Shadow over the Pacific: An (Axis) Australian AAR

[TehDarkMiner]

[1938]
[Operation Ruby]

Not much happened in the rest of 1937. But it's early-ish 1938. With Europe on the brink of war, why not take a few territories of our own?

"Prime Minister, it's time. Our divisions and transports are ready."

"Our marines will crush any initial resistance."

"And we have just the right number of transports."


The Prime Minister sat down for a second.
"Very well. Mr Lavarack, move the transports to their planned locations. This will be the first mighty victory of many!" he said quickly.

Our transports are in position. It is time to conquer New Zealand. It will be unprepared. Unmobilised. Perfect prey.

War is declared.

Initially, our gains are very strong. We have taken two cities, Auckland and Christchurch, quickly and painlessly. Our single marine division has encountered some resistance. They don't seem to be doing badly though.

And sure enough, Australia stands victorious.



After quickly seizing Dunedin, they have no VPs left.

Excellent.



"Prime Minister! I bring great news - we have defeated New Zealand. They have surrendered!" Lavarack came rushing in, slamming the papers on the Prime Minister's desk.
"And look, I even have some graphs showing how much we've become more powerful!"

"Now, Prime Minister, if my maths is correct, then we've really only gotten a few percent more powerful," he sighed, "I'm not very sure this was worth the hours of planning, for a few measly resources and a tiny bit more manpower."
"John, we barely lost any men, and that 'tiny' bit of manpower will soon more than make up for it. Let our territories grow, however little the gain.



The Prime Minister wanted this to happen. He envied the empires of France, Japan and the United Kingdom. How could they have taken so much? Even the Netherlands, a tiny little place in Europe, had control of many islands above Australia. Ha. If they could do it, why couldn't Australia? The Prime Minister shook his head slightly, knowing that soon he would have enough territory to rival those countries and their monarchs.
Monarchs.
Monarchs.
His tainted soul almost leaped from that very thought. What if HE would become that? But then he calmed himself - he knew he would have to wait for Europe to be at war before even considering that. But maybe, he could take some other neutral countries in the meantime? There were plenty of neutral ocean-connected countries, he thought.

"Mr. Lavarack, prepare our armies again. We march to war."
"What? On who? Surely not the Allies?"
"All in good time! We're going to attack Siam!"

 

[Beakmiester]

I'm always a fan of an Australian AAR - so I'm interested to see where this one goes.

 

[TehDarkMiner]

There aren't enough Australian AARs IMO. It's situated in quite an interesting place geographically - plenty of resource rich areas around it, which have relatively little defence.
China's a great place to expand to - lots of manpower there, and some IC and resources too (though I really doubt I'll be attacking China. I may, but I don't think I will. It's too much of a risk, if I'm already at war with the Allies.). India's not too far off, and Japan's in good distance too.
I'm not sure if I'll attack India though. I'll definitely have to take over as the UK and puppet them, though, if I will do that. I know they didn't get independence until 1947, but still, I don't want to have to take EVERY Indian territory in order to technically conquer it.

You can have some really interesting games with some of the weaker countries, a feeling of accomplishment and achievement that you just don't get with the majors.

Plus, it's more interesting to read too, to see smaller countries grow bigger.

 

[TehDarkMiner]

[1938]

[Operation Topaz]
With the PM's recent speeches about attacking Siam, we have created a battle plan, called Operation Topaz.

Siam should be ready to fall, and no real resistance is expected. We have enough divisions to attack all of their ocean-connected VPs. This will be a quick war.

Our transports are in position to attack. We can already see that they don't have many divisions guarding their coastline.

Initial landings are a success! There is only a bit of resistance, and that will be soon fixed.

Australia comes out victorious again!





"Mr Lavarack, I love your style of attacking. Send ships to attack every major city, and attack at the same time. Quick and efficient." said the Prime Minister, after hearing the good news of Siam's surrender.
"Thank you, Prime Minister. I think, I should give it a name."
"How about....sea attack?" suggested the Prime Minister, being somewhat awful at names.
"Uh, yeah, we could do that. But how about Meerkrieg?" Lavarack smiled, "Yes. Meerkrieg. I like the sound of it. Literally, sea war in German."

 

[Panzer4life]

My style of invading, find all the VP sectors, than attack them for a quick win. Only works against regional and minor powers, but hey, it works.

 

[Avindian]

Great idea, and loving the AAR so far. Keep it up!

 

[Jagdpnzr]

Swift invasion of Siam. I wonder who is next on the list. Lots of the Pacific colonies will be ripe for the picking once the Allies get tangled up with the Nazis. Should be a fruitful harvest.

 

[TehDarkMiner]

My style of invading, find all the VP sectors, than attack them for a quick win. Only works against regional and minor powers, but hey, it works.

Indeed it does
It's very effective.

Great idea, and loving the AAR so far. Keep it up!

Thank you, I certainly will

Swift invasion of Siam. I wonder who is next on the list. Lots of the Pacific colonies will be ripe for the picking once the Allies get tangled up with the Nazis. Should be a fruitful harvest.

Definitely
I have quite a few resource-rich countries in mind which should be in reach, after I take a few islands from the French/British.

 

[narsus534]

I like the idea so far. Certainly being implemented well.

