el cid again
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ORIGINAL: TulliusDetritus
El Cid Again, to be honest, this does not bother me either  The game/scenario I am playing has been "modified" -- as I said two or three posts ago. All the Japanese HQ's are of "type = 1" so the transport ships can load them.
From what I read in the Hyperwar site, the AGP ships idea was basically created, elaborated (on the allied side) by American Rear Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner, after his "experience" in the Guadalcanal Campaign. And were first used (if my memory does nor fail) in the Central Pacific Offensive on november 1943.
But again, they have a very concrete role: supporting forces which are assaulting an enemy base.
I was thinking about the worst possible scenario. Japanese few AGP's are sunk -- let's not forget Americans have a lot of submarines and that the dud torpedoes will not last forever = those HQ's won't leave an island if they happened to be there. That's irrational to me, I can't help it, sorry.
A major army (corps) HQ should not be on some minor island - unless it is to start with as a jump off point.
If a ship of this sort is lost - it is very likely to be lost with such a HQ on board. I don't particularly like the rule they cannot move by air or normal sea - but it was a workaround to tie them to the special capability ships.
I think the Japanese are grossly underated in terms of credit for assaulting defended positions. The attack on Kota Bahru - a division assault - should put the lie to it all by itself. It was not a nice assault either - read what Tsuji says about troops unable to reach the beach - stuck in obsticles under fire - and you will be reminded of a number of Allied landings. But the Japanese rallied, pressed, obtained fire support - and took the position - with significant casualties (including lost ships) not preventing success. What you normally read has a combination of things going against objectivity: (a) patriotism and the principle "we were better" as a basic attitude; (b) ignorance of the development of technical and operational amphibious doctrine. You are absolutely correct about the development dates. You leave out only that we learned things of great value in the Aleutians - mainly by doing them wrong - and this is not at all well known because it was secret at the time. [Soldiers saying they were fighting on US soil in Alaska were generally thought to be telling tall tales during the war] But we also deliberately transferred back officers with first hand experience facing the Japanese - to learn what they had seen? Most of these officers recommended "withdrawal to the US West Coast" - because it was going to take time to equal the military quality of the enemy. This sort of thing is not found in many histories - and when it is - the officers are ridiculed for their pessimism - instead of praised for their professional honesty. Not many people expected us to come back as strong or as fast as we did. And it was a lot more iffy than it seems reading books: it was not at all clear that we could fund what we did - it was not at all clear that political pressures might not change priorities - etc. [Look at the present age and present war for the potential impacts of not having popular support] Anyway - the Japanese were actually superior to all others in terms of joint amphibious operations when PTO erupted into war. We eventually went beyond what they had done - and achieved a capability to assault heavily fortified positions (which positions were NOT fortified as mythology says during the inter war period - but only after the rather foolish Makin Island raid). Instead of being proud of that capability - we probably should be ashamed - it was inefficient in lives - and we would never do it today (ask the Marines). We regard the battle of Iwo Jima as a victory - but so do the Japanese. If it was a victory for either side - it was a phyrric one. Head on assault of heavily defended points violates the concepts of modern warfare taught by the great strategists of our age - starting with Liddle Hart. Battles like Palau are generally regarded as a mistake by our own historians - never mind other nations historians - and the push to invade Japan was close to irrational religious fanaticism. There was every reason to believe it would be horribly expensive in every sense - to our own forces - to enemy forces - and to civilians which we claimed (in war crimes tribunals) to believe should be "protected" to the extent military necessity permits. Running in ops bigger than D Day (at least two of them) on a nation already defeated - or dropping atom bombs - was not really a military necessity. [And Truman, at least, was honest about it (at Potsdam). Don't like him much - or his reasoning - but he was very honest - and I like that: on the occasion he got the telegram saying the test bomb worked - it was disguised as a message about the estate of a prominent member of his administration - his immediate reaction was to say: "If we are unwilling to use the bomb, in time of war, on an Asiatic enemy, Stalin will never believe we would use it on a European enemy in time of peace." If that represents his thinking - the bomb was indeed NOT intended to end the war - or save lives (troops or civilian) - but to become a sort of trump card for what his administration came to term "atomic diplomacy" - nuclear blackmail against the USSR and others even when were not at war. The war was lost, everyone who mattered on both sides knew it was lost - and Olympic and Coronet were not going to change that. By mid 1945 there was much more worry about "taking too long" and "what Stalin might do if we do" - in spite of pressuring Stalin for years to attack Japan! We no longer liked the things we had advocated!
My first ship - USS Francis Marion - APA-249 - was the last attack transport ever built. Sister of Paul Revere, they were the largest of all time, too large (so it was very hard on troops trying to climb the nets). Normally fitted with 14 LCM-6 and 8 LCVPs, we at times carried LCM-8s or Swift Boats - and we could embark an entire BLT (a reinforced Marine battalion) - including its tanks. We were good at what we did - but like the Japanese - we didn't like to land in the teeth of heavy opposition - and preferred to land at some undefended or poorly defended place - and strike from the flank. Far too much propaganda is made of how great it is to assault a beach from a (at best) 8 knot landing craft with an open top. If you do it in the teeth of heavy opposition, in daylight, you are going to get hurt, period. We came to the conclusion the Japanese were right - if you must do it - do it at night. If you don't have to - don't.
< Message edited by el cid again -- 3/14/2007 12:03:16 AM >
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