RE: November 3rd, 1942 - The Tide Turns in India (Full Version)

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Anachro -> RE: November 3rd, 1942 - The Tide Turns in India (3/3/2019 12:37:39 AM)

@JohnDillworth Yup, but John has 14 CAs so he still has 12 in operation, I think. I'm also pretty sure I sank one of his Aoba or Furutaka-class CLs though for some reason its not showing up in the intelligence report. And he starts the war with 27 CLs and some more on the way so his cruiser fleet is still pretty strong.

Here's some other ships I've sunk. Wish I'd done more, but my sub warfare has been pretty ineffective so far. Notice all the TK's sunk from mines at Palembang, though! I also think there are more AO's sunk then what's shown in the report so far.

[image]https://i.imgur.com/YTqhohQ.png[/image]

[image]https://i.imgur.com/lSJtG1q.png[/image]

John has lost a decent amount of minesweepers, which is nice.

[image]https://i.imgur.com/1qLALGx.png[/image]



Canoerebel -> RE: November 3rd, 1942 - The Tide Turns in India (3/3/2019 12:44:48 AM)

In stock, Japan gets 18 CAs. Since you're playing his Mod, there may be more than that.



Anachro -> RE: November 3rd, 1942 - The Tide Turns in India (3/3/2019 12:48:35 AM)

I think as part of the "alternate history" logic that John uses to get to some of his new devices, a number of CAs in stock/real history are CLs in this mod, such as Furutaka or Aoba. I think these CL's are CL's in name only.

quote:

1. Japan--at all costs--sticks to its goal of 70% for CAs (instead of 60%). Japan is authorized to build a total of 14 CAs while the Allied Forces have 18 each.


quote:

It should be noted that to take maximum advantage of the revised Treaty tonnages, Japan converts several of the oldest CLs into fast ML, builds two additional Myoko-Class CAs and completes the Mogami-Class as CAs instead of CLs. The oldest Japanese CAs (Kako and Furutaka-Classes) are downgraded to CLs with 6" guns replacing the 8" turrets.



Bif1961 -> RE: November 3rd, 1942 - The Tide Turns in India (3/3/2019 1:56:16 AM)

You are in no danger of auto-victory at 2-1 in November, 42. I think your harvest of Japanese units in India is keeping his score down. So keep pressing there and he will fell pressure to do something bold elsewhere to even the score.



Anachro -> November 4th, 1942 (3/3/2019 6:48:49 PM)

November 4th, 1942

Anticipating that John would use his bombers to slow down my pursuing forces, we setup our fighters to do LRCAP only for the day in India. We bag a good haul. Air battles take place in the areas circled in red. 7 pilots achieve ace status this day.

[image]https://i.imgur.com/poiM5Iz.png[/image]

This is something I've never noticed before. I guess it's a good thing given that they will be pushing eventually into the jungles of Burma perhaps. What does this change? The 7th Aussie Division has seen rough fighting in India and is due for some recuperation.

[image]https://i.imgur.com/9qWTNQg.png[/image]
[image]https://i.imgur.com/NJNJE1O.png[/image]



GetAssista -> RE: November 4th, 1942 (3/3/2019 7:18:21 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Anachro
This is something I've never noticed before. I guess it's a good thing given that they will be pushing eventually into the jungles of Burma perhaps. What does this change? The 7th Aussie Division has seen rough fighting in India and is due for some recuperation.

That's just a fancy (historical?) name for the division's new TOE, consisting basically of the same devices. To my knowledge there is no mechanics in the game for some devices (or LCUs) having preferences over others in the jungle.



Bearcat2 -> RE: November 4th, 1942 (3/3/2019 7:49:50 PM)

The Tropical division loses 1/3 Art[54>36] & AA, lose some support, gain mortars[36>54].



RangerJoe -> RE: November 4th, 1942 (3/3/2019 8:35:09 PM)

It gets rid of a lot of heavy devices that are difficult to move through the jungle even though it may not be depicted as being able to move faster. It does make it more air transportable.



