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The Dog Days of Summer

The war drags on through the early weeks of July, my hand hurts from all the micromanagement, Russia's OOB has been reduced to total chaos along with a considerable portion of our lines on the Rhine front, the supply situation is also deteriorating. By mid June the giant spastic supply flows began in earnest. One day we are down 8000 then we are back up 9000 the extremity of these flows is also increasing. We may have to start producing supply like savages or capitalists. I shudder at the thought.

Adding to my rage good old Danzig gives us a nice costly loss. At least some things can still be counted on.
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Denmark is liberated and becomes a puppet, hopefully that event where the US takes Iceland and Greenland will not fire if it is a Soviet Puppet.
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Danish air and naval bases will be helpful for attacking Canada.

Germany Dead: A Midsummer Night's Dream


July 13th. The primary battleground is looking decent, Dusseldorf may just fall, and despite German attacks our armor thrust will cross the Rhine and start its advance to Bitburg. Our attack against Bonn is not so promising.
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Oh the battle percentage is at a 3? Better keep on attacking.

It ends in bloody failure.
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At this point I start to get desperate and move every available plane into nearby air bases and start bombing everything in the Bitburg area. That helps us take Dusseldorf and hold Kleve.

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Pushing south into the next province proves difficult for our tanks that have been fighting constantly for weeks now. The stack of infantry in Dusseldorf will be thrown into the fray. Along with more CAS. I even use INTs to bomb that province.
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We continue to be attacked in the south.

I have a tendency to be only able to provide rational, focused leadership on one front, with my attention on Bitburg the Balkan front deteriorates into a mad stampede. Hoards of Russians rush south hitting everything in their path. The terrain sucks, but that is the only thing stopping us right now, other than roads clogged with dead Italians.
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Over in Asia land we begin to initiate a plan to capture Korea, the first stage involves destroying the Japanese forces in the north, then overrunning the rest of the peninsula. In China we will attempt a probing offensive and gain a better position while they wait for the rest of the army to clean up Korea.
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Things look pretty crazy in Korea but I have reinforcements rushing from all over Manchuria, along with a mechanized division and some Red Rollahs. We should be able to bring the pain.

The front in China does not look to hot, we are surprisingly outnumbered and the Japanese currently have air supremacy, the only thing going for us are the handful of armored units we have, but they are getting swamped and worn down.

Diplomacy Strikes Back

It seems that as we were busy waging massive wars against powerful countries those fancy pants, perfume wearing, girly men of the Allies were glad-handing and back-slapping their way to world domination by bringing more countries into their silly alliance.

I actually think this was induced by a war declaration by either Italy or Germany, in any case the Western front just got a whole lot more complicated.
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The Swiss are invading Germany, Germany is invading Switzerland, Italy is invading them to, and France is invading Italy. Oh lawd.
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What a mess, I can't wait to make it even worse.

But then the Americans joined the party.
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This is a far more alarming development, but before everyone starts flipping tables, don't worry the US did not drag the rest of the Allies into a war with me. Yet. But what this does do is give the US and their jaw droppingly powerful navy access to the British and French empires to launch attacks against us where ever they want. And we can't do a thing about it. Yet. :)

To give us a taste of what is to come the Yanks land marines on one of the two Peruvian VPs. Even though I am marching into Lima right now, I cannot puppet them. To add insult to injury this province is bugged or something, all troops I send in there take a whole month to march in, and then don't attack anything just standing there in some twilight zone where you can't kill Americans, even amphibious landings won't work. blarg.
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The Great American Satan

The Road to Bitburg: Paved with Ground up Bones
On July 19th M. Gladbach was the next province to fall on the road to Bitburg, huge air and infantry assaults helped us take this heavily fortified province. Any German player who actually builds forts deserves to be brutally crushed by Communists. Many of our units are tied down defending ground already taken, thankfully the Germans left the next province, Duren, undefended.
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July 25th. Giant stacks of Germans move ominously around our advance. This is one of the few times I wish we waited for the Germans to attack us, these armies are impossible to kill in their current position. My only hope is they do not properly utilize their power.
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We launch our first attack on Bitburg, it is more of a probe and is smashed by strong German defenses. We start bombing the living hell out of Bitburg, but the giant stack of defenders shreds our planes. We continue anyways bringing in even more bombers. Battles like this are the whole reason you have an air force.

