Lawrence of Arabia Gambit for the Rising Sun

[Knavey]

I noticed Hirohito has dropped out of sight. Wonder how his PBEM game is going?

Hiro? Any AARs out there for us to look at?

[WiTP_Dude]

Some additional pointers and refinements:

5. You don't need to commit the bulk of the men to the PH at the start. Take Hilo and Lahaina with a strong force. Build up your air fields here and keep a strong watch over PH. You can slowly starve them out over several months if need be.

6. Use your free forces to take out either the PI or Malay/Singapore. Leave one of these places alone to starve, but take the other one out using your entire force. I would take out Malay and Singapore since these areas can cause you more of a problem. Then when you have quickly destroyed the Allies, move your forces to Hawaii to complete the invasion of PH. After this you are free to strike at Australia, California, or India in May of 1942.

[Raverdave]

ORIGINAL: Knavey

I noticed Hirohito has dropped out of sight. Wonder how his PBEM game is going?

Hiro? Any AARs out there for us to look at?

You are making the assumption that Hirohito is a real person.

[Knavey]

Well,

For not being a real person, he sure stirred up a bunch of fun!

[WiTP_Dude]

Is anyone playing with Hirohito yet? Anyway, yet more suggestions on this plan:

7. Invade New Zealand before the 1st division gets there. If you are playing with sixty-day variable it can be tough to figure out. However I'd send that division sitting without APs in southwest Japan straight to Noumea and New Zealand without delay.

8. Don't land directly in a port hex if you can. Land on a road and them move the unit to the port. The coastal guns can be brutal on shipping.

[dtravel]

ORIGINAL: WiTP_Dude

8. Don't land directly in a port hex if you can. Land on a road and them move the unit to the port. The coastal guns can be brutal on shipping.

I just read that particular turn. I believe the operative word regarding that Soerabaja landing is

*SPLAT*

[:D]

[kaiser73]

I am curious to see how the AAR about Lawrence Gambit works out, however i don't understand why all this strategy refers to lawrence of Arabia.

It's simply conquering other bases and commit your army to defend it.

Lawrence would mean killing the enemy and then move on to another base.

[WiTP_Dude]

ORIGINAL: dtravel

I just read that particular turn. I believe the operative word regarding that Soerabaja landing is

*SPLAT*

[:D]

Oh, and Auckland as well. Though rumors are the next patch will have better bombardment. This could help a lot.

[mogami]

Hi, The new bombardment allows you to direct your DD to stay out of range. It does not do more damage then currently.
Putting CA,CL,DD in the TF with AP protects the AP (but the DD catch hell)

[WiTP_Dude]

You mean a 5 BB, 5 CA, 6 CL, and 9 DD bombardment fleet is still worthless? There should be more damage.

Naval bombardment of Auckland, at 63,132 - Coastal Guns Fire Back!

Allied aircraft
no flights


Allied aircraft losses
F4F-4 Wildcat: 4 destroyed, 2 damaged
Beaufort V-IX: 1 destroyed
Hudson I: 1 destroyed, 2 damaged
SBD Dauntless: 1 destroyed, 1 damaged

8 Coastal gun shots fired in defense.
Japanese Ships
DD Mutsuki
CL Sendai
CA Nachi
BB Hyuga
CL Natori
CL Tatsuta
CA Kumano
BB Nagato
BB Haruna
DD Amagiri
DD Yugumo
CL Tenryu
CL Kinu
CL Jintsu
CA Kinugasa
DD Wakatake
BB Yamato
DD Hayabusa
DD Hasu
DD Tsuga
DD Kasumi
DD Tokitsukaze
CA Furutaka
CA Chikuma
BB Ise, Shell hits 5


Allied ground losses:
343 casualties reported
Guns lost 4
Vehicles lost 2

Airbase hits 5
Runway hits 17

[dtravel]

ORIGINAL: WiTP_Dude

You mean a 5 BB, 5 CA, 6 CL, and 9 DD bombardment fleet is still worthless? There should be more damage.

25 ships in that TF. Doesn't that run afoul of the "12 ships in a combat TF" rule? TFs over 12 start having minuses because of size and lack of proper command or some such? (Too lazy to search the manual at the moment.)

[WiTP_Dude]

ORIGINAL: dtravel

ORIGINAL: WiTP_Dude

You mean a 5 BB, 5 CA, 6 CL, and 9 DD bombardment fleet is still worthless? There should be more damage.

