A Turning Point - Spring 1941

    The Spring of 1941 sees the completion of several protracted campaigns that have occupied the bulk of my time over the last two years.  In some cases, the finales are gradual and inconspicuous, in other cases stark and dramatic, but cumulatively they help to clearly demark the Spring of 1941 as the turning point of the war between myself and the Allies.

Victory in India

    Ever since the end of Battle of Burma back in February of 1940, there has been little important news coming out of continental Asia.  2 Homen-Gun has been plodding along for over a year now, occupying provinces with little resistance and progressing at such a slow rate I might think they are getting paid by the hour.  My overall plan for the conquest of India is this:  VI Gun follows the east coast, clearing the various ports and driving the defenders southward; VII Gun aligns on VI Gun’s right flank, and blocks defenders from attempting to escape into the central part of the subcontinent; VIII Gun proceeds in the most direct path across the base of the subcontinent, and then turns south to clear the western coast; IX Gun is to advance due west towards Karachi; LI Gun continues its ongoing mission of occupying the northern mountainous provinces, and then veers southward to meet up with IX Gun.

Methodical progress in India

    By the beginning of 1941 we have the subcontinent cut in two, and British forces are being gradually driven towards the Persia border in the west and Cochin in the south.  VI Gun encounters almost continuous fighting, while most other units see little, if any.  VII Gun, on other hand, winds up drawing the short straw when it comes to supplies.  As a result, VI Gun starts outpacing VII dramatically; the British forces attempt to cut off VI Gun by occupying Madras in their wake.  This, oddly, helps to free up supplies for VII Gun, which then turns the tables, encircling and capturing two divisions.  You have to give them credit for trying, I guess.

    The remainder of the offensive pans out more conventionally, driving the remaining defenders in Southern India towards Cochin.  That port is occupied on May 3^rd, and the remaining Allies are pushed into the tip of the subcontinent, where they are eventually captured unceremoniously.

    In the north, LI and IX Gun have a more mundane route.  A lone British division drives deep into territory I’ve already occupied, but after a week of backtracking I’m able to surround and destroy it with little effort.  Karachi falls with minimal fighting, and we steadily drive the remaining forces to the Persian border, where they surrender en masse.

    VIII Gun has the largest and most flexible path.  They need to aid both IX and VII Gun, and prevent British forces from breaking into the center of the region and wreaking havoc.  They encounter no real resistance in their march across the subcontinent, and before reaching the coast start to send divisions off to the south to encircle Bombay.  That city proves minimally problematic, and a single division is captured there in mid April.  VIII Gun then relaxes for awhile there, leaving the indefensible and undefended area around Goa to be picked up by headquarters units.  That area, however, turns out to be less undefended than I thought, and three divisions begin to eat into VII Gun’s supply lines north of Mangalore.  With VII Gun now helping in the capture operation south of Cochin, VIII Gun is needed to head south and round up the British divisions around Goa.  As with most of the units in India thus far, these last units are poorly trained and supplied, and are captured with minimal difficulty.

    Thus, India is now fully under my control.  This vast area, however, yields little benefit, providing only modest manpower and resources.  Its main value is to serve as a launching pad for operations in the Middle East, and to chip away at the ever dwindling British war effort.

Victory in the Pacific

    My stuttering progress in the Pacific Ocean finally comes to a close this season.  The American strategy of recapturing one island for every two that we capture eventually sputters out, as they run out of bases to launch the invasions from.  All of the smaller islands are captured by April, leaving only Rabul and Honolulu.  Thus, in May we set out to quash these two remaining outposts and put an end to the American naval presence in the Pacific for the foreseeable future.  II Gun is landed at Sunset Beach, north of Honolulu, and strikes the city over land.  The battle is modest, with only a single garrison unit defending the vital port, and we occupy it on the 4^th.  I will soon ship in Chindai units of my own to defend the city, but for now II Gun is used to fend off any counter-invasions.  Fortunately, such counter-invasions are never even attempted, indicating how imperiled the American war effort is.

    On May 10^th we start port strike operations again at Rabul.  Back in December, they had such a large quantity of ships in port, that our attacks were easily diffused and made little headway at great cost.  But the lack of supplies has gradually forced the attempted evacuation of most of their troop transports and many escort ships, leaving only the carriers and a few smaller craft.  10, 11 and 13 Kaigun are given the assignment.  10 Kaigun begins the effort, and after 4 days of steady bombing draws first blood by sinking the escort carrier Belleau Wood.  11 Kaigun takes up the mission next, sinking the escort carrier Langely and the two remaining destroyers by the 18^th.  As the month comes to a close we finish off the Americans with the sinking of the few remaining transports and the escort carrier Princeton.

    The differences between this operation and the one in December are striking.  In December our air crews would burn up their organization within 2 days, and suffer up to 30% casualties on top of that.  We were fighting against both ground and carrier based aircraft, provincial anti-aircraft fire and numerous ship-based anti-aircraft systems.  This time, the ground based aircraft had been evacuated, and the remaining carrier based aircraft were ill-supplied.  Our raids carried on for several days with modest organizational loss, and we suffered no noticeable casualties.  Once the operation was over, our fleets were ready for active operations again with virtually no downtime.

    LXI Gun is assigned to recapture the port.  They land west of the city in mid June, and promptly launch an attack against the defenders.  The city is defended by the 4th US Marine division and the 11th Airborne Division.  These are well trained units, but with no reinforcements, little supplies and no air or naval support, they have no realistic chance of survival.  The surrender on the 22^nd, having inflicted a modest 370 casualties on us, and suffering 1,719 killed in return, with another 17,000 taken prisoner.  The fall of Rabul marks the definite end of the war in the Pacific, as the Americans lack the operational range to attack anywhere but Hawaii from their continental bases, and lack the striking power to even attempt that.  With complete control of a vast empire ranging from Karachi to Honolulu, I now have a completely secure and impenetrable base of operations.  I am set to begin offensive operations against the Allies’ heartlands with the onset of summer, and from that point forward the Allies have no hope but a quick and merciful conquest.

    One last note: on June 16^th I deploy the fifth generation battleship Sagami, followed the next day by its sister ship the Tosa.  These juggernauts are deployed to 5 Kaigun, restoring that fleet to full strength and returning it to active operations.  Perversely, however, these ships are deployed at nearly the same time they become largely useless.  It is unlikely I will be doing anything other than convoy raiding and shore bombardments with my fleets from now.  The Brits still have a number of ships to throw at me, and the Americans likely have some held in reserve and a few in production, but it’s unlikely I will have any need for ten full combat fleets from now on.  The naval war, effectively, is over.  Interestingly though, the Tosa brings my strength back up to 100 ships, returning the Grand Fleet bonus to me.  I had lost it only a week into the war, when the light cruiser Oi was sunk by the British off Borneo.  After being the focal point of the war for over two years, my navy simultaneously regains the designations “Grand” and “secondary”.