Japan - No Ships

8th December: Communists defeated

The Japanese paratroopers final closed in around government buildings. Despite large numbers of troops nearby the Communists were forced to surrender.



9th December -> January 1939 : Retreat and trap



The plan after taking over the communist lands was to leave them alone. Two defensive lines would be formed, roughly along the rivers. One in the west one in the south. All other troops would retreat to airfields. Hopefully the Chinese would pore into the gap and then could be encircled by dropping paratroopers behind them again.

This would also free up some time to bring in the rest of the paratroopers (4 Divisions) from Naha. However, it was decided that they would re-liberate Taiwan again first:



In early January 1939 the encirclement operation was launched:



Everything worked exactly as planned, and several Chinese divisions were suddenly without supply and at serious risk of being trapped and forced to surrender.

Plan China
With everything going well in the north the Japan started to formulate "Plan China". The plan to force Nationalist China to surrender. Once the divisions in the former Communist territories were defeated a defensive line would be set up. There would then be three large offensive phases.

1) "Shandong". Attack and encircle any Chinese troops in Shandong. This should help cut back the number of Chinese forces and make them send any reserves they have to the north.
2) "Air Train". Paradrop from airfield to airfield across the southern half of Nationalist China. Hopefully the airfields and strategic locations will be largely unguarded due to the offensives in the north before that. As there would be no direct line for supplies an "Air Train" will send supplies from airfield to airfield.
3) "Crush". Final push from the north and the capture of remaining cities.

During Phase #1 "Shandong", any islands occupied by Nationalist China in the Pacific would also be liberated.

Late January 1939 : Phase 1 Landings

Late in January Japan launched its first phase of plan China. All the landing sites were unopposed and so the reserve paratroop divisions were used to help speed up the encirclement.



At this point Japanese Intelligence showed that Chinese forces around the defensive area were very weak. In addition Japan's long range strategic bombers had spotted very few Chinese forces in the South and East. As such a general advance was ordered. Phase 2 would still take place on a limited scale. However, it seemed unlikely that Phase 3 would be needed at all.


(Only observed Chinese units shown in red.)

(I was very disappointed by this, I expected Nationalist China to have a lot more troops that this. It is possible that the AI has been too bust investing in ships to invade my islands )

By the 10th of February the Japanese general advance had taken most Chinese Strategic locations and the Nationalist government was forced to surrender. The scaled back Phase 2 operation helped speed up the process and get troops further south in preparation for war with Guangxi.

The only opposition the Japanese faced was in the North West against Xibei San Ma troops. However, they were very poorly equipped and the Japanese paratroopers were managing a continual advance by foot. Unfortunately there were no airfields available to speed up the process and additional troops were already being diverted south to help face the looming battles with Guanxi troops.



Guangxi Landings Mid February 1939
As soon as the Nationalists had surrendered Japan and Guangxi troops started preparing to face one another. Guangxi troops positioned on the former Nationalist border launched immediate attacks in the the newly claim Japanese provinces. Japan Launched another series of massive airborne assaults. A single knockout blow seemed impossible instead the Japanese plan was to take the Guanxi capital and then split off its troops in the west creating a massive pocket.



The Guangxi forces put up more of a fight that either the communists or the nationalists against the Japanese. In particular their massed troops in the Western pocket came close to breaking out several times. Japan had to send 2 extra divisions to help subdue the threat. Eventually the Guangxi forces in the pocked started to suffer from the lack of supplies and continual Japanese air attacks.

Meanwhile further Japanese landings cut off the attacking Guangxi troops in the east. And a final further stage of landings around Guangzhou allowed Japan to start applying pressure to the remaining Guangxi officials.



On the 27th March Guangxi Surrendered. 2 Weeks later after air troops were diverted north Xibei San Ma surrendered also.

Japan was victorious against the Chinese. The question was what to do with its new military machine?

Singleton Mosby said:

So, next step is attacking the allies?

