• We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.

BigPoppa1111

Lt. General
45 Badges
Aug 3, 2006
1.694
256
  • Europa Universalis IV: Mandate of Heaven
  • Europa Universalis IV: Pre-order
  • Europa Universalis IV: Common Sense
  • Cities: Skylines - After Dark
  • Europa Universalis IV: Mare Nostrum
  • Stellaris
  • Hearts of Iron IV Sign-up
  • Europa Universalis IV: Rights of Man
  • Stellaris: Digital Anniversary Edition
  • Stellaris: Leviathans Story Pack
  • Stellaris - Path to Destruction bundle
  • Cities: Skylines - Mass Transit
  • Europa Universalis IV: El Dorado
  • Surviving Mars
  • Stellaris: Synthetic Dawn
  • Cities: Skylines - Green Cities
  • Stellaris: Humanoids Species Pack
  • Stellaris: Apocalypse
  • Cities: Skylines - Parklife
  • Cities: Skylines Industries
  • Stellaris: Megacorp
  • Stellaris: Ancient Relics
  • Victoria 3 Sign Up
  • Hearts of Iron III Collection
  • Crusader Kings II
  • Crusader Kings II: Sons of Abraham
  • Europa Universalis III Complete
  • Europa Universalis IV
  • Europa Universalis IV: Art of War
  • Europa Universalis IV: Conquest of Paradise
  • Europa Universalis IV: Wealth of Nations
  • For the Motherland
  • Hearts of Iron III
  • Hearts of Iron III: Their Finest Hour
  • Cities in Motion
  • Europa Universalis III Complete
  • Europa Universalis III Complete
  • Europa Universalis IV: Res Publica
  • Semper Fi
  • Victoria 2
  • Victoria 2: A House Divided
  • Victoria 2: Heart of Darkness
  • 500k Club
  • Cities: Skylines
  • Cities: Skylines Deluxe Edition
This is my second attempt at an AAR. The first one I tried I had to abandon right after I started because of massive computer problems. I have since replaced that computer and am ready to try my hand again. This is a mod based upon HMS Enterprize's Harry Turtledove Settling Accounts book inspired mod. It is an excellent mod that I encourage all of you to check out.

Link:
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?t=213106

I will provide just a brief backstory for this mod. If you want to know the complete history feel free to read the book or play the mod.

Backstory:

The story is that the CSA won its independence shortly after Antitem. It then fought (and won) a second war with the USA after it acquired the Mexican province of Sonora and Chihuahua. The CSA was and still is very close in ties to both Britain and France, while the USA began to cozy up to the German Empire prior to WW1.

WW1 was fought by the British, French, Russians, and CSA on one side and the USA, German Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire, and Ottomans on the other. Japan fought both the British and Americans. WW1 saw the USA exact revenge upon the CSA for the humiliation of being defeated twice by its younger and weaker brother, and saw the German Empire defeat France, Russia, and Britain. Harsh peace terms were imposed upon the CSA, France, and Britain.

My AAR will start in 1936 with the CSA being led by a cunning ex-Great War veteran named Jake Featherstone, hell-bemt on revenge. The radical Action Francaise has risen to power in France, and a pseudo-fascist group also heads up Britains government as well. The USA and the German Empire are still recovering from the great depression and seem to think that these new radical groups controlling France, Britain, and the CSA will gradually fade away and not pose problems.

Enough with the backstory. Lets get to the AAR. I have set a few "house rules" for myself in this AAR. First, the USA owns territory that is considered CSA cores. I will not use "demand territory" to get this back before the Plebicite event fires. Also, I cannot remember the exact date of Operation Blackbeard, but I know roughly when it is, and since I am initiating it, then I will plan accordingly. Some knowledge of futures events (since I am dictating said events) is allowed. I will try to plan fairly "historically" (as much as can be done in an ahistorical mod). I will try to avoid gamey exploits.

Onward!!!!
 
Chapter 1: Time to start planning

January 2nd 1936 was time to start planning for the CSA's revenge upon the USA. Jake Featherstone (JF) knew what lost his country the first Great War, and he planned to correct all of those problems. He looked at the state of his country right now.



The USA owned part of northern Virginia, west Texas, and Sequoyah. He couldn't do anything about that now, but that time would come. Resource stocks were low but production was ordered into high gear for his industrialization plan. The CSA needed to industrialize if it had any hope to win the second time around. It also needed manpower. The more the better. The CSA only had around 30 million citizens in 1936, around 1/4 of the amount of the USA. JF immediately knew he needed to get rid of some of his political appointees and get some real talent on his staff. Here was his cabinet before the changes.



