Smeulders
Posts: 1879
Joined: 8/9/2009
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A very interesting theatre in this great game is the war between the Russians and the Japanese. Unfortunately, there isn't too much discussion about this as it rarely becomes active in PBEM games. Therefore, I started this thread, to get a bit of different ideas together on how the war in Russia should be fought, by both sides.
The first, and very important consideration is that Japan will always have the strategic initiative. They decide when the war starts (unless they've made a severe mistake) and will surely be prepared. Because of this it's very important to know what the goals of the Japanese are. I think the most important reasons are.
1) Freeing up troops : If Russia is defeated, there is no more need for a Manchuko garrison.
2) Economy : This is a minor reason, but a bit of oil can be found in Russia and it's easier to transport then from the DEI.
If this is correct, then the best way to win a strategic victory with the Russians is to tie up Japanese troops.
Now that we have our goals, let's have look at how we can best reach them.
As the Japanese, the first goal should be to cut of the railway to Vladivostok, there are many point to do this, but the more to the North you go, the more troops will be cut off. Cutting the railway in multiple places is better, that way, the Russians can't support each other. A critical point is the stretch of rail between the Vladivostok area and Kabarovsk, this needs to be broken at some point, if he can get the Vladivostok forces on the major road, he can escape.
If you manage to contain the Russians in this way, you can start eliminating his forces. This will be a long and hard battle, but if we look at Seylditz's AAR, your forces should be stronger.
What should a Russian player do to tie up the Japanese ? Force him to keep large armies to guard against the Russians or put another way, preserve your forces. To do this, you can evacuate the Vladivostok area from the beginning of the game onward. This eliminates virtually any risk of your forces getting cut off and destroyed.
This strategy does have a couple of major downsides though.
1)First the most obvious, what about the Russian fleet ? If they lose Vladivostok, there is not one decent naval base left for them in the whole area. There doesn't seem to be any good solution to this problem, except for a breakout to the Aleutians. On the other hand, if we expect Vladivostok to fall anyway, then this is only speeding up the inevitable. Question is, how much damage are they able to do in the meantime ?
2) You lose your best airbases. This problem can be minimized though, by building up other bases from the start. Depending on how far you retreat you ground forces, there is Khabarovsk 5(7) and a 4(4) just North. Then the group around Kuibyshevka, 3 bases with 4(7)and then a lot of decent bases further Northwest.
According to me these are the basics of the war in Russia, what are your ideas ?
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