The Swedes? Just how helpful would they be in a European War? At best they might distract one of the MINOR Axis powers. If any even decide to look in their general direction.
I'd argue that they can probably take care of German-held Norway, hold off the German troops there, and eventually liberate Norway, especially if we help them hold Malmö. Sweden would also be a good staging ground to open up the Öresund, and a Danish front, at a time of our choosing. As for minor Axis powers... there are no minor Axis powers anywhere near Sweden... they'll help us tackle the Hun, or they won't be very useful at all. If we take into account that Sweden feels threatened enough to join a faction, if it gets close enough, there are some real issues with Sweden ending up in another faction. If they end up in the Axis, we'll have to strengthen our presence in Finland, and we'll eventually have a full-blown Scandinavian front. If they end up in the Allies before the Germans declare war on us, the currently bored Wehrmacht might very well go up north and take over, giving us a potential Scandinavian front with German-controlled supply lines. All of these would really be inconveniences for the Red Army, and would somewhat thin the main German line, so you could still argue that it's not worth the cost, though I'm not so sure. Red Navy types who have seen the specs of the new Swedish Destroyers are adamant that getting Sweden into the Comintern would be a major advantage to securing the Baltic.The Swedes? Just how helpful would they be in a European War? At best they might distract one of the MINOR Axis powers. If any even decide to look in their general direction.
I didn't even mention resources... Sweden is an important source of steel for Germany, which is why we're actually buying a significant amount of Swedish steel already, despite the fact that our stocks are overflowing. At this point, a decent part of the world can't durably supply Germany, either because the British will sink the convoys, or because they're at war with the Axis. Swedish steel can be moved mostly overland with no risk of raiding etc. The Heavy water in Norway is also worrisome, though we'd like to think we're ahead in the development of Nuclear Physics, we'd rather not give the Germans too many opportunities to develop a potential nuclear wunderwaffe...RE: The Swedes; Norway, the resources they have that, while not impressive compared to the USSR, are among the largest in Northern Europe, they're close to the Danish Straits and could facilitate their closure, the destroyers that would be a great improvement to our current ones, and one less nation on our borders that could turn against us.
I have to compliment our dear writer on how well he writes. The representation of post-traumatic stress is top notch, and some infrastructure and mechanical tinkering makes for a nice change of pace from the tense spy-thriller of the past couple chapters.
I don't suffer from PTSD (not that I'm aware of anyway), though stress and anxiety are no strangers of mine. That said, I did rework that first part several times to try and really bring her struggle to life. I've also been delving deeper into my own psychology, and that of others, for various reasons, some recreational, some related to my studies, and others personal. I'm glad it all paid off, and that my readAARs appreciate what I tried to convey, and the way in which it was conveyed. This only motivates to continue to try and improve my writing, especially in the character-based narrative updates. If they take a bit longer to write, so be it. This AAR made me (re)discover a love for writing, and for characters and their adventures. Just like playing music, it's become both an escapist creative endeavor and an emotional outlet in a period of my life that is proving particularly stressful on an emotional level.I agree with @Finshades about the writing - I was becoming a little worried for 11, who despite her prodigious abilities is not immune from the stresses of her ordeals. Perhaps an innocent love interest (if it is indeed either of those things) would do her some good. Pity there aren’t assassinations in HOI3 - having her bump off some of those odious Nazis would be good therapy!
North Africa isn't going too well, and the Royal Navy Blockade has vanished, as the British scramble to make up for losses in South-East Asia.North Africa is looking a little shaky, but the British and French naval losses were quite severe. It will be difficult for the if the US doesn’t come to the party. Those IS-2s will be a nasty surprise for the Germans - if they ever invade.
I'm afraid that US support will remain purely economical for the foreseeable future. As you say, if they don't fight to recover their Pacific holdings, then why would they fight for Allied territory, let alone launch an ambitious amphibious invasion into occupied territory? Maybe they're waiting until we get pulled in from the sidelines, I'm sure they'd cherish some competition over who gets to 'liberate' the most Axis-occupied territory once we get involved...I don't think the Americans are going to be very helpful when the war with the Axis powers start if the Pacific is any example of how well they fight in this timeline.
