Turning Point: STALINGRAD - a 1942 campaign

Thanks for the enthusiastic feedback guys! I really appreciate the comments and continued reading.

I will try to get another update ready tonight or tomorrow evening that will conclude the strategic overview, so we can move on to the situation at home in Germany etc.

Jesper

Inkana said:

Awesome AAR. The pictures alone are excellent. Where'd you get them?

Click to expand...

Thank you Inkana, glad to have you with us. The photos I have gathered from various websites over the past 3-4 years. I have a collection of about 2.8 GB

Hope to be able to post an update tonight (10-12 hours from now).

Jesper

Glad that you fans are still hanging on. I apologize for announcing updates that don't materialise but I underestimated how much I needed to get done this week.

From now on I will try not to announce the next updates but just post them as soon as they are ready. That way, hopefully you will be pleasantly surprised instead of disappointed.

Jesper

The Strategic Situation in the Dutch East Indies and the Pacific - Part I​

The attack on Pearl Habor by the Imperial Japanese Navy on December 7th 1941 marked the beginning of all-out war in the Pacific between Japan on one side and the United States, the United Kingdom and Commonwealth countries and the Netherlands on the other.




The attack on Pearl Harbor was launched simultaneously with operations in the rest of the Pacific and the Dutch East Indies. On December 8th Hong Kong, the Philippines and the Dutch East Indies were attacked. American-held Wake Island was also assaulted and taken by December 23rd.




After two years of war in Europe, the British, Dutch, Australian and New Zealand forces in the Pacific and Southeast Asia were in no shape or numbers to resist the Japanese fighting forces and in the next six months Japan scored victory after victory in the Pacific theatre, conquering the Dutch East Indies, New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and defeating the Allied naval forces in the Battle of the Java Sea in early March 1942.




The sinking of the HMS Hermes in the spring of 1942 and IJN raids into the Indian Ocean seemed to pave the way for a Japanese attack on India itself, but the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy were beginning to feel the strain of their over-extended supply lines and the difficulty of maintaining a proper defence of the territories they had already conquered.

In mid-1942 the Allies, now joined by the United States, were slowly reorganising their defences of mainland Australia after the disastrous fall of the Philippines and the capture of 80,000 U.S. troops a few months before, when U.S. code-breakers learned of the Japanese intent to assault and capture Port Moresby in New Guinea. This strike would give Japan control of the waters north of Australia and open up for a direct assault. The U.S. Navy rushed to the area and in the Battle of the Coral Sea sunk the Japanese carrier IJN Shóhó and damaged the carrier IJN Shókaku, while loosing their own carrier USS Lexington.




Up next: Part II

TheHyphenated1 said:

Nice update, Commander-DK (or should I address you as Jesper?)!

Click to expand...

Call me either as you please .

Aye, quite a battle but things are about to get a lot worse for the Japanese as you will soon see.

Jesper

Merlowe said:

Whats news of the Eastern front?

Click to expand...

Nothing. I am still writing the intro posts to the AAR but will be getting to the actual gameplay as soon as possible .

Thanks for reading!

Jesper

The Strategic Situation in the Dutch East Indies and the Pacific – Part II​

While the United States Navy arguably suffered the greater loss in the Battle of the Coral Sea, it was a tactical victory for the Allies, as the Japanese invasion forces headed for Port Moresby was forced to turn around. The battle also kept the IJN carriers out of the Battle of Midway a short while after.

Admiral Yamamoto had devised a plan that would allow him to lure the remaining American carriers into battle, so that he could destroy them. For this purpose, he would attack the Midway atoll, but once again the U.S. navy codebreakers were on to the Japanese scheme and set a trap of their own.

In a battle that lasted several days, the U.S. navy sunk four Japanese aircraft carriers and a heavy cruiser while only loosing the USS Yorktown and a destroyer themselves. This was a great naval victory that drastically changed the balance of power in the Pacific.




From July 1942, the Japanese forces tried to assault Port Moresby once more over land, driving towards the east end of New Guinea. For months, desperate Australian commandos fought a valiant rearguard action in the Owen Stanley Mountains on the narrow alpine pass known as the Kokoda Trail, suffering torrential rainfalls, tropical diseases such as malaria, freezing nights and hot humid days.




In the late summer of 1942, the Allies identified a Japanese airfield under construction on the island of Guadalcanal. Once finished, this airfield and base would help sever the connection between embattled Australia and the United States and thus in August U.S. marines landed on the island and took the airfield. The Japanese workers and small garrison fled to the interior of the island, which began a long, hard struggle for control of Guadalcanal.




