ABDA & Malaya commands in CHS

[ctangus]

I suggested this to treespider for treespider's CHS, but also think it would be a good idea for regular CHS. Anyway, the idea probably should be floated because it might be unpopular:

Why not start all the Malaya bases and units restricted as part of ABDA command? My reasoning is this -

1. There is a "B" in "ABDA"

2. It just rubs me wrong to read of people trying to evac all of Malaya before they've even fought. Churchill wouldn't have allowed it.

3. I forget the exact date but the Malaya command was IRL put under ABDA shortly after the war began.

4. While it's certainly true that superfluous personnel were evacuated from Malaya, the allied player could still do that if he chose. Just not as rapidly.

5. There'd also be a minor advantage to the allied player in that he could fly in Dutch units to Malaya without paying political points. That would better represent the pre-war coordination between the RAF and Dutch airforce.

I'm curious what people think. Good idea? Stupid as heck?

(On a similar note, I've always wondered why the 4th Marines and that Marine AA unit start unrestricted in CHS.)

[Fletcher]

Point 2....absolutely agree.

[eloso]

Before I decided to comment on this idea I researched it a little here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABDA

ABDA didn't exist when the game starts. ABDA was dissolved on 25 FEB 42.

While I would have to agree with you on point 2 in your argument in principle, I don't let what other's do in their games bother me. It's their game and what they do for entertainment is their business. I play with house rules and this is one of the things that is covered.

Point 3: 7 January 1942 is when the British Far East Command was absorbed into ABDA.

Point 4: This is interesting as it would force the allied player to make a choice between USAFFE forces or British.

Point 5: Is there any data to reflect the amount of cooperation between the British and Dutch prior to the 7 DEC attacks (aside from the ETO)?

Regarding the Marines in the PI. Asiatic Fleet is not a restricted command from what it appears. It might be an oversight.


I think it is only natural instinct to fight for survival. With the auto-victory system in place players naturally try to avoid excessive point losses. The other issue is that the allies have limited base forces and HQ units at start. Once these are lost they are gone forever. In real life new units would be formed as long as manpower existed.

[ctangus]

ORIGINAL: OSO

While I would have to agree with you on point 2 in your argument in principle, I don't let what other's do in their games bother me. It's their game and what they do for entertainment is their business. I play with house rules and this is one of the things that is covered.

I may have phrased that wrong - while I don't do that (house rules or not) I also don't care how others play as long as they're enjoying it. The more who are playing WITP and having fun - the better. Stated somewhat differently: CHS tries (mostly successfully IMO) to give both sides capabilities that are "realistic" or at least "plausible". I personally don't consider a mass evacuation of Malaya either realistic or plausible considering the political considerations at the start of the war.

It also seems inconsistent. USAFFE & ABDA are restricted. Why not also the units in Malaya? IMO a mass evac of the Phillipines is just as likely as a mass evac of Malaya. Either make them all restricted (my preference) or all unrestricted.

Point 3: 7 January 1942 is when the British Far East Command was absorbed into ABDA.

Thanks.

Point 4: This is interesting as it would force the allied player to make a choice between USAFFE forces or British.

Or West Coast units or ANZAC units or...

Point 5: Is there any data to reflect the amount of cooperation between the British and Dutch prior to the 7 DEC attacks (aside from the ETO)?

I thought so - but bugger! Can't find it right now. IIRC some Dutch fighters staged into Singapore before the start of the war. But take it with a grain of salt until I find my source.

Regarding the Marines in the PI. Asiatic Fleet is not a restricted command from what it appears. It might be an oversight.

My opinion as well.

Well, thanks for the feedback!

[Andrew Brown]

ORIGINAL: ctangus

I suggested this to treespider for treespider's CHS, but also think it would be a good idea for regular CHS. Anyway, the idea probably should be floated because it might be unpopular:

Why not start all the Malaya bases and units restricted as part of ABDA command?

This has been considered before, but I think it was never done because of the shortage of restricted commands, and I assume because people wanted to keep Malaya Command separate, rather than have it as part of ABDA (and so getting Dutch base flags, for example).

I agree with the idea of having a restricted command for Malaya though. Personally, however, I don't like the idea of having the bases in Malaya having Dutch flags, but maybe we could use a "half Dutch, half British" flag? (of course ABDA included four nationalities, but I don't know if the flag symbols are large enough to divide into 4 segments - one for each country?) Maybe I should play around with a base symbol to see what could be done.

Andrew

[spence]

IRL the British could and did reinforce Malaya (18th Div which arrived without serious damage in mid Jan 42). IRL those reinforcements came arguably close to seriously affecting the whole Japanese timetable for the conquest of the SRA.

