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.
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| 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 7th. They were completely unprepared; the fighting was minimal, and our troops fully occupied Managua on the 9th, 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 19th 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 2nd. The battle for Colon is equally trivial, and we occupy the Panama Canal fully by the 5th.
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.
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| 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 20th; IX Gun marches into Dublin on the 26th, and takes Cork on March 15th. 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.
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