25 July, 1943
Fleets are moving to prepare our next invasion force. We land here and here, and will push down the peninsula to Singapore. After that, we land our armored units and, with them, push to the northern border with the Republic of China as quickly as possible to divide the remainder of Indochina in two.
7 August, 1943
Invasion day is set for 1 September. If we launch our tactical bombers from Medan in northern Sumatra, they can reach to the invasion sites, so we'll have some land-based air support. I don't like running our bombers right now without reinforcements (they're at half strength), but we'll need the extra punch to make it ashore.
18 August, 1943
Looking good so far. Our carrier battlegroups are moving into place offshore to support our landings.
19 August, 1943
17 Indochinese divisions attack Goble's corps (6 divisions) at Rangoon. I'm actually willing to let these six divisions stand on their own: the enemies are attacking on plains (penalty) across a river (big penalty) against troops who have had almost a month to dig in (huuuuuge penalty).
Four hours later: the Indochinese break off their attack.
20 August, 1943
There are now 20 divisions massed next to Rangoon. I move three divisions down from Prome to aid in the defense.
22 August, 1943
Conditions are good now, so we're going.
23 August, 1943
19 divisions attack Goble's corps plus three reinforcement divisions in Rangoon. I'm not worried.
Our navy sank an Indochinese destroyer flotilla off of Singapore.
24 August, 1943
Our boys go ashore in Alor Star.
26 August, 1943
Invasion begins in Singora. This one should go the easiest of all so far: it's one of a very few provinces in Indochina that isn't jungle or mountain, and that means penalties are a bit lighter on us.
27 August, 1943
Attacks are going well, I think.
1 September, 1943
Sunk another destroyer flotilla off Singapore. Attacks are grinding away at the defenses the Malay peninsula. We may have to pull back and launch another attack.
5 September, 1943
Attacks are almost ashore in Singora.
8 September, 1943
Ortins-Bettencourt lands in Singora. Squires is turned back from Alor Star; he'll be making another landing in a few days. The Americans land in Bangkok again.
10 September, 1943
Squires goes ashore in Alor Star unopposed in three days. The Americans are landing in force in Bangkok. Our armored units will join them soon.
22 September, 1943
Alon Star ended up opposed, so I landed Squires in Singora instead. Steele, Beleza, and Hargest are en route. Squires is now attacking Alor Star from Singora.
In the north, the Americans pushed too far forward too fast, and are being pushed back. We attack into Toungoo to flank the Indochinese attacking the American salient (red for us, blue for the Indochinese, green for the Americans).
23 September, 1943
We won a battle in Toungoo, and will be pushing our lines forward in the northwest.
24 September, 1943
All 15 of our armored divisions are now en route to the Malay Peninsula.
25 September, 1943
Sunk an Indochinese light cruiser. Our armored divisions are landed and now pushing into Kra.
1 October, 1943
The situation as it is. This is taking a long time.
3 October, 1943
Current operational plans: attack from Toungoo and Kra into Moulmein, which will link up our two beachheads and the American one. We'll keep them on our southern flank and sweep across the country to the eastern shores.
12 October, 1943
Our attack has reached Toungoo. We'll advance our lines into the Shan States. In the Malay Peninsula, our attacks are continuing slowly but surely.
20 October, 1943
Attacks into Sittang (which will meet up with our attack from Moulmein and halve our disparate-convoy requirements) and Kuala Lumpur begin. As soon as Steele arrives in Moulmein, he's getting promoted to General. With an attached headquarters, he'll be able to command 18 divisions, or three more than our entire armored force.
24 October, 1943
General Motors Wellington has completed research into turbojet engines, which might lead to practical turbojet aircraft. I had a picture, but I appear to have lost it.
26 October, 1943
This game has really taught me something: doctrine and leaders are crucial.
7 November, 1943
Our assault on Singapore begins in a few days, and it will eliminate the troublesome Indochinese naval threat once and for all. In the north, we have the Indochinese army in full retreat and fighters are sweeping the sky over their lines unchallenged. The Americans have been parked in Bangkok since their last landing there, not pulling their weight at all. Honestly, at this point it's a cleanup operation.
10 November, 1943
Singapore is now under our guns, taking fire from carriers and battleships offshore and an attack from twenty divisions of highly-experienced infantry.
19 November, 1943
We engage the whole of the Indochinese fleet in the Bangka Straits as they flee ahead of our troops in Singapore. Unfortunately, naval combat in Arsenal of Democracy is far too non-decisive. Hopefully we'll be able to score some major sinkings, but I doubt it.
We sunk a battleship, and the rest of their fleet escaped. Grand Admiral Anderson gives chase. In the north, we're preparing to cross the Mekong in two places.
26 November, 1943
One of our tactical bomber groups now has escort fighters attached.
1 December, 1943
The current situation.
8 December, 1943
We may now begin researching turbojet aircraft. I don't think we'll share this with our American allies...
21 December, 1943
The current situation. Notice another encirclement in the north.
17 January, 1943
The current situation, with final attack plans marked. In a few weeks we should have Indochina annexed.
28 January, 1943
The war ends. The final state of things and the total losses follow. A few words on annexation: the country who holds the capital is the one who triggers it, and annexation can only be done when a country has lost its capital and all its victory point provinces. The USNA held Bangkok while I did all the work, so they were able to annex Indochina before I could snag those two USNA provinces at the very southeast. On the whole, though, I'm alright with my haul; I got pretty much every major industrial province the Indochinese had--and, much to my delight, I discover that the IC modifier for annexed territories (with the technology I have, anyway) is more like 40% than 20%.
The war as a whole took about a year and six months. The entire conquest of mainland Indochina was completed in slightly more than a year. The Indochinese lost five times as much manpower as the Australasians, five times as many fighters, twice as many bombers, and half again as many trucks and tanks. The critical phase of the war was, ironically, the phase completed before I started this. Indochinese industry was crippled by their loss of Sumatra and Java and all the raw materials they provided, and by the time I landed their divisions were already feeling the supply crunch. Almost none of them were full-strength, and to boot they had leadership and doctrinal inferiority as well.
The strategic plan for the Indochinese invasion actually worked largely as it was supposed to. After encircling and eliminating thirty Indochinese divisions north of the Arakan-Mandalay-Rangoon beachhead, I was able to pull almost half of my forces off of that front, including all of my critical armored units, and reuse them in the attack on the Malay Peninsula. Not only did I have highly mobile offensive units, I also had seasoned leaders. The Malay Peninsula encirclement eliminated another twenty Indochinese divisions, which brought our armies to parity in number of divisions; since their divisions were, by and large, understrength and out of supply, that meant that the final stages of the campaign were easy. Our superiority led us to an easy victory, even through our manpower problems and in spite of a few serious mistakes by my handling of maneuver and attack.
There may be a few years of downtime to build up a manpower reserve again, but soon, the mighty many-carriered, turbojetted, newly-mechanized Australasian armed forces will turn their eyes to the ever-threatening PRRS to the north...
That's a topic for another interlude, though. I've got nothing more until Sunday, when I'll be back at my desktop for the continuation of our glorious crusade for the world revolution.
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Topic: Arsenal of Democracy LP (1 October, 1944: Vperyod!) (Read 95110 times)