Nothing Up My Sleeve: Magical Moose Tricks--Bullwinkle58 vs.1EyedJacks

[witpqs]

I think he meant the opposite side in Stalingrad, when the Germans were on the defensive.

[catwhoorg]

Oh and I had never heard of Chesty Puller.

Very interesting page on wikipedia. I'll have to learn more about him.
Bromhead/Chad I know of very well.

[Alfred]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

I think he meant the opposite side in Stalingrad, when the Germans were on the defensive.

I read it the other way but you might well be correct. In any case the same points still apply (largely) even with the Germans as the defenders.[:)]

1. The Germans had access to water.

2. The Germans didn't care for any soviet civilians or infrastructure so indiscriminate Soviet bombardment was not a factor. Besides by the time they went on the defensive there wasn't much of anything to be concerned about.

3. The war had been going on 18 months. Both sides knew what fate awaited them. That certainty was lacking in Singapore whose defenders still ended up better than the German POWs.

4. The German logistical situation had maintained a lifeline until close to the end. It is telling that whilst they still had airfields to land the German's were able to evacuate casualties whereas the story in Singapore in terms of evacuation was not good.

5. High hopes were placed on Manstein's counter attack breaking through. Combined with the fact that for a long time Paulus, had he directly contradicted his orders, had the capability to take offensive action towards the rear. Because of their offensive potential the Germans still retained, until close to the end, an esprit de corps which the Singapore defenders had completely lost following the failure of the January Johore operation.

The disaster of Singapore had a very long gestation period going back two decades. Yes, Percival did contribute to it but there were many others who were much more culpable. Some of them made certain Percival was scapegoated.

Alfred

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: Crackaces

I'm sure the Japanese treatment of Nanking was in his mind

Which I contend should have brought up the idea that it would be better to go down fighting than to surrender . at least get to a stage closer to Stalingrad 1942 - 1943 .. Bromhead/Chad had an inkling of Isandlwana and decided to to resist at all costs .. At least if they put up a fight there would be VC's for everybody and starvation, rather than just simple starvation in some labor camp ..

Alfred has already covered a repsonse to this very well. I woudl only say that the documentary--true or not--said about 2/3 (3/4?) of the water supply was lost. Also, Singers had civilians in vast numbers trapped inside the perimeter and Stalingrad did not. The British command structure cared about civilians.

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: Crackaces

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

Looking over Tracker results from the last turn. The good news at Singers is every LCU supply is in the green, Forts are 2 + 27%, and base supply is 47,800. The bad news is the majority of the KIAs were from the 6th Aussie Brigade. Was AV of 82, now 6. Also a lot of disabled squads, and nothing in the pool. Both Indian divisions are over 300 AV each, and the other Aussie unit is OK, but this one hit bone, not fat.

Do you think Johor Bahru has the 2X supplies to reverse the IJA disabled squads? If he has stuff there that measn less supplies to propagate to Singers .. I think Alfred posted an excellent discussion on supply propagation in this thread, but I think unless the IJ have set to horde they are not going to get to X2 supplies .. I have to think he has to pull some units back and rest, otherwise his AV/Firepower is not coming back in the near future. Thoughts?

It's hard to say. The LCU count at JB has fluctuated a bit over the months, but is usually around 10-13. I have not seen ships come into Mersing, even though I've had subs offshore most of the time. I have not patrolled farther north at KB. I think most of the relevant supply is coming from Bangkok by rail.

This time he attacked very quickly after the last, relative to the other five (I think it is now) attacks. It was a gamble with the engineers, and they lost the bet as Forts had returned to 3. In a recent email Mike said he thought the game was becoming one of "whack-a-mole." I'm not sure what he meant; I didn't dig. But I think it shows frustration. Probably a little China in there as well.

[Bullwinkle58]

For Alfred: the documentary has a short paragraph with some film about feeding in the Aussie troops late in the campaign. It made the claim that some of them were so green they had never fired their rifles. Any truth in that?

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: catwhoorg

Oh and I had never heard of Chesty Puller.

Very interesting page on wikipedia. I'll have to learn more about him.
Bromhead/Chad I know of very well.

Chesty Puller looked the most like a Marine ought to than any man who ever served. A great Marine name too.

Five Navy Crosses and a quote learned by every Marine boot since.

[Alfred]

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

For Alfred: the documentary has a short paragraph with some film about feeding in the Aussie troops late in teh campaign. It made the claim that somoe of them were so green they had never fired thier rifles. Any truth in that?

Yes.

