Foward Defense in Malaysia

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All Forums >> [New Releases from Matrix Games] >> War in the Pacific: Admiral's Edition >> The War Room >> Foward Defense in Malaysia

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Foward Defense in Malaysia - 9/3/2019 2:56:22 PM

pcasey

Posts: 39
Joined: 2/6/2006
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Question for the more experienced players here.

Reading through a lot of AAR's, it seems like a common allied strategy is to try to fight something of a forward defense on the Malaysian peninsula. Idea (presumptively) being to keep enough forces there to prevent the IJN from rushing down the peninsula with paratroopers and recon regiments, but to fall back (slowly) once the IJA brings up heavy forces. I've seen a lot of people dig in at Jore Bora for example.

Question I have though is ... what's the benefit of this approach as opposed to just scampering for Singers and digging in there?

Singers is good defensive terrain, its behind a river, and it's got enough AA and support units to make it at least a little expensive for the IJA to carpet bomb.

Plus if you retreat there expeditiously you tend to arrive with intact forces, whereas if you fight on the peninsula you are going to be roughed up and lose craploads of squads in retreats before you make it back to festung Singapore.

So what am I missing on this one?

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RE: Foward Defense in Malaysia - 9/3/2019 3:07:09 PM

Gridley380

Posts: 464
Joined: 12/20/2011
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Just my $0.02, but in Malaya you've got several large units (or fragments that can be combined into large units), and some small ones. The small ones aren't going to help much in the corps-scale battle at Singapore, so I send them out to delay that action and give the big units time to form up and dig in as much as possible. Any engineers and AA go into the city, of course.

In the end unless you go full "Sir Robin" and pull out as much as you have shipping for (which is highly gamey in this particular case IMO; the Brits weren't going to give up on Singapore without a fight), all the LCUs in Malaya are going to be lost. It is just a question of taking as many IJA devices with them as possible.

(in reply to pcasey)

Post #: 2

RE: Foward Defense in Malaysia - 9/3/2019 5:53:42 PM

RangerJoe

Posts: 13450
Joined: 11/16/2015
From: My Mother, although my Father had some small part.
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But try to save fragments of each unit so that you won't have to buy them back plus you won't have to wait for them. Even if you don't put infantry and engineers in them, extra support squads at a base where units go to repair their disabled devices always help. Any artillery and antiaircraft capability is also a plus for defensive purposes later. Plus, on recon they still show up as a unit no matter how little is there.

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(in reply to Gridley380)

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RE: Foward Defense in Malaysia - 9/3/2019 9:42:21 PM

BBfanboy

Posts: 18046
Joined: 8/4/2010
From: Winnipeg, MB
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Gridley380

Just my $0.02, but in Malaya you've got several large units (or fragments that can be combined into large units), and some small ones. The small ones aren't going to help much in the corps-scale battle at Singapore, so I send them out to delay that action and give the big units time to form up and dig in as much as possible. Any engineers and AA go into the city, of course.

In the end unless you go full "Sir Robin" and pull out as much as you have shipping for (which is highly gamey in this particular case IMO; the Brits weren't going to give up on Singapore without a fight), all the LCUs in Malaya are going to be lost. It is just a question of taking as many IJA devices with them as possible.

In addition to managing your troops, the key to the land war is supply. Singapore does not have much unless you can rush some in before it gets cut-off by the Japanese air force. So cramming troops into Singers has to be balanced against supply usage. If you are playing using the map with stacking limits, putting too many troops in the hex increases supply use. Check the stacking limit for Singers in your game.

That is one of the reasons that players put a large blocking force at Johore Bharu -to delay the Japanese while spreading out the stacking limit problem. Once the JB troops are defeated and retreat to Singapore they will have lost a lot of their squads so they won't impact supply and stacking so much. Cold-blooded, but that is what commanders in a siege have to do.

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(in reply to Gridley380)

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RE: Foward Defense in Malaysia - 9/3/2019 10:18:35 PM

rustysi

Posts: 7472
Joined: 2/21/2012
From: LI, NY
Status: offline

quote:

Question I have though is ... what's the benefit of this approach as opposed to just scampering for Singers and digging in there?

Japan will be prepping for Singers, not so much for Johore-Bharu. This may have her at a small disadvantage, and/or delay her attacks while she preps a bit.

quote:

stacking limit problem.

No such problem in stock.

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(in reply to BBfanboy)

Post #: 5