Wait, I can't read Cuttlefish's new AAR? - Cribtop (J) vs CF (A)

[Cribtop]

June 20, 1942

Subs

Escorts of a convoy bearing engineers to Rangoon chase off S-41.

4th Fleet

No change.

SE Fleet

The CVE Raiders launch from Truk and head back northeast with odd destinations and home ports set. Intention is to confuse the enemy as to the direction of our next raid, dubbed Operation Kraken. The Raiders will RV with Oilers and AMCs east of Honshu. The AMCs will then serve as scouts and "Aggie Oilers" as the force moves through the gap between Midway and Umnak Island in search of prey.

MKB continues to enjoy Saki at Babel. Cribtop HQ plans to move to Truk for a while and will intentionally overstay the July upgrades in case CF has an operation planned to catch us in the yards.

Base forces land at Gasmata and Kavieng to build up those bases.

Merauke hits level 2 airfield just as the B-17s return to Horn Island. CF's pattern is to bomb for 3 days in a row here, so the Nicks will LRCAP Horn tomorrow.

14th Army

No change.

16th Army

No change.

25th Army

Nias occupied.

15th Army

Tomorrow the Operation Barracuda fleet leaves Singapore bound for Chittagong.

China

Still marching both north and south. Armor will move one hex closer to Kweilin tomorrow.

Today we use our elite Helen group to hit the base force at Kweilin for 167(1) casualties. Then our small para unit drops in. As expected they can't take the base, but the enemy has no offensive AS here and we get closer than expected, with 1:2 odds, casualties 39(1) to nil. We will fly in supplies and continue to bomb, trying another SA in a few days that might actually take the base. It has 2 forts, though.

Of course, this tactical stalemate serves our operational ends nicely as the rail line to the KMT's big armies in central China is now cut. CF's only available reserves are at Chungking, and they will soon have to choose between saving Kweilin and Liuchow or rescuing Kienko and protecting the Capital itself. So far, so good. But Red Dragon is still in its infancy.

[PaxMondo]

Can you post a map update depicting Red Dragon?  Thanks!

[Saros]

Also where are you getting 30 Nicks from in june '42? I can only find a single 12 plane unrestricted unit to put them in in my late june Scen 1 game other than permR units. Its a pain as I would really like to have some more to use as bomber interceptors.

[Cribtop]

First, my economics advisors (Mike and Michael) ensured I had plenty of Nicks - thanks!

Second, I'm playing with PDU on, so a good number of groups can upgrade to Nick. I found a big one in the Home Islands, converted it and bought it out (cost me a training group, but I have seemingly limitless numbers of restricted IJAAF training groups so no big loss). I'll check what group it is tonght.

Pax - I'll post that map. It won't look too different yet but IMHO now that the rail is cut and my troops have gotten the jump I suspect Japan wins the race to Kweilin and Liuchow. What happens next depends in part on where CF chooses to move his central armies (his options are constrained here due to partial encirclement) and where he commits his strategic reserve at Chungking.

[adm]

Cuttlefish has not posted anything in a month, is everything all right with him? [:(]

[Cribtop]

adm, that is news to me. [:(] He's been on vacation for most of Thanksgiving week but we've been doing 1 turn a day for months. In fact, if anyone's been the holdup it's been me as I've had a few business trips, sick daughters, etc.

[adm]

Well I hope everything is all right, and he is just busy with the fun parts of Real Life.

[Cribtop]

June 21, 1942

A well executed ambush delivers disappointing results.

Subs

An IJN ASW TF harasses O-16 near Miri. A Glen boat returning to Kwaj spots a small CL/DD convoy bound for Pearl but is not in position to intercept.

4th Fleet

No change.

SE Fleet

We get 16 Nicks in the air over Horn Island to greet 14 B-17s. This is not good as usually day 2 of CF's 3 day bombing pattern sees some of the 4Es left at home. We had hoped for something more like 16 to 8, as numbers are the key to hitting the 4Es on multiple attack passes. We do get a lot of damaged enemy planes reported, and the Nick proves to be pretty durable itself, but in the end we lose 3 planes and 1 pilot for no reported enemy losses, either A2A or Ops. We'll try again tomorrow but wonder whether the enemy will come back now that we've rudely interrupted his training efforts.

