Slitherine

Playing through the Burma campaign (again) and found where all the Japanese units were hiding.

BTW I've saved recordings for this play through and intend to upload it so that others can see my style of play and because there just aren't any good guides for this game. Max difficulty all objectives achieved except I couldn't clear the third rail bridge and couldn't be bothered to have another go at it. As you can see in the photo I take recon very seriously and love my commandos!

For those who have run into my posts before, y'all know I love having strictly defined orbats for my units and this campaign was no different once I could, you know, figure out what they should be. While I have always liked this campaign, I haven't taken a methodical approach to it in the past. The tight CP limits, single route maps, constant retreats and inability to create a coherent front tended to mean my units were a big blob. Frankly you need a lot of infantry, recon and -- when they become available -- special forces to manage an all around defense against the huge number of bunkers, enemy snipers and sudden attacks from nowhere.

This run through I finally found an appropriate, effective orbat. So here it goes:

82 Rifle Division "Gurkhas"
2x Gurkhas
1x BL 4.5 gun

67 Rifle Division "Highlanders"
2x Rifle Infantry
1x BL 4.5 gun

17th Tank Division "Bloody Mess"
1x (later 2) tank (either Matilda or Cromwell)
1x BL 7.2 gun (added when it became available)
1x HW infantry (mechanized)
1x Engineer (mechanized)
1x Humber II

1st SAS (converted from vet 4 engineer)
2nd SAS (converted from vet 4 rifle infantry)

Air:
5x Typhoon or 4x Typhoon and 1x Wellington III. The Typhoon IB is a fighter bomber par excellence and you basically can't get enough of them for most of the campaign. I dominated the Japanese in the air without AA in brutal fashion.

Reserve:
192 HW Coy
755 Recce Coy (Humber II)
400 AA Coy (40mm Bofors)
462 AT Coy (QF 2LBR)

By far the hardest scenario to fully clear for me was the first one. In the past I've always just ignored the Thai Checkpoints objective as harmful to my heart. This time I figured it out while maintaining a solid reserve. The answer is, essentially, opening with 2x BL 4.5. More soon.

And an 18 turn win on max difficulty for Impahl.



I enjoy this scenario but it's hilariously easy to close out early with a mechanized attack from the left flank into the rear of the enemy column on their right. Once that force is cut off and wiped out, the rest of the battle is fairly straightforward.

From the replay, here's the fatal mistake the AI makes on turn 3, where it exposes an unprotected rear to go haring off after a few Indian Army auxiliaries.



Similarly in the center, the AI's aggression leads to most of the mechanized artillery getting chewed up in the first two turns allowing my gurkhas on the left of the Indian Army (right of the enemy) to clean house while some cheap units attack in the center.




Finally on the left the AI aggression leads it to take reaction fire over and over and lose despite numerical superiority sufficient to simply overwhelm these forces.



Anyway here's the whole replay, you can see for yourself how excessive AI aggression and incredibly favorable defensive terrain leads to a trivial victory before the AI can even send in its reserve units with the Tiger et al.

The "Arakhan disaster" comment I got in the briefing for the Pakkokku District mission was funny given that I got an overwhelming victory there having captured all eight objectives vs the intended three.

prestidigitation wrote: ↑Sun Dec 06, 2020 7:26 pm The "Arakhan disaster" comment I got in the briefing for the Pakkokku District mission was funny given that I got an overwhelming victory there having captured all eight objectives vs the intended three.

You should've posted that AAR, as capturing "Akyab" in time was rather a bit tricky IIRC and for many the hardest objective of that campaign/DLC.

GabeKnight wrote: ↑Mon Dec 07, 2020 1:38 am

prestidigitation wrote: ↑Sun Dec 06, 2020 7:26 pm The "Arakhan disaster" comment I got in the briefing for the Pakkokku District mission was funny given that I got an overwhelming victory there having captured all eight objectives vs the intended three.

You should've posted that AAR, as capturing "Akyab" in time was rather a bit tricky IIRC and for many the hardest objective of that campaign/DLC.

I finished that one on the last turn and it was a near run thing. If I had done things slightly more efficiently I could probably have cut the time by 4-6 turns though. I think the big problem is people take the wrong route to the final objective. There's a clear, simple and very wrong route that involves a river crossing into a heavily defended territory, a much easier and completely undefended route along a dirt road (which I took with my Tank Division), and the deeply ballsy option of doing a naval invasion with an airborne landing using your SAS which I did on standard difficulty and it was hilarious how well it worked out. I think my biggest potential efficiency gain would easily have been dropping my two SAS units in behind enemy lines at the far objective at about the twenty turn mark to knock out their guns in the west and their fortifications in the east. That's entirely possible with SAS because they're super sneaky and would have substantially cut my time by creating a much less contested battlespace and a clear route to the final objective. I should probably also have spent less time clearing the captured airfield in the middle of the map.

I've attached the replay, but unfortunately it appears to be bugged with a ghost tank for the enemy and a ghost infantry for me. The entire western part (barring my SAS solo clearing out every bunker for a route I really should have used instead of the one I took) is completely wrong. BUT I happen to still have the first turn save for that mission so I'll replay it and demonstrate how efficient SAS usage can substantially lower travel time on an otherwise challenging map.

edit: I see what broke it! The replay doesn't realize there's a minefield where the tank wanted to move, so it shows the tank as having moved there. In fact it hit a minefield and returned to its original position where it was destroyed.

prestidigitation wrote: ↑Mon Dec 07, 2020 3:12 am I finished that one on the last turn and it was a near run thing.

Thanks. Yeah, that's usually the case unless you play on the lower difficulties...

prestidigitation wrote: ↑Mon Dec 07, 2020 3:12 am I've attached the replay, but unfortunately it appears to be bugged [...]

Yeah, well, I haven't played a replay for ages because of this. Sounds like you can confirm it's still buggy.
The OoB replays are nothing like videos, but only a recreation of the moves that have been made. Even combat is calculated differently sometimes. It can happen that yours or the AI's units are forced to retreat, although it did not happen like that during "live" play.
IIRC you could be even unlucky that the replay picks a different random trigger at scen start and you'll end up with a whole different distribution of e.g. mines and the whole replay's on the fritz...