Panama and Ireland - Winter 1943

    As I mentioned in my previous post, I begin 1943 rather directionless.  My primary strategic goal, of course, is the elimination of the remaining Allies.  And of this goal, of course, the primary component is the United States.  There are other nations, namely South Africa and assorted Latin American countries, but these are mere inconveniences which I can dispose of with little effort.  The US, however, is the increasingly difficult dilemma.  While our manpower is much greater than theirs, they have probably twice my industrial capacity.  They can build hordes of armor divisions, while I am lucky to produce half a dozen a year.  The worst thing is, this situation is not likely to change anytime soon.

Dealing With the Elephant in the Room

    Accordingly, I’ve come up with a few plans to implement over the next year.  None of these plans is likely to really solve the dilemma by themselves, but combined, I hope to turn the odds in my favor.

    First: Bombings.  The one advantage I have over the Americans is their (relatively) low manpower.  Generally, one of the most effective ways to break the back of your opponent is to deplete his manpower supply, and a good way of doing that is to launch incessant bombing raids.  Up until now, my bombers have been performing make-work duty by bombing partisan brigades out of existence.  They’ve done well at this, but my rear-guard (cavalry, garrison and MP) units are now built up to a point where they are capable of suppressing the partisans by themselves.  So, my bombers get transferred to front-line duty in San Diego, to bring the American manpower pool down a bit.

    Unfortunately, I have severally neglected my air power.  I currently have only five tactical bomber squadrons, which is not nearly enough for my needs.  Worse yet, the build time (and cost) for further units is extraordinary.  I can add in a few CAGs, but even then I am not likely to do more than keep the American manpower pool from growing.

    I begin the bombings in early March.  I have worked to establish air superiority with my fighters and CAGs, so my bombers have a fairly easy time of it.  We inflict around 500 casualties per strike, and manage to perform around three strikes per day.  This continues through the month, until anti-aircraft fire manages to deplete the bombers enough to warrant some down-time.  Overall, this has likely helped a bit, but, paradoxically, I won’t know how useful these strikes are until the war starts to wind down.

    The second part of my plan is a re-alignment of my industrial strategy.  Currently, I am focusing heavily on building up armor.  Unfortunately, armor is slow and expensive.  Instead, I am going to shift priority to building up infantry units, similar to the ones I have now.  My infantry divisions currently look like this: 2 infantry brigades, an anti-tank/anti-aircraft brigade, an engineer brigade and an artillery brigade.  I have been attempting to replace one of the infantry brigades with either a heavy or medium tank brigade, but I can no longer tolerate the slow transition, so I put in orders for new infantry divisions instead.  I’ve never had much luck fighting with infantry-heavy armies, but if I want to build up a sufficient force strength I’ll need to get well outside of my comfort zone and improvise with what I can make.

    The reprioritization will be accompanied by a change in occupation policies, at least for the British.  As I said before, my magnanimous policies are costing me a substantial industrial penalty.  By switching to a less generous policy, I can gain as much as 50 IC points.  This will cut my leadership (which I don’t need) and manpower (which I also have plenty of), but the main drawback will be the increase in the already rampaging partisan attacks.  Oh well, eggs must be broken.

    The third portion of my American policy is a return to the stalled Panama Canal campaign.  If you remember, I initially began twin invasions of the Suez and Panama Canals over a year ago.  The Suez campaign was a complete success, but the Panama campaign stalled out due to the need to build up and maintain a defensive position in San Diego.  With Britain now completely subdued, my entire army is now ready for action in the Western Hemisphere, and I can restart the leap-frogging invasions down the Latin American coastline.

Expanding My Collection of Canals

    LXII Gun takes the lead role in this effort.  They launch out from Honolulu, while carrier and gunship fleets sail from San Diego.  The first destination is Managua.  Nicaragua is still neutral; however, this area is the maximum range of my escorts, meaning I must land in Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras or El Salvador.  Of these, Honduras is already at war with me, and is mobilized, and Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador feature mountainous terrain.  I am also trying to keep Guatemala neutral to prevent land forces from crossing through Mexico.  Ergo, Nicaragua is the only reasonable first target.  From there, I will head north to eliminate Honduras (a land battle being preferable to an amphibious invasion).  Then, I’ll load the troops onto transports and ferry them to the southern coast of Panama, where I will drive through Panama and Colon.

