A northern Allied strategy?

[dtravel]

I'm sitting her staring at the strategic map and I'm wondering. Has anyone tried a northern approach as the Allies? By this I mean coming directly at the Japanese Home Islands via either of these two routes:
1) Aleutians - Kuriles - Home Islands;
2) Hawaii - Midway - Wake - Marcus Island - Bonin/Iwo Jima - Tori Shima (optional) - Home Islands

Basically as the Allies has anyone just said "*Bleep* it" and gone straight for the jugular? Rather than pushing the Empire back on a broad front, just punch a narrow front directly to Home Islands and invade as quickly as possible?

If anyone has tried it, when and how did it go? Or if you considered it seriously but didn't, why not?

[dereck]

I've never tried the northern approach but it does bring up something else.

In almost all of the history books I've read it mentions the split command structure of BOTH the Japanese and Americans but it was only the Americans who were able to manage to survive it.

IF the US Army and Navy could have decided on one surpreme commander from day one instead of finally giving the position to MacArthur after the war was over it makes you wonder how much sooner the war would have been over if the Americans would have just had one major thrust across the Pacific instead of the split thrusts which, rather than really being part of an over all strategy, was just because the major chiefs in Washington couldn't decide who to make the Supreme Commander so you had a Navy thrust across the Central Pacific and an Army thrust through New Guinea into the Philippines.

If the Americans had concentrated all their forces in one thrust there would have been no way the Japanese would have been able to withstand it as spread out as their defenses were.

[madflava13]

My only concern with the Aleutians thrust is the size of some of those forts/CD units the Japanese have in their outlying islands... As the Allies, you're going to lose a lot of ships a long way from home because of those. Also, without carriers, there's no way you can cover an invasion with air units.

[Cpt Sherwood]

I have never tried this but have also thought about it. From the CHS map, Attu has an airfield with an SPS of 5 and Kiska has a port with an SPS of 2. Both of those can be built up. Attu is within normal B-17 range of two Japanese bases. There is no reason to not have CV support.

I was wondering if about 9/43 would be an good time to start. If you do not lose any prewar CVs and bring 2 British CVs you should be able to support a landing at those two bases. They both have an SPS of 1 so they can support a good number of fighters and medium bombers. Using those a set of jumps to Sakilin(sp?) and Haikido(sp?) islands in the North might be possible. The southern 3(?) bases on Haikido island are in the temperate weather region, not cold. that means you can use them to bomb the crap out of mainland Japan. They also have resources so there will be some supplies. The nice thing is that if the Japanese player sends a lot of forces to oppose you, you can make a long range attack into the SRA or into Malaya. If they have made the cold weather area bad enough, you will have to take the bases that are in the temperate region to be successful.

[06 Maestro]

I am tempted to agree that a unified command would have benefited the U.S. forces. However, a reasonable apprehension of moving w/o maximum ground based air support and prior weakening of Japan should be expected. It is very likely that even with a unified command, a strategy very similar to the one employed would have been used. There were very good reason for Allied forces to reoccupy the PI-this was a good strategy. Likewise, to gain bases for a bombing campaign made a lot of sense also. But when could these things have been achieved? Even if all decided that all efforts should be directed to get into the Marianas ASAP, it probably could not have been done much sooner. Meanwhile, the Japanese would have been able to gain more benefit from the DEI. The armies approach in the south could have been sped up a bit, but at the cost of giving up the Marianas (and prior required) operations? I doubt that very many commanders were looking forward to an invasion of Japans home islands even under the conditions of 1945. In 1943 it would have been unthinkable.
So, while it is a safe assumption that U.S. operations could have benefited from a unified command, it is doubtful that the war could have been shortened significantly by some brilliant stroke. All said and done, the guys on the ground (and the boat guys too, I guess) did a very good job in kicking butt. Mistakes were made, for sure, but we have to keep in mind that they had real F.O.G. and their decisions carried great consequences. I wonder if there were any U.S. commanders that warned that the Solomans would take over a year to clear out. Even this little operation turned into a huge mess-FOG,FOG.
It very wel may have been possible to create a threat to Japan from the north, but this would have been to the detriment of other operations-operations that held out a greater prospect of victory.

