Darwin, the importance of being Earnest!

[Crackaces]

We don’t play WitP/AE like Roosevelt and Nimitz. But then we don’t have HR’s that have AU pushing away from the table either. Today, if you factor in the speech by John Curtin on 12/27/41, I seriously wonder if my professor’s had hit the nail on the head. The further you look the more it seems to make sense. And it would go a long way in explaining USN aggressiveness in early 1942. Perhaps Roosevelt told Nimitz/Navy to get out there and fight; not caring at all about any consequences since he knew that they would all be replaced come 1943-44 anyway. What he need was to buy time which would be accomplished with either victories or defeats. We know from our WitP/AE play that battle damage and air losses can push out our time tables. Was Roosevelt betting that no matter what the outcome of these early battles, the US would be keeping Japan busy and telegraphing to the Aussies that they must stand firm for everyone’s sake?

You hit the point .. Let us play a game of chess .. evertime I exchange a piece with you I get that piece back 20 chess moves from now .. the game becomes exchange pieces as fast as possible ..thus the world that Nimitz was working under ..get engaged as soon as possible and take away the tools of aggessiveness as soon as possible ..

In fact, the United States was always under the impression that the IJ would never start anything since the United States could turn loose almost limitless industry. The IJ was thinking US == weak and concerned only with domestic problems and recovering from a depression ....they were thinking imperialist Russia 1908 ... what a miscalculation!! Not only did they wake the tiger .. they p*ss the tiger off ...

My contention is scenrario #2. The US did not ramp up because the IJ was seen as still weak and eventually containable .. if the IJ built up the force in scenrario #2 Congress would be voting down WPA projects and voting in emergency measures like Montana class BB and Essex class CV's .. alas .. [8|]

[dekwik]

Interesting. He seemed quite Churchillian from what I read, but underneath it all......

[Disco Duck]

Sandman455 you have some interesting assertions but I have problems with most of them. Roosevelt was a master politician. He knew that a raid on the home islands would get the politicians more involved in the war planning and make the military worry about things that didn't matter from a military standpoint. Churchill did the same thing with Hitler. The Luftwaffe was on the verge of destroying the RAF before Churchill sent a night raid to Berlin. Militarily meaningless, but Hitler ordered the Luftwaffe to switch emphasis from factories and airfields to cities. This gave the RAF a chance to regroup. The Doolittle attack really rattled some cages in a similar manner.

I don't think King and Nimitz needed any pushing from Roosevelt to be aggressive. Because of code breaking the Navy knew the operations in the Coral Sea would be a 2-2 fight. Same is true of Midway, 4-4 if you count Midway as a carrier with the advantage of long range search planes it's a better than even fight for the U.S.. The book "Combined Fleet Decoded" even states this. The biggest defensive armament a carrier group is the ability to hit and run. Once it's location is known it is very vulnerable. An early raid on Rabaul was aborted because Japanese search planes had spotted the U.S. carrier group. It still got attacked by Betties without escorts. The biggest mistake the Japanese made at Midway was not pulling out when they were spotted.

I think any threat to take Australia out of the war was political grandstanding. I am sure Curtin was terrified but Japan would not have signed a peace treaty without being able to use occupation troops. Then the whole reason for surrenduring goes away. Besides, where would Australia get the oil to run it's factories? Now not allowing Australian troops to be used under American leaders could be a real threat. I could see a house rule for that if the Americans aren't aggressive enough. I can see it making the game very difficult indeed for AFB's.

As far as Roosevelt not caring about early losses that is not true. He had to worry about voters and we don't. When a ship sinks it upsets a lot of voters back home. 1942 was a Congressional election year, and if Roosevelt was going to continue to drive his agenda he couldn't afford to have defeats that might give the Republicans an opening in Congress. Just look at the mid-term elections of Clinton and Obama and the political effects of those elections.

Thanks for posting a very interesting speech but I don't get the part about Russian aid.

