31. The invasion, part 6
(1st July - 14th July 1942)
With
Keeler under Allied control defenders of
Death Valley are in difficult position as they are exposed to attacks from multiple directions.
In the north steady Japanese progress has not yet been stopped. It looks like that progress will stop only after there won't be enough divisions to properly man the front, at the moment 18 IJA divisions are fighting in the north.
To relieve the pressure put on Death Valley an attack has been launched towards
Keeler in order to regain the province. Attack on Keeler forced US army to reconsider the attack on Death Valley as the attack there was canceled 2 hours later. During the battle of
Death Valley 893 Japanese and
1358 US died.
The attack on
Keeler succeeded 2 days later when US army was forced to withdraw after
Mili Shidan and
Taiwan Shidan inflicted almost two times bigger causalities to defenders of Keeler that they've suffered.
730 IJA and
1429 US soldiers died during battle of Keeler.
With Panama canal secured a gateway to Atlantic opened for Imperial Japanese Navy. SNLF was tasked to execute probing attack on
Miami, Florida. Whole operation was without slight resistance as Miami was left without garrison.
Another 9 divisions have arrived to Los Angeles, including one corps of Japanese "armoured horses" with one light tank division of major general
Kawabe Masakasu, general with skill 6 (other generals of armoured horses corps have skill 5) which makes his divisions even more deadly.
The only engagements during attack on Miami were naval ones. In Eastern Straights of Florida Imperial Japanese Navy carrier task force engaged and sunk US
14th Submarine division. Shortly before this engagement Japanese CAGs executed two port strikes and completely destroyed
Lew Wallace Flotilla transport fleet.
After sinking 14h submarine flotilla IJN carrier task force intercepted fleet of 4 transport flotillas and sunk all of those.
Canadian defenders of
Castlegar, province with excellent options for defense, have been expelled from there and IJA garrisons will soon start to dig in there as there are not enough divisions in the north to support the vast expansion.
Imperial Japanese Airforce heavy fighters were tasked of executing ground attacks in the north as no visible threat from USAAF has been spotted there. Performance of one air fleet consisting of two heavy fighter wings surprised me as I was not expecting US causalities to be such high. At the moment Japanese airforce is lacking some serious power for executing ground attacks as there are only 3 air fleets capable of executing some serious ground attacks, 2 air fleets of two medium bomber each and this heavy fighter fleet. Japanese airforce is also possessing of air fleet of 3 light bomber wings but due to their short range their usage is fairly limited.
After successful seizing of Miami IJN carrier task force and SNLF are departing towards new mission, if the east cost is like Miami SNLF will execute series of landings in major US cities to inflict panic among US citizens.
First chosen city was no other than Washington D.C., capital of the US which was left completely and utterly undefended only with one light cruiser and one transport fleet in the port (which were both sunk due to port strikes).
If Americans were celebrating Independence day this year this will force them not to celebrate it following year.
In the north attack on
Lind is drawing to an end as Allied resistance is much lower there. During bloody battle for
Lind 1813 Japanese and
2687 US died. However the battle for
Shaniko brought much pleasant result as for
419 Japanese dead
2687 US died.
Shortly after
Taiwan Shidan under command of
Horii Tomitaro arrived to
Keeler Imperial Japanese forces found themselves under heavy attack so it was decided - Taiwad Shidan will orderly withdraw from there and the province will be left under US control for a while.
Washington D.C., capital of the US, has fallen to the hands of Imperial Japanese army without firing a single shot. Shortly one infantry corps from Panama and one infantry corps from Gibraltar will arrive there to create small beachhead in order to distract US Army and SNLF will continue in their mission of sowing terror and panic.
Shortly after capturing
Castlergar 30 'Hyo' Hoheishidan division which was tasked of capturing the province and digging there was attacked by US. The attack initially came from Marcus but it was reinforced so
10920 Japanese were defending the ground against
32980 US soldiers. The us attack was recalled two days later after about 250 men were lost on each side.
Another US attack in the north came on
McKenzie.
4 Kiheishidan were defending the ground against 4 divisions attacking from multiple directions and managed to defend the position and inflict four times bigger casualties to the attackers -
203 Japanese cavalrymen died there while attackers lost
859 men there.
2 IJA divisions attacked
Big Creek, province which was exposed to Japanese ground attacks for some time which resulted to complete disorganization of Canadian divisions and battler of Big Creek was won without any significant effort.
Causalities:
| JAP (this update) | JAP (total) | USA (this update) | USA (total) | Allies (this update) | Allies (total) |
| Bombing | 253 | 4274 | 7949 | 44644 | 10241 | 47174 |
| Combat | 7555 | 60386 | 13029 | 106545 | 18229 | 131304 |
| Total | 7808 | 64660 | 20978 | 151189 | 28470 | 178478 |
Detailed information about every event can be found in this Google docs spreadsheet:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1q_g63z2AukTXzsBXtEoxhE7lhIOtfjT7zyzA8WNl3dA/edit?usp=sharing
I do have always difficulties to find correct mix of brigades for divisions. Can you show or tell which subunits you use in standard infrantry divisions now when you are attacking US mainland? 3 infrantry brigades, 1 artillery, 1 AT or what? I didn't found any info about this subject from earlier posts (or then I am blind).
