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Giovanni Messe's Glory of Rome: An Independent Italy HOI3 AAR

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Gormytorysh said:
I see your point, although, you could also say the best defense is offense. Meaning, invading England will bring the action to their court and less likely an English invasion will occur. Giving you navy some rest is essential though, unless you like to take risks but given your previous post you rather play it safe. I'd say, once France is beaten down, place your navy in the western part of the Channel and start invading Cornwall and capture a port there. How many convoys and transports do you have?
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I don't think I took any screenshots of the production queue so I loaded an old save and checked. As far as convoys went, in Late April, there were 71 convoys with 30 in the queue (with 30 escorts in the queue as well but 0 free/in use).

In terms of Naval build, there are two carriers in the queue to be complete in June and July and 2 escort carriers that will be complete next March and 4 light cruisers to be completed in August/september. For the army, there are 5 garrison divisions in the queue, ready in mid-june and a couple of Cav divisions ready in May.
 
Part 26: An Unpleasant Surprise (May 19 - June 8, 1940)

From the personal journal of Giovanni Messe:

When Mussolini called me into his office in early June, I was expecting to be asked to brief him on situation in France, but instead of hearing “Marshall Messe, what good news do you bring me?” as I had time and time again, I heard something decidedly different this time.

“Marshall Messe, I have good news for you!” he greeted me.

Immediately I was taken aback. I’m sure that our leader could present me with good news but military men are used to order and control. I didn’t like surprises. “Please, enlighten me, Duce,” I said.

“We have a truce with France!” he beamed.

“They have surrendered? We have vanquished them? This is excellent news, Duce!”

“We have negotiated a truce and we have taken vast amounts of territory! Our hostilities with the French have ceased.”

“A moment, Duce. They have not agreed to an unconditional surrender?”

“What? Of course not. Let me show you the map of what we have agreed.”



I felt my blood boiling in my ears and had to bite my lip to keep from saying something to Mussolini that would get me shot. I think i tasted blood in my mouth. I counted slowly to calm down enough to speak without losing my temper. “Duce, all those men are completely cut off.”

“Nonsense. They are positioned in some prime land: we control the best parts of France!”

“And how will we supply our men? They are completely cut off!”

“With our convoys, of course!”

“Duce, I felt my temper rising again and decided that I had better leave before I said something stupid. “Duce, I must go and prepare new plans and arrange for the repositioning of our forces.”

I left and raged inwardly.

At the end of May, we had made tremendous progress, moving our forces swiftly to important cities and ports all the while using our naval bombers to hurt some of the ships in the port of Ajaccio in Corsica.





The Maginot Line was almost complete hemmed in by the end of May. I was expecting a quick end to the fighting in France but this unexpected development set my mind racing.



When I returned to headquarters, I called my staff together.

Major Columbini, my aide de camp, asked, “Marshall, is everything alright?”

“No Columbini, it is absolutely not alright.” I addressed the room. “Gentlemen, tear up everything you’ve got. We must make two plans quickly. We will call the first plan “formaggio e cioccolato.’”

“What shall we call the second?”

“Otaria.”
 
Was France at war with Germany already? Doesn't look like it... Vichy should also only fire for Germany to start with...

The only reasonably way to supply your trapped forces leads through Switzerland (Or Germany). Unless you DOW Vichy France.
 
Baltasar said:
Was France at war with Germany already? Doesn't look like it... Vichy should also only fire for Germany to start with...

The only reasonably way to supply your trapped forces leads through Switzerland (Or Germany). Unless you DOW Vichy France.
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France was definitely already at war with Germany since the Allies went to war with Germany right after they DOW'ed Poland.

blklizard said:
I'm confused with what has taken place. Please explain it to me :p.
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This is definitely not VICHY France. It's actual France. This kind of blew my mind when it happened as well. Since I wasn't Germany and since I wasn't allied with Germany, I figured that I would be able to conquer France, yet that option was not available (unless I DOW'ed GB instead and didn't realize that you can set the "conquer" war goal when you DOW on France directly). Apparently, if you get France to surrender without adding additional war goals, you can only get certain regions. I had set the "Nice" region and Northern France.

I'm horrible when it comes to remembering to set additional war goals but it almost seems like the game is set up to only allow countries defeating France to take parts rather than the whole.

You can imagine my frustration when it happened.
 
What you need to do at least is also take the region "Western France". Then you will have the Atlantic coastline, so at least your parts in the north are linked to Spain.
I don't know, isn't there a region "Vichy" or something? I remember for sure that I took Southern France as Italy a long time ago while Germany had the north and none of this happened.
That reminds me: Axis membership. You aren't part of the Axis, that's screwing things up it seems. There is already a war between Axis Germany and the Allies, correct? I'd bet something in that event chain is screwing you over now.
 
sebas379 said:
What you need to do at least is also take the region "Western France". Then you will have the Atlantic coastline, so at least your parts in the north are linked to Spain.
I don't know, isn't there a region "Vichy" or something? I remember for sure that I took Southern France as Italy a long time ago while Germany had the north and none of this happened.
That reminds me: Axis membership. You aren't part of the Axis, that's screwing things up it seems. There is already a war between Axis Germany and the Allies, correct? I'd bet something in that event chain is screwing you over now.
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There isn't a "vichy" region as far as I can tell that you can set a war goal for. I think the reason that things have gone weird is definitely the axis thing (or not being in the axis). I've played as italy before (as axis) and have been able to take over all of france. And yes, the "Western France" is the corridor that will open up down to Spain.
 
