Your detail is just beyond my current level of playing this game. I learn because I get a view inside how you put an attack like that together, and all of the thoughts and analysis and knowledge that go into it. I could try to apply certain aspects, but I don't yet have a rounded understanding of the game in this way. I believe that only comes with experience and the desire and humility to keep learning.
"Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm." - Winston Churchill
I sortied a full strike of 3 kamikaze squadrons of Ki-43 IIIas against Manilla. 78 of the Ki-43 IIIas broke through enemy CAP over Manilla - which, as expected, had been significantly weakened in order to provide LRCAP of retreating USN ships. Unfortunately only 5 kamikazes hit the enemy shipping ( the FlAK was truly murderous ) and 3 of them concentrated on the CB Alaska.
Were there any hits on the Alaska? I've always been fond of that class -- I would rather have an extra CB than an extra North Carolina class BB. (Five more knots makes them able to escort CV's or run fast bombardment missions.)
Civil war? What does that mean? Is there any foreign war? Isn't every war fought between men, between brothers?
Well, there's no plan or game so good that you don't make mistakes and even if you win there's value in analysing what went wrong and what you could have done better. I'm glad you are finding it useful but, really, I didn't go into any real detail about the tactics in this AAR. One or two of my older AARs would be much more useful if that's an area you'd like to focus on. In some of them I went into great detail on how to achieve specific objectives or how to counter specific tactics. If you'd like I could post some links.
Harlock,
CB Alaska took three x Ki-43 IIIas to the deck armour. None of them penetrated although one did take out one of her radars and another took out a AAA tub. Nothing major though but probably enough to put her in port for a few days repairing damage.
I thought it might be interesting to review the current aerial losses for both sides.
Japan has lost a total of 5,140 planes while the Allies have lost 4,101 planes. That's in just 5 weeks of fighting. With that said quite a few of my losses were in the more obsolescent plane types which I'm more than willing to lose so as those are attrited out of service AND as my strategic plan comes together - to push the Allies back out of range of Japan - I believe that my losses should fall significantly.
Japan's losses, in order, of plane types which have suffered more than 100 losses are as follows:
Ohkas: 716
Ki-43 IIIs: 395
A6M5: 271
All three of these types are exclusively used as kamikazes or kamikaze escorts.
Ki-84a/b: 319 ( obsolescent, no longer in production )
A6M8: 199 ( obsolescent, no longer in production )
N1K5J: 168 ( no longer in production. I am producing A7M2s and J7Ws in favour of the N1K5J )
D4Y4: 165 ( in production - I plan to use D4Y4s as kamikaze only planes once I have enough B7A2s to equip all the dive-bomber units I wish to keep as conventional DB units )
Ki-67 Ib: 137 ( in production )
A6M7: 115 ( in production )
Ki-84r: 112 ( in production )
A7M2: 108 ( in production )
Ki-94 II: 105 ( in production )
G9M: 101 ( in production. I lost 63 to a single day's bombing. That really hurt. In response I've decided to ramp up production from 40 per month to 120 per month. I've been most impressed by their ability to damage BBs and CVs and create the initial breaches which have allowed later kamikaze waves through )
Overall I've been reasonably successful in concentrating my losses among obsolescent types and kamikazes and allowing a solid cadre of A7M2s, J7Ws, Ki-94 and Ki-84rs to build up in the Home Islands while the second rate planes and pilots keep the Allies occupied. By the end of this month though I should be able to put more first-rate fighters into the air and relegate second-rate fighters to the kamikaze role - I plan to commit leftover Ki-44s, Ki-61s etc etc to low-level ( 100 feet ), high speed kamikaze attacks at which I believe their speed and manoeuvrability will help them evade interception and their armour will help them to be better at survivng FlAK than Ki-43s and Ohkas are.
Allied losses:
F6F5: 490 ( including 166 on the ground, most of these went down with CVEs or were destroyed on the ground at Naha ).
SB2C5: 459 ( including 184 on the ground )
B-29s: 467 ( almost 500 B-29s destroyed in 5 weeks of fighting. This shows just how determined his B-29 attacks are and how often they fly.)
