Chapter X
Operation Overlord
Last time we left off with a surprise invasion by the British in Northern France in the Normandy area. It was more of a surprise for me, mind you, then the enemy. In fact, the Germans were rather prepared for such an occasion while I never even dreamed that my ally would start an invasion on its own. In the (not so) new expansion, For the Motherland, I would have been notified about their plans beforehand, or rather I could have checked on the Theatres tab, but that's not yet available in this AAR, so let's not waste any more space on that. Instead, let's reevaluate our current situation!
Now with 100% more actual numbers about the British and German forces in the area. (Unfortunatelly the troops still in the transport ships are not shown.)
The British have invested waaay too many assets into Operation Get There Before The Yanks for me to let them screw it all up. Well, it might not seem like that much (it's about 5-10 Divisions) but enough not to take lightly. That means two things:
- I'll start Operation Overlord ASAP. Otherwise the British will be eliminated and I don't want that.
- Because of the limited number of Transport ships (and thus the inability to conduct all the landings at once), I'll reprioritize the objectives as follows:
- Brittany. The success of the British invasion takes precedence over everything else.
- Marseille. A second front in the South will confuse the Axis even more, hopefully helping with the invasion in the North.
- Antwerpen. Again, a third front will help with dividing the Axis defences and with the other fronts already open, opposition is expected to be much lower.
- Sicily. Even though this is still meant to be the main axis of attack, it will be started as the last one because of the distance from the first landings.
By the way, to the AI's credit, the troops from all over Brittany started to move towards the British landings to form a defensive line but the ones in Belgium did not. This means that the AI is capable of measuring the threat to some degree at least. I've read earlier reports where all the troops from Southern England tried to fight back a small invasion in Scotland.
So, as I said, the first priority is to help out the Tommies in Carentan and Granville. But the closest available transport fleets are in Norfolk and it would take days if not weeks for them to get back to Europe. (I can't say for sure because unfortunatelly there's no indicator to the total length of the journey, only until the next sea zone or province.) But there's a much faster way of transporting units: by airplanes. I have five Airborne Divisions up in New York with five Transport Planes to carry them. Unfortunatelly due to some calculation errors on my part, I need two Transport Wings to carry a single Airborne Division (the current weight of a Paratrooper Regiment is 6 points and I have five of them in a Division while my current aircraft with their level 1 Cargo Hold can bring 16 points), but that's still better than nothing! (Note that the base weight of Paratroopers is only 5 points but I increased their numbers in a single Regiment from 3000 to 4000 with the Firepower Focus Doctrines and even with '42 level Airborne Warfare Equipment it was reduced from 7 to 6. So basically I have twice as big Airborne Divisions than I would normally have.)
To provide some support, I ordered the USN First SAG to leave Oslo (it is highly unlikely that Germany would start invading Norway
now) and rebase to Dover from where they will patrol the Eastern English Channel and support any ground combat on the shores from Caen to Calais. I also ordered my Fighter Groups to achieve Air Superiority rather than simply Intercepting enemy Fighters. I'll need a clean airspace! Meanwhile reinforcements started to close in from the French ports of Dieppe and Le Havre to the East of the landing zone.
The first two Airborne Divisions (the 82nd and 101st Airborne) in Dover in the morning of the 4th of January and from there they were sent directly to Falaise, a province situated between the German reinforcements and the British landing, and more importantly, behind a river. Unfortunatelly the province was not empty as suspected.
We are in clear numerical superiority but an Airborne Assault against an actually defended province is never an easy victory. Fortunatelly they were on the move and not dug in.
And while the boys of the 82nd and the 101st were fighting hard for freedom, justice, etc., the Lockheed C-37 Electras were already on their way back to New York for the rest of the boys. All, except for the 51st USAAF Troop Carrier Wing which remained in Dover to bring much needed supply for the British troops in Carentan.
