It is now late October 1942 in our game and the tide of battle has just reached the point where Japan must decide to either halt expansion or undergo a last attempt to expand their empire against ever increasing allied strength. My opponent and I are both very cautious players when it comes to our major combat assets, and this has resulted in no major decisive battles occurring to date.
We both feel this point in our game would make a great starting point for a what if scenario. A fully preserved Japanese empire heavily fortified in strong bases throughout its area of expansion vs. an as yet undamaged allied fleet that is growing stronger every day. Nemrod referred to it thusly in a recent email:
“It will be the fight of the unstoppable force against the immovable mass!!”
So I’ve decided to begin an AAR of our game as the coming year (1943) may prove to be very interesting indeed. The strategic choices we both make over the next few months are going to be chosen from an almost limitless group of possibilities.
How did we get here?
I’ll give a brief rundown of what has occurred in our game to date to bring readers up to speed on what’s been going on.
Japan did a basic opening attacking in both the PI and Malaya as expected. But he did so without trying to overbalance one region or the other to help speed his conquest, I was able to hold out in both areas for about a month longer than they historically held out. While I was initially beaming with pride over these rather limited allied success stories, in the end it turned out not to matter one iota. As a matter of fact I personally feel this was an unintended boon for Japan.
Because Japan was tied down with the majority of his large land forces for so long, my opponent ended up not taking the major oil centers until about June/July. But he did slowly pick away at non-oil producing bases which allowed him to successfully interdict any shipping I tried to send in to extract said oil. So the net result was my opponent inherited a bunch of very fat oil bases with huge stocks of oil on hand. In the future if/when I play as Japan I plan to use this as a tactic, since it guarantees Japan 100% oil production at those bases for about the 6 months they are in allied control.
If you grab them early and they suffer 25%-50% damage when the base changes hands, you’re simply giving up that extra oil for no real benefit. Use the non-oil bases for your air campaigns and only take the oil when you’ve crushed all allied air opposition in the SRA. The oil isn’t going to go anywhere as long as you control the skies, and it’ll be waiting there for you safely kept secure by the generous allies.
I didn’t find that much oil in the captured bases, far less than what they can produce now in 6 months. I suppose stocks were partly destroyed.
Japan made two very quick unexpected strikes early on aimed at Midway and Port Moresby. Due to the speed of his attacks at these two locations, I was unable to contest their conquest and in fact lost the Australian 30th Brigade aboard ship about 5-6 hexes south of Port Moresby when KB showed up to smash that base so unexpectedly early. KB sunk every single ship in the transport fleet, so not even a fragment escaped destruction.
Japans conquest of Burma was put off till about July/August because of the timetable disruptions caused by the long sieges in PI and Malaya. But when an excess of 200,000 Japanese finally did show up, the over-confident allies whom expected to hold at Mandalay were utterly crushed under the massive death star of Japanese boots. About half the allies managed to retreat towards Myitkyina and later India just before the final hammer blow struck, but the other half were shattered and forced to retreat towards Lashio and are now slogging their way through the jungles towards China slowly dying of attrition.
China is a mess for the allies right now. I had fought Japan to a standstill anywhere he tried to advance except in the air where he utterly decimated anything sent to try and defend the skies above China. With the air 100% in his control, Nemrod pounded the Chinese industrial centers and Resource centers to smithereens. The result of which has been a slow deterioration of supply in China to the point where there is probably less than 50k of supplies left in the entire country now.
I don’t think this was the major factor. I only destroyed more or less 2/3 of the supply production of two cities, I could have done much more. The Burma Road open several months more than historical compensated that until recently. Much more important was the loss of supplies caused by Changsa and Yenen occupation. Constant bombing and bombardments to raise the needs of your armies were probably very important too, but I can’t say how much. You could refer to that old post were you calculated supply in China is not enough in the long run anyway.
Yes I had forgotten to mention those other details. The entire combined effort to attack China’s supply has had devastating results for me in China. It also proves beyond a doubt that Japan can win in China without winning a single early battle. If Japan methodically attacks the supply in China using all means available to him to do so, China is doomed.
Lack of supplies prevented my units from rebuilding damage or drawing replacements, so my units began to whither away (many Corps now have less than a divisions worth of equipment). About a month or so ago game time I voluntarily evacuated Sian and Yenen because of major supply problems, and Japan has taken advantage of the situation and massed his forces for a crushing blow on Changsa. There are well over 300,000 Japanese at Changsa and at least 6-8 other Japanese divisions are working on trying to surround the city from both north and south.
I have just launched two counter-attacks at Sian and Yenen to try and relieve some pressure on Changsa, but it is doubtful if I’ll be able to save that city even if I manage to recapture Sian and Yenen. The only bright spot for me is I HOPE to capture some decent stocks of supplies at those two bases from Japan. If the stocks are large enough (very doubtful) it may be enough to hold China over till late 1943 when massive numbers of air transport aircraft will be on hand to start a serious airlift of supplies that might just save the country.
I have around 15K supplies at Sian , may be you expected more.
Didn’t expect more, just really, really HOPED for more. [:D]
Of course if there are no large stocks of supplies there, then even retaking those bases probably won’t save China from utter doom at this point since I estimate I have less than 6 months of supply left. After that my units will simply fold up under any kind of pressure and the country will collapse rather quickly.
There was some brief action in the North Pacific when Japan took Kiska and Attu. But as soon as I had an air base expanded large enough to handle my 16 plane B-17 group, one or two attacks on Kiska convinced Nemrod to evacuate and I have recently re-occupied those two US bases. Paramushiro is now getting sporadic raids by my B-17 group from Kiska.
So basically Japan is at historical limits to their expansion except for Port Moresby and Midway. Both players still have the majority of their combat power at their disposal and we are at a turning point in the game. If Japan continues to expand the allies can now seriously mount an attempt to prevent it and stand a good chance at succeeding.
If Japan chooses to hunker down, the initiative will switch to the allies and they face the prospect of trying to operate against an intact Japan with well entrenched forward bases and an undamaged KB able to react on interior lines.
Here’s a screen shot of the intelligence screen:
