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:wacko: Another terrifying typo. I need to check this over a little more thoroughly next time :p
 
@Viden: Why thank you :D

I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas and a continued Happy Hanukkah! (as well as a Happy Kwanzaa ;))

And I would also like to say that I have downloaded yet another model pack that I like quite a lot :D

Chapter XIII
A Crisis in the Command

It was by March 17 that the High Command of the 3rd Army realized the Battle of Milan was not being carried out to the utmost advantage to the Austrians. The French were funneling more troops into the defense of the city, and the attacking divisions under General von Paar, von Schilawsky, and von Schonburg-Harte were rapidly approaching a state of complete fatigue and disorganization; each Austrian division participating in the battle had all suffered at least 10% casualties. In a move of desperation, von Schilawsky authorized the movement of General von Lipa's Corps from Venice to the southeastern end of Milan to bolster the faltering offensive. Although it added much-needed manpower and morale to the battle, the men of Schilawsky's command feared it would be in vain.

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General von Lipa's Corps arrives to reinforce
the Austrian offensive on Milan


Their fears would quickly be realized. The arrival of 30,000 reinforcements had little, if any, effect on the besieging divisions, and organization throughout the men of the western half of the 3rd Army collapsed. Casualties ran high throughout the ranks of the Austrians, who began suffering leadership breaks as more and more officers became ill, wounded, and KIA. Meanwhile, the defending Italians and French continued to be reinforced by their comrades. To the absolute dismay of von Schilawsky, the very first portion of his planned offensive in Italy was a complete failure.

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News of von Schilawsky's defeat in
Milan quickly reached Vienna


This sparked a massive uproar in the High Command of the Austro-Hungarian Army. Several high-ranking officers, like Field Marshals von Gyllenband and von Hotzendorf (both seasoned commanders on the Eastern Front) called for the relieving of von Schilawsky and a replacement for the Commander of the 3rd Army. They had seen the entire operation as a colossal failure, and, essentially, as a big joke. Schilawsky had taken pride in his Operation Enfilade, which, he claimed, would "bring to an end the Kingdom of Italy." Others, like Generals von Paar and von Vares (the latter of which participated in the Krakow battles) stoutly resisted the demands for von Schilawsky's removal. Their argument was composed of the claims that, unlike the 1st and 2nd Armies fighting a numerically inferior enemy, the 3rd Army was in fact outnumbered itself and had been expected to launch a massive offensive that would without a doubt be costly in manpower and reliant on each of the three stages of the operation; if one phase was unable to be carried out, the operation would fall apart (as actually happened).

Von Schilawsky himself, filled with grief and humiliation over his defeat, pleaded for one more chance. He said to von Hotzendorf (who was also Chief of the Army), "Should one more chance be given to me and my Men, I promise to you that I will not give you another Milan; rather, I will give you a Siedlce."

With a semi-renewed confidence in the 3rd Army leader, High Command decided to keep von Schilawsky "on his little throne," as von Hotzendorf bitterly described it.

Fortunately for von Schilawsky, his humiliation and the following debacle were quickly forgotten in the wake of the announced victory in Sarny. The Russians, desperate to reform their forces in the wake of the 1st Army's advance, had finally given up their slipping hold on the city and retreated north. This was quickly followed by the news from the German lines that Wolkowsyk - just north of Brest-Litovsk - was captured. Once the Germans seized Brest-Litovsk, the Austrians could complete the encirclement of any Russian troops in Lutsk.

What happened next, however, came as a brutal shock to von Gyllenband and his generals. Immediately upon the seizure of Sarny, a ferocious Russian counterattack struck the barely-fortified Austrian lines in the city. The Russians, it had seemed, had quickly reorganized following the retreat from the city, and were now moving in to take it back. On April 24, just two days after the city was lost, Russian troops again occupied Sarny. The Austrians had been bitterly defeated.

