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Things only get more interesting with the appearance of new German weapons, a nuclear submarine, and, of course, Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower in the White House... I can't wait for more and it looks like the Germans won't have the problem the Soviets and Coalition American Forces are having in Afghanistan! Excellent work yet again!

Well, I needed an excuse to invade Afghanistan. It gets BORING when the game is playing out more or less in real-time (case in point, I have about half of 1954 written out in another tab of this browser, but I couldn't bring myself to sit through any more, so I played 20-odd years of CK with William the Conqueror).

KaiserMuffin said:
Ah. Himmler. This is why hobbies should remain hobbies! Heydrich... my favourite Nazi... in the fact he is the most terrifying scary bastard.

You kidding? Heydrich's the only reason I'm playing this through to the succession crisis! There's a still from Conspiracy that I stole that I'm all but hopping from foot to foot to use.
 
I don't know. Himmler was the only one of the top echelon of Nazis who actually had a degree, and while people have made fun of him for being a chicken farmer, that was what he went to school for. To that extent, his interest in turning Germany into an agrarian state made sense, kind of like Speer's technocratic urges. Turning back the clock to a nation of yeoman peasantry and Teutonic knights was unlikely, but sillier romantic dreams have been pursued - Churchill trying to hold together the British Empire in the face of geography and sheer numbers, for instance. To me what makes Himmler such a frightening figure is how plain dull he was. He was, unlike Hess (sub-par), Goering (off the scale, literally), or Heydrich (picture in dictionary next to "Evil Genius"), pretty much exactly average from the ground up. He wasn't meant to be a military leader, but he was of just the right age to have wanted to be in on the Great War, and miss out in the process. To a man of Himmler's temperament, that just made him want to go to war more.

Summary of my opinion of Heinrich Himmler: He was a plain middle-class Bavarian who wound up in the most unlikely situation imaginable.
 
I've played Himmler, insofar as I've played him in-game, as a little boy who wanted to play soldier and got the chance. He's actually not a bad general (skill 3, hill fighter), but he spent a lot of the '30s and '40s bored and frustrated by the limited influence of the SS. When the SS did have a shot, forming the Waffen-SS, it was hijacked, first by Sepp Dietrich in 1938, then completely a decade later by Paul Hausser. As a result, he keeps sticking his neck out in these quixotic conspiracy moves, or when they backfire, invading some third-world country. He actually had a straight shot into Kabul before I realized I had an airborne corps sitting with some transports just in range to drop in and steal his thunder. He really did spend most of the post-war years as the ranking general in the Mideast, since Guderian has been in Pakistan except during upgrade years.

If it weren't out of place in the narrative, I'd be tempted to do a summary of the recognizable names among the marshals' list - Rommel was military governor of Britain until its government was fully stabilized in the '50s, Guderian is all but invading India, Manstein wound up as Minister for Africa because that's where he was when the war ended...
 
Very fasinating updates. :cool:

Things only get more interesting with the appearance of new German weapons, a nuclear submarine, and, of course, Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower in the White House...

I wonder if Eisenhower's heart problems won't get in the way of dealing with that giant grey glob on the other side of the Atlantic.
 
Very fasinating updates. :cool:



I wonder if Eisenhower's heart problems won't get in the way of dealing with that giant grey glob on the other side of the Atlantic.

Not so far - Truman was absolutely bat-guano crazy about the Gray Peril. Eisenhower, though, has been like an early Nixon in China. Relations are in positive numbers again (mid-1954). Of course, that will change if I can keep the patience to reach the succession crisis, or the subsequent Bermuda Missile Crisis... :D
 
Not so far - Truman was absolutely bat-guano crazy about the Gray Peril. Eisenhower, though, has been like an early Nixon in China. Relations are in positive numbers again (mid-1954). Of course, that will change if I can keep the patience to reach the succession crisis, or the subsequent Bermuda Missile Crisis... :D

The Bermuda Missile Crisis...I can just imagine JFK (if it is him) going on television and announcing a blockade of Bermuda.
 
