• We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
Status
Not open for further replies.
Really enjoyable read, whatever happened to using Paratroopers to create a foothold on the Islands?

I ran out of time to develop them - the British collapsed much more quickly than I expected and was forced to step up my invasion plans to make sure the Germans didn't invade first.
 
This AAR, along with 'The Third Counterweight - Norway Kaiserreich', is the best I've yet read for Darkest Hour. I love the developing Cold War situation, but I hope it will go hot as soon as France has a decent arsenal of nukes and an adequate delivery system.

Do you know if the Germans have developed any nuclear bombs of their own by now?
 
This AAR, along with 'The Third Counterweight - Norway Kaiserreich', is the best I've yet read for Darkest Hour. I love the developing Cold War situation, but I hope it will go hot as soon as France has a decent arsenal of nukes and an adequate delivery system.

Do you know if the Germans have developed any nuclear bombs of their own by now?

As far as I can tell, no. One of my biggest gripes about DH and HOI in general is that the AI completely sucks at developing nukes. On the other hand, in this case I guess there is some sort of explanation for it in that Germany is probably secure enough not to see any point in investing huge amounts of money and resources in a wild scheme suggested by some weird physicists which may or may not be successful.

Hope to get an update done tomorrow btw.
 
As far as I can tell, no. One of my biggest gripes about DH and HOI in general is that the AI completely sucks at developing nukes. On the other hand, in this case I guess there is some sort of explanation for it in that Germany is probably secure enough not to see any point in investing huge amounts of money and resources in a wild scheme suggested by some weird physicists which may or may not be successful.

Hope to get an update done tomorrow btw.

Yeah, that silly AI. They really ought to fix that; maybe code in a provision that will make them scramble like mad to develop nukes after the player uses one.
 
Manchester

With winter fast approaching, Delestraint acted quickly to split his forces into two task forces. The smaller one, comprising a single division, was sent east through Sussex and Kent to take advantage of a gap in the British lines and seize the crucial port of Dover before the British had time to reinforce. The second, larger force, led by Delestraint personally, launched a major offensive on the GHQ Line, attempting to punch through towards Oxford from where his forces would be poised to encircle London.

screensave396.jpg

However, Delestraint encountered resistance almost immediately as Britain’s Chairman Horner declared “a new 1066” and roused the population through fiery radio speeches to drive the French invader “back into the sea”.

screensave398.jpg

Despite this rhetoric, which succeeded in encouraging the formation of dozens of new militia units to fight the French, the smaller force dispatched by Delestraint successfully reached and took Dover, enforcing the French military occupation over the remainder of England’s south east in the process.

screensave399.jpg

However, to the north, the British, despite weak morale amongst their military, was putting up a ferocious fight against Delestraint under the command of Field Marshal Montgomery who succeeded in blunting the French advance enough to force Delestraint to continue the fight into the winter where the frozen ground and snow would favour the defender.

screensave400.jpg

As the calendar rolled down to December it found the French Imperial Guard occupying the Home Counties and staring at their British enemies across the fortifications south of London. Meanwhile, Delestraint, reinforced by more troops from France to feed into the Oxford meatgrinder, found his operations hampered by severe shortages of ammunition, rations and winter equipment as the French merchant marine struggled to bring sufficient supplies through the winter storms into the war-torn ports of the south coast.

screensave402.jpg

Despite the construction of dozens of new merchant ships, this was a problem that would continue to hamper the French throughout the war. Indeed, the only comfort for the French infantryman throughout the bitter winter of ‘46 was that the British tommy had matters much worse.

screensave406.jpg

However, as the winter began to bite in the run up to Christmas, the French high command took an enormous gamble. Intelligence had revealed that the British had withdrawn forces from the stretch of coast between Liverpool and Blackpool, making an amphibious landing no longer the impossibly costly prospect it had one been. After days of deliberation, an attack was authorised.

screensave409.jpg

On the 17th of December, five motorised infantry divisions under General Mer successfully took four key beaches along England’s north east coast. Immediately, a Mer launched a lightning attack, taking both the port of Liverpool and the seaside resort of Blackpool while a major offensive dashed south east towards Manchester and the towns surrounding it.

With the population having already suffered through one winter with scarce rations and little fuel, Manchester’s trade unions and syndicates offered little resistance to General Mer and, upon his promises that the French army would feed those civilians who offered no resistance, surrendered the entire city into his hands.

When Christmas day arrived in 1946 it would find General Mer and his men toasting it in the former meeting hall of Manchester’s unions and celebrating the deliverance of Britain’s second city into French hands.

screensave411.jpg
 
I love how thorough your analysis of the invasion and nuking of Portsmouth was. Your familiarity with the region really shines through here, and I love all the detail. I eagerly await the next update. Also, in honor of those lost at Petersfield, I present to you modified Pink Floyd lyrics:

It was just before dawn
One miserable morning in Black '46.
The forward commander was told to hold fast--
The French advance he had to restrict.
And the generals had hoped that the Home Guard
Could hold back the enemy tanks for awhile,
But the Petersfield frontline then fell at the price
Of a few thousand innocent lives.

And Comrade Horner sent Mother a note
When he heard that Father was gone.
It was, I recall, in the form of scroll,
Oak leaves and all.
And I found it one day
In a drawer of old photographs, hidden away.
My eyes still grow damp
Remembering the Secretary signed with his trade union stamp.

It was dark all around,
There was frost in the ground
When the Renaults broke free.
And no one survived
From the Workers' Fusiliers Company C.
They were all left behind;
Most of them dead, the rest of them dying.
And that's how the Emperor took my daddy from me!

By the way, this is freaking awesome. Would you mind if I borrowed it for use in a later update?
 
