RE: Was an invasion of India ever really possible?

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All Forums >> [Current Games From Matrix.] >> [World War II] >> War In The Pacific - Struggle Against Japan 1941 - 1945 >> RE: Was an invasion of India ever really possible?

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RE: Was an invasion of India ever really possible? - 7/19/2008 5:56:59 PM

Adnan Meshuggi

Posts: 2220
Joined: 8/2/2001
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who feels not like jwilkerson?

nobody?

couldn�t agree more to him in this case

_____________________________

Don't tickle yourself with some moralist crap thinking we have some sort of obligation to help these people. We're there for our self-interest, and anything we do to be 'nice' should be considered a courtesy dweebespit

(in reply to jwilkerson)

Post #: 91

RE: Was an invasion of India ever really possible? - 7/19/2008 6:33:45 PM

Mike Scholl

Posts: 9349
Joined: 1/1/2003
From: Kansas City, MO
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Adnan Meshuggi

mike,

the question is, what is impossible?
You think, invading india is impossible.
If we take the situation in dec 1941, i agree.
BUT - if we have a game like witp, we could also say, that the japanese are ready to take out the brits to free troops in the pacific. This does not include 10 new divisions, 10 new supercarriers or 50 new destroyers. (That would be "risk")

But - and this should be possible - the player can try to conquer india and at last a chance to be sucsessfull should be in the game.

I didn't say invading India was "impossible". I said a SUCCESSFULL invasion of India was impossible for the Japanese in World War Two (though not in the game, WITP). The game, as released, is full of nonsense, OB errors, and lack of historic demands on assets.

For instance, if you look closely at the Japanese Garrisons in the Pacific Islands in the game you will find double and tripple representations of the same historic units. Once as a Brigade or Regiment, and again as it's constituant pieces. Check it out.

In the real war, the IJN didn't have enough aircrews to man the aircraft it actually had on 12/07/41. Look for that in the game. And the 10,000,000 tons of shipping that the Japanese Empire was using to capacity on 12/06/41 dropped to 6,500,000 on 12/07/41 when the war began and all the foriegn shipping thay had under contract (close to 4,000,000 tons) quit (Most going over to the Allies, but about 500,000 tons being captured by the Japanese). Add that to the amount being sucked up (and never returned) by the IJN and the IJA and you will find that an economy that needed 10,000,000 tons of shipping to function in the summer of 1941 wound up with less than 4,000,000 tons to function with in the Spring of 1942.

Historically, the IJA was willing to go along with siezing and protecting the SRA, but only to sieze the resources necessaty to get back to it's primary mission of trying to defeat the Chinese and prepare for war with Russia. They expected to get a fair portion of the 10 divisions detailed for these conquests back, and not to have to come up with additional divisions for any of the IJN's pet schemes. The game not only allows you to be the IJN and the IJA and run the Japanese economy (historic nonsense); it allows the Japanese to over-run China (something they'd been trying to do since 1937 and having little to no success at since 1939) and as AAR's have shown, defeat the Soviet Union. Right! They had done SO WELL against the Russians in 1939 and 1941 during the border clashes that obviously the game is totally historical in this regard... More nonsense.

What I said was that IRL much of what is "possible" in the game wasn't. And to talk about what you can do in the game as if it were actually possible in reality is to insult the real-life Japanese commanders. They may have deluded themselves about many things..., but don't you think if it were REALLY POSSIBLE to finish off the China War in 6 months they would have done so in 1940 BEFORE tackling the rest of the world???? Are we to assume Japanese Leadership were a bunch of collossal morons? Or that the game's designers "got it wrong"? I'm going to go with choice #2.

(in reply to Adnan Meshuggi)

Post #: 92

RE: Was an invasion of India ever really possible? - 7/19/2008 7:12:56 PM

pasternakski

Posts: 6565
Joined: 6/29/2002
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Adnan Meshuggi

well - some certain posters (who never played the game) are really difficult. The best thing is the green button. So the mdhiel-free-zone is established.

what a wonderful world

Look - the whole idea here is to lay off the personal commentary and get back to discussing game-related subjects, okay? So knock it off, those of you looking for a convenient excuse to attack somebody.

_____________________________

Put my faith in the people
And the people let me down.
So, I turned the other way,
And I carry on anyhow.

