Brave Sir Robin

[Mynok]

ORIGINAL: USS America

ORIGINAL: Big B

From the scenario design forum...

ORIGINAL: vettim89

In truth the problem is really the Land Combat System (BEEP!: thread hijack warning). From the historical info we have the poorly trained. equipped, and often led Commonwealth, Phillipine, RA US, and Dutch troops could not stand up to the Japanese Army that had been fighting in China for the better part of a decade. The RL Allies folded before the oncoming Japanese.This is not to say that there weren't cases where the Allies put up stout defense, just that from a strategic point of view, it was an untenable situation.

The Allies failed to turn back any Japanese advance until August/September 1942 when the Australians repelled the Milne Bay invasion. That was followed by numerous battles on GC eventually leading to vicory. IMO troop quality and experience plus supplies finally came up enough at this point where the Allied armies could and did first resist and then defeat the Japanese.

So if "Sir Robin" means withdrawing unit fragments by sub and other means than ok its a bit gamey. But if "Sir Robin" is really the JFB screaming "Stand still so I can hit you", the RL Allies didn't/couldn't, why should your AFB opponents? If the latter is true then IMHO, the Japanese player needs to invade areas where the Allies have no choice but fight: Oz, India, HI, WCUSA (LOL)

To me what makes this game great is exploring the What If's. If the invasion of Oz/India is the ultimate Japanes What If, isn't the implementation of Sir RObin in whatever form really just another What If? How many of you JFB want to take me up in a game where you agree to not invade Oz, India, HI, New Zealand, New Caledonia, Samoa, or Alaska Proper if I agree to not Sir Robin?

For those who don't venture into the scenario design forum - this discussion has been going on for a couple of days.
Not wishing to infringe on RHS design discussions - I am starting this thread here for any and all input regarding "the Sir Robin" defense.

Personally, I find that term as more of a taunt than anything else -
But that is why this thread has been started.

Big B, I just wanted to mention that I love the 1776 references in your sig and avatar! [:D]

There's no other reason why I might have looked at this thread at all. Honest.

Quite right, since you wrote Sir Robin's Handbook of Wimpery and Soilage. [:D][:D]

[JWE]

ORIGINAL: el cid again

REPLY: You are correct here. For logistic purposes a "ton" is probably 100 cubic feet of cargo. Only some cargos weigh a ton - and most of those are absent. The main cargo is coal - everything else combined only amounts to half the amount of coal moved (at least by Japan - and it won't be much different for other countries). Then there are complications like deck cargo: this may mean a ship carries MORE than its rating. These matters were carefully looked at for RHS - and in many cases ship cargos were indeed reduced. Also we found ranges were often excessive and fuel often understated. I called ships in WITP "practically nuclear powered" - they could go farther and faster than IRL on less fuel. Typical stock errors were hundreds of per cent - sometimes thosands of per cent. That may have created erronious ideas about how easy it is to move things.

Not sure I know how to reply. Multiple sequential SPAM posts are kinda hard to respond to. Maybe that's the point.

Categorically No.

I think I have mentioned this three or four times before. For logistics purposes, a “ton’ is either a “measurement ton” or a “Metric ton”. A gross ton or net ton is expressed in terms of 100 cubic feet of cargo space, but this is a tax measurement. Just think of how taxes are assessed against holders of millions, and you will understand just how utterly useless these numbers are in determining the actual carrying capacity of any individual vessel.

The actual carrying capacity of any individual vessel is contained in her builder/shipper/supercargo records. These are the data that shipping companies (and the various Naval establishments) used to determine who could carry what. Gross/Net tonnage was a lying shibboleth, as everyone understood.

What you could carry was a function of the ship’s “bale cubic” and its “Net Cargo Deadweight”. It had nothing whatever to do with gross or net tonnage.

AE has incorporated “bale cubic” and “Net Cargo Deadweight” in its determination as to who can carry what. The AE group has had the benefit of input from various Japanese sources that, despite contemporary assertions to the contrary, still exist. The AE cargo capacities are a mathematical functional aggregate of the “bale cubic” and “Net Cargo Deadweight” of the vessels at issue.

We know the bunker contents of the majority of ship classes and their design range. We also know how much of bunkerage was in deep tanks. We also know when, and to what degree, IJGHQ ordered reduction of deep tank capacity and it’s replacement with ballast. We also know when and to what degree various vessel classes were fitted out with strenghthened kingposts.

Irrespective of posts that suggest that Japanese is incomprehensible to Westerners, I have been conversing with the Japanese, in the course of my business, for about 15 years. My business is high-technology patent law. I don’t speak (write) Japanese, very well, but my correspondents have never failed to understand and translate my wishes. Apropos, I have never failed to understand and translate the responses of my Japanese associates.

Any indication that we (westerners) cannot understand Japanese, is Horse $h.. !!!!

Ciao. John

[Big B]

Thanks John,

I'm still here...you know - causing trouble. [:)]

ORIGINAL: JWE

Yo, Brian! Good to see ya back in the world, bucko!

