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I make them as detailed as possible mostly because I really dislike how some AAR's magically get from 1936 to 1938 and then its 1940 all of a sudden... always makes me wonder "Well, what happened to you in between!"
Chapter 5: Operation Tsunami
Part 1
Sept 4th- Nov 8th 1937.
Here is how the front current stands. But it will change significantly soon enough.
Taiyuan received significant reinforcements
The battle for Tongxian has concluded, once occupied, Beiping would be completely surrounded.
Now it’s only a matter of time
The Imperial Japanese Army would benefit greatly from some mountain trained troops.
These naval battles happen so quickly I don’t get enough time to react. 3 or 4 battles such as this one happened during this update.
Beiping has fallen, with the loss of a very decent number of divisions.
With the victory at Laiyuan, another 8 divisions are threatened to be surrounded.
Yet another Shanxi division surrenders to Japanese troops.
But how is this even possible? Maybe they are firing blank after all, and all Japanese casualties are either hand to hand, friendly fire or accidents?
With the pocket closed, the Chinese try desperately to break through, but it’s too late now, the IJA has an iron grip.
If I was them, I wouldn't leave port at all, they are lucky that they mostly engage my destroyed patrols.
The pocket is slowly shrinking and collapsing.
With Taiyuan poised to fall (They are throwing a lot of troops at it) and Beipin firmly in Imperial hands, the first stage of Operation Tsunami was approved.
Why yes, we should protect our shipping lanes!.
And the pocket has finally collapsed, taking another good chunk of Chinese military strength with it.
I really like these specialized HQ’s added by B-ICE.
With Qingdao captures and Lianyungang being assaulted, stage one of Operation Tsunami is considered a success. And as soon as reinforcements arrive the marines will move on to stage 2.
Moar mines!
The battle of Taiyuan has finally been won! But at massive cost of life, thus it is a true pyrrhic victory.
Shanxi in all intents and purposes is now under Japanese rule.
And we break for now with Japan's first defeat of the war.
Total casualties so far:
Japan:59,578
Combined Chinese Forces (Destroyed divisions don't count):174,261
This is just a small update. But shows what I have in mind for China. What I’m hoping to do is annex the coast, and then puppet the rest of Nat China.
So let’s get done with international matters first.
France appears to be working towards pacifying its colonies with some success.
While nationalist Spain has the upper hand, but progress seems slow.
Now for the fun part, with Shanxi surrender, and one less warlord to worry about, efforts are put into stabilizing the front and drawing new plans for the upcoming onslaught. The Imperial commanders realized that Operation Tsunami would not be enough to bring the Chinese warlord to their knees, so a land operation was devised. Introducing Operation Kaihō! Reinforcements will be brought from the mainland for Qingdao and the 4th Imperial Army will be formed.
The First Imperial Army will push south to liberate Jinan and Zhengzhou while the Fourth Imperial Army will push north and west, creating a pocket and forming a united front.
The Second Imperial Army, assisted by the Third Imperial Army will try to defeat the very well-defended and mountainous Communist China, while the cavalry, that is useless in mountains will push west occupy Xibei San Ma.
Menjiang has been expanded; a buffer zone with the USSR and its satellites is necessary.
Right after expanding Mengjiang, I noticed that two full corps popped up out of nowhere! I checked all my current forces and they are all where they are supposed to be. Sweet! Volunteers!
Manchukou troops are doing a good job assisting with the fighting. But their troops movement is confusing and erratic.
And then I realized the western portion of operation Kaihō could not be completed since Xibei San Ma can only be accessed by going around the very well-defended positions of Communist China.
So the plan was revised .Now all the cavalry and some infantry will go around the mountains. Communist China will be separated from its allies, and hopefully the thin front lines will hold until mountain troops arrive to finally defeat them.
While the top brass were brainstorming on how to defeat their massive enemy and the troops on the ground were scurrying to stabilize the front, the people realized how much they love the Emperor and the government and decided to work even harder.
The lack of a picture appears to be a bug, but from what it looks, Germany tried to broker a peace between the Empire and China. Unfortunately, the beast that is the Empire can only calm down once its enemy is in pieces!
Okay, this is getting complicated pretty quickly, and I have no idea where they rose up either!
But whatever happens to Army 2, and no matter how many uprisings there are, nothing now will stop the operations Tsunami and eastern Kaihō!
Total Casualties (All numbers are an estimate due to occasional crashes, POW's and destroyed divisions are not included in this count count):
Japan Empire:69,678
Combined Chinese forces:202,598
EDIT: Fixing pictures and grammar/spelling mistakes.
Chapter 7: Operation Tsunami
Stage 2, Operation Kaihō Stage 1
Dec 11th 1937-Jan 1st 1938
And year end report.
Another quick and small update, I decided to get up to Jan 1st and add the year-end report into this.
