Author Topic: Japan invades Australia  (Read 14625 times)

Offline raafif

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Re: Japan invades Australia
« Reply #25 on: May 19, 2013, 02:25:20 AM »
Having secured the Top End, Japan now looks south - they are aware of the "Brisbane Line" & presume that the Australian government will sacrifice all north of that & not make an attempt to attack north of there due to material shortages & the deception that an invasion of Sydney would be attempted (aerial recon & midget-sub attack of Sydney harbour) keeping a majority of troops & equipment in south-eastern Australia.

Japan sees two main routes of advance -- south-east from Darwin to Mt. Isa and a landing on the east coast at Townsville.

((Japan has no expectation of subjugating the whole of Australia, simply wanting the minerals of the northern half for their military industry.))

Offline GTX_Admin

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Re: Japan invades Australia
« Reply #26 on: May 19, 2013, 03:52:03 AM »
Folks, just be careful to not go too far in this thread in the Scenarios area - a full story should be posted in the Stories area of Current Builds.
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Offline apophenia

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Re: Japan invades Australia
« Reply #27 on: May 19, 2013, 06:37:37 AM »
An alternative attack bomber type: The Commonwealth CA-4 Woomera was intended to produce a multi-purpose bomber with advanced features and a performance superior to the DAP Beaufort it was to replace. But an Air Board review concludes that the CA-4 design is wasted on an airframe powered by the same engines as the aircraft it is to replace. Instead, Sir Lawrence Wackett's design team is instructed to sketch out a concept for a future bomber with higher powered engines.

At the same time, CAC is to revise and simplify the CA-4 design as a 2-seat attack bomber. The result is the CA-5 Woomera Attack with raised wing position, reduced span, 'wobble-mount' guns (and a flexible rear gun position) replacing the advanced barbettes, ventral gun position eliminated, and heavier forward firing armament.

[BTW: The RAAF Blenheim torpedo bomber from Rickshaw's 'Remember Eureka' story might be of interest: http://beyondthesprues.com/Forum/index.php?topic=351.msg19641#msg19641 ]
« Last Edit: May 19, 2013, 06:42:36 AM by apophenia »
Froglord: "... amphibious doom descends ... approach the alter and swear your allegiance to the swamp."

Offline GTX_Admin

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Re: Japan invades Australia
« Reply #28 on: May 19, 2013, 06:50:35 AM »
Potentially interesting map in light of this discussion:

All hail the God of Frustration!!!

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Offline Old Wombat

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Re: Japan invades Australia
« Reply #29 on: May 19, 2013, 02:13:03 PM »

* ca-5-woomera-attack.jpg (75.44 kB, 800x427 - viewed 4 times.)


Now, this I like! :D

:)

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Offline apophenia

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Re: Japan invades Australia
« Reply #30 on: May 22, 2013, 06:55:02 AM »
Cheers Guy. I'm imagining CAC's CA-11 being put on to the back burner (maybe awaiting R-2600s?).
Froglord: "... amphibious doom descends ... approach the alter and swear your allegiance to the swamp."

Offline Old Wombat

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Re: Japan invades Australia
« Reply #31 on: May 26, 2013, 08:44:14 PM »
I've been considering this for a little while & I'm still not sure how it might affect a Japanese invasion of Australia.

Australia west of the Great Dividing Range is one of, if not the most, arid place in the world. How would the Japanese have coped with that?

I realise that a large chunk of China is the Gobi Desert but I, also, note that the Japanese did not enter the Gobi any meaningful distance. Is that because they were unfamiliar with fighting in such terrain?

Therefore, my question is whether the Japanese would have tried going down the west side of the Great Divide or would they have followed the more familiar (to them) rainforest/woodland/farmland route down the east coast, if they had invaded? Or, even though dividing your force is not the smartest route, would they have sent a force down the west side to cut across behind the Australian forces, who would be dealing with the major push down the east, & isolate them by cutting their communications & supply routes (remembering that the GDR does not have that many east-west crossing points)?

???

Guy
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Offline kim margosein

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Re: Japan invades Australia
« Reply #32 on: May 27, 2013, 01:56:40 AM »
I'm American, not Australian, so I am not as familiar with the area as you.  However, we have our own Great American Desert.   So, the Japanese land in Western Australia.  Now what?  How do they get from point a to point "anything worth conquering"?   Presumably any settlements, such as they are, would be evacuated in their path, leaving a scorched earth, pretty easy considering the earth there is pre-scorched.   POL, tires, food, water?  Good luck with that. 