P-47N: 398
TBM Avengers: 450 including 140 on the ground
A-26C: 268
P-51H: 206
F4Us: 350 including 150 on the ground
P-38L: 139
P-61C: 136 ( I've inflicted significant losses on his night-fighters which is helping my raids achieve more. It cost me a lot of bombers to inflict these attritional losses but not I'm reaping the benefit )
B-25: 104
B-24: 103
It should be noted that the aircraft loss screen shows 3,570 Allied planes lost but the points tally shows me 4,101 have been lost. All of the above figures are from the aircraft loss screen so, really, the losses above underestimate the true losses by about 16% so instead of almost 480 B-29s it might well be 550 to 560 B-29s.
In other news:
I've sent most of my units back to their training areas to refit and take on replacements. I'm sortieing some naval units to land about 2 divisions worth of troops at Miyako Jima and I'm continuing to shuttle supplies around Korea etc to ensure I can build factories to build the Ne Turbojet required for the J7W2 ( the jet-powered version of the J7W1 ). We've updated to the latest beta and it has hugely improved my supply situation. Under the previous beta supplies were being "trapped" in some places and refusing to move to areas where I was trying to expand factories ( admittedly these were unusual places since I'm trying to spread my factories out a bit to better withstand strategic bombing ). With the new beta the supplies are moving much more reasonably. One or two out of the way places are still stuck without enough supply but these make sense now ( at the end of trails, not railways etc etc.
The IJAAF and IJNAF will keep the pressure on Naha and once I get the supplies I've unloaded to flow to the troops at Naha I'll begin ground attacks again. I expect to break them reasonably quickly once those attacks begin properly and will then shift Corps-sized forces to Miyako and Ishigaki to drive the US army units there into the sea. This will result in the Allies either accepting the loss of 10 division-equivalents of troops OR committing their navy again in either a rescue or reinforcement mission. Either way I'll get another crack at their navy and should be able to wreak even more havoc.
If they withdraw I can't prevent them doing so. There are simply too many US ships. If, however, they seek to reinforce the landings at Ishigaki or Miyako then I am hopeful I can stalemate them again and escalate things to the next level - inviting several phases of USN-protected intervention --- each intervention allowing me to sink more CVs, BBs, CAs and APAs/AKAs.
Lastly, I'm shifting more and more forces northward to accelerate my buildup there. I have many islands with garrisons of 500 to 600 AV in the north but I want every island to have 500 to 600 AV (including a tank regiment ) but I want my key islands to have 1,000 to 1200 AV. Fortunately I've managed to gather some 8,000 AV for the task of securing these islands and Hokkaido to add to the 4,000 AV I already have garrisoning Hokkaido and building defences there.
John Dillworth: "I had GreyJoy check my spelling and he said it was fine."
Well, that's that settled then.
USN forces continued their pullback supported by heavy 4-engined bomber strikes on Okinawa and the Ishigaki island group. About 800 4-engined bombers flew in these raids while another 400 attacked Nagasaki again - where I'd left decoy planes on the field to draw the strikes.
As the USN withdraw past Formosa multiple minisub attacks occured but unfortunately all missed or resulted in duds. They were successful in triggering two night-time aerial attacks by torpedo bombers though and one Betty crew put another torpedo into a USN CV which had already taken two torpedoes. This is now heavily damaged and appears to be slowing the retreating Americans down significantly.
I am focusing my efforts now on reducing the US Army forces at Naha and the Ishigaki chain but will still send 100+ Ki-43 IIIs kamikazes and a kamikaze Betty unit after it. That's about 130 kamikazes so I'm hopeful of getting a few more hits and finishing it off. At this stage my losses inflicted screen continues to claim 3 US CVs sunk in the last few days. I hope that's so but I can only truly claim 4.
In other news I've closed Naha down again with a combination of night-time and daytime air attacks and naval bombardments. I have enough supplies available for a full ground attack and 2,000 additional AV should be at Naha in 7 days. In the meantime tomorrow I am mounting significant CAS missions - I've ordered about 800 bombers and dive-bombers to fly ground attack missions but expect I'll be lucky if 200 do. IJAAF and IJNAF morale and aggression is pretty shattered right now.
Another 300 bombers are tasked to split their attention between Ishigaki and Miyako Jima. The US Army attacked in both islands again yesterday and in both cases found itself unable to achieve 1:1 odds or lower my fortifications. I believe now they are properly stalled and can be rolled back over the next weeks.
Many of my IJNAF dive and torpedo attack units are now back in Japan upgrading, refitting and taking on replacements and should be ready for action next week. I've also spotted the enemy pushing forces into the islands in the Aleutians closest to my position and am tasking a Nell unit to bombing them and sinking those transports.
