Canoerebel
Posts: 21100
Joined: 12/14/2002 From: Northwestern Georgia, USA Status: offline
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4/5/43 Battle of Sumatra: Is John decoying as a prelude to invading Sabang and/or Langsa? Events on the map and the tone of his most recent email makes me wonder. On the west side of the island, four Japanese units are now present in the 1st Marines hex. Only, these aren't four divisions, they are one whole division and another division broken up into A/B/C sub-units. And there do not appear to be additional units in the hex to the rear. This force shouldn't be enough to pose a credible threat on the west side of the island unless and until they are significantly reinforced. John's two divisions bombard, so he knows exactly what I have. More imporantly, the Allied units are fully supplied. What about the two units to the rear? I think 18th UK Div. will back up a hex and dig in amongst jungle-rough terrain. It's only 130 AV, so not a major force. The other unit, a US RCT, will return to Sabang. Over on the east side, John still hasn't advanced a stack to threaten the Allied strongpoint between Medan and Langsa. He has alot of units at Medan, so he can move into this hex quickly. But I've switched a USA division at Langsa to Strat mode just in case it needs to rail to Sabang. Enemy air focuses mainly on 1st Marines and 18th UK, doing almost no damage. I think, but I'm not positive, that the air strikes included KB's Jills. The mass came from the west and in flew in cohesive numbers las though carrier-borne, but there's a chance they were based at Sinabang. SWPac: More enemy activity in the islands around Milne Bay and SigInt shows a base force inbound to Ocean Island, supplementing a nav guard unit heading that way per SigInt a few days back. So John is focusing on this flank, pretty far out, but there have been no SigInt reports in recent months of activity at New Britain, Admiralties, New Guinea and the Java region. Allied Plans: There's been alot of behind-the-scenes work going on for the past three months, which new readers may not be aware of. When we first resumed the game on January 3, 1943, it took me a couple of weeks to really get a handle on what was where and why (the result of a 2+ year hiatus in playing). by late January, the Allies had identified the next major target, but I didn't reveal anything more than that it would come out of SWPac. By late January, the Allies began switching prep on units, including 6th, 7th and 9th Australian Divisions, which at the time were mired down in a tough battle deep inside Burma (6th and 7th) or in the Arabian Sea and tentatively bound to serve as theater reserve in India (9th). Simultaneously, I changed the prep for 1st through 4th Australian Divisions, which are in Oz and restrictied, but which can be purchased for considerably less than an American division. I think all of these units are now 100% prepped, though I am not yet fully committed to the prep destinations. I do have preferences (hence the prepping), but there are also the second and third choices, in case John's reinforcement activity poses any problems in the next two months. At the same time, I had to get ships to the right pre-invasion ports, work on supply and fuel, etc. Right now, Oz has far more fuel and supplies than any point in this game. Enough to handle all offensive activity through the next campaign and probably into the autumn months. So while most of the combat action and AAR activity for the past three months has focused almost exlusively on Sumatra, there's been a great deal of work going into the next phase of the war.
< Message edited by Canoerebel -- 2/22/2016 6:42:51 PM >
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