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.