Royal Carnage
Chapter IV, The War-Mashine is turning westwards - Part II
Human Players: Germany, Italy, Japan, UK, France, Soviet
Recap: Poland is defeated and now Germany is attacking Denmark and the Netherlands. The Brits have forces in both places. Italy annexed Yugoslavia and Soviet annexed Finland. Now, Soviet are waging was against Romania as well.
July 28th, 1939
So far, there have been quite few naval battles and Germany has lost the most, without hesitation. Add to this the two German u-boats, Lohs and Weddingen, which were sunk by British naval bombers. With 5 u-boats already sunk, Germany’s ability to wage war on British convoy tonnage has decreased significantly.
Authors note: I had not recorded the loss of a DD. To see it sunk by a sub seems weird, especially as my DD strangely lacks a name. Anybody have an explanation on this?
Authors note II: Looking at the statistics about a year later in the game, this nameless British destroyer is gone as a “sunk ship”. I gather it is some kind of error. Therefore, I trust my own observation before this statistic and claim that no British ship (except convoys and escorts) has been sunk.
August 10th, 1939
Motorized units from the British army corps who defeated the German paratroopers a few weeks earlier re-conquered substantial parts of Denmark before shipping back to the British Isles. With this, all provinces with any industry and resources belonged to UK. As they had no hope of holding main-land Denmark, it was mainly done to annoy Jerry. For some reason, Germany did not re-take that land. They probably suspected to be cut off by British landings. As the British leadership had other plans for their ground troops, no such trap actually existed.
The bombers up north made some port strikes on the British transport fleet evacuating the ground troops. A few ships took smaller hits but none was sunk.
August 2nd, 1939
The Western European Theatre. Joint French-Anglo forces are giving Jerry problems outside the Maginot wall. Well dug-in units, mostly consisting of motorized infantry, held their ground against the Wehrmacht. They made good use of the old German bunker systems and minefields which the West Wall consisted of.
The battle of Donaueschingen was the next biggest battle the Brits had taken part in, next to the Siege of Königsberg. It was a fierce battle with similar losses on both sides. A French infantry division supported the British Army Corps in the battle.
With the Netherlands under attack, and losing, the British leadership wanted to focus on the northern French front instead of eastern – but as quite substantial German forces were tied down here, they held firm. A single army corps of motorized was, however, pulled away from the east to prepare in the north (which is visible in the top of the picture).
August 6th, 1939
The Germans were pressing hard around Amsterdam and the Dutch-Anglo forces were losing ground. Still, they held firm in Amsterdam and Wehrmacht had not managed to bring enough forces to the Dutch capital to pose a serious threat. Intel showed very clearly, however, that major enemy forces were inbound. The British leadership secretly had no hope to really hold the Dutch capital, but did not tell the Dutch that. A British division was sent to Alkmaar only to keep a safe retreat route open.
The highest Dutch leaders were not stupid. They knew the end was coming. In Amsterdam, the soldiers and average citizens prepared to fight. Those with more knowledge and wealth fled when there was still time, either with boat over the canal to England or to neighboring Belgium from where they could travel to France, Britain or even America. Those who had to stay behind, but still was clever enough not to hope for victory, prepared for occupation by hamstring food and hiding valuables.
French forces, having transit rights through Belgium, had taken up defensive lines around Den Haag. They had orders to not venture further into the country but to make it difficult for Wehrmacht to surround Amsterdam and to overall make their movements difficult. They knew, however, that they had little to do if the Germans sent their medium panzer divisions their way – but at least then, those panzers would not be used against the Dutch and thus getting some of the pressure off from them somewhat.
August 17th, 1939
11 days later and Amsterdam has fallen after about a week of hard street fights. It was not an easy win for Wehrmacht and more than an Army Corps took part in the battle. Some Dutch forces were over-run in the process but about a third of their forces, and a majority of their HQs, retreated in good order together with all partaking British units.
They would all reach the Dutch islands which were protected by the Royal Navy. Here, they were safe from the German forces and the Brits could soon embark on transports and ship back to the British Islands for some R&R and reinforcements. The going had been quite tough for the troopers.
The objective, to stall the Germans as much as possible, had been reached as well as anyone could hope. It would take yet a few days before Wehrmacht could reorganize before hitting Belgium – which nobody except possibly the Belgians doubted would be the next step. The French had seen some fighting in the south of Netherlands and fast German maneuvers had managed to outsmart and blitz through an Infantry Division which surrendered. This was the second French Infantry Division to be lost to the Germans. Still, the Germans had already lost four divisions.
August 28th, 1939
It took a little more than a week before the Germans attacked Belgium. The Allies were prepared and quickly moved in to support the Belgians and after winning two easy victories, Wehrmacht ran into serious resistance. The land is very defensible and even a few allied units caused the Germans significant problems. Also, United Kingdom had deployed substantial forces in northern France and Belgium. It would be difficult for Wehrmacht to blitz through this.
Authors note: Our strategy with France was to try and utilize their manpower pool as much as possible, so a lot of garrisons were produced. We had quite high hope to get quite a lot of them out on the map before the end. True – they won’t kill too many enemies but they are good for stalling and give the opportunity to free a lot of the regular infantry from “guard duty” to a more flexible warfare.
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Next - the war on Belgium, Italy goes to war again and Bomber Command's celebrated naval bombers flies out on new missions.