Ciao. John

Thanks [:D]

ORIGINAL: USS America

Big B, I just wanted to mention that I love the 1776 references in your sig and avatar!

There's no other reason why I might have looked at this thread at all. Honest.

[rtrapasso]

ORIGINAL: JWE

I think I have mentioned this three or four times before. For logistics purposes, a “ton’ is either a “measurement ton” or a “Metric ton”. A gross ton or net ton is expressed in terms of 100 cubic feet of cargo space, but this is a tax measurement. Just think of how taxes are assessed against holders of millions, and you will understand just how utterly useless these numbers are in determining the actual carrying capacity of any individual vessel.

The actual carrying capacity of any individual vessel is contained in her builder/shipper/supercargo records. These are the data that shipping companies (and the various Naval establishments) used to determine who could carry what. Gross/Net tonnage was a lying shibboleth, as everyone understood.

What you could carry was a function of the ship’s “bale cubic” and its “Net Cargo Deadweight”. It had nothing whatever to do with gross or net tonnage.

AE has incorporated “bale cubic” and “Net Cargo Deadweight” in its determination as to who can carry what. The AE group has had the benefit of input from various Japanese sources that, despite contemporary assertions to the contrary, still exist. The AE cargo capacities are a mathematical functional aggregate of the “bale cubic” and “Net Cargo Deadweight” of the vessels at issue.

We know the bunker contents of the majority of ship classes and their design range. We also know how much of bunkerage was in deep tanks. We also know when, and to what degree, IJGHQ ordered reduction of deep tank capacity and it’s replacement with ballast. We also know when and to what degree various vessel classes were fitted out with strenghthened kingposts.

i am glad to hear this is the case for AE - but i am pretty certain it wasn't the case for Stock/Vanilla, and many mods seemed to have just used a percentage of the Stock to derive the shipping capacities of the ships. My original remarks (which provoked the post that led to this one) were pertaining to the current game, not AE.

Point of curiosity: Where on earth did you manage to get these shipping records? i've been trying to locate figures for total imports for various countries, and cargo handled (by port) without much success... to get individual shipping records for ships is really cool! [8D]

[treespider]

ORIGINAL: rtrapasso
Point of curiosity: Where on earth did you manage to get these shipping records? i've been trying to locate figures for total imports for various countries, and cargo handled (by port) without much success... to get individual shipping records for ships is really cool! [8D]

JWE has his personal contacts and sources for the ship data....

As far as Economic data, the figure were derived from the following partial list of sources:

1. Le, Manh Hung, The impact of World War II on the economy of Vietnam, 1939-45 / Singapore : Eastern Universities Press by Marshall Cavendish, 2004.

2. 1945 China yearbook. Taipei, Taiwan, China Pub. Co.; New York, Macmillan 1950

3. Cohen, Jerome Bernard, 1915- Japan's economy in war and reconstruction; Minneapolis, Univ. of Minnesota Press, 1949.

4. United States Strategic Bombing Survey. Reports. Washington, D.C. : U.S. G.P.O., 1946-
Report 36 - Coal and Metals in Japan’s War
Report 40 – Electric Power Industry of Japan
Report 42 – Japanese Wartime Standard of Living and Utilization of Manpower
Report 43 – Japanese War Production Industries
Report 48 – Japanese Merchant Shipbuilding
Report 53 – The Effects of Strategic Bombing on Japan’s War Economy
- Including:
- Appendix A: US Economic Intelligence on Japan
- Appendix B: Gross National Product on Japan and its components
- Appendix C: Statistical Sources
Report 54 – The War against Japanese Transportation

5. Segers, W. A. I. M. Changing Economy in Indonesia, Volume 8, Manufacturing industry, 1870-1942 / Amsterdam : Royal Tropical Institute, 1988.

7. The industrialization of Japan and Manchukuo, 1930-1940 / edited by E.B. Schumpeter. London ; New York : Routledge, 2000.

8. League of Nations. Economic, Financial, and Transit Dept. Annuaire statistique de la Société des Nations Statistical year-book of the League of Nations. 1941/42 w/Addendum 1942/43 Geneva.

9. Field, Frederick Vanderbilt, 1905- ed. Economic handbook of the Pacific area, Garden City, N. Y., Doubleday, Doran, 1934.

[rtrapasso]

ORIGINAL: treespider

ORIGINAL: rtrapasso
Point of curiosity: Where on earth did you manage to get these shipping records? i've been trying to locate figures for total imports for various countries, and cargo handled (by port) without much success... to get individual shipping records for ships is really cool! [8D]

JWE has his personal contacts and sources for the ship data....

As far as Economic data, the figure were derived from the following partial list of sources:

1. Le, Manh Hung, The impact of World War II on the economy of Vietnam, 1939-45 / Singapore : Eastern Universities Press by Marshall Cavendish, 2004.

