Invasion of Hawaii test continued

[el cid again]

A "guided" test game (face to face) -

mainly to check out the Hawaii option in EOS and AIO

but to insure the context is right - running offensives in SEA, Philippines, even the New Guinea/ Rabaul area

we find that the supply sinks are not a big problem.

IJA - without reinforcement - and facing an enemy that fought rather than ran - reached the straits (but not Singapore island) on Jan 28, 1942. I cut off Kuala Lumpur - but reduced it anyway in two days. Supply sinks are not a big issue - and maybe some should be bigger?

Hong Kong did not fall - and turns out Canton is isolated - and doesn't feed troops in the Hong Kong hex unless you feed HK supplies. This seems right.

Rangoon fell to a single brigade and a single independent mixed regiment- with air support - and other units dealing with Victoria Point. The British fight - but seem to be very weak. However - the river system permits rapid movement for British land units - very nice.

The offensive vs Hawaii runs out of steam in about 5 weeks - and you must send supplies and fuel forward every day or so (that is, an AO and an AK must depart that often) to keep Kwajalein functional as a forward base. Palau requires supplies and fuel less often - and Truk only supplies for a long time.

Australia and New Zealand require oil or they are in trouble - big time. Convoys should depart oil producing locations regularly. They don't need resources as much as they need oil. Sending supplies is a good idea as well. I keep the long range ships busy - or they become/stay pretty ineffective. Fed - they seem to be formidable foundations for operations. This will be more true in x.761 scenarios because many US air units will now appear forward in Australia, or at Port Moresby, or at Noumea (as well as points in India and even Kunming China). This is more true of non-EOS scenarios - but units which FORMED UP forward still appear there - unless you don't own the place.

Japan needs to import resources remarkably soon. And it won't maintain its oil stockpiles unless it is importing oil. You can do this for a brief period from offshort stocks - I mean Saigon and Bangkok and places like that. But it is vital to capture Brunei, Tarakan and other oil centers ASAP - and then put air defense or the tankers will be hurt while loading. Very nice. Failing to move oil and fuel will hurt major operations and production.


Bottom line: we appear to have supply sinks under sufficient control that those running smaller than they should can be adjusted - some day. But some points require oil, resources, supplies or fuel - and tie up shipping getting them - or you pay the price and they go into the red.

[el cid again]

Reports that Singapore is not approachable by ship are not borne out by testing. Not only warships, but the slowest of transports and landing craft, can deliver supplies/units and can evacuate units - usually without any casualties. This does require that Singapore focus its fighters on air defense - and that any enemy submarines in the area have been driven out by land based air ASW patrols. But it works - week after week - and is still working full bore in the second week of February 1942.

[el cid again]

Reports of a difficult Japanese supply situation in Central China are more substantiated. It appears you MUST use the Yangtze as a major logistic path - it is the biggest one in China - by a great amount of shipping if you wish substantial military forces to be able to consume on the offensive. You also need to clear Eastern and Southern China - so the suppies generated there are not feeding the enemy - but your own forces. Fail to do either - and you will find most places operating on below minimum supplies - and units there unable to attack with effect. But nothing about this seems wrong.

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: el cid again
Supply sinks are not a big issue - and maybe some should be bigger?

No - if you do that then even more supplies will be sucked out of Singapore. This is happening regardless of HQ's or anything else in Singapore or under player control. KL - or wherever the big supply sink is - already draws off all extra supplies, way over the amount it needs to stay 'in the white'. This is due to the game engine, but if all the supplies get sucked out of Singapore there is no defense in play.

Rangoon fell to a single brigade and a single independent mixed regiment- with air support - and other units dealing with Victoria Point. The British fight - but seem to be very weak. However - the river system permits rapid movement for British land units - very nice.

Do you mean that you use the transport ships to move Allied units on the rivers? Don't the Japanese air units just sink them en route?

[bradfordkay]

"Reports that Singapore is not approachable by ship are not borne out by testing. Not only warships, but the slowest of transports and landing craft, can deliver supplies/units and can evacuate units - usually without any casualties. This does require that Singapore focus its fighters on air defense"

What is the size of the Kuching airbase in your mod?

