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Arado, taking your points in order. Agreed that in some circumstances the Germans could not get away. As to how far to flex tactics in a strategic game, it gets harder to say. I understand what you are saying, of course. It just gets harder to say where to draw the lines on what changes in the game and what doesn't. Also, I wasn't providing the Soviet doctrine info to nit-pick, only as information. I was offering a justification for not providing a single unit, in game terms, that would deprive a scenario designer of the flexibility of the use of a unit that might be used for all countries. That was the intent of my comments. Just because the Soviets put all those resouces into artillery, it doesn't follow that they "must" be represented. I thought it might be a design option. After all, the true extent of commerce warfare has been dropped too. Manstein's strategy. Yes, the strategy was not going to work except in isolation and I don't think I said otherwise. Russian handling of their armored formations, we could debate relative effectiveness of leadership with German fuel and armor availability numbers. I am not convinced artillery units are the best option as opposed to increased numbers and there are design alternatives that can allow for greater numbers. The game is flexible and the moders creative. I thought the design question was whether giving the Russians artillery was worth depriving the designer of the ability of having another unit to play with. I may have been mistaken. A comment on the Manstein strategy. The strategy I still believe was sound and the "best option" although it could not have won the war. There is a difference. Its goal was to pinch off a penetration, reseal and resecure the original line. If the original line could not have been reestablished right away, it would be attempted at a later date. That was the plan. Whether the Germans could have kept it up for long is another question. It would have reduced casualties and had the Soviets punching at air much of the time. But, as I've noted before, there just weren't enough Germans. (Note: long term, this strategy would have depended on two factors, not one, Soviet demographics and the inefficiency of Soviet agriculture. I'm not certain the second was intentional.)

Nupremal, If I can help, I will. Windows Live Meeting, don't have that. Is it something I can download? Platform runs Vista. I do have PDE.

Yeah Al, I agree. What I was offering was some ideas for trigger scripts and some background for players. Not trying to tell you how to do it. Not at all. Your alternate Z-plan scenario could work well if you want to go for commerce warfare early too. You wouldn't have to go for a late date for the German Navy to be effective. I did this with one of my European scenarios and calculated a somewhat later and weaker British response in its building programme to counter it. It's yours Al, do what you want.

I am responding to you Atago, so you don't think you are being ignored. The degree of control of events you are asking for is a little too "fine" for the game engine, is my guess. I have only designed one mod and it was not as in-depth as the real pro's can do. My contributions are as a historian. Taking countries back and forth isn't possible once they are activated. They either are not active or are. If I am wrong, someone will surely correct me, but I think that is correct. Yes the engine is great. I am hoping to have more time, when I am done with my current writing project. If you want to learn, check out Pzgrndr's mod or the new global mods from Nupremal and Big Al. These guys have put in the time, I wish I could give. As to your what ifs: Your first one would need some depth to develop it, could be interesting. My mod was a Stalin Drives West version and I did manage to get in some interesting politics, but couldn't get the level of control I wanted. Hitler and nuts. Well, to separate him from his stupidity would be to say that he wasn't a Nazi. It's like saying the U.S. didn't have a great industrial base or Stalin didn't handicap the Soviet Union. It goes places that can add too much complexity if you catch my drift. Norway is a great one. The real importance of Scandinavian iron ore is usually underestimated in games and by historians. I once got into a debate with severeal "respectable academics" during which they grew quite heated. I made a comment that I thought it was possible that Churchill had deliberately extended the war in Europe, by refusing to challenge in Norway. After all, the Germans only preempted the British by 24 hours. That was all. And the French did land a brigade in Norway after the German invasion. So the Luftwaffe was not supreme. Anyway, these guys went ballistic. I quoted Churchill, I think I can still get it right. "I did not become Prime Minister to preside over the dissollution of the British Empire." You can hear the gravelly voice rolling that one out. What it meant was that he didn't want to do anything that risked the Royal Navy. Given the known importance of Norway's iron ore and the transhippment of Swedish ore through Norway and that the Britsh did have a plan to occupy Norway, it is still very strange that they didn't do more to contest this before the Germans could get established. The German Navy's losses were catasrophic. As "what ifs" go, this one is on the money. If I remember right, many British war records are still classified. I would not be surprised to see some nasty memos emerge about this, if I live long enough. Three way war, yeah that would be fun, but its not supported. Figuring out "historical" triggers would be a challenge.

A comment on the suggestion that the Soviets might need special artillery units. While the Soviets did have a few very large formations permanently formed, they were of limited utility, in my opinion. They took a long time to deploy, good German commanders were able to anticipate the largest barrages and pull their infantry back just before the barrages went in, and the artillery was towed, and so could not follow rapidly moving penetrations well. Soviet doctrine then, during the Cold War, and today for the handling of organic artillery, as opposed to these special formations, would be sufficient for the purposes of the game. In a focused attack, penetration scenario, the artillery from the divisions, armies, and the front(s) arrayed at the point of attack, would deploy forward for the barrage. Once the first breakthrough is reported back, some of the artillery would break down to follow it through. The remaining artillery would then have new missions. Rolling barrage ahead of the penetration or seal the penetration to left or right, with indirect fires. The rolling barrage would be discontinued rather quickly if the penetration was affected by mobile forces. Sealing the shoulders of the penetration with long range artillery was considered vital by Soviet combat commanders. All of this could be done with the organic artillery. If you can get hold of copies of the U.S. Army FM-100 series manuals, (FM100-1, 2, 3) you will see that at every level Soviet/Russian units are artillery heavy. This is a doctrinal constant. Now, there was a weakness with this doctrine, that was one element of von Manstein's "bleed them to death" strategy. The Soviets always outran their artillery. Hence, his plan to use nodal, moble, armored reserves to punch out the Soviet armored forces beyond the range of the "shoulders." Bottom line, the Soviets don't really need special artillery units, because organic artillery upgrades will do the job and just because they had the tubes doesn't mean they could make a difference.

