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Truman could hardly believe it, but this war that had been going on for almost 12 years and had dominated all three of his terms looked to be nearing its end. After years of grappling with the Axis powers, the last major combatant, Japan, seemed to be on their last legs. China, which they had held in its entirety since 1943 and in parts since even before that, was now on the verge of falling. Most of Southern China had already fallen to the Americans and their allies. While it was true that the Japanese had so far managed to hold the Americans at the Yellow River, Patton was already moving to outflank their lines there. Furthermore, their was also the matter of the American forces advancing through Siberia and Mongolia. While the poor infrastructure of the region was slowing the pace of advance there, the Americans in Siberia had not stopped their advance and Japan lacked the manpower it would need if it intended to try and stop them. That meant that, given enough time, they would eventually reach the Pacific and be able to turn South, pouring into Manchuria. If that happened, the game would be up, as Japan simply did not have the manpower to fight on two fronts at once. Too many men had been lost in Southeast Asia and in the deadly pocket that the Americans had turned the coast of Southern China into. Worse still, American advances into the interior of China threatened to create another pocket in the interior, costing the Japanese even more men that they could ill afford to lose. As if the disaster that was China were not enough for the Japanese, they now had to deal with an invasion of their own home islands. While the Japanese were not entirely unprepared to defend their home islands, they had been forced to abandon the southernmost main island of Kyushu when the Americans landed. They now occupied defensive positions in the Chugoku region of Honshu hoping to hold off further advances. They had already stopped one attack but no one knew how long they could hold off the Americans forces there. However, while Truman could clearly see that it was only a matter of time before the Japanese were forced to throw in the towel, no one had apparently told the Japanese this. They continued to fight on with dogged determination which meant that their was still plenty of work to be done before the war could be brought to a close.
Indeed, while the invasion of the Home Islands was temporarily halted, advances continued to be made in China. After fighting there way through Mongolia, the Americans had finally managed to push the forces of Mengkuku out of most of what had been the former country of Mongolia and had taken the region of Yuling.
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While some saw this as not much to be excited about, Stillwell was able to see the value that it could have. If the Americans forces advancing through Mengkuku could meet up with Patton, advancing from the North, they could sever the connection between Manchuria and the rest of Japanese forces in China, cutting off the escape of all Japanese forces in China. With this in mind, he immediately ordered them to push on to Datong.
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Unfortunately, the Americans were unable to force the forces of Mengkuku out of the region and were forced to order a halt to their attack.
A few days later, however, news reached Stillwell that made him forget all about the debacle in Datong. American forces had managed to seize Nanchong.
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That left Stillwell with two options. He could order a combined attack on the heavily defended Tianshui, turning Sichuan province into a massive pocket immediately. However, there was the risk that the Japanese soldiers would, instead of retreating into Sichuan province and getting caught in the developing trap, flee into Nancheng or Baoji, making it more difficult to surround and destroy them. Conversely, he could order them to hold position and wait. He already had men advancing on Ya'an, Chongqing, and Zhaotung. If they succeeded in reaching their destinations, all the troops in Sichuan province would be forced into a tiny pocket centered on the cities of Chengdu and Zigong. While this would leave the troops in Tianshui outside of the pocket, American forces advancing through Guiyang and into the Pingliang would be in a perfect postion to take Xianyang. This, in conjunction with an advance on Nancheng and Baoji could potentially turn Tianshui into a second pocket. However, if either advance was allowed to stall, it could give the troops in Tianshui time to escape and cut off or contest Patton's advance northward. After weighing his options, Stillwell decided to go with the latter option rather then the former, ordering the roops in Nanchong to hold there positions.
A few weeks later, the pocket in Sichuan closed and the Americans began to move in to finish off the Japanese troops trapped inside it.
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While Stillwell was figuring out the best way to handle the situation in the Chinese interior, MacArthur discovered a potential way of breaking the temporary stalemate in Japan. Incredibly, the Japanese had made the same error they made in Kyushu again. While rushing men to Chugoku in an attempt to prevent the Americans from breaking out of Kyushu, they had neglected the defenses of the Kansai region, centered around the city of Osaka. This gave MacArthur an idea. Instead of smashing through the Japanese in Chugoku, he would simply land a force in the rear at Osaka with orders to seize control of the Kansai region. Once they had accomplished that, the Japanese forces still fighting in the Chugoku region would be cut off from retreat by land. He would then order an attack from his postions in Kyushu while the Americans in the Kansai region attacked the Japanese from the rear. With nowhere to retreat, the Japanese forces in Chugoku, which contained the vast majority of Japanese troops in the Home Islands, would be surrounded and destroyed. He ordered General Clark to lead a force of ten divisions to launch an amphibious attack to begin on the 6 of August. The attack was a phenomenal success. The Japanese, caught completely unawares by the attack, where unable to organize an effective defense in time and Clark was able to seize the city and the entirety of the Kansai region within just two days.
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However, the Americans would not have long to savor this victory. Fully aware of the danger that the loss of the Kansai region would pose to their positions in Chugoku, the Japanese ordered an immediate counterattack. The Americans, who had not yet had time to prepare their defenses, were forced to order a retreat and quickly made their way back to their ships.
