Can the map of Australia be improved?

[stubby331]

looking good [:)]

[stubby331]

On Railway infrastructure in Western Australia...

Found a great article on the Australian Association of Timetable collectors website! [:D]

Written in 2000, it provides scanned copies of the Western Australian Government Railways Timetables for 1937 and notes to go with it. Interesting reading.

http://www.aattc.org.au/Times%20June%202000W.pdf

[Top Cat]

Found the following site that has interesting info regarding the Adelaide - Alice Springs - Darwin roads.

http://www.anzacday.org.au/history/ww2/bfa/dusty_track.html

Sounds like even the unsealed road wasn't completed until July 1942 and was prone to being washed away. The Army also had to build farms in N.T. because there was no way to get enough fresh produce to Darwin.

As I'm playing the Allies in WITP and the Japanese are advancing through the SRA I've become increasingly aware that they could land somewhere like Broome and simply drive all the way to the
East, South coast or West and have a nice supply line.

Northern & Southern Australia were as isolated from each other as say India and Burma.

This barrier of remoteness aided the British defence of India quite nicely. The same should also be true for the Top End of Oz.

Cheers
Top Cat

[moses]

I'm more concerned about an allied counteroffensive using Darwin as its base. It seems like you can dispence with the whole Solomons capaign and just base tons of planes, subs, ships and troops in Darwin and blast straight north. Even if you don't take this route the JP player is going to forced to commit lots of forces to defend a route of attack that was entirely implausable.

Not being from the region I'm not all that concerned about the lower part of the Austrailan map since I really don't expect a lot to be happening there. But getting the rail/road situation correct in N Austrailia seems to be critical

[Cmdrcain]

ORIGINAL: moses

I'm more concerned about an allied counteroffensive using Darwin as its base. It seems like you can dispence with the whole Solomons capaign and just base tons of planes, subs, ships and troops in Darwin and blast straight north. Even if you don't take this route the JP player is going to forced to commit lots of forces to defend a route of attack that was entirely implausable.

Not being from the region I'm not all that concerned about the lower part of the Austrailan map since I really don't expect a lot to be happening there. But getting the rail/road situation correct in N Austrailia seems to be critical

Yup...

I have now 520 aviation support at Darwin and nearing 200 Planes all salvaged from Malaya, Phillipines, DEI area, Plus Usaffe, asiatic Fleet, ABDA, Malaya Army and I think 224th Hqtrs are at Darwin..

Troops saved from the areas trickling in..

At the Least if I bring in B17's and other LR bombers I could make it hard for Japanese shipping in the Lower DEI and I'll probably be able
make it hard, costly or impossiable For timor to be taken with the Darwin Air cover...

The question of supplies to support the Mass through is going be interesting..

[:D]

[moses]

Using the editor I placed 2014 assault points of troops and transfered about 150 aircraft mostly heavy bombers to Darwin. At start Darwin had 7283 supply points with a requirement of 15000. After the first day it had 14368 supply points. After day 2 it had 44684 supply points!! Here it stabalized. At this point I started loading supplies onto tranports and loaded 27000 points in five days. This caused a dip in supply on hand to a low of 29953supply points before rising again.

It certainly seems as if major offensive operations can be launched from Darwin.

[pompack]

I agree with Moses. The number and size of bases on the northern coast is only a minor point compared with the existence of a substantial communications infrastructure that just did not exist. I also found it to be very easy to suck very large amounts of supply to Darwin and Derby.


Also the post by Top Cat really exposes the historical state of this infrastructure. With a Northern Territory population of only 8000 in 1940, there was no prewar requirement for anything substantial. Just basing a single brigade in NT will DOUBLE the basic supply requirement of the entire NT.

Leaving the current WitP NT rail/road net in place totally distorts the strategic possibilities.

[Cmdrcain]

ORIGINAL: moses

Using the editor I placed 2014 assault points of troops and transfered about 150 aircraft mostly heavy bombers to Darwin. At start Darwin had 7283 supply points with a requirement of 15000. After the first day it had 14368 supply points. After day 2 it had 44684 supply points!! Here it stabalized. At this point I started loading supplies onto tranports and loaded 27000 points in five days. This caused a dip in supply on hand to a low of 29953supply points before rising again.

It certainly seems as if major offensive operations can be launched from Darwin.

Hummm... That Supply had to come from somewhere, don't tell me Australia itself generated the supply, if It didn't I'd guess it sucked up all the supply from other linked Australia bases so it can deplete those bases supply..

Darwin however shouldn't be made so as to be totally undefensiable
but Sea supply probably is needed, with no rail link, just a road link I'd guess.

The Actual Allied build up as I recall was on east coast, Cooktown south.