[m10bob]

Don't know if this is relevant or not. I am playing RHSCVO against Japanese AI and am having no problem cleaning Japans' clock in China!.. Just retook 2 major cities with loads of resources in each(31+) and they did not capture Singapore till mid March '42 because I am sinking many of his ships with my abundance of SB 2 bombers from China mainland bases while the enemy insists on going to Hainan.
I have retaken Tavoy,(Rangoon never got approached by the enemy because I was slaughtering his ships enroute to Malaya.)
The Japanese are already losing by attrition of both ships and supplies..

Manila has not fallen yet.
Hong Kong fell in February.
Rabaul fell in early March and I can prevent the Japanese from moving past Shortlands, I'm pretty sure.
Manado and Koepang are fortresses, MINE!

Is this because I have the advantage of knowing where he is going, or does the AI need more supplies,ships?
IIRC a lot of ships (AK's)were removed in RHS, is this true/necessary of the Japanese?

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

ORIGINAL: el cid again
Supply sinks are not a big issue - and maybe some should be bigger?

No - if you do that then even more supplies will be sucked out of Singapore. This is happening regardless of HQ's or anything else in Singapore or under player control. KL - or wherever the big supply sink is - already draws off all extra supplies, way over the amount it needs to stay 'in the white'. This is due to the game engine, but if all the supplies get sucked out of Singapore there is no defense in play.


REPLY: The key to sucking supply into Singapore is to put things that demand supply in Singapore. In particular HQ and air units will increase the supply depot there. I cannot claim to wholly grasp what AI does - nor do I accept responsibility for what it does - but I regard supply sinks mainly as a local phenomena. It is only the local consumption I worry about. I leave AI to do what it does - and if it has a problem - Matrix gets to fix it. Except this: if a location should be a major supply source, I do insure the sum of port and airfield value = 7 or more, and the initial supply level is high enough to notify AI "this mod wants supplies here." I am not sure (since no one has disclosed) what that number is - but it appears to be something like 90,000 is meaningful - intentional or accidental I do not know. Anyway - I try to insure there are supplies at critical points - and Singapore can be fed supplies. I am doing that now - 10 Feb 1942 - on a every two day sail in 2 to 4 convoy basis - and it works fine. Since it is cut off from Malaya - nothing up there sucks supplies.

Rangoon fell to a single brigade and a single independent mixed regiment- with air support - and other units dealing with Victoria Point. The British fight - but seem to be very weak. However - the river system permits rapid movement for British land units - very nice.

Do you mean that you use the transport ships to move Allied units on the rivers? Don't the Japanese air units just sink them en route?

Yes - I used the transport to move Allied units on the rivers. No the Japanese do not just sink them. There is very little air in range - I am not running a detail campaign - and assigned NOTHING extra to Burma - except the RTAF eventually and the few JAAF units involved initially - and now some air transport. I didn't use the air that way - and a smart Japanese player could do that. And a smart Allied player could cover em with CAP too. Actual micro naval warfare.

[My scenario intent is to test the HAWAII front - and I just wanted to be sure there is enough elcewhere to do something. I am not running it in great detail on every front - just seeing if the standard programmed offensive works - in spite of what we sent East. We sent little - and it isn't hurting the campaign.]

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: bradfordkay

"Reports that Singapore is not approachable by ship are not borne out by testing. Not only warships, but the slowest of transports and landing craft, can deliver supplies/units and can evacuate units - usually without any casualties. This does require that Singapore focus its fighters on air defense"

What is the size of the Kuching airbase in your mod?

3 (1) - that is - it starts at Level 3 with a normal rating of 1 - so the maximum size is 4. This matter was reviewed some weeks ago - several airbases were studied in response to Forum comments - and Andrew and I talked about the pro-s and con's. Modding is an art of compromise - and here several elements came into play. The natural airfield size is larger than 1 - but if we set it higher - the max size becomes incorrect for the location.