[MarcA]

ORIGINAL: dtravel

I'm sitting her staring at the strategic map and I'm wondering. Has anyone tried a northern approach as the Allies? By this I mean coming directly at the Japanese Home Islands via either of these two routes:
1) Aleutians - Kuriles - Home Islands;
2) Hawaii - Midway - Wake - Marcus Island - Bonin/Iwo Jima - Tori Shima (optional) - Home Islands

DTravel

This question comes up fairly frequently and you should be able to track fown some of the previous threads, assuming the search function lives up to its name.

IIRC the main problem, apart from the cold, is the very poor nature of the bases along the Northern axis of attack

The conclusion was possible against AI but very hard against a human

[Marten]

a perfect example of northern route:
tm.asp?m=718410&mpage=1&key=conquer%2Ctokyo&#
[&o]

[Yamato hugger]

Biggest problem with going the northern route is the weather.





Everything in that weather area is very unstable and you never know when your air units will fly or not, where as the Jap defenders can base outside that area and hit you regularly. Operational system damage is doubled in this area also, making it hard to get damaged ships home as well.

Also note the maximum size of most of the bases in this area. Almost all are (0)'s or (1)'s making them very poor bases to support your operations and very difficult to expand.

[JeffroK]

In PACWAR, the Aleutians was the best way to Japan.

In WITP it is a lot harder though I believe its a threat that the Japanese cannot ignore so the Allied player could use it as a threat to drag some defensive forces to Northern Japan & the Kuriles.

My normal way back is Midway/ Wake / Eniwetok / Ponape / Marcus. My diversion is against Tarawa / Makin

Then I decide whether Pagan/Saipan/Tinian or Iwo Jima and associated islands are next step.

[rtrapasso]

From the CHS map, Attu has an airfield with an SPS of 5 and Kiska has a port with an SPS of 2. Both of those can be built up.

The stock map is (of course) quite different, and you can't build any air bases beyond 5. This is good enough for B-17/B-24s, but not good enough for the B-29s.

[moses]

In my current game the alutians are a hot spot as my Japanese opponent took all the islands and even tried to take Ankorage. (He failed). Now I am looking at fighting my way back over that approach. Don't know if I will eventually go that way but here's a thought.

In the 42/43 timeframe the allies flat do not have the carriers for attacks on islands out in the open sea. In my curent game we have each lost two carriers (plus a british carrier). So it is Oct 42 and Japan still has quite a carrier superiority. The idea even of retaking a location like Canton or Baker island seems very scary. You send in the fleet and suddenly 9 Jap carriers pop up to destroy everything in sight.

The goal in this time frame seems to be just to find a place where you can force Japan to fight air battles and wear out his pilots. You don't just want to sit tight throughout 42/43 and let him train everything to high levels. So the alutions make sence because you have a bunch of bases all within air range of each other that you can fight over.

If he defends them he will lose aircraft at a steady rate. If he lets me have them easily then maybe I take this route all the way to Japan.

[niceguy2005]

ORIGINAL: moses

In my current game the alutians are a hot spot as my Japanese opponent took all the islands and even tried to take Ankorage. (He failed). Now I am looking at fighting my way back over that approach. Don't know if I will eventually go that way but here's a thought.

In the 42/43 timeframe the allies flat do not have the carriers for attacks on islands out in the open sea. In my curent game we have each lost two carriers (plus a british carrier). So it is Oct 42 and Japan still has quite a carrier superiority. The idea even of retaking a location like Canton or Baker island seems very scary. You send in the fleet and suddenly 9 Jap carriers pop up to destroy everything in sight.

The goal in this time frame seems to be just to find a place where you can force Japan to fight air battles and wear out his pilots. You don't just want to sit tight throughout 42/43 and let him train everything to high levels. So the alutions make sence because you have a bunch of bases all within air range of each other that you can fight over.

If he defends them he will lose aircraft at a steady rate. If he lets me have them easily then maybe I take this route all the way to Japan.

