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ADavidB -> One Month at War - a Summary (ZonkerH vs ADavidB) (1/15/2005 12:49:30 AM)
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ZonkerH and I are playing a scenario 15 game. We started at v1.40, with both sub doctrines off, a non-historical start, and surprise on. I agreed that I wouldn’t move my forces during the first turn with the exception of my task forces already at sea. We have now completed the first game month and I thought that I would share some of my observations.
First off, in general the game has been reasonably well behaved. Sure, I get the occasional CTD after I do a save, but never when I am finishing a turn. I’ve also noticed the occasional “ghost” unit appear, but they haven’t impacted anything. Movement in China continues to be a bit of a chancy thing, but I am slowly getting used to being very explicit in my movement orders so that isn’t hampering me too much.
As expected, Zonker hammered my forces in Hawaii pretty hard. He also did something that I haven’t seen happen before – he got a second strike off against the port. He did it by a very cleaver approach – he left a third of his air forces on “naval attack – port attack alternate”, just in case I sent my carriers to Hawaiian waters to try to catch him by surprise.
I then made one mistake that I’ve learned from – as I sent my ships scurrying away, I set the float planes on my cruiser/destroyer force to “naval attack/search” instead of “ASW”. This meant that the next turn, because Zonker had sent the KB west towards Johnston Island, and my cruisers were sailing S/SW away from Pearl Harbour, the float planes from the cruisers tried to attack the KB. As Zonker wrote afterwards, it would have been “embarrassing” if one of those bi-planes dropped a bomb on a flight deck, however his CAP shot them all down, and in response his naval air attack forces sank several of my cruisers and destroyers and damaged the rest. If I had set those search planes to ASW they might not have alerted the KB to the presence of my TF.
With the KB sailing slowly westwards, I didn’t bother to try to defend Makin and Tarawa, so Zonker took them without bother. Subsequently the rest of the Eastern Pacific stayed fairly quiet with the exception of a few of Zonker’s subs that attempted to interdict my shipping lanes.
The Philippines were also hit hard. Zonker took the usual approach of having CVLs sail along the western as well as the eastern coasts of the Philippines, so my fleeing task forces were hammered fairly well. He also captured Davao and Cagayan quickly which allowed him to set up air interdiction in that area. I wasn’t able to interfere with Zonker’s attacks on Davao and Cagayan because he has taken a very systematic approach to his invasions in the Philippines and the D.E.I – he covers each invasion with both air cover and surface forces.
I was able to surprise Zonker once with a surface combat force when he forgot to leave a covering force while an invasion force was unloading, but since his troops were already ashore, I was only able to sink his transports and not stop the invasion. The other time I was able to surprise him was in the Banda Sea, when he was a bit careless with one of his CVLs and I was able to sneak a carrier TF right up next to it without being seen and sink his carrier without any damage to my TF. But now that Zonker has seen that trick, he is more cautious and has reinforced that region.
Zonker has used a similar approach to taking Malaya. He maintains a force advantage at each location he attacks, and he uses Zeros to prevent my combat air from interfering with him. He now has me pinning in Singapore and there is no way that I can either bring in reinforcements or supplies. Zonker has moved in a similarly systematically manner in Luzon. I still hold Naga, Manila and Bataan, but there is no way to reinforce them, and more importantly no way to re-supply them. So Zonker is slowly depleting my supplies through bombardment attacks and air attacks.
Since we have both submarine doctrines off, I have used my subs very aggressively most everywhere. Zonker has used his ASW forces equally aggressively and has sunk a number of my subs. I’m willing to accept this trade off because although Zonker’s ASW forces are causing me losses, they are more importantly spending time hunting subs rather than doing “fast transport” attacks. Also, my old, short-ranged subs will become less useful as the distances they need to travel increase. And yes, my subs have scored few hits which are always a bonus.
In China Zonker has attacked at two locations – Yenen and Changsha. Zonker just took Changsha a couple of game-days ago, and I’m still holding Yenen, although Zonker is trying to manoeuvre to be able to cut off my troops there. One odd thing that I’ve noticed in these Chinese battles is that the HQs tend to take the bulk of the casualties. So after a while I end up with HQs with all the support troops damaged. This seems a very strange model to me – I would expect that the front line combat troops would take casualties first.
I’ve let Zonker move pretty much at will in the Solomons. He took Rabaul fairly quickly by using overwhelming force and also by dropping off forces to cut off any possible escape by my troops. I had considered interfering with that invasion by means of the carrier TF that eventually sank his CVL in the Banda Sea, but I decided that it was too hard to sustain any operations in the Solomons at this time, and I also didn’t know where the KB was. So therefore (and eventually fortunately), I sent that carrier TF off to Western Australia and its “small victory”.
Subsequently, Zonker also went after and took Shortlands and Lunga unopposed, well ahead of the historical schedule. Again, this was part of the decision I had to make about where to take a stand. Sure, Zonker didn’t use a lot of force in these two invasions, and most of his major forces are still in the PI/DEI area, but I didn’t want to risk my limited strength in a region where I can’t realistically sustain operations at this time.
This points out an important aspect of the Allied limitations in the first few months of the War – effectively, any useful Allied forces are a long ways from the front lines, and more importantly, absolutely essential supplies are an equally long way from the front lines, and move forward much more slowly. It is too easy to “out run” your supply lines at this stage of the game. Equally important is the fact that most of the Allied transport capacity is a long ways from where the supplies sit, and must be moved back quickly and carefully to avoid enemy operations, so to eventually be in a position to start to supply future Allied operations.
In light of the AARs that have documented invasions of India, I have been very conservative there and am trying to plan strategies that I believe will be able to thwart any serious invasions. As part of this I have been deliberately trying to conserve forces and maintain a mobile reserve. This has in particular involved trying to conserve air power. It is too easy at this point for Zonker to overwhelm my air forces if I allow him to attack them piecemeal. So I am attempting to build up strength in order to be able to respond to future serious attacks with significant localized force of my own. The Allied aircraft might not be the greatest planes on the map, but a hundred of them at one time and one place in the air will cause casualties in any Japanese force. The key is to not let Zonker get 3 or 4 to 1 local air superiority.
So as we go into the second month of the War, I continue to “lick my wounds” and to try to provide an elastic defence of my territories. Probably Zonker’s most worrying move at this point is his early foray into the Eastern Solomons, and its potential for eventually cutting the supply lines between North America and Australia. I will have to keep an eye on that area. I will also continue to try to take advantage of any slip-ups by Zonker, and I may well be able to surprise him again from time-to-time.
Dave Baranyi
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