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TrekAddict - Hans Hass, by my guess. Had I known of his existence prior to starting this post, he'd probably have been present. :p

Believe it or not, I'd never even heard of The Cockleshell Heroes before you commented. I'd originally considered having Wilhelm having to escape north through the Crimea on foot. I'm glad I didn't, as the Volkmanns have already exceeded the regular-German role I'd originally planned on filling with them, and having what would have been an obvious though coincidental theft of real-world acts that deserve to be better-known just feels to me like it would cheapen the real-world ones.

Kurt - No, Wilhelm's there because a confluence of prewar events that I honestly hadn't even thought about made it virtually impossible for him not to be volunteered for this mission. I'd sent him to Livorno for a different post, the fact that he spent the '30s tramping through the Balkans just made him a logical choice. Durand de la Penne is in a category all his own, even in a world where Teseo Tesei lives. Durand de la Penne is the Most Interesting Man In The World, or at least shares that honor with Hans Hass... who at least has the Most Interesting Man's beard and possibly his resume.
 
Maiali. :p
 
The two-man submersible used by the Italians was commonly known as a "maiale," or pig, for its exceedingly poor handling characteristics. Given that the submersibles in question are slightly-improved versions of the Italian Maiale, the name sticks.
 
Not really. Schwadron = Naval parlance, Geschwader = Luftwaffe parlance.
 
97. The Tigers of Kiev

Bundesarchiv_Bild_146-1975-102-14A%2C_Panzer_VI_%28Tiger_II%2C_K%C3%B6nigstiger%29.jpg

501. S.Pz.Abt.
Outside of Belaya Tserkva, Liberated Ukraine
11 May 1944


Johann Volkmann threw his head back and howled, a sound lost in the diesel roar behind him. This was like the invasion of Poland all over again - right down to the stupid headlong attacks and the backhand counterattack. No one could accuse Stalin of being overly competent, and the generals who had survived the purge were even less so, unable to act without a paralyzing fear of their leader. In comparison, the Germans... especially Steiner's men, up near Minsk, from what he had heard... were like modern-day Vikings, operating in small bands with minimal supervision so long as they made no requests of headquarters. So far, it was a strategy that had paid off.

The attack had gone well enough for the Soviets at first. They had penetrated almost to Velikiye Hai, outside Tarnopol, in the first hours. It proved illusory for the Red Army, however: Manstein had anticipated such an attack, and had not stationed any of the critical armored units near the border. When the tankers were recalled to their units and rushed to the field, they had not even bothered to strike at the spearheads, choosing instead to strike at their shanks. The metaphor, unlike the supporting elements behind the initial offensives, held: supported by the Luftwaffe fixing the lead elements in place, the Reichsheer had first dislocated, then encircled, and finally overwhelmed the lead Soviet units. The others had retreated in confusion, and Manstein had given explicit orders to his division commanders: "For God's sake, don't let them sleep until you reach the Dnieper!"

The new Henschel heavies - unimaginatively called the Tiger II - was a good-enough machine, if you were lucky enough to avoid the muddy tar-pit that Russia could become in the wrong season. The Reds had launched their own attack at the end of the spring muddy season, so that was at least not as great a concern as it could have been. He shuddered to think what this ground would have been like in the spring or fall. His tankers, especially Woll, could outrange and outshoot the Russian tanks, except for the handful of T-34s they had encountered, and the T-34 was only a danger to the side or rear of the German armor. Given how accurate the average Soviet gunner was, that was hardly a threat.

What was a threat, at least to Manstein's plan, was Bock's last-minute revision. The Marshal had chosen to strip 6. Armee from Manstein's "sleeve brush" and launch an offensive diagonally across the Soviet front, from Lwow toward Kiev, under his direct control. It threatened to throw the entire left of Manstein's front into confusion, but the troops which Bock had taken were almost universally straight-leg infantry, and the armored force would conveniently outrun them... they hoped. The rationale behind Bock's move was a bit of a mystery; it seemed to be largely glory-hounding, distinctly unlike Bock, whose reputation had already been made no matter what.

Movement in the wheat fields distracted Johann from this reverie. One of the improvements in this new generation of armor was headset radios connecting all of the fighting stations in the tank, and he yelled into his mouthpiece, "Ludecke, pivot right, something moving in the grass. All units, be prepared for..."

