mdiehl
Posts: 5998
Joined: 10/21/2000
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You know, when someone waves me off with a "Go read history" the rest of folks on these forums know to duck. It's like chumming the water when you're surrounded by tiger sharks and all you're wearing is your kapok jacket.
"Ran the major powers..." excuse me... WHAT major powers? The outnumbered, unsupported way the hell out on the end of the logistical rope Phillippines? The laughable Hong Kong garrison? The oh so dangerous native constabularies that comprised the bulk of NEI defenses? Frankly, given Japan's central position, long preparations for war, and extreme numerical superiority in the area, it would have been the embarressment of all the ages if the Japanese had not run through the Southern Resource Area like sh1t through a goose.
Despite all that, not one power considered, not even remotely, sending backdoor feelers over to the Japanese to see whether or not they could be contained diplomatically. Just because the Allies feared invasions enough to be prepared for the event does not mean that having the Japanese ashore in strength in any of those areas would have changed anyone's mind. Indeed, most military experts absolutely positively knew Japan was screwed from the get go. They would have welcomed having, say, 10 divisions wading ashore in Darwin because it would have made the Japanese that much easier to kill (rather than, for example, having to slog it out in New Guinea).
If Japan had destroyed Eastern fleet. If pigs flew. If cats cohabited with dogs. Whatever. These were largely unattainable because the very margins of which you speak, India, Australia, the Hawaiian Islands are so far removed from the center of Japanese logistics and supply that the early war advantage they enjoyed in the NEI/PI would have been completely reversed. Taking Hawaii (and here we're only talking really about taking Oahu, not all of the Hawaiian islands) would have required several divisions, all of the Japanese navy's transport fleet (to maintain these guys over the distance) and the permanent on-station maintenance of six fleet CVs. Frankly, the ONLY plausible outcome of that effort is that the Japanese lose six CVs by March 1942, several divisions to starvation in Hawaii, and four times the merchant fleet losses that they saw in the entire year of 1942. Pretty much the same for Ceylon/India or any operation in the really populated areas of eastern Australia.
[QUOTE]Let's say you and I are playing a PBM game, and I as the Japanese player invade and take one of the northern cities of Oz. You know I can't completely take over the land of Oz, so you completely ignore this invasion that would be completely non historical!!!!!!!!!!!!.[/QUOTE]
Invading OZ would be completely non-historical I agree. Ignoring such an invasion would not be non-historical based on any evidence that you can muster. Good strategic sense would probably dictate that the invading forces be isolated and allowed to die on the vine until a convenient moment came to round them all up and capture them. In the meantime, if the sim is any good, I'd make you pay a hefty merchant tax for supporting these guys: half of all the merchants you send to supply your guys in Australia are turned over to Davy Jones. After a little while you, like the real Japanese, would realize that operations way beyond your logistical grasp are a strategic blunder of enormous magnitude and you'd be looking for ways to get out alive. Basically what happened at Guadalcanal except your losses, if you reached as far as Australia, Ceylon, or Hawaii, would be a hundred times greater.
[QUOTE] Without modeling political events to some extent, what we are left with is a war of attrition?[/QUOTE]
Like I said. The best political "model" of such efforts would be that the Japanese player is removed from command and replaced by the AI .... and maybe jolts of electricity directed through the keyboard into the Japanese player's fingers if such a thing were possible.
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Show me a fellow who rejects statistical analysis a priori and I'll show you a fellow who has no knowledge of statistics.
Didn't we have this conversation already?
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