Mega invasion fleets

[BillBrown]

One thing we all need to keep in mind is that we have a lot more information about the strengths and weaknesses of both sides of this conflict. One of the hardest things to design into a game is the lack of information both sides had about the other and the misinformation they both had also.

We know now that it would have been almost impossible for Japan to invade the Hawaiian islands and support them. But at the time there were a lot of fears about Japanese invasions of the West Coast cities!! The same would also apply to Australia, Japan could have invaded a city or two in Australia but to conquer the entire continent?? Japan did not have the resources to do that but again there was a lot of fear that Japan was going to do just that.

As gamers, with out 20/20 hindsight, we know to play the Allies you just have to protect some of the important bases and wait for production to reach flood proportions and then go on the counter attack. We know how small the Japanese resources really are, but at the time the commanders( both civilian and military) did not have the knowledge we have. They did not know how far Japan could expand.

One thing that would be incredability interesting but probably very hard to do is some kind of pre war turns. Something like 8 or 10 turns, each covering 1 year, where each side uses construction points to build units. At the end of each turn each side would be given a report about what the other side built with a good amount of randomness thrown in. There would have to be some kind of checks and balances on just what each could do. Just a thought but it would make each game very different.

[Nikademus]

Originally posted by TIMJOT
Mogami

You have to admit not all is right. On the 7th the initial landing force of 5500 men and 61 guns were met by an allied bombardment of 624 guns, neting a total of 34 casualties and 1 gun lost.

By the following day the Japanese had landed some 90,000 men and 900 guns presumably unopossed. That seems to me to be just a little too efficient.

For example at Linguyen gulf on Luzon, one of the larger landings made by the Japanese. The landing force consisted of 76 transports carrying 46,000 men and material, 63 small landing craft, 73 large landing craft, 15 other and 48 sampans. It took several days to disembark. On the first day they only succeded getting ashore elements of 3 regiments with virtually no heavy equipment.

Certainly there is room for some adjustments in ground combat and landing rates.

I think that since the earliest days of UV, unloading in general at beaches (size 0) or combat situations has been too high for both sides. Worse....there seems to be no routine to account for disruption of unloading if there are air and surface forces interdicting. Several thoughts i've had on this for some time:

1) air and sea attacks that break through to hit a landing should (depending on strength + variables) have a good chance of signifigantly slowing unloading. In the case of very strong attacks perhaps it should even be stopped for a full turn. There was a reason after all why Allied ops sought to gain complete mastery of the air and sea before landing.....to minimize disruption.

2) such attacks should increase disruption of troops actually landed

3) There's a hole in the surface routine. I call it the Mikawa factor. In short.....the engine treats surface combat TF's vs Transport TF's as Surface vs Surface combats. What that means is that the attacker almost never presses home his attack armed with the knowledge that he has succeeded in reaching the objective of the whole operation...the vulnerable bloated transports. Instead....the attacking TF will trade a few rounds as with a surface TF and usually break off after that.....the average result is one or two transports hit, and if there are escorts, lots of damage to them. Had a PBEM where i reached an invasion TF several times at great cost to my navy only to have them act like "Kurita" each time......shoot off a few rounds then disengage. Very frustrating to work so hard to achieve that golden Mikawa moment only to have my ships shy away as if the transports were armed with 16 inch guns. This needs addressing in my opinion.

The inclusion of such a fix would make amphib op/assaults even more potentially dangerous forcing players to ensure that they have adequately prepeared for their operation by achieving maximum sea and air superiority.

4) hits on loaded transports need to encure a far greater potential for lost supply and troop casualties. You do not need to sink a transport to cause carnage. If that transport is heavily laden and you are hitting it with shrapnel....you are going to cause alot of higgidy piggidy.

One potential problem though. If amphib ops are made too difficult, then no landing will succeed because all the defender will have to do is immediately order a shock attack and boom, the invader gets anihilated. As such we might have to look at defender penalties as well. This Oahu situation is case in point. Those two Inf divisions and their gaggle of support troops are certainly not in a realistic position to shock attack within 24 hours at full strength.