He received no opportunity to finish the sentence. The Soviets' secret weapon, of all things old-fashioned horse cavalry, sprung up from a break in the grass, the horses seemingly unfolding from the ground. Over the din of the engines, Johann heard that uncanny yell from a hundred or so throats - Urrrrrrahhh! The German armor did not slow, or even particulary aim the eighty-eights; against this opposition it would have been a waste of ammunition. This was rather a job for coaxial and bow machine guns. The MG34s began firing the moment the horses came up, and Johann's hands tightened on the rim of the cupola in satisfaction as the machine guns did their deadly work.

That was until he heard the first bullet whir by, then several more spang off the mantlet. One of those spent rounds thudded dully into his tanker's coveralls, and he ducked down, using the scope instead. No one on Earth should rightfully be able to be that accurate firing a rifle one-handed from the gallop, no wonder the Cossacks had the reputation they did! Looking through the periscope was not the same as seeing the battlefield directly, but he had a fairly good idea what was going on out there. Confused chatter began over the radio - Coming between us, One-One-Three, holding fire - and he realized that the Russian cavalrymen were in among his tanks. That was not so significant; the horses closed the gap quickly, but horsemen alone could do little to armor.

"All units, button up," he snapped, dogging down the hatch. He turned the scope and saw Wittmann in among the cavalry, his exhaust belching as the tank lurched from cruise to high gear. Two of the cavalrymen were too close to swerve away... poor bastards. He watched Wittmann's tank run them down, the suspension barely giving a hiccup as two horses and two men were ground into the wheatfield beneath the treads.

Moments later, a shockwave vibrated the turret and he spun the periscope, dizzying momentarily as the turret counter-rotated to sight on the same point. One of the horsemen, perhaps more daring than sensible, had ridden close enough to the number-four vehicle in 2. Kompanie, 3. Zug, and had hurled a satchel charge into the turret ring, where it had wedged beneath the turret counterweight. Johann's heart leapt into his throat. 2. and 3. Kompanie still had the old Porsche Tigers, their refits had not yet come down. When it went off, the turret lifted upwards and most of the force was driven down into the engine compartment. The tank came to a shuddering halt, smoke pouring from its engine.

The petrol-driven Porsche immediately ignited with a whump, and the five-man crew poured out, one man on fire and all of them doubled over in a vain effort to avoid Russian rifle fire. "All units halt, lager on that tank, and for God's sake keep the horses off them!" he yelled into the radio, followed by a chorus of lieutenants and captains giving their affirmatives. None of them wanted to be the poor bastards in 2-3-4. The acknowledgements and the orders did little to save them. While the Tigers could pour leaden death into man and horse, the horsemen could do the same to a dismounted tank crew. Johann watched in horror as the burning man fell, then two more went down, then the fourth just as he reached the next-closest tank, 2-3-3. One man reached 2-3-3, vaulting to its hot engine deck and cowering against the turret, yelling futilely against the engines' roar. He suddenly stiffened, clutching and straightening his right leg before the Soviet cavalry, satisfied at the exchange - half a company for one German tank! - whirled and galloped away to the southwest. They were headed into the German lines, but frankly, Johann held little hope of their death or capture. The damned Red horse just seemed to appear and disappear at will.

That night, they halted in lager, a messenger appearing from corps headquarters on a BMW motorcycle that Johann knew quite well. His old was with the support trucks, somewhere to the rear. Hopefully safe from the cavalry and the partisans. "Bock took Kiev," the messenger announced, ruffling his hair to get some of the road dust out. Johann started, despite the exhaustion of riding in a Tiger more-or-less standing upright the entire day. "How the...?" he asked, too startled to complete the sentence.

The messenger shrugged, slipping out of his leather coat as well and sighing in relief. "Hell if we know. All we know is that he transmitted about eighteen-hundred Berlin, little before when I left Corps. 'Kiev German, am advancing Moscow,' he said." Johann snorted. That certainly sounded like the laconic Marshal.

"Well good," Johann finally said on reflection, raising a bottle he had taken off a Russian officer, "To a quick end," he toasted, and the rider grunted in acknowledgement, raising a flask and swigging from it. "A quick end."
 
The Soviet version of the Polish myth, methinks...
 
