RE: Russians/Manchuria - Impact? (Full Version)

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mdiehl -> RE: Russians/Manchuria - Impact? (5/4/2004 10:09:07 PM)

That's a trivial observation. Japan should begin the war feeling, already, the conflict in trying to maintain supply to China and the added conquests of late 1941/e. 1942, such that by, say, May 1942, some units deployed in occupied territories outside of Japan WILL suffer attrition loss and readiness loss because of an insufficiency of supply. Choosing to, errr, build Lunga into a robust, well supplied base should substantially exacerbate supply problems for an equivalent number of units elsewhere.. unless, of course, you simply evacuate some recently conquered areas entirely thereby alleviating yourself of any need to keep them supplied.



mogami -> RE: Russians/Manchuria - Impact? (5/4/2004 10:53:52 PM)

Hi, If in fact Japan had trouble getting supply to areas it occupied to gain supply then I would say the whole exercise was pointless and call off the war. China was Japans rice bowl. The supply situation there is better then many other places. (provided the Army is not engaged in combat) Other supply rich areas are Korea/Manchuria Bangkok and Saigon (provided of course the units are not fighting)
Japanese units were not supplied in the manner USA units were. (They expected less and functioned on less)

Of course there is never enough supply to do everything there is on the other hand more then enough to do what the player considers important. There are ways to save (cut down use) supply.

1. Economy of force. Don't send units that are not required to points far from supply sources. This reduces the use of supply and eases demand on transport system.

2. Base units near supply sources. This works well with Naval Units that must be in an area for security. Is good to train a limited number of airgroups away from Home Islands. If for example Japan expects at some point to require 5 fighter groups for protection of SRA move them to supply source inside SRA and train them there rather then moving supply for training to Home Islands.
Keep land combat units near supply source. For example PI garrison after 14th Army mission complete. Japan is going to place units at points in future to oppose allied landings. In meantime just move engineer units to those locations and dig fortifications.
Keep combat units with high supply requirements at Manila (supply source and port)
player will know when it is time to move to battle locations. In mean time supply is saved.

3. Keep watch on production. There is no need to over produce one type of item at expense of others or wasting supply. Keep the pool levels at "just in time" rather then building up too much. Turn off factories where pool levels are enough for needs. Don't over expand factories. keep factories sizes where they provide what is needed when it is required rather then over building. Expanding factories costs a lot of supply. It is a waste to build up industry and then find it sits idle because imports of resource and oil are too low. If the Home Island stockpile of material is not growing then industry is too large.
(if imports are 100 then use should be 90 or less to allow for stockpile growth for periods of lower imports) Japan must be carefull here because we are dealing with potentialy huge amounts of wasted supply.

4. Keep track of supply amounts and storage. don't let too much supply gather at bases where it spoils. (Korean/Manchurian supply moves to ports. Insure it is picked up and moved to large bases in Japan such as Osaka)

5. Transport. During the war Japan lost much supply and material while in transit. Here is excellent place for Japan to improve and gain supply material. (many Japan aircraft were lost when transports moving them were sunk. Japan lost large number of land formations as well.
Do not sail unescorted. Do not sail over routes not patroled by Japanese ASW TF and air patrols. Avoid locations where enemy submarines/mines are discovered while they are being hunted/cleared. Stay out of enemy LBA range. Don't move transport ships empty.
establish a relay system for transport.
I use the bases with repair yards as relay stations.

SRA to Home Island relay
Establish weekly output of base. Send enough ships to load weekly out put long enough for round trip.
First TF loads Palembang moves cargo to Singapore (base with both industry and repair yard to maintain transports)
Second TF loads Singapore moves to Hong Kong (base with both industry and repair yard to maintain transports.)
Third TF loads Hong Kong moves to Osaka (main Japanese supply base)

Any cargo needing transport from Home Islands in direction of Hong Kong, Singapore loads on TF for return trip.

