Alternate Reality Civil War (far fetched, but a real challenge!)

[Kensai]

I know it's a far-fetched scenario that may even disturb the "purists", but suppose this...

The USA fails to open Japan with the Perry Expedition and Japan reacts aggressively in order to avoid the fate of China. A combination of wars in Europe leave the major powers uninterested in joining the US-Japanese antagonism which eventually blows off in a commercial war. The Shoguns decide something really audacious (ok, to the point of total madness): [B]take the war to America! Given the troubles the Americans have with the brewing sentiments of the Southern States.

The invasion of California by Japanese is a success as the Americans have trouble (or low interest) in saving their one remote State in the West (Oregon joins in 1859 as a reaction to its occupation). The Americans cannot or are not interested in sending a huge military force. But then the Civil War erupts and the very existence of the Union is at stake. Can the Union beat the Confederates and drive away the Japanese menace from the West? [/B]



This is obviously a scenario in PON, but since most "Civil War experts" are here, I wanted to post it here as well for some feedback and discussion. In reality the Shoguns did not react, albeit the sentiment of many nationalistic Japanese to take the situation in hand. I played since the beginning of 1850 trying to close the gap with the USA. A program of fast-track Westernizing was in place, but Japan is still far behind in technology.

I will be posting the continuation of this game in the PBEM section soon, so if anyone audacious enough to take this challenge as USA let me know. As USA in this alternate reality you will have to:

• defeat the CSA (obviously!)
• drive away the Japanese (played by me!) or make a peace deal with them
• reunite California into the Union (which seceded on its own)
• provide some of your expertise to me and other PON players to improve the CW events, orders of battle, etc for that game

[GraniteStater]

I see Frodo has been in Farmer Maggot's mushroom patch again...

I don't where you get the data for this mod. Does Tom Cruise get involved here? Just curious.

[Mickey3D]

I see Frodo has been in Farmer Maggot's mushroom patch again...

I don't where you get the data for this mod. Does Tom Cruise get involved here? Just curious.

[Kensai]

Hahah! No Frodo involved.
But what do you mean with "data"? This is supposed to be, well, not historical.

[GraniteStater]

Skiip the nineteenth century setup - imagine all of the Midway force, including the Kido Butai, time warped into the Gulf in late 1862 - kinda like Final Countdown with reverse colors...

[Kensai]

The setup used had the original setup constrains of 1850 in PON. No need to be sarcastic, this is supposed to be far-fetched in its evolution, not in its original forces realism.

[GraniteStater]

I'm not being sarcastic, please don't take it that way. Just being wild & crazy.

[Kensai]

I know it is wild and crazy, but what I want to stress here is that I did not create this as a startup setup to play the Civil War in PON, I reached this point through playing with the normal initial constrains, including the historical population, economy, technology level, and force pool. The events I added in this mod were necessary as part of the storyline to put this alternate reality Shogunate to resist the Americans. These events were mostly chrome, I did not give magical powers to the Japanese troops (and you can see it actually if you read the AAR).

[tripax]

Casualties were much higher in US militia than in Japanese troops. I imagine these losses would lower potential Confederate manpower as much as or more than Union manpower. On the other hand, I imagine Confederate generals got more experience from it. I wonder how that would effect the civil war and how it would effect willingness of any two parties for alliances against the third.

Sadly, I don't play PON, so I can't find out for myself... Fun AAR, though!

[Kensai]

Unfortunately (or fortunately, if you think about it!), in Pride of Nations casualties before the CW erupts count only for the Union. Meaning that by defeating some US divisions in the West Coast before the events of the CW fire, the USA will be weaker and the CSA will spawn as per script. In other words, I expect the Union to have more of a challenge to counter the Confederates in this alternate reality.

The Japanese are kind of in trouble due to logistics. The sea supplying bottleneck is kicking in and there are probably too many troops to live off the land. A human US player could probably attempt to kick them out in the sea and regain California Republic in the process.

