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I was having some stacking issues that were serious enough as it was with the 100 some divisions that crossed the Belgian border. I was not ready for the French to collapse that quickly at all. The games I was playing before I started this AAR had them collapsing in 4-6 weeks, though I wonder how much of that is me VP rushing with my infantry as opposed to capturing VPs then the actual sectors those VPs represent. I think there may be units further down the French coast, but I am very surprised they caved in like a rotten door. That being said the Engineering and Transport techs in the armor tree are wonderful, +3 kph to all my land units, it almost makes my mostly infantry build very useful for these smaller provinces. That being said for my Suez and Soviet campaigns I will be building more mobile units.
 
October 15, Berlin

Carnaris once again begins to lay out the general German strategy for the next campaign.“Gentlemen, France is but a shell, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Belgium have all fallen. Our actions have shaken the world and we will shake it once again before the end of 1940. This winter we will under the guise of weakening the British, we will truly be preparing for the assault on the Soviet Union. We’ve been picking up hints that the Soviets will be looking to occupy the nations of the Baltic. Under the guise of guaranteeing the independence of the Baltic States we will eliminate one of the three largest threats to the Fatherland. General Beck, your operation plans?”

“Gentlemen, Germany has won a great victory in the West, we will soon win a victory in the East. The time is ripe to sweep North Africa from the Allies. After discussions with Admiral Raeder I am convinced that we cannot invade the area from the sea, furthermore it will make far more sense logistically to conduct an overland invasion of North Africa via Turkey and Syria. To accomplish this we will utilize 18 full corps and 2 Headquarters units to coordinate the overall campaign from Turkey to North Africa. We’ve picked several corps that has combat experience in mountain regions. It’ll help in the early part of the campaign in Turkey but not so much once we get into the deserts of Syria and Lybia. Unfortunately we will not be utilizing the Luftwaffe much for the land operations as we will be diverting our dive bombers to attack British merchantmen and warships in the Mediterranean. Beyond that however there are indications from our communications intercepts that the Italians have been conducting negotiations with the Allies and are close to joining them,” Beck sighs and scratches his head. “That being said the Italian army will not pose much of an obstacle, but as usual their navy could pose a problem and block access to Sicily. Quite frankly we don’t have a whole lot that can challenge the Italian fleet in the Med least ship to ship. The Luftwaffe really wants to try out their new armor piercing bombs and anti-ship missiles I think.

Army Intelligence reports suggest that Syria and Lybia are only lightly defended by the Allies and the Italians and we should have sufficient forces for the initial push. Once we actually get into the Libyan Desert however, more mobile units should be trained and equipped. General Rommel will have the honor of commanding the 1st Mechanized Calvary Corps. Yes I know he’s junior to a lot of us, but lets see what he can do in North Africa.” Beck smiles like he has knowledge of some other world.

“Assuming that that the Italians join the British and the remnant French forces, our end goals for this campaign are nothing less than the total conquest of Italy, the establishment of a defensive line in the Egyptian desert, and the use of Turkish territory to act as a springboard into the Soviet Union and later into the subcontinent of India and into Indo-China where we can link up with our ‘secret’ allies in Japan. Of course they might not exactly care for us after we take Indo-China, but there isn’t much we can do about that right now. Persia, India, and Indo-China are still issues for mid to late 1940.” Beck finishes his presentation.

“Are there any concerns that we should be aware of at this moment? Ah Admiral Raeder you have something for us.” Carnaris says as he resumes control of the meeting.

“Yes, that is correct,” Raeder begins, “Gentlemen, I realize the need to defeat the Soviets in the East, however before we get too caught up in that shouldn’t we give some time and thought to the invasion of the British Isles? Gentlemen, it takes years to build a proper warship, not the months that it takes for one of your infantry divisions to be equipped and trained.” Raeder looks around the table at the slightly confused faces. “If we are to conduct an invasion of England this fact is simple, we must build up a larger fleet so that we can protect the vulnerable invasion forces from the British Navy. There are other ways however that we might scatter or partially neutralize the British Fleet long enough for our transports to cross the Channel. There are still some units of the British fleet in the Med, if we can close the Med by capturing the Rock, well it won’t do much today, but if we must hunt the British down in the East Indies it will help. Two we can order our light dive bombers and tactical bombers to hunt down the British in the proximity of the French coast. Three, we can send the 1st Carrier Fleet out of the Baltic and begin engaging the enemy. We have had great success in the Baltic against the Polish fleet with our carriers, however I expect to take serious losses against the British fleet or at least damage severe enough that we will have to keep the fleet in dry-dock for months to complete repairs. Its hard to believe, but they really only have a 3:1 advantage in ships of the line, that is to say carriers, battleships, and battle-cruisers, that being said their escorts won’t be useful enough in a full fleet battle by themselves.