25 ships in that TF. Doesn't that run afoul of the "12 ships in a combat TF" rule? TFs over 12 start having minuses because of size and lack of proper command or some such? (Too lazy to search the manual at the moment.)

That could be it. Still I'd like to think 5 battleships and 5 heavy crusiers would do a lot of damage regardless of penalties.

[ctid98]

I had started a nice long reply but my browser crashed as I was getting a good head of steam up. DAMN!!!!!

Anyway, to summarise, Loved this thread, and here's my 2p worth.

The 'Lawrence Gambit' this is not. Larence did hit and run raids on supply lines, to do that you would need to ambush the transport TF's out of the West Coast. This is the 'Grab all I can on an even bigger scale than historical Gambit.' We know how well that work, this will be no better, if for no other reason than Mog's logistics reply.

Hirohito, I don't want you to take this next paragrah as a personnal attack on yourself, its not meant to be, you claim to have read more than a thousand books on war and strategy, impressive, I wish I could read that quick, but it doesn't prove anything, 'Amatuers study strategy, professionals study logistics' and you my friend are an amatuer. Your refusal at every opportunity to address the logistics shows that.

You can't take all those bases and not the DEI. You'll run dry in no time. I also don't see why I as an allied player should want to resupply bases that are cut off, I can pull back to India and the West Coast and if need be sacrifice the units in the HI and PI, you won't get the required VP's to beat me. I doubt you could take India if I pulled everything back into Karachi, I have supply, you don't. As for Alaska and Canada, go ahead, it means less troops else where, more supplies for you to transport and I get to practice bombing you! I'm all for that.

Now, as I said in my first reply in this thread, its good to see a new plan put forward, but it will fail, and as you've not posted an AAR disproving that, my opinion, and I dare say many others, though I don't speak for them, won't be changed....

[WiTP_Dude]

<Bump>

I still fail to see how Alaska to New Zealand can be taken out plus India invaded. I almost achieved the Alaska to New Zealand line but the Indian invasion thing is absurd until you take out Malay and Burma.

[Hirohito]

ORIGINAL: ctid98

I had started a nice long reply but my browser crashed as I was getting a good head of steam up. DAMN!!!!!

Anyway, to summarise, Loved this thread, and here's my 2p worth.

The 'Lawrence Gambit' this is not. Larence did hit and run raids on supply lines, to do that you would need to ambush the transport TF's out of the West Coast. This is the 'Grab all I can on an even bigger scale than historical Gambit.' We know how well that work, this will be no better, if for no other reason than Mog's logistics reply.

Hirohito, I don't want you to take this next paragrah as a personnal attack on yourself, its not meant to be, you claim to have read more than a thousand books on war and strategy, impressive, I wish I could read that quick, but it doesn't prove anything, 'Amatuers study strategy, professionals study logistics' and you my friend are an amatuer. Your refusal at every opportunity to address the logistics shows that.

You can't take all those bases and not the DEI. You'll run dry in no time. I also don't see why I as an allied player should want to resupply bases that are cut off, I can pull back to India and the West Coast and if need be sacrifice the units in the HI and PI, you won't get the required VP's to beat me. I doubt you could take India if I pulled everything back into Karachi, I have supply, you don't. As for Alaska and Canada, go ahead, it means less troops else where, more supplies for you to transport and I get to practice bombing you! I'm all for that.

Now, as I said in my first reply in this thread, its good to see a new plan put forward, but it will fail, and as you've not posted an AAR disproving that, my opinion, and I dare say many others, though I don't speak for them, won't be changed....

Which army are you an active duty general in? As far as I can tell the only people who can claim to be professional military leaders should be active duty military. Or perhaps reservists. So, if you are claiming to be a "professional" then which army are you a general in?

You make a lot of assumptions. You assume that I have given no thought to logistics because I don't agree with some of the objections given. Is moving on India before Malaya and Burma are conquered risky? Yes. Is it impossible, no. There is a way to do it. But why should I give this away. Figure it out for yourself.

It matters not to me if anyone's opinion is changed. This forum is for the purpose of discussing strategy. I outlined a strategy that I think will work, and various people gave their opinion on whether or not I am correct. The topic of this forum is not "propose a strategy and then 'prove' it to everyone by finding a PBEM opponent and beating them". Perhaps that is a different forum.