2. 1945 China yearbook. Taipei, Taiwan, China Pub. Co.; New York, Macmillan 1950

3. Cohen, Jerome Bernard, 1915- Japan's economy in war and reconstruction; Minneapolis, Univ. of Minnesota Press, 1949.

4. United States Strategic Bombing Survey. Reports. Washington, D.C. : U.S. G.P.O., 1946-
Report 36 - Coal and Metals in Japan’s War
Report 40 – Electric Power Industry of Japan
Report 42 – Japanese Wartime Standard of Living and Utilization of Manpower
Report 43 – Japanese War Production Industries
Report 48 – Japanese Merchant Shipbuilding
Report 53 – The Effects of Strategic Bombing on Japan’s War Economy
- Including:
- Appendix A: US Economic Intelligence on Japan
- Appendix B: Gross National Product on Japan and its components
- Appendix C: Statistical Sources
Report 54 – The War against Japanese Transportation

5. Segers, W. A. I. M. Changing Economy in Indonesia, Volume 8, Manufacturing industry, 1870-1942 / Amsterdam : Royal Tropical Institute, 1988.

7. The industrialization of Japan and Manchukuo, 1930-1940 / edited by E.B. Schumpeter. London ; New York : Routledge, 2000.

8. League of Nations. Economic, Financial, and Transit Dept. Annuaire statistique de la Société des Nations Statistical year-book of the League of Nations. 1941/42 w/Addendum 1942/43 Geneva.

9. Field, Frederick Vanderbilt, 1905- ed. Economic handbook of the Pacific area, Garden City, N. Y., Doubleday, Doran, 1934.

Thanks! [&o]

[USSAmerica]

ORIGINAL: Mynok

ORIGINAL: USS America

ORIGINAL: Big B

From the scenario design forum...


For those who don't venture into the scenario design forum - this discussion has been going on for a couple of days.
Not wishing to infringe on RHS design discussions - I am starting this thread here for any and all input regarding "the Sir Robin" defense.

Personally, I find that term as more of a taunt than anything else -
But that is why this thread has been started.

Big B, I just wanted to mention that I love the 1776 references in your sig and avatar! [:D]

There's no other reason why I might have looked at this thread at all. Honest.

Quite right, since you wrote Sir Robin's Handbook of Wimpery and Soilage. [:D][:D]

Hey, I'm only using the Brave Sir Robin in our game because I'm new.....and scared. [:D]

[Andrew Brown]

I agree that there is a large discrepancy between the Japanese shipping required in the game to move resources to Japan when compared to real life, as others have already mentioned above.

It is not easy to correct that in a mod. For CHS a couple of things were done, such as reducing the tonnage of cargo ships by a certain amount, and modifying the number and location of resource centres, but both of these approaches are very limited. Reducing the number of ships present is another option, but if you do that too much you distort the Allied submarine offensive (fewer targets). Not representing very small Japanese cargo ships helps as well. As mentioned these are to some extent abstractly represented in any case.

I also agree that political factors are not well represented in the game as is, and that this contributes to the ease of conducting a "Sir Robin" strategy by the Allies. They would not be easy to add, I think. One possibility would be to change the victory conditions such that a small amount of VPs are awarded each turn for bases in friendly control. This would discourage evacuating bases early as more VPs would be lost as a result. But this is something that is not within the scope of WitP.

Andrew

[Grotius]

Heh, Andrew Brown and USS America both have Monty Python images in their posts. And I think JohnB has a Python quote in his sig. In fact, I see that Andrew is Arthur, King of the Britons. Andrew: what is your quest?

[JWE]

ORIGINAL: rtrapasso
Point of curiosity: Where on earth did you manage to get these shipping records? i've been trying to locate figures for total imports for various countries, and cargo handled (by port) without much success... to get individual shipping records for ships is really cool! [8D]

Howdy, Mr. Rapasso

Quite a bit of it is available over-the-counter, as it were. Class/type ship construction records, plans, specs, and class/type builder’s model and proof trial measurements are in:

“Records of the U.S. Maritime Commission”, Record Group 178, National Archives and Records Administration
“Records of the U.S. Shipping Board”, Record Group 32, National Archives and Records Administration

If you’re on the West Coast, suggest NARA Laguna Niguel, 24000 Avila Road, Laguna Niguel, California 92677-3497, (949) 360-2641. They can obtain original documents from DC and College Park, if necessary.

