Ambassador
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Joined: 1/11/2008
From: Brussels, Belgium
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Alfred
quote:
ORIGINAL: Ambassador
I finally managed to catch up, but I’ve had to jump over the middle part, I think I missed a major carrier battle, so I’ll have to find that part. Tahiti looks like a weird place to accept a carrier battle... Anyway, here are my thoughts...
With all due respect to Andy, I have to say I’m a bit surprised by certain errors he’s made, the last of which is indeed the routing of this convoy KB just hit. Even if lulling him in a false sense of security, given the reach of your invasion of India, he should never venture any ship from Mombasa/Cape Town to Karachi directly. The detour by Aden or Abadan, skirting the coast of Somalia, drastically limits the risks of interception. And escorting a CVE with a YMS ???
The extent of your victory in China, and the speed you achieved it, is also surprising. Congrats on that ! I found your opening moves, with KB striking Australia, to be quite gutsy. I do believe though that you overestimated the effect the losses will have on the Allied buildup.
As for the Soviet, I concur with the opinions that the heavy fighting hasn’t started yet. The heaviest usage of supply I saw was during the various sieges of strongholds, and during the protracted battles. A lot of supply is also lost to push it further north on roads. Taking Komsomolsk (and Nikolaev) is a good way to provide a supply hub, to push enough supply along the rail lines. The major flaw of your strategy, IMVHO and according to the experience I conducted, is that fielding a decent-sized force (and yours is really big) for a push towards Lake Baykal so far from the rail lines will make them suffer from lack of supply after one or two days of a big battle. As Andy seems to have retreated a lot of forces up there, you’re bound to have a big battle, and I found it easier to supply the Soviet in Ulan-Bator than the IJA.
You have seen what the Soviet artillery is capable of - but this was on the field. Beware the sieges, with heavy forts. Bringing the artillery in the open is risking its destruction - sure, there are replacements, but not enough to reconstitute more than one brigade per month.
However, he’s had nearly a year of replacements to accumulate, including over 4000 infantry squads. The losses the Soviet have taken until now are good VPs, but can’t put a heavy dent in the stockpiles. Additionally, remember that Soviet Rifle squads upgrade in ‘43 - with the 600 replacements/month, given how upgrading squads work, he’ll have most of his divisions upgraded by February at the latest. It might make a northern battle much more expensive, as those ‘43 squads have 50% more firepower than the IJA squads. And if he upgrades the Vladivostok defenders (will depend on his supply level I guess, but I would at least let the high XP units upgrade), this will hurt too.
For Sakhalin, from memory, a trickle of supply may travel overland, but you will have to take at least a week between each assault once besieging Okha, and to drop a lot in the souther ports.
In my game, MiG-3 trashed the Tojos. You might have the edge in pilot XP & skill, as well leadership. By now, he should have many more, enough for several squadrons, so maybe he’s been hoarding some to equip a squadron or two of elite pilots later.
You need to remember that Andy Mac has only recently taken over this game. He was handed a dead Allied side, one where there is nothing Andy Mac can do to prevent a Japanese auto victory on 1 January 1943, and probably the same on 1 January 1944. The Allied position inherited by Andy Mac is far deader than the famous Norwegian dead parrot. It doesn't even have the plumage of that dead parrot.
Alfred
I only commented on Andy’s play, not the original Allied player’s catastrophic play.
Desertwolf, I won’t minimize the quality of your play, your strategies were sound and true, but really there are big mistakes your opponent has made, he clearly wasn’t in the same league as you. I share the opinion of whoever said the anonymity request was probably just a way to preserve his reputation, and allow to ragequit without fuss.
I do believe the loss of Lexington is his fault, more than blind luck (what was Lexington doing so close to PH, with the number of submarines present there ? He probably moved according to the AI’s sub moves early game, and failed to take into consideration he played a human). China could have been better defended, in fact his whole ground game could be better (it strikes me as typically an AI-player never having put much thought on the ground warfare in China/India), trying to defend so forward with the Burma Div, putting his US CV’s (already lacking one unit) in danger in March...
I wouldn’t want to be in Andy’s seat, you can be glad he took over.
However, I don’t remember reading a combat with the US divisions, or the Marines, except Pago Pago. Lots of xAK have been sunk, but not too many AP/xAP. You have very long supply lines to SoPac and India, you’re probably light on defenders in the DEI and SoPac, given your two major operations underway, and it looks like US planes loss have been moderate. So, the US have the means to conduct a major offensive, even without KB, especially with KB so far away. The unknown factor is how long it’ll take to bring the assets to Oz.
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