On July 25th, our first attack on Bitburg is repelled after a counterattack from another province.
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We still need to bring up more tanks to help out, mercifully Bitburg is not an urban area.

Summer Blockbusters:

In the last week of July the intensity of the war stepped up, huge battles raged and casualty figures rose to new ridiculous heights. For the first time in the game I actually looked at the manpower levels, they had dropped to 2150, from a prewar level of almost 2300 ( along with an extra 200 from an event)

We are still holding on in the south, with a nice fat victory.
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Hurrah for even less consumer goods!

But we are being pushed in the center.
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We give the Italians and Germans a damn good thrashing in northern Italy, our smaller force inflicted huge casualties. Unfortunately the rest of the enemy runs away in the wrong direction, into a city instead of more plains.
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Oh well, that just means more prisoners instead of bodies.

Speaking of bodies, on July 27th Danzig ran out of supplies, and for the first time we could launch a productive assault on that blasted city. This was my most satisfiying moment of the game so far. The rage and frustration that this city has caused will soon be purged in fire and blood.
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There were too many battles to be contained in this single update, we will continue the summer bloodbath next time, perhaps I'll do another update tonight for continuity's sake.
 
Germany is being painted red, but America dares interfere in South America. Time to look at dragging the paint cans across the Atlantic.
 
too bad allies allied with murrica... i was hoping they would stand neutral as the last non comintern states, just like a cherry which waits till you make the cake to be put on it...
 
A Glorious Crescendo of Violence

Between July 25th and 30th we had some of our most spectacularly bloody battles to date.

The second battle of Bonn ended even worse than the first one, the main purpose of these attacks were to pin the 2 panzer divisions in Bonn that were trying to attack our forces around Bitburg.
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Ehingen was the tip of our salient in the south around the city of Stuttgart, this was the second giant battle to take place there, this time we won. The German forces in the area were totally shattered after this battle. While it had chewed up a whole Russian infantry corps, our tanks had recovered enough to start a counter attack.
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Not sure how this happened, but I'll take the extra victory...
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After Ehingen I tentatively advance with a motor rifle division. The Germans are routed and don't even try to fight, it seems like they have finally broken. We roll into Stuttgart after chasing out a few HQs. Then a huge German force counterattacks, I shrug and tell myself easy come, easy go.
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This must be one of the most intimidating forces a player can encounter... other than a Russian unit.

But it turns out that this fearsome panzers corps is suffering from performance issues. It can't stick around for a real fight.
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Bit of a premature evacuation from battle, eh.

In other news...

ON JULY 30th DANZIG SURRENDERS!
HELL IT'S ABOUT TIME!

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A siege that has cost tens of thousands of lives on both sides, lasted nearly 100 days and tied down an enormous part of my army has finally ended. It took a quick and brutal assault on the exhausted German defenders who had run out of supplies to finally induce surrender. Most of the forces freed up were immediately rushed to our southern Rhine front that was being steadily pushed back. While part of it was sent to the Far East to help deal with the alarmingly strong Japanese army. Unfortunately the city was handed over to Poland, of all countries, and we do not get the strategic bonus. I may declare war on Poland just to get it later on. And because invading Poland is immensely satisfying.

Things looking even grimmer for the Axis in the other, uglier theaters of war.
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Despite being outnumbered by more than 2:1 we still manage to bring the pain on the rapidly weakening Balkan front.

Asia Land:
3 Japanese divisions had been chased into a little peninsula in north eastern Korea, we surrounded and destroyed them all.
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In china we are less successful as our offensive against Dagu grinds to a halt. We were attempting to break open the left flank but were stopped by a large stack of infantry, our tanks took the brunt of this defeat and were down to zero org after.
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Bitbergin'

The German counterattack that killed our Bitburg offensive was finally beaten back after our tank army piled into the province. Now we could turn west and deal with Hitler once and for all.
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With Duren secure, on July 30th, we attack Bitburg for the second time.
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The Germans, like a cornered animal start lashing out at us around Bitburg
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This attack is successful as it distracted several divisions that should have been attacking Bitburg.