Things should be pretty quiet in the air once I move my transports from Naga ( and thus can move my fighters away from their CAP duties there ) although ground combat should be fairly intense for the next fortnight.
John Dillworth: "I had GreyJoy check my spelling and he said it was fine."
Well, that's that settled then.
Well today was a very quiet day in terms of the aerial and naval battles. I sent my bombers in against the ground troops at Naha and pounded them with several hundred sorties of twin-engined bombers, dive-bombers and torpedo-bombers.
After that the IJA forces - some 5,500 AV - attacked the 1400+ AV of US troops. In spite of fortifications and favourable defensive terrain the Allies suffered so heavily in the fire phase ( their unadjusted AV fell from almost 1500 to just over 1,000 ) that they mustered an adjusted AV of just 1295 compared to my adjusted AV of 4,127. So, with 3:1 odds I dropped the forts from Level 5 to Level 3.
Ground combat at Naha (95,66)
Japanese Deliberate attack
Attacking force 165196 troops, 1475 guns, 2331 vehicles, Assault Value = 5535
Defending force 79217 troops, 599 guns, 1833 vehicles, Assault Value = 1405
Japanese ground losses: 4940 casualties reported
Squads: 66 destroyed, 934 disabled
Non Combat: 7 destroyed, 94 disabled
Engineers: 4 destroyed, 52 disabled
Guns lost 71 (6 destroyed, 65 disabled)
Vehicles lost 275 (73 destroyed, 202 disabled)
Allied ground losses: 2199 casualties reported
Squads: 46 destroyed, 86 disabled
Non Combat: 64 destroyed, 180 disabled
Engineers: 16 destroyed, 131 disabled
Guns lost 117 (24 destroyed, 93 disabled)
Vehicles lost 273 (115 destroyed, 158 disabled)
Units destroyed 2
What strikes me are the heavy US vehicular losses and the huge number of Japanese forces disabled - some 900 combat squads and 202 vehicles.
What also strikes me is that with 4,100 AV of troops left after yesterday facing 1,000 US AV I have the 4 to 1 odds necessary to continue pushing this battle for another day. It'll be costly but if I can hit him without giving him pause to recover I might destroy additional units - I believe I wiped out two US Tank Bns in the fighting today and seriously mauled the 541st Parachute Regiment, Tenth Combat Engineer Regiment and the 296th Separate Infantry Regiment.
Either way, in 4 days time I will have an additional 2,000 AV available to continue the fight so rather than wait until then and let the Allies recover I'll attack now while they are disrupted and then recover my losses until the reinforcements are available in 4 or 5 days time.
At Ishigaki the Allies continued to attack but suffered 1,038 casualties vs 975 Japanese casualties. Their adjusted AV is just 92 vs my own 489. I was tempted to counter-attack today but decided to wait. I don't need to rush. I want to clear Naha first, then bring troops in to clear Miyako Jima and then, finally, Ishigaki.
Ground combat at Ishigaki (90,66)
Allied Deliberate attack
Attacking force 25767 troops, 451 guns, 758 vehicles, Assault Value = 819
Defending force 26101 troops, 309 guns, 0 vehicles, Assault Value = 667
At Miyako the Allies attacked desparately again but were, again, repulsed. When it becomes time for me to transition to the offensive these losses will be most helpful in weakening the Allied ground forces.
Ground combat at Miyako-jima (91,66)
Allied Deliberate attack
Attacking force 13816 troops, 223 guns, 146 vehicles, Assault Value = 520
Defending force 22394 troops, 244 guns, 0 vehicles, Assault Value = 664
So, all in all, a quiet day with things unfolding along the lines the plan requires. I'm quite pleased to be able to mount a counter-offensive in September/October 1945 and to be pushing the Allies back. In addition having 10 of their division equivalents at my mercy ( 1/6th of their total ground force ) and subject to piecemeal destruction will be immensely helpful throughout the next year. Hell, if this was real life I imagine destroying 10 US divisions once they reached what were viewed as the Home Islands ( Formosa, Okinawa etc ) might have made the US reconsider any plans for additional invasions. They start getting nukes in this scenario come January 1946. I expect to see a lot of nukes used all over the Home Islands.
John Dillworth: "I had GreyJoy check my spelling and he said it was fine."
Well, that's that settled then.