(in reply to Adnan Meshuggi)

Post #: 93

RE: Was an invasion of India ever really possible? - 7/19/2008 7:20:00 PM

pasternakski

Posts: 6565
Joined: 6/29/2002
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quote:

ORIGINAL: jwilkerson

quote:

ORIGINAL: pasternakski
And what level is that? Posturing yourself as superior to someone because you don't like his style of posting?

Exactly!

Now, we're talkin' business! I'm done with the grumpies now. Time to get back to talking about games and being my usual, friendly self (in between episodes when I get one caught crossways).

Really, I don't think there's a lot of difference in the positions being posted on this subject, I just think it's a matter of emphasis. Everyone seems to realize the extreme difficulty Japan would have faced in mounting a major expedition against India with the idea of capturing and holding the place. Some think that the game should restrict Japanese resources to the degree of making such an adventure impossible against all but the most moronic of opponents (does the acronym AI ring a bell here?) and some think that a more "freewheeling" approach is more appropriate, allowing for a broader range of "what ifs" than others think should be possible.

I agree with the former position. I think the game is already too much like what those endorsing the latter one. I don't want AE to continue that, which I believe to be a design error.

But, who am I? If we disagree, there's not much that we can do about it but move on. Nuff said on this thread by me. I don't want to stir up any trouble.

_____________________________

Put my faith in the people
And the people let me down.
So, I turned the other way,
And I carry on anyhow.

(in reply to jwilkerson)

Post #: 94

RE: Was an invasion of India ever really possible? - 7/19/2008 7:37:38 PM

Kereguelen

Posts: 1829
Joined: 5/13/2004
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Adnan Meshuggi

So, with the game starts an december 1941 it should be possible for the japanese player to invade and conquer india - the price he has to pay should be higher as it is in the moment. But - knowing that the brits were hated by the indians, the support for the brits would be low. For the japanese in the game this should mean a 6 Month-delay of revolution, but after that, the indian get upset and kick british AND japanese a$$es all other india. So, an allied indian division turn hostile to the brits, if not at last twice the british troops are there.

Considering that the British were able to raise the largest all volunteer army the world had ever known in India (in August 1945 the Indian Army had expanded to over 2 million soldiers - all of them volunteers) and that the Indian Army always remained loyal, your scenario seems a little bit unrealistic.

(in reply to Adnan Meshuggi)

Post #: 95

RE: Was an invasion of India ever really possible? - 7/19/2008 7:49:20 PM

castor troy

Posts: 14330
Joined: 8/23/2004
From: Austria
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

quote:

ORIGINAL: Adnan Meshuggi

mike,

the question is, what is impossible?
You think, invading india is impossible.
If we take the situation in dec 1941, i agree.
BUT - if we have a game like witp, we could also say, that the japanese are ready to take out the brits to free troops in the pacific. This does not include 10 new divisions, 10 new supercarriers or 50 new destroyers. (That would be "risk")

But - and this should be possible - the player can try to conquer india and at last a chance to be sucsessfull should be in the game.

I didn't say invading India was "impossible". I said a SUCCESSFULL invasion of India was impossible for the Japanese in World War Two (though not in the game, WITP). The game, as released, is full of nonsense, OB errors, and lack of historic demands on assets.

For instance, if you look closely at the Japanese Garrisons in the Pacific Islands in the game you will find double and tripple representations of the same historic units. Once as a Brigade or Regiment, and again as it's constituant pieces. Check it out.

In the real war, the IJN didn't have enough aircrews to man the aircraft it actually had on 12/07/41. Look for that in the game. And the 10,000,000 tons of shipping that the Japanese Empire was using to capacity on 12/06/41 dropped to 6,500,000 on 12/07/41 when the war began and all the foriegn shipping thay had under contract (close to 4,000,000 tons) quit (Most going over to the Allies, but about 500,000 tons being captured by the Japanese). Add that to the amount being sucked up (and never returned) by the IJN and the IJA and you will find that an economy that needed 10,000,000 tons of shipping to function in the summer of 1941 wound up with less than 4,000,000 tons to function with in the Spring of 1942.

