July 10, 1928[/align] [/align] The SE Asia Front:[/align]
The British forces eliminated Japanese resistance on Formosa by mid-June.
The British troops were exhibiting 10% disruption and 35% fatigue almost across the board even after the battle was over, except in Taipei. It appears that this was due to "Malaria" effect so troops started moving to non-Malaria districts of China or Taipei, and their disruption and fatigue dropped dramatically.
The Franco-British forces will be staging for Operation Alesia as follows: a French Corps will concentrate at Wenchow. One British army will concentrate at Taipei. A second British Army will concentrate at Shanghai. The Far East Fleet will also concentrate in Shanghai after completing most of it's refits in various harbors.
The British will serve as the strategic reserve for Operation Alesia.
The SW Pacific Front: [/align]
Fighting in Korea is entering the end game.
After splitting the peninsula, the Allied forces turned north to attack Pyongyang and Hungsam. After air strikes and accumulating 2:1 to 3:1 numeric odds, the Allies forced the Japanese to retreat. US forces beat the Japanese to Chakufeng and took the city with against no resistance. The Allies are now pounding the retreating units to eliminate them.
In the south, the Allies took Taejon and then sent the 1st Australian brigade overland to seal the track that leads up the east side of the Koean peninsula. Then troops took Masan and a multi-directional assault was mounted on Pusan. US planes from Taejon and Tsushima blasted the defenders at Pusan. The Allied troops are now patiently reducing the fortifications.
Meanwhile, a strike force assembled in Luda outside Port Arthur. It consisted for the French Regiment from Tsietsin, the 1st Cavalry, the 3rd Infantry, the 24th Cavalry, the 61st Cavalry, IV Corps HQ, and a corps artillery park of 155 mm guns and howitzers. These troops are starting their attack on Port Arthur.
Bombardment TF's are at sea to support the battles for Port Arthur and Pusan.
US troops assigned to the 2nd Army have taken control of the southern Yalu crossings so they are in contact with Soviet border guards on the short Soviet/Korean border.
In preparation for Operation Alesia, landings on the north shore of Honshu, Operation Augustus and Operation Octavian, will be launched from Hungsam and Pusan, respectively. Shipping should provide for three divisions of initial lift. Roughly two divisions will be detached for the occupation of Korea with the balance assigned to reinforce the beach-heads on Honshu.
The North Pacific Front: [/align]
The air units attached to North Pacific, weren't very experienced so base forces were moved to Toyoyama and raids were launched on Wakkanai. The Japanese looked at the past pattern of landing under friendly air support and suspected an imminent landing at Wakkanai, but the invasion fleet sailed through the straits under cover of darkness and actually landed at Hakodate.
This was Operation Scipio, the conquest of Hokkaido. The 11th Cavalry and 6th Division landed at Hakodate and took the important port with its repair and supply facilities. Another division was ferried south, but these three units (with engineers and air power) were all that was budgeted for Hokkaido.
For Operation Alesia, North Pacific will stage two divisions from Shikkla to Sendai to make the Operation Lepidus landings. A third division with engineers and base forces will reinforce. The air power will be able to ferry south from Hakodate.
The Pacific Front:[/align]
[color=#000000]
The main operations in this area for now involve ferrying supplies to the fighting areas in Korea and ASW operations between the Ryukus and the Bonin's.
An Anzac Army is being ferried to the Bonin Islands. They will provide reinforcements for the landings on Honshu. Due to the heavy IJN sub concentrations in the Coral Sea, the troops are marching to Darwin and then taking naval transport through the Archipelago to Bonin.
For Operation Alesia, the Operation Antony landings will take place between Nagoya and Tokyo. A three division initial landing is planned with quick reinforcements of more divisions, guns, and base forces. By putting 8 divisions ashore within a 48 hour period (including the Lepidus, Octavian, and Augustus landings), the Allied high command hopes to overwhelm the Japanese and then quickly link up so as to put a cordon around Tokyo. Sendai will be isolated on the transport net from the southern landings until either Alesia closes around Tokyo or northern Honshu is occupied. The first big port in the western landings to be occupied by the Allies will probably be Nigata on the Sea of Japan. Once that is accomplished, linking up with the Pacific Front landings and an aerial campaign to reduce the large IJA air force at Tokyo will be waged while the US troops push south to take at least Nagoya and hopefully Osaka and Kyoto. Once that's accomplished, then Operation Caesar, the assault on Tokyo, can commence. The Allied forces available for the overall Operation Alesia include about 50 Allied battleships and battle cruisers, 30 US Divisions, 4 British Division, 5 Australian Divisions, 2 New Zealand Divisions, 2 French Divisions, 1 Philippine Division, 2 Burmese Divisions, 2 Malayan Divisions, 12 Indian Divisions, and about 800 aircraft of various types.
The timing looks like the Triumvirate landings (Lepidus, Antony, Octavian, and Augustus) will take place in August. Alesia should be in place by October. Caesar will be a costly campaign so certainly a diplomatic campaign would be pursued in parallel with the battle-space preparation to negotiate a possible surrender.
[/color]Guerre de Course: One interesting point is that the supply situation for the Allies is starting to improve since the occupation of Hokkaido, Korea, and Formosa is begining to put formerly Japanese supply sources at the service of the Allies. Several thousand points of supply a day close to the front is easily the equivalent of a couple dozen large AK's and a TK or two to top off their bunker oil in the sea-line of communications. [/align] [/align]Reinforcements:The USA has received it's third and last Yorktown class carrier, the USS Hornet. The Tillman Class super-dreadnought, USS Ohio is also steaming across the Pacific. Two years into the war, the US ship yards are into wartime production and turning out about two destroyers, two small ASW escorts, one APA, one submarine, four drydock AR's and four large AK's per month over and above stock WPO reinforcements. (Drydock construction will peter out once about seventy hulls are completed) Between now and the end of the game, the USA will receive about one additional large combatant per month, too, either a Tillman battleship, an Oriskany-class battle cruiser, a modern heavy cruiser, or a Wasp-class carrier over and above the stock WPO reinforcements. Most of the US squadrons have joined the campaign, but three groups of heavy bombers and some other squadrons will will be joining over the next year. Also, substantially better planes will start being available for replacements, including the A-3B, the Boeing P-12, the Berliner-Joyce P-16, a number of British single engine planes, a long-range Consolidated flying boat, and a long-range recon planes from Fairchild. [/align][/align] [/align]
August 15, 1928: Alesia Unleashed
August, 1928[/align] [/align] The SE Asia Front:[/align]
The British forces are ferrying out of Taichu for Shanghai or Taipei to get out of malaria hexes.
The SW Pacific Front: [/align]
Fighting in Korea is now over.
The Allies wiped out the retreating forces from Pyongyang and Hungsam.
In the south, the Allies took Pusan and then hammered the defending forces for a couple weeks to eliminate them. In preparation for Operation Alesia, about dozen repair ships have anchored in Pusan to work on damaged vessels from any operations in the Sea of Japan. In addition, 5th Fleet HQ has loaded up from Pearl and is transferring to Pusan to support operations in Japanese waters.
The initial assault on Port Arthur was repulsed. The Allies reinforced the troops with the 1st Indian Division, the 21st Cavalry, and the 5th Australian Division along with several artillery units. Air strikes and naval bombardment softened up the defenses (although one destroyer was sunk due to return fire) and the ground forces seized the city and eliminated resistance by August 5.