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I thought about mopping up the rest of the Chinese minors... However there are very little resources there and it would leave my troops stranded with no airfields to load them into. Yunnan does have some resources and might be a useful staging post to attack India from. I believe my transports should just have enough range to attack Australian Indonesia from my air fields in the south pacific. So that might be a worthwhile option and hopefully would save war with the Allies until German distracts them. Another option would be to try to go for dutch Indonesia and then across to Siam again avoiding having to face the main allied nations until later. I don't think I will be able to attack Siam first without either attacking French Indo China or Dutch Indonesia. I will check it out though. So current plan is:

1) Yunnan
2) Australia (And NZ if I can find a way of getting my planes into range)
3) Dutch Indonesia (Or Allies in general if they have joined them by that point)
4) Siam
5) Allies, allies, allies,
6) Persia, allies, allies, allies,
7) Europe Minors?
8) UK?
9) Axis?
10) USSR?
11) South/Central America (From UK bases hopefully)
12) USA?

I suspect in the long term the biggest question will be what to do after taking the middle east and Suez and Eastern Europe. In previous (non AAR report) games as China I managed to take Vichy and Spain. However I suspect that it would require ships which is a no-no for me this time. Trudging up the North African coast might be the only option to get to Spain and eventually the UK.

I have not tested the ranges required to invade the Americas I suspect it is impossible from the pacific. So my hope is to get some territory from the UK and use that as a base to attack Central America and eventually the USA.

I am not going to join Axis. Hopefully I will wait for Barbarossa and then back stab the side that looks to be winning. That far ahead though it is difficult to know what is going to happen or what order events will unfold.

I will try to post again tonight and highlight the current economic situation, technology, production etc. I will also layout in more detail Japan's long term goals. Then maybe some more air attacks

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If the above is looking too easy I might go for war early with the USA despite having to way to attack their mainland (I think I might need some more naval bombers )

Warmongering Japan

Over the course of the Chinese war the Japanese government had taken an increasingly militaristic stance. Their armies seemed unstoppable, it was time to expend into the rest of Asia and become a super power.

10th April : Yunnan

The first stopping point in the Japanese onslaught was Yunnan. The Japanese government claimed they had been helping the Guangxi and Nationalist Chinese during the war. However little evidence could be found.

The Japanese tactics were as normal : Jump paratroopers onto every strategic location and if required launch further jumps to aide the attacks:



Yunnan falls 19th of April, Immediate war with Siam

The Japanese Immediately opened the war by jumping paratroopers into the middle of the jungle. The area they took held nothing except dense jungle. However their paratroops and engineers immediately cleared a staging airfield and supplies and fuel started to land in an endless stream of transport planes. It only took a day for the airfield to be suitable for additional landing parties to launch from it. From the new base Japanese paratroopers could strike all of Siam. Once more they jumped on critical locations:



In general the Siamese army was taken completely by surprise and the battles were brief. The one exception was Bangkok. The Siamese pored reserve divisions into the city to try and defend. It took almost a month of bloodly across the jungle and city, however ultimately the Siamese troops were outnumbered, out gunned and out classed. Bangkok (and thus Siam) fell on the 18th of May 1939.

Australia

There was a brief lull as the Japanese unknown to the rest of the world transported its paratroopers to its bases in the south pacific. However, barely a week after the fall of Siam, the 26th of May, Japan declared war on Australia and their troops started landing over the northern half of Australian Indonesia.



Due to the distances involved in attacking Australia. Japan had to adopt a system of staging airfields as it had done in the Siamese jungle. The first of these was in northern Indonesia. However, once the Islands fell the Japanese would move onto the mainland in their "Plan Australia".



The distances covered by Japanese transport planes in this period was immense. Planes were sent to troops in northern China who were only just returning to airfields after defeating the Xibei San Ma. There were partisan uprisings in Manchuria that required a division of paratroopers to be sent to quell them. As soon as these tasks were complete the paratroopers were picked up and sent thousands of miles south to Australia to jump on enemy targets.

By the 6th of June Plan Australia was in full swing and it looked like the Australians would be defeated before they had a chance to mobilize their forces:

18th June Further Japanese Landings Push Australia to the brink



The Australian army made their last stand in Darwin. Realistically they should have just thrown down their weapons. However, they fought on for the best part of a week engaging in guerilla tactics through the city.