Meanwhile, while MacArthur's daring plan looks to be failing, Patton's plan was going ahead as planned. After driving his men as hard as he could, he has finally managed to get into the rear of the Japanese Yellow River defensive line and taken the Changzhi region. With Luoyang surrounded on three sides, the Japanese are expected to pull out of the city anyday now. Not wanting to yield the momentum in his drive, Patton orders his men to keep going, not even stopping for a rest. He immediately begins his attack on the city of Handan. Due to it being behind the Japanese defensive positions, the city is lightly defended and is unable to stand up to Patton's relentless attack. After brushing aside what little resistance he finds, Patton resumes his march on the now defenseless city of Handan. To ensure he is not cut off, Stillwell orders men from Xi'an to advance into and hold Changzhi after Patton has moved on.
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The successes in China do not stop there, however. On the 10th of August, the Sichuan pocket finally closes around the city of Chengdu. 7 Japanese divisions now stand trapped in the city. With the city surrounded on all sides, the Americans begin the assault on Chengdu.
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The Japanese, knowing that their can be no rescue or retreat, fight like demons. Brutal street battles are fought as the Japanese, knowing they cannot win, do everything in their power to take as many Americans soldiers down with them as possible. The Americans are forced to fight there way through the city street by street, house by house, and room by room. Despite the dogged resistance from the Japanese, their are simply too many Americans taking part in the attack and when the dust settled, not a single Japanese soldier was left standing in the city. Only in one place is the string of successes broken. That place is the island of Hainan. Despite having total control of the sea lanes, the Japanese forces in Hainan continue to hold out. The Americans have launched attack after attack but are always repelled. Yet again, the Americans, under General Gerow attempt to take the city and yet again they are repelled. However, while the island of Hainan does have some strategic significance, it can only hold out so long. Indeed, it is only due to the low priority assigned to taking the island that the Japanese are not facing overwhelming numbers. Plans are put into place to transfer troops to take the island after Vietnam falls and Gerow is ordered to simply hold his position until then.
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However, not everything is going well in China. While the campaign in China is generally going well, the one exception is in region of Mongolia. Japanese and Mengkukou troops continue to put up stiff resistance in the area, even forcing the Americans and their allies out of Hohot
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Back in Japan, MacArthur, determined not to lose the Kansai area back to Japan, had been repeatedly sending men to Osaka to try and hold the region. While he had initially met with little success, he is finally rewarded when General Marshall manages to secure the region.
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Immediately after the region is secured, MacArthur orders the transfer of several divisions to the area. 2 days later, his preparations are complete. MacArthur begins the attack by launching another amphibious attack out of Kyushu. The Japanese, however, are prepared for this and are able to hold him off. While MacArthur has the attention of the Japanese on him, the men stationed in Kansai attack those in Chugoku from the rear. While the Japanese had expected this move, they simply do not have the men to defend against both attacks simultaneously. With their 19 divisions outnumbered more then two to one by MacArthur's 45 divisions, the Japanese are forced to spread themselves thin to defend both the front and the rear. Eventually, a crack develops in the line of the Japanese troops trying to hold off the attack from Kansai, who are trying to defend a very wide front with not enough men to do it. Seeing this happen, the Americans press the advantage and are able to break through the line. The Japanese, seeing that their line has been breeched, attempt to fall back in order to shorten their lines. The Americans, however, keep up the pressure, not giving the Japanese time to set up new defenses. Before long, the Japanese commanders order all of their forces to fall back on the city of Hiroshima, where they intend to make their last stand. The Americans surround the city. Knowing that the Japanese would sooner starve then surrender and not wanting to give the Japanese troops elsewhere in the country time to organize a counterattack, MacArthur orders his men in for the assault. The Japanese commanders inform their men that their can be no retreat and that this shall be their last stand, ordering every man to fight to the death. What follows is some of the most brutal fighting of the entire war. Where the battle of Chengdu had been a fierce fight, this was something different. In Hiroshima, 190,000 Japanese soldiers, completely surrounded and fighting for their homeland hole up in an urban area, determined to fight to the death. Brutal street battles break out, as the Japanese fight tooth and nail on every street, forcing the Americans to clear them out street by street, house by house, and room by room just like in Chengdu. Japanese soldiers continue to fight for as long as they have the strength to stand. Indeed, reports begin coming in of Japanese, too wounded to continue to fight waiting for American soldiers to approach and then blowing themselves up along with those Americans who tried to help them. After losing several soldiers and even a handful of stretcher bearers this way, MacArthur orders his men to keep there distance from any wounded Japanese soldier, only approaching once they are sure that the soldier is not a trap. In the end, the Japanese fight with every means they have available and the city is reduced to rubble. Several civilians even begin trying to resist the Americans. The Americans, who had not even encountered resistance like this in Kyushu or Osaka, were completely ill-equipped to deal with this kind of battle. After casualties begin to mount rapidly, MacArthur is forced to order his men to withdraw to the outer limits of the city in order to regroup. After completing the withdrawal, he orders his men to seal off the town and not let anything in or out. He hopes that by cutting off their access to food and resupply, the Japanese will lose the ability, if not the will, to continue the fight. Fearful of a Japanese attempt to break through to the beseigers, he orders most of Marshal's men back to Osaka to hold the are with orders to await his orders. The results of the offensive are thus bittersweet. While the Americans have succeeded in gaining control of the vast majority of the Chugoku region, they have failed to eliminate the Japanese soldiers there. All that now remains for MacArthur to do, at least for the time being, is wait and see if his plan works.
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You really need to change Menguoko's color while the pitiful Fascists still exist. Hard to tell from Murrica.
 