Spenssard Lindsay Holland was immediately replaced by Jesse M. Jones as Armaments minsiter. Jones brought a critical industrial expertise to the office. He would help to make our industry more efficient, boosting output by 5% as well as helping with the industrial R&D.

Longtime friend and political backer of JF, Ferdinand Koenig, was in over his head at the cabinet level. His real expertise was in field work. He was reassigned in internal security and Oscar F. Holcomb took over as Security Minister. Oscar was the direct opposite of Ferdy, a nice genial old man, that inspired likeability to all that came in contact with him. He made the internal security forces (police, fire, and home guard) first priority, upgrading both their equipment and training, allowing them to do more work with less manpower. He was instrumental in bringing 10% more men into the mobilization pool every year.

Brigadier General Clarence Potter was another superb field agent that languished in the office. His true talent lay not in paper shuffling but in execution. Featherstone knew he needed a spy of Potter's caliber and that Potter would be just the field agent to setup the spy networks Jake desired. So Potter went back to the field and Jake found himself another paper pusher. Robert Cherry was an industrial lawyer in his previous life, and would be instrumental in bringing an industrial espionage program into existance for the CSA.

Nathan Bedford Forrest III was just like his grandfather, a son of a bitch of the first order. He was another talented individual that Featherstone came to realize was better at kicking ass and taking names than shuffling mountains of paperwork in some Richmond War Department office. Jake knew what needed to be done. He gave NBF3 control of the entire army and knew he only had to say one thing to him, "Have them ready". The new Chief of Staff for the CSA was William Graves. Graves was an able commander in his own right, open to new ideas and not especially beholden to 17th century tactics, but his true talent shined in organizational efficiency. Featherstone would later remark that he never knew that so many military aged men lived in the CSA.

Here is his final cabinet.



Next Update: The state of the CSA armed forces and research priorities.
 
That's a nice background to the diplomacy screen.

Looks fun.
 
Karl Martell said:
Can you make the pictures bigger? It's impossible to recognize much on it, or to read the text.

Other than that... FREEDOM!!! :D

Will do Karl. I realized the problem after I posted those three. Further picture will be readable I promise. New update later today.
 
Looks interesting, do you plan to support France in Europe and try to fight in America.
 
Hannibal - I am firmly committed to trying to help my allies as much as possible. It will be an "America First" focus when the war comes, but if needed I will sacrifice troops from the American front to keep an ally from collasping.

Adaptation - The South is woefully behind the North in industry, but JF realizes that any additional economic growth will greatly help his cause. The pitiful amount of manpower the South generates even after the minister changes will necessitate frugality.

Now on to the update!
 
Chapter 2: State of the CSA Armed Forces and the Confederate Citrus Company

DISCLAIMER!!!! IGNORE THE TWO MOUNTAIN DIVISIONS. THEY DID NOT EXIST AT THE START. I WILL EXPLAIN THEM IN A FUTURE UPDATE.

Here is a breakdown of the Armed Forces of the CSA at January 2nd 1936. You will see that the treaty imposed by the North after the Great War severly crippled the Souths ability to keep internal security, much less field an army capable of defending from foreign agressions. But that was as it was supposed to be. The North was not about to let the South cause trouble again, after the millions of lives lost not 30 years ago.

Army:


Air Force:


Navy:


Much of the airforce and navy that the CSA did have was hidden. The treaty after the Great War forbid the CSA to build an airforce or submarines. But Featherstone had found a way around that. Cuba was out of the way of the CSA mainland and travel to it from other countries was highly restricted. Also, the North did not have many friends among the nations of the Caribbean. This allowed the South to manufacture submarines in Cuba and test them on patrols of the Caribbean without much worry that the North would find out. It was a highly secretive, yet highly developed program. The CSA sailed submarines that could only be matched by the Empire of Japan.

The Air Force was was developed in secret in a rather unuasl manner. During the late 1920's, a land baron and industrial magnate, Jesse M. Jones, started the Confederate Citrus Company. It "technically" consisted of his citrus land assets in Florida. But over time, Jones began to realize that air planes, a machine that he became fascinated with after the war, could have many agricultural uses as well. In 1929, the year of the stock market crash, the Confederate Citrus Company produced its first airplane. By the end of 1930, he had developed modern crop dusting, and was providing this service for most of the large farms throughout the CSA. Because of its diversity of business, the Confederate Citrus Company was one of the few businesses to actually thrive during the depression. But Jones was an ardent nationalist and a long-time Freedom Party man, and he used his wealth and influence to further Jake Featherstone and his gaol to lead the CSA.

