Canoerebel
Posts: 21100
Joined: 12/14/2002
From: Northwestern Georgia, USA
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Sumatra Campaign
There is a fitting line in one of the Lord of the Rings movies: "Here at tthe end of all things."
Indeed, the Allied position at Sumatra will fall within the week. John has earned the right to celebrate his victory. He will (and probably already has) posted in detail what's going on, so I probably don't need to go into great detail as to what's there and the like. Yet, if I'm going to take pleasure in reporting my victories, fairness demands that I disclose my defeats.
You already know that the Allied army in Sumatra is immense. It was built around seven divisions: one Indian, 18th UK, 1st Marines, and four USA (27th, Americal, and two in the "30s"). These were reinforced by elements of two marine regiments, a few parachute fragments, some tank units and combat engineers, and a few arty units. There is also a massive amount of support, including AA, base force personnel, and HQ units including some US airforce commands and SWPac.
I haven't counted troops, but this army might be 100k to 150k. At the same time, it has been whittled through fighting and campaigning over the past seven months. I turned off replacements long ago as supply was my limiting factor. So most of the divisions are now at half strength or less. Americal (broken into it's three RCT) is nearly full strength. But 18th UK, for instance, is 118 AV, and 1st Marine is 222 AV (and neither unit has a single disabled squad, so that's a true number).
In the real war, of course, losing an army like this would be unacceptable. You couldn't do it nor could you expound on the "silver linings." Fortunately for me, this is a game and I get to continue. That's good, because I'm having the most fun imaginable.
Could the Allies have succeeded? Yes. They held for seven months against everything John could throw at them (he controlled the air since early January and the sea since mid February). It's not hard to come up with scenarios in which the Allied army could have fought much longer (given 100k more supply, I wouldn't have turned off renforcements, so my army might have been 2.5k instead of 1.5k, etc.) or sent in relief convoys, etc. We'd have been fighting into mid summer or later, so the Death Star would have been substantial enough for the Allies to force reinforcements and supply in.
The biggest thing I did wrong was to enter the game (and the campaign) not having a real clue as to how Allied fighter pools worked. With modestly highter replacement rates the Allied invasion probably would have succeeded. The second biggest thing I did wrong was to not establish at least one very strong base in the Nicobars. And there are lots of other things too (not bringing in CD guns, etc.)
There were lots of things I did right, too, commencing with achieving total suprise, bringing the kitchen sink, and fighting a very tough defensive campaign. The strongest evidence of that is the seven month duration.
And that's probably the strongest evidence that John didn't do some things right. I still think he should have risked an invasion of Sabang or Langsa months ago to stop the "time and resource suck" that this campaign became for him.
But this isn't a time to focus on what went wrong for him. He's justified in taking well-earned satisfaction in vanquishing a massive Allied army. To the victor go the laurels.
And what happens now? Does he begin working on his defensive network since it's mid 1943 and since the Allies are showing signs of aggression? Or is he emboldened to take action against Ceylon, NE India, SW Oz, or some other place? (The absence of KB in the first two places suggest he won't move there).
Two predictions I will make: (1) after Sabang falls, John will post words to this effect in his AAR: "Thank goodness. Now I can focus on prosecuting the war;" and (2) he will send me an email with words to this effect: "Thank goodness that's over with. It was a very tight thing. If you had just done x, y, and z, I would've been toast." :)
Bottom line: What fun!
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