Chapter 5 – July 1944
Introduction
With the approach of the main body of reinforcements from the west, the Soviet Far Eastern Theatre command structure was comprehensively reorganised. After redistributing all the arriving corps to the existing three Far East armies (1ya, 6ya and 15th) and moving divisions to gives all corps 4-5 divisions each, the new order of battle apportioned formations accordingly:
One of the existing Fronts (redesignated the 2nd Far Eastern Front) was retained as a purely shell organisation for later expansion (if required). It contained one army HQ and five corps HQs but no troops were assigned to any of them. The rest of the surplus HQs were disbanded, the generals going back into the commanders’ pool.
Of the Far Eastern armies, 1ya was the strongest with 25 divs in five corps; 15th held 20 divs in four corps and 6ya 14 divs in three corps. Their assigned and revised objectives are shown in the relevant sector combat sections below. The 1st Far Eastern Front continued to maintain a generally defensive tactical posture for now, though this might change once the new forces had largely reached their new positions, which would take a good number of weeks yet.
1. Far East Land Combat - Northern Sector
6ya Armiya was given responsibility for the northern part of the Northern sector, with its assigned objectives being to eventually retake the recently lost airfields of
Jakutsk and
Ulya. But its immediate concern was to get its reinforcements into the line and try to stop the continuing Japanese advance in that area. 6ya Armiya would not be assigned any air assets directly until it had airfields in the vicinity to support them.
The larger 15th Army, which also had air wings directly assigned, had one immediate defensive objective set on the northern end of
Lake Baikal at
Vitimskoe Ploskogore, with its two ‘eventual offensive objectives' being
Shilka and
Tyndinskiy.
The Northern sector had seen the heaviest fighting in the last few months and, while 1ya Armiya’s objectives were in the southern sector (south of
Lake Baikal), many of its formations overlapped and supported 15th Army’s line.
The battles fought in this sector during July are summarised below. Of note, the second battle of
Stanovoe Nagore (beginning on 19 July and ending in Soviet victory on 23 July) was a spoiling attack on the ultimately successful Soviet assault against
Dronovskiy. The Japanese unwisely continued the attack after Soviets had won the
Dronovskiy battle on 21 July (when the Soviets no longer attracted the multiple-combat penalty) and suffered heavy casualties in the process.
Apart from successful attacks on
Sorgo (won on 6 Jul) and
Sinyuga (10 July) in the centre and a failed Soviet attack on
Artemovskiy (16 July), the main combat focused on persistent (perhaps even obsessive) Japanese attacks on
Lensk in the north and
Stanovoe Nagore in the south.
After the Soviets had attacked and then occupied
Lensk earlier in the month, the Japanese attacked three times, with their persistence finally rewarded with a victory at the third attempt on 31 July. The second Japanese attack (3rd battle) had air support and, while it eventually failed, it weakened the tired Soviet defenders enough to allow that third counter-attack to succeed.
Savage fighting in
Stanovoe Nagore saw the Japanese try and fail to take it four times (including the spoiling attack described above), each time with very heavy casualties (over 4,100 in total). And by the end of the month, a strong Japanese attack with air support on a mechanised infantry division in
Tjung (in the north) was still going after three days of combat.
Battles and air strikes, Soviet Far East – Northern Sector, July 1944.
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2. Far East Land Combat - Southern Sector
The reorganised 1ya Armiya’s objectives were a mix of defensive (from
Ulan Ude at the south of
Lake Baikal down to
Uliastay) and one offensive objective –
Ulaanbataar, which the Soviet offensive into
Selanga Burin in June had clearly been seeking to reach. 1ya Armiya now had five corps all with five divisions each, but some of those troops were ‘western reinforcements’ which had not yet made it to the front.
In July, the Southern sector once again saw less combat than to the north of
Lake Baikal, but one of the battles was strategically quite significant for the Comintern – and a morale booster for the Soviets and beleagured Mongolians.
In the early hours of 2 July, the makeshift Mongolian capital of
Uliastay was properly secured. The Soviet 187 SD arrived and began entrenching, while 235 SD was passing through towards
Tszag, east of
Uliastay, which was currently unoccupied. This made it far less likely Mongolia would be forced out of the war by a quick Japanese strike from neighbouring
Taryacin. 235 SD was in position in
Tszag by 1300 hr on 7 July.