Ahhh I did not know the WMD's do not come in Aug .. that makes sense then ..
In my opinion Nemo you have just justified not invading Japan, and doing the "Dresden" to every one of the cities of Nippon. [;)] Rather than speculating about losing 1M troops you are rather proving how costly this adventure will be ...I would bet that Kobe could be brought into the picture as a target [;)]
So the Americans will have five A-bombs in January?
"What gets us into trouble is not what we don't know. It's what we know for sure that just ain't so"
Oops, I made an error. For gameplay purposes I decided to only give the US Atomic Bombs from June 1946 and then only deliver them at a rate of 1 a month.
Just assume someone made a terrible mistake in the US and half of the Atomic Bomb project became an irradiated slagheap, setting them back a year. Really though it is to force the Allied player to use skill rather than brute force to win. While you can win a scenario I design through brute force they are designed to reward more skillful nuanced play.
Giving a player a nuke a month so they can sit back and nuke Japanese HI to nothingness by December 1945 isn't really the acme of skillful play so I wanted 9 months in which Japan could fight and possibly actually achieve something ( even though that would be pretty unlikely given the fact that I didn't beef up their conventional navy at all - I just added in the missing suicide attack motor boats ) and then wanted to allow the Allies to close in so the Japanese player would have to fight in a deteriorating situation - which would push them to the absolute limit and let them see how good they really were.
As you say though I think if nukes had been available at this time the response would be to sit back and let nukes turn Japan's cities into glass at the rate of 1 per month. But to get the types of play I wanted out of PBEMers I didn't give them that option. Anyone can win crudely using brute force. I'm not interested in rewarding that sort of approach.
In other news I've decided to turn most of my remaining Ki-264s into kamikazes beginning immediately and crewing them with the highest quality Low Naval Skill pilots I have. With their ability to survive fighter interception ( a la B-17s ) and their bombload of 20 x 250 Kg bombs a single hit should pretty much sink any CV or anything other than a BB. So, 36 of them launching in a co-ordinated attack against a US CV TF may well give me just the level of disruption I need to break up the next major USN offensive. I'm a big believer in not showing all your cards at once.
John Dillworth: "I had GreyJoy check my spelling and he said it was fine."
Well, that's that settled then.
Well in November they would have 4 historically by now .. I would Put LeMay in charge and set him loose on Kobe, Osaka, Nagoya, and Tokyo in that order and when you're not making glass... burn the cities down ...
However, you have shown what can be done with a little determination. I am glad that the Japanese decided against a last stand .. I might not be here today [;)]
Do you think you can make March 1946 or is a sudden collapse possible from airpower losses? Those Kami attacks take up quite a few airframes although highly effective ..
"What gets us into trouble is not what we don't know. It's what we know for sure that just ain't so"
In other news I've decided to turn most of my remaining Ki-264s into kamikazes beginning immediately and crewing them with the highest quality Low Naval Skill pilots I have. With their ability to survive fighter interception ( a la B-17s ) and their bombload of 20 x 250 Kg bombs a single hit should pretty much sink any CV or anything other than a BB.
Yikes. I'm interested to see what the results are against the 4 X 20mm versions of the F8F Bearcat.
Civil war? What does that mean? Is there any foreign war? Isn't every war fought between men, between brothers?
Well, they'll do damage but I'm sure they'll have as much trouble actually straight out shooting them down as my cannon-armed fighters have in shooting the B-29s down.
A few will be lost, many will be damaged but I'm betting that even the damaged ones will still be able to make it to the CVs and make a good try at hitting them. We'll find out soon enough [8D]
John Dillworth: "I had GreyJoy check my spelling and he said it was fine."
Well, that's that settled then.
Quick question re dive-bombers. What are the altitudes for them dive-bombing? I thought it was 14 to 19k but last turn a load of my DBs over Naha at 15k just level-bombed.
John Dillworth: "I had GreyJoy check my spelling and he said it was fine."
Well, that's that settled then.
Quick question re dive-bombers. What are the altitudes for them dive-bombing? I thought it was 14 to 19k but last turn a load of my DBs over Naha at 15k just level-bombed.
Nemo,
I'm playing Downfall right now .. not your scenario I know, but similar endgame scenario. Question: how in the heck do you keep your good pilots (+70 exp) from ramming allied bombers instead of shooting them down? I don't mind when the 30 exp pilots ram a B-25, but when I lose ~4 +60 exp pilots a turn for ramming instead of shooting ... [:(]
Any insights? Thanks!!!
