War Plan Red

[elxaime]

With the two-hundred year anniversary of the War of 1812 looming, has anyone given thought to creating a WITP variant based on War Plan Red, the 1935 US plan for a war with Great Britain and conquest of Canada?

The US and British/Canadian fleets would have squared off in at least three local sea regions. The US would have attempted to blockade Halifax and take the port with an Army-Navy combined expedition to prevent Empire reinforcements. Second would have been a similar blockade of Vancouver and the Canadian Pacific coast, perhaps with selected landings. Finally, there would likely have been action in the Caribbean over Puerto Rico, Cuba and Jamaica.

Ultimately, the sea action would shape the land battle, which was seen (perhaps over optimistically) by the US planners as more or less a foregone conclusion of a US conquest of major Canadian cities and the imposition of a treaty that likely would have made them into states of the union. Canada had a plan of its own to forestall this with a lightning pre-emptive strike to temporarily seize places like Niagara and Buffalo.

How would the US and British fleets of 1935 have fared against each other? I don't believe naval air power would have been a big factor yet. And how would US and British planes match up in the air?

Granted, such a thing was highly unlikely to actually occur, but as an exercise in what-if's it is fascinating.

[DuckofTindalos]

There would have been no action in the Pacific, so that kinda defeats any WitP mod on this.

[Shellshock]

Sounds like a war made to order for Herr Hitler and Tojo. While the two largest democracies square off in North America, they clean up in Europe and Asia. [:D]

[Mac Linehan]

T -

Orig:
I'm now a Herculean Exemplar. Happy?


> Yes!

Mac

[vonHindenburg]

Interesting scenario, but difficult to realise in a pacific-theatre. Maybe, War Plan Orange for WitP AE. That would be nice.

[chesmart]

or you can make a mod with the commonwealth and the british as allies of japan. In my personal mod which is based on ironman i already gave japan the italian and the german fleets. The japanese have more ships and aircraft thaan the allies.

[mike scholl 1]

ORIGINAL: elxaime

With the two-hundred year anniversary of the War of 1812 looming, has anyone given thought to creating a WITP variant based on War Plan Red, the 1935 US plan for a war with Great Britain and conquest of Canada?

Actually, these "Staff Studies" were purely hypothetical planning exercises. When a real threat arose, they were invariably updated, blended, and expanded into things like the "Rainbow Plans". Just having a "Plan Red" meant nothing except that some Captains and Colonels in the War Dept. had some scenarios to play with...

[AW1Steve]

War plan Red really stopped being at all likely after 1916. I'm sure they just kept updating it after that as a staff exercise, and keeping in mind "well, you never know". Prior to 1916 War plan Red was the most likely to be used , especially after The UK signed an alliance with Japan in 1902. The USN totally freaked after that. (And Australia and New Zealand were not all that happy , either!).

If one were to modify a game to fit this scenario , they'd be better off modifying "War Plan Orange".

There was (is?) a board game of War Plan Red (I'll have to find my copy for more info). VERY interesting.

If Matrix did put out such a game , I'd buy it. [:)]


Here's the board game link. http://www.avalanchepress.com/gamePlanRed.php

[elxaime]

ORIGINAL: AW1Steve

War plan Red really stopped being at all likely after 1916. I'm sure they just kept updating it after that as a staff exercise, and keeping in mind "well, you never know". Prior to 1916 War plan Red was the most likely to be used , especially after The UK signed an alliance with Japan in 1902. The USN totally freaked after that. (And Australia and New Zealand were not all that happy , either!).

If one were to modify a game to fit this scenario , they'd be better off modifying "War Plan Orange".

There was (is?) a board game of War Plan Red (I'll have to find my copy for more info). VERY interesting.

If Matrix did put out such a game , I'd buy it. [:)]


Here's the board game link. http://www.avalanchepress.com/gamePlanRed.php

Thanks for posting this! I remembered vaguely there had been a board game of this by Avalanche Press, but could not recall for sure.

As the materials indicate, their theory for the game was for a confrontation in the early 1920's. I suppose the historical premise would be the failure of the Washington Naval Conference in 1922. Faced with a new naval arms race with the US, the UK would move back towards an alliance with Japan as a counterweight to the US at sea and the new Bolshevik regime on land.

The idea of the US, Canada and UK impoverishing themselves in the 1920's by going on a building spree of experimental super-dreadnoughts is admittedly far-fetched. Some of these ships that appear in the game I had never heard of:

- The Americans receive four examples of the 1919 battleship design, a monstrous ship with eight 18-inch guns, and also four of the South Dakota class, begun but never completed; there are three examples of the original design of the Lexington-class battle cruiser with 14-inch guns and five smokestacks and the American 1914 design of a fast armored cruiser with eight 10-inch guns, which would have been built for commerce raiding

- On the British side, we have the huge N3 design battleships, with nine 18-inch guns, and the similar G3 battle cruiser with nine 16-inch guns. The Royal Navy also gets its proposed F-class cruiser, and the three R-class battleships which were ordered but later cancelled

[elxaime]

ORIGINAL: AW1Steve

War plan Red really stopped being at all likely after 1916. I'm sure they just kept updating it after that as a staff exercise, and keeping in mind "well, you never know". Prior to 1916 War plan Red was the most likely to be used , especially after The UK signed an alliance with Japan in 1902. The USN totally freaked after that. (And Australia and New Zealand were not all that happy , either!).

If one were to modify a game to fit this scenario , they'd be better off modifying "War Plan Orange".

There was (is?) a board game of War Plan Red (I'll have to find my copy for more info). VERY interesting.

If Matrix did put out such a game , I'd buy it. [:)]


Here's the board game link. http://www.avalanchepress.com/gamePlanRed.php

Thanks for posting this! I remembered vaguely there had been a board game of this by Avalanche Press, but could not recall for sure.

As the materials indicate, their theory for the game was for a confrontation in the early 1920's. I suppose the historical premise would be the failure of the Washington Naval Conference in 1922. Faced with a new naval arms race with the US, the UK would move back towards an alliance with Japan as a counterweight to the US at sea and the new Bolshevik regime on land.

The War at Sea series by Avalanche includes just about every what-if you can imagine:

http://www.avalanchepress.com/line_GWAS.php