I won’t lie, I have some doubts about the invasion of England, but a short campaign in the spring/summer of ’40 in the Soviet Union will not so overtake our industrial capacities so as to leave nothing for the additional warships we may need for the invasion of England. I just don’t know where to guide the German people once the Soviets fall, England falls, Scandinavia falls, we will be very safe from attack I should think. Perhaps OKW will provide us with some guidance for strategic targets.

November 1, 1939 German occupied Bulgaria
XXII. Armeekorps


After the last three major invasions I was starting to worry about the General Staff. Austria, we were formed 3 days before the attack, Poland a week, France we get orders to move out the day after we invade Belgium. This time around we are setting up two weeks early and have much better equipment than last time.
Weiss looks over to where the company is setting up This time around we all have automatic weapons, every section has upgraded Panzerschrecks and we have wire-guided anti-panzer missiles on quite a few of our jeeps, not that the Turks have Panzers. I think, I hope.

What do the Turks have? It looks a whole lot like the equipment that the Poles and French had earlier this year, amazing how much and how little can actually change in half a year.

I’m not worried about what the Turks or Syrians have. It’s the Tommies I’m worried about.


“Move out!”

november1warinturkey.jpg



The initial easy fighting in Turkey came to a rapid change once the terrain changed to mountains and there were far more places for a stubborn defender to hide and bleed his attacker one more time before retiring again.

By the 3rd of November Istanbul had fallen to units of the Heer however the Allied cause was about to be bolstered by the addition of another country to their ranks.

nov4italydeclareswaronus.jpg


The Italians, having been humiliated 5 years ago at the hands of Germany had finally found a time to strike. Unfortunately all that was left of the Grand Italian Empire was Rome, Sicily, the former Albanian state, and some desert in North Africa. Rome fell again quickly as the Heer had surrounded the Eternal City shortly after the invasion of France. Unfortunately the Regia Marina that is the Italian Navy had sufficient surface combatants to prevent any seaborne attack on either Sicily or the Lybian desert. Unable to obtain military access from Egypt for a full scale strike, the Italians continued to dig in prepare once again for the German onslaught that was yet to come.

Italian interference was limited to a single division which after being transported to the Italian island of Rhodos, invaded German occupied Turkey before being crushed by a full Corps of German infantry.

Three weeks after the war in Turkey began, Germany annexed the nation. Some say that they were simply ensuring that no Turkish units were left remaining to act as partisans or to continue fighting under a different flag.

nov17turkeysurrenders.jpg


Militia having arrived by this time to protect the vulnerable beaches and supply routes the Germans continued their Blitz South, into Syria. The Syrians alone and without serious British support, fell just three days after Turkey as German units rushed for the Egyptian border.

nov24syriasurrenders.jpg


Less than a week later with the German army breathing on their doorstep, the Egyptian leadership broke any semblance of neutrality and threw their lot in with the British.

nov30warwithEgypttogetsuez.jpg


It was the wrong choice.

Less than a month later the German Afrika Corps consisting of a large number of infantry and one Corp of Mechanized Calvary under the command of Lt. General Rommel had cut a swath through the Suez Canal, through Alexandria, through Cario, to the southernmost deserts of Egypt, and had begun pushing into Italian territory once again. All this without significant British resistance.

“Where are the British? Where is Montgomery? Are they so desperate that they only can rely on the Italians!” cries an exasperated Rommel as he realizes the Brits are bottled up in the deserts of the Sudan and he must drive West to conquer North Africa. "L'audace, l'audace, toujours l'audace!" Rommel shakes his head and looks over the Suez, “Guess that they lost something since the time of Nelson.”

December 19, Channel Approaches

“Admiral our scout planes have reported the presence of over 25 British warships grouped into three fleets. They are currently attempting to close and identify ship types,” comes the report from a young ensign in the CIC room of the aircraft carrier Seydlitz.

Raeder begins to think, Now we can show the British exactly what German ships can do

“Begin preparing for anti-ship aircraft operations,” Raeder calmly orders. We’ll see how our naval Stukas do against British warships. “ And how well our SAMs do against the British fighters and bombers.

Twenty Minutes Later


“Our scout planes report 5 Carriers, 3 Battleships, and numerous screening vessels sir,” reports the ensign from before. Suddenly the bridge is loud with the sounds of officers giving reports.