This one understrength motorized division chased off our whole corps, somebody is going to get shot for this, and not just the Germans.
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After two days of fighting we are repulsed from Bitburg. The war will continue.
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Things get chaotic after our attack fails, our southern flank continues to deteriorate, the Germans have taken Kleve and are pushing hard in the north toward Denmark. Our tank army beside Bitburg is now very disorganized and we have no reserves except for the Danzig force that is still far, far away. On August 3rd I decide the best course of action is to attack. We attempt a feint north of Bitburg with two powerful tank divisions, some of our last effective units, hoping to draw forces away from the main fight for Bitburg.
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After winning, those division move to Duren instead of taking ground. The ploy works and a German doom stack moves out of Bitburg to protect its northern flank. If we use our imaginations we can picture German commanders, having just rebuffed our attack on Bitburg believe that the Duran force has been all fought out, and the new attack is the real threat and therefore advance to meet it. Or you could just call the AI stupid and me a gamey SOB for abusing it. I will use my imagination.

The Germans are marching out of Bitburg, you can also see the hilarious pile of of planes bombing them, I can't imagine the stacking penalties. Good thing the Luftwaffe is now just a myth Soviet pilots tell the trainees to scare them.
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A few days later on August 7th our forces have marshaled in Duren and we launch our final assault on Bitburg.
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The attack looks good, but will it succeed? Now lets see what is going on elsewhere to build tension and stuff.

On August 8th the Germans in the far south seemed to have gotten their mojo back and try to retake Stuttgart, this time they put considerable pressure on us.
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But reinforcements are coming to save the day.

Also happening on August 8th is the beginning of the end in the Balkans. A huge German-Italian army has been surrounded in Trieste, over 100,000 troops and most of them are totally disorganized. Trieste is the culmination of months of fighting in the Balkans, all the hard work of my army and my puppets has built up to this piece de resistance. This Mona Lisa of violence. This masterpiece of warfare. The poets will sing of this battle for the ages.
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After some brief fighting, where division after division melted away, the whole lot of them surrender, in one of the largest prisoner hauls of the war.
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With that victory Italy has ceased to be an effective military force, and we begin to pour into their helpless country. Racing against France and the Allies.

What about Bitburg, Hitler and the fate of the German nation? Curse the 20 image limit and wait till next time!
 
you must be careful in racing the ally's for territory, when peace comes over, your division's will be exhausted and there's will be fresh and ready for more killing in germany, even if it is soviet occupied!
oh and the RAF will tear your exhausted planes apart.
 
you must be careful in racing the ally's for territory, when peace comes over, your division's will be exhausted and there's will be fresh and ready for more killing in germany, even if it is soviet occupied!
oh and the RAF will tear your exhausted planes apart.

Well I don't plan on waging a war against the allies right away, I want to crush Japan first. But from what I have seen so far their army in France is quite formidable, and the US may start sending expeditionary forces of their own. The western front will not end with Germany.
 
Will you commit more forces to South America before liberating Europe, or will you fight the imperialist pigs in Europe?

I have a corps of infantry and marines in Sevastopol ready to be shipped to the America's, they're just waiting for the Med to be safe again. I really don't want to fight the Allies until I am completely ready and that will take a while. In the meantime Japan and America will receive our full attention.
 
Good one.
One question: how many divisons and/or brigades did you have when attacked Germany? I'm just curious.

Good question, I loaded a save to a bit before the war started, I'm not sure it is on the exact day so this may be missing a few additional units.

On the main front with Germany the army was divided into 3 army groups Baltic, Center and Southern (this was also in the Balkans), there was also the Scandinavian Front that was fighting in Norway and Sweden.


Baltic: 222k, 22 divisions: 37 inf brigades, 19 armor, 11 motorized. (I'm not counting arty and other support)
Center: 439k, 44 divisions: 96 inf brigades, 26 armor, 11 motorized
South: 362K, 37 divisions: 54 inf brigades, 29 armor, 20 motorized
Scandinavian: 107K, about 11 divisions.
So at least 1,130,000 men organized into 114 divisions were directed against Germany.

The was another 40 divisions in the Far East, 27 divisions in Central Asia (fighting in Sinkiang) and 11 divisions in South America.
So another 78 divisions were available but busy killing other people.

Hope that helps!
 
Seems like a sad day when the Italians are resisting better than the Germans, albeit due to lack of real Soviet intervention there.
 
