A Bloody Nose in the East - Spring 1944

    Since my initial landings near San Diego way back in June 1941 there have been no divisions captured en masse on continental North America.  While the fighting on the west coast has been fairly methodical (albeit bloody), the fighting on the east coast has been very dynamic and mobile.  It comes as no surprise, then, that this is the scene of the first few mass surrenders.  The surprise is in the details.

The Delaware and New Jersey Campaigns

    Throughout the winter, LXII Gun finished clearing Puerto Rico and the Lesser Antilles.  I decided to use them to begin our first encirclement maneuver of the campaign, on the Delaware Peninsula.  The plan is fairly simple; I drop them off at Baltimore, then advance through Elkton to Allentown, cutting off the southern provinces on the peninsula.  The initial drive is successful, and almost bloodless.  However, once Allentown is occupied, the Americans launch an all-out counter attack in order to save the two isolated divisions.

    Because the number of troops involved is fairly low (about one corps on each side), the total casualties are fairly low (around 3,000 each side).  However, the fighting is bitter and intense.  My Rikusentai are some of the most experienced defenders in the world, while the Americans are fresh, full strength divisions fighting for their survival.  After weeks of intense fighting, I finally withdraw my troops from Allentown in order to prevent them from being cut off.   The two American divisions on the peninsula quickly take advantage of the opening and escape northward to Philadelphia.

    At this point a massive encirclement tango erupts across the Eastern Theater, as each side begins to launch ambitious drives deep into enemy territory, while the defender responds with similar maneuvers to cut off the spearheads.  The next major event, in April, is a repeat of the Delaware campaign, farther east in New Jersey.  It begins upon the arrival of newly-formed XVI Gun in early April.  They are deployed to Baltimore, then repeat LXII Gun’s drive to Allentown.  The Americans have completely withdrawn from the peninsula, however.  My Rikusentai perform a pro-forma occupation of the peninsula while recuperating their organization, and we deploy for the New Jersey campaign by the middle of April.

The fronts of the Delaware and New Jersey Campaigns

    The plan here is similar to the Delaware campaign.  We will occupy Philadelphia, then push into Trenton, thereby isolating southern New Jersey.  The advantage, here, is a somewhat shorter spearhead; the base of the attack is highly defensible Philadelphia, while the actual penetration is only one province deep.  Two problems offset this advantage.  First, we still have the same amount of troops (one corps); our Rikusentai are now needed to defend the extended front.  Second, these troops are fresh out of boot camp, and have less resilience.

    We occupy Philadelphia and Trenton with little difficulty, but, as with the Delaware campaign, we immediately come under attack once we close the gap.  Philadelphia was not attacked, so I attempted to establish a rotating defense of Trenton, retreating low-organization units back to Philly and bringing fresh units in to maintain the defense.  XVI Gun is able to hold up this way for over a week, but by the end of the month the entire corps is out of steam, and they are forced back.  I don’t think this was a big loss; I did not see any combat troops in Southern New Jersey.  Still, I am miffed about the lost opportunity.  I didn’t have long to dwell on it, though, as a situation westward erupts into a minor crisis.

The Martinsburg Bulge

    The expansion of the front line caused by the Delaware offensive put me in a good position to launch offensives in Southern Pennsylvania.  I was especially concerned about the area directly around Washington.  I have only a tenuous one-province buffer between the Allied army at Gettysburg and my supply base at Washington.  One well-concerted offensive could allow the Allies to recapture the vast supply depot at Washington, and quickly move it to their new capital, which is far out of my reach (Milwaukee? Really?).

    Gettysburg is a tough nut to crack though, as no less an authority than Robert E Lee could tell you.  With all of my mountain troops in South America, I decided my best plan was to drive through the hills and outflank the mountain provinces.  In the north, this involved attacks against York, Harrisburg and Sunbury, while in the center my offensive focused on Somerset, Johnstown, and Ford City.

    The northern portion was successful, if costly.  By late April we occupied the target provinces and defended them from counter-attacks, at the cost of around 10,000 casualties on both sides.  X Gun, responsible for the center and left of the offensive, is much less successful.  They capture Cumberland after a reasonable fight, then turn northward to begin attacks up through the Appalachian hill-passes.  We were outnumbered in the direct attack; this, complicated by numerous counterattacks, led me to call off the offensive on May 4, after losing over 7,500 casualties, and inflicting only half as many.

