CyberStratege 18

home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search

/ CyberStratege 18 / CyberStratege_CD_18.iso / patchs / malaya10.zip / introduction.ht_ / introduction.ht

Wrap

Text File | 1999-08-06 | 11KB | 204 lines

<html> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> <meta name="GENERATOR" content="Microsoft FrontPage Express 2.0"> <title>Introduction</title> </head> <body bgcolor="#000000" text="#C0C0C0" link="#008080" vlink="#808000" alink="#FF0000"> <div align="center"><center> <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="90%" bgcolor="#008080"> <tr> <td><a href="index.htm"><img src="images/BackToIndex.gif" alt="Back To Table Of Contents" border="0" width="16" height="16"></a> </td> <td>1942: Campaign For Malaya </td> <td> </td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="3" bgcolor="#000000"> </td> </tr> <tr> <td> </td> <td>Introduction </td> <td> </td> </tr> </table> </center></div> <blockquote> Concepts 1942: Campaign For Malaya is an historical wargame simulating the Japanese conquest of the Malacca peninsula, concluded by the capture of the British fortress, Singapore. It is played on a map covering the territory where the campaign was fought, and it uses playing pieces which represent the actual military units that were involved in that area (Japanese & Commonwealth armies for instance). The game rules duplicate and regulate the situation as it occurred. In 1942: Campaign For Malaya there is no AI, so the game won't play against you. You can either play solitaire (as with most classical board wargames), or against a human opponent using PBEM, or you can play on-line against human opponents (through internet or any local network); one player controls the Japanese army, the other will take command of the Commonwealth army. </blockquote> <blockquote> A bit of history Singapore background <img src="images/photo2.gif" alt="Prince of Wales at anchor" align="right" hspace="2" vspace="2" width="164" height="122">The British had begun building a naval base at Singapore in 1923, partly in response to Japan's increasing naval power. A costly and unpopular project, construction of the base proceeded slowly until the early 1930s when Japan began moving into Manchuria and northern China. A major component of the base was completed in March 1938, when the King George VI Graving Dock was opened; more than 300 meters in length, it was the largest dry dock in the world at the time. The base, completed in 1941 and defended by artillery, searchlights, and the newly built nearby Tengah Airfield, caused Singapore to be ballyhooed in the press as the "Gibralter of the East." The floating dock, 275 meters long, was the third largest in the world and could hold 60,000 workers. The base also contained dry docks, giant cranes, machine shops; and underground storage for water, fuel, and ammunition. A self-contained town on the base was built to house 12,000 Asian workers, with cinemas, hospitals, churches, and seventeen soccer fields. Above-ground tanks held enough fuel for the entire British navy for six months. The only thing the giant naval fortress lacked was ships. The Singapore naval base was built and supplied to sustain a siege long enough to enable Britain's European-based fleet to reach the area. By 1940, however, it was clear that the British fleet and armed forces were fully committed in Europe and the Middle East and could not be spared to deal with a potential threat in Asia. In the first half of 1941, most Singaporeans were unaffected by the war on the other side of the world, as they had been in World War I. The main pressure on the Straits Settlements was the need to produce more rubber and tin for the Allied war effort. Both the colonial government and British military command were for the most part convinced of Singapore's impregnability. Even by late autumn 1941, most Singaporeans and their leaders remained confident that their island fortress could withstand an attack, which they assumed would come from the south and from the sea. Heavy fifteen-inch guns defended the port and the city, and machine-gun bunkers lined the southern coast. The only local defense forces were the four battalions of Straits Settlements Volunteer Corps and a small civil defense organization with units trained as air raid wardens, fire fighters, medical personnel, and debris removers. Singapore's Asians were not, by and large, recruited into these organizations, mainly because the colonial government doubted their loyalty and capability. The government also went to great lengths to maintain public