Liberate Cornwall once you capture it! VIVA KERNAW!
 
The Midwinter Offensives

Despite the capture of Manchester, General Mer was not willing to rest on his laurels. While he remained in Manchester with his command staff, he dispatched his men east where they swiftly pushed their way through industrial south Yorkshire and Sheffield to sweep round and launch an offensive into Lincolnshire from the north - offering the prospect of the French being able to divide Britain in two.

screensave413.jpg

While British forces in the Black Country around Birmingham attempted to take advantage of this to launch an attack to retake Manchester, they found themselves beaten back after a few miles by French infantry freshly arrived in the port of Liverpool who then proceeded to swiftly link up their lines with those of General Mer’s troops, forming defensive positions strong enough to dissuade any British attempt at regaining their lost territory.

screensave416.jpg

On Christmas day, the French offensive into Lincolnshire finally succeeded, forcing the British to retreat and advancing towards Lincoln and, crucially, severing the east coast mainline of Britain’s railway network.

screensave419.jpg

As the end of the year arrived it found the French deeply entrenched across the cities of Manchester, Sheffield and Lincoln, with their defensive lines stretching from the west coast of England to the east coast - cutting the British forces in the north of Britain off from those in the south.

screensave420.jpg

However, already French operations in what was being called the Northern Zone were being hampered by a lack of supplies and, crucially, by a lack of fuel. With General Delestraint’s continuing Yorkshire offensive desperately needing supplies, there simply weren’t enough supplies available to support General Mer and newly arrived General Dentz who faced the prospect of the Northern Zone becoming an enormous pocket in which their troops could be trapped.

In order to ward off this threat the two generals surprised the British by launching a midwinter offensive towards Hull rather than doing the expected thing and digging in further. This aggressive tactic, while using up even more scarce resources, was calculated to keep the British so off kilter that they would have no chance to launch a counter-offensive.

screensave421.jpg

By the 17th of January this offensive had come to an end successfully with the French in control of Hull and its port, offering the potential of resupply for the French on the east coast as well as the west - if only the supplies were available.

screensave427.jpg

However, the French were not the only ones launching a midwinter offensive. In German occupied Russia the native gendarmerie found themselves overwhelmed by a sudden Bolshevik uprising by partisans tacitly supported by Soviet troops who moved into occupy all the areas the partisans successfully took. This, the New Year Uprising, was a massive gamble by the Soviet leadership but one calculated to rouse the ethnic Russians in a revolt so large that the German garrisons would be forced to withdraw rather than fight.

Faced with the prospect of either surrender or a costly war in Russia at a time when the German economy was already stretched to breaking point by years of war, the SDP government chose to negotiate. In the space of 24 hours, and after terse negotiations, the German Empire decided to recognise the Soviet Republic as the legitimate government of northern Russia - the first time it had been recognised by any foreign government - thereby making the surrender of German occupied Russia to the Soviets merely the return of territory to its legitimate owner rather than an international humiliation. However, with this massive gain for the Soviets came significant conditions - the first was the guarantee of peaceful, unmolested withdrawal for all ethnic Germans and their families and property from Russia. The second, crucially, was the signing of a non-aggression pact, eliminating the threat of the red menace to the German Empire once and for all. And the third was the Soviet recognition and guarantee of the borders of Greater Ukraine, effectively promising not to attempt to regain any more territory.

screensave422.jpg

This approach by Germany’s SDP government was a diplomatic policy known as appeasement, which had been a key pledge of the SDP manifesto and which was defined as "the policy of settling international quarrels by admitting and satisfying grievances through rational negotiation and compromise, thereby avoiding the resort to an armed conflict which would be expensive, bloody, and possibly dangerous."

While the enactment of this policy was completely in-keeping with the SDP manifesto, it received an incredibly mixed reaction from the German public and utter condemnation by the German aristocracy and conservative press. Coupled with the horrifying stories emerging from the Soviet Republic following the creation of the brutal KGB security service, this policy would be enough to effectively doom any hope the SDP might have had of re-election.

screensave432.jpg
 
Eh, who needs wastelands when Ukraine is basically Kievan Rus?
 
Ok,now,make a event to Russia retake Russian Ukraine.
 
Ok,now,make a event to Russia retake Russian Ukraine.

Tempting, but there's no way that wouldn't result in war with Germany - and any war at the moment would see the Soviets curbstomped. Their best bet is to wait until the German Empire is distracted and then pounce. And right now that's not the case.

When WW3 roles around on the other hand... ;)
 
I don't see any Canadians or Royalists helping you out in Britain - surely you're not just going to give it back to the Windsors? If London is moaning about 1066, my I suggest a similar constitutional solution?

Also like what happened in Russia. While its 'fun' for Germany to occupy an area of steppe and farmland the size of Europe as they do a lot in AARs in Russia, very rarely does any one mention how bloody difficult that would be. You might call the German government weak for pulling out but if I was in Berlin in this 1947 I'd be bloody glad. Might as well occupy the moon.
 
Man,the Russian peasants can overthrown Germany in Siberia,but can't destroy Ukranian forces?This is absurd!!!!
 
Man,the Russian peasants can overthrown Germany in Siberia,but can't destroy Ukranian forces?This is absurd!!!!

They could - but then they would be at war with Germany and the Mitteleuropa. And the Soviets would lose such a war and most likely see the return of a reactionary Russian state.
 
They could - but then they would be at war with Germany and the Mitteleuropa. And the Soviets would lose such a war and most likely see the return of a reactionary Russian state.

Why?If Germany don't make war if they lose His Siberia,why the Kaiser Will cares about Ukraine?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.