A quick look at the Production situation in mid-October, since I haven’t addressed this recently. Not a lot has changed, but you can sense my frantic scramble to build more Escorts and Convoy ships, because as you can see on the right there are many convoys which are not fully allocated for.
I also want future transportation capability (a new Transport), and more cavalry and garrisons to round out my troop strengths. There’s a Bf 109 license contract getting slowly funded for future needs.
All of my resource stockpiles are in good shape, as I’m now bringing in supplies of all of them from the East Indies and African captured territories.
Over the next two-week period, I’m going to deal with individual theatres one at a time. You’ll see two weeks in Africa, and then you’ll see two weeks in our other major theatre in Borneo, just so that you have some consistency and aren’t shifting constantly back and forth. This update covers, for the most part, the last half of October, 1939.
You’ll recall the 3rd Cavalry was pulled out of Dakar and sailed around Africa with the intent of landing at Abidjan. The attack against Accra by those French tanks from the African interior changed my plans, and I landed the cavalry at Lome in order to attack their flank.
As usual, the French broke off their attack when faced with a two-front battle. Then, this became an uneven fight, and it would be suicidal to continue attacking the French with cavalry. So I broke off contact, and loaded my cavalry back aboard the transports.
My infantry at Accra was hanging on by a thread, and so they were forced to retreat toward Lome. This would result in the surrender of Accra, except that my cavalry soon arrived to pick up the fight, alongside a remaining garrison. The British, faced with a full-strength cavalry divisions (well… two brigade strength, anyway), ended their attack upon us.
Noting their much reduced morale, it seemed prudent to try to dislodge them entirely. My cavalry (not the weakened garrison) launched an attack against Kumasi!
This battle was a spirited one – mounted horse cavalry against mounted motorised infantry – but it came to an end four days later with our cavalry having to withdraw. Their losses were smaller than our own, but our hopes had been that their morale would be sapped from these repeated attacks, and they would give up their unsupplied corner of the jungle. Our hopes were forlorn, for now, but we pledged to return to this battle.
In retrospect, air power might have turned the tide, there, but our two air wings were occupied in Borneo, which we shall get to in a moment. First, let’s look at the rest of Africa….
You’ll recall that, early on in our war, we took French Cameroun (formerly German Kameroon, until the Versailles Treaty). Our cavalry – the 2nd Cavalry, as it happens – has been beating its way through the central African bush for many weeks, and it’s finally emerging into some sort of civilisation, hitting first (around the 3rd week of October) the Belgian Congo, and now heading west so that by evening of the 29th of October (see inset), they have linked up with Portuguese Cabinda and have successfully cut off the French mountain division from overland contact with any Allied forces.
There is a small Belgian naval presence just south of them, but no help will be forthcoming from there, because they have their own problems. We’ve now cut off the coastal Belgian division from contact with its own capital, as well as from any supporting contact with units in the Congolese interior. The Belgian temporary capital, at Elisabethville, deep inside the Congo, is now cut off from reasonable possibilities of contact from outside civilization. Things are not well for Belgium!
In northwest Africa, you may recall that there was a French Marine division pushed out of Dakar into the desert. They’ve been sneaking their way south, since then, into the jungle, and now that Portuguese troops are less distracted than before, there has come to be a chase on!
Meanwhile, to the east, the 3rd Cavalry, having failed to dislodge Gen. Gott’s motorised infantry from Kumasi, has relocated to Abidjan, and is pressing north in an attempt to cut Gott off from his countrymen (and the French) completely! This mission has a fringe benefit of also placing the 3rd Cavalry in position to perhaps impact the French Marines’ flight, too. In any case, this is part of a process of both, pressing into the interior of colonial Africa, and cutting off those remaining Allied units from their supply and their ability to further affect the war.
On the 2nd of November, the Marines arrive in a position where they blunder into the Portuguese headquarters brigade (see inset), as it moves north to try to cut them off. A Portuguese garrison moves, quickly, to intervene from another direction, and the Marines are in a situation where they cannot possibly prevail.
You may notice the South African flag in the popup in the bottom left of the inset – our submarines continue to sink Allied shipping on a fairly regular basis. On the other hand, the Allies are also sinking Portuguese shipping.
Now… Back to the one major remaining theatre – the East Indies and South China Sea. I’m going to borrow an already-used screenshot from last update in order to provide context here.
Here, you can see that I have used the garrison division I borrowed from Hong Kong – the LAST of our defenders there! – to capture a province “at our back” near Kuching. This will allow us to retreat from Kuching if we lose the battle, thereby preserving our troops to fight another day.
They immediately re-embark. But instead of transporting them to Kuching, where they could aid in the defense of that province, I decide to use the gambit I’ve used so many times before in this game – I land them at Sibu, behind the British lines, and attack them on their flank!
You can see the multiple combat penalty applied, now, in their battle. Notice, also, that our infantry division has been forced to retreat from Kuching, thoroughly exhausted. Now they have someplace to return to, rather than being eliminated or having to be picked up by offshore transports (which I need elsewhere). A newly landed garrison “holds the fort” against the relentless British attack.
Now, our hopes are that the British will not want to continue the two-front battle at bad odds. However, they manage to bring a second infantry into the battle, from the north. Instead (or additionally), it’s our own defenders at Kuching who get flanked! And the mix is not good.
By the 24th of October, we’ve lost at Kuching – both of our defending units are now retreating back to the west, into the province we took as “insurance” for our retreat. I’ll pick them up later, after they’ve had time to recover, and bring them back into the fight.
Ack!
While we’re so busy trying to win this awesome struggle in Borneo, the French are sneaking around in Indochina, taking our conquests back! We lose Hanoi… Surely soon after we’ll lose Haiphong Harbour too. Well… We’ll just have to go back and get those provinces after we’ve settled things in Borneo.
Now, my purpose for having landed the 16th Division at Sibu is now lost – they were to flank the British, and convince them to give up their attack on Kuching. Having missed the mark on that (not a wasted effort – a good try, and besides I got some good licks in on the British while trying!), it’s time to pull them out and place them instead at Kuching, where they can defend against the British advance.
I know this seems a lot like “robbing Peter to pay Paul”, and you’re right! But it’s a necessary exercise. Without any one of these moves, I’d be losing right now. Remember, also, both of our bomber squadrons are actively employed here, and taking chunks out of the enemy. Things are still winnable!
Ack! Again!
Our transports are intercepted by two flotillas of Dutch destroyers!!!
Thank Heaven we have escorts with the transports! Our destroyers, remarkably, managed to get some good hits in on the Dutch, knocking one of their flotillas down to 62% (please forgive the sloppy editing – I accidentally chopped off the destroyers where it showed damage). Within the space of this 5 hour battle, our destroyers also managed to get additional damage against them! I know this because we actually won this battle:
(The Dutch get us back, though, with the loss of 2 convoy transports and an escort elsewhere in the Indian Ocean!)
Our transport fleet barely survives (obviously this is an exploit, of sorts, with my army unaffected by the loss of 86% of my transports!). But we manage to land our troops safely at Kuching, where they resist the British advance and preserve our important conquest still!
Whew! What a battle, so far!!!