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: m10bob

Don't know if this is relevant or not. I am playing RHSCVO against Japanese AI and am having no problem cleaning Japans' clock in China!.. Just retook 2 major cities with loads of resources in each(31+) and they did not capture Singapore till mid March '42 because I am sinking many of his ships with my abundance of SB 2 bombers from China mainland bases while the enemy insists on going to Hainan.
I have retaken Tavoy,(Rangoon never got approached by the enemy because I was slaughtering his ships enroute to Malaya.)
The Japanese are already losing by attrition of both ships and supplies..

Manila has not fallen yet.
Hong Kong fell in February.
Rabaul fell in early March and I can prevent the Japanese from moving past Shortlands, I'm pretty sure.
Manado and Koepang are fortresses, MINE!

Is this because I have the advantage of knowing where he is going, or does the AI need more supplies,ships?
IIRC a lot of ships (AK's)were removed in RHS, is this true/necessary of the Japanese?

Playing against AI in a mod not configured for AI is not going to work very well.
Playing against AI even in an AI mod is not going to work very well.
AI is an idiot - it barely does Japan - and it wastes about 85% of the shipping on stupid missions. This is worse in RHS (other than AIO) because of interior river systems - which confuses AI completely.

That said - Japan has a big time problem in China. No news there - it should. All the verbage about how China was too weak seems misplaced. At least when Japan cannot get great amounts of free supply in country. Now IF Japan TOOK the locations of China systematically - that might turn around. This appears very hard to do. The IJA deep in China is in trouble UNLESS you send ships with supplies EVERY DAY. [RHS has the Yangtze as an EXTERIOR river system to Wuhan - as IRL - and it is possible to do this in RHS - but few do it enough. AI does it a little - not enough.] Its units will become combat ineffective due to lack of supply. The supply wants to go to Shanghai - even if you dump it upriver - and only moving the HQ might change that some. Units get ZERO supply if the next hex over is in the red or pink - that is if they must draw from a hex that is not in the white they will not instead. Now IF you owned the neighborhood it might be different. Doing that is hard - probably as it should be.

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: el cid again

ORIGINAL: witpqs

ORIGINAL: el cid again
Supply sinks are not a big issue - and maybe some should be bigger?

No - if you do that then even more supplies will be sucked out of Singapore. This is happening regardless of HQ's or anything else in Singapore or under player control. KL - or wherever the big supply sink is - already draws off all extra supplies, way over the amount it needs to stay 'in the white'. This is due to the game engine, but if all the supplies get sucked out of Singapore there is no defense in play.

REPLY: The key to sucking supply into Singapore is to put things that demand supply in Singapore. In particular HQ and air units will increase the supply depot there.

I must report to you that in my games even if you march/fly everything movable in Malaya into Singapore the supplies will still drain up the peninsula to the big supply sink. The only thing that stops it is when Japan captures the supply sink or cuts the road network from Singapore.

I agree that it should be a Matrix fix. Unfortunately, that most likely would be part of some major re-work, which is unlikely to happen during the next several years. (Matrix, please prove me wrong! [8D]) That is why I say 'just don't increase the supply sink because it'll make things worse'.

[el cid again]

Singapore fell - unexpectedly - on 11 February 1942. Clearly supply sinks are not a big problem in the ability to mount an offensive. The British fell back in good order - rotating brigades seriously disrupted with fresh ones - and never losing the ability to hit and damage a few ships in the supply convoys (even though covered by CAP). There are two dozen ships at Saigon - and three at Singora - and one at Khota (too badly damaged to move) - as well as another dozen sunk - almost all to British air power (maybe one or two submarine attacks worked). Singapore was able to maintain its port and airfields substantially undamaged - and IJN did not dare risk gunfire support against those 5 (all servicable) 15 inch guns. Repulse and POW ran in gunfire support against the Japanese - and a carrier covered them.

