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Peekee

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Dec 11, 2008
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You join me on the 26th August 1938. Things have not being going well for Japan. They have suffered a series of defeats with very little ability to respond. Where they have been able to respond on the ground they have in general been defeated, forced to retreat and regroup.

* Manchuria lost and now run by a Shanxi puppet government.
* Taiwan lost.
* North Korea lost.
* Iwo Jima lost.
* Toyohara lost.
* Naha lost.
* Various other pacific islands lost.

Japan's economy is collapsing under the strain and they are about to run out of both money and the raw materials they need to run their industry. Their air force has served them well so far though. However, fuel reserves continue to fall.

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How did this disaster happen?
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Back in 1936 the Japanese central government decided that they had had enough warmongering. They would adopt a peaceful isolationist stance, with a military focused on defence of their homeland. As such they disbanded the entire navy and most of the army. Only some planes from the carriers were saved.

In July 1937 various Chinese factions however took this as a sign of weakness and came up with a ruse for invading Manchuria. At this point while japan had some troops on the Japanese mainland it lacked any means to transport them to Korea or Manchuria to aide its defence. The only thing it could do to respond was send bombers to Chinese ports and industry. Manchuria never stood a chance and quickly fell. Shanxi placed a puppet government to rule over the area. Their one condition was that they would not directly attack Japan.

The phoney war Autumn 1937 -> Spring 1938
After that there was a lull. Neither side seemed to be able to attack the other. Manchuria was not directly in the war. And so did not attack Japanese Korea. The Japanese Naval bombers had managed to mop up any chinese troop transports they could find and so no invasions of Japanese islands seemed likely. Japan still had no troops to directly defend Korea.

Defence and retreat on the Korean Peninsula April 38 -> August 38
In April 1938 Shanxi and Manchuria finally started sending troops into Korea. While officially Manchuria was not at war Japan suspected that it was sending troops and supplies to aide the Shanxi advance.

Luckily at almost exactly the same point Japan managed to get some troops to send to Korea. 5 Divisions of new Paratroopers, having just passed thei basic jump training they were sent straight to war. Their equipment was good. Their leaders and NCOs were excellent, but they were GREEN.

Quite simply 5 divisions could not hold the Korean border with Manchuria. Attempting to execute jumps or encirclements put the paratroops at more risk. The Shanxi troops were using Cavalry to break through and the paratroopers could not keep up.

In an effort to avoid disaster the Paratroopers slowly retreated back to a defensive line further down Korea. Meanwhile Japanese bombers kept harassing any troops they could find.

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It was during this shift of focus back to Korea that Chinese troop transports managed to slip past Japanese naval bombers and start invading anything they could find.

Things are looking grim though. A simple static defence of Korea will ultimately fail. Chinese troop landings behind the defensive lines could prove disastrous. Japan needs to push them back and take the battle to the Chinese. However with no ships they have only planes to help them out.

Luckily their planes are well equipped and well trained :

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So, with no navy + almost none land force what will you do?
 
So, with no navy + almost none land force what will you do?

Build paratroopers... Lots of paratroopers.... And lots of transport planes, then if China goes well I will probably need a lot of naval bombers to hold off the Allies and USA :) I have a few strategic bombers simply because they fit in with the practical for transports. I suspect they will be useful for strategic bombing and knocking out infrastructure if I ever get into trouble.

I have tried a game before (not done as a AAR) as Japan with quite a lot of paratroopers and it was good fun. At that point I started to wonder what would have happened if I had not put any investment in my navy and only gone for paratroopers. This is basically taking that idea to the extreme.

Originally I wanted to not even supply my troops by boat. However, I gave it a quick shot and the fuel consumption was extreme. Maybe if I get some more oil that might become practical as it is I will have to supply my troops by sea. There is also obviously no option to fly back raw materials for my industry so transports are required for that and trade. As mentioned I suspect once at war with the allies they may start messing with such supply lines and I will be forced to defend them with naval bombers.

