Dai Nippon Teikoku

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A Japanese AAR

Preliminary notes: 1936 Grand campaign as Japan; difficulty set to very hard; ftm expansion; no cheats; no mods; previous italian AAR to 1943; playing till total victory, no time limit

Objectives

Major - Japanese conquest of the world
Minor - A non-aligned Japan

Planning

Because we are non-aligned our play will be characterised by opportunitism, there is little room for long term plans when the fortunes of great nations are swaying in the winds of time.

The main strategic aspect of the Asian continent is its low IC density. Because of this I do not necessarily view a larger land empire as superior to IC investments. Even military spending is simply proxy IC investment as we increase our economy through using the developed militaries, the return on military investment is lower in Asia. However our medium term plan will be to capture the Chinese economies.

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January 1936

1st January

The Japanese economy stands at 0/94/105 with a negative balance for each trading resource. Set trade to automatic.

Production orders were placed with the factories.

Weak mobile divisions were ordered, along with some scout panzer.





In addition 3 mountain divisions were ordered.



These orders stretch our IC to breaking point so no further orders will be placed. A destroyer squadron is due to finish in March.

Research projects were ordered. 4/4 inf upgrades. 3/4 light tank upgrades, I chose to ommit engine upgrades as Medium tanks are too expensive for the Japanese economy and the loss of toughness from faster engines is not acceptable against a large army like China's. Six industrial projects were ordered including agriculture with the rest of the research projects approportioned to land theory on a basis of increasing all doctorines in order of obsoleteness.

2nd January

Germany has began influencing us!

9th January

Three year draft entacted. +25% manpower, -1% MP rotation, +25% officer recruitment and -25% Reserves penalty.

12th March

Italy enforced puppet on Ethophia

31st March

Intelligence overhaul. Chinese states given level 3 priority with Nationalist China targetted specifically for tech data and Shanxi for military. Domestic intel to support Japanese unity.

14th April

Chinese army group OOB restructuring complete. Three full-strength corps now form the first army. Each corps has 4 general infantry divisions supported by a cavalry division. This involved stripping four divisions from the Soviet boarder but leaving the rest of defences across the Empire in place. Stripping any more divisions would leave a strategy of fighting retreat versus the Soviet Union untenable on Manchuria.




23rd April

Spanish civil war starts.

12th May

4/4 Infantry upgrades to 1938 levels completed. Marine infantry unlocked and requested, promoted to top of research order. Inf upgrades continue.

21st May

First weak mobile division (mot,mot) completed.

29th May

Radio detection research finishes, replaced with 2x artillary upgrades.

13th June

Production of the mountain divisions completed. Factories now ordered to produce two corps of general infantry.



24th August

Our first light tank division finishes (LT,LT) and is deployed with the First Army of the North China Army Groups.

31st December

We now have six corps as part of the North China Army Groups.

Three general infantry corps - 4x inf div (3 or 4 brigs) + 1 cav (4 brigs)
Three JJ Corps - 1 weak mobile (mot,mot), +1 Light tank(ltk,ltk), +1 mountain (mtn,mtn,mtn,art),+2 inf (inf,inf,inf,art).

Currently only 1 JJ corps is full sized. These corps will be used to drive our advantage in strategic sections of the front, sharp observers will note that I can form a full strength panzer division out of the two half strength mobile divisions, this will happen during periods of the war when power is preferable to manuvere and advance speed. I do not plan to expand the scale of this army before July 1937 and the Macro Polo Bridge incident because we have 80 ICs of upgrades backlogged.

The North China Army Group


The Imperial Japanese Navy
OOB has been reorganised.
2 carrier fleets of 12 ships form the core force for the pacific.
This is complemented by two aged fleets of 12 surface ships, mainly for the Chinese area of operations.
A stack of 20 transports in reserve for usage.
6 subs at Taiwan
2 subs based at Korea

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January 1937

23rd January

Marine tech completed, upgraded given priority over the development of a Marine corps however, the Chinese army group is too small to run two separate fronts in any case.

26th January

2 infantry divisions completed and deployed. Freed IC now spent on upgrades at 21/89 ICs.

4th Feburary



Republican Spain annexed Nationalist Spain.

20th Feburary

Another mobile division completed, further orders (2) were cancelled in order to ramp up upgrade spending to 37/90.

11th March

A second division of Lighttank is completed, production to continue. JJ Corps II is now at full strength.

29th March

Logistics wizards were promoted to the Army, Army Group and Theatre command levels for the North China Front. Lighttank production paused for resumption at a later time, Japanese scientists have researched 1940 equipment for infantry which is considered a great priority.

10th April

294,000 Japanese soldiers moved into the boarder regions with Shanxi.



1st July

WAR!



Marco Polo Bridge incident event available. Japanese high command decide to commit to war.

Communist China joined Shanxi in a war against Japan.

Nationalist China joined Shanxi in a war against Japan.

Policies changed to total economic mobilisation and service by requirement.

Spending on consumer goods crashed from 48 to 1 IC, allowing full upgrade agenda to be implemented immediately and light tank production to restart.

At 11pm GMT, dawn was rising across East Asia. With the weather clear and lukewarm, Japanese operations got underway.