Individual and one-off ship data is from shipyard builder’s and trial measurements. They are spread out all over, but can be obtained through Tim Colton, Maritime Business Strategies LLC, 36 So. Ocean Blvd, Delray Beach, FL 33483, (561) 272-4821

Load schedules, cargo, supercargo data, and ship revision specifications and history come from shipping company records. The ones I found most useful are:

Lykes Bros. Steamship Co, Inc. – George Blaine Howell, Hapag-Lloyd, Tampa, FL
American President Lines – Neptune Orient Lines Ltd., Oakland, CA
States Marine Corp./Isthmian Steamship Co. – PWC, Long Beach, CA
Nippon Yusen KK – Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, Japan (records in Japanese)
Mitsui OSK Lines, Ltd – Minato-ku, Tokyo, Japan (records in Japanese)

Then there are the individual port records. Port of Long Beach, Port of Los Angeles, San Francisco Port Authority, and California Transportation Commission have wonderful records sections. Best is:

Port of Long Beach, 925 Harbor Plaza, Long Beach, CA 90802, (562) 901-1721. They have stats up the wazoo; for themselves and competitors, which means darn near every major US port. Bring lots of coffee.

Sorry folks, don't mean to hijack.

[rtrapasso]

ORIGINAL: JWE

ORIGINAL: rtrapasso
Point of curiosity: Where on earth did you manage to get these shipping records? i've been trying to locate figures for total imports for various countries, and cargo handled (by port) without much success... to get individual shipping records for ships is really cool! [8D]

Howdy, Mr. Rapasso

Quite a bit of it is available over-the-counter, as it were. Class/type ship construction records, plans, specs, and class/type builder’s model and proof trial measurements are in:

“Records of the U.S. Maritime Commission”, Record Group 178, National Archives and Records Administration
“Records of the U.S. Shipping Board”, Record Group 32, National Archives and Records Administration

If you’re on the West Coast, suggest NARA Laguna Niguel, 24000 Avila Road, Laguna Niguel, California 92677-3497, (949) 360-2641. They can obtain original documents from DC and College Park, if necessary.

Individual and one-off ship data is from shipyard builder’s and trial measurements. They are spread out all over, but can be obtained through Tim Colton, Maritime Business Strategies LLC, 36 So. Ocean Blvd, Delray Beach, FL 33483, (561) 272-4821

Load schedules, cargo, supercargo data, and ship revision specifications and history come from shipping company records. The ones I found most useful are:

Lykes Bros. Steamship Co, Inc. – George Blaine Howell, Hapag-Lloyd, Tampa, FL
American President Lines – Neptune Orient Lines Ltd., Oakland, CA
States Marine Corp./Isthmian Steamship Co. – PWC, Long Beach, CA
Nippon Yusen KK – Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, Japan (records in Japanese)
Mitsui OSK Lines, Ltd – Minato-ku, Tokyo, Japan (records in Japanese)

Then there are the individual port records. Port of Long Beach, Port of Los Angeles, San Francisco Port Authority, and California Transportation Commission have wonderful records sections. Best is:

Port of Long Beach, 925 Harbor Plaza, Long Beach, CA 90802, (562) 901-1721. They have stats up the wazoo; for themselves and competitors, which means darn near every major US port. Bring lots of coffee.

WOW! [&o] [&o] [&o]

The stuff on the ports ("bring lots of coffee") - i assume it means you examine this stuff on site...

i was trying to get a handle on how much cargo a port can handle (i realize some of this is dependent on rolling stock availability, etc.) but i've never found much in the way published figures in various books on logistics i've been trying to plough through...

[bobogoboom]

btw just to add. i do not find evacing units that have been left behing that your opponent is using for training purposes(ie bombing) gamey no matter what the nationality. i have 2 PI inf units i have evaced late in 1942 just so i could prevent their use as fighter training units.

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns

I think the best solution to Sir Robin is to throw out fixed commands. Let the allies move units about willy nilly and you will no longer see the perfect 2-1 invasions landing at every critical base in the DEI’s in the opening weeks. This kind of freedom would allow the allied player to oppose a Japanese blitz through the DEI’s semi-effectively and can really put a crimp in the Japanese timetables if he tries a lot of shoestring ops early on.

But as things stand now, moving anything costs a lot of political points. And you simply cannot free up enough force fast enough to successfully reposition enough troops in a forward defense to prevent the Japanese Blitz, so it’s perfectly acceptable to pull out the troops you pay for. Leaving them to die is just a waist of political points.

Now with fixed commands gone, you would then need a game mechanic that disbands a country’s units when all its controlled bases are gone. You can’t tie it to just one or a few bases as that would be exploitable. But if all the Philippine bases fall, then all the Philippine units should disband except for one, which should be immediately placed into the reinforcement track to arrive at half strength in about 90 days in the US West Coast.

This one unit would represent the forces in exile for that country and would only be allowed to draw from the disbanded equipment squads, perhaps after halving the initial pool or something. Regular daily replacement squads should be zeroed out until a Philippine base with manpower is recaptured.

Do this for every country, and the logic for pulling units back to the rear is no longer present in the game and players would fight tooth and nail for every base instead. But without the freedom to seriously interfere with early Japanese moves, Sir Robin should not be messed with as it is really the only option available to the allies other than total annihilation. And Japan is already far too strong in the game, hamstringing the allies even further by removing their ONE strategic option would make no sense.