The partisans that rose up last update managed to get some ground, but I finally discovered their location, and two light infantry divisions were quickly dispatched to neutralize them
Stage Two of operation Tsunami is officially a success!
The Chinese Navy now has nowhere to run, and are pinned down. And the first Imperial Assault Fleet will certainly defeat any who try to pass.
The large pocket that was created between the Frist Imperial Army and Fourth Imperial Army is now closed. Will take a while to collapse it though.
While reinforcements finally arrived to Formosa island to crush the partisan resistance, the rest is as you would guess it, mass slaughter of poorly equipped and untrained troops. It actually took a while, but Formosa Island was wiped of all enemy activity and is secured once more.
I do wish closing this pocket was as easy as dealing with partisans, a lot of troops were pulled from the front line to collapse it, but it is shrinking at an acceptable rate. The enemies are putting up a fierce resistance, especially in the cities. I counted a total of 24 divisions, about ½ to 1/3 of them HQ’s though.
I will give them one thing though, the Chinese navy are masters of evasion! But every time they avoid total annihilation, they receive some damage, and sooner or later that damage will catch up to them, I think that time is coming.
And that is it for the year of 1937, I am certain the Chinese people are not having a happy new year, guess it’s a good thing their New Year is on a different day! But there is the front the way it is at the end of 1937, I know, not a lot of progress!
Total Casualties: (All numbers are not exact due to occasional crashes, POW’s and destroyed divisions are not included in this count):
Imperial Japan: 72,238
Combined Chinese forces: 235,677
Year End Report 1937
I’ll make It quick! First thing up are the national decisions!
Air force HQ’s give decent bonuses to air troops, so yes.
And I want my national unity as high as feasibly possible before full out war breaks out.. the war in China is just a prolonged skirmish =)
The other two are self-explanatory.
Espionage: What you see is what I got, nothing special so far.
Politics: Look how powerful and popular the ruling party is! Nothing can stop or oppose them now! Training law was changed to basic training to be able to pump out more military assets faster. The conflict in China makes a better training ground anyways.
Production: It’s all over the place as you see, but this is what is being produced, and the sliders.
And here are Strategic warfare stats; the Chinese are definitely hurting in IC and manpower!
Congratulations with successful first year! Loss of 24 divisions will be huge for AI.
By the way, did you have any popularity sudden drops and rises? In my games it seems pure random - even with +popularity buildings/ministers it can drop from 61% to 48% in one month.
Congratulations with successful first year! Loss of 24 divisions will be huge for AI.
By the way, did you have any popularity sudden drops and rises? In my games it seems pure random - even with +popularity buildings/ministers it can drop from 61% to 48% in one month.
I definitely had ups and down, but I used every tool in my disposal to increase the power of the ruling party. But for a time, it was one of the weaker parties after the black one (taisei yokusankai, fascist), red one (JCP, im guessing Marxist or communist) and the brown one (kokka shakaishugi, which is the Japanese version of fascism). Its an ongoing battle since the other parties are not giving up without a fight, I'm guessing its "internal factors" what ever that is, and spies from other nations.
I basically do it to preserve screen space and help people with bad computers or poor connection load faster. But sure, I will give it a shot with no spoilers, would save a load of time not adding the BB codes.
EDIT:
I will change the format of my AAR then. All non combat, non essential pics will get a spoiler, the good stuff will be uploaded with no spoiler tags. So first up will be international matters, if anything big happened, like Germany acquiring more land, I will post that. Then all decisions that are not really important will be added and put in a spoiler. The rest, basically combat, will not have spoilers and I will try to add more detailed descriptions, maybe. Sounds good?
While I'm at it, any one know if its possible to get the coast war goal, and then DOW again and puppet the rest of Nat China?
In the regular game at least it's possible to simply stack those 2 wargoals and get both when China surrenders not sure about the mod though.
I like the AAR so far, Japan is an interesting country with so many potential enemies and targets all around. I'll keep an eye on it I think.
In my games when war is over (with all warlords too) AI Japan received coast and China-Nanjing as puppet.
You should look at events or ask devs in BICE forum.
About format of your AAR: I really like your explanations to your decisions and choices. BICE is the greatest mod with lots of opportunities. While I consider myself quite familiar (even exoirienced) with it I still search for advices from good players.
In the regular game at least it's possible to simply stack those 2 wargoals and get both when China surrenders not sure about the mod though.
I like the AAR so far, Japan is an interesting country with so many potential enemies and targets all around. I'll keep an eye on it I think.
In my games when war is over (with all warlords too) AI Japan received coast and China-Nanjing as puppet.
You should look at events or ask devs in BICE forum.
About format of your AAR: I really like your explanations to your decisions and choices. BICE is the greatest mod with lots of opportunities. While I consider myself quite familiar (even exoirienced) with it I still search for advices from good players.
