Thanks for the list of sources; perhaps I will find it useful in my dissertation research (although battlefield.ru looks to be more about army stuff, not navy stuff).
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Very nice AAR.
Although your history is very sketchy. Beria was not much involved in the repressions of 37-38. In fact, he was brought in as a deputy narkom of NKVD in august 38 to clamp down on the repressions. Thus, it was obviously a lie, that he was hated by the army for those actions.
Although your history is very sketchy. Beria was not much involved in the repressions of 37-38. In fact, he was brought in as a deputy narkom of NKVD in august 38 to clamp down on the repressions. Thus, it was obviously a lie, that he was hated by the army for those actions.
One wonders how well Europe would be able to rebuild itself without Marshall aid. The US pumped $25 billion into Europe after the war, and I'm not sure that the Soviets would have the capacity to match a transfer on that scale.
As to the US, it seems they're unable to put a foot right in the new post-war reality that confronts them. Using a nuclear bomb in the Congo of all places (where there seems to be insufficient infrastructure to be worth bombing, nor to support troop concentration sizeable enough to be a viable target themselves) does seem to be an act of desparation (if deliberate) or unsurpassed incompetence (if accidental).
On the Irish missile crisis, August's English Historical Review had an article on anti-communism in mid-twentieth century Ireland, which concluded that communists were sufficiently remote a threat to draw the sting from any anti-communist overreaction. Again, the very much more successful example of the Soviets here would likely engender a major shift in Irish politics.
That said, it would have been much funnier to put the missiles on the Isle of Wight.
As to the US, it seems they're unable to put a foot right in the new post-war reality that confronts them. Using a nuclear bomb in the Congo of all places (where there seems to be insufficient infrastructure to be worth bombing, nor to support troop concentration sizeable enough to be a viable target themselves) does seem to be an act of desparation (if deliberate) or unsurpassed incompetence (if accidental).
On the Irish missile crisis, August's English Historical Review had an article on anti-communism in mid-twentieth century Ireland, which concluded that communists were sufficiently remote a threat to draw the sting from any anti-communist overreaction. Again, the very much more successful example of the Soviets here would likely engender a major shift in Irish politics.
That said, it would have been much funnier to put the missiles on the Isle of Wight.
A fascinating ending post for a thoroughly excellent AAR. I do like the explanation given for the Irish missile crisis, I was rather shocked with the American use of a nuclear bomb in the circumstances, even if accidental.
Again, Thanks Loki for this impressive AAR. I will miss it. I hope you start a new project soon.
Attero Dominatus.
Bad Latin, but an awesome read. Thank you for an excellent AAR, and for the bibliography at the end.
Bad Latin, but an awesome read. Thank you for an excellent AAR, and for the bibliography at the end.
The best AAR! Brilliantly written and finished with grace!
Блестяще написано и красиво завершено!
Блестяще написано и красиво завершено!
This has been a really impressive AAR. Highly detailed, plausible, and brilliantly illustrated with photos posters, etc. There will be a big gap in the HOI3 forum without it.
I think there was a BBC Radio 4 adaption of this recently is you would like to hear it rather than read it.
I think there was a BBC Radio 4 adaption of this recently is you would like to hear it rather than read it.
First, again, thanks to everyone who read and commented as this epic unfolded - I have a particular admiration for some late joiners who waded through 50 odd pages to catch up.
Second, thanks to everyone who voted for the Great Patriotic War in the ACA round ... always much appreciated
I think we can safely assume that particular UAR would have lasted about 2 days after its formation before it fell apart.
That last post was almost an exercise in rather perversely reversing the events of 1945-65 to place the USSR as the aggrieved, not quite 'getting it', global power and the USA as the very powerful but much more limited rival.
Its hard to find non-Russian sources on the war time navy to be honest. It played such a small part in the GPW and in areas that few Western histories place any weight (such as the multiple Soviet naval actions in the Black Sea) so tends to be overlooked. Battlefield.ru, if you can read Russian and are interested in the army is a gem - the level of detail and the rather surprising stuff in there open the door to some really serious research.
Well I'll readily acknowledge that trying to understand both what happened and why in the period 37-38 is exceptionally complex. My own opinion is Stalin initiated that round of purges for 3 very particular reasons:
I think the purges ended when these goals were secured. It was then useful to shift the blame, but I don't buy the argument that Beria was any less murderous - and his meddling plus Mekhlis cost the Red Army dearly in the period before Stalingrad.
