My Fight Volume II - Yet another HPP USAAR

We start this Chapter right after the fall of France. (By the way Toulouse was the city that triggered the surrender.) With that, a new French State is set up based out of Alger.


From here we go with the Destroyers for Bases decision right away which gives some outdated Destroyers to the UK and -5 Neutrality from me, and that allows me to switch to Full Mobilisation. With that I no longer have any reduction on Resources from Economic Laws and my Peacetime Consumer Goods Demand was reduced to 20%. Reserve Unit Size increased from 40% to 50%, so my Reserves are now half-strength. The reduction in CG gave about 30 IC, while the increase in Reserve Unit Size cost me 15 IC. A good deal for sure.

I was told by my readers not to enact the 'They went too far!' decision yet, so I won't do that. But it won't keep me from basically embargoing the Axis as of this moment. Not that it will help much. Japan only imports 1 Supplies from me and Germany sells me stuff (which I don't need anymore). But it's the gesture that counts! I will also try to actively support the Allies with stuff they need. Or at least I would if it wasn't for the unfortunate fact that they can't pay and thus they won't accept my offers. And I can't offer Debt, only ask for it

And this was the moment when I realized that I could join the Allies! Japan's threat towards me is 42 (Douglas Adams certainly knew something!) and my Neutrality is 63, so I'm well within the required 25 points!

So I could join, but I won't. Not yet. Because I'm not prepared. You see, I never actually did anything to my Army, Navy or Airforce. It is in the exact same state it started out in. Well, there were automatic updates I payed for with my hard-earned IC, but the OOB is almost exactly the same (the only differences are the handful of ships I had in the starting production queue.)

But then again... Let's just take a quick overview of the situation!

The Axis consists of the Big Three (Germany, Italy and Japan) and their minions (Manchukuo, Mengkukuo, China-Nanjing and Slovakia) along with Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. From these, the Europeans are at war with the Allies but they pose no credible threat to me, I'm waaay out of their reach. Japan and their lapdogs are within the reach of my Pacific holdings but they are at war with the USSR and thus very unlikely to join the war against the Allies any time soon if at all. So why the heck would I not join right away?!


Joining the Allies brings me into war of course. This only lowers Consumer Goods Demand with like 10 IC (because the New Deal only increases Peacetime Consumer Goods Demand, not Wartime Consumer Goods Demand), which is not much, but it will help a little. Being at war also allows me to change a lot of laws. For instance, with my exceptionally high National Unity, I could enact Repression as my Civil Laws while I'm at War. The immediate benefits would make it look like a good idea but it would have some long-term consequences I wouldn't like (namely random political events from being too harsh and stuff). Free Press on the other hand is something I would gladly give up for Censored Press. We don't want foreign propaganda to wreak havoc in our national morale, now do we? Then there's the question of Industrial Policies. We are at war now, time to bring out the big guns! By which I mean it's time to switch to Heavy Industry Emphasis. It will further increase my Supply Consumption but in return it will increase IC Efficiency and Supply Throughput and decrease Consumer Goods Demand during the war, so it's worth it. This and being in the Allies reduced my 20% Consumer Goods Demand to 0, so I no longer need to spend any IC on civilian stuff! Awesome! That means I have like 100 IC surplus!

Now on the Diplomacy tab I have two new decisions I can make: "Form the United Nations" and "Call in the Reserves!". I'll do both. Calling in my reserves will give me like a bajillion Manpower while forming the United Nations decreases the Neutrality of just about every country that would be highly neutral otherwise allowing them to join the fun. (I do this because I would prefer to get this AAR out of the way as quickly as possible so I can move on to some new and exciting projects )

But first of all, let's see the goals I have right now.

