Our defense after marines

[vulture]

Note to above: there should be a blue dot an Inchoff 2 as well.

Game mechanics question:

Say, for example, that Lego land a bick stack on the mountanis at Inchoff 1, includnig lots of cavalry. That stack can threaten 3 cities: Inchoff, Winds of Change, and Santa Anna. So we whack most of our defensive units in those cities. Next turn, a marine invasion turns up and takes the now-lightly defended Blizzard. The stack from Inchoff move back into their transports, and the transports move in to Blizzard. The units can't attack from there, having used all their moves up. The question is: do they count as defenders, or are they still on the boat? I suspect they are defenders, so the units from Inchoff 1 can be used to defend blizzard.

Point 1: if this is so, then we not only need to defend cities that can be reached by a conventional landing, but also ones that could be reinforced from there if an amphibious landing is used.

Point 2: Will Lego realise this, or can we use a trick like this to try and hit a lightly-defended city?

[vmxa1]

Looking at the map, we are barely larger than Vox. It is some job to be in the game at this point with the land we have.

[asleepathewheel]

they will serve as defenders as well, I believe.

It might definately be worth trying this out, say with 15 inf's landed on a marine secured mountain. Or better yet, a hill and put a settler in the group, instant beachhead that they have to destroy (otherwise if we don't have enough offense, they mihgt just ignore it)

[asleepathewheel]

Ok, further along those lines....

I've looked at the map. halfway between quantum mechanico and sandonorico is a coastal hill. We drop a settler and 15-20 inf's on it, they might think that we are trying our trick from the vox war. Sure, the 20 units will die, but they'll eat a ton of cavs before they do. Plus we will have a lot of units adjacent to where we think their FP is and their desert (maybe take out an oil supply)

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Theseus
Preview of naval defensive unit requirements:
Battleships - 4
Transports - 9
Subs - 12
Destroyers - I am currently thinking of 6 fleets, wiht Destroyers as their backbone... how many per? 3? 4?
Carriers - 6
Bombers - 18, of which at least 6 should also be available for offensive tasking. Also, I'm guessing an additional 8 land-based Bombers, if not more.
Fighters - 6

Wooha! Theseus, please make sure I don't get a heart attack
No, I understand where it comes from. But a few questions:
1. do we need battleships? Destroyers are better, no? If we get policestations, we've got 1 city which would be better building BSs, but that's it. And I don't know by heart how much carriers cost (160?), but they need to be build somewhere too.
2. carriers: do we need so many of them? Can't this number be halved, and our airforce distributed over our coastal cities?
3. subs: okay, they are nice for reconnaisance, but fighters are a lot better (except they don't spot subs, IIRC). and they cost about the same... we won't have a lot of coastal production power, so if we could cut back on the number of subs (let's say we keep 3 or 4, to scout behind enemy lines where fighters can't reach), and for every lost sub build a fighter, I would be happy. Remember that we need fighters on air superiority if we want to shoot down bombers. Subs don't shoot down bombers.
4. destroyer fleet: sure thing, but what is the average force we can reckon they will try to land with? 10 ships including escorts? we need those fleet positioned so that we can have at least 2 of them on every incoming route. I'm not sure this will be enough. This is the only case were I ask for more ships (we will need them on the offensive too, of course)

I know it's a lot... but don;t we all have the sense that a killer defensive naval posture is critical?

Yes and no. As long as Lego doesn't have tanks, and we're building for an invasion, they won't get far if they try to invade. And having too much defense might tick them off, getting them into a cold naval war (which we don't need at all, we need them to be weak, navally) Once we invade, however, it's a different story. We have to make absolutely sure that as we're invading them with all we've got, we're not getting circumvented, and invaded on our own. Nobody is ever allowed to set foot on Stormia, or we're in trouble. This includes the Bobians as well

And just to stress the system further, I haven;t fully thought it out yet, but in terms of land-based defenses, I am (very preliminarily) predicting:
Infantry - 50
Arty - 25
Tanks - 15-20

Do you mean without any invasion forces included in the mix? Because 50 infs shouldn't be too much of a problem in case we've got enough funds (we've got enough obsolete units laying around, and are starting to get up to speed in building rifles). 25 arty is a lot, I prefer 25 bombers if it's all the same to you (we still have 8 cats, though) And tanks: well, seeing that we'll be building over 7 tanks a turn during the war, we'll only need some 10 fixed tanks, also not terribly outrageous demand.

Include, as an extra defense (which we can't count on, but it will be close), the transport chain we'll be setting up. I reckon it will consist of at least 2 transports per link, meaning that another 16 tanks can be transported back from our beach head to Stormia.

Oh, in planning naval defenses, you better plan for that transport line as well: it is imperative that it is well guarded at all times, it could very well mean our lifeline.

DeepO

[vmxa1]

Fighters can perform 3 task. Recon, Air superiority and bombing.

This makes them more useful than subs, but the bombing is almost worthless. The other thing is that are only shot down by other planes and missile batteries.

Subs are not even real good for picket duty as they have limited speed and lose most battles. A forted destroyer can move out of range if defending is not an good bet. A sub gets run down.

[DeepO]

Originally posted by vulture
anyway. Only GS cities are considered - RP look after their own defence (we can't spread our infantry into their cities anyway).

I don't fully agree there. RP can look after their own cities, but if at all possible, we should look after the mountain ridge on their border with GoW. GoW will not attack our infs , but they might attack RP's cities. I would prefer RP building conqs by the dozen to help us in invading Lego, over letting them build infs to protect somethign that we're better at.