My plan for Panama

    It is not often that I get to use this sentence, so pardon me while I savor it.  Everything went according to plan.  Mmmm, that felt good.  I declared war on Nicaragua on March 7^th.  They were completely unprepared; the fighting was minimal, and our troops fully occupied Managua on the 9^th, forcing their surrender the next day.  Honduras, with the benefit of better terrain, and the advantage of being mobilized, put up a bit of a fight.  It took until the 19^th to drive Honduran troops from Teucigalpa.  We lose 2,470 dead in the battle, and inflict 3,306 casualties.  358 Rikusentai takes the brunt of the losses, and is reduced to 20 organization points, and consequently sits out the rest of the campaign.  I shuttle the remainder of the corps to Panama.  The landing is unopposed, and we drive the Panamanian forces out of the capital with minimal fighting.  They surrender on April 2^nd.  The battle for Colon is equally trivial, and we occupy the Panama Canal fully by the 5^th.

Bringing Random Violence to Ireland

    Since I was in the neighborhood, I decided to dispose of Ireland.  I do not have any particular objective, I merely recognize that I will have to conquer them at some point, and I have a few corps lingering around in Britain, sooo….

    Like my other operations this winter, the conquest of Ireland deserves little mention.  Ireland has two points which need to be occupied: Dublin, and Cork.  In theory, I could easily conquer the country in two or three days, but my transports were busy, so I decide to make a thing of it.  My plan is to use IX Gun to drive along the southeastern coast of the country, taking the two main points.  VI and VII Gun will conduct a general invasion, tying up the Irish army and causing random(er) havoc.

VI and VII are given a surprisingly easy assignment

    As with the Panama Canal invasion, this all goes off without a hitch.  We declare war on February 20^th; IX Gun marches into Dublin on the 26^th, and takes Cork on March 15^th.  While the Irish army contained a large number of divisions, these were all de-mobilized, and there were no battles worth mentioning.

    Thus, I end the season little more focus than I began it.  I am planning an invasion of Portugal for April, which will set the ground for an invasion of Spain.  I plan on using VI, VII and IX Gun for these operations, and then projecting them south for the invasion of South Africa.  VIII and LI Gun will likely be sent to Panama to help in the occupation of the Latin American countries.  However, I regard these as minor actions of little significance.  The larger affair against the United States remains as distant as ever.

The Fall of the British Empire - December 1942

    After the occupation of London, the surrender of the British government is well within reach.  I have 99% of the victory points necessary to force their surrender, and the five points at Birmingham, which I abandoned in late October, will push them over the edge.  However, I like to make a clean sweep of things, and I have no particular place to be, so I decide to mop up the remaining forces in the southern pocket.

Great, Sure, But Better Than London?

    The plan is fairly simple.  VIII Gun, starting from Southend, will attack northeastward through Ipswich and Lowestoft.  VII Gun, starting in Cambridge, will take Thetford and Norwich.  IX Gun, starting from Lincoln and Northampton, will take Peterborough, Kings Lynn, and Langham.  At this point all of the British forces in the region will have retreated to Great Yarmouth, where we can then wipe them out.  After the heavy losses of November’s battles, I expect the British forces to be severely demoralized and put up little fight.

    In this regard I am wrong, at least a little.  At Thetford in particular the Brits show they have quite a bit of fight left in them.  They hold us of until December 10^th, inflicting 1,654 casualties on us, and suffering 2,640 themselves.  In Lowestoft the Brits hold out for two additional days, but inflict only 521 casualties on us and take 1,886 themselves.  IX Gun encounters virtually no resistance, and reaches Langham with minimal casualties.

    The final battle of the campaign, and thus the war, begins on December 24^th.  We attack Great Yarmouth with three divisions from each corps, in order to prevent an excessive stacking penalty and to allow for half of my force to be used as a reserve if needed.  No reserve was needed, however, and a brief two days of fighting constituted the last gasp of the British Empire.  We took a mild 619 KIA, while the British gave everything they had, suffering 3,364 dead.  We capture 78,700 men here; I don’t know how many of these escaped the encirclement at London, but at least seven divisions were not from London, meaning around 10-30,000 were probably refugees from the city.

