Matrix Games Forums

 Forums  Register  Login  Photo Gallery  Member List  Search  Calendars  FAQ 

My Profile  Inbox  Address Book  My Subscription  My Forums  Log Out

RE: The Pacific (TV Show)

 
View related threads: (in this forum | in all forums)

Logged in as: Guest
Users viewing this topic: none
  Printable Version
All Forums >> [New Releases from Matrix Games] >> War in the Pacific: Admiral's Edition >> RE: The Pacific (TV Show) Page: <<   < prev  4 5 [6] 7 8   next >   >>
Login
Message << Older Topic   Newer Topic >>
RE: The Pacific (TV Show) - 4/8/2010 12:05:36 AM   
John Lansford

 

Posts: 2662
Joined: 4/29/2002
Status: offline 		I expected this one to be slow; after the Melbourne episode, the next one logically would be Cape Gloucester and Pavuvu.  Since the story is being told from the eyes of Leckie and Sledge, and Sledge isn't with the division yet, episode 4 was all Leckie, all the time. 

What's interesting is I'm reading the book "Islands of the Damned" by R.V. Burgin, who was the platoon leader of the mortar team Sledge was in.  He described Sledge as being too dangerous around a mortar to do anything but carry ammo, so that's what he did on Peleliu and Okinawa. 

(in reply to Kwik E Mart)
Post #: 151
RE: The Pacific (TV Show) - 4/8/2010 12:21:03 AM   
witpqs


Posts: 26087
Joined: 10/4/2004
From: Argleton
Status: offline 		Just finished Sledge's With the Old Breed. He tells it differently. Nothing aggrandizing himself, but several accounts of him doing way more with mortars than carrying ammo.

(in reply to John Lansford)
Post #: 152
RE: The Pacific (TV Show) - 4/8/2010 12:54:16 AM   
usersatch

 

Posts: 400
Joined: 6/1/2005
Status: offline 		A brilliant idea to "rest and refit" them on a rat and mosquito infested island! Were they positioned there as a quick reaction force or were transports so scarce they couldn't put them a little southward?

(in reply to witpqs)
Post #: 153
RE: The Pacific (TV Show) - 4/8/2010 5:26:55 PM   
xj900uk

 

Posts: 1340
Joined: 3/22/2007
Status: offline 		Just seen the first (double) eppy on Sky 1, UK. Interesting & thought provoking, not least of which is the unsophisticated nature of the Japanese tactics - ie fix bayonets and charge straight at the USMC positions, especially if they have a heavy mg. The Japanese had better training, gear (ie combat clothing, boots), equipment (special light-weight motars, collapsable/portable light/medium artillery) for jungle fighting than the Allies, yet they couldn't come up with anything better than a good old-fashioned frontal assault at heavily defended positions. That idea didn't work in WWI and it certianly didn't at Guadalcanal, either.
On the other hand, the programme has got this dead right. All the US accoutns of island fighting with the Japanese say that the opposition hardly ever tried anything sophisticated or different, and would often suffer tremendously heavy casualties by repeated almost suicidal fixed-bayonet-type attacks against strongly fortified positions.
All over SE Asia the Japanese would usually use this crude/blunt tactic, it only ever really worked well intially in Burma and the DEI in 41/early 42, where the Dutch and Commonwealth troops would more often than not retreat quickly in something approaching panic long before they ever saw their first Japanese. However, the USMC troops even if not as experienced or as well trained/equiped as their Japanese numbers (at least in '42, training got better with experience over the course of the war) were of a rather different mettle to what the Japanes had encountered before...

(in reply to usersatch)
Post #: 154
RE: The Pacific (TV Show) - 4/8/2010 6:54:45 PM   
usersatch

 

Posts: 400
Joined: 6/1/2005
Status: offline 		As crude as their tactics were, they almost worked in several battles.

You have to give some credit to the Japanese, though. As rigid as their military thinking was, they certainly adapted to what needed to be done as evidenced by the proportional rise in US casualties for all future landings in the Central Pacific.

Scary to think about the possible number of American casualties had the Japanese used tactics similar to ours, or at least something other than human wave attacks as a primary offensive tactic, at Guadalcanal.

