Groundhog Day! - No NJP

[obvert]

ORIGINAL: Wargmr

Score Jan 11, 1945

In my first game with NJP I won on January 24, 1945 with a 2-1 victory. His point total was just over 57K.

Looking at the numbers in our 2nd game the biggest differences are in Allied Army loss points where he has accumulated 10,000 more points by taking out China and assaulting Russia. The other major difference is that he has avoided losing his carriers and 5,000 points of naval assets.

The 2nd game is a Senario 2 game rather than a Scenario 1 game. They were both DBB with stacking limits but the Scenario 2 game also had reduced cargo capacity. I did not feel as if there was any reduction in expansion on the Japanese side but do admit that it affected my ability to move material over the course of the game.

NJP's aggressiveness in taking out China and also pushing a large assault on Australia was successful in slowing the Allied advance down in this game and bought him 4-8 months of game time. He also has handled his supply well, his aircraft production is well ahead of last games schedule and he is still competitive in the air campaign.

Play wise, I did almost nothing of what I said I was going to do in the goals I put forth for game 2 early on. Therefore, my game play was equal to or maybe even less than what I managed to pull off in game 1. Conversely, NJP appears to have increased his ability in all areas and has put a very strong game on into 1945.

With that, I will say that NJP has won this game due to superior game play. If I manage to wrap things up by the historical date then I can say that I didnt lose the game either.

Great to hear such an objective assessment of the game, and I agree NJP has played well. You're still doing great with the Allies too. This is a fantastic result and also means we get to watch another rare late game going strong into 45. [&o]

[Lowpe]

ORIGINAL: Wargmr

China Jan 31, 1945

Neikiang was captured last turn leading to the strategic movement of many divisions to this city for assault of Chungking.

Be somewhat cautious here. Once all those destroyed Chinese troops spawn, you will really see a spike in demand for supplies that may hinder your future conquest plans in western Manchuko.

[Mike McCreery]

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

ORIGINAL: Wargmr

China Jan 31, 1945

Neikiang was captured last turn leading to the strategic movement of many divisions to this city for assault of Chungking.

Be somewhat cautious here. Once all those destroyed Chinese troops spawn, you will really see a spike in demand for supplies that may hinder your future conquest plans in western Manchuko.

I am certainly concerned. I have 500K of supply at Manila and 500K at Darwin and plan on keeping a constant supply chain feeding China. I think I dumped upwards of 2 million supply into there last game and they wanted more!!!

[Mike McCreery]

February 1945 Bomber Pools

A good spin on this would be to say that we are utilizing nearly all available airframes for maximized efficiency. The reality is I keep getting them blown up faster than the factories can replace them.

[Mike McCreery]

The battle for Korea Feb 1945

The American forces plan on moving down the west side of Korea. A big battle occurred at a key wooded hex just northeast of Yingkow. NJP has a strong force in the hex. My first attack was fairly good with 114 Japanese infantry squads destroyed but I did suffer some disablement and indications are that the hex will take some time to knock down.

Lower on the map at Shaishu To, NJP has not bombarded for a few days and the airfield is repaired again. So I am going to move about 10 STF's into the hex and CAP with over 100 Corsair's. Last time we bumped heads in this hex NJP lost over 150 aircraft and a handful of small craft although he did manage to sink a light cruiser.

I have a air task force that will sortie out of Shanghai to participate if any ships do not manage to get out of the hex.

[Mike McCreery]

1st Battle for the coast of Korea

[Mike McCreery]

The 103rd Rifle division refuses to combine. The B section is missing but it is not in the destroyed unit file nor in any upcoming reinforcements.

The graphic shows the reorganization page where it is only listing the two pieces but it refuses to recombine.

103rd Rifle/A is #8021 and 103rd Rifle/C is #8023. Where did #8022 go?

Any suggestions?

[Mike McCreery]

For you supply grognards....

We are several days to several weeks from freeing China and I thought I would put a little effort into seeing what happens when you release the beast.

I currently have 315,000 supply in the map area below. I rounded up a few numbers that were within a handful and dropped the other numbers off /100 so 100 might be 139 but wasnt worth writing out exactly.

Supply is being inserted at Rangoon but primarily at Victoria point where all the troops are funneling through for a strat move to Udon Thani and then strat movement or regular movement northeast to the frontlines.

I have at least one recurring transport delivery from Cape Town where there is over 12 million tons of supplies.

[Mike McCreery]

Central China up through to Manchuko

There are some bases to the upper northeast that are not pictured on the map. They add another 25,500 supply. The total supply currently available in central China is 952,700 tonnes.

Supplies are being added at Hanoi, Hong Kong and Shanghai.

[Mike McCreery]

Ok, Maybe I didnt get or read the memo properly. I THOUGHT I was going to have to free up Chungking to get any Chinese replacements and that they would arrive 2 days after I liberated the city.

Well, I took Chengtu last turn and immediately..... Well, ..... Say hello to my little Chinese friends....

Doing some calculations based on initial resting supply they should be filled out with less than 15K in supplies.

[obvert]

Yep. Both Chengtu and Chungking are arrival bases for Chinese units.

[Lowpe]

Fascinating.

Now the real question is can you get those hungry mouths to actually contribute to the war effort before the game is over?

Or will they just eat, and eat, and eat?

[Mike McCreery]

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

Fascinating.

Now the real question is can you get those hungry mouths to actually contribute to the war effort before the game is over?

Or will they just eat, and eat, and eat?