Jim

This requires hard code changes not even on the board for WITP II. It also runs counter to Matrix design philosophy. I tried to do this in RHS - and ran into so much Forum opposition I compromised. You can move WITHIN the Philippines - or the NEI - no need to load on a ship to do so - but not leave the command. I also screwed up by making India Command unrestricted - I regret it - but at least you can use the gigantic Ganges/Bhramaputra river system properly. We can get rid of restricted commands but we cannot disband anything - and never will be able to - likely.

The other option is more pp - so you can change command at will. I tried 2000 for the Allies - and found it too much. I tried 1500 - same same. I settled on 1000 pp per day - and that works fine - it is the PPO system used by EOS family scenarios. 100 points is what we use for CVO and BBO - still twice the CHS level. 100 points generates complaints - 1000 never does. It gives you flexability but not total freedom to change everything all at once. [A big Allied division costs upwards of 2000 points, a Japanese one or a weak Allied one closer to 1000 points]

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: Shark7

OK guys, gonna give you my take on it.

First off, if the AFB wants to pull a Brave Sir Robin on me, I'm not going to complain.  Just don't expect me to sit on Truk with 250k troops and not try to save them in return when the game switches momentum.

That being said, there are a few problems with being able to evacuate all the troops.

1.  PI --  are you going to stay and try to defend your village or get on a boat with Macarthur to defend Oz?  Some might have left, but not all.

2.  Dutch Units -- NEI was a colony.  Soldiers with family back in Europe would have little reason to stay and fight on, however soldiers with families in the NEI would have a reason to fight tenaciously.

3.  Singapore -- IRL, the British actually tried to reinforce Fortress Singapore.  However, from a strategic standpoint it makes much more sense to evacuate it.

What I would do to fix it is simple.  PI and Dutch units need to have devices of their own in the Database.  These would not be produced and start with a pool for replacements only for a short period of time (to simulate emergency conscriptions for replacements to defend their homelands).  Once the pool was used up, these units would not be able to rebuild, so while you might save them from being over-run, they don't become usefull combat units down the road.  It doesn't prevent Brave Sir Robin, but it also doesn't make risking ships worth it either.

The game deviates from history as soon as the Japanese player issues his first order.  This is part of wargaming, to see if you can do better.  However, there does need to be a difference between what is possible and what is plausible. 

It would have been very possible for MacArthur to take elements of the Phillipine Army with him, however getting replacements for the Phillipine units with the PI under Japanese occupation is just not plausible.

And in fact, the Dutch did evacuate to Australia during the war.  So that is very possible as well.  But once again, with Holland under German Occupation replacements would have been hard to find. 

Another way to deal with this is to allow the LCUs to be disbanded into other LCUs similar to air groups being disbanded.  In this way you could get 1 or 2 fully functional PI or Dutch units by withdrawing fragments, but not end up with a dozen fully staffed units as is possible by pulling Brave Sir Robin.

This doesn't apply only to AFBs either.  If Manchuria or Thailand were to get over-run (in a mod that includes those units) then the same rules should apply.

The Philippines DID organize units during the war. So did the Dutch. WE never let the Dutch marines into combat - but that was because we didn't support imperial aims - not because it was not a good unit. However - Philippine units were NOT Philippine Army units - but US Army units. Philippine Army was not something you would take anywhere. It had eight command languages in each unit, no boots in most, no artillery in most batteries, no training above company level - the list is long. [See The Philippine Army, University of Manila Press]
Philippine Scouts - and later US Philippine-American regiments - were effective.

Militias and guerillas either should never leave country - or if they appear outside always want to go to their country. [Kim Il Sung appears with a Korean guerilla unit in the USSR - but he wants to kill Japanese in Manchukuo or Korea. Viet Ming will appear at Kunming if their point of appearence is enemy occupied - and they will REFORM there as well if they are destroyed. But they try to go back to Indochina.] Militia is not very useful out of country. ATG (Alaska Territorial Guard) may be better than regulars in the wilderness, but would be incompetent in any other place). Militias are made of people with jobs - removing them is a problem for the economy and their families. And militia is restricted by law in every case - the only exception being Australia - which permitted AMF units to go off the continent late in the war - when there was NO risk to Australia and AFTER changing the law. By then the units were virtually regulars - not true militia - but retained the name. Indian forces are present to defend (and occupy) India. RHS has all these sorts of units in numbers - we added NZ militia, Indian local forces, name it - to prevent a "Nemoesque" invasion from being unopposed - not so the militia would go invade Japan. Same for guerillas - the Dutch NEI has a proper formal guerilla unit on Celebes when the war begins - and it is USELESS if it leaves that island - actually the SW part of it - it was intimately organized for that one area.

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: bjmorgan

I say ship 'em out.  Why not?

I see nothing wrong with the Allies trying to save a few cadres of trained officers and NCOs.  If one side is free to shift forces around and an alternate strategy to what happened IRL, then the other should be allowed to do it as well.

