Bushido Code - an HOI3:SF Japan AAR

Soryu called the most revered ship in the Fleet

Across the home islands details of the heroics of the entire naval war to date are reviewed and the carrier Soryu singled out. The Soryu by herself has sunk more enemy ships than the entire Kriegsmarine - almost seven times over!

Soryu has to date sunk 69 enemy ships, including 17 CV/CVL, 4 BB, and 3 CA and 30 screening ships!

Ryujo was next deadliest in the fleet with 56 enemy ships sunk including 4 CV/CVL, 6 CA and 25 screening ships.

The old warhorse Akagi was listed third, with 7 CV/CVL, 2 BB, 2 CA, and 20 screening ships, with 38 total enemy ships sunk.

Then came Hiryu (29), Kaga(+)(27), Amagi(+)(25), Shokaku (24), Junyo and Hosho each with 21, and then the great battleship Yamato with 19 enemy ships sunk.

By comparison, the most successful non-Japanese ship so far in the war has been the enemy Brazillian battleship Minas Gerais, with 11 sinkings including 2 battleships and 3 heavy cruisers.

Next most lethal was HMS Glorious with 8 sinkings.

The most dangerous non-Japanese axis ships are the Italian Battleships Littorio and Giulio Cesare, with 6 and 5 sinkings.

America's most dangerous were the carrier Langley (5) and CVL Anguilla Bay (4)

A Most Amenable Coup

It had not gone unnoticed by the Emperor that there were not so subtle changes afoot in the operations of the Liaison Meetings at the palace. General Kuribayashi and Admiral Yamamoto were in far off lands and their roles at the Liaison Meetings had been taken by subordinates who could not really speak for them. Also a medical condition had claimed Prince Kanin from the council, starting three years ago but now he could hardly stir from his residence. Prime Minister Hayashi had been essentially cowing the representatives of the absent members to his point of view, and his Army bias had come full to the fore when he pushed through an ambitious rebuilding and update program for the entire IJA. Also a number of lucrative overseas building contracts were awarded to Sumitomo zaibatsu companies via the Prime Minister. The Mitsui zaibatsu companies were content with their ongoing parts contracts and the proposed whole-Army upgrade which would mostly be done by their companies by default. This left the Navy-oriented Mitsubishi zaibatsu with little to look forward to, one the last three fleet carriers and their aircraft were done the Mitsubishi affiliates would only have their maintenance contracts to rely on. Outside of the carrier aircraft there was only the F-1 jet fighter-bomber, and there were no plans for any more of them to be built. Mitsubishi let it be known to their military patron that something needed to be done about the situation, and thus Navy Minister Osumi had become progressively more difficult for Prime Minister to brush aside.

Since the end of the Russian War the Socialists in the Diet had grown in number, a disturbing trend since it was known that some amount of foreign money and influence was responsible for this surge of leftism. Hayashi was well past loosing his patience with the two security and intelligence ministers, and there were thinly veiled hints from the nationalist rank-and-file Army officer corps about his own Prime Minister job being in danger.

This was the general political situation when Prince Kanin died.

Hayashi understood that this was his chance to set things the way he wanted them. Counter-intuitively his first move was to sack the Armaments Minister, Ikeda Shigeaki, a fellow Sumitomo man who he had brought in to shore up his position back in April of 1939. He replaced Ikeda with Fujiwara Ginjiro, a man who was not strongly affiliated with any of the three major zaibatsu. So in the days immediately following the death of Kanin there was a sense that perhaps Hayashi was in the mood to moderate the cabinet as it related to the zaibatsu.

Not wishing to dispel this the next move was to fill Kanin's empty position with a Navy man, Admiral Mikawa who had led the famous Assault Fleet 1 all during the war years. What many did not know is that Hayashi had chosen his man carefully, Mikawa would be an excellent organizer...however in political matters the Prime Minister was already sure that the Admiral would defer to himself.

Next came the security positions, Maeda Minoru and Yasui Eiji replaced Honma and Nakajima. Both were solid Sumitomo men and Hayashi knew he could rely on Yasui to "arrange" for left leaning Diet members to have a change of heart.