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Part 26: Quick and Messy (June 8 - July 15, 1940)

From the personal journal of Giovanni Messe:

Our troops were sent to Swiss border as soon as we could get them there. It took about a week before we were in position but we were able to declare war on Switzerland on July 23. It was a quick and messy action but it was the only choice that we had to open up a supply corridor to our troops in France.







While the battles were raging in Switzlerland with the goal of cutting a supply line to our troops in France, we were determined to take back our holdings in North Africa from the British who were encroaching. The operation to reclaim the port of Bengasi was underway, landing two paratroop divisions on the port city along with landing two divisions on each side and having them assist with the combat operations with the goal of surrounding the British defenders.



With the CAG air support (as well as two interceptor wings who were moved to Malta to provide air cover, we had the naval lanes as well as the air lanes covered for our troops. We had also inserted a corps of four divisions in Tripoli and were in the process of heading over to Bengasi to link up the groups.




The Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Bengasi was a terrible place to be while we were trying to land our troops on the African coast. While none of our transports had been destroyed in the fighting (and none of our troops lost at sea), the fleet had taken plenty of damage and needed to be sent back to port for repairs. In a fighting retreat back to port, we managed to sink the HMS Queen Elizabeth, one of their battleships. A fresh British fleet with an escort carrier ambushed our battleship fleet off the coast of Misurata. we needed to get our ships into port before we lost more. We would also need to build more escorts and cruisers for our transport fleets.



On July 11th, we finally sealed the victory against Switzerland and the supply corridor to our troops in Northern France despite some fierce fighting to take Zurich.



We had our two corps in Africa now with an addition two paratroop divisions. We were using six of those divisions to try to encircle two British divisions in Barce outside of Bengasi. Our Malta-based fighter wings were trying to fly cover as best they could but the weather wasn’t cooperating. By July 15, one division had surrendered but the 3rd Royal Marine division was holding out. Another division was approaching from the west and our troops needed to mop up the victory quickly.

 
Well, I guess that solves the supply line problem.
 
Poor Switzerland, they got annexed because someone else made a terrible mistake. Are they neutral? If so, does attacking a neutral nation increase the threat your nation is towards other nations? I must admit that the borders could look better :p. When will you clean up the rest of France and not just another chunk of it?
 
DKM said:
Well, I guess that solves the supply line problem.
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:cool:

blklizard said:
Poor Switzerland, they got annexed because someone else made a terrible mistake. Are they neutral? If so, does attacking a neutral nation increase the threat your nation is towards other nations? I must admit that the borders could look better :p. When will you clean up the rest of France and not just another chunk of it?
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Switzerland was definitely neutral. I don't know if attacking a neutral nation pushes the threat up higher than if you were attacking an already aligned nation. Anyone know this?

As far as when we can clean up the rest of France, there's a treaty for at least 6 months (if I remember correctly).
 
Part 27: The Preparations Begin (July 15 - August 2, 1940)

From the personal journal of Giovanni Messe:

I was getting a headache from planning Operazione Otaria. I wanted to launch our invasion of England as soon as possible but I also needed to make sure that we had enough troops based near and in France in case the French decided to break our truce before we could break it for them. With two corps fighting to regain territory in North Africa and another two stationed near Gibraltar, I would only take one of the Gibraltar corps for defense near the Spanish/French Border. I ordered one division detached from Berti’s XXXIII Corps and left Berti’s four divisions near Gibraltar. I formed a new corps, XXXIV Corps, and gave that corps two divisions from Gambelli’s XXII Infantry Corps and sent those two corps, along with Grazioli’s 3rd Army headquarters to the French/Spanish Frontier to guard against a possible incursion by the French.



2nd army would take up its former position, guarding the our border in the Alps with the French while our Italian Expedition Force led by General Frattini would, initially, consist of two armies and 265,000 men. 25 of those infantry divisions would be tasked to be among the vanguard in France while another corps would be free up upon the completion of training of Garrison divisions to be posted in France. We were also in a major crisis with a lack of supply convoys thanks to British sinking of so many of them.

With a new Carrier Task Force almost ready to hit the seas (consisting of two Aquila+ class carriers and four Abruzzi+ class light cruisers), we would now be able to field a force of six carriers and three battleships in our fight for the English Channel.



While we likely wouldn’t have air superiority in the overall air war, we could, however, have local air superiority over a smaller tactical area in the vicinity of our landings. With two landing craft flotillas already under construction, we would commission two more flotillas to start construction immediately. We would also bring back our paratroopers as soon as they were finished in North Africa and use them to help spearhead our assault. We would begin training three divisions of marines (who will be ready just in time for our planned invasion in just over six months.