Offline Old Wombat

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Re: Japan invades Australia
« Reply #33 on: May 27, 2013, 03:09:15 AM »
In the WW2 time period, Kim, landing almost anywhere in the west would have been fairly futile as a starting point for an invasion of the entire country because then, as now, the population is highly concentrated on the east coast, only more-so then than now. There is still almost nothing between Perth & Adelaide except a single railway line & a road. However, it would have given them access to a vast range of mineral deposits, if they could get them out of the ground. Most of the current mining operations get their water supplies from the post-war Ord River Scheme dams.

To take Australia, though, an invader merely needs to take the east coast but to take it from the north down the coast leaves a limited front to attack through. Sydney, for example, from the Heads (where the Harbour meets the sea) to the Blue Mountains (which are a part of the Great Dividing Range) is only about 50km (+/-). Also, all of the rivers run west-east, from the mountains to the sea, across the path of advance. Awkward for an attacker, good for a defender.

Since starting to seriously consider this scenario, my thinking is that a Japanese attack on Australia would have been staged from New Caledonia. With landings at either Newcastle (north of Sydney) or Woollongong (south of Sydney), or both, because both places have good harbours & would not be as heavily defended, nor as easy to defend, as any Sydney landing points.

Others may thing differently & I'm waiting for their responses, so that I have more information to work with.

Having now lived on 2 islands occupied by the Japanese during WW2, one in the Pacific & the other here in the Indian Ocean, & learning of what happened to those who lived here during the occupations gives one an interesting perspective on the lengths to which the Japanese were willing to go to acheive their goals.

Anyway.

Waiting

:))

Guy
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Offline raafif

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Re: Japan invades Australia
« Reply #34 on: May 27, 2013, 09:44:05 AM »
Why would Japan want Brisbane, Sydney or Melbourne ?
Japan's whole reason for invading Australia is for minerals to sustain its needs in SE Asia - neither PNG or Australia are "Asian" & are more trouble than they are worth to subjugate.  Japan is heavily extended & can't hope to cope with covering a whole continent -- they know that the US is passive & everyone else is too busy with Germany to intervene.  Without the USA getting involved militarily, its industry is very slow to gear up & provide the arms that Britain wants - at this time Australia is only able to get such equipment as is surplus to the UK's needs -- after Germany is defeated more will become available but that is years away, making Australia develop its own designs like the Sentinel Tank using American M3 medium-tank components.

Having identified accessible resources at Weipa & Mt.Isa (soft targets), Japan settles for capturing those in the short term, Darwin is a handy port (once cleaned up from the invasion).  The map on the previous page correctly marks the only possible routes - Darwin (& s-east to Mt.Isa), a holding (no opposition) of Weipa .... and a landing at Townsville to threaten a drive down to the Brisbane Line -- possibly going as far as Rockhampton / Gladstone -- to keep Australian forces occupied in SE / Eastern Australia.  No mass occupation of (empty) lands - just holding of the "highway" south-east from Darwin.  Japanese resupply of Mt.Isa by road (easy in the dry) & air from Darwin is possible.

There is no point in capturing West Australia as it is largely empty & of no threat.  Due to its large Japanese pearl-diving population, there is no "Battle for Broome", just a quasi-puppet mayor already in place & welcoming the new Japanese Military Governor.  The monopoly on Broome's pearls (which they already had) would remain welcome additions to Japan's art / jewelry industry.

The gold & iron of southern West Australia & South Australia would help the Japanese but the ability needed to obtain & hold those is decades away .... Australia is too de-centralised to conquor / dominate.

The majority of Australia's armed forces are in Victoria - especially the armour -- and the Govt failed to plan for anything other than an attack on Australia's south-east quarter, thinking that "Domination of the populace" is the only reason for invading.

Having allowed the Northern Territory & Cape York be un-defended & taken, would Australia now withdraw its white citizens & allow it to become a Japanese colony, only considering the thin east-Queensland coast up to Townsville as part of its lands to be recaptured ??

This is all still just setting the scene for an Aussie fightback using indiginous-designed arms vs Japan's "light" equipment such as their tanks & aircraft ....  I see a similar senario from real life (in another part of the world) that would suit how this battle evolves.

Offline Volkodav

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Re: Japan invades Australia
« Reply #35 on: May 27, 2013, 10:48:40 AM »
The thought I keep coming back to is the performance of the Desert Mounted Corps in WWI.  Long supply lines in unfamiliar terrain, against a desperate local public and an extremely hostile indigenous population I thing Japan would have their work cut out for them.  Look what happened to the Ottomans in their own empire.

I wonder how a successful indigenous insurgency against the Japanese would effect indigenous relations and policy post war?