Hayashi, and a number of others, had never been overly fond of General Abe as Foreign Minister. However, now that there were peaceful relations to be had with at least the other Axis members, the Prime Minister decided it was time that Abe be returned to command somewhere. Kishi Nobusuke was chosen to replace Abe.

Next the Prime Minister simply stated that the absent ministers (Yamamoto and Kuribayashi) could obviously not be spared from their military duties in the field, so a more permenant arrangement would need to be made for what went on in Tokyo. This was a perfectly rational request and he put forth the relatively neutral, perfectly capable but politically inert, General Aotsu for the Chief of Staff of the Army to replace Kuribayashi.

What happened next Navy Minister Osumi never saw coming...Hayashi convinced Mikawa that they would divide up the Minister of War responsibilities, allowing Mikawa to also provide military support for Mr. Okawa Koshiro who would become Navy Minister - ousting Osumi. Mikawa would oversee Okawa's handling of the Navy Staff.

In the course of a handful of days Prime Minister Hayashi had deposed the old cabinet and replaced it with a politically reconfigured new cabinet. They key point being that he himself actually had the War Ministry in his thrall and there would be no more troublesome carping from Osumi regarding the lack of Mitsubishi contracts in the future. In Hayashi's opinion the naval war was more than won and pouring any more resources into that aspect would only be a waste...and as long as Hayashi was Prime Minister with his newly chosen cabinet, that would be the attitude of the cabinet as well.

Technical Update

Geopolitical Update

USMC's Norwegian Adventures

The Africa Commitment

During April the new Army CoS, under Prime Minister Hayashi's direction, developed a "global army" organizational approach. Old theaters were re-aligned and renamed to denote the primary Army that was assigned to that region. The pre-war strategic organization was consolidated in a number of cases, reducing the number of administrative HQ's in place.

While this was going on Hayashi addressed himself to the situation in Africa. Japan had acquired a vast amount of territory in the "dark continent" -- which could (or should) have effectively made the Indian Ocean a safe passage for Japanese shipping. In reality the US Navy's submarine corps had been very active in the Indian Ocean, no doubt operating out of a number of different bases available to them from South Africa to Sudan.

What the Prime Minister came to realize was that if Japan did not show the inclination to hold this territory, both their enemies and allies would no doubt see it as weakness. Additionally their enemies could use those territories to continue to harass their Indian convoys. Though it galled him to do so, because it would slow up his Army upgrade ambitions, Hayashi directed that the 2nd and Motor Corps be dispatched to East Africa and formed into a new theater army, the 7th.

General Tojo's 2nd Corps was the first to arrive and he set about moving against the Belgian troops in front of him.



Progress was slow, but it was progress...Tojo was steadily pushing the Belgian forces a month later.

Dewirix said:

Hi,

Just to let you know I've chosen your AAR for the Weekly AAR Showcase - drop by and say hello!

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Awesome

Axe27 said:

I see you're holding off(or preparing) for the eventual invasion of South America, unless you're planning to drive straight into America's face and attempt a landing on the West Coast?

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There are temptations for either of those actions.

In the overall situation it may come down to to the S America route due to the RP considerations...it'll also depend on how long Africa drags out.

Naval Skirmishes along the Horn of Africa - 16th to 18th June, 1948

The reports of the death of the naval war were premature...to the consternation of Prime Minister Hayashi.

Occupying the Big Island and Conciliation from Portugal

June saw the final occupation of the "big island" of Hawaii, long delayed for logistical reasons rather than any resistance, the NLF troops finally being landed and after a short stay handing off their duties to an IJA garrison. The entire NLF Corps was loaded up from Hawaii aboard Nagumo's AF 1 task force with an unknown destination...but whispers had it on "good authority" that they were going to Africa.



On the diplomatic front, Foreign Minister Kishi negotiated a "status of forces" agreement with still neutral Portugal.

Dewirix said:

What is there in Africa that needs tidying up?

In terms of the US, how big do you envisage your invasion force will be (both army and navy)?

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South Africa, French possessions, Belgium. Even with 3 ASW groups going in the IO Japan was still hemmorraging about 10 convoy ships a week...not sustainable So those American sub bases have to go away...and as I found out there was more than subs wandering around in there.

