[size=+1]
1942, April – Borneo Campaign[/size]
Spring dawns with fresh campaigning around the world. In the west, the Allied/Axis front has stabilized a bit by cutting Spain in half. I’ll bet nobody expected that.
”No-one expects the Spanish Inquisition!” – Cardinal Ximenez
Take note that the US was originally trying to bust out from Barcelona, but this area has been reduced leaving them sitting on Mallorca and Majorca. They have also taken Sardinia.
In the eastern Mediterranean, the Bulgarians continue their faceoff with the Greeks. This area highly concerns me since as I saw in my last game, US troops could start pouring out of that area at any time. Yugoslavia is down near the Axis faction corner of the diplomacy triangle, but they are starting to drift towards the Allies. I am debating declaring war on them so that Germany and Italy can link up with the Bulgars and possibly assist in Greece. Or, just leave the Bulgars to their fate, since an Allied conquest of them won’t open a path to the Axis heartland unless Hungary or Romania goes into the Allied camp.
Up north, Lhasa has been under constant attack for over four months! And for nearly every day of these four months, the attack was at 99% against me. However, at the last week of March, the attack completion took a steep nosedive down to around 65%. General Homma, on loan from the Japanese, is the new hero of pan-Asian solidarity!
I have plenty of other Japanese troops on loan that I am trying to ship out of there to get to areas where I can have an easier time supplying them and get more use out of them. Even doing strategic movement, I have barely made any progress in getting them relocated. Important tip: never commit more than a token force in the Himalaya region no matter how tempted you are.
” Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously, and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light”
“Right, that's bad. Okay, alright, important safety tip, thanks Egon” – Egon Spengler and Peter Venkman
The US is making headway on taking Portuguese Timor (as you can see on the minimap, I care about this since that island would threaten my supply to Australia). The US also has taken Okinawa for the second time. I think I will be forced to help the Japanese get it back since this threatens my Haikou – Vladivostok supply route.
As I mentioned in the last update, I have just finished another round of Convoy production. Allied attacks have done a real number on my trade and supply, as you can see, my Merchant Marine logs are a litany of red ink. It would be neat to see a list of Convoy ships lost & sunk by me, but that doesn’t seem to be one of the available statistics. And since playing a German and doing sub warfare on the UK seems like a “cool” thing to do, this would appear to be a pretty big oversight.
Be that as it may, let’s continue, shall we?
1 April: I’m ready to assault Borneo. Sadly, I don’t know if this experience will be like Sumatra, where I have to make separate landings at every port since there is no infrastructure to connect them, or if it will be more reasonable like Java where I can at least send one division from province to province. Hopefully if anything comes out of this AAR, it will allow other people to plan their Pacific battles better. Since I am forced to guess in this game, I will start out by attacking Balikpapan province, which has the current Dutch capital and the only VP on the whole island. The top half is owned by the British; while there is nothing of real value there, it does contain their last two ports in this theatre of operations.
My men arrive late in the day, and are surprised to see Greek(!) soldiers here on loan. April Fools’, I guess.
The Greek soldiers try to block my landing, but good luck trying to cut through that jungle! Needless to say, they don’t manage to get there faster than my men can get off the boats.
2 April: A moment after I attack Balikpapan province, all those men disappear, so I presume they were out of supply.
4 April: More troops are sent to Pontianak on the west side of the island. The Greeks are back, so maybe the defenders on the east side of the island simply shattered and were teleported over here.
I notice a major Japanese – British battle going on off the coast near Singapore that involves at least one Carrier, but the display doesn’t tell me who owns what ships.
9 April: I take the Dutch port, and luckily for me, I can actually attack the British one up here without having to resort to boats. I notice there is a British Carrier up here, maybe it is the one the Japanese were trying to engage earlier.
10 April: I’m hitting the last Dutch port on the island.
11 April: Japanese loaner troops have finally arrived in the Burma theatre, now I just need to wait for them to resupply.
15 April: British Motorized troops pop up to present the first serious (and only) defense of Borneo.
” Our chief weapon is surprise...” – Cardinal Ximenez
16 April: I send Japanese expeditionary troops to help retake Okinawa. The US appears to be using these islands as a base for strategic bombing of Japan.
19 April: Turns out the US has at least a Medium Armor division doing garrison duty on the island.
22 April: More men arrive to take Okinawa.
25 April: Back in Borneo, more Brits show up, and I get pushed out of Kuching.
27 April: The British are about to pinch off Tibet from the rest of China, and I can’t do anything about it since all the troops Japan gives me are always out of org and supply.
30 April: I take back Okinawa. The British Motorized unit in Kuching is fast enough that it catches my fleeing division and eliminates it. Now that I have Okinawa, I should be able to redirect my Transport fleet to get more forces in the Borneo area, although I may lose the Dutch port. The fleet that the US had based in Okinawa engages my ships when they are forced to leave, and I lose a Transport without inflicting any matching losses.
The loss of my division in Borneo hits me pretty hard emotionally. Since 1936, my construction of new troops has been extremely limited. I managed to beef up various divisions with Artillery, I created a new Mountain division building four brigades in serial, and I upgraded another two brigades of Infantry to Mountain. I am trying to come up with enough ICs to start making new ground troops, but my OOB is barely changed from 1936 and I am very close to my existing men as they are basically irreplaceable. As I expect the bodies of my lost troops are vanished forever in the jungles of northern Borneo, I will have to give them a state funeral in absentia.
[size=-1]
In memoriam of all the Chinese soldiers who gave their lives for their homeland in the real war[/size]
”End of Line…” – Master Control Program