Anyone interested in some intellectual exercise?

USMCprice .... have you war gamed a scenario where the Japanese do not attack the US directly and are content to attack the European colonies only? Maybe also an attack on the PI so as neutralize the Asiatic fleet and as many B17's as possible.

I don't think the US public would have given full support to FDR if it appeared he was defending colonies of beaten European nations.

 

korea also has other less obvious uses, the large amount of hills and rivers could be tamed with hydroelectric dams,which could be used to power factories which would have been beyond anyones bomber range, plus if used properly many of the korean men could have been used as soldiers instead of just conscript labor,and the southern areas could have been more effectively farmed to produce more food.

 

An Interesting concept. If I understand you correctly, you wish to play out a scenario of the game with an actual command staff? In Which case I wouldn't mind muddying up the wters with some additional bad ideas. I haven't played the game you mention, but have had success in other games with Japan.

 

You have taken the point! Collect the minerals you can get, set up some bases at strategic important places, be friendly to the natives and use them for your purposes, and use the geographical advantages of the countries you have conquerred.

Belasar, with the Armies that aren´t neede for the reason that there is no war against the USA in this moment, it would be worth to think of anger The Russians a bit to set up a two front war for them and cut them from their resources they have in the range of your bombers now! But that needs a very good planning and is not at my list now.

 

No, I haven't but that is one of the ideas I would like to explore.

We could look at that, my biggest fear would be that an attack on US forces there might draw the US into the war. I don't know what factors might cause the A/I to declare war.

I agree with regards to French and Dutch possessions. Britain I am fairly certain wouldn't incite the public to war. A surprise attack on the Phillipines, would be more likely, actually probable, but is not a sure thing.

Thanks for the input, would you be interested in participating?

 

Really close Mike. What I'm interested in, is trying to assemble a command staff to explore alternate strategies the Japanese could have pursued. I want to use the game/simulation to validate the ideas or invalidate the ideas. Too often a member speculates on an alternative strategy and others shoot it down with "well that won't work" because of this or that. Some ideas look good when they're proposed but don't take factors into consideration that effected real operations but aren't readily obvious in the discussion. I want the game to point these factors out. The reason I want to use a staff is because that mimics the historical reality Japan faced. Different factions had different aims and most often the end result was a compromise. If I were Joseph Stalin, and it was my way or a bullet to the brain housing group, prosecuting the war would be easier. Having multiple individuals also exposes the participants to to a wider range of strategies and ideas. What I hope we will all learn is, to have a greater appreciation of how complex the War in the Pacific was. The distances involved and logistical considerations were much greater than any other theater of the war. The game also interjects factors we wouldn't normally consider, it's fine to postulate that the Kido Butai could haul arse, full speed across the Pacific and do this, that and the other. The game shows the wear and tear on the ships, better have a nearby port to repair the damage. Constantly have your air crews flying missions with little or no rest. Planes increasingly are down for maintainence, aircraft are lost or damaged from combat, operational accidents or overuse. Pilots get tired, if the operational tempo is such that they have insufficient rest they are increasingly lost to attrition, and or morale suffers, etc. etc.

I think that would be great. I have a PDF version of the rules not as indepth as the manual (a couple hundred pages) but will give you a good summary of how complex the simulation is. I'll PM it to you if interested. There is also a MS Spreadsheet made for the game that I intend to use that will give pertinant data on different areas, like resource locations, base locations, port capacities, airfield capacities, unit strengths and locations, ships and ships data, ship classes, and on and on. I'll populate it and send it as part of an intell summary to participants, so they have the hard data needed to flesh out their plans. The game also generates operational and combat reports, that I will forward so everyone knows how we are progressing and so we can make necessary adjustments or outright strategy changes.


Hopes this clarifies, and thanks for the interest.

 

An attack on the Philippines, an American territory roughly comparable to Hawaii or Puerto Rico, would almost certainly mean war - all the more so if, as suggested, the attack concentrated on American ships, aircraft, and bases.

As some of you are probably tired of reading an attack just on British and Dutch colonial possessions is one of my favorite speculations, and also something I would like to see tried out in this game, but I wonder if the AI is capable of quantifying the popular reluctance to take the final step ourselves. Or, if it is programmed to play the Allied side in the war, does it even consider the question of whether it should be playing, er, fighting? Could it engage in subtleties like sending the Japanese an ultimatum to cease their attacks? Or, while neutral, doing something with the Asiatic Fleet that might lead to an incident?