I did notice that there are very few threads in this forum that actually discuss strategies. I have proposed two. The main objections to them seem to be "they aren't the original plan". Well, the original plan didn't work. So, try something new.

There seems to be a common thread in this forum which goes something like this "If you are the Japanese player nothing you propose will work because you won't have the resources, the Allies airpower will wreck havoc with your shipping from day one but your airpower will have no effect on their shipping.....". There seems to be a double standard, when I say that I will keep the allies from doing something with either naval power or air power the objection is "that won't work" but if I propose taking any offensive action the object is "allied air power or naval power will get you".

So, I guess Iwill propose a new strategy. After the attack on PH I will put alll naval forces in dry dock and put all air forces on training missions and have all army units dig in. Because anything that I propose the answer is always the same: "it won't work....".

I proposed taking Australia first. "It wont' work"
I proposed taking Russia first. "It won't work".
I proposed taking India first. "It won't work".
I proposed invading the west coast first. "It wont' work".
I proposed interdicting allied shipping and inflicting significant losses, then hitting DEI, PI,Malaya and Singapore later on. "It won't work".
We know that the original strategy of invading PI, DEI, Malaya and Singapore won't work, history proved that. So, I am proposing a new strategy. Just have all Japanese units sit tight.

I'm sure you will have an objection to that strategy as well.

Hirohito

[ctid98]

Who needs to be a general here or a professional soldier??? You asked for reasons why it wouldn't work, you've been given them, but you don't seem to be able to accept them. Leaving the DEI until a later date simply means you've run dry on fuel and supplies and they've had time to build up there defences. You have therefore been so taken in by your grand strategy you've not bothered thinking about the logistics, hence my statement.

You've stretched yourself out North to South, East to West and are now trying to take a heavily fortified area like the DEI just as the Allies are getting all of their gear together and can hit you on your frontier anywhere they choose. You say all of this can be done but how many ships are in for repairs from subs, mines, air attack, naval attack and general sys damage??? How many ships does this leave for the invasion of the DEI and more importantly the supplying of the forward bases and the defence of the empire???

Yes, I admit there are a lot of people, me included at times, who are willing to put down a new Japanese strategy without giving reasons, but likewise you can't just claim this will work because you say so. Give us the AAR, about a dozen people were lined up ready to prove you wrong, if you're that convinced of your strategy, well, give them a game and prove yourself right. If you can beat just one of them you'll have taught us all something.

[Raverdave]

I once again call on Hirohito to play one of his strategies against me in a PBEM and allow me to post the AAR. Yes I enjoy reading what you post but your refusal to actually "game" your ideas erodes your creditability.

[EUBanana]

I'm with Dave. Lets see the AAR!

Talk the talk, walk the walk and all that. [;)]

[Admiral Scott]

Bring it on!!!

[Hirohito]

ORIGINAL: ctid98

Who needs to be a general here or a professional soldier??? You asked for reasons why it wouldn't work, you've been given them, but you don't seem to be able to accept them. Leaving the DEI until a later date simply means you've run dry on fuel and supplies and they've had time to build up there defences. You have therefore been so taken in by your grand strategy you've not bothered thinking about the logistics, hence my statement.

You've stretched yourself out North to South, East to West and are now trying to take a heavily fortified area like the DEI just as the Allies are getting all of their gear together and can hit you on your frontier anywhere they choose. You say all of this can be done but how many ships are in for repairs from subs, mines, air attack, naval attack and general sys damage??? How many ships does this leave for the invasion of the DEI and more importantly the supplying of the forward bases and the defence of the empire???

Yes, I admit there are a lot of people, me included at times, who are willing to put down a new Japanese strategy without giving reasons, but likewise you can't just claim this will work because you say so. Give us the AAR, about a dozen people were lined up ready to prove you wrong, if you're that convinced of your strategy, well, give them a game and prove yourself right. If you can beat just one of them you'll have taught us all something.

Someone said I was not a "professional" would inferred that they are a "professional", I just wanted to know what army they hold rank of general in so that they can complain that i am not a "professional".

You assume I haven't thought about the logistics. That is a false assumption.

Most of the posts here say things like "it wont' work because it wont work".

I see no real efforts at discussion being made.

Hirohito