The North Pacific Front: [/align]
The 5th and 6th Divisions along with the 11th Cavalry stormed Wakkanai and took the base. Further attacks, eventually eliminated the defenders.
The Pacific Front:[/align]
[color=#000000]
Three divisions and supporting units are in the Anzac Army on the Bonin's.
Torishima has been turned in a massive hospital in preparation for Operation Alesia. Casualty stations have been prepared by the many SeaBee Battalions on the island. A dozen AR's have anchored in the roadstead to deal with potentially damaged shipping from the invasion operation.
Carrier Fleet concentrated at Naha. The US Carriers: Yorkstown, Enterprise, and Hornet, off-loaded scout bombers and torpedo planes in favor of FB-5 fighters. The HMS Argus will operate her bombers as ASW patrols, but the total task force will have over 70 fighters available for CAP.
Operation Alesia:[/align]
On August 5, the coded signal went out to start loading the invasion fleet:
Operation Lepidus: Shikkla to Sendai: 9th Division & 35th Division with 36th Division as follow up.
Operation Octavian: Chakufeng to Nagaoka: 30th Division
Operation Augustus: Hungsam to Toyama: 40th Division and 41st Division with the 14th Infantry Brigade as follow-up from Pusan.
Operation Antony: Naha to Hamamatsu: 26th Division, Torishima to Hamamatsu: 43rd Division, Kadina to Hamamatsu: 45th Divison. Follow-up with 1st Army and 28th Division from Naha, along with 44th Division from Iwo Jima.
Strategic deception attacks took place through-out the loading process. The British monitors sortied from Shanghai and bombarded Nagato at the tip of western Honshu. This city was hammered daily (weather permitting) with airstrikes. Bombers hit Okayama and damaged the obsolete battleship Satsuma. The Chinese Fleet made repeated runs at Matsue on Western Honshu. The Dutch Fleet hit Takamatsu and the other port at the east end of Shikoku. They lost one destroyer and had a run-in with a Japanese coastal sub near Kyushu. The French squadron hammered Kitakyushu twice. Eventually, US planes from Osumi and Amani started bombing Nagasaki. US planes in Hakodate also pounded Aomori. Towards the end of the first week of these attacks, the Royal Navy launched main force bombardments of Nagasaki with their Hood class battle cruisers and their 12 inch main battery dreadnoughts.
Meanwhile, the US Navy was moving into assault positions.
In the Sea of Japan, a bombardment force of superdreadnoughts was assigned to hit Toyama. A surface action group of modern CA's and Omaha-class CL's was sweeping the perimeter of the fleet, while two invasion forces with troops and another supply convoy for Toyama concentrated over the horizona out of sight of the Japanese.
In the Ryuku's, US ASW task forces moved to sea and aggressively swept for subs, aided by lots of ASW patrols from British Southhamptons, beached US torpedo bombers, and US flying boats. Several subs were contacted and damaged, forcing their withdrawal.
Off Sendai, the invasion forces were covered by two bombardment forces, one comprising the six US capital cruisers, with Ballantine flying his flag from the Saratoga, and the other of pre-dreadnought and transitional dreadnoughts.
Off of Hamamatsu there were actually two armada's. The Kadina invasion force and the Torishima invasion forces arrived on time and were escorted by two ASW task forces based in the Bonin's, Carrier Fleet, and a British bombardment force of 13.5 inch battle cruisers that had it's own following ASW task force. A replenishment task force from Guam also arrived to top off bunker fuel before the landings. The Naha invasion force was delayed as the harbor was overcrowded with ships loading up, including the invasion force, a supply convoy to land supplies in parallel with the troops, an organic ASW TF, a bombardment force of 16" main battery dreadnoughts - as well as the new USS Ohio and a surface action group lead by the new heavy cruiser Northhampton, with two Omaha-class light cruisers and several destroyers.
A cloud of US and Dutch submarines moved into position to mount a close blockade of Tokyo.
With all these movements it was inevitable that the Japanese would eventually spot something. On August 10th, the first sub was spotted off of Tokyo and additional sightings were made on the 11th. The Japanese went to a higher level of alert. The Japanese high command appears to have anticipated an attack on either Kyushu or western Honshu, although Tokyo was securely garrisoned against a possible coup d'main. On the 12th a patrol flight from Kagoshima spotted the Naha armada steaming east in the general direction of Tokyo.
The US fleet ordered the Naha invasion force to full speed to close on their invasion beaches as quickly as possible. A Japanese submarine, No. 33, made contact with the Northhampton's screening on the 13th, but the ASW screens forced the sub to dive and no further intelligence on the size and composition of task force was available.
On August 14th, the US forces were given the "go orders" to launch their attacks. Bombardment groups hammered the beaches and seven divisions swarmed ashore. The British Battle Cruisers bombarded Nagoya as a diversionary attack to try and "freeze" any reinforcements from Osaka that might move to try and interfer with the Hamamatsu landing. At Sendai, one of the invasion forces had fallen behind and the 2nd invasion division was delivered 12 hours behind the 1st division. Also, Sendai was the only target with effective coast defense artillery, the other sites really put up no effective resistance. Scout planes were dispatched from Tokyo and pilots with the Carrier Fleet on CAP shot down four planes trying to probe the Takamatsu landings.
In Tokyo, the Admiralty cut orders for the new carrier Soryu to sortie against the Americans. Her officers and crew spent the night saying good-bye to loved ones and getting their affairs in order.
On the 15th, US long range patrols spotted the Soryu. She was steaming south in an apparant effort to lure the American carriers away from the Invasion Force. However, B-2 Condor bombers from the Bonins came in low at 2000 feet and their experienced pilots penetrated the air defense put up by the inexperienced pilots of the Soryu with only one damaged bomber. Ten bombs, including several 1000 lbr's, hit the carrier, wrecking her flight deck and triggering a massive secondary explosion in one of her magazines. The carrier was a blazing hulk when a follow on strike of T4M torpedo bombers and Hawker Horsely's arrived from Torishima. Two more torpedo hits overwhelmed the damage control parties and the carrier capsized and sank before sundown.
Ashore, US forces launched assaults on Nagaoka, Hamamatsu, and Toyama, seizing all three ports. The Japanese continued to provide stout resistance at Sendai. In Tokyo, more vigorous scouting resulted in a much clearer picture of the massive landings ringing Tokyo. The Americans had managed to put large portions of five divisions ashore in 48 hours. Three other divisions were less than 50% ashore. Meanwhile, at least three divisions are at sea to reinforce the landings and more units will be shuttled forward as shipping becomes available.
[/color]Guerre de Course: NTR[/align] [/align]Reinforcements: NTR [/align] [/align]In Tokyo: As Captain Yamamato walked from the streetcar line to the Admiralty he noticed the changed atmosphere in the city. Anyone could see the heightened milatary activity, planes on patrol over the city, forced labor corvees to begin entrenchments in the suburbs, but there was difference in the atmosphere. Japan had been invaded. People didn't understand how yet. The news of the bombardments in the north and south had accustomed people to the notion that such an invasion was a matter of "when" and not "if", but the seeming effortlessness of the Allies and the surprise achieved in swarming ashore at multiple points close by the capital had profoundly shaken the Japanese people. Yamamato himself was impressed with the daring of the Americans to make their landings outside of land-based air defense after establishing such a clear pattern of practicing that tactic for the previous year. With the cutting of all the major coastal rail lines, only the area immediately around Tokyo was in direct contact with the capital. It was only a matter of time before the American landings linked up and completely isolated the capital. On the agenda for meetings today were draconian new food rationing regulations to prepare for the siege of the Tokyo metropolitan area. The war needed to end, but voicing that thought to wrong people would bring death in the night. It was a problem to be studied from many angles. [/align] [/align]
September 26, 1928[/align] [/align] Operation Alesia: [/align]
1st US Army: These are the US Pacific Front forces.
