Carnage al Dente
Chapter XVII - The Struggle for Persia
Players:UK, USA, 2xUSSR, GER, ITA, JAP
Still an Axis player on vacation
Recap:The two main struggles in the world war is Britains attack on ockupied France and Axis attack on the Soviet Union. These are, however, not the only fronts of importance. Japan has opened an active front in Persia with potentials to threat both British holdings in Iraq and the belly of the Great Bear.
June 11th, 1941
The Brits tried an attack on Hungary through Romania but retreating Italians had seen them several days ahead and an ad hoc defense force had been assembled. Two divisions of German armor and the lack of friendly fighters made the offensive stumble to a halt. Pummeled by Italian bombers, the Brits pulled back. Hungary was saved.
The Axis still could not break the truce with Romania which was an annoying fact.
May 25th, 1941
As the Brits were moving on Hungary, the German beast of destruction continue its lumbering march against Moscow. The Red Army was not able to stop them, although progress was not very quick.
June 30th, 1941
The Romanian disaster had taxed the Wehrmacht, both on forces and attention. Still, they moved along and started to close in on the Soviet capital.
July 5th, 1941
This was an epic date as the German troops finally saw Moscow in the distance. Significant Red Army forces had assembled here, however, and the taking did not seem an easy task. The German did not succeed to rule the sky but at least the Russian bombings were quite inefficient.
July 12th, 1941
The Romanian disaster led to one good thing. Italy managed to create new colonies in Odessa and surrounding provinces. This pleased Il Duce extremely much and he sent for his personal architects to design a magnificent dacha overlooking the Black Sea.
Early June, 1941
In early June, the Japanese forces started an offensive against Persia. Persia had a communist leadership and was very strategically positioned by Iraq, Soviet and Turkey. The Soviet leadership had obviously foreseen this and placed a strong force in Teheran (or possibly they hadn’t foreseen it and just railed these forced here). This would be a hard nut to crack for the Japs. Still, the fact that a full army corps had been pulled away from the German front was a small victory in itself.
June 19th, 1941
It was slow moving in the mountainous terrain, for both sides. The Red Army, burdened with so many fronts, seemed a little unflexible and soon got a division surrounded. It seemed the Japs had a decent plan here.
July 9th, 1941
Teheran was defended by elite forces of the Red Army and the Japs had to struggle quite hard. They had the numbers, however, and attacked from several directions. As the Russians had to cover up their back more and more, it was obvious they could not keep enough forces in Teheran to hold it.
In the north, Japanese forced tried to seal the top of the sack, but the Red Army had seen this coming and a mountaineer-division came from the north to stop the encirclement.
July 12th, 1941
Persia has fallen! The Red Army managed to keep the sack open. A cavalry division attacked the Japanese division trying to seal the trap. The Jap infantry had little problem to fend off the cavalry in the mountains, but the attacked stopped them from moving – which obviously was the plan behind the attack. The battle of the Persian Sack continues.
July 22nd, 1941
Japan and her puppets are continuing putting a press on the Russian around the Baikal area. The Red Army has still a quite strong force here in relation to what the Japs has designated, and thus the going is quite slow. This is not a prioritized area for the Axis. As long as the two sided are in continuous contact, the objective is met.
July 22nd, 1941
By now, the United States was clearly worried by the World War. It was quite obvious they would join the Allies pretty soon. The Italian leadership had calculated that it would definitely be before the end of the year, possibly as early as late October or early November. It still gave Germany a quarter of a year more to crush the Bolsheviks before the yanks could interfere. It seemed like good odds.
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