Over the next many months Japan and the United States both send reinforcements to the island in the form of land, air and naval forces and a long struggle of attrition – for which the U.S. was better equipped – began. The many ships lost in naval engagements around the island gave name to the “Ironbottom Sound” and both sides suffered severe losses of men and materiel.




In November 1942, the fighting for the control of Guadalcanal and New Guinea was still not over. Australian and U.S. forces attacked the Japanese beachheads on New Guinea on November 16th 1942 in the Battle of Buna-Gona but had grossly underestimated the number of Japanese forces present and the result was yet another bloody slaughter, in which Allied forces fought their way through tropical jungles and swamps, suffering one ambush after another from Japanese strongpoints and crossfire kill-zones in the tall tropical grass. The Allies lacked air and tank support and the Japanese pillboxes had to be taken out in close combat using small arms and grenades.




As the tide of war is slowly but steadily turning against the Empire of Japan in the Pacific and the wounded U.S. Navy is recovering from its early losses it now remains to be seen, if the fighting spirit and determination of the Japanese forces and their undying obedience to the Emperor will allow them to once more regain the initiative or whether this is the beginning of a long fighting retreat on all fronts…




Up next: The Home Front (Germany)

The Resource situation
Energy 20K, metal 10K, rare materials 7500, oil 14993, supplies 9960, money 300 manpower 600, nukes 0, dissent 0,0%, TC 922/648, IC 0/360/308.

Besides the overseas territories and Stalingrad, we have a pile of 1000 supplies in Brest and Dunkerque, 200 oil and 200 supplies on Crete and the same in Athens. I guess these are stockpiled by the AI in case of an invasion...

Convoys
Germany has 40 convoy ships and 25 escorts undeployed. We have a further 60 convoy ships operating between various overseas territories and mainland Europe.

Intelligence situation
We have a belligerence of 40. We have 0 spies at home to protect us, but we believe that there are 5 enemy spies in Germany. We have no spies abroad!

Production
At the moment there are 6 Panzer IV divisions, 7 SS IV submarine flotillas (Type IX) and 9 1941 Infantry divisions under construction. None of the units have been in the production line for more than a few days, so there is little gain in keeping them.




I imagine that I will scrap all of these units in favour of interceptors and garrisons but we will have to wait and see.

Trades
From the start I have trades going with Sweden, Italy, Persia, Romania and Turkey. The Swedish deal (14 energy for 10 metal) is ok. The Italian trade (5 metal and 25 energy for 5 supplies) sounds like a bad deal but I am going to examine how badly Italy needs it before I cancel it.
Persia gets 1 supplies and 30 energy for 13.5 oil, which is actually rather nice, but the deal must be void because from the beginning of the game Persia is completely occupied by the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union in unison.
I am giving Romania 10 metal and 10 energy for 10 oil, which also sounds expensive and unnecessary, but we will have to see. I have to get my future oil from somewhere. Turkey is giving me 6 rares and in return I am just paying them 3 supplies and 2 metal. Gimme more of such trading partners!

Technology
My advances in varius fields of tech research are as follow:
Infantry: Inf '41, Mot inf '42, Mech inf '42, Airborne '43 and Mountain '41. I have yet to research the "Frontline" parts of the Supply techs.

Armour: PzKpfw IIf and Panzer IV as well as PzKpfw VIE Tiger heavy armour brigade. Furthermore Hertzer tank destroyers, 7.5cm PAK 40 AT-guns, Improved Artillery, Nebelwerfer 42 brigades, StuH.42 sp-art brigades and Basic Armoured Car brigade.

In all naval respects I am stuck with the 1938 models, except CV's (1936 model) and CVL's and Super Heavy Battleships (no designs at all).

The Luftwaffe is also falling behind. I have designs for Focke-Wulf Fw-190A interceptors, Messerschmitt Bf-110 escort fighters, Messerschmitt Bf-109G Gustav fighters, Junkers Ju-88 tactical bombers, Junkers Ju-89 strategic bombers, Junkers Ju-87G Stuka dive bombers, Focke-Wulf Fw-200C naval bombers, and Arado Ar-232 air transports.

In regards to doctrines, I have reached Kampfgruppe and Spearhead HQ's Doctrine as well as Early Hospital Doctrine. In the air I still need to complete a lot of the 1939 and 1940 interceptor doctrines as well as some of the later TAC and CAS Doctrines.
The Naval Doctrine tree is almost complete but I don't really care because I will have little use for it the next couple of years.

