Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: JocMeister

Not only am I powerless to stop him but these are permanent VPs. Unlike base VPs I can´t take these back...very clever move. Not seen this before!

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ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

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ORIGINAL: JocMeister

Not only am I powerless to stop him but these are permanent VPs. Unlike base VPs I can´t take these back...very clever move. Not seen this before!

Is it too early for me to claim indirect credit?

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ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

quote:

ORIGINAL: JocMeister

Not only am I powerless to stop him but these are permanent VPs. Unlike base VPs I can´t take these back...very clever move. Not seen this before!

Is it too early for me to claim indirect credit?

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ORIGINAL: mind_messing

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ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

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ORIGINAL: JocMeister

Not only am I powerless to stop him but these are permanent VPs. Unlike base VPs I can´t take these back...very clever move. Not seen this before!

Is it too early for me to claim indirect credit?

It's a smart move, though I wonder why more Japanese players haven't did this before. What chase ship VP's that can escape when you can hit a nice big juicy static target for oodles of VP's?

It's confirming my view that house rules smother strategic and tatical creativity. I wouldn't have thought of it, seeing as my past PBEM's have had restrictions on strategic bombing.

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ORIGINAL: Sangeli

Well I'll give some advice on China since I have found that I am rather good at managing this beast:

Losing Sian and the region to the south and east of it is not nearly as debilitating as you have implied. Sian and Yenan have some industry but it's not very significant. On the other hand, there is a bottleneck on the road to Chungking that spans over 3x terrain at multiple places. You have plenty of time to establishing an unbreakable roadblock with 1200-1500 AV dug in somewhere on that road. Having 1000 or so AV in reserve and/or on the flanks can make it near unflankable. Also anything north-west of Sian is basically irrelevant in my book; there is no real need to keep the far NW in contact with the rest of China. If he wants to march his units thousands of miles to capture useless bases go let him.

In the south I highly recommend active reconnaissance by splitting up some of those corps (be sure upgrade is OFF when this is done so you can rebuild the unit later without issue) and sending them in the direction of the Japanese positions to get a better idea what's going on there. Maybe even bombard a few bases there to get AV values but be sure to do this safely (don't get routed trying to scout a base with 1000 AV). But in the end pull back to form some sort of outpost defense along the key routes. In turn this will allow you to free up your units guarding key defensive hexes and put into operational and strategic reserve. Should the Japanese try to make a move towards those hexes your outposts will detect movement and allow you to position reserves to secure those hexes before the Japanese can reach them. It requires more micro-management to do so but active reconnaissance and forward outputs will simultaneously keep your opponent off guard (he doesn't know what your plans are and may react to probing) and will alert you to Japanese movements and troop concentrations before they can pose a true and imminent threat.

So really the Chinese situation isn't all that bad right now. Frankly I would be surprised if you are unable to stop him in the north once you consolidate your lines a bit and pull back. And luckily for you disengaging from the Sian front for the Japanese and repositioning the units further south will take weeks because of the lack of usable railways.

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ORIGINAL: Spidery

Some thoughts from my experience of taking China against MrKane.

My drive in the North run out of steam against 3 good Corps in the hex East of Kienko. It was very difficult getting supply to my troops and I couldn't break through. The river to the North prevented bypassing.

Attacking through the woods South of that didn't work well because even when I took a hex on the edge of the central plains I couldn't move out from the woods as moving from a low SL hex to a high one would mean the Chinese could mass against me.

I couldn't break through at Chihkiang but was making some progress through the woods at Patung. However, the main breakthrough was in the South and once Kweiyang and the river crossing between it and Tuyun fell China collapsed. The breakthrough was achieved through a mix of infiltration round the end of the river and use of the tank divisions.

I suggest you look at getting a small unit to 72,50, the mountain hex SW of Kweiyang, where the roads are broken by the river. Armour can use the road to move fairly quickly across the river and unhinge the defenses between Kweiyang and Kunming.

I also suggest fortifying and defending Chengtu as well as Chungking. Both need to be taken to prevent Chinese reinforcements. If you can hold Chengtu for long enough you can support it with P-38G and Wellingtons from Ledo and use an air bridge to fly in supply.

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ORIGINAL: JeffK

Shouldnt you have 50-100 B17's which should be able to annoy the KB, even of it only makes him more careful.

If they are on Hawaii still, its only 3-4 steps to fly them in.

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ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

Can't be said often enough--AV is not a metric that means anything in China. You have no air, no arty, no AT. Look at the anti-armor rating of your peasant infantry. Forts hold a few days against tanks at best. Then you've got the worst routing casualties of any nation in the game.

You said it yourself above: you're too many places with not enough butter to cover the bread. Changsha looks nice due to the supply generation, but it's Out There and can be encircled easily and rapidly on roads tanks love.

The fuel from up north is vulnerable at multiple points on the long, long road to Chungking and Changsha. It's not tenable to count on it.

