First off, let me apologize for the slow (okay, nonexistent) pace of the blog over the last several months. I have been much busier with work, and scheduling writing time has been difficult. The writing portion of this blog takes quite a bit more time than the playing portion, so I may end up switching to a video blog.
As promised, this post will cover the land portion of the Colonial War. The land war was important for several reasons. First, it allowed me to expand my resource base; Japan is severely limited by its initial resources, and needs significant conquests to simply maintain its starting industrial position. Second, the colonial powers controlled numerous large bases scattered around Asia and the Pacific; these would need to be eliminated if I wanted any measure of home island security. Third, and most importantly, only land forces can capture victory points; while a successful sea war could prevent a loss, only a successful land war could achieve a victory.
On a Short Tether – 1939
Beginning operations were spread out across a number of independent areas. The most urgent operation was the occupation of British-controlled Hong Kong. It was a large, well-developed port very near our power center, and had to be removed quickly. Fortunately, my mainland Asian territories produced abundant resources and manpower, and were capable of sustaining any conflict with little input from the home islands. This advantage was unnecessary, however, as I was able to steamroll the British garrison with very little effort.
In the Philippines, the situation could have been thornier. The island nation has numerous, widespread ports for the indefinite support of its defenders, and the rugged terrain can cause offensives to grind to a halt quickly. If the Americans or British were able to shuttle in large numbers of troops, the invasion could have dragged on for months. Fortunately, I was able to take good advantage of the element of surprise, and was able to make short work of the Colonials. The supplies that were landed along with the troops were able to carry us to Manila, where we were able to capture even more supplies, allowing us to overtake the entire nation without even establishing a supply line. This was very helpful, considering events in Southeast Asia.
The Southeast Asia campaigns were divided into three parts: Vietnam, the Malay Peninsula, and Burma. The Vietnam offensive was likely my most important campaign during the first two years; with control of Vietnam, the Colonials could raid my Siam-bound convoys with impunity, using nothing more than airpower. They even had the ability to launch air raids, and even airborne assaults, against my territories in Southern China. Mercifully, our operation went smoothly, and I gained at least some convoy security and the Black Soil bonus thrown in for good measure.
The other southeast Asian campaigns went less smoothly. The Burma campaign stalled out early, as my limited supplies were being used to fuel the Vietnam offensive. Once that was successfully concluded, I was able to shift manpower and supplies westward, and the tide turned. We were further helped by a successful strategic encirclement maneuver made possible only with infrastructure improvements and an impressive multi-month long march through the harshest terrain in the world. LI Gun, our mountain troops, began their march in southern Tibet. They spent three months fighting through the most jagged peaks of the Himalayas, coming out with enough energy to launch a surprise invasion of Nepal and Bhutan, and eventually drive all the way to the Indian Ocean to cut the British army off from their supply base. VIII Gun had an arguably easier time of it, pushing through the somewhat gentler mountains of Yunan. They were able to arrive in time to help LI Gun complete the encirclement, and bore the brunt of the fighting. These twin offensives were so completely unexpected, the British were unable to even extract their forces from the region, much less formulate a successful defense. As a result, we were able to capture their entire force and put an effective end to all resistance on mainland Asia east of Persia.
The Singapore campaign was my biggest mistake. After a quick push across the Malay Peninsula, I halted at the Singapore strait due to limited supplies and a conscious effort to draw the British navy into (what I mistakenly believed to be) a vulnerable location. Far from being vulnerable, Singapore was used by both the British Navy and Army over the next two years as a launching point for numerous costly and time consuming campaigns. I have spent so much time on the Singapore campaign(s) already in this blog, I won’t berate myself with any further discussion of the issue, except to say that, given the chance, I would’ve thrown everything I had at Singapore first, and leave Vietnam, the Philippines and other areas until the Gibraltar of the East was taken care of.
The flow of the early campaigns really emphasizes the inter-dependency of land and naval warfare in Hearts of Iron 3. Supplies automatically appear in your national capital, and need to be shipped overseas. Land forces can become useless if unsupplied for even a few days, making the security of your convoys a top priority. On the flip side, only land forces can occupy enemy ports; all of the surface ships in the world do little good against the scores of fast and sneaky submarines the AI loves to throw at you. Thus, nations like Japan, the UK and USA can only successfully carry out land wars with the help of robust navies, while their navies are only secure by success on land. At my low point, I was reduced to a total of seven active convoy units by constant Allied raids (compared to over 300 by the end of the war); had these been sunk as well, my industry would have been starved of raw materials, and my troops would have starved of supplies, making the war virtually unwinnable. It was only through the combination of land victories in Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines and East Indies and the heroic victories of our navy over the Allies that secured our convoys and allowed eventual victory.