The End of the Empire

    On December 30^th two divisions from LI Gun re-occupy Birmingham after a brief skirmish.  The British government surrenders and flees into exile the next day.  The entire conquest, then, lasted around four months.  We inflicted nearly 50,000 casualties and captured over 200,000 POWs, and suffered less than 20,000 dead ourselves.  Overall, this was a much easier conquest than the grueling fighting on the Malay Peninsula, taking half as long and causing far fewer losses on my side.  The gains, however, are greater.  We add around 90 industrial capacity points; although my lenient occupation policies will halve this for the time being, it’s still a huge boon.  We also get a large steady stream of metals and energy, as well as a huge stockpile of both to keep us running at full capacity for years.

    For the near future, I don’t really have any clear goals.  I do not have adequate forces to launch a full invasion of the USA.  Spain, Turkey and South Africa beckon, but I do not expect those conquests to last any significant length of time.  1943 is likely to be a relatively quiet year of putting down partisans and building up a sufficient army.  With diligence, I can expect to launch a full invasion of North America in early 1944, and have it wrapped up within a year.  This should give me two and half years or so to deal with the Soviets, assuming they finish up the European Axis in the meantime.  This is a highly ambitious time table, but I remain confident that I can pull it off.

The Battle of London - Mid Autumn 1942

    In late October I start to put my plans for the final offensive into action.  At first, I meet respectable resistance.  The left flank of VII Gun fails in an attack against Oxford on the 14^th, costing me 1,651 dead and inflicting 1,128 casualties.  The right flank is more successful, taking Reading on the 17^th, with a roughly reversed casualty ratio.  With IX Gun occupying Leicester, though, the British begin a realignment of the front in an attempt to block the full encirclement.  Consequently, we are able to take several provinces, including Oxford, with fairly little effort within the next few weeks.

    The biggest gains are in the south, where the British surrender the entire Channel Coast.  The lead elements of VIII Gun are able to take Portsmouth before two divisions can be evacuated from Newport.  We pause on October 28^th to force their surrender.  They put up a stiff but ultimately futile defense, inflicting 1,326 KIA on us, while losing only 841 themselves; the remaining 15,000 surrender, and we continue along the coastline, occupying Brighton and Dover, before closing in on London.

The Battle of London

    In mid November, with IX Gun rapidly closing in on Lincoln, I start to map out the specifics of the operation.  VI Gun will hold the anchor position in Gloucester, keeping the supply route from Bristol and Plymouth secure.  LI Gun will hold Evesham and Coventry in the center of the north flank, while IX Gun holds the door closed in Leicester and Lincoln.  VIII Gun, in the far south, will occupy the three provinces south of London, while VII Gun attempts to encircle the city itself by occupying those to the north.  VII Gun’s route is farther, though, and might easily be complicated by British forces.  Therefore, while the encirclement of London is preferable, I won’t delay the attack for it.

    On November 15^th, on the day IX Gun takes Lincoln, VIII Guns launches the attack against London.  This battle, more so than any other I’ve ever seen, indicates why it is a really bad idea to stack a mountain of divisions in a single province.  The British have a total of 43 (!!!) divisions here.  By contrast, I have 29 on the entire island.  By sheer numbers alone, I should have little chance of success, yet numbers fail to tell the whole story.  Of the 43 divisions, 40 are militias (technically partisans), which were likely created in Europe and evacuated back to Britain.  Militia units are generally only useful as fodder to slow an enemy down.  Had the British used them this way, by deploying them anywhere and everywhere, they might have helped.  Maybe, maybe not.  It is also noteworthy that several were bled down to zero organization, and, in some cases, 50% strength.  This is likely a result of an exhausted manpower pool.  As such, they would have been more useful if they were disbanded.

    The most important factor in the Battle of London, then, was the crippling stacking penalty imposed on the British.  With 43 (!!!) divisions piled into one small province, they suffered a 97% stacking penalty, which meant they had virtually no chance of inflicting any damage on my attacking forces.  At this point, the smart thing to do would be to retreat the bulk of the divisions, to reduce the penalty.  In particular, those with little or no organization were doing far more harm than good.  They didn’t, however, and as a result the only divisions that might have been useful were rendered useless.