“Sir, radar reports enemy bandits 50 miles out.”

“We still need to close another 100 miles before we can launch our own aircraft sir!” shouts Air Ops.

“Is there any chance that we can get air cover from the Luftwaffe?” Raeder asks.

“Not likely sir, most of the Luffwaffe is off in Turkey or patrolling the territory over France, there is little that they can spare sir,” the CAG responds.

“Very well gentlemen,” says Raeder, “Close the distance to the enemy fleet and to all air defense batteries, the order is to fire at will!”

Raeder wasn’t completely thrilled with the fact that his heavier anti-air guns had been replaced with rockets that had yet to prove their worth at sea, though they had been tested many, many times on land. Still, the fact is that we are firing on them from over the horizon. That has to have some effect on them.

“Time to engagement range?” Raeder asks already knowing the answer, too dammed long.

“Five hours sir, as long as they don’t continue to reposition to stay outside our range.”

It was too long indeed, as the British Fireflies and Barracudas continued through murderous, if less than perfect SAM fire. As they continued half of the Barracudas dove for the deck in preparation for torpedo attacks, while the rest of the British airplanes clawed at the sky to gain altitude for dive bomb attacks while German guns and their VT fused shells laid down a murderous concentration of flak and short ranged SAMs.

The British aircraft sticking to their doctrine began their runs on the four carriers at the center of the German formation. The torpedo planes flew low, below the decks of the German Heavy Cruisers, and shielded by the enemy warships managed to sneak in and seriously damage the carriers Clausewitz, Strasser, and Graf Zeppelin with their torpedo attacks but were unable to sink them or prevent them from continuing air ops. The dive bombers and fighters up high were far less lucky as the unprotected aircraft suffered hit after hit from the concentrated flak and SAM batteries that did not have to worry about striking their own warships.

“Mein Gott!” exclaims Admiral Raeder as he is knocked off of his feet when the Seydlitz takes no less than 4 torpedo hits from the British Barracudas, “Damage Report!”

“Sir the boilers are damaged and we can only barely make flight speed, there are fires over the ship, but they are coming under control. The Zeppelin and the Clausewitz have taken serious damage from torpedoes,” he stops as the AAA guns and the SAMs on the other warships begin firing at the retreating British warplanes. “And they are unlikely to begin flight ops until they have been repaired in port. The rest of the fleet has taken only minimal damage.”

We took down half of their aircraft before they could get into firing range, and only one damaged squadron has returned to the British carriers.”
Raeder thinks for a moment, “Gentlemen, there are four hours of daylight left, far too little left for the British to launch another attack. We will immediately begin heading for the French coast until just after dusk, then we will make our way into aircraft range of their fleet. Prepare the pilots for a dawn attack on the British fleet.

The Next Day, 06:00 Hours

After an attack by advanced naval variant aircraft, the best the German navy can muster are cloth bi-planes with their aerial torpedoes and light bombs. Despite this and their losses the previous afternoon, the German bi-planes drove their attack home with a furious vengeance through the heavy anti-air fire and in doing so seriously damaged the carriers Courageous and Glorious, the battleships Queen Elizabeth and Valiant. Perhaps more importantly one bomb dropping through an open hatch on the Battleship Barham struck a stockpile of stored anti-aircraft ammunition which detonated and exploded her main magazines and caused her to sink.
Following their first and last attack on the British fleet both fleets both sides sail for the nearest friendly port. For the Germans it is a realization that airpower can truly dominate the seas and that many more fleets are necessary to fulfill continuous combat operations against the British. The British however have lost a vital capital ship as well as several escorts and just a little bit of the numerical advantage that they still have.

North Africa, December 21

By the 21st of December the Africa Korps had driven to the southern reaches of Egypt having long since captured Cario and into Italian controlled Lybia. The Egyptians without funds and supplies finally lay down arms and begin marching through the burning sands to Cario under the watchful eyes of the German MPs.

dec21egyptfalls.jpg


As the year ends 18 squadrons of aircraft are transferred to the south of Italy where large stockpiles of anti-ship Fritz-X missiles and other more and less advanced anti-ship munitions were stockpiled. Their orders, sink the Regia Marina and all of the convoys headed to Lybia.​
 
Can I see a map of Sardinia and it's government, because I've benn seeing it as an independent state on some images.
 
Can I see a map of Sardinia and it's government, because I've benn seeing it as an independent state on some images.