Once in office, Featherstone pitched a proposal to Jones, that was just to ingenius to refuse. In the boardroom of the company headquarters for the Confederate Citrus Company on a dark night in 1934, it became a reality. The CCC became the front to the Confederate Air Force. Many a Northern sailor would become suspicious of military looking planes flying far out into the Atlantic bearing the CCC insignia, but many inspections of the CC were made and no treaty violations were ever able to be proven. However, by the beginning of 1936, the CSA was secretly fielding three squadrons of crude tactical bombers flown by experienced pilots that had logged many hours "crop dusting".

Next Update: Industry
 
Always nice to see some sleight of hand like that.
 
Chapter 3: Industry and Wrapping Up the Intro

The CSA, although embracing a Paternal Autocrat style government, was still a fairly unregulated economy. Sufficient circumstanses had yet to arise to allow Featherstone to assume direction of the national economy. Privately, he liked the free market system, but he feared that to win the upcoming war against the US, he would need full control over the production facilities of his country. But for now, it was up to the "invisible hand" and a healthy dose of government busines subsidies to get his agenda accomplished.

The new armaments minister, Jones, had his hands full. Everyday, requests for funding of new projects by private industry, piled up on his desk. Some were just crackpots wanting some government money, but many were from well respected institutions and business from around the Confederacy that just needed alittle extra money in the bank to get started. Featherstone had made clear to Jones the his priorities for the Confederacy, and with those in mind, Jones picked five worthy projects from the many that he had to sort through.

First, Jones granted CSA $10 million to the Texas Oil Company for development of what TOC had referred to as "Basic Machine Tools". Jones really didn't care what the TOC called them, he just cared that they were saying they had made some key breakthroughs in research and that these breakthroughs had the potential to increase industrial efficiency.

Second, Jones handed out another CSA $10 million to TOC's prime competitor, Lousiana based Gulf Oil Corporation. It seems the chemists at GOC had been working loosely with the CCC to develop new pesticides and fertilizers for the agricultural business. With proper funding, they were speculating that within 9 months they could have these products on the market, increasing agricultural yields by nearly 50%. More food means a healthier population, and a healthier population means more potential soldiers. Jones stamped the paperwork. Approved.

The third project bankrolled by Jones was by Sloss Iron Works, based in Birmingham, Alabama. He gave them CSA $10 million as well, to further research in the area of something new called "computers". Evidently, SIW had recently hired a few Duke graduates to find a better way to manage the complex calculations of inventory flow. These Duke kids, freshly back from working in London with Turin, decide to try and make their own operating "computer". While it still seemed to Jones like something out of one of those pulp fiction novels, he was an open minded enough businessman to realize that this had potential. Small scale models were already working in Britain, and the upside to this venture was enormous. SIW's managers had good heads on their shoulders and it would be unlike them to entertain such whims of fancy unless it really held potential.

Fourth on the list was a request from a staff major general named Dwight D. Eisenhower. He had been spending some free time working with local hospitals and doctors and began to prepare some very complicated plans to further integrate medical care for wounded soldiers into the standard army model. The ideas he proposed were radical, but as with the SIW venture, the upside was huge. This could save many soldiers lives and could even increase the amount men returning to the front lines after wounds. This could not be ignored. The amry received CSA $8 million in funds to pursue this.

The last project Jones decided to fund was by the Newport News Shipbuilders. While the CSA was not allowed to construct any new combat naval vessels, what the NNS was proposing to build would fall just inside that wondeful gray zone. They were proposing to build a smaller type of aircraft carrier, one that would serve more in a scouting role than a combat role. Featherstone regarded full scale carriers as a waste of time and resources, but this was one that Jones would fund without the boss' permission. Featherstone was big on firepower. He loved battleships and even bigger battleships. But Jones knew those beloved battle ships would be blind without eyes. These small "escort" carriers, just might make a blind man see.

Overview:


On the home front, JF began an intense public relations campaign to start subtly building a hawkish attitude amongst the CSA populace. Although his recent cabinet shakeup had prompted outcry amongst rival politicans, Featherstone ramped up production and support of the arts and sports to help quell the minor disconent among the populace.

The CSA was on the road to war. It would only be later that he would find out whether this road was actually a stairway to heaven or a highway to hell.

Next Update: What is up with our neighbor to the south???
 
Ugly Guy said:
The CSA was on the road to war. It would only be later that he would find out whether this road was actually a stairway to heaven or a highway to hell.
Now this is a nice line.
 
Chapter 4: Communist Rising in Mexico

Early 1936 saw the development of the Confederacy's spying program. Clarence Potter was ordered to begin recruiting and training spies for infiltration into the German Empire, the Empire of Japan, and of course the USA. The need for information was critical for the Confederacy and Jones wanted to develop a sophisticated program of industrial espionage. Potter also was keenly aware of the need to create a domestic counter-spying program, to root out any spies that the USA in particular had been using to keep tabs on the CSA.