[TIMJOT]

Originally posted by Mogami
Hi, There is always room for improvement. Some things do not make the combat report.txt. The landing were not unopposed.
PH has 8inch Coastal guns. They fire at every ship unloading and every unit unloading. (The PH CD damaged over 75 AP many of them have since sank The Japanese troops suffered many casualties not listed in combat report (and hence my AAR)
Arty fire seems to be inconsistent ( I've seen 200 guns cause between 25-750 casulties. Certainly one would suppose over 600 guns firing at 150k troops would inflict several k in casulties.
I'm not sure but I think the combat report lists items in the total that are not involved in combat. (it lists 50k troops but as much as half of these are not combat effective () and many of the guns are in the broken () status as well. (Although I think enough USA giuns were working to inflict more then 30 Japanese loss)
Ones thing I know for sure. Of the 150k Japanese a good chunk were not involved in the final assault. (Japanese kia were enough to score 30 VP for Allies)

Mogami,

I forgot calsualties from shore batteries do not show up in the combat report. Perhaps there should be a coast defence combat screen to show land/sea combat. Still the fact that 90k troops and 900 guns were landed in a 24hour period seems to indicate that there was very little disruption. According to the AAR 150k+ and 2000+ guns:eek: were involved in the final assault taking place on the day 3, with the loss of only 400 troops. So I guess I am confused. Dont the combat reports reflect losses accrued or do they simply list original full combat strengths of the units involed? How many casualties do 30 VPs translate into?

[Mike_B20]

I'd like weather to have an effect on speed of unloading as well.

Sure, shock attacks by defenders should be looked at, maybe even disallowed in the face of an amphibious assault.

As wargamers we fling our virtual troops about at will with nothing at stake but a few virtual victory points:)

Both sides in the conflict were very mindfull of the vulnerabilty of transports and the difficulty of amphibious assaults and valued the lives of their troops.

Hence the turning about of the PM invasion transports by the Japs after Coral Sea and their decision to NEVER send transports within range of allied LBA after the Bismark Sea fiasco.

Maybe it makes for more boring wargaming but it would be a truer picture of what the limitations were historically if there were mechanisms to restrict the ease with which amphibious landings can currently be done.

[mogami]

Hi, I did the math on my unloading rate. It was 37 men per hour per transport

37x24=888x100 transports=88,000 troops per 24 hours (there were over 100 AP)

[Nikademus]

I'll take the boring any day . Nothing more annoying than a invasion TF version of the "human wave" attack. Always found comments like "dont care about transport losses as long as the base gets taken" on the AAR forum disturbing, esp from the Allied side which was much more concerned about losses.

Doesn't feel very realistic. I've wondered whether or not VP's for loaded transports should be increased. Players tend to treat them as disposable items.

Sticking to UV....i always regreted the design decision to give in to player complaints regarding AP availbility. This was way back near 1.0 time. Being forced to work with less transports would have led to more boring games admitedly, but it would also have slowed operational tempo to a much more realistic manner too, not to mention make players very careful in their use.

[Nikademus]

Originally posted by Mogami
Hi, I did the math on my unloading rate. It was 37 men per hour per transport

37x24=888x100 transports=88,000 troops per 24 hours (there were over 100 AP)

Well statistically that doesn't sound unreasonable. 100 transports???!!!! Wow.

Can you do the same calc for supply?


Edit: i'd say that this gives my suggestion regarding disruption of unloading some merit. The actual unload rate does not sound unreasonable. The problem is that there's no real way to muck it up via outside attacks. The engine just keeps unloading troops at a set rate per hour....all the player has to do is set his TF's to do not retire

But there's a big diff between unloading unmolested, and trying to unload when something is gunning for you

[mogami]

Hi, I think a there is some confusion over what occured. This was the entire IJN. Every CV/CVL/CVE/BB/CA/CL/DD and most of the MSW/PG/PC nearly 200 transports 6 IJA DIv 2 IJA Bde.

They captured PH

Over 1/3 of IJN is sunk or damaged
Over 100 transports sunk or damaged.