Hamamatus is the main base.
Two divisions attacked Nagoya to secure a large port for 1st Army logistics. Hamamatsu is simply too small to accomodate the troops and supplies coming ashore and things are backing up at the port. The initial attack stalled against the level 9 fortifications and the Japanese reinforced the city with a division and half of infantry from Osaka.
In the air, the Japanese bombers at Osaka have tried raiding the US troops, but the US has been putting lots of base-forces ashore at Hamamatsu so by the second raid, there were plenty of fighters on CAP over Nagoya and theJapanese were badly cut up in their raid.
More divisions reinforced the Nagoya attack and multiple bombardment runs were made by US dreadnoughts. The Osaka squadrons made a run at the fleet and managed to put a torpedo in the USS Washington, but the warship withdrew with relatively minor damage to Hamamatsu for emergency repairs.
By early September, Nagoya fell and the Japanese withdrew toward Kyoto. The port of Nagoya fell into US hands with little damage and over 300,000 points of supply on hand.
After a few days to regroup, roughly 8 divisions marched on Osaka, the start of Operation Crassus which would lead to the elimination of the Japanese pocket of Osaka and Kyoto. The initial attack was repulsed but after about ten days of fighting, the fortifications around the city have been reduced by 50%
One night raid of Tokyo by a new group of B2 Condors led to no appreciable damage to the Japanese and the loss of seven bombers so the US switched to using the planes to support the attack on Nagoya and Osaka.
1st Australian Army - the ANZAC's
These troops are coming ashore at Hamamatsu and preparing to push up the coast toward Tokyo and Shimiuzu. Roughly three Aussie divisions and a Kiwi division are on hand. One Aussie division and several transports with the odds and ends of some of the Aussie divisions are still en route to Hamamatsu.
It's estimated that the attack will kick off by early October.
2nd US Army: These are the SW Pacific units.
These troops have the Sea of Japan front.
30th Division pushed north and captured Niigata, securing a major port for supply debarkation and reinforcements.
The 30th Division continued to push north to Akita. The 35th Division followed.
The 40th Division pushed south to Kanazawa and cleared that port.
Toyama is being fortified against a possible counter-attack from Tokyo and Gumma.
The 14th Brigade pushed inland and linked up with 1st US Army and joined the attack on Nagoya.
Units in Kanazawa jumped off about the 23nd of Sepetember for their part in Operation Crassus. This was the attack on Kyoto. The troops arrived at Kyoto in good order and scored immediate success with their assault and have started reducing the fortifications around the city.
3rd US Army: These are the South Pacific Units.
9th Division is pushing north
36th Division has pushed one hex down the coast toward Tokyo to give Sendai a little defense in depth.
The remainder of the divisions from Sakhalin and Hokkaido are being concentrated at Sendai.
Engineers and baseforces will garrison the north.
Operation Metellus is the conquest of upper Honshu. Three divisions have completed the capture of Akita, Oromori, and Onimato. The remaining Japanese units are in the hills and be tracked down now.
12th British Army:
These troops landed at Maizuru where Honshu narrows to a single hex in width. This was a hastily planned operation once the initial landings went well. The loading of units in Shanghai was haphazard and only one Indian Division and a British Brigade got loaded (a 2nd Indian Division was planned.)
Two US cavalry divisions were diverted from 2nd Army to reinforce the landing, and more Imperial troops are on the way from Shanghai.
The Japanese Osaka squadrons have been hitting the beach area and managed to damage several cruisers, destroyers, and sunk the freighter Foochow.
The Hoods, Monitors, and Benbow battleships have all formed squadrons that have been rotating through bombardment of Maizuru with Pusan as an operations base. The first generation dreadnoughts and battle cruisers were in reserve at Shanghai, but would relieve the more modern ships to give them yard time for minor repairs.
However, by the 9th of September Maizuru fell with relatively little damage to the port facilities. Enormous and well-equipped repair shipyards were availabe to Battle Fleet and soon the Constitution and the Constellation were completing their refits there.
The two US cavalry divisions attacked Osaka as part of Operation Crassus, while an Indian Division and a some artillery participated in the attacks on Kyoto.
The Air Battle of Tokyo:
Japanese Air Force operations: The patrol planes from Tokyo are flying dozens of scouting sorties a day and spotting Allied ships in the major ports. Less frequently, they manage to bomb a merchant or are shot down by Allied flak. US fighter cover has killed a few dozen patrol planes, but these are easily being replaced from stockpiles.
A second night raid by a veteran bomber group ended in heavy losses for little apparant gain. The strategic bombing of Tokyo was suspended until the allies could secure air superiority.
With the success of airfield strikes and shore bombardment suppressing the Japanese planes at Osaka, the Allies put almost all of their longer range fighters and some fo the fighter-bombers on sweeps above Tokyo. The Japanese Mitsubishi's rose to the challenge and the biggest air battle of the war raged in a crisp autumn skies above the Japanese capital. Roughly 300 Allied planes, Curtiss P-3, Curtiss A-3, older Curtiss P-1B, and British Bulldog II's (with Canadian pilots) flew against 200 Mitsubishi's of various types. In the course of the first few days of the fighting, the largely veteran Allied pilots dismantled the Japanese squadrons, inflicting losses at a better than 6:1 rate on the Japanese. The Bulldog appears to be an outstanding fighter, faster and more maneuverable than just about anything in the sky.
In addition, US air units in the 2nd Army sector are beginning to attack the Japanese at Gumma and prepare the battle space there.
Future Operations:
The grand encirclement - Operation Crassus: 12th British will take and hold Maizuru. Then 1st and 2nd US Armies will drive on Osaka, force the troops there to retreat to Kyoto, and the combined Allied force will eliminate the defenders. This will choke off a major reinforcement entry point (Osaka) and isolate many troops in Kyushu and western Honshu from Tokyo. 12th Army will hold the Gates of Maizuru while 1st and 2nd Army prepare for Operation Caesar.
Operation Titus - 2nd US Army will take Gumma and advance Allied lines to the edge of Tokyo.
Operation Trajan - 1st Australian Army will take Shimiuzu. US air units will support.
Once Operation Crassus has concluded, the British will drive on Okayama and a French column will attack Matsue, this will be Operaton Hadrian. Recon suggests that Okayama has enormous ship-building yards and the wear and tear of heavy bombardments on the Allied capital ships makes capture of good yards imperative so the warships can be prepared for the upcoming Operation Caesar against Tokyo.
Naval Operations:
The operations on Honshu have pried the assault shipping out of Wake and ships are filtering back to Tokyo. Since the Army Air Corps is on shore in strength, it's unnecessary for Carrier Fleet to provide fighter cover. Halsey off-loaded his fighters and reloaded his carriers with bombers and torpedo-planes and took off to establish a patrol zone east of the Bonins to intercept the returning merchants and to attrit any south-bound merchants for Truk.
A sub on picket duty off Tokyo reported a large capital ship speeding past in the night. The ONI believes this is the new Type 13 Battle Cruiser that was under construction in Yokohama. The Langley was at sea cleaning up another couple convoys for Truk and managed to detect the cruiser at long range just north of Truk. The torpedo planes were out of range, but the Corsairs attacked. The new cruiser had much better flak and shot down two attackers while most of the balance of the strike were damaged. Only one bomb hit was made.