Build forts at Chungking as high as you can, pull back, and get ready for the now-obligatory Great Siege. Figure out how to survive the thousands of VPs he will get when it falls. Hold as long as you can, but make other plans. China can't be defended.

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ORIGINAL: JocMeister

Not sure about defending Changsha though. With a SL of only 160k and the respawning/arrivals there I can end up massively overstacking causing major DIS among the units.

Anyone has experience with that?

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ORIGINAL: HansBolter
They may well have a higher total AV on turn 20 than they did on turn 1 (discounting actual combat loses of course).

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ORIGINAL: JocMeister

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ORIGINAL: HansBolter
They may well have a higher total AV on turn 20 than they did on turn 1 (discounting actual combat loses of course).

Thats actually what I wanted to check. I´m pretty sure I´m down possibly as much as by 50% from the starting AV.

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ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

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ORIGINAL: JocMeister

Not sure about defending Changsha though. With a SL of only 160k and the respawning/arrivals there I can end up massively overstacking causing major DIS among the units.

Anyone has experience with that?

Do you mean Chungking? I assume you do given use of "respawning."

SL maps, as we've discussed in PM I think, don't account for the resurrection rule at Chungking. A big negative for SLs IMO. I don't have a good answer. At Chungking you get dozens of resurrected corps, but at 1/3 TOE, and then with no supply so they're 25% of THAT AV. Crap. Add disruption too and they're crap squared.

BUT, he can do it to you himself. Just hex-surround Chungking and kill everything in the bush. It resurrects on plan and you can't get out of the city anyway. It's not in your control either way. Live with SLs, die with SLs, at least in China.

"Fixing" China has been discussed for years with various levers proposed. I personally think a bit more free organic supply in more cities, with steeper garrison reqs for both sides would go a long way to keeping the war to the east and south. Garrison reqs for Japan ought to be back-breaking in the west (Reds), and operating heavy mechanized forces through the Himalayas is just crazy. How you prevent that with pwhex files I don't know. Probably can't. But making more Japanese troops be tied to the big cities would go a long way to preventing the Great Siege all JFBs have learned to pursue.

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ORIGINAL: obvert

The extra supply would be the real key though. It's just tough. I see it pretty clearly on this side, and I certainly know what to do on the other side after two games as Japan.

The SL help, and stall the progress a bit, but i's not quite enough.

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ORIGINAL: obvert

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ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

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ORIGINAL: JocMeister

Not sure about defending Changsha though. With a SL of only 160k and the respawning/arrivals there I can end up massively overstacking causing major DIS among the units.

Anyone has experience with that?

Do you mean Chungking? I assume you do given use of "respawning."

SL maps, as we've discussed in PM I think, don't account for the resurrection rule at Chungking. A big negative for SLs IMO. I don't have a good answer. At Chungking you get dozens of resurrected corps, but at 1/3 TOE, and then with no supply so they're 25% of THAT AV. Crap. Add disruption too and they're crap squared.

BUT, he can do it to you himself. Just hex-surround Chungking and kill everything in the bush. It resurrects on plan and you can't get out of the city anyway. It's not in your control either way. Live with SLs, die with SLs, at least in China.

"Fixing" China has been discussed for years with various levers proposed. I personally think a bit more free organic supply in more cities, with steeper garrison reqs for both sides would go a long way to keeping the war to the east and south. Garrison reqs for Japan ought to be back-breaking in the west (Reds), and operating heavy mechanized forces through the Himalayas is just crazy. How you prevent that with pwhex files I don't know. Probably can't. But making more Japanese troops be tied to the big cities would go a long way to preventing the Great Siege all JFBs have learned to pursue.

I think DBB made a gnarly road map for China that addresses some of the movement concerns, especially for armor. This should also mean it's tougher for those Japanese bombardments to keep rolling turn after turn if their LOC was more difficult. I think there are more bases too with more garrison needs as you say.

The extra supply would be the real key though. It's just tough. I see it pretty clearly on this side, and I certainly know what to do on the other side after two games as Japan.

The SL help, and stall the progress a bit, but i's not quite enough.

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ORIGINAL: JocMeister

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ORIGINAL: JeffK

Shouldnt you have 50-100 B17's which should be able to annoy the KB, even of it only makes him more careful.

If they are on Hawaii still, its only 3-4 steps to fly them in.

A little bit early for that. I have 32 unrestricted B17-Es and 7 "Ds". Still need about 4-6 weeks of training before I can get the "E"s into combat. Also have to get AS to OZ before I can stage them there. Already short on AS there!

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ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

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ORIGINAL: obvert

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ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

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ORIGINAL: JocMeister

Not sure about defending Changsha though. With a SL of only 160k and the respawning/arrivals there I can end up massively overstacking causing major DIS among the units.

Anyone has experience with that?