Historically, the IJA was willing to go along with siezing and protecting the SRA, but only to sieze the resources necessaty to get back to it's primary mission of trying to defeat the Chinese and prepare for war with Russia. They expected to get a fair portion of the 10 divisions detailed for these conquests back, and not to have to come up with additional divisions for any of the IJN's pet schemes. The game not only allows you to be the IJN and the IJA and run the Japanese economy (historic nonsense); it allows the Japanese to over-run China (something they'd been trying to do since 1937 and having little to no success at since 1939) and as AAR's have shown, defeat the Soviet Union. Right! They had done SO WELL against the Russians in 1939 and 1941 during the border clashes that obviously the game is totally historical in this regard... More nonsense.

What I said was that IRL much of what is "possible" in the game wasn't. And to talk about what you can do in the game as if it were actually possible in reality is to insult the real-life Japanese commanders. They may have deluded themselves about many things..., but don't you think if it were REALLY POSSIBLE to finish off the China War in 6 months they would have done so in 1940 BEFORE tackling the rest of the world???? Are we to assume Japanese Leadership were a bunch of collossal morons? Or that the game's designers "got it wrong"? I'm going to go with choice #2.

I agree 98% here. What we see in AARs and what people "can" achieve with the Japanese is far from what the Japanese Empire was able to do in real life. But much comes down to the players also. A couple of mistakes (perhaps only one or two) and you lose "places" like China, or Russia, or India or Australia. Would the Japanese side be reduced to something that is not able to achieve what people report in their AARs then it would probably go the other side around. US divisions marching through Tokyo in early 43. Even with the TOTALLY ahistoric, impossible to achieve in real life conquers we see in a couple of AARs (for sure the most AARs are not ones where we see China, India, Russia and Australia fall) in most cases, by the end of 44 or early 45, the Allied are knocking on Japans door.

< Message edited by castor troy -- 7/19/2008 7:50:59 PM >

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(in reply to Mike Scholl)

Post #: 96

RE: Was an invasion of India ever really possible? - 7/19/2008 7:57:09 PM

Mike Scholl

Posts: 9349
Joined: 1/1/2003
From: Kansas City, MO
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: castor troy
I agree 98% here. What we see in AARs and what people "can" achieve with the Japanese is far from what the Japanese Empire was able to do in real life. But much comes down to the players also. A couple of mistakes (perhaps only one or two) and you lose "places" like China, or Russia, or India or Australia. Would the Japanese side be reduced to something that is not able to achieve what people report in their AARs then it would probably go the other side around. US divisions marching through Tokyo in early 43. Even with the TOTALLY ahistoric, impossible to achieve in real life conquers we see in a couple of AARs (for sure the most AARs are not ones where we see China, India, Russia and Australia fall) in most cases, by the end of 44 or early 45, the Allied are knocking on Japans door.

Do you honestly believe the historic Chinese or Russian or British or American or Japanese leadership didn't make more than "a couple of mistakes" during WW II? It would take virtual collusion in the real world to create some of the events possible in the game. And I am not maintaining that all of the designers errors help only the Japanese. Some of what I've seen on the Allied side of AAR's is pretty far-fetched as well.

(in reply to castor troy)

Post #: 97

RE: Was an invasion of India ever really possible? - 7/19/2008 10:05:23 PM

Adnan Meshuggi

Posts: 2220
Joined: 8/2/2001
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well the question is, what thought the other 450 millions?

sure, all is about what-if, but the panic of the british leaders was real. And - knowing the facts in hindsight - for real.
If we speak about the hypotetic chance of conquering india, i would say "yes". And the fact (2 mio indian soldiers) mean nothing to this. How many indian soldiers would change sides (to the indian liberation army) if the indian leaders decide to kick out the brits?

after all, it is a what-if.

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Post #: 98

RE: Was an invasion of India ever really possible? - 7/19/2008 10:11:54 PM

Adnan Meshuggi

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Joined: 8/2/2001
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quote:

ORIGINAL: pasternakski

quote:

ORIGINAL: Adnan Meshuggi

well - some certain posters (who never played the game) are really difficult. The best thing is the green button. So the mdhiel-free-zone is established.

what a wonderful world

Look - the whole idea here is to lay off the personal commentary and get back to discussing game-related subjects, okay? So knock it off, those of you looking for a convenient excuse to attack somebody.

Well, you are right. But if you meet a person who is only interested in "how great am i"-bs, the honest opinion about such people (who never played this game in the last 4 years...) is that they are the lowest thing on earth.