A destroyer task force with two of the new Hammann class destroyers intercepted and destroyed a large supply convoy making for Truk.
Reinforcements: NTR [/align] [/align]Washington: President Coolidge appeared a shoo-in to win the pending presidential election. Al Smith was campaigning hard, but outside of a few major cities and the segregationist Democratic stronghold of the deep South, GOP majorities appeared assured. The President was tired and life just hadn't been same since the death of his young son during his first term. However, he didn't see how he could abandon office at the climax of a great war. One thing that the president's advisors were warning about was that the summer fighting in Korea and now in Japan was producing a steady stream of casualties. Losses were nothing like the Civil War or even WW1, but it was asking a lot of voters to keep a stiff upper lip while conquering a foreign land with the blood of their loved ones. Coolidge had already authorized the diplomats at the State Department to drop his demand for the abdication and surrender of the Emperor. The opening battles in Japan had gone much better than planned, but General Charles Summerall, the US Army Chief of Staff, had warned the President that the price of capturing Tokyo, given a likely Japanese garrison of over 250,000 troops, might be over 250,000 dead and wounded. Coolidge understood that there would be a crescendo of violence leading to victory. However, even as the war was being waged with every bit US strength, a sufficiently good diplomatic solution might be presented before so much blood was spent on both sides that would allow the Allies to dictate a "Carthaginian peace." [/align] [/align]In Tokyo: Captain Yamamato walked past the wreckage of the immense American bomber. The one raid had been met by some brave flyers who flew into the night and tried to intercept the Americans based on the exhaust flares of their engines and the their outline against the lights of the city below. They had downed over a half dozen of the attackers. Now the windows of Tokyo were covered with black-out curtains to make navigation harder. But the Americans had determined to seize aerial mastery over the city and now the American fighters dueled with aerial Samuarai above the city in broad daylight for all to see. All too often it was a defender with the Rising Sun on its wings that fell flaming from the sky. Nagoya had fallen and both Osaka and Kyoto were under siege. The Allies had linked up their beach-heads and put hundreds of thousands of troops ashore. A friend of his with the Army Staff and spoken incredulously of over half-million enemies already ashore and a reinforcement rate of over 100,000 men a week from the Allies. Given his own sources on the naval staff who noted the endless armadas of shipping bringing soldiers and supplies from all over the world to his homeland, Yamamato could only nod his head in agreement. Careful conversations had detected a suppressed rage in the surviving members of the Navy. War had destroyed their service, the surviving and replacement SNLF units at Yokohama might well respond to a call to rescue the Empire from the disasterous leadership fo the Army. Even some members of the Army had their confidence shaken by the success of the Allies in Korea and on Honshu. But power without a strategy to end the war would be useless. That was the last bit to determine. Yamamato recognized that the Americans were not savages, his service in Washington had made that clear. However, a losses of a block by block fight for the capital might loose a vengeance in the Americans which would require a century for Nippon to repair. [/align]
November 8, 1928[/align] [/align] Operation Alesia: [/align]
[color=#000000]
1st Australian Army - the ANZAC's
These troops marched north and stormed Shimizu in early October. The Japanese sortied 1 1/2 divisions of infantry from Tokyo to reinforce the garrison. The US 1st Army reinforced the ANZACs. Battlefleet sortied and conducted some bombardments and within a week Shimizu fell. Operation Trajan was a little more difficult than planned, but was completed successfully.
Following the conquest, troops started preparing for Tokyo and fortifying their positions.
1st US Army: These are the US Pacific Front forces. [/color]
As above, troops reinforced 1st Australian to take Shimizu.
The troops that were bled in the fight for Osaka are resting up at that city. Most of the rest of the troops have taken a position in the siege lines around Tokyo or garrison Nagoya.
Nagoya Castle has become the defacto capital of occupied Japan and headquarters of the Pacific Armies.
2nd US Army: These are the SW Pacific units.
In parallel with the Shimizu operation, troops surged east from Toyama and stormed Gumma. The city fell in less than a day of fighting. Operation Titus was a complete success.
Recon squadrons are based at Gumma and flying recon missions over Tokyo from late-October on.
3rd US Army: These are the South Pacific Units.
Three divisions stormed south from Sendai and drove back the units screen Tokyo from the north.
This is the weakest part of the Operation Alesia perimeter but 2nd Army loaned two divisions to 3rd Army and three reinforcing divisions that are en-route from the West Coast will debark at Sendai.
12th British Army:
The British 2nd Division and 72nd Brigade stormed Okayama, but the city was reinforced with 5 brigades from Hiroshima and the British were bloodily repulsed. The 12th Army reinforced the attack with about five divisions of Indian troops and composite division of Englishmen then took the city, captured major dockyards.
The French Corps attacked and seized Matsue on the northern coast of Honshu.
The British pursued the defenders from Okayama back to Hiroshima and settled in to reduce the city. The Japanese had prepared major defensive works around the city, but heavy bombardments by elements of the Royal Navy allowed the British to largely eliminate the fixed defenses by the 8th of November. The French marched from Matsue to join the attack.
The Air Battle of Tokyo:
Large Allied air forces were arrayed at Toyama, Sendai and Hamamatsu. In the course of a week of fighting in mid-October, the Japanese air force was largely destroyed. Some raids on the aerodromes in Tokyo were conducted, but heavy losses, upwards of 20% of the attacking planes, were suffered from flak.
Significant losses in the fighter force were also suffered, about 30 planes total. Only one "ace", Dunnigan from the 19th Pursuit Squadron, was shot down.
Once air supremacy was achieved, three to five squadrons would fly sweeps daily over the city and knock down whatever fanatical pilots would take to the air in a newly produced or repaired Japanese plane.
Naval Operations:
With the completion of Operation Alesia, the next step was the preparation of the Tokyo battlespace. The first bombardment mission against Tokyo featured six of the latest American super-dreadnoughts with 16" and 18" rifles. Post-mission battle damage assessment flights flown from Gumma suggested horrible carnage among the densely packaged defenders. Aerial recon had identified the remains of the Imperial Japanese Navy anchored at Yokohama: a squadron of pre-dreadnoughts, one modern light cruiser, over a dozen destroyers, some torpedo boats and mine warfare vessels, and over a dozen submarines. Repeated missions sank or wrecked all of these ships and disabled the main Japanese aerodromes. Some major streets have been cleared and used for emergency runways by the Japanese.
Ongoing bombarment operations have become nearly routine with a rotation of super-dreadnoughts, dreadnoughts, and pre-dreadnoughts. Some of the older 12" main battery dreadnoughts have recently completed refits and are being worked into the rotation.
Carrier Fleet sortied and began patrolling east of Tokyo to intercept and sink any shipping that might try carrying troops back from Truk or Wake to reinforce the capital. Also, the USN lost track of the new Japanese battle cruiser after it ported in Truk.
With the capture of Osaka, Okayama, and Maizuru, the Allies now have four major yards in the area of combat operations (those three plus Shanghai). Minor yards are available at Sendai, Hakodate, Sapporo, and Niigata. The bombardment fleets are staging from Hamamatsu and Sendai. The capital ships are refitting in the major ports and rotating forward when their systems damage levels are reduced to 1 or 0. Hamamatsu is only a level 4 port, but at least a dozen repair ships are in the harbor to provide patches for the bombardment fleet.