Part IV U.S.S.R. As the Germans learned, only after the 1941 invasion, the Soviet Communists were single-minded in churning out the tools of war. In combination with the size of the Soviet Union it made for a formidable foe. Not an unbeatable one, however. Field Marshal von Manstein was correct that the Soviet Union could, even with U.S. aid, be bled to death. The U.S.S.R did not have foreign possessions, extensive trade, or the desire to project military power directly. None of the normal modes of activation apply. Even military buildups along its borders didn't get its attention historically. Stalin knew his country, its history with invaders, and he took a long view. In other words, an Asian mentality, rather than European. To activate Stalin's realm you have to present him with a threat. There are two ways to do this. If Stalin perceives a threat from the Main Adversary (U.S. and U.K.), if they are about to triumph over Germany, Stalin is much more likely to jump into the war against the U.S. and U.K., seizing Germany for himself in the process, than actually allying with Germany. If pushed he might ally with Germany, but it wouldn't be his first choice. Stalin was on his own side, first and foremost. Germany as enemy was way down on his list of priorities. For him to perceive Germany as a threat, he'd have to see that Germany was dominant on the continent, secure from internal and external enemies in Europe, AND that Germany might ally with the WEST. That would have terrified Stalin. No matter how you decide to manage Soviet entry, for good or ill, you are confronted with one truth, Stalin is the only opinion maker that matters. So, what would make his involvement so essential that if he didn't, his own survival would be at stake (or he would think it was)? 1. Outright invasion of Soviet territory. May or may not be a good idea. A single opponent invasion was historically a poor choice. Invasion makes more sense if it is attacked from both sides, however as a planned effort, to remove a dangerous foe. 2. Stalin would not like to have the Allies in possession of a post-war Germany. If the Allies were to launch an invasion of the continent and the USSR were not yet in the war, Stalin might jump in to grab what he could as fast as possible. 3. German possession of the Suez Canal would not, in and of itself, move the Soviets into belligerence, but would set the stage for some interesting possibilities. There would be a general anti-British, anti-French backlash amongst the Egyptian, Arab, Turk, Armenian, Kurdish, and Persian populations. With undercurrents of mutual hate and distrust amongst those groups. Then most of those populations overlap into the southern Soviet Union. In addition, the power vacuum left by the collapse of the British Egyptian Army, would give Stalin a priceless opportunity to seize Iran, at least. Iraq and Saudi Arabia might be quickly snapped up too. Warm water ports, long the Russian Imperial dream would be realized for no cost and the Main Adversary would be removed from the Soviet south western border. If the Germans moved past the Suez Canal, the Soviets would get very itchy. 4. If Germany is doing particularly well in Western Europe into 1941 and 1942, I can see Stalin starting stir up trouble with assassinations and some low-level insurrections in Eastern Europe. With the Nazis in charge it would be difficult to fund and supply, but he might try it. It wouldn't be his people dying. Supply might run through Yugoslavia or Turkey. All this might anger the Germans, but what can they do? Go to war? 5. Stalin gets bored and tries to grab off a bit more of Finland. Self-explanatory and not too bright, but could have happened. 6. Stalin fears that Germany is generating a following in its conquered countries, solidifying its power. Hard to see happening. There just weren't enough Germans. Maybe if there were enough other stress factors in the picture. Probably earliest this could have happened would have been 1943. 7. Germany might acquire an atomic bomb and is not threatened. This would be terrible scenario for Stalin. An unthreatened Germany with an atomic bomb, Stalin might risk everything to beat them down before they can get it. 8. A German attack into Turkey or Turkey joining the Axis. Any opening the Soviets could use to claim the Bhosporus, they were likely to take. Whether they would go to war or not, could be argued. I'm am absolutely sure they would not want a potential enemy to control those straights. A common thread in the Soviet scenarios is that they generally don't generate a reaction quickly, except for a direct invasion, the middle east, or perhaps the atomic bomb. These feel right. Stalin was not going to be quick to jump in and risk it all.

Part III What does all of this mean for in-game diplomacy, activations, and economics? U.S. When I've designed my own European scenarios, I've included annual budget increases that ramp up American defense spending every October. The U.S. public was immune to outside influences, but Roosevelt was clever about spreading Federal money around to congressional districts. This money funded infrastructure, tooling, and capacity enhancements as well as actual production to support Great Britain. Roosevelt was a savvy politician. So a 10% annual increase in readiness each year might be reasonable. The trick is what will push the U.S. into war. If the designer opts for a Go/No Go on a Japanese attack, then he must allow for an alternative or plan for what happens if the U.S. never activates. That could have interesting repercussions all its own. The Germans had some motive to attack U.S. naval ships, but were not stupid enough, or desperate enough to give Roosevelt the kind of incident he needed. Also there were no other direct American interests at risk in the Atlantic. We can consider a German inspired activation unlikely, unless Hitler's combination of Parkinson's, end-stage syphilis, and stupidity combine. In the Southwest Pacific in December 1941, if the Japanese don't attack the U.S. the situation gets very confused. American ships would have been ordered to stand off and not get involved. Japanese ships would have been attacking British, French, Dutch, and Australian ships. The message traffic in and out of Pacific Fleet headquarters would have been informative. Some commanders would have wanted to engage, others wanting to pick up survivors. Some American ships would have been ordered into ports under attack to take off American citizens. A real mess. The possibility of a night action with "unidentified ships" would have been at least moderate. But as long U.S. territory wasn't attacked, it was not probable that the American public would rouse to war. With that said, what triggers can be built in, to make a playable and enjoyable, reasonably accurate experience. 1. Surprise attack, maybe duplicating Taranto Raid script. Also scripts requiring U.S. to keep most fleet units in or near harbors, before the war, would seem applicable. 2. Allow Japan to avoid declaring war on U.S., but possibility, in first three months after declaring war on someone else of accidental "night naval engagement" that increases activation. For this to occur, U.S. naval forces would have to forward deployed, i.e. pushing the Japanese, just the way Roosevelt would do it. 3. Japanese invasion of Java and atrocities reported back to U.S. with only a week or two delay. Escaping survivors and victims both include American military and civilians. This replicates real events and news stories. They would not be enough to drive the country to war, but could nudge activation. 4. AP wire story out of Pearl Harbor of American cruiser being ordered by Japanese naval units not to pick up survivors of H.M.A.S. Canberra after it was sunk in action with Japanese fleet units. When U.S.S. Chicago tried to close and rescue the survivors it was fired upon by the Japanese. Frustration and anger among U.S. Navy. Allies furious at American abandonment of survivors. This would work well if U.S. units are crowding the Japanese. Could even write event so that Chicago was sunk as well. 5. American submarine attacked and believed sunk while training in "waters off Indonesia." Not a large activation amount, but still an uptick. 6. Japanese interference with or sinking of convoys to Russia. Not a large uptick each turn, but would be cumulative. Could generate atrocity stories if played up right in the press, too. Only works if Russia in war and some kind of special Lend Lease legislation is imagined that allows supplying it before U.S. entry. With these and others, I think a designer can make a creditable effort on U.S. war entry.