1. Defend the British Home Islands. Continental Europe is lost for the time being and my newfound allies can hold their own in the North and East Africa, a potential German invasion in the UK would be devastating for the future of Democracy. We can't allow that to happen. I will ship over two full Infantry Corps as soon as I can along with Battleship Fleet (the size of which is to be decided later) and half of my Light Fighters.
2. Build up my Pacific Defences. While Japan is not an immediate threat (them being distracted by the USSR and all) but a conflict in that Theatre is only a matter of time. I want to be prepared when that happens.
3. Disrupt German shipping lanes. Well, I'm not sure how much of that exists in the first place but I don't like the idea of Germany getting resources from overseas. I'll station half of my Submarines in the area to cause some mischief.
4. Protect British shipping lanes. While I don't want Germany to get stuff from overseas, I do want the UK to do so. For this effect, I will send as many ASW-capable ships to the UK as possible. Not yet sure how much that will help because I have absolutely no idea how many ships I have at the moment, but we'll see in a moment.
5. Disrupt convoys to Japan. Not sure how useful this will be considering that the only country I'm at war with that can send stuff to Japan is Germany who I will blockade anyway, but I will still send one quarter of my Submarines to raid convoys around Nippon. If stuff that would help Japan goes to the bottom of the sea that can only be a good thing.
6. Build up enough forces to fight Germany in Europe. That will take time, even with the insane Industrial Capacity the US possesses. I will need a strong Navy to get there, lots and lots of supplies (and fuel!) to feed my armies, tons of convoys to get the stuff there and of course the armies themselves. I want lots of Motorised Infantry, Tanks, Rocket Artillery, Light Fighters and Light Bombers.
7. If necessary, intervene in Africa or India. This hopefully won't happen. Italy is a joke as usual and Japan is not yet involved in the conflict against the Allies (and they won't be either until the USSR is defeated), so India should be safe for now. But just in case.
8. Keep at least 3-4 full Corps of Infantry at home. Because I don't like surprises. And I also don't want Axis countries on my turf, so I will break any American countries that would get the funny idea of joining the wrong faction.

So, it's time to spend that excess IC! The first thing I do is start building five paralels of two serials of Motorized Infantry Divisions consisting of three Motorised Infantry Regiments and one Rocket-Artillery Battalion. You might be wondering why would I want to slow down my Motorised units with slow-moving Artillery. The answer is simple: I don't. My support brigades are already motorised, towed by trucks provided by General Motors, so they won't slow down my Divisions one bit. Unless they go into rough terrain of course, but that would be a problem for the Infantry part, too.

The next day my three Light Fighter Wings were finished (thanks to the increase in efficiency no doubt), so I have 150 spare IC now! And I will get 2000 manpower within a month! So that's six more wings of Light Fighters. Plus I start training five paralells of two serials of Infantry Divisions consisting of three Infantry Regiments, an Engineer Battalion and a Rocket Artillery Battalion. These boys will punch through rivers in Europe. From the rest of the IC I start three parallels of three serials of Marines consisting of five Marine Regiments. These guys will wipe the floor with Japs in the Pacific when the time comes.

Time to reorganise the "army" that I already possess. Let's go through the branches one by one, shall we?


Airforce

I have the following wings:

• Ten CAGs, attached to my five Carriers. They technically belong to the Navy anyway.
• Three Light Bombers. They will stay States-side for now since I won't conduct any offensive operations for quite a while.
• Nine Light Fighters. They will be split into three Groups of three Wings and sent to Europe. All of them. They will be stationed at Plymouth, Dover and Norwich and protect the UK from Nazi aircraft.
• One Patrol Bomber. That Wing will stay at home too because I have no idea what I should do with it...
• Three Medium Bombers. They will stay too because they are not needed yet.
• Two Transport Planes. Same as above.

Army

First, the raw numbers: 2 Anti-Air, 1 Medium Armour, 5 Armoured Cars, 2 Cavalry, 3 Garrisons, 81 Infantry for a total of 94 Brigades. Plus about 10 HQs. And all of this was organised into two Theatres: a West Coast and an East Coast. Here's how I will re-organise it:

• XXXXXX Home Front, - Responsible for the troops that stay at home as well as the newly trained formations until their assignment to one of the other Theatres.
  • XXXXX West Coast- Defends the Western Coast of the United States and recieves the boys to be sent to the Pacific and Asia.
    • XXX 1st Western Army Corps (five Divisions of three Infantry Regiments each)
  • XXXXX East Coast- Defends the Eastern Coast of the United States and recieves the boys to be sent to Europe (and Africa, if necessary).
    • XXX 1st Eastern Army Corps (five Divisions of three Infantry Regiments each)
    • XXX 2nd Eastern Army Corps (five Divisions of three Infantry Regiments each)
    • XXX 3rd Eastern Army Corps (five Divisions of three Infantry Regiments each)
    • XX Panama Garrison (three Garrison Regiments)
• XXXXXX Pacific Theatre, - Responsible for the defence of my Pacific holdings as well as any future operations in the area and also in Asia.
  • XX Honolulu Garrison (three Garrison Regiments, to be trained)
  • XX Guam Garrison (three Garrison Regiments, to be trained)
  • XX Wake Island Garrison (three Garrison Regiments, to be trained)
  • XX Midway Garrison (three Garrison Regiments, to be trained)
• XXXXXX European Theatre, - Responsible for the defence of the United Kingdom for the time being and later on for any offensives operations in Europe.
  • XXXXX UK Expeditionary Forces, - Responsible for the defence of the United Kingdom.
    • XXX 1st Expeditionary Army Corps (four Divisions of three Infantry Regiments each)
    • XXX 2nd Expeditionary Army Corps (three Divisions of three Infantry Regiments each)
    • XXX 1st Armoured Corps (the Cavalry until their upgrade into Motorised Infantry, plus the Medium Armour)