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Soldiers of Russia's 9th Infantry Division marching
into Sarny on the afternoon of the 24th of April


This was the second embarrassment in the Austro-Hungarian High Command in under a month. However, von Hotzendorf was not willing to sack von Gyllenband - he was a very skilled commander and had already brought the army many victories throughout the war. It was decided, on April 29, to scrap Operation Hammer & Anvil altogether and to launch a general offensive against the northwestern Russian lines. Von Denta assaulted Brest-Litovsk, while Gyllenband reorganized his Army and attacked Lutsk en-masse with several thousand German allies. Victory was almost immediately secured in Lutsk - von Denta's 160,000 men against the 180,000 Russians in Brest-Litovsk, however, struggled to gain the upper hand. Victory would be secured on May 25.

Meanwhile, in the Adriatic Sea, the first major naval battle involving ships of the Austro-Hungarian Navy had occurred. Admiral von Haus had, in a single afternoon, brought glory to the K.u.K. Kriegsmarine and had humiliated the Regia Marina.

****

STATUS REPORT
As of May 22 1916
Est. Austro-Hungarian Killed: 33,000 (249,000 total)
Est. Russian Killed: 47,000 (777,000 total)
Est. Italian Killed: 31,000 (186,000 total)
Est. French Killed: 6,000 (13,000 total)
TOTAL KILLED: 117,000 (1,471,000 total)

 
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Going to need some reinforcements. You can hold the line easily, but you're not taking any ground with such even numbers :] You need to throw a huge amount of men at them.
 
@Ivir Baggins: My troop count is still considerably low (as my production priorities have been much more naval-oriented), so a transfer of troops from the East is unlikely at this point in time.

@Soulstrider, Falconette & Morrell8: Indeed :( But this update will make your hearts warm with pride for our great navy!

@TremblingBlue: I only recently began recruitment for several more infantry divisions, all of which are to be deployed in Italy. For the most part, any other divisions recruited in the next year or so will most likely all be deployed to Italy.

****

Chapter XIV
Battle of the Venetian Gulf

The embarrassing successive defeats inflicted upon the Austro-Hungarian Empire of April and May of 1916 seemed to linger for a while. Von Schilawsky's failed Operation Enfilade, and the loss of Sarny and the cancellation of the already extremely costly Operation Hammer & Anvil had brought about the deaths of tens of thousands of Austrians with virtually no gain whatsoever. To the Germans, it was believed that Austria was now no longer capable of fighting - debate raged in the Reichstag over the "Austro-Hungarian Assimilation Bill", which would effectively give command of all Austro-Hungarian military units to the German Empire.

And, for the Austrians, this was thankfully deflected at no better a time than on the afternoon of May 22, 1916.

Almost a week before, the Ottoman Navy - brandishing it's newly-acquired flagship, the ex-German battlecruiser Goeben, now the Yavuz Sultan Selim (or just simply Yavuz) - began planning on a sortie into the Aegean Sea and possibly the Eastern Mediterranean. The semi-modern warship would be accompanied by the ex-German cruiser Midilli, two older protected cruisers, Mecidiye and Hamidiye, the battleship pair Turgut Reis and Barbaros Hayreddin(1), and three flotillas of outdated destroyers and torpedo-boats. The purpose of this incursion into the Aegean was to draw a squadron of the Regia Marina into battle; a large string of over 250 mines had been laid in the waters surrounding the Greek isles. It was, in essence, a trap for the Italian Navy. Should the Italians not be drawn out by the mere presence of the Ottoman ships, then an extended merchant marine hunting campaign would commence, damaging the Italian supply route to British forces in the Middle East (who were in a drawn-out battle over the Sinai peninsula).