(in reply to xj900uk)
Post #: 155
RE: The Pacific (TV Show) - 4/8/2010 7:04:30 PM   
sfbaytf

 

Posts: 1122
Joined: 4/13/2005
Status: offline 		I watched a show recently about the Malay Campaign and it gave alot of credit to the IJAs use of bicycles, flanking tactics and ability to cross obsticles like rivers quickly using primative methods. I would guess like any army, much depended on he skill and imagination of their leaders and ability to adapt. If at Guadalcanal the Japanes were lead by the same leader that ran the Malay Campaign-Gen Yamishita would they have used the same frontal charge tactics

(in reply to usersatch)
Post #: 156
RE: The Pacific (TV Show) - 4/8/2010 7:09:22 PM   
witpqs


Posts: 26087
Joined: 10/4/2004
From: Argleton
Status: offline 		The best of their plans for coordinated attacks were thwarted by difficulties in communications and movement. While they could have been more flexible and thereby performed better even under the circumstances, some of their attacks would have been far more effective, maybe devastating, if things had gone just a bit closer to their plans.

(in reply to usersatch)
Post #: 157
RE: The Pacific (TV Show) - 4/8/2010 9:19:20 PM   
usersatch

 

Posts: 400
Joined: 6/1/2005
Status: offline 		Do you think any of it (their lack of tactical soundness on Guadalcanal) had to do with their disdain and arrogance towards allied troops? Up until then, besides little old Wake Island and Corrigedor (sp?), who put up a hard fight against them? Perhaps they thought it would be a "cake walk" so they got lazy in their planning and execution. On paper, they should have mopped up the island fairly easily.

Anyone read anything about the Solomons from the Japanese point of view to confirm/deny?

(in reply to witpqs)
Post #: 158
RE: The Pacific (TV Show) - 4/8/2010 9:35:02 PM   
LoBaron


Posts: 4776
Joined: 1/26/2003
From: Vienna, Austria
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: usersatch

Do you think any of it (their lack of tactical soundness on Guadalcanal) had to do with their disdain and arrogance towards allied troops? Up until then, besides little old Wake Island and Corrigedor (sp?), who put up a hard fight against them? Perhaps they thought it would be a "cake walk" so they got lazy in their planning and execution. On paper, they should have mopped up the island fairly easily.

Anyone read anything about the Solomons from the Japanese point of view to confirm/deny?


If you mean by disdain and arrogance lack of planning for beyond the first part of expansion (in the hope for an Allied capitulation), lack of training in defensive warfare against a superior opponent,
a command system that was more harsh and brutal than anything an allied soldier would have ever experienced up to then and a samurai spirit that believed in the invincibility of aggression and the
preparedness to die, then I´d answer with yes.

_____________________________


(in reply to usersatch)
Post #: 159
RE: The Pacific (TV Show) - 4/8/2010 9:46:39 PM   
usersatch

 

Posts: 400
Joined: 6/1/2005
Status: offline 		I guess thats what I meant LOL

(in reply to LoBaron)
Post #: 160
RE: The Pacific (TV Show) - 4/8/2010 9:53:56 PM   
witpqs


Posts: 26087
Joined: 10/4/2004
From: Argleton
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: usersatch

Anyone read anything about the Solomons from the Japanese point of view to confirm/deny?


Recently I read Frank's Guadalcanal, which is written with research from both sides. I recommend it.

(in reply to usersatch)
Post #: 161
RE: The Pacific (TV Show) - 4/8/2010 10:20:32 PM   
LoBaron


Posts: 4776
Joined: 1/26/2003
From: Vienna, Austria
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: witpqs


quote:

ORIGINAL: usersatch

Anyone read anything about the Solomons from the Japanese point of view to confirm/deny?


Recently I read Frank's Guadalcanal, which is written with research from both sides. I recommend it.


Thank you. On the "to buy" list. Definitely overlaps with my struggle against my honoured opponent Rob.

_____________________________


(in reply to witpqs)
Post #: 162
RE: The Pacific (TV Show) - 4/9/2010 12:06:18 AM   
jomni


Posts: 2827
Joined: 11/19/2007
Status: offline 		Japanese standard doctrine is to attack head-on to pin the defenders and a fast flanking unit encircles.
Worked well in China and Malay peninsula.  Less effective in the little islands and jungles.

Take note that the Japanese do not have a defensive plan only until late in the war (cave networks, etc.).
Even in a defensive campaign they will charge!  You can say that they are still "medieval" in thinking despite technological advance.
And everyone is resigned to the notion that their only fate is death for the Emperor.

