Interesting WW2 hypo, Australia invaded.

[bluermonkey]

I'm busy with my Gallipoli scenario right now but I've been thinking about my next project. I remember reading somewhere ages ago that at one point the Australians feared a Japanese invasion, so McArthur was sent with some American forces to Australia ready to defend needs be. Now we all no that the Japanese never launched an invasion against the Australian mainland, but could it translate into a decent TOAW scenario? More importantly, as someone already thought of this?

A decent link...

http://www.users.bigpond.com/battleforaustralia/Austunderthreat.html

 

[piero1971]

there was one but unfinished about a japanese force landing on the eastern australian seaboard - and that gets quickly unsupplied and destroyed.

on strategic scale, I wonder what can be done.

of course it would require a lot of what ifs - japanese victory at Coral Sea AND midway and of course ability to supply a landing force.

 

[bluermonkey]

Yeah, if I were to ever attempt such a thing I'd need to do a lot of research on the Pacific theatre of operations to even come up with a believable story that could lead to such a scenario.

I do think though that this is one WW2 hypothetical scenario that could be believable AND fun to play.

 

[Ben Turner]

I would think a seizure of Darwin for whatever reason would be fairly viable. The Australians would probably have almost as hard a time supplying their forces there as would the Japanese.

I would assume they reinforced the area when the threat of attack emerged, but as of mid-December 1941 there only appear to have been three battalions (one of them a regular MG battalion) in the Darwin area. Not enough.

 

[piero1971]

tue enough, had the Japanese been successful in seizing Port Moresby during operation MO (coral sea), the next logical step would have been Darwin (a combined landing of a brigade and a Marine regiment? plus perhaps a marine paratrooper batallion)

that would have been feasable but hardly an "invasion" of Australia.

 

[Ben Turner]

tue enough, had the Japanese been successful in seizing Port Moresby during operation MO (coral sea), the next logical step would have been Darwin (a combined landing of a brigade and a Marine regiment? plus perhaps a marine paratrooper batallion)

that would have been feasable but hardly an "invasion" of Australia.

An invasion with the intent of actually occupying the entire country would have been quite impossible, so we have to look at operations designed to deprive the Allies of Australian bases. In this sense, I see a number of possible scenarios.

a) Darwin-Katherine. 2.5 or 5km/hex, company scale. Japanese have to take and hold the Australian bases in this area in order to protect their possessions in the East Indies. Since it appears that the Northern Territory is not actually connected by rail to the rest of Australia, the Australian force would be pretty small- just local troops plus perhaps a mobile relief force from Queensland- but it's about 1200km by road from the railhead there. Did a little look at this; apparently two battalions of 6th Australian division were sent to Darwin in June 1942, which is probably when the attack would have been made.

b) Cairns-Townsville. 5km/hex, company or battalion scale. Japanese have to take these two Australian ports in order to cover the southern flank of the Solomon Islands. There's a number of minor ports where the Japanese could land virtually unopposed to attack the bigger towns from the landward side- but the coral reefs complicate matters and limit viable landing zones. The Australians only have one brigade in the area but can reinforce up the coastal rail line. Cutting this will probably be a Japanese priority so as to buy time to set up good defensive positions for the inevitable Australian counterattack. Figure the Japanese could commit the equivalent of about four divisions to this operation.

c) Cairns-Townsville-Brisbane. 10km/hex, battalion scale. As above but more ambitious. I doubt the Japanese had the resources for this scale of operation, and the sheer size of Australia means this has to be at a scale where the forces involved in some of the critical operations fade almost into insignificance. This could theoretically be combined with a sideshow in Darwin (barely fits onto the map), with the Japanese player having a choice of how to divide his forces between the two.

Of these, b) is probably the best option. It should be an interesting scenario, but would require a fair bit of research on Australian preparations for such an attack and on what parts of the shore are accessible by landing craft and other naval vessels. It may be necessary to exclude the Cape York Peninsula (without it, the map becomes a manageable 120x120 hexes), I don't know what forces the Australians had up there.

 

[bluermonkey]

b) Cairns-Townsville. 5km/hex, company or battalion scale. Japanese have to take these two Australian ports in order to cover the southern flank of the Solomon Islands. There's a number of minor ports where the Japanese could land virtually unopposed to attack the bigger towns from the landward side- but the coral reefs complicate matters and limit viable landing zones. The Australians only have one brigade in the area but can reinforce up the coastal rail line. Cutting this will probably be a Japanese priority so as to buy time to set up good defensive positions for the inevitable Australian counterattack. Figure the Japanese could commit the equivalent of about four divisions to this operation.

