The Great European Civil War, Part 2

[Jekolmy]

Game: Iron Cross over AoD

Outline:
The harsh penalties of the Treaty of Versailles have come to this. A nation on the brink of debt from overwhelming war reparations, a Wehrmacht so limited it could barely be called a police force, a place where a simple loaf of bread costs 5 million Reichsmarks, and where those Reichsmarks are better used as toilet paper. But there are men working to change this, men who see not an Empire stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific, but simply a nation that can once again truly be worthy of her people. But it is only 1933, must yet change for this to happen and major roadblocks lay in wait. Will the third rate military of the Soviet Union simply drown the soldiers of the Fatherland in their own blood? Will the French do more than hide in their impregnable bunkers? Will the English be content to stay in the castle of the British Isles protected by the moat of the Channel? Will the industrial might of the Americas remain in the slumber of their depression or will they become the great Arsenal of Democracy?

Settings:
Germany
Grand Campaign 1933
Normal/Normal

As this is my first AAR suggestions on both style and gameplay are more than welcome. Pictures will follow in the next update.

Strategy:
Germany needs to rearm and quickly. That being said her current military consists of a whole 10 divisions of some crack infantry units and a single headquarters. There is no Luftwaffe thanks to the Treaty of Versailles, and the British Royal Navy has more battleships than the Kriegsmarine had in obsolete ships.

My intent is to rapidly provide for the rapid transit of military units and goods, and build up both the Wehrmacht and the industrial capacity of the nation. This rapid buildup may make the early annexation of Austria possible despite the possible mobilization of the Italian and Yugoslavian armies.

Armored units in Iron Cross are typically not worth the cost that is put into them and so they are going to be somewhat neglected, though I will try to build motorized and mechanized infantry as I have the manpower and industrial capacity free.
The navy is going to be neglected in favor of a strong air defense consisting of interceptors/fighters and heavy AA concentrations around industrial and key political sites… at least until the Soviet Union has been effectively knocked out of the war.

Chapter Layout
Chapter 1: Prelude to War
Chapter 2: The Austrian Question
Chapter 3: Gearing Up for War
Chapter 4: Danzig and the European Lowlands
Chapter 5: Eastbound and Down (We've got a long way to go and a short time to get there.)
Chapter 6 and Beyond: TBD

[Jekolmy]

February 1, 1933 Berlin, Germany

“So gentlemen”, General Beck ends his presentation to the newly reshuffled government of Germany most of whom were still moving into their offices, “our military is completely inadequate to face any external threats that will surely appear within the next five years. The Wehrmacht is in shambles after the treaty of Versailles, the Heer has a total of ten divisions of experienced infantry left from the Great War, the Kriegsmarine has a total of one modern warship, a pocket battleship, and the Luftwaffe well there is no Luftwaffe.

Hindenburg nods, “Mr. Hitler, ministers, your suggestions?”
“Perhaps we should see about scrapping our obsolete ships and building new, modern warships, up to our treaty limits, a strong na-“

Admiral Raeder interrupts him, “Modern? Our warships aside from the Deutschland, are barely relics from the Great War, and the Royal Navy has more battleships and major surface combatants than we have ships. Yes, they have to split them up all around the world but they will have more than enough ships to make any current work at the shipyards building as the rest of the world sees them, obsolete warships. We may wish to wait to build up our fleet.” Hitler recoils in fear for a heartbeat and then goes silent in thought.

Admiral Canaris speaks up, “Mr. President, some of my sources believe that while the government of Austria is not as friendly as it could be, there is a large amount of public sentiment for unification with Germany, however Italy and Yugoslavia will likely do more than simply protest our possible actions in Austria and together they have five times and more our current military strength. At this time I would perhaps suggest ensuring that several foreign governments with similar political viewpoints will remain independent in an attempt to show how little the Allied governments truly care for governments of their own. In doing so the people will see that any rearmament is truly a necessary step to defend the sovereignty of Germany. I hear that even now,” he pauses for a moment as a series of wracking coughs come from President Hindenburg, “I believe that the Graf Spee and the Admrial Scheer have been abandoned in the shipyard as we cannot find the plans for them in favor of General von Blomberg’s factories running three shifts to provide arms for a corps of infantry as that is all we can manage to train and hide from the Allied inspectors at a time.

General Luttwitz who has just taken over as the Chief of the Heer speaks up, “At this time we believe that the new infantry divisions are all that are required and that spare industrial capacity can be safely diverted building new factories and stockpiling supplies.

“Gentlemen I move to meet again next January on the state of the nation and that we adjourn our meeting for now, I have some other things I need to take care of right now,” says a suddenly inspired Hitler.

At that General Goring opens the door and walks in, “Did I miss the meeting?”

[quaazi]

You can never have enough factories, I'll agree with that.

[Jekolmy]

You can never have enough factories, I'll agree with that.

Factories are always nice, even if you aren't using all of your capacity. That's why my unification plans with Austria also entail an invasion of Northern Italy (the industrial heartland) and Yugoslavia (access to the Med, Bulgaria, and the Romanian oil fields) should they declare war to prevent me from peacefully taking over

[Jekolmy]

Somewhere South of Munich, Germany…
July 22, 1934:

22 year old Oberschütze Aloys Weiss never dreamed that he would have ever joined the Heer, much less see Germany fight another war. Wasn’t the war of 1914 supposed to be the Last War? The one where the father he barely remembered died. Still that couldn’t change the fact that the German economy was still wrecked as a result of the massive war reparations imposed in the Treaty of Versailles. Aloys had two months ago received his workbook directing him to travel to the Munich police station, confused he went and by the end of the day found himself and a few hundred other men in a convoy to a Heer training camp outside of Stuttgart. This just might be the last free day I have for a while, he thought to himself, I should write to Mother. It would be like her to get worried about me.

