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Originally posted by Tristanjohn

Originally posted by Nikademus
Mike,

I never said it was "easy", what i said was that the Japanese army was "capable" if it so desired. Big difference. More importantly still, i said "to what purpose?"

Unlike the Southern Advance, what would a limited/full scale offensive bring Japan in China? Capitulation? no. Valuable resources? no. Spent resource and further dispersion of their troops? Yes.

As to their not being "able" to do it. I've never read anywhere that they wern't. Again it comes down to a question of "why" and "for what purpose" If no concrete objective or goal is pervalient, and the empire decided to go with the "southern advance", i would logically expect the Japanese to sit tight in China while these other operations, including the subjegation of Burma (and it's lifeline to China) unfold in the hopes that they would 'solve' the China problem themselves.


The reality is the Japanese Army, which came to rule and chart its country's course, never had the capability to subjugate the Chinese to the extent necessary (utterly) to enforce Japan's idea of "peace" within the context of Hakko Ichiu (basically, that the strongest country, Japan, would rule all others in the world).

Japan was up against it for the very reason that it had invaded China and now found itself in an all too very real sense stalemated. Japan's only way out of the hole it had dug for itself was 1) retreat (and lose face? dream on), 2) work out a deal with America to connive in its subjugation of China through a reinstitution of the trade of the raw materials and other stuff of war which Japan needed to further pursue its current war policy (fat chance--though at the time there were plenty of "well-meaning" Americans who were none too eager to "antagonize" our little Japanese cousins), or 3) try to take and hold those island areas of greater Asia south of Japan which contained the raw materials Japan desired and in fact needed in order to "mix it up with the varsity" (i.e., America). Japan (not unexpectedly and wholly unwisely) chose the latter option . . . and soon enough the country had its Kodo-Ha head handed to it on a platter stamped "Made in USA."

End of story.

Tristanjohn,

Nobody was claiming that Japan could have subjugated all of China. The post you quote was refering to the ability of the IJA to go on the "offensive" in China in 1941. Clearly the IJA had the ability to go on a limited offensive on the mainland as they demonstrated in 1944.


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Originally posted by TIMJOT
Tristanjohn,

Nobody was claiming that Japan could have subjugated all of China. The post you quote was refering to the ability of the IJA to go on the "offensive" in China in 1941. Clearly the IJA had the ability to go on a limited offensive on the mainland as they demonstrated in 1944.

Originally posted by Tristanjohn


Not exactly. The thrust of the argument was that Japan not only had the ability to "go on the offensive" in 1941 but to slice up nearly a fourth of the country not previously under its control and then put all of this newly conquered territory under its Imperial heel. That's what was argued, with the "proof" being tendered as to the historical viability of these (if I may say so incredible) results through means of a wargame study conducted using the WitP model as the platform.

The question was asked: how reliable could this model be in this respect in lieu of Japan's seeming (actually definite) lack of ability to conduct any such offensive historically?

By 1944 things had changed. It was a new world militarily speaking. China wasn't the same country, the ground had changed. Chinese were fighting Chinese as well as Japanese and the war had dragged on for another three long years.


Tris

Originally posted by Tristanjohn
I'm sorry, but I must agree with the gentleman who has come to question the veracity of the WitP model as it stands at this date, based on representations made in this forum.

Originally posted by Snigbert
Just a reminder, WitP is still in Alpha mode and any reports/AAR you read on the forum are not necessarily a reflection of what is planned for the released product.

Originally posted by Mike Scholl
My original point was that it seemed unlikely to me that the
Japanese would have the ability to go on the offensive in China
in December of 1941 (when they had just launched an offensive
committment all over the Western Pacific Basin) when they hadn't
seemed to feel they could do in in the preceeding year (without
major committments everywhere else). My worry was that rules
designed to allow for Japan's rapid advance against the
suprised and ill-prepared Western Powers were being used in
China to achieve a-historic ends.

It's nice to see someone clear-headed enough to understand
the distinction. I'm tired of "Japan did it in '44---therefor she
could have done it in '41!" Makes as much sense as "the US
dropped A-Bombs in '45---therefor they could drop them in '42!"

We're going to get hammered..., because a lot of players
WANT Japan to be a "super power" in 1941 so they can "win" the War. That she was a low rung 2nd rate power making a glorious
but ill planned "last ditch effort" to hang on to that status is just
not acceptable to them.

Originally posted by Mogami

Hi, In the actual war the 6 Fleet Carriers stayed together from Dec 7th 41 to Apr 9th 42. They attacked PH sailed into the Indian Ocean and bombed Darwin. Japan didn't lose a single battle until they split up. (2 to Coral Sea and 4 to Midway)

You will see super CV TF's. And this is historical. I also guess we will see USN super TF's (There are going to be a few monster carrier battles)

Originally posted by Tristanjohn

By this time the Chinese Army enjoyed the initiative for the first time in the war, for whatever it's worth (though how any of that might, or could, impact what went down in 1941 I do not know).

