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herwin -> RE: AE Land and AI Issues (8/21/2009 9:42:53 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: vaned74
Hi there - I'm Bill's opponent in the PBEM - I was thinking about posting in here that bombardment casualties seem way out of whack. I had been running a few head to head games vs myself (yes I know I am sick...) and found out that the heavy arty is deadly, particularly to un-entrenched units. So, I have spent just about every PP point (up to 4,500 at this point) pulling the heavy art bns and regiments out of Manchuria and into China - some are cheaper than others, I can't tell why.
I think my opponent kinda let China slip by unnoticed for a little while (and I think he will admit this) assuming it to be a morass - I was able to concentrate my armor (including many regts shipped in from Hainan/Formosa) and drive into Nanyang, cutting the Chinese northern forces into in half and isolating a large pocket of about 13 corps between Sinyang and Nanyang. As opposed to finishing off the corps, I started concentrating forces and headed for Sian (which was partly my plan as I had been prepping units there for a while - there is no easy road route from Chengchow, Loyang back to Sian so those forward deployed forces are in trouble if not pulled back early).
The rest is just opportunity - I suppose it is no secret but the PI heavy arty and the heavy arty deployed with 38th division have taken the south road. Given the enemy's withdrawals into fortress Singapore, Soerbaja, Batavia, and Manila (2 of which I have no idea how to crack - Singapore will be a bloody shock attack across the straits from Johore...) this has freed up a lot of specialist assets and about 4 divisions worth of troops to reinforce a drive from Hanoi and Canton up behind the center Chinese forces.
Once on top of the game in China I opted to slow all other advances up and just take advantage of the opportunity to secure my interior and seize all probably Chinese airfields that could hurt the home islands later. May or may not be a mistake. The fact that units die so readily when retreating and never recover if you stay after them (pursuit or not, doesn't matter, you can catch them easily before they recover b/c their fatigue/disruption is too high to prevent fast movement after a retreat from combat) also has resulted in recognition that once the enemy is down, keep on top of him. As RE Lee said at Chancellorsville - "we must press those people..."
Strategy aside, I think land combat has been perhaps overly tweaked.
(1) artillery bombardments are downright lethal, Bill is right - I have been wasting 3,000 to 5,000 troops per day by two bombardments of about 8 regiments/bns at each location. I think WitP's original artillery model wasn't far off although with slow/large bombardments killing a few hundred troops/day even though I know many folks complained about how static land combat was. Even if FOW is on, concentrations of 70,000 to 80,000 troops in cities in China are too easy to kill off as Japan in AE.
(2) when units retreat - they die in droves; I noticed that leaving a retreat path open for units is a far more efficient way to kill them off; you simply fight them with a pair of units having one pursue from reserve while the other attacks - once the stack is broken the losses are deadly. There seems to be no way to screen retreats.
On the supply question - I have had little issue supplying my forces in China; partly this is due to consolidation of road and rail lines and moving hq assets/supply convoys into the interior to pull supplies from coastal drop-offs. Partly also though we have captured a lot of resource/light industry. A 40 pt light industry center will produce 1,200 supplies a month or enough to sustain a division in normal operations. May or may not be accurate.
Thoughts or observations by others would be appreciated. I can't dispute Bill's probable frustration on this one at all and my pending frustration as late war US formations are loaded for bear with firepower.
Look at the version 4.0.1 OCS rules for an idea of how artillery should function. It does do most of the killing, but at the cost of most of the supply. In addition, the real advantage of artillery is in suppression.
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