China, the land path.

[grumbler]

There is no way, obviously, to create a political game within PacWar, and only a limited ability to do so in WitP.

Clealry, if there is an ability to edit the game, one can create any starting position one wants with a set of diplomatic assumptions that lead to war at that point.

Somebody did an early 1930s PacWar with the assumption that the Washington naval Treaty was never signed. Sot of a "Great Pacific War" scenario set a few years later. Alas, I lost that in a computer disk crash and never found it again. However, it goes to show what can be done with the flexibility of PacWar editors.

chanman, if you email me at dferg@knight-hub.com, I will email you the brilliant but hopeless (ie non-working) edit job I did on OBC41.

If anyone knows for sure what slots in OBC41 cannot be safely edited/moved, I would appreciate hearing from you. I probably know most of them by now, but it never hurts to be sure!

[LTC S]

A point to be made. In 1920, the British Empire id'd Japan as a possible enemy. This is where Singapore came from. Jellicoe went out and did a study which in the end required a fortifed port in the East and a 20 BB fleet. The British did neither, but did create a partially fortified fleet base at Singapore, built to accomadate and support those 20 (non-existent) BBs. Where this comes in is that until 1936, there was insufficient threat against the UK directly to absorb the Royal Navy. They could rely on the French (who were an ally) to screen the Italians (who were a quasi-ally) and they could have sent a very large proportion of the Royal navy to Singapore between 1932 (when Singapore reached the level of readiness needed) and 1936, when the situation in Europe starting getting serious. So any League response to Japanese agression in 1932 could have seen a combined international fleet at Singapore. (hey, it could have happended?)

[grumbler]

Singapore never reached her designed support capability while in British hands (tody is a different story!) but it is very true that Singapore had a great capability to support a fleet. The entire US Pacific Fleet could have been based out of Singapore, according to one 1930s US study referenced on warships1.org.

It is true that an earlier war with Japan may have featured a more powerful British fleet (at least for the times), plus a much stronger (i.e. not-nonexistant) French one.

In fact, an entirely Japanese versus British and French 1930s campaign (no USA) might make for an interesting minicampaign.