Memento Mori - Italy 1938 MP AAR

Balbo: Good morning, as you may know, I'll be taking over the Army Group West from Graziani, and 6a Armata under Vercellino will be moved to part of this command structure as well. The 6a will be our main offensive force, so besides it's existing corps of Celere and Corazzato, we'll add Alpino and XI Corpo d'Armata to it's strenght, XI is mainly to free the divisions of Celere for offensive operations.
Vercellino: So the Alpino is confirmed now too? Very good, and do you have orders on where, exactly, I am to attack?
Balbo: That, will depend on what we decide here today, we have been given full authority to decide on our own, as long as we eventually take France.
di Piemonte: As you say that 6a will be the main offensive force, I presume we will then be using the Swizz breach to start our offensive, not directly over the Alps?
Balbo: Indeed, your 1a will maintain it's defensive posture at least initially, if the French move forces away, that may change...
Vercellino: So, I suppose the logical course would be to strike for Marseille, and encircle those french troops in Alps?
Balbo: Yes, that is our primary option, the Germans have suggested a northern route, in essence that we try to repeat their drive to Paris, or to meet them halfway behind Maginot line, but considering their speed of advance, I too, would prefer Marseilles option.
di Piemonte: Agreed, we can always pursue the Northern option later, if the Germans or Hungarians manage to get on the move..



And more on France in the next update when I get around to it.

...continued chapter 4.

Naval Headquarters, Taranto
5th of February 1940
​

Falangola (CO Submarine Fleet): As you know, our successes in raiding the British convoys in Mediterranian, and eventual capture of Suez by the army, have caused the Brits to reroute their convoys across Africa. Now, this in itself is good news, they need lot more ships to do it this way, but, we have very limited capablity to strike against this cargo, as we have only two possible bases. First one is Casablanca, but as long as they hold Gibraltar, we'd rather not risk trying to sneak past the guns, mines and nets they have in place, and most of our submarines do not have the range to go around africa. This leaves Berbera but it's not close to any major convoy routes, thus, I have requested we aqcuire new base.
Cavagnari (CNO): Indeed, and that's what you two are here to help with, first, da Zara, you are to going to clear out the red sea of any hostile ships that you can find, for this, you'll have all of our battleships.
da Zara: But won't this leave the Mediterranean too open?
Cavagnari: Yes, it might, but we doubt it matters, the army is planning to capture Marseilles soon, and there are not all that many Allied bases left for them to strike against us after that, besides, we expect this operation to take only few weeks, so their windor of opportunity will be rather limited.
da Zara: I see, and what do we accomplish with such temporarily cleared Red Sea?
Cavagnari: Ah, that, is Campioni's part in this plan. You will take Gorizia and Bolzano with their escorts and a transport fleet, sail to Alexandria and pick up a division from there, then refuel at Berbera, that we hope to still hold at the time, and head for the British naval base in Diego Garcia Island, to best of our knowledge, they don't have any units assigned there, but even if they do, one division should be more than enough to take care of whatever ground troops they have in the area, should you encounter heavier naval force, run for it.
Campioni: I see, and are we going to stay there after we have taken the base?
Cavagnari: Ah, no, you too, shall return to Mediterranean patrolling as soon as possible, we'll use the bases only for our submarines, leave the division there to guard the island in case british want it back though.



Feb 7th: Corazzato began the offensive slightly early, before Celere has managed to withdraw from the line.



Feb 16th: French began withdrawing from the north most parts, to avoid getting encircled.



Feb 19th: Futher progress



Feb 21st: British strike back at Annonay, seeking to prevent Italian bridgehead west of Rhone.



Feb 25th: Marseilles in our sight.



Mar 6th: Oversized airbattle against American airwings over Cavaillon.



Mar 10th: Roughly 18 French Mountaineer brigades were encircled in the end.



Mar 25th: British divisions that had been covering Rhone turned tail and ran, it's possible they anticipated the Italian intent to surround them aswell. It was time to give chase.



Apr 5th: Sourthern France is nearly abandoned, only thing holding Italians back are the slow German supply trains.



Apr 5th: Up north, there is quite a bit heavier Allied force present, although their southern flank is unguarded.



Apr 17th: Italians provide backup as Hungarians push for Paris, Germans seek to connect with their northern army and finally surround Maginot line.



May 9th: British Expeditionary Force abandoned their allies and retreated in good order, only few pockets of resistance remain, and even Romanians have joined the effort against Belgians.



May 13th: Assault on Paris has begun....



