@Karaiskandar: I know. This IJN makes the OTL one look like a bunch of rowboats. And the russian airforce gives me nightmares.
@Leviathan07: Peace in our time? Not in this update.
@yourworstnightm: Thats the plan.
@Ciryandor: Are CL's any good? I have always thought of them as being nothing more than bigger, more expensive destroyers.
@Xesan:Sure, if the Russians dont make one first though.....
@Zhuge Liang: Thats one of the things I like the most about playing as a victorious democratic USA in KR. When you look at it, most factions in the mod are either syndicalist radicals, authoritarian monarchies, or vengeful ultra conservative elites.
As for Petain, I am thinking I might get him to retire at some point in the near future, and replace him with DeGaulle, who is a replacement for HoS and HoG.
@everyone else: thanks for the comments!
As new governments are established in Italy, Spain, and Portugal, the United States begins to transfer power in occupied France to Petain's French nationalist regime in Algeria. Starting along the Mediterranean coast, eventually all of US occupied France will be under the nationalists sovereignty.
April, 1945. In a surprise development, Japanese carrier aircraft attack the massive US naval base at pearl harbour, as part of a wider Japanese pre-emptive strike aimed at preventing the US from regaining its influence in the Pacific ocean. This massive unprovoked attack is quickly answered by President Truman and the government of the United States, which declare America's intent to crush the violent and dictatorial Japanese Empire in the name of freedom and democracy. The rest of the Allied States soon follow suit, beginning the great Circum-Pacific war.
Chile, a nation that has a very extensive pacific coastline, declares war on Japan and its allies. Diplomats are soon sent to Chile, to negotiate the country's entry into the Allied Alliance.
With Pearl Harbour in ruins, US warships leave for the most distant US outpost in the Pacific, Wake Island, on the very edge of the Japanese/US oceanic frontline.
La Plata declares war on Japan, declaring its intent to fight alongside the United States and the other allied powers against the evils of tyranny. La Plata quickly joins the Allied alliance, bringing the most powerful state in Southern America to the side of the United States.
The first major engagement of the Pacific War. Admiral Nimitz's taskforce runs into a medium sized Japanese fleet near Wake Island, centered around 3 aircraft carriers, including the very modern heavy aircraft carrier
Wakamiya. After a short skirmish, the Japanese fleet withdraws, with neither side suffering any extensive damage.
Meanwhile, Admiral Halsey hunts down Japanese shipping in the Marshall Islands, sinking 2 Japanese light cruisers.
Another encounter with Japanese carriers, this time by the USAAF. A patrol group of A-20 bombers runs into a sizeable Japanese fleet off Marcus Island, inflicting some damage but failing to sink any ships.
Then, just north of the Hawaiian Islands, the Imperial Japanese Navy confronts the United States navy head on, in the largest carrier battle so far in the pacific war. A huge Japanese task force, with about 7 carriers and supported by numerous cruisers and battleships, attacks admiral Kinkaid's carrier battle group, with both sides launching punishing airstrikes on each other's fleets. It does not take very long for losses to begin to mount on both sides....
Meanwhile, American fast battleships prowl the seas near Australasia, blasting away at the ANZAC's shipping. Here, a pair of enemy destroyers are sent to the bottom by the battleship's heavy guns.
Back in the central Pacific, the battle of Hawaii ends, tragically, in American defeat. The casualties are astoundingly high, with
the US navy losing three aircraft carriers as well as five heavy cruisers that were trying to defend them. For the Japanese, the casualties are more extensive, with their fleet losing four aircraft carriers, three heavy cruisers, and two battleships, including the pride of the Japanese navy, the
IJN Yamato. This battle off Hawaii does not bode very well for the US navy, which is now down an entire carrier battlegroup in the pacific.