As far as Darwin is concerned my understanding is that it was pretty much abandoned. Perhaps with the view that if it wasn't important it wouldn't be attacked again. The same would be true about building up the road to Darwin. Why improve it just for the Japanese to use. If you check out the websites about Darwin in WWII a number of them hint about some grand conspiracy regarding Darwin and why it wasn't better protected.

[LoBaron]

ORIGINAL: Crackaces
I beleive Mac was hell bent on invading the Solomons mainly because it brought him closer to the PI's.. somehow this forum forgets how the British maintained supply through the Libyan desert . If we wanted to have a contest in Northern Oz we could bring the logistics to bare .. Mac was determined to return to PI .. no matter what the consequinces.

But the IJA felt that all of Northern Oz would have to be secured not just Darwin .. that meant exposure to 4E's in open desert terrain without air cover.. the good news from this would have been more factual data of hitting troops in the open using 4E ground attacks from 5,000 feet ....

As it is they went for Midway and the rest is history ...

Myself scenario #1 I demonstrated why attacking Darwin was such as bad idea .. the IJA lose 2 full divisions plus and have little to gain from it .. plus while the IJN/IJA are consumed with Darwin I blitzed Burma ..

Maybe in scenario #2 a house rule is needed but I would invite the IJ for tea if they want to come to Darwin for a fight ...

I agree with you except for the italic part.

Yourself scenario #1 you only demonstrated that it is a bad idea to attack Darwin with lack of fire support, and to slug it out further South while either lacking
or mistiming an evacuation plan to move back out again when the time comes.

Even so, Darwin was out of Allied control for months. The same time the Allies could invest to build up the base as a major staging area.

One of the weapons the Japanese player has got is the ability to buy time. The further he is able to keep the Allied player at arms´ lenght from vital areas, the better.
The real problem the Japanese player faces against a good Allied player is different options to get attacked combined with limited ressources.

A good Allied player knows how to create one option after another to advance, and then select the most promising, the most destructive, the least obvious,...
or several of those at once, you get the picture.

Darwin is a great option. Whether you use it or not depends on the situation and your personal preference, but for the Japanese it is a "damn if he wanted he could
launch an attack from there and which I have to defend against"-option you really really hate. Better let 2 Div worth of troops rot in Australia for as long as possible.

Clearly from an Allied perspective Darwin might just another potential meatgrinder to force attrition on the IJA, but that only shows that against a dedicated Allied play Japan faces
a lot of problems. You will always get more respect for Darwin from an experienced Japanese player than an Allied player, independent of what they chose to do.


Obviousely there is an alternative to taking Darwin: Permanently shut it down using Air assets from in the Timor Sea. There are always alternatives. [;)]

[adsoul64]

Sandman, although I disagree with you on several points I’ve found much food for thought in your post and I thank you for posting. I don’t think Roosevelt were “not caring at all about any consequences since he knew that they would all be replaced come 1943-44 anyway”. We’ve clues that seem going to the opposite direction and Disco Duck highlighted many points I share with him. More, you could think of Midway, Fletcher and Spruance orders were forcing them to be very cautious indeed because their CVs were the last weapon left between IJN and Hawaii or any other target Jap could have ever chose.

But I totally agree with you when you say “We don’t play WitP/AE like Roosevelt and Nimitz. But then we don’t have HR’s that have AU pushing away from the table either”. Most wargames fail to simulate the real reason because WW2 (and likely every one 20th Century war) has finished: the civilian morale. Arguably, it’s very very difficult modeling this facet but failing to do means we’re playing in a very different way than RL (as you point off). Needless to say, I have no idea how Matrix Games could have find a way to keep track of Japanese - Australian – Indian – British – American – Dutch and a lesser extent French morale [:D][&:]

[USSAmerica]

ORIGINAL: Nikademus

Just mussing here....but the AE map size increase has always made me wonder about that pipeline.

Nik, I've had exactly the same thoughts after getting familiar with the larger AE map. There is just WAY too much room for the "Allied pipeline" to shift SE, again and again. The best Japan can really hope to do without actually occupying the East Coast of Australia is to make the trips longer between US and Oz.

[Nikademus]

ORIGINAL: USS America

ORIGINAL: Nikademus

Just mussing here....but the AE map size increase has always made me wonder about that pipeline.

