With my strategic plans well developed, I initiate the dual Canal Offensives in late June, 1941. While the simultaneous beginnings of these offensives makes for a nice narrative, it greatly complicates my transportation situation. My troop transports, about 20 in number, have spent the bulk of their existence collecting barnacles in Tokyo harbor. They are now thrown into two widely separated regions of the globe, and are instructed to ferry a total of 500,000 men and comparable equipment over huge distances in a short period of time. The total transfer time ends up taking months, especially for the Panama Canal Operation. That operation, however, is the first to show results.
Landing in North America
LXII Gun is first off the transports on June 22nd. They land at Oceanside, in Southern California, and prepare to launch attacks against the major cities in the area, Los Angeles and San Diego. These two cities are defended by small garrison units. When notified of the landing in progress, they attempt to move to Oceanside to intercept. This is a bad idea; garrison troops are to slow to have any practical chance of blocking the landing, and by even attempting to do so they lose their dig-in bonus. I doubt it would have done any good anyway. My Rikusentai troops are some of the most experienced veterans in the game right now, and they easily drive the garrison units out of their cities on the 30th. Los Angeles is occupied by 356 Rikusentai and San Diego by 359 and 360 Rikusentai, while 357 and 358 Rikusentai stay in Oceanside.
For the next month and a half, my transports are in constant motion carrying the far-flung troops from Australia, New Zealand, Indochina and Japan to North America. II and III Gun are first, taking over defense of Oceanside and San Diego, respectively, while LXII Gun consolidates in Los Angeles. Upon the arrival of IV and V Gun in mid August, we launch an operation to occupy Mexicali. This is the first land combat since the port cities were taken, and it initially goes well. IV Gun drives a couple divisions out of the province, and occupies it in late August. However, immediately upon our arrival, the Americans, who have been steadily amassing forces in the area, launch an enormous counterattack against the province.
The Battle of Mexicali turns out to be the biggest of the war so far, and may hold that distinction until the end of the game. I did not record the numerous American divisions thrown at me, but there were rarely fewer than three attacking at once, and frequently as many as six. The battle raged for two full weeks, with the Americans constantly rotating fresh divisions in. IV Gun headquarters was the first to arrive in Mexicali (by one hour), and bears the brunt of the offensive at first. They hold up reasonably well under heavy fire for days, but eventually retreat to Tijuana as the other divisions come up to the front. Gradually the remaining divisions of IV Gun start to wither under the relentless assault, and likewise retreat. After the retreat of IV Gun headquarters, I send V Gun headquarters in from San Diego as a replacement, but as the other divisions of IV Gun collapse, I end up sending all of V Gun into the battle.
The bulk of the attack was staged from El Centro, east of San Diego. Under the circumstances, I could have launched a counterattack with III Gun from San Diego to relieve pressure on IV and V Gun. This is what both I and the AI do to guard a weak spot on a front. In this case, however, I decided against it. Had I done so, it would have invited an American attack against San Diego from Coachella; of course, I could have followed with a counterattack there from Oceanside, which would have been countered with an attack from Riverside. At the north end of the line, the chain of counter-attacks would naturally have ended, with Los Angeles hit from three sides. With my entire force under attack, the situation would have turned desperate. Tijuana did not have a port facility yet, so with San Diego and Los Angeles under attack, my entire force would have been at risk of complete destruction. Thus, I left the troops at Mexicali to fend for themselves, and remained on a conservative defense in the region.
The battle finally draws to a close on September 13th, as the last fresh divisions from V Gun arrive on the battlefield and the Americans give up hope for winning the battle. The final tally is staggering. We lose 7,787 dead, nearly an entire division, while the Americans lose 12,836 dead. While a number of battles have had large death tolls before, in particular around Singapore, this is the first where both sides have suffered such a large amount. Ultimately, with control over the most heavily populated areas of the Earth, I have a much greater ability to withstand such losses than the Americans. That, and the fact that I retain control of Mexicali, makes the battle a victory for me. Considering the cost, and the stakes involved, I think I am going to try to avoid such victories in the future.
Naval operations off the coast of California are worth a brief mention. Part of my reasoning for invading here was the ability to send adequate warship support with the troop transports. It turns out I may have been being overly-cautious. We encounter no ships at all during the initial landing operation. Once in control of the ports, we send 1 and 13 Kaigun out to patrol the immediate area. 1 Kaigun immediately begins tearing into convoys heading to and from San Francisco, while 13 Kaigun begins port strikes against that city. These are quickly called off, however, due to the lack of important targets (mostly transports) and the need to use the CAGs to launch ground attacks in support of IV Gun at Mexicali. The only naval battles to speak of involve a number of individual Canadian destroyers inexplicably sent to intercept 1 Kaigun. They are quickly sunk, bringing back fond memories of my first battles against the Australian navy off Guam.