More important, do you think that Germany's next Fuehrer is likely to bang his shoe on the table, then blink when sending missiles overseas?
 
More important, do you think that Germany's next Fuehrer is likely to bang his shoe on the table, then blink when sending missiles overseas?

Not if Major King Kong is leading the US Air Force! :p
 
More important, do you think that Germany's next Fuehrer is likely to bang his shoe on the table, then blink when sending missiles overseas?

Nein. It should be the fearsome Heydrich, who would never resort to RUSSIAN COMMUNIST shoe banging. Maybe this Kalter Krieg can be a bit more peaceful with US and Germany allying in the current modern era.
 
So far the Cold War has been remarkably peaceful, though I admit I quit and reloaded when the SEATO event fired, because... well... I'd already erected a set of puppet governments throughout SE Asia, which might as well have been the real SEATO, only directed from Berlin, not Washington. This is what comes of playing a heavily composited mod. Hopefully those Frankenstein problems are fixed in 1.3-1.4 of RDD.
 
I am loving reading this. Really plausible stuff. Partially the inspiration for my own punt at a history book AAR!

So, despite your Fascistic invasion and conniving, I present you with,
The third cookie for Services to Syndicalism.
 
Oh great, now I have to go and edit so I have a signature *grumblegrumblegrumble*.

Still, I accept this anarcho-bolshevist-communist award on behalf of the counter-revolutionary fascist swine everywhere. :D
 
Oh great, now I have to go and edit so I have a signature *grumblegrumblegrumble*.

Still, I accept this anarcho-bolshevist-communist award on behalf of the counter-revolutionary fascist swine everywhere. :D

lol. Nice. :p
 
4. The Reichsadmiral Departs

On a cold Kiel day in January 1954, the Reichsmarine welcomed its newest aircraft carrier. DRMS Hermann Goering was a revolutionary ship, and the class was the last of a breed, for the Reich had no need for any new air carriers for many years to come. Displacing 60,000 tons at its normal operating load, it could make 60 kilometers per hour under good conditions, and was specifically built to accommodate a wing of 75 jet fighters and attack aircraft, which had trained separately for over two years to board the ship. It was the world's first carrier designed ground-up to include steam catapults (an innovation developed for the Goering-class) and an angled flight deck. By the time the Reich felt the need to update its carrier inventory, oil turbines would have passed the way of the Kaiser. The Goering was a small victory for Reichsadmiral Erich Raeder, over the Reichsmarine's onetime rival for funding and prestige. Admiral Raeder needed all the victories he could get at the time.

USS_Forrestal_CVA-59_with_British_planes_1962.jpg

Figure 111: DRMS Hermann Goering, Royal Navy exchange squadron on deck, ca. 1962

Funding for the surface and carrier elements of the Reichsmarine was withering; the Fuehrer had made clear that the Goering-class would be the last of its kind for the foreseeable future. He was bitterly disappointed in Raeder's failure to produce an atomic-powered surface combatant, though the Reichsadmiral held out hope that the breakthrough could still be made with enough resources. Compared to Raeder's rival within the Reichsmarine, Karl Doenitz, who had more or less on his own initiative developed atomic submarines, undiscovered until the actual reactor was needed for installation, Raeder was in eclipse. Additionally, his health was failing. 1954 marked his sixtieth year of service to the German fleet in its various forms. He had spent much of that time in combat, either directly with enemy forces or with political rivals within Germany itself.

In contrast, Admiral Doenitz was seemingly invested with infinite resources during the period. Two simultaneous projects were ongoing in the Black Sea shipyards under Doenitz's direct control, projects which would make his submarines even harder to detect. He had asked for, and received, the exclusive right to command Germany's atom U-boats, arguing that they, unlike conventional submarines, had a potentially global reach. Keeping DRMS Triton as a research vessel, he had pushed through a vast construction order, expected to be completed before the end of 1954 if the dockyards at Varna, Odessa, and Istanbul were kept in full operation. Like the sharks to which his U-boats were frequently compared, Doenitz scented Raeder's blood in the water.