Also obviously this is far from optimal. I could easily have left some garrison forces In Korea and islands to stop them getting taken. However, this way I have taken the idea to its extreme :)
 
September 12th 1938 : Start of North Korean Offensive

I may have been slightly misleading about the state of the Japanese Army. In particular since the completion of the first paratroop divisions in April. Japan has been busily building another 10 Divisions. They were actually completed in late August.

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On the 12th of September as soon as those divisions had enough organisation to have a chance in combat the offensive operation to retake north Korea was launched. Its goals were simple:

1) Take north Korean territory back.
2) Crush all invading troops.

This would be achieved in a single massive encirclement:

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Cutting off the Shanxi troops against my defensive line. allowing the line to move up and trap them all. Due to Japan's constant air superiority they had fairly good intelligence on where enemy troops were and their strengths. The Shanxi troops in Korea were short on supplies and were weak in terms of both strength and organization.

However, despite the intelligence two of the landing sites met opposition:

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On the plus side the constant bombing had done its work and the opposition on those sites were very weak.

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I recall someone in HoI2 - anonymous4401 iirc - did a similar all-paratrooper AAR for the USA. Should be interesting to see how it works with Japan.
 
16th September : Encirclement complete.

The Shanxi troops having been constantly harassed by Japanese planes for several months were in no shape to do anything. When the Japanese Paratroopers left their dug out positions and started advancing there was nothing the Shaxi troops could do except retreat. Often they left without a shot (from land units) being fired.

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Some of the Shanxi troops got split off and encircled by themselves. However, they made a last stand in Kusong where their head quarters were based. Other nearby Shanxi forces headed there in a hope of regrouping. Japanese bombing had stopped at this point in an effort to converse fuel supplies. The paratroopers alone to attack Kusong with no air support.

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It did not take long for the last pockets of resistance to close though, and as the end of September approached Japan had recovered almost all of Korea.

Decision to attack. Planning of the Manchurian Offensive. 29th September

Despite the very successful Korean Battles. The Japanese Empire continues to lose its pacific islands to Shanxi and Chinese landing parties. A plan was briefly considered to send some of the paratroopers to take the islands back. However the process would be slow risky and expensive. It would also split the concentration of paratroopers now gathered in Korea.

Instead the plan was hatched to simply attack through Manchuria, then on to attack Shanxi and eventually Nationalist China. Manchuria's puppet government still claimed officially to be neutral. So Japan had to declare war on them.

The plan for attack was again very simple. Gran the capital and all other strategic points by jumping paratroopers onto them. In the rush to implement this little intelligence was gathered to the strength of troops defending these sites. It was a bit of a gamble, however it was assumed that being officially neutral Manchuria's forces would be mainly positioned along the soviet border.

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By and large the execution worked well. Two of the landing sites were guarded. However the quality of the troops was nothing to worry about. Additional paratroopers were task to jump close to the defended site and then attack from the flanks.

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By the time the Japanese paratroopers started attacking the flanks. The battles were over. Manchurian troops rushed back from the soviet border but to no avail. The capital, government and all high powered military officials had been captured by the paratroopers.

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There could be no repeat of a Japanese puppet betraying its master. Manchuria was to be annexed.

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Mid ->Late October Attack On Shanxi centers

Due to the success of the Manchurian Campaign. Plans to push on and attack Shanxi were made straight away:

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Again the plan was to take their capital and strategic locations in a single move. As with Manchuria the landings were very successful. So much so that their scope was extended to capture more objectives and encircle the Shanxi troops.

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However, the Shanxi did not even flinch! They just moved officials back and let the Japanese Islands run as independent authorities. The only way to make them surrender would be to take back the Japanese Islands one by one.

(In game terms the vicotry points that Shaxi held from Japan were worth more than all of its native territory. In particular Taiwan is worth 10 Victory points.)

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The upcoming pacific operations would be made much simpler by taking Shaxi's only port on the mainland. The Islands would have neither supply nor communication with the mainland. The one big is :

Do the Japanese transport planes have enough range to reach all of the Islands?
 