[el cid again]

In order to see the effects of a vigorous defense, the entire US Pacific Air Forces and Pacific Fleet have been committed to the defense of Oahu. The first operations were dismal failures. The latest attempt was a phyrric victory for the US:

a vast number of transports were loaded with supplies - about 200,000 tons of them - plus a widely spread out regiment of infantry - plus four air squadrons of too short range to reach Oahu from any US base.

these were covered by a division of battleships supported by every available cruiser and destroyer - in two formations because there were more than 25 ships - plus a carrier task force

The Glorious First of June is the British name for a great naval battle in which the French fleet was sunk or captured. But the French count it a victory! Because the convoy escorted lost no ships. This was similar - all the battleships and carrier were lost or out of action - but most of the ships got through - and Hawaii on 20 Feb has 3 times more supplies than it had when the war began.

From both points of view it seems like the battle was a loss. The cost to deliver the supplies was too great. But they WERE delivered - and Oahu returned to a functional base in only two days. It is pretty much useless - but it isn't going to be occupied any time soon.

[el cid again]

It took me some time to come to an understanding of how, mechanically, to invade Oahu in WITP terms. Then it took me time to assemble a force to do the job. I probably could do this much sooner then March, 1942, now that I understand what works in terms of air strikes.

The first turn damage to the airfields cannot be sustained by night bombing raids with land based aircraft - on any scale. But daylight bombing can keep the airfields surpressed, and without costing too many casualties IF you do not bomb from an altitude where medium and light AAA guns are a factor. Even so, I have found the requirement for replacement aircraft very difficult to deal with. I also found that sustaining a force that isn't sailing most of the time still is a major drain on fuel requirements - and that one may never go more than two or three days ignoring addressing it.

[el cid again]

[quote]ORIGINAL: el cid again

It took me some time to come to an understanding of how, mechanically, to invade Oahu in WITP terms. Then it took me time to assemble a force to do the job. I probably could do this much sooner then March, 1942, now that I understand what works in terms of air strikes.

The first turn damage to the airfields cannot be sustained by night bombing raids with land based aircraft - on any scale. But daylight bombing can keep the airfields surpressed, and without costing too many casualties IF you do not bomb from an altitude where medium and light AAA guns are a factor. Even so, I have found the requirement for replacement aircraft very difficult to deal with. I also found that sustaining a force that isn't sailing most of the time still is a major drain on fuel requirements - and that one may never go more than two or three days ignoring addressing it.


The invasion itself involved 150 ships in the landing forces, 25 ships in a carrier covering force, and almost 25 other ships in supporting roles (15 of them a fast transport group, 2 seaplane tenders, 1 AGC and a tanker group). The capacity of the 150 landing naval units (only 5 of which were landing craft companies) was 300,000 tons, of which only 200,000 tons were loaded (because I believe combat loading should not be efficient). These were able to deliver what amounts to two reinforced divisions. In three days, the divisions were landed together with more than adequate supplies for sustaining operations - but they were significantly disrupted (on the order of 54%). The landing forces lost half a dozen ships a day directly, and as many again scuttled. About eight more ships per day were so badly damaged they had to withdraw. By the second day, some ships were completely unloaded, and after the third day, no troops remained to offload, and there were sufficient supplies ashore that the entire landing force withdrew to stop the losses of ships.

The defense was significantly disrupted by bombing. To this battleship bombardment was added - at surprisingly little cost - resulting in about 60% disruption of all coast defense units and ONE of the defending divisions and all AA units. But the other division, a regiment of reinforcements, a tank unit landed as reinforcements, all remain near 0% disrupted.
In spite of disruption, a single landing phase typically reported 6632 shots fired in the defense - showing the allegation by someone above the Allied CD units won't shoot often is not correct. [Each "shot" involves several rounds in WITP theory - although it is semi-abstract and we cannot say exactly how many] These shots did tend to go for warships - but nevertheless most of the ships lost were invasion transports - and only CA Takao was badly damaged. For some reason the bombardment groups only lost destroyers and cruisers - and no battleship was ever hit. In the first bombardment - run in and out at night - the night might have contributed to that: so I tried a pure daylight bombardment - with a pure battleship force (and six battleships) - but still the CD guns went for the amphib groups and ignored them (or perhaps didn't ignore them but missed them). Granted shooting at ships at anchor (or beached) is far easier than shooting at moving targets, I was surprised by this result.