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The Shanxi armies are unlikely to have the same levels of professional soldiers as Japan, so a lightning strike to shatter any weak enemy divisions was decided as the opening gambit. This should create opportunities for further strategies, our main objective is the port of Dagu and to force a Shanxi surrender.

A general offensive with all Japanese units moving across the boarder commenced.



The Japanese navy set out to commence convoy raiding, but the strength of the airforce was going to be conserved for the time being.

2nd July

Due to an expanding economy because of policy changes, a corps of general infantry was ordered. (inf,inf,inf,art).

Battle progress



Despite opening at 53%, the defenders of Bejing are at much lower battle strength then our divisions. We simply have to hope that we can blitz through the surrounding provinces and cut off potent enemy reinforcements.



We have won five of the opening six battles. Only Beijing remains.

Emperor, we have managed to sink 1 transport on the Shanghai-San Francisco route. This alerted us and the two carriers fleets based on the home islands set out to intercept the likely course of this trade route.

3rd July

The carrier convoy raiding paid its first dividend with 2 more enemy transports sunk.

Japanese troops occupy three provinces. The JJ corps capturing Tianjian cannot move into Dagu for 96 hours despite being in position to do so, rendering our mobile units somewhat redundant, although the fast capture of the province threatens to cut off Shanxi troops eastwards. Battle of Beijing rises to 60% with essentially one militia unit holding our forces back.



5th July



A great victory in Beiping!

Every offensive a success. Japanese positions, the next move will come in 48 hours as units reorganise.

[eqqman]

Any thoughts on what faction you might take out first?

[blackdown]

Any thoughts on what faction you might take out first?

I've avoided building naval units which makes the allies a tough choice, however Siberia doesn't look that attractive and I'd rather see the USSR win vs Germany so I don't want to weaken it. It will probablybe the allies but we will see. The problem for me is I don't think the IC's from South and South East Asia are that attractive compared to IC investment? Will China be able to provide Japan's resource demands?

[blackdown]

July 1937

6th July

JJ Corps III attacks Leting and Tangshan. Shanxi troops left only a skeleton force behind which I did not feel worth warranting delaying an entire corps just to surround two divisions.Combats at 84 and 85% towards victory.

A wing of 3 tactical bombers relocate to Beijing and begin bombing the border with nationalist China aiming to ground attack enemy reinforcements. A wing of interceptors ordered to rebase when enemy planes intercept the bombers.

10pm Victory at Leting and Tangshan. We sunk 3 transports today.

7th July

Immediate victories at Wuchuan, Jining and Tianzhen, west of Beijing.

8th July



Battle for Dagu begins as the JJ mobile units tries to enter the port.

9th July

Japanese forces have entered Leting and Tangshan.



Our ground attack forces have begun spotting movements of Nationalist Chinese troops, to prevent them reaching Dagu an offensive begins into Huanghua.

10th July

Enemy inf division routed from Dagu, victory rapidly approaching against the remaining militia division. The militia held out for 4 hours only, we have captured the main supply port for the conquest of Shanxi.

11th July

We have won the battle of Huanghua!
This came as a surprise as it was a delaying tactic, but I got a view at the battle progress before we were victorious and saw that Japanese divisions can route the Nationalist Chinese ones because of superior morale.



The Chinese are coming up into Shanxi in a straight line directly south of Dagu, we are going to commit my reserves, the JJ Corps III to support the JJ Corps I in a direct push south to break the shaft of this spear of enemy troops. New orders were given out to continue the push into enemy terroritary.

Germany invited us to the Axis, politely ignored.

14th July

Shanxi 93% towards surrender, we have a cav division in the far west of Shanxi which is going to attempt to take Togtoth and hopefully knock Shanxi out of the war. If this move fails Baoding is increasingly in range of our armies.

17th July

The Communist Chinese reached Togtoh before our cavalry could, unfortunately.

18th July



The mobile div and panzerscout divisions continue to prove their worth as the lead the assault south from Dagu. They have now reached the Nat Chinese border.

19th July

Battle of Togtoh is 70% towards victory as the guarding units are attempting to attack our cavalry division in another adjectant province.

21st July

Japanese troops enter Haixfang unopposed, another province on the Nat Chinese border. Infantry upgrades have reach level IV.

22nd July

We are victorious in Togtoh!

Cavalry immediately ordered to attack so we can seize it and force surrender.

Our offensive south into nationalist China halted as the flank is increasingly exposed. The flanking cover is currently halted at the battle of Daicheng, 87% towards victory.

24th July

Victory at Daicheng! We lost 74 they lost 528 troops.



Japanese forces entered Togtoh.

25th July

Japan annexed Shanxi after 25 days of war.

[KyrionMyrthar]

Good stuff! I'll be following along.

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July 1937

26th July



Mini-reorganisation at the front to maintain coherence and clarity for the objectives for each corps as divisions were increasingly entangled. Two JJ corps were re-pathed to achieve our next objective, the Jinan-Qingdao advance. Unfortunately the scale of the region means a third corps will be necessary in order to defend, a corps of 30,000 men at Tokyo was selected for service on the front, joining the JJ II and JJ III corps in the second army. This advance should capture more Chinese industry, an extremely strategic airfield and the port of Qingdao. The airfield is of paramont importance because with 7 corps (325k men) in operations, we cannot conquer the whole of China. We can however capture important industrial sites and use the airfield to grind down the Chinese armies from above with no fear of reprisal. The next chinese airfield is several hundred miles south.

