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Alfred -> RE: War and Peas - Hortlund (J) vs. Canoe (A) (5/4/2012 6:27:03 AM)
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A long time ago I explained how Japan could be successful in attacking the West Coast and Hawaii. I was dismissed as being mad.
Again I see somewhat superficial commentary which dismisses any Japanese action in this theatre as being essentially only a sideshow. In private I have recently communicated to a third party (I hasten to add it wasn't to either player in this match) why that Allied attitude is mistaken and can lead to a devastating Allied defeat at the hands of a strong Japanese player and a complacent Allied player.
In this post I will only discuss one element of a Japanese offensive in this theatre. It fills out the point Walloc has been making.
A6M2 Zeros based at Coal Harbor, using drop tanks can range as follows.
1. There are 8 American and 8 Canadian bases with industry within range. That means:
- a bare minimum of 16 Allied fighter squadrons are required for basic CAP - 32 squadrons if a layered CAP, which is essential to defeating Zero sweeps in the first half of 1942, is taken into account
- good luck going up against the Zero with P-36 and P-43, and other similar quality, airframes which comprise a fair bit of the available fighter strength
- good luck opposing Zero Sentais with those miniscule fighter HQ units
2. Excluding the aircraft factories found within the target area, there are:
- 30 Manpower centres
- 1940 Resource centres
- 280 Heavy Industry centres
- 960 Light Industry centres
- 405 Repair Shipyard points
- 110 Oil centres
- 110 Refinery centres
That represent 3835 industrial centres. If destroyed they provide 76700 VPs to Japan. Anyone still complacent that a Japanese auto victory on 1 January 1943 is not possible?
3. If Japan decides instead to damage and not destroy these industrial centres, the potential harvest of VPs is dependent on whether the Allies continue to repair them. Even if repaired, that is a great impost on Allied supply. At 1000 supply points to repair each individual damaged industry centre at a rate of 1 per day at each industrial facility, just how much surplus supply (from an already greatly reduced industrial base) would remain available to be shipped overseas.
4. Within the target area there are 3 aircraft factories. None is in production on 7 December 1941 and the two American ones are tooled to produce aircraft no earlier than the second half of 1944 so the loss of their production will not be a factor to stop a Japanese auto victory. But the Canadian factory is the sole source of the British Catalina I. Destroy/disrupt that factory and you soon have a major naval search/ASW problem in India.
5. Unlike the Japanese player, Allied industrial centres, once destroyed are gone forever. There is no Lazarus for them. Go back to point 2 above. Destroy/disable those 110 Oil centres and you run out of Oil -> Fuel to feed the remaining Heavy Industry located outside of the target area. Those 110 Oil centres normally would result in 990 fuel points. Thus the Allied player potentailly faces not just the loss of the 280 Heavy Industry centres in the target area, but an additional 215 Heavy Industry centres outside of the target area would lack the necessary feedstock.
6. Consider just one ripple effect. With the loss of 495 Heavy Industry centres, would the Allies still have the luxury of turning off all Heavy Industry in Australia (in order to conserve fuel stocks for fleet operations) and still be able to feed their remaining on map aircraft factories.
And this is just one of the possible threats from a Japanese offensive in this theatre. As the KB has been identified in theatre, I have no doubt Canoerebel's opponent is engaged in a theatre offensive. what are his exact objectives, I don't know because I don't read his AAR and there are other attractive options available to him. I don't know if this is the case but one should proceed on the basis that Nemo has provided input, either currently or from old posts. It therefore behoves people to think outside of the circle and not rest on complacent "truths" which are really only myths not based on rigorous analysis.
Alfred
Edit: forgot to mention that the Seattle ship repair yard which is within the target area is also one of the only 4 shipyards capable of repairing the 16" guns of the Iowa class.
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