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elbasto

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Aug 12, 2003
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The Defender of Power and Development or: How I learned to stop worrying and love the Kremlin



World_Russia_Kremlin_016945_.jpg



(the original title was too long for the name of the thread.
 
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Introduction:


First, as my lawyers recommended, the Disclaimer: I don’t speak English properly so please, ready yourselves to find a series of spelling and grammar mistakes unworthy of Korean kinder-garden students (or in a western scale, a TOEFL certificated student).

Good evening, or whatever time of the day in which you are reading these lines is it. As the Hearts of Iron (HOI) series goes, I think that the best, most complete game of them all is Arsenal of Democracy. Although I have yet to try HOI III in a high end rig, at the moment and judging by users reviews, it doesn’t seem to be a game as complete as AOD. It’s a pity that the main limitation of this game is its programming/engine, which makes the game speed sluggish in the later years even in the best equipped systems.

Still, AOD is one of my favourites Paradox Entertainment games, together with “Victoria: An Empire Under the Sun - Revolutions”, and “Europa Universalis III: Heir to the Throne”.

Now that AOD is slowly slumbering into the darkness, overshadowed by newer titles, I would like to make a tribute to it by writing an AAR, just like I did with Victoria. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed playing the game and maybe even awakening a little melancholy inside you that tempts you to play AOD one more time.

So, without further ado, let’s begging with the matters at hands. I bring you, “The Defender of Power and Development or: How I learned to stop worrying and love the Kremlin” a USSR After Action Report, taking place during the game’s Grand Campaign.

I am using version 1.07.

Performance imposed limitations: Due to the laggish performance in later years, I have disabled spying missions in order to optimise performance. In order to do so, I edited a line in the misc.txt file
Code:
# Max intelligence expenditure
	0.10
by changing it to 0.00

Lets see if it works.

Finally, I will disable fog of war, simply because I enjoy the game more that way =P (although it also serves to counter the lack of intelligence funding)
 
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Abstract: Best practices for the dictator of a world power, a working paper


As with many nations in AOD, the USSR starts in a very delicate position although it has a huge potential, one can argue even on par with the US (at least during the game’s timeframe). Nonetheless, in order to reach our potential, we need to establish our priorities. From this time onwards I will refer to the USSR in the first person as I am after all, the grey entity that controls everything and everyone.

So, let’s start from the begging, establishing specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time-bound objectives (ring any bells? SMART?).

Targets for 1936 - early 1937: Change ideologies, disband navy and air force, disband all attachments that are not engineers or artillery. Maximize Hawk Lobby Slider in spite of dissent.

Targets for 1936 - 39: Build 5 industrial complex in the largest 20 economic centers. Invest as much as possible in infrastructure in those centers plus in the provinces within the top 20 resource productions list.

Targets for 1939-1940: Build up an army and initiate hostilities against Germany before or during their declaration of war against Belgium.

Targets for 1940+: Although we won’t know our tactical targets until we get directly involved in the war, our long term target regarding armed forces is as follows:
  • 252 infantry divisions with artillery brigades that we will organize into 84 armies of 3 divisions each.
  • 40 armor divisions with heavy armor brigades and 20 mechanized divisions also with heavy armor attachments that will be organized into 20 armies of 2 armor + 1 mech.
  • 100 fighter wings organized into 25 flotillas.
  • 48 tactical bombers wings accompanied by escort fighters that will be organized in 12 air flotillas.
  • 16 CVs, 32 CVLs and 64 CAs with radar and AAA atachements that will be organized into 4 fleets of 4 CVs, 8 CVLs and 12 CAs.
  • An undisclosed ammount of paratroopers, air transport wings, air cavalry divisions, ICBMs, nuclear warheads (we don’t even know what those are yet) and naval transports.

I know these are ambitious numbers but rather than “targets” those are aims, since we haven’t defined a time scope for them. We should “tend” to reach them.
Finally, we have a very long term aim of maximizing our national resources output through infrastructure and build as much industries as we can feed with local raw materials, disregarding puppet “trades”. But I highly doubt that we will reach this goal since they would take years, there are a lot of worthy adversaries out there and the game turns sluggish during later years.


Policies:
  • No trade with anyone until the beginning of the war vs. Germany et al.
  • War vs. Germany et al.
  • Don’t maintain captured provinces that are not Russian cores and that can be liberated, unless the resulting dissent would be too high to be deemed acceptable at the time.
  • Check every year for better ministers and change them as soon as possible.
  • Sliders priorities: Hawk lobby, Professional Army and Interventionism. Once these are maxed we will try to maximize Open Society, Democracy and move towards the center of the ideological spectrum. These last moves will be made as long as they don’t change the government officials, since the authorities for a non-communist Russia suck (otherwise we would move towards democracy).