New ground attack orders were shifted westwards towards the bulge of Chinese forces in southwest Shanxi.

We opened three combats at Dongsheng, Shanyin and Daixian. The latter two part of the general offensive, but Dongshen held the gateway to Xiebi San Ma and is a defendible province with a river. The battle of Dongsheng is victorious within a few hours.

27th July

The attack plans of the Second Army. Currently only one of the three corps is in position to attack, where it stands poised to assault Jinan and cross the Yellow River.



28th July

Chinese forces enter and attempt to defend Dongsheng.



A Japanese general infantry division of the JJ III Corps begins the Jinan offensive. A disheartening start, but the offensive was order to continue as it should swing to our favour once the true strength of the arrayed forces began to tell.



29th July

GI IV Corps of the second army arrives at the gulf of Chilui and begins landing in Japanese held Shanxi to bolster our fracturing flank between the first and second armies. This frees up the JJ I Corps to resume its duty of supporting the First Army advance in the face of a large concentration of nationalist Chinese troops.

31st July

We are defeated at the battle of Dongsheng. After rotating through four divisions, the Chinese were able to hold off the efforts of our assault.

The battle for Jinan now stands at 68% towards victory.

1st August

Victory in the battle of Jinan, the men of the JJ corps III immediately occupy the province. This is a huge advantage for us now. Four CAG groups are ordered to rebase to Jinan airfield to begin operations westwards. Interceptors were rebased to the home islands to reduce supply stress. We are now able to consider a wider yellow river front line then the Jinan-Qingdao plan as nationalist china has still failed to provide resistance to our forces.

Our cavalry division that captured Baode is under attack whilst infantry reinforcements hurry to reinforce our positions in the province. The attack is coming through Dongsheng which raises the hope that the nats may over-stretch themselves with this offensive and unlock the gate to the west once again.



This is the current situation on the front. We have two GI corps operating in a small area opposite the large stacks of chinese stroops in the west-center of the front. These corps should be sufficent to capture both Taiyuan, the urban shanxi province and Yan'an, the capital and VP of the communists. Flanking these two corps are GI even further west fighting for Dongshen and the eastern flank is covered by the first JJ corps.

2nd August

We are victorious in Baode!



Our mountain division heads east towards Qingdao, it must move fast because supplies are becoming increasingly stretched at different parts of the front.



6th August

The Nats are unable to hold us back as we begin pressing down on yellow river.

Further east our mountain division routes nat infantry blocking the road to Qingdao, 2 more hilly provinces to negotiate before the big prize. Japanese high command cannot help but feel the dissonance between the strategic value of certain objectives and the resistance the Chinese offer at those points in the front.

The unsung heroes of the Japanese airforce are bombing Handan, Taigu and Heze province. In all three the nationalists have had their morale shattered by repeated bombings as they attempt to offer a fighting retreat to the elite of the Japanese armies.

The supply situation in western Shanxi has reached critical levels and three offensives are abandoned to reduce the tension. Due to Chinese numbers, Japanese troops can only be expected to perform aggressive actions with the factors in their favour. Hopefully Qingdao will enable the resumption of hositilies for the first army.

10th August

An aircraft carrier was added to the production queue. No CAGs ordered, this carrier is simply to maintain the skills of Japanese shipyards.

12th August



Chinese forces try to hold us off in the battle for Handan, on the now so called yellow river-road.



The fifth battle for Taiyuan began as the Japanese restarted our relentless attempt to capture this prize. Defended by a communist mountain division and a near exhausted infantry force.

13th August

We are victorious in the battle of Handan!

The battle of Qingdao has started, pitting the mountain division of JJ Corps III versus two half morale militia divisions from the nats. There is a defeated nat inf division hiding further up the pensulia. A convoy raiding fleet nearby was brought in for aid and aeroplanes ordered to support the attack. 41% towards victory.

14th August

The front as it currently stands.



15th August



A hotheaded Chinese admiral attempts to engage our ships firing into Qingdao, to his cost.

17th August

The Chinese navy in Qingdao makes a second, desperate attempt to engage us.



They manage to flee before suffering losses.

19th August

Victory in the battle of Qingdao! May the supplies flow forth!

We have successfully carried out our Jinan-Qingdao objective, so the war needs to refocus on the next goal, perhaps yellow river and Yan'an.

21st August

Victory in the battle of Taiyuan! This came as a surprise to Japanese high command as the battle was 10% toward victory and in an urban center. It may enable a push towards Yan'an but we currently have two GI corps covering the area of one at Dongshen due to spiritied enemy defence. It will require a shift of troops along the line before we are able to advance towards Yan'an and get the commie capital.


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Supplies are still moving through Humhuang, despite Qingdao being a level 10 port and closer to the action. Hamhuan is a level 6 port. I need help on fixing this, can anyone contribute please? There is a supply route carrying the maximal amount to Qingdao (supplies and fuel) but the units aren't drawing from it. Very fustrating to see supply shortages because of this, the entire of the manchurian theatre is also drawing on hamhuang port. I do not understand it. Do supply routes reset monthly? Any help greatly appreciated as supply shortages will cause devestation if they continue for another 1-2 months, some units already have lower morale then they should do.

