Battle of Peleliu: June 2012 PTO

[davep]

It presents an interesting dilemma; do you have

A. Full Historical Scenarios = Fully authentic to countries and impressions, as dictatedby the history of the event
B. Limited Historical Scenarios = Based on the actual historical battle with some accomodations to make it work
C. Historical Themed Scenarios = Events which are set in the general Theater the battle took place.
D. Fantasy Scenarios - Events which are a combination of various historical events and storyline elements; glued together.

[PRESIDENT]

Well, anyone landing from those craft should look like they're loaded up for more than a weekend's stay. Marine, Army, Navy, whatever. If folks are going through the effort to make fake landing craft, the least the "riders" can do is dress for a beach invasion.

[middlestone]

In my opinion, the IJA is sponsoring the battle, so the IJA gets to set the scenario. I believe we have accommodated enough by agreeing to Peleliu. As far as I know, the beach landing remains a part of the scenario.

Obviously, we aren't going to be able to reenact the battle on Peleliu exactly; it took 73 days to secure the island. Timeline must be significantly compressed to reenact this battle in one day.

So here is a suggestion from the IJA side: The marines invade the island on D-day by beach landing to start the reenactment at 10am or so, then fight from the beaches to the next objective. (The Seabees get to play here) The army actually landed on D+8 when elements of the 81st Division arrived on Peleliu. The army reenactors start the reenactment battle for the Ridges around 1130 or noon. Then, after lunch around 1pm, the marines are pulled out of the battle, leaving the army to finish the rest of the day. This kinda matches the timeline of deployment of US forces in the battle for Peleliu.

An alternative is the marines play in the morning with no beach landing and after lunch, the marines are withdrawn and the army plays in the afternoon.

The IJA is not large enough to have a dual front scenario with the marines on one end and army on the other at the same time. Changing the US lineup throughout the day helps the IJA with balancing the opposing force numbers.

[davep]

Apr 13, 2012 10:09:31 GMT -8 middlestone said:

I believe we have accommodated enough by agreeing to Peleliu.

I guess what you are saying is the 2nd Sendai has to design the event to limit the amount of Allied Combatants so as not to overwhelmed the smaller 2nd Sendai attendance factor. Or book the various Allied units various time slots to match up the headcounts on each side throughout the day.

Who is accommodated or not accomodated by picking Peleliu. What other "battles of the Pacific Theater" were being considered?

[middlestone]

Something like that. In the best of times, the IJA amount to about 30 or so. Even so, consistently, the IJA has been facing almost 3 times that amount at each battle. Tell me what other CHG battle has that lopsided numbers?

Actually this matter started after one of the marine units said that they will not be landing on the beach. So, looking at the battle synopsis to adjust, it appeared that the marines alone fought for the first days from landing through to the ridges in the actual battle. The army came in later and stayed after the marines pulled out. It happens to coincide with the leveling out of forces opposing us.

During the December 2011 CHG Board meeting, a Burma scenario was discussed and would be sponsored by the AVG and IJA. It changed after that.

[fwvredenburg]

Its Dosen't seam like the right thing to do for an outside unit like the RPS 1st Marines to be telling the CHG 2nd Sendai Div. unit that is sponsoring the event and setting up the scenario, how and what they are going to do at our CHG event. I understand that many of the 1st Marines are CHG 101st AB members , but your are attend this as an RPS unit ?

I know Woody, Tim and Russ put alot of time into planning this event. Last years was a very well run event.

[teewalltrash]

This appears to be a standard CHG force on force event. What is all the drama about?

[davep]

1st Marines is a 2nd Impression of the CHG 101st Airborne unit, so for the record it isn't any more a RPS unit than lets say the 39th Australians which has many RPS members, or a DAK Impression of the 21st Panzer. These are secondary impressions of an existing dues paying CHG Unit or collection of Unit Members.

Next is the issue of "scenario disconnect". Those reenacting Marine were just asking for clarification of whos-who in the scenario, given Peleliu was a primarily a Marine on Japanese Match up, with the US Army coming in at the end. The problem or the dama is "historical scenario labeling" which has become meaningless for better or for worse.

