Versus Match Modern New Zealand versus Imperial Japan Invasion Force

Husky_Khan

The Dog Whistler... I mean Whisperer.
Founder
Sotnik
As it says in the title.

For whatever reason modern New Zealand finds itself ISOT'd to a magical realm of before time circa 1942 where Imperial Japan has managed to capture all of the Solomon Islands as well as New Caledonia, Fiji and Vanuatu following a successful Operation FS. NOW Imperial Japan has set its sights on modern New Zealand.

For whatever reason... there'll be no interference from the rest of the 1942 world ALTHOUGH Japan has only designated certain units to invade New Zealand and capture it for Japan and they'll come in waves...

First Japanese Invasion Force (lazily based off of the Port Moresby Invasion Force):

Initial Invasion and Occupation force, led by Rear Admiral Sadamichi Kajioka:
Heavy Support Force led by Rear Admiral Chuichi Hara:
Invasion and Occupation Units led by Lieutenant General Tomitaro Horii:
If that doesn't make the Kiwis crack, the Japanese will follow up a month later with an even mightier fleet!



Second Japanese Invasion Force (lazily based off of the Midway-Aleutians Campaign):

Might Fleet led by Marshal Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto:
Second Invasion and Occupation Units
Both Invasion Forces will benefit from the 25th Air Flotilla providing land based air support from the southernmost islands they've captured as noted in the introduction. It will be composed of 60 Mitsubishi A6M "Zero" fighters, 48 Mitsubishi G3M "Nell" and 26 Aichi E13A "Jake" and Mitsubishi F1M "Pete" reconnaissance seaplanes.



And the Defenders!

New Zealand Army
New Zealand Navy
New Zealand Air Force
New Zealand Police




Extras:

Japanese get access to New Zealand guidebooks/road atlases.

The New Zealand Defence Forces get all of their troops including those deployed overseas to defend their country. They'll also still get regularly scheduled imports for the next few months (cargo airplanes will show up at airports and cargo ships at ports) but can be intercepted by the Japanese. New Zealand can make orders for replenishment but not entirely new vessels, reinforcements or new equipment and things of that nature. Just replenishment or replacement of existing material.

New Zealand is aware of a Japanese Fleet departing to invade New Zealand via spooky omniscient narration stating as much but will have to detect the incoming invaders using their own resources. Anything using GPS for the New Zealanders still works as well as local internet, satellite-based communications and the like. But no help beyond what is stipulated above will be permitted into the battlespace.

If New Zealand manages to defeat both Invasion attempts they get to be transported back to their own time/space for motivation and ya know... not live under Japanese occupation.

Japan's objective is to obviously capture as much of New Zealand as possible but alas, they only have the military assets as stated above.
 
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bintananth

behind a desk
New Zealand is screwed.

They're outnumbered and outgunned. Modern tech won't save them.

Their navy can inflict heavy casualties on the unarmoured Japanese ships provided they can stay out of range but modern anti-ship missiles aren't designed to go through the armoured belts and decks of WWII.

Modern AA would be inadequate for handling the kinds of numbers involved in a large WWII airstrike and their Air Force is not equipped for air-to-air combat at all.
 

Husky_Khan

The Dog Whistler... I mean Whisperer.
Founder
Sotnik
Think New Zealand could take on the first Invasion Fleet at least?
 

Val the Moofia Boss

Well-known member
Most important thing is to destroy as much of the incoming invasion force as possible.

New Zealand Navy

  • 2 Anzac: carries 8 anti ship missiles each (16 anti-ship missiles total)
  • 2 protector class vessels that each carry a Seasprite helicopter, which can carry 2 anti-ship missiles or torpedoes. So 4 missiles or torpedoes total.
  • Canterbury class carries 2 seasprites, so 4 missiles or torpedoes total.

New Zealand Air Force
  • 6 P-3 Orions: the wikipedia article states that one Orion succesfully used an air-to-ground missile to strike at a ship during the Libya crisis. I'll count that at 6 anti-ship missiles.
  • 4 Boeing P-8. Dunno how many anti-ship missiles they can carry so I will just assume 2 each. 8 total missiles.
  • 8 Seasprite helicopters: carries 8 helicopters that can each carry 2 anti-ship missiles or torpedoes (so a total of 16 anti-ship missiles or torpedoes).

So altogether New Zealand has 54 anti-ship missiles. If we are extremely generous and say that NZ is able to get every single one of those missiles to hit the Japanese ships and that each hit results in a sunken ship, then the entire first invasion force can be destroyed. However, only a fraction of the second invasion force will be destroyed, so most likely New Zealand is in fact invaded.

The rest of NZ's navy is useless. They're either sunk by IJN submarines or blown up by their ships.

The carriers of the second Japanese invasion force seem to carry around 300ish aircraft total, and New Zealand only has 70 anti-air missiles. That said, I don't think the Japanese having aerial superiority is that bad, as the Japanese never mass produced heavy bombers. I don't think you'll see New Zealand's cities being levelled in bombing campaigns. More then likely those planes will be used as observation craft to track New Zealand army movements.

Since only the second invasion force will reach New Zealand, the Japanese will be invading with 2 divisions, so about 30,000 troops.

New Zealand has 2500 to 5500 troops. 10,000 police officers. New Zealand has a population of 5 million. If 1% of the men volunteered or were conscripted as soldiers then you have an additional 25,000 troops. So New Zealand and Japan have about equal manpower. I presume that there are small arms for every member of the NZ's army.

With New Zealand's homefield advantage (plus their infrastructure and other stuff that Japan didn't have in their days, like a lot of cars and more gas, etc), I'm pretty sure NZ will win.