Unfortunately, despite heavy air strikes on Japanese attackers in two bordering provinces (which combined killed more than 2,800 enemy on 1-2 July),
Selanga Burin had not been reinforced sufficiently to be retained. The battle there was lost on 2 July.
The arrival of another two air wings (assigned to 15th Army) in overcrowded
Irkutsk on 9 July saw the number there rise to 18 wings of various types (3 x CAS, 2 x INT, 5 x M/R, 6 x TAC, 1 x TP and even 1 x NAV). And as previously noted, more wings were backed up in out-of-range airfields stretching west of there.
The
Battle of Taryacin began at 1100 hr on 11 July, with 235 SD attacking from
Tszag and the Mongolian 2nd Cav Div from
Ider. The Japanese 10th Rikusentai began the battle at around only 50% organisation, responding with an elastic defence to the shock attack. Heavy round-the-clock air support for the duration of the attack, flown from
Irkutsk, was of great assistance, killing over 1,700 Japanese marines over the first three days of the attack. The Comintern forces won an expensive but successful battle early on 14 July.
Battles and air strikes, Soviet Far East – Southern Sector, July 1944.
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3. Far East - Naval Operations
No submarines were lost during July and little serious damage was done to those still on patrol on Japan’s approaches, while another seven Japanese convoys were sent to the bottom by the Soviets that month (Allied efforts were unreported).
By 20 July, the 10th Navy (3 x SS), which was still in port undergoing repairs
Petropavlovsk Kamcackij, was at around 88% overall strength. It should be ready to venture out again some time in August. All the other sub flotillas were at or above 90% strength and none yet needed to be pulled in for repairs.
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4. Diplomatic, Intelligence and Leadership
On 1 July, with 13 spy teams in reserve, the Japanese puppet state Manchukuo was selected as the next espionage target. This was in part designed to help rein in their efforts in support of the Japanese in countering Soviet agents there. And perhaps, later on, it might be possible to undermine their national unity and so cause them to capitulate earlier than they might otherwise, should the Soviet strategic offensive begin to take their key cities. Leadership effort for training spies was boosted (by 0.26) at the expense of officer training, to ensure there would be enough in reserve for up to double the current rate of monthly losses.
By 3 July the new spy presence in Manchukuo was fully established and counter-espionage efforts were given full priority. Manchukuo had four teams in the field at home, and none in reserve.
In Manchukuo, domestic spies were caught on 4, 6 and 13 July. Soviet agents there were caught there on 10, 11 and 29 July. By the end of the month, Manchukuo’s domestic spy strength still stood at four, meaning they had replaced the three teams they had lost.
[NB: in one of the run-throughs I had to abandon due to computer problems, they were down to one or two by the end of the month.]
In Japan, a Kempeitai team was neutralised on 6 July, while three Soviet teams were lost – on 11 (to stooges from Manchukuo), 24 and 26 July. The Japanese had replaced the team they had lost, to finish on the same strength as they had started – three.
[NB: they were down to about one in the discarded run-through. The GRU seems to have been far less successful the second time round in both locations.] Of interest, they were producing a lot of convoys: the Soviet and Allied submarine efforts must be causing them a fair bit of trouble!
The NKVD reported they had arrested a total of 11 spy teams in the Soviet Union during the month.
[NB: Just taking this figure off the espionage screen now, rather than recording each one and where they came from. Too much like hard work and generally only of marginal interest. From here onwards I’ll be concentrating on the countries I have active espionage operations in.]
On the diplomatic influence front, the charm offensive was maintained on Turkey and Spain
[both Comintern victory condition countries and still non-aligned], while Sweden was self-aligning to the Comintern. No specific effort was being made to influence Afghanistan
[not important enough to warrant two research projects-worth of leadership effort], but it was drifting towards the Comintern a little more than to the other factions. Influence in Spain was now being contested by the Allies, but Turkey was drifting rapidly for now.
5. Research and Production
At the beginning of the month, another new air base (the second) was commenced and put to the top of the production queue (once deployed, this would double the capacity and expansion rate for new air bases in the Far East’s Northern sector). At that point, the upgrade bill stood at 115.5 IC (out of 318 total) and reinforcements at 6.4 IC.