They put their garbage in the game-threads about how superior the p40 was, that it killed 2 mio japanese fighters with no losses, or why at midway the americans with one single bomb should have sunk 300 japanese ships... this leads to some certain reactions.

Here, we speak about a possibility, with hindsight. And how this could affect the game. And nearly all people are able to discuss and respect the opinion of other posters... but some people - they even do not play the game - speak about the game and want to change it, so it suits to their ill attitude.

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Post #: 99

RE: Was an invasion of India ever really possible? - 7/19/2008 10:16:07 PM

pasternakski

Posts: 6565
Joined: 6/29/2002
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[well, I tried]

_____________________________

Put my faith in the people
And the people let me down.
So, I turned the other way,
And I carry on anyhow.

(in reply to Adnan Meshuggi)

Post #: 100

RE: Was an invasion of India ever really possible? - 7/19/2008 10:21:30 PM

Heeward

Posts: 343
Joined: 1/27/2003
From: Lacey Washington
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Maybe I was a bit subtle in my post.

I believe Japan could invade India in the May / August of 1942 window but only as a raid or at best a occupation of Assam. They were incapable in logistically sustaining them selves in India.

I believe the IJA could have pushed through the monsoon right after the conquest of Burma with consolidating. This would have wrecked the IJA in the theater, but the political value would have been worth it.

The IJA has superman / jungle fighter myth still going for them, with the British Army this may have lasted into 1944 despite the (mis)adventures of the Chindits. Britain was incapable of successful fighting in this environment (Burma Jungle) until 1944, and using the early part of the Imphal / Kohima campaign of 1944 and the Arkan battles of 1943 as an example.
I am glad of the additional discussion my prior post has brought about

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Post #: 101

RE: Was an invasion of India ever really possible? - 7/20/2008 1:36:14 AM

castor troy

Posts: 14330
Joined: 8/23/2004
From: Austria
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

quote:

ORIGINAL: castor troy
I agree 98% here. What we see in AARs and what people "can" achieve with the Japanese is far from what the Japanese Empire was able to do in real life. But much comes down to the players also. A couple of mistakes (perhaps only one or two) and you lose "places" like China, or Russia, or India or Australia. Would the Japanese side be reduced to something that is not able to achieve what people report in their AARs then it would probably go the other side around. US divisions marching through Tokyo in early 43. Even with the TOTALLY ahistoric, impossible to achieve in real life conquers we see in a couple of AARs (for sure the most AARs are not ones where we see China, India, Russia and Australia fall) in most cases, by the end of 44 or early 45, the Allied are knocking on Japans door.

Do you honestly believe the historic Chinese or Russian or British or American or Japanese leadership didn't make more than "a couple of mistakes" during WW II? It would take virtual collusion in the real world to create some of the events possible in the game. And I am not maintaining that all of the designers errors help only the Japanese. Some of what I've seen on the Allied side of AAR's is pretty far-fetched as well.

they made a dozen mistakes. A hundred mistakes? Depends on the scope of command. The problem is here, that there�s only one person in command of the whole theatre. And if this person makes one or two or three mistakes it leads to the loss of the whole country, no matter if India, China or Russia.

It may sound exagerated, but it takes a far better Japanese player to be in a better position against me as the Allied player in 44 than vice versa. And I�m playing far more games as the Japanese. So in fact, if the Allied player knows what he�s doing, he has no problems to take care of the Japanese in stock, BigB or Nikmod. I�ve never tried CHS or RHS though. The Allied player did make a LOT more mistakes than the Japanese if he�s not able to advance big style in mid 43-45.

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Post #: 102

RE: Was an invasion of India ever really possible? - 7/20/2008 2:23:15 AM

Mike Scholl

Posts: 9349
Joined: 1/1/2003
From: Kansas City, MO
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: castor troy
It may sound exagerated, but it takes a far better Japanese player to be in a better position against me as the Allied player in 44 than vice versa. And I�m playing far more games as the Japanese. So in fact, if the Allied player knows what he�s doing, he has no problems to take care of the Japanese in stock, BigB or Nikmod. I�ve never tried CHS or RHS though. The Allied player did make a LOT more mistakes than the Japanese if he�s not able to advance big style in mid 43-45.