 

[TehDarkMiner]

Thank you

Okay, time for another update!

 

[TehDarkMiner]

1938
[The Fall of Portugal]

Two loud knocks on the door.
"Yes?" called the Prime Minister.
"I come from Germany. Ve hear you have made efforts to align yourself vith us. Germany vould like to invite you to join the Axis." said an intelligent looking man in a suit, with a thick German accent.
"At last, you've agreed! Well, this is very good news."
"Here is the papervork!" said the German diplomat, shoving a strange looking paper onto the desk.

"This is very strange paperwork, indeed. Well, I will accept," smiled the Prime Minister, "Perhaps with my access to you territory I can conquer even more!"
The German left the room, leaving the Prime Minister thinking of all the countries he could invade. But he shook that out of his head. He didn't want far-flung countries. Well, not any further than the Pacific. He looked at the map again, and saw a country with a few resources, and horrible terrain for fighting. But he laughed - their military was probably comprised of militia and volunteers.
"Mr. Lavarack!" called the Prime Minister.
"Yes?" came a reply.
"Come in here please. I wish to discuss important matters with you." the Prime Minster stated.

"Yes?" asked Lavarack.
"Can you see this country here?" said the Prime Minister, pointing on a large map of the world.
"That's...that's Persia, isn't it?" Mr Lavarack laughed, slightly surprised, "You can't possibly be thinking of attacking Persia! That's like, well that's like taking money from the poor. There's nothing to take!"
"I think I will decide what I am thinking about. Look again, Mr Lavarack. What do you see?"

"I can see....two provinces with factories - now that could be useful, and a bit of energy, some metal, some rare materials, and some oil," said Lavarack, "Oh. Oil. Maybe we
should...relieve the Persians of such resources?"
"That is exactly what I was thinking, Mr Lavarack!"

After a few minutes of working out battle plans, John looked up from the desk.
"Prime Minister, I'm not sure our transports can reach there."
"Well, we can't use India to attack from, can we? We're not attacking the British....yet, and that's the only place we can get to there from."
"Goa is within reach, Prime Minister." sighed Lavarack.
"Attack Portugal? Okay. Declare war on them now!" cried the Prime Minster. He realised that this was far from the protection of his navy, but he needed the strategically located ports only Portugal could offer.
"Without battle plans? Without detail analysis of the chances of victory?" John Lavarack looked worried. He didn't know anything about the Portuguese, except they had a larger empire. Which worried him tremendously.
"Yes. Do it now, Lavarack. I am impatient!"

No resistance on Goa, it seems. Portugal must be weaker than we thought.

And no resistance here? Come on Portugal! You can do better than this, surely? Maybe they've got several full corps in Lisbon?

Taking Nova Lisboa is worth 5 VP - a devastating loss to the morale of the Portuguese people!

The first resistance to us taking Portuguese territory! And it's on an island. With no resources. Or manpower. Or IC. Instead of important ports in Africa, this tiny little useless island gets some defence?
Because logic.

And we soon win the battle anyway. Portugal really isn't looking that great. They've lost most of their empire, 72% of their VP has been taken, and we are within attacking distance to their mainland.

WHAT. THE.

No.
I refuse to believe Portugal removed every unit from their capital city.

That was a lot easier than expected.




Okay, I'll get the Persia update out tomorrow as well. As a little...bonus from me, not having uploaded in the last few days

 

[sebas379]

Your shadow has already jumped a lot further than the Pacific.....

 

[Ikarases]

Your shadow has already jumped a lot further than the Pacific.....

Australian WC?!

 

[TehDarkMiner]

Your shadow has already jumped a lot further than the Pacific.....

I know
The main focus will be on the Pacific of course. Persia is in the Pacific though, isn't it? Well, it's close enough anyway. I probably won't take any more countries though, well, not any that definitely aren't in the Pacific
I need that oil though, not that many countries are really that happy trading with me (I don't know if this is because of relations, or threat, or whatever) and I'm not doing very well with oil now. I'd rather stockpile a bit of it until I can take the East Indies and their massive oil reserves (at least, I'm pretty sure they're massive). Probably should have mentioned that.

Australian WC?!

Lol!
I'll be too busy with the UK and the USA to be able to do that


Does anybody know, can I puppet Portugal, then release them without them being a puppet? I don't really need/want their territory. This was meant to be a Pacific based AARanyway, I just needed Portugal's ports (nobody likes me enough to give me transit rights ).

 

[TehDarkMiner]

[1938]
[Fall of Persia]
With a port secured, Australia can finally get oil to advance the industries and vehicles.
Persia can be invaded.

Only one division has been spotted. A marine or two would more than suffice to take the port. Time to attack!

The Netherlands recognises our power, and has granted us transit rights! We will use those in the future.

It seems the Persian AI is not completely incompetent! They've left a bit of defence for Tehran.



But their defence fails - the marines win!
And soon enough...

Victory!


This update might have been a little bit...shorter. Sorry!
Well, after this I don't think I'll be conquering any more countries for a while. As I said, I'll try to get rid of Portugal anyway. It's a lot of effort for not that many resources. (and I only wanted access to Persia. Nobody was giving me transit rights so yeah).

Maybe I might go for South Africa though. I'm not sure yet.