Dear Mother,
It has been some time since I have written, they did not give us much free time when we were training. We began our drilling with shovels mother, not rifles, though our instructors acted as if they were rifles. We weren’t sent out to help with the harvest like most of the other recruits given the season, though undoubtedly they will have us helping come harvest time should we not be at war then. It is odd that while they do not want us soldiers to think, they waned all of us to think about what we would do should command come upon us. Sometimes it is simply too much to think about without getting a headache.

I have been assigned to 76. Infanterie-Division in the XXII. Armeekorps under Generaloberst von Cochenhausen F. The rumors say he is aggressive, but a good commander. Right now they have us somewhere outside of Munich, I would come visit you mother but for some reason all of the units here are on alert and no one has been allowed leave. Hopefully, all this talk of war will amount to nothing though I am certainly not one that can make any decisions of this sort. If we do have to go to war I go with a light heart knowing that I am serving the Fatherland and protecting my sisters and brothers from foreign aggression.

Mother, I ask you to pray for my safety and to keep me from harm. I must fight for you however to keep you, Carina, Lili, Edzard, and little Gretta safe.

Your loving son,
Aloys

Berlin, Germany:
July 24, 1934 19:00 Hours
“I thought our next meeting wasn’t supposed to be until the 1st of January 1935. What has happened? I demand to know!” an enraged Herman Goring shouts.

The other ministers look around at each other in various states of dress each trying to think of when Herman was made a cabinet minister and quick thinking Hitler takes Goring aside as they wait for a sickly looking Hindenburg to take his place at the table, “Hey buddy old pal, look you may not be a minister right now, but support me and I’ll make you one in ’36, our President won't last too much longer. Besides we aren’t building any airplanes right now so there wouldn’t be any action for you to get in on. Now why don’t you go home and sleep there rather than here.” Hitler smiles and firmly pushes Goring out of the room, closes the door, and sits down.

“Gentlemen and Germans, I have some wonderfully, terrible, awfully, good news. It appears that there at this very moment a National Socialist Revolution occurring in Vienna and they are calling for Germany to support them in this endeavor. If I remember correctly, this is exactly the situation that Admiral Canaris told us about nearly a year and a half ago. The army has been built up to 15 full corps of Infantry, 45 divisions with artillery, and our ‘friends’ in the Allies have not even uttered a single word about this, they may suspect it, but they do not know. If we strike quickly we can have the territory in hand and a peace achieved before they have any idea as to what has happened.” He looks around the table at the men who remember General Luttwitz’s warning that this would let the French declare war upon Germany, a war for which Germany is by no means ready yet. “We must act quickly gentlemen for every minute we waste here means another minute that the enemy has to dig in, our plans are ready, our men are trained, they are supplied, and they know their duty. I believe it is now time to decide the fate of Germany.

Your votes please gentlemen.

[Jekolmy]

Berlin, Germany
July 25, 1934


The Austrian Question

Hitler stands presiding over the meeting as President Hindenburg had begun to convulse and medics had just moments ago taken him away. His back turned to the group as he has been making motions and sounds at the map for some time now, the rest of the group appears in truth to be somewhat worried as they realize that this unbalanced man will not step down from his position and would become the most powerful man in Germany.

“So as I was saying, the Heer should be able to quickly occupy Austria and then move into Yugoslavia and Italy to force a surrender on their part. Minister Blomberg, what is our resource and stockpile status?” Hitler asks in an oozing question that would make any politician proud.


Current Industrial resources and expendetures

“As you can see Mr. Acting-President,” General Blomberg begins, “all of our stockpiles, with the small issue of supplies is trending upwards, and that is only due to high priorities of unit modernization. As discussed earlier, we are continuing factory production through this war even though we believe that we will manage to capture many industrial districts, in particular if Italy does act against us the region of Northern Italy should be considered a “minimum goal” as it contains a large percentage of Italy’s heavy industry, perhaps as much as a quarter or more of our own industrial capabilities. However, I wish to state that should significant expansions in industrial capability take place, we will not be able to sustain our economy for an indefinite period and will be at the mercy of those who ship us steel, or those who can intercept these shipments. I do not see rubber and other rare materials as a strategic resource stranglehold to production, but we need to invest now to expand our mineral exploitative industry to ensure our factories will remain operational and at full capacity. One last item, since our January meeting, I can inform you that we have been able to acquire an additional research team.” Blomberg finishes and takes a long drink of water.

“Most excellent, I will see what we can do about getting you more steel for the factories.” Says a rather patient Hitler “Generals Beck and Luttwitz, your observations?”

General Beck begins, “Sir, I believe that we can secure all Austrian vital centers with a week of combat operations, yes the terrain is fairly rugged, but the country is shallow in terms of defensive depth. Surely the Italians and Yugoslavians will deploy their troops to defend Austria, but unless they are already on the border right now, they will be rather late in arriving to the party. As our commands are non-motorized with the exception of the command vehicles any potential Italian or Yugoslavian punishment campaign will take a minimum of a month, perhaps two, in addition to the time required to occupy Austria. The Italian airforce is largely ungraded from 1918 and will likely not pose a threat beyond one to themselves, their Navy however, will make costal operations significantly more difficult as the artillery our infantry has cannot outrange the guns of their Battleships. Most of our operations will be inland far enough to avoid ill effects from the guns however.

