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:great: Thanks. It all becomes clear now
 
Trekaddict

Sounds like the force has taken quite a battering and it seems to suggest that the problem was right at the top of the chain of command. [Well, technically one step below as in theory the top is held by a certain young lady.;)] I could see the Canadians being righting unhappy at events. Fortunately the carriers survived and can be repaired fairly quickly.

“Do the Brits have any docks large enough to take a full-size carrier?”

This sounds wrong. Do you by any chance mean Indians?

“When they do, by god we will give them their Decisive Battle and show them whose ocean this is.”

:D:D:D

Steve
 
Raaritsgozilla Considering what has happened, I feel that giving at least one Shepard a decent ending was the right thing to do.

ViperhawkZ Yup. See above.

stevep There was a mixup as Aircover that was supposed to be with them was intercepted before they ever reached the Canadian Carriers and the Japanese were lucky, catching them as the Canadians were busy turning around a lot of their own fighters. That being said, Her Majesty's Canadian Ships Vimy Ridge and Bonaventure will be there for the big battle.

As for Brits vs Indians: They are using officialese here, meaning Brits not as "from the UK" but Brits as in "Imperials".

The big clash. I do VERY much look forward to writing it up. :D
 
Nelson set a greivous example at Trafalgar. It seems that he's been copycated a lot...
 
The way I read it, the main impact of Trafalgar was more strategic than tactical, considering that it ended any threat of invasion, even though at sea the French put up quite a fight until 1815.
 
stevep There was a mixup as Aircover that was supposed to be with them was intercepted before they ever reached the Canadian Carriers and the Japanese were lucky, catching them as the Canadians were busy turning around a lot of their own fighters. That being said, Her Majesty's Canadian Ships Vimy Ridge and Bonaventure will be there for the big battle.

As for Brits vs Indians: They are using officialese here, meaning Brits not as "from the UK" but Brits as in "Imperials".

OK thanks for clarifying. I was thinking it sounded like Winne had one of his moments and split the fleet dangerously.

The big clash. I do VERY much look forward to writing it up. :D

Given how impartial you are:p:D and that this is a AAR on a game finished some time back I'm looking forward to it as well.:D:D

Steve
 
Well, the battle was neither planned nor did I really want it when it happened. My CVs were just cruising along and suddenly entangled with the bulk of the Japanese fleet. It wasn't as one-sided as you may think.
 
Note: Here originally I was going to put a piece on how a certain South-East Asian country where the locals don't surf deals with the war, but alas, it's all been thrown out...


Chapter 351​


Griffin listened intently as the Lieutenant gave an order that generations of soldiers all over the world had heard.

“Fix Bayonets!”

Admittedly there was little else to do. The Soviets had occupied a small hamlet and said hamlet needed to be cleared if the 1st Canadian Army was to link up with the pocket where so many of it's countrymen were in danger.


He didn't fancy clearing it out and if it weren't for the fact that Romania was an Allied country it would simply be levelled with Artillery. Here in this country it would have to be cleared, and the burning AIC near the road told that there was at the very least some light artillery of some sort in the hamlet.

It was then that the machine gunners began covering the Infantry advance. The Soviets obliged and soon the machine guns on both sides duelled. The Soviets had some heavy machine guns, but there were more Canadian .50s present than there were Soviet 12.7mms.

As the Canadians rose and began to run over the stretch of completely open ground hell broke loose. As men began to fall around him Griffin ignored the bullets and the occasional mortar shells and concentrated on the barn that was his sections rally point. Once he was nearly there he saw a Soviet with an RPG-1.[1]

It was too far for his Sten, but beside him he saw a private going down to one knee, taking quick aim and dispatching the Soviet before he could fire. Good man, Griffin decided. If he survived he would benefit from marksmanship training.

They all kept running and when he reached the wall of the barn he wasn't winded but was happy that from now on he wouldn't have to sprint any more. His strength had always been more in endurance than speed.

He saw his section leaning against the same wall. He raised his right hand, balled it to a fist and then pointed at the windows and slits. Following his orders four of the men tossed hand grenades through them.


Explosions and screams followed. A nearby door was blown off it's hinges and Griffin took a peek around it. Four Soviets lay there in various stages of leaving this earth behind them and he motioned for his men to follow him as he rose and stepped inside. The barn was low and didn't have much of a second storey. He still took a look without finding anything.