[Saithis]

There isn't any easy way to fix it. The supply depot is chosen by the AI and may or may not change depending on what the AI feels it wants. In the past I've seen it change to Shanghai during the Chinese Conquest, but it's also stayed in Hamhung most of the time and I don't have an easy answer why. There's not much you can do about it, I'm afraid.

[blackdown]

27th August

Four Chinese divisions, 2 militia and 2 Infantry are eliminated near the port of Qingdao. We are struggling to hold our current positions with so few troops, investment in production was maximised to meet all standing orders at the expense of upgrades.

The Chinese capture Xintai from us, but are immediately routed by a counter attacking force.

28th August

The balance on the front is precarious, whilst Japan holds superior forces we are stretched too thinly to make any advances or even perhaps to simply hold our current positions. This overstretch comes from the Jinan-Qingdao advance where we hoped to aleviate our supply problems. Unfortunately, due to questionable quartmasters we have sacrificed our strategic flexibility for a general front that isn't even supplied well.

Japanese high command considers that trade off to be unacceptable. To regain our options we have decided to retreat from Qingdao-Jinan to a three province wide front line on the prewar Shanxi-Nationalist Chinese border.

We will use the freed up troops to provide defence in depth and the units to attempt to capture Communist China.



We made a speculative peace offer to the Chinese.



Unfortunately they declined. The managed fallback to the new holding line will go ahead.

29th August



We counter-attack enemy forces assaulting Xintai in their province of Pingshun. It might sharpen their minds about the relative merits of grinding down all their forces to try and capture one province.

Map of over-stretch.



1st September

We abandoned the attack into Pingshun as we do not have the resources to commit to offensives. Chinese forces continue to attempt to accelerate our retreat with another attack into Xintai. A division of Mountain troop from Yushe, the adjacent Japanese province marches in to hold the line. Battle swings from -79% to -13%

3rd September



Retreat gathers pace. We lost the urban province of Ganyu at 1pm, it was the extreme southern point of the Qingdao line. This was painful as we can restart negotiations with the Chinese at 7pm.

The chinese declined another peace offer, we will of left two victory point provinces before we can offer another peace so this represents a genuine loss for us.

8 Chinese brigades are erased on the eastern finger of the Qingdao pensulia as they are trapped by advancing Japanese troops with their backs to the sea. The responsible general infantry division in the JJ Corps III was renamed the Great Qingdao division in honour of its victory, before it marches towards Qingdao to evacuate with the navy.

9th September

Battles are muted throughout the front as the Chinese concentrate on advancing on the eastern section. Two divisions clambered aboard the ships of the Nihon Kaigun fleet as it sailed out of Qingdao harbour with the advancing Chinese soldiers in sight. The nearest Japanese divisions were now currently two divisions crossing northwards at Yellow river from Jinan province. All air assets have been rebased elsewhere from its airfield and interceptors may need to be drafted in from the mainland to provide aircover again.

11th September

Peace was offered again to the Chinese, rejected. Tokyo began to question the understanding of "maybe" held by their ambassador in Nanjing.

13th September

State of the retreat.



16th September

Jinan and Qingdao fall on the same day.

17th September

The retreat is completed. All Japanese forces are now in their new positions on one of the strongest defensive lines in the world.

The JJ Corps I had two divisions of mountain soldiers rotated in and two divisions of GI rotated back to the II and III JJ corps. This left it as an elite unit of 42,000 men with 3 mountain divisions supported by scout panzer and 6,000 motorised troops. This will be the force used to drive the dagger into the heart of communist China.

We abandon negotiations with China on news that they were very unlikely to be a success. Success must now be defined on the battlefield.

3rd October

All quiet on the front. Two wings of bombers based at Beijing are ordered to begin attacking the Chinese at Shilou, in communist China. The JJ Corps I has nearly arrived ready to begin its attack into the province.

Other bombers at Dalian are flying across the Gulf of Chihli, bombing Dezhou hard to try and prevent Chinese offensives into the eastern wing of our frontline. Over 24 enemy brigades are present in Dezhou.

6th October

The offensive into Shilou begins at dawn. The JJ Corps I is assisted by an auxilliary cavalry division and an infantry division from the adjectant province of jiaxian.





Note that the Communist forces are in two stacks on both sides of the offensive. If we can lock them down and race into Yan'an we may be victorious quickly.

The Japanese Maj. General in charge of the assault was pleased to note the work done on enemy organisation by the airforce.

7th October

The battle of Shilou is won by Japanese forces at 6am, 36 hours after opening hostilities. Supplies to nearby forces have dropped alarmingly low, so the offensive from Jiaxian was halted. Only forces needed for Yan'an are permitted to continue.

8th October



The JJ scout unit arrives in the province and immediately begins defending against a three division counter-attack. We decided to allow the situation to continue as tank units are weak in urban environments, best for the light panzer to take the counter attack heat.

The scale of the counter-offensive expands to 7 divisions and progresses to 84%. The counter attack is abandoned by dawn the next day.

9th October

Our units arrive and are immediately given orders to attack Yan'an, but are unable to do so for ~39 hours. The airforce was given new orders to immediately begin bombing Yan'an, as supplies are drying up for the offensive so we cannot afford a protracted battle.