My tactical strategy was based on real amphibious concepts: go for vast numbers of targets - so that while any might be engaged and sunk - the sum total is able to deliver the goods. Unlike every previous attempt - in which virtually every ship was sunk or damaged beyond all hope - this one succeeded - and there are five units ashore - a reinforced division (landed in three regimental teams and able to unify after landing), a two brigade division, an independent brigade, and an artillery unit. One construction engineer unit was landed and withdrawn as not worth having - not one fighting element made the beach.

While I allocated three divisions of lift to the operation, only two divisions were sent (one of them a two brigade division).
A navy two battalion combined SNLF was sent to Johnston Island, and a reserve regiment sent to Midway - while a SNLF reinforced with a tank company went to Wake (vice a tiny Naval Guard Force as IRL). The First Guards Independent Mixed Brigade conducted initial operations in the lower islands - and then joined the landing forces for Oahu itself.

Experience in the lower islands which have mountains indicates Oahu will not surrender soon - maybe never.

[el cid again]

I was wrong about daylight bombardment. Kongo got beat up bad enough to send her home. She detached and I didn't notice. Haruna also was hit - but is still in action. Five of the original eight battleships tasked for Hawaii are still on station - in March. Three more - Nagato - Mutsu and Yamato - have just arrived. I didn't find any real job for them farther west - and reducing the troops seems to be a real problem. The Japanese units ashore are getting more disrupted - not less - although so are the Americans. Ugly battle. If you have seen the mountains there - you can imagine it might be.

[el cid again]

It is a bad mistake to allow the Americans to land 150,000 tons of supplies on Oahu- no matter how expensive it was for them in ships.

If they get 2 or 3 days with insufficient disruption inflicted on ground units, then the next time battleships sail in, they will all be clobbered to some extent. Maybe not enough to send them home - but too much to sustain. And anything smaller in the TF will be sunk outright. Since players have no way to monitor exactly the condition of the other side units, I make the sides play as if they didn't know "This is the wrong day to attack" - and IF the CD units are not over 50% disrupted - they fire massive amounts of shots - and some fraction of them will hit. [By massive I mean thousands of shots, and the first digit is not a low intiger either] Clearly the allegation only Japanese CD will shoot in great quantities is true only in games where Allied CD is not present in strength and given targets to engage.

A modern NATO era combattant, I still think the best American strategy is to "get out of the way" of the juggernaut - preserve the core of the fighting fleet - and make em pay as much as you can short of losing that fleet. But preserve the carriers - and the battleships too if you can pull it off - to make it sooner that you will have enough to go over to the offensive. Meanwhile, the "fleet in being" makes the enemy uncomfortable and tend to keep forces facing East - instead of moving to threaten other fronts. Having fought too hard - losing 4 CVs and 8 BBs and too many cruisers and destroyers and aircraft - I think that the difficulties imposed on the enemy are not worth such costs. No location is worth such an investment. Part of the problem is that the war begins with US carriers scattered - only 3 are on the map - and the concentration of battleships is not useful at first because of the ineffectiveness of air cover at the start. Save them all - concentrate - upgrade what air units you can - and harass the enemy like the US did IRL - "where it is clear the KB is not."

Submarines, minelaying, judicious use of land based air where ever effective basing can be set up, and raids by carriers on weakly protected convoys, are the way to go. Whatever they take - they take. Make em pay (with the subs) - and do not lose the core of the fleet in a battle you are going to lose anyway. Don't lose airplanes that way either. Putting too many forward under the Japanese air umbrella can cost you a 20:1 exchange rate ON THE GROUND: that is the sort of thing that can lose a war. Japan is doomed to lose 100% or more to attrition. It will lose 500-1000% more due to AAA.
It will not do much better - and maybe notacably worse - than 2:1 in air air combat (and eventually that must reverse).
Don't let em make up for it by getting your planes on the ground. Send em with thoughful analysis of the risk/benefit ratio for the location. The principle of "send everything to Oahu" is not effective.