May 16th: And it would continue for almost a month.



Jun 2nd: Showing uncharasteric stubborness, french still continue to fight, if without hope.



Meanwhile 1st Bombardieri has concentrated on Gibraltar from Casablanca, and convoy raiding operations in Indian Ocean have been limited success, at least until Japanese took over the Indian ports.

Expect few additional notes once I remember what I forgot.

martijntien: no alas, we have no human spain, and while Germany did attempt to get them to axis early on, French counterinfluenced them and bit after France fell, british took over, and I think even Germany gave up, thus, diplomatic situation sometime in June looks like this.



Neomann, peter: Cheers, I'll try to get bit more done this week too, this is about end of 3rd session and we finished 5th last night, so I could do something about 4th again...

Let's see, some events that took place in the last 4 months that were more or less sidelined from Italian point of view:

British attempted a landing in Denmark, varied success, some troops made it, the navy got hurt.



Since the Kriegsmarine lost that battle, some Italian interceptors were sent to cover Wilhelmshaven.

Romania joined axis on 6th of March.

Around March 20th, Kriegsmarine took some more scalps:



13th of May, Japan joins the war and proceeds to fastly take lot of weakly and undefended bases in India and pacific, some of the attacks were even launched from Italian base at Diego Garcia.

An American fleet messes around at coast of Borneo, sinking an IJN transport fleet.



But payback comes fast.



That should cover the naval side of things for the session.

In one month, Japan had taken all the ports of India but Bombay. They also had Ceylon, Singapore, Kuching, Hong Kong and Saigon. Eastern Pacific remained safe.

And thanks to Ederon (finally) getting this done, few maps:





Now, if you were overtly ambitious dictator, where would you go next?

Hick101: I did consider this, however I decided that it would stretch my coast too much, defending just Egypt and 'Kuwait beach' requires less manpower, which I'm running bit low on in Africa...
And the fuel situation is far from critical at this time.

martijntien: Turkey would be on the list, if not for the way supply system works currently (or how I think it would end up). I need to keep Africa separate and supplied by convoys.

Gladiator: British navy may be cripled, but it's still not out, and I think all those troops from France retreated there, 'would if I could', but don't think I can...

Latin is there to tease people to check what it is, I don't really understand any myself and I'm afterall, trying to recreate Rome, right?

Human controlled would be : Germany, Italy, Japan (2), Soviet Union, France, United Kingdom, USA (not for first session = year), Romania, Hungary.
With USA now having 2 as well with France having moved over there, I think..

Falangola: Well, this sure is turning into habit, as you know, with Japanese essentially taking India, convoy raiding from Diego Garcia will soon be useless aswell. This leaves us with very few options, one if we want to use a base of our own, Casablanca, we could try to negotiate with Japanese for a base to raid american convoys, but even those will be slim, so we'll try the Atlantic despite heavier antisubmarine activity.
Cavagnari: And with your success with Diego Garcia, we thought this would be the job for you.
Campioni: Ah, what job exactly, submarines and commerce raiding are not exactly my usual thing.
Falangola: Well, no, but as we discussed 4 months ago, our submarines don't have the range to do a round trip around Africa.
Cavagnari: which is why we want you to take Bolzano and Alberico da Barbiano to cover some transports that will be carrying fuel and other supplies for the 2 submarine flotillas you'll pick up from Diego Garcia for your trip together around Africa..
Campioni: I see, and just half of my old flotilla with me? And what am I do once, if, we reach Casablanca.
Cavagnari: We'll see, for now we just want to get those submarines there, we'll see what the situation is when you get there, a lot can happen in a month afterall.

Galbiati: The French have surrendered to the Germans.
Mussolini: What, there was still someone left to do that? And how come to the Germans?
Galbiati: Well, it seems Petain and few other higher ranking officers were left in Mulhouse, and had written guite a proposal, alas, they had seen little else than German troops and I'm afraid you won't be very happy with their terms...
Mussolini: Terms? What terms, they had nothing left, surely unconditional surrender was best they could get?
Galbiati: Alas, no, Germans bought their idea of French policing France being better than having to garrison the whole country, and accepted that there would still be a France...
Mussolini: I see, and what did we get in this?
Galbiati: Well, it seems, North Africa and Syria are to remain ours, but the new France will be formed west of us, and Germany will retain direct control of the 'coast' and Paris area...
Mussolini: What!? You are saying, after doing all the work, we don't even get Savoy and Corsica?
Galbiati: I'm afraid those were the terms....
Mussolini: And they just accepted? This is unacceptable, get me a plane to Berlin, it's time for some direct talks.

