JocMeister
Posts: 8262
Joined: 7/29/2009 From: Sweden Status: offline
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ORIGINAL: Canoerebel Joc, I'm only reading sporadically and have missed alot of what's happening, so forgive me if what I'm about to say is obvious or has already been covered. I've defended India before against massive invasions and I've defended North America under the same circumstances. So I offer a few comments just in case they are useful. 1. It's late April 1942, so still early enough that Japan can run amock and it's difficult for you to effectively parry at this point. As somebody noted just above regarding India (and really applying all over), by late summer 1942 the equation changes dramatically. 2. By September, Japan will have a very hard time defending in India. The Allies are growing so strong by then - at least by land and usually by air - that a big land campaign in India is bad news, especially into autumn. So the real threat is from now through late summer. It's pretty late already for Lowpe to come for India, but watch your back door. India is a waste of time for him unless Bombay or Karachi is the target. Calcutta isn't important compared to those two places. So if there's any risk of him coming around your back side with 10 or 20 divisions now or after China falls, watch out. That's very unlikely, but don't take any chances. In fact, are you sure you want to risk having 3k troops bottled up in Calcutta? What if he besieges the city, cuts off every route of retreat, and then brings in a stout army? Defending Calcutta might be a good idea - analagous to a Guadalcanal - in the right circumstances, but not if the Japanese overrun the island and wipe ot the 1st Marines. 3. By early summer '42, I seem to recall that Allied airpower in CONUS was growing pretty doggone massive. I took some strat losses in the air campaign, but it became very costly for my opponent. I had been able to bring in some air groups from Hawaii via xAK before the CONUS campaign began. How do you think your fighter defenses will look into late May and June? Unless I'm missing something, I think Lowpe's going to find himself holding a "tar baby" (something stuck too his hands that he can't shake loose of to his regret) by summer. 4. Japan should continue building it's Victory Point ratio into the summer, but as summer wanes the ratio should begin to decline, with the trend accelerating the autumn. Probably the biggest risk to you is one-sided losses in big carrier battles. So protect the fleet. I think by mid- to late summer, the air war should be far from the 4:1 or more that he wants. 5. You're probably already doing this, but on occasion, make notes of the VP ratio and see how it changes on a weekly or bi-weekly basis. By mid- to late summer you should notice some encouraging trending in your favor. Good luck! Thanks for dropping by CR. 1. Indeed. And given the Japanese commitment in NORPAC I think the Indian operation might be a little more then the Japanese can take. 2. This is currently my greatest concern. Iīm not really worried about a landing behind my back as the KB and the majority of the IJA is in NORPAC. But as you point out Iīm extremely worried about being besieged and cut off in Calcutta. Iīm still unsure if Jeff has brought enough to be a credible threat though. He has to be pretty thin on troops by now. 3. Well, since I lost PH all those squadrons are now sitting nicely on the WC. My real bottleneck is planes and decent pilots. I donīt see things looking much better in this regard until perhaps September when the P40K kick into production. I do get some P39s and P38 (WC restricted) squadrons arriving in 2 months. But they only arrive with 6 planes each. So my philosophy will be to continue to rely mostly on AA for defense. At least while the KB is around. If KB leaves I can probably be more aggressive here. I have 250 Fighters with decent pilots ready to jump on any opportunity. 4 and 5. Iīm keeping a close eye on VPs. Mainly my own. I can only compare to my earlier games but so far Iīm doing much, much better then usual. This is mostly due to heavy Japanese air losses which is already nearing 2000 and a 2:1 allied advantage. Very good for late April I think. Iīm still fairly confident I can avoid AV.
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