I saw a post in another thread where the poster mentioned that if Japan didn’t take India early enough, that the Allied (US and ANZAC were mentioned) air units moving in to reinforce would soon enough make India too tough a nut for the Japanese to crack.
The mention of US air units in particular was interesting to me. In games we’ve been playing, the Japanese start off like this:
J1 the Japanese take the PI & Celebes
J2 they take the rest of the DEI
J3 they take Singapore
Fighters and dive bombers are not capable of moving from Australia to India. Queensland is 6 from India, and the rest of Australia is 5.
That makes Singapore an important shuttle point to get Allied air to India. With the Japanese attacking Singapore at the start of turn 3, any Allied planes that are trying to move through Singapore to India need to have cleared on through by the start of turn 3, or they’ll get caught in the meatgrinder.
That, in turn, means that any Allied planes need to leave Singapore for India on turn two. For that to happen, they have to land there on turn one. There is only the one ANZACer fighter that starts at Queensland that can do this.
So Singapore isn’t going to be the tool to get Allied air to India. With it gone, Australia is too far away.
For CVs to launch planes to India, they would have to be in SZs 55 or 56. For the Allies, just getting enough strength to SZ54 is difficuly enough, and that makes SZs 55 & 56 extremely precarious for Allied CVs to be able to survive a turn in order to do this.
So India is in a tough spot. How do the Allies get fighters and dive bombers there to help fend off the Japanese?
An airbase in Western Australia or the Northern Territory are options, but that requires the ANZACers to fork up the IPCs to build the airbase.
One thing BB (BuckeyeBoy) came up with was having the British build a CV on B1. The intent at the time for this move was to use it with the rest of the British air and naval units to crash into any smaller Japanese fleets in the DEI, Kamikazie style. In other words, an expendable force to exchange itself with a similar sized Japanese force.
This was so effective, that it resulted in us playing the Japanese fleet and having it not split up at all on J2 to protect Japanese transports taking the rest of the DEI. The Japanese fleet usually moved to SZ42 and protected the one Japanese transport there, and the two Japanese transports taking Sumatra and Borneo were left to their fate after their invasion was completed.
It also had the effect of causing the Japanese to not be able to move their three J1 buy transports to SZ 36 on J2, as this small British Kamikazie force was capable of attacking SZ36.
So the Japanese moved their main fleet minus one CV to Java on J2, and their J1 transports moved to the PI with a CV escort.
That kept Japanese trops from reinforcing Vietnam on J2, easing some pressure on the Chinese who may be fighting for Yunnan.
So the question became what to do with the British force after the Japanese take Singapore.
BB rightly saw that with a British CV in SZ 39, that ANZAC air could use it to transit into India from Australia, anywhere in Australia.
Anyway, I was curious as to what folks thoughts were on the subject of just how do the Allies go about reinforcing India during the course of a game? It’s no easy task, and can make the difference in whether India falls, and therefore the ultimate balance of the OOB rules.
Thoughts anybody? I’m going to go get a beer… :-P
I’ve got vacation next week, and BuckeyeBoy is off from Monday night to Thursday night, so we’ve got another mega game fest planned, and should be able to get in another 4, 5, maybe even 6 games if he kicks my butt quickly, like he usually does! That is, unless I get “lucky dice” again… :-D
