Dude vs Zeta - Hirohito Style

[ADavidB]

ORIGINAL: WiTP_Dude

You will not run out of gas and supply as long as you take half of the DEI early on. You can go for several months or years on just this alone. Every Japanese player should try to go for at least a little bit more than was taken historically.

That's interesting to know. I was always under the assumption that the Japanese had supply problems in mid-42 when they were in control of the entire SRA. You are waging some costly campaigns on four or five fronts and yet you can still supply them. Usually I find that just trying to replace aircraft losses eats up tons of my supply - and you have incredibly high aircraft losses. I'm particularly surprised that you Chinese campaign has been able to go so well. Are you running only on the supply that is generated in China or are you shipping in additional supply?

BTW - how well have your engineers been doing at repairing the facilities at the bases that you have captured? I always find the slow pace of Japanese engineers to be really frustrating.

Thanks again -

Dave Baranyi

[rhondabrwn]

I've spent all night reading this... fascinating!

It really is a fresh look at what the Japanese could have done. It is a tribute to the game design that we can see this much flexibility in strategic approach that is realistic (and not some exploit of the design to produce a completely impossible result).

My biggest regret in watching this played out is that the Japanese had to start with historic deployments. I certainly hope that someone will create a mod which includes some alternative deployments to suit different Japanese strategies like the "Hirohito Plan". The Japanese made the decision to start the war, their deployments should be easily customizable and be a surprise to the allied player.

One thing we have to realize about this game is that since everyone knew in advance what strategy was going to be played it gave the allied player an advantage in determining his response.

Will we have an AAR where someone actually gets surprised by this approach? I'd like to see that one!

If you were going to publish this alternative history, you already have over 1400 printable pages for this thread (I actually pulled a few sections into a PDF file and they ran from 102 to 162 pages each! [:D]

[ADavidB]

As I consider this AAR more, I keep coming back to one question - what can an Allied player do to stop a determined Japanese player from taking the Central Pacific as Dude has done? Although it is easy to second guess some of Zeta's errors, in reality he hasn't made that many, and Dude has probably made as many or more which cost him ships that he might not have lost. So in my estimation, Dude could be at the same point and have a lot fewer ship losses if he had used some of his current tactics during the first couple of months of the campaign.

Which gets me back to what should be the "best" Allied strategy in such a game?

• Try to pull out as many troops and as many ships as possible ahead of the assaults?
• Try to move more troops forward to a key base such as Hawaii, again ahead of the assaults?
• Abandon the existing troops, pull out ships and planes, and wait until 1943?

The real challange is how to handle the KB. Allied Naval air power is modelled to be so weak in 41/42 that it is prohibitive to challange the KB, even if the KB splits itself up. With the KB sitting off of Hawaii, the cost of sending reinforcements to Hawaii becomes prohibitively high. Do you then consider using New Zealand as the major staging point and send the troops there? I would have never thought so until I saw Dude's NZ campaign get going. If Zeta had moved a Marine division to NZ, along with some of those big US tac-bomber and FB groups, Dude and the reminents of the KB might have had a much harder time.

I would be interested in seeing other folks ideas on how to react to a Dude-style onslaught.

Thanks -

Dave Baranyi

[ADavidB]

"Will we have an AAR where someone actually gets surprised by this approach? I'd like to see that one! "

I think that we ALL got surprised by this one. [;)] Dude has effectively changed the complexion of the game with his play here. We've all assumed that the Japanese player could only try to avoid the mistakes of history, then try to delay the "inevitable". But Dude has rewritten the rules.

Sure, Dude has lost a lot of ships and planes, but we all assume that the Japanese player will lose those eventually anyway. But Dude hasn't lost his armies, and the Allied player will still need to overcome those armies, and the Allies are starting from a lot farther back.

And remember, in WitP, Japanese armies are really REALLY hard to kill. The Allied player is still going to have to grab the same bases as were historically important in order to try to defeat the Japanese war-making capabilities via air power.

And let's not forget Dude's sucesses in China - it will be a lot harder for the Allies to threaten Japan with airpower from the Far East now - the interceptors that would otherwise have to protect Japan from air attacks from China will be able to focus on attacks from the Pacific instead of splitting themselves.

Right now, the only area that is threatened is the DEI because Zeta can mount air attacks from there on the oil and resource centers. Dude may want to take those Australian bases that border on the DEI in order to keep the heavy bombers away.

