Carnage al Dente
Chapter XXVII - Operation Carnival
Players: USA, UK, SPA, SOV, GERx2, JAP, ITA
Recap: Vichy has fallen to the Americans and the Allies has launched a massive attack on Western Europe. Italy has planned "Operation Carnival" to take the American ports in Vichy and cut their supply. on the East Front, the battles slowly grinds on as the Wehrmacht push for Archangelsk. Japan won a great naval victory against the Americans and now plans to go on the offensive to expand their emipre eastwards, to threat USA proper.
April 22nd, 1942
The Americans has reached far north in the belly of occupied France. Germans forces are, however, crushing the sprouting rebellions by French partisans who rose behind the German lines. This was successful before American forces could connect with them. Except being an annoyance for the German leadership, they did not have a strategic influence on the 4th Battle of France.
Italian fighters continue to back Luftwaffe up and manage (due to my own ability for micro-management due to little else to do) quite often to find unescorted allied bombers. It was a great event the first time they met USAF-bombers and shot down plenty of them.
April 29th, 1942
The Regia Marina is prowling the Med again. She is but a fraction of what she once was, and what Il Duce imagines she would become. Still, his effort to make her grand is not completely wasted. Anew modern battle ship, named “Il Duce” has replaced those being lost and with two of these marine behemoths leading the fleet, there is still bite in it… …or so the Italian leadership hopes. With all the naval failures of this war, the Italian leadership dare not believe in success. Still, they have one factor on their side. The Allies probably do not see them as a threat anymore. At least the Brits and the Americans seem to have focused a majority of their carriers to the pacific.
Admiral da Zara has lost an enormous amount of prestige since the start of the war. He is yearning for a great victory, or it might be his life next.
April 28th-30th, 1942
As the Regia Marina was carefully sailing around Italy the Regia Aeronatica was active along the coast. Scouting fighters found a British cruiser task force seeming to guard the port that the Italian fleet was heading for. The naval bombers were immediately alerted and sent to engage the light cruisers. The cruisers anti aircraft guns worked furiously and made the skies all dotty with small black clouds. The Italian naval bombers, however, were advanced aircrafts with modern torpedoes which could be dropped with high accuracy without getting to close to the ships. Cruiser after cruiser was hit by the deadly torpedoes with quite few bombers crashing in the ocean in the return.
After little less than three days, the bomber crews were exhausted, some were wounded and most of the planes had damages from shrapnel. Two light cruisers were sunk and the other four were burning wrecks. Even though the naval bombers had to be grounded, the Italian leaderships did not want the cruisers to be able to get away….
Although this was considered being a well needed victory, it delayed Operation Carnival. Even though the cruisers meant no danger for Regia Marina, engaging them with the fleet meant alerting the Brits to their presence, thus spoiling the necessary surprise in Operation Carnival. The Regia Marina had to go into port further south and wait – just hoping no Allied reconnaissance would spot them there.
May 1st-3rd, 1942
Other Italian aircrafts followed up the work started so successfully by the naval bombers. It was a lot slower work, but with engines destroyed, the Brits could not get away. All six light cruisers were sunk with little cost for the Italians. This was a well needed revenge on the Brits. With the cruisers gone, Operation Carnival could be initiated.
Authors note: It is obvious that Zid had his attention elsewhere (the attack on France I presume) and missed this battle completely. I even wonder if he realized they were all bombed away…
May 6th, 1942
Operation Carnival is in full swing. Land attacks are initiated to open a route towards Toulon while the landing of troops directly to the port city has started. Fighters are making sure USAF cannot leave Marseille and tactical bombers are harassing several provinces.
May 7th, 1942
Fate wanted a grand US-navy task force to turn up while the disembarking of troops was still in full swing.
Authors note: This was really annoying due to the fact that the whole operation was stalled at least a day due to an ignored “invasion”-order. I know better than to trust that damn order. The damn transports just returned with their troops on. Had that not happened, the landing had been done before the Americans showed up…
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Nevertheless; the Americans had no carriers and da Zara could engage the way he always had wanted to. His flagship RM Il Duce (I see I spelt it wrong in the game… heh..) fired time and again and the enormous grenades hit their targets with an almost scary precision. USS Mississippi went down after a huge explosion. The USS Arkansas took two serious hits as well while Il Duce did not take a scratch. It was like magic (or that was at least how it would be described in the Italian news papers).
