This is a political view of the eastern front showing how the territory divides between the Petal throne and Russia. I’m not sure how much effect this has since most of the Russian defences are slowly being taken up by Petal Throne forces. Currently the entire Russian army appears to be located in one province in the corner of their line (see plan 1 below for more clarity).
The white dots indicate the Russian VP provinces. Despite the obvious difficulty in taking these they are going to be my long-term objective for the summer campaign. I have no idea if it is practical but annexing Russia would relieve major partisan problem behind my lines and give a significant reduction in TC problems.
Currently all plans are focused on the twin objectives of destroying enemy forces and relieving the partisan/occupied territory costs on TC. Currently 400 TC are dedicated to these “occupation” costs and annexing Russia offers the opportunity for saving may be 200.
This is the key map for examining opportunities in this theatre. Terrain is all important as the region is peppered with mountains and swamps. The second issue for consideration is the Petal Throne supply line which traces across and edited in straits link between Japan and Korea, up through Korea and into China.
I suggest you all stare at this map for a bit and imagine what can be done. The mountains are everywhere hemming in any operations and threatening terrible consequences for getting it wrong.
This is the first plan for the theatre and only uses forces that are already present. There are 24 infantry divisions in Ulan Ude and with 40 TAC squadrons scattered around the theatre this is a more than adequate force for this limited offensive. The northern wing is provided by 11 mountain divisions in Yakutsk. There are another 6 infantry divisions to the west of the proposed pocket. The blue circled province is our target province and it currently contains the entire 22 divisions of the Russian army. Once in place around it I will have 7 directions of attack which will go a long way to improving the odds (as well as a month or two of interdiction bombing.
During this offensive our TAC bombers will attempt to actually destroy all of the divisions displaced by the attacks to form the pocket. This should be easily possible considering the strength of forces available.
Once the pocket has been created and reduced then all forces can look to the east and head for Okhotsk. As far as I can seen this Russian army is the only sizeable force between me and Okhotsk and I should be able to get there in a few months marching time. This will give me a naval base on the east coast of Asia which will open up new opportunities for naval action against the petal throne.
This brings us to the main event. Ever division that I can spare (and a few I probably can’t) from every theatre is being redeployed to northern Mongolia. I have completely stripped some areas of defences and some interesting allied advances / landings could occur over the next few weeks. Central Asia has been left very weak and significant garrison for infantry swaps are being set up in Europe. The Europe changes won’t happen immediately but meanwhile some areas are going to be inadequately defended.
Mid campaign I am looking to withdraw a few divisions from the British Isles by a garrison substitution policy but this will take a while due to the naval transportation involved. I may even disband all the divisions with less than 20 experience and use the manpower to rebuild them (with 20 experience).
Back at the plan itself. This is all very nebulous as no element of it is really clear except the starting point. The biggest problem is that very few of the Petal throne divisions are actually visible. I would say that I can see about 200 out of the current estimate of 1050 divisions. This means that there are huge numbers of divisions somewhere unknown. Obviously there must be lots scattered all over but there are no hints about where the major concentrations are. As a result my operations are like a huge leap in the dark and will have to adjust to whatever enemy reaction occurs.
The initial step is clear enough with a general advance to overrun all enemy forces in the Gobi desert area. I will look to clean out all enemy forces on the non-mountain terrain and at least attempt to penetrate infantry into the mountains to form disruptive anchor points against enemy counter-attack. Once this is complete, or earlier if reasonable, I will penetrate through the Beijing gap to the Chinese coast. The objective is to break the land based supply line and then try to destroy what enemy forces I can. It will be essential to take at least some mountain provinces on the flanks to provide sufficient space for my forces to be safe but much of it can be ignored.
Once I have achieved a solid position on the coast I am going to have to decide what to do next. This is pretty much unpredictable but here are a few options
· Pursue south and capture all the open terrain in central China.
· Launch major naval operations against the sea supply lines when established aimed at so damaging their convoy capability that mainland supply collapses
· Launch land or amphibious attacks against the Petal Thrones mainland supply depot to capture their supply stocks and disrupt distribution
· Strike east to Vladivostok
· Capture the central mountains (old communist country) and the Chengdu area
· Supplement the previous with parachute landings in the Himalayas to threaten a second layer of encirclement
· Add your own suggestion
Speculation about the location of enemy units
There has been a constant flow of Petal Throne divisions across the front of my positions in Mongolia. This clearly indicates a source of divisions to the east suggesting a large concentration in the Manchurian area although it is possible that the flow originates in Japan and wends its way up through Korea.
In the south there must be a lot of divisions heading towards India since the border is currently barely protected. This should be drawing units from across southern China. Nothing has turned up yet which seems a little odd but given the reaction in Malaya I am expecting to see about 100 divisions in total many of which should turn up at the India border during the summer campaign. At some point these may overwhelm my defences but as long as they arrive piecemeal the air defence has a good chance of dealing with them.
Beyond that I have no clear idea where they all are. I am not inclined to believe there are huge stacks on Pacific islands and very much afraid there are large stacks all around China and Korea. This could make phase 2 of the summer campaign “very interesting” and given the terrain more than a little challenging.