A New World Order


Victory in Germany Day (August 9th, 1941)

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The defenders of Bitburg could not withstand the might of the Soviet Union, they surrendered the city. Most of the German government was captured or killed. Hitler managed to kill himself but his body was not destroyed. It was sent back to Moscow to be made into furniture for Stalin. The Germans, holding on to a thin strip of their country, sandwiched between two very belligerent enemies, finally had enough and promptly surrendered to the ridiculous Russian terms. The Allies were graciously invited to the peace conference but unfortunately their entire delegation caught smallpox, fell down a flight of stairs, and overdosed on heroin. When their replacements' motorcade took a wrong turn into a Russian ammunition dump and a statistically unlikely simultaneous car, train and plane crash caused the dump to explode the Allies decided to stop sending diplomats and let the Russians work out all the details.

The Silly Peace

I can never decide between puppeting and conquering, so I decided to do both. Paradox should probably fix this because the puppetconquer is hilariously broken. As you can see, what is left of the the German army exisits although they are not functional, just sitting there in a weird coma. But the rest of Germany and also the Netherlands are occupied by us. We reap all the IC, manpower, resources and leadership. Also there is zero resistance, all of Germany is bright green on the revolt screen, there will be no uprisings or reduced resources and stuff. So we get the best of both worlds. When the time comes I will fully release Germany and let its army go on a rampage perhaps if France gets uppity or a surprise invasion from the US. Until then we will pillage their country for all it has and the Germans will contentedly let us. I will however, release the Netherlands immediately. As I will gain access to their immense overseas empire and the stupid amount of resources that it can provide.

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A better look at our new puppets.
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The best part about puppeting the Netherlands are their ports in the Caribbean, Venezuela is now in range. They know what happens next.
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Koreatown:
On August 13th we have finally gained control of the situation in Korea. Kinda.
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A large blob of reinforcements along with the successful encirclement of their force in the north give us the initiative. Korea is still a very hard place to fight in, it a peninsula and its covered in rivers and hills. But the faster we can subdue it, the faster we can help out our forces in China.

A few weeks later our forces are still mostly in the north, we pick of a lone division that had been surrounded and the pocket has just been chased into a single province.
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By September 6th we are finally able to successfully attack the Japaneses making their stand at Ch'osan. They had fought off numerous other attempts by smaller forces but now we have just enough to push their worn out troops to surrender.
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A satisfying haul of 60000 prisoners soon follows.
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Russians start pushing south. We are going to ensure that there will be only one Korea, it will be the best Korea, it will be red.
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Crouching Tiger, Wallowing Bear
The only way to take China easily will be to destroy the Japanese guarding it before I move too deeply into the interior of the country. Thankfully the Japanese have moved to the border in force to try and stop me. A huge encirclement is planned. Here you can see the opening stage unfolding on August 23.
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The eastern prong of the advance faces little resistance and pushes forward as fast as they can drive, but on the coast in Huanghua the Japaneses stubbornly hold.
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Our breakthrough cost us a very bloody battle that ate up org faster than a fat person eats Gen. Tao chicken.

We are painfully close to closing the gap but the Japanese still have a lot of fight in them, and many more divisions than we do. Our eastern corridor is held together with spit and prayers and the Japs come a knockin.
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By September 4th the attack has been thoroughly trounced. Now it is a question of saving the forces committed including the precious armor division that has been cut off.
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Our forces may be outnumbered but they are still faster and harder than the Japs, we will manage to extract the armor and it will live to fight another day. The army will shamefully retreat to its start lines in Manchuria and wait until reinforcements from Korea.

Mario Kart: The Race for Italy

Germany may have surrendered but their hapless ally still remains. The challenge with Italy is not defeating their army but capturing the country before the French and their allies do. If Italy falls to them and joins the Allies or even remains neutral all my hopes of controlling the Med will be gone.



August 23. Yet another silly moment were two countries that are enemies but at peace are racing to carve up a mutual enemy. The fact that it is Italy makes it even sillier.
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Our forces are neck and neck with the Allies.

We break out, and start rushing for Rome, while trying to cut off the French, who are still keeping up. Italians never fight well when you really need them to.
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On August 29th some motor infantry rush ahead and see an empty Rome! And a rapidly advancing French army.
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Somehow the Italians get some troops into the city before we can, we decide to just cut off the French and save the city for another day.
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Suck it France, Italy is our bride!
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Now it is only a question of beating Italy, and is that even a real question? :p
 
Italy has always been a soft underbelly for me. You face the same problems as i do when playing massive tank country, losing one division is death, and holding a line isnt possible.