Anachro -> November 5th, 1942 (3/5/2019 8:08:11 AM)

November 5th, 1942

It would seem that there is still some fight left in John in India as he seems to take an offensive action. Over the last week or so, I have been gradually reducing Vizagapatnum with minimal forces and it was at 0 forts last turn. John, however, has other ideas and over night he flights in parts of the Imperial Guards Division and 5th Division to raise a garrison that was below 50 AV last turn to ~131 this turn. Moreover, the dreaded Liz makes an unexpected appearance and effectively wipes out my Humber I's and Marmon Harrington's in the area. Moreover, a heavy surface force seems to be on its way from to south, either to bombard or something else.

I don't know what John's plans are here, but I suspect he is attempting to extract these units (which I will try interdict). I'm guessing the 5th and Imperial Divisions were flown in from Ceylon, so it seems he has reinforced that area, which is valuable information (though there is also heavy radio activity at Diego Garcia). If not that, John is trying to open another front to try to force me to take pressure off from Calcutta. If that is the case, I'm happy to simply reinforce my very dug-in forts at Bezwada and Raipur with various small units not being used in my offensive land campaign, which I will do for now. If John tries to hold Viza, he can simply do continuous bombardments of any force there as its a coastal hex. It's not worth attempting to do so until Ceylon is taken.

But I very much suspect John just wants to get his troops out.

Around Rajshashi, my tanks are moving north to wipe out his tank divisions that fled that way. Those battered divisions and a Japanese para assault division seem to be converging on ~120 AV of tanks, but my own tanks are moving to support them. In the South, 1500 AV is about to shock his 11 units that fled south from Rajshashi, before moving to put pressure on Calcutta. 1000 AV is recuperating in Rajshashi still. I have several base units on the way to turn that into a forward air base, as its airfield level is 3(4).

[image]https://i.imgur.com/yeAksGf.png[/image]



jwolf -> RE: November 5th, 1942 (3/5/2019 2:08:47 PM)

I confess that I don't understand the strategy of flying in troops -- elite ones, at that -- just to safeguard an evacuation (if that is indeed what John is doing at Viz).



Anachro -> RE: November 5th, 1942 (3/5/2019 2:18:17 PM)

I can see where you are coming from, but I see little merit in what John is doing here if he's trying to go on the offensive from Viza. Then again, we do know John's tendencies. He is a roving Jeb Stuart (I think CR said this once), who is very much the American proxy for Japanese military archetypes in WW2.

VP ratio steadily creeping down...

[image]https://i.imgur.com/urdibJj.png[/image]



jwolf -> RE: November 5th, 1942 (3/5/2019 3:07:53 PM)

Maybe his objective is to relieve pressure at Calcutta, perhaps indirectly. If so, that sounds like a sensible objective, though achieving it will be difficult.



Anachro -> November 6th, 1942 (3/6/2019 8:47:03 PM)

November 6th, 1942

This day shows that John is pursuing the second of two possible developments from his actions at Viza; that is, it looks John is trying to reinforce the area to most likely try and relieve pressure on Calcutta as the naval force spotted last turn turns out to be a CL/DD bombardment force. He could also be trying to draw my naval bombers away from Calcutta so he can attempt a naval evacuation there. I think I can contain this fairly easily without needing to withdraw forces from my push on Calcutta. The Manchester Btn is wiped out from attrition this turn. I will simply reinforce my heavily fortified bases around Viza and isolate it.

Near Calcutta, I hit John's remnants from Rajshashi and manage to destroy three units (a couple artillery units and perhaps a base unit of some sort I think). My forces take more casualties than I thought they would given the disparities. North of Rajshashi, John's 2 tank division remnants are attempting to cross the river and link up with a 100 AV para assault division. 500 AV of allied tanks stand between the two of them with another 300 AV on the way. One tank division seems to be moving north and one towards my units' hex.