(I went only to as much detail as I would care to read as a reader. Hope you don't mind )


Navy

This was a bitch to reorganise, there's just so much! First, the numbers: 15 Battleships, 5 Carriers, 30 Destroyer Flotillas, 16 Heavy Cruisers, 10 Light Cruisers, 16 Submarine Flotillas and 24 Transport Flotillas for a total of 116 ships. I will create the following fleets:

• USN First CTF, King - The five Carriers, escorted by the five most modern Heavy Cruisers. (Note that in the HPP Heavy Cruisers are considered screens.) It will be stationed at Guam so supplies and fuel will start flowing into that port.
• USN First SAG, Nimitz - The five most modern Battleships escorted by Heavy Cruisers. Stationed in the UK and ordered to intercept Germany ships.
• USN Second SAG, Halsey - Another five Battleships escorted by Light Cruisers. Stationed in North Africa and ordered to intercept Italian ships.
• USN Third SAG, Spruance - The last five Battleships escorted by Light Cruisers. Stationed in the Philippines, just in case.
• USN First, Second, Third and Fourth Submarine Fleets - Two-two Submarine Flotillas operating out of the United Kingdom, disrupting German shipping around Europe.
• USN Fifth and Sixth Submarine Fleets - Two-two Submarine Flotillas operating out of the Philippines, disrupting Axis shipping around Japan.
• USN Seventh and Eighth Submarine Fleets - Two-two Submarine Flotillas operating out of Egypt, disrupting Italian shipping in the Mediterranean.
• USN Pacific Transport Fleet - Six Transport Flotillas with the remaining six Heavy Cruisers, tasked with transporting troops around in the Pacific.
• USN Home Transport Fleet - Six Transport Flotillas in case of an emergency in the Americas.
• USN First and Second Atlantic Transport Fleet - Six-six Transport Flotillas tasked with transporting troops between the American continent and Europe, then operating in Europe as needed.
• USN First through Tenth ASW/Patrol Fleet - Three-three Destroyers operating out of the United Kingdom and Norway, hunting for German Submarines.

So, that's how I intend to deploy my forces. It's not much, but it's a start. Well, the Navy is definitely a lot (in fact I don't think I will ever need more ships than this!) but you know what I mean.

Anyway, one last thing I wanted to mention before closing this Chapter: the integration of the Air Force and the Navy into my command hierarchy. As I hinted at it earlier, supplies will be one of the main enemies I will have to fight because I will use supply- and fuel-intensive units accrosss oceans, so every tiny little bit of discount counts! Every time I rebase a Fleet or Air Group, the first thing I'll do is attaching it to the local Army Group so it benefits from the discounts. I will also keep my armies localized and employ a full command hierarchy for my fighting Divisions so they can benefit the most from the Logistics Wizards and highly skilled Army Group leaders I have. At the moment I have two Generals with 5 Skill and another five with 4 Skill (and three of them are Logistics Wizards as well), they will be my Field Marshalls. (And I may even get more high-skilled men later on!)


Well, I'm really sorry you only got to vote once but hopefully the fight will be epic enough to make up for it See you next time!

During the execution of the plans explained in the previous Chapter (by the way, I really hope that the higher the model number the more modern the vessel is because I have no idea what's supposed to be the difference between a New Orleans-class and a Portland-class or a Northampton-class Heavy Cruiser), a few events happened like Iraq's breaking away from the UK, Germany declaring war on Yugoslavia, the UK asking for Debt, etc. From these, the attack on Yugoslavia was the most interesting, although the campaign didn't last long.


At this point I had to fiddle around a bit with the map cache because the naval distances were messed up. Here's what you have to do if it happens to you as well:

• Quit the game and delete the content of your '\HoI3\mod\HPP\map\cache' folder.
• Restart the game. The cache is rebuilt using the map data.
• Quit the game again, go to the now rebuilt '\HoI3\mod\HPP\map\cache' folder and copy the contents into your vanilla '\HoI3\map\cache' folder, overwriting what's in there.
• Restarting the game again should fix the problem (and those ugly purple blobs on the map, too!).

