Nemo121
Posts: 5821
Joined: 2/6/2004
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Bklooste,
The problem with doing as you suggest: 1 - Marcus, 2 Ponape, Gilberts etc is that going for Marcus first will pretty much draw his forces closer to Ponape and Gilberts and actually DRAW the enemy towards the second phase guaranteeing stronger resistance and lessening the chances of success.
Diversionary operations usually work best if they draw the enemy main force AWAY from the critical point and less well if they draw the enemy force towards the critical point at the critical time.
As to KB moving into this area... Well if KB does move into my AO before I'm ready for it I can suspend the operation, pull back and fade away as a curtain does before a punch. Long after the boxer is tired out the curtain stills billows back and forth. As I recently said in an email to someone else, Plans are not immutable, they merely form a commonly understood basis for improvisation. Their main value lies in setting down the commander's intent such that the individual improvisations at a lower level tend to further the overall goal.
If KB moves into the area and makes this plan unfeasible then I'll simply come up with something else to take advantage of that move. It's all good. I've found that while its nice to have a plan of what you generally want to happen one of the worst things which can happen is becoming too wedded to the plan. When that happens you have situations where the failure to enact the plan becomes failure in the mind of the commander. This is utter BS. Failure is determined not by ticking boxes on a plan but by whether or not you achieve important strategic objectives. There are at least two ongoing AARs in which the overall objective has been achieved but because it hasn't been achieved according to the plan the players involved feel they've suffered a major defeat ( when they've actually achieved their strategic objectives ).
Hartwig,
Excellent points. I find it surprising it has taken someone 111 posts to query the basic assumptions underlying my strategy. I might, after all, have gotten the economics assessment completely wrong and be betting on a dead end  .
Here's my basic calculus:
1 Oil centre makes 10 Oil Points.
1 Refinery Centre + 10 Oil Point ( 1 OIL Centre ) = 9 Fuel point and 1 Supply point.
So, basically, 1 OIL + 1 REFINERY = 9 tons fuel and 1 ton supply per day.
1 HI centre + 2 tons fuel + 20 resource point ( produce of 1 resource centre ) = 2 HI points + 2 tons supply.
Light Industry only creates supply.
So, my targets are OIL + REFINERY as those are two inputs which will most impact FUEL and HI production. Supply production is just not something I can cripple quite yet with my limited forces.
At the start of the game Japan has 305 OIL centres, 1135 REFINERY Centres and 7,180 HVY INDUSTRY Centres.
So at the start of the game 305 OIL CENTRES combine with 305 REFINERY CENTRES to produce 2,745 tons of fuel and 305 tons of supply per day ( we'll forget about the supplies now as we'll assume Japan will always over-produce supplies ).
Japan has 7,180 HVY INDUSTRY CENTRES and 2,745 tons of fuel per day. This 2,745 tons of fuel is sufficient to run only `1,372 HI CENTRES. These 1,372 HI CENTRES will create 2,744 HI Points... To put this another way without external OIL Japan's HI will function at only 19% efficiency.
To get the other 81% of their HI they need to rob their Fuel and Oil reserves but once those run out they're going to have a shortfall.
What will this shortfall be? 81% of ( 7,180 x 2 ) which = a need for 11,632 tons of fuel PER DAY to run their HI at full efficiency.
So, to create 11,632 tons of fuel per day they will need how many refineries matched with sufficient OIL? Answer: 1,293 REFINERY Centres. But we know they have lots of idle Refineries in Japan... in fact they have (1135-305) = 830 Refinery Centres. That means they have a shortfall of 463 Refinery Centres converting OIL into fuel in order to have their HI work at full power.
So, where can they find these Refineries?
1. Borneo has 540 Refineries.
2. Java has 70 Refineries.
3. Sumatra outside Palembang has 200 Refineries.
4. Palembang has 1,020 Refineries.
To be frank, a bit of damage on capture plus a good carrier raid or two into southern Borneo or from the west coast of Sumatra aimed at Medan should do a good job of reducing those refineries quite nicely. Outside of Palembang they have a maximum of 810 Refineries. Even if less than half are damaged the Japanese will do very well to capture enough undamaged to maintain their war economy at its current size ---- and that simply isn't good enough anyways, they need to be able to expand. To expand their war economy they need to capture Palembang or they need to build costly new refineries in the Home Islands.
If we look at OIL the picture is even grimmer. They need 830 OIL CENTRES to match the existing Refineries they own in order to produce enough fuel for their HI and Navy. So, where could they get 830 OIL Centres? Well, Borneo would yield 640, Java would yield another 360 and Medan ( mainly ) would yield 500. The big prize, again, is Palembang. While the DEI outside of Palembang could generate a hypothetical 1,500 OIL Centres that doesn't take into account damage during conquest. 50% damage to non-Palembang oil centres means Palembang is necessary to maintain current production levels. Even without this 50% damage Palembang is pretty much essential if one wishes to expand Japanese production massively in order to be able to withstand attritional ground warfare.