Different ethos here. I wish I could order more of my pilots to ram bombers. I'd happily give every fighter squadron orders to use every plane and pilot to ram enemy four-engined bombers. I'd love a day in which I lost 500 70 skill pilots ramming 500 US bombers. Sadly I only get a couple of rammings a day
My view is that I can produce more planes and 70 A2A skill pilots than the Allies produce four-engined bombers. I haven't found ramming to be a significant issue vs twin-engined bombers. It seems they select ramming if having difficulty shooting the bombers down - and twin-engineds are east to shoot down.
John Dillworth: "I had GreyJoy check my spelling and he said it was fine."
Well, that's that settled then.
Wow, you're right. Not only different ethos, but different combat results.
I have had situations where multiple attacks on a target result in multiple ramming attacks by my defending groups. Such that I start with ~45 in a group and at the end of the day have ~7.
Here's the worst: I lose +35 planes and +25 pilots. They end up with 5 losses and 30 damaged. Ramming is no guarantee that the bomber will be destroyed. [&:]
Maybe later in the scenario, I wouldn't mind losing the 70 skill pilots. But this is early and I need those high skill pilots I start with to protect important targets. Besides, a 70 skill pilot can only ram once ... he can shoot many times and in a Shinden he can hold his own against even the best allied fighter plane ...
PS: thanks for sharing your thoughts though ... guess I need to go back to the drawing board on this one ...
Well over the past 4 or 5 days things have settled down nicely. Allied B-29s are concentrating on smashing my airfields at Okinawa and in the surrounding islands - and they've torched about 400 to 500 fighters on the ground - but while they are doing that I am managing to keep the US airbases on Okinawa closed through a combination of bombardments and airfield attacks and, crucially, my upgrade to the last generation of IJN fighters has been largely completed and these are now beginning to enter squadron service.
Elsewhere my redeployment of naval assets away from the Okinawa region is largely completed with combat elements of the IJN docking in various ports to repair system damage - all elements should be ready for combat again within 5 to 6 days -, transport elements moving back to China to transport some 2,500 AV to Korea for defensive operations there and APDs ranging farther afield past Formosa in a determined effort to rescue the last of the forces trapped on Hainan Island. At the beginning of the game I was unable to have any surface assets survive in this region but now, with the recent losses to the USN, the Allies have ceded the waters around Formosa to me ( except for subs and USN strikegroups operating from land bases ).
At Naha my forces have attacked again and despite horrific casualties ( which brought their unadjusted AV down from just over 5,000 to just over 3,400 ) they managed to drop the forts again. Fortifications are now down to Level 2 and the US defenders have been reduced from 1,450 AV to just 850 AV. It appears that their tank Bns and the 3 Independent Regiments of troops they had at Naha are now utterly combat ineffective and one of their two divisions is at under 50% strength while the other is at about 80%.
The first half of the reinforcements I landed in the past ten days have now finally made their way to Naha and my AV has been boosted to over 5,000 again. That means that tomorrow I'll attack. I expect the attack to drop my AV to back under 4,000 AV but two days later another 1,000 AV should arrive and then I'll attack again. I believe that sheer weight of numbers should see me through. One other positive is that this extended period of combat has allowed me to boost the experience of these troops from an average of 30 Exp to over 60 Exp, doubling the adjusted AV of these troops.
Intel tells me that 100,000 + US troops are trapped on Okinawa so within the week they should all be killed or forced to surrender.
At Miyako-Jima I have managed to FT and fly in an additional 2 division equivalents. These troops have tipped the scales at Miyako-Jima and in the past three days of attacks 228 combat , 91 non-combat, 78 engineer squads, 47 guns and 26 vehicles have been destroyed. Allied AV has fallen from 288 to 84 and IJA odds have increased from 6:! to 41:1 in that time. Intel shows anopther 12,000 troops, 200 guns and 130+ vehicles at Miyako-Jima. Again, within the week I expect the Allies to be forced to capitulate. Already, yesterday the 102nd Combat Engineer Regiment was wiped out in combat.