Research priorities:

tech+policies.jpg

We’ll go shopping for all of these

tech+policies+2.jpg

Some of these

tech+policies+4.jpg

And of course, the cherries of the last course

1st priority: Industrial technologies.
2nd priority: Infantry techs.
3rd priority: Land doctrines. Notice that we will change to grand battle plan aiming to reach infiltration in depth. I know that this does not optimize the Soviet Union’s performance in an early war but in the long term seems to be the best doctrine of them all.
4th priority: Tanks and artillery.
5th priority: Airplanes.
6th priority: Air doctrines and secret weapons.
7th priority: Naval doctrines. We have also change the original one and are aiming to base strike doctrine (this maximizes CVs performance)
We will only research CVs, CVLs and CLs as well as Cavalry divisions in order to get air cav after 1943/4.

We will try to reach infantry, armor, artillery and air technologies one year ahead of their historical year. We will start researching land doctrines one year ahead of their historical year. Even if there are no technologies left to reach in any year, we will no research outside the listed target technologies, I don’t mind suffering some extra penalty.


About the player: Let me get this straight from the start. I suck at HOI, I always did and I don’t plan on changing that, since I enjoy role playing so there is no need for the game engine to force me "optimize the game outcome or die" (which is why I don’t use mods). You will see some role playing as you must have deduced from my sliders priorities, although in a role playing spirit I should balkanize every territory I can, due to performance limitations, I will try to release the smallest possible number of puppets (less countries equals better performance).

Now to the primordial stuff has been taken care of, and as WOPR would say SHALL WE PLAY A GAME?
 
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Chapter 1: In the beginning there was the light of men. The opening moves, 1936.

The state of the union after the opening moves.

ScreenSave1.bmp

Somebody has’t been taken its bitchy pills

In order to reorganize (and partially disband) our notyetgloriousbutabouttobecomesoorelse armed forces, we have recalled them to Moscow. During peace time they will be organized in random armies leaded by bean counters (aka logistic wizards[i/]).

The effect of new policies will take a couple of months to kick in but as soon as they do we will be extremely efficient at eliminating dissent, without the need of some classical Soviet methods that usually involve vodka and a Gulag.

Initially our population was being tamed at a speed of 0.11% / month. After May the 1st (workers day!) our new policies enter in effect and we are reducing dissent at a speed of 0.15% / month.

March 9: A day that will live in infamy, Germany re-occupied the Rhineland.
March 26: A day that will live in infamy, Japan’s institutions suffer a fatal blow after a right-wing coup d’état.
April 23: A day that will live in infamy, Nationalist China and Communist China sign a peace treaty.
April 23: A day that will life in the worker’s lives, the USSR start a process that aims to guarantee the sovereignty of Albania, Nationalist China, Communist China, Spain, Luxembourg, Poland, Denmark, France, The Netherlands and the Chinese satellite states.


The Spanish Civil War:

On July 17 1936, Spanish military establishment decide that the infiltration of left wing extremists and anarchist elements in the elected government couldn’t be ignored any longer; they name themselves as the saviors of the nation and start a massive uprising.

Although the Soviet Politburo can relate to the rebels more than with the elected Spanish government (after all, who hasn’t murdered “unreliable” members of the government just to replace them with puppets) due to the negative impact it would have in Public Relations, we decide to provide the now labeled “Republicans” with some token support.

spanish+civil+war+intervention.jpg

The starting positions

Both sides have two important Spanish economic centers, with 7 IC each, and in both cases at least one is isolated from the bulk of their territories.

Although the Nationalists have to rebuild all of their infrastructure and manufacturing facilities, this is a much easier task than that of the republicans that have to eliminate 28% of dissent that not only reduces their production capabilities but it also has a strong negative impact in the fighting capabilities of their troops.

The aforementioned situation as well as the fact that Nationalist forces control Madrid, paints a grim outlook for the “Republican” side.

We will wait and see but more importantly we will watch and learn.


On early August we finally manage place the population under control. As soon as we reach this landmark, we moved our sliders towards Hawk Lobby. This process of generating dissent, eliminating dissent, moving sliders, and generate more dissent will keep on going until we max out hawk lobby and interventionism.

Average game speed in 1936: 2.5 seconds / day.
 