[mayo]

Which was exactly my point. First off, all 101AB members pay both CHG and RPS dues. It is a unit requirement which I agree with as it supports our hobby in general. The 1st Marines Div unit is already a recognized second impression RPS unit, we would like to have it a recognized CHG second impression unit as well. even our website address www.1stmarrpschg.com/ and our forums address 1stmarrpschg.proboards.com/ has RPS and CHG in the address because we are happy to be members of both orgs. Secondly, my questions are these:
Are we following historical lines at these events, or is it just a whatever impression you want to be / show up as you are event? Are we trying to as accurately as possible, or is it a let's have an event where every impression that served in WW2 is going to participate event called "Marching through WW2 in the Pacific?"

[mayo]

Also Dave the 1st Marine Div has a few 442 members and a 21st Panzer member. It's not just 101st AB although most of our members are 101st. We welcome other units to join our ranks by invitation based on authenticity, ability to get along with our members, and willingness to follow our chain of command.

[kanowarrior]

Wow guys, whats the problem here? The 2nd Sendai and Dave Sessions unit is sponsoring this battle. The Peleliu idea came from the 1st Division Marines.

If there is a problem with allied impressions why is that a Sendai problem? This has been a consistent problem with the allied side at almost every battle all year long in that allied units do not often cooperate with each other. It should NEVER be suggested that an axis unit should be in charge with policing allied impressions.

Case in point, the AVG was originally sponsoring this battle but had to drop out so it became a Sendai sponsored event again or it wouldn't have happened. Other Allied units wanted to help plan or contribute but no one else would sponsor but Dave finally did and will be responsible for collecting battle fees and overall command of the Allied side. I've always said that if an allied unit wants a battle specific for them they need to sponsor it. The Sendai should be more concerned with battles from the Japanese perspective.

Anyway, the main reason the PTO battles have been planned as they were in the past was to prolong the battles to last most of the day. Since the Sendai are typically out numbered so badly and due to the overly aggressive nature of some units the PTO battle was in a very real danger of being fought and over in a couple hours. Thus the reason for staggering out battles and such while still trying to balance out the flow of battle. In real life PTO battles were far from a cake walk and to achieve that realism has been pretty difficult at best, but I think we've done alright to date. Its no fun for either side to be run over all day long.

We try to accomodate as many as we can but only so much can be done. The Australians want senarios for them, the Marines want their own and so do the Seabees and Navy. NEVER in the real world did all those forces fight all together in a single battle in one single place. We do what we can but somebody has to get cut out. Even if we do a major campaign and stretch the imagination by letting all the allied forces fight in one battle then the Japanese cannot allow the women to fight which cuts down our numbers. Women only fought with the Japanese forces very late in the war when things got very desparate and then only in limited numbers.

And finally, it shouldn't matter who is RPS and who is CHG. We are all out there for single purpose and to have a good time. As long as rules are followed and every thing is safe, that should be all that matters. The real important thing is realism. We can only achieve so much of that without using real bullets but as our attempts at authenticity point out we want to try and get the feel of what it was like as best we can. Breaking up a battle into smaller senarios as we are planning helps progress a battle that took more that two months to fight and compress it down into a single day allowing everyone to get a taste of a campaign in a single weekend. Otherwise we should toss all the senarios out the window and just deer hunt all weekend and play cowboys and indians.

[mayo]

I agree with you Tim.

[middlestone]

So....the IJA did accomodate the marines by accepting their suggestion of the Peleliu battle. So Peleliu it is. Then, after that, they want to beg off from the beach landing the sponsoring unit has planned. As Tim said, the IJA is concerned with the battle from the Japanese perspective. The beach landing was included to give some advantage to the IJA side for a change. I, for one, do not care to do all that planning just so somebody else has the fun and we bear the burden of the work, only to be so heavily outnumbered that the battle is over for us in minutes. If that will be the case, count me out.

[webmaster]

While this discussion could go on and on. It's time to cap it in it's present form. Everyone has shared their concerns, opinions, suggestions, and beliefs. If there is something more specific a separate thread should be started

Thank you to all who participated in this discussion.