The temporary victory of the Reichsmarine over the Luftwaffe in fighter performance was also starting to reverse itself. Reichsmarschall Ritter von Greim had fought for, and won, permission to improve the Luftwaffe's fighter force, already the most advanced in the world. Already by the beginning of 1954, the Wuerger air-to-surface missile gave the Luftwaffe the theoretical capacity to sink Reichsmarine ships at relatively low risk to themselves. Joint exercises conducted during the spring of 1954 showed that the Luftwaffe was supreme within German home waters against the surface fleet, "sinking" half of the carriers involved in the exercise within the first 72 hours of operation. Ritter von Greim and the Triumvirate (Galland, Kesselring, and Sperrle) both saw this as a prime argument for the Luftwaffe's primacy in offshore defense; Raeder found himself spending more and more time justifying existing Reichsmarine spending, rather than requesting more resources.

Raeder at least achieved one thing, wringing from the Fuehrer permission to replace or upgrade any obsolete ships in the Reichsmarine. First in the replacement program were the 1933 Deutschland-class cruisers that had formed the foundation of the post-Versailles, pre-Bismarck Reichsmarine. These vessels were honorably retired, turned into museum ships, or in the case of DRMS Graf Spee, into the new training vessel for the Kiel cadet school. New ships of the same names would join the fleet in early 1955 - the so-called "Deutschland II" class. In exchange, Raeder promised to scrap the entire leftover British Indian fleet, which had fallen into German custody during the upheaval surrounding the formation of the Free Commonwealth movement. The ships were outdated by 1930s standards, and the succeeding two decades had not improved this. Ironically, the scrapping of these ships in itself freed up as many crew as the Versailles Reichsmarine's maximum size for service on more deserving vessels.

His spirits at an ebb from the ongoing battles with Ritter von Greim and Doenitz, the Reichsadmiral attended another demonstration by Professor Focke at Delmenhorst, Focke-Achgelis's development site. This time, the demonstration was of a combat-capable, armed helicopter. Raeder returned to the nearby Bremen naval yard contemplating the possibility of using Focke's helicopters against submarines. Conceptually at least, it appears that the idea of remotely operated sound-location buoys dates from this demonstration. However, because of the Reichsmarine's funding crisis, it was a project that he set aside for after the crisis.

800px-HAL-HF-24-Marut.jpg

Figure 112: Fw-283 "Sperber," surviving museum example

Raeder's low spirits were justified: on March 12, 1954, Galland and Ritter von Greim arrived at the Focke-Wulf plant outside Bremen to view chief designer and test pilot Kurt Tank's latest creation. The "Sperber" ushered in a new era in aerial warfare, even more advanced than the Me-1101, because it was designed from the ground up as a missile fighter, rather than a gunfighter. The Luftwaffe generals were pleased - even though the aerial missile with which the fighter was paired, the Kreuzbogen air-to-air missile, had not yet been completed. The process of upgrading the Luftwaffe's multi-role fighter squadrons began immediately, while the Luftwaffe began searching for a replacement for Tank's previous achievement, the Ta-183. In the meantime, development of the Kreuzbogen continued, with flight testing accelerating once the "Sperber" was available for live flight tests.

mig-19-farmr_p4.jpg

Figure 113: Fw-390 "Turmfalke" interceptor, surviving museum example

It must have been supremely galling to Raeder to have been in Bremen in March of 1954, starting with the joint exercises and ending with the sonic booms of overflying "Sperbers" demonstrating for the Luftwaffe. The Sperbers proved superior to his own Wanderfalke squadrons in mock dogfights, marginally faster and longer-legged. The humiliations continued through the summer as Focke-Wulf and Kurt Tank fielded a design which Tank had developed as an evolution of the Ta-183. The Fw-390 was not so much a revolution as an evolution, developed for ease of replacement of the Ta-183 and integration of the Kreuzbogen. They benefited tremendously from pilot familiarity, a feature that previous crossover models had not enjoyed. Galland particularly enjoyed the switch from Ta-183 to Fw-390, comparing it favorably with the switch from Bf-109 to Fw-190 back in the early 1940s.