So far I don't have access to ANY of the Secret Weapons techs - not even Basic Computing or Flying Bombs. I will have to remedy that.

On the industrial side I am pleased to see that I have all the Assembly Line techs except the Rocket one. I am greatly behind in Cryptography and somewhat behind in Agriculture and Radar Warning, but I am doing ok in Nuclear and Synthetic Oil research and Rocketry is all done!

Cabinet and Slider settings / Diplomacy
At the beginning of the game, my Axis consists of Germany (of course), Italy, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, Japan, Siam and Japan's two puppets; Manchukuo and Mengkukuo.

Finland, although at war with the Soviet Union, is not a part of the Axis. Nor are they at war with the Allies. I am still debating with myself whether to change that in order to gain Military Control of them.

Japan, my brother in arms, has a pact of neutrality with the Soviet Union and as such is only participating in the war against the Allies, as is Siam. Japan, however, along with her two puppets, is also conducting a war against Sinkiang, Nationalist China, Guangxi Clique, Yunnan, Xibei San Ma, Shanxi and Communist China.

My cabinet consists of Adolf Hitler (head of state AND government), foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, Armaments Minister Walter Funk, Minister of Security Heinrich Himmler, Head of Intelligence Wilhelm Canaris, Chief of Staff Alfred Jodl, Chief of the Army Wilhelm Keitel, Chief of the Navy Erich Raeder and Chief of the Air Force Hermann Göring.




Quite a few of those are not the best suited to lead Germany, but I will get back to replacing them later.

On the slider setting I am sad to see that not much has changed since 1936 when it comes to central planning and getting a professional army. I am also going to have to change that a little bit before the game can begin.


Germany's Armed Forces
The German army at present consists of 237 infantry divisions, 20 motorised, 2 mechanised and 32 armoured divisions, 3 paratrooper divisions, 11 mountaineer divisions, 10 garrison divisions and 18 HQ divisions. Of course, not all of these 333 divisions are at full strength as the reinforcement screen shows.

The paratroopers are the Airborne '43 model. The garrisons are of the '43 model (which I have not researched yet!?!) as well. 4 of the HQ's are the '39 model, the rest are the HQ '43 model. Of the 237 infantry, 1 is the 1936 model, 19 are the 1939 model and 207 are the 1941 model. The remaining 10 are the 1943 model (which I also have yet to research).
All of the mechanised and motorised infantry are the '42 model. There are 9 Mountain '41 divisions and two Mountain '43 divisions. All 32 panzer divisions are Panzer IV's.

The army has 16 tank destroyer brigades, 11 of which are Hertzers, the remaining 5 are older models.
The army has 20 self-propelled artillery brigades, all of which are StuH.42s
The army has 1 rocket artillery brigade, of the old Nebelwerfer 41 model.
The army has 26 police brigades.
The army has 5 heavy armour brigades - all of which are the latest Tiger tanks due to my modding of the scenario.
The army has 13 engineer brigades - all of which are the basic model, because I haven't research 1943 infantry yet.
The army has 75 artillery brigades, of which 4 are not the latest model.
The army has 6 Armoured Car brigades
The army has 55 AT-gun brigades
The army has 34 AA-brigades, but only 13 of them are the latest model. 21 are older models.

All in all, an astonishing 251 out of 333 divisions have a brigade!


The Kriegsmarine consists of 1 battleship (the KMS Tirpitz), 4 battle cruisers, 4 heavy cruisers, 4 light cruisers, 7 destroyer squadrons, 36 submarine squadrons and 2 transport flotillas.
30 of the subs are Type VII with a range of 3000 miles, while 6 of them are Type IX with a range of 3500 miles. This gives me a total of 58 fleet units.

The Luftwaffe is made up of 11 fighter squadrons, 5 interceptor squadrons, 3 Close Air Support squadrons, 16 tactical bomber squadrons, 2 naval bomber squadrons and 2 transport squadrons.

Of these 39 squadrons, only 4 are equipped with escort fighters. 4 of the tactical bomber squadrons are old Heinkel He-111s. The rest are Junkers Ju-88. All the CAS are Junker Ju-87G Stuka dive bombers. Of the 11 fighter squadrons, 1 is a model Focke-Wulf Fw-190D (which I have not researched yet) while the remaining 10 are all Messerschmitt Bf-109Gs. All 5 interceptors are Focke-Wulf Fw-190As. The naval bombers are Focke-Wulf Fw-200Cs and the transports Arado Ar-232’s.