The USS Maine, the first of the improved Tillman mega-dreadnoughts, has joined the fleet. She has a main battery of fifteen 18" rifles.
All of the available troops in East Asia have been landed on Japan or are en-route. Roughly a million Allied troops are on the islands. That has reduced the amount of shipping necessary for shuttling forces around so AP's have been dispatched to Australia and the USA to collect the remaining reinforcements that are available there. Likewise, the large merchants in East Asia are being dispatched to Singapoe or the West Coast to collect supplies and ferry those forward.
Future Operations:
Once Hiroshima is captured, Operation Brutus, then the British will pursue the survivors to Nagato and complete the capture of Honshu with Operation Cato.
The remaining operation that should end the war is Operation Caesar, the assault on Tokyo. Preparation for the ground forces (Prep = 100) won't be complete until the end of the year so a break in the weather in January would offer the first plausible window for the attack. In the meantime, the Navy would keep bleeding the Japanese with attacks and probing air raids would test the flak strength. Once things were sufficiently disrupted, then the USAAC and it's Strike Wing could start adding to the bombardment.
Reinforcements: The USS Fletcher has joined the Pacific Fleet and is in-transit to the combat zone. This destroyer is the lead unit in a new class that had it's design completed following the outbreak of the war and represents a distinct improvement over the old Great War destroyers. She is equipped with five dual purpose 5 inch guns in enclosed turrets, has a generous allotment of torpedoes for surface actions and many machine guns for AA defense. A fourth modern US heavy cruiser, the USS Houston, has joined the fleet and is getting a final refit in Osaka before joining the bombardment rotation. In the air, the new Berliner-Joyce P-16 two place fighter has joined the USAAC and the Boeing P-12 with its distinct radial engine is beginning to become available as a replacement P-3. Both new fighters are faster but shorter-ranged than the P-3. The P-12 is a distinctly better dog-fighter, but the P-16 has a second seat for a tail-gunner. However, neither of the new US fighters are as good as Bristol Bulldog IIA.[/align][/align][/align]Washington: With the war well in hand, the electorate in the USA handed President Coolidge a decisive victory with over 64% of the popular vote. Al Smith was only able to carry South Carolina, where the association of the GOP as the Party of Lincoln and abolition was unable to overcome good feeling about the progess of the war. The GOP majorities in Congress were increased in both the Senate and the House of Representatives. President Coolidge was pleased but apprehensive about the progress in the war. The indirect negotiations via the Swedes were making no progress since the Japanese refused to admit defeat or culpability in the conflict. Their most recent proposal had agreed to surrender Wake and the Marshall Islands, but they still wanted a free hand in north China. Secretary of State Kellogg had had more success in negotiating a free trade agreement with war-time ally Great Britain that would open the UK and her commonwealth to US manufactures and farm goods in return for opening the USA and her dependencies to their manufactures. Ford and Edison were both sure they could handle the competition and prices would only fall and more volume reduced cost and more jobs would be available to the US working-man. Weaker companies might fall, but that was how business worked. Coolidge had even pursuaded that idiot Reed Smoot (R-UT) not to stand against the treaty. Representative Hawley (R-OR) was still fuming it would cost too many jobs, but that was just pandering to his voters back home in Oregon. [/align] [/align]In Tokyo: Captain Yamamato adjusted his face mask that was already dark with soot from the smoke that accompanied the fires from last night's bombardment. Since the American battleships had started their bombardments life had become much rougher in Tokyo. The ministry had taken over an office building just down the street to serve as a dormitory for the staff officers after the bombardments had torn up the street-car lines. However, most were now sleeping in the subways since the nightly bombardments might land almost anywhere with the final destruciton of the ghost of the Imperial Navy at Yokohama. Above, aircraft droned. He didn't bother to look up, by now he recognized them as American by the engine sound. The Allies owned the sky. He had disbelieved the casualty returns that had crossed his desk since the beginning of the bombardment. According to the Imperial Army over 400,000 troops are been killed, wounded or gone missing since the onset of the bombardments from among 171 distinct ground units of the Imperial Army and Navy that were defending Tokyo. Over 2000 artillery pieces had been disabled and required replacement from arsenals. The captain wondered how many of the missing had simply cast off their uniforms and melted into the populace. These losses were proving hard to make good from the training camps in the capital and the Army had taken to impressing men of military age off the streets. This was unpopular, but few dared to say anything for fear of appearing disloyal. They would need to move soon. So far the Americans had spared the Imperial Palace from their bombardments, but they had demonstrated that this by choice rather than capability since their enormous 18" rifles on the latest super-dreadnoughts had blasted factories and government buildings bracketing the Imperial Palace on all sides. It would necessary for his conspiracy to act soon. [/align]
28 December 1928
Following the completion of the investment of Tokyo, the combined forces of Battle Fleet and the Far East Fleet started bombarding Tokyo on a regular basis. This resulted in a typical loss of 5000 to 10,000 Japanese casualties per day. The initial attack resulted in 160,000 casualties, but the subsequent attacks had about 50% reduction until they settled in at the 5k to 10k level with 6-8 dreadnoughts with at least 14" to 18" main batteries in the bombardments. The 12" armed dreadnoughts are much less effective in bombardment. In addition, the Allied air forces started making ground attacks on Tokyo on a daily basis. Depending on the weather, casualties from the air attacks started attriting the defenders by 200 to 600 casualties per day.
On December 5, 1928, the ground offensive kicked off. Within two days, 61 Allied divisions were in position to start attacking the Japanese. The overall attacks featured the Allies with over one million troops and about 22,000 assault points versus 165,000 defenders and about 3300 assault points in a heavily fortified urban area. Over the subsequent three weeks, multiple attacks have been launched on Tokyo. The Allied attacks would typically result in 2000 to 4000 Japanese casualties and reduce the fortification level of the city by one. The Allies would lose 15,000 to 20,000 troops and have their divisions disrupted to about 75%. The Allies would then rest up for several days until their infantry were down to 10-20% disruption and launch a repeat attack. As of 28 December, 1928, the Allies have reduced the fortifications to Level 4 and suffered 90,000 cumulative casualties. With about 300 units involved in the ground combat between the two sides, the combat resolution requires a minimum of several minutes of time on my system.
The flak over Tokyo is negligable and virtually no aircraft are being lost to flak. Also, there is no effective fire from coast defense guns so destroyers may bombard the city with impunity. According a talley being kept since the start of the bombardments, over 800,000 casualties have been inflicted by the shore bombardments. The ground combat is dissolving the Commonwealth brigades, and at least a half dozen of those have been rotated back to Gumma and Shimizu for rest and refit. The 82nd Infantry Division and 2nd Armored Regiment are marching from other points on Honshu to join the fight. Looking at the troop strength on the Allied side, the forces in Tokyo number about 1.1 million men. In the combat resolutions, the effective strength is being listed at about 900,000 men. On the Japanese side, the effective strength in the combat results has been knocked down to about 155,000 men. At this rate, sometime in January, the Allies should have the fortifications eliminated and be in a position to seize the capital.
The 1st Australian Cavalry Division is in transit from Darwin.
This is clearly the closest to the Western Front of any fighting that has taken place in the Great Pacific War. Fortunately, a combat photographer caught the US Marines raising the Stars and Stripes above Mount Fuji and that image is helping to sustain the morale at home in this most bloody and most final battle. Conditions in Tokyo must be turning horrendous with constant bombardment and siege. Comparisons to Richmond in 1864 or Paris in 1870 would come to mind.