My experience is that the "all torpedo all the time" Bettys and Nells can, by the time any significant reinforcements become available, close Singapore to anything other than very minor reinforcement and resupply. The system has pretty much removed the option of trying to hold in Malaya or even make it ahistorically expensive. It almost seems to me that this idea just locks up the Allied Player from having/making any strategic choice and just guarantees the Japanese Player a bigger bag of prisoners (handicapping him with more Victory Points for no particularly good reason).

I actually agree with the concept of a serious political cost to evacuating Malaya but don't think the system as it now exists can handle it without an equally ahistorical advantage just being plopped in the Japanese Player's lap. Of course if the IJA started "randomly"
deciding when they'd get on or off IJN ships or suddenly start prepping for Army targets rather than the ones the IJN wanted we could discuss all sorts of political point costs for each side.

[el cid again]

This is a difficult matter. I wanted to go the other way - UNRESTRICT ABDA command - and ran into a firestorm.
It seems to me perfectly rediculous that the Dutch forces in particular - forces that normally use the sea as their primary means of transportation - are unable to reinforce forward areas OR retreat - as the situation and strategy may require. That idea - floated in the Forum - ran into a large firestorm of opposition (and a small band of Dutch supporters). In the end I settled for using the ferry system - so you can move from NW Sumatra almost to Timor WITHOUT taking a ship as such. I still think it is nonsense a player with a significant navy and merchant marine is unable to move where he wants to move.

More generally - I agree with the idea that Malaya, Java, and other points should be defended for political reasons.
What I don't see is why players are not free to do that well - with unrestricted units? The Dutch sent significant forces to help in Malaya - ever try to transfer an air unit there from ABDA? I usually prefer to trust player judgement and not tie their hands. And I do not see why only one strategy - a historical one - MUST be adopted by all players in all games?
Nevertheless - I think any player who DOES evacuate Malaya without a fight - indeed any player who does NOT send significant forces INTO Malaya - is not being reasonable. So perhaps making Malaya part of ABDA is a good idea after all? If the flag means "command" I fail to see the problem with what it looks like being significant. If it is - why make it a national flag at all? Why not a "command flag" - perhaps ABDA on it????? That actually would allow Dutch air units to move forward - and British air units to fall back onto Sumatra or Borneo - it might play better.

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: spence



My experience is that the "all torpedo all the time" Bettys and Nells can, by the time any significant reinforcements become available, close Singapore to anything other than very minor reinforcement and resupply. The system has pretty much removed the option of trying to hold in Malaya or even make it ahistorically expensive. It almost seems to me that this idea just locks up the Allied Player from having/making any strategic choice and just guarantees the Japanese Player a bigger bag of prisoners (handicapping him with more Victory Points for no particularly good reason).

While I do not share the view spence has long expressed that Japanese bombers should be restricted to only using torpedoes with a tiny number of units he thinks were the only ones to use them, nevertheless, I do think there is a reasonable logistic limit to the number of units that could have been worked up to use these expensive weapons.
I also have a more compounded problem in the special case of RHSEOS - where the Army is permitted to fly Betty's and Nells early in the war. [Eventually the Army DID design and field a land based torpedo bomber of considerable merit - the Ki-67. The Navy also adopted the same aircraft - and flew joint missions with two different army units specially trained for naval strikes using it - the first of which even got "torpedo" in its unit designation. That the Army could use torpedo bombers is beyond doubt: EOS just lets them do so sooner.] The problem with that is that the potential number of planes goes way up - and the number of torpedoes required to support them is beyond the capacity of the industry to provide. Another problem is that the Army would not want to have bombers loaded so inefficiently for their main (land) targets.

For these reasons - torpedo limits in all scenarios and not wanting inefficient Army bombers for land application to be the normal case in the EOS units that use naval bomber types - I have applied the RHS multiple loadout scheme to limit this problem. It occurs in two different forms: in some cases units will have bomb only loadouts but the type has the torpedo as the default loadout - which will apply to any upgrade; the rest of the time it is the other way around - some units will have torpedo loadouts but the type and default for upgrade is bomb only. This may have the effect of addressing spence's concern above in most RHS games - regardless of scenario. Early in the war there is no Ki-67 to deal with - there are very few JAAF units with naval bombers - and 100% of those ONLY carry bombs. In EOS the only relatively early four engine bomber will never carry a torpedo if a unit upgrades to the type - because bombs are the default loadout. Only naval air units that actually had torpedo bombers AND DO NOT need to upgrade to this type will get a torpedo option for ship attacks. [Regular RHS has no early four engine bomber for Japan, just the transport made from a failed attempt to get one] There are other similar cases, but you get the idea.

[treespider]

ORIGINAL: spence

IRL the British could and did reinforce Malaya (18th Div which arrived without serious damage in mid Jan 42). IRL those reinforcements came arguably close to seriously affecting the whole Japanese timetable for the conquest of the SRA.

