The World is Not Enough, a German WW1 AAR

My appologies to all who have been following this AAR, but real life has become very busy lately. I asked Johan if he would take me on staff and let me do nothing but write AAR's, but for some reason he's not returning my phone calls. Maybe his secretary isn't giving him the message.

Anyway, I'm going to try and post 2 updates today, one to finish off the battle of Chalons, and the second is another naval update from the Pacific. I think some people may have been confused, the last naval battle saw Gedicke eliminate the Japanese fleet he faced, but not the entire Japanese navy. They are still pretty strong as we shall see.

Over the next month, my schedule will remain tight, so updates unfortunately will remain sporadic at best, but I shall try to post at least once a week during this time.
Thanks again to everyone who's reading
Quirinus

The end of a long night...

Over the next few days, the battle of Châlons was finally coming to an end.


Finally on December 20th…


The battle no one expected to fight had begun on October 8,1916 and lasted 73 days. It involved 1,689,200 men most of whom did not survive. The final numbers for the battle…

164 divisions committed:
82 Allied
82 Germans
It should be noted that over half of the German divisions arrived within the last month of the battle

117 divisions eliminated
82 Allied
35 German

1,429,102 men lost
844,600 Allied
584,502 German

With the battle lasting 73 days, that means the average losses per day for the battle were
19,577 total
11,570 Allied
8,007 German

German casualty rate was at 70% for the battle, while the Allies lost their entire force.

The bloodiest battle in history was over, and in the peace that will follow the war doubtless politicians, and historians will argue the necessity of the battle. One fact that does remain however is the fields of France will never be the same again.

Elsewhere...

In other news, the British invasion force on the North Sea coast, has been contained. This will probably not be a swift battle however as both sides are relatively evenly matched.


Elsewhere we find the Turks, are struggling with revolts all over the country…


We also find (to no ones surprise) that the Austrian Socialist continue to struggle in their efforts to defeat the Monarchist and Republicans in Slovakia. This despite the fact hey outnumber their opponents in the are by 10 to 1.


My best guess is they are attacking with low morale, and thus are not able to last long enough in the battle to defeat the Republicans.

On the other side of the world, Gedicke again finds the Imperial Japanese navy (it’s like their patrolling this area or something).


The battle that followed was a German victory, but at a steep price. The Japanese lost 2 Dreadnaughts, 1 Battleship, 2 Modern Cruisers, and 7 Light Cruisers. The Germans meanwhile lost 2 Dreadnaughts, 1 Modern Cruiser, and 3 Transports


Gedicke sacrificed his transports in order to finish off the Japanese squadron, so that now the Germans have no transports in the Pacific. Gedicke has now sunk 24 Japanese ships compared to 6 German capital vessels, but in the end he failed at his key objective which was to escort the transports safely to China in order to launch an amphibious landing on Japan.

There are 9 more transports in Germany that could be sent to the Pacific, but after the bloody losses at Châlons there is a growing sentiment among the Imperial staff to simply make peace with the Japanese in order to focus everything on the British, and the ending of the war.