Sardinia is a puppet of Germany actually since about 1935 or so. Militarily and Technologically Sardnia is a non-contributor to the Axis powers (it was part of the deal brokered with them so they wouldnt just rebel and give the island back to the Italians. Sardinia has a whopping 2 divisions of infantry and a single squadron of tactical bombers with escorts. Really the most useful thing it does is show me what is in the adjacent sea zones, I had a squadron of interceptors there once to cover the Med, but the convoys supplying my interceptors kept getting attacked so I stopped that.

theislandofsardiniaJan11940.jpg
 
Thanks!

Also, if you don't mind, but could you also grant independence to Brittany and the rest of the Celtic Nations too(and possibly Two Sicilies to go along with it)?
 
Thanks!

Also, if you don't mind, but could you also grant independence to Brittany and the rest of the Celtic Nations too(and possibly Two Sicilies to go along with it)?

Its possible that their liberation could come at some later date, but there are some who are looking at re-creating the Holy Roman Empire in Germany. As a side note, it was neither Holy, Roman, nor an Empire.

EDIT:

And after 6 years of in-game play I realize that I have a research assistant. Hits head on desk.
 
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The Beginning of 1940

January 1, 1940, London

The gravelly voice of the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill carries through the room, “Gentlemen, we find ourselves with the Rock and in quite a hard place. The Huns have grabbed quite a large portion of the Continent including the Suez Canal. Our allies are devastated, the French are a shadow of what they once were and are holed up in Africa unable to significantly contribute, the Poles were gone two bloody weeks before the French, the Dutch, the Danes, the Turks, Yugoslavia, Syria, Egypt, and the list simply continues on. What can we do about Germany, how do we check their aggression? Sir Boyd, what can the RAF do?”

“Very little I am afraid,” says Sir Owen Boyd, “The German anti-aircraft defenses on the Continent are exceedingly heavy, and fully 1/6th of our Strategic bomber force have been shot down or damaged so badly as to be scrapped. When they attack German provinces and they are forced to turn back before they can hit their assigned target, even with the nighttime raids we have begun. I see the RAF as having little effect in this war, outside of defending the British Isles and tactical combat in other locations.”

“Sir Chatfield, what can the Royal Navy do?”

“We certainly lost in our last clash with the German Navy this month,” Admiral Chatfield begins,”but it was a strategic victory for us. At that rate of exchange we can sink the entire German Navy were it to sortie ship for ship and end victoriously.” Looking around he sees Churchill’s eyes narrow dangerously at that he hurriedly continues on. “However that would leave us dangerously short of ships in other theaters, so the battle of attrition is not an option and what is to say that their fleet will sortie again even this year? For the moment we are keeping the sea lanes open, though the Jerries aren’t contesting them for some reason. Perhaps they don’t want to turn public opinion against them, like this were some sort of intra-national war and not two separate national cultures locked together in a desperate fight for survival.” He sighs and continues. “For the time being the Royal Navy can defend the British Isles with what we have, but gentlemen I implore you, we need more warships to defend the coast. I have read the same intelligence reports that you have, jerry has his attention turned toward the Soviet Union right now. I’m not an army man myself, but I think those jerries will go through the Soviets like a buzzsaw through butter”

“Sir Deverell, what can the Army accomplish?” asks a Winston Churchill that has suddenly aged ten years with worry.

“We will be moving units out of the British Isles and deploy them to the Sudan. Its not ideal, but we have to keep the jerries on their toes. Then again this entire thing might just be Carnaris trying to throw us off our game. We do believe though gentlemen that jerry simply doesn’t have the naval lift capacity to actually invade the British Isles. At least he won’t this year. Next may bring a different story.” Deverell looks at his counterparts in the RN and the RAF, “Gentlemen, it is up to your services to keep the jerries out of England. If you fail, we will be hard pressed to prevail no matter how hard we fight on the beaches.”

“And the Americans are as yet unprepared to assist us.” Churchill speaks softly, “God help us all.”


Berlin, Germany January 1, 1940

“In only 4 months we have made great progress towards victory,” Carnaris begins. “France is a shadow of her former glory, the Belgians are holed up in South Africa, the Poles, Turks, Egyptians, and the Syrians, are all wiped out, leaving nothing but pages in history books. The Italians too will soon be this way I am certain and we have guarantees with the Soviet Union that the Baltic will stay free of their influence. Enough though of our external politics, internally I am glad to report that Hitler is responding to the treatments he has been receiving since September, but he is still rather, mad. It would certainly be best if that isn’t made public and Mr. Hess agrees we me on this though he was unable to attend the meeting.

So gentlemen, what do we all need to know?”