Part II From these foundations, can we project what would have happened, had the Axis powers behaved with more intelligence and restraint? I believe so. We have extensive documentary evidence from the Soviet Union to support exactly what Stalin was thinking and his goals. One of the most interesting of which is The Mitrokhin Archive. A rare glimpse inside the KGB and how the Soviet leadership was thinking. Stalin did not see Hitler as a threat. Right up until the German invasion, the Soviets were suppliers of raw materials TO the Germans. In Stalin's mind the enemies of the Soviet Union were the United States and Great Britain. Germany could do as it wished and Stalin wanted Germany to succeed. Even if Germany completely dominated non-Soviet Europe, Stalin was unlikely to consider Germany a direct threat to the Soviet Union. Whether a German Empire built on warfare could have lived at peace is another question. Nazi Europe. A German empire of Europe, with the British Isles occupied, would probably have resulted in a Cold War between German Europe on the one hand and the U.S. and the remnants of the British Empire on the other. This would be the result of the plain reality that the UK could not feed itself and the Germans could let them starve or allow food shipments in. If food shipments were allowed in, then no embargo against Germany could be airtight. In essence, the population of the UK would be held hostage. This empire would have been shaky, but it could have endured several generations before it collapsed, in spite of the relatively low number of Germans. We have enough evidence to support this both from the example of the Soviet Union itself, and the number of collaborators the Germans were able to find in occupied countries. If the Germans were able to get the European economies humming again, their cronnies might have been in stronger positions, at least in the short term. Stalin would have loved this kind of tense atmosphere. He liked playing puppetmaster. The West would have been so preoccupied with their own problems that he would have been left undisturbed. At least that is how he would have seen it. He also had so many agents infiltrated into the government and scientific agencies of the US and UK that he knew more about what was going on within them, than many people in those same organizations. Stalin also had at least one agent in Hitler's OKW nearly from the moment it was formed (We still don't know who it was.). For the United States, there was a real possibility that the war would end before the American public awakened to the need for action. This was Roosevelt's frustration. There was nothing he could do about it and I am still amazed at how much he got away with. That's not counting his allowing British intelligence to operate in the U.S., including assassinations. The country would not be moved and The Greatest Generation almost slept through the war.

Part I One thing that may be lost in playing the default scenario for Storm of Steel and many other wargames, is that both Germany and Japan had control over the pace of events. Ultimately an inept pattern of thinking they both fell into is what I call, inevitability. Germany: Hitler had control of the European war and, while he was short on resources, an argument can be made that time was on his side. It is rare that I run into a wargamer or even a historian who can tell me what Roosevelt was hoping for in order to trigger the United States entry into the war. They think of what happened (old patterns) as inevitable too. Please recall the United States' splitting the Atlantic Ocean in half and the U.S. Navy helping to escort convoys to the U.K. At the halfway point the convoys would be transferred to the Royal Navy. Roosevelt was trying to generate a Lusitania event and wanted it badly, with the U.S. Navy as bait. Even when a U.S. warship was torpedoed, Roosevelt could not get the result he wanted. As far as the Soviet Union was concerned, Stalin didn't want war and was content to pull the strings of others. I call it the “indifference of size.” (Both the USSR and US were exemplars of this attitude.) At the time the Germans invaded in 1941, the Soviets had 32,000 tanks. (Interesting note: 1941 German production was 1 tank/day, Soviet was 30 tanks/day.) German invasion preparations included staging 15,000 railroad car loads to the frontier. This had to be noticed. Hitler had control of events, but believed the contest with the Soviets was inevitable. His own rhetoric told him so. He had time and and he blew it. Japan: Here we have more evidence. Despite the published reports of what was happening in China, the American people were unmoved. This was not because the victims were Asian or because the perpetrators were Asian, as some have theorized. What was happening in Europe only registered in small communities as well. The U.S. could not be moved to war by the leaders alone, regardless of world events. Hence, the reason Roosevelt was projecting the U.S. Navy so provocatively into the Atlantic. Japan was fighting the China War for a decade and there was no meaningful response from anyone. Good evidence of control over the pace of events. The Japanese, in my opinion, made the mistake, too, of thinking in terms of inevitability. Picture the events of December 1941, without their attacking any U.S. bases. No attack on the Philippines, Guam, Wake, Pearl Harbor. Can you imagine the frustrated rage in Washington? The American people's likely response? It's not our problem.

