Strategic Explorations: An AAR response to Myth

[mankle30]

Hey Totalise: I wasn't specific, but the 61 ships sunk wasn't all against the UK, but there were a high number of RN ships. I'll go back into the stats in a save and check it out for you . . . .

Edit: Ok.... for those stat junkies out there:

As of May 15, 1942:

Italian Ships Sunk:

Destroyers: 16 - 7 by the UK, 6 by the Italians in "Friendly Fire" incidents, 3 by Republican Spain

Subs: 4 - 3 by France, 1 by UK

Light Cruisers: 6 - 4 by UK, 1 by Republican Spain, and 1 in "Friendly Fire"

4 Heavy Cruisers: - all 4 by the UK

6 Troop Transports - 4 by UK, 1 by France, 1 by Republican Spain

Ships Sunk by Italy: 61

Destroyers: 27 - 3 of Greece, 4 of Republican Spain, 11 of the UK, 4 of Italy ("Friendly Fire"), 4 of France

Troop Transports: 3 - 2 of Republican Spain, 1 of UK

Light Cruisers: 14 - 3 of Republican Spain, 2 of Greece, 8 of UK, 1 of Italy ("Friendly Fire")

Heavy Cruisers: 12 - 10 of UK, 2 of Republican Spain

Battleships: 3 - HMS Nelson and Royal Sovereign (sunk by RM Sparviero), HMS Warspite (sunk by RM Europa)

Aircraft Carriers: 3 - HMS Glorious and Courageous (sunk by RM Sparviero), HMS Illustrious (sunk by RM Europa)

[mankle30]

Coming from Italy, I've decided that I want to have a base closer to Britain from which to stage that invasion, which is why Ireland (neutral or not) must fall first. When I play as Germany and do a Sealion, invading at Dover is easy enough, once you've conquered the Low Countries and France. However, as Italy, I get worried about supply from Germany, and I'm not sure if the invading from an allied country glitch (where they get the territory, not you) applies for amphibious invasion based out of allied ports.... Thus my reasoning for invading from Spain to Ireland first, then having a short hop over to England.

As far as the US goes . . . I'm up to 1944 in the game (although I haven't played that game in a while - I'm letting myself catch up in the AAR before i go forward!), and haven't quite gotten to a full scale invasion! While the US is just starting to become active in the European Theatre, we haven't seen her true might yet! But you will definitely be reading more soon about those pesky Americans!

[Totalise]

So you did get some of the big RN ships like Courageous, Illustrious etc. Should mean that the RN Home Fleet is quite weak, unless they've pulled ships from the Med (quite likely) and the far east (not likely).

Attacking Ireland first sounds like a good plan, they have a jump point to get to mainland Britain just north of Belfast i think (?) not entirely sure. Wonder what state the British Army is in... Its going to be an interesting battle nonetheless.

[mankle30]

Most of those ships were from the Med fleet, or engaged off the coast of East Africa. I haven't taken my fleets very far beyond the northern tip of Spain, just yet But I won't be testing the waters around Ireland without encountering the Brits!

[mankle30]

At the end of 1942, the Americans had taken several footholds in the islands off the coast of West Africa and Iberia.



We sent a submarine off the coast to keep an eye on them.



Plans were made at the end of 1942 to take back the regions in West Africa that the US has encroached into – the Canary Islands, the patch of ground we inherited from Spain with its port at Laayoune, and the Azores. Although the Azores were Portuguese islands, they seemed unable to take them back, so we felt it was up to us.

Our first Marine Corps was recalled from East Africa, and our new Special Forces Corps, consisting of two Marine divisions and two Paratrooper divisions brought to Casablanca from Iberia.



At the end of 1942, one more note worthy event had taken place. Our allies, the Germans had once again declared war against the USSR. This time, they were being assisted by the Persians who were pushing the British back in West Asia. This really had nothing to do with us, and we maintained the 2nd army at the Turkish borders as a reserve force, even though that flank was more than adequately covered by the Germans and bordered no enemy territory.



Our carrier based focus was definitely proving its mettle. Our carriers had distinguished themselves against the British in the Mediterranean and would be hard pressed against the massive resources of the Americans.

Our top two carriers were Sparviero and Europa.




We also had our "RN Aquila Carrier Task Force" with our 2 Aquila carriers (some of our Naval brass had no imagination in naming the prides of our fleet).



However, due to tough fighting, the RN Falco was now stuck in port at Taranto awaiting new CAGS.

As 1942 turned to 1943, it was time to deny the Americans their foothold on West Africa (in the Canary Islands and Laayoune), and off the coast of Europe (the Azores).



While this was happening, the Americans attempted another landing at Porto in Portugal. This one was better defended than the first, but the Portuguese needed our help once again.



We had left a division just over the eastern Portuguese border to help out in these instances, and sent it to meet the American threat. Additionally, we also sent one of our divisions guarding the port of Vigo to assist, and brought in our two armoured divisions from near the Vichy French border. The American threat was easily fought off causing them to lose two divisions in addition to the division that surrendered at the Battle of the Canary Islands.