“The Germany running rampant through the world will shortly come to an end. Yes, I realize that we still have a lot more to do before Germany is safe, but we are simply running out of trained manpower. We can strip garrisons out of some of the longest occupied territories, but that won’t be an issue unless the Soviets invade the Baltic nations. At that point should we decide to invade quite simply we still won’t have enough troops to garrison a quarter of the Soviet Union. Likely it would be much better for us to invade the Soviet Union this year rather than next as we have near numerical parity or superiority along most of the border. Secondly it won’t give them the time they desperately need to upgrade their equipment and retrain their troops into something other than the simple targets that they currently are. For political reasons however, I do not think that we dare move against them if they do not move against the Baltic States.” Beck sighs and puts a little more brandy in his coffee.

“The front in Central Africa, the Sudan, has stalled because we simply cannot move supplies sufficient for a major offensive, though the Italians in the Libyan Desert s are simply a few weeks to months away from being defeated. There also is little in central Africa that is of use to us at the moment as we have significant stockpiles. They lack supplies and support, which makes perfect sense as we own their factories and have for some time. Perhaps a month after the Italians in North Africa are crushed we will have sufficient control of the sea to invade Sicily. So, March or thereabouts Italy should fall. We also have plans to invade the Rock, but that will wait until any possible invasion of the Soviet Union.

I need not remind you gentlemen that the Soviet Union is our staunchest ideological enemy and very much likely the most dangerous opponent we will face before this war settles into a stalemate against the Americans as we stare at each other across the Atlantic and throw our rockets at each other. Once the Soviets are gone, we have taken Scandanavia, and we have closed off the Med, what more can we really do?”


Raeder speaks up, “At that point things become the responsibility of the Kreigsmarine to keep our coasts clear in the west. And I truly do not know if it will be possible to forge any sort of peace with the Americans once they enter the war. Roosevelt really seems to want our heads even though we have deliberately been avoiding the sinking of merchant shipping by U-boat except in some restricted waters.” He sips at his drink.

“Gentlemen, we started this war under the pretext of Danzig being a German city. We even offered to return Poland to the Poles in return for Danzig and a few dozen square kilometers of territory to provide a railway link to the city. But they refused and we are in the middle of a serious war. We had serious grievances with the French, the British, the Dutch, and the Belgians stemming from the last war and our history. I understand why we need to claim Gibraltar and Suez. I can even see why we need to drive the enemy out of Africa and capture all of Scandinavia. If the Soviets invade the Baltic we will have legitimate reasons to invade. But I cannot no matter how hard I wrack my brains I cannot see how we have any sort of claims on the Americas.

Our warships can reach the Americas, but it will take several years before we can actually attack the Americans in their home with ground troops. Do any of you have other suggestions?”

After this the room is silent with everyone deep in through before they all quietly shuffle out.

Some hours later Rudolph Hess wanders into the room and takes a look at the slides showing the current industrial production.

jan1interestingindustrialproduction.jpg


“And a hell of a lot more in the way of anti-aircraft sites… after a four months of failed air raids, you think the English and their allies would quit giving Germany so much scrap metal.

Jan1industrialemphasises.jpg


It is sad really that our troops are still using so much in the way of obsolete equipment, we’ll have to see about fixing that, but at least we have plenty of resources stockpiled. I've got no idea why our money supply is still increasing right now.

currenttechresearch.jpg


Hitler really would love to have some ballistic missiles waiting for him when we gets out of the hospital. Those computers do look promising however.

jan1techoverview.jpg


So this is what we can produce, very interesting. I’m glad to see that all the money we poured into rockets has assisted our aircraft so much.”

Finally Hess came upon what he was most interested in. The current theaters of combat operations.

The Med and North Africa
jan1northAfrica.jpg


“It looks like Rommel is just about ready to drive west again,” says Hess somewhat mockingly.

Western Atlantic
Jan1atlantictheater.jpg


“I don’t think we are going on any three hour cruise for some time, but the Brits ought to be getting prepared for us” Hess grins as he walks out.
 
January 1, 1940 Tobruk, Italian North Africa

Rommel wiped his brow and raised his field glasses to look once again at the burning city of Tobruk.

80,000 men and more defeated here not truly by strength of arms, but because there was no food to eat, no water to drink, and no shelter from this oppressive heat.

The 1st Mechanized Calvary Korps was set up outside of Tobruk preventing the two supplied Italian divisions from breaking out of the city. The attack was a half-hearted affair, made by tired men that were already under attack by two German Corps who had to attack if for no other reason than to know that when they surrendered they had done everything possible to protect their brothers in arms. The 1st Cav under Rommel knew that the Italians were low on supplies, their stockpiles were full, and the equipment that they were using was about to become obsolete… again.