We should see about leaving some units on the Hungarian border as I have been lead to understand that our diplomatic efforts have been less than successful and the Italians have been influencing them as well. They should not be an issue until after Austria is occupied. A single Corps left on the Austrian-Hungarian border should be sufficient as half of our units that will be fighting in Yugoslavia will be fighting along the Hungarian-Yugoslavian border and simply must pull double duty.” He nods to General Luttwitz who then begins to speak.

“It may be worthwhile after the conclusion of the Yugoslavian campaign to invade Bulgaria,” he pauses as Hitler, Hitler!, drops his cup of coffee at this unexpected suggestion by his Generals.

“Not Romania?” asks Hitler.

“Not Romania. Even with the oil fields in Polesti, a declaration of war at this time on Romania would give the French people a direct reason to oppose us. Bulgaria is a stepping stone into Romania and her oil fields, but more importantly into Turkey and to the Baki region of the Soviet Union and again south down the Levanant and to Suez.” He takes a deep breath and continues, “Yes it is a long term plan, but we must ensure we have access to the strategic war materials we need in that region, particularly oil. For steel, we must go elsewhere.” He takes a deep steadying breath and says, “Orders sir?”

Hitler speaks coldly, “Reunite our family.”


Why are you declaring war on me?

South of Munich Germany
July 25, 1934:

“Load…And Fire!” The clear Austrian night was shattered by the tongue of flame emanating from the heavy artillery howitzers attached to 76. Infanterie-division. Scouts and artillery spotters were already moving up to cross the border, yet the bulk of the infantry remained on the German side of the border sheltering in their bunkers and foxholes waiting for the orders to attack. Their scarred company commander Hauptmann Albert Walther, a veteran of the Great War, walks among the frontline troops, recruits sheltering in the bunkers and foxholes built and dug by the attached pioneer sections. “Men there is nothing to worry about except closing with the enemy. He is professional yes, but you are better trained and equipped than him. Know that you, by your actions tonight will make Germany great again. We will restore honor to the German people. Infanterie advance!”

The green infantry divisions cut through the defenders faster than anyone could have imagined capturing the critical province of Salzburg three days after hostilities commenced and less than a week later on the 1st of August had reduced the will of the Austrian people and made them a full part of the new German Empire.


Austria is now Mine!

With the fall of the Austrian government four divisions of Austrian infantry rally to German arms, however one division of Austrian troops is destroyed as they are unable to reorganize in the face of an Italian division that had been retreating just ahead of them. Their deaths would not go unavenged as two pockets of Italian troops were destroyed less than three days later.

Two days later President Hindenburg dies after seeing Austria united with Germany. It is a sad solemn day in Germany as Adolf Hitler ascends to power in the Reich, but to the troops in the field it is just another day in combat.


Hindenbug Dies, it is a sad day for Germany.

The 6th of August represents a significant victory for German forces, Venice falls without a shot being fired. The units in Yugoslavia advance quickly occupying nearly half the country in by the 20th of the month, while the campaign in Italy bogs down in the mountains advancing meter by bloody meter.


The Yugoslavian Campaign


The Status of the Italian Campaign

Twenty days later after denying completely terms of peace proposed by the Italians, German troops occupy the whole of whole of Yugoslavia forcing her government to surrender unconditionally.

After three days of rest and reorganization the now veteran units of the Yuogslavian campaign enter Bulgaria and force her governments surrender before German troops move into the Eternal City of Rome on the 13th of October.



October 15 snapshot of forces

The Italians, either unwilling or unable to see that their forces here are doomed refuse a German offer of peace where Germany would now own the northern regions of Italy as a form of war reparations. Hitler simply orders the Heer to take the rest of European Italy.

One month later after pushing Italian troops out of the ‘boot’ that is Italy and unable to cross into Sicily thanks to the Italian Navy, Hitler and Mussolini meet again and this time Hitler forces the Italians to accept the new war demands of Germany…. All of Italy that Germany has already conquered and the Island of Sardinia in exchange for the return of Rome and peace.

It appears at this moment that all the world is caught up by the declaration of the Spanish region of Catalonia on the 6th of October and the war between the China’s that began in late September and no attention at all can be spared it would seem to the renewed German aggression.

Germany begins the new year of 1935 flush with captured resources and industry. Partisans are a small problem at this point, but garrison troops are being trained to free up the infantry to other, more important tasks.


Germany as the New Year begins.

[quaazi]

Well Germany started out a bit strongly with this. If the League of Nations returns Saar to you after this, they're idiots.

[Jekolmy]

Well Germany started out a bit strongly with this. If the League of Nations returns Saar to you after this, they're idiots.

Well of course they have to return it to me, I could just waltz in and annex the league of nations any time I want to. Besides how many divisions do they have . Its not like I really care, look at Germany's Belligerence.

Anyways for those of you reading feel free to give me feedback and suggestions on my writing and my gameplay. I should note that I am playing Iron Cross with 10 tech teams so research goes quickly... and gives the AI a chance.

Shortish update momentarily.

[Jekolmy]

Munich, Germany
Christmas Eve 1934

“Mother! I tell you that I was never in any real danger,” Cries an exasperated Aloys on the edge of his nerves after a week of this treatment.