So if the invasion on the home islands were to materialize the US will surely take a beating.


< Message edited by jomni -- 4/9/2010 12:09:26 AM >

_____________________________

My Blog
Random Wargame Name Generator

(in reply to LoBaron)
Post #: 163
RE: The Pacific (TV Show) - 4/9/2010 12:06:51 AM   
mike scholl 1

 

Posts: 1265
Joined: 2/17/2010
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: usersatch

Do you think any of it (their lack of tactical soundness on Guadalcanal) had to do with their disdain and arrogance towards allied troops? Up until then, besides little old Wake Island and Corrigedor (sp?), who put up a hard fight against them? Perhaps they thought it would be a "cake walk" so they got lazy in their planning and execution. On paper, they should have mopped up the island fairly easily.

Anyone read anything about the Solomons from the Japanese point of view to confirm/deny?



From the beginning they totally underestimated the size of the invading Marine force. They would have sent a battalion or two, so they assumed the US would have as well. Took them quite a while to come to grips with the fact that the Americans had landed an entire Division.

(in reply to usersatch)
Post #: 164
RE: The Pacific (TV Show) - 4/9/2010 3:39:36 AM   
Adronson

 

Posts: 6
Joined: 2/1/2007
From: Knoxville town
Status: offline 		My dad went through the Pacific war on an LST. He always said "McHale's Navy" got it about right.

(in reply to Kwik E Mart)
Post #: 165
RE: The Pacific (TV Show) - 4/9/2010 1:16:18 PM   
xj900uk

 

Posts: 1340
Joined: 3/22/2007
Status: offline 		[quoteFrom the beginning they totally underestimated the size of the invading Marine force][/quote]

Agreed. IJHQ was caught completely cold by the initial invasion and lack of communication between the IJN (who had both excellent recce and also excellent maps of the area including shipping lanes/channels) and IJA GHQ meant that for ages they were feeding in troops piece-meal.
With hindsight the Japanese got it toally wrong at Guadacanal, and even Yamamoto's understanding & grasp of the strategic implications failed him. The last thing they wanted to do was get drawn into a heavy, drawn-out brutal war of attrition that would bleed their land, navy,a nd perhaps most crucial of all naval air arm almost totally white. They should have had two simple choices :
(1). Pull back and don't defend the central Solomons area (Russell, Lunga & Tulagi) & minimise losses
(2). Throw in everything bar the kitchen sink from the word go & kick the USMC straight back to Noumea. After Mikawa's stunning naval victory on 08-09th August '42 they had ample opportunity to move in lots of heavy reinforcements and supplies for a few days.
But no, somehow they managed to choose the worst and third option :
(3). Drip- feed in elite units piece-meal and let losses mount in an appalling stalemate war of attrition

(in reply to Adronson)
Post #: 166
RE: The Pacific (TV Show) - 4/9/2010 1:43:45 PM   
Bo Rearguard


Posts: 492
Joined: 4/7/2008
From: Basement of the Alamo
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: sfbaytf

I watched a show recently about the Malay Campaign and it gave alot of credit to the IJAs use of bicycles, flanking tactics and ability to cross obsticles like rivers quickly using primative methods. I would guess like any army, much depended on he skill and imagination of their leaders and ability to adapt. If at Guadalcanal the Japanes were lead by the same leader that ran the Malay Campaign-Gen Yamishita would they have used the same frontal charge tactics


Masunobi Tsuji , one of General Yamishita's most agressive, brillant (and eccentric) staff officers in the Malaya campaign was present at Guadalancanl. There, Tsuji planned and led the last two attempted assaults by the Japanese forces to expel the Americans from the island. Afterwards, Tsuji personally returned to Tokyo after these failures to urge the evacuation of the troops from Guadalcanal. I think even the super agressive Tsuji found the supply and terrain conditions there too apalling for the sort of improvised-on-the spot tactics that worked so well in Malaya.

_____________________________

"They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist ...." Union General John Sedgwick, 1864

(in reply to sfbaytf)
Post #: 167
RE: The Pacific (TV Show) - 4/9/2010 1:54:33 PM   
xj900uk

 

Posts: 1340
Joined: 3/22/2007
Status: offline 		Alternatively perhaps his super-agressive tactics just weren't working...
When the US went on the offensive good and proper the Japanese excelled at making good use of terrain and setting up defensive positions and strong-points, the US then invested heavily in recce, identifying these said 'bottle-necks' and trying to bomb/bombard them off the face of the earth before any advance/'big push'. Also lots of specialist weapons (like the tiny tim rocket and also flamethrowers) were developed especially for this kind of work.