The Northern Bases were more I think Sub ports for maintaining subs that prowled the DEI harrassing japanese shipping

[moses]

The supply to Darwin comes from Townsville. Strangly charter towers, on the rail between Darwin and Townsville, was not touched and maintained a suuply level of EXACTLY 54380 throughout the test. I've run about 12 days and reached what looks like a steady state. Townsville is sitting at about 13000 and Darwin has 38513. Townsville draws from points south where there are tons of supply.

[Cmdrcain]

ORIGINAL: moses

The supply to Darwin comes from Townsville. Strangly charter towers, on the rail between Darwin and Townsville, was not touched and maintained a suuply level of EXACTLY 54380 throughout the test. I've run about 12 days and reached what looks like a steady state. Townsville is sitting at about 13000 and Darwin has 38513. Townsville draws from points south where there are tons of supply.

Humm I have now 692 Aviation support at Darwin and 300 Planes

I have yet through to build up the troops to the amount of
assault points you mentioned, however I'm seeing Darwins supplies get into the orange and I'm not seeing vast amounts of supplies drawn up to Darwin.

I have 5 Hqtrs there too, USAFE, Asiaic Fleet, Malaya army (moving it over to Derby) ABDA.. 224th Hqtrs..


I have 92 Aviation and 54 aviation support at Wndyham/Derby too..

Way it is Going, North Australia could have between the 3 Bases 900-1000 Plane support... its ridiculous

[:D][:D][:D]

[Top Cat]

ORIGINAL: pompacl

I agree with Moses. The number and size of bases on the northern coast is only a minor point compared with the existence of a substantial communications infrastructure that just did not exist. I also found it to be very easy to suck very large amounts of supply to Darwin and Derby.


Also the post by Top Cat really exposes the historical state of this infrastructure. With a Northern Territory population of only 8000 in 1940, there was no prewar requirement for anything substantial. Just basing a single brigade in NT will DOUBLE the basic supply requirement of the entire NT.

Leaving the current WitP NT rail/road net in place totally distorts the strategic possibilities.

Yep I agree with these sentiments. Darwin is only a few hexes from Timor and from there you can interdict quite a few oil producing areas with heavy bombers. Restricting Japanese oil flow in mid 1942 could be on the cards.

The fact that the Allies didn't take this direct path is all tied to the logistical nightmare they would have faced.

Cheers
Top Cat

[esteban]

Yes, this doesn't look good for the Japs. It seriously damages the importance of the Solomons and New Guinea, ingame. As the allies, you can even evacuate Port Moresby, and concentrate on an island hopping thrust north from Darwin to Timor, and then from there, to wherever you want to go.

The only way to head this off would be more house rules, or a major Japanese invasion of North Aussie to eliminate the bases before they can threaten your vital supplies. Even if that worked, with the highways, that would turn Oz into a giant version of North Africa, with mobile warfare running possibly into the end of the war.

So, an alternate allied strategy for victory would look like:

A) Holding pattern only in India/North Burma/Aluetians

B) Thrust through Central Pacific to the Marianas for B-29 bases.

C) Major Brit/Aussie/Yank thrust north from Darwin and Perth into the NEI, to eviscerate the Japanese resource base by the end of 1944.

D) Combo of these two thrusts "pincers" everything west of Sansapor/Morotai and south of the Marshalls/Marianas

E) seizure of high VP sites in Saigon/Manila/Singapore to cut off Burmese oil flow and ensure the victory.

[Cmdrcain]

Would simply changing the Darwin Rail to a road or Trail reduce ability for Darwin to draw up supplies?

At 692 Aviation at Darwin and 100+ at another base and 50+ at a Third, b29's could later interdict whole of DEI.. bombing out the airfields etc..

At best as I recall, Darwin was basically a Sub port, for subs operating into DEI/Malaya area.

I originally salvaged all I did and sent to Darwin with Intention to move to Port Moresby and East Australia, with a bit left for some north defense..

But the talk here and the way I quickly built up Aviation support from DEI/Malaya and some Phillipine units has had me thinking..

[esteban]

I would think that the B-29s would still be more effectively used against Japan proper. But in reality, you wouldn't need them in the DEI anyway. You don't get B-29s until Fall of 1944, and by then the Allies would either be in possesion or in B-17/24 range of all the big oil production facilities in DEI.

Another problem with Darwin itself is that there is now a 600 resource plant there. Thats 600 supply per turn. Aside from the ahistorical transOz railway, that resource center seems pretty ahistorical for province that supposedly only had a population of 8000 people before the war. God forbid that the other 7 million Aussies buckled down as effectively as the game leads you to believe the people of the Darwin did. If they had, they would have probably won the war in 1943 by building a suspension bridge from Perth to Tokyo, starting at the Japanese end!