“Oh, I see. So that is how you got your Iron Cross?” Maria Weiss asks in an acid tone as she continues to whirl around baking a traditional German Christmas cake in the kitchen. “What has Germany come to when she gives her young men Iron Crosses for not getting into any danger?”

“Mother, all I did was I pulled some people from Headquarters out of a burning truck”, The truck was taking heavy machinegun fire and we were being flanked… not that you need to know that

“And the infantry assault badge?” his mother continued as she placed the dough on the baking sheet preparing to place it in the oven.

“That was just after we took Belgrade,” he closes his eyes for a moment and thinks to himself This is going to last forever, or at least until I return to my unit, which might as well be forever he grabs one of the brandy soaked fruit pieces and pops it in his mouth as his mother gives a quick disapproving glare that turns into a quick smile, then again forever doesn’t seem too terrible at the moment as the scene slowly pulls away to reveal a snow covered Munich.

Jan 1, 1935
Berlin, Germany



“And a Happy New Year to you General Beckss, General Luttwitzess” spouts a Hitler still very very drunk from the festivities of the New Year’s Eve parties that Hitler had obviously stayed at way too long. But he had a reason to celebrate, all of Germany had a reason to celebrate. Once again Germany was once again strong, even so there were difficult decisions that would have to be made in the near future.

“Goring, Goring wake up. Oh he’s completely passed out drunk. Anyways Goring you might just get that air force this year and…” thunk Hitler passes out on the table. The members of the inner cabinet look at each other in utter disbelief.

Admiral Canaris speaks up, “Gentlemen, I am terribly worried about the fate of Germany at this moment,” he takes a deep breath, “You see the state of our glorious leader after an easy victory and his closest ally in the government.” He gestures at General Goring and Hitler. “Politically, I have nothing against the man in the slightest, however I am afraid that he will try to take control of the [i}Wehrmacht[/i] there is talk that he will have the military swear personal oaths to him, and not to Germany, this cannot happen. I realize that some of you are new to the position, but I ask you for the sake of Germany to act as a counterbalance against Hitler should he become more unbalanced.” He sighs deeply, “So I suppose we have some business to deal with here, as far as intelligence matters go we will be beginning in earnest our espionage campaign as of today and we should have some results in the next three to six months. If you had not heard, General Blomberg has resigned from this board to focus more fully on his military role and Mr. Xavier-Schwarz has taken over the industrial-research areas and is a bit of an expert in both fields. Mr. Schwarz what are we working on?”

“Thank you Admiral,” he begins, “I admit it is somewhat overwhelming right now with all of the unit training and research that is going on at the moment so I’ll just hit the highlights. Currently we are working up two infantry and militia corps consisting of three divisions of infantry and militia respectively. We are building heavy guns for the infantry and we are training the militia in anti-partisan tactics. Additionally we are constructing heavy anti-air guns in all of our critical provinces, hopefully this will allow us to eventually throw a wall of flak against any enemy bombers that would decide to attack thick enough to walk on, anywhere in Germany. Additionally we have begun the constriction of oil conversion and rare material conversion plants as they may be able to provide us with critical rare materials and fuel should our normal sources be cut off. At the moment we are working on some advanced computational devices, some new infantry small arms, heavy naval guns, medium caliber general purpose artillery, and some light armored units. If you wish for particulars, ask me after the meeting. Our resources look excellent and in the last six months we have doubled the number of factories that are under our control. And that is all,” Mr. Schwarz finishes his presentation.



“General Beck? What is the status of our military after the last campaign?”

“Gentlemen, we stand well. Of the 67 German divisions present at the time of the armistice all by 27 had earned at least one if not more campaign stars. And of those 27 divisions, 12 divisions were split evenly between waiting paperwork to be filed, or had just gotten off of the training grounds as the cease-fire took effect.” General Beck begins.

“The combat in Austria, Yuogslavia, Bulgaria, and Italy has provided an experienced core for the Heer as it continues to expand throughout the next several years. Our losses were also exceedingly light for a six month campaign, total casualties were something like 6,000 men as we never really gained control of the Austrian division that was scattered by the Italians around Hollabrunn. Of those men we will regain the services of nearly 4000 of them as they finish their period of recuperation. On the other hand we estimate we inflicted nearly 500,000 casualties amongst the Italian, Austrian, Bulgarian, and Yugoslavian armies as you can see from my charts here.”







“I’m not sure exactly how we destroyed these warships as we don’t have aircraft at the moment, but it’s a minor issue, I will be much happier when we can finally finish our partisan hunting units for the occupied territories, it will be good to have troops there that are trained for that sort of thing. That’s all I have,” General Beck says as he finishes his presentations

“Erich?”

“The navy is still rather pathetic at the moment, though we have some plans underway to change that. However, I don’t see us doing anything significant until 1943 at the very earliest with the industrial and research priorities being elsewhere for the most part.” Erich looks a little like a certain reindeer left out of all the fun as he finishes presenting.

“Well gentlemen, I suggest that we meet again in six months or so,” he glances around at Hitler and Goring,” As a purely social gathering of course. Don’t worry folks, I’m buying the beer.” He looks around, “Nothing else? Good, lets get back to work.”

[quaazi]

I could've sworn Hitler was a teetotaler... and a vegetarian. So a hippie then.

But if Canaris' actions are a prelude to getting rid of the hippie, bravo!

[Jekolmy]

I knew he was a vegetarian, but I hadn't heard about the teetotaler bit.

The plans are a bit long term, anyways short update from the shadow cabinet of Germany.