Once Miyako-Jima falls I'll shift troops to Ishigaki. Ishigaki will be more difficult to take as the terrain is wooded but I have air superiority over Ishigaki and can flood it with troops so I'm quite confident that I'll be able to bring in 2,000+ AV and overwhelm the Allies through weight of numbers + aerial attacks. With a little luck it might even draw the USN into combat again in this region - and then I'll unleash my kamikaze corps.
Elsewhere Korea is fortifying and building up nicely and with the recent shift in transport and ASW assets to the Northern region they are really beginning to firm up as well. I've had significant losses to submarines in that area and so have concentrated about 30 of my E-type ships in hunter-killer groups and combined them with the new crop of ASW-trained pilots ( I am beginning to graduate the first tranche of 70 Skill pilots from my training schools - this is good news since up till now I've been relying on pilots with ASW skills of 30 or 40 in my ASW groups and that's just not good enough. With a steady supply of 70 ASW Skill pilots I am expecting to dampen down US submarine attacks in the north). In an effort to reduce the number of trips I have to make to the islands I've created an Aerial Transport Division comprising just under 90 L2D2s which is capable of flying all of the infantry in an Independent Infantry Brigade to an island in 2 days and all of the infantry in a division to an island in 1 week. This allows me to save a LOT of cargo space on my few remaining xAKs and optimise it for non-airtransportable equipment and supplies which is hugely reducing the number of trips I need to make to bring each island up to its planned garrison of 800 to 1200 AV.
Strategic Situation:
The initial plan to push the Allies out of fighter sweep range of the Home Islands is now largely complete. The only base left to the Allies within P-51H extended range of the Home Islands is Iwo Jima and, frankly;
a) It is too small to allow them decisive results
b) I can suppress that relatively easily if the Allies start using it.
The concept of using Okinawa to lure the Allied Navy in to a relief effort which I could use to ambush them on favourable terms worked well. I had thought it most likely that the Allies would try to land troops directly at Naha but I'd planned a secondary trap centred around the Ishigaki Island chain so when the Allies went there I was reasonably well prepared to pin them on the beaches and then transform one of those islands into the next "lure". At Naha and Miyako-Jima I'll eradicate the Allies while at Ishigaki I'll pound them and attrit them but won't eradicate them too quickly as I want that to be my next lure. If it looks like the Allies have abandoned the troops there then I'll finish them off also of course. Ideally though I'd like to sink more CVs and BBs in another relief effort.
The Northern region is firming up nicely and has the same basic plan as the Okinawa axis had - let them land ( cause I can't stop them landing ) but then stalemate them and force them to bring in more reinforcements and supplies and maintain a costly blockade if they want to take any island they invade. I expect the US landings in the northern region to be much stronger and more concentrated than they were at the Ishigaki Island Chain and so I'm doubling my garrison requirement in the area.
With the Home Islands secured from significant fighter sweeps the next step is to push the Allied forces back even more. This is the second phase of Japanese spoiling operations and will unfold as follows:
1. Ki-264s basing out of Tokyo will begin bombing Manilla and the B-29 bases around Saipan/Guam etc. I won't "gift" my opponent any intel about this but I expect him to be able to put 2 and 2 together and figure out, from the track of the bombers on-screen, that they must be basing out of Tokyo. He will then counter-attack there. It'll cost me some Ki-264s destroyed on the ground BUT:
a) I have all of my best AAA concentrated at Tokyo ( 10cm and 12cm FlAK )
b) I have created an anti-bomber ambush there concentrating all of my best pilots and best bomber-destroyers there. In total I have slightly over 1100 fighters there at present and am seeking to build that up to over 1200.
I expect to lose Ki-264s ( which hurts me ) but I expect to be able to significantly attrit the B-29s which do attack.
2. IJAAF and IJNAF twin-engined elements operating out of Formosa will commence low-level night-time port attacks against Manilla. My losses might be high due to FlAK but even if I lose 20 planes in order to put a single 250 Kg bomb into a CV that will, I believe, be worth it. - I already put several 250 Kg bombs into the USN CV Wasp last night, causing a fuel storage explosion which should keep her out of the war for a couple of months.
3. IJNAF elements basing out of Truk will commence night-time low-level airfield attacks on US airbases around Saipan/Guam. They will cause some damage initially but the enemy will quickly respond by closing Truk and keeping it closed. That's fine though since that'll mean them having to divert 50 B-29s a day, every day for the rest of the war in order to accomplish that mission.