The fact that the entirety of Focke-Wulf's development was centered within earshot of the Reichsmarine submarine facility at Bremen meant that Raeder was forced to observe it while taking stock of the domain which he had inherited from Doenitz during the struggle for control of the Reich's submarine forces. Eventually, Raeder, now in his mid-seventies, had had enough of the Luftwaffe's seemingly deliberate insults. In an effort to prove that the Reichsmarine, and the older submarine component, had a role to play, he ordered a Type XXI-class submarine modified to carry two V-1 missile tubes.

Whiskey_Twin_Cylinder_submarine.jpg

Figure 114: U-238 after the conversion to Type XXIR, immediately prior to Operation "Slingshot," May 1954

As part of Operation "Slingshot," he invited the Fuehrer, Admiral Doenitz, and the Luftwaffe staff to join him at the Focke-Wulf airfield outside Bremen. Prior to their arrival, he transmitted a signal to the naval base, thence to U-238, already in position offshore. The result was, to say the least, spectacular. The Fuehrer was unnerved at being on the receiving end of one of the Reich's cruise missiles, which overshot the field to crash in a forest a few kilometers inland, and the Luftwaffe immediate scrambled to find the missile's launch source. By this time, U-238, captained by Kapitän zur See Günther Prien, had vanished beneath the waves.

The Fuehrer was furious, as may be imagined - but he directed most of this anger at the Luftwaffe. If the Luftwaffe's fancy new aircraft could not do the job of protecting the Reich from a cruise missile attack, he demanded, what could do the job? Surprising the Luftwaffe leaders, Admiral Raeder had an answer: small craft equipped with surface-to-air missiles could potentially intercept any inbound air threat of this size; fortunately, the Reichsmarine had designs for just such a ship, and indeed vessels of up to light-cruiser size, devoted exclusively to carrying missiles of varying types were in the fleet's design inventory. Sperrle, in visibly poor health at this point, replied that the Reich's air-defense systems could do the same. True, the Reichsadmiral said with a smile - but the cruisers would be that much further from German soil.

The Fuehrer returned to Berlin with quite a bit to ponder - the unexpected capabilities of his submarine fleet, the failings of the Reich's air-warning apparatus, and the idea of protecting the Reich from increasingly distant threats. Raeder returned to Kiel to find a memorandum from Berlin on his desk - funding to the surface Reichsmarine had been, if not restored to the heady days of 1950, at least to a semblance of its former glory. The admiral's aides say that he parceled out one very small glass of brandy to everyone in the office - then returned to work.

763px-Libyan_Air_Force_Su-22.JPEG

Figure 115: Me-1201 "Wuergfalke" of the Mediterranean Fleet, 1958

The Luftwaffe and Reichsmarine both benefited from the completion of the Kurzbogen in mid-June. The Reichsmarine benefited still further from a White Russian engineer named Paul Suchoj, who had been lucky to survive first Stalin, then the occupation. Suchoj had been disliked and distrusted by the Sowjet leadership, and Field Marshal von Manstein had felt the man's work of sufficient importance to refer him to Luftwaffe intelligence. They finally released him to seek employment in the immediate postwar days, and he found himself a design engineer at Messerschmitt, albeit not considered to be of any importance. Suchoj became involved in the design of the new carrier-capable Me-1101 in 1950, and quickly developed a reputation for being the niche man for the new variable-geometry wing system. Thus, the Me-1201, beneficiary of the sudden bloom in Reichsmarine funding, was born to replace the Me-1101. The Me-1201 was designed specifically with competition with the Luftwaffe in mind, but it was simply massive compared to the Me-1101. It stretched the limits of the Goering-class carriers to accommodate, requiring the flight deck to be reinforced to handle the stress of an aircraft more than four times the mass of an Me-1101 landing repeatedly on it.