Do you mean Chungking? I assume you do given use of "respawning."

SL maps, as we've discussed in PM I think, don't account for the resurrection rule at Chungking. A big negative for SLs IMO. I don't have a good answer. At Chungking you get dozens of resurrected corps, but at 1/3 TOE, and then with no supply so they're 25% of THAT AV. Crap. Add disruption too and they're crap squared.

BUT, he can do it to you himself. Just hex-surround Chungking and kill everything in the bush. It resurrects on plan and you can't get out of the city anyway. It's not in your control either way. Live with SLs, die with SLs, at least in China.

"Fixing" China has been discussed for years with various levers proposed. I personally think a bit more free organic supply in more cities, with steeper garrison reqs for both sides would go a long way to keeping the war to the east and south. Garrison reqs for Japan ought to be back-breaking in the west (Reds), and operating heavy mechanized forces through the Himalayas is just crazy. How you prevent that with pwhex files I don't know. Probably can't. But making more Japanese troops be tied to the big cities would go a long way to preventing the Great Siege all JFBs have learned to pursue.

I think DBB made a gnarly road map for China that addresses some of the movement concerns, especially for armor. This should also mean it's tougher for those Japanese bombardments to keep rolling turn after turn if their LOC was more difficult. I think there are more bases too with more garrison needs as you say.

The extra supply would be the real key though. It's just tough. I see it pretty clearly on this side, and I certainly know what to do on the other side after two games as Japan.

The SL help, and stall the progress a bit, but i's not quite enough.

DBB is my next mountain to climb. I haven't paid that much attention to map discussions on it, but more on the engineers and sealift.

The Himalayas cut both ways of course, and I plan to shove a bunch of mechanized through there by and by if I'm able. But that long, yellow road to Paoshan isn't tank-friendly on a fuel or parts basis.

Symon had an interesting thread on "fixing" China in the mod forum,, but it seems to have petered out. I recall his research showed China was nowhere near as naked on armament industries as in the game. Also, the "triangle" war between Japan, the Nationalists and the Reds isn't really in the game, but was really, really important, especially in Mao's areas in the west. If Japan had tried to take down those big western cities they would have died the death of a thousand cuts from partisans. That's not in the game. I am a big proponent of using garrisons to bend the situation as much as supply. Garrison reqs give the player the choice of ignoring them at their cost. I also would up the Chinese garrison reqs here and there to hold some forces out of the countryside and maintain a shred of trust with the civilian population. But they need food and clothes organically to stay in the cities. At least a trickle.

And as I said, SLs are fine except at Chungking. That rule is in the EXE and can't be bypassed. I picture a chicken coop barred shut, and the farmer dropping chickens into it through a hole in the roof until there are six feet of chickens inside. Then his evil neighbor lobbing grenades down the hole. That's Chungking with SLs and total hexside control. You can't get out, more keep coming, and the chicken depth is a pretty big disruption factor. IOW, a mess.

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I´m hoping to put a fighting withdrawal along that road. Its interesting that you say supply stopped you. I have never (that I can remember) seen the Japanese in China suffer from supply problems? If I remember correctly Erik broke through to the Chunking basin without a single road access. He just walked through the woods. Tom seems equally nonchalant about supply and is marching 2 IDs + 1 armor RGT straight through the woods toward Changsha.

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Also a bit perplexed about your opponent being able to make a stand in the clear hexes west of the woods? Standing in the open you should be able to inflict a minimum of 1500-2000 casualties per turn by bombing from the air? His DIS should be in the 80s region within a week and supply should be mostly gone by then?

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I´ll give some thoughts to holding Chengtu. Not sure if something has changed in one of the later BETAs but maintaining an air bridge proved impossible in my earlier games. The transports suffered massive OPS losses even with trained pilots and 70% rest. One my game with Erik ended C-47s had suffered over 900 OPS losses flying mostly from level 9 AF to level 9 AF (India - Burma)

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ORIGINAL: GreyJoy
IMHO, with SLs China is more than defendable as it is right now (at least in DBB).
Against Mr.Kane (who is clearly a good and competent japanese player) i managed to stall him by mid 1943. Sure i lost Sian and the Changsha basin but that was all. After several months of bloody battles he simply decided it was not worth and abbandoned the idea of getting to the Chungking plains. Obviously to do that you must attack him somewhere else, so that the japanese best units are pressed to be called elsewhere, along with all the supplies, planes etc that an "all-out-china" japanese strategy needs.

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ORIGINAL: Lokasenna
Tracker.

LCUs.

Filter for Chinese.

Filter for Active.

Export to CSV.

Open in Excel, sum the column for AV.

Done .

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ORIGINAL: JocMeister

I would say you are quite misinformed about Japanese air power hitting large Chinese formations. I can assure you that the effect is quite spectacular. A clear hex is a death sentence for any Chinese troops.