Victory in the Pacific!
The broad frontal assaults with little gain and heavy casualties provoked a rethinking of the operational plan in the Allied HQ at Nagoya Castle. Given the urban terrain and the large garrison, it was supposed that the Allies would need to reduce the fortifications to nil before being able to break through and march on the Imperial Palace. The key was to conserve the forces necessary for the breakthrough. The updated plan involve localized attacks by 6 - 7 divisions of troops. It was hoped that these attacks would be able to reduce the fortifications without the massive casualities seen in the December attacks.
The first of these attacks was scheduled for New Year's Day by the 1st Army on the Yokohama sector of the front. It was successful in seizing a key hill and allowed enfilade fire on a broad swath the Japanese entrenchments in that sector of the front and only cost the Allies 2000 casualties while inflicting 900 on the Japanese. Subsequent attacks by the 2nd, 3rd, and 14th Armies took key pieces of terrain on their representative sectors. The attacks resulted in less the 8000 Allied casualties, but effectively eliminated all remaining fortifications for the Japanese defenders.
On the 15th of January, the general attack started. With some reinforcements and ample replacements, the Allies were up to about 1.2 million total troops and an assault value of 23,000 points. The Japanese were reduced to about 150,000 men in their combat units and an assault value of about 2200 points. After adjusting for terrain and posture, the Allies achieved 2:1 odds and captured the Tokyo base. US and Aussie troops over-ran Yokohama, the naval yards there, and the Haneda aerodrome. Meanwhile the 2nd and 14th Armies broke through and advanced from the west. The main center of Japanese resistance remained at the north end of Tokyo Bay. The Allied high command braced for a Banzai counter-attack, but nothing came. The bombardment forces of the battle-line staged forward with fleet train units so they could re-arm and fuel at Yokohama and then simply steam north and be in bombardment position in a matter of minutes.
With the breakthrough, the disruption values on the Allied visions were only around 20 to 30% instead of 75%, as had been the custom after the 0:1 attack results, so the attacks continued with only a couple of days of respite to pull forward the artillery and range in the Imperial Palace and the blocks of concrete and steel buildings that housed the core of Japanese government and commercial decision making which surrounded the Imperial Palace. Fresh from Guam, the 197th Infantry Brigade that had seen it's last action in quashing the original 1926 invasion of Guam was part of assault force that moved on the Palace. There was hard fighting in the buildings around the palace, especially at the Admiralty and the War Ministry, but the palace itself had been evacuated and suffered only incidental damage in the fighting.
On January 19th, a party of Japanese officers approached under a flag of truce to request a cease-fire in preparation for negotiating terms of surrender. After the terms had been negotiated and the Japanese military disarmed, the Allies learned of the pressure and fragmentation that paralyzed much of the military in the closing days of the war. An abortive coup had been disrupted by the pro-war ministry, but in the confusion of the fighting many of the captured officers who were still under interrogation were released by their jailers as the fighting threatened to over-run their holding facilities. The conspirators had rallied some disaffected army units and the remaining naval infantry so in the aftermath of breakthrough, they can staged a revolt that succeeded in kidnapping Hirohito and killing a number of cabinet officers of the pro-war government. This prevented the order from going out for the capitol garrison (which actually still numbered over 200,000 troops) to stage their suicidal Banzai attack, but also allowed for their ceasefire and surrender negotiations to go forward with the force of the Emperor's blessing.
Here are some details on outstanding units from the Great Pacific War.
[font=tahoma]Air Units:[/font]
[font=tahoma]Allies: [/font]
[font=tahoma]The top air units for experience with the Allies were:[/font]
[font=tahoma] 93 - USS Los Angeles[/i] – ZR3 - USN[/font]
[font=tahoma] 92 – 34th Attack Squadron USAAC[/font]
[font=tahoma] 90 – VB-1 (USS Langley[/i]) [/font]
[font=tahoma] 89 – 90th Attack Squadron USAAC[/font]
[font=tahoma] 88 – 30th Bomb Squadron USAAC[/font]
[font=tahoma] 88 – No. 84 Squadron RAF[/font]
[font=tahoma] 88 – VF-1 (Formerly of USS Langley[/i], Tokyo Campaign)[/font]
[font=tahoma] [/font]
[font=tahoma]Special mention for the 19th Pursuit Squadron USAAC for 193 kills during the course of the war as the top scoring air unit and VT-1 of the USS Langley[/i] for the most tonnage of combat ships sunk.[/font]
[font=tahoma] [/font]
[font=tahoma]The Allies had a total of approximately 3000 aircraft at land bases, afloat on carriers or surface ships, or in transit from North America at the cessation of hostilities.[/font]
[font=tahoma] [/font]
[font=tahoma]Japan:[/font]
[font=tahoma]A handful of recon and fighter units remained on Kyushu, Wake, and Truk. The most experienced units were only in the 60’s. A total of 159 aircraft were available. Over half of these were on Wake. The balance were divided between Truk and Kyushu.[/font]
[font=tahoma] [/font]
[font=tahoma]Pilots:[/font]
[font=tahoma]Allies:[/font]
[font=tahoma]Top Aces:[/font]
[font=tahoma]24 – Lt. B. Leach (366 missions)[/font]
[font=tahoma]22 – Lt. W. Harper (369 missions)[/font]
[font=tahoma]19 – FO U. Hunter (343 missions)[/font]
[font=tahoma]17 – Cpt. Joe Sullivan (353 missions)[/font]
[font=tahoma]16 – Brigadier Eddie Rickenbacker (378 missions)[/font]
[font=tahoma]14 – Cpt. Ben Howard (370 misisons)[/font]
[font=tahoma]14 – Lt. “Doc” Savage (343 missions)[/font]
[font=tahoma]Note – all of the pilots above flew with the 19th Pursuit Squadron[/font]
[font=tahoma][/font]
[font=tahoma]Other notable pilots:[/font]
[font=tahoma] 10 – B. Stewart & V. Irvine top US Navy aces[/font]
[font=tahoma] 8 – R. Tyler top US Marine Corps ace[/font]
[font=tahoma] 8 – M. Evans top RAF ace (No. 25 Squadron)[/font]
[font=tahoma] 8 – T. Jones top non-fighter ace (flew A-3 Falcon Fighter-bomber)[/font]
[font=tahoma] 7 – M. Gifford top RCAF ace[/font]
[font=tahoma] 7 – M. Hammond top float plane ace with FU-1 float fighter flying from one of the Tillman-IV Class superdreadnoughts.[/font]
[font=tahoma] [/font]
[font=tahoma]Rickenbacker had a total of over 40 kills counting his Great War victories. Rickenbacker was also notable for have the highest number of missions flown among the Allied pilots with one or more victories.[/font]
[font=tahoma] [/font]
[font=tahoma]Japan:[/font]
[font=tahoma] Top Pilot:[/font]
[font=tahoma] 3 – D. Miyazaki (Wake fighter detachment)[/font]
[font=tahoma] [/font]
[font=tahoma]Warships:[/font]
[font=tahoma] Allies (average of day/night experience):[/font]
[font=tahoma] 90 – USS Charlotte[/i][/font]
[font=tahoma] 84.5 – USS Cincinnati[/i][/font]
[font=tahoma] 84.5 – USS Detroit[/i][/font]
[font=tahoma] 82.5 – USS Frederick[/i][/font]
[font=tahoma] 77.5 – USS Corry[/i][/font]
[font=tahoma] 77.5 – Hai Yung[/i][/font]
[font=tahoma] 77 – USS Tennessee[/i][/font]
[font=tahoma] 77 – Hai Chen[/i][/font]
[font=tahoma] 76 – USS Saratoga[/i][/font]
[font=tahoma] 76 – USS Milwaukee[/i][/font]
[font=tahoma] 75.5 – USS Upshur[/i][/font]
[font=tahoma] 75.5 – USS Rhode Island[/i][/font]
[font=tahoma] 75 – USS Omaha[/i][/font]
[font=tahoma] [/font]
[font=tahoma]The top vessels for the Britain and her commonwealth were HMNZS Dunedin[/i] - 71.5, HMAS Brisbane[/i] – 71, and HMS Chatham[/i] – 71. Many Allied warships, especially in the US battleline and Allied cruisers, had average experience values in the 60’s and 70’s. Several of the lucky US destroyers that survived the war were also in this category. The cruiser forces saw the most repeated action, especially in the Blockades of Wake and of Formosa. The USS Saratoga[/i] made her name in the defense of Marcus Island as well as the relief of Guam and the Blockade of Wake. It was a surprise to find the USS Tennessee so high in the ranking. I think that was due to the leadership skills of her captain to make the most of her combat experience. [/font]
