Aserais wrote:Spiritual Republic of Caryton wrote:
Remnants of what the Americans left circa like 1934-1935, plus a few reverse engineered copies but due to Sonoran Superstate's infancy, the copies aren't that numerous, especially when Grant ordered the prioritization of anti-air assets to be mass manufactured to counter balance the strength of America's remnant airforce. Sonora's anti-air capabilities definitely dwarf it's air capabilities, but that doesn't mean their air force is weak. Just prioritized for defense and whatever threats Grant makes of oblivion.
Okay, so here's what I've got. Over the last two months, the RSM has been preparing for a push into Sonora and Baja cali, laying down rail lines, setting up and hiding artillery emplacements, moving air force assets into the former anarchic states as they were taking them. Sonora getting invaded by arizona sped up a timeline that they were already on to capture former Mexican territory.
So you're going to be facing down the 5th, 2nd, and 3rd army, totaling 350,000 men, the 5th-12th Air groups, totaling 750~ish fighters and 400~ish bombers, and three carrier groups with a near identical compisition to the 1st Pacific Carrier Group, including the ARSM Águila, which is the biggest and baddest carrier the RSM has, and the ARSM Tenochtitlan, which carries 4 batteries of three 15" guns apiece, not to mention subs, destroyers, minesweepers and heavy cruisers.
Now, in order to write this next post, I kinda need to know what I'm throwing these guys into, and how effective these defenses are. What do you think would be an acceptable level of advancement from Mexico into Sonora, and what kind of losses should I be looking at?
That's a lot of shit you got there lol.
Arizona, due to its authoritarian status, has a conscription rate of 5% of men and women. From AZ and Baja, that leaves me with about 121,000 - 125,000 give or take. The militia comprises about 10% of the population and receives regular training, meaning there are a regularly trained home defensive force of 250,000. However, these are based on local levels and will not come into play once you get into Arizona. Until then, they merely send in a couple of volunteer companies, as you've seen with the cavalry and skirmishers. If you get deep into Arizona, that's when all the orwellian "every man, woman, child, and baby a soldier" shit happens but again that's far into the future. Since Arizona is focusing its resources on protecting the state and Baja, I'd say out of fairness that there are only 20,000-25,000 regulars + about 10,000 civilian militants.
By the time fighting starts, I assume the rest of Sonora capitulates at the loss of Ciudad Obrenga after the blatant genocide at Hermosillo. Initially, you'd be looking at around 40,000 irregularly armed and trained members of the Sonoran Volunteer Force - which is again captured insurgents at gunpoint along with anti-communists, the few sympathizers of Grant, men and women just sick of anarchy, and virtually anybody who has a functional gun. You'll encounter more of them near the central areas of the state, but at the border, they've minelayed and put traps around, but their entrenchments are virtually shallow due to only being overseen by a couple of divisions of secret police units. If you do advance into the country, they'll be easy to defeat due to shifty loyalties and poor training. However, my goal isn't to use them to achieve military victory, but to whittle your numbers down to something more manageable, say about 275,000.
Central Sonora is where the fighting takes a toll for both of us, namely because its desert environment is harsher than that of Arizona proper during the summer, as well as the fact that you'd face the 15th Armored Division head on as well as the 30,000-35,000 men give or take, plus the rest of Sonora's armed population in that SVF penal squad. Even if that SVF numbered 100,000 in the populated areas, that still puts you at a numerical advantage. Either the biggest battles or the biggest stalemate happens here, we can decide later on!
As for Baja California, the construction of coastal batteries along vital port cities has been undergoing for a short period of time, but the cannons are there and with about like 1 month of preparation, defenses are in their infancy but that doesn't mean an attempt at amphibious invasion would go unchallenged or unhindered. In 1936, the Baja Peninsula is admittedly depopulated, so I'd say I would only have a garrison of about 20,000 there, dug in deep and spread evenly across the centers I need to protect while the rural areas go largely ignored. It's there you'd also see the full force of Arizona's new navy. It's largely made up of patrol craft, torpedo boats, submarines, light frigates, and other anti-ship assets. Chances are they won't face your fleets head on but will whittle your numbers down along the way, bombard your beachheads, and harass your navy to keep it distracted once you do eventually land troops.
In the field of air force, you would also be at a good advantage as Timothy Grant listened to his Air Marshal and kept all planes on defensive flights in Arizona to scare away Americans and maintain air superiority in core regions. It's also in Arizona proper that the overbearing anti air cannons are also present. However, in Sonora, AA is minimal but strategically placed in well entrenched positions in both Central Sonora and the border regions. They can hold their own against your planes in individual battles definitely, but if they run out of ammunition, you'd basically win the air fight in city after city, with AA assets gradually increasing.
tl;dr: you start off great but fighting gets more desperate the more north you go, leaving you more open to casualties.
Just an fyi