With his entry into the hamlet assured he took a few seconds to re-orient himself but the sound of automatic weapons and the short, sharp cracks of Lee Enfields and their Soviet counterparts showed that elsewhere fighting was going on. As he poked his head out the window facing the road they needed to take he saw that...Comets coming up from where they had started.

“Just like the bloody tankies. Always coming when the real fight's over.” he grumbled as he stepped back inside and just nodded. His squad just waited as the sound of nearby fighting died down and the tanks rumbled past. When he deemed it safe, they stepped outside and watched the rest of the Division march by.


When the remainder of the Regiment appeared they joined up with them at the 'square' in front of the squalid little orthodox church.

Losses had been minimal thanks to what Griffin called 'considered application of superior fire-power' and half an hour later they were mounted again and followed the Brigade at it's rear.


Overall Allied efforts to break through to the pocket in Iasi were going well. The 4th Canadian Armoured especially had a reason for fighting it's way through and the manner in which they had brushed aside the opposition by some of the best Soviet Tank units in this sector of the front, with the 5th Canadian Armoured and the Romanian 2nd Armoured Divisions engaging the Soviets so that they would not interfere with the drive towards the pocket.

Elsewhere the ANZACs were fighting hard as well in spite of preparing to pull out. The Romanians were moving into line beside them (the Romanian 14th Army replace them).

In the aftermath of the Bessarabia offensive the Allies had rethought their strategy and a defensive posture meant to keep the Soviets from attacking the Poles in the flank was called for. In 1944 almost eight Romanian Divisions would finish re-training and at least partial re-equipping, and then Crear and Babuescu, the two senior Field Commanders in the sector would attack.



In the meantime however the Canadians and their Romanian Allies were breaking through to the pocket and formed the basis for the close friendship between these two nations that endures even today.

The ring around the town was broken only in the later afternoon and fighting along the corridor would last for another three days as the Soviets desperately tried to close it again but the biggest threat to Romania had been turned back by the time the day was out.

The next day, 9th May 1943, the two Allied Armies began a slow and methodical campaign to drive numerically superior Soviet forces out of Romania, hopefully for good. The area they had to cover wasn't all that large but STAVKA had crammed thirteen Divisions of varying quality into it.

In the end the decision was taken that driving them out would take far longer than expected. What lead to this conclusion was intelligence both from captured Soviet documents as well as signals intelligence where it had soon become evident that the Soviets had orders to defend these territories at all costs.


112924835.jpg


Stalin had issued that order mostly because the Soviet Union was beginning to run out of trained manpower in the west. Overall their reserves were still massive, but between the shortfalls in the skilled workforce in industry (by Soviet standards at least) and the simple fact that even the most basic rifleman needed at least some training the reserve of men available for instant deployment to the front was running short.


Until that could be changed the enemy needed to be kept away from the motherland.

Another factor in this was that the Ukraine, the at least on the surface most threatened region, was the breadbasket of the Soviet Union, and everyone in the USSR still remembered the famines that had held the country in it's grip during the 1920s.

What Stalin didn't know (or rather what the GRU was afraid to tell him) was that he was being too cautious. The Allied Pact had no intentions whatever to advance into Russia proper before Germany was defeated, not knowing that later in the year their hand would be forced at least in the Ukraine.



The way things were the Soviets were running the risk that if the Allies managed to outright destroy those Divisions there were few trained forces between them and Kiev. Of course the Central Front might turn from it's goal of defeating the Polish who had very reluctantly halted their drive towards Warsaw until British and Hungarian forces could support them, something not expected to happen for at least another two or three months. For the moment they were conducting cautious attacks that were meant to take the Stanislawow/Stryj area with the eventual goal to hold the Soviets (happily with the aid of a few token British units and the more reluctantly accepted Hungarians) along the waterways in the area.



RzeczpospolitaII.png

Pre-WW2 Poland. The area in question is in the extreme south-East.



The OKW on the other hand was worried about the lack of progress by their Soviet allies. Hitler may have dismissed the Romanian and Hungarian Armies, but his Generals were well aware that the twin facts that they defended their homelands against what they saw as godless Communists motivated the rank and file soldier far more than any propaganda broadcasts their former rulers had put out before the Balkans had changed sides.