You seem to have more experiance than I do in head-to-head play.., so I certainly won't argue the conclusion above with you. Fact is that I wouldn't have anyway.., because overall in the game the Allies are more able to make use of "hindsight" than the Japanese simply because they have more to make use of it with. And in most of the versions you seem to have played, they too benefit from design errors (like the super-abundance of B-17's from stock),

But remember the original question. "Could the Japanese have conquered India IRL?" On that I think we can both agree that the answer is NO.

(in reply to castor troy)

Post #: 103

RE: Was an invasion of India ever really possible? - 7/20/2008 2:35:39 AM

JWE

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Question for Joe � but everybody else feel free to pile on; know nothing about this, so I�m a good target.

Was thinking about a sentence in Evans & Peattie (Kaigun, USNI Press, 1997) in Reflections on the IJN, page 511. �At its worst the martial spirit led to an arrogance that ignored or discounted enemy capabilities, to an unfounded confidence that than the enemy would act or react as the Japanese expected, and to a blindness to material realities that bordered on the irrational.�

I too believe the entire decision for war was irrational, from start to finish. Given this, isn�t it possible that militant irrationality might have overcome practical voices in IJAGHQ? Yes, the martial �soul� was directed to Russia, but, in the heat of the �moment�, irrational people make irrational decisions for immediate gratification.

If the opportunity opened, and they couldn�t get a good tee time on the links that day, maybe they just might have gone for it, in one form or another ??

(in reply to jwilkerson)

Post #: 104

RE: Was an invasion of India ever really possible? - 7/20/2008 3:39:15 AM

Nikademus

Posts: 25684
Joined: 5/27/2000
From: Alien spacecraft
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quote:

ORIGINAL: JWE

Question for Joe � but everybody else feel free to pile on; know nothing about this, so I�m a good target.

Was thinking about a sentence in Evans & Peattie (Kaigun, USNI Press, 1997) in Reflections on the IJN, page 511. �At its worst the martial spirit led to an arrogance that ignored or discounted enemy capabilities, to an unfounded confidence that than the enemy would act or react as the Japanese expected, and to a blindness to material realities that bordered on the irrational.�

I too believe the entire decision for war was irrational, from start to finish. Given this, isn�t it possible that militant irrationality might have overcome practical voices in IJAGHQ? Yes, the martial �soul� was directed to Russia, but, in the heat of the �moment�, irrational people make irrational decisions for immediate gratification.

If the opportunity opened, and they couldn�t get a good tee time on the links that day, maybe they just might have gone for it, in one form or another ??

IMHO, any tendancy for higher Japanese commanders to underestimate enemy capabilities and intentions would not have overridden the IJA's desire to not be led around the nose by the Navy that might lead to a major commitment on their part. At least two of the books i've read have suggested that the Army's tendancy to claim "inadequate shipping resources" was at times a convenient excuse to veto such ideas from the Navy. (yet at the tail end of the Lunga campaign the Army seemed to finally wake up to the threat posed and suddenly the resources magically appeared to mass a considerable amount of troops) The Army, as Joe mentioned previously, had it's own agenda and set enemies and didn't want to get overstretched unless it benefited them directly. Russia, despite their strict adherence to the non aggression pact, remained a primary IJA obcession. Some elements did warm to the idea of a Hawaii invasion but thats a far cry from the investment needed towards either India and Oz in even a limited campaign as most envsion in this scenario.

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Post #: 105

RE: Was an invasion of India ever really possible? - 7/20/2008 3:43:01 AM

JWE

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Fair enough. Can definitely understand that.

You are a lot smarter than you look, behind that fence. Ciao.

(in reply to Nikademus)

Post #: 106

RE: Was an invasion of India ever really possible? - 7/20/2008 4:42:05 AM

pasternakski

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quote:

ORIGINAL: JWE

Fair enough. Can definitely understand that.

You are a lot smarter than you look, behind that fence. Ciao.

No, he's not. In fact, the dawg looks pretty intelligent by comparison to this hamsterhead.

One thing that emerges from study of Japanese high command in World War II is a degree of hesitancy and caution that one would not expect from just relying on general understanding (notwithstanding a lot of operational and tactical bravery and brilliance).

Even when this tendency was overcome, those in charge (even the brilliant Yamamoto) of operations would complicate (or permit complication of) plans with contingencies, redundancies, diversions, and reservations that often almost doomed the undertaking before it was even executed.