Nik, I've had exactly the same thoughts after getting familiar with the larger AE map. There is just WAY too much room for the "Allied pipeline" to shift SE, again and again. The best Japan can really hope to do without actually occupying the East Coast of Australia is to make the trips longer between US and Oz.

indeed. I've yet to intercept a single convoy, even when i send out subs and surface raiders.

[Nikademus]

ORIGINAL: sandman455
We don’t play WitP/AE like Roosevelt and Nimitz. But then we don’t have HR’s that have AU pushing away from the table either. Today, if you factor in the speech by John Curtin on 12/27/41, I seriously wonder if my professor’s had hit the nail on the head.

Bingo. I've felt for a long time now that it is a mistake to make the player(s) both CiC of their armed forces 'and' be the leader of their respective countries at the same time like The Dictator Sasha Baron Cohen. Having a set of rules and triggers above the player to act as a civilian or military government kingpin tapping you on the shoulder (and slapping you in the back of the head if you act rashly) would go a long way towards creating more realistic play.

While i never played TOAW.....i'd heard it had a very simple but elogent political model that triggered certain events including allowing another countries units to activate if the player did or didn't do a set of tasks within the scenario. I'm hoping the next generation of games will focus on ideas like this vs. ways to increase micromanagement even more with 29 different supply types, 6000 ship and civilian ship classes to maintain, convert, deploy, send to dry dock etc etc and pilot and indiv. soldier managemnet with the ability to promote Privates to master Sgt.

On Curtin and FDR. After some recent reads, I have no doubt there's truth in what your professor wrote. FDR i'm learing more and more was indeed a "master" politician, but in being so he was deceitful and opaque at times in order to protect his position and keep the ball rolling so to speak. His ultimate goals were in the right IMO, but some of the methods and tactics used are more grey but thats the way the world is vs. what alot of us would like to imagine it is. (I believe another Oz citizen, a well known activist and former lead singer for a famous Oz band "Peter Garrett" currently the Minister for School Education and Early Childhood would agree with this given he's been periodically accused of "Selling out" since joining the political spectrum)

FDR was in the habit of making empty promises in order to keep Allies in the fight. He did so with the PI's president, promising aid and succor 'very soon' when he had no intention (or ability granted...) to do so. Said similar things to MacArthur which is allegedly a primary reason behind the tension between the two.

It sounds like Curtin was astute enough as a politician to recognize a sales job when he heard one. After all Churchill was a master or Oration as well so he'd had good practice. I can perfectly see Curtin saying to FDR....."make it soon" aka "Actions speak louder than words" "Words won't save my country" DO SOMETHING.

I also agree that people like King and MacArthur also had no issues with wanting to take the fight to the enemy as soon as possible. The reality of the matter though was that priorities had to be made....deals made...egos soothed, different country's agendas addressed. Difficult in the extreme. FDR and others 'had' to be Master politicians to weather this storm. We were lucky to have such capable men even if there's dirty underwear to be sorted through in the process of learing about how things worked under the hood and behind the scenes.

[Crackaces]

ORIGINAL: LoBaron

ORIGINAL: Crackaces
I beleive Mac was hell bent on invading the Solomons mainly because it brought him closer to the PI's.. somehow this forum forgets how the British maintained supply through the Libyan desert . If we wanted to have a contest in Northern Oz we could bring the logistics to bare .. Mac was determined to return to PI .. no matter what the consequinces.

But the IJA felt that all of Northern Oz would have to be secured not just Darwin .. that meant exposure to 4E's in open desert terrain without air cover.. the good news from this would have been more factual data of hitting troops in the open using 4E ground attacks from 5,000 feet ....

As it is they went for Midway and the rest is history ...

Myself scenario #1 I demonstrated why attacking Darwin was such as bad idea .. the IJA lose 2 full divisions plus and have little to gain from it .. plus while the IJN/IJA are consumed with Darwin I blitzed Burma ..

Maybe in scenario #2 a house rule is needed but I would invite the IJ for tea if they want to come to Darwin for a fight ...