Question - would equipping drop tanks put more Nicks over Horn Island (we have to LRCAP from Merauke)?

14th Army

Tagbilaran is occupied and Bacolod falls to a DA, forcing the surrender of an enemy regiment. This concludes the long delayed conquest of the Central PI.

16th Army

Nothing today, but we almost have the airfields built to allow our interceptors to try their luck against a much smaller group of B-17s that visit Daly Waters regularly.

25th Army

Working to get engineers building up bases. A base force lands at Waingapoe to support an airfield there.

15th Army

Indes Fleet is en route to Chittagong.

China

CF uses Chinese air force Hudsons in the first offensive air mission of the war for the KMT at Kweilin. I guess we made him nervous. 1 enemy LCU is on the march from Liuchow to destroy our paras, but our armored spearhead is closing in pretty fast - 2 hexes away but they've moved 29 miles of the hex they're in. I'll post a screenie shortly.

[Cribtop]

adm, he has had some RL stuff, almost all of it fun, lately. Maybe writer's block? He seemed to think his storyline was going well but is his own worst critic, as many writers are. Obviously I don't know how it's going (see title of my AAR [:)]). He certainly hasn't had anything bad occur in awhile except for his Tigers losing in the playoffs.

[Saros]

How strange. PDU on here as well just nothing has the ability to upgrade to Nicks. I know the group in the home islands you are talking about but for me it is perma restricted and can't be bought out so I have left it with nates.

[Cribtop]

Weird. FYI, I checked and it's the 5th Sentai.

[Cribtop]

Per request, here is the status of Operation Red Dragon. We are only showing the southern area as the northern pincer is just one stack marching over a river for now.



The main army is at Wuchow and will DA against 4 enemy LCUs tomorrow. CF will then see we have elite Southern Army troops in theater.

Our armor is closing on Kweilin, a small para unit will block the rail line at Kweilin as long as possible before dying for the Emperor.

The KMT only has 8 LCUs near Liuchow, 4 of which are at Nanning and 1 of which recon shows is a base force. CF is moving 2 LCUs toward Kweilin, but robbed the Liuchow garrison to do so.

13th Army will soon pop up near the 12 LCU stack at Kanshien to pin that force.

In the center, the enemy is focused on pulling its big stack back to Changsha, but the best road is blocked by our forces. We are harassing here to keep CF's mind away from the real danger as long as possible.

[Mike Solli]

Hmm, that's interesting, Cribtop. [:D]

Edit: Darn, you fixed it too fast.

[Cribtop]

A battle between the board's OCD members, Mike. [:D] I always proof and obsessively edit my posts. It's a sickness.

[Mike Solli]

What's your goal for Red Dragon?

[Mike Solli]

ORIGINAL: Cribtop

A battle between the board's OCD members, Mike. [:D] I always proof and obsessively edit my posts. It's a sickness.

I understand. My wife doesn't understand but she lives with it. [:D]

[Cribtop]

Mike,

The Op is a pseudo-pincer move, with the southern pincer aimed at Kweiyang. The goal is to dislocate the Chinese position in southern and central China and gobble up as many industrial bases as possible. The hope is to economically strangle the KMT, allowing transfer of lots of troops to the perimeter to assist with stopping the Big Green Machine.

The northern pincer, aimed at Kienko, is primarily intended to threaten the Chinese heartland and force CF to commit his strategic reserve in Chungking to stop it.

If Kweiyang is unobtainable, we'll settle for a bit north of Liuchow; then turn up the good road to the back door to Changsha.

[Mike Solli]

Yeah, that sounds really good. Couple more questions. I guess you'll pull the elite divisions should you be wildly successful. But, assuming you are successful, there will still be a significant (in numbers at least) Chinese army here and there. Do you have troops to replace those 4 divisions? They are going to be needed elsewhere.

Also, should you not be successful (I'm confident you will be, but you need to plan for the worst), what's your plan for extracting those troops for the perimeter? I guess it's pretty much the same question.

Also, it's nice to say you'll pull troops out of China, but that's what, a division a month maybe? The PP issue ain't going away.