We also prioritized the research of doctrines that would benefit our troops on the thin end of the wedge, our special forces, improving their training and tactics to go along with invasion tactics and better weapons for our engineers to make them more a more effective fighting force.



In late July, we attempted to project our naval power further east in anticipation of a landing near the Suez Canal. With only our newest carrier task force available (the rest of our navy was in port, under repair), we were unable to hold off the Royal Navy and we ended up slinking back to port to await the greater part of our naval power to be back near 100%.



By early August, we had almost completely cleaned out the British presence in North Africa between Tripoli and Bengasi and, once that region was clear, we would sweep further east to the Suez.


 
The Suez Canal will belong to you soon. I'm surprised to see British still having a presence in the Mediterranean after you captured Gibraltar. I guess taking Suez would take care of that. How strong is the French? I'm assuming you gave them a beating earlier but it sounds like they could still be a threat (or are they merely a nuisance)?
 
I wonder if the attack into Italian Africa is worth it or if you shouldn't have made the attempt at seizing Alexandria and the Suez first, cutting of British supplies.

btw, rebels running rampant on Crete?
 
blklizard said:
The Suez Canal will belong to you soon. I'm surprised to see British still having a presence in the Mediterranean after you captured Gibraltar. I guess taking Suez would take care of that. How strong is the French? I'm assuming you gave them a beating earlier but it sounds like they could still be a threat (or are they merely a nuisance)?
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The French, unfortunately, still have a lot of units (you can see them in the screen shot right after the cease fire. They're all trying to head back to their territory and my units are heading to mine). There are plans to change that, however.

Baltasar said:
I wonder if the attack into Italian Africa is worth it or if you shouldn't have made the attempt at seizing Alexandria and the Suez first, cutting of British supplies.

btw, rebels running rampant on Crete?
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That naval battle in the Nile Delta was basically a feeler to see if we could make a landing right at the Suez but our fleet got shredded pretty badly (no ships were lost though) and the rest of the navy is still recovering from the beating the Brits gave us. We'll take the Suez but it'll take some more time thanks to how strong the RN still is. Once Suez is closed, we'll be able to take them out at our leisure.

Yes, rebels on Crete but they're pretty static and aren't "running" anywhere.
 
Annoying truce system getting in the way again, sigh Why isn't there a simple conquer wargoal on France, I would swear I saw Germany use it once....
You really need to seal the Med ASAP so you can focus your forces on defending the 2 entrances and not have to worry about invasions in Italy proper. The Regia Marina seems to be up to the task so far, let's hope your luck holds out.
 
Part 28: Cleaning Up the Mess (August 2 - September 15, 1940)

From the personal journal of Giovanni Messe:

Il Duce called me into his office. "Marshall Messe, I have realized my mistake in negotiating the truce with the French. When can you be ready to finish the job we started?"

"Duce, We are planning for the invasion of England, Operazione Otaria. It may take some time to reposition units for another attack on France."

"Spare me the rhetoric, Messe. I know England's invasion is planned for January. It is now August 5, you have plenty of time."

"With your pardon, Duce, but that is, of course, if things go smoothly if we're to attack France once again. Things rarely go smoothly."

"Messe, you have proved yourself as a master planner and strategist as well as a logistician. I have full confidence that if anyone can finish mopping up the French and have the troops ready for an invasion of England, all within six months, it will be you. I will see to it that Italy has an excellent reason finish off the French and you will see to it that it is done, efficiently and on time."



How does one respond to such an ultimatum? Clearly, one doesn't. I left Mussolini's offices and returned to the planning stages. I listened to his speech later in the day in which he professed his fury that the French had not disarmed after the truce. He told the Italian people that our spotters had monitored French military units, fully capable of fighting manning our borders. An ultimatum to the French Prime Minister followed: if the French didn't lay down their arms and retreat from the new borders with Italy, we would be compelled to destroy the Republic.

Mussolini was nothing if not a master of rhetoric and bluster.

In the meantime, I was relocating units to surround the French and monitoring out navy as they tried to wrest control of the Mediterranean from the British and the French. Carrier Task Force Aquila had found and destroyed three groups of British submarines operating near our shores.



Early September saw the deployment of our first two Landing Craft Flotillas at Brest.



We brought back one corps (the XXXIV Corps) from North Africa to defend the Spanish/French Border and were just waiting for one more corps to fill in the gaps on that frontier before launching Operazione Cosce di Rana and on September 15, with our troops completely surrounding what was left of France, our attack began.

 
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Time for all of France to be part of the glorious Italian Empire! I'm only slightly confused by this statement: "I will see to it that France has an excellent reason finish off the French..." Are you stating that the French government wants themselves finished off :p?
 
blklizard said:
Time for all of France to be part of the glorious Italian Empire! I'm only slightly confused by this statement: "I will see to it that France has an excellent reason finish off the French..." Are you stating that the French government wants themselves finished off :p?
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Freudian slip. Thanks for catching it! (fixed)
 
Will conquering the rest of continental France be enough to subdue them or will you have to conquer their colonies as well?

What's Germany doing currently, are they preparing for Barbarossa?
 
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