By 7 July, with new upgrades, the requirement had jumped to 148 IC, with 4.4 IC for reinforcements. Supply production was at a little over 60 IC (and still falling behind), with a constant 19 IC sunk into consumer goods. This left only 84.4 IC for the production queue – a heavy drag on Soviet expansion of its armed forces and military infrastructure.
The next research advance came on 10 July, with interdiction tactics being improved (another carry-over tech from the AI). In line with equipment development, effort was now switched to heavy bomber crew training for the new models that would soon be developed in prototype.
The first level of nuclear theoretical research was achieved on 22 July and, due to the special focus on this area and its long and expensive lead-times, the effort was maintained for now to assist with practical research efforts. Research would have to reach Level 4 before a bomb could be produced. And a nuclear reactor built.
[Note, Superior firepower was also now being researched – missed the screen shot for whatever it had replaced some days before.]
23 July saw the espionage training rate lowered
[by 1 LS] after reserve spy teams reached eight, despite attrition in Manchukuo and Japan during the month to date. This was switched into established an extra new research project team, which began work on supply production to help address the great cost of keeping the Far Eastern Theatre supplied (all the other relevant supply-related techs were already being worked on).
Two projects finished on 29 July. Operational level organisation (always useful to reduce post-attack reorganisation delays) reached Level 4: civil defence (a bit ahead of time – a 1945 tech) was the next to be improved. With the damage being taken by formations in the east, quicker recovery was very important.
And after mechanical computing capability was improved to aid research efficiency, ways to further improve industrial production were sought: not only were current demands for supplies and upgrades in particular stretching factories to the limit, but with the construction of a
[very very expensive and time consuming, so I discovered, never having built one before in HOI3!] nuclear reactor becoming necessary in the near future, that strain would be even greater.
Indeed, as the month ended, Soviet industrial planners reviewed the current and coming requirements. Three projects would be completed in August (a new air base; improvement to the
Irkutsk air base, which would roll over to the next level; and a new mech division) would free up around 17.5 IC. Supply production was currently running at 87.68 IC just to keep roughly even with consumption on a day-by-day basis. With many of the infantry division upgrades having ‘washed through, the upgrade bill was back down to ‘only’ 76.76 IC. Leaving around 133 IC for production. But out of that, with civil nuclear research having reached the required level, funds for a new nuclear reactor (which could now be built) would have to be found.
And the estimate for that was a whopping 63.75 IC – for 229 days!
[Ouch! Stalin almost choked when briefed.] Commencement was not authorised immediately, but would have to start soon if the timeline for a Soviet atomic bomb was to be kept on track.
The dormant US lend-lease program was a lost opportunity, as aid was approved but had originally been routed through
Vladivostok, long occupied by the Japanese. One industry bureaucrat came up with the idea of cancelling the current route and then reapplying to the US for a resumption, which they would hopefully target through a different port
. [I had never tried this before, so am experimenting to see what the system comes up with. But there’s no real risk, as I was getting nothing at present.] In that way, crafty Soviet apparatchiks hoped to get the US funding to indirectly help support the development of a nuclear weapon which might be used against the Allies one day!
6. Summaries
Once again, the Japanese had made a few more territorial gains than the Soviets, especially in the north. But these were limited, and importantly the security of
Uliastay had been improved. The Soviet defence was firming up in all but the very north of the line.
Soviet Far East general situation as at 31 July 1944.
Uliastay was now well secured and Tarycin provided a buffer against another Japanese threat.
Marshal Karpezo, the Far Eastern Theatre Commander, was asked for his views on the situation. He was comparatively optimistic and in general terms had no requests for new units.
[Though there is a discrepancy between ‘what the theatre needs’ and what is needed on the front facing Japan.]
There didn’t seem to be any missed battle reports this month
: the Soviets suffered 6,004 casualties and the Japanese 9,116 to ground combat. Japanese air attacks killed another 1,839 Soviet troops, while Soviet ground attacks killed 4,572 more Japanese soldiers.
[All figures include minor allies where they were engaged in the combat.]
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Other than in Indo-China, there was no change of front lines noted in South East Asia during July.
The Allies had made net gains in Indo-China in the centre, though they were narrow in frontage. It was uncertain which side was more likely to find itself ‘pocketed’.
The Japanese had made more gains in Australia and were inching towards
Melbourne. One could only hope their long sea supply lines were being mercilessly harried!
And no ground had exchanged hands in the Pacific.