Both North Africa and the Pacific, are definitely overdue a good dose of wholesome American 'freedom' and 'democracy', I'm sure the British would be very thankful for the assistance.IJN finding a lot of success both with the double ASW whammy of destroyers and bombers and in the decisive battle. The Americans need to start doing something or soon we'll be hearing about IJN marines in Alaska. The economic support is notable, but any capital ships the Brits can produce will likely end up being too little too late, and I would imagine the Brits will start to get worried about their manpower soon if they keep taking horrible losses in North Africa. Bombing the Italian mainland is of little consolation if the Japanese start marching into India and Australia, which will eventually happen at this rate.
Interesting, from what I read (which is limited to a couple of ww2 weapons forums, wikipedia, and other assorted internet sources), the 1941 variant was definitely a better all-round weapon, for all the reasons you cite, though this 82mm really came into it's own with the subsequent, and final, 1943 version. (not sure that one is represented in game though)I can see the new mortar bringing very notable improvements indeed. The better sights should compensate at least well enough for the decrease in stability, increased traverse and elevation should mean rounds can be fired sooner and the need for relocation will be reduced, but when needed, that relocation can be done much faster. This should, in practice, translate to infantry getting fire support sooner when they need it, without compromising the effectiveness of the fire.
160mm really is massive, it should be noted that our heavy tanks are designed to be strongest on the defensive, and to support guards riflemen on foot, so more emphasis is put on Armour and Gun design, than on the engine, as long as the thing can keep up with a well-trained guards rifleman.The tank improvements seem very nice, too. 160 mm of sloped armour should prove very comforting to our tankers. I doubt there are a lot of guns around strong enough to defeat that.
You're a bit optimistic on those speeds... currently our T-34 M1941's have a cruising speed of 7,5 kph, while supporting Motorised formations reach 8,5. Engineers, part of quite a few of our Medium Tank Divisions, have a top speed of 8 kph, so any faster than that would be pointless. Mechanised Regiments do reach higher speeds, but most of them are part of Cavalry Divisions made for outright speed... they can currently reach 9,5 kph, and once we improve L Arm Engines, these Divisions will break 10 kph, which is pretty good for the time (in hoi3), all things considered.New for the medium tanks should speed up those formations, as I recall the supporting infantry is capable of 12 km/h with the tanks being a bit slower, but I may be wrong on that. If not, it means we can improve the armour again without the tanks being slowed down from the current situation. Win-win.
You're right, we're cutting new production left and right to make way for upgrades, this has the added benefit of giving our Military Academies some breathing room to catch up with officer requirements. Only the best will do for our Riflemen.All of these improvements will, however, mean our upgrade demand will go through the roof. Upgrading tanks is not cheap nor fast, and every infantry unit in the entire USSR is now going to need new mortars.
Even if the Japs didn't build many fortifications, Assault weapons are equally useful in Forests and Jungles, of which there are plenty in the Far Eastern Theatre's projected area of operations. As all of our Divisions there have Engineers, they should have an edge in those terrains over any Japanese Division without them...The new assault weapons our sharpest minds are currently devising should prove somewhat cheaper, but provide much-needed anti-fortification capability. Very important in the East especially. I doubt the Germans have built many fortifications, but the IJA might have.
He sure is. On an entirely unrelated note, 'Odinatsat' is quite an attractive lady, even with the scars she picked up in Poland... maybe there is an ulterior motive there somewhere...Good to see the crew back in action. Sem is a thoughtful chap.
I'm not sure we should make a habit of doing her favours, though we do want to keep her sane and out of harms way until the fighting really starts. We don't want her to have a total mental breakdown from her traumatic experiences, and we don't want her to start an international incident by killing Germans, until we feel like starting the war ourselves...Very nice! I wonder what the rest of the Committee can pull together, as apparently favours to 11 are all the rage these days... Any takers for a bet that she'll manage to talk the plane mechanic into shipping her enough parts to build an engine for the car? I just hope no one gets the idea that what she really needs is one of those fancy new destroyers; imagine the problems of storage with no water around!
From a game perspective, the switch to Churchill may not change much, but it will be good at least from a narrative perspective! I wonder if the Germans will attack before 1950 ...
I should clarify that in game there were 1940 elections which introduced something of a National government with a Labour foreign secretary... And the Norway Debate event only fired on the 5th of April 1942, and then it only replaced the prime minister, not changing anything to the make-up of the national government. The events as described above were somewhat tailored to the in-game situation, while retaining real quotes (sometimes slightly altered), to make it feel real. But I'm sure you gathered as much.Chamberlain is finally out. British politics seem messy as always, but not as messy as their handling of the war. Maybe Churchill can whip them into some sort of shape, eventually, maybe. Or at least drag the Americans in. Or anyone, really.
