Nemo121
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Well, I don't want to give the answers since that removes the impetus to original thought... PLUS it isn't like most people will, even if I give them a cohesive, structured COA, choose to actually enact that COA. It often isn't even a right or wrong thing its just a style thing.
Let us look at it from basics.
You say you want to take Amchitka because it is a base from which your opponent can gather intelligence.
Maskirovka operations during the Great Patriotic War often involved up to 1/3rd of the total units involved ( that's the ratio I usually aim for in my maskirovkas, 1/3rd supporting the maskirovka, 1/3rd doing the attack and 1/3rd in an OMG directly under control of the Strategic Direction and not the subordinate Front commanders.) in any operation.
The hint in my previous post was around the acceptance and declination of battle. What I was hinting at was that in terms of intelligence a FULL maskirovka both denies and feeds the enemy intelligence and successes/failures in order to build a narrative which will not be dissonant with the enemy's preconceptions/hopes etc. You MOST destabilise an enemy when you let him slowly but surely build a picture which he is comfortable with and then suddenly shift the picture entirely such that you introduce massive amounts of psychologically crippling cognitive dissonance. At this point in time you've invalidated most of your opponents previous OODA cycles and necessitate him completely beginning again from scratch - something hugely stressful for him to do and something which few do successfully. As a result he tries to modify the previous, comfortable plans and falls further and further behind the necessary orientation with the end result that by the end of the battle/campaign his actions are completely contrary to the situation on the ground. A particularly artful way of doing this is to create a situation such that his dissonance drives inappropriate actions which drive him to use his own initiative to drive himself into prepared traps.
Anyways, you are focusing on Amchitka as a means of denying him intelligence. What about using it as a means of controlling your opponent subtly so that he sees what you want him to see and draws the conclusions you wish him to draw from what he sees. In such a situation you can control his observations, influence his decisions and either punish or reward his actions such that you significantly impact his orientation for the next cycle. Eventually, as several cycles complete you gain more and more control over him until such time as you are controlling his orientation and letting him see what you want, when you want, draw the conclusions you want and make the decisions you want - decisions you reward when they feed into your plan and punish when they don't.
Taking Amchitka takes a relatively useless island and robs him of the ability to see what is going on around the Aleutians. Keeping AMchitka alive but suppressed doesn't increase the aerial risk to your forces BUT does allow you to feed information to your opponent as and when you wish. Combine Amchitka with a few other similar setups in other portions of the front and you can begin feeding your opponent a cohesive, logical, comforting picture which is also a complete lie .... said lie only being unveiled at the point in time he is under maximum psychological pressure. This, of course, is designed to bring about a dislocation from his OODA and inappropriate decisions and actions.
Amchitka is an excellent opportunity to begin building the false picture which leads, misleads and undermines your opponent. That's a far greater gain than simply taking some worthless island in order to create a little more unreconned space on the map.
Of course, you may prefer not to play that sort of game but this drive to deny intelligence to the enemy strikes me as strong. YOu can far more easily manipulate someone through choosing what to show them and what not than through simply dropping a veil over everything.
Imagine a narrative in which you suppress Amchitka and bomb it with carrier-based planes which are supporting convoy drives into the Kuriles ( except, of course, you can have carrier-based planes there without them flying from carriers ), bemoan his recon, talk about how it messes with your resupply efforts, are even "seen" to abandon several resupply efforts when spotted... since you fear KB.... and generally commit lots of force to killing the floatplanes operating out of Amchitka. Even post a thread talking about how difficult it is to kill floatplanes at a seabase and question the historicity of this. Your opponent will attribute meaning to such a thread, which is as you wish. Then raise the ante by running a couple of convoys in despite their being spotted. Sacrifice some ships. Change tactics to sending in single ships. Make an offhand mention of supplies being a problem.
Then you invade Amchitka... but something goes wrong with the invasion and onyl 100 or 200 men unload. They are immediately destroyed. You curse the amphibous unloading doctrine and complain about having to read those threads again. Of course you only ever loaded 200 men onto that huge amphibious TF... Men drawn from 3 separate divisions. Let him see you unloading that TF in the Aleutians and draw the appropriate conclusions. YOu are desparate to reinforce the Kuriles, you are sending multiple divisions to take Amchitka and later reinforce the Kuriles but if he moves FAST he can take the Kuriles back first and then move on the Aleutians, trapping multiple divisions if he can impose a sea blockade. But he'll need to commit KB to do it.
At the point in time that he does that the USN invasion TFs which have been sitting it out with the other 99% of those divisions and your CVs attack the central Pacific holdings he has, thus, uncovered and failed to reinforce as he has sent the infantry he has bought out north-east to face your main thrust --- which comprised a couple of regiments and 200 men from 3 divisions as well as some sacrificial xAKs. A cheap diversion which dislocates his forces, his suppositions and his faith in his own strategic appreciation.
I would suggest that something like that would be more beneficial than taking Amchitka and rolling westward. It is a compelling story, requires fewer resources than you would invest and, I think, would draw more IJN/IJA resources and introduce greater cognitive dissonance into your opponents plans when you do unveil it once he has fully committed and hit nothing but empty air.
Of course, each to their own. There's more to winning than strength though. You've won this one as far as I'm concerned. It may be time to practice writing a compelling narrative which promotes opponent buy-in and allows you to begin manipulating him more completely and easily. Might as well practice it in an already decided game where mistakes have minimal repercussions. I think if you talk to most of my opponents most of them usually thought I was up to something very different than I was actually up to and a big part of that was the committment of major forces to actively feeding them a narrative I'd designed to manoeuvre them into a specific situation 3 or 6 months later. Amchitka could be one of the places you begin to do this. I wish to be clear that I'm not holding out my play as the acme of this. I'm on record as saying I just apply the basics strictly. Anyone could do it and I'm sure many could do it better if they had the discipline to simply do the basics well every time.
Again though, taking Amchitka isn't a weak move at all. It just is the same old denial of intelligence stuff... People handle a lack of information ( and adapt to it ) a lot better than they do to finding their entire situation was a fantasy. Since I prefer to try to play the weaker side or run more and more concurrent operations with smaller and smaller tolerances/reserves in order to keep things interesting, the ability to create a situation where the crushingly superior enemy mass is doing something irrelevant while a small force sneaks in and wrecks all their plans appeals to me. But, of course, it may not suit everyone. There's no right or wrong way to play. I think though that you are clearly seeking to improve your play and so I hinted at a more subtle way of dealing with Amchitka so you could consider it.
It may, of course, be something you prefer not to do or find inappropriate or too unlikely to work. You must do what you feel right doing.
< Message edited by Nemo121 -- 5/26/2011 9:28:43 PM >
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Well, that's that settled then.
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RE: Das darf nicht var sein! - 
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