This does look intriguing, USMCPrice. What mechanism do you suggest? Keep in touch through e-mail? Communicate through this forum? Can say the person playing the Japanese naval commander threaten to quit if he doesn't get his way about attacking Pearl Harbor, or more to the point, would the threat be as meaningful as it was in real life?

 

Very good points all Carronade. The mechanism I had in mind was, a thread in the forum like some of the really long running ones such as "Name this Tank" for the actual formal meetings. A moderator/Prime Minister to make choices if the different factions can not reach a consensus. PM's for preliminary planning and back channel negotiations. The back channel negotiations would add realism, I think. Say one of the Naval Staff disagrees with the Admiral in Chief, he might use private conversations with other naval staffers to swing their opinion to a course he favors. Or maybe makes a back door deal to support an army proposal if later on they'll agree to support a pet plan of his. Any and all suggestions by those interested on how to improve or implement the basic idea are welcome. I have a basic idea of what I'd like to do and as we discuss it, the idea is firming up.
There is a forum where some of the game designers frequent, I'll drop by there and ask about the A/I scripts. I've viewed some of the US ones in the editor but have never manipulated them. It appears that they've entered all the US prewar plans and are keyed upon specific sets of Japanese actions. I didn't look at them indepth because I didn't want to know the US response in case I played the Japanese in a full game scenario. (I have played as them in a number of campaign scenarios).

 

Once you join..Death in battle, Seppuko or Victory! I of course as a civilian would not be bound by such archaic conventions.

 

Good Idea, USMC! I like this, it brings somewhat of realism in that scenario, dealing and maybe a bit manipulating like it is in real live too!

 

If you need a second, i have a good sharpened swiss knife and with a bit of patience from your side the neck is......

 

I really like your ideas for this so far, and I'm definitely interested in seeing how this goes. Can you PM a pdf? If not I can send you my email. It might be better than me asking an unending stream of questions.

 

Hi USMC, interesting thread! (Hence the salute)

In all honesty, to really make it work you will absolutely need representative of ALL major powers, that's the vital part of this exercise, the critical negotiations that took part in 1941.

The Japanese were convinced that the US would support the Allies in the event of an attack, and that they couldn't leave the PI alone, and risk having their supply lines cut.

Good posts by Carronade & Syscom.
From what I've been able to deduce, there was a personal agreement between FDR & Churchill before the Japanese attacks, although it was likely only FDR's word, as opposed to anything written down.
There are several references to it in the communications to Singapore before the attack, in which they were diven absolute direct orders DO NOT under any circumstances set foot in Thailand until the Japanese have invaded (to prevent Japan from claiming that they were only responding to British aggression)

FDR had pledged US support (military support) in the event of this "British & Dutch only" type off an attack, and Churchill would have been a fool to join the embargo without some kind of guarantee.


If I am correct in my interpretation (and some may disagree, as there's no direct evidence of what the agreement was between FDR & Churchill) - then the US would need some kind of incedent in the event of a "British & Dutch only" type of attack. It might have been something like sending the Far East fleet to intercept the Japanese convoys, which would probably have started a shooting war.

 

I'm glad you are interested. PM me your e-mail and I'll send you the manual PDF, probably be monday. I've got somethings I need to do this weekend and if I do end up with some spare time I'm going to download the spreadsheets and populate them, so everyone has the historical start data to use as a starting point.
I would be interested in your ideas on how to tweak the concept to actually make it workable. What do you think about the "back channel" communication idea?

 

Thank you for the salute. I would welcome your assistance in working out the details. We can set it up in whatever manner the group would like. I do think we'll need a German representative if we end up pursuing a strategy that stresses greater cooperation with the other Axis powers. I really don't think an Italian rep would be necessary because they don't have a lot Japan would need and in any case they'd bend to Germany's directives.
Not sure about the Soviet Union. The Soviets have their hands full with the Germans and I think they'd be content with maintaining the status quo on their eastern border. Japan also doesn't really want war with the SU. If we do end up going down a path that would lead to a confrontation with the SU we could add a SU representative or let a chief moderator make the call.
I have considered adding a higher level moderator, above the moderator that would act as Prime Minister who would settle disputes among the naval/army/industrial/diplomatic factions. The higher level moderator would determine interactions between Japan and other powers.
We probably don't need a British representative either. Britain didn't need war with Japan, couldn't afford to pull out completely from it's possessions and would follow the US's lead in the Pacific, because they needed the US's cooperation in Europe. A US representative for diplomatic purposes and to possibly provide me with alternative US military strategies if Japan's moves so change the historical situation that the A/I doesn't respond adequately. I had originally thought that Australia would follow Britain's lead. CAC has made me wonder if Japan and Australia could have reached some type of diplomatic understanding outside of the UK's influence. I can't think of any books I have ever read that have examined this possibility. I don't know how the Australian populace or politicians would have reacted. We do have enough Australian members around here that we could probably reach a concensus on the question. If we determine that Australia might have followed a seperate course from the UK, we would definately need someone to represent Australia.

