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Ae2 DL2o3DG
United States
Fort Wayne
Indiana
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OCS Korea
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Ben and I have finished the second session of our ongoing Burma campaign game and have made it just over a quarter of the way through, finishing 11 of 41 turns. So far the weather has been fairly decent with just a couple of turns of light rain with restricted air operations, which other than not allowing some airdrops for the Chindits, has had no effect on the game.
IMPHAL
The Japanese have started to put the pressure on around Imphal, with elements of the 31st, 33rd, and 15th IJA Divisions all banging on the door. I'm not feeling too worried at this point, as it's tough for those little 2 strength battalions to do much damage across the river and into the city itself. Of course all it takes is a couple of good rolls and the Japanese will get into the city (winning the game), so it's about time for the Allied units in the area to start counter attacking a bit. There's plenty of supply to handle the job, but attacking those 5 AR Japanese battalions has been rough so far, and I'm not looking forward to the amount of damage they're going to cause when the counter attacks start.
The road to Imphal has remained open for all but a few turns so far, but it is costing me a lot of man power to keep it that way. The Japanese have been able to sneak a few battalions onto the road itself on occasion and clearing them has been costly. In order to ensure any sort of success in the mountainous terrain when attacking the dug in Japanese I've had to attack with at least three of four brigades at a time, and the brigade providing the AR for the attack has a always ended up in the dead pile (I need to force those options in order to clear the road). I'd much rather have all of those forces that are strung out along the road near Imphal helping to clear out the enemy, but those few IJA battalions north of the city are enough to threaten to cut off supply.
South of Imphal two battalions of the 17th Indian division have been cut from trace supply since the first turn of the game. While the rest of the division has long since been starved out, these guys have been hanging on, and have enough supply to hold their position for another two or three weeks. They're not really accomplishing much of anything, but they're a threat to be a bit of a pain in the ass if allowed to move freely, so I'll happily keep feeding them just to tie up a few Japanese battalions for a while. They may even get an air drop or two if things work out.
CHINDITS
The Chindits have been having a good time out in the west where they've had the Japanese rail line into Myitkyina cut since the beginning of the game. Currently two columns are sitting directly on the rail line (the OOS units in the above picture surrounded by the Japanese hedges) with several more waiting for their chance to strike on the other side of the Gangaw Range near the air strip. Just south of Myitkyina two more columns of Chindits, along with the two battalions from Galahad have cut river trace and the main road leading into Myitkyina preventing any more supply from being trucked in.
It's a weird feeling having units like that out of trace supply for the entire game, but the ability to air drop supply in, and muling supply around have kept them all going strong. At one point they even captured the Myitkyina air field and had supply flown into them there. After realizing they were not going to be capture the city itself, they've decided to move south to wreak havoc down there instead. I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to be doing with these guys as far as objectives, but I'm having a hell of a lot of fun with them!
LEDO ROAD
The construction of the Ledo road has gone absolutely no where! The IJA 3rd battalion of the 138th regiment has cut the road from the source and has been there for the last six turns. The Chinese have lost four regiments in their attempts to clear the battalion from its stranglehold on the road by force (AR 1 units attacking an AR 5 unit just doesn't work), and several more due to attrition. I've managed to keep a small force of Chinese and the road engineers in the area alive by flying in supply, but need that damned battalion to die before I can make any progress. The road that needs to be converted isn't all that heavily defended, but without any supply coming in the engineers can't do their thing. Two tactical blunders on my part have led to this situation and I'm paying the price. Still, it's been a good learning experience on just what one can do even when very low on supply.
The fun continues in a couple weeks...
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