10th October

The bombing run brings in vital scout information on Yan'an defensives.



11th October

The opening assault in the battle of Yan'an as the two most organised divisions concurrently began offensives.




The Chinese counter attack into Shilou, which we respond to by counter-counter-attacking the source province of Yulian. The three-way battle raged with 44% into Yan'an, 29% into Yulian and -2% in Shilou.



12th October

The Shilou offensive is abandoned by the Chinese, we abandon the Yulian offensive to conserve supplies.

The Chinese begin operations into Shilou again a few hours later. We are forced to counter-attack into Daning using forces from Fangshan in a mirror of the western defence. Immediately the Chinese halt the Shilou offensive and begin attacking it from Yulian again. Fustrated, we didn't halt the counter attack into Daning and we restart the counter-attack into Yulian. We will run this battle down on supplies. A japanese victory if our supplies can hold out, Chinese if we run out.

Surprise rout at Yan'an, the Chinese commander failed to reinforce his faltering division and all their forces abandon the field.



We checked the arrival date for each unit, the cavalry were fastest for the 17th october but I don't feel very confident about supplies so I sent forward the scoutpanzer who can arrive on the 14th. Called off one advancing division to lower supply stress and lowered counter-offensives in Daning and Yulian to one division for similar reasons. The cavalry unit appears to of been resupplied as its estimated time of arrival is now late 13th.

14th October



Communist China surrenders!


15th October

Map of current situation plus resource bars.

[blackdown]

16th October

Japanese general staff poured over the maps of northern China and formed a new line to advance to. It will not expand the amount of provinces we need to defend, but it will allow Japan to recapture all the lost Shanxi lands in the south. The western frontier needs to be expanded into Xiebi San Ma, this will then skirt to Xianyang at the far south of former communist China, before tracing along the yellow river eastwards to Jincheng before arcing to rejoin our current positions in the two provinces of Hengshui and Changzhou.



Once we capture this line we will settle in for the winter and await reinforcements. We will need an additional 8 divisions to expand the proposed line to the downstream length of the yellow river, so Japanese offensives may not restart till mid-next year.

We started sharing infantry theory with Manchukuo.

A naval battle kicks off in the Gulf of Chili as the Chinese attempt to land troops at Dalian, where three wings of Japanese aircraft are based. They are immediately rebased as we await news on the battle.



After a few hours the Chinese fleet is routed with no losses, but before it could land troops.

17th October

Chased the Chinese fleet, it eventually evades destruction in two subsequent battles and reaches the port of Qingdao. Decided not to sink them in port as it'll just waste enemy repair IC and wont pose a threat when rebuilt.

22nd October



Japanese positions advance into Yulian, Zichang, Tongchuan, Daning and Taigu.

Chinese forces holding Uxin Ju, in Xiebi San Ma begin to abandon their position for Shizuishan. We decided to attack Chinese forces in the province the Uxin Ju troops are retreating into, this is because it has a fort and we didn't want to see a highly organised force hold mountainous forts. We also attack the Uxin Ju troops to prevent them reinforcing for the duration of the assault.

The force at Shizuishan immediately surrenders and leaves the province. We reduced the attack on Uxin Ju by 1 division to lure the defenders into staying long enough to be trapped as we move in Shizuishan behind them. 44% to victory. An enemy tactical bomber is attacking us but interceptors cannot reach Xeibi san ma border.

23rd October

GI division is ready for deployment.

27th October

Quality Chinese reinforcements reach Shizusishan and we are forced to abandon the attack into the fort province. Our bombers are 7km short of being able to reach it, which would provide us with a solution to the problem. We continue pressing into Uxin Ju.

30th October



Our mountain division arrives at Liangzhen, south of Shizuishan. We press westwards into the mountains of Otog Qingai with the mountain division and move another division in to hold the province of Liangzhen. This presents the Chinese at Shizuishan with an option, abandon the fort or be forced into a pocket.

1st November

Progress in Uxin Ju



2nd November

Another GI division completes training. Two more GI divisions ordered.

Current production:
1 convoy [+10 ships]
1 Aircraft Carrier [no CAGs]
1 scout panzer [+1 queued]
5 GI divisions [3 to finish production by late december]
We are also building 51/51 upgrades.

3rd November

Mountain troop arrives at Otog Qianqi and is immediately forced to defend from the north. To lower pressure and also take advantage of this, we immediately attack Shizusishan.





4th November

By nightfall, we are 80% to victory with 1 division in combat and three attempting to reinforce. 6 Chinese divisions are defending with a further 3 retreating into the pocket.

8th November

Some attacking divisions had 2 days worth of supplies left, so many were removed from the attack. We are now down to 2 attacking divisions at Shizuishan, one with 9 days of supplies left. Combat stands at 85%

12th November

Defenders at Sizuishan are down to 1 active division, 6 in reserve of which 3 are HQs and 0 are inf/militia with organisation ratings.



16th December

Enemy forces crumble.



Victory!

Scale of encirclement and destruction of enemy units.

Because we have now conquered this area, units that were spread out over four provinces now only have two hold two, both of which are mountainous with rivers. In the west supplies are so short we will just move units into their new positions and wait a while.

