1 - The most Manouevrist Campaign the Australian Army has ever fought.
03/15/18 • 31 min
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Our first campaign that we will look at is from Malaya.
We detail some of the key people in the Malaya Campaign:
LT Gen Percival
AVM Pulford
LT Gen Heath
MAJ Gen Gordon Heath
LT Gen Yamashita
We look at the numbers for both sides. Yamashita was fighting significantly outnumbered, so how did he make up the numbers?
Armoured warfare - who had the advantage with tanks?
In late 1941 the war is going quite badly for the Allies, the Germans are at the gates of Moscow.
The Royal Navy sends Prince of Wales and Repulse to defend Singapore and Malaya. After Japanese landings, Force Z moves out to defeat the Japanese only to be sunk. Churchill describes it as the greatest naval disaster ever in the history of the Royal Navy.
The Japanese fight at Jitra and win. Within the first 100 hours, they have achieved control of the air, control of the sea and started to dominate on the land.
Yamashita pushes aggressively south down Malaya. A series of major withdrawals continue. He leapfrogs down the Western coast of Malaya outflanking the Allies out of prepared defences.
Wavell takes command of the ABDA command and he orders a 150 mile retreat.
We look at COL Tsuji, the God of Operations and how he prepared the strategy for the Japanese attack.
Wavell meets MAJ GEN Bennett and likes the aggressive spirit that he displays. An inexperienced divisional staff takes over command of 3 divisions.
The Battle of Muar is fought and lost and significant casualties are suffered by the Allies.
The situation is so bad in the air that unarmed flying club planes are used for recon.
The Japanese advanced 740 km in one month and 1 month and 23 days with a force ratio of 1:2, not the expected 3:1. How did they manage such a marked victory?
Our first campaign that we will look at is from Malaya.
We detail some of the key people in the Malaya Campaign:
LT Gen Percival
AVM Pulford
LT Gen Heath
MAJ Gen Gordon Heath
LT Gen Yamashita
We look at the numbers for both sides. Yamashita was fighting significantly outnumbered, so how did he make up the numbers?
Armoured warfare - who had the advantage with tanks?
In late 1941 the war is going quite badly for the Allies, the Germans are at the gates of Moscow.
The Royal Navy sends Prince of Wales and Repulse to defend Singapore and Malaya. After Japanese landings, Force Z moves out to defeat the Japanese only to be sunk. Churchill describes it as the greatest naval disaster ever in the history of the Royal Navy.
The Japanese fight at Jitra and win. Within the first 100 hours, they have achieved control of the air, control of the sea and started to dominate on the land.
Yamashita pushes aggressively south down Malaya. A series of major withdrawals continue. He leapfrogs down the Western coast of Malaya outflanking the Allies out of prepared defences.
Wavell takes command of the ABDA command and he orders a 150 mile retreat.
We look at COL Tsuji, the God of Operations and how he prepared the strategy for the Japanese attack.
Wavell meets MAJ GEN Bennett and likes the aggressive spirit that he displays. An inexperienced divisional staff takes over command of 3 divisions.
The Battle of Muar is fought and lost and significant casualties are suffered by the Allies.
The situation is so bad in the air that unarmed flying club planes are used for recon.
The Japanese advanced 740 km in one month and 1 month and 23 days with a force ratio of 1:2, not the expected 3:1. How did they manage such a marked victory?
Previous Episode
0 - The Principles of War and You
1 RecommendationsWe look at how the Principles of War podcast is going to work, what we want to do and how we are going to do it.
We discuss how terrain plays a part in the outcomes of battles and we will be looking at leadership.
What role does leadership play in battle? What about Post H-Hour Execution and leadership? We look at some examples from General Grant's experiences that lead him to be the Commander of the Army of the Potomac.
We discuss each of the principles and give a brief example of why each is important.
Selection and the Maintenance of the Aim. Probably the most important of the principles.
Concentration of Force - My strategy is 1 against 10 - my tactics 10 against 1. The
Economy of effort - if you aren't the main effort, you will be short of everything except the enemy.
Co-operation - why is this so difficult to achieve. We briefly looked at the problems with co-operation for the D-Day landings.
Security - Truth is so precious it should be attended by a bodyguard of lies.
Surprise - To surprise the enemy is to defeat them. The Germans driving through the Ardennes forest in 1940. We talk briefly about technical surprise.
Flexibility - Auftragtaktik and Mission Command. We look at Yom Kippur.
Offensive Action - Britzkrieg.
Sustainment - Supplies set the left and right of arc of what is possible. Sherman's march to the sea and the Atlantic Conveyor in the Falklands.
Morale - The Army of the Potomac after the Battle of the Wilderness.
Sun Tzu said -The art of war is of vital importance to the State. It is a matter of life and death, a road either to safety or to ruin. Hence it is a subject of inquiry which can on no account be neglected.
This is why we need to understand the principles of war.
Next Episode
2 - The Japanese and Allied Centres of Gravity for the Malaya Campaign
The Centre of Gravity is that characteristic, capability or locality from which a force, nation or alliance derives its freedom of action, strength or will to fight.
For the British, the CoG was the Singapore Naval Base. It was the fundamental part of the defence of the whole of South East Asia. In times of need the Royal Navy would sail out to Singapore and defeat all comers and ensure that the Empire was secure. The port at Singapore was central to the defence of Australia. The base wasn't big enough for the fleet required to keep the seas free. The fleet was unlikely to sally forth if decisively engaged in Europe, so the fleet base was too small for a fleet that was unlikely ever sail there. It turned out to be the second largest graving dock in the world at the time.
We look at how the Singapore Strategy became increasingly untenable, but no one was prepared to
In 1940 it became apparent that the Navy would not be able to sail to Singapore 'for the foreseeable future."
LT GEN Percival conducted an analysis of the defence of Singapore before the war. This dictated that the defence of Singapore would need to be conducted in Malaya and northern Malaya at that.
As the war progressed, Churchill hoped that the US would provide the Navy required to support the British in the Far East, if provoked.
With no Navy to defend the base, the defence of Malaya fell to the Air Force. With not enough planes and the planes they had being too old, the last line of defence would be the Army.
The defence of the base dictated the way that the Battle of Malaya was fought.
For the Japanese, the CoG analysis is a lot easier. It was the tank.
The tanks the Japanese had were not great and the tactics they used were not modern, but they had tanks, used them very aggressively and the British had no tanks in Malaya. The Japanese used the tanks for filleting attacks which were devastating, especially against forces that were not well versed in combined arms, or even anti tank weapons.
A Critical Vulnerability of tanks, of course, is the logistics tail required. How will Yamashita overcome this?
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