4. Raids by the remnants of KB. I don't have the range to hit the Aleutians with bombers but, obviously, it wouldn't be good to let any buildup there go unchallenged. The remnants of KB will challenge in this region. It'll run at the first sign of trouble and try to draw the USN into range of my kamikazes and other attack formations in the Kuriles.
The goal of the second phase of operations is to threaten and attrit enemy bases in the operational and strategic depth forcing the Allies to deploy forces defensively - reducing the pressure on my forces on the front line - and also trying to force them to remove their high-value shipping from Manilla and, instead, base it at Guam/Saipan. This will lessen its ability to interfere with my operations along the Okinawa/Formosa axis and should open further counter-attack opportunities for my forces.
The subsidiary goal is to more passive and involves providing so many threats, all of which can easily be countered by the committment of USAAF strategic bombers, that the USAAF strategic bomber assets are misallocated to non-strategic targets ( suppressing Truk, Formosa, the Ishigaki Island Chain etc ). I can't defeat this strategically decisive arm in battle but I can tempt its mis-deployment so that's my minimum objective for phase 2.
Phase 3 will really either be:
a) hunker down, fight hard and die in place, albeit with a bit of fancy footwork.
b) counter-invade any weak Allied lodgements if they manage to overcome my garrisons.
Sidenote:
I query though whether the US would have considered a ceasefire in place if it lost about 50,000 dead and 100,000 POWs in the Okinawa + Ishigaki fighting? Especially since, at this stage, Japan would have had no issues with using those POWs as human shields - or even worse, pledging to execute a set number for each US invasion or bombing raid. Would the pretty certain loss of those 100,000 POWs have resulted in a ceasefire in place if Japan had made it clear they would have executed them if the war continued?
I've discussed it with my opponent a little and he seems to think the US would just have dropped A-bombs. I'm not so sure they would have if for every A-bomb dropped 20 or 30,000 US POWs would have been beheaded. Fortunately we'll never have to find out what would have happened. It did occur to me though, when I realised I was about to take about 120,000 US POWs in this game, just what great bargaining chips they would have made if this were real life.
John Dillworth: "I had GreyJoy check my spelling and he said it was fine."
Well, that's that settled then.
Sidenote:
I query though whether the US would have considered a ceasefire in place if it lost about 50,000 dead and 100,000 POWs in the Okinawa + Ishigaki fighting? Especially since, at this stage, Japan would have had no issues with using those POWs as human shields - or even worse, pledging to execute a set number for each US invasion or bombing raid. Would the pretty certain loss of those 100,000 POWs have resulted in a ceasefire in place if Japan had made it clear they would have executed them if the war continued?
I've discussed it with my opponent a little and he seems to think the US would just have dropped A-bombs. I'm not so sure they would have if for every A-bomb dropped 20 or 30,000 US POWs would have been beheaded. Fortunately we'll never have to find out what would have happened. It did occur to me though, when I realised I was about to take about 120,000 US POWs in this game, just what great bargaining chips they would have made if this were real life.
These are very good questions.
The other issue not dealt with as by game mechanics is what affect this kind of loss and the taking of this many POWs would have on the morale of the other Allied fighting troops and sailors. How could yuo go into another island chain knowing you would be chewed to pieces by kamis, land troops that might stalemate and be eventually overwhelmed again, and all after 4 years of difficult battles?
Anyone watching Band of Brothers or The Pacific realized the strain that mounted over those years of campaigning, and to suddenly have reversals and massive losses at this stage of the war might have sent many of the men fighting over the edge and given a huge boost to the remnants of the Japanese forces.
"Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm." - Winston Churchill
Aye, I certainly wouldn't have been at all keen to be in the next amphibious force after the Ishigaki Island Chain debacle. It is one thing to land on an island, be forced into heavy fighting but be fairly sure of victory. It is another to land and have at least a 50/50 chance of ending up a POW and potential hostage.
Then again armies throughout time have dealt with that by landing inexperienced, unblooded units who take disproportionately heavy casualties but, through inexperience, are more eager than the vets who know what is actually waiting for them.
Personally I think the breaking point would have been on the home front. Would 120,000 mothers really have stood idly by while their sons became POWs and a conditional peace offer was put on the table by Japan for a cessation in place which would have let those sons go free within months and whose rejection would fairly certainly have resulted in their deaths? I think that that those mothers would have mobilised - not all, but enough.
John Dillworth: "I had GreyJoy check my spelling and he said it was fine."