[witpqs]

One thing I'm curious about is the amount of supplies that Pearl Harbor starts with versus a comment you made earlier about it starting with a 'vast amount of supplies' (loose quote). In light of whatever you meant by that comment, should the starting supplies at PH be increased in RHS? IIRC it is a small fraction of starting supplies in stock.

[el cid again]

I am not sure what the rationale was for the starting supplies at PH? I looked closely at fuel and oil - both tricky things - and at resources - which are a function of resource centers in the hex and sometimes other factors (is the hex a logistic center? in this case it is). I don't remember looking at supplies however. Get back to you.
On this machine I don't have CHS. But the value in RHS is 25% greater than in CHS, and I suspect it may be the same as CHS [EDIT: yes it is]. That implies the value in both CHS and RHS is inherited from stock. Whatever thought was given to the matter goes back to Matrix. But at least we are doing what they believed was going to work. Plus 25% more in the case of RHS. [The values are 40,000 stock and CHS, 50,000 RHS]


What is should be is a different and more complicated question: but certainly we are in the game designer's ball park. It is enough that it vastly exceeds what is required - it took until February to run it down to 10,000 tons - with intense combat - and that is when a gigantic convoy arrived with more. A previous attempt on a smaller scale failed. No matter the level - the principle remains: resupply is the key - and isolation the counter key. It is hard to keep it completely isolated - detection of convoys at a distance is hard. Having enough power to stop a big one is harder still.

FYI Fuel starts at 437,000 stock, 610,000 CHS, 610,000 PLUS 2,000 per day RHS (adding 730,000 tons per year - because of immense stocks). This is a technical trick - I think. It is said that daily production will not convert to the other side - so the stocks represented by daily fuel (future tense) will not be captured if Oahu is - insuring even more destruction than the engineers will cause automatically.

Oil starts at 0 stock, 0 CHS, 54,000 PLUS 300 per day RHS (adding 109,500 per year).

Resources starts at 0 stock, 0 CHS, 250 RHS

Resource centers start at 0 stock, 0 CHS, 25 RHS (adding 25 supply MORE supply points per day as well as 25 resource points per day - and note that the normal stocks for a production center are ten days of production - which is where 250 comes from). Regretfully, supply points are too abstract - they will fuel airplanes, provide spares for radar, feed troops, make shells for big guns, name it. SOME of those 25 extra supply points are "eaten" by a small supply sink hidden in the Oahu Fortress. There is not a lot of resource and supply production on Oahu - but there is a whole lot more than zero - and in the logistic desert of the Pacific - that matters. There also are small amounts of production on other Hawaiian islands - and many Pacific islands - although often the numbers are tiny. The big exception is New Caledonia (which cannot be made as important as it is IRL because we don't have different commodoties - but it is still a big deal). Medium scale exceptions are Nauru Island, Indian Ocean (not Pacific Ocean) Christmas Island, and Kodiak - the first two have significant resources and the latter only supplies (that is, fish). There is modest production on New Guinea and really significant in the Philippines - particularly on Luzon. Borneo has serious oil and modest resource production, as does Sumatra. Java and Luzon have modest industry as well, even including shipyards.

Speaking of shipyards, stock, CHS and RHS all have a 100 point repair shipyard on Oahu. RHS has shipyards at Cavite, Soerabaja and Cebu (the latter very tiny as IRL).

[bradfordkay]

Sid, I missed it when you were designing the scenario (a lot of posts to wade through back then). What is the rationale for the daily fuel allottment at PH?

[witpqs]

Sid,

I think I had confused the starting fuel with the starting supply. Sorry.

BTW, I've run down the supply at PH faster than you state with heavy combat. But that was versus the AI. AI sends the carriers away, leaving PH air to recover, start bombing, and thereby eating up supply. Diabolical.