I think that we all owe Dude a lot of thanks for showing us that the game doesn't have to follow a set pattern - this will make PBEM games a lot more interesting in the future.

Dave Baranyi

[moses]

It simply shows that by exploiting the turn one rules you can destroy the allied defence in the first week. After that its a matter of shipping troops around the map and taking all the objectives virtually unopposed.

The constraint on the Jap player early is not transport shipping, it is air and navel assets needed to properly support invasions which may be opposed. If there is no longer any effective opposition then these supporting assets are no longer a constraint.

Given any historically plausable first turn the allied player will be able to put up a more effective defence.

[Zeta16]

Well you guys are right I knew what he was going to do in the central Pacific and there is not any thing I could do. I had no fleet except one carrier and that escaped to the South Pacific and still is fighting today. You can't get troops to PH because you do not get AP's for a long time and AK's and TK's come about a month into the war. At this point I think I have gotten 10 or less AP's as reinforcements. I have moved a Mairne Divison to NZ they have been there for a couple of months. That is why he has not taken NZ. He is now trying to take Wellington, but it should hold I hope. You really can't defend the DEI unless you empty Oz and then he could just move there. The goal in DEI is to hurt him as much as I can, and hope my eng. can blow some wells up. Also I am trying to make Sinapore a tough nut to crack and he could take it if he really wants, since I can't really send any troops into it and they can't get out with the ships going to the bottom. So it is a 9 fort with a good airfield, which he knows has given his planes trouble already. Also from there I can hit many of the DEI oil fields from it. I have a good force in Burma and a good air field in Rangoon and now it is well suppilied. All of my bases in Northen India around Diamond Harbor have 999,999 supply and a lot of planes. The only bad thing is I have so many planes on the West Coast and there is no where for them to go to get some action. So the Allies can not move until I start getting some more Ap's and the P38.

[WiTP_Dude]

ORIGINAL: sveint

Fairly obvious that the Allies are headed for an early victory.

You seem bitter. [:D]

[WiTP_Dude]

ORIGINAL: ADavidB

Dude's strategy of grabbing all those Easetern Pacific Islands with reasonably-sized forces has banished the US to the West Coast until late 1942. The game doesn't model what might have been the probable US reaction to a successful invasion of Hawaii, which likley would have been to move massive reinforcements to the West Coast - this only happens in the game if an invasion of the mainland occurs.

The Allies don't get many transport boats for a long time. They can't really take anything back for a year or more. They only took Lunga because the Japanese defense consisted of a few engineers. Plus losing PH means they have no forward base.

So, Zeta has a tough row to hoe ahead of him, particularly since he is short of BBs - assuming that Dude is putting CDs in those Eastern Pacific bases, as he has done in Alaska, it is going to be costly for Zeta to invade those islands, even when he has his carriers showing up in late 42/early 43. And even if Zeta decides to bypass Hawaii he will need to grab some islands to allow for refueling points. And even with a few Eastern Pacific bases in 43 Zeta is going to have problems grabbing territory in the Central Pacific without good surface forces to bombard bases. Additionally, Zeta needs forward bases from which to project the airpower that he will be getting. He can't fly/ship his planes around "the other way" to India.

This is why New Zealand needs to be taken. You can't allow the Allies to have any place to put aircraft. Let them sit idle in Australia and the United States for as long as possible.

On the "other side" of the map, Zeta is also going to have a tough time projecting British power back into Southeast Asia. He shouldn't be relying upon Singapore so heavily - Dude has shown elsewhere how a determined Japanese player can take fortresses which are guarded by the less-than-impressive troops in the early part of the war. Unless Zeta has been able to get some good troops into Singapore, Dude will be able to bring his troops out of the Phillipines and take Singapore with them.

The Commonwealth is fairly strong in Burma and Malay. However when I get reinforcements, I'll be able to overwhelm them one at a time.

As things stand, despite all of Dude's losses in ships and planes, I think that he will be able to hold off the Allied counterattack in 43, and if Zeta isn't careful, maybe in 44 also. But then, I could be wrong, because I was sure wrong earlier on when I underestimated Dude's potential to do so much damage in the Central Pacific.

Zeta can land at an island but he has to make sure he brings along at least 2 divisions plus several carriers. Otherwise I don't think it will be enough.

BTW - "way back when", Dude was able to land some 20K of troops onto Midway. I didn't think that there was enough physical space on Midway to put 20K of troops. [;)] Wasn't there supposed to be some limitation on the number of troops landing and staying on atolls?