Slowly but surely, we took the Canary Islands, but not without our first real engagements with the US Navy. They had a high number of ships based in the East Atlantic, including at least 5 carriers, but our forces acquitted themselves well, using our ancient battleship fleet to absorb punishment while our carriers and light cruisers held their own. We ended up only losing one or two ships and the Americans lost several flotillas of destroyers.

(RN Falco Carrier Task Force keeping watch off the Canary Islands)

After taking the Canary Islands, our intelligence indicated that while the Americans had held our West African colony at Laayoune, they were not garrisoning it with any troops. All we had to do was drop our first paratroop division to reclaim it. Finally, we retook the Azores for our allies, the Portuguese in order to deny the American forces any staging areas in the East Atlantic.



The months of March, April and May were quiet months preparing for our Ireland invasion. The Americans had taken the Portuguese island of Madeira, off the coast of Africa, and so, in order to deny the US a close naval base to our holdings, we took back Madeira using our first Marine corps, destroying the lone US division there. We left a garrison division in place to discourage another incursion and as a slap in the face to our Portuguese allies showing how little we think of their abilities to hold their own territory.

During this time, we had begun to send some of our transports to Beirut to pick up parts of the 3rd Army currently stationed in Beirut in order to bring them to La Coruna for eventual transport to Ireland once we had secured our beachheads.



We had also finished training our fourth paratroop division, and two more light cruisers. Our heavy capital ship fleet had finished repairing, at Gibraltar, was split into two.



One fleet with two battleships and two light cruisers was sent to patrol off the coast of Africa, and our other one was attached to defend a group of transports. Our naval procurement was still going well, with several CAGs, light cruisers and carriers still under construction getting closer to deployment. At the end of July two CAGs would be complete, allowing our carrier, Europa, to return to the fight after losing its planes in the battle of Mediterranean.



Finally our attention could be turned towards the British Isles. Units had been reorganized, and the delivery of four new, more advanced M+ class light cruisers, and a flotilla of transports has helped bolster the confidence of our naval forces, especially after the victories over the Americans (aided by the British) off the coasts of Northwest Africa.

We have assessed our land forces to be large enough for the time being, although we have some Garrison divisions being trained. Currently in production in March of 1943 are 3 more aircraft carriers, 6-8 more light cruisers and some extra CAGs to replace those lost in the battle of the Mediterranean.



The plan to invade Ireland was simple. On D-Day, June 1 at the latest, Irish ports would be assaulted by our 1st Marine Corps. Our advance fleets would engage the British off the coast of Dublin to gauge how much British resistance our forces could anticipate. If a successful landing at Dublin is deemed possible, it would assaulted in order to bring the quickest possible surrender. Following the surrender, we would bring up the rest of the 1st Expeditionary Army, newly created and attached to Iberian HQ and push into Northern Ireland in order to push British off the Irish Island. From there, our assault of England herself would begin.

[WhisperingDeath]

I don't recall if you have mentioned the Japanese and if they are part of the Axis? If so, how have they progressed against the Brits in the Far East? If you take the British Isles do you have any hope of capturing British territory?

[mankle30]

Whispering - to tell you the truth, I haven't checked on Asia in quite a while.... I'll check for my next update for, although while Japan can have an effect on what I'm doing as Italy, it's not factoring in a whole hell of a lot. I don't think they've progressed against the Brits, as it's the Persians that are doing more, pushing east.

[mankle30]

If you're having trouble seeing my screenshots, apparently, I've exceeded monthly bandwidth on my photobucket account, and my account was suspended until (I think) early January. I'll start a new account for all new posts, and theoretically, everything else will be ok in a little while. If you can see them, please disregard!

[Surt]

Try using slightly better compression, 260K for a pic is a lot.

[mankle30]

Thanks Surt, I'll see what I can do.... next update is coming soon (and the pics will be up for that)!

[Qitbuqa]

Maby I missed that part, but do you use JPEG format when saving screenshots?

[mankle30]

Hi Qit - i didn't save as JPEGs when I started this thread, or when I started using photobucket, hence the issues. I only figured that out a little later, and am now trying to cut down (edit) some of the screen shots, and I'm always saving as jpegs. I think the bandwidth issue will take care of itself on January 2 so the screenshots will be visible again then, but starting with my update coming tonight, i'm using a different account that's been working fine.

[mankle30]

General Ricagno, the commanding officer of our newly created 1st Expeditionary Army, had planned the invasion of Ireland while marshalling his forces in Iberia at La Coruna.



General Babini would also have his 3rd army in reserve.



Our political intelligence could not tell us for sure what England’s reaction would be, therefore, our commanders on the ground (Ricagno would not be arriving himself until after the beachheads had been secured and our transports could bring most of the troops over) would need to be flexible in reacting to the potentially crushing British response.

General Ricagno’s plan had two phases. Phase One was the Republic of Ireland. We wanted to secure the Irish surrender as quickly as possible. We would assault the major ports, then move inland as far as necessary. Phase Two was to secure Northern Ireland, with one prong assaulting the ports of Belfast and Coleraine to cut off the supply of any British units still on the island, and the second one, coming up the west side to enclose the remaining, cut off troops and finish them off.

