In a Hypothetical Occupation of Hawaii How Many Troops Would You Need?

[B-29_Bomber]

Here's the Scenario:

You are a commander tasked with maintaining an occupation of the Hawaiian Islands. This Hawaii is an alternate Hawaii, though similar enough that you probably wouldn't tell at first glance. It has been a few years since the fairly easy invasion and occupation of the islands. There are some rebel holdouts to the south of the main island and in the eastern half of Maui. They aren't a major concern. Given enough time the rebels could be brought to heel. However, just days ago your second in command has just given you grave news: A massive Allied fleet is within days of Oahu, with clear intention to land and liberate the islands.

You can expect no relief. The war is basically lost. Everyone knows it, even if no one admits it publicly. The locals are restless however. Final surrender is expected within months, if not sooner. However, you are determined to keep fighting. If you can somehow push the Allied Invasion back into the sea it's possible that you could get favorable terms (Delusions of Grandeur intensifies: perhaps you could be crowned Emperor of the Hawaiian Islands?). However, that's far easier on paper than in reality. Your forces, even in the beginning, were fairly minimal, but by now, on the eve of invasion, your forces are in even worse shape. Hawaii, though a crucial link in the supply chain, was only ever considered a low priority area. Over the last few years, your superiors have stripped you of resources to be sent to other fronts (temporarily, they always emphasized and important for Final Victory, though they would never return).

Your goal is to keep the populous pacified and push the allied invasion into the sea. How many troops would you need to do this? What kind of Naval assets? Air Assets? How much would you actually have on the eve of the invasion?

This is for a Civ 3 scenario I'm working on.

 

[Samson]

Is this more talking about after the US invasion of 1893, or a hypothetical Japanese invasion in 1941/2?

 

[B-29_Bomber]

Is this more talking about after the US invasion of 1893, or a hypothetical Japanese invasion in 1941/2?

Neither. This is a totally fictional invasion that takes place in the 21st century between an Alt-US and a completely fictional state.

 

[Samson]

Then I think the answer is a modern anti air and anti ship missile defence system. Probably cf. the Taiwan thread.

 

[B-29_Bomber]

Then I think the answer is a modern anti air and anti ship missile defence system. Probably cf. the Taiwan thread.

Keep in mind, this is for a Civ 3 scenario with somewhat modified vanilla assets.

Also, what about ground forces?

 

[Samson]

As far as the Civ 3 scenario I would suggest the real life answer is irrelevant. You should give each side the number of units that makes the fight roughly even, or whatever you want for the scenario.

As far as real life goes, and I will say I do not actually know anything about warfare, my point is something like:

If one was to define two metrics:

• Beachhead defender advantage = (number of invaders storming the beach) / (number of defenders required to repulse invasion)
  
• Anti-ship missile defender advantage = (amount of money to build invasion fleet) / (amount of money to build anti-ship missiles to sink invasion fleet)

I would guess Beachhead defender advantage would be about 10, and Anti-ship missile defender advantage would be about 1000. Therefore an island facing invasion should prioritise building anti-ship missiles rather than humans on the beach. So loads of these all over the island:

 

[Lexicus]

Also, what about ground forces?

Ground forces barely matter on an island. I mean, they matter, but the power that controls the sea around Hawaii will be able to supply and reinforce any ground forces on the islands. So you could put 3 million men on Hawaii but if you can't supply them they're not going to make a difference in defending the place.

 

[Gelion]

At least 3.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Here's the Scenario:

You are a commander tasked with maintaining an occupation of the Hawaiian Islands. This Hawaii is an alternate Hawaii, though similar enough that you probably wouldn't tell at first glance. It has been a few years since the fairly easy invasion and occupation of the islands. There are some rebel holdouts to the south of the main island and in the eastern half of Maui. They aren't a major concern. Given enough time the rebels could be brought to heel. However, just days ago your second in command has just given you grave news: A massive Allied fleet is within days of Oahu, with clear intention to land and liberate the islands.

You can expect no relief. The war is basically lost. Everyone knows it, even if no one admits it publicly. The locals are restless however. Final surrender is expected within months, if not sooner. However, you are determined to keep fighting. If you can somehow push the Allied Invasion back into the sea it's possible that you could get favorable terms (Delusions of Grandeur intensifies: perhaps you could be crowned Emperor of the Hawaiian Islands?). However, that's far easier on paper than in reality. Your forces, even in the beginning, were fairly minimal, but by now, on the eve of invasion, your forces are in even worse shape. Hawaii, though a crucial link in the supply chain, was only ever considered a low priority area. Over the last few years, your superiors have stripped you of resources to be sent to other fronts (temporarily, they always emphasized and important for Final Victory, though they would never return).