Hello Again. I've been quiet lately, reading and watching. I'm impressed by the work you two have been putting into your mods and eagerly await your efforts. Al, I'm happy to see that you are allowing for delayed activation of the US and USSR. That's rare and nice to see. It brought to mind another "primer" I started writing a couple months back, then dropped. So, for you and Nupremal, I've put in the time to polish it up and get it ready. Even if it is of no use to you, it might be of intrest to those who play your mod, so they understand why delayed activation makes sense. I hope these prove of some use.

Arado, I thought you might like this. It's a PM I sent to Sombra some time back and the topic is self-explanatory. /////////////////////////// Sombra, I'd like to comment on the English capital question. I agree that Churchill would have chosen to move to Canada. I think few would doubt that. He would be in a populous English speaking country with large natural resources. This would keep him close to Roosevelt too. What would happen then is more interesting. Please bear with me. Some will be aware (others may not) that Churchill did contemplate surrender as a possibility at one point, because of the food shortages in the UK caused by U-boats. This burden weighed heavily on him in early and mid-1942. He was waiting and hoping and worrying. The turn around in the U-boat war in that July saved Britain. This is significant in several respects. - Great Britain was a net importer of food. A surrendered UK would still have to import food to feed the population. Continuation of hostilities would make this unlikely. The three breadbasket countries at the time were Canada, the United States, and Argentina. Transport would be necessarily by sea and would require the consent and cooperation of the German leadership. Any other option would lead to widespread famine in the British Isles in a matter of weeks. No British government could have fled and then allowed that to happen. - Germany was itself short of food as early as March 1940. I am referring to a remembered reference to a diary entry that wheat flour was being replaced with potato flour at that time. Any importation of food to the UK could be diverted to other locations, essentially ending food embargoes on Germany and Italy. - If you do a quick internet search on Spain's role in the war, you are likely to come up with reference to how the UK and US used petroleum imports as leverage to keep Franco from aiding the Axis. My own research has led me to the conclusion that this is a prettied up version of history. Spain at the time was also a net importer of food. Actually, Spain was importing food rather heavily and Churchill had threatened Spain with the same fate that his own country faced, famine. My guess is, that if the British Isles surrendered, the resultant food imports would allow Spain more freedom of action. (Or the Germans more freedom to deal with Spanish needs.) - An interesting remaining question then is the fate of overseas forces. Germany would certainly want Gibraltar, Malta, and British withdrawl from the Middle East. The Germans would not be in a position to demand that those forces actually withdrew to a certain place. There is a limit to how far you can push the threat of starvation. You either can starve a populace or you can't. The Royal Navy would have probably withdrawn to Canada and the US as would most of the land units. The surrender of the British Isles would have been a gaping wound to the English speaking world, but there is very little that could have been done about it considering the food problem. (You get perhaps 350,000 British military personnel world-wide stranded while their families are home and hungry. Nasty scenario.) I think the war with the West would have to come to a frustrating end. A Cold War situation would have developed. After all, we were shipping food to the Soviet Union during that “conflict.”

Excellent!

Great short history. I look forward to your mod.

As I start to write this, I am reliving a desire to strangle someone. I wish the encounter I am about relate weren't common. Sadly, it was too common and time does not change the attitudes this represents. In the mid 1980's I was faced with an American military commander, combat arms guy, and I was trying to make a point about lessons we could learn from German experiences in WWII. He said, "The Germans don't have anything to teach us. They lost." I won't even bother with some other incidents, that reflect the same attitudes. IMO, the only school for learning about mobile warfare is the German lesson. They did more with less, so they had to learn. The Allies were able to get away with less than optimal operations, for the simple reason that their overabundance of materiel covered for their sins. 1. Blitzkrieg was not a done deal in the German Army. Guderian was seen as a trouble maker by many, more traditional officers. He was the head of the Panzer arm. Rommel was in even poorer favor. 2. Thinking of the early campaigns during which they were actually able to apply it, the Germans had inferior equipment (Pz1 and PzII) and were still basically an infantry army with horse-drawn supply. The supply service was augmented with trucks, many pressed from civilan service. Hardly an ideal situation. The army had expanded rapidly first to 600,000 then to 3.8 million, in a short time, and still had the hard-marching characteristics of its core cadre. They were well trained. Their ability to tackle the most sturdy fortifications, on the fly, mystified their opponents. This was done, frequently with pure infantry assaults. 3. If they had one initial weakness, it was in there NCOs. Casualties among junior officers tended to be much higher than expected and were thought to be the result of not having had the time to devolop solid NCOs. 4. Blitzkrieg gave small formations the ability to defeat vastly larger formations at the operational level. This was the result of momentum. This is my personal distinction from "the initiative," which I tend to think of as subtly different, but I think it fits. As long as the operational size force maintains momentum, the larger force is constantly off balance and can not fix itself long enough to bring its great power to bear. 5. At least as early as August 1941, you can see the German Army leadership (Heer, OKH) worrying about what happens when winter arrives, if they go into winter quarters and lose momentum. As the weeks pass, the comabt commanders at the front grow almost frantic in trying to alert their superiors to the danger. As long as they possess the advantage of momentum they could keep the Soviets off balance. If they lost that advantage, there were not enough soldiers to stablize the front. To my knowledge, OKW, Hitler's headquarters, didn't seem to grasp this. The last desperate lunges at Moscow take on an entirely new meaning when viewed with this perspective. The commanders at the front didn't particularly want Moscow. They KNEW that they needed to retain that momentum for as long as possible. This is another instance of looking back and seeing that the commanders at the time were not as dumb as they first appeared to be.