In response to the urgent pleas for reinforcements from Malaya Command, the Australian War Cabinet agreed on 23 December 1941 to send the reinforcements but they did not arrive until 24 January. remember that it wasn't until mid January before Churchill became fully aware of the real state of the "fortress". By then it was a question of diverting troops to Burma or buttressing up Empire prestige in Singapore. The British military system, as it had for 20 years, avoided making a decision so inertia continued.

The problem was they were not trained. This arose from the training structure in place. Troops received only basic training in Australia. They were then sent to finish their training in Theatre Training Depots. For the Middle East, the training depot worked OK, it didn't for Malaya. Hence when the War Cabinet decided to send the reinforcements, there were 3 available sources

* Middle East - rejected because they were needed there
* the CMF - not possible because of the legal restrictions on deploying them overseas
* Home Depot 0 chosen because it was administratively easiest course of action

In December there was still hope, largely engendered by Bennett, that the Japanese could be stopped in Johore. By the time the 1800 Australian reinforcements landed, everyone knew the next stop was Singapore Island for the Japanese and the Allied field army was shattered. Needless to say by then there was no time for any further training and the reinforcements were immediately dispersed to the units. 2/19 took in over 600 of the green reinforcements, and 2/29 took in over 500. In short, both battalions were quite unfit to fight, a problem exacerbated by the hospitalisation due to dysentery of the commander of 2/19 on 7 February. Awfully bad timing considering when exactly the Japanese crossed over.

One officer is quoted as calling the reinforcements as "not only almost useless but actually a positive menace to anyone near them and to any commander who expected his orders to be carried out".

Alfred

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: Alfred

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

For Alfred: the documentary has a short paragraph with some film about feeding in the Aussie troops late in teh campaign. It made the claim that somoe of them were so green they had never fired thier rifles. Any truth in that?

Yes.

Wow. I had no idea. Thanks for the detail. My knowledge of the war outside the US efforts is sadly lacking.

[Alfred]

It is details like this which are overlooked when people say there were sufficient troops available to have stopped the Japanese, if only Percival had been competent. They look at the total number of troops who surrendered but fail to understand who exactly was caught in the bag.

The fact is that on 8 December 1941, Malaya Command was woefully short of troops to carry out all the tasks expected of it. Malaya command was tasked with defending an area whose length is roughly equivalent to the entire east coast of the UK. For that it had only the equivalent of 3 divisions (of which only the 2 Australian bdes could be considered half combat ready) plus the "fortress" garrison when at the same time there were about 25 div equivalents still in the UK.

To compound the shortage of untrained troops, the units had to be dispersed to non mutually supporting locations and not easily redeployed. Remember that a large percentage of them could not moved out of Singapore island because #1 priority was to defend the base from an enemy landing. The rest were sent to defend either airfields which had been built by the RAF without any consultation with the army regarding the feasibility of defending them, or the many possible landing sites.

Here is another detail overlooked by all who blame Percival for the debacle. Percival was not authorised to approve any defensive works costing more than 500 pounds. Plus until October 1941, the civilian governor obstructed successfully the diverting of labour away from the civilian economy to work on defence works. Much greater weight was given to maximising the economic output of the colony than preparing its defences.

Alfred

[Canoerebel]

I apologize for paying 150 pp to replace Percival in my game.  [:)]

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

I apologize for paying 150 pp to replace Percival in my game.  [:)]

I don't. The game is the game, and it was 150 well spent. [:)]

[Bullwinkle58]

April 6, 1942

I See You!!!!

Day of jabs and feints.

1) As Operation FUDD gathers steam the need for reliable info about what's up in Burma increases. The Allies have been flying recon from Pt. Blair and elsewhere for weeks, but Rangoon in particular keeps showing up empty. Today Ground bombing missions are mounted, at high altitude, to try to get some intel. Despite some losses it is largely successful.

Blenheims hit Rangoon, lose 4, but see the 7th JAAF Base force. Also a pantload of Oscars. Liberators follow and see 3rd RTA Division there. B-26s hit Prome and find 2nd RTA Division, covered by a small Zero CAP. 46 casualties are inflicted here. I suspect this is the main balance of forces down-country in Burma. The stack at Toungoo is ineffectively night bombed by the RAF, seeing nothing. Regular recon here is all over the board, sometimes 12 LCUs and sometimes 1. Given the amount of Allied recon being done in Burma, the sightings of at least one 5000-man LCU on the roads SW of Chiang Mai, intel that some arty is at Bangkok (transiting?), I suspect Japan senses something is coming due in Burma. The forces at Toungoo, while large, are exposed. It is very possible some is being cheated south towards Rangoon/Pegu. FUDD needs to hurry up, but despite my repeated frantic clicking the transports refuse to go faster. All I can do is try to make the strikes, when they happen, large enough that deception is not the key element.

