Neutering Japan's Calcutta push after a J1 DOW

[simon33]

Now, I’ve previously gone into how to stop the J3 Naval take down of Calcutta here: https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/topic/32824/stopping-the-j3-calcutta-crush. Assuming it can also be held J4, the next thing you have to do is prevent the overland conquest of Calcutta from happening J5. To do this, China needs to be built up as follows:

C1, attack inf in Hunan with 2inf+ftr. (97%). Obviously, that is assuming there is such an inf.
Also attack and take Yunnan. If it’s 6inf on 3inf+1art, that’s only 56% but the chance of it being that unfavourable is low.
UK1 attack 2inf in FIC with all 3 planes (96%, -2.7TUV). This means you can’t use a plane to attack the Japanese Cruiser in SZ37 (if present) unfortunately. So you need to use your 2 remaining ships (85%).

Obviously all remaining air needs to land in Burma. Also, if the Philippines doesn’t have many troops left on it, you might not need to block SZ37, although it might still be worth killing the Cruiser.

J2 Japan has no land units to take Yunnan.

C2, you can build 3art and stack up Szechwan. On J3 Japan will not be able to move its stack of troops into Yunnan because the Chinese attack will be too strong. Even if it is at a slight disadvantage, it is still worth China attacking to soften up the troops for the UK.

Now perhaps Japan will see fit to do an all air attack on some Chinese forces. This is really an allied win. Trading the Japanese air force 1:1.1 with Chinese troops is awesome and USA will catch up to the Japanese fleet much more quickly.

[Argothair]

I haven’t done an exact count of the Chinese starting pieces, but just by eyeballing it, it sounds to me like you’re stretching China way too thin.

You send 2 infantry to Hunan C1 and 6 infantry to Yunnan C1 – that’s most of your starting pieces. When you “stack up” in Szechuan on C2 after building 3 artillery, that means your stack is what, 4 inf + 3 art? If that?

Even if Japan only landed part of its air force on the Chinese coast and Chinese coastal carriers (e.g. 12 planes or so, no special prep), that’s still a pretty good battle for Japan. Your Chinese armies only defend at 2, and the planes attack at 3.5, so 12 planes * 3.5 = 42 pips = 7 expected hits, i.e., you can expect to wipe out a stack of 7 Chinese armies in one round of combat. Those 7 armies only have 14 pips to fight back with, so you’re losing 2, maybe 3 planes in exchange for what’s left of the Chinese stack.

I see those as totally acceptable losses, especially if Britain has exposed itself by stacking Burma, sacrificing ships to block SZ37, and so on.

I agree with you that trading Chinese infantry 1:1 for Japanese planes is a great deal, but you’re not going to get that deal if you push China forward so aggressively in the first couple of turns.

If British India is very strong, then even losing 3 planes might be unacceptable, because you’ll need those extra planes to be sure of taking India on J5 or J6…but with the British navy gone, the British expeditionary force in Burma / French Indochina doomed, etc., then India will fall without too much extra effort, so the planes you lose demolishing China are expendable.

[simon33]

Fair comments perhaps but you’re only going to use all 6 inf into Yunnan if all 4 Japanese land units survive J1. Highly unlikely. I suppose in that case maybe the move is off. It’s also off if you don’t kill the unit(s) in Hunan.

A more realistic scenario might be moving 3-5inf to Yunnan to kill 1-2 survivors. If you don’t need to kill Hunan you may be able to reduce that because you can use the flying tiger. C1 you would move all remaining to Shensi and only get to Szechwan C2. So you have your other 3inf and ~4inf bought C1 and the flying tiger, plus UK air should be free to land there. Any planes on CVs can’t reach so killing 7 units in the first round might not be that devastating. Running the numbers, 12 planes hitting 10 ground, 3ftr is 64%, -48TUV. Not worth it IMO.

Regarding your general comments about stretching China too thin, this move does actually work, in the sense of delaying the fall of India, more often than not.

I had wondered if I’d stuffed up something there but I still think it’s good.

[Argothair]

Well, OK, if the general plan is “try to save Yunnan by killing all remaining Japanese land units near Yunnan if Japan rolls average-to-poor on the first attacks against China” then I think that’s a good plan. I’m just objecting to the specific tactics you were discussing in the original post.

As far as the 12 planes vs. 10 ground + 3 ftr, sure, that’s a stupid attack for Japan to make – but I’m still not sure you get odds that are that good as China against average luck and a decent opponent.

Carriers in SZ 37, off the coast of Hainan, can reach Yunnan unless you own Szechuan and Hunan and Kweichow – possible, but not guaranteed given all the other commitments you’re talking about.