Entering the Middle East
Despite having a much shorter route, the Middle-East So-Gun progresses at a much slower pace. I am beginning to think that maybe their pants are just too tight. Oh well. On July 12th we make our first landfall at Musqat. VI Gun attacks the city directly, as there is no easy place to land nearby. With their capital occupied, Oman surrenders the next day, yielding large amounts of supplies and fuel to support the remainder of our operations on the peninsula.
Next, the troops then divide up according to plan. The northern fork of the offensive is able to break up the British fairly quickly, and, after occupying the British provinces in the area, turns about-face and moves to join the southern fork. The southern fork has encountered more resistance than expected east of Yemen, and by the end of the summer has halted in order to await the reinforcements to complete the conquest.
With a small change in plans, it is VIII Gun that is designated to make landfall at Kuwait. They do so with little trouble on July 20th, and the remainder of the force is quickly shipped in during the next couple weeks. Then, however, the supply situation goes from bad to worse. Kuwait and Basra combined turn out to be inadequate to support the supply needs for the entire operation. The advance quickly bogs down as lack of adequate supplies causes marches to be halted and reversed. I consider sending IX or LI Gun back to India to help alleviate the situation, but we gradually progress to the outskirts of Baghdad. Here, I expect to capture a large cache of supplies, like I managed to do in Musqat, which will satisfy my future needs. IX Gun occupies the city after a brief fight in late August, and we are immediately disappointed. We capture only a few days worth of supplies. Consequently, I’m forced to march LI Gun back to Kuwait for return to Karachi. This is a minor setback, and hopefully we can complete the operation without them.
Even without the hungry mouths of our mountain troops, the supply network is barely adequate to keep our troops moving, and occasional strategic bombing runs from the British cause our advances to proceed in fits and starts. We are able to capture Tikrit on the 19th, and the Iraqi government subsequently surrenders. However, by now most of their troops have retreated into Syria, and consequently do not disband. When combined with the French forces there and the British forces in Palestine, we start to encounter significant resistance at the end of the summer. Only VII Gun, fortunately the most important corps, is able to proceed well-supplied and with little opposition. By the end of the summer they close on the Jordan River with no enemy forces in sight.
As expected, the British navy still possesses a large number of ships, and the Middle East naval theater turns out to be much more active than that of North America. With continental Asia lost, the British turn to the Maldives as their new base of operations in the area. 11 Kaigun begins offensive operations against the isolated and inadequate port in mid June. However, they quickly take up the old technique of interrupting our port strikes by sailing out to engage us in open sea battles. I quickly put a stop to this by reinforcing 11 Kaigun with 2 Kaigun. Faced with our gunships, the British slink back to port and accept their fate. The escort carrier Argus is sunk on the 22nd, followed by the full carrier Glorious on the 29th. We launch a quick land invasion of the archipelago, and combined with an uneventful invasion of Sri Lanka, we have pushed the British navy out of the central Indian Ocean.
Even before the beginning of land operations in the Middle East, our navy began offensive missions in the Persian Gulf and Red Sea. The British are desperately dependant on oil imports from the region, so it was not surprising that I was quickly inundated with a flood of successful convoy raiding reports. I was able to sit back and enjoy an almost uninterrupted symphony of sunk-convoy sound effects. The British, of course, were less happy about the situation, and began to launch desperate efforts to reverse the situation. In the Red Sea our gunship fleets begin intercepting an almost endless series of escort ships attempting, and failing, to drive us off. They eventually throw a few more substantial ships at us, including a pair of heavy cruisers sunk by 2 Kaigun in mid July. 12 Kaigun runs across a fleet based around the escort carrier Eagle and chases them all the way to South Africa before sinking the carrier and most of its escorts. The situation continues to deteriorate for the British until they attempt a final last-ditch effort by sending four unescorted battleships to strike us. Rather amusingly, I was not even aware of the battle between this group and 2 Kaigun until it was over, and I received word that we had sunk all four of them. To their credit, 2 Kaigun was battered enough to send back to Tokyo, but that likely marks the last significant naval effort the British will mount until we approach their home shores.
Operation Barbarossa
Attempting to carry out two major invasions and their accompanying naval operations, and dealing with increasingly aggravating partisan forces, occupies most of my attention. However, in June of 1941 we see an event that clearly deserves notice: the German invasion of the Soviet Union. I have long predicted the Germans will have a harder time of it than they normally do due to heavy fighting in Western Europe. Yet even this pessimistic outlook was surpassed during the first few months of the war. Historically, the Germans sent the Soviets reeling during this period, capturing hundreds of thousands of troops and occupying many major cities, eventually coming near to Moscow itself. In most cases, Hearts of Iron 3 follows this pattern fairly well, with the Germans usually taking over a large chunk of the Western USSR. Yet this time around, the Germans fair much worse. It takes until the end of July to even take Vilnius, and progress in the southern portion of the front is entirely nonexistent. While I am hoping for the Soviets to beat the Germans handily, so they will be an entertaining challenge at the end of the game, I’d rather not see them destroy the Germans effortlessly and become an insurmountable challenge for me.
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