The Battle of Falaise was won on the 6th of January with 281 casualties on our side and 1189 on theirs. There's this "new" rule that was introduced somewhere in SF giving a huge drop of Organisation to Paratroopers once they secured the province they were dropped in (plus until the next midnight they are considered out-of-supply, too!). So I really hope now that I won't get a nasty counter-attack too early...
On the 7th, the 11th and 17th Airborne arrived in England and were sent forth to St-Malo and Argentan respectively. The former to help the British effort to break out of their beachhead and get a port and the later to widen the front and maneuverability of the troops in Falaise. Meanwhile the 82nd started advancing on Caen to cut off the German reinforcements along the beach of the Channel.
Actually I thought I would get the port of St-Malo, but I was wrong
The firepower from five (mostly) modern Battleships (USS Maryland
, USS West Virginia
, USS Colorado
, USS Tennessee
, USS California
) is not to be taken lightly.
By the 10th, the British and American invasion managed to capture two ports (Cherbourg, level 6; St-Malo, level 2) while the German defence was still in complete disarray. The first wave of proper American ground forces was still a week away but the British already had eleven Divisions plus a Corps HQ in the area. The invasion was looking very promising but its success was still far from certain. The Germans have plenty of troops to fight back and they won't underestimate the importance of this invasion. It is also very important not to overextend our forces either in terms of space or in terms of supplies: having more troops in the theatre than we can supply via the ports (many as they may be) in France would doom all our efforts and many lives would be lost.
And then disaster struck:
As it turns out, I was the one to underestimate my enemy. I was completely sure that the Kriegsmarine is in no shape to do much anything, so I didn't even attempt to protect those Transport Flotillas... My only weapon against those two Battleships is a single Patrol Bomber Wing...
Well played, Mr. AI. That's half of my Atlantic Transport Fleet there... Along with an entire Corps of Motorised Infantry...
Now the interesting part here is that if I were playing as Germany, trying to invade say the UK, losing half of my Transports in such a way would probably blow up my entire plan in my face. But now it's actually delaying the operation slightly. First of all, I won't make the mistake of leaving 18 Transport Flotillas filled with expensive military equipment sailing alone in the wide open. The USN First SAG will always be escorting them from now on. Second of all, it's time to put that 200 ICs (or at least part of it) I'm currently wasting on Supplies while already having 99.999 in stock and build twenty more Transport Flotillas. There goes my plan of never building any more ships... They'll be ready by mid-May, which means they won't help much with my current plans, so I'll probably have to postpone the landings in Sicily and Marseille until then.
On the 15th, German and Italian reinforcements started to arrive in the area from further East, jeopardizing the entire operation. Fortunatelly, help was getting close. With the Transports joined by the USN First SAG, it was possible to ferry four Armoured Divisions over to help. They were to be sent to Caen but in order to put them on shore there, I had to take the province first with the help of the 13th Airborne because Armour suffers insane penalties when attempting amphibious landings (and taking Caen without the firesupport of my Battleships was no easy task!). But by the time they got into the proper sea zone, the Germans managed to outmaneuver themselves, leaving Dieppe completely empty. So I took the liberty of deploying two Armoured Divisions with their Corps HQ in that port. (It is only level 2 but every little bit helps!)
With the four Armoured Divisions deployed to the battlefield, the odds changed considerably.
Now with the Normandy landing secured (even if only temporarily), I can open the second front in Brittany. The 1st Armoured Corps will land near Lorient and St. Nazaire unless the opposition there proves to be too tough, in which case they will land in Quimperlé and attempt to surround the Brittany ports.
With January coming to an end it became apparent that Operation Get There Before The Yanks was only a half-success. Sure, the British were able to get back to Europe first, but in the end, it was the US that contributed the most. And with the complete chaos on the entire front and the two fronts in Normandy and Brittany linked up, the time to open the third front in the Low Countries is getting close:
The first wave of four Armoured Divisions will land in the next Chapter.