My experience is that the "all torpedo all the time" Bettys and Nells can, by the time any significant reinforcements become available, close Singapore to anything other than very minor reinforcement and resupply. The system has pretty much removed the option of trying to hold in Malaya or even make it ahistorically expensive. It almost seems to me that this idea just locks up the Allied Player from having/making any strategic choice and just guarantees the Japanese Player a bigger bag of prisoners (handicapping him with more Victory Points for no particularly good reason).

I actually agree with the concept of a serious political cost to evacuating Malaya but don't think the system as it now exists can handle it without an equally ahistorical advantage just being plopped in the Japanese Player's lap. Of course if the IJA started "randomly"
deciding when they'd get on or off IJN ships or suddenly start prepping for Army targets rather than the ones the IJN wanted we could discuss all sorts of political point costs for each side.

After a week Ms. Betty remains quiet in ctangus and my playing of the scenario. Kates flying from Jolo on the other hand have been a real thorn in ctangus' side.

The base reductions completely change the feel of the game IMO. Yet they haven't terribly affected the B-17's at Cagayan as they continue to fly.

I like the Malaya suggestion of ctangus' and with the exception of the flag issue I am going to explore it's potential.

v1.04 is planned for release on or about July 4 and will include a number of changes that have become evident with playing.

[treespider]

Any reason some of the British/ Commonwealth / Australian units could not be made ABDA yet leave the bases as SE Asia?

[ctangus]

ORIGINAL: spence

IRL the British could and did reinforce Malaya (18th Div which arrived without serious damage in mid Jan 42). IRL those reinforcements came arguably close to seriously affecting
the whole Japanese timetable for the conquest of the SRA.

My experience is that the "all torpedo all the time" Bettys and Nells can, by the time any significant reinforcements become available, close Singapore to anything other than very minor reinforcement and resupply. The system has pretty much removed the option of trying to hold in Malaya or even make it ahistorically expensive. It almost seems to me that this idea just locks up the Allied Player from having/making any strategic choice and just guarantees the Japanese Player a bigger bag of prisoners (handicapping him with more Victory Points for no particularly good reason).

Even without shipping in the 18th UK Div (I never have but I'm tempted to sometime just for kicks) I've never lost Singers before the historical date. Though it's also true my suggestion was originally for Treespider CHS where there isn't such a great Betty/Nell threat.

Random thought - even if CHS doesn't adopt my suggestion or all of tree's changes I think if Kuching was a level 3 AF at start it could make for a much more interesting game in the first few months. It would make reinforcing Malaya, as happened IRL, a more viable choice in the game, though still dangerous.

[ctangus]

ORIGINAL: treespider

After a week Ms. Betty remains quiet in ctangus and my playing of the scenario. Kates flying from Jolo on the other hand have been a real thorn in ctangus' side.

Ms. Betty? Ms. Nell? Where are they? But those damn Kates... [:@][;)]

At least my subs are having some luck...

[Mifune]

So why not make ABDA command unrestricted and have UK Malaya HQ restricted as a subordinate unit to ABDA?

[Andrew Brown]

ORIGINAL: treespider

Any reason some of the British/ Commonwealth / Australian units could not be made ABDA yet leave the bases as SE Asia?

Yes, that might work. I should have thought of that myself, given that I have already used that approach in other places in CHS, such as NZ.

Andrew

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: ctangus

ORIGINAL: spence

IRL the British could and did reinforce Malaya (18th Div which arrived without serious damage in mid Jan 42). IRL those reinforcements came arguably close to seriously affecting
the whole Japanese timetable for the conquest of the SRA.

My experience is that the "all torpedo all the time" Bettys and Nells can, by the time any significant reinforcements become available, close Singapore to anything other than very minor reinforcement and resupply. The system has pretty much removed the option of trying to hold in Malaya or even make it ahistorically expensive. It almost seems to me that this idea just locks up the Allied Player from having/making any strategic choice and just guarantees the Japanese Player a bigger bag of prisoners (handicapping him with more Victory Points for no particularly good reason).

Even without shipping in the 18th UK Div (I never have but I'm tempted to sometime just for kicks) I've never lost Singers before the historical date. Though it's also true my suggestion was originally for Treespider CHS where there isn't such a great Betty/Nell threat.

Random thought - even if CHS doesn't adopt my suggestion or all of tree's changes I think if Kuching was a level 3 AF at start it could make for a much more interesting game in the first few months. It would make reinforcing Malaya, as happened IRL, a more viable choice in the game, though still dangerous.