My God, the last great undertaking of the war is in the offing, I cannot imagine Japan remaining an Empire, even in name only. To be frank, I think there needs to be some sort of postwar conference to sort out the entire situation.

EDIT: Also, can we have your naval and air ORBATs for the invasion of Japan? And perhaps just the size and strength of the allied armies overall?

SECOND EDIT:Also, how fares the Irish Corps? They have been punching above their weight since '47 and I think that we'd all like to see how the plucky men from the Emerald Isle have fared. In all honesty, I think that this ought to become a mod, probably with the original setup and then with the setup prior to the Invasion of Spain.
 
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You really need to change Menguoko's color while the pitiful Fascists still exist. Hard to tell from Murrica.
Unfortunately, I both am unsure about how to do that and have played ahead so even if I were to change it now, it wouldn't show up for a few more updates.

My God, the last great undertaking of the war is in the offing, I cannot imagine Japan remaining an Empire, even in name only. To be frank, I think there needs to be some sort of postwar conference to sort out the entire situation.
EDIT: Also, can we have your naval and air ORBATs for the invasion of Japan? And perhaps just the size and strength of the allied armies overall?

SECOND EDIT:Also, how fares the Irish Corps? They have been punching above their weight since '47 and I think that we'd all like to see how the plucky men from the Emerald Isle have fared. In all honesty, I think that this ought to become a mod, probably with the original setup and then with the setup prior to the Invasion of Spain.
There is no Naval order of battle because the Japanese Navy is a non-entity at this point. As for Air force, I must admit that that is my weakness in this game. I started with a very small navy and have mostly prioritized ground forces. My allies mostly cover that for me. It is admittedly something I will have to work on in future playthroughs. As for the the strength of the Allies, unfortunately, I cannot do that because I can't take a screenshot of the statistics page. I can tell you that the army screen alone would be able to make many jaws hit floors. I apparently have 800 divisions under my command. no one in the entire game even comes close to approaching that. The British are the closest and the only have around 200 people.
As for the Irish brigade, they are currently chilling out somewhere in Siberia because the Irish stopped reinforcing them so they eventually got worn down to the point where they were no longer combat effective.

I apologize for the lack of updates. It is just that recently, I have had trouble actually finding the time to update between school, work, and my playing other games.before I promise to have another update up soonish, however, I have a confession to make. I seem to have made a mistake with my last update. The attack that I thought had taken Hiroshima actually failed to do so. This came about because my game is so far ahead of where I am in this AAR that I lost track of things. as such, I have changed the previous update accordingly. The description of the battle remains mostly the same, the only difference is the result. Do not worry though, because the province will most definitely be falling by the end of the the next update.
 
Welcome back, buddy.
 
Nice to see ya back!
 
...unfortunately, I cannot do that because I can't take a screenshot of the statistics page.

I have that problem, too. It's weird. My computer will let me take a screenshot of everything else. I wonder why not the statistics.
 
I have that problem, too. It's weird. My computer will let me take a screenshot of everything else. I wonder why not the statistics.

The stats are classified.
 