That's a decision we'll have to make. Do we chance attacking Britain and hope the US stays out. (Based upon US public opinion at the time I don't think the US would have been able to, politically, do more than make diplomatic protests. Without a direct attack on the US the public wouldn't support actual war.)

It doesn't really matter what Roosevelt promised to Churchill, it is unlikely Congress would allow the US to go to war without a direct attack upon us. Even after Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt feared asking for a declaration of war against both Japan and Germany, because there wasn't the political support for going to war with Germany. Only Japan, because they attacked us. Hitler in his ultimate wisdom solved the problem by declaring war upon us.

Short of war what would they do if they intercepted a Japanese convoy? If the US fired first Roosevelt would be charged with staging a confrontation to get us into the war. His political opponents would crucify him. Now, going back to one of your earlier points, this is where someone determining the US's actions and/or a higher level moderator would come in handy. To resolve these type issues. The players would have to stand back, hope for the confrontation to subside and plan for their actions if the US declared war.

 

Japan was an empire and functionally a military dictatorship, so it probably never occurred to their leaders that FDR might not be able to commit his country to war when he considered it necessary. We have that option, and it would interesting to play it out, but it strikes me that if it succeeds, we might not have much of a game! No offense to our British and Australian friends, but it won't be much of a challenge holding our Far East empire against just them.

For a war game we really want to test the downside - is Japan worse off fighting America without having made a pre-emptive attack? This would leave the initiative to the US, but as we've discussed in several Pearl Harbor threads, there are not a lot of good options for immediate intervention.

Not sure how the game could capture this, but if the US took the initiative to enter the war, there would be even more pressure to do something immediately. FDR could hardly tell Congress and the American people that we needed to declare war right now and then wait a year or two to build up forces and take the offensive. In particular, we would be the ones putting our people in the Philippines and elsewhere in jeopardy; it would be hard to start the war by deliberately writing them off. The Japanese appear to have solved a number of problems for FDR and our military leaders.

Of course the A/I doesn't care about political pressure or leaving hostages to fate, but it might act in much the same way. If it's programmed to play the game, would it wait and build up forces or try to make the best move with whatever it has available on each turn?

I'm not familiar with the game, but is it possible to intervene and provide direction to the Allied side if the A/I doesn't respond adequately?

 

double post

 

I really don't have the answer to this, I have posted some questions concerning the A/I for the game programmers, and will hopefully get some answers. Like I said, I'm more interested in the human component with the game used to simulate the results of said decisions. One thing I have done is played and created linked scenarios. Example: Say I've played Coral Sea and the results were different than historically, I would adjust Midway to reflect these differences. What I had in mind was that we would run the simulation, initially with the changed Japnese parameters. Most of the A/I for the first year should be correctly scripted based upon the US's historical plans and actions. A different start date for the war will primarily change assets available to the US, their options really can't vary a lot from what they had historically. A point you addressed when you wrote: "there are not a lot of good options for immediate intervention."
If we have a major event that the A/I doesn't account for: i.e the main moderator decides that the US declares war or something like that, then I could save the game and use that point and the associated data as the starting point for creating a new scenario with the changed parameters. Then we run the new scenario and use it's results. While there would be a physical break in the scenario, in practical terms it would be as if the A/I made the decision. Keep throwing these ideas out, just like Japan historically, we''ll probably only get one shot at it. If it happens I want to do it right.

 

I like your plan, Ulrich. From Vietnam move out to Thailand, Laos and Upper Malaysia. Stay away from Singapore and P.I. for awhile to consolidate. Maybe threaten N.E. Burma but give the British leeway for India to prevent them from threatening with strength. Let the UK alone for now as well as the U.S. Concentrate on China and breaking the embargoes.

 

Thank you Richard! I see that we are on the same line! My thoughts are to take from the Aisan mainland what i need to strengthen my industry and increase the number of bases and troops, same as the territory around Japan as a security belt. And for now not to tap on the feets of the big boys!