Chapter 8: Operation Tsunami
Stage 3, Operation Kaihō Stage 2
And communist insurgencies galore!
Jan 1st 1938-April 6th, 1938.
As stated previously, I will try something new, the updates will be divided into two or three parts, the first two, the ones that are not important but could be interesting are international and internal affairs, those screenshots will be tagged as spoiler to conserve space and save a bit on load times. The third and last section will be the essential things. Everything will be in chronological order; however, since it will be sectioned off, each section will follow its own order. Any feedback is welcome, if I receive no feedback; I will assume the system works and continued to writer that way.
So with that out of the way, not a lot of international things happened as I didn’t bother to look at other nations and Germany is still fiddling its thumbs. Only the SU keeps killing its own people.
And FINALLY other nations began showing interest in buying military equipment from Japan. I guess that means that the Japanese planes are very high quality and performance compared to the rest of the world? Or maybe they are just cheap..
However, I have noticed that the air force is lacking behind in technology, so more effort will be put to improve our planes even further.
While we do that, the army will continue its normal recruitment policies.
However it seems that someone somewhere is trying to undermine the efforts of our government to make the people love it! (It went back to very popular later on after a few months of me struggling with it.)
It could have been caused by the fact that the Japanese government has decided that some IC should be allocated in improving transportation. Better transportation means better life!
Germany is acting strange however, and why the soviet flag for a German ambassador? How very strange.
I believe at this point we are making a decent amount of resources, so the IC could be used elsewhere, and our dream of autarky can wait.
Now for the fun part.
Last time we left off a large Chinese pocket was created; it is getting very close to a conclusion.
Finally the first pocket collapses.
And the second pocket, the city of Jinan, finally falls shortly after. Now a lot of troops are free to move on to new objectives.
While the east part of Operation Kaihō was a stunning success, the west part is not as glorious. Due to weaker forces and worse terrain, no real progress has been made towards defeating Xibei San Ma. However, the Second Imperial Army has
gained a great vantage point from which to strike Yan’an, the Communist capital.
And I intend to exploit it to the fullest, so a full corps from the Fourth Imperial Army will be sent to assist the Second Imperial Army. With Communist China out of the way, Xibei will become a much easier opponent.
While the rest of the Fourth Imperial Army, and the First Imperial Army will form a new front, and relive the Marine forces of front like duty, so they could do their job and commence the next stage of Operation Tsunami.
To ensure complete and utter domination of the seas, the Japanese navy finally was fed up with blockading Chinese ports and naval bombers were sent from Formosa to sink whatever is left of the Chinese fleet around the clock until 5-6 cruisers are reduced to a single heavily damaged port in a timeframe of about a week.
Looks like those Germans are definitely up to something! First they give me a communist ambassador from Berlin, and then they give the Chinese damned tanks!
And I am willing to bet money they are somehow responsible for this too!
As soon as Communist China realized the situation they are in, it appears that they started setting up partisan networks through the Japanese Empire. Hopefully this will stop once they are liberated from their communism!
It took me a while to discover where the partisans came from, but here they are!
Fearing that the partisan activity will only grow as time goes by, Operation Kaihō revision 3 was given the green light to proceed!
This will be one bloody battle..
Damn it! More of them!
Seeing how partisans are popping up and tearing apart the mighty puppet states of Japan, steps were taken to increase defenses in Japanese holdings to prevent atrocities such as theses.
However, it’s almost not worth it to fight in China.. Operation Kaihō is quickly becoming the bloodiest conflict Japan has ever been in.
So to avoid what is going on in the puppet states right now, almost three full corps of garrison troops were collected from the pacific islands and will be distributed along important key locations in Japanese held China.
On the bright side, the first Mountain division rolls off the production line, but they will remain in reserves until a full corps is assembled, so they will probably not see combat in Communist China (I hope).. Also a rocket test site has been built in the outskirts of Tokyo. It will serve an important role in the domination of the Pacific.
More good news! Operation Tsunami Stage three has commenced!
And is a great success!
A few days later the last objective of Stage 3 is captured, and I get a wonderful strategic effect, hopefully first of many.
While in the land, Manchukou has finally been able to suppress the partisans to just a few provinces, however, they had to recall their entire army, and it appears the communists have dug deep roots in their land, look at it, they even have an OOB!
While the battle of Communist China itself is now a true meat grinder style stalemate. This right here will probably be the bloodiest battle in this conflict, and possible the entire Asian conflict that is to come. If you are wondering, the attack with the progress score of 3 is simply a way to slow down reinforcements that are trying to come into Yan’an. While the progress is really slow on the capital as well, it is still progressing. Some enemy divisions already shattered, while a lot are losing organization quickly. Japan as devoted enough forces to continuously attack, and constantly shuffle troops in and out.
