Chapter Thirty-Three - Closing the Ring
The trouble with taking North Africa from Vichy France is not that it's well defended, or even that there are many ports. It's that the thing is freaking huge. Even with very shallow useable terrain there are a great many places that the collaborators can be hiding. Granted, the French have so far defended zero out of, what is it, eight, ten ports? But still, I need to mop up before I can move on. Plus, when else am I going to be able to use my Ground Attack Hurricanes? I want to get my money's worth out of these bad boys before we move on to truly contested arenas. Granted, also, before we're done the UK and USA out to clense the skies of enemy fighters so that our quasi-Stukas can roam at will, but between now and then I suspect that North Africa is going to be their finest nour. And if the grand alliance can't make the air safe for Canada's air force before the hinge of fate swings shut forever, then triumph will lead to tragedy and a gathering storm will something something something.
But enough of all that, we've got a river war to fight, and a great war to win! As for Marlboroughs, smoke 'em if you got 'em.
Here's a pastiche of screenshots even worse than my literary slaughter.
The rightmost screenshot is of the sea between the first two, but they are in chronological order. I've taken the northern, Tunisian, ports, and sent my Tripoli troops to grab the ones south of Tunis. Then I got antsy, and I had unused guys, so I sent ships to drop them off in the presumably abandoned supply points. One way or another, Vichy was going to lose all sources of supply.
Meanwhile, in the far west of the North African theatre of combat, Canadian troops were trying to cut off whatever supply there might be still, and corral the Vichy troops into a pocket for capture.
Oddly, the Algerian provinces are not quite as constricted as I would have liked. On offense, I'd rather have had just one coastal province to worry about from Oran all the way to Tunis. Still, it's much better than if the Sahara was traversible by military units. In between the two areas shown above, one division was sent on a limited walkabout to cut off Tunis from the area east of Oran. I am not sure that there's much in the line of supplies stockpiled in the areas I have not yet captured, but I don't want the enemy moving what he has from where supplies are to where troops are.
The 27th of May saw us lose two more Convoys in two attacks, and the province of Tenes which we had abandoned east of Oran. Tenes we'll get back, the Convoys remain a trouble spot. Granted, for the most part it is only the shipping of resources to Canada which is being held up, and we have ample stockpiles, but new conquests aren't going to be supplied quickly anywhere so long as we're down 50+ Convoys. On the other hand, Convoys use IC but not manpower, so we should probably be building them anyway.
On the 28th we lose another Convoy, and early on the 9th we land troops to try to break up the Vichy holdings even further, and to identify any hidden units.
Found some! By the way, these were the guys who were going to land at the Tunisian port. Change of plans and all that.
In Tenes, our fresh troops attack the Vichy we recently fought, and bring our handy dandy air force to the party. I can't tell you how nice it is to be on the other side of undefended air bombings.
Speaking of which, our Messina mountain men win a rematch 70-0, and no Italian planes are seen, making this our first true shutout across the straits. Here's an overview of Africa as it stands now.
In about the center of the map is Oran, where I'm chasing one HQ unit to the west toward Republican Spain's african holdings. East of that is Tenes which we're fighting over now. To the far east is Tunis and the one remaining Vichy supply point south of Tunis. South of my ships, between Tunis and Tenes, is a pair of Vichy divisions which currently outnumber the Canadians in the immediate vicinity, but more men are on the way. The key is for me to outnumber each pocket of Vichy by enough to defeat them without many losses. I have a feeling that the first combats will be more even than I'd like. Still, I need to spread out some to find the enemy, I should outnumber them everywhere before much time passes, and best of all, I have supplies and they do not. Not for long anyway. Insets FTW!
We won the battle of Tenes pretty quickly, and as you can see, we're chasing the French inland, where I don't think they're planning to film the Last Remake of Beau Geste.
We'll listen for the theme song, though (starts about 1:20).
By the end of the 20th Canada had taken Gabes, and the last vestiges of the old Vichy supply system had been swept away. Since we weren't going to be attacking by sea anymore, and since it was nighttime, we decided to move our somewhat tattered Canadian Navy to safety in Syracusa. I did not choose the far west of Sicily only because I had ships recuperating there already, and I want to distinguish my battered ships from my badly battered ships. Why do I mention this? Hmm, have I mentioned recently how useless the British Navy is?
There's probably a few guys on Malta who agree with us. On the other hand, the Brits would probably - politely - suggest that we not sail past an invasion in progress next time we head to safety. The worst thing is that running away just means going where we were going anyway, so I let time pass slowly and take screenshots of what used to be a damned fine bunch of boats.
What matters here is that nothing sank. I was especially worried about the Ontario. We did give an account of ourselves, but we're not going to be using those ships for weeks to come. Next time Italy invades Malta, don't expect Canada to come running. They didn't even thank us (Italy lost). One of these days I'm gonna post a screenshot that is 100% insets. Don't say I didn't warn you.
In the area around Tenes, the noose is tightening, though I can't recall offhand why I thought I needed a division to defend Algier. Yes, it's where my planes are, but still. I doubt the Italians are coming after that spanking we gave that destroyer flotilla, the one near the bottom of the list 34a. It will be limping home well behind the other dozen untouched Italian ships, you can be sure of that!
In the east of what remains of the African Theatre of combat, Canadian forces sweep on. The
Steamroller of the North cannot be stopped.