    Encouraged by the disproportionate casualties, the Allies kept up the counter attacks.  They were able to drive 46, 47, and 48 Shidan out of Cumberland entirely.  They retreated to Martinsburg.  The Allies had their blood up, however, and pressed the attack further.  Three divisions, the American 89th Infantry and the Canadian 8th and 19th Infantries drove into Martinsburg and Romney by late April, forcing the left wing of X Gun to retreat even further down to Winchester.  Ironically, the offensive that was designed to expand the radius around Washington in order to prevent a random Allied breakthrough had now apparently caused such a breakthrough.  The only thing between the city and three fresh Allied infantry divisions were three exhausted divisions of my own and a headquarters brigade.

    I responded by quickly shuffling divisions from nearby corps to the area.  VIII Gun began performing diversionary counterattacks against Gettysburg, allowing the remainder of X Gun to pin down the Allied spearhead with attacks from Hagerstown to Martinsburg.  Westward, VII Gun begins an ambitious attack at Cumberland.  Because of the angle of the front, it was easier to attempt to cut off and surround the spearhead than to try to blunt their advance.  This, surprisingly, was successful, and at the end of the month 33 Shidan and VII Gun HQ occupy Cumberland.

The Martinsburg Pocket

    Mercifully, most of the Allied divisions in the area were now mostly spent from the heavy fighting leading up to the encirclement.  33 Shidan and the VII Gun HQ Division heroically defend Cumberland against desperate counterattacks for a week.  Meanwhile, 46 and 47 Shidan recuperate enough to drive the 8th Canadian out of Romney.  The remainder of X Gun then joins in the attack on Martinsburg.  Now under fire from three sides, and out-numbered two-to-one, the Allied divisions break down and surrender on May 6^th.  Within a span of two weeks, these three divisions transformed from unexceptional divisions on a long line to a critical threat to the existence of my entire Atlantic Campaign, only to end with the indignity of being the first Americans to surrender to foreign invaders on American soil since 1812.

The Battle of the Piedmont Triad

    As the Battle of the Martinsburg Pocket was wrapping up, another frenetic campaign was opening on the far left of the front, in North Carolina.  In the area around Washington, D.C., the hilly and mountainous terrain made offensives slow and costly; by comparison, our advance southward along the Atlantic coast began to snowball, and I frequently found myself advancing into undefended provinces.  This situation was great at first, but the momentum began to overwhelm my forces.  In the north, I had a ratio of one corps per province, or at least one corps for two provinces.  In the wide-open south, VI Gun alone was responsible for all of North and South Carolina.

    In early May, this situation was becoming a significant problem.  I started seeing many more Allied divisions coming to the front.  My plan was to stabilize the front by sidling part of IX Gun south to cover Winston-Salem, and concentrating VI Gun along a three-province front of Statesville-Laurinburg-Whiteville, perhaps moving up to Myrtle Beach instead.

    This plan went awry almost immediately.  The sidling operation proceeded slower than expected, and VI Gun’s deployment prior to that was uneven.  Although we managed to capture each of Statesville, Laurinburg and Myrtle Beach, these provinces were initially held by one division each, with other divisions still in the rear.  The Allies saw the opportunity and counterattacked at Statesville and Laurinburg.  The fighting at Laurinburg in particular was intense, with 3,000 casualties on my side and over 5,000 for the Allies.  The Corps HQ, the only unit defending the province, was driven back to Fayetteville on May 9^th.  28 Shidan, in Statesville, was forced out at nearly the same time.

    Allied divisions began pouring through the gap quickly.  By mid May six divisions, mostly Mexican infantry, had punched through and began a breakout into North Carolina.  The most problematic part of the situation was the encirclement of 26 Shidan.  On the far left of the entire front, they were responsible for anchoring the line along the Atlantic Ocean.  A victim of their own success, they are able to push forward from Whiteville to Myrtle Beach, only to find themselves stranded there as the Allies overran the neighboring provinces.

    For awhile, this seems like a minor crisis that will resolve itself fairly quickly.  IX Gun is able to take over Winston-Salem, allowing 29 and 30 Shidan to re-occupy Statesville.  This allows the three remaining divisions (27 & 28 Shidan, and VI Gun HQ) to focus on recapturing Laurinburg, thus reestablishing lines with 26 Shidan and encircling some of the Allied divisions.