I think economically in this time line, given how fast the Reich collapsed post-Berlin and the lack of any UK/US bombing, then all the industrial capacity of the Ruhr, France, UK and Northern Italy would have been intact. Even without a major cash injection (and probably with Soviet imposed reparations), the post war recovery would have come from a more solid base.
I wanted a single 'accidental' nuclear incident (I'm now not sure why it seemed so important to me :blush, and that seemed as good (or bad) a place as any - it sort of helped with a narrative of very isolated US and most the world making an accommodation to the USSR.
I liked the Irish missile crisis too, but I think Dewirtix was on to something with the idea they should have been installed on the Isle of White instead.
I'm glad you enjoyed it. I'm very tempted to a French AAR as a next HOI project. With the changes in FTM, if the Germans do conquer France at least you have something to do for the balance of the game.
glad you all liked it, and to Lord Tim in particular, I really appreciated your very real knowledge about tanks/uniforms/equipment etc. What has always been my interest has been the psychology of warfare and the politics around actual campaigns, so it was great to have my errors in terms of captions etc corrected.
Re Life and Fate - I missed most of the adaption but it seemed very close to the original. Its a good read, and offers a real insight into real life in Stalin's Russia -the ongoing low level dissent, the madness of the system (also well caught in Victor Serge's The Case of Comrade Tulayev), the consequences for one's self-image of even the smallest act of surrender to the system and so on. But it also quite brilliantly captures the way that to almost all living under German rule, that the Soviet defense and then offensive at Stalingrad encapsulated all their hopes that Fascism would ever lose (and that hope covered pro-Soviet communists, Old Bolsheviks in exile and those who had no sympathy at all for the USSR). It explains a lot of why post-war, it was seen as axiomatic to ascribe the defeat of Germany to the Red Army.
Second, thanks to everyone who voted for the Great Patriotic War in the ACA round ... always much appreciated
Thanks for the list of links, I'll have to delve into them some.
Nice coda to the story. I note the irony of the missile talks, the Irish Missile Crisis, the highly aggressive John F. Kennedy and your version of the Maastricht Treaty.
By the way, that's one scary UAR... The British will have to reinvent the electric car, if they want to keep people driving, I think.
I think we can safely assume that particular UAR would have lasted about 2 days after its formation before it fell apart.
That last post was almost an exercise in rather perversely reversing the events of 1945-65 to place the USSR as the aggrieved, not quite 'getting it', global power and the USA as the very powerful but much more limited rival.
Its hard to find non-Russian sources on the war time navy to be honest. It played such a small part in the GPW and in areas that few Western histories place any weight (such as the multiple Soviet naval actions in the Black Sea) so tends to be overlooked. Battlefield.ru, if you can read Russian and are interested in the army is a gem - the level of detail and the rather surprising stuff in there open the door to some really serious research.
Well I'll readily acknowledge that trying to understand both what happened and why in the period 37-38 is exceptionally complex. My own opinion is Stalin initiated that round of purges for 3 very particular reasons:
a) to deal with the remnants of the old bolsheviks;
b) purge the foreign/international elements from the NKVD and the International - he knew he needed them but he hated that generation of foreign communists who could speak 6 languages and had no meaningful nationality;
c) to scare the new post-1928 Nomenklatura witless, to remind them how arbitrary Soviet power was - remember it was the destruction of the cadres who had attended the 1936 Congress (the Congress of Victors) that formed the basis of Kruschev's denunciation.
b) purge the foreign/international elements from the NKVD and the International - he knew he needed them but he hated that generation of foreign communists who could speak 6 languages and had no meaningful nationality;
c) to scare the new post-1928 Nomenklatura witless, to remind them how arbitrary Soviet power was - remember it was the destruction of the cadres who had attended the 1936 Congress (the Congress of Victors) that formed the basis of Kruschev's denunciation.
I think the purges ended when these goals were secured. It was then useful to shift the blame, but I don't buy the argument that Beria was any less murderous - and his meddling plus Mekhlis cost the Red Army dearly in the period before Stalingrad.
One wonders how well Europe would be able to rebuild itself without Marshall aid. The US pumped $25 billion into Europe after the war, and I'm not sure that the Soviets would have the capacity to match a transfer on that scale.