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Well, at first i was like "damn, he will learn and count every single moddifier with mathemathical accuracy and make out of aod play a sc-like play" but then i found one word "suck" and i cooled off knowing you are a decent person and not a robot :D

Anyway, since i didnt see any other people around declaring they are Asians,(well maybe besides those who played China :D ) on behalf of Europe, no, on behalf of AARland State of AoD i welcome the Wanderer form Far East(Korea) :)

and it's nice to see another SOVAAR.
 
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Well, at first i was like "damn, he will learn and count every single moddifier with mathemathical accuracy and make out of aod play a sc-like play" but then i found one word "suck" and i cooled off knowing you are a decent person and not a robot :D

Anyway, since i didnt see any other people around declaring they are Asians,(well maybe besides those who played China :D ) on behalf of Europe, no, on behalf of AARland State of AoD i welcome the Wanderer form Far East(Korea) :)

and it's nice to see another SOVAAR.

Thanks for your comments! It's nice to know that someone is reading.

I am actually South American and not related to Korea in any way but since Korea has been systematically ranking n° 1 education quality, I was trying to make a joke regarding their soontobeourhopefulybenevolentoverlords children.

Nah, this won't be a mathematical AAR, if you like those I recommend you read Kanitatlan's outstanding AARs.

I'll try to role play a little bit, but changing the Soviet policies. My long term objective is the development of Russia but when it comes to military operations, I will focus on quality, not in numbers.

Stay tuned, more to come.
 
Chapter 2: Patience my young Padawan, patience, 1937.


It is the beginning of 1937 and we have changed our policies thrice towards hawk lobby and we are now focusing on professionalizing our armed forces. We’ve finished the first round of 15 IC (I forgot to prioritize 5 IC) attaining an additional tech team slot.

Germany seems to have resource problems since their IC oscillates between 183 and 200.

The Spanish Civil War seems to be in a stalemate mainly due to the very favourable terrain conditions for the defenders in both sides.

spanish+civil+war+1937.jpg

Rivers, mountains and hills

The least difficult province to attack by anyone seems to be Guadalajara, which is coincidentally the best defended one and while both Nationalist industrial centers (Sevilla and Madrid) are directly exposed to Republican attacks, that’s not the case of Valencia and Barcelona.

Nonetheless, considering that the Nationalist army consists of 11 Inf + 2 LArm + 1 Arm + 1 Mtn + 8 Militia + 1 GAR while the Republican army consists of 19 Inf + 1 Cav + 1 Arm + 7 Milita, the Nationalists have the upper hand in equipment and their IC is higher (23 effective vs. 20 effective with same central planning sliders).

Although we could easily help the Republicans with free supplies, we have no true interest in this. Independent communists allies are not what we need nor want in the long term, regardless of our official speechs.

In July 1937 Japanese forces invade Nationalist China. The politburo decides to send some supplies, initially since this would help us move towards Interventionism (by now, hawk lobby is already maximized). The “Operation Zet” as the aid shipments were known, would last for some years to come.

Japan+vs+Nationalists+1937.jpg

The recall of the German military mission will not help the Chinese cause, clearly.

Notice Communist China’s neutrality.

In Spain, although no significant changes in territory took place during 1937, the Republican IC plummeted to 18 while the Nationalists now have 23 industrial complexes at their disposal.

No, we won’t help the Republicans, there is no such thing as a “Free Lunch” and we will keep our policies of zero trade.


Average game speed in 1937: 3.5 seconds / day.
 
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Chapter 3: All quiet in the Western Fron... OMG NO!, 1938.




The+great+officer+purge.jpg

Why, why, why, why...



Apparently our administration was not very well regarded by all the Soviet subjec... eer, glourios citizens. In consequence, we now have a huge, huge dillema in our hands...

What shall we do? Kill our assets and hinder our war waging capabilities for several years or paralyze our economy for well over a year?

Stay tuned and you will find out... right now.

We click our mouse, enter the shower, open the cold faucet, take a fetal position and start moving back and forward while crying.

We choose “no need for brutality”, our dissent is now 55%, thanks to an outstandingly timed cabinet reshuffle (that should have taken place in early 1937). It will take 366 days to get rid of so much dissent.

We have also lost 2 tech teams.

The consequences of this decision, will last for years to come, and it has set us back several year.

Thankfully, we can continue building our 20 IC, some infrastructure and a serial line of engineers to equip our mobile forces.

Before our hands start to wrinkle in the shower, Germany annexes Austria, so we are now cursing while crying....

But not everything is bad news:

chasan+lake+incident.jpg

The Chasan Lake incident... I’ll happily trade one mediocre military leader for a hawk lobby move






I’ll take that back, everything is bad news...

Germany+1938.jpg

Mommy...


