RE: New Zealand Map Problems
Posted: Thu Apr 05, 2007 10:57 am
ORIGINAL: m10bob
ORIGINAL: el cid again
I see...So while Anchorage may have had a civilian populace of 500, the military actually outnumbered them..That makes a lot of sense in making it so large..
Strategically, (if one needs slots), what role might Nome fulfill, (other than it being more northern?) Further, some of the Canadian towns might be redundany, (albeit nice for chrome)?
Eventually there were vast base complexes - and German POW camps - and 5 camps we never talk about (to hold Aleuts forcably evicted from 8 villages but technically not prisoners - not thought to be a threat - and not allowed to leave - or even have medicine during epidemics! A scandal virtually unknown in US history.) But the camp followers probably always outnumbered the troops as such - and so the growth was explosive. By the end of the war the natives were a small minority in a place they had been the vast majority in when it began.
Nome is hard to use in the game - and I have never heard of it being used at all. But it was a big deal IRL. The Berlin Airlift was modeled on the Nome Airlift - an event itself based on false intelligence of a Japanese invasion threat. Before that it was mooted as the terminus of the US rail road which the ALCAN highway was supposed to be the first stage in building! But that highway (a pioneer road at first) was never completed to Nome - ever - to this day. It was not completed to highway status either during the war - it barely has made that today (if you allow that parts of it are always under repair it is pretty smooth sailing now). That plan - to build a RR to Nome by about the end of 1942 - would have itself been only the foundation of a grander scheme to build a network of bases and communications lines on the Soviet side of the border - and some of that was based on historical Trans Siberian RR planning (which itself was just recommended for completion by the last premier of the USSR in a retirement speech a year or so ago). Since we cannot build rail lines or roads, it is hard to put such plans into the game - and since Japan almost never invades (unless run by Admiral Nemo) - having a major air base on the flank almost never matters. Feeding it by airlift is also problematical.
Nice as the ALCAN is as chrome, it - and Whitehorse - are almost meaningless - supplies do not really move down it enough to matter (resources may howver). Unless Japan took the coast I don't see how it could be used at all?
But a special mod - RHSNRO (Northern Route Option) might let us explore this - if anyone ever could explain how Stalin might have been made to support instead of oppose the plan? It is the best way in a military-logistic sense. The idea the weather is intolerable is stuff and nonsense. Fog - and lack of surveys - were a big deal - but the Aleutians below mountaintop level never have any snow or ice at all - they are heated by the Japan Current - and the distances to Japan are far less - so even medium bombers are able to make the crossing to Japan from the Aleutians outer islands. If the Komandorskies and Kamchatka are developed - Japan is in big trouble. And of course if Amur province is used - Japan is threatened at its economic heart (its iron and coal come from Manchukuo and Korea - along with its copper, aluminum and most of its food).