[Cribtop]

Great questions.

Plan if we succeed: The final phase lines of the Op are designed to block up roads and other key choke points. More importantly, if we take a good chunk of the center it will actually shorten our lines significantly. Finally, recall that we have conquered or isolated all of northern China such that Mao's boys are just starving training targets for the IJAAF. All of this means that we should be able to hold the new lines with the China Expeditionary Army and pull at first the elite divisions out. Also, we have about four divisions currently in China that we bought out of Manchuria into Southern Army. Those troops will go to the perimeter next. Then it becomes a question of buying out more Manchurian and China divisions over time as we can afford the PPs and the reduction in China forces (if this works, the KMT will starve and lose combat power over time).

If we fail: We should at a minimum be able to set up defensive positions near Liuchow in rough terrain, stabilizing the southern front, which until now has been pretty open to KMT counteroffensives given our focus up north. We should still be able to pull the elite guys out, but this would slow the ability to pull the four Manchurian divisions. We'd settle into a defensive posture and use what reserves we can scrape to finish off the ChiCom army at Yenan, allowing the forces freed up to bolster the new line. Biggest problem here would be a weak perimeter, and that would be bad. We'd probably focus on the DEI and inner perimeter, making the outer perimeter even more of a delaying action than normal.

If we are wildly successful: Assume we take Kweiyang, which frankly we may not as CF probably can split his strat reserve at Chungking and hold it if so inclined (in which case we try for Changsha through the Kweilin road, which is still a pretty good win). OK, so if Kweiyang falls, we will launch a two way offensive out of Kweiyang and Burma to open a second LoC into Burma from China. We could post an army that would flank and frustrate the typical Allied Burma ground offensive. Likelihood of this is low, but this is the high upside contingency.

[crsutton]

ORIGINAL: Cribtop

Great questions.

Plan if we succeed: The final phase lines of the Op are designed to block up roads and other key choke points. More importantly, if we take a good chunk of the center it will actually shorten our lines significantly. Finally, recall that we have conquered or isolated all of northern China such that Mao's boys are just starving training targets for the IJAAF. All of this means that we should be able to hold the new lines with the China Expeditionary Army and pull at first the elite divisions out. Also, we have about four divisions currently in China that we bought out of Manchuria into Southern Army. Those troops will go to the perimeter next. Then it becomes a question of buying out more Manchurian and China divisions over time as we can afford the PPs and the reduction in China forces (if this works, the KMT will starve and lose combat power over time).

If we fail: We should at a minimum be able to set up defensive positions near Liuchow in rough terrain, stabilizing the southern front, which until now has been pretty open to KMT counteroffensives given our focus up north. We should still be able to pull the elite guys out, but this would slow the ability to pull the four Manchurian divisions. We'd settle into a defensive posture and use what reserves we can scrape to finish off the ChiCom army at Yenan, allowing the forces freed up to bolster the new line. Biggest problem here would be a weak perimeter, and that would be bad. We'd probably focus on the DEI and inner perimeter, making the outer perimeter even more of a delaying action than normal.

If we are wildly successful: Assume we take Kweiyang, which frankly we may not as CF probably can split his strat reserve at Chungking and hold it if so inclined (in which case we try for Changsha through the Kweilin road, which is still a pretty good win). OK, so if Kweiyang falls, we will launch a two way offensive out of Kweiyang and Burma to open a second LoC into Burma from China. We could post an army that would flank and frustrate the typical Allied Burma ground offensive. Likelihood of this is low, but this is the high upside contingency.

From the Allied prespective China can be taken out. It will take about two years for a determined Japanese player but I think it is a must for all Japanese players. The key is Chungking as Chinese divisions do not return if Chungking is taken. The most important city on the map is Kweiyang. Once taken then the Allied player is faced with two unsolvable problems-Defending Chungking or Kumming. It is impossible to do both and splitting the Chinese army courts disaster on both fronts. For the Japanese player any stop short of Chungking means that the Chinese will eventually rebuild and contribute to the Allied counter offensive. Taking Chunking puts an end to this. If the Allies hold Kumming and points west, they can rebuild the Chinese army but will never have enough supply to make much use of it.