Feinder
Posts: 6589
Joined: 9/4/2002 From: Land o' Lakes, FL Status: offline
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You really -can't- keep the Burma Road open in PBEM. It will eventually close, it's just a matter of how long you can keep it open. There are three keys to delaying the inevitable : 1. Keep Sing alive as long as possible : As pointed out earlier, once Sing falls, all those troops start marching on Burma/Inda (or some might be used in SRA). Make your fighting withdrawl down Malaya. That means marching out of a base just before Japan gets the magical 2-1 to force you to retreat. Try to keep your units moving towards Sing (sometimesyour guys will retreat the wrong way, away from Sing, which make it that much more important to walk out before being forced to retreat). It's not easy, but it can be done. Try not to let guys get cut off, and like an orderly withdrawl, this takes considerable planning also. I usually manage to hold Sing into into the 2nd week of February (and that was lacking 5 brigades that retreated stupidly, boy was I p_ssed). Again, buying time at Sing, buys you time in Burma/India. 2. Make a fighting withdrawl to Mandalay. Get your guys (that are worth moving), heading towards Mandalay asap. This includes those 2 brigades on the trail past Tang-Gri(?). The guys at Moul are ok, and dug in pretty well (50 prep points), you might as well fight there for a turn or so, until everything behind you is heading for Mandalay. If you can withdraw (march out just before 2-1), with the Moul units, they'll be in better shape than if they retreated. Again they head to Mandaly. Rangoon isn't worth it (as far as I'm concerned), and you're just going to end up surrendering. If you want to leave a token force fine, but frankly, getting guys out there that can help you at Mandaly is preferable to me. It worked out well enough in one of my PBEM games, that I think I made it Mandalay with all 7(?) Burma Brigades intact (after fighting delay at Moul). Held Mandalay for about a week until 1-1 odds, then marched out and ran to Myt. It might be easier to hold Mandalay now, with the river crossing attack rule (I don't know, we were still on v1.4 when he attacked Mandalay). Forcing a gun-fight at Mandalay means driving up his fatigue (Rangoon is malaria free tho). And drop all the bombs on him that you can afford. 3. Make a final stand at Myt. If your army is still intact, you should be able to hold for another week or so. By this time, it should be about February. Sing may or may not have fallen. If he's moved in guys from Sing, he's going to roll you. But if he's still only attacking you with his Burma forces, he'll have to choose to keep going (fatigued), or return to Rangoon for a little while to rest (he'll likely keep going, you -are- retreating after all). More bombs. He's now in range of most of your Indian bases, so do what you can to make his life miserable. He -will- force you out of Myt. But if you make him pay for it, it delays any action he might decide to take against you on the India frontier (or even invasion). It's your choice to withdraw or fight until retreated. Either way, your brigades are going to be shot to h_ll by the time they're thru, and it's going to take a month to for them to get to Ledo. And don't forget about assigning SEAC objective! From day one, assign SEAC to either Mandaly or Myt. It will accumulate prep-points for either objective. If you put it within 8 hexes (like in one of the major Indian cities like Dacca/Calcutta/whatever) of the objective, those points will help the assault strength of your units. At 100 prep-points (you won't get that many), it doubles your assault strenght. But even at just 40, you're getting a 40% bonus. Considering what you're up against, every point counts. It's your call if you want to prep for Mandalay, and then switch to Myt after Mandaly falls. Or just prep for Myt from the beginning. The reason you -might- want to prep for Mandalay is that you're more able to mount a better defense at Mandalay than Myt (your troops are fresher, and there's the river, and you might not time things right, and actually be retreated from Mandalay so your shot up when you retreat to Myt).
< Message edited by Feinder -- 5/17/2005 6:10:15 PM >
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