MacArthur was not pleased. Despite a most auspicious beginning, the campaign in Japan was not going how they had hoped. The sparse resistance encountered earlier in the invasion had left him with the impression they had caught the Japanese with their pants down. The belief was that the Japanese had committed all of their resources to the campaign in China and that the Home Islands were desperately undermanned. Sadly, this belief had proven to be patently false. Following the fall of Kyushu, the Japanese had rushed what The Americans thought had been all available manpower to the Chugoku region to resist them. 19 divisions had sat poised to hold them back and had done so very well until getting outflanked by an amphibious landing that, given what had happened in Kyushu, the Japanese should have anticipated. Instead, they made the same mistake that they had made leading up to the invasion of Kyushu, leaving a key province undefended. This had led the Americans to believe that the Japanese had had to scrap the bottom of the barrel in the Home Islands in order to cobble together the force that was holding back the Americans and thus no longer had the manpower to guard their beaches properly. They therefore believed that if they could take the Chogoku region and destroy the Japanese forces in the area then the Japanese islands would be wide open to them as the Japanese would have nothing left with which to hold them back. Now preliminary reports were beginning to show that that assumption was also false. What the Japanese had actually done was rush all of the troops that were stationed near to the Chogoku region to the area. What was once believed to be between 80-90% of the Japanese presence in the Japanese main islands was now believed to be a much smaller percentage. Reports showed that the Japanese were rushing troops from the Tohoku and Hokkaido regions south in order to try and throw the Americans out of the Kansai region. If the reports were true, this did not bode well for the Americans. If they arrived before the Japanese soldiers in the Chogoku region had been defeated, Then the Americans in Kansai would be the ones surrounded and in danger of being wiped out. MacArthur had to come up way to take the city before the Japanese reinforcements arrived or else their was still a chance the Japanese could turn the tables on him.
While the campaign in Japan was not going as well as the Americans had hoped, The campaign in China was proceeding relatively well. Patton, ever the hard driver, had managed to push his men to seize the province of Shijiazhuang and seize it. With the seizure of the province of Shijiazhuang, the only thing standing between the Americans and the sea was the city of Tianjin. If it fell, the Japanese along the Yellow River would be completely cut off and the Americans would be able to destroy them in detail.
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Upon arrival, Patton decided to lend assistance to an attempt to take the city of Datong. The seizure of this province would cut off another group of Japanese soldiers in the Taiyuan region. unfortunately, the attack fails.
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Further West, General Roberts and his 12 divisions of Canadians lead an attack on the Japanese in the Tianshui region, continuing to shrink the pocket containing the last of the Japanese soldiers in the Chinese interior.
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back in the Japanese home Islands, Marshall, deciding to remove the potential threat of the Japanese in Shikoku from coordinating with the reinforcing army, orders the island taken. Shortly thereafter, the Japanese soldiers in the area are defeated and soldiers are detached to take the smallest of the Japanese Islands.
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Before, the island can fall, however, disaster strikes. The reinforcements from Tohoku begin to arrive and they immediately launch an attack against Marshall and his men. with his men still exhausted from the brutal battle for Hiroshima, they are unable to hold off the attack and are forced to order a retreat back to the ships. Suddenly, The Japanese are threatening to turn the tide of the battle for the Home Islands back into their favor. If the Japanese can seize control of Osaka and the Kansai region, then the American positions in Chogoku would be in severe danger. With control of the region still tenous at best, the Japanese would be able to fall on the rear of the American force, trapping them between themselves and the Japanese soldiers still in the city. trapped between two enemy forces, the Americans would be unable to escape and would be in very real danger of annihalation. Thus, if Osaka falls, the American positions in Chogoku would be untenable and MacArthur would be forced to withdraw back to Kyushu. Seeing his campaign about to unravel before his very eyes and with the very real possibility of a return to the stalemate that had defined the campaign earlier, MacArthur orders any and all available manpower, every one he can spare, to immediately board ships bound for Osaka and attempt to resecure the positions there and drive back the Japanese forces.
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While the campaign in the Home Islands hung in the balance, the China campaign was slowing down. having given his men just enough time to secure their positions, Patton immediately ordered them to attack the city of Tianjin. Unfortunately, the Japanese are fully aware of how important a position the city of Tianjin is and they put up a rather dogged resistance and his men, exhausted from the march to Shijiazhuang, are unable to overcome it. Seeing this, Patton breaks off the attack to give his men some much needed rest. That being said, he cannot afford to wait long. The entire drive to the Tianjin was based on speed. In order to obtain this, they had left several Japanese in positions to threaten their supply lines. Several units had been ordered to shadow Patton's advance and take up positions in the provinces he left behind, but his advance had moved so fast that they had not had time to take up their positions yet. If the Japanese could advance into the provinces left behind by Patton before the Americans sent to occupy could do so, they would be able to cut Patton off from his supply lines and with Tianjin still in Japanese control, resupplying him by sea would be impossible. Thus taking the city was of paramount importance.
With the attack on Tianjin having failed, Stillwell instead decides to order an attack on Yucheng. If the city can be taken, the Japanese forces on the Yellow river will be confined to the area around Anyang, where they can be destroyed. Furthermore, capturing the province would allow the Americans south of the river to link up with Patton's effectively removing the chance of him being cut off. Unfortunately, this attack fails as well and Stillwell is forced to simply wait and hope that Patton can successfully seize Tianjin on time.
Some time after the failure of the attack and after giving his men 6 days to rest, he orders them to make another attempt on the city of Tianjin. Despite valiant resistance by the Japanese forces from the city, they are unable to hold out and Patton succeeds in taking the city.
