My WW1-style campaign against
nathangun is progressing well and the proper battles have begun after the initial skirmishes and so far my plan is working well
My side is the "Eastern Empire" with Russian peoples ... nathangun is commanding Imperial Kyoto with Japanese peoples (I think that gives his infantry higher morale and staying power and he could build kamikazes if we were doing WW2 era battles) -- see earlier post for limitations we set on equipment.
Here is the zoomed out strategic map -- the map is mirrored -- we both have a capital city (situated at the far end of the maps on that tongue of land) ... and 4 towns/produtcion centres plus a scattering of resource hexes for ore and oil production -- some of it on the off-shore islands in the NW and SE corners of the map respectively. My Eastern Empire covers the earstern half of the map, nathangun's country the west.
The front is bisected in the middle by two swampy areas from which the two major rivers flow.
A closer look at the front after about a dozen turns into the campaign.... at the start of my latest turn when my offensive properly got going:
My plan was to hold with my right (but apply steady pressure NW of the swamps with three divisions of my 2nd Army with cavalry covering the coastal flank and have engineers expand the rail network in the area (orange arrows)
Aerial recce has picked up a line of fortifications being built by enemy engineers behind their front (white dotted line) ... and I assume nathangun intendes to withdraw into that line once it is completed.
On the SE front, my plan was to lure nathangun's forces towards the coast with an aggressive cavalry sweep and my 1st Guards Division (counters with red edge) -- (purple arrow) ... while leaving a deliberate gap to the left of that advance to entice enemy troops to exploit (which they did to a degree -- blue dotted arrows)
While this was happening, I concentrated my attack force in the area of the yellow circle with the intent of punching hard in a SW direction to cut his supply railways and isolate the town and production centre of Bandai (black square) and hopefully isolate his entire right flank army.
The above map is closer look showing the directions of attack ... an attack by the 1st GuardsDivision to cut off the retreat of the enemy units in the salient and the concentric attacks by 100th Division (green) and an independent Mounted Infantry brigade to eliminate the cut off units.
Meanwhile, 1st Division (yellow) and 4th Division (orange) attack in a S and SW direction through the already weakened lines with help of their divisional artillery units.
I have also brought up by rail an independent artillery regt to help the 100th Divisions southerly attack towards Bandai town itself.
All attacks are successful ...
We've eliminated the salient, and punched a hole clean through the enemy's lines west of Bandai town, cutting all rail and supply communications for the enemy's entire left wing.
I am hoping that he doesn't have too many reserves to the west of the breakthrough area (so far that area has been out of aerial recce range) ... I need to use the 4th Division (orange) to face NW to hold off any relief operations from that direction, 1st Division (yellow) to go hell for leather to complete the encirclement and 100th Division (green) together with the independent artillery regt to hit at Bandai town directly, to prevent him from using it as a supply source.
My guess he might pull his easterly units back into Bandai to create a siege situation to tie me down ... let's see how fast he can move before his units run out of supply.
Also hoping that if I inflict heavy enough infantry casualties on the enemy forces on the right, he may have to thin out his forces holding the other flank and importantly the fortification line, so that I can perhaps go on the offensive there too.
This campaign has so far been fun ... especially since from the start I began building proper "divisional units" of 3 Infantry regiments (of mainly rifle & MG units) and a divisional HQ units with a proper Staff complement, horses for transport and at least 2 artillery units in each.
I kept the cavalry and engineers under Supreme HQ command and later built two army HQ's which I had too few rail units for initially, but they should come into action in next few turns.
daisy
