The Good The Bad & The Indifferent

[Lowpe]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

Mostly we talk about which 6" hoagies are on sale today at Subway. [8|]

And...???

Are asking me to break opsec? Go to Subway and find out for yourself![:D]

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

ORIGINAL: witpqs

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

Mostly we talk about which 6" hoagies are on sale today at Subway. [8|]

And...???

Are asking me to break opsec? Go to Subway and find out for yourself![:D]

It's not like I'm going to pass the info to Quiznos or FireHouse Subs! [:'(]

[Lokasenna]

Maybe he's trying to buy time for an additional level of forts at Manila? Still wouldn't be worth it, though - only +25% on the multiplier from one more level of forts.

[Canoerebel]

6/10/44

Battle of Luzon: Allied bombers flew en masse against Batangas, doing heavy (but not catastrophic) damage. A couple of tank units then attacked and found enemy AV drastically reduced. John's stack shows a movement dot, so he's belatedly trying to evacuate. My troops are rested and fully supplied and will shock attack tomorrow. If this succeeds, John's losses could be catastrophic and his Luzon defenses crippled. This will be a key battle.

Weather forecast is for heavy rain, so my bombers probably won't fly...but his probably won't either. He hasn't employed them yet, but I think he's panicked now and realized what's happening. SigInt reports AA inbound to San Fernando, another belated move on his part.

He didn't like B-29s flying against his ground troops, referring to it as a "close support" mission. That's probably the tip of the iceberg to how he really feels. He just doesn't know - I've kept my bombers at 10k even though he has no AA, simply to accommodate his prejudices. And I've used my B29s only sparingly to this point. Where he's had fighters and AA, the effect of my LBA is seriously reduced...yet here he elects to fight on open ground without the benefit of either defense (though fighters showed up today).

My impression is that John has mishandled Luzon, as he did Burma earlier in 1944. He didn't understand the nature of the campaign, the risks, and when to pull back. I hope the end results unfold much the same way, but there's still a lot of fighting to be done.

Fun House: D-Day Miri tomorrow, as 6th Australian Div. (61% prepped) comes ashore. John has 4k troops - probably less than 150 AV - and good terrain. I'm not using bombardment TFs until I know the strength of the defenses. But Miri's in trouble unless John does something soon.

Thailand: John is using the jungle terrain and remoteness to good effect west of Rahaeng, but the most recent Allied attack drove down his AV pretty sharply. I think the next attack will push his guys out of the hex.

Elsewhere: Some key events about to transpire in the Pacific. I think John is getting some info now, but I won't say anything yet. Mini KB is in the Timor Sea, where she poses a threat to my DEI shipping...but I'm awfully glad she's off in that corner of the war.

[Canoerebel]

Mini KB continues to loiter far from the main action...but in a position to threaten the Allied LOC from Oz to the DEI.

[paullus99]

Definitely seems like a "day late and a dollar short." Another symptom of John not really having a good handle on the ground game mechanics, especially not including AA in his defensive formations (or offensive formations for that matter).

In the space of a month, he's functionally lost the PI & also Burma, and he will have a very hard time extricating his forces out of the area...which means that he'll be out of position, once again, when you make your next move.

The similarities to historical Japanese moves is very interesting to watch.

[Lecivius]

Just a curious observation. I note you are doing a shock attack at Batangas, with a few units set to Deliberate. Why not set them all to shock? I would expect a higher roll on a shock attach would return more massive casualties. I know I'm letting my ignorance show, but I am truly curious.

[Canoerebel]

The armored units that attacked yesterday have higher disruption, so they will deliberate attack, as will the combat engineers and one of my infantry divisions - the one that suffered the highest disablements two days ago. So one infantry division, one combat engineers, and perhaps three armor to deliberate attack, with three infantry divisions and two or three armored units to shock attack.

I'm trying to inflict maximum damage without taking the edge off my own units. After all, this is just the beginning of a long campaign.

[Canoerebel]

Attack orders in detail.

[MakeeLearn]

Showing a lil' redacted cleavage

[Lowpe]

I love the mixing up of the attack orders.

Here is one for you: Set one of the 60 ARM units to Reserve (Pursuit). They would follow into Manila. Japan would see one unit all by its lonesome in Manila and attack. The following day race all the other Armored units in using Reserve (no pursuit) mode. Instead of fighting one unit, he attacks 5 armored units in x2 terrain that you have pretty decent prep for.

[Canoerebel]

Here are the reserves coming up from Lucena - not all of them - a couple are hanging back, one to await important fragments of the division and one to provide security in the rear against enemy surprise attack.

Lowpe, your idea is an elegant one that I hope to keep in mind. I probably wouldn't have done it on this occasion lest I end up skewering my armor by trying to be elegant. In this case, I know that John's in big trouble, so I can simply bring the hammer. But there could be many times where your idea would really work nicely.

[Canoerebel]

I'm about to run the 6/11/44 turn, but a few important tidbits. Here's the landing at Miri, which goes off well although the Australian disablements are higher than I'd hoped for. But I'm posting this mainly to show the number of enemy AA units present in this hex. Lots of AA, little infantry. John attended to his oil centers but left his army on Luzon without AA. Trade-off.

