FatR -> RE: Who Won the Actual War? (12/1/2010 12:12:47 PM)
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The most basic list of Allied mistakes in the war: 1)Total lack of understanding of the enemy's real capabilities. Directly caused Force Z destruction and was a major factor at mismanagement of Malaya and Luzon campaigns. Not an issue for an AE player, obviously 2)Said mismanagement of Malaya and Luzon campaigns. Yes, the latter too. Not only American-Philippino forces bottled themselves up at Bataan, allowing Japanese to free the best part of their initial force for the conquest of DEI, they, as far as I know, failed to retreat there in proper order (evacuating all supplies they can and so on). Mostly not an issue for an AE player, although (generally unsuccessful) attemps of forward defense at Luzon happen surprisingly often. 3)Halfhearted defense of DEI, that yet resulted in sacrifice of some valuable ships. Happens to AE players too, though. 4)Using USN carrier force for missions of no real importance until Coral Sea (which resulted in a draw, at best, instead of decisive Allied victory, directly because some carriers were away on Doolittle's raid). Generally does not happen in the game. 5)Commitment to various targets that already lost all strategic importance during the Allied offensives of 1943-44. Includes the entire axis of advance through New Guinea, possibly after the neutralization of Truk, and certainly after Marianas. As far as I can see, Allied players are more likely to commit the opposite mistake and to fixate on a single point of attack. 6)Attacking Philippines instead of Formosa, due to political machinations. Actually in AE Philippines are likely to be an easier target, and with practically the same value. And about Japanese mistakes you listed... they did not really had a choice whether to turtle in Home Islands or not. There was no set of decisions that could have improved pilot training situation more than marginally. It was likely possible to mitigate the results of attrition a bit better and for a bit longer, but in the end, that was just a plain lose-lose situation. Japanese submarine doctrine was plenty effective until they got outpaced in technological race. If you refer to ASW doctrine, yes, it evolved far too slowly, compared to what they needed (not that Allied sub warfare started to make serious impact before Japan's position was hopeless anyway, but it enabled significantly faster collapse of defenses later in the war). In the game, ASW warfare (for both sides) is easier for both sides as an inevitable result of a simplified logistics model, though.
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