By sunrise the Italian attack on the positions of the 1st Cav had ended and 6 hours later under the noon sun, the Italians in Tobruk surrendered as the German infantry overran the outer Italian positions. By the third of January Benghazi had been taken with only token resistance from Italian defenders. By the 16th the desert had become the best defense that the beleaguered Italians could provide. Despite the lack of Italian supplies, the wear and tear of the constant German advance meant that almost half of their vehicles were down with maintenance issues and the troops hadn’t had a not on the move meal for more than a week meant that the Germans were stopped outside of Bani Walid and forced to reorganize.

Ultimately the desert was truly the only difficulty that the Germans faced in North Africa as the Italians when they were supplied were merely nuisances or prisoners when they weren’t. On the 4th of February Rommel’s Mechanized Cav had captured Tripoli the last port in Northern Africa. By the 21st of February all that was left was to mop up in the Med.

feb21seewhattheafricakorpshasdone.jpg


The beginning of March had Denmark surrendering its mainland European holdings and German units rushed to Copenhagen to close the Baltic to British warships. In the Med a combination of daring destroyer torpedo and missile actions against the Italian fleet in conjunction with several costly dive bomb attacks left Sicily wide open to attack and German forces quickly crosses the strait under the cover of darkness.
march4denmarksurrenderswithoutafight.jpg


march10afootholdinsicily.jpg



Six years after the initial conflict where German forces were once stymied by a strong Italian fleet that fleet and the once proud Italian armies were gone now only hulks rusting on the bottom of the ocean and tanks burning in the desert sun were left to defend Italy from these foreign invaders and they had failed. Six long brutal years for the Italians and it was all over for them now.

march17italyhassurrendered.jpg


The month of March blew in like a lion and left like a lamb. There were though glimmers of war in the east as Stalin’s Red Army geared up to invade the Baltic States. Would Germany sit idly by and allow this to happen? Would the rest of the world fight the Red Threat or would Germany be vilified as the aggressor once again?
 
Having some heavy success, are we?:D
 
@ quaazi: Actually high command is intending to invade this year. The Soviets are looking more and more like they will invade the Baltics and I took the modified M-R pact where we only agreed to Poland, not the Baltic regions.

@ Nikolai: Indeed Germany is having success, perhaps too much success. I'm getting close to having some difficulty in finding units to cover the line and garrison my territories.

Hopefully the prelude to Barbarossa will be up tonight or tomorrow night, even if it is mostly just talking heads. I've found out that writing an AAR is a bit more work than I had thought it to be, though I have to admit I am enjoying the writing of it.
 
Eastbound and Down: A long way to go and only a short time to get there

April 1, 1940 A Month for Fools

“We have guaranteed the independence of the Baltic States. Surely, the Soviets know this and know that we will invade the moment the mud dries if they do annex the Baltics,” begins von Ribbentrop curiously silent up until now.

“But they will annex the Baltics one way or another,” counters Carnaris as he begins to count off points on his fingers. “One. They have already begun to mobilize their troops similarly to how we did just last fall though I suspect they will accomplish their goals without the use of military force. Two. After the events of the last year with so much of our industrial; production devoted to the production of replacement equipment to the troops they have finally outnumbered us by using their greatest resource of manpower. Their troops excluding their armored divisions are four generations or more behind our own. Their armor is about the same quality as ours is on paper seeing as we have intentionally neglected the production of armored units up to this point in time so that we can actually hold the territory that we have taken up to this date. Three. Imperial Russia had some claims on the area and now the Soviets seem to think that they should retain those claims. Four. They outnumber us along the border. Don’t think for a second they wouldn’t think of sending men against us unarmed to melt the barrels of our guns and then launch the real attack. Five. Our forces are dispersed throughout most of Europe and somewhat shortly we will have a real battle to contend with in Africa... but we can’t do anything about that until we improve our supply lines.”

“Isn’t that why we shouldn’t take on the Soviets then? Their infrastructure is terrible excluding any areas that they have taken over from other countries, most notably eastern Poland,” begins Fritz Todt who is cut off by Carnaris.

“Actually, the correlation of forces available at this time, or in a month or so when the ground dries out makes this the perfect opportunity to remove our second greatest threat at the moment.”

“The Americans, yes?”

“Indeed.”