I agree with you except for the italic part.

Yourself scenario #1 you only demonstrated that it is a bad idea to attack Darwin with lack of fire support, and to slug it out further South while either lacking
or mistiming an evacuation plan to move back out again when the time comes.

Even so, Darwin was out of Allied control for months. The same time the Allies could invest to build up the base as a major staging area.

One of the weapons the Japanese player has got is the ability to buy time. The further he is able to keep the Allied player at arms´ lenght from vital areas, the better.
The real problem the Japanese player faces against a good Allied player is different options to get attacked combined with limited ressources.

A good Allied player knows how to create one option after another to advance, and then select the most promising, the most destructive, the least obvious,...
or several of those at once, you get the picture.

Darwin is a great option. Whether you use it or not depends on the situation and your personal preference, but for the Japanese it is a "damn if he wanted he could
launch an attack from there and which I have to defend against"-option you really really hate. Better let 2 Div worth of troops rot in Australia for as long as possible.

Clearly from an Allied perspective Darwin might just another potential meatgrinder to force attrition on the IJA, but that only shows that against a dedicated Allied play Japan faces
a lot of problems. You will always get more respect for Darwin from an experienced Japanese player than an Allied player, independent of what they chose to do.


Obviousely there is an alternative to taking Darwin: Permanently shut it down using Air assets from in the Timor Sea. There are always alternatives. [;)]

Three things happened in that fight thanks to Crsutton, derp, and NY59Giants ..

1. I built up and stored supply at Alice Springs and Tennant Creek way before the invasion happened
2. I had the 1 AUS Corps ready to move .. way before the invasion ..
3. I bought out enough Indian Forces and positioned them that once the IJA comitted . the blitzkrieg of Burma began ..indirect attack

Then no home rule against 4E's against troops in the open and the slaughter began .. If a home rule existed it would have been tougher ...

I would disagree with your thoughts of "buying time" I would phrase it as playing with time unitl '44 ..assuming no SCLS once April '44 arrives the march starts no matter how ingenious the IJ .. BTW) PzB's match was scenrario #2 and even then he did not want to pay the piper for the pilot training ..

[LoBaron]

Good move on your part building up stocks in Alice and TC. I do not think our understanding of the situation is much different.

To adress your points:

Depending on the situation you require much more forces to defend the Timor to Dutch NG line than to dig in at the Darwin area. Independent of the shape
of the Japanese Timor Sea/N Australia operations, Burma would have worked in your case.
The only relation of the two operations is their contrubution to accellerate the Japanese demise and their good timing.

Phrase "buying time" any way you like, every action the Japanese player undertakes to achieve 'it' influences the date of the Japanese capitulation.
Which is the basic driving force behind any Japanese strategy (except to achieve autovictory which is practically impossible when equally matched players meet
in scen #1, and improbable in scen #2).

[JWE]

I hope I don't rape the thread intent too badly with this, but ...

Remember discussing this a couple years ago in context of the Japanese perspective from Senshi Sosho. Invading Australia would be a nightmare. Weren't enough troops (would have required 12 Divisions, minimum) but most important, there wasn't enough shipping. Planning schedules said 1,500,000 tons (at least) to keep things going for a descent on OZ. Since the Empire only had 3,000,000 tons, that would have been painful.

The IJA affirmatively recognized it would be a slippery slope, "Reflecting on the bitter experience of the China Incident, the chances are high that an invasion would eventually extend over the whole of the Australian continent." (Ugaki). According to MajGen Tanaka Shin'ichi, "Even if the Army could supply the required strength for the proposal to invade Australia, there are grave fears that the problem of supplying shipping would destroy the fundamental basis for executing the war." Tanaka, Tanaka Shin'ichi Shosho no nisshi no motozuku shuki. Some of the guys in the IJA Division of IJGHQ weren't all that stupid. They implicitly recognized that the entire Eastern coast of the sub-continent would have to be conquered and that was simply impossible.

So if you don't want your entire body ground into hamburger, don't stick your winkie into the wood-chipper.

