To the Imperial general headquarters,
Once the Nationalists and their allies are broken we go access to the Soviet resources in south Siberia where there are 100s of resources within 5 provinces of the west china boarder.
Attacking the Soviets would then fulfil the dual purpose of rescuing Germany and securing us resources. The current missing progress from the Germans means they will run out of manpower within months and 1-2 years down the line will consist mostly of ghost divisions (and not of the Rommel kind).
General Surt,
I believe you are very much misguided. True that Tibet and Siking hold resources of note, but we are already on the road the Siking, and many many months away. Russia, in the Kharbovsky'kray region will net us only 13 energy generating power stations (14 at a very northern push) and 8 Oil fields. Mongolia is better with 5 metals mines, 10 power stations and 3 rare materials plants.
There is nothing within 'easy reach' in Siberia, we would have to push deep to locations indicated on a previous map I posted up to make any attack on the Soviets worthwhile to us, and that is deep in Irkutsk region or even as far as southern Krasnoyarsk! Operations as big as or somewhat greater than China yet again.
The soviets can't bring "countless troops" but they can bring equal troops in strength and number to match our own, and once we both reach the supply bottleneck the only way to fight and succeed is with superior tactics, of which, when there is only the single railway leading back into the soviet heartland...restricted. Indeed we would have to win the air battles and bring bombers to bear to succeed on the tactical level, since attrition is not a battle we can win against Stalin.
Which is why we are left in a somewhat "Catch-22 situation", as one of my CAG pilots has coined the phrase, for further land aggressions. Attack the soviets and we may be favoured by the international community, mostly the Allies who also see Stalin as a threat, but it will be difficult and of very little net worth to us until we do get deep.
Or we support Zongren and further, and go for the full conquest of the Siamese Peninsular, this will net us useful bases and many resources, but also put as at war with the Allies, and with it risk loosing the battle of the Pacific and a later soviet stab!
The latter option would be favoured to get into resource rich lands, but the risk is much much greater. All of our current pacific possessions will remain at risk until a cession of hostilities from our enemies, or we take their lands, all the way to Australia and New Zealand, and when I say 'at risk', not just invasion, but from being cut off from our merchant shipping as we will loose the ability to control where the enemy ships will base from, and so every single possession becomes a major liability needing resupply. Furthermore it only gets worse the further we push needing more convoys for more ports, travelling longer distances, needing more convoys for regular supply.
If we'd put the work in a year ago, expanding the merchant fleets escorts to comparable numbers yes we could have done this. But
it frightens me to take this route unless we can design a plan that will see us marching into Jakarta within a month of the first shots being fired, and the fall of Burma 6 months down the line.
I want to place emphasis on the liberation of Indonesia as part of this. Liberating Indonesia means our supply goes to Java, and from there is distributed to the Indonesian islands, drastically cutting down on our merchant fleet vulnerability, it also means the Indonesians after a period of restructuring can take over garrisoning ports, and patrolling for partisans in order to help us, rather than us needing to supply 25+ garrisons that will be needed (although they will be needed in the short term until the Indonesians can take over from us. It would require us attacking the Australians in Papua and maybe even going a few steps further to pre-build airfields and radar stations to scatter across the islands to give us total air cover over the seas.
All this is cost, all of this is time. Thankfully we have it.
If we push for Zongrens plans there could be a way to force the Siamese government into co-operation. If not, they need to fall by Japanese 're-appointment' of their government by force. However we should return Burmese and Malayan territories to them as the British are kicked out of their colonial offices to reinstate the Taungoo-Khmer Empire as a strong ally at the edge of our sphere of influence. This would mean us needing to transfer lands occupied by us over to them.
The main point of this is to insure legitimacy for our post-war Empire, since it will be the death of Japan, if the wars roll on for more than a decade. With the Chinese defeated...well that's almost in the bag. America will likely grow tired of its little imperialistic debarcle, and the allies may be content to let us be to balance Stalin’s Soviet State even more if we are fighting him in the east for whatever meagre gains we might make.
War with the Allies on the other hand will mean that we can't just 'hold on to what we have' because our military-industrial complex is without comparison to a combined US, British and rest of the Allies one. Instead we shall have to strike out and 'force' the Co-prosperity Sphere on Asia and the wider pacific so that together we shall be such a formidable power that we really could push these wars on for decades. With Europe in ruins, and the USN and RN rusting on the sea bed, the Allies will reason that continuing the war on longer will bankrupt the world, and end up too costly to prosecute to our destruction.
