

There are no ships docked in port. TF 11, with 4 Mogamis, is at sea in the hex guarding the transports.

[warspite1]

Singora, Thailand

During the first turn a couple of stringbags attacked one of my transports. I will see if I can find what happened to this ship.

Here she is. She's not sunk but there's a lot of red and orange numbers here. Call me old fashioned, but I don't think that's a good thing.... There is no mention of any troops (it looked like she was carrying supplies?) and some of these were unloaded before the cowardly attack by the British.

[warspite1]

It looks like my first order hasn't worked - and was unnecessary as the badly damaged ship would have left the task force anyway. Ho hum, I'm sure there will be plenty more mistakes to come....