Once system running there should always be a TF going to and from each relay base.
and a third loading at production centers.

Each relay station also will have other routes running. Manila to Hong Kong
Singapore to Bankok/Saigon Singapore to Java, Hong Kong to Borneo

I expect the supply and material saved in this manner to be the margin between victory and defeat in a game of WITP. I don't need to build replacements for items I don't lose in transit. I don't need to ship 100k supply to see 10k arrive. (This leaves 90k supply for "Adventure"



mdiehl -> RE: Russians/Manchuria - Impact? (5/4/2004 11:08:30 PM)

It's a fair point that Japan might as well have called off the war. They'd have had much better supply and economic productivity if they'd opted for world trade rather than world conquest. But hindsight and all that...

Everything was Japan's rice bowl and they still could not get enough. That's one of the other reasons why the Philippines ought to be more vital to people's strategic planning than merely as an American nuisance that needs to be cleared out of the Japanese interior lines. Even so, the Japanese DID have trouble maintaining supply both to China and within China. That's one of the principal reasons why they stayed in the more convenient coastal regions rather than press into the interior until the potential threat offered by, err, 18th (?) AF (US) made the need urgent.



pad152 -> RE: Russians/Manchuria - Impact? (5/4/2004 11:45:53 PM)

Spoilage???

quote:

don't let too much supply gather at bases where it spoils


Please explain.[&:]



Rendova -> RE: Russians/Manchuria - Impact? (5/4/2004 11:55:49 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: madflava13

quote:

ORIGINAL: mdiehl

An important ALLIED base. The difference is that the US practiced logistical overkill on every problem they encountered and had the resources to do so. Japan practiced logistics on a shoestring and couldn't really deploy enough material to make the shoestring work (cf Burma and, for example, Renell and Buka -- the latter closer to Rabaul than the canal and still basically marginal bases as far as operational capacity goes). IMO, Guadalcanal was a reach that could not have been sustained for any length of time.


mdiehl,
You forget that we know more than the Japanese high command. I plan on practicing logistical overkill with any operation I conduct, and if I decide to take Lunga as a base, you can bet there will be enough supply and engineers there to make it work. It can be done, it just wasn't historically. I'm smarter than history though! [:D]



Madflava you may have all the supply you want but you'll still need to deal with those marines who were your Icon on thier sleeve when they come knocking.... "Oh Madflava a General Vandergrift here to see you...." [;)]



madflava13 -> RE: Russians/Manchuria - Impact? (5/5/2004 1:01:59 AM)

Rendova,
Certainly - And Lunga won't be held forever. My point was that we, as players with the aid of hindsight, should do considerably better than our historical counterparts. Mdiehl likes to point to history to say why something "CANNOT" happen, yet he doesn't realize that we aren't playing this game exactly like history occured. That would be boring.

That's all I was saying.



Rendova -> RE: Russians/Manchuria - Impact? (5/5/2004 1:12:58 AM)

Understand Mad just got done reading Victory at Guadalcanal. You have to tip your hat to those guys, what they acomplished was absolutly amazing. [&o]



mdiehl -> RE: Russians/Manchuria - Impact? (5/5/2004 1:42:59 AM)

quote:

Mdiehl likes to point to history to say why something "CANNOT" happen, yet he doesn't realize that we aren't playing this game exactly like history occured. That would be boring.


No. What you realize is that when you make a choice for one alternate strategic pathway you will heavily pay for it by less capability elsewhere. You can't just assume that the Japanese did not provide adequate supply because they did not give a care about providing adequate supply. That is in correct. They provided inadequate supply because their resources were tied up elsewhere. You can, in your effort to follow an alternate pathway that makes Guadalcanal a mighty Japanese bastion, scrape up enough supply elsewhere. (It reauires supply enough for Guadalcanal, and increasing the pipeline down to Rabaul, because logistical effort is a decreasing returns function as range of your logistical effort increases). But then, ELSEWHERE is going to suffer for lack of supply. The problem is acute for the real Japan (and should be acute for a Japanese player). In contrast, it was not a huge problem or even a really moderate problem for the US except when the imminent threat of Japanese military assets could sever supply.