Japan+vs+Nationalists+1938.jpg

Buah...



What happened to the Italian interests in Austria?!

What happened to the British and French commitment in Czechoslovakia?!

What happened to the military maxim “never wage a land war in Asia”?!

What’s happening to the world?! Can’t you all live in peace (so that we can come over and take what we want)?!

Grim times indeed...


Average game speed in 1938: 4 seconds / day (with zoomed camera).
 
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I am always supporting SOVAARs :)

awww so this game still belongs to the hairy men living in that puny little penisule in the far west and island on the far east.... :/

GOOD IT'S NOT and i bet Kanitatlan is making a "bisu build" and launching archons after that in mp games...

"What happened to the Italian interests in Austria?!

What happened to the British and French commitment in Czechoslovakia?!

What happened to the military maxim “never wage a land war in Asia”?!

What’s happening to the world?! Can’t you all live in peace (so that we can come over and take what we want)?!

Grim times indeed..."

what about adding to the military maxim "never wage war on Russian land" a soviet inversion "Russian land wages war on YOU" :D
 
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Chapter 4: The fond memories of better, simpler times, Q1 & Q2 1939.

The very present threat of Germany’s bellicose policies and the growing threat of a roaming Japanese army on the east, force us to alter our priorities.

We will now star to reinforce our depleted land divisions and on June we will start to fully fund our military personnel. Furthermore, as soon as we research 1939 infantry we will start funding upgrades.

By September we plan to start a build up program of infantry and as soon as we research medium tanks, armor.

the+state+of+the+union+1939.jpg

The USSR, a paper tiger at least and hopefuly just for the time being.

By march we realize that we need 1,000 IC to fully upgrade our current forces. That’s gonna hurt the budget.

In Q2 1939, the western allies guarantee Polish independence soon after the German annexation of Memel and Italy declares war on Albania, somehow our interventionism policies don’t move even after guaranteeing Albanian independence in 1936...
6_6

Does anyone know why?


August 24, 1939, a day that will live in infamy. Although not necessarily in Russian history books =D

molotov+ribentrop.jpg

The Molotov - Ribbentrop pact, the perfect definition of a win win

Let me tell you a secret... *I love signing stuff that I know won’t abide*... hehehe.

Just don’t tell it to my bank manager. Really. I would have to kill you. And burn your cattle. And take your women. And enslave your children. You know, the usual drill.

August 30, 1939:So it begins

so+it+begins.jpg

With an uncontested control of all of the German institutions, its head of state orders the invasion of Poland

An unprepared western alliance and a outclassed Poland now face the most powerful military machine in world’s history (to date).
 
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Chapter 5: Going shopping and then berserk, the Politburo’s favorite activities. 1939 - 1940.

On September 1, South Africa realises that they have more important things to worry at home (namely, a minority composed by the majority of its population) and leaves the western alliance.

In the mean time, we teach the Japanese a lesson:
Khalkin+Ghol.jpg

Revenge is a dish better served cold, and what's colder than Siberia!? MMBBUAHAHAA (now try not to think in Ricardo Montalban’s boobs).

In a fortnight, Poland falls and we are thirteen million subjects richer.
Eastern+Poland+to+USSR.jpg

Like taking candy from a child... that has been beaten to dust by another adult.

1940+start+of+hostilities.jpg

Seems that France will have to face an herculean task...

The Spanish Civil War finally ended in September 1939 when Franco's forces marched triumphant over the remains of Republican held Spain.

Quite an eventful month if you ask me.



The Finnish Winter War and the Baltic Expedition

November the 14th, 1939.

finnish+winter+war.jpg

Oh noes, -10 relations with Norway... mmhp... mmmhhpfff... MBBUAHAHAHA

The plan is fairly straightforward:
finnish+winter+war+2.jpg

Such complexity is burning my head

You see, we outgun them, outclass them and outnumber them. Their only significant advantage is winter. And since we are Russians, we thrive in winter (not really but we need to encourage our soon to be dead conscripts).

Our forces allocated for offensive operations in the theatre are as follows:
1. 30 infantry divisions with attached artillery support distributed in 10 armies of 3 divisions each. Most of them have 1936 equipment but some already use 1939 ordinance.
2. 4 Mobile armies each consisting of 1 light armor division with engineers attached and 2 motorized divisions, also with engineers attached.
3. 1 HQ with engineers attached.

We also have 9 divisions on defensive duties that may be required to engage in faint attacks in the northern border to keep Finnish forces pinned down.