Gro%C3%9Fer_Kreuzer_Goeben.jpg


SMS Goeben underway in the Mediterranean, circa 1912. Her ten 11 inch (280 mm) guns
were a very formidable armament for any warship in the Mediterranean


Even as the Ottoman ships left port at about 4 AM, spies wirelessed Italian naval commanders in Taranto on the sortie of the Ottoman fleet. Immediately, Prince Luigi Amedeo, commander of the Regia Marina's dreadnoughts and battleships, sallied forth to confront the Ottomans, not with a small squadron, but his entire command. He sailed east at high speed and finally met and engaged the Ottomans at 11 AM. German admiral Souchon, commander of the Ottoman fleet, was caught unawares at the size of the entire Italian fleet, and immediately began fighting a running action north. As Admiral Amedeo realized the haste in the Ottoman ships, he gave chase and began scoring hits on the enemy shortly thereafter. At just midday, he had already destroyed the old cruiser Hamidiye with the guns of his dreadnought Giulio Cesare. At this point, Souchon had pulled his ships past the islands and network of mines, and began a broad skirmish as he forced Admiral Amedeo to spread his fleet out to counter the smaller Ottoman formation.

It was here that Souchon, realizing that the Italian ships were not going to be drawn into his mine trap, ordered a general attack by all of his torpedo boats on the Italian battle line. At 1:15 PM, his boats gathered in formation and headed towards the enemy fleet. The Italians were swift in their response; an entire flotilla of boats were destroyed. Of the seven torpedoes launched by the Ottoman torpedo-boats, not a single found it's mark.

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Cruiser Hamidiye, victim of the Battle of the Cyclades

With battle broken, and the Ottomans having already lost a number of important ships, Souchon retreated north back through the Dardanelles and into the Sea of Marmara. Amedeo, with victory secured, began moving west. His ships had exhausted over half of their ammunition and fuel.

However, for reasons unknown, Amedeo ordered his ships to dock at Ancona, on the east coast of Italy, instead of at Taranto. This would put themselves at a dangerously close location to the Austro-Hungarian Navy. As the fleet was steaming down the coast, Admiral Anton Haus received word of the Ottoman naval defeat and the Regia Marina's presence just several miles from Pola. Scraping together all ships under his command - including the fifteen pre-dreadnoughts of the Reserve Battleship Squadron - he sortied from Pola and Trieste at 2:30 PM. Flying his flag from the dreadnought SMS Tegetthoff, he steamed south with haste to intercept the weary Italian fleet.

He met the enemy at 3:23 AM. From a range of about 12,000 yards, his four dreadnoughts of the Tegetthoff class opened fire on the lead Italian dreadnoughts, Leonardo da Vinci, Giulio Cesare, and Dante Alighieri. For several minutes, the ships of both fleets failed to score hits on one another; then, the old light cruiser SMS Donau was struck with a 13.5 inch (343 mm) shell from the old battleship RN Sardegna. She was immediately immobilized; most of her 4 inch (100 mm) guns were put out of commission. Fire broke out on her deck as two 8.2 inch (208 mm) from the armored cruiser RN Varese hit home. As the fleet continued to steam on, and as the situation on the ship worsened, Admiral Haus ordered the scuttling of the little cruiser. As water flowed into her hull, she sank at 3:44 PM.

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RN Sardegna, who drew first blood during the Battle of the Venetian Gulf

However, the tide in the battle was about to turn. As the fleets continued to close the range, the older and less accurate Austro-Hungarian battleships came into the limelight. SMS Babenburg began scoring hits on the Italian light cruiser Lombardia. As she suffered more and more direct hits, her speed lagged and she began listing to port. After a fifth volley from the Austro-Hungarian ship's guns, the fore magazine ignited with the coal stores aboard and blew the ship in half. Over 400 men died instantaneously.

Further "revenge" was secured when the even-older battleship Don Juan D'Austria fired a single volley that holed the cruiser Liguria, which had also been under fire from the armored cruiser Sankt Georg. Liguria, having already taken several hundred tons of water into her compartments, flooded completely on her port side and keeled over and sank at 3:59.

However, the first major blow of the battle was not dealt until the battleship SMS Erzherzog Franz Ferdinand unleashed a fury of shells onto the Italian battleship Ammiraglio di S. Bon. The latter had suffered from a malfunctioning propulsion system, and after having been hit in the engines by several 8.2 inch shells, she began to lose control and began steering into the Austrian line. Firing at virtually point-blank range - just 5,500 yards - the Ammiraglio suffered horrendously. Her guns malfunctioning, and unable to move back in line with her sisters, she struck her colors at 4:24. After the battle, having been deemed too heavily damaged to make it to Pola, she was scuttled by Austrian sailors.