As to the US, it seems they're unable to put a foot right in the new post-war reality that confronts them. Using a nuclear bomb in the Congo of all places (where there seems to be insufficient infrastructure to be worth bombing, nor to support troop concentration sizeable enough to be a viable target themselves) does seem to be an act of desparation (if deliberate) or unsurpassed incompetence (if accidental).
On the Irish missile crisis, August's English Historical Review had an article on anti-communism in mid-twentieth century Ireland, which concluded that communists were sufficiently remote a threat to draw the sting from any anti-communist overreaction. Again, the very much more successful example of the Soviets here would likely engender a major shift in Irish politics.
That said, it would have been much funnier to put the missiles on the Isle of Wight.
I think economically in this time line, given how fast the Reich collapsed post-Berlin and the lack of any UK/US bombing, then all the industrial capacity of the Ruhr, France, UK and Northern Italy would have been intact. Even without a major cash injection (and probably with Soviet imposed reparations), the post war recovery would have come from a more solid base.
I wanted a single 'accidental' nuclear incident (I'm now not sure why it seemed so important to me :blush
, and that seemed as good (or bad) a place as any - it sort of helped with a narrative of very isolated US and most the world making an accommodation to the USSR.I liked the Irish missile crisis too, but I think Dewirtix was on to something with the idea they should have been installed on the Isle of White instead.
I'm glad you enjoyed it. I'm very tempted to a French AAR as a next HOI project. With the changes in FTM, if the Germans do conquer France at least you have something to do for the balance of the game.
glad you all liked it, and to Lord Tim in particular, I really appreciated your very real knowledge about tanks/uniforms/equipment etc. What has always been my interest has been the psychology of warfare and the politics around actual campaigns, so it was great to have my errors in terms of captions etc corrected.
Re Life and Fate - I missed most of the adaption but it seemed very close to the original. Its a good read, and offers a real insight into real life in Stalin's Russia -the ongoing low level dissent, the madness of the system (also well caught in Victor Serge's The Case of Comrade Tulayev), the consequences for one's self-image of even the smallest act of surrender to the system and so on. But it also quite brilliantly captures the way that to almost all living under German rule, that the Soviet defense and then offensive at Stalingrad encapsulated all their hopes that Fascism would ever lose (and that hope covered pro-Soviet communists, Old Bolsheviks in exile and those who had no sympathy at all for the USSR). It explains a lot of why post-war, it was seen as axiomatic to ascribe the defeat of Germany to the Red Army.
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Took me almost a whole day to read this entire AAR, well done! I thoroughly enjoyed it, almost seemed like an alternate history book.
You made my decision much easier to purchase the two expansions for HOI 3 (SF and FTM). Right now I am playing Iron Cross (HOI2) as Germany and it turned into a nail biter just like your AAR, at some points it seems the tide is going to turn against me, but in the last moments, with the last reserves I am able to save the day. Seems you had a lot of these types of scenarios, many times being pushed back after a successful offensive. Looks like the AI is much, much better that what I remember in vanilla HOI 3 or previous titles. It still does have its quarks, but it's much less of a problem than it used to be. At least it seems that way to me.
Also thank you for the book recommendations, I haven't bought a WWII book in about a year or so, a couple of the ones you suggested I already have, but I don't have "The Soviet Home Front" for example, and it sounds like a fascinating read. As far as I am aware there is not much out there in the form of books to provide accounts of the Soviet Home front, how people lived, survived, etc.
Anyway, just wanted to say my thanks. I am definitely going to read more of your AARs.
You made my decision much easier to purchase the two expansions for HOI 3 (SF and FTM). Right now I am playing Iron Cross (HOI2) as Germany and it turned into a nail biter just like your AAR, at some points it seems the tide is going to turn against me, but in the last moments, with the last reserves I am able to save the day. Seems you had a lot of these types of scenarios, many times being pushed back after a successful offensive. Looks like the AI is much, much better that what I remember in vanilla HOI 3 or previous titles. It still does have its quarks, but it's much less of a problem than it used to be. At least it seems that way to me.
Also thank you for the book recommendations, I haven't bought a WWII book in about a year or so, a couple of the ones you suggested I already have, but I don't have "The Soviet Home Front" for example, and it sounds like a fascinating read. As far as I am aware there is not much out there in the form of books to provide accounts of the Soviet Home front, how people lived, survived, etc.
Anyway, just wanted to say my thanks. I am definitely going to read more of your AARs.
Its taken me around 4 months to read through.
A monumental work Loki. I will miss it.
A monumental work Loki. I will miss it.