On November 29th, after the capture of Helsinki, the Finnished (see what I did there?) asked for terms of which we gave none. After all, we can’t afford to have a potential German ally in our rearguard.

By November the 9th, after succeeding in all our objectives, we had increased the size of our alliance by installing a puppet regime in Finland.

One down.

Since the signing of the treaty with Germany, we’ve been demanding territory from the Baltic states, which dismissed us blatantly.

Now that we’ve taken care of the Finns, we will secure the Baltic coast swiftly.

In January the 1st we declared war on this alliance of Lilliputian nations, draw a straight path towards their capitals, and by the 15th the flags on official buildings had been replaced.


With the agreement signed with the Germans fulfilled, we have to focus on the impeding storm.

1940+production+queue.jpg

Soviet build queue, mid 1940

The situation of the armed forces hadn’t change since the briefing shown on chapter 4, so we are rushing for survival.

If we can manage to keep our losses to the German onslaught to a minimum, we should be able to lower a gear in the production speed of infantry units by late 1940 allowing us to free IC for future upgrades.

We expect to be able to start building an air force by 1943, when new models become available.

Let’s wait an see, we have a huge fish to catch.
 
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Chapter 6: The great patriotic war, or how to take advantage of favourable situations while putting catchy names on our plans. 1940 - ???


In mid March Germany started its planned invasion of Denmark and Norway. Their aims were to secure an additional base of operations from where to launch attacks into the British islands once (if) France had been subdued while at the same time, blocking the Öresund straits, keeping the Royal Navy from their northeastern coasts.

Nonetheless this could turn out to be in our favor, if this spreads the German forces. On the negative side, it also opens an additional theatre of operations since we share a northern border with Norway. We’ll see what the outcome is.



The Plan:

Most professionals say that a plan does not survive its first contact with reality but that you still need one before any operation.

The deployment of our forces was rather uniform amongst the German/Romanian border (9 or 12 divisions per province), plus 7 divisions in northern Finland.

We are not in conditions to face the German armed forces which although similar in size to the Soviet army, it has a total of 40 armored divisions (considering light and medium armor). Therefore we decided to look for some appropriate defensive position.

The Northern Theatre
1940+Northern+theatre.jpg

Our objectives are the provinces behind the dashed line

The Central Theatre:
1940+center+theatre.jpg

Which is where we will dig in

Notice that if we manage to take over those positions we will be behind rivers which should provide us with a more advantageous defensive position. This has a mayor drawback which is of course the fact that carrying on with offensive operations will be also harder for us.

Since our intentions are to remain tactically on the defensive but strategically on the offensive, we need to take the fight to the Germans.

The land behind the defensive positions is of no strategic value for our soon to be enemies. But we can’t advance much more without risking the utter destruction of our forces.

Therefore, we will target something which the Germans won’t be able to defend as easily as their own land and which has a high strategic value for them.

Romanian oil.

The Southern Theatre
1940+souther+theatre.jpg

The jewel of the German crown



The beginning of the hostilities:

Taking advantage of the fact that Germany had deployed 8 divisions into Norway (divisions that we hope to tie in our north most border), the Soviet Union informed the Kingdom of Romania that as of 00:00 hours of April 15th 1940 a state of war existed between the two countries.

That same day the German ambassador in Moscow contacted chancellor Molotov in order to inform him that due to the hostilities initiated by the Soviet Union he was ordered to deliver a declaration of war to the Kremilin.

War, in a scale never before seen in mankind’s tenure history, had truly begun.

Initially the Germans were caught off guard.

1940+first+shots.jpg

The road for Berlin lies open

With German forces rushing to the east as fast as mechanically possible, we must hurry and try to reach our targeted defensive position before the German armor arrives.

At the beginning of the conflict, our primary targets are securing the Polish/German border and knocking Romania out of the war in order to deprive Germany of their badly needed oil.


That same week, Italy announced its alignment with Germany, opening a second front for France. Hopefully, the French will manage to relocate their forces before it’s too late. Hungary joined Germany the next day and our troops will do their best to keep the respectable Hungarian army at bay.

Before the end of the year, Spain, Bulgaria and Portugal aligned besides Germany in what they saw as a crusade against the communist plague (I’ll blush if you keep saying such nice things of me). Yugoslavia on the other hand, joined Germany, then left Germany and joined the western allied then left the western alliance and re-joined Germany... Shifty Yugoslavians.
 
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Chapter 7: The plan gets crushed by the reality (and terrain) 1940



In the center, we met the targets without much trouble, simply waving away some lone divisions probably left on anti-partisan duties.