[Jekolmy]

June 25, 1935
Somewhere in the mountains of Austria

“Sorry about the lateness of this, I just returned from some negotiations with the British,” says a tired looking Wilhelm Carnaris, “It seems that our benevolent and great leader has somehow convinced King George V and the British that German workers should be building some of the lighter units for the British Navy. It might give our naval commanders some insight into how we might challenge their fleet. Wouldn’t you agree Erich?” Carnaris pauses as he takes a sip from his stein.



“It certainly could be that way Willy,” Raeder smiles at the lack of formality at Canarias’s mountain villia nestled high up in the mountains of Austria. “What’s going to hurt us the most out there is the lack of air cover when we have to engage their carriers at sea, I doubt we’ll even be able to see them before our ships are hitting the bottom of the ocean. Then again I just came back from the rocket facility outside Berlin and von Braun told me about some of the plans they have, rockets that chase airplanes, rockets our ships can use to sink other ships, crazy things like that. Even rockets our infantry could use to break bunkers and enemy tanks. That might be useful General Beck, no?”

“Sure, sure, but I want to see it before I believe too terribly much now, I hear that we are doing quite a bit of research into armoring trucks enough that we can bring infantry right into the front lines.. fast infantry will be useful as long as we don’t get bogged down attacking heavy fortifications. But that’s what the heavy artillery, the tactical bombers, and the dive bombers are for?” says General Beck as he takes a sip out of his stein.

“That is what they are for indeed General Beck, but we cannot ignore a navy completely, not that I expect to be able to challenge the British and French fleets by the possible outbreak of war, especially if it were to occur earlier than 1945 like we’ve planned, but by then I doubt that there will be any chance that we could have any sort of naval superiority even then. We cannot forget the lessons of Napoleon, a strong Kriegsmarine is vital to our planned territorial ambitions outside of mainland Europe. Yes, we are set up nicely now for advances into the USSR and down to Suez to cut off British forces in Africa, but Africa is a hostile, hostile place and I think that we may end up conducting several amphibious landings to capture critical locations in Africa, you might say the last holdouts of some small European powers in order to have them surrender. That and the French have holdings in South America… it may be worthwhile to have transports that can reach that far.” Raeder smiles and takes a sip before putting his stein down, “The 14-18 war was very near a stalemate for the last six months to a year before the Americans entered the war. When they entered they overwhelmed us with numbers and were able to supply their allies far too well, we must ensure that the Americans either; do not enter the war or that they have enough other issues that they cannot effectively intervene in the European theater. Unfortunately for us however, they will likely have a significant industrial advantage compared to use when they finally are called to arms. Fortunately for us they are rather isolationist at the moment, I don’t see them doing much until 1940 at least. We want to keep them out of our war. Speaking of that, how are we going to get Hitler to not play “War!” with the Wehrmacht Willy?”

Carnaris smiles, “I’ll reveal the entirety when I’m ready and Hitler’s overstepped his bounds, but suffice it to say that some doctors may find themselves without jobs after a patient of theirs doesn’t pull through. At least he’s good for a few good things, he can talk those other politicians into a lot of stuff like returning Saar. I can’t believe that they did that even after what we managed to pull off in Italy. And somehow their intelligence services had no idea we rearmed and apparently no one knows that Austria is kaput”





Carnaris smiles, the hint of light in his eyes only showing only how much of a cold calculating shark the man is.

[Jekolmy]

November 8, Kiel Shipyards

“Gentlemen! I am proud to be here with you on this day! The day that the [I[Kreigsmarine[/I] is truly reborn!” It is a cold blustery November day in Kiel and there in the protected harbor lay 10 light cruiser escorts under construction watching the newest warships in the German fleet, 4 pocket battleships armed with 18” guns and the 4 fleet carriers working up with their aircraft. The crowd roars at this, Germany taking yet another step to ensure that she can defend herself against British aggression.

“ Yes gentlemen, yes” Hitler smiles as his amplified voice washes over the crowd, “I know that the most modern German battleships the Bismark, Tirpitz, and our first Aircraft Carrier Graf Zepplein have been built and have been sitting in Wilhelmshaven Harbor for some time now and when the time comes they will be the fleet-in-being that protects Germany from the British Navy while you men have the honor of engaging the British Home Fleet and the convoys that feed Britian raw materials.” Hitler’s speech despite his rambling and failure to really make a point as of yet somehow resonates with the sailors and marines gathered at the harbor today.
Hitler pauses for a moment and waits for the roar of the crowd to die down, “Today we commission the capital ships and aircraft carriers that will comprise the 1st Carrier Squadron, by summer of next year gentlemen their light cruiser escorts, modern as anything the world will ever see, will commission and the squadron will undergo maneuvers in the Channel under the command of a man you know well, Admrial Raeder will you please come up here and speak to your squadron now?”

Hitler bows and raises his hands to the crowd of naval personnel waving for them to continue their cheering and slowly begins to calm the crowd before bowing for a heartbeat and motioning for Admiral Raeder to take the podium before stepping back and away from it. Raeder reaches the podium, “Thank you Feuer! Lads! These warships are rightfully the possession of Germany and they don’t know we have them yet,” Raeder’s voice carries over the crowd, “Gentlemen, we will be demonstrating to the British and French in late summer of next year to keep them from doing anything unwise.

“Gentlemen, I will not lie to you, we will be vastly outnumbered by the Royal Navy whenever we finally do put to sea. I do not worry though, not with lads like you at my side.