(in reply to Bo Rearguard)
Post #: 168
RE: The Pacific (TV Show) - 4/9/2010 2:02:15 PM   
John Lansford

 

Posts: 2662
Joined: 4/29/2002
Status: offline 		The Japanese were trying to maintain two offensives at the time the Marines were on Guadalcanal.  The army wanted to get all the reinforcements to continue their push for Port Moresby, the navy wanted forces to retake Guadalcanal.  Ultimately the Guadalcanal offensive got priority, but by that time it was too late to change the outcome; the Marines had gotten enough reinforcements and supplies to withstand any attempts.  Trying to maintain both offensives is what ultimately defeated them.

(in reply to xj900uk)
Post #: 169
RE: The Pacific (TV Show) - 4/9/2010 2:04:11 PM   
Bo Rearguard


Posts: 492
Joined: 4/7/2008
From: Basement of the Alamo
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: xj900uk

Alternatively perhaps his super-agressive tactics just weren't working...


Well....this time he was also up against some highly motivated US Marines. Not a gaggle of colonial and constabulary forces less than interested in dying for a foreign government in far away London.

_____________________________

"They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist ...." Union General John Sedgwick, 1864

(in reply to xj900uk)
Post #: 170
RE: The Pacific (TV Show) - 4/9/2010 2:22:32 PM   
xj900uk

 

Posts: 1340
Joined: 3/22/2007
Status: offline
quote:

Trying to maintain both offensives is what ultimately defeated them

True but I have always contended getting sucked into a major battle of attrition on Guadalcanal cost the IJ dear for little gain. During this campaign Yamamoto's strategic grasp of things must be called into serious contention

(in reply to Bo Rearguard)
Post #: 171
RE: The Pacific (TV Show) - 4/9/2010 3:09:07 PM   
anarchyintheuk

 

Posts: 3921
Joined: 5/5/2004
From: Dallas
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: John Lansford

The Japanese were trying to maintain two offensives at the time the Marines were on Guadalcanal.  The army wanted to get all the reinforcements to continue their push for Port Moresby, the navy wanted forces to retake Guadalcanal.  Ultimately the Guadalcanal offensive got priority, but by that time it was too late to change the outcome; the Marines had gotten enough reinforcements and supplies to withstand any attempts.  Trying to maintain both offensives is what ultimately defeated them.


That they couldn't supply two offensives of approximately 2-3 divisions total doesn't speak well of their logistical capabilities; especially considering that they were relatively close to Rabaul, one of their best equipped and built up bases.

The Japanese had a pretty good look at the size of the invasion forces, I've never understood why they weren't able to reverse engineer a better estimate of the number of Marines on the ground.

(in reply to John Lansford)
Post #: 172
RE: The Pacific (TV Show) - 4/12/2010 4:01:19 PM   
xj900uk

 

Posts: 1340
Joined: 3/22/2007
Status: offline 		I think it was lack of communication between the IJN and IJA. The former had excellent recce & maps of the islands & never passed them on to the later (who, I think, never asked for them!). Also the IJN did a fair amount of recconisance for photos over both the islands for its own information but again, never passed them on the IJA who had to actually do the fighting

(in reply to anarchyintheuk)
Post #: 173
RE: The Pacific (TV Show) - 4/12/2010 4:16:50 PM   
Joe D.


Posts: 4004
Joined: 8/31/2005
From: Stratford, Connecticut
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: xj900uk

I think it was lack of communication between the IJN and IJA ...


Re Shattered Sword, there was no love loss between the IJA and the IJN, whom the former considered "elitist".

_____________________________

Stratford, Connecticut, U.S.A.

"The Angel of Okinawa"

Home of the Chance-Vought Corsair, F4U
The best fighter-bomber of World War II

(in reply to xj900uk)
Post #: 174
RE: The Pacific (TV Show) - 4/12/2010 5:05:51 PM   
FatR

 

Posts: 2522
Joined: 10/23/2009
From: St.Petersburg, Russia
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: xj900uk

Alternatively perhaps his super-agressive tactics just weren't working...