Ground combat at Miri (64,87)

Japanese Bombardment attack

Attacking force 891 troops, 38 guns, 0 vehicles, Assault Value = 71

Defending force 4440 troops, 145 guns, 43 vehicles, Assault Value = 156

Assaulting units:
57th Infantry Bde /1
42nd Air Defense AA Regiment
65th Field AA Battalion
6th JNAF Coy
41st Air Defense AA Regiment
62nd Field AA Battalion
8th JNAF Coy

Defending units:
6th Australian Div /27

[Canoerebel]

And the Battle of Batangas results:

Ground combat at Batangas (79,78)

Allied Shock attack

Attacking force 53833 troops, 972 guns, 1450 vehicles, Assault Value = 1826

Defending force 43055 troops, 457 guns, 175 vehicles, Assault Value = 1125

Allied adjusted assault: 1377

Japanese adjusted defense: 178

Allied assault odds: 7 to 1 (fort level 2)

Allied forces CAPTURE Batangas !!!

Combat modifiers
Defender: disruption(-), preparation(-), experience(-)
Attacker: shock(+)

Japanese ground losses:
14946 casualties reported
Squads: 531 destroyed, 113 disabled
Non Combat: 629 destroyed, 6 disabled
Engineers: 255 destroyed, 2 disabled
Guns lost 228 (212 destroyed, 16 disabled)
Vehicles lost 172 (172 destroyed, 0 disabled)
Units retreated 7

Allied ground losses:
1184 casualties reported
Squads: 6 destroyed, 86 disabled
Non Combat: 1 destroyed, 29 disabled
Engineers: 21 destroyed, 27 disabled
Guns lost 19 (1 destroyed, 18 disabled)
Vehicles lost 50 (3 destroyed, 47 disabled)

Defeated Japanese Units Retreating!

Assaulting units:
131st Combat Engineer Regiment
6th Infantry Division
637th Tank Destroyer Battalion
5th USMC Tank Battalion
93rd Infantry Division
767th Tank Battalion
2nd USMC Amphb Tank Battalion
43rd Infantry Division
2nd Marine Division
766th Tank Battalion
3rd NZ Armoured Sqn Regiment
209th Field Artillery Battalion
7th USMC Field Artillery Battalion
2nd USMC Field Artillery Battalion
181st Field Artillery Regiment
XI US Corps
1st Medium Regiment

Defending units:
15th Division
21st Division
19th Division
48th Division
8th Engineer Regiment
3rd Ind. Engineer Regiment
19th Ind. Engr Rgt /1

[Canoerebel]

Those four divisions are beat up, especially in terms of guns lost.

That makes at least 11 Japanese divisions roughed up in 1944 campaigning: these four, five in Burma, 16th in the DEI, and 56th in the Marshalls and Leyte.

As best I can tell, John only has one fresh division (24th) on Luzon plus some mixed brigades and other stuff. He can still fight hard, but Batangas means the campaign is off to a promising start on a campaign I originally expected to last until September.

[Lowpe]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

I'm about to run the 6/11/44 turn, but a few important tidbits. Here's the landing at Miri, which goes off well although the Australian disablements are higher than I'd hoped for. But I'm posting this mainly to show the number of enemy AA units present in this hex. Lots of AA, little infantry. John attended to his oil centers but left his army on Luzon without AA. Trade-off.

Ground combat at Miri (64,87)

Japanese Bombardment attack

Attacking force 891 troops, 38 guns, 0 vehicles, Assault Value = 71

Defending force 4440 troops, 145 guns, 43 vehicles, Assault Value = 156

Assaulting units:
57th Infantry Bde /1
42nd Air Defense AA Regiment
65th Field AA Battalion
6th JNAF Coy
41st Air Defense AA Regiment
62nd Field AA Battalion
8th JNAF Coy

Defending units:
6th Australian Div /27

That is not a lot of AA. Japan has gotten large amounts of AA around the time you get B29s. 10 AA units would be a better number...luckily for Japan they will respawn in 20-30 days at Tokyo and fill out in 2 weeks.

[jwolf]

Congratulations on the great result at Batangas -- that looks like the equivalent of a full division destroyed. [X(]

Now, for a rookie question on the multiple attack you ordered there. Since the shock attack was so successful, I assume the followup deliberate attack was called off? Or did those units get lumped into the shock attack, but not shocking? I'm confused because when you order a DA and you have arty, they get coded to bombard which is done as part of the DA. But can you really have two separate ground attacks in the same hex, same turn?

[witpqs]

Good going!

AFAIK, all units attack at once but with different orders.

[Canoerebel]

John doesn't seem to have any AA on Luzon, so where is it all?

[Canoerebel]

That was 2,000 points for the Japanese units destroyed at Batangas - by far the biggest score in the game for the Allies. I have a long, long way to go in the ground war, but the score is 23.5k for Japan to 6.6k for the Allies. At the start of '44, I think it was 21.5k to 3.3k. I doubt I'll ever even out that ratio, but getting it close is important in the overall scheme of things.