The two completed divisions are now serving in the GI IV corps of the second army. This means we are able to free up the JJ III corps along with our reserve JJ II corps for offensives into the yellow river. Supplies are also short here, but as soon as a resupply occurs the next advance will begin. Aircraft are sitting idle to rebuild org during the supply pause.

18th November

Chinese offensive into Shijiazhuang in the center of our front line, supported by a tactical bomber. Immediately shut down by our interceptors and superior land forces. Unusual attack since we had an entire corps based in that province.

20th November

The 2 JJ corps we're waiting to attack with were spread out to reduce supply stress hopefully.

26th November

Repeated Chinese offensives into Shijiazhuang has opened the door for our supply strapped forces to win a quick victory and advance into the province of Yushe. 51% to victory.




29th November

Penultimate Scout Panzer division is completed. After our quick victory in the battle for Yushe, another offensive into Xintai is immediately launched. An attack into Yongquan followed immediately afterwards as there is now no possibility of a counter-attack against these troops. Xingtai at 65% and Yongquan at 69%.



3rd December

The forces attacking Xintai run out of supplies and fuel before they are able to move into the province, despite being victorious on the field. A division in supply nearby is marched in their place.



The vanguard in the battle of Songyan have arrived. The cavalry division is immediately beset by a quartet of enemy divisions. Three days until reinforcements arrive. This division may get routed at Songyan, but it is cavalry and we are not in a manovure phase of war so it is an acceptable loss.

4th December

Politics

Noticed that the leninists and left-wing radicals now hold 6% popularity between them. Control clique stands at 14%. Social conservatives and market liberals hold 60% between them. Feeling suspicous of American and Soviet spies, but I don't want to risk a coup so we're improving organisation and switched minister of security to Baba Eiichi with the prince of terror trait +15% ruling party support.

If you're wondering why I never touched Guangxi Clique by seizing Hainan, at 60ICs it's best to let sleeping tigers lie.



8th December

Spotted Chinese ships near Taiwan, sent a fleet to investigate.



11th December

Pleasant surprise, one of our speculative peace offers paid off!



This is fantastic news because we can improve the port of Hamhuang before resuming hostilities. We were see-sawing on some offensives, especially around Xingtai because supplies simply ran out and other troops from elsewhere had to be drafted in several times.

Some legal changes.



27th December

Pulled the second army out of China, 2 JJ corps and a GI corps to reduce supply issues for the garission.

31st December

The GI V Corps were formed on the home islands out of three recently trained divisions.

We are producing 4x Naval base levels for completion on July the 18th 1938. This will be applied to the port of Hamhuang, once these are produced and applied we will be able to reopen war with the Chinese.

We are considering an attack on Siam, however it has serious drawbacks. Although it will increase overall ICs, it will also need an investment of garission divisions which will outweigh the increase in IC during the period from now till we restart war with China. So it will put us behind on that count, it will also allow the UK to greatly increase threat ratings since it will share a border with us. On the positive side, we will be able to run a war economy a little longer and hopefully begin to close in on parity with the nationalist chinese economy. With Shanxi, we stand at 117 ICs and I imagine the Chinese one is even bigger given Guangxi's is estimated at 63 by itself (4spies).

The new Japan

[Pj Fallon]

What sort of CV fleets are you using?

Did I see a 4 Inf division in your OOB? I am sorry but surly it needs the artillery?

Your supply problem sounds like the old Hamhung supply problem. Thats odd. I thought that was fixed. how much supply is actually in the port?

You seem to be going for a grinding/steam rolling offensive. I always go for encircle and eliminate. But you are having troop shortages. But still, bit of a waste of MP.

That is the first time I have actually seen the Peace diplomatic option.

[blackdown]

What sort of CV fleets are you using?

Did I see a 4 Inf division in your OOB? I am sorry but surly it needs the artillery?

Your supply problem sounds like the old Hamhung supply problem. Thats odd. I thought that was fixed. how much supply is actually in the port?

You seem to be going for a grinding/steam rolling offensive. I always go for encircle and eliminate. But you are having troop shortages. But still, bit of a waste of MP.

That is the first time I have actually seen the Peace diplomatic option.

The CV fleets are two carriers with 10 escorts, predominately light cruisers. I have two of these fleets. At the moment I've not paid much attention to the naval OOB because I am not at war with a naval power and I expect the composition and size of my fleets to change a lot as I produce more ships later. I once used primarily BCs in my Italian AAR, but naval warfare was extremely difficult at -40% strength (difficulty modifier) and ageing ships, so you can expect to see a CV style which at least scales with tech in this AAR, perhaps complemented by substantial numbers of submarines.

There's a few 4 inf divisions, these are units I made or inherited from pre-existing forces at the start of the game. All produced units I call general infantry (GI) are 3xinf+1xart. The port is size 6, I'm confused at the source of the issue too as I do have FTM. Its already had game changing consequences, the western front would of been expanded much more earlier on if I wasn't seeing supply shortages and it rendered the Qingdao offensive null. I have four extra port levels in production so we can at least work around the bug

I disagree on the MP, asian theatre battles are decided on organisation. I haven't seen any of my units take any strength damage during the 6 months we spent at war and reinforcement costs stayed below 2 for the majority of the time unless there was air combat. If you look at the battle reports you will see even the big battles I reported on only had low hundreds of troops dying on the losing side.

