How Many of you have dropped "The Bomb?"

[mogami]

Hi,
JSL 8152
AFTER ACTION REPORTS FOR 05/11/45

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Day Air attack on Tokyo , at 66,43


Allied aircraft
B-29 Superfortress x 130


Allied aircraft losses
B-29 Superfortress: 1 destroyed, 11 damaged

Repair Shipyard hits 37

Aircraft Attacking:
14 x B-29 Superfortress bombing at 15000 feet
36 x B-29 Superfortress bombing at 15000 feet
15 x B-29 Superfortress bombing at 15000 feet
4 x B-29 Superfortress bombing at 15000 feet
13 x B-29 Superfortress bombing at 15000 feet
6 x B-29 Superfortress bombing at 15000 feet
6 x B-29 Superfortress bombing at 15000 feet
3 x B-29 Superfortress bombing at 15000 feet
6 x B-29 Superfortress bombing at 15000 feet
3 x B-29 Superfortress bombing at 15000 feet
8 x B-29 Superfortress bombing at 15000 feet
2 x B-29 Superfortress bombing at 15000 feet
3 x B-29 Superfortress bombing at 15000 feet
4 x B-29 Superfortress bombing at 15000 feet
3 x B-29 Superfortress bombing at 15000 feet
3 x B-29 Superfortress bombing at 15000 feet
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Day Air attack on Tokyo , at 66,43


Allied aircraft
B-29 Superfortress x 207


Allied aircraft losses
B-29 Superfortress: 1 destroyed, 14 damaged

Resources hits 130

Aircraft Attacking:
18 x B-29 Superfortress bombing at 15000 feet
24 x B-29 Superfortress bombing at 15000 feet
30 x B-29 Superfortress bombing at 15000 feet
48 x B-29 Superfortress bombing at 15000 feet
27 x B-29 Superfortress bombing at 15000 feet
20 x B-29 Superfortress bombing at 15000 feet
28 x B-29 Superfortress bombing at 15000 feet
8 x B-29 Superfortress bombing at 15000 feet
3 x B-29 Superfortress bombing at 15000 feet

Here is view of what remais in Tokyo

[mogami]

Hi, A view of the "Main Battle Area" A TF with 100k supply has arrived at Canton China

[mogami]

Hi, The CBI with Allies advancing towards Rangoon and Japanese cut off in central Burma.

[mogami]

Hi JSL 8638 Resource at Toyama down to 450 out of 900

AFTER ACTION REPORTS FOR 05/13/45

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Day Air attack on Toyama , at 65,41


Allied aircraft
B-29 Superfortress x 209


No Allied losses

Resources hits 109

Aircraft Attacking:
48 x B-29 Superfortress bombing at 15000 feet
36 x B-29 Superfortress bombing at 15000 feet
48 x B-29 Superfortress bombing at 15000 feet
32 x B-29 Superfortress bombing at 15000 feet
4 x B-29 Superfortress bombing at 15000 feet
6 x B-29 Superfortress bombing at 15000 feet
9 x B-29 Superfortress bombing at 15000 feet
8 x B-29 Superfortress bombing at 15000 feet
3 x B-29 Superfortress bombing at 15000 feet
3 x B-29 Superfortress bombing at 15000 feet
3 x B-29 Superfortress bombing at 15000 feet
4 x B-29 Superfortress bombing at 15000 feet
2 x B-29 Superfortress bombing at 15000 feet
3 x B-29 Superfortress bombing at 15000 feet
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Day Air attack on Tokyo , at 66,43


Allied aircraft
B-29 Superfortress x 108


Allied aircraft losses
B-29 Superfortress: 1 destroyed, 20 damaged

Heavy Industry hits 73

Aircraft Attacking:
18 x B-29 Superfortress bombing at 15000 feet
48 x B-29 Superfortress bombing at 15000 feet
21 x B-29 Superfortress bombing at 15000 feet
16 x B-29 Superfortress bombing at 15000 feet
4 x B-29 Superfortress bombing at 15000 feet

[mogami]

Hi, Japanese CV comes out to play. Discovers that was a mistake.
JSL 8982
AFTER ACTION REPORTS FOR 05/15/45
Day Air attack on Toyama , at 65,41