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SMS Erzherzog Franz Ferdinand, who struck the first major blow of the battle

Shortly after, as the Italian fleet began to turn to port towards the safety of the coast, the cruiser Libia exploded under the concentrated firepower of the armored cruiser Kaiser Karl IV and the even older battleship Wien. It was at this point that Haus signaled his ships, "Engage the enemy more closely." Already at a terribly close range, the Austrians moved even closer to the retreating Italians, intent on doing as much damage as possible.

At 5:12, after many more ships were damaged, SMS Veribus Unitis, last dreadnought in the Austrian battle line, fired a single volley that penetrated the fore and aft magazines of the battleship RN Regina Margerhita, the last Italian battleship in the line. The ship instantly ignited and slipped underwater two minutes later, claiming over 700 lives.

With the Italians now just several miles from shore, torpedo boats and destroyers came out to the water with black streams of coal smoke trailing behind them. His fleet already heavily damaged, and wishing to keep his losses to just Donau, Haus broke combat and sailed back for Pola. As the Austrians sailed away, he signaled his ships: "Next time, we shall take the Grand Fleet."

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Veribus Unitis, the only Austrian dreadnought to sink an enemy vessel during the battle

Several hours after the fleet's arrival in Pola, news of the victory spread to Vienna. The battle was hailed as "The defeat, if not absolute destruction, of the old grandpa battleships of the Italian Kingdom." Though it was, in essence, only a minor victory, as all of the Italian battleships were soon to be replaced anyway, Admiral Haus quickly became a national hero overnight. If this fame was given to him upon his victory with four dreadnoughts, he thought, "I cannot even imagine what I can achieve with eight."

****

(1) - Turgut Reis and Barbaros Hayreddin were previously the old Brandenburg-class battleships Weissenburg and Kurfurst Friedrich Wilhelm of the German Imperial Navy

STATUS REPORT
Est. Austro-Hungarian Killed: 1,000 (250,000 total)
Est. Italian Killed: 3,000 (189,000 total)
TOTAL KILLED: 4,000 (1,475,000 total)

 
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Yeah, I'd like to see how the other fronts are doing every now and then. I want to see if your loyal German friends are dealing with the French.
 
Sorry for the long hiatus, guys, but I have returned with this AAR! :D

@ Ivir Baggins, korodikrisz & TremblingBlue: See update :p
@ FCZP: If you mean the casualties in the Status Report, I have made rough estimates of the casualties that all nations have suffered in the battles that involve troops of Austria-Hungary. These include the troops of Serbia, Montenegro, Russia, Italy, France, and Albania.

I also think it's important to say that I have downloaded a new country color pack for DH, so Austria-Hungary is no longer white, but light gray! Hurrah!

****

Chapter XV
Von Denta to Save the Day!

Victory at Brest-Litovsk was secured by midnight on May 25. After several days of stubborn stalemate in the city and its outskirts, von Denta determinedly declared of his staff, "Tomorrow, this city will be Austrian." A determined attack by the Austrians, an attack von Denta ordered "to stay, for all intensive purposes, an offensive, not a retreat,"(1), finally pushed the Russians over the breaking point and forced a retreat. Casualties during the fighting was relatively light; of the 220,000 that participated in the week-long fighting, 30,000 were lost.

Meanwhile, to the north, the Germans were seeing great success as well. Their first attempt halfway through the previous year having been a failure, the German Army mounted another attack along the Baltic coast in an attempt to capture Riga, a city that was critical to Russia's industrial power. This victory came against a weakened enemy, as well as more troops being committed to the offensive. With the success of capturing the city also came the encirclement of four divisions' worth of Russians in Liepaja, trapped by over 120,000 of their enemies. Russian power, it could not be denied, was waning.