Total Casualties: (All numbers are not exact due to occasional crashes, POW’s and destroyed divisions are not included in this count):
Imperial Japan: 90,393
Combined Chinese forces: 281,410
They are putting up one hell of a fight, but it looks liek you'r slowly breaking them now, good job.
How far is the surrender progress of the Nationalist?
They are putting up one hell of a fight, but it looks liek you'r slowly breaking them now, good job.
How far is the surrender progress of the Nationalist?
As nobody has commented on my current writing style, I will proceed as planned. Furthermore, I will try to cut back on pictures a little bit, since I already went through 244 of them, and that’s not counting the discarded ones. However, I will be editing and combining more pictures, so hopefully the amount of information that I convey will remain about the same.
International and Internal matters:
It has become obvious that more equipment needs to be pushed faster, so the National Mobilization Law has been enacted.
The government secretary came back again, maybe he is deaf?
There are no greater warrior than a Japanese soldier, so this would just be wasting money on inferior troops.
An unexpected turn of events happened, which led France to annex Syria.
While this time, our bright minds have actually produced some results, and pushed (ever so slightly) our carrier technology forward.
I have enough supplies (max) and the IC boost is always welcome. (Mind you by the end of this update I finally pass the 300 mark)
Germany has finally stirred!
And then stirred some more!
The choice to ration supplies and materials came up again. However I have huge stockpiles, and the penalty is quite significant, including reduced IC, dissent and revolt risks, so no thank you!
Why not just kill every soldier and start from scratch?
The last piece of good news, thanks to advances in national ideologies, new methods of controlling the masses will soon be available to the emperor!
Combat report:
Attention all, this is Radio Tokyo speaking; on this day, April 20th 1938, with a heart full of sorrow I convey these news to you! A most horrible of tragedies has happened in the vicinity of northern central part of China, more specifically the provinces of Wuqi and Yan’an. While our valiant warriors were busy liberating the poor Chinese from western and Communist oppression by providing aid, education, healthcare and food, a most horrible earthquake has happened and most regrettably, thousands of young Japanese and Chinese men have perished! A few days later, another earthquake hit and thousands more, those who tried to save the first victims have died as well. We reach out to our listeners and provide you with our condolences, your sons, husbands and fathers will be remembered as true samurai!
With the recent success in Communist China, and specifically in Yan’an, it was decided that fighting, and dying in Wuqi is no longer viable or worth it, so the exhausted troops were ordered to break off combat. As a result, Yan’an received reinforcements, but by this point the Japanese troops were in full momentum and nothing could stop them. I did drop to around 900-800 manpower from over 1000 during this period however, so it was not worth it honestly.
The losses were truly great, but with Communist China out of the picture, Operation Kaihō can finally proceed as planned. It will be a 4 step plan that will hopefully bring Nationalist China to its knees. East part of Op Kaihō will consist of Imperial Armies 1 and 4, and will push inwards and south. The river lines will act as stop-gaps points to take a break, regroup and reorganize. West part of Op Kaihō will consist of Imperial Armies 2 and 3, the plan has been reversed to the first iteration. Xibei San Ma will be defeated and puppeted. However, mountain troops will be deployed somewhere where they will be more useful. Stage 1 is red, stage 2 is blue, stage 3 is yellow and stage 4 is green.
After the losses in Communist China, some dark thoughts emerged within the top brass. However, the Japanese people are too kind for such atrocities, but someone must be punished to satisfy their sorrows. Officers are always needed somewhere, while politicians are useless and in large supplies, so it was an easy choice.
The last Bloody battle before Operation Kaihō.
Before the operation began however, China misses a great opportunity by dropping pieces of paper instead of bombs. Besides, how does that happen with complete air superiority?
Finally! After researching it since the end of 1936 or beginning of 1937, pak artillery can be added to all new divisions!
With that in mind, and the lack of resistance in Op Kaihō West, the east side commenced its attacks.
With a massive air force backing, nothing will stop them!
But we cannot forget about Operation Tsunami, since they initiated stage 4, and succeeded without firing a single bullet.
North of that, it seems the Chinese like being surrounded..
At that point I noticed, that with the help of western powers, including Germany, Nationalist China started motorizing its armed forces! I guess they don’t realize the reason behind Japan not fielding large numbers of tanks.
This here was the decisive battle of Op Kaihō West, past this point the Xibei army was in full retreat save a few valiant (but futile) stands.
The English just do not learn, one would think to hide your ambassador during air raids after the first one was killed..
Stage 1 of op Kaihō East was a complete success in record time! At this rate, China will surrender by early 1939. Also showing my resources.
Total Casualties: (All numbers are not exact due to occasional crashes, POW’s and destroyed divisions are not included in this count):
Imperial Japan: 152,148
Combined Chinese forces: 357,238