It's often overlooked how much the British were supplying in 1941. Even when the British were fighting for their lives, in North Africa, they were turning over hundreds of tanks a month to the Soviets (through Iran). It is impossible to understand the Soviet campaigns without looking at the full extent of lend lease. Spam was a delicacy for Soviet Army veterans after the war. The US shipped it over by the thousands of tons. The German economy was short from the start, not just on fuel. In 1939, I remember reading that German industry had the capacity to process 600,000 tons of iron ore a month more than it was getting. Also, in early 1940, German food supplies were starting to show the strain and potato flour was used to leaven wheat flour. Transport. Well, the German Army, started the war as a horse-drawn service and didn't completely transition. Only American industrial might allowed the Allies to truly motorize their armies. To the extent the Germans did motorize, it was forced by casualties to draft animals. The following is from Franz Halder's war diary. 21 April, 1942: 1.Effect of Winter Battles: a. Personnel: 1.11.1941-1.4.1942, including sick: 900,000 losses, 450,000 replacements. These numbers include the almost total use of the 1922 year and strong encroachments on the economy. b. Material: 1.10.1941-15.3.1942: loss of 74,183 vehicles and 2,340 tracked vehicles; addition of 7,441 vehicles (10 percent) and 1,847 tracked vehicles (80 percent). Weapons: shortages include 28,000 rifles, 14,000 machine guns, 7,000 AT guns, 1,900 guns. Horses: 15.10.1941-15.3.1942: losses of 179,609, additions of 20,000. pp. 613-4 That last line is the pertinent one. You can't just manufacture draft animals. The losses came from temperature, lack of feed, or they were slaughtered for food by soldiers. As for your enjoyment of the subject (or obsession). There is a shared pleasure from discussion with talented people. *(And, at least your wife does not seem to resent it. That's a point in her favor.)

Type, about eight hours. I spent about twenty, thinking it through. Crafting good thoughts takes effort. I was playing hooky to do it, over the last few weeks. A bit here, a bit there. You, Arado, and Big Al, got me going enough to polish it up enough to post. Still some parts, I'm not entirely satisfied with, but that's the way it goes.

Yes, I've read Death Traps, excellent book on several levels. The relevence of the M4 myth, in my mind, is that if it were not for the movie Patton, it wouldn't be as widespread. The actual problem with the M4 wasn't design, but employment. If you look at the numbers of M4s we sent to the Soviet Union and then look at the comments from their combat commanders, they liked the M4. The Soviet commanders were used to losing 100-200 tanks in a day to kill just a handful of German tanks. It didn't matter what design of their own tanks they lost, heavy or medium or whether they were Soviet, British, or American designed. Soviet tank regiment commanders liked the Sherman. They actually thought it less likely to catch fire, in its later variants than the T-34/85. Myths tend to be what sticks in the mind was the point I was trying to make. I didn't want to get off the topic. By the way, anyone who wants to begin to learn the basics of attrition warfare, the applications of economic power in combat, and what is required to keep a combat unit running should read Death Traps. Superb.

I hope these help prepare the ground for the new game.

Part IV Campaigns. Island Hopping – Central and South Western Pacific. Island hopping was the American strategy for approaching the Japanese home islands. The term is something of a misnomer. It implies that strongholds were bypassed and left to rot and only truly essential bases, for moving the campaign forward were assaulted. Some bases were bypassed, but there were nearly eighty Allied landings in the push west. A long debate continues over all of those were truly necessary. (One that hits close to home for me, is Iwo Jima. My uncle fought as a member of the 5th Marine Division there. Iwo Jima still generates hot discussion.) The basic purpose for assaulting the islands, was to establish the final bases from which to launch the invasion of the Japanese home islands. For historical discussions, this would be Okinawa. Other than this purpose, securing Australia from invasion was also a legitimate determinant for early landings. Beyond those, it gets murkier when you try to decide exactly why one place absolutely had to be invaded over another. Sheltered harbors and sufficient land area for airstrips in range of subsequent objective islands become factors. An argument can be made, that if you are willing wait, and build up a larger naval force, longer “hops” can be made and fewer casualties incurred. A common feature in island hopping was sea and air bombardment. Tens of thousands of tons of munitions could be expended in just a few hours. Effectiveness was nearly zero. The only time air support or naval fires were considered effective were when there were soldiers or marines in direct contact with the Japanese AND calling in directed fires. Tarawa and Iwo Jima were good examples of small ship (DD and DE) skippers risking their careers to bring their ships in close to shore so they could engage targets in direct fire mode. Ground-pounders loved those guys. India-Burma-China. This theater tied down the bulk of the Japanese Army for the duration of the war. The terrain was staggeringly difficult and nearly impossible for Westerners to comprehend. For U.S. military veterans, southern Panama might be a close parallel for the deadly potential of the terrain. That any fighting was possible for the west was a testament to the global supply capacity organized through the U.S. True, some food sources were local, from India, but not all. The supply efforts by air and ground through this area and into China should be considered a military wonder. The resources the Allies put into this fight, paid disproportionate dividends in the number of Japanese soldiers tied down and general frustration factor for their leaders. Submarine Campaign. The most effective of all the campaigns. If memory serves, more than half all Japanese merchant shipping tonnage was sunk by Allied submariners and about a quarter of their warships. A staggering blow. Like their German counterparts, U.S. submarines had problems with torpedo fuses for the first part of the war. Unlike the Germans, the Allied submarines were never very numerous and were sometimes, especially early in the war, skippered by less than aggressive commanders. Carrier pilots got the newsreel face time, but the sub crews broke the Japanese navy's ability to fight. Air Campaign. Strategic bombing runs into the same arguments as in Europe. Lousy accuracy for “precision bombing.” Only about 30% of bombs anywhere near the targets. Terror bombing was normal. Effectiveness debatable. Casualties high so cost/benefit turns emotional fast. Again, some islands were taken solely to support the bombing campaign, so the question of unneeded casualties comes up. There is one factor concerning fire-bombing of Japanese cities that does bear some mention. Japanese production was different than any other industrialized nation's, because elements of it were decentralized into individual Japanese homes. This was peculiar and had built in inefficiencies. The effect of area fire-bombing on this decentralized production apparatus might have been more effective than the traditional “precision” bombing. I've not seen any reports that stated that this was intentional, so it was likely an accidental side effect. US-USSR shipments. The campaign that wasn't. The primary conduit for US lend-lease supplies to the Soviet Union went across the Pacific through the Soviet port of Vladivostok. For the most part, the Japanese did nothing to interfere with this traffic. At best, they threw a little harassment at the ships, nothing more. The trade was carried out in Soviet flagged ships “gifted” by the U.S. to the USSR. This trade was in addition to the trade through the South Pacific to Iran and US-UK-Murmansk. Any simulation of the war, would have to take this into account. The Japanese had the capability to cut ming-boggling quantities of supplies of every category. All they had to do was reach out and squeeze. I've studied the US-USSR and earlier UK-USSR shipments, both types of materials and quantities, for years. The USSR does not survive, without those materials. That the Allies received a free ride in that trade was a gift of untold magnitude.