There was also considerable discussion on just how far the British had gone in the way of supplying them with modern equipment, and that the RSHA's Foreign Department claimed that at best the Cromwells that had been spotted were few in number and most would be cast-off Crusaders left over from the 1940 campaign didn't help, as this was reinforced by what the Germans would have done were the situation reversed.


After all, there were indications that the British were still producing those.


They were, but not for reasons that the OKW knew, nor would they have liked them had they known.



All this was watched over by the Finns who were merely waiting for the right moment to pounce.



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Comments, questions, rotten Tomatoes?


This update was mostly written to get myself back into the routine of churning these out...


[1] Here it's a copy of a German copy of the British PIAT, which TTL is a rocket launcher. It's name in Russian (but written in latin script) uses the letters RPG for the start of the words, but it doesn't actually translate as Rocket Propelled Grenade.
 
I think the Hungarians would be happy to help the Poles; Pole and Hungarian brothers be, and all that kind of thing.

And of course, always nice to see the Canadians beating the tar out of the silly Soviets.
 
If only the Allies could break into Bavaria and let loose their tanks on the German plains...
 
Agent Larkin Well, they are well aware that the Allies are from winning the war just yet, but for the moment a whole lot of Finnish-flagged ships take on "Farm machinery" and machine tools for making more of it.


ViperhawkZ Normally yes, but the Poles haven't forgotten whose side the Hungarians were on last year.

Kurt_Steiner There's the little matter of the Wehrmacht being in the way.
 
Note: Here originally I was going to put a piece on how a certain South-East Asian country where the locals don't surf deals with the war, but alas, it's all been thrown out...

So post-war somewhere in the region resists Australian cultural domination.:p


Griffin listened intently as the Lieutenant gave an order that generations of soldiers all over the world had heard.

“Fix Bayonets!”

Should that be heard or feared, or possibly both.;)

The next day, 9th May 1943, the two Allied Armies began a slow and methodical campaign to drive numerically superior Soviet forces out of Romania, hopefully for good. The area they had to cover wasn't all that large but STAVKA had crammed thirteen Divisions of varying quality into it.

In the end the decision was taken that driving them out would take far longer than expected. What lead to this conclusion was intelligence both from captured Soviet documents as well as signals intelligence where it had soon become evident that the Soviets had orders to defend these territories at all costs.

Stalin had issued that order mostly because the Soviet Union was beginning to run out of trained manpower in the west. Overall their reserves were still massive, but between the shortfalls in the skilled workforce in industry (by Soviet standards at least) and the simple fact that even the most basic rifleman needed at least some training the reserve of men available for instant deployment to the front was running short.

Good old Joe. Still in a close race with the Japanese and Chiang for the 2nd worst political leader in WWII.

Another factor in this was that the Ukraine, the at least on the surface most threatened region, was the breadbasket of the Soviet Union, and everyone in the USSR still remembered the famines that had held the country in it's grip during the 1920s.

What Stalin didn't know (or rather what the GRU was afraid to tell him) was that he was being too cautious. The Allied Pact had no intentions whatever to advance into Russia proper before Germany was defeated, not knowing that later in the year their hand would be forced at least in the Ukraine.

Sounds like the Ukrainians are going to decide they prefer being slaves to imperialist to being members of the great Soviet brotherhood. AKA they like not fearing a knock on the door with a rifle butt or seeing their families starving. How does the game handle unrest in areas like this? I know you can get national areas of unrest and serious resistance in occupation states but as far as the game's concerned I thought the Ukraine was an integral part of the USSR.


After all, there were indications that the British were still producing those.


They were, but not for reasons that the OKW knew, nor would they have liked them had they known.

Intriguing. I wonder where their going?;)

All this was watched over by the Finns who were merely waiting for the right moment to pounce.

A possible answer, although I suspect that even fairly light tanks aren't likely to be much good in the forests and swamps of the region.

Good that the pocket has been relieved. Not sure I understand the section on the response to the intel about Stalin's stand and die orders. Do you mean the allies have decided not to force them out of the rest of Romania until other forces are available/Germany defeated, or that their going to try for their own pocket or something?