Very interesting AAR much more interesting then my HoI series experiences. Also maybe its just me ,but the ending scenario reminds me an awful lot about the opening part of the movie Red Dawn.
Thank you all for both bothering to read and to leave comments
It was a monumental game, I guess I knew I'd won when I held the late 1942 counterattack (or more to the point it ran out of steam so quickly), but 1943 was a whole series of problem solving exercises, esp after I'd expanded too fast in the Ukraine and was struggling to organise critical mass to resume the offensive.
The pity was having to help out the AI, but then it made for a much more fun game, in particular even if it was obvious by late 1943 the Reich was doomed, it was more appropriate that it was a brutal battle rather than just a process of shuffling back badly weakened units.
Like you, I find the domestic aspect of the GPW as fascinating as the better known military aspects and that is, as far as I know, the only book in English that really deals with that aspect.
This is the only AAR I've done this way. it was worth (play far far ahead before writing) as it gives a real perspective and you can chop stuff up thematically rather than temporally. But it was a huge amount of work (even just the level of record keeping required), my others are a little bit more flippant, or for the AGEOD ones, essentially game play.
Thank you, I'm really impressed at your dedication to the task. I certainly think this is my best piece of work in AARland, but I doubt I'll ever find the energy to repeat it (or the will)
Well at the end, I was sort of trying to flip the historic roles of the USSR and the USA in the cold war around. I wanted to keep it related to the AAR though, so left open what happened next, but I think you could see a growing fragmentation of the Soviet block and a move to a sort of live and let live mode of international relations. In this case, the USA would be as unlikely as the USSR was in our time line to resort to outright war in an attempt to break what it would have seen as both encirclement and an active threat to its existence.
As to the game events, if I hadn't played around with the save game a few times, in truth what would have happened would have been a continuous Soviet offensive from the winter of 41 onwards & I guess a collapse of the Reich in early 1943. Less fun to play and no real drama to report in that case. But in SF, the German AI had major problems with both supply and manpower.
It was a monumental game, I guess I knew I'd won when I held the late 1942 counterattack (or more to the point it ran out of steam so quickly), but 1943 was a whole series of problem solving exercises, esp after I'd expanded too fast in the Ukraine and was struggling to organise critical mass to resume the offensive.
The pity was having to help out the AI, but then it made for a much more fun game, in particular even if it was obvious by late 1943 the Reich was doomed, it was more appropriate that it was a brutal battle rather than just a process of shuffling back badly weakened units.
Like you, I find the domestic aspect of the GPW as fascinating as the better known military aspects and that is, as far as I know, the only book in English that really deals with that aspect.
This is the only AAR I've done this way. it was worth (play far far ahead before writing) as it gives a real perspective and you can chop stuff up thematically rather than temporally. But it was a huge amount of work (even just the level of record keeping required), my others are a little bit more flippant, or for the AGEOD ones, essentially game play.
Its taken me around 4 months to read through.
A monumental work Loki. I will miss it.
Thank you, I'm really impressed at your dedication to the task. I certainly think this is my best piece of work in AARland, but I doubt I'll ever find the energy to repeat it (or the will)
Well at the end, I was sort of trying to flip the historic roles of the USSR and the USA in the cold war around. I wanted to keep it related to the AAR though, so left open what happened next, but I think you could see a growing fragmentation of the Soviet block and a move to a sort of live and let live mode of international relations. In this case, the USA would be as unlikely as the USSR was in our time line to resort to outright war in an attempt to break what it would have seen as both encirclement and an active threat to its existence.
As to the game events, if I hadn't played around with the save game a few times, in truth what would have happened would have been a continuous Soviet offensive from the winter of 41 onwards & I guess a collapse of the Reich in early 1943. Less fun to play and no real drama to report in that case. But in SF, the German AI had major problems with both supply and manpower.
however this AAR is GOOD, plox dont zombify it it? because i dont like getting here thinking about that 0,0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000(0)001 chance this AAR has been reincarnated... :<
Since all the other entrants into the 2011 Iron Heaart have done this, I may as well too. So the contest for the 'best completed HOI3 AAR' for 2011 is underway here. There are five excellent (or four excellent and this one) entrants so this is to urge people to vote for their favourite ... as said so often, anyone who actually completes an AAR, as opposed to letting it drift away, deserves recognition from the wider community.
I already water for the Great Patriotic War folks, you go do the same for the Rodina!