[font=tahoma] [/font]
[font=tahoma]Japan:[/font]
[font=tahoma]The top ship was the CL Kuma[/i] that scored 66 average. The Japanese Navy at the end of the war consisted of the Kii[/i], the Ezo[/i], three obsolete battleships, one light cruiser, one destroyer and a couple dozen submarines plus whatever fleet train units were located at Truk or Wake. All of the warships, except the Ezo, were at Wake Lagoon. The Allies had effectively swept the seas. [/font]
[font=tahoma] [/font]
[font=tahoma]Ground Forces:[/font]
[font=tahoma] [/font]
[font=tahoma]Allies:[/font]
[font=tahoma]The Allies had 1.2 million troops in Tokyo. A further 300,000 were manning the supporting bases and garrisons on Honshu and Hokkaido. These 1.5 million troops were divided among the US First Army, US Second Army, US Third Army, Australian First Army, the British Fourteenth Army, and French Expeditionary Corps. A further 120,000 troops under the control of the British Twelfth Army were deployed at Nagato to defend Honshu against a counter-attack by the Japanese. While some of the troops around Tokyo were only at 60% to 80% strength, most of the units were at 90+% strength. [/font]
[font=tahoma] [/font]
[font=tahoma]Japan:[/font]
[font=tahoma] [/font]
[font=tahoma]At the end of hostilities, the Japanese had the following forces in the field:[/font]
[font=tahoma]Defending the northern and eastern suburbs of Tokyo – 230,000 These troops were largely stripped of artillery. The infantry divisions were the most cohesive at 50% to 70% infantry strength but many of the brigades, SNLF, engineering, and artillery formations were “hollow” with only 5% to 20% of the nominal TO&E available. Between coastal bombardment, aerial bombardment, and ground combat, the Allies had inflicted over 1 million casualities on defenders of Tokyo between October of 1928 and the end of the war. [/font]
[font=tahoma]Kyushu – 155,000[/font]
[font=tahoma]Wake – 114,000[/font]
[font=tahoma]Truk – 64,000[/font]
[font=tahoma]Shikoku – 11,000[/font]
[font=tahoma] [/font]
[font=tahoma] [/font]
[font=tahoma][/font]
After the fighting . . . [/align] [/align]Thus ended the Great Pacific War with Allied forces occupying Honshu and Hokkaido. The Imperial Navy had been swept from the seas, and the Japanese Army had won no battles after the opening campaigns. Allied pilots flew at will over the Japanese homeland. The territorial settlements that followed the Great Pacific War sharply reduced Japan's territory to just the four Home Islands and immediate off-shore islands, including the Ryuku's where the large Japanese civilian population made cession of the territory unattractive. The Netherlands, France,and Canada received reparations. The primary Anglophone combatants took territorial settlements. Britain gained the Pescadores and Formosa. Australia gained Truk and the Carolines. New Zealand gained the Marshall Islands, except for Kwajelein. The USA gained Kwajelein, the Marianas, the Bonins, the Kuriles, south Sakhalin, and Korea as a trust territory to be developed and prepared for independence over a period of time. China regained Port Arthur. Ethnic Japanese in the ceded territories were repatriated to Japan under the Treaty of Nagoya. An occupation of 20 years was imposed on Japan with gradually decreasing scope and severity, still Japan was virtually an American protectorate. Basing rights for the US were provided at Yokohama, Okinawa, and on Kyushu. The US Navy enforced a Pax Americana in the Pacific basin. [/align] [/align]The Kellogg-Chamberlain trade union treaty negotiated in the final months of the war and sealed in the glow of victory provided unfettered access to markets between the USA, Britain, and the Dominions. It was a matter of some dispute whether Britain had reconquered America as it's newest dominion, or the huge and vibrant economy of the USA had conquered the mother country and the balance of the British Empire. The US Secretary of State and British Foreign Minister Austen Chamberlain received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1930 for the beneficial effects of the increased trade between the USA and the Commonwealth. International trade was increasingly dominated by products in the English system of weights and measures and became the world wide standard. The greatest dispute and confusion was the differing volume of the US and Imperial gallons. Ultimately, France felt compelled to legislate mandatory metric weights and measures to prevent gallons, ounces, and inches from taking over the French economy. [/align] [/align]Following the Great Pacific War, the USA did endure a sharp recession beginning in 1930 as military spending dried up and large numbers of men were discharged from the armed services. President Coolidge, following classical liberal political economy, steadfastly refused to take extraordinary steps to ameliorate the recession, but portions of his cabinet were less inclined to economic orthodoxy. Conclusive analysis completed in the 1950s vindicated Coolidge and the free-traders since the recession proved to be much shallower and less severe than it would have been in the absence of international trade opportunities, or worse, aggressively protectionist measures advocated by Smoot and Hawley in Congress. Franklin Roosevelt resigned from the cabinet in 1930 and returned to legal practice in New York. [/align] [/align]In 1932, the lingering recession became the principal topic of political debate in the US elections. Herbert Hoover, an engineer who had served as Commerce Secretary in the 1st Coolidge administration and switched to the Interior Department in the 2nd Coolidge administration, won the nomination to succeed Coolidge on a platform of economic activism. The Democrats nominated Roosevelt, whose image was burnished as the architect of victory in the relatively bloodless naval phase of the Great Pacific War. The tight election went to Roosevelt who had a slim majority of Democrats in both houses of Congress. [/align] [/align]Historians are now agreed that Roosevelt was no socialist, but many of his influential advisors were considerably further to the left than he was. In his first 100 days, an ambitious legislative agenda was enacted to get the country back to work, but within a year most of it had been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court and reverses in the 1934 mid-term elections cost the Democrats control of the House of Representatives. Others have suggested that had Roosevelt had a period as governor of a large state, such as New York, his administrative and political skills would have been honed and better able to persuade the people that his non-traditional measures were the right solution for America's problems. Some speculate that it would have required a far more massive economic dislocation than the 1930 Recession, something more like the Great Depression [of 1893], to have opened the USA up to the level of change that Roosevelt wanted to implement. Regardless of the hypotheticals, the conventional wisdom of historians is that Roosevelt's platform of aggressive state regulation of and intervention into the economy was fundamentally unconstitutional and would never have withstood judicial scrutiny without overthrowing the balance of powers in the US constitutional system. The most enduring and popular achievement of the Roosevelt administration was the repeal of Prohibition.