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With this move, the Japanese on the Yellow River are now cut off from resupply and reinforcement. In an attempt to close the trap and drive the first nail into the coffin of the Japanese on the Yellow River, an attack is immediately ordered on the city of Yucheng. However, the Japanese, cutt off from retreat and resupply, decide to fight to the death. The Japanese fight like men possessed to hold their positions in hopes of holding out long enough fro their comrades to possibly break through to them. In the end, the Japanese resistance is too much for the exhausted American troops and they are forced to call off the attack.
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With the campaign in China going well, focus now shifts to the campaign for the Home Islands. Here, with the campaign in Chugoku hanging in the balance, MacArthur manages to rush several divisions of his men to the Osaka area. These men arrive just in time to push back the Japanese attempt to retake the city. After preventing the Japanese from taking the city of Osaka, the Americans immediately counterattack, driving the Japanese out of the Kansai region. Taking advantage of the momentary confusion as the Japanese forces as they attempt to regroup after the defeat, MacArthur orders the troops in the Kansai region to head to Hiroshima, intent on making one final attempt to crack the Japanese defenders in the city. Upon their arrival, MacArthur orders an immediate attack against the city. MacArthur opens the attack by bombarding the city with everything he has. After what can best be described as MacArthur's best attempt to bombard the Japanese in the city back to the stone age, MacArthur orders his men into the ruined city. Unfortunately, the bombardment and earlier battle for the city had succeeded in turning the city into rubble, which is much easier to defend then an intact city. The Japanese hid in the cover provided by the ruined city, setting up ambushes wherever they could. As casualties began to mount, many of his subordinates requested that he break off the attack and regroup. MacArthur, however, was determined not to cease his attack until the city fell. the Japanese continued to fight like demons, ambushing the Americans wherever they could and fighting to the death for every inch of ground. However, the earlier battle for the city had caused the Japanese to run desperately short of ammunition and before long, the Japanese were completely out of ammo. Not about to let something as trivial as running out of bullets stop them, the Japanese begin using their rifles as clubs and fixing bayonets and launching ferocious attacks against the American positions. Finally realizing that he and his men will not be able to hold, the Japanese commander gives one final address to his men. "Men, the game is up. Their is now no hope of holding this city against the American devils. We are surrounded and their is no chance for escape and our countrymen have failed to break through and relieve us. However, I do not look on this fact with despair. No, I look at it with relief for their is as of yet a single duty we can perform for our country. That duty, is to take as many Americans with us before we die. We will all fall here today, but I for one have no intention of going alone. No, I plan to die after taking at least 2 Americans down to the afterlife with me. For if while we cannot hold the city, we can turn it into not only our grave, but the grave of the American army. for if we all take at least 2 Americans with us to the afterlife, how many will be left to try and take the rest of our country from us and if our countrymen keep forcing them to pay the same price, how long before there are no Americans left at all? I do not know the answer, but I intend to find out. You are the finest soldiers I have ever seen and everyone of you is worth many times your number in Americans. Now go out their and prove it to me." And with those words, the Japanese commander ordered every last one of his men to launch one last suicidal charge against the Americans. Surrounded and without any ammunition against an enemy that outnumbered them by 8 to 1, the result was never in question. When the dust cleared, not a single Japanese soldier remained alive, but the cost had been dreadful. Thousands of Americans had fallen trying to take the city, but their deaths had not been in vain. With the city of Hiroshima fallen, the Chugoku region was now devoid of any Japanese resistance.
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MacArthur ordered his men to secure the area. While the Americans had suffered grievous losses in the battle, the Japanese had suffered worse. 190,000 Japanese soldiers had fallen in the city of Hiroshima, either in this battle or the last one. Despite the bravery of Japanese soldiers, their sacrifice was something the Japanese could ill afford at this point. The loss of 190,000 soldiers was something the Japanese defenders of the Home Islands could ill afford. Fully half of all Japanese soldiers in the Home Islands had been in the city of Hiroshima and now they were all dead and the Japanese had neither the time or the resources to replace them. The Americans, on the other hand, while they had suffered grievous losses trying to take the city, could afford to take such losses and keep on fighting. The Battle of Hiroshima, while far from the death knell the Americans had once thought it would be, was by far the most decisive battle of the campaign in the Home Islands. The Japanese had suffered grievous and unreplaceable losses. Furthermore, they had lost their only chance to keep the Americans off of the island of Honshu. Had the Japanese managed to hold the city long enough for the Japanese to amass sufficient force in the Chuubu region bordering the Kansai region, they might have had a chance to drive them out of the Kansai region. If the Kansai region had been retaken, the Japanese would have been able to reinforce it and quite possibly prevent any future landings. They could then link up with the beleaguered Japanese forces in Hiroshima and drive the Americans out of the Chugoku region and back into Kyushu, returning the war to the previous stalemate. Had this happened, The Americans would have had to try and force the Japanese out of Chogoku the old fashioned way, unless they could force a landing elsewhere, something the Japanese would have been wary of. For the Japanese, this represented the only scenario which could have ended favorably for them. Their best, and quite possibly, only hope of holding the Home Islands was to keep the Americans confined to the island of Kyushu. With the Americans now firmly entrenched in the Kansai region, there remained no more possibility of that happening. Furthermore, with the exception of the mountains of Northern Honshu, the terrain of much of Honshu was not as conducive to holding back the Americans. It thus remained in serious doubt whether the Japanese could cobble together a defensive position strong enough to hold them back with the terrain not favoring such a move. The noose was beginning to tighten around the Japanese neck.