Midway is a perfect example. There was no firm pre-war intention to take Midway. It was outside the defensible perimeter that was to be set up against American counterattack. It was the Tokyo strike by Doolittle and company that prompted a more aggressive stance in the high command and formulation of the Midway adventure.

I don't want to go on at essay length, but the Midway operation was such a dissipation of resources that its failure was more something to be expected than it was any "miracle" for the Americans. Yes, a lot went wrong, but how much of that can be seen as having been made possible, with benefit of hindsight, in the shortcomings of Japanese strategic planning? For example, to what degree can you make strategic success dependent on a dozen or so shipborne naval search aircraft? Historical events depict the fallacy inherent in this element of planning.

There are many other examples, but I am getting wordy here (sorry). When this tendency is combined with the already-chronicled overconfidence, lack of inter-service trust and cooperation, and elsewhere-detailed shortage of men and materiel that hamstrung Japanese expansion from the very beginning of the war, is there any wonder that the eventual end was only a matter of living until the actual date of surrender established itself?

The way I see it, a Japanese move into India might have been as big a disaster as any that could even remotely be imagined to have visited itself on Japanese arms in this period.

Might have been...

_____________________________

Put my faith in the people
And the people let me down.
So, I turned the other way,
And I carry on anyhow.

(in reply to JWE)

Post #: 107

RE: Was an invasion of India ever really possible? - 7/20/2008 7:28:42 PM

jwilkerson

Posts: 10525
Joined: 9/15/2002
From: Kansas
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quote:

ORIGINAL: JWE

Question for Joe ...

... the martial spirit led to an arrogance that ignored or discounted enemy capabilities ...

... maybe they just might have gone for it, in one form or another ??

As always, the devil is in the details. A read of Coox's Nomonhan (which Nik and I recently read/re-read) shows an interesting picture of the Japanese Army's command structure during 1939. At the comany and battalion command levels, you have an abundance of aggreesion, but we also see prgamatism and an occasional overly agreessive nut (like the recon commander). At the regimental level we see perhaps the greatest variation. Some folks being what I would characterize as solid, aggresive infantry commanders, with an occasional incompetant. The specialist commanders, like Engineers and Artillery seem to show much more consistency and a much more solid grounding in terms of what is possible and what is not. Both the senior engineering officer and the assistant (who was effectively the real Arty cdr) to the senior artillery officer raise a number of issues and suggest a number of alternative courses of action, that were far more reality based than the courses their supperiors wound up adopting. I was surprisingly impressed by the technical officers reality base.

The senior commanders (Division and above), do reflect perhaps the more sterio-typical "mystical faith" in their troops being able to do the impossible. Though it is not clear from this one detailed study, that we can extrapolate this across the entire Army, we would need more data to do that.

The interesting thing I took away from re-reading Nomonhan was that the Japanese Army had decent, effective tactics, in area of Infantrys and Artillery. Their Armor attack doctrine was very poor, and the results at Nomonhan say all that needs to be said on that point (the Armored brigade was effectively destroyed by its unsupported charge into a Russian combined arms defense). The infanty and artillery however, could have possibly gotten different results, were different decisions made.

The "results" at Nomonhan are considered by even the Japanese, to represent a Japanese defeat. Yet's analysis of both Japanese and Russian casualties figures from the campaign, indicate that losses were almost dead even. Yet the Japanese to not quibble in declaring that they were defeated. One must ponder that their expectations were much higher than getting a "draw" in terms of man power losses.

So, can we say the IJA high command disounted enemy capabilities and hence might have made a somewhat "random" decision (not indicated by the data) to invade India?

Of course anything is possible, but as I have argued in previous posts, the "soul" of the IJA was oriented against Russia and all senior commanders (at least) were embarrassed by the China side show. So no matter who is in power, Tojo or otherwise, the vast bulk of the IJA officer corps will be thinking about Russia first and China second. Their involvement in WITP was "reactive" in the strategic sense. They reacted to IJN requests initially and they reacted to an eventual realization that the nation was threatened by the US counterattacks.

I still believe that on an evaluation of the "intentions" dimension of the IJA invading India that the possibility was epsilon. A number greater than zero, but otherwise smaller than we can estimate.