You just desired this setting so much?
Cavalry against steel cavalry?

The Soviet version of the Polish myth, methinks...

Actually, well-handled and well-led, the Soviet cavalry consistently caused the Germans problems, because they had no fuel tether and a strong native cavalry tradition overrode many of the glaring faults in Soviet leadership in the early war. They're very concealable, compared to tanks, more mobile than infantry, and given a willingness to accept casualties, capable of surprising the Germans both with their sudden appearance and with their better-than-average performance. I suspect the Red cavalry commander was hoping for a slightly more vulnerable target, but you work with what you have, or Comrade Stalin sends you to dig gold with your fingers in the permafrost.
 
Great narrative about a less than fair fight. With Minsk and Kiev in German hands, this campaign looks promising enough. Still, Reallife Kiev was one of the greatest encirclements in history. Did Bock manage to copy that success?
 
Well,keep the 6th away from large, ideologically important cities on the Volga and you'll be fine.
 
Great narrative about a less than fair fight. With Minsk and Kiev in German hands, this campaign looks promising enough. Still, Reallife Kiev was one of the greatest encirclements in history. Did Bock manage to copy that success?

Minsk isn't in German hands yet; that's an update all its own. As a matter of fact, Bock didn't encircle much in Kiev, but Manstein... the Battle of the Dnieper will go down in history as one of the great lopsided struggles of all time. Unfortunately, I'm writing from a hundred miles away (or, in metric units, one Belgium :p) from my screenshots, so the update will have to wait until later describing the disintegration of the prewar Red Army. Speaking of which, coming soon to an AAR forum near you: "The Prophet Unleashed." No more spoilers this post.

Well,keep the 6th away from large, ideologically important cities on the Volga and you'll be fine.

Truth be told, I don't know if the army Bock was assigned was the 6th; it was, in-game, twelve leg divisions with artillery, and they really were moving perpendicular to the armored thrust along the Dnieper. I chose the Sixth because of their real-world misfortune.

Nice advance of the German Army...hope they won't make the same mistake as Hitler indeed...go for the oilfields straight away..

Funny thing about that... there are German forces already fighting for the oilfields under Kluge, Busch, and Rommel (the "Mountain Wolf" of the Caucasus, compared to the "Steppe Fox" of Samarkand, Guderian). Rommel's stated goal is to be in Stalin's hometown by Christmas.
 
So if I guess correct, the Germans will meet with both forces in the south at Stalingrad? Guess that Chuikov can pack up and leave then...I mean then you have the real numbers talking plus a more intelligent general (Rommel) leading the attack ;)

I think that after the fall of the large cities Leningrad, Moscow and Stalingrad, the loss of the Baku oilfields and the fighting in Samarkand etc. will lead to a quick end of the war?

Tim
 
Since posting in reply is as close as I can get right now to building the next update, the war gets fairly boring in the near future, becoming a never-ending grind toward Vladivostok. I will say that compared to "OMGWTF" Barbarossa from the Geschichte, this one is significantly more painful for all concerned, lasting until 1947. That includes the Kaiser's tenth anniversary Coronation Day parade in Red Square and transmission of the "Valkyrie" order from Berlin in mid-'45 to begin the nuclear age. Also Hans-Ulrich Rudel and a battleship.
 
Bitter Peace fires on schedule, but there are a number of political factors (the number is two, one is Papen and the other is Wilhelm) that conspire against it. Japan is sort-of a threat; there's an ongoing insurgency in China, and a land war in Indochina, which prevents them from being an issue. However, during the Russian War nobody (meaning me) notices anything going on outside of the Russian front... which is how I suddenly discovered in the early '50s that Tommy had almost reached Hanoi.
 
98. A Fool's Errand

Landungsboot L-335, assigned MV Wilhelm Gustloff
Off Kingisepp, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
22 May 1944


When Wilhelm Volkmann had returned from Goeben, he had expected leave time, or at the very least a flying visit with his wife and children. It was not to be. Instead, he had received a verbal commendation from Hippel, a written commendation from Souchon, a promotion to Major, and a fool's errand: Construct a battalion-sized force comprised of men trained to fight under any conditions, in any environment, without support for up to seventy-two hours if need be, the combined brainchild of Ramcke and Hippel in his absence. His first step was to convince the various commands to release men to him to do this very job. "Why me?" he had asked. The answer, Hippel had taken great pains to explain, was because he was the only logical choice. Fallschirmpionier, Bergführer, Kampfschwimmer, and Pour-le-Merite winner, who else exactly was going to do it?