The crowd goes wild as Raeder and the other top brass exit

January 1, 1939 Berlin, Germany



“Gentlemen, I know that the last few years have been fairly busy, but what have we to show for it?” says Adolf Hitler who now at this point is considerably more sober and is actually looking halfway mentally stable at the moment.

“Sir,” Rader starts, “As you know we commissioned the capital ships of the 1st Carrier Squadron late last year and their escorts should commission before anything more happens in Czechoslovakia. I’m not completely sure I agree with the construction of aircraft carriers, but I am glad that they will be escorted by very modern pocket battleships and escorts.” Raeder stops and takes a sip of water, “However, I do have issues with this whole plan still, regardless of the relative parity in capital warships that we apparently have in comparison to the British and French if you believe the reports from Admiral Carnaris’s spies. Nothing against you Admiral, I think it would be prudent to assume that your spies likely missed some warships.”

Carnaris nods and motions for Raeder to continue.

“At least we won’t have to deal with the American fleet at the same time, I suppose they will be busy with Japan for at least 2 years and most of their warships are relatively old like the British and French fleets, though that will likely change sooner than we would like. Speaking doctrinally, we are several years behind where the Americans are, much less the French or British. Now Dr. von Braun’s has discussed some of his wunderwaffens with me, personally I am very happy with the prototype tests of his anti-ship and anti-air rockets, particularly that we can mount them on our warships and have a much more effective punch against any hostile fleet, even if they are short ranged, that we can then mount them on our capital warships and screens and this is beyond whatever affect that the early rockets will have in defending our provinces, much less their distribution to our ground units. Perhaps aircraft will be nothing more than an expensive endeavor in naval combat when ships possess anti-aircraft rockets? Only time will tell. Regardless, I would like to avoid putting any fleets at sea until they have been upgraded with these “portable SAMs” and “Anti-Ship Missiles” to ensure that our small number of warships will account themselves fully. We have fully upgraded our cruiser escorts and we believe that they are at the limits of what can be built, not what we can currently build. Seeing as the British haven’t built anything better yet, or at least Admiral Carnaris’s spies haven’t found anything better in their docks or blueprints.”



German Naval Technologies


British Naval Technologies

General Beck seeing that Raeder has finished his presentation begins, “Gentlemen, we seem to have rearmed ourselves very well up to this point. We have approximately 3.4 million men under arms at this point and 252 divisions of infantry… more than any one other power at this point. Unfortunately as Minister Schwarz would tell us if he were here, apparently he is at the hospital with a serious case of influenza and thought it best to not infect us all with it. This year aside from continued infantry production, the production of interceptors, and the production of the first batch of light cruisers we must halt all production to re-arm our infantry. We have met or exceeded all of our 39 projections in nearly all categories, except the navy and we expected our naval goals to fall short, and so we may safely ramp down production putting those factories into retooling to re-equip our infantry and militia divisions. As you know Germany is experiencing a critical shortage of metals which plays utter havoc with our production and so we have agreed to run the factories at less than full speed when upgrading our units to build up war stockpiles. Unfortunately, with our research outpacing our production capabilities, we could easily still be modernizing the army at the end of this year, assuming that production isn’t diverted to other areas as well.



Latest Technologies and Research Levels

Still, Poland will fall without significant effort should they not surrender Danzig. The new assault rifles and quick firing artillery should provide an edge beyond just our numbers. Not exactly sporting now, but it is a matter of life and death for Germany.

Late August Berlin, Germany

“Adolf, there is absolutely no chance that the Poles will peacefully hand over Danzig, none at all. After the events with Czechoslovakia, when the Allies thought all they would need to do to ensure we would not re-unify with them was talk big and scold us, when they didn’t mobilize their troops and put them in behind the Maginot Line at the absolute very least, much less ship them into Czechoslovakia via friendly Poland they showed they weren’t very serious. For crying out loud here the trade with us actually increased right after it happened.. even if it was 0 trades up to 1.
That is why you should give the orders to mobilize now and get orders out to the commanders to break out weapons and munitions for the Heer units that aren’t already on the border and to ensure that the portable SAMs and anti-shipping missiles will reach their units in time.” A very weary Carnaris finishes. “Once this kicks off we will be at war with the entire planet in one fashion or another, well aside from our Hungarian allies and the puppets we have off of Sardinia. By the way whose idea was it to claim Sardnia from the Italians? And why are you spending valuable time and resources still trying to ally with the Italians? They start pointless wars that they can’t even get to now.”

“But I am the leader of the Third Reich!” exclaims an angry Adolf Hitler, “I control the military,”

The military representatives there, Beck, Raeder, Luttwitz, Koller, and Carnaris exchange quick glances at that comment and give a mutual shrug.

“Perhaps you once did, or thought you simply thought you did,” Carnaris interrupts, “I think I speak for the others here when I say that your actions in attempting to control the military over the last several years has been utterly illegal, much less some of the laws that you’ve tried to pass that have mysteriously been forgotten about. I’m not about to overthrow you, not now with this period of turmoil and war that Germany is about to go into, but once the initial campaign is completed we’ll deal with you permanently.” Carnaris smiles, “ I wouldn’t be thinking that you’ll be getting any help from your pal Goring, not with everyone sick and tired of his political games trying to dig up dirt on everyone, actually I suppose he’ll never have to worry about anything again in all truthfulness. You really should have fired him after the first incident. Don’t get me wrong here, you are still a hero in Germany, you had the guts to rearm us when the French alone could have walked in and taken Germany without any military opposition, but by no means are you nearly as popular now as you once were thanks to Goring.” Carnaris sighs, “I was hoping you might have seen some reason, but apparently not. Guards! Lock him up.” Carnaris looks around, “Alright I think we can take ten while he’s dealt with, then back to the meeting.”