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You should really allow the use of convoys. :eek:

I have had to allow supply convoys. I would have liked to have done everything by air. However, it would make operations such as taking back the pacific islands far more difficult. For example I have some un-captured airfields in range of the victory points I lost in the pacific. However I would never be able to get a chain of air supply to them as the ranges are too big and the islands in the middle (Iwo Jima, and Siapan) have been taken By Shanxi.

My only option to get supplies to my pacific bases is to use convoys not air supply :(
 
25th October : Japanese campaign to liberate pacific islands starts

Straight away two unopposed landings In Taiwan and Naha. Only days before the troops had been in northern China fighting Shanxi troops. Now they were liberating Islands that had been Japanese at the start of the war.

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However even with Taiwan reclaimed by Japan, Shanxi showed littke signs of surrendering. The remainder of the pacific Islands would have to be taken. Iwo Jima and Saipan would be the most difficult to recapture as they were beyond the range of any Japanese transport planes taking off from Japan's Current air fields.

In the south though the Shanxi had yet to capture all of Japan's airfields:

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Once more the plan was just to jump straight onto the victory points. Truk was defended though so Japanese planners sent more troops to capture the other surrounding Islands. From those islands they would be able to support the attack and cut off any Shanxi escape routes.

Attack on Iwo Jima

As mentioned Iwo Jima was beyond the range of any Japanese Transport planes. And so initially looked impossible to capture. However, Bonin was still in Japanese hands, and so an airfield could be built there. Obviously without a port trying to base any planes there was a non starter. However the Japanese did not have to stop there for more a couple of hours to refuel and as such they could use it as a temporary stop to launch an air invasion of Iwo Jima.

(I am not sure if this is a tactic that should be allowed. It is possibly an exploit! However, I really wanted to defeat Shanxi so I had to take my islands back. Basically rebase a plane to an airfield that is out of supply. When it is on route give it another mission based from that airfield and it will carry it our before running out of supplies.)

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Some easy island reconquests.
 
Well this looks very interesting... gotta love parras :D

oh... and yes, anonymous4401 did do a parra only US AAR... that was very good fun also
 
Iwo Jima with chinese defending? :rofl:

:) Yup fun and games. I will try to get another post or two out tonight, I have most of the next one ready...

* Shanxi falls to Japan
* Japan attempts to rush Communist China before the Nationalists get their troops to the north.
* Cat and Mouse in the pacific islands. (Chinese invade by sea, Japan invades by air, Chinese invade by sea, Japan invades by air ......)
 
This one cracks me up... paratroopers in reserve? Hey guys let's just fly around in our parachutes for a while before we fight! Maybe we can make a world record for skydiving formations while we're at it! 3000 men in snowflake pattern, go!

Maybe they landed in the water and had to swim ashore :)
 
28th November Final Shanxi Islands fall.

The Japanese sent a third division to help speed up the attack on Iwo Jima. In the south pacific all Shanxi forces where defeated and the paratroopers regrouped to airfields to move off again. Sadly even with Iwo Jima back in Japanese hands Shanxi refused to surrender. So another attack was Launched on Saipan and Tinian.

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Saipan was undefended. The jumping troops could not help in the attack on Tinian straight away as they were still recovering from the drop. However Additional divisions could land unload from their planes and attack straight away. The same happened to the south, creating a three pronged attack on the island. "North, South and Above".

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Shanxi surrendered before the start of December, they were annexed by Japan.

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Plans for Communist and Nationalist China

The Japanese plan for the rest of China was to try and wipe out the Communists before the Nationalists could bring enough troops to attack the annexed Shanxi territories.

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(Red arrows show planned Japanese attacks)

The Communists should be forced to surrender if their capital falls. However, there is a serious risk that the entire area could be surrounded by Nationalist troops attacking from both the south and the west.

To make matters worse the Nationalists were retaking Japanese Islands. Some of which had only recently been liberated from Shanxi. A particular worry was Naha where 4 entire Japanese Divisions were pinned down by Nationalist landing parties.

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