As to your blue dots: it's rather worrying to me. With two fleet, Lego can threaten 6 cities coming straight at us? Ouch! Assuming 6 transports (possible full of marines), we need at least 12 infs in every city, or 72 infs in those cities alone to get any chance. Granted, tanks and every unit we'll find would be bunkered in the cities, but still... that's scary

DeepO

[DeepO]

Originally posted by vulture
Game mechanics question:

Say, for example, that Lego land a bick stack on the mountanis at Inchoff 1, includnig lots of cavalry. That stack can threaten 3 cities: Inchoff, Winds of Change, and Santa Anna. So we whack most of our defensive units in those cities. Next turn, a marine invasion turns up and takes the now-lightly defended Blizzard. The stack from Inchoff move back into their transports, and the transports move in to Blizzard. The units can't attack from there, having used all their moves up. The question is: do they count as defenders, or are they still on the boat? I suspect they are defenders, so the units from Inchoff 1 can be used to defend blizzard.

They can be waken from transport, I think, at which point they are defenders, but unforted

Point 1: if this is so, then we not only need to defend cities that can be reached by a conventional landing, but also ones that could be reinforced from there if an amphibious landing is used.

I'm not sure I follow... what's the difference between defending at all times against amphibious landings, even if troops are present in our territory? BTW, that has to be quite a killer stack, if they don't get destroyed in one turn with bombers, arts, and tanks (not touching our defenses even)

DeepO

[DeepO]

Originally posted by asleepathewheel
Ok, further along those lines....

I've looked at the map. halfway between quantum mechanico and sandonorico is a coastal hill. We drop a settler and 15-20 inf's on it, they might think that we are trying our trick from the vox war. Sure, the 20 units will die, but they'll eat a ton of cavs before they do. Plus we will have a lot of units adjacent to where we think their FP is and their desert (maybe take out an oil supply)

Interesting idea... costly, but interesting. We need a diversion, and this would sure be one. Those infs would be dead, though, as all their arties could fire on them. I doubt many cavs would die. But still... if they don't attack or destroy, we have a beachhead we can use.

DeepO

[DeepO]

Originally posted by vmxa1
Fighters can perform 3 task. Recon, Air superiority and bombing.

This makes them more useful than subs, but the bombing is almost worthless. The other thing is that are only shot down by other planes and missile batteries.

Subs are not even real good for picket duty as they have limited speed and lose most battles. A forted destroyer can move out of range if defending is not an good bet. A sub gets run down.

totally agree. the only use for subs is deep scouting, and we don't really need that.

Oh, and we can blokkade friendly sea units... but who would need that?

DeepO

[Theseus]

There's a lot to digest and respond to... rather than go through point by point let me get together a comprehensive first draft defensive plan and present it for critique and improvement.

vulture, thanks for posting the dot map. I'll be posting something similar, but based on a slightly different approach... both useful, however.

We are getting there.

[vmxa1]

Units in a transport with no moves left will act as defenders and have to be killed to take the city.

[DeepO]

Originally posted by vmxa1
Fighters can perform 3 task. Recon, Air superiority and bombing.

This makes them more useful than subs, but the bombing is almost worthless.

Euhm I have to correct you here, vmxa. Fighters bombing is most useful. They won't hit anything, but in case fighters are defending on air superiority, this is the only way to get in a dog fight with them. (no guarantee, it's a chance thing (1/12 or something like that)). By first bombing with a few fighters, our bombers would be safer if we suspect air superiority fighters.

DeepO

[DeepO]

Allow me to bump this thread. It has been silent lately on our defense planning front, and we need the plan fast! I asked for this in the turnthread, but haven't seen much response (probably because it was overlooked), so let's split the discussion to here again.

As turnplayer, let me state what I would like to have as a timeline (currently Turn 215 BTW):
- From Turn 225 onwards, we're facing Marines from Lego. With chaining, they can attack us that same turn. I doubt they will, but we can't take any risk... so our defense has to be in place at turn 225.

- For this, I would like a preliminary break down of forces (and realistic demands, please) ASAP! In the turn thread, there is info on how many defenders we currently have, how many transports and stuff, and how many we can build. Note that e.g. rifles and arts cost the same, and thus the mix between the two can be decided upon, while currently, I'm building pure rifles (I prefer these before we have rubber, as shields are more scarce than gold)

- In Turn 220, I want a full and detailed plan on naval defenses, and where they need to go. Sorry to be strict in this, but otherwise there simply is no time to move them to where they are supposed to go, let alone build the ships. Any sooner would be appreciated!

- Somewhere around the same time, I'd prefer the breakdown of our land forces as well. Also, a decision is needed when we're going to ask for rubber from GoW (I prefer this in turn 223 or 224 at the earliest, if we can do without a bit longer, it would be better).

- Before turn 224, I would like a land defense plan. Every position on the map that needs troops on them, should be named, and troops should be divided. That includes all troops, so including obsolete units we have laying around.

Turn 225 is D-Day (D from defense, in this case ). All units haev to be present, and truely fortified. Any reinforcements later on will be spread to existing camps.

I hope I'm not asking for too much, and that you agree I try to get people to work on this. I'm not a general, and need this info. I can do some last-minute decisions, but would prefer that the team as a whole works on this.

DeepO

[DeepO]

Another urgency bump...

Theseus, are you watching?

DeepO