Two days later, he was at Stendal again, only to find Stendal bare. He raced northward to Riga, where the Fallschirmkorps was currently concentrated and Student was in a hideously foul mood. Wilhelm quickly learned why, and also realized that Rita was going to kill him. He had promised stability, a year's training time at Stendal for this unit of his, all of the things a military wife with small children wanted to hear, especially in wartime. Instead, Student was furious because of the Luftwaffe's transportation branch, and Wilhelm knew beyond a doubt that he was being drawn into the fiasco.

It had all started with the pre-war plans. They had expected to jump into the Baltic countries ahead of Hausser, as they had in Poland and Yugoslavia. However, Hausser had outpaced all reasonable expectations, and was at the Soviet Baltic border before the transport aircraft could be concentrated in Poland. The new plan was to gather the Fallschirmkorps in Riga for a jump at Leningrad. The new plan was being hindered by "that idiot Zander," the man whom Milch had inserted as the head of the transport branch. The Millipedes did not have runways long enough, fuel sufficient, parts, or traffic-control coordination sufficient to their needs in the Baltic, and Zander had dropped the ball on bringing the forward control apparatus in. They were currently scrambling to bring in officers trained by Galland's rapid-response fighter teams, but they simply were not up to the numbers the Millipedes needed.

"That idiot Zander" was the only way his name was ever uttered at Stendal. There was no other phrasing for it, no rank, no first name, just "that idiot Zander." After listening to Student's staff hashing it out, Wilhelm tentatively put forward a suggestion: Since Zander was obviously not going to get them into the battle before Hausser needed the critical coast roads from Narva to Kingisepp, why not try an alternate route? Ramcke at Kiel had already participated in the amphibious planning for England, perhaps the transport fleet could be re-used.

It was better than nothing, even though they were untrained in the loading-unloading operations. Ramcke not only mobilized the ships, but also the carrier fleet in their support. If Luftwaffe air could not support them, the fleet air arm would, he declared in a moment that left his naval cohort, Ehrhardt, wincing. The ships arrived on the evening of the twenty-second, and they raced out into the Gulf of Finland with minimal naval cover. Aboard the Wilhelm Gustloff, Student, surveying his troops with unaccustomed nervous flutters, growled at Wilhelm, "Volkmann, if this thing works, you can have your pick of 'em, officers and men alike."

So it was that a second Volkmann found himself crouching in an L-boot, this time with Student's staff section just as in Belgrade, clutching nervously at the MP40 that he refused to relinquish in favor of one of the newer weapons, stomach lurching up past his ears in the predawn dark of 23 May, 1944, in an operation that some staff wit had named "Case Harebrain." The navy coxswain yelled in his ear that they would be ashore in ten minutes, and he nodded to stand up, machine pistol slung. He roared out over the engines, "TEN MINUTES!" and held both hands aloft in a signal every parachutist understood. They nodded back one by one, then he continued the litany. "GET READY!"

The boats hove in on the shore. Certainly the Reds had heard all this activity offshore. They were betting more on Kingisepp's weak naval defenses, the expected assault being from Hausser's grenadiers along the Narva causeway. Their immediate goal was to secure a landing zone around Ust-Luga, then expand outward radially before the Soviets could effectively counterattack. There were a number of problems with this plan - poor charts, poor soundings, poor intelligence - and two major assets - surprise and the quality of troops involved. Wilhelm certainly hoped it would be enough.

When the L-boot finally squelched against yielding shoreline and its ramp dropped, there was no clatter, just a wet thud as the ramp almost started to sink. The coxswain yanked the lowering chains taut, then nodded, and the German parachutists-turned-marines charged ashore, roaring out their terror at this unfamiliar method of landing on enemy soil. Some ignored Student's dictum of "ammunition is more precious than life," and sprayed willy-nilly at the night. Wilhelm himself came upon a fishing boat, an old man and his son starting to load nets before casting off. The old man threw up his hands - old enough to remember Russia's civil war, at the very least. One of the Avrora crew? A Kronstadter? Probably not a Kronstadter, they had all been imprisoned or shot. It was a pointless surmise anyway, because Wilhelm's Russian was rudimentary at best. As it was, he detailed two privates to watch the old man and his son. For the moment it appeared they had made it ashore without incident.