DarkestHour2012-03-1019-57-53-91_e.jpg


The strategic situation in the Baltics, May 29

On the Western Front, a potentially deadly situation had been dealt with spectacularly by the Germans. A concentrated French offensive on Strasbourg, which included several thousand Italian expeditionary troops, where the German lines were particularly weak, created a bulge in the front that threatened to break out into the rear of the German Army. Luckily, von Falkenhayn and von Bulow, two of the most esteemed commanders of the Western Front, mounted a quick successive counterattack that overwhelmed the weary French troops that had barely had any time to entrench themselves. The French victory, however temporary, had been defeated at the cost of over 150,000 German and French troops.

However, in Liege, Belgian territory occupied by troops of Germany, had only recently been the sight of a massive French-Belgian offensive that forced the troops of the German 10th Army Corps to retreat south to Luxemburg. This, unfortunately, left a large gap in the German lines near Eupen, that, if the Allies managed to take advantage of, could spill into the Rhine river valley, the heart of Germany's industry.

DarkestHour2012-03-1020-06-51-27_e.jpg


The situation on the Western Front on May 29

Meanwhile, across Europe, the Ottoman Empire was holding it's own. In the Caucasus Mountains, the Ottomans were provoking somewhat of a standoff with such inferior numbers that a single Russian attack could break the back of the defenders. The extensive mountain terrain was utilized by the Ottomans as a supreme defensive position, in which a small number of men - 20,000, to be exact - could prevent 80,000 Russians, on the other side of the mountains, from attacking.

In the south, the Ottomans had gone on the offensive. With superior numbers against combined French and British troops, the Turks had already taken a swath of territory on the Sinai Peninsula. However, due to a lack of reserve troops - provoked from the potentiality of a British amphibious invasion somewhere in the Levant, as the Brits had done near Kiel the year previous - prevented any further advances.

DarkestHour2012-03-1020-13-52-83_e.jpg


Ottoman strategical deployments in the Caucasus and the Palestine-Sinai area. Notice
the large coastal garrisons, a result of Turk general's fears of a British amphibious invasion


On July 2, to launch their own offensive, High Command ordered the taking of Pinsk. When General von Vares and Field Marshal von Denta received the orders, they expected another brutal battle; however, by the time their troops were in position and the attacks began, Russian resistance was next to non-existent. The troops were already under attack by some fifteen German divisions from the north, and their defenses in the south and west were severely weakened to try and concentrate the defense against the Germans. By July 11, as the Austrian troops penetrated into the core of the Russian defenses, they drew blood from the enemy's heart: the Russians broke, and fled to the east in desperation.

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Russian POWs following the Battle of Pinsk, July 12

These two victories - at Brest-Litovsk and Pinsk - brought hope back to both the Army and High Command that there was still hope of maintaining the Central Powers' string of victories (or lack thereof, in the case of Italy), as well as bringing birth to the hope that the war could be over by next year.

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The Austro-Hungarian Empire (dark green), August 6, 1916

****

(1) - Von Denta, as well as several other commanders on the Eastern Front, was fed up with the defeats in the recent months

STATUS REPORT
As of August 6 1916
Est. Austro-Hungarians Killed: 28,000 (277,000 total)
Est. Russian Killed: 45,000 (822,000 total)
Est. Italian Killed: 2,000 (188,000 total)
TOTAL KILLED: 75,000 (1,546,000 total)

 
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Good to see this is back :) So what's your strategy? Keep pushing Russia until it breaks and then swing back onto the Allies? Has Lenin been sent back to Russia yet?
 
Great to see!

I think some support should be sent to the western front...despite holding off the allies, the Germans still aren't doing amazingly well and the line could fall.
 
@ Duke of Awesome: That's essentially it, yes. Russia has been severely weakened lately, and I think the war in the East will continue for, at most, a year. My main objective in the west is to hold the Italo-Franco army back, but I would like to claim some more territories :p

@ TremblingBlue: I have lots of dissent (around 15%), so my industry is limited in what it can produce - I'm trying to beef up my navy a bit so I can go toe-to-toe with the Italians again. I'm also trying to produce more infantry, but I don't know if it'll be enough.