Part III The Courts-Martial that weren't. My 2cents: I've worked with flag officers, seen how UCMJ is used, know how that system works, and how it doesn't. The conviction rate in courts-marital is higher than 90%. It's good to be a military prosecutor. The two flag officers who were held accountable, Lt. Gen. Short (U.S.A.) and Vice Admiral Kimmel (U.S.N.) were not given trials. That speaks volumes. Both men's careers were destroyed. Mr. Prange (Gordon Prange, At Dawn We Slept and Miracle at Midway) dissects specific responsibilities by officer, for those who are interested. I would say they had very few resources and what resources they had were used on the obvious threats. What more was there to do? They never received any intelligence feed. Something that is a mantra for commanders today. Interestingly, Adm. Kimmel was not the naval officer responsible for the security of the fleet while it was in port. His responsibility ended when the ships entered harbor. The commander of the local Naval district was directly responsible for fleet security in port, two star I think, named Block. He was mentioned by name in the movie. Block was let off the hook entirely. One thought, I've heard put forward was that Adm. Kimmel might have taken the fleet to sea to better protect it by hiding in the Pacific. If you've seen the movie, the carriers were not in port, they had been sent to ferry aircraft to other bases. The battleships would have been at sea with no air-cover, except in range of land-based aircraft. There were Japanese submarines in the area, they launched the 2-man subs. Possibility: The Japanese find the battleships in deep water or Admiral Kimmel pursues the Japanese fleet and it turns on him. Both would likely have happened beyond the range of any land-based air cover. The USS Enterprise might have been able to lend some help, but that would have been all. Can anyone imagine the survival of any of those old, slow battleships in the face of the massed Japanese naval air arm? The fight happening in deep water? Possibility: A Japanese submarine spots the battleships and the Japanese carriers move east and south, away from the American carriers. There were few American destroyers. One sub-launched torpedo attack would have forced zig-zagging, those battleships were terrible fuel hogs, and the Japanese carriers would have been on the hunt. The Japanese might have attacked Pearl Harbor anyway, while passing Hawaii, and finding no big ships, have attacked the infrastructure, tank farms and dry docks. When President Roosevelt moved the American Pacific fleet homeport from San Diego to Hawaii, there was resistance from within the Navy Department. They considered provocative. The president wanted to send a message. But then the president forgot the message he was sending and began stripping the fleet to reinforce the Atlantic. He sent one message in the move to Hawaii, then every withdrawal sent the opposite message. (Almost Hitler-like reasoning.) This is where many of the destroyers went. Last thoughts on Pearl Harbor: This is one of those areas of history about which someone, desperate for a Ph.D. topic, comes along periodically and tries to find something “new” to justify as a dissertation. If you want to learn about it, in my opinion, you can't beat, At Dawn We Slept. Prange was a Japanese linguist, he interviewed the men who conceived the operation (including Commander Genda), after the war. He read the Japanese documents. And he understood the American military well. While Tora, Tora, Tora, had some historical errors in it, (like that horrible closing line attributed to Admiral Yamamoto), it is based on this book. Prange is a tough act to follow and no other author, in my opinion, has risen to the challenge. (There was a book by one of Kimmel's staff officers that was really good, came out in the mid 1980s, after much of the intel that had not been given to them had been declassified. Title might have been, I Was There. This book was credible. There was an absolutely awful, disreputable book that came out in the '90s.) Ok, Pearl Harbor is burning, then about eight hours later, General MacArthur's air power gets flattened on the ground. The Philippines, unlike Hawaii, had always been a location that Washington expected the Japanese to attack. In fact, they expected the Japanese to attack there before Hawaii. (It can be said that his air power was under strength and some of it technically outdated, but couldn't the same argument be made about Pearl?) General MacArthur and his biographers have blamed his air commander for that disaster. Hard to know. Strange that in Hawaii the commanders took the rap, but not in the Philippines. Then, the stockpile of food that was supposed to be in place in Corregidor wasn't. The biographers have had a hard time with this one. A fortress can't be filled with food in a day, which is something they seem to try to imply was attempted. Then, I just have a really hard time ever forgiving MacArthur for holding a grudge against General Wainright. That's just petty. I met a man who survived those awful camps. I couldn't but respect him.