In a nutshell, absent US interdiction, keeping Japanese stuff in supply should still be a problem. Absent Japanese interdiction, pretty much all US supply problems will be somewhat quickly overwhelmed and solved.

I'm not saying the game should require people to fight the war (strategic selection of targets, assets deployed and so forth) the way it was fought. I'm saying you will (should, if the game works right) have to grapple with the same suite of general constraints that the respective powers faced.



madflava13 -> RE: Russians/Manchuria - Impact? (5/5/2004 2:57:42 AM)

Ah, I see... I misunderstood your original post. We are in violent agreement here...



Mike Scholl -> RE: Russians/Manchuria - Impact? (5/5/2004 6:37:25 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: ladner

quote:

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

Well put, MDIEHL. Madagascar was still a pretty primative place in 1941---what im-
portance it had was more a reflection of where it was than what it could provide.
And with the exception of bugs, snakes, deseases, and tropical wood products, most
necessities were imported. Hardly a great "base" for much of anything.



Guadalcanal was pretty much a primitive hell hole, more so than even Madagascar yet Henderson field became an extremely important base of operations in the South Pacific.


This is a relatively silly observation. Henderson field was certainly useful in the campaign
around Guadalcanal---but it wasn't a "base" as in "base of operations". Everything used
on Guadalcanal had to be (and was) brought in from outside. Now if you look at the
location of Madagascar in relation to any possible "base of operations" that could be used
to support Axis Units based there, you will notice several thousand intervening miles of
Allied disputed or controlled Ocean. Gudalcanal was a logistical nightmare for both sides
(especially the Japanese), and it was only a few hundred miles from relatively secure
bases. Madagascar is a logistical "pipedream" for the Axis. It might work in "never-never
land", but it won't happen in the real world.



mogami -> RE: Russians/Manchuria - Impact? (5/5/2004 7:12:19 AM)

Hi, But the History Channel said the Axis lost the war because they failed to take Madagascar. They were supposed to do it after taking Ceylon and Central India. Then It would be easier to support.
The I-400 boats lauch airstrike on the Panama Canal and cut off Allied material for months. Giving time for Japan to mass produce their new jet fighters and bombers.



Mike Scholl -> RE: Russians/Manchuria - Impact? (5/5/2004 10:11:11 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Mogami

Hi, But the History Channel said the Axis lost the war because they failed to take Madagascar. They were supposed to do it after taking Ceylon and Central India. Then It would be easier to support.
The I-400 boats lauch airstrike on the Panama Canal and cut off Allied material for months. Giving time for Japan to mass produce their new jet fighters and bombers.

RIGHT. Nice to know that if we ever run short of fertalizer we can always shovel the
"History Channel" on the rose beds.



Delphinium -> RE: Russians/Manchuria - Impact? (5/5/2004 11:03:19 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Mogami

Hi, But the History Channel said the Axis lost the war because they failed to take Madagascar. They were supposed to do it after taking Ceylon and Central India. Then It would be easier to support.
The I-400 boats lauch airstrike on the Panama Canal and cut off Allied material for months. Giving time for Japan to mass produce their new jet fighters and bombers.


