Royal Carnage
Chapter XII - Yet Another War in Europe
Human Players: Germany, Italy, Japan, UK, USA, Soviet
Recap: France has just fallen after a long and glorious struggle (9 months) and with the French army gone, Germany get an entire army group freed to deploy elsewhere. The question is where. There are no lack of theatres...
June 14th-18th, 1940
Still, while awaiting the German onslaught, there are things to do. British maritime surveillance had realized how weak the defense of the main Greek cities was. Italy had apparently not strengthened their Greek puppet as they had done with the Turks.
A three division strong force landed outside Athens. Initially, they were attacked by the Athens garrison, but the Greeks soon realize how futile that attack was and aborted it. The Brits immediately attacked the already shaken militias. A forth division landed north of Athens to make sure no reinforcements could reinforce the militia. That sealed the garrisons fate and they gave up after a few days of fighting.
In the north, Salonica was only defended by a single brigade of regular Greek infantry. The two Royal Marine Divisions made an amphibious attack straight into the city. The Greek infantry had perfect defensive positions and lay down a murdering fire on the marines struggling at the beaches. Alas, the British elite soldiers charged with abandon, and being superior in numbers at a ratio of 6-1 made it easy to close in on the defenders. They left a trail of dead from the beaches up to the city, but once the street-fight begun, the Greeks were quickly overwhelmed and fled.
The Greek puppet government fled to Italy and a lot of Greek units fighting in Europe stayed under Italian command. However, all Greek troops being present in Greece lay down their weapons. This surely took some pressure away from Bulgaria and Soviet.
June 21st, 1940
1.Sardinia is captured by the Americans. Two Italian divisions surrendered.
2.French Northern Africa is under Vichy command.
3.There have been no fighting whatsoever in Northern Africa between the Allies and Italy. It seems neither has prioritized this arena.
4.Southern Italy is firmly in Allied hands (looking in color like some cowboy-boot). Both Allies and Italy are consolidating the line separating them, but no combat does actually take place. British reconnaissance has seen German troops moving by the top of the Italian boot and suspect they will reinforce the Italians.
5.The front between Italian Yugoslavia and British Greece is more or less unmanned. Neither side seems yet to have forces to put here. Future will tell which side will be able to use this power-vacuum.
June 26th – July 3rd, 1940
During a landing operation in Turkey to aid the Red Army, the Royal Navy ran into a lightly escorted Italian transport fleet. They did not seem to have much ammunition on board and the survived the first battle simply due to the blackness of the night. The Royal Navy continued to search for them and sank ship after ship. At the Dodecanese, the majority of the transport fleet was sunk. It is believed that the entire fleet was sunk, including some six or seven transport ships in total.
After losing the transport ships, as well as a huge chunk of the war fleet, any maritime intervention or amphibious attack from the Italian side is very unlikely. The Med is slipping more and more into Allied hands.
The Italians have had lack of supplies in several battles, both on land and sea, the latest weeks. It seems they have some problems supplying their troops. Either they are out on convoys or the brief siege of Rome gave some ripple effect on their supply system.
July 17th, 1940
With the help of the Allies, the Red Army finally broke the Turkish resistance, captured their main knot of decision-makers and annexed the entire country. Some pieces of the land were given to United Kingdom to mark the value of their aid.
Some Greek troops have returned to Greece and have started a campaign against the few British defenders. This will have to be dealt with.
Most alarming however, was the German attack on neutral Hungary…
July 21st, 1940
Joint German-Italian precision strikes against the most important cities have almost crippled the country (note the paras in the far east of Hungary). Only in Budapest, the capital, are the Hungarians managing to give the Germans a little bit of decent combat. The city is likely to fall within days, though, and with that the whole country will fall apart.
The alarming fact is that Stavka lack any back up for this kind of operation. They have no troops at the Hungarian border. IF Germany will manage to put a puppet regime in Hungary and keep the Hungarian army, Soviet Union will be in deep problems. Even without the Hungarians, the clever German attack will send ripples through the entire Russian defensive line.
Luckily, the timely fall of Turkey a few days prior to the present day mean that some Soviet troops are made available for new missions. These will immediately be sent to the Hungarian border, but it is questionable whether they will be there in time.
July 21st, 1940
1.The Danish front: Greek troops took northern Denmark on behalf of the Italians when the Germans did not. The Danish Isles and the important sound is still in British hands (but now protected by Americans).
