Hirohito
Posts: 116
Joined: 9/10/2004 Status: offline
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The genius of Lawrence of Arabia's tactics against the Ottoman's in WWI was that he followed the advice of two military geniuses, Sun Tzu "Attack that which can not be defended, and defend that which cannot be attacked", and Stonewall Jackson, "You must begule and confuse the enemy disappearing and reappearing at a time and place that are inconvenient for him". The British HQ in Egypt wanted Lawrence's Arabian army, mostly irregular cavalry and Bedouin on camel back, to attack fortifications in Yemen, Oman, the modern day Gulf States, and various points that controlled access to the Red Sea the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Aqabah (spelling?). Lawrence refused this order and instead launched one of the most brilliant campaigns in military history by attacking the supply lines to these fortifications, not the fortifications themselves. The object was not to BREAK the supply lines, but to make sending supplies down them VERY expensive. The Ottomans tied up hundreds of thousands of troops in this resupply effort of fortifications that were garrassoned by few troops than the resupply troops. Lawrences force would swoop down on supply troops or engineering battallions who were trying to repair previous damage to rail lines, bridges, roads, ports, etc, disperse them, disappear and then hit somewhere else. When Lawrence did finally attack fortified positions he did so deep inside Ottoman territory and totally cut off the troops at the front. Lawrence reinforced by the famed Australian light horse. The Japanese player can use the same strategy to beat the white eyes. I wouldn't even invade the Phillipines, why bother? You can surround them with planes and cut any resupply efforts to pieces. Special strike force TFs composed of fast moving CLs and DDs can make short work of resupply convoys. Same goes with Papua New Guinea, don't bother attacking it directly. Instead, take out the islands to the west of papua new guines, basically draw a line due south from Ponape and conquer every island in that line culminating with New Zealand. This includes Guadalcanal, Rennel Island, Santa Cruz, Espirito Santo, Efate, New Calendonia, and New Zealand. Send engineers with the invasion forces and build up air fields as quickly as possible and put as many task force attack air units as you can spare, along with special task forces made up of fast ships to attack supply convoys. Don't attack Wake Island, it is too far away to matter, it is a waste of time and resources. Send ALL carriers on the PH exbidition broken up into three task forces, task force A to concentrate on the ships in harbor, task force B to concentrate on the airfields and task force C to concentrate on the port facilities. Send extra replenishment ships so that the PH exbition can stay on station until there are no targets left at PH, give Nagumo an order, "come back with a large crater where PH used to be, or don't come back". Take out Midway, Johson Island, Palmyra Island, Christmas Island, Canton Island, Nassau Island and Cook Island and any ancillary islands in between on turn 1, or turn 2 if you are using the silly no Japanese attacks outside of PH on turn 1, it won't matter, none of these places can hold on turn 2 either. Now take out the chain of islands in the DEI that encircle Borneo and Celanese Island (Kendari), this would be the line Morotai, Halmahera, Waigen Island, Sorong, Ambon Island, Tenimbar Island, Timor, Flores, Soembawa, Bali, Java, and Sumatra. Coming around this way you don't even "need" to invade Malaya and Singapore, why bother? Just go around. Now you are ready to "Lawrencize" India. Hit Andaman Island, Ceylon, and Addu Island, and you can take Akyab in reverse. Use strong air units in Sumatra, Indochina, and Siam to neutralize the air units in Malaya and Burma. Now you can starve the Phillipines, Australia, Malaya, Singapore, Burma, and India and invade them at your leisure. The smoking crater that is PH should be hit with the Battleships of the combined fleet, why leave them sitting idle in the crucial first days of the war on infamy day +2 or +3, you also should consider an amphabiious/paratroop invasion of the Hawaian Islands, you'll probably get creamed at Pearl but you might take Hawaii, Kaui, or Maui. Then you can move air units and surface ships there and play havoc with the resupply, reconstruction effort that must get under way. Because you are going to starve the Burma and India forces out and you know that you are going to take "the hump" base and close the Burma road you can divert troops away from China to a more lucrative endeavor elsewhere, the Alaska gambit. We all know that invading the west coast by sea is controlled suicide. But, a surprise attack on the aleutians, Dutch Harbor, Anchorage and Juneau on infamy day +2 or +3 will catch the Allied player in the awkward position of having too few defenders, no planes and no ships. Now, troops which are not being wasted invading every single little island and atoll in the pacific, the Phillipines, Malaya, Singapore, Burma, and troops freed up from the "on the defensive for now" posture in China can slam into Fairbanks and Juneau and can approach the west coast from the north, SURPRISE. The masses of planes guarding the west coast won't be much help against tanks overruning their bases. The best thing about this approach is the Allied player will be totally befuddled. You won't be attacking anything that he is defending, ala Dr. Sun Tzu, "attack that which cannot be defended. Defend that which cannot be attacked." It won't even appear tot he allied player that you are fighting the same war he is, at first. Then when all his "important" colonies are withering away on the vine for lack of supplies and all his efforts are going into resupply, and the losses are mounting and mounting, and he is diverting all his ground forces to defending the west coast of good ole USA as you slam into indefensible position after indefensible position because the defenders lack the luxury items like food, ammo, guns, planes, ships, fuel, etc, etc, you will be happy knowing you followed Dr Tzu's other maxim, "Bad generals fight to win, good generals win, then fight". I don't mind sharing this strategy, because I don't hink you could defend against it, even if you know I am using it. Hirohito
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You must beguile and confuse the enemy, disappearing and then reappearing at places and times inconvenient to him.
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