Slitherine

quote:

ORIGINAL: LargeSlowTarget

I need new dice as well!

Sorry for hijacking, but the game IS BORKED INDEED, and I'm close to give it up (although probably not forever).

Cross-posting from my AAR:

Got the latest turn in my PBEM this morning. This time I'm close to rage-quit this USELESS TIME VAMPIRE OF A GAME.

Launched another deliberate at Chungking.

That city is surrounded and cut-off.

Yes, it's good defensive terrain with forts build-up to level 6.

However, it has been bombed and bombarded almost daily for many months by what I consider is a respectable concentration of air power and arty.

The defenders should be out of supplies, punch drunk and demoralized.

They have no tanks, they have no AT weapons to speak of, they have little arty, they are outnumbered.

Yet they have withstood one deliberate attacks a couple of weeks ago - with attacking forces tailored to match the stacking limit - with heavy losses to the attackers but at least a fort reduction to level 5 to show for.

This time I amassed forces totaling 260k hex troop level (limit is 160k).

There are lots tanks, there are lots of engineers, there are supplies.

All attacking units are 100% prepped, including four Corps HQs in situ and a Command HQ in range.

Results:

quote:



Ground combat at Chungking (76,45)

Japanese Deliberate attack

Attacking force 195905 troops, 1869 guns, 1724 vehicles, Assault Value = 5788

Defending force 139877 troops, 509 guns, 0 vehicles, Assault Value = 3663

Japanese adjusted assault: 2313

Allied adjusted defense: 9109

Japanese assault odds: 1 to 3 (fort level 5)

Combat modifiers
Defender: terrain(+), forts(+), leaders(+), experience(-), supply(-)
Attacker:

Japanese ground losses:
57848 casualties reported
Squads: 1197 destroyed, 2485 disabled
Non Combat: 356 destroyed, 862 disabled
Engineers: 490 destroyed, 206 disabled
Guns lost 422 (111 destroyed, 311 disabled)
Vehicles lost 553 (170 destroyed, 383 disabled)
Units destroyed 3

Allied ground losses:
2938 casualties reported
Squads: 21 destroyed, 96 disabled
Non Combat: 9 destroyed, 63 disabled
Engineers: 1 destroyed, 4 disabled
Guns lost 30 (1 destroyed, 29 disabled)

Assaulting units:
110th Division
3rd Ind Engineer Regiment
19th Ind Engineer Regiment
15th Tank Regiment
37th Division
3rd Tank Regiment
3rd Tank Division
35th Division
22nd Ind Engineer Regiment
1st Cavalry Brigade
20th Ind Engineer Regiment
41st Division
30th Ind Engineer Regiment
24th Ind Engineer Regiment
23rd Tank Regiment
38th Ind Engineer Regiment
12th Tank Regiment
15th Division
2nd Ind.Mixed Brigade
70th Division
21st Ind Engineer Regiment
26th Division
9th Ind.Mixed Brigade
19th Tank Regiment
13th Division
8th Ind Engineer Regiment
11th Tank Regiment
116th Division
8th Ind.Mixed Brigade
7th Ind.Mixed Brigade
23rd Ind Engineer Regiment
9th Tank Regiment
1st Ind Engineer Regiment
25th Ind Engineer Regiment
7th Ind Engineer Regiment
69th Division
3rd Division
39th Ind Engineer Regiment
2nd Ind. Mountain Gun Regiment
5th Medium Field Artillery Regiment
12th Ind.Hvy.Art Battalion
11th Army
51st Ind.Mtn.Gun Battalion
1st Army
9th Medium Field Artillery Regiment
15th Ind.Medium Field Artillery Regiment
Tonei Hvy Gun Regiment
1st Mortar Battalion
4th Mortar Battalion
3rd Hvy.Artillery Regiment
6th Medium Field Artillery Regiment
10th Medium Field Artillery Regiment
2nd Ind. Field Artillery Regiment
11th Ind.Hvy.Art Battalion
Mongol Garrison Army
11th Ind.Art.Mortar Battalion
7th Ind.Hvy.Art. Battalion
12th Army
12th Ind.Art.Mortar Battalion
13th Ind.Art.Mortar Battalion
8th Ind.Hvy.Art. Battalion
6th Ind.Hvy.Art. Battalion
4th Ind.Hvy.Art. Battalion
52nd Ind.Mtn.Gun Battalion
14th Medium Field Artillery Regiment
4th Medium Field Artillery Regiment
13th Ind.Hvy.Art Battalion