[Raverdave]

Darwin had the capacity to become a size 9 airfield.......in point of fact there were a large number of satellite airfilelds in and around Darwin by the wars end, much like those at PM. Apart from the rail link and the raods into Darwin, I don't subscribe to the view that Darwin should be hobbled to prevent an Island hopping campaign view Timor and beyond. The reason why this axis was not undertaken lies with dug-out doug, and the fact that the Japanese were already in PNG.

[moonraker65]

I believe that the Australia Map should be as accurate as possible. Historical accuracy ought to be a part of this wonderful simulation. I also think that one of the Australian Ports should be included in the Auto-Convoy system. I don't think that this would detract too much from gameplay and would most probably reflect what took place in reality. The reason I would like this implemented is because the present system takes a long time to get supplies from PH to PNG or the Solomons and if you want to supply PM more quickly then you have to make your own convoys in say Brisbane or Sydney which takes up valuable AK/AP resources. Perhaps something for Matrix,2x3 to look into ?

[jrcar]

As Raver says Darwin Airfield is a good one (the same site happily lands B-52's ) and there were a number of other nice flat locations.... just about everywhere in fact

The issue is supply, the rail line was never fully relied upon, coastal shipping was still used to carry a lot of stuff (mostly via the Torres Strait... hence the importance of holding PM).

Without the shipping offensive ops from Darwin would not be possible. The rail/road link was enough for Defensive support though.

Cheers

Rob

[doomonyou]

one of the problems with changing that railroad is that you can't built rail in this game. Lets say I wanted to upgrade the rail line. Can't do it. So while under war emergency it would probably not take altogether very long to complete the Darwin rail line, you can't. Imagine if the varoius commander in theatre had decided that the fate of the pacific rested in Darwin and made clear thier desire to evacuate teh whole of thier air ans sea arms from DEI, PI and even singapore to darwin, over the period of time it would take to do that, it certainly should be with the aussies power to set up the land route to complement that decision.

In that regard I see the Darwin route as the representation of potential to support a decision as opposed to a litteraly reality since you are unable to build the Alaskan highway or super darwin three rail line etc. in game. It has to be there day one so to simulate the ability for it to be there in Feburary of 1942 if you really needed it.

[Blackhorse]

ORIGINAL: doomonyou

Imagine if the varoius commander in theatre had decided that the fate of the pacific rested in Darwin . . . it certainly should be with the aussies power to set up the land route to complement that decision.

In that regard I see the Darwin route as the representation of potential to support a decision as opposed to a litteraly reality since you are unable to build the Alaskan highway or super darwin three rail line etc. in game. It has to be there day one so to simulate the ability for it to be there in Feburary of 1942 if you really needed it.

Doom,

I understand your point, but I respectfully disagree. Severing the rail link to Darwin makes for both better history, and a better game.

In order to overcome a limitation in the game -- the inability to build new roads/rails -- you would allow for the hypothetical possibility that the Australians could choose to complete the rail to Darwin; but IMHO that choice sacrifices too much historical accuracy and gameplay: eliminating the very real threat of Japanese attacks in the extremely isolated Australian northwest that troubled Allied commanders throughout 1942; and making it much too easy for the Allies to build Darwin into a base for offensive operations.

Besides, if rail/highways were meant to represent some hypothetical potential, why not put a rail/highway in every hex in India, Australia, New Zealand and the US West Coast?

And even 'hypothetical potential' does not explain the game's mythical rail/highway route along the West Coast from Seattle to Nome. No highway was, or could have been, built along the Alaskan / Canadian coast or to Nome. Far inland, ten thousand US Engineers and contractors took two years to hack a one-lane dirt road ( best represented in game by a trail or a road, but certainly not a highway/rail) to Fairbanks, and make it serviceable for all-weather truck traffic.

During WWII the US Army stationed 150,000 soldiers in Alaska to prevent the Japanese from invading -- because if the Japanese took the ports, there would be no way to reinforce/supply the state, except by air. In the game, the US only needs a 'tripwire' force, because limitless reinforcements can be railed north from the 'Lower 48'.

[esteban]

I have to disagree with the idea that the railroads should stay because hypothetically the Aussie government might have decided that a rail line up to Darwin was a good idea. The Aussie government had a lot of other priorities. A lot of Aussie troops were chewed up fighting their way up the New Guinea coast, and I think the public would have taken a dim view of that sacrifice if it could have been largely obviated by building a railroad to Darwin.

Having a railway that runs the circuit of Oz is just not realistic. Even if it were, do you realize that communications between Townsville and Rockhampton are more difficult ingame, than communications between Townsville and Darwin?

Also, I think the 600 resource center should be reviewed. I have no issues with the ability to build big bases in North Oz, but supplying them should require convoys.