Well, that's that settled then.
I think this is quite a good question. Would the US have been able to conceal sufficiently the scope of the event to buy themselves some time on the home front? (My thought is probably not). On the other hand, culturally the United States was somewhat different then. I could, potentially, believe that a general public outcry against such an atrocity as executing prisoners could lead to even more massive firebombing and nuking of the civilian population of Japan, as the media, to my mind, would likely have suppressed news about the protests of mothers and without the modern networking conveniences, a proper union of such women would have been more difficult if it was against the grain of social thought. They may have simply turned inward and become bitter about the situation rather than try to fight a push for more brutal punishment of Japan, especially since it might have taken time to find out who exactly had become a pow. I could imagine the army taking its sweet time informing people. I do think it would have lead to a much stronger reaction to end the war, either with the obliteration of Japan or a more equitable negotiated peace, but the post war period would have been probably worse for both sides in such an event. I think it would be much harder to provide any aid to a nation that had used 100,000 POWS as a human shield to get some kind of peace, and the Japanese economy would probably have resembled that of Germany after WWI in terms of rebuilding.
My suspicion is that, in real life, would such a backhand blow on the part of Japan may not have even been possible if it had been planned and adopted. I'm no expert, but I would think between air superiority for recon purposes and magic codebreaking an operation of sufficient size to dislodge the Okinawa garrison would have been extremely difficult to stage unnoticed. You brought many, many division equivalents. What size vessel would be necessary to safely move troops between the mainland and Okinawa? I can perhaps imagine concealing small vessels and small units of troops along the coast, but I would think the communication necessary to coordinate an operation like that with the secrecy you would need to prevent sufficient reinforcements on the beaches to throw you back into the sea would be difficult at best in real life, especially since I imagine many of the best staff officers were already stationed in places they could not contribute. I say this without any great in depth knowledge, however, but merely my intuition on the subject from what I've picked up over the years.
In game terms, since the tempo of operations can be so much faster than irl, I think we can make allowances for the Allies to continue fighting in such an event, since they might be able to hope for an early rescue (the POWS would still probably be difficult to ship off the island with the strains on Imperial shipping, so a quick reinvasion might very well rescue most of them). I know in your game, your shipping would seem to be prioritizing the redeployment of your army assets that had gained experience in the fighting to your defensive perimeter. Unless you were fairly certain of a negotiated peace, I would think you in the place of Japan would be unlikely to spend too much effort shipping prisoners when soldiers could be redeployed, especially since it would potentially give you another chance to attrition the allied navies in a rescue operation. Such POWS would seem to provide better bait than shield (this would probably also limit the potential for genocidal fervor on the homefront if it was a mere prison camp).
I would imagine in game terms there would be ways for the allies to bring sufficient force to blast the Ishigaki chain and prevent proper timely reinforcement (perhaps long range p51h + bearcat lrcap + large screens of small units of pts and dds after landing overwhelming force? I'm no expert but from what I understand that should make the two basic methods of reinforcement difficult.) I'm not sure of the stacking limits on those islands off the top of my head, but given what you were able to pull off with Japanese naval assets, I'd have to imagine it would be even more possible for the allies to deny the opportunity to be stalemated if they are willing to commit sufficient force with their superior tools (excepting no kamikazes) to accomplish it. Now that wouldn't be as possible irl, especially if the ground troops had been bloodied and lost morale for invading islands as in your world, but I've already said I'm not sure the operation to successfully capture 120k pows by Japan would have been possible given their technical-tactic options.
Especially since, at this stage, Japan would have had no issues with using those POWs as human shields - or even worse, pledging to execute a set number for each US invasion or bombing raid. Would the pretty certain loss of those 100,000 POWs have resulted in a ceasefire in place if Japan had made it clear they would have executed them if the war continued?
A tough call for the Western allies, but it seems virtually certain to me that the Chinese would have continued fighting -- especially the Communist units. Also, a ceasefire in place would have meant the sea lanes to the NEI would be open again, and oil would flow back to the Japanese economy. It is worth noting that on the order of 100,000 POW's were taken from the fall of Singapore, and it did not overly affect the British Empire's calculations.
The Western powers would probably have made a counter-offer of ceasing attacks on mainland Japan, but insisting on a return of at least some territory still in Japanese hands.
Civil war? What does that mean? Is there any foreign war? Isn't every war fought between men, between brothers?