If Raeder was momentarily triumphant over the Luftwaffe, the same could not be said of Doenitz. Raeder's in-service rival, now promoted Generaladmiral, had convinced the Fuehrer to scrap a wide swath of Raeder's submarines, claiming that they were too archaic to be of use in any future war. The Type VII boats, which had been Germany's prewar backbone, were thus done away with in a stroke in July of 1954, save for a handful of examples which became museum pieces. While Doenitz was correct in his apprehension of the Type VII's limited use, he had waited until the boats in question were no longer his responsibility, having jealously shepherded them throughout his tenure as Commander of Submarines. The admirals who had led forces composed of Type VII boats found themselves in command of boats under Doenitz and his new atomic fleet instead. Surprisingly, Raeder made no protest, except to ask that instead of scrapping, the Type VII boats which did not find new homes be turned over to him for use as target ships and test vehicles.

As it turned out, the Reichsadmiral had cause for his confidence. He had restarted the Reichsmarine's surface-warfare program and had instituted a rigorous anti-submarine training regime specifically directed at Doenitz and his Black Sea fleet; more importantly, he had rekindled the fleet's atomic surface combatant program, this time not aiming at a grand battleship fleet, but at smaller, more practical vessels. His goal was to create a Bermuda Station fleet, which would require either a tremendously long fuel tether, or minimal refueling, for which atomic-powered ships would be ideal. Like Reichsfuehrer Himmler's dreams of an Asiatic empire, this dream would wait until after its creator's departure to come to fruition.

Flettner_282_airborne.jpg

Figure 116: The Flettner Fl-282 "Kolibri," shown here in an illegally-acquired American version, was the world's first anti-submarine helicopter

Near the end of September, 1954, the Reichsmarine joined the helicopter bandwagon, developing the beginnings of an anti-submarine helicopter force. Raeder invited Doenitz and the Fuehrer to Bremen to watch a demonstration, a Type VII diving and a helicopter hunting it. The Fuehrer had, by this point, begun to reconsider his ardor for Doenitz's submarines, a force which could be totally out of contact with him for months on end, and when the submersible broke up beneath the aircraft carrying the demonstration party, he approved enough to tell Raeder to continue the experiment. Doenitz, by all reports, spent the trial working on a new submarine concept with greater crush depth to avoid surface searchers. This trend - Raeder's measure and Doenitz's countermeasure - had become the pattern between the two leading thinkers of the Reichsmarine.

The remainder of 1954 passed with Raeder's atomic-fleet program gaining a momentum that most of the Reichswehr had thought impossible; they were hampered by the continued resources poured into Doenitz's current crush-depth project. Doenitz knew the phrases to say to the Fuehrer; Raeder knew what to show the Fuehrer. As a result, neither one of them managed to achieve ascendancy, and generally it appeared that they were stalemated. The truth was that Reichsadmiral Erich Raeder was tired. He was ready to retire, and merely awaited the opportune moment.

As a result, a telegram from Kiel brought Doenitz to the High Seas Fleet's home base. He could not completely ignore Raeder, insofar as the latter was still the commander-in-chief of the Reichsmarine. The in-service rivalry had made them bitter enemies, but a direct summons was impossible to ignore. Grudgingly, Doenitz therefore attended the Reichsadmiral's New Year's staff conference, and afterwards, the two had a personal interview. Tension was high throughout the conference, but the interview was a different matter. We have a partial transcript thanks to Konteradmiral Ernst Lindemann, Raeder's former flag captain aboard DRMS Tirpitz and his aide and unofficial alter ego postwar.

RAEDER: Herr Generaladmiral, can I get you anything? Tea? Coffee?

DOENITZ: Thank you, no, Herr Reichsadmiral. What was it you wished to discuss?

RAEDER: Let us discard the formality, Karl.

(Translator's note - From here, Raeder and Doenitz revert to the familiar"du-"form of address.

(DOENITZ surprised. - ed.)

DOENITZ: Of course (pause - ed.) Erich. After so many years, though, why the change?

