Japan '46 Operation Coronet Allied AAR

[Tempest5]

Considering the Japan '45 campaign I wrote the AAR for stopped shortly after it was started, it's hard to tell how things would have ended up in detail but some issues were already visible.

Japan '45 and Japan '46 share many unit stats, but the differences between the campaigns also make the issues different.

There are system/mechanic related issues, scenario issues in terms of the values/schedules used and balance issues caused by the actual plans (which the designer can't really do anything about).

In the case of Olympic, none of the corps can support the corps at other beaches and one of the landings is extremely exposed to Japanese counterattacks. Weather conditions also make promises of constant air support unrealistic.

In the case of Coronet, the follow-up corps only arrive after a month aside from XIII Armored Corps, possibly due to logistics. Japanese reinforcements arrive within days.

I might as well discuss other balance issues here, aside from unit stats which I'll post later.



There are two values in the parameter data dialogue that stand out: the first one is the Japanese recovery rate of 2%, which combined with an overall higher unit quality (effective rate is 3% for B quality units) and plenty of units to hold a line make it more difficult to inflict long term losses through attrition.

The second are the breakdown rates. The campaign features mediocre to poor weather conditions in March and high movement cost terrain for tracked units. Pershings also have Low Reliability. The Allied breakdown rate of 8 means I'm losing a vehicle when moving 1 or 2 hexes in difficult terrain quite often.

That would be less of an issue if US Army tank battalions were not composed of 3 different tank types, the Chaffee, the Sherman and the Pershing, which make loss recovery less efficient as bigger units equals quicker more replacements as the maximum unit size is used as a base when calculating replacements. You also can't combine and breakdown all units in the battalion in case one unit regains strength more quickly or is full strength whilst others are not.

Breakdown losses combined with excellent Japanese AT values can quickly knock a tank battalion down a size if left at the frontline. Not entirely unrealistic, but the rate feels excessive. That's also why I prefer to keep tanks other than the Pershings out of reach of Japanese infantry aside from the cavalry units that don't have a range 1 hard attack.

Tank tactics for the Marines are slightly different as they don't have 76mm equipped Shermans and thus don't have a range 2 hard attack. That means I need to watch out for Japanese medium tanks and SPAT units as well.

Breakdown rates are also fairly harsh for the Japanese, but they have A and B quality tank units which reduce breakdown rates. Thus far, they've also been closer to roads.

As for the release schedule: the designer, in both the "narrative" he wrote for the campaign and the scenarios with later start dates assumes a very limited number of Japanese reinforcements will move to the beaches. In reality, most units can start to move towards the invasion beaches within days.

On the 12th of March, every single Japanese unit is released, including all the irregular/militia units in Tokyo. By that point, most of the other divisions are already at the front. You're facing a serious numerical disadvantage as the Americans, which is particularly difficult to overcome in the Eighth Army sector.

As Elxaime, my opponent, also posted in another thread, the Japanese command structure isn't very flexible due to the way the reattachment mechanic works: units assigned to a corps HQ can be reassigned, but not units above that level and the majority of the Japanese units are assigned to an Army-level HQ. That means units belonging to a certain army are likely to end up at the same beach for C&C reasons.

Thanks for assembling this informative AAR.
One item I found intriquing - as a possible mod-is this observation you made Engineer units...

As in Japan '45, a good part of the initial landing depends on chance in terms of whether your units disrupt as neither the divisional engineer units or the corps engineer units have an on-map HQ and will thus recover more slowly when Disrupted. Adding floating HQ's that withdraw when the "real" HQ arrives would help.

So instead of a BB/CA/DD you would have an Amphibious Forces Flag Ship (i.e.USS Eldorado) with the requisite HQ's attributes.
Would this unbalance the scenario?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Eldorado_(AGC-11)