The units at Rajshashi are now have 0 fatigue and disruption. We move to put pressure on Calcutta. With the forces arrayed around it, we have 1700 AV at Howrah and 4000 AV to the east of Calcutta. This does not include the 800 AV pursuing John's broken tank divisions.

[image]https://i.imgur.com/hknWedE.png[/image]

On the sigint front, John is moving the Southern Army HQ to Rangoon.




paullus99 -> RE: November 6th, 1942 (3/6/2019 10:13:11 PM)

Since he hasn't been posting, it means he's really not happy with his position....and I don't blame him. You've got significant forces arrayed against him & he looks to be pretty badly out of position to deal with this force.

And once you've dealt with India proper, you'll have a very well experienced Army to continue the campaign into Burma (or other more interesting locales).




Anachro -> RE: November 6th, 1942 (3/6/2019 10:28:06 PM)

I think the Indian war has been fascinating and is due for some analysis on my part to see how he failed to achieve a win here in '42 given the enhancements Japan gets in this mod. I know many experienced players here state that India can be very hard to defend in '42 against an experienced Japanese player. I briefly picked up a PBEM once where the Japanese player had overrun eastern India with significant forces (DBB-C) and the previous player had lost so many troops that I could do nothing but hope to fall back all the way to Karachi and hope to hold it (my opponent opted not to continue because my RL workload meant I couldn't keep the pace he wanted, but I did managed to take back the South Pacific from him).

Based on a very quick memory jog, I think the reasons for John's failure/my success were, from most to least important:

1. John's decision to land at Viza in his initial invasion while also slowly moving up from Chittagong. This gave me time to make use of the rails to position and build up defenses accordingly. A much better option I think would have been to land directly at Bombay and move speedily to cut off my ability to reinforce and move around south. I was originally planning to do a line of defense much farther north of Calcutta if you look at my early posts.

2. Setting up the triangle strong point in my defense at Asanol, Jamshedpur, and Ranchi was absolutely pivotal to the defensive effort of my entire plan. John's failure to move on these quickly really hurt him. Once I had 3-4 level forts here it was almost impossible for him given that two of them were jungle forts. Moreover, all three of them could be built up to become significant air bases which really hampered and eventually destroyed his ability to dictate the air war here. With these bases so close to Calcutta, I could deploy my fighters in a way to really maintain more control than they otherwise would with their smaller range compared to Jap fighters. I really think this triangle is an important area of control for a Japanese/Allied player in India.

3. Sigint that gave me an early clue John planned to go for Ceylon/India, allowing me to start sending my reinforcements from the USA early.

4. John's stated preference for naval combat over land combat. I think he is probably less experienced here than others. More on a level similar to me.

5. My bombers, but really this point is subordinate to point 2 as without those they would lack the control of the air necessary to have a good effect. I actually think I'd be in a similar situation, even if I had no 4E bombers on me.

EDIT

My initial defensive plans before this offensive happened. This was after getting sigint that the Imperial Guards Division was planning for an attack on Viza, which turned out to be correct.

[image]https://i.imgur.com/oGQwWGV.jpg[/image]



Anachro -> RE: November 6th, 1942 (3/6/2019 10:33:23 PM)

I think Obvert or someone else stated as much in this thread regarding John's decision to land at Viza and what it potentially meant for the success of his offense.

EDIT

Here is Obvert's post. Quite prescient, I think.

[image]https://i.imgur.com/Vp9QAm6.png[/image]



Anachro -> November 7th, 1942 (3/7/2019 2:55:16 AM)

November 7th, 1942

John's either not posting his fighters on CAP or he has withdrawn them (I'll double check with recon), as my sweeps find nothing over Calcutta. In fact, my fighter sweeps over enemy units elsewhere and other bases also find no CAP. However, in both India and Australia, I have let John bomb away unhindered with some lightly escorted bombers and this day I decide to post some LRCAP to surprise. 29 Liz 4-engine bombers are downed for the day.