Allied aircraft
B-29 Superfortress x 96


Allied aircraft losses
B-29 Superfortress: 1 damaged

Resources hits 23

Aircraft Attacking:
20 x B-29 Superfortress bombing at 15000 feet
32 x B-29 Superfortress bombing at 15000 feet
7 x B-29 Superfortress bombing at 15000 feet
21 x B-29 Superfortress bombing at 15000 feet
5 x B-29 Superfortress bombing at 15000 feet
6 x B-29 Superfortress bombing at 15000 feet
3 x B-29 Superfortress bombing at 15000 feet
2 x B-29 Superfortress bombing at 15000 feet

Day Air attack on Tokyo , at 66,43


Allied aircraft
B-29 Superfortress x 42


Allied aircraft losses
B-29 Superfortress: 7 damaged

Resources hits 17

Aircraft Attacking:
36 x B-29 Superfortress bombing at 15000 feet
6 x B-29 Superfortress bombing at 15000 feet
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Day Air attack on Tokyo , at 66,43


Allied aircraft
B-29 Superfortress x 94


Allied aircraft losses
B-29 Superfortress: 1 destroyed, 9 damaged

Heavy Industry hits 23

Aircraft Attacking:
48 x B-29 Superfortress bombing at 15000 feet
20 x B-29 Superfortress bombing at 15000 feet
21 x B-29 Superfortress bombing at 15000 feet
4 x B-29 Superfortress bombing at 15000 feet

Day Air attack on TF at 50,42

Japanese aircraft
A6M5 Zeke x 13
Ki-43-IIa Oscar x 1

Allied aircraft
F6F Hellcat x 31
F4U-1 Corsair x 10
F4U-1D Corsair x 11
SB2C Helldiver x 15
TBM Avenger x 32

Japanese aircraft losses
A6M5 Zeke: 13 destroyed
Ki-43-IIa Oscar: 1 destroyed

Allied aircraft losses
F6F Hellcat: 1 destroyed
SB2C Helldiver: 9 damaged
TBM Avenger: 1 destroyed, 22 damaged

Japanese Ships
CV Kasagi, Bomb hits 4, on fire, heavy damage

Day Air attack on TF at 50,42

Japanese aircraft
Ki-43-IIa Oscar x 1

Allied aircraft
F6F Hellcat x 83
F4U-1D Corsair x 82
SB2C Helldiver x 96
TBF Avenger x 15
TBM Avenger x 87

Japanese aircraft losses
Ki-43-IIa Oscar: 1 destroyed

Allied aircraft losses
TBF Avenger: 1 damaged

Japanese Ships
CV Kasagi, Bomb hits 2, Torpedo hits 2, on fire, heavy damage

Toyama has 407 resource undamaged.

To track the impact of supply to Chinese Canton assault value currently 5378. Units preparing to attack Hong Kong.

[mogami]

Hi JSL goes over 10k 10010. 400 resource damaged.

AFTER ACTION REPORTS FOR 05/21/45

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Day Air attack on Tokyo , at 66,43


Allied aircraft
B-29 Superfortress x 319


Allied aircraft losses
B-29 Superfortress: 23 damaged

Manpower hits 468

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Day Air attack on Aomori , at 69,39


Allied aircraft
B-29 Superfortress x 291


Allied aircraft losses
B-29 Superfortress: 7 damaged

Resources hits 107

380 B-29 lost to date
52 A2A
152 flak
176 Ops

[Big B]

Question - I have been following your bombing campaign with interest,
and I'm curious that you mentioned Fog Of War.

If it's really a test campaign against AI - why didn't you turn FOW off?

B

ORIGINAL: Mogami

Hi, Yes at 1 repair a day Tokyo will never repair. Also I hope Japan does not have the supply to repair even if it had the time.

Operation "Stomp Tokyo" is being conducted by the B-29 groups on Tinian and Saipan while Operation "Eclipse" is being conducted by groups on Guam. "eclipse" seeks out the largest remaining resource centers for targets. This will reduce the amount of direct supply Japan produces. (hopefully the lack of oil prevents the conversion of resource to supply by Heavy industry)

I'm playing the AI because no human wants to be Japan and it's faster.

[mogami]

Hi, Because I don't want to know exactly. I want my recon to be my source of intell.