Your goal is to keep the populous pacified and push the allied invasion into the sea. How many troops would you need to do this? What kind of Naval assets? Air Assets? How much would you actually have on the eve of the invasion?

This is for a Civ 3 scenario I'm working on.

Neither. This is a totally fictional invasion that takes place in the 21st century between an Alt-US and a completely fictional state.

Keep in mind, this is for a Civ 3 scenario with somewhat modified vanilla assets.

Also, what about ground forces?

I don't know what operational level you'd need to render this scenario, and I don't know what Civ III is capable of. That said, I would concentrate on the highlighted portions. As already mentioned, a real 21st-Century battle over an island 'nation' like Hawaii would be fought largely at sea. I would add that electronic/virtual warfare will also be a significant component. If the Chinese seriously attack Taiwan, for example, one of the first things they'll do is destroy a bunch of American and Taiwanese satellites. The US Navy has in fact been preparing for that for a few years now: A little while ago, they reintroduced old-fashioned navigation - e.g. without GPS - to its training curriculum. Computer viruses - remember Stuxnet? - will probably also be weaponized. iirc, a big electrical grid in Ukraine went down several years ago, and I think everybody believes it was the Russian Army that did it, perhaps as a test or a warning. If they invade Ukraine next year, I imagine something similar will happen.

I think that's all moot, though, because I doubt any Civ game can render any of that. A solution might be to pretend most of that has already happened. The formal battle for the island is already over, and the governor of the occupation is simply trying to make the best of the waning days. A massive number of surface-to-surface missiles might be enough to make an invading force more circumspect, buying some time to shred the papers and move some funds to offshore accounts. In this circumstance, an occupying force would have to contend with partisans finally making their move, supported by foreign Special Forces who'd snuck onto the island by parachute and submarine in the weeks before. US Army Green Berets, Navy SEALs and Air Force Combat Controllers would be embedding themselves with the resistance, attacking key sites, and marking targets for incoming stealth planes and cruise missiles. Major airports and communication and power-grid hubs would be early targets for capture by airborne forces, so an occupying force might want to reinforce those, and resistance fighters and Special Forces would want to capture them intact, rather than just destroy them. If the occupying force is more malevolent and is expected to take something of a "Scorched Earth" approach, civilian infrastructure like drinking water and ports for cargo-ships might be targets, too. When the end was nigh in 1992, the Iraqis set all of Kuwait's oil rigs on fire.

If Civ III can render the Hawaiian islands as an entire playable map, maybe the scale would be small enough that small units of resistance fighters and occupying police/soldiers would be doable. For the defender, the occupying force, the goal might not be to keep the islands, it might be to delay the invasion long enough to accomplish something else, or to cause enough damage to make it a Pyrrhic victory. Figuring out why the invading force captured the islands in the first place might also help flesh out what they might be trying to do on the way out.

 

[Cutlass]

Can't be done.

In the real world, enough troops to hold on can be starved out with a blockade. And then bombed out. In a Civ world, then you lose troops you cannot support, because you have to account for them not reviving external support.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Can't be done.

In the real world, enough troops to hold on can be starved out with a blockade. And then bombed out. In a Civ world, then you lose troops you cannot support, because you have to account for them not reviving external support.

Keep in mind that the defenders are the occupiers in this scenario. The attacker might not want to simply blockade the islands and wait, because the occupying troops wouldn't be the first people to starve, they'd be the last. The civilians will be the ones who get it in the neck. You'd be creating a humanitarian disaster among the very people you're trying to liberate (1.4m Hawaiians, according to Google). Bombing has similar problems, even if 21st-Century precision weapons were really as precise as they are in the popular imagination. You could hit military facilities, but you wouldn't want to bomb civilian infrastructure, even though the occupying forces would presumably have no compunction about using them for themselves.

On the whole, I'm not sure Civ is the right game to render this kind of scenario at any satisfying level of detail. I wonder if "War Weariness" could be a factor that could help complicate the situation for the attackers? Civ VI is the only Civ I've played lately, and war weariness/unhappiness just isn't a thing in that game. But I seem to remember war weariness was something you actually had to manage in previous iterations. Civ IV, maybe? I never played Civ III.

 

[Tee Kay]

The scenario you described suggest to me that the answer is irrelevant

Modern anti-air and anti-ship missiles can help slow the inevitable or at least inflict a lot of losses as suggested above

You could make the ground fight difficult for the Allies by fortifying the island and have your troops, if they are willing, fight to the death, with civilians as human shields, as the Japanese often did in WW2.

But ultimately the answer to "how many troops you would need to do this" looks to be "you can't do this". You can only lose, the question is how many, enemy or friendly, you will have die in your cause before you are defeated.

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

One o two battlefleets which consists of American style supercarriers full of hitech jetplanes. and Missile Battleship escorts. and one o two marine regimetns.

