TOS - Prince of Wales PBEM

[aksully]

PoW was a real challenge and one that turned out worse than I had planned for playing Japan.

Initial moves played out well and taking Mandalay was I think, a surprise and blow to TG. But the game turned on one move.

The seaborne and land attack on the PI was going as planned until my last Marine faced the last unit in Manila...and it lost! With that failure I had nothing else within immediate range (1 turn) to counterattack with. With Manila intact, TG flew in every air unit he could and that was it.

All my mobile units were committed in China. With complete control of the PI and surrounding seas...the Japs were cut off.

Once he ramped up his heavy bombers in the US and move them to the PI...he was able to pound SE Asia all the way to Singapore.

The China campaign I felt was played fairly well but unlimited funds transfer to China allowed unlimited production of arty and guerillas. That made it very difficult to assault cities. I still maintain that guerillas are much too strong in all TOS versions. Historically they were a nuisance...not a preferred combat unit as they are in TOS. I maintain that if included in TOS they should have a 1/1 A/D strength and make them more expensive to build. Creating an effective combat unit along the lines of "Guerillas" is more difficult than TOS allows for.

Anyhow, it was sheer volume of airpower that made me concede the game. By the time I would have conquered China (a big if)..I would have had little left and a significant build up time would have been needed.

Having taken Sarawek and obtained my source of oil...the airpower presence in the PI and surrounding airbases was almost at the point of bombing Japan out of Borneo! Bomb units to redline and then let the guerillas go in and recapture the cities. That was the formula and Japan could not move any reinforcements by sea due to the large number of torpedo planes.

And by the time China would be taken.... Austrailia would have looked like Fortress Europa with a strong US Fleet in front of it!

Anyhow, I digress. That one battle for Manila turned the tide. I've never lost that battle except for here. But nothing can take away from an incredibly well played game by Tech Guy. His moves were masterful.

I would like a second chance playing Japan against him. I'd like to also commend Eric A for doing such a great job modifying the original WW II in the Pacific Conquests scenario. Except for those guerillas...it is an absolutely great PBEM game. Good job Eric.

And Kudos to you TG for a great victory! I hope we can try this again!

Your humble opponent,
Sully

 

[TechGuy]

PoW was also a very interesting challenge for me. I usually play as the streamrolling Japanese and this time around, playing as the Allies was a much more difficult feat especially against a skilled player like Sully.

For the US...
I guess the main focus of this game was the battle for Manila. I was really lucky with the RNG rolls here in this theatre because usually, the Japanese deploy overwhelming forces to take the island. On the first few turns, my destroyers in Manila got some good bombardment hits on the IJA units outside of Manila. With my green GIs, I counterattacked. This is where I gambled on the fact that since GIs are 8/6/1, they are far better off on attacking than defending. Especially when the IJA stacks multiple units on one tile, I could afford to attack and still keep Manila defended. With the IJA units away from Manila, now I could afford to send in my air units from my Pacific fleet to help defend against the IJN in the South China seas. From here, I think it was all downhill as I sent 3 air units per turn to Manila and attacked all IJN shipping around the Phillippines. However, I think carrier planes from the PH force would have broken the stalemate earlier as the IJAF could pummel my air units on the ground before I could send them on bombing runs and keep my land units redlined. Nonetheless, after attaining air supremacy, I was able to bomb the crap out of Indochina and assist the Dutch in Borneo.

For the CW...
The capture of Rangoon was totally unexpected and that was a terrible blow to the allied defense of China. I was basically undefended in Burma. Other than that, the CW did pretty well... I had rail connections to Darwin, Perth, and Carnavon. Basically, I was preparing an invasion force to retake Singapore.

For the Chinese...
What I really like about this TOS307 is the Chinese theatre. I like using primative units to defend against a more advanced opponent. My build plan was pretty simple: guerillas and artillery. Artillery to weaken advanced/elite IJA units and guerillas to trade them off. With this sort of attrition, the IJA was left with few tough units to advance against my hardened artillery-gunned strongholds. Funded intially by the US and CW, then later by the Dutch exclusively, I was able to pump out one unit per city every two turns. Even if the IJAF bomb out the roads in China, the guerilla's 'treat all terrain as roads' ability negated that problem. What really surprised me was that Sully used his NI army to garrison Kaifeng and not use it to blitz out my strong defenders. Typically, the IJA needs to attack at one point to overwhelm the divided Chinese. All in all, I really enjoyed playing China.

For the Dutch...
Nothing much happened here. I used the US and CW air supremacy to help the Borneo defenders retake cities. With not much action, I funneled all the money collect to China each turn and just waited for the stronger allies to arrive.

So, I would like to thank Eric_A for such a wonderful scenario and Sully for being such as great opponent. I sure hope that I could play Sully again in another TOS game. I'm sure both our strategies are improving as we play more games.

Cheers,
TechGuy