On the ground, the main action is my units pursuing John's shattered tank divisions. Over the course of the day, my bombers interdict his para assault division moving up to perhaps assist his tank divisions in crossing the river without a shock attack. The result is that that division still is a hex away when John's 1st Tank Division crosses the river and runs into 600 AV of Allied armor that it promptly tries to shock attack. The battle doesn't go so well for John. We will attack tomorrow while lightly bombing the other shattered tank division to the north. We will then split out forces and pursue both. I think severely degrading these two strong Japanese divisions is a nice little victory for the allies. John's para division appears to be moving back.

The real intriguing thing is John appears to be moving division sized forces east across land from Calcutta. Perhaps all his fighters are on LRCAP to support this retreat. Next turn, I'll focus my big bombers on this while moving my AV down to see what's up. At Howrah, John has 800 AV to my 1600, but he has heavy artillery, most likely forts, and it is a jungle hex. I'm not sure if I should attack.

[image]https://i.imgur.com/uTroETD.png[/image]




Anachro -> RE: November 7th, 1942 (3/7/2019 3:11:59 AM)

I just noticed something while putting my orders in. Sneaky John seems to be landing paras or something at dot hexes in northeastern Aussieland. Time to investigate.

[image]https://i.imgur.com/qLkT1zV.png[/image]



Anachro -> RE: November 7th, 1942 (3/7/2019 3:20:05 AM)

My sigint tipped me off. Interesting messages showing him relocating troops for defense. Then I saw tank regiments planning for Alice Springs and Charter Towers in Australia. At first I thought this might simply be psyops, but then when checking those bases, I saw the red dots and said to myself, "Wait a second..."

[image]https://i.imgur.com/TbNxudn.png[/image]



Anachro -> RE: November 7th, 1942 (3/9/2019 1:15:15 PM)

John has been spending the last two days remodeling his store and finally got it set for opening today. Hopefully, that means we get a turn today.



Canoerebel -> RE: November 7th, 1942 (3/9/2019 1:31:34 PM)

You'd get notices if paratroops were dropping on green dots, changing them to red. The only explanation is that an enemy ground unit entered that dot hex and it auto-flipped before the attack. You would've gotten a message to that effect near the start of the turn but it can be easy to overlook those amongst all the messages being generated and scrolling across your screen. You eyes might see "Winton" while your brain dismisses it because you've never heard of it and it therefore "can't be important."





Canoerebel -> RE: November 7th, 1942 (3/9/2019 1:32:28 PM)

P.S. John is a busy man, but he's never to busy to send turns when he's rolling and jazzed and into what's going on. :)



Anachro -> RE: November 7th, 1942 (3/9/2019 3:11:29 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

You'd get notices if paratroops were dropping on green dots, changing them to red. The only explanation is that an enemy ground unit entered that dot hex and it auto-flipped before the attack. You would've gotten a message to that effect near the start of the turn but it can be easy to overlook those amongst all the messages being generated and scrolling across your screen. You eyes might see "Winton" while your brain dismisses it because you've never heard of it and it therefore "can't be important."


Yeah I figured as much as after I posted that I remembered I'd probably get a message about the paras. Based on John's maneuvering of units in India undetected by recon, I'm guessing John has 1-2 armored regiments moving around the vast expanse of Australia. If that's the case, they are low on supply. He'd get around my bases undetected only by going into barren hexes around them. Or perhaps para landed in empty non-base hexes.

Anyways, I have units railing to Charter Towers as we speak.


quote:

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

P.S. John is a busy man, but he's never to busy to send turns when he's rolling and jazzed and into what's going on. :)


Yup, I think this is the case as well.



Canoerebel -> RE: November 7th, 1942 (3/9/2019 3:16:58 PM)

Paras can't land in non-base/dot hexes.

