Hirohito
Posts: 116
Joined: 9/10/2004 Status: offline
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I have often wondered how the war in the pacific would have turned out if a large bulk of the japanese forces had not sat the war out in korea, china, and manchuko (spelling?). So, I put together a Russia first strategy to see what might have happened. For this strategy, abandon the central pacific islands and move the troops, planes and ships based there to formosa for redeployment later. Move the small independent regiments, bridages, and battalions to the chinese coastal cities to make up the garrison points of the divisions that are in these coastal cities. Then move the divisions out of the coastal cities into positions to actually do something useful. For some of these divisions it means move into position to hit russia, for most it means move into position to hit china a bit later. Garrison the bases in thailand so that the allies don't get a cheap victory there and leave small garrisons in indo china to keep the allied player from an equally cheap victory. The air power and naval power in indo china should keep the allies out, I can't imagine that an amphibious force aimed at Indochina wouldn't get shot to pieces. Launch amphibious landings at the north tip of Sakhelin island and the far eastern part of siberia, land as many divisions as you can free up in the north eastern part of korea for an attack on vladisvostok. Do NOT launch an amphibious landing at vladisvostok, you'll just get blown to pieces by the coastal guns there. Move all the troops in korea to the line north and west of vladisvostok so that you can move in behind and cut off all the Russian forces facing south and west. Move all the troops in Manchuko (spelling?) west to a point where you are comfortable that you can cut off the trans siberian railroad without yourself being cut off. Move the divisions in the chinese coastal towns that you freed up by sending reinforcements to garrison the coastal towns to the same point west in Manchuko to aid in cutting off the trans siberian railroad. Move as many divisions out of china as you are comfortable with to aid in the offensive against the russians. If you chop the Russian army up into several pieces you can isolate each piece and destroy it piecemeal. This will give you a large amount of resource points once you take all the Russian bases in the east. The oil at the northern end of Sakhelin island is a nice bonus. Once this campaign is over you then move the Kwantang army into position to aid in the conquest of China, as well as the borrowed divisions from china and the divisions that were redirected from the postponed campaigns in the PI, DEI, Malaysia, Singapore, and Burma. With pretty much the entire Japanese army and air forces turned loose in china, the chinese cannot hold. You should take all of the bases in china. Use the IJN to keep PI, DEI, Malaysia, and Singapore from being resupplied and reinforced. You should be able to give the allies a bloody nose at sea if you don't get overextended. Use political points to release air units and the armor units from the home defense and switch the air units to keep PI neutralized and move the armor units to help first with Russia then with China. Once China is taken move into Malaysia, then Burma, then India. For each of these campaigns keep as much of the imperial forces together in one large mass as possible. This will ensure that you can overwhelm whatever Allied forces are opposing you. Once India and all the bases in the Indian Ocean are taken then take the DEI in reverse starting with Medan. Lastly take the Phillipines. By the time the PI falls, the allies will be in a position to oppose you in papua new guinea and the central and south pacific areas. Whether you can successfully push into these areas will depend on your skill. But, you will have several things going for you. Large resource, factory, and oil production numbers in the conquered Russian, Chinese, Indian, Malaysian, DEI and PI territories. Air force units freed up from the home defense, the Kwantang army, and the china front for use against the US and Australian forces. The British pretty much out of the war. The IJN pretty much intact. I can see no obvious flaws in this plan as long as the Japanese player sticks to a philosophy of keep the Imperial forces together as much as possible in one large mass and only fight when and where you can cut off, surround, and overwhelm the enemy, and use the IJN as a large raiding force to keep the Allied supply lines disrupted. I see no way that the Russian forces can hold out, and with the Kwantang army added to operations against China, as well as the twelve divisions freed up by delaying operations against Malaysia, Singapore, DEI, and PI, I see no way that the Chinese can hold out. With those two enemies out of the way and the captured resources, factories, oil production, and manpower totals added to the Imperial war making effort, it seems plausable that the British can be driven from the war in Singapore, Malaysia, Burma, India and the Indian ocean. So, what are the flaws to this strategy? And please don't respond with "the japanese won't have enough resources in '45 to stop the americans with their unlimited resources". I think the considerations are pretty straighforward. Does conquering the Russian territory first, and then China give enough resource points, factories, oil production, and manpower points to offset delaying the conquest of PI, DEI, Singapore and Malaysia for a year or two? Can Russia be conquered in a reasonable time frame? If the Japanese player throws everything including the now freed up Kwantang army into China will China fall? Does abandoning the central pacific do more harm than good? Can India be taken if the Japanese player makes an all out effort there? Is knocking Britain out of the pacific worth the effort? Do the allies build PI and DEI up to such a large degree that they can now not be taken if the Japanese player waits a year or two to invade them? These are the discussions I want to have. Hirohito
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