"The virus has completely devastated over the majority of mainland Europe and is spreading rapidly....At this point in time we know of only one method of killing the creatures: destroy the brain"
The Prologue pt. 1
One of the two mobile Panther tanks employed by the 17th Volkspanzer Division
It's been exactly twenty years since the outbreak. Some called it the simply that, the Outbreak; others dubbed it the
Deathless Plague,
Hitler's Revenge while the Pop calls it God's Judgement and others, a varity of other names. Even so, the whole of mainland Europe had fallen; the first documented case was in Hamburg by an Australian private, then the disease just spread to the whole of hospital then to the whole of Hamburg - the Allies tried to contain the city but it failed, the next nation to face the infection was Denmark: the country fell in three days. All the while, the Allies were fighting a new war against the Soviets in the summer of '46, when Russian tanks stormed the defences of the newly formed West Germany - such a pointless thing as West Germany fell not to the Russians but to the creatures in a month; East Germany in two weeks. With both the Allies - led by the United States and the Soviet Union at war with each other, the infection spread even more rapidly. Those that were bitten and showed little symptoms were mistaken for minor battle wounds and sent back to the frontlines, while those showing a variety of symptoms were sent back to hospitals behind the battle lines.
After Denmark fell a week after East Germany, the Allies fought their first 'official' battle against the creatures in Rotterdam - the three regiments of the
Koninklijke Landmacht (The Royal Netherlands' Army) and the platoon that consisted of the Royal Netherlands' Honour Guard, tasked with defending the Rotterdam harbour met with what was simply an endless horde of creatures. Their reason for being there was for the successful evacuation of Queen Wilhema and any Dutch civilians - they failed their mission when a stray bullet lodged into the Queen and killed her. The events surrounding Rotterdam harbour would not be isolated - plans for the evacuation of high-ranking members of the French, Belgium, Luxembourg, Norwegian and Spanish governments often resulted in the deaths of the target and the defence they were assigned. The destination of these evacuation was Britain - the most obvious location since the Isles aren't connected to the mainland, but there were other locations such as Crete, Malta, Sardinia, Cyprus and for those that could afford it, the United States itself.
One of the AA emplacements converted for the defense of Rotterdam harbor
Whilst fighting the Allies, the Russians met their first infected in the battle in Potsdam. There, the 1st Shock Army of the Soviet Union, commanded by Lt. General V. N. Razuvaev was - it the most simplest of terms, wiped from the map. No one still knows what happened to the 1st Shock Army (though its obvious since no one was able to get to Potsdam or anywhere in Northern Germany after the
Infected Siege of Berlin) but the one reason that most people agree on was that Lt. General Razuvaev's Shock Army became encircled and subsequently killed off. Others suggested something more sinister - that Stalin knew of the infection beforehand (and there is evidence of this) but still ordered Razuvaev into Potsdam; when the Lt. General messaged the Kremlin to retreat, Stalin refused to allow him and told him to stay and fight - an impossible situation with everyone killing themselves or being killed. After Potsdam, Berlin was the next target - not because of its value as the former Nazi capital, but that next to the areas near Potsdam, Berlin had the largest concentration of "bodies" for the creatures to "consume". It was in Berlin that one of my friends - whom I befriended after his arrival at Dover, commanded the 17th Volkspanzer Division that led the defence of Berlin, Colonel Phillip Wolfgang.
"The defence around Berlin was immense; greater than that that Hitler had ordered near the end of the Second World War. This time, from the Brandenburg Gate to the charred ruins of the Reichstag barricades, barbed wires, machinegun nests, mines and other things that the Russians placed surrounded Berlin like cockroaches....It was around morning, November 21st that I heard the first of the mines go off. Every one in my Panther - one of the only two that were mobile became agitated, I even heard my driver, Private Gunther Weber whose from Hesse starting to mutter the Lord's Prayer." - Colonel Phillip Wolfgang, 17th Volkspanzer Division
One of the few surviving photos of NKVD officers during the Infected Battle of Stalingrad
The defence of Berlin - from Allied reports, was considered a tactical victory for the Russians even though they had retreated from the city. It bought time for Stalin to establish a defensive line from Kalingrad to the newly incorporated Moldavian Socialist Republic bordering the Black Sea. Stalin - from all reports, rejected the idea that there was an infection or plague and ordered for his troops to attack head on against the swarms of "
Allied Anti-Communist Pigs" as he dubbed the creatures. The Stalin Line would fall three days before Christmas. The Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia revolted against Stalin - even before the construction of the Stalin Line, anti-Russian and anti-Stalinist feelings were rampant throughout the Baltic's, the fall of the Stalin Line gave the Baltic States their chance of freedom; and withdrew their armed forces to their capital to be evacuated along with members of their government and civilians (The Lithuanians went up to the Latvian capital of Riga) and from there, left for Sweden. The general revolt in the Baltic's, known later as the
Baltic Revolution allowed for the creatures to penetrate deeper into Russian territory from the north, even reaching Leningrad almost a week after the fall of the Stalin Line, Stalingrad two days after and Moscow three days after.
The
Infected Battle of Leningrad (the usage of infected denotes that it is different than a conventional battle) is considered by many - including me, to be a catastrophic disaster as the Russian forces in Leningrad were basically trapped between the creatures and the NKVD companies; both options presented them with death and like in the Battle of Stalingrad against the Germans, if the Russians advanced, they had a slim chance of surviving (later proven to be 3 in 1,000 surviving - a grand total of around 300 survived). The
Infected Battle of Stalingrad on the other hand was slightly better, if not for the sudden decision by Field Marshall Zhukov to give up Stalingrad and pull back the 7th Shock Army, including the 10th Guards Tank Division. This move angered Stalin, but what angered him more was the Zhukov ordered his soldiers to shoot the NKVD divisions - his army pull back past the Volga and south down to Astrakhan and later Groznyy.
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TekcoR - Thank you for starting this competition!
TemplarComander - Thank you! I hope you'll find this AAR enjoyable and don't be afraid to post comments on grammar or spelling mistakes
Morlak - Yep! A Post-War HOI2 Zombie AAR! Thank you for your enthusiasm!