Looking good for the good guys, although as you say a hell of a lot of fighting to go.:)

Steve
 
Agent Larkin Well, they are well aware that the Allies are from winning the war just yet, but for the moment a whole lot of Finnish-flagged ships take on "Farm machinery" and machine tools for making more of it.

I think your missing a 'far' or something here, or possibly the 'from' shouldn't be there?

How are the Finns getting those goods? I suspect that even if neutral the Axis are keeping a close eye on shipping through the Baltic. There is of course the Arctic port but again that's likely to be closely watched. [Or does the game allow such trade links even with from an enemy?]


Kurt_Steiner There's the little matter of the Wehrmacht being in the way.

You have to keep bringing up those minor quibbles.:p;)

Steve
 
The armaments themselves (which is mostly things such as AT guns, light Arty and so forth) are being taken apart before embarkation and then shipped through the Baltic (the Danes, trying to survive have closed it to Allied shipping but it's open to everyone else) on Finnish and Swedish vessels (the Swedes don't want to get involved but at the same time have no interest in seeing the Axis win) while the machine tools are often transshipped through Norway, which incidentally how a lot of male tourists of British origin and military age reach Helsinki.


Though it's not as if the Allies are re-arming the Finns, they sell them what can be spared (and shipped). Most of the aid is actually more indirect in terms of tech transfers, advisers/Instructors and latterly Special Forces training the Finns and being trained themselves in Arctic warfare.
And yes, there is a "far" missing.
 
Chapter 352


“What do we know, Brigadeführer?” the German spymaster asked.

“Nothing much, Sir. The English are proving to be very adept at internal security.” the unfortunate SS Officer replied. He wasn't worried about his own skin, if there were one thing you could depend on with Heydrich he never had the messenger shot, and in this case the fault lay with someone elses department.

However a furious Heydrich was still scary and since he had a crippled leg now he was almost constantly angry. That the British had managed to destroy several caches, stay-behind hideouts and assorted secret facilities on both sides of but still close to the front and all that the RSHA knew was that it was a force of light, fast and hard-hitting soldiers that went in and out before they could be caught.

The only reason they even knew this force existed was that one time they had accidentally run into them when the British had stumbled over one cache just a tiny bit too early.


“No matter, Brigadeführer. There is little we can do at present.”

The Offer let out a relieved breath.

“As for the Werwolf Sir, I have the report right here. If you wish me to review it for you....” he trailed off, awaiting his orders.

“Yes yes,” Heydrich waved with impatience. “Just do it.”

“Yes, Sir.”

He took a deep breath.

“Within free Germany we have started building caches and the recruitment of cadres. At present the network is mostly in place in Bavaria, Württemberg and Baden, with everywhere north of those areas being available and ready within another two months. In Bavaria itself we have fifteen major caches that only Brigade leaders know about and about twice as many minor ones. Around each of these, where there are applicable settlements at least, we have cadres, all in all around a thousand trained men willing to do their duty for the Führer. Same in the other places where the network is in place.”

He cleared his throat and wished for a drink of water.

“Each brigade consists of between a hundred to a hundred and fifty men, with those brigades being sub-divided into banners and so forth down to four-men teams. They have been trained in sniping, clandestine demolition tactics and unarmed combat. Given that we get the time to implement it, they will be ready.”


Heydrich showed an almost feral grin now. He would make the British pay.

“What about Unternehmen Südwind[1], has Standartenführer Wendlich everything he needs?”


“Yes, Sir. He has recruited the men he needs from those sections of Italian society that still feel loyalty to our cause and when he last reported in the day before yesterday they were ready and merely awaited X-Hour.”


“Good, good.” Heydrich replied and leaned back in his chair. Anna, his white cat and his only affectation, jumped up from the ground into his lap and he stroked her back. “Very good indeed.”[2]

The Gruppenführer watched as he waited he cold shiver ran down his spine. What about that cat made him be so scared for his own life?

“When can he strike?”

“His report states that the target has competent security and changes routines at least two times a week, though he does expect to be able to strike within three or four days.”

“Good. Dismissed.”

As the officer was gone Heydrich turned the chair and looked out the window over the roofs of Berlin.

Getting the Führer to authorize this mission had been a pain but it would teach the allies the dangers of messing with the Reich.