If you have a MItchell or B-24 squadron, set them to "Ground" mission and try to set them to various "empty" hexes all over the place. If the bomber doesn't accept the order for a particular hex, nothing is there. IF the bomber does accept the orders, something's there, even though you didn't know and can't see it.



Anachro -> November 8th, 1942 (3/10/2019 9:57:39 PM)

November 8th, 1942

Forgive me for being brief. I've been sick all week and was just getting better when I decided to get food poisoning last night. Haven't slept all night/day and am fighting a constant battle against dehydration.

The day is interesting, if only for the face that I begin the assault on Howrah, reducing the forts there from 4 to 3. Furthermore, I attack and cause additional damage to the Japanese 1st Tank Division. However, bad weather halts the majority of my bombers from flying, so I don't pound the troops moving east of Calcuutta as planned. Calcutta has a small garrison, and Jessore has no garrison at all.

[image]https://i.imgur.com/49fU2PK.jpg[/image]

In Australia, we find a roving enemy tank unit at Winton.

[image]https://i.imgur.com/tEBULac.jpg[/image]




Anachro -> November 9th, 1942 (3/13/2019 4:37:52 PM)

November 9th, 1942

It's been a couple of days since I heard from John. Conscious of Canoerebel's words, I simply waited. Finally got a response and the next turn today with these words from John.

quote:

I put in over 55 hours from Thurs-Tues. Dead TIRED! Things are now lightening up. WE have a true blizzard coming in so I might actually be able to close the store and take a true day off. Our prediction is for 9-14” of snow on top of nearly 1.5” of rain. This will be serious moisture that we have been lacking.


I don't know if I can flip turns today. Anyways, as for the turn itself. My troops attack Howrah and while they fail to bring the forts down and a unit is destroyed (the Canadian Ranger Battalion), the Japanese troops suffer more casualties and are clearly in retreat. It is also clear that John is evacuating Calcutta entirely, as there is no garrison there and his 2 divisions at Howrah are facing encirclement and destruction as they retreat. They seem to be trying to do a holding action while the rest of his forces move south. However, John has two divisions near Jessore trying to cross a river in territory without any roads or rails that are suffering strong attack from my bombers in the air while 2,000 AV of my forces racing to meet them in the south. Bombing alone, I inflict 1,000 casualties for the day on these divisions. I doubt I destroy thesm, but I have a good chance of causing good damage over the course of their retreat.

Transports or cruisers seem headed for Viza. We'll see if my bombers can reach them.

[image]https://i.imgur.com/scAu8Al.jpg[/image]

In Australia, my forces sport the raiding Japanese forces and my bombers hammer one of John's tank regiments. Most of the tanks in it are knocked out over the course of the day. Another roving Japanese unit seems to have stumbled on 250 AV of Australian forces. We'll see what tomorrow brings.

[image]https://i.imgur.com/cqdzZU5.png[/image]



Lecivius -> RE: November 9th, 1942 (3/13/2019 4:56:04 PM)

It is snowing here...big time. And about time, too. Everyting, everywhere is closing down, so John should be at home turning like crazy [;)]



Anachro -> RE: November 9th, 1942 (3/13/2019 6:42:45 PM)

The 2nd Sasebo previously shown preparing for assault on Christmas Island is now moving to Canton Island, along with the 12th Division. They both might be used by John in some sort of late '42/early '43 amphibious assault. Will be interesting to see if he actually moves on these islands. They could already be on their way towards them.

[image]https://i.imgur.com/JZ9ZuyC.jpg[/image]



witpqs -> RE: November 9th, 1942 (3/13/2019 6:50:26 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Lecivius

It is snowing here...big time. And about time, too. Everyting, everywhere is closing down, so John should be at home turning like crazy [;)]

A friend just flew in there last night to take her son on college visits... all canceled! [:(]



Bif1961 -> RE: November 9th, 1942 (3/13/2019 7:08:10 PM)

Was it Lori Loughlin? [:D][:D]



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