After a rather manic summer which involved shipping my entire army to diverse spots around the globe and fighting one huge land battle, the remainder of the year is comparatively quiet. This is not necessarily a good thing, because the reason for the quiet is a combination of supply shortages and partisan eruptions on the home front.
They Fight Us Over Here, So They Don’t Have To Fight Us Over There
Prior to the “Their Finest Hour” expansion, partisans (or rebels) were a trivial nuisance. They popped up sporadically, and dealing with them generally involved just sending a cavalry division to knock them out and retake the lost provinces. TFH allows nations to create underground resistance bases, and when these bases are combined, they can cause half a dozen or more partisan divisions to pop up every few months. Putting the partisans down becomes an almost constant issue. This is where playing Japan becomes a problem. Their conquests occupy an enormous area of the globe, including some of the most difficult to traverse and least profitable areas (the Himalayas, Burma, the Australian Outback). I’ve had to spend quite a bit of my industrial capacity building new cavalry, garrison and MP brigades to contain these outbreaks. Even more significant, I’ve had to hold I Gun in the Dutch East Indies to put down the constant partisan eruptions there. Consequently, LXII Gun must remain in defense at Los Angeles, meaning the Panama Canal offensive is on hold. The only upside to this situation is that it gives me plenty of time to build up facilities in the area, and the Americans are content to stand by and watch us do it.
Reversals in the Middle East
The bright side of the autumn of 1941 is the successful completion of the Middle East Campaign. At first, however, I have no reason to be optimistic. Implicit in my original plan was the idea that the capture of Baghdad would give me enough fuel and supplies to finish the campaign, at least when combined with the ports of Kuwait and Basra. For whatever reason, the Iraqis had absolutely no supplies stockpiled in their capital. This was a big setback, especially when I found that the Iraqi forces had retreated into French Syria, thereby evading the surrender order. Even after transferring LI Gun back to India, we were still consuming more supplies than we could ship in. A minor change in the plan was in order.
Being farthest from the supply base, VII Gun was receiving top priority for supplies, as was the left flank of VIII Gun. The right flank of VIII Gun and IX Gun were closer to the base of supplies, and therefore had their operational abilities limited. The Suez Canal was still top priority, so the left flank of VII Gun kept on a direct route there, in accordance to the original mission. In order to bring in a greater amount of supplies, we switched the right flank of VII Gun to occupy Tel Aviv (originally VIII Gun’s mission), while the left flank of VIII Gun steered towards Beirut (originally IX Gun’s responsibility). The remainder of the force would simply stay put and keep the Allies hemmed in.
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| The revised plan for the occupation of Syria and Palestine. Note the sad red corner on IX Gun. |
The plan proceeds reasonably well, despite increasing strategic bombings from the British. VII Gun in particular encounters no defenders; VIII Gun, however, finds a French division in Beirut. An attack there is broken off after a day with no result. However, VII Gun makes the big strategic gain by occupying Tel Aviv on October 14th. Despite the fact the ports there are no larger than in Kuwait, the game moves my supply base to Tel Aviv. Fortunately, the Italians captured Gibraltar some time earlier this year, so I can immediately start shipping supplies via the long route around Africa and through the Mediterranean.
The increased supplies cause a dramatic turnaround, in more ways than one. Not only can we now resume the offensive all along the line, the offensive itself switches from a generally westward movement to a generally eastward movement. The French and Iraqi forces moved out towards the Iraqi-Syrian border to meet the stalled elements of VIII and IX Gun; once we captured Tel Aviv, we quickly pushed north to capture Beirut a week later, pinching the Allied ground troops in between the two flanks of VIII Gun. Well supplied, we began a hard V-shaped offensive to dispose of the remaining enemies. They eventually retreated to Aleppo, on the border with Turkey, where we finally forced their surrender. The entire final push brought about the destruction of around six divisions, numbering around 35,000 men.
Elsewhere in the theater we benefitted from a lack of defenders. VI Gun reunited east of Yemen and made rather short work of the troops there, forcing that country’s surrender on October 24th. With the immediate area completely under my control, I shuttle VI Gun to the Bahrain area, and declare war on Saudi Arabia on November 23rd. This war mainly amounts to simply marching into their capital, which falls on December 7th.
The occupation of Beirut results in the only significant naval action of the season. The French aircraft carrier Bearn, which they’ve held in reserve throughout the game, was stationed there, and briefly attempted to intercept my convoys. I anticipated this, and sailed 14 Kaigun all the way into the Mediterranean, rebasing it in Tel Aviv. It quickly found the Bearn and gave it a good drubbing in an open sea battle, sending it back to the shelter of Beirut. We promptly launched port strikes, but when the city was occupied the Bearn was forced to flee into our waiting arms. It was sunk after three days off running battles, with our CAGs nearly exhausted. Thus ends the French navy.
On November 1st 35 Shidan performs the ceremonial crossing of the Suez Canal from Romani to Bur Said. This is followed within the week by the occupation of the remainder of the Canal Zone. We have yet to meet significant British land forces; one division has been chased across the Sinai Peninsula, and did not attempt to defend the Canal itself. As VI Gun approaches the Nile, however, we start to see accumulated land forces. We fight minor engagements in Cairo and Alexandria, but the Brits put up little resistance and retreat westward. I’m not sure what the point of this is; it seems they would be better off concentrating a defense at Alexandria, which provides decent defensive terrain and a theoretical possibility of resupply. However, with the Allies now prevented from shipping supplies into the Mediterranean via either Gibraltar or the Suez Canal, I guess the final defensive position is moot. Regardless, they concentrate at El Alamein, where the Italians are attacking from the west, and we are closing in from the east. A few infantry divisions are overrun en route, but a single armor division remains there and puts up a good last ditch effort, holding out through several days of fighting. Eventually they, too surrender, and on December 1st we occupy El Alamein and link up with the Italians. Although we still need to occupy southern Egypt, and the conquests of Persia and Turkey are still on the to-do list, the Suez Canal Campaign is brought to a successful conclusion in less than six months.
The Battle of Singapore, Part . . . I Lost Count
By December I have the partisans subdued well enough to restart operations against Singapore. At this point it is mainly a matter of pride. The British navy have a few submarines based here that they send out occasionally, but for the most part it has no significant military value remaining. I come up with a brilliant plan: attack them, and kill as many as I can. LXI Gun is still responsible for the operation, and they pitch in with gusto. The battle lasts for several days, but it becomes obvious that an unreasonably large chunk of the British army is holding the island, and I have no chance of ultimate success. We force one division, the 4th Highlands Division, to retreat; in light of the fact that they have nowhere to retreat to, they are destroyed. To me this seems like a flaw in the game; they should just turn into a reserve division, and be allowed to recover after the battle. But who am I to complain? We abort the attack shortly thereafter, having suffered 2500 KIA, and inflicted 3500 KIA and about 5000 captured.
The Europe Situation
At the end of the summer, the Germans were busy proving they were completely inadequate to beat the Soviets by themselves. So, they decide to mount an offensive in an area where they tend to be more successful: diplomacy. Romania joins the Axis on October 4th; this doesn’t have any immediate consequences, but they do mobilize soon after joining, so the next step is rather predictable. With Italy already in the mix, Germany issues a call-to-arms to its remaining European allies on December 5th. Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania and Finland jump to the call, and quickly prove they aren’t really any better than the Germans. Finland and Romania in particular immediately begin losing ground to the Soviets, and by the year’s end the Soviets have occupied one-to-two province wide swathes of each country. I have to admit I find it rather amusing, albeit a bit foreboding.
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