Campioni: Ahh, finally a friendly port...
Messenger: Sir, message from shore, they like to see you as soon as possible.

...

Campioni: G'evenin', I assume you have have new orders for me from Rome?
Bazzani (CO Bombardieri): Indeed, while you were out on sea, we have had lot of success with our bombing campaign on Gibraltar, so much in fact, that soon after you left Taranto, we called our German friends for possibility of airdrop, in case you encountered difficulties on your trip.
Balocco (CO D. 14a Isonzo): But now that you are here, General Schörners 2. FJ division will remain as backup, and you will transport my men and equipment as close to the rock as you can, have gathered as many light crafts from the harbor as we could, but we need something bit larger to get us closer, we lack proper assault craft but from what I hear, Gibraltar is pretty much Gravel after the 3 months of bombing.
Campioni: I see, I'd like to check the plans in detail, and what reconnaissance you have... Especially of british naval forces present.
Bazzani: You'll have few days, and we have 3rd bombardieri fly reconnaissance on sea, so far no british ships beyond some submarines, we are scheduled to land on 2nd of July, give your men a day at city.

June 30th



July 6th



Mussolini: After lot of armwrestling, the Germans have accepted, we will take France, what's left of it, seize as much as you can with the men already in country and advance from the border with the rest.
Pariani: Will be done.

More pictures.




Vichy fell quickly, which also lead to the weird formation of Italian Indochina, alas, Italian claim on the area is only in name, Japan even controls all the ports in area.

16th of September,
Having failed to convince Spanish to join the Axis, Germany and Italy saw no other option than to secure the Iberian Peninsula via other means, and a plan for invasion was drawn, Germany would simply take the northern coast, leaving most of the work to Italians, Germany was already rather streched between defending France and securing their conquest of Sweden in August.
With Gibraltar in Italian hands, lot of rear area coastal defence divisions would be free to see combat.



20th of September,
Early stages in the northern front.



28th of September,
British chose to make a stand with spanish in northern Africa.



7th of October,
In early October, VII Corpo d'Armata under Pescatori landed in Cartagena to speed up the invasion and hopefully relieve some of the pressure from Gibraltar.



Meanwhile the north front was starting to really break through the Spanish lines.



11th of October,
Situation around Casablanca was turning into a draw, as neither side had clear superiority on land, and Italian planes managed to keep the better equipped brits back.



12th of October,
The complex weave of Italian troop movement.



14th of October,
British had left a road uncovered in their haste and Italian troops took the opportunity to cut them off.



15th of October,
Having somehow managed to sneak into Tanger, the British transport fleet was stuck in the harbor under heavy bombing.




As the Spanish expedition turned to be a long one, you'll have at least part III for this chapter.

Indeed, they are in the Allies now.

I can't really know why he thought it was a good idea, but for Africa, he was already sneaking up the west coast after Vichy surrendered (I had nothing there to hold it), so I suppose it's natural continuation to try take the north as well. And why not fight anywhere you can, if you believe you can extricate your forces safely.

I hope for better results for Axis as well, even if losing battles sometimes make for better AAR

And thank you all, for the comments, makes writing feel more... worthwile, when you know someone is reading.

Chapter Five
Mare Nostrum

Part III​

18th of October
Bombing of the North African pocket is limited success...



21st of October
However, in north the presence of allied air support is starting to eat into our fighter strenght.



23rd of October
And even the replacement fighter wing is starting to lose...



24th of October
We have reached Madrid, even if the armored divisions are not the best option in city enviroment, the infantry is so far behind, it's worth a probe.



And the lead elements are getting closer to Gibraltar.



25th of October
For reasons unknown to us, neither Spanish nor British troops have yet tried to retake Gibraltar.



27th of October
However, this was not going to be the case for long, and the defenders were not doing so well, while the forts had been repaired, the work on clearing the port had barely started (bit over lvl1 port at this time) and with Allied starting to dominate the skies, the Germans could no longer provide Air Supply.



The assault of Madrid, was progressing better than expected.



3rd of November
While we could offer limited reinforcement for Gibraltar from Africa, the lack of supply was really hindering any efforts we could make. And most of Italian army was still far from Andalucia, giving Brits local superiority.



However, with Madrid in Italian hands, they were free to move southwards, and Spanish surrender would have to come soon.



Sitation in northern Africa was slightly better, with one more province gained...