    Of course, that is not to say the battle was easy for me.  As the battle dragged on day after day, many of the divisions were eventually driven off, perversely improving the effectiveness of British.  I was also facing an urban battlefield, a river crossing (from each province), and land forts.  Due to the wide front, those divisions that did have organization remaining came up to the front quickly, and I eventually had to drive off each in turn.

    Northward, VII Gun ran into obstacles in their part of the battle, as expected.  They occupied Luton with only minor difficulty, but they encountered problems consistently throughout the remainder of the month.  The weather slowed movement down, and troops retreating from London frequently obstructed them.  They did not occupy Cambridge until the 22^nd.  After that, two divisions from the corps joined in the attack on London, but the remaining four divisions only served to prevent retreats from the city.  It was not until the 29^th that they finally occupied Southend, sealing off the city.  At that point, however, it became a mostly moot point.

    It was on that day, only two hours later, that the final defenders of London gave up the fight.  The battle ran a full two weeks, and despite the large penalties applied to each side, the battle took a huge toll.  We lost 3,542 men, more than any other battle of the campaign.  The British, needless to say, suffered far worse.  A total of 10,734 Brits died in the effort, out of an initial 137,227.  Because of the limited feedback, I don’t know exactly how many POWs were rounded up as a result of the VII Gun’s encirclement, but I suspect the number is around 70,000.  For those that did escape, however, there is little comfort, as repeated attempts to break open a route to reunite with the forces outside the southern pocket have, by now, failed just as utterly as the defense of London.

The Battles of Lincoln and Leicester

    While the Battle of London was the focal point of the campaign, the occupation of Lincoln eventually became more significant.  By severing the British army in two, with supplies on one side and the best forces on the other side, I guaranteed the collapse of the British war effort.  The British themselves recognized this, and placed an even greater emphasis at breaking this encirclement than the one at London.

    The counterattacks began as soon as IX Gun occupied Lincoln.  Both Lincoln and Leicester were attacked, and each from multiple sides.  The British quickly rushed forces from Wales and Scotland to strike from the north, while virtually all of the battle-ready troops in the south were used as well (as evidenced by the fact that only three non-militia divisions participated in the Battle of London).

    The details of these battles were strikingly different from those of the Battle of London, yet the final result was eerily similar.  I maintained a defense throughout the duration of the battles, holding the two provinces with only three divisions each.  We made good use of rivers separating us from the Brits on either side, but this was the only significant modifier to either side.  Also unlike the Battle of London, these battles were divided up into four parts; each province was attacked separately, and the British called off the attacks to take breather around the 20^th, only to restart the battles again the next day.

    Yet despite these differences, the outcome was nearly identical.  The final attack at Lincoln petered out on the 28^th, a day before the Battle of London ended.  The total casualties, too, paralleled the Battle of London; I suffered a total of 3,860 dead, while the Brits lost 10,278.   Coincidences aside, the successful conclusions of these battles is a tremendous blow to the British.  At London, their entire supply base was captured, as well as their largest source of desperately needed manpower.  In the north, the cream of the British army had battered themselves bloody up against a single corps of my army.  VI, VII, and LI Gun are still fresh and ready for anything the Brits could throw at them, while the Brits themselves are exhausted and without hope of resupply or reinforcement.  I am now perfectly situated to deliver the final, fatal blow to the British Empire.

A Foothold in Britain - Early Autumn 1942

    One of the best parts about invading an island is the abundance of opportunities to separate your opponent’s armies and destroy them piecemeal.  By contrast, when fighting along a multi-thousand mile front, (like in Russia or North America), your only gains are the captured provinces as you slog forward.  Your opponent can always shuffle spent troops off the front line, while steadily building up forces in the rear.  But on islands and peninsulas, you get to steadily knock large chunks of your opponent’s army out of the game, making mid-campaign comebacks impossible and accelerating the pace of the invasion.  Thus, whenever I invade an island, I draw up my plans with an eye towards these divide-and-conquer operations.  For my invasion of Britain, the entire operation is a series of such maneuvers.  If successful, the British army will be decimated and the actual capture of victory points will be a mere formality.