Not losing Singapore before the historical date may imply something is wrong with the model itself. While the campaign was admittedly a close one - Yamashita was within a day or so of suspending offensive operations for lack of supply when the British surrendered - if it really is well modeled it SHOULD be falling regularly - if not every time - by the historical date. Worse than that - because virtually no one is sending historical reinforcements - it should be falling sooner. So maybe something is way too hard in the mod/scenario being played?

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: Mifune

So why not make ABDA command unrestricted and have UK Malaya HQ restricted as a subordinate unit to ABDA?

One answer is it takes a lot of work to change a command. And if you bother to do it - I did it with India - it is really bad when later on you decide maybe you should not have done so after all!

[Mifune]

How about just switching slots ABDA (107) and UK Malaya (109) positions. This would make ABDA unrestricted and UK Malaya restricted. This would seem to solve some issues.

[herwin]

ORIGINAL: spence
My experience is that the "all torpedo all the time" Bettys and Nells can, by the time any significant reinforcements become available, close Singapore to anything other than very minor reinforcement and resupply. The system has pretty much removed the option of trying to hold in Malaya or even make it ahistorically expensive. It almost seems to me that this idea just locks up the Allied Player from having/making any strategic choice and just guarantees the Japanese Player a bigger bag of prisoners (handicapping him with more Victory Points for no particularly good reason).

My experience as well. Giving your generic Nell or Betty unit the equivalent of unlimited nukes results in the Allies not operating AKs in areas where they did operate. I'm willing to take historical losses, but not the losses that occur when every inter-island schooner attracts an attack by a dozen torp-armed Betties. (This has happened more than one in the current PBEM.)

BTW, the Phit for those Japanese torpedoes is excessive, too. Throughout the war, it was about 2 hits per nine aircraft surviving to drop.

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: herwin

ORIGINAL: spence
My experience is that the "all torpedo all the time" Bettys and Nells can, by the time any significant reinforcements become available, close Singapore to anything other than very minor reinforcement and resupply. The system has pretty much removed the option of trying to hold in Malaya or even make it ahistorically expensive. It almost seems to me that this idea just locks up the Allied Player from having/making any strategic choice and just guarantees the Japanese Player a bigger bag of prisoners (handicapping him with more Victory Points for no particularly good reason).

My experience as well. Giving your generic Nell or Betty unit the equivalent of unlimited nukes results in the Allies not operating AKs in areas where they did operate. I'm willing to take historical losses, but not the losses that occur when every inter-island schooner attracts an attack by a dozen torp-armed Betties. (This has happened more than one in the current PBEM.)

BTW, the Phit for those Japanese torpedoes is excessive, too. Throughout the war, it was about 2 hits per nine aircraft surviving to drop.

Methinks you must not be playing RHS. I don't see such hit rates very often. And note that we have numbers of Betty and Nell units (not to mention others later on) which do not carry torpedoes at all.

On the other hand, I don't think your schooner is going to survive massive numbers of 50 kg bomb hits (for JAAF) or 60 kg bomb hits (for JNAF) either. Note these were standard bombs for many early Japanese bombers. Another loadout is 100 kg bombs. But the torpedo carriers tend to substitute 250 kg bombs - partly due to code - partly due to the way weapons actually mounted.

[herwin]

ORIGINAL: el cid again

ORIGINAL: herwin

ORIGINAL: spence
My experience is that the "all torpedo all the time" Bettys and Nells can, by the time any significant reinforcements become available, close Singapore to anything other than very minor reinforcement and resupply. The system has pretty much removed the option of trying to hold in Malaya or even make it ahistorically expensive. It almost seems to me that this idea just locks up the Allied Player from having/making any strategic choice and just guarantees the Japanese Player a bigger bag of prisoners (handicapping him with more Victory Points for no particularly good reason).

My experience as well. Giving your generic Nell or Betty unit the equivalent of unlimited nukes results in the Allies not operating AKs in areas where they did operate. I'm willing to take historical losses, but not the losses that occur when every inter-island schooner attracts an attack by a dozen torp-armed Betties. (This has happened more than one in the current PBEM.)

BTW, the Phit for those Japanese torpedoes is excessive, too. Throughout the war, it was about 2 hits per nine aircraft surviving to drop.

Methinks you must not be playing RHS. I don't see such hit rates very often. And note that we have numbers of Betty and Nell units (not to mention others later on) which do not carry torpedoes at all.

On the other hand, I don't think your schooner is going to survive massive numbers of 50 kg bomb hits (for JAAF) or 60 kg bomb hits (for JNAF) either. Note these were standard bombs for many early Japanese bombers. Another loadout is 100 kg bombs. But the torpedo carriers tend to substitute 250 kg bombs - partly due to code - partly due to the way weapons actually mounted.

The probability of hitting a ship with a bomb from a level bomber was quite low (about 3%) and fairly low from a dive bomber (11% generic pilot, 22% naval aviator pilot with lots of training in the role).