Beck speaks up, “Assuming the Soviets violate the sovereignty of the Baltic States and we certainly think they will this is how we intend to deploy our forces.

may10howthebattlewilldevelopThenorth.jpg


The Northern group is comprised of some 68 divisions, primarily comprised of infantry and their supplementary artillery attachments. They will have the objectives of liberating the Baltics and driving east to capture Moscow and Leningrad with their stopping point being somewhere east of Moscow and north to the port of Murmansk.

may10howthebattlewilldevelopThesouth.jpg


The southern group has orders to sweep east through the Ukraine to Sevastopol, Karkov, and then to link up with the Turkish front somewhere around Stalingrad. Once they link up they will continue to push east until the Soviets surrender.

may10howthebattlewilldevelopTheTurkishFront.jpg


The final group involved in this operation will move through the Caucasus Mountains. The primary objective of this group is to capture the oil producing region of Baki and then link up with the Southern group. Once the Southern and Turkish groups have linked up units will move with all speed east to the Ural Mountains.

Of course the plan will change to reflect battlefield and supply conditions. Remember gentlemen, if we cannot get supplies to our troops they are effectively useless. In the meantime however industrial production will continue as before steadily expanding the Heer, especially our mobile forces though it might be worth mentioning the production of our 4th generation V weapons, that simply won’t be ready in time for the campaign. Perhaps for Seelowe though. We will only truly be able to make significant gains this summer, if the campaign lasts into next year I cannot make any assurances about our chances of success.” Beck looks around at the room again gone quiet.

April was a quiet, but busy month for Germany as the nation watched as the Soviets slowly annexed the Baltic States.

may5thesovietunionviolatesthenon-aggressionpactsinthebaltics.jpg


The Soviets celebrated the non-intervention of the foolish German forces while the “fooled” Germans received new equipment, trained for low supply conditions and received updated battlefield intel from pictures taken from the new prototype space rockets.

With the Ukrainian plains nearly dried on the 10th of May, German forces crossed the border and began engaging their strongest ideological enemy, the Soviet Union, on a front stretching from the Baltic to the Black Sea. The Soviets were now the fools or were the Germans?

may10wefightthecommies-1.jpg
 
An impressive miltary campaign! I like the way you've organized all the theatres and has these set goals.

What do you think of Iron Cross? Are the extra evenets/provinces worth the money or do you think AoD is fine by itself? I'm considering getting IC and the great map screenshots are persuasive! :)
 
Update coming momentarily. I don't know if I'll get another out before the middle of next week. If I don't don't expect to see an update till maybe this time next week. Hurray spring break.

@ quaazi: I think I kicked some ass, check out the kill ratios at the end of the Barbarossa update. I've noticed IC getting laggy on my labtop and a couple of test games I ran with IC, but this game is still running smoothly (I'm played up to Jan of 42) but that might have something to do with all of the small nations in South America being devoured by each other and the effective removal of the Red Army from the game this game year.

@ Waluster: I wish I could say that I've really organized my theaters as I've gone along. Part of it is my difficulty in running a serious engagement in more than one theater so that is likely why they are set up the way they are. The goals though were and still are important to me as they let me plan my long term strategy.. I still have no idea how I will deal with the Americans, rockets will likely play a major part in it Though I'll wait for them to declare war on me.

Sometimes it feels like the extra provinces are more trouble than they are worth, but I do like the new tech tree... even if you have to be very careful in how you research things to not get behind in research too far, though there are techs that just demand to be expanded upon immediately (typically some pre-war industrial techs in my Germany games). AoD is a lot of fun and so is Iron Cross, but Iron Cross does eat up a whole lot more memory/computing time than AoD. My labtop will play AoD but not HOI3 and is really laggy in IC, while my desktop gets laggy enough to be frustrating around 1943 or so in HOI3 after doing a massive buildup as the Soviet Union.

I'm glad that you are enjoying the AAR. Writing a military style AAR certainly is easier than some of the character driven AARs and I'm not getting into the battle level detail that quaazi is in his AAR. At this time I know I can't handle an update, even a short update for every two days of combat, the general strategy is definitely more my style.
 
Across One Long Month: Operation Barbarossa

May 10 Berlin, Von Ribbentrop’s Office

“I’m confused as to why you gentlemen are here today,” Ribbentrop begins. “Yes I understand your governments wish to declare war, but both myself and my government do not see any possible benefits for your government in declaring war upon us.” He looks at his watch, “Gentlemen I am now late for lunch, please leave your papers on my desk and join me for lunch if you will. We might now be enemies, but that doesn’t mean we cannot be civil.

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“Do they all just want to have lunch with me?”

10 Downing Street, London May 17

“To recap the events of the last week gentlemen we must cover several subjects.

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Firstly, Jerry has pushed the Soviets out of the Baltics and two days ago declared the area to be ‘secure and to be made independent at a later date’ likely they will never release the Baltic States to be even puppets of theirs.