After initial success in the southern front, we ended bogged down in Romania where German troops redeployed before our men could pass the Siret River (the second one if you come invading from the USSR) mainly due to the lackluster infrastructure and hard terrain.

The northern front was the most disastrous one. German troops redeployed at a never before seen speed. Not only the stopped our offensive, they break through our far superior in numbers armies and sarted wreaking havoc in our rearguard.

Eventually we managed to turn disaster into an opportuinity:

1940+German+Breakthrough+turned.jpg

11 enemy divisions, one of which was an armored one, gone

Although this was surely a setback for Germany we lost momentum and in consequence were forced to “tango” for several months, redeploying to defend from incoming attacks, trying to put together a counter offensive that couldn’t be, etc.

Thanks to the German speed and the proximity and numbers of their allies, the eastern front soon turned into a conflict of attrition.

Just as planned by the Politburo, because Germany and central Europe can’t win a war of attrition against the USSR

Thankfully, it seems to be that our men outclass the Germans, since we have managed to upgrade all our divisions to 1939 models, while they still haven’t been able to.
 
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Chapter 8: Madness? THIS IS THE WESTERN FRONT!



Belgium, which had seen its border filled with German armor and with fresh memories of the last war, saw the redeployment of German forces as its only chance to save itself from a second devastation and proactively joined the allies. Hopefully this will tie up additional German Forces.

This allowed the French to take the fight to the Germans while at the same time, ravaging over norther Italy going as far as to enter Germany from Austria all this while holding at bay the Spaniards.

1940+Ravaging+France.jpg

No matter the outcome of the war, the French army’s performance will remain to be the most well regarded of the entire conflict

The British performance on the other hand was lackluster and target of mockery for several decades.

1940+The+Med.jpg

With Gibraltar and Suez in Axis hands, the Mare Nostrum was reborn - Rule Italia

Not only did they leave their allies on their own without landing a single troop in continental Europe when there were more than reasonable chances of victory (had they intervened), but they lost a land war against Italy, which was being used as a mop by France which was at the same time defending France and Belgium.

By the time the UK was expelled from northern Africa continental France had been overrun but the remaining French troops kept fighting in Algiers, fending off Spanish and Italian attacks with only 4 IC left to supply their troops.

This map represent the status of the African Front in October.

1940+Gallant+France+in+the+Med.jpg

Gallant France had a very clear objective: Victoire ou la mort!

Notice the huge number of troops relocating from France towards the Eastern Front. Most of them are actually Spanish and Italian troops committed to fight communism and help their distressful allies.

Hadn’t France held back the Germans, Italians and Spaniards for such a long time, the eastern front would have been VERY compromised. Their efforts and bravery brought them glory and saved countless Soviet lives.
 
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Chapter 9: The iron string puppeteer, the beginning of a new hobby. 1940


Four months after the beginning of our invasion we have met both of our strategic objectives.
- Objective n° 1 of the highest priority: Keep the Germans at bay, holding our positions while bleeding their forces.
- Objective n° 2 paramount for a successful campaign: Romania and its oil are now under Soviet control.

1940+Romania+Changes+Sides.jpg

The best side is the winner side.

As a secondary objective, unimportant but still needed for ultimate victory, we have also taken Bulgaria out of the war.

1940+Bulgaria+Changes+Sides.jpg

Ok, I was going to ask for it anyway but it is very considerate from your part

Notice that our forces hadn’t occupied a single Bulgarian province and that they were still in contact with Germany through Yugoslavia.

It seems that in their opinion the European Alliance is doomed to fall.

In the battle at the background you can see that German troops seem to be a little outdated, although those could probably be Hungarian troops. Anyway they also have problems reinforcing their divisions.

As mentioned before, in this scenario Germany does not stand a chance to win an attrition war against Russia. Specially against an enemy that’s on par technologically (at least regarding infantry, artillery and doctrines) and better equipped.

Our main limitation is the fact that we only have a single HQ. Although we are building more they take a lot to build and we can’t afford increasing the production speed of our forces.
 
Chapter 10: i am sorry to hear about your losses... NOT. 1940

Thanks to France’s performance, the Germans were fighting to the last man in order to buy precious days for their forces to redeploy from the western front.

Since the Wehrmacht had a very limited supply of assets, they had to choose between fanatically defending every inch of German land or defending elastically while helping their allies survive.

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The German commander does not seem to be very amused about the high command’s decision

We are breaking through Yugoslavia, beyond which lies the soft German underbelly and the pitiful Italian resistance.

Although the Germans are far from defeated, we need a change of objectives:
1° - Secure the spoils of war that are vulnerable to being taken by the treacherous British.
2° - Keep Germany against the ropes.