2) Singers is swept and has low-Oscars sink three MLs on harbor duty. The game here now is fort building and rest. The AV is what it is. No LCUs will be risked to relieve Singers.

3) Palembang is very near Forts 4 with supply well over 100,000 now. The AV is very moderate, however. Given time I plan to insert a US division there, but with PPs being used mostly to shore up Chinese leadership no buy-outs are in the offing.

4) The stack NE of Tsuyung gets 50 bombers in what should become a daily event. Eleven casualties. I'm sure Japan sees the strategic fork here now. The Japanese stack cannot proceed up the road toward Paoshan until this growing Chinese stack is dealt with. Bombing won't get it done. I'm happy with this stalemate for now.

5) In a first for me I manage a Ground bombing attack completely from intel, with no icon showing on the map. Intel recieved that a Recon unit is in open terrain SE of Pontianak on the west coast of Borneo, headed for an open, untaken Dutch base. I order bombers at Batavia to bomb the hex and am rewarded with:

Morning Air attack on 2nd Recon Regiment, at 57,92 , near Pontianak

Weather in hex: Light rain

Raid spotted at 37 NM, estimated altitude 3,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 10 minutes

Allied aircraft
B-25C Mitchell x 3

No Allied losses

Japanese ground losses:
14 casualties reported
Squads: 0 destroyed, 1 disabled
Non Combat: 0 destroyed, 2 disabled
Engineers: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled

Aircraft Attacking:
3 x B-25C Mitchell bombing from 1000 feet
Ground Attack: 3 x 500 lb GP Bomb

AND

Morning Air attack on 2nd Recon Regiment, at 57,92 , near Pontianak

Weather in hex: Light rain

Raid spotted at 20 NM, estimated altitude 5,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 7 minutes

Allied aircraft
LB-30 Liberator x 3

No Allied losses

Japanese ground losses:
49 casualties reported
Squads: 0 destroyed, 4 disabled
Non Combat: 0 destroyed, 2 disabled
Engineers: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled

Aircraft Attacking:
3 x LB-30 Liberator bombing from 1000 feet
Ground Attack: 4 x 500 lb GP Bomb

Pin sticks, but nice to know this works. I'm sure it's old hat to most players, but I've never done it before.

6) Lots of bombing at Bataan shows results of lots of supply hits, which are phantoms.

7) Report which could be a sub or could be something real: "PBY-5 Catalina sighting report: 5 Japanese ships at 14,63 near Diego Garcia, speed 10, Moving Southeast." DG is only moderately defended by a base force and an AT unit, plus Cats and B-26s. Forts are 1 and building. If Japan took DG this would be a crimp on the CT--Perth supply train. A re-invasion would be needed out of the wormhole, which would take at least five weeks to mount from CONUS.

8) A dozen bases in Oz and NZ go to Forts 2 all at once. Not a big deal, but it's a little comfort to the Allies in these hard months of 1942.

[catwhoorg]

You got any convoys in the area of DG ?

Maybe its a false report spotting your own ships ?

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: catwhoorg

You got any convoys in the area of DG ?

Maybe its a false report spotting your own ships ?

Just one ASW ship currently refueling. The CT TFs are well south of there on a beeline for Perth.

The thing that makes me think it might be a landing is the speed. FOWed subs usually report out as 20 kts, and usually either 9 or 10 ships. I've had San Diego "invaded" 20-30 times already.

If it's a landing what's on the island might be able to deal with a SNLF or a Naval Guard OK. I have the RN heavies at Colombo, but I need them for FUDD. Don't want to go galivanting off to the mid-IO with them. DG might be on its own.

[V I Lenin]

ORIGINAL: catwhoorg

You got any convoys in the area of DG ?

Maybe its a false report spotting your own ships ?

Would be also my suspicion! Aircraft report often wrong type, class etc but seem to be quite good at speed and direction. 10kts southeast sounds like merchant going to Australia...

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: V I Lenin

ORIGINAL: catwhoorg

You got any convoys in the area of DG ?

Maybe its a false report spotting your own ships ?

Would be also my suspicion! Aircraft report often wrong type, class etc but seem to be quite good at speed and direction. 10kts southeast sounds like merchant going to Australia...

Only TFs going to Oz are course 090 for Perth from off-map. But I'll keep it in mind. The B-26s will be re-vecotred next turn to have an extra look-see.

[Bullwinkle58]

No icons near DG. ASW ship re-patrolled and B-26s and Cats re-sectored.

[Bullwinkle58]

Operation FUDD

. . . Is Coming Soon

[witpqs]

You're going wabbit hunting!!!