Part II Start with the Battle of Midway and ask the question. Did Admiral Yamamoto's plan to invade Midway make any sense. If you don't remember, there was no plan for a follow up operation to Pearl Harbor, before the fact. Midway is in a fairly nice location, but it is thousands of miles from its nearest supply point, the farthest point in an extended (overextended?) arc of outposts, which were nearer the enemy's homeland than his own. Potential upside was that air and possibly submarine forces operating from there might have been able to harass Pearl Harbor and convoys from the west coast of the US to Hawaii and, at a stretch, Australia. Would it have been suitable as a staging area for an invasion of the American mainland? Problematic. If supply could be guaranteed, maybe. It was pretty barren. I would like to ask you to think of the Pacific Ocean not as an ocean or as a merely a large body of water. Think of it as the largest desert on the planet. (Someone used this reference earlier. I was pleased to see it. This is how I have taught about the Pacific.) To the north and some ares in the southeast are marginal areas where food production is highly specialized and only those highly trained can survive. Populations are limited. Australia, a continental desert, with habitable areas on the coasts is still only a peripheral consideration. Far to the southeast are resources of military value that can be considered to be at continental distances, part of Austral-Asia. There are no resources, no appreciable material resources, food beyond the subsistence level, even potable water, between the four continents. At best the scattered islands are oases of stability in the vast desert. For supplies, if you don't bring it with you, you don't have it. A potential invasion of Hawaii would gain a source of slave labor, an amount of arable land, protected harbors. No resources. Most food, all fuel, all petroleum products, all repair parts must be imported. As a staging area, it is preferable to Midway, but large numbers of undisciplined troops would destroy what benefits the island would immediately offer an invader, in short order. The history of Japanese treatment of slaves and prisoners and their destruction of captured facilities not required for direct military use are too well documented. My contention is that, if the Japanese had invaded Hawaii, it would have doomed their fleet. They would have been tied down to defending the necessary supply convoys over such distances, that even a weakened U.S. Navy could have been effective in waging attrition warfare. This doesn't take into account the probably size of the garrison the Japanese would have thrown into the islands and stranded there. Talk about an albatross. The central Pacific campaigns were fought right through the heart of the desert. MacArthur's campaign was fought along the edge of the barely habitable zone. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor they made three critical mistakes. Reflect on the desert analogy. The attack did not target the any of the following, 1) tank farms, 2) dry docks, 3) submarine base. Perhaps the most precious commodity at Pearl Harbor, petroleum, oil, and lubricants. The tank farms escaped unscathed. If these had been destroyed, it is hard to picture how the US Navy would have managed to project any naval forces to confront the Japanese. This was before the SeaBees were created. Those facilities were immeasurably valuable. The dry docks were the only repair facility, west of the west coast. Leaving those undamaged allowed the US Navy to begin recovery efforts immediately. Their destruction had the potential to slow the process not just of recovery, but of long-term support of combat operations of the carriers against the Japanese. With the submarines and their base untouched, American submarines began operations right away against Japan. The Japanese didn't devote the kind of resources to prewar antisubmarine research like the British did and thus were even less prepared. The Washington Naval Treaty prohibited fortification of the islands of the Pacific. This is why the initial Japanese attacks went so smoothly. Japan was economically incapable of carrying out the kind of campaign the U.S. launched, because they lacked the supply capability to support its military forces in prolonged offensives across the Pacific Desert. Such is my theory, at least. After Japan's initial seizures across the Pacific, their ability to supply those possessions was with consumables was shoe-string thin. In China, Japanese Army units had a rich land from which to forage or compel support. In the Pacific, just about everything had to be shipped in and any interdiction could and did have catastrophic consequences. Japanese capabilities to endure hardships without supply are overstated. They starved just like anyone else. Or, in some cases, descended to cannibalism, of prisoners. (The Australian Army documented this quite well.) Okinawa is an exception to the rule about Japanese supply problems being tied, at least somewhat, to suicide charges. First there was a large civilian population living on agriculturally productive land. Second, the Japanese had a forceful commander who forbid the banzai charges on principle. He wanted to inflict the maximum casualties on his opponent.

Part I If you want to read a good introduction to the US Navy in the Pacific get the book War Plan Orange, by Edward S. Miller (I'd forgotten the author, but one of son's friends had borrowed the book from me.). Pre-WWII the US Navy had rigorous war game and exercise program and the “problems” set for each mission were crafted around a set of anticipated “real world” possibilities. If I remember correctly, every major engagement up to Leyte Gulf, but not including it, had been war gamed during the 1930's. Fascinating stuff. (Post-war US Navy, the integrity of the games suffered, there is another book that talks about that, I'm sure I have it in a box somewhere. The Navy didn't want to contemplate what would happen if a super-carrier was sunk.) The original U.S. Marine landing on Guadalcanal was essential unopposed. It was after the landing that things got ugly. The movie Guadalcanal Diary doesn't do it justice. Back in 1992, I saw part of a movie on TV, and wish I could recall the name. It was actually a biography for one of the admirals and it was the best single depiction I've ever seen of what the Marines really faced there. They didn't pull any punches about the disease and starvation. Both sides were starving. The Japanese might land 11,000 troops in a night, but they wouldn't land any food. That leads, eventually to lots of suicide charges. If anyone can identify the movie, I'd be grateful. There was a great deal of resentment in the Marine Corps about Guadalcanal, towards the Navy. If you don't know the story, we had few aircraft carriers and there was a risk aversion in the admirals. That's why there were so many cruiser and battleship engagements around the island. When the carriers showed up, they didn't linger. The resentment lasted a long time. A traditional history of the Pacific war misses just how many islands had to be taken. For every one island invasion mentioned, there were at least 3-4 more unmentioned. And the fighting was unbelievably savage. I mentioned Chesty Puller once, the most decorated Marine of the war. He was on some of the early landings when we didn't know what we were facing. The pictures of the faces on those Marines from the early landings, after a few days, grim is the only word that seems to fit. Some reporters from Europe have said that they were prevented from showing American casualties on film. It was part of the wartime censorship. I find that hard to believe. I've gotten my hands on newsreels that were shown in movie theaters from the Pacific campaign that showed Americans being killed, Americans killing Japanese, Japanese killing themselves. Nothing held back. Stuff that wouldn't make it on TV today. All of it with original narration so the moviegoers knew what they were seeing. I was once invited to do a guest lecture on America in WWII. I wasn't given much time, so I went for punch. Things that might get the audience's attention, that they hadn't heard before. Here are some that you might not know. What Germany almost succeeded in doing to Great Britain, a decisive submarine campaign against an island nation without natural resources, we did succeed in doing to Japan. Submarines were able to take the war to Japan immediately after Pearl Harbor and every day thereafter. Far more tonnage was sunk by American submarines than by aircraft and surface vessels combined. The decisive factor in beating Japan was not the aircraft carrier, but the submarine. The aircraft carrier was a combat multiplier that served a useful purpose, but not decisive. (Naval aviators absolutely hate this one. There is a book with a complete list of every Japanese ship sunk in WWII, and how it was sunk. You know, I think I used to own a copy too. So many years, so much research.) The Japanese economy was starved for resources. If you want to know why they didn't build more carriers, thank the American submariners. At the time of the Pearl Harbor attack the Japanese did not have a single aircraft carrier laid down for construction. I think they starting laying down new carriers after Midway. A case of too little, too late. At two points in 1942, the United States had only one operational carrier in the Pacific. By the end of the war, the U.S. Had more than 100 carriers in commission.