Our IS-2 Heavy Tanks will now be fitted with even larger Guns (Level 3), as the 1936 130mm B-13 naval Gun has been fitted to a brand new turret design. Our new IS-2/130mm will be longer and a little slower, but they will pack even more firepower than with the 122mm guns they had previously.
When I first saw that Paradox suggested a 130mm Gun for a Heavy Tank, I was somewhat sceptical of the historical plausibility of that decision. Until I found out that the Soviets actually built a prototype tank with a Naval 130mm gun on top
The SU-100Y prototype consisted of the mating of a 1936 130mm B-13 Naval Gun with the hull from one of the 1938 T-100 twin-turreted heavy tank prototype hulls, the 100 in it's name refers to the provenance of the hull and not to the Calibre of the gun, as is the case with the SU-100 (The SU-100 is basically a 100mm gun mounted on a modified T-34 chassis) Having looked at the dimensions of the T-100 hull, it doesn't seem that much of a stretch to fit the same 130mm Naval Gun to a slightly lengthened IS-2 hull, which has a significantly wider, but slightly shorter footprint. The T-100 prototypes saw combat in the Winter War, the single SU-100Y prototype saw combat in the Battle of Moscow. 64 tons ... Of course one might ask why one would do this, as the 122mm is plenty powerful, and the 130mm will reduce the amount of rounds that can be carried, make loading more arduous, and make the tank even harder to hide. The SU-152 already exists for when a really big gun is needed, so why the strange in between that's somewhere between a tank and a SP-Gun? I guess there's a reason why there was only a single SU-100Y... In this ATL, though, we'll be replacing all of our IS-2s with brand new IS-2/130s.
I based my research on what was close historically, and as you point out the IS-7 development started in 1945, with the first prototypes in '46. The SU-100Y prototype was built in 1940. For Paradox the 130mm is a 1941 tech...I did some poking around, because even by Paradox standards this sounded fishy. In the localisation files we have SOV_heavy_tank_gun_3 simply given as "130mm" with no reference to an actual designation, so I think this would actually have been the 130mm S-70 gun that was mounted on the IS-7 prototypes, which was in turn a modification of a naval gun - I cannot find a reference saying if this was modified from the B-13 discussed in this post, however. That said, the IS-7 tank was not developed until 1945 and first prototypes built in 1946, so in traditional Paradox fashion the research is anachronistic even though not entirely divorced from reality.
Which goes to say that, so long as we're building anachronistic tank models, the B-13 gun and a new IS-2 based on the SU-100Y project is equally as realistic by Paradox standards, and I wholeheartedly endorse this deployment of new and fearsome firepower against the Nazi hordes!
Indeed all glory to the mighty Red Army, now with the largest tank guns in the world...130 mm naval guns on tanks, sweet high-explosive jesus that's a lot of firepower. So much that those of lesser faith may call it useless or "excessive". Why would one do this? Why, for the glory of our magnificent Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, of course! And for the glory of the Worker's revolution, and comrade Stalin! We have boldly gone where no tank designers have gone before!
I guess I'll put in an order for several mountains of said fairy dust... I feel like it might be needed in the future.Big beastly HArm for use against potential King Tigers? Why not! It can always be rationalised away, if necessary via a liberal sprinkling of non-historical alternate history fairy dust over the whole thing!
Obviously, to properly evaluate whether the cost of refitting is worth it, we need to refit first, that will give us all the data we'll need for the study. Doing it the other way around would be counterproductive and capitalist... I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the same is true of the tank's resistance to firing it's 130mm gun, I guess we won't know until we try it, in combat...Well, that's how we'll have it printed in the Pravda, anyway. I hope someone made sure it can withstand the main gun being actually fired. More than once. Now, you may be wondering whether increasing the diameter by 8 mm is really worth having to refit every existing heavy tank by manufacturing and replacing the current chassis with a longer one, with probably a reinforced turret mounting, too, and manufacturing and installing new turrets. I think our designers and scientists didn't get that far. Maybe we should fund a study into that, as soon as we're done with the refitting?
We don't have a bazillion shock armies, but we're not exactly weak. I guess we'll see where this all goes.Those Nazis are still running scared. If not attack by June 1942 you should send them a white feather - and a bazillion Shock Armies!