~**---**~

Rome252812529.jpg


His parents had given him a name, but for the last year he was only known as Andretti to his men, and he'd spent so little time at home since the war had begun it never took him long to adapt to a new identity. He'd been part of the team that had assassinated the Duke of Windsor back before the war and one of the few that had come out of that mess with their careers enhanced.

Only his loyal service had made him, a career Army officer, survive the purge of the disloyal elements of the former Abwehr and it had also netted him this mission.


Unlike many of his fellows he didn't hate the Allied soldiers that shared the streets of Rome with him for what they were, they were soldiers doing their duty and that was that.

However since they fought for an enemy country thus he was doing everything he could to kill as many of them as possible.


Operation Southern Wind was one such endeavour and unlike some of his colleagues that had let themselves be swept away with hatred and forgotten that they were professionals and soldiers first.

He reached the address he knew by heart and knocked on the door. It wasn't being opened, but he didn't expect it to. Instead he turned to walk away and stepped into the small walled garden beside the ramshackle house. In it he found a tiny orchard of fruit trees but instead of admiring them as he had done a few times previously and instead performed a well-practiced series of knocks on the back door of the house that did open him the door.

No names were exchanged, there was no need for that at present, but Andretti said in flawless Italian: “Is everything ready?”

“Yes, Andretti. Our man in his Headquarters has confirmed his itinerary for the next four days and our weapons have been hidden in place as you ordered.”

Andretti nodded with satisfaction. “Good. Tomorrow we will teach the Allies not to interfere with our affairs any longer. God willing we will be able to avenge the Duce and lead Italy back to her destiny.”

He believed that as much as he thought man would ever walk on the moon but it was what these people needed to hear. Personally he didn't expect Italy to return to the fold as it were unless and until German soldiers marched through the streets of Rome again. Mussolini had been a bumbling, incompetent fool and that the Italians themselves had chased him into hell was, with hindsight, hardly surprising.

Italy had punched far above her weight and had paid the price.

And now Andretti was ordered to carry out an operation that was supposed to con the British into pushing the Italians back into the arms of the Reich.

Problem was, Andretti knew them well enough, the British and Italians alike, to know that it wouldn't work. Oh, if the British were like the Germans it would, but somehow he couldn't see the British Army burning random villages in response to what he was about to do.

Oh they would be very, very angry but whatever they did in response, if they had half a brain at least, would only shove those beyond the brink that were already there anyway.

Overall Fascist ideology was so discredited that for most, if not all, common Italians their feelings were near hatred.

The efforts to create Italian Armed Forces that were to fight beside the Allies were controversial, but those that were against Italian participation in the war had a much better chance to convince their fellows than the ultrafascists would ever have.


No, if assassinating the Allied Commander in Chief Europe would have any effect it would be one of morale and chaos on the battlefield. Andretti didn't know it but his superiors hoped that removing Field Marshal Alexander would force the British to replace him with someone not as able in the field of Diplomacy and keeping the Alliance together.

But, the Brandenburger Division had been ravaged, both by combat losses and the simple fact that the SS has purged many of it's mor prominent members. SO recruiting members of the underground Italian Fascists had been the only option. Luckily for Andretti most of them were former members of the Blackshirts so at least they knew how to follow orders and how to fire a rifle.

Their ideological fascination was a bit suspect to Andretti but it would work to his advantage.

“Tomorrow, friends.” he said with a wolfish smile, “tomorrow we shall strike.”



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Comments, questions, rotten tomatoes?


Southern Wind was originally supposed to have a far longer lead time and coincide with the Allied invasion of a certain non-surfing South-east Asian country. I screwed up the timing....


[1] Operation Southern Wind

[2] What? Ian has to get that inspiration from somewhere. :D I said previously, Ian will find a lot of inspiration for those novels of his in his own work, enough to last him a few decades.
 
Killing Alexander? Isn't that a tad too much?

Well, if the Abwehr's tradition still survive somehow into the few of its remants that joined the RSHA, Heydrich may shoot his foot as usual. Being already a lame, that accident would be quite unfortunate :p
 
I imagine that there is every chance that Alexander will be saved by a certain two men, but then again, I bet Trek has already written part of it on his head if not on paper and that Alexander is probably already dead