The Battle of Bideford

    My initial plan called for a landing at Taunton.  Aside from the flexibility to seize either of three nearby ports, a landing here cuts off the troops in Cornwall completely, and sets up the first envelopment operation.  Of course, this didn’t work out as I had planned.  The British mounted such a stout defense of Taunton that I was forced to land at Plymouth and Exeter instead.  Oddly, though, the rigid defense of Taunton may have worked in my favor.  As British divisions retreated from the battle, they headed west in Bideford; that is, they steadily increased the troops available for encirclement.  Say what you want about the British, they are obliging.

    With Plymouth occupied, I was able to bring IX and LI Gun ashore very quickly, and we launched an overwhelming attack up the peninsula.  My troops, no longer suffering from the amphibious landing penalty, took Taunton with very little trouble in early September.  IX Gun held the line there, while LI Gun spread out into Exeter and Bude to set up the death blow at Bideford.  The battle there raged for nearly a week; when the smoke clears on September 10^th, we count up 1,495 killed on our side, 4,269 British dead, and 44,421 British POWs.  This battle helps to alleviate some of the misgivings I developed during the Malay Peninsula Campaign, in which virtually every battle saw higher casualties on my side.  In this case, it definitely helped that most of the British troops were already exhausted as a result of the defense at Taunton.  However, from this point on, the casualty figures are generally in my favor, due to superior division composition, skilled troops and leaders, and deft strategies.

A Breakout . . . Kind Of

    After the Battle of Bideford, I now have three full corps of infantry ready to start plundering the English countryside, with two more en route.  Unfortunately, we run up against the drawback of peninsular combat.  Namely, that the same narrow front that I used to encircle the British can be easily used against me by allowing the British to concentrate their defenses in a small area.  Neighboring Taunton are Bristol to the northeast and Weymouth to the east.  In order to prevent counter-attacks, I attack both provinces simultaneously.  The ensuing battles are bloody and lengthy, setting the tone for the remainder of the British invasion.  With IX Gun reaching the breaking point (mainly due to air raids), we abort the attack against Weymouth on the 16^th.  We suffer 1,926 dead (not including losses from the air raids), and inflict only 1,407.  The British, however, are sufficiently bruised that they do not attempt a counterattack.  The Battle of Bristol is the most severe yet; we suffer 3,607 dead, and inflict 5,818, noticeably higher figures than the Battle of Bideford.  Yet with the seizure of Bristol we gain a second route of supplies and an open door to the juicy interior of the country.

    Late September and early October are the most tenuous of the invasion.  It becomes apparent that the British have a vast army ready for the last-ditch defense of the home island.  I launch an unending series of battles to expand the breakout.  I win most, but, ominously, I always encounter fresh British units in the next province.  I proceed without any definite plan, and my attacks seem to be launched out of momentum rather than strategy.  At the end of September the situation is very perilous; while VI Gun has nearly arrived, we still have only three corps spread throughout a four province wide front.  Each is starting to run low on organization, averaging around 20 per division, and a large number of fresh British divisions are ready to attack us in a number of areas.  At this point I hold two transport fleets in Bristol and Plymouth in case I need to evacuate the force.

    Yet the expected devastating counter-attack never occurs.  VI and VII Gun arrive on the front in mid-October, followed shortly thereafter by six much-needed anti-tank gun brigades.  The British have a large number of armor divisions on the front, but for some reason they are clustered in Wales.  As my offensive presses northward, I keep the Severn River on my left, and it serves well to neutralize the armor.  However, as with most strategic situations, the river was a double-edged sword.  When invading from Bristol, I normally like to isolate and conquer Wales early in the campaign, in order to take advantage of the numerous ports and (usually) light resistance here.  Yet in this case, the combination of the British armor and the river combine to make that plan unfeasible.

    Accordingly, I begin to formulate a new plan.  With the British acting unaccountably timid, I decide to crank the audacity level up to 11.  IX Gun, having already advanced through Gloucester, Evesham, and Birmingham, will turn east to occupy Leicester and Lincoln.  This will cut Britain in two, separating London from the northern portion of the island.  IX Gun, perhaps aided by VI and LI Gun if needed, will fend off the inevitable counter-attacks, while VII and VIII Gun surround London itself and go in for the kill.  With the big city taken, we can gradually smother the remaining forces in the southern pocket, after which the surrender of the government will be a formality.