Chapter Thirty-Five - The Other End in Africa
Canada and the UK knocked Italy out of north-east Africa some time ago, now we're hoping to knock Vichy France out of north-west Africa. Central Africa is a possibility at some point, though I have to admit that I have only a limited interest in it right now,
there could be a decapitated Norwegian waiting there for us. Finish this job, replenish my Manpower if possible, then think seriously about how to approach occupied Europe. If I look for something to keep me busy, I give up my chance to get manpower back. If I don't get manpower back before too much longer, it'll be tough to build anything meaningful before late 1944.
While I know it won't last, our ground attack bombers are doing what we'd hoped - bombing the crap out of defenseless enemies in theatres where the enemy has no planes at all. Bombing the enemy in Medea isn't strictly speaking necessary, but it is fun.
FYI - the only un-placed unit is a naval base I've had waiting for many months now. And the other symbol tells me I posted a unit in the USSR, which I already know. East of Medea there are the two Vichy divisions which we stumbled upon when we landed by sea to reveal the desert faster. In this central of the three areas of combat, one division is retreating inland after having been defeated. The other was already in motion when we beat the first, and has made a good start in trying to fight it's way through further east. We need to corral these two, so another Canadian division is launched at the attacking Vichy division to break that up.
The Medea area also features two enemy divisions. We'll take Tiaret and Ain Defla, plus bounce the enemy from Medea which we're doing now. Then we'll have five divisions for fighting against two enemy. Vichy will be corralled into two provinces. Reduce that pocket to one and a single defeat eliminates the enemy completely.
Our counter-attack in Skikda seems to be working as planned, and the battle for Medea ends with success. Note however that our losses were 375 to the enemy's 500, only the final battles here will be lopsided.
I did check out the supply situation in the area where we landed two divisions. It's an area with no port, but there's 140 supply there. This is both good news and bad news. It's good because we'll be able to link up long before the two Canadian divisions run out of supply. It's bad because that's Vichy supply, and it implies that there were good reserves built up in the empty areas which the enemy now controls. Given the choice between having my men having to sit tight because the desert had no supplies, and having the enemy free to roam for quite some time on the fat they've built up, I'd take lean supply all the way around.
I also spend a fair amount of time verifying that the enemy does not have a deep playing field. Only in the far east, south of Tunis, does the infrastructure run three provinces south of the Mediterranean. I glanced at our production, and we have an air base and our first Fighter squadron (USA licensed naval F4F Wildcats) due by the end of June.
Oh, yeah. Happy D-Day everyone! On the seventh of June, Canada throws another shut-out in Messina, 310 enemy dead, no Canadians. Manpower is still negative 20.
In the Medea area, we take Tiaret, and the Vichy who were already moving there begin to attack us. Since we have to reduce this pocket by one province anyway, we launch a counter attack, quickly bringing an end to the Vichy attack on Tiaret.
That battle in Chetaibi is the one where I launched the counter attack to cut it off. So -25 is actually a huge improvement for the good guys. I also spent some time shifting my airforce around before I discovered that the area is out of reach for ground attacks.
I kill 20 enemy with bombings in Chlef, and then check my own supply and realize that apparently I can tell what the enemy has in areas I'm attacking into, or at least I can now. Vichy has ten days worth of supply in Chlef, about nine more than I want the battle to take. So we kill another 71 enemy in two more attacks.
The attack into Chetaibi ends when the enemy in Skikda is defeated by the counter-attack (I think I only got one battle end notice, though).
So I only have to take the coastal province and the enemy will be stuck in a single-province pocket.
Seventy men are killed in two more attacks into Chlef, when I notice something hilarious:
Oddly, we could hear the POWs in Malta, and they were singing! "The British Navy,
HUH! What is it good for? Absolutely
NOTHIN'"
In the far east near Tunis there is a third pocket of Vichy Divisions. Unfortunately, here there is a bit more room to maneuver, so we'll have to be a bit more careful in pinching the area off.
We kill another 40 enemy in Chlef with ground attacks, and the eastern pocket is reduced by one more province as well. Here you can see the central and eastern areas together.
So we swap around where the eastern divisions are going and the two eastern pockets are collapsing nicely. The one near Tunis will take more work, and men, but it's only a matter of time.
In the west, in Chlef south of Algier, the one attacking Canadian division is making slow progress, even with incessant bombing of the enemy [Ed - so it's not the gratuitous bombing we were led to believe it was? Me - sorry], but I do not want to waste the attack of adjacent units just to speed things up. One more attack, and soon, and the two enemy divisions will be gone. Finally, here's a nice overview, along with a technology boosting announcement.
Box 1 is the Medea area and Chlef; box 2 is Constantine and Skikda; box 3 near Tunis is Siliana and soon Tebes. Oh, and
IC Efficiency, whoop-de-doo. So now I have even more IC I lack the manpower to use. Great. I added our current research, too. A couple nice techs coming, plus another almost pointless IC boost.
We won the battle of Chlef, finally, and reduce that pocket to one province as well. We're trying to use our armored cars to help chase the invincible HQ unit, but that's a plan which went back and forth since the AC cannot actually fight. We again lose nearly as many as Vichy in Chlef, actually we technically lost the battle in terms of casualties, 372 to 337. Only our bombardments kept the deathtoll favorable. Still, one last fight and the two enemy divisions are gone for good. Charef (the unmarked province at the intersection of the two Report Boxes) has too low infrastructure to allow movement, so Thanest al Had (the one they're moving into) will be Vichy's last stand.
A last stand which is coming soon to an AAR posting near you! Right now, I'm off to celebrate my birthday.