Their navy can inflict heavy casualties on the unarmoured Japanese ships provided they can stay out of range but modern anti-ship missiles aren't designed to go through the armoured belts and decks of WWII.

True. The army of the first invasion force might land, which means NZ might be facing 45,000 enemy troops rather than 30,000. But NZ still has a population of 2,500,000 men they can draw upon. Even conscripting 5% of the men gets you 125,000 troops for NZ. Numerically I don't see how the Japanese can win the land war.
 
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Buba

A total creep
A lot depends on how far out does the RNZN begin to whittle down the Japanese ships.

Air attacks - helicopters too - at night, with torpedos. And the Japanese are dead.
Initial Invasion Force - massacred.
Heavy Support Group - ravaged.

Even if a puny 375mm torpedo does not blow a hole large enough to sink a cruiser, as it is noise homing it will hit around the props. And we all know what sort of damage a hit there produces once the shaft goes wild ... look up what happened to the HMS Prince of Wales.
Hint - transports are single screw vessels.

Also - IJN fleet carriers hit by Harpoons will make nice bonfires.
By modern standards WWII subs are so loud that they just as well might be blasting eurobeat hits at the poor Newzealanders.

NZ might run out of munitions to repel the 2nd wave, though ...

BTW - this shows the folly of not having a pair or two of submarines. Then again - New Zealand IS tiny.
 
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Lord Sovereign

Well-known member
New Zealand does have armoured vehicles quite superior to any "tank" the Imperial Japanese had, but the Japanese would have air supremacy here. As has been said, the RNZAF does not have air combat capability (for some bloody reason. They're a wealthy country, why don't they even have a few fighter squadrons of F-15s, let alone F-35s?) so aircraft can attack at will. Worse, if the battle hardened landing forces capture some New Zealand airfields, the Japanese have proper Forward Operating Bases.

That's another aspect here. The Japanese are about as far from green as you can get, and New Zealand's soldiers are greener than Shrek for the most part.

That an invasion force some eighty years inferior to you can be existential threat to your country is proof of why you attend to your own defence instead of desperately leeching off America forever. New Zealand does have the cash to field a reasonable small military but doesn't because Pax Americana has melted the minds of our leaders.
 

Lord Sovereign

Well-known member
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Husky_Khan

The Dog Whistler... I mean Whisperer.
Founder
Sotnik
New Zealand? My good man, Singapore can absolutely spank a fair few Western European countries who are wealthier than them.

Edit: Don't believe me? Singapore's fleet could move into Swedish waters and Sweden could do bugger all about it. Singapore's armies could take a stroll through Ireland, and there's bugger all Ireland can do about it.

So many ahistorical Versus Matches to ponder! :love::love::love:

True. The army of the first invasion force might land, which means NZ might be facing 45,000 enemy troops rather than 30,000. But NZ still has a population of 2,500,000 men they can draw upon. Even conscripting 5% of the men gets you 125,000 troops for NZ. Numerically I don't see how the Japanese can win the land war.

Well if that's the case, I'm sure the Japanese can airland more reinforcements that aren't part of the OP. A long term war/occupation isn't part of this Versus Match's original setup because... ughhhh work but it is understandable that this won't be a clean conquest. None of the Japanese operations were (even the Invasion of Timor had Australian commandos operating on the Island until December of 1942) really clean conquests if people were about.

But yeah, if they manage to capture a port or significant airbase, I'm sure followup SNLF detachments or Imperial Army Units will be made available respectively. Say an extra two divisions worth of troops that can be incrementally funneled in as circumstances and logistics permits.
 

Buba

A total creep
I'm sure the Japanese can airland more reinforcements that aren't part of the OP
Hmm ... examine list of Japanese transport planes, look at map, check distances, shake head, mutter "lolnope"?

The logistics of the naval operation on their own blow my SOD out of the water :), never mind airlifts/airlandings :p
 
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Husky_Khan

The Dog Whistler... I mean Whisperer.
Founder
Sotnik
Hmm ... examine list of Japanese transport planes, look at map, check distances, shake head, mutter "lolnope"?

The logistics of the naval operation on their own blow my SOD out of the water :), never mind airlifts/airlandings :p

Well in this scenario the Naval Forces are based out of the southernmost islands of their "planned" conquests (ie they've already conquered Vanuatau, Fiji, and New Caledonia etc) and already set up bases there for these New Zealand operations. Plus while they aren't "fighting" anyone else, I decided to limit them to just the two above fleets and resources to simplify the scenario. I tried to make it as SOD-forgiving as possible for how innately ridiculous the scenario actually is... while still being "simple" to engage with and digest.
 

ATP

Well-known member
I think,that they would land and get stopped when they leave safety of battleships guns.banzai charges would not help them against modern military.

What could made other fleet not intervene ? Pear Harbour where Yamamoto instead of Nagumo take command and do not leave till nothing was left.And sunk Enterprise and Lexington,too.
 

Husky_Khan

The Dog Whistler... I mean Whisperer.
Founder
Sotnik
The carriers of the second Japanese invasion force seem to carry around 300ish aircraft total, and New Zealand only has 70 anti-air missiles.

Yeah apparently they put the Mistrals in storage but I included them on the list anyways. Kinda interesting they lacked even MANPADs officially.

I added a few things NZDF were in the process of buying like the new Boeing B-8's and all 43 of the Bushmasters. I really wanna see a mighty tank(ish) battle.

And Harpoons apparently (at least initially). Didn't know that when writing this up but yeah, looks like those VLS launchers are loaded with Sea Ceptor missiles instead.

One would hope the maritime craft might have Harpoons (in addition to torpedos).
 

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