I agree with Moses that the Allies lack of ability to generate air superiority in an area without extensive use of LBA in 42/43 is one of the key problems. In '42/'43 retaking the Aleutians is a great exercise for the Allies, but taking anything in the Cenral pacific is tough, while limited gains in the South Pacific is doable. By the time the allies have the forces to jump from the Aleutians to Japan, they will have taken other places like the Mairanas or the Philipines that make better places for invasion points in the Pacific. I have contemplated a two prong attack from the North and South to spread out Japanese defences.

In the end, I think an Aleutian only campaign on Japan would be VERY costly for the allies.

[6971grunt]

ORIGINAL: dtravel

I'm sitting her staring at the strategic map and I'm wondering. Has anyone tried a northern approach as the Allies? By this I mean coming directly at the Japanese Home Islands via either of these two routes:
1) Aleutians - Kuriles - Home Islands;
2) Hawaii - Midway - Wake - Marcus Island - Bonin/Iwo Jima - Tori Shima (optional) - Home Islands

Basically as the Allies has anyone just said "*Bleep* it" and gone straight for the jugular? Rather than pushing the Empire back on a broad front, just punch a narrow front directly to Home Islands and invade as quickly as possible?

If anyone has tried it, when and how did it go? Or if you considered it seriously but didn't, why not?

The only time I tried it was against the AI and in the older version of Pacific War [Midway, Marcus, Iwo, Okinawa & Formosa]. If I remember, I only started it in late '42 or early '43 after the IJN had been somewhat tamed. I had raided Tokyo earlier [with five or six carriers] and banged-around the IJ merchant marine quite heavily. However, I needed to get at Saipan too because of the IJ Airforce in that area. I must admit it was cool seeing the Japanese merchant shipping fleeing SE Asia for the homeland when Okinawa fell.

However, in this newer version it would be costly particularly PBEM. However, if the Japanese Naval Air Arm has been effectively dealt with by the time such a campaign is launched it would prove to be interesting. A great deal of IJN and IJA forces are concentrated to the south of your line of advance and may have trouble maneuvering to counter-thrust. I would like to see if anyone would do it in a PBEM game.[:D]

[Blackhorse]

A quick note on the "5" airbase rating for Attu in CHS.

I researched the Alaskan port / airbase ratings for CHS. Neither the Japanese nor the Americans ever tried to build a heavy-bomber airstrip on Attu.

But the US did build a 10,000' B-29 capable airstrip on nearby Shemya (its still in use today). Since Shemya is only twenty miles from Attu, and didn't have a harbor/port of its own, it made sense to combine the two islands into one base.

After committing to build Shemya and expanding two other Aleutian airfields to accomodate B-29s, the US Command (wisely) decided that weather conditions made it unlikely that they could mount a serious heavy bomber campaign from the north. Only one B-29 flew into Shemya on a "morale visit" before the war ended.

In the game, however, the allied player probably could mount a successful strategic bombing campaign from the north, since the weather model really only affects winter operations. A good model would 'scrub' missions about 2/3ds of the time year-round. (Cold wasn't the major problem; it was clouds, fog and high winds).

[esteban]

The Northern route to Japan is very difficult in my opinion:

1. It's very far from good Allied bases.

2. The weather is very unpredictable

3. In the winter, you get higher ship operation damage

4. It's very close to good Japanese bases

5. The max buildout in the Kuriles is a size 4 airfield, on only some of the islands. That pretty much ruins Allied LBA, which is their biggest source of land based air-strength.

6. It's hard to maintain lots of carriers in the area, because of the distance from supply and the poor port facilities

7. You can trip the "kamikaze bonus" early, which can be very dangerous to your Allied fleet if you do not have lots of good airfields for land-based fighter support. Your early 44' carrier fleet does not have quite the oomph or staying power to fight waves of suicide planes near the Japanese homeland--especially if the Japanese carrier force is still in good shape.

8. As long as the Japanese do have a decent carrier force, they can raid your convoy supply lines to the Kuriles, which are very exposed.

9. By the time you do have a late 44' carrier force that can fight the Kamikazes fairly well, you would probably have done better by siezing the Marianas, or advancing North from Oz into the SRA, using a much better series of bases.