2.The Italian front: With a spearhead of German panzers, the fascist forces have managed to breach the Allied lines. The Allies simply don’t have anything to stop the panzers out in the open. Situation is threatening and plans are drawn on how to retreat to Sicily in an as slow manner as possible.
3.The North African Front: Everything is still peaceful in North Africa. The British leadership is starting to feel an urge to take the Italian holdings but have other plans for their present ground troops in the Med area.
4.The Greek/Yugoslavian front: Greek troops have arrived to the weakly defended British occupied Greece and have taken some lands. They are, however, to few to pose a serious threat for the time being.
5.The Soviet/Italian front: The Red Army has pushed the Italians back to the river in a satisfactory manner. They lack forces, however, to push through the rivers and this section of the front have been relatively peaceful the latest week.
6.The Hungarian front: This is a black hole in the Soviet defenses. The Hungarian still belong to the Allies but will crumble within days. If they turn Axis, Soviet Union will have huge problems. Even if they continue to fight in exile, the situation will be very dangerous.
7.The Soviet/German front: Wehrmacht has begun their expected push. The Red Army cannot hold them back and has started to retreat. They try to use the land for best possible defense but there is a lot of open land and that’s where the German leadership have deployed the majority of their panzers. It is extremely important that the Red Army can keep on retreating without getting caught in pockets.
July 21st, 1940
1.The Mongolian Front: Japanese forces have cut deep into Mongolia and captured Ulan Bator. The Red Army is stretched thin here.
2.The Northern Japanese front: By deploying a huge number of Chinese forces, the frontline has become extremely long. The Japanese/Chinese armies have these amounts of units. The Red Army, fighting an even fiercer war in the west, don’t. This means that Stavka must shorten the line without losing units in the process.
3.The Burmese Front: Everything is still peaceful here. The Brits have a few units in the jungle but Yunnan don’t. As the Brits have no interests in widening any fronts in Asia, they have just dug-in and prepared for what’s to come.
4.The Southern Japanese Front: Japan has taken Hong Kong without battle, as well as Kuching in Indonesia and Dutch holdings. They were all abandoned by the Brits and so far they have not exchanged a single shot. The Brits have not planned to yield Singapore and it will only be a matter of time before the Japanese venture this far. High ranking officers within the Royal Navy have argued that with the Regia Marina beaten, the Royal Navy should deploy Taskforces in Asia and aid the Americans who so far are mostly losing naval battles.
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The United Kingdom has a smorgasbord of opportunities but a limited amount of ground forces. First priority is to do whatever to ease the burden of the Red Army which is buckling under the enormous pressure of mostly the Wehrmacht. The first initiative will be Operation Tito – a well thought through offensive through Italian Yugoslavia. There are two main objectives of the operation. The first will be surrounding at least the three Italian and three Greek divisions which have been spotted in southern Yugoslavia. The second will be pushing through half of Yugoslavia and secure a defensive line in the mountains. This will more or less half the Soviet border towards Yugoslavia. If these objectives are met, it is likely that Germany will have to deploy even more units in this sector to relieve the Italians – thus easing the pressure on the Red Army.
Other interesting targets will be Northern and Eastern Africa and sending naval forces to Asia.
The Allies have also made a huge long term changes in the responsibilities of the future war. As American research on armor is lagging extremely, it will take too long time for them to build the powerful tank army that will be necessary in order to seriously threat the Germans. On the other hand, their naval technology is even better than that of the Brits. United Kingdom did initially invest immensely in naval technology and doctrines which have been rewarding in the Med. However, this came at a cost and that was tank technology. This will change now. United Kingdom will from now on put a massive investment in tank production and technology. The plan is to be able to deploy two army corps of tanks which will serve as a spearhead to a massive landing in France during mid-spring 1941. Future will tell whether this will be possible.
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July, 1940
The Battleship HMS Warspite and the Light Carrier HMS Glorious are the most successful ships in the Royal Navy so far. Reporters from all around the Commonwealth are traveling to the Med to try to get onboard these two ships for interviews and photos, as most magazines, radio shows and documentary movies will pay handsomely for anything including these maritime behemoths. Like the Naval Bomber crews before them, the sailors on board these ships are now having a hero-status. The entire Royal Navy is celebrated in Britain, stealing all light from the poor infantrymen fighting so fiercely in France, Italy, Greece and Turkey.
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