I seldom have the ability to get out all that many, due to the demands of other operations, but I do try to pull out enough that I'm not waiting for months and years for sufficient base units to arrive for me to operate enough airbases to house a few more air units.  Feinder is correct; it is not a simulation.  It is a game that abstracts reality into a "few" lines of code.  If the code allows you to let your CVs be sunk so they can be replaced with better and larger versions a few years hence, then it's ok to use that same code to evauate a few cadres.

After all, can't the Japanese player completely change the types of planes produced?  If that's not gamey (and it's not, IMO), then Sir Robin isn't.

I bet you never played RHS.

1) You have vast numbers of local units not in other mods.

2) You have at least twice as many political points - or 20 times as many - depending on scenario.

This means you have the potential to literally break the law. Militia is forbidden to leave the territory by law - there was one significant change in law during the WITP - in Australia - and that takes place in the middle of the war with units not really militia any more - but still called by that name.

Aside from this being political nonsense, it is also bad strategy. If you evacuate so the enemy has no opposition, you insure a maximum strength Japan. This is not good military strategy. It implies you have not tried to manage Japan - it is terribly limited and fragile - and it suffers attrition badly. Japan needs a war of few battles and vast almost free conquests - the Allies need a war of attrition - in my view COMBINED with a maneuver strategy (but IRL it was just attrition). Japan will lose faster if you make it fight. It might actually win if you don't.

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: mdiehl

Evacuating US troops from the PI, Aussies from Singapore and all that is as legitimate a choice as the Japanese "grab everywhere" strategy. Allied players seem to go for the "Sir Robin" defense because it's far too easy for the Japanese player to invade Port Moresby, Australia, New Caledonia, Ceylon &c. while tying up those assets historically left in the PI with a few units and waiting for the "consolidation" phase of Japanese conquest.

REPLY: Which does not make it legitimate at all. Only one player I know proposed to do these things - and I went to some trouble to insure they won't work in mod design. It is exactly to make Japanese problems too big to ignore that we changed the geography - adding locations and mountains - and changed the OB - adding vast numbers of local units. Those are - however - local units - and should not leave their territory. If this is not something that gets UNIVERSAL understanding I will make them all static - which I think is wrong. But mature play does require some common sense.

If the Allied defenses were made capable of inflicting serious harm as the Japanese feared, and if Japanese logistics was accurately modeled such that invading Australia, India or Ceylon by sea were nigh impossible regardless of the presence of an actual opfor, then there would not be quite the incentive for Allies to withdraw from vulnerable spots in the "Southern Resource Area."

REPLY: They have been and are. In a test with a veteran player - I told him to defend forward in Malaya and Luzon - I have been hung up in both. It takes serious effort to win by coup de main vs defenders in any scenario of RHS - and if you think they are hard - take a look at China. Russia also has vastly more (not enough but as much as possible) units - and mountains too - making attacking it much more of a problem (I am not sure it is possible for IJA to win unless the Allies run - and that is as it should be). So please read my remarks as in harmony with yours - past tense - because this is what I did - apparently for reasons you would approve of.

Perhaps the PI should start to generate huge gobs of new men, material, supply and increasing troop quality for the Allies, and Singapore too, if these areas are NOT conquered by the Japanese by the historical surrender dates.

REPLY: Here I think they always did. In RHS we went over to a more rational economic system - and there is INDUSTRY that makes supply and fuel - and manpower - in particular at Singapore and Manila. Stocks of oil will permit production for a long time - and you CAN import more. And I don't want to hear about torpedoes - I took em out of many units- and carefully reduced air base sizes so that torpedoes won't load even on units that have them. You CAN take Sinkawang and even put bombers there - but until you move in engineers, supplies and build the base up - it will not use any torpedoes. Same for Kuching, Brunei, name it. The other thing we did was add "light industry" - there are significant resources at MANY points - giving up all the towns in an area is significant in aggregate because of the supplies, resources, sometimes oil - you lose. And if you fight for them - they get damaged. Damage takes time to fix - 1 point per day. You can keep enemy exploitation down by damaging the big centers - for a very long time in some cases - months or occasionally years. Fighting pays in several ways - not fighting is a misunderstanding of how things work.

[JWE]

ORIGINAL: Andrew Brown

I agree that there is a large discrepancy between the Japanese shipping required in the game to move resources to Japan when compared to real life, as others have already mentioned above.

It is not easy to correct that in a mod. For CHS a couple of things were done, such as reducing the tonnage of cargo ships by a certain amount, and modifying the number and location of resource centres, but both of these approaches are very limited. Reducing the number of ships present is another option, but if you do that too much you distort the Allied submarine offensive (fewer targets). Not representing very small Japanese cargo ships helps as well. As mentioned these are to some extent abstractly represented in any case.

I also agree that political factors are not well represented in the game as is, and that this contributes to the ease of conducting a "Sir Robin" strategy by the Allies. They would not be easy to add, I think. One possibility would be to change the victory conditions such that a small amount of VPs are awarded each turn for bases in friendly control. This would discourage evacuating bases early as more VPs would be lost as a result. But this is something that is not within the scope of WitP.