[/align] [/align]The GOP landslide of 1936 was hailed as a second return to normalcy. President Landon banished virtually all of the remaining "New Deal"'s economic regulations outside some banking reforms and securities regulations to improve reserve requirements and discourage stock speculation with margin buying. The economy's recovery was quick and robust, and writers have documented the success of the "Roaring '30s" with the broad rise of radio, the auto, the airplane, and cinema as characteristic American products. However, war clouds gathered in Europe. [/align] [/align]Germany prospered making munitions and substitute consumer goods for countries that were militarizing their economies during the Great Pacific War. They sank into a severe recession following the end of the war and the return of an energized and expanded Anglosphere industry to peaceful international trade. Communist agents sowed dissension, especially by "front organizations" often masquerading as trade unions, and an increasingly rickety series of governments lurched from crisis to crisis. In 1937, Adolf Hitler, an unsavory right-wing populist who had nearly gained power in 1933, forged an alliance of parties of the center and right that assumed power. However, the world hardly got a taste of his ambitions before a Communist agent assassinated Hitler in the autumn of 1938, and Communist general strike paralyzed the nation. The Reichswehr moved to impose order and dozens of workers were killed in riots. Stalin invaded Poland to march the Red Army to the aid of "oppressed workers" in Germany. This marked the opening of the Second World War. [/align] [/align]The Poles were unable to resist the Russians and the German Reichswehr, though expanding after Hitler had revoked the Versailles limits, was hardly more than border guard after just a year of rearmamaent. As the fighting swirled around Warsaw, the European leaders met in Zurich at the League of Nations to declare an international crusade against Bolshevism and mobilized their forces against totalitarianism under the banner of collective security for Poland and Germany. However, the crusade's combatants were initially limited to France, Britain and her Dominions, Italy, Poland,Germany, and small countries of central Europe and the Balkans. [/align] [/align]The result was catastrophic for the West. The Red Army overwhelmed a small BEF and French troops fed into Germany. The Czechs resisted the Russians for months, but eventually fell after Russian forces overwhelmed Romania and Hungary and sealed off the Danube behind them. By the autumn of 1939, the lines in Europe had stabilized on the Rhine and the Alps. The French gave the von Pappenheim government a base in the Rhineland that they returned to Germany. Yugoslavia disintegrated in a complex bloodbath of competing ideologies. Croatia and Montenegro remained with the League, along with western Austria. Italian troops proved redoubtable on defense in the mountains. The Italian Air Force also proved a match for the Soviet Air Force. However, the newly-formed Greater Serbian People's Republic was a Soviet ally. Greece remained with the League. Turkey, like Scandanavia and the lowlands, remained neutral, but the rest of the Balkans had been occupied by the Soviets, along with Finland and the Baltic States. [/align] [/align]The stress of the war shattered the First League of Nations. As in the Great Pacific War, League members had an optionalism in participating in collective security so many states remained neutral in the war, especially in the early phases when the Soviet Union was ascendant. Switzerland ultimately invited the League to leave rather than risk invasion by the Soviets. Fashioning the Second League would fall to the Dewey Administration in the 1940s. [/align] [/align]The US remained a benevolent neutral in favor of the League in the early days of the war and factory orders reached records as the USA turned into an armory for the Allies. Against the advice of some, President Landon authorized the re-armament of Japan and limited forces began forming under US supervision. Expansion of US military forces, especially new armored and air forces, was put into high gear. [/align] [/align]Although the Roosevelt Administration had recognized the Soviet Union, US-Soviet relations were frosty due to the ongoing support of the Soviets for the Communist insurgency in north-central China that threatened the regime of US ally, Chiang Kai-Shek. In China, Britain and France offered incredibly large bribes to Chiang to join the war, but the resulting offensive was a disaster. Zhukov crushed the Chinese invasion of Mongolia, and the Soviets surged into Manchuria in hot pursuit of the defeated Chinese forces as well as a calculated invasion from their Far East possessions. Chiang had cannily avoided a declaration of war on the USSR by asserting ancient Chinese claims to Mongolia, a Soviet client state. This allowed him to pose as the victim to the American public. The USA had warned the USSR that violating Chinese territorial integrity would meet the gravest of consequences, and the US declared war on the Soviets and joined the Allies. Japan followed suit. [/align] [/align]This was just in time for Britain, since the Soviets had invaded the neutral lowlands in 1940 to turn the Allied position on the Rhine and knocked France from the war. Germany battled on from exile, but a French People's Republic was formed in Paris and collaborated with the Soviets. This is not the time or the place for a detailed history of that titanic conflict that ranged from Gibraltar to the North Cape and from Cape Finisterre to Vladivostok, culminating in the 1945 destruction of the Kremlin with the world's first nuclear weapon, but it set the stage for the capitalist post-war order that has largely kept the peace since that time and prevented repetition of the state-sponsored mass murders of the Gulag where millions perished. [/align] [/align]Within the USA, the victorious, but apolitical, US general Dwight Eisenhower was persuaded by Adlai Stevenson to run for the open presidential office as a Democrat. He beat Robert Taft, selected by the GOP to succeed Dewey, in the 1952 election. However, Eisenhower generally ratified the domestic policies of the previous GOP administrations. Race relations became the focus of politics as Eisenhower supported the Supreme Court in its reversal of legal discrimination. This highlighted the factionalism in the Democrat Party between the segrationist southern Democrats and the northern urban Democrats and rural western Democrats. In 1960, Eisenhower's young Vice-President, John F. Kennedy, lost his election bid amidst charges of corruption and sex scandal to Senator Richard Nixon of California. Nixon went on to enact landmark civil rights legislation with the assistance of a bipartisan "vital center" of American politics. The opposition of the southern Democrats and some states-rights Republicans to civil rights provoked a crisis in both parties that resulted in a radical re-alignment of US politics after the 1964 election. Robert Kennedy won that election with a plurality of the popular vote on a libertarian platform. Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater led the most successful third party run since Teddy Roosevelt's "Bull Moose" campaign of 1912, that attracted a combination of segregationists and 10th Amendment supporters. This fatally weakened Nixon's re-election bid. Kennedy's successful 8 year tenure reset American politics. [/align] [/align]From 1920 to 1964 the GOP domination of government was nearly complete but for FDR's single term and the moderate Ike's tenure with a GOP congress except for 1953-1955. Indeed, some scholars speak of a Republican Century since between 1861 and 1965, when Democrats occupied the White House for only 28 years (32 if you accept that southerner Andrew Johnson was only a nominal Republican). Since 1964 US politics has been an ongoing competitive contest between a traditionalist GOP and a libertarian Democrat Party that both endorsed a strong free market economy at home and strong US leadership abroad. [/align] [/align]Such were the consequences of the Great Pacific War. [/align] [/align]
Fantastic!!
Grat AAR and story line. Could be an outline for a bestseller of alternative history. Thanks for all the time and effort!! [:)][8D]
So we're at war with the Russkies eh?? I suppose we really ought to invade or something. (Lonnnng pause while studying the map)
Hmmmm... big place ain't it??
- Sir Harry Flashman (1854)
Mostly over in WitP now, but send along anything of interest to my regular non-Matrix mail for a looksee. I've been tweaking some things since I sent your version over and Malcolm Barass provided some nice artwork for some of the British aircraft.
