SC2 Idea - War In Pacific Influences War in Europe

[Edwin P.]

Shaka of Carthage:What I'd like to see, is the actions of Japan (which are off-map), being "historical" or "random". The US readiness percentage, would be effected by the Japanese actions as well as Axis (Germany/Italy) actions. And just like you described for Russia, it would be nice to see some sort of "news event" showing the actions that Japan did.

Without getting into too much detail, Japanese actions would dictate what kind of Commonwealth units the UK would receive. Example would be Japan making major advances in Indo-China, would reduce the number of CW units that would reinforce Egypt as well as forcing the US readiness to go higher. While the Japanese DoW on US ('41 if historical, sooner or later if random) would in turn force US to war with Japan, it would not guarantee a German DoW on the US.

Germany would have the option of DoWing on US, because in return it wanted Japan to DoW on Russia. If it was determined that Japan would DoW on Russia, that would mean no Siberians for Russia as well as a MPP reduction.

Now, lets get back to Russia. Russia has the option of transferring troops to fight against Germany. But if it does so, it would weaken the forces facing Japan. Hence, if the Russians transferred the Siberians before fighting Japan, Japan would have the advantage. If it doesn't transfer them, then it would just about gurantee success in a conflict against Japan. That would put the decision in Russian hands on how to handle the Siberians, with the pro's and con's that they had in real life.

[Edwin P.]

Adding to Shaka of Carthage's proposal I would like to see the US have options for how it will wage war on two fronts;

1. Historical Option - Current SC

2. Pacific First - where the US would concentrate on defeating the Japanese before turning its attention to defeating Germany. Selecting this option would reduce the MPPs available in for the US player until the US is victorious in the Pacific. At the same time the Russians would be more likely to have the Siberian Transfer at an earlier date as the Japanese armed forces would be focused on stopping the American onslaught.

3. Stronger Focus on the War in Europe - in this option the US forces would adopt a defensive strategy in the Pacific and accept the loss of Midway while most Naval forces would be used to fight the war in Europe.

In game terms, this would give the US additional Naval units (say 2 carriers and 1 bomber) two to three months after it enters the war (allowing for Transit Time from the Pacific) and leaves Japan free to threaten Russian Siberia - thus eliminating any chance for a Siberian Transfer- or to threaten the Commonwealth Nations - Burma, India, Australia.

Naturally, from monitoring news reports the Axis player would know which strategy the Americans have adopted.

-- President Roosevelt vows that the US war priority is the defeat of Japan. (Japan First - Lower US Production, Early Siberian Transfer)

-- President Roosevelt has ordered the transfer of all available Naval resources to the Atlantic to secure the rapid defeat of the Axis powers in Europe. (Greater focus on defeating Germany - US receives more naval units, no/later Siberian transfer)

-- President Roosevelt has stated that the US war strategy is to defeat Germany first and then Japan.(Historical)

[ December 01, 2003, 03:45 PM: Message edited by: Edwin P. ]

[Blashy]

Just make a full world map, then you'll be the one influencing what goes on in Europe.

I much prefer that than relying on some calculations that like it or not will be cause for debate and complaining.

[ErrantRecce1]

Blashy, I think that SC2, as a proper full world war would be the answer to alot of user complaints. Just as you said, the user would be then be the one to decide how the US, or Axis forces respond.. so i guess.. really

" Yeah , like he said!"

Think of the hours and hours and hours til the methuselan SC players master all the new variables. We might retire a whole crop of them.

[Edwin P.]

Building on Comments by JerseyJohn and Shaka of Carthage - what would have been the possible Japanese Actions and Allied Reactions during WWII?

A. Historical - Attacks US Dec7,1941

B. Affect on the War Readiness of the US. Without an attack on Pearl Harbor at what point would the US have entered the war? After taking Malaysia, Vietname, Singapore, Australia, or the Phillipines? What if they took Midway and not Pearl Harbor?

After the US enters the War:

C. What if the US Largely Ignored the Pacific to focus more, a lot more, on the War in Europe

What would have been the effect on the commonwealth - India, Burma and Australia?

What would have been the effect on Russia? Would Japan have attacked Siberia?

D. What if the US adopted a Japan first strategy? How soon would Japan have fallen to the Americans? 1943 - 1944 - 1945 - 1946. When could the US have begun to focus more resources on fighting the War in Europe? in SC Terms.

E. How would the size of the Russian Siberian Army affect the Actions of Japan and the chances for their army conquering Siberia?

Perhaps in 1940 Give Russia a choice of what to do with the Siberian Army;

A. Historical

B. Withdraw Forces to the West increasing the size of the Russian army by 3 units and 1 HQ based in the Urals.

---- If US enters war and Focuses on Pacific then remaining siberian transfer units transfer.

