Pacific War GMT Games

Campaign Scenario #1. Malaya December 1941

This three-month campaign covers the Japanese conquest of Malaya. Simple objective; Clear the Island of enemy forces. Historically the campaign ran 8^th December through the fall of Singapore 15^th of Feb so that sounds fair!

Historical Aside WW2db.com Peter Chen:

Malaya was known for its rich natural resources, and that very aspect was eyed by the Japanese militarists and industrialists. In 1939, Malaya was the resource of 40% of the world’s rubber and 60% of the world’s tin; that fact alone interested Japanese expansionists, but two additional reasons sealed the approval on the invasion planning that started in early 1941. The first was that most of this rubber and tin supply went to Japan’s potential cross-ocean rival, the United States. Secondly, Japan needed oil. Every drop of oil consumed by Japan’s military and industrial capacities had to be imported. The Japanese Navy alone needed 400 tons of oil an hour to maintain its war readiness. While Malaya only had a limited amount of oil production, the peninsula was a perfect staging point to launch and support further invasion for the oil rich islands of Borneo, Java, and Sumatra. In Jun 1941 Japan was refused supplies of iron and oil from United States, Britain, and Netherlands, therefore further reinforced Japanese thought that Southeast Asia must be taken. In addition to the natural resources, Malaya was also part of Japan’s “Outline Plan for the Execution of the Empire’s National Policy”, a plan to expand the outer perimeters so wide that her enemies would not be able to attack by air against the home islands. This perimeter extends from the Kurile islands down to Wake, Guam, the East Indies, Borneo, Malaya, and up to Burma.

In general, the Japanese troops knew very little of jungle warfare. The Japanese Army did not embark on conducting research with jungle warfare until Dec 1940, and even then the effort was not fruitful, as the responsibility of the research was given to the Taiwan Army, and the island of Taiwan lacked any jungle for this purpose. Furthermore, Japanese intelligence only detected 30,000 to 50,000 British and Commonwealth troops in Malaya, when in fact there were about 88,600 men; this under-estimation could have easily caused serious harm in the Japanese invasion, but General Tomoyuki Yamashita would later admit that “our battle in Malaya was successful because we took the enemy lightly”. Yamashita was given the overall responsibility of the invasion. On paper, he commanded a force 70,000-strong, organized into three divisions; in reality, the Japanese strength was less than that, as the 5th Division left behind a whole regiment in Shanghai, China as late as 26 Dec 1941, while the 18th Division left two headquarters regiments in Canton, China. Meanwhile, the Imperial Guard Division, elite academically, had no combat experience.

The defenses in Malaya and Singapore were equally unprepared for war. Coordination between the ground troops and the small Royal Air Force contingent in the region was poor, while the ground troops, particularly conscripts from India, lacked training and were not properly equipped. High ranking British officers, too, lacked training in jungle warfare. In fact, some of them were not even considering that they needed to know how to conduct a war in the Malayan jungles, as indicated by some of their frustrated complaints that there was no room for them to conduct training maneuvers because the jungle was in the way. While Singapore was boasted to be a fortress that could resist an amphibious invasion, defense against a convention invasion down the Malayan peninsula was inadequate. Finally, another hint of Singapore’s unpreparedness was the lack of food rationing despite its mother country had been in war since 1939 and the Japanese invasion seemed inescapable by late 1941. The only major attempt that the British had committed in building the defense of Malaya and Singapore seemed to be a request for the United States to station capital ships of the US Pacific Fleet in Singapore, but that request was denied.

Major Engagements:

• Landings and land engagements in Singora and Kota Bharu 8^th of December
  
• Battle of Kuanatan 10^th of Dec
  
• Fall of Jitra 11 Dec
  
• Fall of Penang 17^th Dec
  
• Fall of Kuala Lumpur 11 Jan 1942
  
• Battle for Singapore 1-15 Feb 1942
  

The IJA/N start with two sets of amphib/transport units. Two stationed in Saigon [The HQ counter hex] and two in Hainan. Both have 3 ground units. Other ground including armor sit on the road to the straits on the Gulf of Siam.

Various TF’s of naval units that I suspect will want to escort the Amphibs to their landing destination. Most of the air capability is in Phnom Penoh and Saigon. Formosa also has a TF with ships.

Exact Order of Battle not important at the moment.

The Japanese forces have 40 CPs or command points in December it then declines slightly from there, and subject to how many they spend in a turn activation of the HQ will cost more too.

There are more than 40 points worth of units in command. So we cannot move everything every turn. So we shall need a bit of a plan.

My initial thoughts are straight forward:

1. Run airstrikes against the Singapore fortifications and base.
   
2. Drive the Eastern most Land units across the straits via Thailand into Singara [see below] and begin attacking up the rail routes.
   
3. Consolidate the Naval elements and bring them to bear to shell Sinapore and if not on a vacant hex then a proper landing and lets learn how they work. Cool thing is doing this solo we can futz around and see what works.
   

We will spend just shy of the 40 points and set that 1 spare aside for a future op.

I am not certain I can coordinate a combined landward & seaward assault so we may end up going in ways. Lets see how the Battle Cycles run for the IJA/N.

The Commonwealth have a swag of forces spread about. I have them flipped and on the map here to aid solo play. The white numerals on the right of units refer to the activation cost in command points for a turn. You can see that things can add up quickly. Malaya HQ has just 10 CP to spend in the December turn at start and it goes down hill from there. The Commonwealth HQ costs 8 to activate! With such low CPs we face a difficult time moving forces or doing much other than reacting.

VC’s are not easy it would seem!