[Gen.DixonS.Miles]

How can the U.S. defend the vast western expanse/wasteland? They cannot. The only area that I would be able to muster a force great enough to resist a large scale Japanese invasion from the west would be Iowa/Kansas or more likely Missouri/Illinois. There is no realistic way for a large force to penetrate its way across that vast a distance and engage regular Japanese forces. If the Japanese are in force, the very small numbered and scattered units of the Far West could do absolutely nothing but harass and raid Japanese forces! The Panama Canal is not built, and I imagine the U.S. Navy isn't even up to snuff to transport even the most meager of forces by naval transport.


The U.S. gives up the west but scattered small units will always be present just harassing the Japanese. Native Americans also won't take to kindly I assume but, anything could happen, the Native Americans can't amass powerful forces though.


How large/powerful/numerous are the standing Japanese forces in California?

If I was the U.S. I would give up on fighting Japan and focus on the South completely if there was a war occurring.

[Pocus]

I guess no transcontinental railway yet also

[tripax]

Hmm, assuming no civil war, I was thinking about how many men could be moved to California. I think almost 100,000 prospectors traveled west in 1849, mostly to California. Maybe half a million did so by the beginning of the Civil War. And something like 25,000 Chinese (I imagine Chinese actually referred to diverse Asian populations) crossed the Pacific in that period. Mobility was slow and difficult, but not impossible. Many of those travelling west were fairly poor. There are many stories of people walking from Chicago to Denver at that time period, stopping at trading forts most nights.

As for military movements in North America, the Mexican-American War includes a few. Fremont and Stephen Kearny made marches with small platoons to California in the Mexican American War and Santa Anna's retreat from Buena Vista to Mexico City included at least 10,000 troops, as did Scott's shorter march on DF. I would think moving an army of at least 25,000 troops from the east to California in a single campaign would be possible. Troop movements by ship were much larger - the British were moving large masses of troops to Crimea in 1854 and India in 1857. So the US would likely send 10,000-20,000 by land - probably towards Tuscon, and 50,000-80,000 by sea to Panama, overland, and then by sea again (this is the route Grant took after the Mexican-American War). I don't know where in California they would land, given the distribution of Japanese troops and Japanese goals. But I imagine a naval blockade would be highly successful, assuming US forces still had a good port on the West Coast.

Another issue I wonder about is diplomacy. Russia had a lot of interests in the Pacific, I'm surprised they don't get involved. Would Mexico allow the US of its ports? Would Columbia (Panama)? US-Indian relations weren't as bad as we like to think and I imagine US-Indian wars could be paused. British interest in South-East Asia and British Columbia would play a role, too. And I have no idea about China and Korea.

[Le Ricain]

Hmm, assuming no civil war, I was thinking about how many men could be moved to California. I think almost 100,000 prospectors traveled west in 1849, mostly to California. Maybe half a million did so by the beginning of the Civil War. And something like 25,000 Chinese (I imagine Chinese actually referred to diverse Asian populations) crossed the Pacific in that period. Mobility was slow and difficult, but not impossible. Many of those travelling west were fairly poor. There are many stories of people walking from Chicago to Denver at that time period, stopping at trading forts most nights.

As for military movements in North America, the Mexican-American War includes a few. Fremont and Stephen Kearny made marches with small platoons to California in the Mexican American War and Santa Anna's retreat from Buena Vista to Mexico City included at least 10,000 troops, as did Scott's shorter march on DF. I would think moving an army of at least 25,000 troops from the east to California in a single campaign would be possible. Troop movements by ship were much larger - the British were moving large masses of troops to Crimea in 1854 and India in 1857. So the US would likely send 10,000-20,000 by land - probably towards Tuscon, and 50,000-80,000 by sea to Panama, overland, and then by sea again (this is the route Grant took after the Mexican-American War). I don't know where in California they would land, given the distribution of Japanese troops and Japanese goals. But I imagine a naval blockade would be highly successful, assuming US forces still had a good port on the West Coast.