Andrew

I agree with you on that point, Andrew. I think the Sir Robin defense is predicated on the ability of the Japanese to strike anywhere and everywhere, due to the surfeit of lift capacity that is not required elsewhere. If Japan has the capability to invade everywhere, a player will necessarily “Sir Robin” his limited units to places he must defend.

If Japan is limited in her options, then it is a ‘by gosh and by golly’ exercise for the Allies: Japan may have lift for one or two ops, and the Allies may have four or five “must haves”, so where do they put their assets? The possibilities are interesting (gosh, kinda like irl, ya think?).

The work you and Spidey have done to compel mercantile utilization of Japanese ship assets, as a means of constraining operational idiocy, is quite breathtaking.

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: AcePylut

The problem that brings about the Brave Sir Robin has already been noted...

The Japs can land anywhere they want on Dec 7th with the exact amount of troops to score 2-1 odds.

As long as that happens, where the Japs know the exact strength of troops at any base and thus exactly what units necessary to achieve 2-1 odds, then the "Brave Sir Robin" will be used.

If the allies were able to re-position some forces around the DEI on "December 6th" (and within limits), the Japs won't know troop strength, and thus will be forced to recon & bring "more than enough" troops to attack.

As a result, there will be more impetuous for the Allies to stand and fight.

Right now in my PBEM game, it'a almost April 1st, and my bastion at Singapore has about 3k supplies left and lvl 9 forts, still holding strong... I've got an airbridge and subbridge up and running that are doing their best to keep it supplied. We also have a rapidly escalating battle for PM.

In spite of being a technical guy I have no clue how to know how to get 2;1 odds anywhere - never mind everywhere. This is probably bogus. The land combat system is wierd - difficult to comprehend - and I find it is good ONLY IF I send what I would send IRL - and let it decide what happens?

The Allies CAN move things too - and so however good calculations were - they will be wrong any place that things flew in - came in by fast transport (or slow) - or came down the rail line. You want a regiment or division on Molokai - it can be there BEFORE the Japanese can get there - and they will be defending mountains - so the enemy will die.

On Java you have RR - so you CAN move things. If you pay pp you can fly things or sail them too. I don't think this is a big issue - at least not in RHS - where you have more pp - numbers of transport planes - and all your fast transport capable ships. And Japan cannot hit Java immediately - by the time he gets there - he will have no idea where things are.

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: JWE

ORIGINAL: el cid again

REPLY: You are correct here. For logistic purposes a "ton" is probably 100 cubic feet of cargo. Only some cargos weigh a ton - and most of those are absent. The main cargo is coal - everything else combined only amounts to half the amount of coal moved (at least by Japan - and it won't be much different for other countries). Then there are complications like deck cargo: this may mean a ship carries MORE than its rating. These matters were carefully looked at for RHS - and in many cases ship cargos were indeed reduced. Also we found ranges were often excessive and fuel often understated. I called ships in WITP "practically nuclear powered" - they could go farther and faster than IRL on less fuel. Typical stock errors were hundreds of per cent - sometimes thosands of per cent. That may have created erronious ideas about how easy it is to move things.

Not sure I know how to reply. Multiple sequential SPAM posts are kinda hard to respond to. Maybe that's the point.

Categorically No.

I think I have mentioned this three or four times before. For logistics purposes, a “ton’ is either a “measurement ton” or a “Metric ton”. A gross ton or net ton is expressed in terms of 100 cubic feet of cargo space, but this is a tax measurement. Just think of how taxes are assessed against holders of millions, and you will understand just how utterly useless these numbers are in determining the actual carrying capacity of any individual vessel.

The actual carrying capacity of any individual vessel is contained in her builder/shipper/supercargo records. These are the data that shipping companies (and the various Naval establishments) used to determine who could carry what. Gross/Net tonnage was a lying shibboleth, as everyone understood.

What you could carry was a function of the ship’s “bale cubic” and its “Net Cargo Deadweight”. It had nothing whatever to do with gross or net tonnage.

AE has incorporated “bale cubic” and “Net Cargo Deadweight” in its determination as to who can carry what. The AE group has had the benefit of input from various Japanese sources that, despite contemporary assertions to the contrary, still exist. The AE cargo capacities are a mathematical functional aggregate of the “bale cubic” and “Net Cargo Deadweight” of the vessels at issue.

We know the bunker contents of the majority of ship classes and their design range. We also know how much of bunkerage was in deep tanks. We also know when, and to what degree, IJGHQ ordered reduction of deep tank capacity and it’s replacement with ballast. We also know when and to what degree various vessel classes were fitted out with strenghthened kingposts.

Irrespective of posts that suggest that Japanese is incomprehensible to Westerners, I have been conversing with the Japanese, in the course of my business, for about 15 years. My business is high-technology patent law. I don’t speak (write) Japanese, very well, but my correspondents have never failed to understand and translate my wishes. Apropos, I have never failed to understand and translate the responses of my Japanese associates.