Hello Guys, I thought it might be useful to offer a primer on the US Navy in the Pacific in World War II. I'm working from memory (as usual) so any errors or gaps are my own.

Arado, In response to your posts. Concerning artillery: - Making artillery an upgrade for infantry and armor units would be a suitable solution all around. - Soviet and Western artillery was a blunt instrument. In reading German accounts of Soviet barrages, they treated it like the weather. It came, it went. Even when the Soviets had kilometers of guns, wheel to wheel and fired for hours, it didn't, by itself, guarantee a breakthrough. Other things had to happen. Well dug in infantry could survive. The soldiers who could not handle the barrages, psychologically, were weeded out quickly, like with any other aspect of combat. Concerning combat soldiers and air power: - Average combat soldiers feared artillery more than aircraft. Aircraft could be heard coming and could only hit limited targets. Their accuracy was terrible. They were limited to how close they could hit to Allied lines. They had very limited ammunition. Dive in a hole and let it pass. Pop up and resume fighting. - Artillery could last longer and more rounds could be thrown. Artillery could be both heavy rounds and mortars. Infantry really hated mortars when they were on the other side. That hip-pocket artillery could be nasty in a close-in fight. Artillery was just part of being a combat soldier and could be endured, but of the suppressives/combat mulitipliers, ranked up with tanks and having to attack into entrenched machine guns for “oh ****” factor. - One thing I liked about that article was the distinction between combat soldiers and rear area generals. My own experience substantiates that. Combat soldiers are an entirely different breed from supply and support types. In my experience, rear area types are also more likely to complain about things that discomfit them, while combat soldiers don't think their worth comment. Concerning rear area soft targets and air power: - Soft targets like the trucks and staff cars you mentioned were frequent targets for American ground attack aircraft. They were often easy to find being on or near roads and their drivers rarely having access to camouflage or being too lazy to camouflage them properly when stopped. You are correct that targeting them was a high priority and German fuel stocks were the greatest weakness (along with troop shortages and troop quality in some cases, discounting lack of Luftwaffe) the German Army had in the west. - The same accuracy problems (4% in peace time, when not under fire and fully rested air crews) applied in these cases. So did the limited ammunition carried by the usual aircraft used, normally fighters, pressed into service, P-47s and P-51s. - The effectiveness of individual strafing and rocket attacks is often overestimated, because we can, understandably, base our assumptions on movie footage. When directors choose actual gun-camera footage to include in a production, they choose the footage that is most spectacular, most indicative of what he/she wants the audience to perceive. In short, it has a large “wow factor.” Those who remember Desert Storm news coverage will know precisely what I am talking about. - With over 5,000 aircraft available to attack German rear areas, the Allies had better have had an effect on German supplies. But, even with high sortie rates, with the same aircraft and pilots flying multiple missions in a day, they still had problems, in good weather, stopping the flow of supplies, combat equipment, and reinforcements, into a defined and limited area, within a short range of their airbases. - So it is a matter of effect, yes. How much? Total effect for resources invested? These are not as cut and dried as we are prone to think. Air power is like the myths about the M-4 Sherman being a terrible tank. They keep going and going. (How well we used it, is another matter.) As for adapting to the situation, they would have been fools not to. It was the reality of the situation and wishing it were different wasn't going to change it. They made the best of the factors available. Rommel. That is entirely another discussion.

I am posting in response to Big Al. For those who haven't noticed, I don't generally reply to really bad posts, I won't put the hours in for that. Good posts are another matter. Al is correct that German artillery was far superior. In fact, on the Russian front, in spite of huge numerical superiorities, I don't know of single time the Russians managed a breakthrough until the German artillery nets had collapsed (i.e. the Germans could no longer call for fire, had run out of ammunition, etc.). For the German Army, artillery was a precision weapon. The only time I know they had trouble was early in the war, Poland through Norway, when they were getting a large number of “shorts.” These may have been due to faulty artillery tables. There was a marked increase in Allied artillery effectiveness that is not widely recognized and it came at an interesting time. Variable Time fusing had been in use in the Pacific Theater for some time in an anti-aircraft role and had reduced the number of rounds to bring down an aircraft almost by a factor of four. Security rules forbid its use over land for fear of the enemy getting hold of one of the fuses. This limitation was lifted during the later stages of the Battle of the Bulge and the use of VT artillery rounds by American artillery on German infantry in the Ardennes Forest was devastating. As for air power, I know that strong air power is a staple of the genre and has assumed mythological proportions in some defense circles. Here is a link to the most brilliant piece of research on tactical air power I've ever seen. (I think much of it holds true today if you actually look at the U.S. Air Force after action reports on the “Scud hunt” of Desert Storm and the Serbia air campaign.) The author's name is not on the article, but I person who posted it on the web is Niklas Zetterling. Big Al, I think you will enjoy this. http://web.telia.com/~u18313395/normandy/articles/airpower.html