calm by making highly optimistic pronouncements and heavily censoring the Singapore newspapers for negative or alarming news. Journalists' reports to the outside world were also carefully censored, and, in late 1941, reports to the British cabinet from colonial officials were still unrealistically optimistic. If Singaporeans were uneasy, they were reassured by the arrival at the naval base of the battleship Prince of Wales, the battle and four destroyers cruiser Repulse, on December 2. The fast and modern Prince of Wales was the pride of the British navy, and the Repulse was a veteran cruiser. Their accompanying aircraft carrier had run aground en route, however, leaving the warships without benefit of air cover The War in Eastern Asia <img src="images/photo1.gif" alt="Ruler of Japan : General Tojo" align="left" hspace="2" vspace="2" width="97" height="107">When Japan went to war with the United States, Great Britain, and the Netherlands in December 1941, she was already well established on the Asian mainland from Manchuria in the north to Indochina in the south. Since she possessed sovereignty over Taiwan (Formosa) and the Penghu Islands (Pescadores), she was poised to strike quickly toward the so-called Southern Regions, which included the Philippines, Borneo, Celebes, Java, Sumatra, Malaya, Thailand (Siam), and Burma, an area rich in such raw materials as oil, rubber, tin, and many other products of which she was desperately short. Of the 51 infantry divisions which composed the Japanese Army in 1941, 43 were committed to the Asian mainland: 13 to Manchuria, 2 to Korea, 25 to China, 2 to Indochina, and 1 to the island of Hainan. In addition, 2 of her 5 air divisions were also committed to Asia. She had therefore only a comparatively small force available to undertake the capture of the Southern Regions. A division from China was given the task of seizing Hong Kong; the Twenty-Fifth Army, consisting of 4 divisions (of which only 3 were used) and an air division, was allotted to neutralize Thailand, Malaya, and capture the British naval base at Singapore; and the Fifteenth Army, consisting of 2 divisions and an air division, was assigned the job of occupying southern Burma. The Malayan Conquest </blockquote> <blockquote> <img src="images/photo3.gif" alt="British prisonners" align="right" hspace="2" vspace="2" width="184" height="188">In the early hours of December 8 (local time), the Twenty-Fifth Army occupied Bangkok, thereby gaining control of Thailand, and landed a division at Songkhla (Singora) on the Kra Peninsula and part of another at Kota Bharu in northeastern Malaya. The Japanese quickly gained air supremacy, since their aircraft were far superior to and outnumbered the obsolescent Royal Air Force (RAF) planes. Two days later, Japanese torpedo bombers sank off the east coast of Malaya the Repulse and the Prince of Wales, the only two British capital ships in Eastern waters. This success ensured the Japanese complete control of the South China Sea. The British garrison of Malaya consisted of the Indian 3d Corps (two newly raised and semitrained divisions), which held northern Malaya, and an understrength Australian division, which held northern Johore. Constantly outflanked by infiltration through jungle-covered country and by landings on the coast behind it, the 3d Corps proved to be no match for the highly trained and experienced Japanese divisions and was forced to withdraw southward. The Japanese occupied Penang on December 19, and Kuala Lumpur on Jan. 11, 1942. Despite a stand in northern Johore by the Australians, they had driven the mauled and dispirited defenders back into Singapore Island by January 31. Although the garrison had been reinforced by two hastily dispatched and almost untrained Indian brigades and, at the last moment, by a British division diverted while at sea on its way to Egypt, the defense of the island, by then isolated by sea and air, was a hopeless task. The Japanese landed three divisions on February 8-9, and by February 13 had forced the remnants of the garrison back into a tight perimeter ringed around Singapore itself. With the city and its large Chinese and Malayan population under heavy artillery fire, water supplies cut off, and the troops short of ammunition, the garrison surrendered on February 15. In conquering Malaya, the Japanese had gained an entrance into the Bay of Bengal and the use of the Singapore naval base. </blockquote> <blockquote> <a href="http://wwwusers.imaginet.fr/~bbmagic/wp" target="_new">(C) 1999 Kamikaze Wargames Designers</a> </blockquote> </body> </html>