Anyway, the fight against the Submarine threat was going well, especially in the Atlantic, although I suffered some setbacks in the waters between Norway and Denmark: the Kriegsmarine ambushed one of my ASW/Patrol Fleets and caused serious damage before my SAG could arrive (but I lost no Flotillas at least).

Yugoslavia surrendered to Germany on the 13th of January, 1941. Continental Europe is pretty much lost. Spain is still neutral, but Axis-leaning of course, Sweden is sympathetic with the Allies but officially neutral, Greece is still independent, but I believe Albania will go down pretty quickly now and then Greece is next, and the rest is either Axis or completely irrelevant. I wonder how long it will take for Germany to start Barbarossa.


But then in February, a very interesting thing happened: the newly formed French State suffered a Social Conservative coup! And they became a democracy again! Unfortunatelly their government wasn't really firm, so they got into an endless cycle of early elections. (I know it might be annoying to get an event about that every two weeks or so, but it is even worse when you live in a place that has such an unstable political climate...)

By late March, Italy was completely crushed in East Africa and the Allied forces previously stationed there were redeployed to Egypt and were already pushing deep into Libya. And you know what that means! Operation Torch time! I quickly assambled a force of five freshly trained Infantry Divisions and put them into a nice Chain of Command and on a bunch of Transport ships to be shipped over to North Africa as soon as possible. It'll be fun!


Barbarossa started with a little twist: neither Romania nor Hungary felt prepared to deal with the Soviet Union (it is pretty much random, which is a shame, considering that the USSR should be a cakewalk in this alternate history...), and Germany got so enraged over this that they were immediately kicked out of the Axis and DoWed themselves. (And this automatically put them into the Allied camp, too. Funny, huh?) I have only some vague ideas about the Soviet military strength (they are supposed to have about 125 Divisions, but my Intelligence reports are not that trustworthy I'm afraid), but most of that should be tied up in Asia, shouldn't it?


And Iran went Axis instead of accepting Allied-Comintern influence. What a shame, really, but I can't say I blame them... In fact, the Axis is currently winning the game with 42% compared to our 25% and the Comintern's 16%! And quite honestly I expect the USSR to be disassamled by the end of 1941...

Meanwhile the situation in North Africa is starting to get worse. The British (in Egyptian, Jordanian and Palestinean disguise no less!) reached the elbow of Libya, but at that time they ran out of supplies. You see, in vanilla there's a gap in Infrastructure somewhere on the Sudanese coast which was removed from the Magrathea map ie. there whole railway is represented on our map. In normal circumstances this should be a good thing. Unfortunatelly that also means that British Africa has a single Supply Network, and the main depot of that network shifted from Alexandria to Mombasa, Kenya. Which is 192 provinces away from the front. To make things worse, troops are redeploying back and forth along the Mediterranean coast. I'm really starting to think that I will need to save the Allies not from the Axis but from themselves... And that won't be easy, because I will have to fight with the Supply System too, so I can't intervene directly, as that would make things even worse... I need to open my own beachhead as soon as possible. And I will do that from Liberia.

So, as I was saying, it will be Operation Torch time really soon now. Which means when I gather 75 Divisions. On 12th of August, I have 59, and ten more will be finished in less than a week. Unfortunatelly the last couple won't arrive until November though. In the meantime Italy decided to mobilize for war in September. They are getting beaten again in North Africa, although it is far from being decided yet. A little later the Soviet Union went with extending the Draft. Their situation is getting quite desperate. Meanwhile, as preparations for Torch, I started to move my Africa Expeditionary Force over to Liberia on 13th of September.

In late October, Indochina suffered a coup, breaking away from Japan. The Emperor didn't feel like letting them go though and promptly declared war on the newly established government. We'll see how that little intermezzo plays out!

As we are nearing our proposed start-date for Torch, I took a peek at Northern Europe as observed by the Allied navies:


I'm not convinced that this will be an easy ride... Considering that, it was hardly a surprise that Vichy declined to comply.


By the way, the beautiful thing about this event is that it puts Vichy France into the Axis without involving the rest of the currently neutral parties! So Japan is still only at war with the Comintern. So it's time for some action at last! The first target is Algeria:


According to my preliminary reconnaissance, Alger Casablanca are defended by one Division each and there are two HQs in the area of Oran as well. But thanks to the limitations set by the Vichy Armistice, these are nothing more than token forces, they should pose no threat. So the plan is to knock out the Vichy regime fast, establish some beachheads to supply my units from and proceed into Tunesia and down to Libya, destroying all the Italian forces in North Africa as soon as possible. We need to put some pressure on the Axis before the Soviet Union falls!