 

[Henri Christophe]

To draw a scenario is very important to know who is the agressor and why he is invading.
Let's supose the Russia and China united forces to invade Hawaii and restore it's monarchy. Because sounds legit to do it, if the Hawaiian population embraced this idea the war will be very more easy to fight. But, if this war is about another empire who just want to conquer more land, this war will be more tought.

Since it is a Island, we will need ship and the navy who have aircraft on it. We will need a lot of airplanes and soldiers to invade.
I don't know who is invading and why, but is always recomended to use all your force to strike quickly.

 

[Haig]

10 to 12 full divisions conduct a bayonet attack after a week long artillery barrage.

 

[Caesar of Bread]

The next Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson movie?



I'd say maybe 20-40 thousand if the Hawaiians/US have a strong advantage/military

 

[Patine]

I don't know what operational level you'd need to render this scenario, and I don't know what Civ III is capable of. That said, I would concentrate on the highlighted portions. As already mentioned, a real 21st-Century battle over an island 'nation' like Hawaii would be fought largely at sea. I would add that electronic/virtual warfare will also be a significant component. If the Chinese seriously attack Taiwan, for example, one of the first things they'll do is destroy a bunch of American and Taiwanese satellites. The US Navy has in fact been preparing for that for a few years now: A little while ago, they reintroduced old-fashioned navigation - e.g. without GPS - to its training curriculum. Computer viruses - remember Stuxnet? - will probably also be weaponized. iirc, a big electrical grid in Ukraine went down several years ago, and I think everybody believes it was the Russian Army that did it, perhaps as a test or a warning. If they invade Ukraine next year, I imagine something similar will happen.

I think that's all moot, though, because I doubt any Civ game can render any of that. A solution might be to pretend most of that has already happened. The formal battle for the island is already over, and the governor of the occupation is simply trying to make the best of the waning days. A massive number of surface-to-surface missiles might be enough to make an invading force more circumspect, buying some time to shred the papers and move some funds to offshore accounts. In this circumstance, an occupying force would have to contend with partisans finally making their move, supported by foreign Special Forces who'd snuck onto the island by parachute and submarine in the weeks before. US Army Green Berets, Navy SEALs and Air Force Combat Controllers would be embedding themselves with the resistance, attacking key sites, and marking targets for incoming stealth planes and cruise missiles. Major airports and communication and power-grid hubs would be early targets for capture by airborne forces, so an occupying force might want to reinforce those, and resistance fighters and Special Forces would want to capture them intact, rather than just destroy them. If the occupying force is more malevolent and is expected to take something of a "Scorched Earth" approach, civilian infrastructure like drinking water and ports for cargo-ships might be targets, too. When the end was nigh in 1992, the Iraqis set all of Kuwait's oil rigs on fire.

If Civ III can render the Hawaiian islands as an entire playable map, maybe the scale would be small enough that small units of resistance fighters and occupying police/soldiers would be doable. For the defender, the occupying force, the goal might not be to keep the islands, it might be to delay the invasion long enough to accomplish something else, or to cause enough damage to make it a Pyrrhic victory. Figuring out why the invading force captured the islands in the first place might also help flesh out what they might be trying to do on the way out.

I don't about Civ3, but Civ2 has fan-made custom scenarios about the Battle of Iwo Jima, Operation Market Garden, and a fictional Nauruan Civil War and Libyan Invasion of Malta.

Can't be done.

In the real world, enough troops to hold on can be starved out with a blockade. And then bombed out. In a Civ world, then you lose troops you cannot support, because you have to account for them not reviving external support.

Unless the Alt-U.S. could not dedicate it's usual capabilities of military power in alternate reality because it was on the brink of a Second Civil War in it's Continental States between two growingly extreme, viciously divided and opposed, and militant socio-political factions that had reached the point they could not, and would not, co-exist with each other in the same nation, but refuse to make any of the territorial, institutional, or economic concessions, and are far too bitter, for any sort of Czechoslovakian Velvet Divorce (not as unrealistic of a near future scenario as one might think, frighteningly enough).

 

[Birdjaguar]

Without food, fuel and ammo you cannot defend the island effectively. That means protected supply lines.

 

[Patine]

Without food, fuel and ammo you cannot defend the island effectively. That means protected supply lines.

But as I just said above, not only would the invader need to be known who they were, and why, in this alternate universe, but the state the United States was in, socially, politically, and economically, would have to be known. After all, the U.S. is currently on a sharp precipice point right now in terms of how it's near future may look - it has not been more internally and viciously divided upon itself than at any other times since the 1845-1876 period. And, frankly, most nations with any real military clout would likely wait for such weakness and division - perhaps even Civil War and Balkanization - in the Continental U.S. before attempting such a venture.