Battle in the Gulf of Aden - 19th to 23rd June 1948

Tojo's progress in Central Africa

Battle of the Somalia Coast - July 5th to 15th, 1948




*it should be "Somali Coast"

Operation "BG" - The IJN's (secret) bold plan

As it had become clear that serious enemy naval forces were operating not only in the Red Sea and Indian Oceans, but also from bases in the South Atlantic, the Navy found that the ships that Prime Minister Hayashi had not allowed funding for in the previous year to fill out the second carrier strike fleet were sorely missed...while CSF 2 existed in Japan, it was comprised of two new fast battlecruisers and three fleet carriers - but no screening vessels of any kind were to be had.

Admiral Yamamoto in Hawaii dispatched a concise argument to the new Navy Minister to be forwarded to the Prime Minister...but Navy Minister/Chief of Naval General Staff Mr. Oikawa was content to "take it under advisement" effectively refusing to confront the Army or Prime Minister over what were (to the actual ranked Navy General Staff) painfully obvious shortfalls in warship production.

Yamamoto was a powerful voice, having acquired a "Japanese Nelson" title in the foreign press which was happily picked up by the Japanese state press in the past years of war. Since the change of government the state press had shifted it's focus to the "Great Works of the Empire" and brave tales of Army adventure from Tojo's actions in Africa to ongoing pacification successes in the wilds of Borneo, New Guinea, or Australia. Yamamoto's lone voice in far off Hawaii had no megaphone in the press.

If this was to be the "new way" of things in the Empire, then Yamamoto would concoct a bold plan that could not be explained away or ignored by the State Press. This plan became Operation "BG" - the ships to execute the plan were mostly to be had at hand in Hawaii. The missing component was the Assault Fleet 1 which had been loaned to the Army for their middle east operations and redeployments. Now the Army had called on the NLF Corps at Hawaii to be put in to port at Nairobi to relieve the Motor Corps for return to the Home Islands for refit.

This played right into Yamamoto's "BG" plan. The NLF was loaded aboard AF 1, and AF 1 and CSF 1 sailed together in radio silence and carefully avoiding "Army entanglements" as they made their way across the Pacific and Indian Oceans. Transmitters in Hawaii continued to make regular, but false, CSF 1 radio traffic to confuse both the IGHQ and any Americans listening in.

Instead of Nairobi, their port in Africa was Dar es Salaam. The Navy had prepositioned stores and fuel there, and after a 24 hour stay where the troops were allowed to stretch their legs ashore in shifts, the AF 1 group was again underway to the south, while CSF 1 departed to the north. Now the boldness of the plan came into play...AF 1 would transit the Cape of Good Hope...past all enemy territory of South Africa, up the South Atlantic coast of Africa again through enemy waters to make final landfall at Accra.

The territory of Ghana had been officially handed over to the Japanese with the surrender of the UK...but in the uplands there was open revolt. The NLF dispatched a single division to the interior, leaving another to secure Accra. The other three divisions boarded ship one last time for the surprise assault to the south that would bring the culmination of Operation "BG"'s bold stroke...


3 NLF divisions assault the Boma province

The Americans had picked up on these ship movements, but were slow in trying to catch AF 1 in port at Accra. Their strike of some 780 odd aircraft was a great expenditure that was made repeatedly over the next several days but had marginal impact on the two Japanese divisions in Ghana...nor any notable damage to the port.



After four days of hard fighting the NLF was ashore at Boma, in control of the port, and pushing towards Leopoldsville.




Operation "BG" was as surprising a shock to the Japanese Prime Minister and Army General Staff as it was to the Allies who were subjected to it. The presence of Yamamoto and CSF 1 appearing from nowhere in the waters of the African Horn also had a profound effect on the USN operating in the area that would soon result in unexpected tragedy for the IJN.

For now the State Press once again lauded Admiral Yamamoto, stealing the spotlight from Tojo. As CSF 1 resumed regular message traffic to IGHQ, Yamamoto sent the following to Mr. Oikawa regarding Yamamoto's earlier arguments for the Prime Minister:

"Ref 1 CSFONE msg dtd 030016JUL48

1. REQ status Ref 1."