It's doubtful all twenty thousand troops were on the island at the same time. Anyway there are no limitations on the number of defenders or attackers you can place on an atoll.

[WiTP_Dude]

ORIGINAL: ADavidB

That's interesting to know. I was always under the assumption that the Japanese had supply problems in mid-42 when they were in control of the entire SRA. You are waging some costly campaigns on four or five fronts and yet you can still supply them. Usually I find that just trying to replace aircraft losses eats up tons of my supply - and you have incredibly high aircraft losses. I'm particularly surprised that you Chinese campaign has been able to go so well. Are you running only on the supply that is generated in China or are you shipping in additional supply?

No, I have to send supply to China for each offensive. Once I take Chungrad the Chinese are finished. Dozens of free Japanese divisions will then pour across the border into Burma and India, destroying 100,000 commonwealth troops at Rangoon in the process.

BTW - how well have your engineers been doing at repairing the facilities at the bases that you have captured? I always find the slow pace of Japanese engineers to be really frustrating.

There hasn't been that much damage to fix. Most of my engineers are in the Pacific building everything up to level 9 fortifications.

[WiTP_Dude]

ORIGINAL: rhondabrwn

My biggest regret in watching this played out is that the Japanese had to start with historic deployments. I certainly hope that someone will create a mod which includes some alternative deployments to suit different Japanese strategies like the "Hirohito Plan". The Japanese made the decision to start the war, their deployments should be easily customizable and be a surprise to the allied player.

Yes, I think it would help a lot to shift more divisions to the east. Otherwise the Japanese player should invade Luzon first before moving onto Pearl Harbor. You have to build up Hilo and Lanhia first before invading PH. This can take awhile.

If you were going to publish this alternative history, you already have over 1400 printable pages for this thread (I actually pulled a few sections into a PDF file and they ran from 102 to 162 pages each! [:D]

"Alternative History of the Pacific War: Tojo goes Bananas"

[kaiser73]

The hirohito plan surely is nice to read [:D]

and i don't understand why so many are so bitter about it. the fun is to play and sometimes have some different strategies otherwise all games become similar.

I still wonder how Japanese will be able to defend PH on '43 and in pacific and in guinea.

Allies surely will start their offensive behind schedule since they have to take back bases that normally ALlies have when pass on offensive.
On the other side, Once taken, Japan will lose fast since lot of troops will be lost at first Allies offensive.
It will be interesting to read how it ends.

[ADavidB]

"It's doubtful all twenty thousand troops were on the island at the same time. Anyway there are no limitations on the number of defenders or attackers you can place on an atoll. "

Huh!!! Are you sure? I was positive that this was supposed to be changed in WitP so that the number of troops put onto an atoll was limited. Mog/Pry/Kid - can any of you clear this up?

If you are right, this means that we are back to where we were years ago in Pacwar when you could put several divisions onto an atoll and keep it forever.

Thanks -

Dave Baranyi

[ADavidB]

"No, I have to send supply to China for each offensive. Once I take Chungrad the Chinese are finished. Dozens of free Japanese divisions will then pour across the border into Burma and India, destroying 100,000 commonwealth troops at Rangoon in the process. "

Have you been able to maintain your quotas of troops at the various Chinese cities in order to keep the "peasant revolts" down, or are you ignoring them?

Thanks again -

Dave Baranyi

[ADavidB]

"I have moved a Mairne Divison to NZ they have been there for a couple of months. That is why he has not taken NZ."

Ahah, that's how you did it.

"The only bad thing is I have so many planes on the West Coast and there is no where for them to go to get some action. So the Allies can not move until I start getting some more Ap's and the P38. "

APs are no good for moving planes, you need AKs for that. One AK can carry an entire bomber force. If you slipped some B-26s into southern NZ you could mess up the Japanese attacks big time. And even P-39s would help - put them on Naval Attack, 50% CAP and let them work. Dude can't mass enough carrier air power any more to take stop a 50 plane group of P-39s attacking with a 50 plane group of B-26s. (or some other medium bomber.)

BTW - were you able to save many of your naval search planes? How good is your intelligence on Dude's movements?