Tristanjohn,

Thankyou for the dissertation on the "Icho-go offensive", but it really wasnt neccessary. (BTW nothing in it contridicts my post on the subject)

The point was to simply demonstrate the ability of the IJA to go on the offensive in China and conquer large amounts of territory even when its position was weaker than it was in 1941, while China's was stronger with the advent of the 14th airforce and the American trained and equiped Y force.

Its a misconception that Japan was deadlocked and incapable of any initiative on the mainland by 1941. Again we are not talking total subjugation of China here. We were discussing what amounted to a series of limited advances that captured a few bases in a test run of opening phase of the campaign of WitP.

The arguement "if they could of, why didnt they?" doesnt fly. Quite simply they saw no pressing need or advantage to at that time. They had already conquered the richest parts of China and where quite content with what they had. There was no need to capture more territory in the vast mostly poor interior. Which would only soak up precious resources in an unwinable guerrilla war.

Besides contrary to what many may believe the IJA was not static in China. Throughout 42-43 they mounted a series of the so-called "Rice Offensives" Which were designed to give new formations battle expirence against weak opposition and to seize the rice crop from previously unoccupied areas. Why waist men and resources occupying and guarding rice paddies in the interior, when you can simply march in at harvest time, take the crop and withdraw until the next harvest.

Now back to the main point. Again nobody is suggesting that the IJA should be able to run amok in China, but is it your position that the IJA was totally incapable of even limited advances in 1941? Because that is the crux of the arguement. Thats were the AAR ended. There was no unstopable all conquering advance that swept through China. All that happen, was a tester had the audacity to go on a very limited offensive in China in 1941 and this was somehow construed as evidence of a broken game engine simply because it didnt model the sacred cow of the forever static China front.

Now I will admit that in the test the advance perhaps was too easy and too swift, I would attribute that to its being only an Alpha test. As it stands there it certainly does seem there is a lot of room for improvement in land movement, disembarkations and land combat on a whole.


P.S I am not "hammering" I am just attempting to clarify the positions.

Regards

Originally posted by Tristanjohn
By "super" I did not mean large but rather much better endowed of fighting capability than their historical counterparts. While Nagumo's Strike Force enjoyed some success at Pearl Harbor (not much on balance when all was said and done, and at that most of the planes which did score hits did so on the wrong targets--not the fault of the pilots, by the way, but rather the planners of that attack) and more or less did what it pleased off Darwin, there is nothing in either episode to sugest that IJN carriers ought to be modelled in the way UV does so. The planes of these TFs are entirely too accurate with ordnance, fly into their targets (as a rule) in one coordinated mass, thus placing an ahistorical load on USN CAP, seem (the bombers) pretty much oblivious (at times) to interception, and for some reason which I cannot understand fail to take much damage from flak. Granted, early in the war USN flak wasn't what it would soon enough become, but it was more than equal to what the IJN afforded its ships, yet Japanese planes, nowhere near as well-built as the American models, take fewer casualties to flak. (Let's be clear about that: relatively flimsy Japanese planes against heavier flak take fewer casualties than heartier--make that much heartier--American planes flying into lighter flak. What's wrong with that?)

Exacerbating these errors in game mechanics is another problem general to the system: spotting is too accurate to begin with, and from what I can tell no account has been taken in the inability of both sides, at least through the early months of 1942, to get the actual spotting information they did gather to the right people in a timely manner.

Another issue: the weather model is poorly conceived and in any event doesn't seem to operate as intended, so while there's a chance that a weather "front" (an unknown concept to UV and this a terrible shame as the warfare we speak to here was quite a bit about weather in general and at times weather fronts in particular) might aid one side or the other in a CV TF-on-CV TF battle this would be the exception.

On the other side of the coin one could pretty much tick right on the down the list of sins made with re to the Japanese model and simply reverese these to end up with what we have re the USN in UV. It's planes don't hit much, if anything at all, even if they are fortunate enough to survive Japanese CAP and flak, and the result of equal carrier battles leaves an historian with the following question: how could the USN have achieved the results it did achieve at Coral Sea and Midway if this is an accurate model of the respective fighting qualities of the two navies?

My impression is some of this (how much I don't know) might be laid at the doorstep of the arbitrary pilot ratings assigned. Whatever, I wouldn't give a whole lot for USN chances of achieving anything like historical results against the IJN in WitP unless some fundamental changes are made in how that model works with respect to the model UV sports.

Thanks for responding. I appreciate your input.

Originally posted by Rainerle
Actually, IMO Kates and Vals die like flies in allied TF FLAK.

Originally posted by TIMJOT
They are Roman candles in my games as well. I Have to wonder if any who expound this supposed IJN invincibility has ever actually played as the IJN.

Originally posted by Tristanjohn

To be frank, I cannot fathom resistance to anything I've noted. Indeed, it all strikes me as so perfectly obvious as to be something not requiring voice. But then, somehow, that never seems to be the way it shakes out in the real world, now is it?

Originally posted by Tristanjohn
.

To be frank, I cannot fathom resistance to anything I've noted. Indeed, it all strikes me as so perfectly obvious as to be something not requiring voice. But then, somehow, that never seems to be the way it shakes out in the real world, now is it?