No tactics can work in the face of sufficient material superiority. Allied air superiority and constant naval presence around Guadalcanal meant that Japanese forces were doomed to be inadequate from the start, unless IJN beats the Allied fleet decisively. Except, after Midway odds already were against IJN and only successes of Japanese subs gave them even a chance of such victory. Except then IJN wasted it by not committing enough surface units when they had an edge (one of quite many cases when the fear of losses resulted in losses that would have been preventable otherwise). And tried to push the responsibility for resolving the situation on IJA, resulting in repeated failed offensives.

Similarly, almost all of the land battles in the Pacific were fought in the conditions that pretty much excluded the possibility of Japanese victory from the beginning, however well Japanese fought (and the first major Allied offensive operation at Buna-Gona demostrated that Japanese defensive tactics are not to be underestimated). Because Allied air and sea superiority allowed them to create such conditions, and all that. Similarly, because retreat was impossible or meant starving and dying out from diseases in the jungle, Japanese were doomed to take disproportional losses once their defensive lines collapsed and support elements, wounded, etc, were wiped out en masse.

By comparison, in the Burma theatre, where conditions were much less stacked against them, Japanese forces were overwhelmed only in 1945, that's after losing much of their strength in the desperate attempt to create a miracle by going on the offensive against Imphal.



< Message edited by FatR -- 4/12/2010 5:09:41 PM >

(in reply to xj900uk)
Post #: 175
RE: The Pacific (TV Show) - 4/12/2010 5:22:32 PM   
cantona2


Posts: 3749
Joined: 5/21/2007
From: Gibraltar
Status: offline 		Ep 5. Action sequences were great, first half not so great. Difficult not to compare with BoB but...

_____________________________

1966 was a great year for English Football...Eric was born


(in reply to FatR)
Post #: 176
RE: The Pacific (TV Show) - 4/12/2010 5:23:11 PM   
sfbaytf

 

Posts: 1122
Joined: 4/13/2005
Status: offline 		IMO-Henderson field was the key. No airfield no sustained naval presence, no easy resupply. WitP/AE doesn't really capture the real effect air power has on these factors. In the game you can run DDs around airbases with litte conquence. In RL that was a death wish at the time. The days of DE running picket duty with radar, ships packed with AA and proximity fuses was years off. In 1942 ships were very very vulnerable to air attack- radar wasn't widely available and not well understood and AA was still pretty weak.

(in reply to FatR)
Post #: 177
RE: The Pacific (TV Show) - 4/12/2010 6:00:52 PM   
Brady


Posts: 10701
Joined: 10/25/2002
From: Oregon,USA
Status: offline
By Eugene B. Sledge:

http://www.usni.org/magazines/navalhistory/story.asp?STORY_ID=2225

< Message edited by Brady -- 4/12/2010 6:01:26 PM >

_____________________________





Beta Team Member for:

WPO
PC
CF
AE
WiTE

Obi-wan Kenobi said it best: A lot of the reality we perceive depend on our point of view

(in reply to sfbaytf)
Post #: 178
RE: The Pacific (TV Show) - 4/12/2010 11:45:13 PM   
jomni


Posts: 2827
Joined: 11/19/2007
Status: offline 		I didn't know they had to jump out to disembark from those "Amtracks(?)".
Very cumbersome.


_____________________________

My Blog
Random Wargame Name Generator

(in reply to Brady)
Post #: 179
RE: The Pacific (TV Show) - 4/13/2010 12:03:55 PM   
John Lansford

 

Posts: 2662
Joined: 4/29/2002
Status: offline 		Later amtracks had rear doors; some of the ones at Pelieliu were the older ones that didn't so the troops had to roll over the sides.

(in reply to jomni)
Post #: 180
Page:   <<   < prev  4 5 [6] 7 8   next >   >>
All Forums >> [New Releases from Matrix Games] >> War in the Pacific: Admiral's Edition >> RE: The Pacific (TV Show) Page: <<   < prev  4 5 [6] 7 8   next >   >>
Jump to:





New Messages No New Messages
Hot Topic w/ New Messages Hot Topic w/o New Messages
Locked w/ New Messages Locked w/o New Messages
 Post New Thread
 Reply to Message
 Post New Poll
 Submit Vote
 Delete My Own Post
 Delete My Own Thread
 Rate Posts


Forum Software © ASPPlayground.NET Advanced Edition 2.4.5 ANSI

0.828