Another issue I wonder about is diplomacy. Russia had a lot of interests in the Pacific, I'm surprised they don't get involved. Would Mexico allow the US of its ports? Would Columbia (Panama)? US-Indian relations weren't as bad as we like to think and I imagine US-Indian wars could be paused. British interest in South-East Asia and British Columbia would play a role, too. And I have no idea about China and Korea.

The 1860 Census showed that CA had a non-Indian population of 380,000. Of these, 35,000 were Chinese. The American Indian population in 1860 was about 30,000.

[Kensai]

I think General Dixons Miles nailed it. But all your comments have been more or less accurate. Please, when in doubt, read the AAR which I played from 1850 to 1860 in PON.

In fact, as I study the map I see that West of Kansas there is indeed the Wild West! Very low development of regions and lousy roads, as well, as unpacified Indian tribes can give difficulties to smaller or larger units for different reasons. Small because they might be overwhelmed, larger because they are gonna have the same problems as the Japanese... a big chance NOT being able to live off the land.

The moment I finished the AAR the Japanese have some 60-70K troops in Oregon and Washington, but they are dying fast because they are mostly out of supplies and I can hardly bring in from the Pacific the quantities that I need. As you might have seen in the AAR, the Californians had already revolted when I could not control their land properly and some units fused with a couple of Union Generals brought from the East after the partial mobilization. I managed to defeat them only because I was defending by sheer numbers.

The main problem of Japan is that it is technologically backwards. I have lost most sea battles so far and my fleet is made almost exclusively of sail vessels which are terribly slow to cross the Pacific. I cannot bring forces fast enough. The depots (they work the same way in PON) are not large enough to accumulate the supplies needed to reverse this trend, which means Japan will probably need to send almost half its force back home pronto.

Now, if I do that, the American player (or AI) will kick my ass cause in 1:1 the technological advantage of the Americans (abstracted in PON with certain battle bonuses) is probably enough to win battles. On the other hand, the Union has a pressing problem with the Confederacy in the South, so Japan might actually be in position to push further East (towards Montana).

The American player, can probably win both menaces, but only if he plays his cards carefully as ignoring one of the two rivals might be hazardous. Consider that in PON it is possible (albeit a remote possibility) that other powers enter a conflict.

Indeed the transcontinental railroad is not yet built. By the way, the entire population of 1860 of the USA was circa 30 million. The same for Japan. Japan obviously has just started westernizing and does not have the "techs" (mainly weapons and army structure) to be an effective power. In order to invade the USA I sent my entire standing army, to the last lousy antiquated Samurai...

[Pocus]

I think the bigger suspension of disbelief here is not that the Japanese Emperor is willing to send his army to chastise the US, that I can accept easily (more stupid/bold decisions have been taken in history), but the crossing of the Pacific is hard to believe, unless the Japanese take over several islands before? Logistically speaking... Even GBR with her industrial might would had trouble probably projecting so many men over a so vast expense of water. Well somehow, the Boer war is a good example of what they can send over half the world at this time though...

[Kensai]

These are true concerns of disbelief, it is true. However, do bear in mind that I did not cross the ocean with coal-fired speedboats... they were antiquated sailboats, constructed en masse thanks to Dutch and French help (there are sugar events that explain this in the mod). They were definitely not Asian junks either. In my AAR I did use Hawaii as a stepping stone, although the supply chain does not consider it. True to your concerns, though, my men INDEED started dying in droves when they had reached their maximum numbers. They could not live off the land when they reached 50K or so. Moreover, it did actually demand almost my entire "commercial fleet" in the MTBs to connect the Pacific and pass the supplies which were never enough... so it was kind of realistic.

I used more than three times the sailboats back and forth to carry all the feudal standing armies from the home islands to California, so calculate the biggest unit was the Guard Corps (some 20K men with their auxiliaries). Anyway, if there is a veteran AACW/CWII player that also happens to play PON and wants to take the challenge, I am throwing him the gauntlet here!

I have created a PBEM slot searching for a USA player.

You will need to:

• defeat the CSA
• reunite California (which is neutral atm, but due to recent events sympathetic to the CSA)
• bounce the Japanese that seem to be content having Oregon/Washington, but may also head further East creating problems