RAEDER: I am tired, Karl. In a year or so, I'll be eighty. I've been in the Navy for sixty years now. Sixty years! Why, Nelson was only forty-eight when he died. Tirpitz, God rest his soul, only wore the blue for fifty years.

DOENITZ: No one doubts your service, Erich.

RAEDER: Just my sanity, eh? Just the wisdom of what you call the 'gun club' clinging to our outdated old battleships. Well, never mind, Karl. It's time.

DOENITZ: Time, sir?

RAEDER: I'm retiring, Karl. On the Fuehrer's birthday, I'll send him my resignation. Frankly, none of the others - Warzecha, Baeckenkoehler, even Luetjens - have any real idea what they want the Reichsmarine to be. You're the only one in the whole damn fleet who knows what he wants out of the future. Plus, frankly, Uncle Adolf will probably pick you anyway.

DOENITZ: Herr Reichsadmiral, I must protest your description of the Fuehrer.

RAEDER: Give it a rest, Karl. The Fuehrer has done wonders for Germany and for the Reichsmarine, but he is just a man. He is just a man.

DOENITZ: Sir, I do not understand.

RAEDER: It is quite simple. You are going to be the next commander-in-chief of the Navy. I will recommend it thus, and I expect the Fuehrer will follow my recommendation. It is finished, Karl. You have won.

DOENITZ: Herr Reichsadmiral, so long as you live, it is not I who have won, but Germany.

RAEDER: Oh, save it, Karl. That kind of speechmaking works with Uncle Adolf, but I'm too damn old for it. No man lives forever, Karl, including the Fuehrer. For God's sake, Karl, remember that, and plan for what happens after. And watch out for those damned landsers. Turn your back for a moment and they'll sneak out another armored division, or, God forbid, slip an overachieving mountain-climbing paratrooper in as Inspector of Marine Troops.

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Figure 117: Flag of the High Command of the Reichsmarine, when the office was held by a Generaladmiral such as Doenitz

After what felt like a year-long sprint at the end of his career to save the surface Reichsmarine, Raeder finally made peace with Doenitz. The last four months of the Reichsadmiral's leadership were comparatively peaceful, though the Fuehrer's ear again turned toward the land forces. After four years without substantial updates, they were clamoring for newer, better equipment, promising doctrinal updates to face the inevitable American war, and clamoring to give greater attention to China, the last "independent" in Eurasia. Raeder, according to his own posthumously published memoirs, was glad to be rid of it. His last achievement, completed in March, was the completion of the helicopter anti-submarine training program. The Reichsadmiral's final retirement was announced on April 20, 1955, thirty-nine years after his promotion to Generaladmiral and four days prior to his seventy-ninth birthday. His replacement, as predicted, was Generaladmiral Doenitz.

Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-60485-0028%2C_Berlin%2C_Raeder_mit_Ehefrau.jpg

Figure 118: Reichsadmiral Erich Raeder shortly after retirement, 1955

---

Note - "Sperber" is the German for the European sparrowhawk; the picture is of an Indian HF-24 "Marut," designed by Kurt Tank in the late '50s. The mod gives one of the increasingly silly late-war German concept fighters (I believe the Ta-283) as the next generation of fighter, and I've decided to substitute something more appropriate for a 1950s supersonic fighter. The actual Marut had high subsonic performance and lousy range because the Indians couldn't afford the engines they needed; I'm basing this one's combat performance on the Sukhoi Su-7, which was appropriately funded and is what the Indians turned to because of production shortages on the Marut. Similarly, rather than the Gotha P.60, I'm using the MiG-19 as the Fw-390 interceptor. The "Me-1201" is the Su-17, and its weight and performance really are that proportionally outscale compared to the Bell X-5/Me-1101. However, US aircraft flying off the Forrestal/Goering were of similar mass and performance.

And that update took for-goddamn-ever to play out.

Edited for typo and structural flaw.

Edit #2 to bring caption in line with German names on all aircraft.
 
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