Nemo121
Posts: 5821
Joined: 2/6/2004
Status: offline
|
princep01,
It is all about prioritisation and subordinating the tactical to the operational, the operational to the strategic and the strategic to the national policy objective.
So, in early 1942 a player who begins an attritional approach to air combat is likely to lose so much more than the Japanese that, effectually, they are going to train IJAAF and IJNAF pilots whilst losing so much that they never are able to field fully trained pilots without a large ( 3 months long ) operational pause later in 1942. Of course since such a pause is possible in 42/43 this is often what Allied players do. It is, however, a sub-optimal approach and relies more on sheer numbers than any contribution from player skill.
Your next question relates to aerial attrition over Palembang... Why would you need to put a CAP over Palembang? Put enough AAA there and it will act as a massive FlaK trap for Japanese bombers, shooting them down cheaply - on the few occasions I was attacked by IJAAF bombers I shot down 1/3rd+ of the attacking bombers using just FlAK. Putting CAP up occasionally to protect your raiding TFs as they refuel and re-arm is a very different thing than keeping CAP there day after day to be whittled away. I am talking about putting CAP there something like once a week on average. The rest of the time, let them bomb it.
So, obviously you can brute-force things and just heap ships and troops and planes into Palembang and try to hold that way OR you can be a bit more subtle and get away with the same effect whilst using and losing far fewer troops, planes and ships. That's where skill comes in.
Obviously the more subtle you are with your defence then the stronger you can be elsewhere ( which is the primary risk of a Festung Palembang defence ).
I think it might be useful to people to re-read the AAR in which I did the first Festung Palembang. I went all-in fairly early BUT I was always clear that Palembang couldn't expect to be decisive unless I conducted a large number of other operations in other theatres in order to support it.
So, in order to support Festung Palembang I:
1. Launched a sacrificial SC attack into a the 4 CAs spearheading the IJA drive down to Rabaul and the Solomons, sinking all 4 CAs and allowing me to hold Rabaul.
2. I launched an invasion of the Kuriles in January 1942 IIRC just to draw forces away from Palembang and the Marshall Islands.
3. In February 1942 I invaded the Marshalls and recaptured them all, isolating Truk and raiding it routinely afterwards, forcing its abandonment about 8 weeks later by the IJN.
4. I created a massive deception in China which drew the Japanese where I wanted before launching an attack which joined the northern and southern fronts, trapped 5,000 AV of Japanese troops and threatened Shanghai.
5. I re-inforced Mindanao and was building up forces there preparatory to an Australian + US invasion of the Phillippines in July 1942.
6. A week after the game finished I was due to invade Iwo Jima and some of the islands around Saipan with a USMC Corps. They were just about 500 miles from landing when the game was called.
All of those operations were begun with a view to supporting Palembang initially and, later, transitioning, onto a mini-Canae double envelopment where the short hook would be my forces running south from Burma to Saigon and north from Oz to northern Borneo while the long hook was my Chinese Army reaching the coast of CHina while the US and Ozzies were retaking the Phillipines. The goal was to draw them in with Southern Sumatra and then slowly but surely cut their LOCs until such time as I could force a seaborne rout which I could attrit from the flanks with SC TFs and land-based air.
My point with the above is that just dumping forces into Palembang won't save it or break Japan. It needs to form a part of a greater, multiple theatre plan.
Basically Palembang is the crucial point along the Japanese western Strategic Direction. On the other hand Japan has 4 other Strategic Directions - China, South ( Oz to Pago Pago or suchlike ) and East ( Aleutians to the hinge with the southern Strategic Direction). Each of these strategic directions is sub-divided further into Fronts obviously but you get the idea.
So, Palembang won't achieve its grand strategic potential ( to utterly break Japan ) unless the other strategic directions support it and it is in support of them. With an integrated multi-Strategic Direction plan operating on a phased basis ( a la Bagration ) I think Palembang is an excellent way to break Japan. Just chucking thousands of men into a base at Palembang isn't.
THAT dichotomy is what I and Alfred had been hinting at for a while now - Alfred please pipe up if I'm summarising you poorly. I know it doesn't encompass everything you're getting at but it gives the basic gist, sufficient for the discussion to continue IMO.
Alfred,
As to your points.
1. True. Thus my shorthand of CAs. Some are probably below that but, hell, that's why you have mines ;-).
2. Dutch airforce is pretty inferior. I, in the end, had two good squadrons which could shoot the Japs down with ease. The rest were flying Buffaloes and were my Night CAP over my bases, a job at which they did well. I ended the game with about a dozen Dutch aces... and these were guys mostly flying against Oscars and Zeroes, not bombers. I did, however, pick my fights.
3. "In order to maintain the skies above southern Sumatra blanketed with Allied fighters"... Well, your conclusion is true but I'd argue that with some skill there should be no need to blanket the skies with fighters. A few ambushes from time to time can keep the Japanese honest and scared in my experience. Obviously, this changes against a good player who will simply eschew an emotional response, do the math and send in whatever number it takes to whittle the Allied fighters down. ChezDaJez will not, IMO, do such a unemotional assessment though.
4. True, but don't hit the Japanese ships over Malacca. Hit them when they port at Singers or before they reach Singers. Attempting to send bombers into the Malacca Straits is a death sentence unless you own the Borneon airfields on the west of the straits.
5. True. I think we both agree CJD is likely to get fixated on the nearest obstacle and not, the greatest reward. In this case the plan fits the man, as all good plans must.
6. Aye, but there should be a lot more significant pinning operations going on. That's one of the primary differences between this and my game under similar conditions. To be fair though, CDJ's, mis-allocation of resources is achieving the same end-point. Were he to get some good advice though on what to prioritise and how to do a strategic re-assessment ( not what to prioritise or the conclusion but just how to conduct the thought processes underlying these ) then he might change his modus operandi and the equation would change. I amn't following his AAR so can't very well go over there and do this. You free and in the mood to sandbox him?
7. Hell, never even mind that, where is it stated they have to disembark at a port? Or even in southern Sumatra?
8. True, a while back there was a suggestion to ship another 100,000 to 150,000 tons of supplies in. It was oblique, I'm not sure if it was followed up on.
9. True. I would also point out that a gun, no matter how good, is NO USE unless it is integrated into a cohesive fireplan. I'm not sure, here, if Palembang can be reloaded and I am uneasy re: the extent of its integration into the fireplan. It is, as the Russians would say, one hell of a firesack but what happens if the enemy goes right? 
Conclusion: I agree with your conclusion. I also agree with you regarding the erroneous conclusions which will be drawn although I think less so now.
I will say though it is nice to see the critical analysis going on in this thread. For a while it was almost totally absent from the forums.
Paullus99,
The best way to defeat an enemy is to allow him to do something he thinks will be devastating for which you have a counter he hasn't considered and then to allow him time to over-commit becoming so enamoured of the plan that he views it in too narrow a context.
Then, when the fortress is so full of men that it can never be properly assaulted it is bypassed, constrained by a sufficient screen to keep the fortress hemmed in while disease and starvation take their toll as the bulk of one's army takes the entirety of the region the castle was built to protect. Fortresses are there to serve a strategic goal, not to be impregnable in and of themselves. Making a castle impregnable is not necessarily the right thing to do with a castle. Of course it isn't the wrong thing either, so long as you do the other stuff to prevent bottling up.
Canoerebel, interesting though. But I've got the first turn of a new game so I have to run. I'll reply later if you'd like.
_____________________________
John Dillworth: "I had GreyJoy check my spelling and he said it was fine."
Well, that's that settled then.
|
Printable Version
RE: Das darf nicht var sein! - 
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