I've seen players talk about the folly of a ground war in India and Oz and I shake my head... They are utterly missing the point.... They are assuming that Japan can't stomach such attrition. An undamaged Palembang generates 9000 OIL POints per day which can be turned into 8,100 tons of fuel and 900 tons of supply per day. That 8,100 tons of fuel can fuel an entire strategic direction of the IJN/IJA ( either the assault on Oz or India ) or, if you have enough fuel from other sources be shipped home to fuel a massive further expansion of HI from 14,360 HI per turn to 18,400 HI. I suggest that being able to expand HI by an additional 30% or so and committing that HI to producing ground forces would enable the Japanese to probably double their production of vehicles and other army materiel ( assuming a 1/3rd, 1/3rd, 1/3rd split between the Army, Navy and Aerial Forces originally ). Such a committment would enable Japan to withstand TWICE the loss rate it would normally have been able to withstand. A doubling of its sustainable loss rate would, I suggest, irretrievably destroy any Allied strategy to attrit the IJA in Oz or India.
So, Palembang is important. Without it and with luck Japan can still just about meet the needs of its HI. With it Japan has breathing space and the opportunity to allocate resources, HI etc to increase production and allocate that production in order to follow an over-arching strategic plan. Now I happen to think most people won't view it that way and will, instead, waste Palembang's fuel, oil etc to just ease their current operations but the potential for truly decisive strategic usage IS present.
As to whether or not he'll leave Southern Sumatra alone...
If he leaves Southern Sumatra alone I'll continue reinforcing it with troops and planes and will begin bombing Java and northern Borneo. It will also force him to base the Combined Fleet's battleline back in Hong Kong or the Phillipines. It would also act as a raiding base for CLs and DDs hitting Kuching and Javan ports. Sure he would commit his own fleet to these battles but, in the long run, such naval attrition would decisively favour the Allies.
If he doesn't take Southern Sumatra he can't take advantage of the 250 OIL and 200 REFINERIES north of Southern Sumatra in northern Sumatra. Additionally he'll guarantee himself the need to put a huge garrison in Java to prevent me retaking it and doing the same work against the Southern Borneo bases as I would do against the northern Borneon bases.
So, if he leaves Southern Sumatra alone he might as well not take Malaysia or northern Borneo. In addition he'd suffer significant losses to strategic bombing of his OIL centres and a few AS in CAPed bases would give me a potent sub base within a couple of hundred miles of all his major tanker routes.
No, he HAS to take Southern Sumatra or he might as well resign.
As to his failure to intervene against the evacuations. Well he did commit a half-dozen SS to it and also a BB-centred TF. Turning that BB back with a torpedo hit cost me 2 CAs and a CL as well as multiple DDs. Normally a BB in those waters would have utterly destroyed most of those little TFs. I think his major error was just getting so enamoured with the Nell and Betty bombing of ground troops in the Phillipines. I thought all of the Bettys were there but it appears he kept at least 40 at Kuantan with a view to interfering with my evacuation.
Of course even though I didn't see any Bettys hitting my shipping I kept LRCAPing from Palembang and sacrificed two squadrons of the AVG to the air war over Singapore in order to keep those ships safe. At present the AVG is almost ruined. Its ruination was the price I paid for getting those troops out - right now I have 993 AV at Palembang and some 1200 AV at Oosthaven. Smaller forces are scattered through the other bases and Benkoenen will get a few Bdes worth of troops also. I have a few Armoured Bns in Southern Sumatra also and they will take up a central position from which they can move to any of the three possible landing sites within 2 days and add their immense defensive firepower to the defences.
As to the possibility that he is allowing me to evacuate to Palembang in order to win Singapore more easily... Possibly, but if that's his plan then it is a truly atrocious one. Singapore isn't the logistical fulcrum that Palembang is. If he let me escape ( which I don't think he did when you take into account the Bettys he had on naval attack which my LRCAP and CAP missions seemed to have dissuaded and the BB he committed to surface intercept action ) then its a major error on his part IMO.
As to accelerating the fall of Borneo etc... Well, he always knew the strength of my bases in Borneo etc so he could be sure to commit just enough force to overwhelm each base. Right now he lands and takes the base the next turn. Given Dutch experience of 20 and Forts of 1 or 2 I don't think that keeping them in those widely separate bases at the strengths he already knew of would actually yield any bases which survived the first assault. As such I think evacuating those bases doesn't accelerate their fall by a single day. I always leave cadres behind ( 1 or 2 squads ) so that if he air recons he still sees 2 units there and MUST assume that's the one base i haven't evacuated
Right now I'm beginning to look at the forces streaming north into Darwin and all the TKs and AKs shipping stuff from Java to Darwin ( fuel and supplies ) and beginning to think about buying a few Australian Bdes out and sending them to Ambon, Kendari and Timor in order to mess with him. I have a minor operation underway at the moment with Force Z to try and make him more cautious around Southern Borneo and slow him down a little to give me the option of committing these forces north. It might be nice to pincer his southern Borneon/Javan forces between a ring of strengthening Aussie bases in the south and a firmly held, self-sustaining Southern Sumatra in the north.
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RE: Encirclement is a state of mind... - 
. My initial gut reaction, however, was that you're contemplating reinforcing the Solomon Islands. 
Nope, still to tired. G'night again 
.
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... While i dont think his initial response to Gilberts will be affected by Marcus ( since Marcus can be done with minor forces it will be almost simultanious) it will increase his medium term comitment which is part of the plan. You then force a more significant show down in the Gilberts which will be on your terms/ ground ( so you get more pilots back etc) , he also wastes a LOT of fleet oil which goes well with the Sumatra strategy. You also move KB and his other assets away from where Phase 3 will be , i suspect phase 3 will be more an attack of oportunity , maybe Malaysia , maybe a carrier strike on Borneo. I would probably take Ponape OR Marcus ( not both) and then the Gilberts a few days later. 
). 
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