In order to meet the 1° objective we will need to divert forces, specially our few armored divisions, from the main front into the Balkans, so that we can reach Italy and into the Arctic front so that we can take over Norway.

It will be hard to complete these two objectives simultaneously so the reorganization of our forces (specially our precious HQs) is key for success.

Here’s a comparison of Soviet forces vs. Germany et al. in October 1940:
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Achtung Panzer!

The Wehrmacht’s armored divisions are more of a threat that the armies of all their allies put together.

So, as 1940 comes to at end and winter settles in, we will take this opportunity to reorder our forces. Everything has been so hectic that I have lost track of our only and vital HQ and our Armored divisions which were running along the front to counter the German attacks.

Now let’s take a look at the situation at the end of 1940.

First we’ll peak into the German domestic situation:
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Surprisingly well!

They have over 1,200 manpower and a surplus of oil (at least while not in the offensive)! Amazing. Also they have enough resources to keep their industries at full capacity for an entire year.

But on the other hand, they need 350 manpower to reinforce they lingering forces.

So, their main limitation is their Industrial Capacity. They have to choose between fighting with under-strengthen troops, outdated troops or stop their mobilization. It seems to be that they’ve chosen to address the three issues together, which means they will fail in solving any of them.

We know that focusing on German allies instead that on Germany itself will give our main enemy time to regroup and lick its wounds and that this will cost us dearly. But we need to keep the influence of the decadent west as far as possible from us and our... let’s call them “partners”.

Knowing that we are now facing a strong enemy, we enter 1941.


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Yugoswhat? Hungwhich? I don’t know what you’re talking about. You're craz... You're crazy, man. You're crazy. I like you. But you're crazy.


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Pic unrelated
 
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Chapter 11: The Crimson tide. The beginning of the end for Germany et al. Q1 1941



In order to stabilize the German front, we need to take provinces that minimize the need of deployment, for example, if there is one enemy province bordering two of our own while at the same time, that enemy province borders two other enemy provinces, if we were to take the province bordering our own, we would need to defend only one province in stead of two, while forcing the Germans to defend two provinces.

Here is an example, for a province we need to take to stabilize the German front:

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A step in the right direction and and encirclment

If we take Bydgoszcz (I had to go back to the picture several times in order to spell that correctly), we won’t need to defend Lodz (which four German armored division are occupying).

Another advantage of this approach is that, since our provinces will border a high number of enemy provinces, we can easily counter attack if we need to take off some pressure from positions being targeted by the Germans

Even though this “minimizing the front” approach is great for defense while hindering the other side’s ability to defend it self, as tracers, it also works on the exact opposite way: It will be more difficult for us to conduct offensive operations from a small number of provinces while the Germans will be in an extremely favourable position to attack us from several directions, receiving more bonuses.

That’s why we can only do this while having a considerable numerical advantage. Terrain advantage is also very desirable but the fact that most enemy divisions are under strengthen and outdated compared to our own, provides us with the edge that we needed.

After all, note the extremely favourable kill:death ratio of the defense of Oppeln. This are quite common while defending in this conditions.


Front “minimizing” can also be an offensive strategy. Here is the situation in April 1941, while we are still redeploying forces in the background.

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Armored division are being redeployed to Italy and from there heading to Rome and Naples as soon as the Reggia Marina allows it

Once we complete those three successive offensives we won’t be able to “minimize” the front any further.

Of course that all of this is nonsense now, since we have such a numerical superiority we should be more than able to simple walk in the general direction of the Rhineland regardless of the snow and claim a triumphant victory.

Our superiority is so superior that we will have to find some new employment for our troops...


While we were explaining such a simple strategy, we failed one of our objectives:

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Damn you, you ally abandoning scum! *shakes fist*

In their first non disastrous operation in the entire war, British forces take the unguarded Norwegian beaches and start to spread out like cancer.

This has been clearly done to have a bargain tool with Moscow, since they can’t disembark in Europe and we should be more than able to march all the way up to Armorica, were some funny looking Gauls will probably eat our Panzers for breakfast.

The bargain theory is the only sensible explanation the Politburo can find, since the Brits are having their buttocks delivered to them in a sand covered plate by a combination of Italians, Portuguese and Spaniards. Not even the ANZAC can counterweight such incompetence.

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The circled province in the north is still held by France. They need and entire province to store their huge cojones

Their only hope is that we take continental Italy and that the Italian troops run out of supplies.
 
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Chapter 12: It takes two to Tango but one to Barynya. Q2 1941



Although the Soviet commanders were used to face the enviable morale of German troops while they were trying to advance through Poland, once they got closer to Berlin, morale turned into fanaticism.

