Remington700
Posts: 1057
Joined: 5/16/2021 Status: offline
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Allied: December 17th 1944 Indochina With the pullback of the enemy along the western front Anglo-Indian forces advance. The 5th Corps pushes down the Saigon railroad, overrunning fortified positions and capturing the airfield at Battambang. The Indian 5th Corps trails behind bringing up the rear. The British 10th and 12th Corps advance to the west until they hit the enemy line. All along the front allied units prepare to launch a major attack next turn. China South of Haiphong the Chinese 5th and 16th Armies, supported by the 4th Indian Corp attack positions of the Japanese 42nd Division along the coast railroad. Preliminary airstrikes soften up the enemy which takes four hits and retreats. The Allied infantry take no material losses. The 32nd Army exploits the breakthrough and attacks the beat-up 42nd Division in Vinh, pushing the unit south along the coast. Advancing into the port the 32nd Army cuts Indochina off from Japanese forces in China, which should have a large effect on enemy supply. I have just Pandora's Box. Hexes that were once Main Supply will now become Port Supply. This means multiple units will now be reduced to Basic Supply as the Port of Vinh can only provide 20 supply – not enough for even one unit. Since Port Supply seems to trump Main Supply, it will be interesting to see what happens to Kunming – a Main Supply source. However the tradeoff is that most of the Japanese units in Indochina will also be reduced to Basic Supply as the line has been cut to China. I am banking on good supply around Bangkok to keep fresh units pushing Japan’s infantry. And there is now an opportunity, through invasion and blockade, to cut all enemy supply to Indochina. The next couple of turns should be very interesting. Convoy Attacks In the East China Sea the Wahoo, Tang and Finback fail to locate targets, hunting at coordinates 68.70. Farther east (70.70) the Skipjack, Bonefish and Pike and hit the motherload. Five Merchant Marine were sunk with only the Pike taking damage. The sub will return to Rabaul for repairs and is replaced on patrol by the Devilfish. Splitting subs into two stacks of three seems to be working. The damage is manageable, and the larger stacks seem to do more damage. However, the damage results are skewed because I blew it with the Japanese ASW tech. It is only at the 1942 level facing the US 1944 tech. I am using Long Range Submarine tech to get the higher surface attack factor (more likely to sink MMs) and eight turns without resupply compared to the Attack Submarine tech which has less surface attack (less likely to sink MMs) with much greater defense, but only has five turns without resupply. At first, I thought it was a no-brainer to go with the longer duration LR subs however they are on station only for an average of three turns before taking damage. If the enemy’s ASW is higher, it might make sense to go with the higher defense and possibly stay on patrol longer. But with less surface attack, expected MMs sunk would be less per turn, so both specs may be the same over an eight-turn period. Alvaro has done a great job with subs providing choice but avoiding the cookie cutter build driven by a min/max approach.
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< Message edited by Remington700 -- 8/21/2021 2:53:46 AM >
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