I'll trust your judgement that this would be the better option, it certainly sounds realistic.

I think plenty of research will be the key to making a successful scenario out of this.

 

[Ben Turner]

I'll trust your judgement that this would be the better option, it certainly sounds realistic.

I think plenty of research will be the key to making a successful scenario out of this.

Yeah. More detail on this;

It's not unreasonable to see the Japanese winning the Battle of the Coral Sea, and going on to seize Port Moresby in May. This means two things for the Australians; firstly, none of the units historically sent to New Guinea after May of 1942 actually go there (7th Division plus one brigade of 6th Division). Secondly, Australia now appears exposed, and as such these units will be positioned so as to fight off any Japanese attack.

A Japanese landing would probably be made in June or July. At this point one brigade of 6th Division was still in Ceylon but it would presumably have been brought home in the event of an invasion. I don't think it's necessary to presume a Japanese victory at Midway for this scenario.

I suggested the figure of about four divisions for the Japanese force. This is probably enough to overwhelm whatever the Australians have in the northeast, however there are the equivalent of about eleven Australian divisions at home at this point. Whilst they're territorials and obviously a lot will have to stay put, the Australians will ultimately be able to put a force into the field in northeastern Australia substantially superior to what the Japanese have. So the Japanese have to move fast. One could suppose that in the second half of the scenario, Japanese naval and naval aviation units would be withdrawn to counter American operations in the Solomons (since the invasion is occuring at the expense of some Japanese operations there).

Rains in Northern Australia become severe in about December so that's the maximum length of the scenario- the five or six months after the invasion. With full-day turns, though, that would be an excessively long scenario so I'd recommend keeping it to two or three months; enough time for the Australians to collect their forces for an attempted counterattack.

 

[Dan Neely]

While I agree a Japanese victory at Midway wouldn't be needed for this scenario, I think a chance of it happening should be incorperated as a random event. Especially since heavier US losses at Coral Sea would've increased the IJNs odds of winning a month later.

The most likely impact would be that the Americans would be unable to attack the Solomons as scheduled allowing the fleet to continue supporting the operation and improving the supply situation.

A second posibility, would be that at least some of the US troops intended for the Solomons campaign were sent along as southernly route to Melbourne and became available towards the end of the scenario. This option would be a more likely option if the Japanese defeated by didn't totally smash the US fleet leaving enough ships to escort a major convoy, but not to engage the main Japanese fleet.

 

[Case]

Now we all no that the Japanese never launched an invasion against the Australian mainland, but could it translate into a decent TOAW scenario?

I fiddled around with a 'Sydney 1942' scenario last year and came to the conclusion that it probably wouldn't work as an interesting TOAW scenario. The basic problem was that the Japanese units were too ill-equipped to operate on continental Australia and get clobbered by the less well trained, but better equipped, Australian Army non-AIF divisions.

Historically, the Australian Army was actually large and fairly well equipped in mid 1942, and was obviously especially ready to fight in Australian conditions. The unmotorised Japanese light-ish infantry don't stand a chance in campaigns set on the East Coast - they get outmaneouvered by Australian motorised infantry before being flattened by the Australian Armour (Australia had about 2 well equiped Armoured divisions in mid 1942, though only one of them was properly trained).

That said, Townsville/Cairns 1942 would be interesting - though the challange for the Japanese would be more to hold what they take rather than taking it.

Darwin 1942 or 1943 would also be interesting - the Australian garrison was small and isolated enough for the Japanese to take on, yet large enough to stand a good chance of winning. Whether the defence of what was a small town can be translated into TOAWs 2.5km hexes is another matter though.

Peter Stanley, the principle historian at the Australian War Memorial here in Canberra, has an excellent article at www.awm.gov.au/events/conference/2002/stanley_paper.pdf discussing why the invasion scare was probably nothing more than propaganda and discrediting post-war histories which claim that the invasion could have occured.

 

[bluermonkey]

A very interesting link.

From the small amount of research I've done so far it would indeed appear that a Townsville Cairns 1942 scenario would be the most realistic.