Darwin wasn't the best place, either to invade from, or invade to; just too isolated. But it did confront Timor/Ambon, so if was a backwater, it was an important one, nevertheless.

[LoBaron]

Actually you brought the thread back on topic. [;)]

[Wirraway_Ace]

ORIGINAL: Nikademus

We were lucky to have such capable men....

To me, this has always been the bottom line on WW2.

[JWE]

Was reading here about invading OZ and questioning whether the US/OZ pipeline could be severed or effectively interdicted. A really good question. Did an Ops Problem for one of the groups a couple years ago on this issue and it struck me that it might be a nice small map scenario for the general playing public. It would be in the right time frame, where things were pretty much equal, and gives the Japanese player an excellent opportunity to win.

Did Operation SF, right out of the IJGHQ playbook - volume, chapter and verse. Might be right up a bunch of alleys. In the real world, the Japanese recognized many things. They were not stupid. The IJA and IJN had a disconnect about stuff, but it was a disconnect in a manner that we Westerners don't quite resonate with. IJA and IJN were arguing terminology. But in Japanese, terminology has implications. IJA was arguing for 'consolidation', IJN was arguing for 'expansion'. There's like 70 pages of conference notes, in Senshi Sosho, for this Op alone, resulting in a 'compromise'. Woof !!

Ok, so did all this stuff into a scenario for a Babes group. Was a freaking success and led to an interesting resultant SWPac posture for the subsequent Ops Problem.

Some initial details are on the Scen Design sub-forum. If anyone is interested in pursuing this, would like to hear from you.

Oh, shoot, here's the map.

[sprior]

Lady Bracknell: “My nephew, you seem to be displaying signs of triviality.”

Jack: “On the contrary, Aunt Augusta, I’ve now realized for the first time in my life the vital Importance of Being Earnest.”

[JWE]

ORIGINAL: sprior
“On the contrary, Aunt Augusta, I’ve now realized for the first time in my life the vital Importance of Being Earnest.”

[treespider]

ORIGINAL: Nikademus



Yes. Darwin and the entire SRA area around it are overimportant in the game because of the way the abstracted logistics work and the overgenerous SPS values therein. When MacArthur was traveling through Northern Oz to where he'd end up in Brisbane, he saw for himself the logistical nightmare that would have been trying to stage a major offensive through Northern Australia into the SRA which is why the SWPac theater eventually opted to strike Japan through New Guniea.

In addition to being sparcely populated with few developed industries, even the rail gauge between N. Oz and SouthE. Oz was different. The situation in AE was improved recently by map changes which make Darwin hard to supply overland but this can be easily solved with a few big supply convoys. After that one just needs to land at any of a dozen SRA points, all with generous SPS values and quickly turn them into major air and/or sea bases.

Some people (including myself and Treespider) try to further represent the logistical and geographical difficulties of this Theater by greatly lowering SPS values for Darwin as well as the surrounding bases.

As for real life. The Australian government was set to cede all of N. Oz to the Japanese if they had too. The heart of the country was S. Oz in terms of economic and people resources. The "Brisbane Line" may have had some hysterial to it, but it also represented a realistic plan by a government with a limited size military to concentrate on the most important areas. Oz being as immense as it is, the loss of Darwin would have been a major morale blow and further secured the SRA but would have changed little in the SW Pacific Theater other than to drain away some land forces which might have slowed down the buildup to offensive power a bit.

pre-War Darwin

[Disco Duck]

Apparently they built some oil storage tunnels that never worked.


Burrowed deep beneath the city is one of the most interesting historical sites in Darwin. The World War II Oil Storage Tunnels were built during World War II due to the vulnerability of standard storage tanks to aerial attacks. This innovative approach to conserve oil was a significant part of Australia’s defence strategy.

Of the eight oil tunnels originally planned, only five were completed, however delays in obtaining suitable materials hampered construction and the failure to properly seal the tunnels from water meant that they were never used for their initial purpose. Two of the tunnels are open to the public and feature a collection of photographs of Darwin during World War II. Guided tours operate daily.

http://en.travelnt.com/about-nt/share-o ... arwin.aspx