[mogami]

Hi, Update

1 June 1945
Japanese score 35316
Allied Score 47237

Japanese Strategic Loss (JSL)(bombing) 12028

With 75 days approx before historic Japanese surrender date Allies need to score 23395 points.

I think it is fairly certain Allies will exceed 2-1 ratio before March 1946 but I'd like to do it before the historic time.

Around 4000 resource remain undamaged in Home Island. I'm going to concentrate on these in June.

[mogami]

Hi, JSL 13070 (damaged)/undamaged

AFTER ACTION REPORTS FOR 06/02/45

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Day Air attack on Takamatsu , at 62,42 (235)/66


Allied aircraft
B-29 Superfortress x 264


Allied aircraft losses
B-29 Superfortress: 2 damaged

Resources hits 75


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Day Air attack on Toyama , at 65,41 (711)/190


Allied aircraft
B-29 Superfortress x 329


Allied aircraft losses
B-29 Superfortress: 2 damaged

Resources hits 84

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Day Air attack on Aomori , at 69,39 (582)/319


Allied aircraft
B-29 Superfortress x 214


Allied aircraft losses
B-29 Superfortress: 10 damaged

Resources hits 59

Chinese forces enter Hong Kong hex. (4-1 shock attack)

[dwesolick]

Hi Mogami,

Couple quick questions for you since you are playing a late war scenario vs Japanese AI (as I am):

Have you experienced any Kamikaze attacks yet? I've seen some old posts and done some searches and it appears they don't "come out to play" as it were. Is this true/untrue? (I haven't seen any yet, but I'm only in Oct 44, have captured Marianas, not PI...yet).

Also, I've hit some Japanese cities (Toyama, Shimizu, Nagoya) with firebomb raids and started 30K-plus fires a few times, but the damage done to industries seems pretty slight (almost nil actually, slight damage to resource/industry, but that's about it--no damage to manpower at all)...do I just need to keep at it, or might there be a problem, or am I just missing something?

Thanks in advance!

[Cmdrcain]

ORIGINAL: mlees

And the logic behind that is?.....

Idle Speculation: The designer's didn't want to be seen as pro-nuke?

Japan takes the Nuke question rather seriously, and even though WiTP is just a game, there might be some politician or peacenik that might try and raise a stink about a game that appears to promote the use of WMD's. A bit of a stretch, IMO, but sometimes people make leaps of logic that leave me blinking in confusion...

Speculation?

If after 2 more had to be used, one could then consider that Japan decided on national suicide and
every person was going to kill invaders... rabid... meaning the mentality be such that even invading all of japan would have resulted in such horror in western casualties that Allies really couldn't call it a win...

Yu could say japan eventually gets invaded and falls but that the western cost is in multi millions of men that its a "no win"

[dtravel]

If the US had dropped more than two nukes, the invasion would have resembled a "Night of The Living Dead" movie. Nukes dropped as fast as they could be manufactured combined with continued conventional fire bombing would have left most of urban Japan a literal post-apocalyptic landscape.

The blockade, destruction of internal transport links and continued sinking of Japanese merchant marine shipping would have continued the starvation of the Home Islands, which would have resulted in the starvation deaths of millions. And the survivors would have looked a bit too much like zombies for comfort.

From what I have read, some of the plans the US was working on for the invasion called for using nukes as tactical, ground support, weapons to create breaches in enemy lines for exploitation. And I've seen enough documentation to know that the US was stockpiling truely massive quantities of chemical weapons, apparently with the intention of using them to "clear" urban areas before Allied troops entered.

I'm not saying that the US wouldn't have suffered heavy casualties but "casualties" doesn't begin to cover what would have happened to the Japanese population if they had put up the kind of fanatical resistance they were planning for. Whatever would have been left after all that IMO could not be called a "nation". A desolate howling wilderness, yes, a "country", no.

[mogami]

Hi, 6-20-45
Score
Japan 34878
Allied 53743
Japanese Strategic loss (JSL) 16048

[Nemo121]

dtravel is correct. I think that it is a misapprehension to expect that the American command echelons would have contemplated engaging the Japanese forces in conventional ground combat if the Japanese had managed to organise a suicidal levee en masse of the entire population.
 
America had large stockpiles of non-persistent chemical weapons and any commander on the ground would quickly have happened on the solution of blanketing his objective with non-persistent agents prior to committing his men.