The Grand Offensives
After the eventual fall of Singapore, I was able to take advantage of my hard-won naval supremacy. My next land campaign, in the Middle East, was almost entirely a land operation. A smattering of naval battles against the few remaining British capital ships hardly merited mention. We ran into supply problems, but these were caused by inadequate port facilities, rather than any pressure on my convoy routes. It would have been nice if the Allies could have built better harbors to make my invasion smoother, but their lack of consideration for others is why I decided to invade them in the first place.
With a safe supply line able to reach nearly anywhere on Earth, I began the three grand offensives, designed to bring the war to an end: the invasion of the US Pacific Coast, the invasion of Great Britain, and the invasion of the US Atlantic Coast. I have already covered these campaigns in great detail, so I will limit myself to making only two particular observations: First, the land forces of Japan (and the UK and USA) are so closely tied to the naval forces, they are effectively inseparable; Second, I was able (somehow) to make do with a far smaller invasion force than I normally use, which surprises me greatly.
I have already discussed the dependency of invasion forces on convoys, but even when the opposing navies were destroyed and my convoys were completely secure, my navy was still very active in support of the invasions. Off-shore bombardments from gunship fleets helped quite a bit in coastal battles, and my CAGs, with their long range, were able to help maintain air superiority and provide close air support, especially since I had produced very few land-based aircraft during the war. My navy’s most important function, however, was their ability to provide an emergency escape route. In each of the three big campaigns, I faced a very real crisis which threatened my land forces with complete annihilation. In Britain, I had three bled-down corps defending a four province long line, and an aggressive attack would have forced them off the island. On the US West Coast, the Americans launched a large counter-attack at Mexi-Cali; our entire front was only one province wide, and the nearest safe haven was Hawaii, so had they been successful, half or more of our best troops might have been completely wiped out. On the Atlantic Coast, we faced numerous problems near Philadelphia, to the immediate northwest of Washington, and in the ever-problematic Carolinas. I frequently kept transport fleets stationed in port for emergency evacuations to the Bahamas. This is an issue that the French, Germans, Italians, Soviets and other continental powers never deal with. The prospect of losing 20%-50% of your entire army in one bad week is a uniquely Japanese, British and American problem. Woe to unprepared leader who dumps his invasion force off and then sends his transports off on another task halfway around the world.
The other, more surprising, theme of my land campaigns was their relative efficiency. Previously, I had played as the US, Germany, and the Soviet Union. Germany and the USSR in particular are practically required to have vast armies, and each time I have played them I end the game with 50 or more corps; when invading the USA, I typically use eight full armies, or around 40 corps. The normal breakdown is around 5 armies of medium/heavy armor corps, 2 armies of light armor/mechanized, and 1 army of mountain/marine troops. When invading Eurasia as the US, I usually use about the same force. By contrast, I used around half of that number in this play-through. My Pacific invasion of the US initially involved 6 corps, and eventually expanded to 9 or 10. The Atlantic Front started with 5 corps, and expanded to 9. By the end of the war, I had several more corps built or being built, which were originally destined for North America, but proved unnecessary. My Iberian and British campaigns were similar, and involved fewer forces than I normally use. Even more interesting is the difference in the divisional composition. I normally aim for my divisions to be truly combined forces, with 1 infantry, 1 armor, 1 artillery, 1 aa/at, and 1 engineer. But due to limited industrial capacity, few of my divisions had armor brigades. I fully expected many hard-fought, costly battles; I had a few, but not many, and the casualty rates per battle usually favored me. Even when fighting armor divisions the casualties were about equal, which really surprised me. I may rethink my standard corp/division composition going forward.
So, that wraps up the summary of the Colonial War, which, as it turns out, was the main event of the game. A few more posts will serve as the closing chapter of the game and epilogue, and then I will try to do a new play-through using a different country, and hopefully finish that up before HOI IV is released.