And at long last, I have managed to put up another update. With school out for the next 4 weeks, I hope to bring you guys many more updates in the coming weeks. Also, it has been suggested that I turn this into a mod. I must admit that I am considering doing just that, as I have several ideas for events and what not to add already that did not quite work for this particular playthrough. However, I have very limited modding experience and have never worked on a mod before, only making modifications for my own use and those have all been limited in scope and effectiveness. Therefore, I would very much appreciate the help of any experienced modders among my readers in helping construct said mod once this is completed. I will also appreciate any ideas any modders and non-modders might have for what to put into the mod when it is finished either in a reply here or pmed to me. Rise of the Mecklenburg empire gets the next update but I will update this again when I can.
 
I see your dissent has finally lowered.
 
I'd love this to be a mod, but unfortunately have no experience in the field either.

I'd actually like to see the world develop post war, the U.S. is going to be interesting. I'm thinking that the democrats will hold on for the next 4-8 years until someone wants to remove all of the war-strictures placed upon the U.S. economy. Maybe Reagan in '72 or a Goldwater-Reagan ticket.
 
I see your dissent has finally lowered.

Indeed it has. I may have cheated it down with military parades but I am not certain. I do that when I have ridiculous amounts of dissent sometimes because I reason that I should have control of when said parades are held anyway.

I'd love this to be a mod, but unfortunately have no experience in the field either.

I'd actually like to see the world develop post war, the U.S. is going to be interesting. I'm thinking that the democrats will hold on for the next 4-8 years until someone wants to remove all of the war-strictures placed upon the U.S. economy. Maybe Reagan in '72 or a Goldwater-Reagan ticket.

Unfortunately, I am coming close to the end of the timeline. I am unsure how much I will continue after the war, but I know that I will have an update or 2 that deal with sorting out the world after the war.

I'm thinking of doing a similar AAR as tribute to this one for DH-Iron Cross.

Do I get the Green Light?

You must certainly do and you can be assured that I will follow it very closely.
 
i'm thinking of doing a similar aar as tribute to this one for dh-iron cross.

Do i get the green light?

woooh! Mo' murrica!!!
 