I think the only question is whether or not IF an invasion had occurred the use of chemicals and nukes would have been decided upon as SOP before landing OR if the commanders would have decided to wait and see what form the Japanese resistance took. I tend to believe that before embarking on the SOP of gassing every village, town or cluster of houses one came across the American commanders would have been savy enough to try conventional means and only fall back on extraordinary means once those conventional means had been shown to be ineffective/too costly. IOW I think they would have been savy enough to try conventional means and demonstrate that they were insufficient before falling back on gassing everything and, essentially, wiping out almost an entire nation. Such a thing requires proof that the alternatives were non-viable.

[dtravel]

ORIGINAL: Nemo121

dtravel is correct. I think that it is a misapprehension to expect that the American command echelons would have contemplated engaging the Japanese forces in conventional ground combat if the Japanese had managed to organise a suicidal levee en masse of the entire population.

America had large stockpiles of non-persistent chemical weapons and any commander on the ground would quickly have happened on the solution of blanketing his objective with non-persistent agents prior to committing his men.

I think the only question is whether or not IF an invasion had occurred the use of chemicals and nukes would have been decided upon as SOP before landing OR if the commanders would have decided to wait and see what form the Japanese resistance took. I tend to believe that before embarking on the SOP of gassing every village, town or cluster of houses one came across the American commanders would have been savy enough to try conventional means and only fall back on extraordinary means once those conventional means had been shown to be ineffective/too costly. IOW I think they would have been savy enough to try conventional means and demonstrate that they were insufficient before falling back on gassing everything and, essentially, wiping out almost an entire nation. Such a thing requires proof that the alternatives were non-viable.

Okinawa was that attempt at conventional means. Japan considered it one of their "home" islands and the Allies knew it. Japanese troops had been fighting to the death for a year already when the US invaded there. All the potentially combat useful civilians at Okinawa were conscripted into militia units and the non-combatant civilian population committed suicide when faced with possible capture by US troops. (I believe the most common method was for the mothers to push or throw their children off the island's cliffs before jumping themselves.)

No one knew of nuclear fallout in 1945 or really understood radiation poisoning & exposure, so we didn't see any reason not to use nukes as tactical weapons. And chemical weapons are very well suited to dealing with the kinds of pillbox-cave-tunnel complexes encountered on Okinawa and expected on the Home Islands. I expect that nukes would have been used just inland of the landing beaches to break shoreline defenses. Chemical weapons wouldn't be used for securing the beachead itself, the terrain wouldn't have favored it and the chemical warfare units wouldn't be among the first troops ashore (for somewhat obvious reasons, a bullet in the mustard gas tank can ruin your whole life). But after a couple of days when the beachead was secured and they could land safely, I would expect to see them used as US forces pushed farther inland.

[Nemo121]

On a side-note:
What other heavier than air non-persistent agents did the US have access to other than mustard gas? I think we're both agreed that one of the main uses would have been to tackle bunker complexes and obviously a heavier than air agent would be desirable for such entrenchments but wouldn't you agree that mustard gas was a bit too easily countered? If they'd had something else I'm sure they'd have gone for that.
 
Man-portable gas tanks? A la flamethrower units? I wasn't aware the US had those. I was thinking more along the lines of artillery-delivered munitions. A man-portable gas-delivery system strikes me as bizarre ( and not something I'd volunteer for... there may not be many quicker ways to die but there sure are a lot less unpleasant ways to go).
 

[dtravel]

A bullet in the storage barrel then. I wasn't meaning to imply man-portable gas-throwers.

[rtrapasso]

Actually, the US *DID* use chemical weapons, but wasn't aware of it at the time.
 
It turns out the majority of casualties inflicted by flamethrowers were caused by carbon monoxide killing people deep down in tunnel complexes. Flaming the mouth of the tunnel long enough would kill everyone deep down. They didn't figure this out until years after the war, though...

[Nemo121]

dtravel,
Thanks for the clarification. I misunderstood you.
 
 
rtrapasso,
Really? Any link to info regarding this? I've treated carbon monoxide poisoning in real life and would be interested in reading about this phenomenon. Off the top of my head I can only see it being possible in relatively shallow complexes with poor ventilation and a relatively narrow main entrance ( which was being flamed). Still that would cover an awful lot of the fortifications the Japanese built.