Personally, I would prefer a return to peace, or a deep thrust at the Soviet underbelly. It is the 'safer plan', we shall have the time to prepare, to develop the needed weapons and when we do prosecute, we can do it with the war against the Soviets already won before we even step on Stalin’s toes. Strategically, if we gamble what we have achieved against total failure on both land and sea, then we could go for the 'risky option' and unite all of Asia within the next five years. If we succeed, we have terms to call an armistice with the Allies. I am sure the British will see our threat to India as a major bargaining chip here.
We have the two options on the table. They will call for different equipment and needs;
Against the Soviets we shall need bombers, and the next generation aircraft, along with a medium sized high experience, high tech, armed forces with emphasis on special forces capable of fighting on mountainous terrain (at least a full corps) and a good smattering of anti-tank guns, or assault tank destroyer platforms, and a large cavalry corps to run deep operations, and to exploit the Mongolian and Russian step.
Against the Allies in Indonesia and Siamese Peninsular, we shall again need next generation aircraft, we shall need a larger expanded marine corps (approximately 5 more divisions), medium term garrisons (suggest attached Mil.Pol.) and a minimal expansion of the general infantry more in additional support arms, Artillery, Anti-aircraft guns, and possible some IST/Upgrade Motor to Mechanised/Tank destroyer guns (although numbers of these latter will be not as important due to harsher terrain than Siberia) rather than massive troop numbers. Again mountain troops would be desirable for fighting through Burma, but overall it should be possible to do without, if we bypass the Thai/Burmese border as the main offensive and go straight for Rangoon following the capture of Sumatra and the Liberation of Indonesia. I do recall that one of the army generals saying he would prefer to 'sail to Burma' than slog through Yunnan.
Stuff I'm not so sure on; we might need additional troopships to allow a swift capture of Indonesia, I don't know the strength of the RN and they might screw us over if we fight the British before the Americans are properly stopped at Hawaii, (noting if we aim to invade Burma via sea, without mountain/via land, then we need control of the waters from south China to Rangoon all the way passed Singapore. The Soviets might have invested in heavy armour, if so then we could be royally screwed by just a division or two if we don't have AT good enough, or the Russians have sent enough light armour into the regions that it makes it difficult to be everywhere (redeployments in Siberia don't happen). The soviet airforce, even with next generation aircraft, we could be facing numerous fighter wings that will sap our air crews organisation and beat us via weight of numbers. Soviet latent industrial mobilisation, to make an attack vs the Soviets count, it has to go deep, but going deep will cost time, and we will have a finite range of supply into the centre of the world island. The Russians may be able to throw many troops out to us, and we would need to have to be ready to keep our troops there fresh to deal with that. In other words a reserve corps in the general area will be needed, we can't just have troops on the front line. How big this needs to be ??? and we need to be prepared to conduct tactical retreats as much as we do advancements on the enemy.
These are my fears.
Preferred ratio of options;
8/10 Focus only on America, try and skirt the Allies to support Zongrens ambitions
7/10 Focus on an attack at the soviet underbelly + decent build up period
5.5/10 Forge the Asian Co-prosperity Sphere, with America stuck at Hawaii + decent build up period
4/10 Forge the Asian Co-prosperity Sphere by naked force, America still in relative flux
3/10 Focus on an attack at the soviet underbelly, without decent build up
2/10 Forge the Asian Co-prosperity Sphere by naked force, without America first stuck at Hawaii
-2/10* Focus on an attack at the soviets only in the Kharbovsky'kray region
-6/10* Get involved with the Soviets and Allies at the same time...whatever focuses
* I do not support at all and would urge strongly against any plans that even hint at these aims.
Memorandum:
My research list; items still standing + additions;
1-1.
Top Priority Battleship Engine
2-1.
In research Naval Air Control Doctrine '38--->modern*
3-1. Naval Air Command Structure '38--->modern*
4-2.
In research Cruiser Main Armament '41$(higher priority for future ships)
4-2. Cruiser Engine '42 (higher priority for future ships)
4-2. Cruiser AA Armament '42
5-1. Small Warship Radar '42
Completed Battleship Taskforce Doctrine '41$
5-1
In research Carrier Taskforce Doctrine '41
Completed Battleline Cruiser Doctrine '41
5-1
In research Cruiser Escort Doctrine '41
6-1 Fire Control System Training '41$
Seconded
6-1 Radar Training '41
Seconded
6-1
Night Fighting Training '42 (Navy ships)
From Baltersars Priority List (additions)
- Cruiser Crew Training ('43 ? because '42 is completed)
- ASW Tactics 39'
Not all doctrine are up-to-date, in fact the neglect of our CAG doctrine by my predecessor, and my assumption they were up-to-date is why our CAG have suffered such organisation losses.