Moving on we can see maps that we have obtained from Stalin’s Intelligence Service, not that they know that we have them. We aren’t sure how much of the front is shown correctly regardless if this is being shown the situation must be truly dire.
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We’ve identified this formation as belonging generally to the Northern Group. They have nearly pushed to Leningrad, though the fortresses are giving them some difficulty at this time.

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In the south, German forces have pushed to the eastern Romanian border and are continuing their drive east.

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German forces have for the most part begun crossing into the open plains and desert once they do, they will be able to exploit their speed advantage to begin interfering with the supply lines in the rear.

“Gentlemen Jerry has driven nearly 500 miles east with the front running just west of the line of provinces that connect Sevastopol and Leningrad. Army Intelligence suggests that Uncle Joe has lost close to a million men in combat captured, killed, or severely injured and 90 divisions overrun or encircled. He does however nearly twice that number of men in reserve and ready to call up, should they be able to arm and train these men. Jerry timed the invasion on this nearly perfectly gentlemen, the mud that was holding back the retreating Red Army has now dried up and gone away just in time to keep advancing east. It is harder to understand the Turkish front and what resistance is due to the Soviets and what is simply due to the mountains, personally though I believe that most of their difficulty is simply moving through the mountians,” The RAF group captain looks around at the assembled ministers, salutes and leaves them to their discussion.

"If Hitler invaded Hell, I would at least make a favourable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons,” Churchill begins, “Now what can we give the Soviets?
“Quite frankly we don’t have a lot we can spare as the cupboards are rather bare, but we can provide them with supplies and little else unfortunately. The German fleet is still in dock where they retreated after sinking the Barham last December so we have little to fear from raiders unless they are hiding fleets in the Baltic.”

“Once we get the supplies to Stalin, how do we know the Germans won’t just overrun them before they can be put to use?”

And so the meeting continued on planning exactly what aid could be provided to the Soviets when word came that the German army had captured Kiev.

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The next night Minsk fell to the German Army.

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British supplies began arriving the evening of the 24th in Murmansk as the German army captured Leningrad.

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May 25

The Eastern Front, Sebastopol
The city was blasted into ruin by the artillery accompanying the infantry into the city. The sudden dogged determination of the Soviet defenders did not help forcing the guns to time and again blast strong points where the Soviets had fortified their positions to rubble. The dogged advance moved east to link up with their brothers who had come up out of Turkey.

The Turkish Front
Baki had been captured with its rich oil fields no longer producing for the Soviet war machine. Soviet units were still present in the mountains and while more than a nuisance had been contained. A gamble was made in sending Hausser’s 3rd Cav east past the lines in an attempt to force a political solution to the war.

The Heersgruppen Nord and Mitte

The fighting in the North had steadily become more difficult as the Soviet leadership and brutal German assaults had decimated the politically motivated military leaders, unfortunately by the time they got their act together General von Blomberg’s headquarters broke through heavy fighting south-west of Moscow and began the assault. Facing heavy resistance the assault pioneers were pinned down until the arrival of two fresh infantry corps that proceeded to advance into the city. By the end of the month only independent pockets of resistance were left and Germany held the capital of the Soviet Union.

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June 4, 10 Downing Street, London

“Are we certain?” Churchill asks his aide in a grave tone.

“We are. The German government will announce it over the radio tonight. The Soviet Union has surrendered all of her territory west of the Caspian Sea.”

“Who can stop the Axis now?” Churchill mutters, “Cabinet meeting in two hours.”

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Summary of casualties for Operation Barbarossa (May 10- June 4 1940)
German Manpower Losses: 35,524 :)
Soviet Manpower Losses: 1,675,000 :eek:
Soviet Troop Losses: 200+ divisions
 
Look out for Haiti... I'd be prepared for a South American D-Day soon! That is pretty crazy though with them all backstabbing each other.

As for Iron Cross for $5 (sale at gg) I'm definitely buying it so thanks for information on it. I do love all those flavour events.
 
@ Warluster: Hope you have been enjoying Iron Cross. I enjoy it, but it can certainly use some extra polishing.

@ quazzi: The Red Army really stiffened up in that last week or so of combat. I understand the need for the Soviet Player to have a chance against the Germans, but the increases in ESE ought to be tied to some combination of VP lost and time, while having a minimum time for an increase in ESE. Either that or the Soviets managed to retrain all their troops while on the frontline to be 10% more efficient then mine... before the Bitter Peace they had a 110% ESE somehow.

Update momentarily