I agree that Indonesia have something to win by taking Australia in a T2K scenario. But isnt the question if they could do so in a T2K setting?
Indonesia is a diverse country with internal strife and difficult logistics seeing as everything must go by ship. They would face problems on teh same scale that the Imperial Japanese army did imho. The Japanese in 1942 were a mighty opponent. They had over 50 years of indoctrination in their culture, a massive militaryindustrial complex and something like 10 000 000 people under arms all told. The real reason for the nuclear bombings in 1945 were that the US high command rightly concluded that a conventional attack on mainland Japan would be far more risky operation than Operation Overlord, and that the war would drag on for several years before victory was ensured.
We do not know if the Indonesians can be assessed in the same way- undoubtedly fierce people but probably not along the same lines as the 1942 Japanese population.
They Indonesians would be fighting in their own rear against insurgents and separatists of various creeds and ethnicities, as well as trying to project a force large enough to capture a continent, to your shores ,all the while their economy is in a shamble sdue to the breakdown of the global trade economy.
Admittedly the advent of the airmobile infantry would greatly ease their capture of PNG and I guess if the USN isnt available and the Royal Navy is elsewhere too, most minor Island states would fare ill against an attack from whatever invasion force the Indonesians would send.
But the sheer timeframe involved in capturing Northern Australia if it was defended by delaying actions would probably give the you the possibility to mobilize an army of conscripts and rudimentarily arm them to start the reconquista. A possibility for the Indonesians could be a complex operation involving a 5th column,surprise attacks and WMDs. But such a plan has numerous pitfalls, and even if the Indons could get nukes, its doubtful that they could ship enough troops into Australia in a timeframe that would deny you guys the opportunity to mobilize and start driving them out.
Australia is like Russia, only with heat and crocs instead of snow and wolves.
How many Owen guns can be produced in Queensland in a month if all pitch in ?
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Originally Posted by Legbreaker
Japan in 1942 were overextended in a BIG way with troops in Korea, China, and just about everywhere south and east of there. Also there are indications they never intended to step one foot on Australian mainland soil. They were really only after Papua New Guinea to secure their southern border (there just isn't much they could use in the northern part of Australia, and no way they could have held it anyway).
Indonesia in T2K on the other hand were not spread halfway across the world trying to hold onto various conquests and weren't at war with numerous other countries. Their entire might could be focused squarely on Australia and the space it represented for it's overcrowded islands. Unlike Japan 60 years earlier, Australia does have something Indonesia needs.
Indonesia also has little need to bog themselves down in the mountainous PNG, not when with just a little more effort they could have the flat terrain of northern Australlia.
Now as for a brigade to Centcom, that's extremely unlikely. Australia only has two Divisions TOTAL, with the majority of that strength in the form of reservists. With a Brigade in Korea (which I'm working on an OOB for now) that doesn't leave much at home to resist the Indonesians.
With such minimal strength, you can also rule out completely an offensive action into Indonesia. That country has a comparatively MASSIVE military, and even if not up to the same standard, they'd swamp the Australians with numbers.
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