Even with the progress in the spying program and the massive industrial expansion that was approved by Featherstone, there was already trouble on the horizon. The CSA's longtime baby brother to the south, Mexico, was in the midst of a crucial election that saw the communist forces within that country on their way to a sweeping electoral victory. Communiques coming from the CSA embassy in Mexico City were not good, and were getting worse by the day. In some ways the CSA's options were limited. They were forbidden by the Great War treaty to build anymore armed forces. But too many southerns had a vicious hatred of communism after the Red Uprising in 1915-1918 caused them (at least in their minds) to lose the war. So intense was this hatred, that nearly 20 years after the Red Negro Uprising in the south that suspected communist negro terrorists were still be tried and hung for treason.

Featherstone knew that having a communist Mexico on his southern border would be disasterous. It would deprive him of his ally (puppet??) and it would potential give the USA their only other ally, other than the sham of a country called the Republic of Quebec, in North America. Already the newspapers in the north were clamoring about the prospect of a "people's government" in Mexico and the ruling USA socialist party had already begun developing policy to deal with this new regime. In light of this horrendous future and against the provisions of the Great War treaty, Featherstone ordered the formation of four new army divisions. These troops were to be heavily armed and trained in mountain warfare. He was gambling here, but he believed that he just might be able to pull this off.

The CSA then mounted a full out diplomatic offensive. CSA representatives all throughout Europe whipped up red hysteria everywhere they went, railing against the communists in Mexico and asserting the right of the CSA to protect its borders, regardless of the Great War treaty. The ambassador to the USA began meeting with high level USA officials about border incidents between the CSA internal security forces in Hermasillo and red militants in Mexico. He began hinting to the USA that if Mexico became embroiled in a civil war, that the CSA would be forced to intervene in the interests of its own domestic security. The USA resisted this notion, but the CSA kept up its relentless diplomatic onslaught.

On February 13 1936, after failing in the elections by the slimmest of margins, the communists took matters into their own hands. The Mexican ambassador informed the government of the CSA that communist insurgents had taken control over a large expanse of territory in northern Mexico, and were forming large militias with the intent to over throw the government. When pressed if the government of Mexico would need military assistance the ambassador said that his government regarded this as an internal matter, but did not want to close the door completely to offers of aid.

The Mexican Civil War:



The war immediately went bad for the legitimate Mexican government. Many regiments of troops simply disappeared, or chose to fight alongside teh communists. The Reds, while not well equipped, proved to be highly motivated and were on the offensive almost instantly. Bad news poured out of Mexico and it looked like the Mexican government was going to be forced to hand over the country to the savages. In the mean time, it seemed as if the USA was determined to enhance its spying program in the south, and while Potter's men weren't able to catch this new spy, they were made aware of his presence in their country.

USA is spying on us!!



On April 26th 1936, the Mexican ambassador met with top officials in the Featherstone administration and declared that without outside help soon, that the cause would be lost.

Help Mexico?



Decision was made that we must help Mexico, even if it meant aiding directly. Further talks were held with the Mexican ambassador to determine the extent of help that they needed to crush these insurgents.
It seems that the CSA had two choices. Direct or Indirect support. Direct support would be in violation of the Great War treaty, though Featherstone believed that the recent CSA diplomatic moves would enable them to be able to smoothe these violations over.

Send Indirect Aid?:



Or Direct Aid?:



The Mexican ambassador told the CSA officials that he believed without direct intervention that the Mexican government would be looking to relocate soon. Featherstone did not hesitate. If they needed direct intervention to keep Mexico from going red then the CSA had no real choice. The decision was made. CSA troops were to enter northern Mexico and directly engage the armed communist militias.

The Choice:



The CSA air force was relocated to Chihuahua, and the orders were given for the CSA troops to advance.

Here is the battle plan:



Else where in the world during this time:

The CSA concluded many economic deals with mainly South America and Central American countries, bringing these countries ever closer to the CSA.

Japan chose to crush the 2-26 rebellion.

The CSA reached out to its Great War enemies and concluded several economic deals with the Empire of Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

The CSA, Great Britain, and France began secret discussions about renewing their Great War era alliance.

On the domestic front, GOC and TOC completed their research into Argichemistry and Basic Machine Tools respectively and were granted further monies to continue the research into these discoveries.

Next Update: Invading Mexico!!!
 
Nice. Down with communism! :D
 
Time to loosen those shackles!
 
Earth's Savior said:
Nice. Down with communism! :D


Hear, hear! The CSA will steal their Tequila! :D