Defending units:
32nd Chinese Corps
28th Chinese Corps
1st New Chinese Corps
89th Chinese Corps
51st Chinese Corps
53rd Chinese Corps
27th Chinese Corps
96th Chinese Corps
26th Chinese Corps
97th Chinese Corps
14th Chinese Corps
38th Chinese Corps
1st Chinese Corps
59th Chinese Corps
48th Chinese Corps
34th Separate Brigade
Central Reserve
39th Group Army
49th AA Regiment
41st AA Regiment
16th Construction Regiment
4th Heavy Mortar Regiment
18th Artillery Regiment
China Command
12th Construction Regiment
CAF HQ
17th Group Army
31st Group Army
32nd Group Army
1st Chinese Base Force

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

No combat modifiers for my leaders, experience, supplies, no HQ bonus although 5 HQs present.

Not even a f***ing forts reduction this time.

I'm torn between rage and despair.

Maybe I should just abandon the siege of Chungking, abandon China, abandon the SRA the the POA, and hole-up in the Home Islands and wait for the Allied bombers to flatten the economy.

Boy, am I depressed...


Btw, regarding the OP - if the engagement between 41st Regiment and the 3rd SSVF Brigade is a "Knavey" (i.e. a historical engagement with "borked" results), do have more details about that historical battle?

quote:

ORIGINAL: eggmansdaddy

What I think is borked that you actually expected to take a heavily fortified urban area that has had months to prepare a defense and husband resources with a force ratio of less than 1.5 to 1 . Seriously?

Try reading this article about force ratios...I think the section on breaching a fortified position might apply to your situation....

http://www.matrixgames.com/FORUMS/printable.asp?m=4174182

Good luck on your next assault!

eggmansdaddy

quote:

ORIGINAL: eggmansdaddy

Yep-you said it

eggmansdaddy

quote:

ORIGINAL: eggmansdaddy
What I think is borked that you actually expected to take a heavily fortified urban area that has had months to prepare a defense and husband resources with a force ratio of less than 1.5 to 1 . Seriously?

Try reading this article about force ratios...I think the section on breaching a fortified position might apply to your situation....

http://www.matrixgames.com/FORUMS/printable.asp?m=4174182

Good luck on your next assault!

eggmansdaddy

quote:

ORIGINAL: Leandros

quote:

ORIGINAL: eggmansdaddy

Yep-you said it

eggmansdaddy

Have the same problem with Tokyo. Not a chance to get the upper hand in manpower (intelligence says 600.000 troops in
there) but the city has been under total siege for months now. Doesn't seen to mean a bit on the enemy supply situation.
AA and CD are as heavy and effective as ever, as are his ground forces.

Own bombers are massacred by AA, nightly naval bombardment with a dozen battleships has little effect (except on airfields
where no planes are flying from anyway). Have tried strategic as well as tactical bombing (a couple of thousand bombers of
all sorts), artillery and ground offensives. Maybe the atomic bomb was a good choice after all. But that is still a year on.

Fred

quote:

ORIGINAL: rustysi
Sorry to say, but IIRC (its a game parameter), no reduction in fort level unless the odds are at least 1:1.

quote:

Combat engineers can squeeze in fort reduction under any odds.

quote:

ORIGINAL: eggmansdaddy


Night incendiary bombing and lots and lots of napalm with tac air.

LeMay did way more damage with fire bombing than the A bomb did....

Good luck with your restructured air campaign.

eggmansdaddy

quote:

ORIGINAL: LargeSlowTarget

Accidential double post

While I am at it. The well-known 3:1 ratio for attack over defense is based on equal combat strength of units of comparable size. This does not apply here. How many tanks do the Chinese have at Chungking? How many AT guns, medium and heavy arty? How many planes? How much supply? And are the Chinese units all at or near full strength? I think the combat strength of one IJA class A or class B division was rated as equaling three Chinese divisions that is one Corps.

But well, in a realistic game I should not even get near Chungking for LOC reasons, so I'll stop ranting instead of gaming.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Leandros

quote:

ORIGINAL: eggmansdaddy


Night incendiary bombing and lots and lots of napalm with tac air.

LeMay did way more damage with fire bombing than the A bomb did....