    Despite my best efforts, the situation deteriorates.  27 Shidan and VI Gun HQ are given time to recuperate, while 28, 29 and 30 Shidan press the attack against Laurinburg.  With three divisions on each side, the battle is evenly matched, and unfortunately drags out until May 9^th.  Meanwhile, 26 Shidan is attacked from both sides, and they are only barely able to maintain themselves.  We are forced to conduct air drops to keep them supplied, and even move 11 Kaigun down from Washington to provide close air support.  26 Shidan conduct an impressive defense, but the Allied attacks are relentless.  Laurinsburg is occupied on the 12^th, but due to the quirks of the games rules I cannot retreat 26 Shidan there until the retreating Allied divisions completely exit the province.  I am also unable to even launch counter-attacks, as the primary attackers are now based in Georgetown, out of my reach.

The Piedmont Offensive

    Sadly, on May 17^th 26 Shidan becomes the first division in the history of the Imperial Japanese Army to surrender en masse.  They spent nearly three weeks completely isolated, fending off attacks from forces up to three times their size.  If they had held out another four or five hours, the Allied retreaters at Laurinsburg would have completed their movement, and 26 Shidan would live to fight another day.  That was not to be.

    The remainder of the campaign hardly lifts my spirits.  Although six divisions penetrated my line, all but one were able to escape my envelopment.  This division, stranded in Greensboro, was hit by various attacks and forced into Fayatteville, where they too were forced to surrender.  There was a bit of poetry in that division’s name: the 26th Canadian Infantry.

The Americans Begin to Yield

    In late May the situation in the southeast returns to relative normal, and my forces on the west coast are beginning their hard push to overrun the Allies.  The time is ripe to become more aggressive in the east, so I begin a series of attacks across the front designed to drive the Allies into a complete collapse.  While a complete collapse remains elusive, we are able to expand significantly.  Gettysburg, a thorn in my side since the Atlantic landing, falls on May 30^th.  By the end of June we managed to clear the Appalachians by taking Ford City, also putting us within three provinces of Lake Erie.  Once our front is anchored by water on both sides, the advance should be simplified significantly.  Overall, the fighting throughout the spring of 1944 has been beneficial, and even taking into account many missed opportunities and a lost division, I still consider myself in line to wrap up the conquest of the North American Allies by the end of the year.

An End On The Horizon - Spring 1944

    With my foothold on the American East Coast now firmly established, the war enters the meat-and-potatoes period.  The casualty rates range from 1,000 to 2,000 daily for each side, spread out amongst dozens of battles across thousands of miles of front.  This season will put my infantry-heavy strategy to its ultimate test.

It Turns Out There Are More Germans Then I Thought

    At the end of last autumn, I predicted the Germans were on the verge of collapse, and predicted they would surrender by June.  Over the winter, events foreshadowed that prediction going awry.  It isn’t a big surprise, then, that the Germans have yet to collapse, or even fall back significantly.  The Italians have moved a large force into the Balkans after the loss of Albania, and have stabilized that front.  In the far north, the Soviets are able to retake Leningrad only shortly before the end of June.  The remainder of the front remains largely static, although the Soviets gradually gain a province here or there.  Soviet progress has been so slow, in fact, that they have yet to enter Germany itself, with all of the combat still occurring in the Baltic States, Poland and Hungary.  At this rate it may be my allies’ dogged defense that prevents my complete victory.

A Ground Tour of Western South America, at Bargain Prices

    Way back on January 9^th, LI Gun occupied Bogota, completing the conquest of Colombia.  The East Coast Campaign had yet to begin, so out of idleness, I sent the corps to the Ecuador border, with the idea that I would declare war on them shortly.  However, in the chaos of the capture of Washington, LI Gun was ... sort of ... forgotten.  They sat around for over a month playing cards, writing haikus, doing whatever it is that bored Japanese soldiers do.  In late February things heated up in the United States, and I started looking around for more troops to bring in, which reminded me of my mountain troops.  Unfortunately, they were now a long ways away from any port.  The most reasonable thing to do, then, (and I define reasonable very loosely), was to declare war on Ecuador and use their port.

    Ecuador, like most unaligned South American nations, was demobilized.  I suppose they do this to save resources, or money, or to avoid the appearance of belligerence.  Whatever.  Here’s a tip though: When a corps of Imperial Japanese troops shows up on your border, you are two weeks past the best time to mobilize.  Even with a month-long “administrative error”, they were still woefully unprepared.  Actual combat was nearly non-existent, and we marched into Quito on March 18^th.