If USA had tried a shock attack they should (UV/WITP does not do this) have been blown to bits by Naval bombardment (I think my BB/CA should have fired counter Btry at USA arty)

[Nikademus]

But PH is key to the whole war!

with access to the surfer's paradise and an unlimited supply of coconuts, the Japanese war engine will be unstoppable!!!

[mogami]

Hi, Nik if you were half the grognard you think you are you would know it is pineapples not coconuts that Hawaii will supply to Japanese war machine........dude

[TIMJOT]

Originally posted by Nikademus


Understand your concern here TIMJOT, but in fairness, your example works the other way too. You are highlighting the potential issues on the ability of the attacker to land so many troops so quickly but are passing over the equally unlikely possibility of a mass attack by the defender in such a short period of time. This is not Tarawa, or Okinawa after all....this is a large island in peacetime condition, and one that just suffered a devastating attack which has communicaitons and command/control disrupted. The only two actual combat formations are not at the beachhead, ready to try to throw the invaders back into the sea on a moment's notice. How then does one judge what is fair then? If the Japanese should be considered in no condition to attack....how much of the defenders should be allowed to counterattack? I have problems envisioning gaggles of US servicemen driving up to the beachheads in whatever military or civilian vehicles that can be comendered and staging a "bums rush" of their own
.

I agree mostly, but I wouldnt worry to much on the flip side. As the AAR indicates the was no counterattack at all on the first day other than a bombardment that netted only 34 calsualties. Oahu is really not very large only about 35 miles by 24 miles end to end. I understand its an abstraction but its not to unreasonable that 50k troops could concentrate fairly quickly within 50 mile hex. That being said I really do not have a problem with the defenders not mounting an attack until the second day, which seems reasonable, but more that the invaders could land 90k+ troops and 900 guns in a single day while under fire from CD batteries and air attacks. Again its an abstraction so its too much to expect individual terrain to be modeled, but I think that landing rates should be effected by;

1) Disruption by combat. (CD fire, air attacks, surface TF attacks)

2) Disruption by weather. As it is bad weather only helps invasions by shielding them from air attacks. As far as I know it has no corresponding effecting on disemparkation rates.

3) Defensive concentration. The number troops concentrated within a 50 mile hex.


Mogami,

Could the realatively high disembarkation rate be do to PH large port size? If so shouldnt all amphib assaults against enemy controlled hex be based on a 0 port level? It is not as if the the Japanese could make use of the port facilities.

[Mike_B20]

I thought you were after the hula girls ( what a morale booster! )and those garish Hawaiian shirts.

*mind boggles at the thought of 150,000 outrageously attired Japanese 'tourists', posing at local sights for pictures to send home*

[TIMJOT]

Originally posted by Mogami
Hi, I did the math on my unloading rate. It was 37 men per hour per transport

37x24=888x100 transports=88,000 troops per 24 hours (there were over 100 AP)

Well on the face of it that rate doesnt seem too unreasonable, but, actually it would be impossible to keep up that rate countinuously over a 24 hour period. I think there needs to be a dimminishing return when it comes to the number of transports within a hex.

Again, the real world example of Linguyen 41. The Japanese with 76 transports were only able to put ashore less than a full division with virtually no heavy equipment in the first 24 hours. That was with no real opposition to speak of. Although there was some bad weather to contend with.

[TIMJOT]

Originally posted by Mike_B20


*mind boggles at the thought of 150,000 outrageously attired Japanese 'tourists', posing at local sights for pictures to send home*

Not too mind boggleing, Have you been to Hawaii lately? Sounds like a typical day in Honolulu.

[Nikademus]

Originally posted by Mogami
Hi, Nik if you were half the grognard you think you are you would know it is pineapples not coconuts that Hawaii will supply to Japanese war machine........dude

"coconuts" sounded better.

Its the effect man.....the comic EFFECT!