Thanks again -

Dave Baranyi

[Zeta16]

No I ment when I get the P38 I can do invasions easier because of it's range. I saved all of the groups from Hawaii and the Phillipines who could fly out. They still don't see much. I have several groups in NZ and they don't see any thing until it is on top of you. I can't really see into the South China Sea even though I have a lot of ships there, or maybe there is not much traffic there. I did get some b26's into NZ and they have hit a few ships along with the Beauforts and Dautless I have there. However, they along with Shore guns really don't do much in stopping troops coming a shore. I have sunk so many ships when he has landed in Nz, Java, and PH it really doesn't kill many troops. If they come in numbers they seem to land everything. If you look at the AAR's you will see a lot of his ships hit while landing troops, and to me it did not really help out because they still came a shore and most usually get disabled and recover in a few turns. I think these ships getting hit during landing should have a lot more troops killed. So all that happens is ships get sunk but CD won't stop an landing because they are real inaffective aganist the landing troops. You would think a landing aganist good CD's in PH and Aukland would kill more troops than thye have in the game. Other than that Japan can move at will because the allies have strength but it is spread out and with out contol of the sea it is hard to move troops any where with out the ship going to the bottom. Also it is true. If japan wants to take Buram and more over there GB can not stop them, they do not have a lot of allast strength for a long time, and will never have more than Japan if Japan brings a lot of forces.

Also just want to point out that the Allied sub doc suchs, not like everyone did not know that. I can count on my hand the number of times in 8 months my subs can even tried an attack. When he invaded PH I had a ton of subs around there and only few shot trops. Also I have had a lot of subs around DEI and they rarly if ever shot at any thing. I think I have had more subs sunk than attacks by my subs. In my games as Japan without the sub doc, my convoys that are well protected seem to lose ships all the time to Dutch subs and US subs early in the game. I think Japan in our game would be doing a lot worse if the doc was off because I have a feeling he would have lost a lot of ships in the PH area and these ay have sunk with he troops in the open sea where they would have died.

Other than that I hope I can hold on in China and counter attack some where else on the map before 42 is out.

[rhondabrwn]

I've seen some commentary on the History Channel to the effect that Nazi Germany transferred nuclear material to Japan in the closing days of the ETO and that the Japanese were extremely close to having their own nuclear weapon when we managed to hit first.

Now, I don't know if WITP has any provision for Japan getting an A-Bomb, but if Dude has actually delayed the eventual fall of the Mariannas and the establishment of our B-29 bomber force on Saipan, then we would have to consider the possibility that Japan would now have a nuclear capability before she could be crushed by overwhelming Allied force.

Thus, in theory anyway, Dude could actually win this thing for Japan.. or at least a negotiated peace.

Interesting turn of events, eh?

[Zeta16]

Do you trust all of that crap on the History channel. The way they make things look if just a few things changed Germany and japan would have won the war. There shows just try to get the wow factor. In one the basically stated that japan would of sunk almost all of the american fleet of Japan if they tried to invade. Have you noticed that all of their shows are super weapons of Third Reich or Japan never that of the Allies.

[Nikademus]

Very enjoyable read, and two day turns no less! (the only way to go for me in PBEM due to time contraints)

If you want another Allied guini pig Dude....i'll take a stab. [;)]

[WiTP_Dude]

ORIGINAL: kaiser73

The hirohito plan surely is nice to read [:D]

and i don't understand why so many are so bitter about it. the fun is to play and sometimes have some different strategies otherwise all games become similar.

I still wonder how Japanese will be able to defend PH on '43 and in pacific and in guinea.

Allies surely will start their offensive behind schedule since they have to take back bases that normally ALlies have when pass on offensive.
On the other side, Once taken, Japan will lose fast since lot of troops will be lost at first Allies offensive.
It will be interesting to read how it ends.

I question everything. Too many people say you can't do this or you can't do that before even playing the game. No one has played this one to the end yet so it can't be said with certainty what will happen in future years.

[WiTP_Dude]

ORIGINAL: ADavidB

"It's doubtful all twenty thousand troops were on the island at the same time. Anyway there are no limitations on the number of defenders or attackers you can place on an atoll. "

Huh!!! Are you sure? I was positive that this was supposed to be changed in WitP so that the number of troops put onto an atoll was limited. Mog/Pry/Kid - can any of you clear this up?

If you are right, this means that we are back to where we were years ago in Pacwar when you could put several divisions onto an atoll and keep it forever.

Thanks -

Dave Baranyi

There are supply limitations based on the size of the port. However you can place as many units as you want on an atoll.