When Dawrin fell on the 24th of June Australia surrendered and became part of the Japanese Empire.

Meanwhile In Europe
War had started. Poland had fallen to Germany, and by the Australia surrendered to Japan Germany was being to attack the low countries. Japan realising that the UK, France and the Netherlands were far more occupied with German's attacks planned their own "blitz" through Asia. "Plan Asia" was drawn up. (A plan so good it deserved a pretty map). Further details of the how to defeat the dutch in Indonesia and push into India would be decided in detail later. The map for Japan's war though had been decided:

Baltasar said:

That's an aweful lot of targets, your paras will spend more time in planes than anything else

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Exactly. If paratroopers are not jumping out of planes then they are just very expensive infantry. They need to jump to earn their living. Ideally jump on undefended targets. Failing that jump onto unprotected provinces next to their targets. As a last resort or to speed up certain battles jump right on top of the enemy.

Any plans what to do with all those territories? How about partisan quelling in all those countries?

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Annex everything The best thing about paratroopers is the ability to switch them from one part of the world to another in just hours. If all my troops are in Australia and there is a partisan outbreak in north China. I just load a paratrooper division onto a plane and a couple of hours later they are jumping on top of the partisans. It might take them a while to slog it back to an airfield to get picked up. But in general I can leave all of my annexed provinces completely unguarded. With even a small number of paratroopers you can "garrison" huge areas like this. Same goes for any unexpected invasions. I can just lift 5-6 divisions from somewhere else and instantly surround/attack the landing.

Are you taking NZ too?

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I had a quick check and it is out of range from the Australian mainland and islands. I think if I grab Fiji from the UK and build are bases there I might just be in range. However, in a choice between NZ and trying to grab India and the oil in the middle east...

Any update on your techs and production?

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I had meant to do a quick economy/production/tech focus but I was just far too eager to get on with attacking people. I promise I will do this next time.

Economic and research overview of Japan July 1939

In general Japan's economy was in very good shape:



They still had a couple of trade deals with the USA but in general the economy was self sufficient. The manpower available to their military was massive ( over 35 per month) due to the ability to recruit from their Chinese colonies (And to a lesser extent Siam and Australia).



Their industry was still largely focused on producing yet more paratrooper divisions. In July 1939 they were building:

* 18 divisions paratroopers (5 brigades each)
* 4 wings of transport planes,
* 1 wing of tactical bombers
* 1 wing of interceptors
* Equipment for 10 radar installations
* 11 airfields
* 5 new industrial plants.

Ultimately even with the massive manpower from China the rate of production of airborne divisions was unsustainable, and would have to be cut back by the end of the year. Japanese plans for their industry when they start running out of manpower is mainly to build yet more planes.



Technologically Japan was only moderately advanced in general. However, in a couple of areas they excelled:

* Designs for long range transport planes, with extra fuel tanks to cover long distances.
* Small arms for their paratroopers.
* Industry and computing.
* "Operation Level Organisation" to allow for rapid movement of paratroopers after landing.

quetzilla said:

Wait a minute... are those 5 brigade paratrooper divisions? Did you tech out airborne equipment and cargo hold?

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I've actually not got aiborne equipment yet, although I have a couple of levels of cargo hold. I just pair the transport wings up It is possibly suboptimal but I like having bigger divisions and don't want to keep reorganizing things. I have not done the maths to work out if it is eventually possible to get a 5 brigade division onto a single transport wing with high enough techs. If it is then maybe at somepoint I will have twice the effective number of transport planes to jump from

The limitation though on jumping more paratroopers is not the planes in general. It is very seldom that all my transport planes just now are in use. It is perfectly possible to use a single transport wing to repeatedly jump many divisions. OTOH it is very cool to launch massive operations instantly surrounding the enemy.

Transports are used to supply isolated pockets and airfields without connection to a port, or even just get extra supplies to troops in provinces far from a port and with bad infrastructure. Thus having a lot of transports is not a bad thing.

Tonight I will post details of army, airforce and the start of the attack against the allies in Asia.