The history channel forgot to take into account the large navy of Sierra Leone which would have intervened to protect the African continent. Strange how the history books have neglected the vital part Sierra Leone played in the allied victory in WW2.



mogami -> Forgotten Allies (5/5/2004 4:20:32 PM)

Hi, Yes I know the Brazilian Division that fought in Europe is hardly ever mentioned. The Mexican fighter squadron that fought in the Pacific gets few parades.



mdiehl -> RE: Forgotten Allies (5/5/2004 6:19:59 PM)

Listen, there's no way the Axis could have done ANYTHING in Madagascar even if all of the Allied powers had been nuked into the stone age and gone to JC in a chicken basket. For the same reason that the French were ultimately driven out of Madagascar. The LEMUR brigade. Man, those four pound primates are tops at Night Ops. They's f@ck with your supply dumps, rifles, women, infest your bed with insect parasites, and disappear invisibly into the jungle come the crack of dawn.



ladner -> RE: Russians/Manchuria - Impact? (5/6/2004 12:40:59 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

This is a relatively silly observation. Henderson field was certainly useful in the campaign
around Guadalcanal---but it wasn't a "base" as in "base of operations". Everything used
on Guadalcanal had to be (and was) brought in from outside. Now if you look at the
location of Madagascar in relation to any possible "base of operations" that could be used
to support Axis Units based there, you will notice several thousand intervening miles of
Allied disputed or controlled Ocean. Gudalcanal was a logistical nightmare for both sides
(especially the Japanese), and it was only a few hundred miles from relatively secure
bases. Madagascar is a logistical "pipedream" for the Axis. It might work in "never-never
land", but it won't happen in the real world.



What part of the following did you not read?


quote:

ORIGINAL: ladner

mdiehl - I agree with you, Japan trying to secure Madagascar as an Axis base, while at war with the United States would have been a stretch and borders on the realm of fantasy. <SNIP>


First off the whole intent of my first post was to quote Yamashita, who according to the program stated in his own words that the Imperial Japanese Army was not ready for war with Russia and need to modernize. Second, I was hoping beyond hope that someone from 2by3 Games may actually read this thread and note the interest in a global WWII simulation using the WiTP engine and allow wargamers the oportunity to try such far fetched scenarios as invading Madagascar by creating such a game (my own 'pipe dream').

My remark about Guadalcanal was to illustrate that the Diego Suarez, the capital of Madagascar had greater infrasturcture than Lunga. But if we are going to define 'base of operations' as an area with self sustaining supply or a minimal logistics tail, well that is a different story entirely and I did not draw that context from your remarks to my first post.



joliverlay -> RE: Russians/Manchuria - Impact? (5/6/2004 2:24:17 AM)

Regarding Japanese supply efforts. While it is true that they went to war to obtain strategic supplies from the SRA, it is not at all true that they were realistic about what they could hope to obtain. Sometimes it was bad luck, or lack of information, but at other times it was simply poor planning. There are instances in which the strategic air folks planning the economic campain actually asked that raids on Japanese installations in the SRA be stopped. It seems that completion of the facilities would acutally have benefited the allies because the resources necessary to obtain the new resources were actually hurting their overall war effort. Sometimes the problem was the long time to economic break even, sometimes it was the realization that the materials being produced could not be shipped without construction of added shipping which would then consume more resources than would be collected.



byron13 -> RE: Russians/Manchuria - Impact? (5/7/2004 4:15:15 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Mogami
Don't move transport ships empty.
establish a relay system for transport.
I use the bases with repair yards as relay stations.

SRA to Home Island relay
Establish weekly output of base. Send enough ships to load weekly out put long enough for round trip.
First TF loads Palembang moves cargo to Singapore (base with both industry and repair yard to maintain transports)
Second TF loads Singapore moves to Hong Kong (base with both industry and repair yard to maintain transports.)
Third TF loads Hong Kong moves to Osaka (main Japanese supply base)

Any cargo needing transport from Home Islands in direction of Hong Kong, Singapore loads on TF for return trip.

Once system running there should always be a TF going to and from each relay base.
and a third loading at production centers.


What benefit does the relay system provide? Why not ship straight from the SRA to Japan? Why isn't this just long shipping simply chopped up into smaller stages?

Also, someone had asked about the spoilage rule. I remember it was discussed about a year ago. How does it work? Does stuff only waste when it is at a base smaller than a certain size? Or is waste a factor when it is in excess of a certain amount related to the base size, e.g., base size times 1000?



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