Encircle and eliminate can work if you have a high unit density, unfortunately I'm fighting a very large army with a small one. At its highest point I reached 340,000 men so I hope you can see the issue for us in trying to get surrounds. I could definitely put together a force capable of doing it as I now have the equivalent of 3 combined arms divisions of 12k men (light tanks/motorised inf at 50/50 ratio) plus cavalry. I'll think about it, but it isn't generally my play style as you've probably seen.

Yeah, first time I've used peace too Spammed around 10 requests before I got an affirmitive though. Bit risky as the nats inherited a lot of troops from Shanxi and Communists and like you said, I haven't been doing encirclements. So these units will be upgraded to nationalist standards by the time we reach round two of the battle for East Asia. Thanks for posting, good to see someone reading

[Ybakgibumpti]

My scroll bar is TINY, which is good to see considering how you've outputted nice and lengthy posts for this AAR in such a small space of time. How long do you think it will take for you to consolidate and attack the Chinese again?

[sprites]

It's weird to make peace with china if your goal is to conquer the world.

[blackdown]

I just build 4 port levels and went to deploy them and every existing port was greyed out. I'm pretty sure you used to be able to deploy it straight onto a port and repair it up, has this been changed in a recent patch I really don't know what to say, did I really just waste 25 ICs for 200 days? Is there a tech I need before I can apply the port level upgrades? (advanced construction engineering?)

@Ybakgibumpti

I want around 9 corps and enough supply to run them. I have the units but not the supply situation fixed. Late August-October is a possible date to re-open the war, if we cannot fix supply then I will need a second supply source by doing an amphibious landing into Shanghai or Qingdao and running a separate front. We can start the war before we have marines ready for this landing (january 39 for the marines if I start making them now) but we wont be able to win it until then.

@sprites

The advantage of the peace break will allow us to beat the Chinese faster, I hope

[Pj Fallon]

Its nice to get such a detailed response to your post. Thanks. I will be knocking around.

The Port thing has been like that for ages. I found that out when I was trying to build some lev 3 airfields in the USSR as Germany ( I pre produced 12 thinking 4 level 3 airports would be enough to cover the areas where my air power stretched distance wise). That was back in Sempre Fi. I thought I could do it that way because of the way you deploy IC.

If the Hamhung is a bug report it, for all our sakes.
(please and thank you )

[TheBromgrev]

I just build 4 port levels and went to deploy them and every existing port was greyed out. I'm pretty sure you used to be able to deploy it straight onto a port and repair it up, has this been changed in a recent patch I really don't know what to say, did I really just waste 25 ICs for 200 days? Is there a tech I need before I can apply the port level upgrades? (advanced construction engineering?)

Ports and air bases don't work the same way IC and AA guns work, and they never have. With IC and AA guns you can stack them in the same province once completed, but with ports and airfields you can only drop 1 in a province, just like you can only upgrade forts and infra 1 level at a time. All upgrades to that 1 base must be done by clicking the province and building it up that way. You can't drop a completed port or airfield on an existing one. The game has always worked like that. Whether or not that's a good thing is debatable. For one, it means you can't instantly create a level 10 port out of thin air, which would cause all kinds of gamey exploits if you think about it. Image the US or UK dumping a level 10 port on every French coastal province in one day, which I think is something you wanted to do but on a smaller scale.

So yes, you unfortunately did just waste 25 IC for 200 days

Anyway, best place to do encirclements in China is Shandong. The peninsula just begs you to trap a bunch of divisions in it through amphibious landings.

[blackdown]

Ports and air bases don't work the same way IC and AA guns work, and they never have. With IC and AA guns you can stack them in the same province once completed, but with ports and airfields you can only drop 1 in a province, just like you can only upgrade forts and infra 1 level at a time. All upgrades to that 1 base must be done by clicking the province and building it up that way. You can't drop a completed port or airfield on an existing one. The game has always worked like that. Whether or not that's a good thing is debatable. For one, it means you can't instantly create a level 10 port out of thin air, which would cause all kinds of gamey exploits if you think about it. Image the US or UK dumping a level 10 port on every French coastal province in one day, which I think is something you wanted to do but on a smaller scale.

So yes, you unfortunately did just waste 25 IC for 200 days

Anyway, best place to do encirclements in China is Shandong. The peninsula just begs you to trap a bunch of divisions in it through amphibious landings.

Well, we'll consider it a handicap on top of the game settings then.

I wanted to double the size of the port but I expected it to take a long time to "repair" upto full strength level like with radar. Gamey? Maybe - but fair in the face of the fact I got Dagu as a level 10 port in Shanxi not being used by AI for supplies :P

I might dot these mini ports along the Chinese coast then as it only has 2 ports in the nationalist section.

As for Shangdong...you'll see soon

[blackdown]

1938

2nd January

Naval reorganisation prior to an invasion of Siam. Destroyers were removed from one of the carrier fleets to increase its range to 2,500. This fleet will be used to provide cover for the invasion fleet. This fleet consists of two carriers and 6 light cruisers.

The invasion fleet consists of 28 ships. A battlecruiser, 5 heavy cruisers and 2 light cruisers escorting 20 transports.

The invading force are the units of the second army. Two JJ corps and two GI corps aggregating 168,000 men overall.