Good luck with your restructured air campaign.

eggmansdaddy

Thank you, but "normal" bombing - that is, dive-bombing and bombing from levels giving any visible results, is extremely
costly. What seems to work, also from the perspective of acceptable losses, is bombing from an altitude of 25-30.000 feet
- also for Avengers and fighter-bombers/fighters bombing.

Night bombing results in most units going astray in the night, probably because of their low skill level. Now I am
concentrating everything against "manpower" from high altitude. It seems to give results, lots of fires. Ten more
B-29 squadrons are shortly about to arrive in Japan, too.

Also stepping up naval bombardments and withdrawing/rotating ground units for rest and replenishment. They were totally
"borked" after a faulty order of shock attacks a few days ago. Ground bombardment is continuing but land artillery units
shall also be taken better care of.

Royal Navy heavy units shall soon arrive in Tokyo Bay after their release from missions in the Dutch East Indies. HMS
Queen Elizabeth and Renown have participated in the bombardments for quite some time.

Well, I shouldn't hi-jack this thread anymore...........

Fred

quote:

ORIGINAL: eggmansdaddy


LeMay would be dismayed that fire bombing isn't working. So am I.

eggmansdaddy

quote:

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

quote:

ORIGINAL: eggmansdaddy


LeMay would be dismayed that fire bombing isn't working. So am I.

eggmansdaddy

No idea why you think it isn't working ... it works quite effectively.

quote:

ORIGINAL: eggmansdaddy
You stated you launched an all -out assault....or so I thought, which implies trying to capture the city. I am sorry, clearly I mis-understood your intent, which was to conduct a limited assault to lower the fortification level....to what end?

Also, what I do understand is that you need a higher ratio than 3:1 to take a fort or a fortified city for that matter. Troop quality does not necessarily trump fortifications.

I do agree that having a city under seige should count for more than the results you got.

eggmansdaddy

quote:

ORIGINAL: Leandros
... probably because of their low skill level. ...

Fred

• the number of other factory centres which are destroyed by the fires
  
• the much higher number of VPs awarded for destroyed factory centres compared to merely damaging them
  
• the additional supply cost expenditure involved in re-establishing the same industrial capacity from a destroyed situation compared to a damaged situation

quote:

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

Fred,

Pilots matter quite as much, if not more, than the aircraft being used. All of your B29 pilots should be +70/+70, if they are not, that explains your results. EXP/Skill matter a great deal. I should actually expect your B29 crews to be +80/+80.

quote:

I don't see what mod/scen you are playing, so I cannot comment about flak other than to say the IJ, in tube count for stock scen, has something like only 20% of what the allies have AND they are less effective.

quote:

Naval bombardments effects are mitigated by forts, Tokyo will be 9. manpower strat bombing is NOT mitigated by forts to my knowledge which is why it is so lethal.

quote:

review several AAR's that went late game (greyjoy comes to mind right away), and review your tactics against those in the AAR's. If you are able to naval bombard Tokyo, then with appropriate tactics, Honshu should be a smoldering ruin in 30 days ... not just Tokyo.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Leandros

quote:

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

Fred,

Pilots matter quite as much, if not more, than the aircraft being used. All of your B29 pilots should be +70/+70, if they are not, that explains your results. EXP/Skill matter a great deal. I should actually expect your B29 crews to be +80/+80.

Well, the B-29's have only been in the area a month or two (July-August), going straight into action. They arrived with
45-55 points, haven't improved much. But there are scores of good B-24 crews.

The trick is to train up a sizable pool of pilots ahead of time and use them to replace the pilots in arriving squadrons.

Fred

quote:

ORIGINAL: witpqs

quote:

ORIGINAL: Leandros

quote:

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

Fred,

Pilots matter quite as much, if not more, than the aircraft being used. All of your B29 pilots should be +70/+70, if they are not, that explains your results. EXP/Skill matter a great deal. I should actually expect your B29 crews to be +80/+80.

Well, the B-29's have only been in the area a month or two (July-August), going straight into action. They arrived with
45-55 points, haven't improved much. But there are scores of good B-24 crews.

The trick is to train up a sizable pool of pilots ahead of time and use them to replace the pilots in arriving squadrons.

Fred

quote:

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo
Exactly ... what they arrive with doesn't matter. Trade them out. Get your VERY best pilots in those B29's. Those guys that arrived in the aircraft, those are the ferry pilots. Beach'em!!!

quote:

ORIGINAL: witpqs


The trick is to train up a sizable pool of pilots ahead of time and use them to replace the pilots in arriving squadrons.