Markus
Banned
About Matador, in "The Defence and Fall of Singapore" the author states that Percival needed London´s ok and that the execution of the whole operation from the time the japanese convoys were detected would have taken longer than the time the japanese convoys needed to cross the Thai gulf. Thus there would not have been time to dig in at Kra and that´s using the British estimates, which turned out to overestimate the speed with which their troops moved. IIRC six vs. four days. A fact sadly underlined by Operation Krocol. One of the invasion roads ran through a gorge that was rather close to the Malayan border and rather far away from the next japanese beachhead. The plan was to occupy, hold and eventually blow it up, thereby delaying the invasion for days.
But the Brits moved slower than slow and were narrowly beaten by the fast moving, hard hitting Japanese.
Better cancel Matador and have the troops man the defensive positions. I still expect the British to be beaten but not as badly as IOTL. IOTL the order to cancel Matador had been given hours after the Japanese had already landed, with the result that the troops were attacked while they were in the process of returning to their defensive positions.
But the Brits moved slower than slow and were narrowly beaten by the fast moving, hard hitting Japanese.
Better cancel Matador and have the troops man the defensive positions. I still expect the British to be beaten but not as badly as IOTL. IOTL the order to cancel Matador had been given hours after the Japanese had already landed, with the result that the troops were attacked while they were in the process of returning to their defensive positions.