I spent the whole afternoon trying to get a handle upon what I was facing. About 50 units arrived at Chengtu before I was prepared for them. The next reinforcements are scheduled for 2 days but I am not sure if they are going to show up tomorrow like they did today.

I now have a color coded excel spreadsheet that is 80 rows deep and columns through the letter O telling me what is showing up and now I have an organization chart of all of it.

My calculations revealed that todays reinforcements should take 15,000 supplies to go from 0 to whatever their listed requirement is. So, easily that should be doubled to account for anything and everything so 30K. There are large groups of reinforcements equal to the size of the first group scheduled for days 2,3,4,5 & 6. Guessing them to be all of the same relative size yields the need for about 200,000 tons of supply to outfit the current army.

Guessing how much will be lost due to transportation is far beyond my abilities and that is where the experiment comes in.

The reinforcements today totaled over 6000AV so given 6 days we are looking at easily over 20,000 AV at full supply.

There are drawbacks however. Currently the armies are at 40 experience and 40 morale. The TOE of all replacement armies is 30% of the total strength.

There are currently 5700 older squads along with 400 newer squads and a production rate of 350 squads a month in the supply pools. Given 6 months I can outfit about 14 divisions with full troops up to their strength of 700+ squads.

In my last game I found the Chinese troops to be very poor and did not work well in combat. They mostly performed garrison roles. Based on those experiences my primary goal is to use the Chinese army as a garrison force for well, China...

Since Russia is pushing Japan into Korea and the Allies are on the other side pushing harder it does not seem like there is a lot of use for the Chinese army. The Chinese airforce was mostly disbanded before the collapse and it isnt going to grow back.

The NCAC will act as a garrison for Chengtu and the surrounding area. I can build the 7th New Chinese Corps inside a ring of supplied cities.

The CAF HQ and China Command are Static now at Chengtu which is fine given the condition of the airforce.

1st war area and 2nd war area have not begun to respawn yet but consist of 18 infantry corps, 4 construction regiments, 2 base forces, 1 cavalry corps, and a Provisional chinese corps will plan on moving toward eastern China.

3rd war area is composed of 12 infantry corps, 1 construction regiment, 1 base force and a new chinese corps will move to Tuyun for strat move east toward Wuchang

4th war area is composed of 6 infantry corps and 6 base forces will head for Canton for garrison duty.

5th war area is composed of 10 infantry corps and a construction regiment and will head for the Sian region and Ankang.

6th War area is composed of 14 infantry corps and 2 construction regiments and will head NE for sining and parts north.

7th War Area is composed of 3 infantry corps, 2 base forces, and a construction regiment and will head for The Tsuyung/Kunming area.

8th War area is composed of 1 infantry corps, 4 base forces and 3 brigades and will head south to Hanoi/Haiphong.

9th War area is composed of 13 infantry corps, 1 construction regiment and 1 base force and will head south to the Shanghai area.

Central Reserve will be moving NE of Chungking. It has 8 infantry corps and a lot of the artillery, AT and AA units.

Jingcha War Area is composed of 11 infantry corps and a base force will head east to Wuchang Area.

Lusu war area is composed of 4 light infantry corps will head south to the foochow coast.

Of course, that is just off the top of my head ;]

[Mike McCreery]

Feb 5, 1945

China has been Liberated. There is a cargo fleet dropping off 4,000 tons of supply at Kwangchowan. Tomorrow a cargo fleet will begin dropping off 66,500 tons of supply at Hong Kong and in 3 days another cargo fleet will begin dropping off 88,300 tons of supply at Shanghai.

I am 7 weeks ahead of schedule but Chungking has not been retaken although that really is a moot point right now.

Also, a large attack will go in at Singapore tomorrow so hopefully the campaign for Malaysia will be completed soon.

[Mike McCreery]

Chengtu just added another 50 units one day after the first reinforcements. I am going to be over stacked for at least a week even moving these armies out of the city as fast as possible.

[Mike McCreery]

China Liberation Day 3

NJP is totally screwed...

Probably about 1/2 million tons of supply moved last night. It appears that most units that have been on the board for 2 days are now completely back in supply. I dont anticipate any supply shortages given the current situation.

[Lowpe]

That is supply up one major road. Wow![X(]

[Mike McCreery]

Right now I have over 23,000 AV moving outwards from the clown car referred to as Chengtu. Which sounds awesome until you take into account their 40% training level. If I am not careful, the Chinese could lengthen the war, not shorten it. There will be one more day of major reinforcements.

It is impossible for me to understand the supply situation, too many inputs and outputs without any tracking in between. The supply in the hex just southeast of Chengtu has dropped to 80,000 from the 228,000 yesterday. That seems like a devastating loss until I checked the hexes further south on either side and those hexes now account for 100,000 of that. It seems a large portion is moving outward with the armies.

But that hex is still 500% overstacked and I am sure I lost a good bit of supply because of it. Shanghai has dropped to 60K and I believe that a lot of the supply is being pulled from here. I have designated a few more cargo fleets to resupply the city.

All armies have their marching orders. They are grouped by their individual commands and will operate with their HQ's. Not because I think it will give me much of an advantage, it just is good practice for me as this is one of my weak points. Running over 30 war groups will be plenty of practice.

[Mike McCreery]

3rd attack goes in on Chungking.

I am not sure why but the Japanese take 20% casualties even though the odds are 1-1.

[Lowpe]

You are very close to a 2-1! Plus, I bet you have some wicked devices in those attacking units.

Japanese troops are probably mostly garrison style weak troops.

You outnumber him 3-1 in Guns and 4-1 in AFVs.