The problem was the ongoing disembarkment. The cowardly Americans targeted the transports and the escorting destroyers and sank several. It was hell for the troops to travel against the shore in the midst of a rain of huge caliber naval gun fire. Although several of the hit transports were empty, it was sadly not the case for all. Several thousand Italian infantrymen went down with the transports, still locked into the cargo hold.
Authors note: One division was lost at sea but two came ashore with their HQ.
In the end of the day this was still a glorious even as it was the first time the Regia Marina and da Zara had officially won a major naval battle.
May 8th, 1942
With the help of a German panzer division, the American defense in Cogolin was completely shattered and stumbled backwards leaving a trail of dead.
In the meantime, an Italian division in Toulon attacked Marseilles which was only defended by HQs who quickly fled. With a neighboring American division locked in battle, it seemed Operation Carnival was going roughly according to plan.
May 9th, 1942
In the evening the 9th, just as the Italian troops were about to enter the city of Marseille and claim final victory, a Spanish division hastily moved in and took up the fight in the suburbs. The Spanish was not an obstacle the Italians could not breech… if time would have been ample. Soon, surveillance showed Americans moving in to support the Spanish, all while the Italian stalling attacks up in the hills became tougher and tougher.
During mid day the 10th, the Italia leadership called off Operation Carnival. One of two ports had been captured, the Americans had been forced to retreat and focus on the south. Also, an Amercan battleship had been sunk and the Regia Marina had won its first victory. As such, Operation Carnival was a success. On the downside, as the American’s main port was still in their hand, they would not get the supply-problems intended. Strategically, Operation Carnival would not get any long term effects.
Still, the Allies would act a little more careful in the Med in the future.
May 4th, 1942
The battles in former France were chaotic during the time the Regia Marina moved in to initiate Operation Carnival. The Allied tried desperately to create a sack around Paris and the Axis fought, just as desperately, to keep it open. Provinces changed owner a lot more often than the poor soldiers got to change underwear. During a few hours, the sack was closed. Then the Americans ended up in a sack instead, which the Brits later managed to connect to. Just chaos.
Two Italian divisions had been trapped in the Mayhem. The Italian leadership wanted to pull them home, but simply failed to do so. They were needed to close a hole in the front or they simply had no way to go, or became under attack.
May 15th, 1942
During 10 days of intensive battle, as the same time as Operation Carneval, the Germans had managed to clean up somewhat on their back yard. On the other hand, the Allies had gotten an even firmer grip around Paris.
A German attack out of Montagis seemed to be able to once again capture some Allied units in a pocket. The German grip on that pocket seemed weak, so the Axis had little hope it would lead to anything strategically significant. The chaos would continue.
May 3rd, 1942
The Germans, aided by the Fins, are slowly closing in on Archangelsk. They fight with long supply lines and rather simple infrastructure which made the campaign go slow. Italian transport planes continued to keep a constant air-bridge of supply active, supplying the areas having shortages.
May 14th, 1942
Finally – Archangelsk is sealed off from the rest of Soviet. Almost an entire army seems to be captured in the pocket. This might evolve into a great victory. There are still a lot of Russians in the easily defended city. It is not over yet. At least some of the Red Army divisions were exhausted from resent battles, but so were the Germans after pressing on relentlessly.
May 16th, 1942
It seemed few of the Russians in Archangelsk had any fight left in them. After a few bloody skirmishes in the outskirts of the city, the exhausted soldiers simply fled – many tossing away their rifles – and chanced the wilderness in their desperation to get away from the attackers. They did not have much land left to flee to, and as far as the Axis knew, the Red Navy was in the Black Sea. It was not locked there however, so anything was possible.
Authors note: The Axis only need one more VC to win (they have 11 out of 12). The target is neutral Beograd.
May 10th, 1942
Japan launched a massive attack against Pearl Harbor. It resulted in several battles against US navy and Royal Navy. Japans worst losses were some transports with troops on. The Americans seem to have lost a battle ship but otherwise there were surprisingly few losses in relation to the huge amount of ships and CAGs involved.
The Japs had to pull back for a long repair session, but so would the Allies. It was not likely much would happen in the Pacific anytime soon. The initiative continues to belong to Japan. The Allies just do not seem to be willing to commit in the Pacific. It is obvious they concentrate their recourses on Germany.
The British Carrier Task Force with five or six carriers is still in the Pacific, along with all or a majority of the American carriers. It is useful to know for the new-born and battle-lusty Regia Marina. As long as they will not meet carriers, they can do some serious damage.
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