yvesp
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In May, the American prepared a large amphibious assault against whatever target they had in mind. It involved a marine unit, two infantry corps loaded on amphibious transports, and other corps ready for reinforcement. The German and Italian air force made a sortie to attempt to intercept this, but they failed. Still, they met a British transport en route to Athen, on the verge of falling. Despite the intervention of the American carriers, they managed to destroy it and the full mechanized corps it convoyed! That was another sore blow for the British! On the Atlantic side, the British also seemed to prepare an invasion, on a smaller scale. It was difficult to guess the target of either group: the coasts were all well defended! However, a large raid by British bombers on Nantes seemed to indicated that the target was in that area. The raid having failed it was still difficult to guess what would happen next. Would the small British force abort ?
It did not seem so, as on the same day, both armies disembarked. The British landed easily in St Nazaire with but an infantry corps. The reconnaissance planes had shown that the defenses there were sub-optimal and that immediate counter-attack was unlikely. This would let the Canadian armored corps and. Montgomery enough time to join in. The Americans had chosen the French West Mediterranean coast. Too bad if Vichy was unhappy! They landed with a Marine corps and an infantry corps west of Marseilles ; before the French and Germans had time to react they spread along, and were joined by to more corps, an airborne paratroop unit came in reinforcement, and another landed on top of Perpignan, securing the border with Spain. This made a small army of six infantry corps, more than the French and German could manage at this stage : there was nothing serious that could be done yet : reinforcements had to arrive. There was only one positive point: the American had not seized any port, and it was not likely for them to capture one shortly: reinforcements would be slow to come, and this might be an opportunity to repel them. This also prevented them from straying inland.
Indeed, German troops were evacuating Italy, greatly slowed by having to pass the Alps. Other corps were leaving the East front, were the Russian still waited the order of Stalin to attack. Planes flew west. But it was soon clear that Germany would soon have to deal with a serious front in France. Possibly the Americans could be repelled, but that was unlikely: Algier had also fallen with the help of the navie's guns, and nine other corps were now waiting to cross the Mediterranean ; they more than matched the second rate troops that had been stationed in France! And to make matters even worse, Von Bock material was all but destroyed by a raid of Lancasters while he was moving north in the open, to keep supplies open for these units that kept the British enclosed. In addition, Montgomery mounted a successful assault on the lightly defended Nantes, opening now two ports for the arrivals of reinforcements. This blow would cut the supplies to four corps, badly needed to close the holes in the line of defense that the Germans where trying to form in a hurry.
In China, the Japanese managed to recapture Paoting and Tchang, while simultaneously pushing the communist to retreat. This secured a large part of Northern China, and indeed, the Chinese, while annoying, presented now little threat. Troops could be sent to meet the Russians. Both side were indeed actively reinforcing, but the advantage was definitely to the Russians, who brought more and more bombers to attack Japan itself : a precious oil depot was blown in one day. Of course, having just thought that the front was at last secure, the Communists managed to recapture Sian and destroy a precious mechanized corps!
British raids in the China sea did not meat with much success. Indeed, two cruisers were damaged, and the US fleet was even temporarily out of supply. In the Mediterranean,two Italian cruisers tried to intercept some of the transports. They were however spotted by the bulk of the American fleet ; but they were lucky enough to run back home in La Spezia. The carrier born planes followed them to La Spezia in an attempt to do some damage to the fleet based there, but they were repelled at no serious damage by the numerous fighters that came to meet them.
On the last days of June, Eisenhower and Gort jointly launched an assault on Bardia, the Italina fortified position in Libya. Balbo was pushed into the sea where nobody was waiting him... Lybia was at last opened and the allied troops would likely meet little resistance before Tripoli, far in the West! In the far east, the Americans attempted a sortie from Manilla with their inferior fleet, now that two carriers had gone back home to load newer planes. They joined the British fleet that was still patrolling there to little effect. The carrier planes managed to repel the air cover provided by a squadron of D3A1. Left alone, all the merchant and the whole Japanese transport fleet that had been used to bring reinforcements in Manchuria and near Peking and which was going back home headed fast to the security of a home port. This was better than to risk being found and destroyed! But this move suddenly cut all supplies to the continent, leaving the armies widely vulnerable. Hopefully, the land situation was stable enough and it did not look to put any army in immediate risk. Still, that was a situation which the Russians were sure to exploit around Mukden! The units there were at severe risk. The alternative, risk losing 50% of the merchant fleet or all naval transports wasn't rejoicing either... And the net result might be the same! The trick would be to make the USA pay dearly for that sortie to make them wary of such a move in the future.
But there was a dilemma ; whatever they did, the situation was awful. First was the fact that one of the two oil production facility had been hit by the the Russians, and the other one by a group of planes from one of the American carriers : the net result was that there would be little oil for some time. Many units were in need, including all precious convoys : restoring the supply line to the continent could not be done immediately. The second problem was that the communists had already seized the opportunity to gain ground! This was not expected. Nothing important yet, but the situation could degenerate fast. There were hurting memories! The third problem was that instead of attacking Mukden as expected, the Russian had been using their superior numbers to run behind the Mandchurian lines: even if the sea was made secure for some time, these troops would stay out of supply. That meant the loss of Mandchuria in a short while, and no way to even attempt and repel some Russian troops. The last problem was more like a gamble : now was the real test with the Americans. Their fleet, deprived of two carriers was somewhere near the Japanese coast. It was supposedly vastly inferior carrier-wise. Combined with the British force, its gunnery was certainly impressive. Sortieing was not a question: it was an evidence! However, whatever ship did sortie now might never go at sea again given the paucity of fuel. Was it better to run with a small force led by the carriers, in the hopes of surprising the Americans ? Was it better to use the whole fleet, so that even poor luck could be mitigated by an impressive gunnery that could hold the enemy fleet and airplanes in respect ? Finally, it was decided that a small force was better. It had a chance to be reused later. And this still let the rest of the fleet as deterrent. It was a force of nine carriers, three battleships and four cruisers that set sail to meet the Americans. It was slow, because some of the carriers were of old manufacture. Apparently, the gods had chosen their side, and it was not Japanese! The fleet was surprised by the British-American fleet that had laid hidden behind the Ryukyu island. The Japanese planes met the American planes with a numeric and qualitative advantage. The zeros did a impressive work and no American bomber did reach the Japanese fleet! Three squadrons reached the Allied fleet ; one was hacked to pieces by the heavy flak. But off balance, the planes barely landed some bombs on the Lexington,which was hit hard, but could flee the combat. Indeed, the Allied fleet having met it mission did not stay long and fled as soon as the night arrived. The victory was widely celebrated in Japan, but well informed people new the truth: this was no victory. Damaging an enemy carrier and destroying two air squadrons was hardly going to turn the tide of the war, especially considering that Japan had itself lost two carrier air squadron, among which the best Zero. And if the American fleet had lost its air teeth for some time, the Japanese fleet was in a hardly better shape: most units would not get oil before months... The long expected mammoth confrontation had given birth to a mouse!
The Allied move had caused major disruption in the Japanese production apparel. For two months, it could not manage to produce more military units than China! Rationing was extreme in the civilian population.
< Message edited by yvesp -- 12/14/2013 10:13:28 PM >
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