While D-Day for the landings in Ireland was originally scheduled for June 1, 1943, all of our preparations were made early. On the recommendation of General Ricagno, I approved moving the date up of our assault on Ireland to May 25. On that morning, we launched our invasion on two fronts. Our 1st Marine Corps assaulted the capital of Dublin, and our Special Forces Corps commenced their assault on the port of Waterford.






While these two corps were fighting, we had three screening fleets in St. George’s Channel and the Celtic Sea in order to hold off British, Irish, and American ships while we made our landings.

Our first engagements with the RN came quickly, on D-Day, May 25. The first battle in the Celtic Sea was weighted heavily in our favour, with Campioni directing our massed fleets in defending his transport fleets.



In St. George's Channel, our carrier fleets were sent to assist Thaon di Revel in order to eliminate the larger British fleet under Admiral Cunningham with 2 escort carriers.



The landings went quickly and Dublin fell on May 27.



As soon as we controlled the airfields in Dublin, we brought almost the entire Regio Aeronautica to Dublin, using our interceptors to clear some of the skies and naval and tactical bombers to start working on the UK fleet at Anglesey.

With our transport fleets free, they began making runs back to La Coruna to ferry in more divisions to take the fight to the British. The first reinforcements brought up were our armoured divisions. Their speed and power would be able to close any gaps and hit far harder than our infantry and marines. However, our marines were invaluable fording and attacking over the many rivers of Ireland.

After we took Dublin, the seat of government moved to Cork, and we dispatched a paratroop division to take Cork. The victory was swift and on May 31, 1943, the Irish offered their unconditional surrender.



Immediately following this, the British enforced their claim over the rest of the island, and true to one of the possible scenarios presenting by the general staff, the British flooded south into what was the Republic of Ireland (now annexed by Italy).



Our forces proved stout, and our fleet handled anything the British, or Americans threw at them. Our only weakness was the Regio Aeronautica. While they held their own against the RAF, there weren’t enough fighters to hold off all of their tactical and strategic bombers in all of the locations that they were attacking. And while we had a large portion of the RN bottled up in port at Anglesey, our bombers could not do too much damage to the fleet without losing too many of their own planes.

We quickly moved our reinforcements north to take Belfast, the biggest port in Northern Ireland. On June 11, Belfast fell, and the southern prong of our pincer was closing up quickly, meeting little resistance.



Our transports made sortie after sortie to bring up the rest of our 1st Expeditionary Army Group, and once all the forces based at La Coruna were ashore at Waterford, our transports sailed for Beirut to pick up the rest of the 3rd Army that had not been able to brought up to Spain in time for the first waves of the invasion.

Once again, our navy held it's own, inflicting heavy damage on an American attempt to run our blockade, sinking two destroyer divisions and the heavy cruiser USS Portland.



A later attempt by the British resulted in the sinking of the light cruiser HMS Diomede.



The British fought but were outnumbered, and our troops were quickly moving to cut off the British forces from the remaining port at Coleraine. Battles raged at places like Limerick, Loughrea and Larne.




They even raged at places that didn't begin with the letter "L".



The epic Battle of Longford was particularly bloody at which a combined 12,000 men lost their lives.



The Battle of Ireland culminated with our encirclement of British (with American Expeditionary forces) at Donegal.

(June 18th)


Our generals told us that no fewer than 144,787 soldiers were caught in the encirclement before they surrendered on July 8, 1943.



We counted 10 full infantry divisions, one armoured and one mechanised division as well as 9 HQ brigades caught, including Field Marshall Montgomery-Massingberd's, although the Field Marshall himself managed to get away.

We quickly began moving troops back down south in order to capitalise on the massive losses for the British. Babini’s 2nd Expeditionary Army (formerly the 3rd Army) was left in place to guard against invasion, as the British were trying to ford the channel from Stranraer to Larne, and the Scatini’s 1st Expeditionary Army was moved south in order to begin assaulting England herself.

This great victory will be remembered as one of the most glorious military achievements of Italy, and the heroes of the Battle of Ireland will be heroes forever more!

[WhisperingDeath]

Very nicely done! Ireland taken and the British and US forces subdued in less than 6 weeks! I wonder if your experience here made you consider devoting more research to the Aircorps in order to improve their performance against the British; and ultimately the US?

[Totalise]

Agree with Whispering Death it might be worth looking at improving CAGs particularly as in initial landings the only air cover you have will be from Carriers and maybe German bases in France, Holland and Belgium. Against the US it will be particularly important.

Other than that great job, Ireland has always been a push over if you can get enough troops ashore and fighting. Britain should be fairly easy crossing into north west England with perhaps a few amphibious landings.

Good luck.

[ve3609]

this AAR isn't dead is it? I just caught up

[Pj Fallon]

Wow this game is messed up if germany keeps taking the lands your people died for.

[damnt512]

good AAR, but i think you should take vichy, that way you will reform rome, the greatest empire ever

[mankle30]

It's not dead, it's resting..... (to quote Monte Python...) . . . I can't remember if it's in the vanilla game or in the ICE mod, but Vichy has an independence guarantee from Germany....

[Enewald]

To Washington and beyond?