_____________________________

AE Project Lead
New Game Project Lead

(in reply to JWE)

Post #: 108

RE: Was an invasion of India ever really possible? - 7/20/2008 10:31:05 PM

JWE

Posts: 6580
Joined: 7/19/2005
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quote:

ORIGINAL: jwilkerson
As always, the devil is in the details. <....>

�epsilon� � spoken like a true mathematician.

I too put Alvin Coox in my pantheon of heroes. My Nomonhon is probably as well thumbed and dilapidated as yours. Hey .. you are from CA, did you know there�s an Alvin Coox papers repository in the UCSD library?

Anyway, I was thinking about some of the snippets in the last chapter in Frank, where the irrationality quote came from. Some of the other ones that got my attention went something like � The Japanese did not develop a national policy, only a series of �agreements� between the services as to their objectives of the moment. They did not prepare for �war�, rather they prepared for �battle�. They confused tactics for strategy, and strategy for national policy.

Given this, the little worm in my brain can conceive of an opportunistic �victory disease� based irrationality that says �Ceylon? why not?�; kind of a �moto, moto, moto�, self gratification thingy, and Sugiyama wasn�t exactly known as a �thoughtful� person.

Completely agree that any realistic threat to India/Ceylon would involve desire, intelligence, planning, troops, and transport � none of which the IJA had. I was just thinking in terms of irrationality.

(in reply to jwilkerson)

Post #: 109

RE: Was an invasion of India ever really possible? - 7/20/2008 10:40:39 PM

mdiehl

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Joined: 10/21/2000
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quote:

was more something to be expected than it was any "miracle" for the Americans. Yes, a lot went wrong, but how much of that can be seen as having been made possible, with benefit of hindsight, in the shortcomings of Japanese strategic planning? For example, to what degree can you make strategic success dependent on a dozen or so shipborne naval search aircraft? Historical events depict the fallacy inherent in this element of planning.

Exactly. The really inexcusble part of the Midway operation was that it REQUIRED that the USN do exactly that which was most convenient for the IJN, and when it became apparent that the USN might not be doing that which was required to make the IJN plan a success, they went ahead with MI despite that.

In 1942, EVERYBODY knew that CVs could not linger for long with range of a well established land base if enemy CVs might also be around. It was very well understood that even a few operational strike a.c. could do serious damage to a CV or to invasion transports (and some of the lesson of the importance of that was reindorced by IJN losses in the Java campaign). Japanese operational planners absolutely KNEW that the Midway base had to be rendered inoperational and that they had to do this BEFORE any USN CVs might react. Indeed, the whole reason for seizing Midway was to try to lure the USN into reacting with CVs, forcing these CVs to be used to suppress Japanese units on a captured Midway, thereby allowing the IJN CVs to strike the USN force in the flank.

It was, in effect a "rope a dope" plan. Midway was the rope, and the person trying to seize Midway HAD to pound the dope on the rope, dissipating operational strength and readiness -- hence the requirement that the USN CVs stay away during the critical phase of the invasion.

In the real event, the IJN had losses thrust upon them in EXACTLY the way that they intended to use Midway against the USN. The USN victory at Midway was not only NOT a "miracle," it was in fact the most likely outcome under the circumstances.

The odd thing is that apart from the absence of US CVs in Pearl Harbor on the critical date, the Japanese simply ignored a whole bunch of facts that should have tipped them off that the US knew all about op. MI.

< Message edited by mdiehl -- 7/20/2008 10:41:54 PM >

_____________________________

Show me a fellow who rejects statistical analysis a priori and I'll show you a fellow who has no knowledge of statistics.

Didn't we have this conversation already?

(in reply to Adnan Meshuggi)

Post #: 110

RE: Was an invasion of India ever really possible? - 7/21/2008 11:00:31 AM

Alfred

Posts: 6685
Joined: 9/28/2006
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quote:

ORIGINAL: jwilkerson

The "results" at Nomonhan are considered by even the Japanese, to represent a Japanese defeat. Yet's analysis of both Japanese and Russian casualties figures from the campaign, indicate that losses were almost dead even. Yet the Japanese to not quibble in declaring that they were defeated. One must ponder that their expectations were much higher than getting a "draw" in terms of man power losses.

I would suggest that the Japanese expected a similar success to that enjoyed the previous year against Marshal Blucher. As far as Soviet casualties go, for Zhukov those at Nomonhan would have been considered as being light.

Alfred

(in reply to jwilkerson)

Post #: 111

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