    By this point, the need for more troops in the United States has waned a bit.  Thus, I decide to go ahead and finish the most important conquests of South America, and save myself some time later.  I start with a declaration of war against Peru on April 23^rd.  This operation is one of the few (recently) where I have made use of amphibious landings.  I landed three divisions on the plains north of Lima, while mounting a direct amphibious attack against the capital with the other two.  Once the three divisions were safely landed, I brought them into the attack, and withdrew the ship-borne divisions from the fight.  I then brought the two remaining divisions south, landing one at Arequipa directly, and the other north of it.  The idea behind these maneuvers was to prevent any major landing penalties by mounting the major attacks from land.  The operation was successful, with both Lima and Arequipa falling with comparatively light casualties.  Peru surrendered on May 3^rd.

    Next on the docket are the two land-locked nations of South America, Bolivia and Paraguay.  They thought they were so clever when they declared war on me back in 1939, figuring that I couldn’t reach land-locked nations.  They figured wrong.  The two divisions landed at Arequipa immediately head northeastward for a strike against Bolivia.  Despite being mobilized, the Bolivians put up only a modest fight against my veteran mountain divisions, who occupy La Paz on May 24^th, forcing the country’s surrender.

    Here, however, I run into one of the biggest problems of the entire war: the much-vaunted Paraguayan (Paraguese?) army.  All joking aside, they hold the mountains east of La Paz quite ably, and tire my two mountain divisions out quickly.  Meanwhile, the remainder of the corps is taking its sweet time marching into the region from Lima.  It is not until the end of June that the corps is reunited along a sold front east of La Paz, and is able to begin a slow offensive in the neighboring mountains.  The ultimate goal, of course, is Asunción, the capital and only victory point province of Paraguay.  Regrettably, we will need to fight through several provinces of mountains, and eventually two provinces of forest, before reaching the goal.  Once captured, however, the Allies will be limited to only the North American countries (who are currently on the ropes) and South Africa, making a final victory quicker, or at least more dramatic.

Continued Pummeling on the West Coast

    Several times during the spring, I came to the conclusion that the Americans were at the breaking point.  Based on low troop strength and increasingly thin lines, I figured that one good hit would cause the Americans to fall apart and begin a futile headlong retreat to their interior.  Yet each time, even when the attacks are successful, the follow-up attacks are met by fresh troops, and the complete front-wide breakdown eludes me.

    The first such example took place in April north of Los Angeles.  A counterattack at Santa Monica was rebuffed, with around 3,000 casualties to XV Gun and 6,000 to the attacking Americans.  I estimated that the heavy fighting in the area throughout the winter depleted morale enough to launch a major offensive.  Late in the month I launched a three-prong attack against Oxnard, Lancaster, and Pasadena.  I quickly find out how much of a beating half-strength divisions can take.  It’s quite a bit, actually.  Oxnard is taken on the 23^rd, at a cost of 4,500 dead to XV Gun and 7,100 to the Americans.  Lancaster sees the heaviest fighting; we lose 6,000 killed and inflict 15,000 casualties to the Allies before taking the province on the 30^th.  Pasadena, despite being a mountainous province, sees about the same casualties as at Oxnard, but holds out until early May.

    These fights are intense enough that I can not immediately follow up.  Instead, a launch an attack along the east side of the front, centered on Bakersfield.  This offensive drags on for two weeks until it becomes clear they are not likely to succeed.  The battles cost us around 10,000 total casualties in Tehachapi, Mojave, Bakersfield and Barstow.  The Americans and Mexicans suffer over 15,000.  I continue to be impressed with the resolve; despite taking significantly higher casualties and being unable to replace their losses, the Allies continue to fight with a high level of determination.

    By the middle of June, however, that determination begins to waver.  IV Gun launches a successful attack against Prescott, resulting in around 5,000 casualties on each side.  This marks the first battle on the western front outside of California, and signifies the beginning of our slow but relentless expansion in the area.  From this point onward, our troops are in almost constant forward motion.  While there is still heavy fighting along the front, the battles become increasingly shorter and result in fewer casualties.  While an actual victory could easily take another nine months, it is at least on the horizon.

The American West Campaign at the end of June, 1944.  Note that nearly all of my troops are advancing.