Ten minutes later, the spilled coffee having been cleaned up and some chairs switched around while that coffee dried, the cabinet, now only eight men instead of nine sat down to continue their important business.

“Gentlemen, I move that we keep this very quiet until things are decided one way or another in Poland and France. It would do no good to get the people up in arms over this right now and distract the Wehrmacht from its primary duties. Now Gentlemen, what is our plan for dealing with Poland and the inevitable French reaction?” Carnaris begins.

General Beck begins,“Well, it appears that our modernization outlook is still correct, that is to say that we will be modernizing our units well into 1940,” begins General Beck, “However, our troops at the moment are armed with weapons at least two if not three generations more modern that what the Poles have and one or two generations more modern than what the French have. Currently we have twelve divisions covering every province on the Siegfried line to draw the bulk of the French Army there. Dangerous, no?

Ambassador Ribbentrop has informed me that we have signed a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union, the invasion plans for which are… ah in my briefcase there we go, with the real kicker being that we will split Poland with them, and ensure the neutrality of the Baltic States… unless of course we will find some benefit in occupying them as well, but one should honor neutrality agreements when they work for you, yes?



In the Konigsburg district we have several field armies ready to break out and take Danzig from the Poles, while elements from the “mainland” portion of Germany will attempt to distract the defenders and keep them from looking over their shoulders. Elements near Poznan have been equipped with additional trucks to improve their chances of a breakout to Warsaw. Krakow will be harder to crack open though as we cannot rely on the Hungarians to push through and capture the city. That being said troops from Oppeln will advance under the cover of heavy artillery fire through Katowice and push into Krakow. When these sectors have been occupied the Red Army will swoop in and take the demoralized Poles in the rear. They will have no choice but to surrender.

“And what do the Soviets have in comparison to the Poles?” ask Carnaris.

“Similar equipment and raw numbers. It will work even if we have to capture all of Poland ourselves and hand it over to them. Once that is accomplished we will leave behind a minimal rearguard and move to the Belgian border.”

“Isn’t our side of the Belgian border unprotected General?” asks Carnaris a bit more concerned than he was just a minute ago.

“It is, but we are confident that the Belgians will see this as a sign, along with our departed leader’s guarantees of independence that we won’t do anything to them and they won’t do anything to us. Which of course is completely wrong, but they won’t know that until after our troops are already across the border and looking at the Channel. If we can conquer Poland before October, I would like permission to go ahead and invade France via Belgium. Otherwise we will spend the winter re-equipping our troops and allowing Admiral Raeder a chance to sting the English a bit at sea.
I am uncertain however, as to what our goals are at this very moment beyond the annexation and return of Danzig and the defeat of France. Certainly, it would be useful to capture the Rock, but to do so we would have to move through Spain, a Spain we assisted to win its civil war. Alexandria would be nice as well, but to go through Turkey in the winter? That does not make sense at all. Invade the Soviet Union? …Not this year, perhaps as the mud begins to dry. The General Staff will be working on that one, but we will need some way to better move supplies to our troops with the awful roads in the Soviet Union.. I’m not sure how we can do that; maybe we can dump supplies out of airplanes to our troops, regardless its going on the priority list. Admrial Raeder, would you like to talk about the preconditions for the invasion of the British Isles? Getting the Heer there is your problem?”
“Certainly General,” Raeder begins, “First, we must wear the home fleet down enough that they cannot effectively interdict the landings, secondly we do need more transports to ferry our troops across the Channel, I propose Sealion for 1941, and Barbarossa for Spring 1940. I fear that the superior tactics of the British fleet will make any fleet engagement so costly that we will have to abandon these plans to invade the British Isles. Just how useful will our SAMs and Anti-Ship Missiles be? We cannot know, not without engaging the British head-on,” Raeder sits back showing the frustration and stress of having a fleet, but not being able to take it to sea against the RN without it likely being destroyed.

“Gentlemen,” Carnaris begins, “Today we determine the destiny of Germany. Good luck and Good Hunting.”

[quaazi]

You're definetly a lot more technologically advanced than I was in my game... the IC tech tree is pretty difficult to adjust to.

In any case, good luck in 1940!

[Jekolmy]

This is something like the third or play through I have done as Germany in IC so I have a fair idea as to when to wait to continue my industrial research to not get sucked into the <100% research zone for very long. Also as I mentioned earlier I am playing with 10 techteams so that may have an effect on my research compared to yours. For some reason I have found Poland to either be a total cakewalk or the hardest part of the German early campaign, much more than the rapid blitz that you need to take France before they can place blocking units.

I've played up til mid 1940 and things are going fairly well, though there are a couple of 'little' things that I'll mention in the writeup for the early bits of 1940 that have caused me to go to war with some other countries early

[TheRealKestrel]

Wow, how did you get 10 tech teams? I have AoD and IC and have only 5 TT max as Germany...

[Jekolmy]

Wow, how did you get 10 tech teams? I have AoD and IC and have only 5 TT max as Germany...