The General Staff
The best generals in my command are: Field Marshals von Rundstedt, von Manstein, von Kluge, Rommel and Model, as well as Major General Kluge and General Guderian. They are all skill 5.

Admiral Dönitz is the only skill 5 naval commander. There are 4 Grand Admirals once the "Retire old guards" event has fired.

There are no skill 5 air commanders but 11 skill 4 commanders, which will have to do. After all, they will gain experience quickly. There are 45 Air Generals and 4 Air Marshals; Göring, Milch, Kesselring and Sperrle.

Trading partners
It looks like I have very few options left. Apart from my Axis allies, in Europe I can trade with Sweden, Switzerland, Spain and Portugal and Finland. In Asia, I have almost neutral relations with Turkey (10) but I will try to improve those. Other than Turkey I might be able to trade with Saudi Arabia but they are indifferent towards me. Persia is gone - occupied by UK and USSR.

In South America Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia and Chile all seem to like me. But I question the trade efficiency over such distances so I might have to rely on one-shot deals rather than regular trade. Venezuela is now socialist and absolutely hates me! I am tempted to try and overthrow their government with a coup but I think my money will be better invested elsewhere...

Partisans
The Partisans map mode reveals an interesting setup; Norway, France and the Balkans are practically rid of partisans, having a base revolt risk of only 1 percent? The need to garrison them for the sake of TC thus becomes zero.




But Russia is a real TC burner, with a basic revolt risk of 29 percent in all of the occupied Soviet provinces! I am gonna need to do something about this if I am ever going to win on the Eastern Front!

Finally, these are my ideas for the research that I am going to begin with:
Ernst Udet - Perimeter Defence Doctrine
I.G. Farben - Frontline Supply Service
Mauser Werke - Advanced Infantry Division
Focke-Wulf - Advanced Fighter
Porsche - Advanced Medium Tank


Up next: My useless spaghetti-eating Axis partners to the south!

My only ally in Europe with a resemblance of strength, Italy, is really disappointing in most respects.

Starting IC: 76/69
12K energy, 4500 metal, 1900 rares, 4015 oil, 5726 supplies, 200 $, 460 manpower, 125 TC, 0.0% dissent

Italy has 4 tech teams at the start of the game. They are researching Advanced Machine Tools, Deep Logistic Organisation, Basic Heavy Tank and Improved Armoured Car. I am probably going to have to feed them blueprints (if I can find the money for it), but my first diplomatic priority will be to take military control immediately.

They have only '39 infantry but '41 mountaineers and '42 motorised infantry. They have Basic Medium Tanks and Basic Field Artillery. They have no techs beyond basic computing, no production techs, no agriculture, no radar and mostly '36 types of naval vessels. It's like being allied to Oman!

A slightly redeeming factor is their model 1940 fighters, but the rest of their aircraft models are 1937-38 types. They have not researched CAS at all.
They are far behind in almost every doctrinal respect...

Their armed forces consists of 35 infantry divisions, 4 cavalry divisions, 4 motorised infantry divisions, 1 light armored division and just one (1!) armored division . They also have 1 paratrooper division, 5 mountaineer divisions and 3 HQ's for a total of just 54 divisions...

On the positive side, they have 6 battleships and 3 heavy cruisers as well as 12 light cruisers and 11 destroyer groups. They also have 18 subs and 8 transports, which will be vital for my plan to keep Africa alive! Total: 58 naval vessels/squadrons (same as Germany).

Italy has 4 fighters, 4 interceptors, 2 tactical bombers, 5 naval bombers and 1 air transport = 16 air divisions. Hmmm... I might just be able to do something in Africa after all...

The more I look, the more I realise that a LOT of their units are severely under strength! They are also almost ALL at 0.0 EXP!!

At the beginning of the game my Italian allies do not have a prepared list of things they want to produce. I just hope that they will make good descisions, but my confidence in the AI is, regrettably, low...

Their political setup is also a joke. They are relatively Open Society, quite pro-Free Market, not nearly Hawkish enough and have a drafted army! No wonder their "empire" is in shambles.

Apart from General Messe (4) they only have skill 1 and skill 2 land commanders. All but one of their field marshals are skill 1 or skill 0. Note to self: Make sure all Italian forces are under overall German leadership

Their two skill 3 naval commanders are vice admiral de Zara and rear admiral Borghese. Grand Admiral Riccardi is a skill 2 old guard.
They have only four skill 2 air commanders, the rest are worse . Their only air marshal is Fougier (skill 2).

Up next: My puppet, Slovakia