The fleets were ordered to rebase to Taiwan from Tokyo as the first stage of operations.

5th January

Fleet sets sail for Siam from Taiwan.

7th January



The carrier fleets detects the scale of defences at Phet Buri, invasion fleet re-routed south to capture the much less defended port of Nakkon Si Thammarat.

8th January


We declare war on Siam.





The CAGs are ordered to ground attack Siamese forces at Nakhon as the GI IV Corps receives orders to lead the assault, the two weakest divisions without artillary support attack into the two flanking provinces. 41% to victory as the only defending unit is a HQ. By 5am, Japanese forces are victorious.



1pm Siamese ships engage our invasion fleet. 36-3.

We lost none, they lost none. The GI V corps is landed at the docks of Nakhon for usage as a reserve force. The GI IV Corps is ordered to capture the causeway of Thailand and fight its way north towards Burma.



Units remaining on the fleet are both JJ Corps. We sail north towards the tougher nut to crack, the port of Phet Buri.

9th January



The CAGs ground attack at Phet Buri and bring some vital scout information.



The lone squadron of Thailands fighters engage us in dogfights in the skies above Phet Buri.



The Siamese are trying to reinforce their positions at Phet Buri, the JJ II Corps is uses three of its divisions to engage the reinforcing units whilst the JJ III Corps carries out the direct assault into the enemy port.



Battle progress, Patani is a province in the south being attacked by the GI IV Corps. Progress in the two flanking assaults is dismal.

10th January



Phet Buri, four divisions against one on such low strength will only result in one outcome. Without our lightning attack and flank on the reinforcing divisions this assault wouldn't be possible.

11th January



We are victorious!

The two flanking assaults are immediately cancelled.

12th January

Battle of the gulf of Thailand, 36-2. We lost none, they lost none.

We have two victory point provinces to capture, Bangkok and Khon Kaen. The JJ III corps are given the task of defending Phet Buri and capturing Khon Kaen in the deep jungle near French indochina. The JJ II Corps is given the task of capturing Bangkok.

13th January



The Royal Thai Police are blocking the route north into Thailand.

Supplies are running short at both ports, the GI V Corps are loaded onto the fleet and returned to Taiwan.

20th January

Two infantry divisions face imminent destruction at the hands of the GI IV Corps, bringing its total kills to three divisions during the invasion.



JJ Scout division of 6,000 motorised and 6,000 light panzer begin attacking Bangkok. 6% to victory.

22nd January



Two offensives are underway as both Corps attempts to achieve their objectives.

25th January

We are victorious in the battle for Bangkok, the 12,000 combined arms unit enters the suburbs within a few hours. Siamese national unity is lower then our captured VPs.

26th January

Siam surrenders!



A survey of the area suggests we will need one corps of GI to pacify this region. The divisions used in the invasion are too high quality, with artillary support to consider using for this duty. The GI I Corps is marched to Dagu in Japanese Shanxi for transport to Japanese Siam, its divisions are triangular with no support making it ideal for the environment in Indochina.

We are now generating 34 threat towards the United Kingdom and 24 towards the USA. Our truce with nationalist China appears to of been declared invalid, perhaps because of our adventurism in Siam. This is good as we can now restart hostilities when we are ready.

We begin aligning towards the Soviet Union when informed our threat level to the USSR is rated at 45.

14th Feburary

Two convoys [+20] are ordered as our available transports sink to 13 ships.

24th Feburary

Last units of the second army leave Siam as the GI I Corps begins moving out to its new garission positions.

10th March



Anschluss in Austria.

16th March

Military re-organisation to ensure we had no 4inf divisions. Some divisions remain as 3inf with no artilliary support however artilliary brigades were judged to be less essential then expanding the overall quantity of divisions so we will retain these lesser quality 3inf divisions.

22nd March

A GI division (3xinf,1xart) completes training, another GI Corps was ordered to expand our military.

28th March

Supply transportation and supply organisation increase to level 2 tech levels.

We've given the Siamese industry time to redevelop after our invasion and it has not expanded as expected. The full scale of Siam's contribution to our economic output is 2 ICs. It has cost us an infantry corps to occupy the region. This situation is unsustainable. In some parts of the pacific we have garission divisions stacked on one island. These stacks are going to be used to create a new corps for Siam, we will leave adequate defences at all islands and none will be left undefended by this action, however there will be no strong-points left in the pacific either. Four divisions of 4,500 garission troops (2 brigades) are formed and are to be supported by a central division of 9,000 general infantry (3xinf).

2nd May



Italy joins the Axis

4th May



Siam Corps OOB

18th May



Last light tank division of 6,000 men finishes production. All motorised/panzer units have now finished and we will be concentrating on general infantry for the foreseeable future after we have produced our nascent marine corps.

14th June

We begin research of infantry 1940.

18th June

Reorganisation of the First Army in Shanxi. JJ Corps I is removed from the army and replaced with the GI IV Corps. This is because of Humhuang supply making offensives from Shanxi unfeasible. Instead we will use a general infantry army to hold our current positions and force the Chinese to keep a large army opposite us. A cavalry corps is formed out of the GI divisions, 3 divisions at 36,000 men strong. This is to be stationed in the west of our holdings along with the GI IV corps to give the option of silencing Xiebi San Ma should the opportunity arise.