There should be a little file called parches or something like that. Anyways in that program there is the option to change a few things and one of the options is to change the maximum tech teams from 1 to 10. As a point of caution however, the British will have just about everything that they can research (as far as the AI or IA goes), researched before the limits of post war-technology by early 1940. As far as I can tell they don't bother researching rocket and nuke techs and would prefer their research teams to go party.

[TheRealKestrel]

I get 'version incompatible' when I try to do that. Does it have something to do with me installing IC over AoD 1.06B2?

Anyways, keep up your great AAR! Not enough AoD AARs out there...

[Jekolmy]

It might just be that, I'm playing over 1.05, otherwise I think there may be a way to change the number of techteams in another file, not sure where though its been mentioned a few times in the Iron Cross forum. Anyways as the war begins to pick up steam I'll update by month/major campaign. Hopefully should be updating by tomorrow evening.

[Jekolmy]

East Germany, September 1, 1939 01:00 hours

It was odd really thought Oberleutnant Weiss, Five years ago 76. Infanterie and XXII Corps was the last formed before we crossed the border, now High Command simply forgot about us until a week before we jumped off. We still have maps for Belgium and France, not Poland. Some things just never change do they?

“Sir, contact up ahead just this side of the hill,” one of his scouts whispered in the darkness, “Its maybe half a company of troops. They are dug-in that cross-roads village just over in the valley. They have some machineguns but no rockets or other heavy weapons that we could see. They don’t have any pickets set out and half of them or more are asleep.”

“Good work Gefreiter Mecke. Section leaders gather around.” Waiting for his leaders to gather Aloys looks through his field glasses at the quiet encampment. Hmm, good sturdy stone and brick buildings, machineguns in the upper windows, little cover to approach the village from, but we have the element of surprise.

“Hans, I want your Panzerschreck teams to hit the steeple of the Church, there is either a sniper or a machinegun crew up there, I can’t tell which. Detrick, set up your machinegun crews and the mortar section in the treeline to suppress the infantry. The other sections will begin a flanking maneuver as they infiltrate in close, the mortars will signal the start of the attack, by God men, don’t shoot before then unless you absolutely have to, and if you do… don’t miss.

The attack begins in two hours… get your men fed and moving out, we need to hold the village by noon today. It will block the Polish panzers we have heard so much about. I will establish my command post up by the mortar section. Questions? No? Move out.”

An hour late the mortar section opened up with a barrage of high explosive shells going Crump Crump Crump as they exploded around the unaware Poles, knocking them about like bowling pins. Before the mortars could fire their second volley this one of star shells to illuminate the night sky, the machinegun crews opened up raking the ground and pinning the few Polish survivors.

By the end of the second volley of mortars Aloys was convinced that there was no one in the Church tower and called for the mortars to cease fire as his men began to assault the Polish defenses. The Poles slow bolt-action rifles were no match at all for the advanced G3s that the German infantry carried. Five minutes after the assault began the Poles threw down their weapons and surrendered.

This is just amazing, I never imagined that it would be this easy.

Berlin, Germany September 14


“It can’t possibly be this easy? Can it?” A surprised General Beck asks after learning that the Poles had surrendered after barely two weeks of fighting.

Carnaris as usual lays out the larger German plans, “If we restrict ourselves to the war plans that we started making in early 1938 when we had no idea how successful we might have been in Poland. Now, we can finish Phase 1 of our war plans, that is the invasion of France and the low countries and protect Germany from a land invasion from the West. I do think however, that we should have begun this invasion a few weeks earlier so that we would have more time for the campaign in the West. But then again we would have the Soviets down on our necks right about now most likely. I suggest providing the troops with a day’s rest to reorganize and then redeploy the army to the Western Front and end our Sitzkreig before the French can fully call up their reserves. Our most cynical estimates indicate that they will need at least two more weeks to fully call up their reserves.”

Beck begins, “OKW suggests an initial penetration in the Bastogne/Wallonia region twelve corps will be detailed to prevent a French counterattack into Belgium while the rest of the Western front save those on the Maginot line, will race for the Atlantic coast and attempt to turn the flank of the French Army as they sweep in from the coast.

The French and Belgian armies are ill equipped to fight a war of this nature, they lack the doctrines to fight effectively behind anything other than fixed defenses and their equipment is third rate. While the common French soldier is willing to fight even with antiquated equipment his officers are by no means Napoleon re-incarnated. The issue in this campaign is can we force a breakthrough before the French and Belgians can re-create the trenches of the Great War?”

Germany, the Eastern Front About that same time

It looks rather bare thought Aloys surveying the border with the Soviet Union All those divisions moving west to move through Belgium and France and us out here in Poland, half a million miles from civilization. It could be worse though, it can always be worse we could be in Russia in wintertime.

September 16 Near Aachen

There was no need for speeches, all of the men were veterans and knew their duty. The initial penetration into Belgium went without a hitch, Bastogne was occupied in less than a day, the reinforced Corps in Eupen was encircled and surrendered, the 12 corps blocking force reached their positions in time to prevent the French from rapidly moving their forces to the sea, and CIX. Corps and the assault pioneers of 6. Armeekorps (the 7th HQ) occupied Paris on the 25th of September capturing a majority of the French parliament. The 25th marked the capitulation of France, which was only held up long enough for the Heer to find the railway car that Germany surrendered in on the 11th of November 1918.

“It seriously can’t be this easy.



We’ve barely made it into France and they surrendered. Oh sure the Belgians are still fighting, at least they are acting professionally,” General Beck shakes his head and looks to his aide. “Major Behm, lets go get something to eat in Paris.”


German occupation, Sep 25