Any indication that we (westerners) cannot understand Japanese, is Horse $h.. !!!!

Ciao. John

The term SPAM has a technical meaning - so you misuse it here. I never engage in spamming - and might have to go to jail if I met someone who did (for murder).

You are correct that a 100 cu ft ton is a tax concept. As a sailor I hate it - we use displacement tons - which has meaning in damage control terms - in the Navy. But cargo ships are all rated in this way. And it turns out so is logistics in other senses: with a few exceptiosn (e.g. Iron ore or coal) - cargo is space limited - not weight limited. There are whole threads on this matter - and I did oversimplify - but in basic terms we use space limited logistics in WITP. Joe Wilkerson wrote (privately) "in the end a ton is a ton is a ton" - and there are several different ways to come at it - so his phrase is apt. But in the end - it is not catagorically no. It is catagorically yes.

Your comments are way to technical to be honest and true: AE cannot use the technical terms you properly say it does because we lack the data for all the kinds of vessels and cargo carrying things in the game (trucks, trains, porters). Even ships are not so defined in many cases (native craft, military vessels of several sorts) - and those that are are so numerous no one (even me) has the time to look em all up (never mind a source to look em all up in). In the end - no matter how much work is done - there must be compromises and estimates - and these are going to be based on rules of thumb more often than going through constructors specifications (which may not really be correct later in time either). In any case - all that is moot - THIS forum is WITP - not AE - and we play WITP - not AE (unless you have a copy to send out for us to play). We are not talking about what will be some day - but what is right now. I spent a man year or so on this - guided by Joe Wilkerson and a couple of professional seamen - and there are long threads devoted to how this was done. There are many dimensions of it - and several possible approaches might be reasonable - but only if one is comprehensive in application will it work out well. To some extent that requires code changes we are not going to see - ever likely - and certainly not in AE - for which coding is not getting more tasking. There is no real standard for tonnage - but if I had my way - it would be the metric ton - and we would then redefine ships in terms of that - not the nominal tax capacity - but the actual real cargo capacity - including deck cargo. That still would not really work however: if they put a space limited cargo on the ship it could not carry its rating in metric tons - and that is the NORMAL case. So maybe then we go for a percentage (AK Warrior suggested 85 per cent) to get statistically valid? I would prefer more sophistication still - but we must work with the system we have NOW.

If you really were going to look up the fuel bunkerage of every class in the theater - and the cargo capacity - for every change of practice (and FYI nationlity - the British used different rules than the US did) - it will be about 20 years before we see AE. I laud the boldness of the assertion - it is very different from WITP as originally done - but it is also impossible. The data does not really exist - although you can escape rating vessels you simply leave out - and you can lump all near sisters together in one class - in more than a few cases nothing at all survives but the name - we don't even know the ship's speed - never mind more than that. Even US Army records (and US ARmy operated more vessels than anyone else in the world - well over 80,000) are incomplete and ambiguous. In the case of Japan we have ships in the database which are different translations of the same name - or different names at different times for the same ship - and we have cases where there is no data whatever beyond the name and perhaps a year of induction for use. I am slightly offended at the claim this all can be done - this year - for a data set so vast - even if it could be done at all. That implies a gross misunderstanding of the sheer amount of data involved - which in turns makes the whole work very suspect. In any case - information theory requires there will be errors in any large set - never mind problems of definition and sources - which for this case are both gigantic. WITP requires we give things a load cost. This is not even related to ships - except when we try to carry the thing. And it is not really the same for different kinds of ships either. Nor is it men - but it will report that way.

[crsutton]

ORIGINAL: Feinder

The more (longer) that I play WitP, the more that I consider the WitP engine (and especially so the land combat engine) a steaming pile of poo.

IMO, the OBs of the units, and the capabilities of the units themselves, bear little resemblence to their actual historical counter-parts.  I do NOT consider the full-scale invasion of Australia or the whole-sale conquest of India a "historical what-if".  I -do- cosider it entertaining fantasy.   But no, I do not by any attempt at justification, cosider it "a historical what-if".  While I am quite sure many would say I was myopic biggot for claiming that, well - I've been called worse.

Given that in WitP a massive invasion of India or Oz seem to be the norm, WitP is therefor categorized as "entertaining fantasy".  It -IS- a very enjoyable game.  But it is a very POOR simulation.  It's an excellent, very complicated and detailed *fantasy*, but as far as simulation is concerned; well, it's not. 

Yes, I just gets my craw. Imagine what three or four decent armor brigades would do to any IJA troops-no matter the quality in the open desert. Versus any Japanese tank or AT gun in 1942, Grant tanks would be uber monsters. Not to mention valentines and matildas or M3's for that matter. It is nothing but a fantasy and just kills me to see Japanese troops push Aussie and American armor around.