---- If US enters war and Abandons war in Pacific to Focus on Europe then Japan conquers Siberia and Russian production is reduced by 20% per turn and remaining Siberian transfer units are destroyed.

---- IF US enters war and follows historical strategy and Japan attacks Russia then 50% Japan conquers Siberia and Russian production is reduced by 20%.

[ December 01, 2003, 04:10 PM: Message edited by: Edwin P. ]

[JerseyJohn]

Edwin & Shaka

Interesting ideas and not much to add that hasn't already been covered.

My own pet idea is that Japan, after taking French Indochina, could have taken the Dutch East Indies as well and the United States couldn't have gone to war over it. Roosevelt couldn't force the issue and Congress would never have passed it! The Japanese just didn't understand that; that even if the United States sent everything it had to the Pacific, as long as Japan didn't actually invade US territory or go out of it's way to attack the US military they were safe! The even sank US gunboats in China and Germany sank US destroyers in the Atlantic, and not even that could raise much war sentiment. The attitude was displeasure at the government for putting those vessels in war zones!

Okay, so Japan has taken Indochina and the East Indies, it now has all the oil and rubber it needs, presumably it's getting iron ore from somewhere other than the U. S., or perhaps she's got a supply in Manchuria ... and the Commonwealth goes to war with her and there's no United States supporting her. What happens?

Australia and New Zealand can't send troops to North Africa. There isn't a capital ship opposing Japan in the entire Pacific and Indian Oceans unless England sends some from it's home waters -- it's already thread bare in the Mediterannean ... anti-British movements in India barely restrained by the influence of Ghandi and a few other leaders, the radicals receiving open support from both Germany and Japan.

No Coral Sea, no Midway, no Guadalcanal, no Tarawa, no Saipan, Iwo Jima or Okinawa, no Leyte Gulf, no Battle for Manila --

Who wins in the Pacific?

The only question is how long it would have taken.

Amazing how all these things fall into place.

What it amounts to is, by attacking the United States when it did, Japan chose it's only losing scenario!

[Panzer39]

Very true John, it would be cool to take a page from Hearts of Iron and have elections in the USA and other Free Nations with the random chance of electing a pacifist. Of course for this really to have an impact we would need a 1936 scenerio and a world map

[JerseyJohn]

Panzer

Ah, the proverbial back door approach -- excellent! You win the Forum Tactician Medal with Oak Leaves. Well Done.

The odd thing is the U. S. didn't have a pacifist president -- it had a totally isolationist citizenry and congress! On paper the U. S. didn't appear to suffer much in WW I, but the death and destruction in that war and seeing it happen all over again twenty one years later -- The War to End All Wars had an even worse sequel! -- turned the whole country away from getting involved again.

Only FDR and a handful of others thought the U. S. should take on the role of Savior. And they might well have found that to be an impossible task if there weren't a Russian Front.

[ December 01, 2003, 11:03 PM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ]

[Panzer39]

Ah but thats just it, FDR gets defeated by someone else! I think Landen was a pacifist but than he might not even have been a contender. Its late and I might be messing up my history!

[ December 01, 2003, 11:13 PM: Message edited by: Panzer39 ]

[Blashy]

The US did not want to get involved in WW2 not because of WW1, for one thing they just had a token involvement and Germany would still have lost without their involvement.

The reason is quite simple. People left Europe for the US because they wanted to start fresh and be done with the constant struggles in Europe.

Now go and ask them to bail you out after they bailed from you for those reasons...

[JerseyJohn]

Blashy

Sorry but I have to totally disagree. The U. S. saw only a short time of combat in WW I, but had enormous casualties for the time it was in, comparable to the Korean War in total dead and wounded! The British, French and Germans were all amazed by the apparent American willingness to suffer losses. This would not have continued if the War had lasted longer while the U. S. was involved, but as comparative innocents the Doughboys were in a bloodbath.

Not true about Germany. It had already won on the Eastern Front and would, at the very least, have held it's own on the Western Front. Britain was drafting men of fifty-five! That's pretty much the bottom of the military barrel. France had already undergone an outright mutiny and was slated for another, probably worse one if things didn't change quickly.

Coming out of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in 1918, ending the war in the East, it was Germany which refused the Anglo-French peace offers and not the other way around! Britain and France were more than willing to recognize Germany's Easter conquests as well as returning it's African Colonies in exchange for a withdrawl to the original 1914 French-Belgium border, but Ludendorff stupidly refused and the Kaiser, who wanted to end it, even more stupidly allowed his top general to also dictate policy.