@Ivir Baggins & korodikrisz: When I started off I just claimed a bunch of territories that, if claimed, would give me passage to Sevastopol and the Black Sea. :p

****

Chapter XVI
Fortunes are Reversed

Following the victories at Brest-Litovsk and Pinsk from May through July, many Austrian generals wished to follow these up with many more victories. On August 19, von Wurm - following intelligence reports that revealed a reckless weakness in the Russian front line in the south - launched an attack on Balti, near the border with Romania. The 170,000 men he organized for the attack quickly overran the surprised 40,000 Russians defending the backwater area. Russian General Bekman tried to regain control of the situation by establishing a new line of defense, but his men, having seen next to no action throughout the war, broke and ran in terror at the sight of a numerically superior Austrian enemy.

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Von Wurm's assault on Balti, a huge
success against the overwhelmed Russians


By the 23rd, the Russian troops were completely routed from the Balti area, and it was secured under the flag of Austria-Hungary. Von Wurm's successful utilization of his intelligence networks that had revealed the Russian weakness in his sector of the front line brought him congratulations from many other commanders in the army.

This was quickly followed up - while the Battle of Balti was ongoing - by Field Marshal von Denta, who, on August 20, launched a massive assault against General Mishchenko's 50,000 men defending the Mozyr area. This battle was to last until the same day as the Battle of Balti, where a final charge at twilight on the 23rd broke the back of the Russian defenses, and they ran from their fortifications. It almost wasn't a fair fight for von Denta's 330,000.

DarkestHour2012-03-1115-45-21-69_e0.jpg


Von Denta spearheads an assault on Mozyr

Meanwhile, on the Western Front, things were looking up for the Allies. The gap in the German lines near Eupen was taken by the French and Belgian troops, who charged into it and intended to cut the German Army off from the rest of Germany. The West Army, severely outnumbered by the French, were unable to cover the leak in their front line; to compensate, they forfeited the majority of the territory they had gained in their offensives against France and attempted to re-establish a line farther east.

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Beleaguered German troops in a trench under siege, September 1916

This proved to be a problem as well, as their was a defined lack of German formations farther north - this worried German commanders even further, as there was a massive concentration of French divisions in Saarbrucken.

DarkestHour2012-03-1115-59-33-48_e0.jpg


The German line in the West, severely weakened by a lack of troops

To help out the German Empire - Austria-Hungary's greatest ally - Chief of Staff and Field Marshal von Hotzendorf, a commander on the Eastern Front, proposed creating a new Austrian army corps - the Deutsch Expeditionsarmee, or German Expeditionary Army - to be sent to the Western Front to assist the undermanned German Army fighting the French and Belgians in the west. This proposal received huge criticism from many other generals in the army, particularly those serving in Italy, that the Austro-Hungarian Army was barely scraping by with what it had, and that if anything, the new troops should be sent to Italy and to Russia, not to Germany. However, von Hotzendorf was backed by Emperor Francis, and, being Chief of Staff and the Chief of the Army, he could not be denied his requests. Recruitment for several new infantry divisions - to be the basis of the new Deutsch Expeditionsarmee - began on September 18.

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Francis Conrad von Hotzendorf, Chief of Staff, Chief of
the Army, and Field Marshal in the Austro-Hungarian Army,
who proposed the creation of the Deutsch Expeditionsarmee


On the Eastern Front, the German Army, however, was continuing to push the Russians back. Riga and the surrounding area were wholly occupied, and the Russian army was reeling back from the successive defeats it had suffered at the hands of both the Germans and Austrians. The Italians, however, we being too stubborn to let the Austrians secure any victory at all. With the fall of Russia, this was to change.

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The Austro-Hungarian Empire (dark green), September 24, 1916

****

STATUS REPORT
As of September 24 1916
Est. Austro-Hungarian Killed: 10,000 (287,000 total)
Est. Russian Killed: 38,000 (860,000 total)
Est. Italian Killed: 4,000 (192,000 total)
TOTAL KILLED: 52,000 (1,621,000 total)