Further troops are heading to Legaspi (2, off-map), the southern tip of Luzon, while others are hitting Dadjangas in Mindanao (3) from which point they will march to Davao and set up a decent base. A Special Naval Landing Force heads east to hit the virtually undefended American-held island of Guam. We’ve built up the Palau Islands, particularly Babeldaob (1), and they’ll serve as the launching point for many invasions in the coming days and weeks. While all this is happening, various invasion fleets (mostly intended for Malaya) will be setting out (6) from Samah, on Hainan Island, and the Army will commence its attack on British-held Hong Kong (7). Our troops will seize Batan Island (4) as our first step towards full conquest of the islands - further landing fleets, intended to disembark the Army at Vigan and Aparri, are already at sea (5). Meanwhile, our G4M Betty and G3M Nell bombers, escorted by A6M Zero fighters, will launch from Takao in Formosa and attempt to catch the American air force in the Philippines on the ground at their main base: Clark Field (3). By the morning of December 7, they will have reached a position within range of Manila for their aircraft (2), which will launch simultaneously with the Pearl Harbor strike and attempt to disable or destroy the two USN battleships at port. Our two oldest large carriers, Akagi and Kaga, have been detached under Vice Admiral Nagumo and based in Cam Ranh Bay (1). This is a dagger pointing straight at Japan and must be neutralized if our invasions are to take place successfully. Heavy reinforcement of the USAAF pursuit groups has granted them decent air cover. Two US Navy battleships - Oklahoma and Nevada, old but capable battlewagons - are currently anchored in Manila Bay, along with a reasonable number of cruisers and destroyers. ilippines, of which Luzon is the most populous northern island. The Americans have been heavily reinforcing their pseudo-colonial dependency, the Commonwealth of the Philippines. Automated convoys will be set up to deliver oil and resources from the greater Empire to Osaka/Kyoto (3).Ī lot going on here. The scattered battle-ready forces of the IJN will congregate at Kure (2). I’m going to aggregate troops I want shipped out of Japan at Kagoshima (1), along with appropriate troop transports and escorts. I’m afraid to tweak industry or research at this stage so I’ll leave it alone for now. I’ll be creating my first dedicated anti-submarine warfare task forces, composed mostly of sub chasers (SCs). Here I’ll be doing quite a bit of tedious logistical work - shuffling ships and troops around, mostly. With any luck, we’ll catch the place by surprise, wipe them all out and earn ourselves a free hand.Īh, Japan. Also based at Pearl are the carriers Enterprise and Lexington, though they are apparently out on maneuvers of some kind. (Two have been moved forward to Manila - more on that later). At least 6 battleships are likely to be docked at Pearl. The basic idea is to cripple the United States Navy at the outset of the war so that we can make our conquests in the Southern Resource Area without their interference. Also visible in the above image: our pre-positioned submarine fleet, with several detached to launch minisubs in an attempt to penetrate the harbor defences and torpedo enemy craft at anchor. We have deployed the Kidō Butai - our six most modern aircraft carriers of the Kairyu class, escorted by the two Harima class battleships, and all under the command of RADM Yamaguchi - to launch a pre-emptive strike on the main US Navy base at Pearl Harbor. So: let’s take a look at the state of the Japanese Empire and our plans for war on December 6, 1941. This will be probably the most ‘serious’ and lengthy post of this whole thread. In this first post (and perhaps more in the future) I’ll go through my setup region by region. In fact, I’m still working on it, though I’m almost done. The first turn of any WitP game is the most elaborate and difficult, particularly from the Japanese side.
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