"For the moment" proved the operative phrase. The parachutists, moving with their accustomed rapidity, fanned southward rapidly, gaining the Ust-Luga-Bolshoye Kuzemkino headland with hardly more than a magazine per platoon's expenditure. The reason became apparent as they established a line running from Bolshoye Stremleniye on the Leningrad side southward through Velikino and Kurovitsy. The distant rumble of engines, crackling of rifle fire, and stutter of machine guns announced that Hausser had followed through on the landing. Unlike that idiot Zander, the fleet and the army had both done their jobs.

The expected counterattack came almost exactly at noon, when the Leningrad garrison, seeing a threat to its southwestern approach, attacked the roadblock at Bolshoye Stremleniye. It was touch-and-go for several hours. The paratroopers were in an excellent position, the Russians were unable to cross either the sea to their left or the lakes to their right, and they were more than adequately supplied with ammunition and artillery thanks to the fleet air arm, but the Russians came in wave after long wave, PPSh burp guns held at high port and that never-ending roar of "URRAH!" shaking even the hardest of the airborne veterans.

Wilhelm raced back and forth along that perimeter, acting as a messenger, with a group of clerks and ammunition bearers loaded to the ears with machine-gun belts, mortar rounds, even heavy antitank rifle cartridges. He threw a tread on the Kettenkrad he had borrowed for the occasion, only bothering to fix it by lacing the tread back together with a strand of barbed wire quickly and inexpertly wound through the links. It was not pretty, nor even particularly functional, but at this point it was vital that ammunition keep flowing northward to the troops actively engaged against the Reds. He knew that they would hold, just as he knew that man for man, each of the parachutists was worth ten or more of the Reds, but but what his head knew, his gut refused to acknowledge. It was like Belgrade all over, endless waves of mustard-clad, dirty men in ugly steel helmets and sometimes just fur caps, carrying rifles that their grandfathers had probably fired fifty years prior and submachine guns that they sprayed wildly well before they ever reached the German line... and yet, for all that, they kept coming, and the sound of pistol fire behind the Russian line said that they were not inclined to retreat, falling back as they were into the political officers. Both sides resorted to "Not one step back!" as a rallying cry. On the one hand, what was at the Germans' back was the sea. On the other, what was at the Russians' was Stalin. The sea seemed more forgiving, and Wilhelm only had to look around to see that the average paratrooper was only held in the line by an absolute, unshakable faith in his unit. Anything less would have cracked under the "URRAH!"

Hausser was no help here. He was constrained by the terrain, rather than any interservice rivalry. The ground essentially tied his forces to the main causeway, and that meant that the grenadiers were fighting their way through Kingisepp proper, rather than through the swamps around it. Assault guns helped, but could only do so much, tied as they were to the road. The handful of Soviet armor in the area, mostly new-model T-34s, did what had been feared most as they fell back in surprisingly good order. Halftracks blazed along the causeway, and every now and then a StuG III hull could be seen burning merrily, sending up a long plume of smoke that marked the armor's progress to the south of the airborne perimeter. By afternoon, the grenadiers were in Alekseyevka, east of Kingisepp, and utterly exhausted from a day's fighting through swamp and town. There would be no more eastern advance that day, but the causeway was secure in that direction.

Mid-afternoon, even the fleet air arm's support vanished. For reasons unknown, Lindemann ordered his carriers back to Kiel for resupply, and the transports were left unguarded. Wilhelm was in Student's hastily erected command post in Luzhitsy, watching lighters bring supplies ashore and impatiently sending his clerks to grab whatever ammunition was left there, when the worst possible news came from the seaward wing. Student swore and barked for his orderly, Schmeling, and for Volkmann. "Grab every man who's not in the line and get up to the north, keep the Reds from breaking through at the waterline, and God damn them all, make sure those boys stay in cover."

The Red Banner Northern Fleet had sailed. The battleships Marat and Oktyabrskaya Revolutsiya had turned their guns on the shore positions, and the cruiser Kirov was steaming at full speed toward the anchorage.