So, I stand by my original points, that the U. S. was war weary from what it had seen in France, the full horror of which had gradually come to light during the twenties and thirties, and also say your WW I statement is totally wrong.

If you're talking about the blockade, the sudden utilization of Ukrainian wheat with the chance for some normal harvests, along with Russian mineral and oil resources, would have made it irrelevant. It was the million or so fresh American troops moving with reckless abandon upon the Rhine that brought about Germany's WW I defeat!

True, Germany, Britain and France had spent four years hacking away at one another, bleeding each other white; they should have settled things in 1916 at the latest.

The appearance of American troops in great numbers decided the war, but I agree the United States played the smallest part in it. It was like three guys brawling with a giant, one of them (Russia) is knocked out, the remaining two and the giant as well are dead on their feet, no longer able to either throw or take another blow, when yet another guy wanders in fresh and knocks out the exhausted titan. Did he win the fight? No, but he delivered the final blow.

[ December 02, 2003, 12:12 AM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ]

[JerseyJohn]

Panzer

Your recollection of history is fine, both Landen and Wendell Wilkie ran on peace platforms, but after Coolidge and Hoover, both credited with causing the Depression, U. S. voters were not going for a Republican. They liked FDR's national recovery programs and had faith in him, though in truth he spoke through both sides of his mouth on the war issues.

Twenty years earlier Woodrow Wilson had reached office by vowing not to get involved in the European War. He legitimately didn't want to, FDR had the opposite view, but was having a much harder time selling the public on the idea and a hopless time in congress. A lot of congressmen didn't even want to pass Lend Lease!

[Edwin P.]

2. Pacific First - where the US would concentrate on defeating the Japanese before turning its attention to defeating Germany. Selecting this option would reduce the MPPs available in for the US player until the US is victorious in the Pacific. At the same time the Russians would be more likely to have the Siberian Transfer at an earlier date as the Japanese armed forces would be focused on stopping the American onslaught.

Revised: Pacific First Effects

1. Siberian Transfer Occurs Automatically X Months after US enters the War.

2. US Production reduced by 50% until Victory over Japan. 0% 1942, 20% 1943, 50% 1944, 90% 1945, 100% 1946.

3. Value of Merchant ship convoys to UK increased by 100% until Japan is defeated.

[kurt88]

Coming out of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in 1918, ending the war in the East, it was Germany which refused the Anglo-French peace offers and not the other way around! Britain and France were more than willing to recognize Germany's Easter conquests as well as returning it's African Colonies in exchange for a withdrawl to the original 1914 French-Belgium border, but Ludendorff stupidly refused and the Kaiser, who wanted to end it, even more stupidly allowed his top general to also dictate policy.

Unbelievable isn't it? Ludendorff may very well be the cause of Hitler's rise to power and WWII !!

[JerseyJohn]

Kurt

Yes, and what's scarier is in the early twenties they worked together! At the Beer Hall Putsch the stately Generaloberst striding calmly through the bullets, the police careful not to hit him, calmly moving through the ranks and walking home while Hitler and the others fled behind him.

I wondered if either of them ever saw their relationship in quite the way you've alluded to. Very interesting parellel.

[kurt88]

Well, Hitler went to jail, Ludendorff was aquitted. That certainly ruined their relation.

Don't realy think that Hitler ever saw more in the General than a usefull tool.

When Hitler was released Ludendorff wasn't in the picture anymore although he certainly tried to get at Hitler's good side again.

Question is : Would Hitler, as a soldier in '14-'18, be agreeing with peace in the west and victory in the east?

[JerseyJohn]

I think Ludendorff was more than a little in dimentia the whole time Hitler knew him. By the late twenties it was increasingly evident. No doubt Hitler would have found him easy to manipulate anywhere along the line.

Hindenburg was a different story. If he had he been ten years younger when Hitler was appointed chancellor, he would probably have kept the nazis under control, as von Pappen and the others were counting on.

It's very difficult to anticipate what Hitler, as a corporal in the trenches was thinking.

If peace were announced and he looked at a newspaper map showing Germany encompasing Poland and Belorussia east of Kiev, extending almost to Smolensk, his opinion, and that of every other German veteran, would have been that they'd won the war.

From there the possibilities are limitless; probably no World Wide Depression and an entirely different 20th Century scenario.

[Themasterofall]

The real reason that America was reluctant to join the war was that the USA had money invested in Nazi Germany. Alot of money in fact, and it was Presedent George Bushes grand father who was in charge of such operations.

Remember:

World war 1:

1914-1918

World war 2:

1939-1945

[ December 17, 2003, 01:05 PM: Message edited by: Themasterofall ]

[Friendly Fire]

World War 1: 1914-1981

Ya, my grandad said the war went on forever...