The Battle of Hiroshima was finally over. It had been a long brutal battle, but in the end, it had been worth it. Fully half of Japanese forces in the home Islands had now been killed. Given the strength of the American forces in Japan and the rapidity of their advance, there was simply now way the Japanese could replace those losses. They simply lacked the resources and, more importantly, the time to raise more. Furthermore, the complete American dominance of the high seas meant that they could not bring in men from the mainland either. That meant they would have to stop the American advance with the 20 divisions that still remained to them. The problem was that most of these men remained badly out of position in the Tohoku region in the North of Japan. With the rate at which the American forces were advancing and the overwhelming numbers they now possessed, no one knew whether these men could be brought to bear in time to keep the Americans out of Tokyo. To the Japanese, stopping them before they reached the capital was crucial for both morale and for strategic reasons. With the Americans now having a strong foothold in Honshu, their remained only one chance of stopping or at least slowing the American advance. The Japanese would have to put together a defensive lines in the mountainous terrain in the Chuubu region. If they could establish themselves in the mountains of Nagoya and Kanazawa, where the Americans numbers and advantage in mobility from their armored and mechanized infantry would count for nothing. However, if the Americans could seize Nagoya prefecture and the area around it, they would be able to break into the Kanto plain, whose terrain greatly favored the Americans. Furthermore, the Americans would also be at the very doorstep of Tokyo. Thankfully for the Japanese, their still remained a small window of opportunity in which to set up these defenses. The bulk of the American forces were still in the Chugoku region attempting to secure control of the region. If the Japanese could rush enough men to the Kanazawa and Nagoya regions before these men could arrive in the Kansai region, then they would have a chance. The fate of the Home Islands now hung in the balance.
While the Japanese were rushing to man set up a defensive line as a last ditch attempt to hold the Americans and save Tokyo, the Americans were having more trouble then they expected securing the Chogoku region. unlike in Kyushu, were the Americans had met only light resistance, the area of Chogoku had been brutally contested. That meant that much of the area had been reduced to rubble. While the Americans had been careful to not harm any of the important Japanese cultural or religious sites, such as the ancient Izumo shrine, thus earning the some goodwill, the leveling of the city of Hiroshima and the devastation wrought by the battle for the region, played right into the Japanese propaganda that painted the Americans as brutal conquerors who thought nothing of destroying the lives and livelihoods of the civilians living in the area, so long as they managed to defeat the enemy. The battle for Hiroshima had made the Americans look like men who would stop at nothing to achieve victory, if that meant killing thousands of civilians to do so, so be it. Furthermore, the fact that the Japanese had chosen not to contest the Americans for control over Kyushu and had opted to withdraw from the island without firing a shot meant that the Kyushu people had felt like their government had abandoned them to their fate. This had cast them as the uncaring an unfeeling overlords and had contrasted sharply with the Americans who had dealt with them fairly and who had not behaved at all like the baby killing devils they had been told about. The anger and indignation that they felt for the government that would simply abandon them combined with what had proved to be blatant lies about what the Americans were actually like combined to cause the people of Kyushu to lose faith in their government. Furthermore, the act of Japanese abandoning the islanders had meant that partisan activity had been remarkably light, as the people of Kyushu had no desire to fight for a government that clearly was not willing to fight for them. When it came to the Chogoku region, however, the picture was completely different. Here, the local civilians were presented with an American army that had leveled an entire city just to defeat the Japanese forces defending it. While they did not burn the shrines like many believed they might, what they did to Hiroshima still made them look like the bad guys, even if they were not quite as bad as their government would have them believe, what had happened during the battle for the Chugoku region was enough in line with what the government had told them to expect from the Americans that it did not look like the government had blatantly lied about the Americans, but merely exaggerated the truth. In addition, the Japanese decision to make a heroic last stand in the city of Hiroshima even after the battle was clearly lost sent a clear message to the civilian population that their government was willing to fight to defend them. The defenders of Hiroshima, as they saw it, had bravely given their lives for them and it would be a disgrace to that sacrifice to simply lay down and accept American control. This was the conclusion that many Japanese came to. Thus, the area was rife with partisans and Americans thus struggled to establish control of the region. a shocked McArthur, who had never encountered such fanatical resistance from a civilian population before, related in his journal that based on the way the Japanese civilians usually greeted the American forces "to them, I may as well have been Satan himself and my men devils spawned from the underworld for the sole purpose of tormenting them and dragging them down to hell". Of the resistance offered to him, he would remark "I do not know who fought harder, the Japanese defenders at Hiroshima or the civilian population of Chugoku who made up what they lacked in discipline with an unholy zeal to resist us at every turn and every opportunity". To make matters worse, the Japanese resisted all attempts to build goodwill. They refused to eat any food given to them by the Americans, preferring to starve then to take charity from their most hated enemy and the Japanese resented any attempts by the Americans to help rebuild their homes. Clearly, holding Chogoku would be just as hard as taking it had been.
While MacArthur was struggling to assert his control over the Chogoku region, the campaign in China continued to progress smoothly. Following another unsuccessful attempt to take Yucheng, the Americans succeeded in taking Luoyang, forcing the Japanese into a smaller and smaller pocket.
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Further North, the first forces from Siberia and Mongolia arrived behind the Japanese lines when a force of British soldiers began to assault Japanese positions in Hailar in Northern Manchuria.
Further South, in Indochina, the Japanese pocket continues to close on the Japanese forces there with the fall of Saigon. However, There was still a lingering issue for Truman. That issue was the French claim on the region. It appeared to Truman that Charles de Gaulle was attempting to re-establish French Indochina in the region in an effort to hold onto some small sliver of their former empire. This was something that Truman was unwilling to allow. Over the course of his presidency, he had come to be a noted opponent of colonialism and imperialism as an idea whose time had passed. As such, he had promised to the American people, who had turned against the idea after the European powers had proven completely unable to protect their colonies. To them, and to their colonial people, the Europeans had failed in their most important duty to their colonial subjects, which was to protect them. This had dealt a fatal blow to the idea of imperialism, Thus, he decided to call De Gaulle to have a meeting with him. In this meeting, he told De Gaulle that he wanted him to hand over control of Cambodia. At first, De Gaulle thought that Truman intended to take the colony for himself, until he told him that he intended to release it. Truman stated that he had no intention to allow any country to retain any colonies after the war and that he intended to grant self determination to all nations and people. to this De Gaulle questioned him about the issue of New Guinea. The Island had been claimed by both Indonesia and Australia and yet Truman had retained control over it. To this, Truman