I question your evidence though.....only way to resolve this is for you to buy me a ticket to Oahu. I will investigate whether or not there are pineapples or coconuts there. I will start my investigation at pearl Harbor.....lots of coconut trees there i hear

[Nikademus]

Originally posted by TIMJOT
I agree mostly, but I wouldnt worry to much on the flip side. As the AAR indicates the was no counterattack at all on the first day other than a bombardment that netted only 34 calsualties. Oahu is really not very large only about 35 miles by 24 miles end to end. I understand its an abstraction but its not to unreasonable that 50k troops could concentrate fairly quickly within 50 mile hex. That being said I really do not have a problem with the defenders not mounting an attack until the second day, which seems reasonable, but more that the invaders could land 90k+ troops and 900 guns in a single day while under fire from CD batteries and air attacks. Again its an abstraction so its too much to expect individual terrain to be modeled, but I think that landing rates should be effected by;

1) Disruption by combat. (CD fire, air attacks, surface TF attacks)

2) Disruption by weather. As it is bad weather only helps invasions by shielding them from air attacks. As far as I know it has no corresponding effecting on disemparkation rates.

3) Defensive concentration. The number troops concentrated within a 50 mile hex.

perhaps. I'm just worried that too much work on downgrading the attacking troops would result in easy defenses by the established troops. One tactic that comes to mind right away is the one where the player sets his defending units to "shock attack" before there are even any troops to land, that way they "do" attack on the first day. (attack options should be greyed out unless there are units to attack IMO)

yes the Island is not that big but as with the Oz example, i just dont buy that you can move a division on 24 hours notice on the fly. Not without there having been much advanced preperation which wouldn't be here for this example.

So while i can see some kind of defensive counterattack within 24 hours, i think it would have to have the same checks as on the invader, meaning disruption checks and less than full strength being brought to bear.

Its a quandry to be sure. I think in general that any landing "not" on an atoll should be considered not to be an "assault" with the expectation that the two sides would not be able to immediately go into full pitched battle. the hexes after all are 60 miles.

[TIMJOT]

Originally posted by Mogami


If USA had tried a shock attack they should (UV/WITP does not do this) have been blown to bits by Naval bombardment (I think my BB/CA should have fired counter Btry at USA arty)

Agreed your BB/CA should be able to provide counter Btry fire, but in a dual between ships and shore batteries, (especially the type and concentration found at PH, Corrigedore, Sigapore) the CDs have the decided advantage. Not sure about the PH defences but any direct sea assault of Manila or Singapore would have been suicide without a long drawn out reduction of those fortresses.

[Nikademus]

Singapore had 15 inch guns

Manila had Fort Drum with four 14 inch guns and while the turrets were penetrable, i doubt the concrete shell would have been breached even by 16inch fire.

The BB's would be able to stand off against the 8inch guns and bombard though how well they'd do i suppose is arguable. The Japanese could have used float planes though to help range in on them. Combined with some Kido Butai i think they could do some serious damage to the PH batteries.

Still, from Mogami's description it sounds like they gave better than they got. I agree that hits from coastal batteries should be added to the combat report. Makes it really hard to judge in testing how well they are doing.

I did in fact run one test with a transport fleet going to Singapore. The resulting damage did seem a little sparce and of course as mentioned, there is no real coding to factor in disruption of unloading while under fire, so unless the AP is "sunk", it still unloads even if under fire!

[Nikademus]

Course thats another example of the game engine's abstractness too.. Unlike the approaches to SInapore and Manilla, the Japanese at Oahu could land far away from the CD batteries if they chose (and why would they not!!!)

but because of game limitations, they had no choice but to be subjected to all that firepower

[TIMJOT]

Originally posted by Nikademus

Its a quandry to be sure. I think in general that any landing "not" on an atoll should be considered not to be an "assault" with the expectation that the two sides would not be able to immediately go into full pitched battle. the hexes after all are 60 miles.

Agreed, but perhaps there should at least be some sort of modifier for ilslands and atols that are smaller than 50mi-60mi? hex. I had no problem with your Malay test landing where your forces recieved little resistence from a single Brigade defending 50 miles of shore, but 2 Divisions within the confines of Oahu is quite a different circumstance. At the very least they would certainly make a breakout from the beachhead very difficult.

Again, I do think the whole IJN and 150k+ troops should and would eventually capture PH, but 3 days seems to me to be a little too optimistic even for the Japanese often overly ambitious time schedules.