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Not a meter backwards

Since the beginning of the year the Wehrmacht would simply fight to the last man. And since they didn’t have the resources to replace their losses, each casualty was disastrous.

By the time the battle of Stralsund was over, the German army was a small rag tag of outdated, understrength division, weak even on paper.

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Weimar’s army was more of a threat

If we keep a sound a steady pace, we should be able to overrun them without a considerable loss of life.

On Italy, we’ve broken through the only significant resistance in the region, 7 German and Italian division and weare ready to wreck havoc in the boot of Europe.

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Initial orders and a brief of the forces engaged - Three of each of those armies are set loose

We will take defensive positions in the Alps. Germany proper will be dealt with using the Eastern forces. We must make haste, Italian forces have proved to be formidable opponents against the British African corps and the size of their armed forces is respectable.

In May, we were at the doors of Rome.

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Although specifically equipped to counter an armored spread head, the brave Italian carabinieri were not enough to stop us... barely

Before the end of the month we had taken all continental Italy including Sicily, apparently we caught the Reggia Marina off guard although the speed of our mixed armies must have also played a role on that.

After doing so, Italian effective IC dropped to 5. By now our effective IC was of 450 vs. 330 of all the Axis nations combined (250 Germany, 44 Spain, 17 Portugal and 5 Italy)

There you go Britain, let’s see if you can push back an unsupplied enemy. Or maybe Spain and Portugal won’t let you?

In June, after almost 6 months roaming the Iberian peninsula, a British army of 1 armored and 2 infantry divisions is overwhelmed and destroyed by a combined attack of Portuguese and Spanish armies, totaling... 6 infantry and 1 light armor division. Oh come on!

Is that lackluster British performance common in all games with the 1.07 patch or it was just bad luck? I have the opposite question for France, can anyone answer it?
 
Chapter 13: The Crimson tide. The end for Germany et al. part deux Q2 1941

The most anticlimactic battle of the entire war was the battle of Beriln.

See, there was none.

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We met more resistance in a North Korean gay parade

Not a single unit, even paramilitary forces in the whole city.

The intentions of the Soviet high command were crystal clear even for the eyes of a novice in a nunnery; surround Berlin and make a feast with the troops that were left inside.

Since the orders of the Wehrmacht were usually to stand their ground, when the attack of Postdam was ordered the men in the army groups soon to be involved in the conquest of Berlin were thinking about the loot in anticipation.

Nothing of that sort happened. The German hold Postdam (an urban province) until their divisions could withdraw from Berlin and an orderly retreat soon followed suit.

Still this didn’t cause the minor setback in the German theatre. Soviet forces were slowly marching to certain victory. The slow march was simply because the Politburo cared for the lives of their comrades... Well if in this game Soviet troops are better equipped than the German ones and France earned more glory than in the previous war, I believe I can indulge myself with some creativity.

As we advance we leave 3 divisions in each capital city of our former foes.


The road map for what was left of Germany has never seen such a simple counterpart in military history.

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Following arrows has never been easier

At least now they have implemented elastic defense.



A new prime directive:

Since overrunning Germany was simply a matter of time, the Politburo gave the Soviet high command a new objective: Gibraltar.

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Now, those are challenging arrows

We will face three main adversaries in this new theatre of operations:
  • The British. Since the Iberian peninsula is so lightly defended its is very probable that they will try to disembark. Time is of the essence here
  • The Terrain. Spain has outstanding terrain for defensive operations where our armor will be of little use when facing dug in mountaineers, so we will probably have to overwhelm them. This will slow us down, making the threat of a British landing much more real.
  • The Infrastructure, another factor that will slow us down.





In less than a month our primary objectives are met:

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I love that level 7 lieutenant general... I wonder why didn’t the AI promote him

Hopefully this will give the British some air to operate again in the Mediterranean sea, since supplying their troops from Mombasa does not seem like an easy task.

Now let’s see if we manage to take all of the Peninsula.

Yup, we did.

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Those armored divisions deserve a well paid vacations. What do you think about Paris?


Ha, and they said I was mad by deploying all of our armor divisions away from the German front, well, who’s laughing now eh? MMMBUAUAUAUAUAHAHAHA....

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Your momma is my laughing bitch




In the mean time the soon to be former Spanish dictator, was helping the Germans to delay the inevitable because nothing says better “I’m a dictator” than not caring and wearing silly hats.

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Yes Generalísimo, the main German limitation is their lack of capable officers we thrive on your leadership...
 
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