informed him that he intended to allow the people to hold a plebiscite after the war to determine whether they wished to return to Australia, pass under Indonesian control, remain under American control, or become independent. De Gaulle was notably reluctant to comply Truman quietly informed him that with out American soldiers giving their lives, their would be no France. De Gaulle weighed his options. The main puropose for trying to maintain the colonies was to retain an image of French strength around the globe. He had to make his government look strong or else accusations of him being nothing but an American puppet could topple his government. De Gaulle also realized that the provinces in question were largely worthless and hardly worth causing an international incident that would jeopardize their relationship with the United States, who was their primary trading partner and who many in his nation still looked up to as the saviors of their nation. However, the fear of looking like an American puppet still weighed on him and he relayed that he could not give the provinces to America as it would make his government look weak. Truman, therefore, offered a compromise. He would gladly pay whatever price De Gaulle saw as reasonable for the provinces. De Gaulle knew that his government could always use the cash and also realized that this would look more like a diplomatic deal in which all benefited. The Cambodians would get their own nation, the De Gaulle would not look weak, and the French would gain much needed cash. He therefore agreed on a price of $5,000 per province, a total of $15,000. soon after, the hand over to America was announced.
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Immediately after, the Americans announced the liberation of the nation of Cambodia.
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Following this announcement, the Americans continued their advance in the region, taking the Pakche region.
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Cambodia, however, was not the only nation to be given independence at this time. In addition, had managed to wrest Mongolia from Mengkuko and had thus declared their independence. Mongolia had not been independent since its conquest in the late 1940's and this news was met with much rejoicing.
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Meanwhile, on the main battlefront on the Yellow River, the Yellow River pocket was continuing to tighten with the fall of the Anyang region to the Americans. This meant that the Japanese divisions that had formerly defended the Yellow River were now encircled in the city of Yucheng. The American trap was now beginning to close and Stillwell and Patton planned to commence the attack the moment the Americans had managed to secure control of the Anyang region
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While the noose began to tighten in China, the Japanese fighting to defend the Home Islands were beginning to feel the rope begin to tighten around their neck. After detailing several regiments of MPs to maintain control of Chugoku, the Americans had finally managed to advance their forces into the Kansai region. It then became time to find out whether the Japanese had managed to bring enough men to bear to hold the moutainous regions of Kanazawa and Nagoya, the last area of Honshu where the American's numerical advantage could be neutralized. MacArthur ordered his men to attack both Kanazawa and Nagoya at once, thus ensuring that the Japanese defending each area would be unable to support each other.
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The Japanese defenders of the area fought fanatically to hold back the Americans. They knew they were the last thing standing between them and Tokyo and they would be damned before they let the Americans overrun them without a fight and a fight is what they got. However, eventually, it became clear that they could not win. There were simply too many Americans and not enough Japanese and the Japanese had not had enough time to dig in well enough. Thus the regions would both fall shortly after. The answer to whether the Japanese could establish a strong enough defensive line in the window of time available to them turned out to be no. Despite putting out an admirable amount of resistance, the Japanese were unable to stop the American advance. Now their remained nothing between the Americans and Tokyo. The Japanese began rushing all available manpower to the city and making preparations to evacuate the Emperor and the top government officials if that became necessary. The battle for Tokyo was likely to begin soon.
However, while the battle for the Home Islands seemed to be going America's way, the battle on the Yellow River began to turn against the Americans. The Japanese in Yucheng realized that if the Americans would eventually overwhelm them if they tried to simply hold position. In light of this, they began making their own spoiling attacks. These attacks began with an attack on Kaifeng which succeeded in forcing the Americans in the region to retreat, threatening to give the Japanese a foothold south of the Yellow River.
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However, this worry would soon be far from the Americans minds when an even bigger disaster suddenly struck. Japanese outside of the pocket at Yucheng and the Japanese inside had somehow managed to coordinate their advances and had managed to break out of the encirclement. The Japanese North of the American encirclement had seized the province of Shijizhuang and the Japanese in Yucheng had managed to seize the region of Handan. What that meant was that not only had the Japanese managed to break through to their encircled commrades, thus opening the possibility of the Japanese forces which had been trapped in Yucheng escaping to the North, it also meant that Patton's forces in Tianjin were now surrounded on three sides with the China Sea to their backs. Suddenly the encirclers had become the encircled.
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Well, there you have another update. I shall update the Mecklenburg AAR next week or this weekend if I can find the time. Also, I have basically decided what to do with Truman in the election. I am going to have him run with JFK and have him step down in favor of JFK after the war and the sorting out of the aftermath is over since the war has essentially come to define his presidency and it and its aftermath will be his legacy, I really believe that he would want to be the one to shape what will come out of it after the war is over. I have toyed with idea of having Bradley serve as his running mate, but I think JFK might make more sense. Let me know what you guys think and if enough of you want Bradley, I will change it. Now, with that out of the way who will run against Truman
First option, a Republican politican. While I do not know if their would be a politician who could command enough clout and recognition to oust Truman, especially with his promise to step down, with the war essentially almost over, it will take a politician to sort out what happens after and not a general, at least that is the argument that will be made against nominating another general. Well, that and that it hasn't worked the last two times so what makes them think it will work this time. A military man might have been needed during the war, he will not be needed now.
Second optionAnother General: The argument could be made that only the generals who have led the war will have the clout necessary to lead the Republicans to victory. The two options here are Clark and Patton. Eisenhower's claim to fame was Italy and it happened so long ago and he has not done enough of note since then that the American people may have forgotten about him. Bradley would not run against Truman, as they are friends and allies, MacArthur had his chance and failed miserably so I do not know why the Republicans would give him another chance, and Stillwell is both too busy in China and I imagine as an ally of Truman's seeing as he has a very close relationship to Bradley. So let me know what you guys think.
 
There is always Halleck of Indiana.... At least for VP.

I'd offer Reagan, but he could be a Conservative Democrat here for all we know due to the PoD.
 
First: Cambodia is worth $15,000. I find that funny for some reason. :laugh:

Second: I nominate Nelson Rockefeller to be the Republican who will lose to President Truman.

Please let me know what you decide to do about the election via PM and I will gladly make you another election map. :)