Slitherine

quote:

ORIGINAL: DSwain

Hi,

I'm playing a PBEM at the moment as the Allies in vanilla. I minimised the Sir Robin and fought for pretty much everything (me and my oppo both agreed that was the kind of game we fancied). I pushed up much of the Malaya/Singapore garrison to hold up north in Malaya, while 9th Indian remained in reserve around KL. It worked out quite well, holding up my opponent for some weeks while he massed forces. I was then able to extricate everyone to Singapore, just beating a late IJ landing around Mersing.

I've also been able to focus DEI defence around certain chokepoints - Palembang, Balikpapan, Koepang/Dili and Java. Anyway, the upshot is that now, entering June 1942, the situation is that I'm holding Singapore, having sealifted additional forces (7th Australian div, 7th Armoured Brig, 70th UK div) in. I still hold air superiority over much of Malaya, having bombed all of the captured airfields south of Kota B. Right now in Singapore, I have 2500 AV and a substantial air component (about 250 first line aircraft). I can't remember the last air raid on Singapore, in fact. I have nearly 300k supplies in there and have am almost up to 5 forts. He's trying deliberate attacks in Singapore every few weeks, which have been resulting in between 10k-15k losses for him, abaout 1k for me. In the DEI, I hold everything except Menado, Tarakan and Singkawing (which my opponent still can't use as an airfield as I bomb it on a daily basis with the still widely intact DEI airforce, ditto Menado). Palembang and Balik each have 500AV, Koepang 800AV, Dili 400AV, Batavia 1200AV (rest of Java I've stripped of units).

Carrier wise, my opponent has had by far the best of it: I've lost 3 US carriers to one IJN carrier. However, aside from one monster encounter, his carriers haven't been out an awful lot.

My main questions are: does anyone have any experience of holding Singapore late-on with substantial forces? How does it play out? And, on a broader scale, do you think I might in fact be able to hold the Japanese back throughout DEI-Malay barrier? Or, have I been a chump in putting all of my eggs in one big basket? ie, I've pumped a lot of available AV (and some of my best units) into Singapore/DEI.

Elsewhere, Burma (except Akyab) has fallen, though the Mandalay area is a no-go for his forces as I've got strong air working out of Imphal and Chittagong and bombing lots. Port Moresby still in Allied hands. He's taken some stuff in South Pacific, the main loss being Pago Pago and some of the islands further south: Noumea and Suva still in Allied hands. He's landed at the northern end of New Caledonia, but I've got 900 AV down in Noumea, though it might be a close run thing there if he really wants it.

Cheers!

quote:

ORIGINAL: dr.hal

Where are the Japanese subs? They should be putting a hurt on stuff going in and out of Singapore. The area is easy to choke off.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Puhis

Japanese player does not sound very competent.

I just wonder, if he can't take important SRA, how is he running the economy? Road to ruin, I believe...