And now you’re saying buy 4 infantry on C2, but I thought you wanted to buy 3 artillery on C2 – you can’t buy both on the same turn, you don’t have enough cash. If you’re just buying infantry for Szechuan C2, then sure, maybe you can hold Szechuan against airblitzes, but you probably don’t have the offensive striking power to stop Japan from at least trading Yunnan, maybe even taking and holding it.

Meanwhile you have nothing to fight with in north/northwest China, right? Troops from Japanese Manchuria walk west and just eat your 6 IPCs there without a fight.

It’s not necessarily a bad strategy overall for the Allies, especially if Japan takes some unlucky hits J1/J2, but I think you’re somewhat overstating its benefits.

[simon33]

@Argothair said in Neutering Japan's Calcutta push after a J1 DOW:

And now you’re saying buy 4 infantry on C2, but I thought you wanted to buy 3 artillery on C2

Yeah, I got that wrong. Sorry about that. It’s 4inf C1, 3art C2. I’ll edit.

@Argothair said in Neutering Japan's Calcutta push after a J1 DOW:

As far as the 12 planes vs. 10 ground + 3 ftr, sure, that’s a stupid attack for Japan to make – but I’m still not sure you get odds that are that good as China against average luck and a decent opponent.
Carriers in SZ 37, off the coast of Hainan, can reach Yunnan unless you own Szechuan and Hunan and Kweichow – possible, but not guaranteed given all the other commitments you’re talking about.

Yes but the point is that this attack would be on Szechwan while the Japanese don’t hold Yunnan so planes at sea can’t participate.

Now the more general point would be that Japan does indeed need to trade Yunnan for one, probably two turns. Or suffer a hit defending Yunnan, enough that the take down of India cannot proceed J5. You need to do something fairly bold to stop the troops starting from Jehol and south just walking down to India and taking it J5.

In vanilla, even assuming West India remains UK_Pacific, India is a 13IPC swing for the Axis and convoying off the India income only reduces that to 10IPC. Frequently, Burma is also held or traded. which increases the swing. While that isn’t that huge a swing, it also ties up Japan a lot.

[aequitas-et-veritas]

@simon33 it doesn’t add up on the long run.
Even if UK kills the FIC units,
even if Chi Kills Yunnan and Hunan, they can’t counter the mass what is about to come the very next turn.
Usually J builds 1-2 TT’s, has two TT’s floating arround the coast and can easily refill FIC and or attack Malaya.
Plus on J2 J builds a NB on Hainan and there is nothing you can do about it.

J may also kill off any Burma stack build by UK via their planes.
The taking of India with minimal loss compensates this and J is on their 70ish income and is able to refill the losses.

As much as I would welcome an aggressive approach to stop J the more I fear it bc J is in the very first round undefeatable if played right.

There is only this gap of J4,J5 and J6 where you are being able to put immense pressure on Japan.
This is when you steal/snatch MI’s away or take Caro Is with US and Anzak.
After that the race continues to either end in a stall or a mass destruction…

[General 6 Stars]

I know this is talk of how to neuter Japan and not trying to hack this thread. But why not just add another flying Tiger ( both should AD@4 ) to China’s setup. They did kill 229 planes in the air. Maybe would help get an extra Jap plane kill or too and help defend a bit more. I’m just surprised how all these games make China weak but its probably based on game play due to Japans goals for a win but thats another topic.

[JDOW]

Best way is to take and hold Yunnan and least for a turn. If you are anxious about the Japanese attacking never the less, bring the Russians in to secure Yunnan for at least one turn.

Allies may not be able to hold India for sure, it is always a question on how painful it is for the Japanese and on how many planes they are supposed to lose.

Also, playing very boldly and aggressively with US/ANZAC in the Pacific is a key element to secure India or to at least keep the price of a rush on Calcutta as high as possible.

[simon33]

@SS-GEN said in Neutering Japan's Calcutta push after a J1 DOW:

I know this is talk of how to neuter Japan and not trying to hack this thread. But why not just add another flying Tiger ( both should AD@4 ) to China’s setup. They did kill 229 planes in the air. Maybe would help get an extra Jap plane kill or too and help defend a bit more. I’m just surprised how all these games make China weak but its probably based on game play due to Japans goals for a win but thats another topic.

The ratio of planes is quite historical IIRC. If they killed that many planes, I think the flying tigers only had about 60 planes, so it must have been an understrength Japanese force in the area.

@JDOW said in Neutering Japan's Calcutta push after a J1 DOW:

Best way is to take and hold Yunnan and least for a turn

Barring radical dice or a Japan stuff up/priority shift, I can’t see how this is possible.

[General 6 Stars]

What does IIRC stand for ?
Well based on game 1 fig = 30 so 2 tigers would work. Yes tigers were a better plane. That’s where the A@4 comes from. But as usual most 40 players will not make a simple change. IMO
This is based on all reply’s to any of my suggestions. All good

[simon33]

If I recall correctly.