A German Mechanised Strategy

[Kanitatlan]

March 28th
My doctrine of leaving the coasts unprotected has yielded another invasion in a potentially embarrassing place. Fortunately they haven’t landed at a genuine choke point and the inland Turkish provinces provide a stable supply line. This area will remain a risk area until the allies no longer have any landing capability in the Mediterranean (which isn’t too far off now). The truly embarrassing location is Jerusalem as it is a choke point for the whole of Africa.

 

[Kanitatlan]

April 7th
The invasion of Spain has progressed by leaps and bounds. Massive Spanish forces are pulling back from Pamplona but their divisions are so dreadful that I barely need to take any notice of them even in large numbers. Infantry are hard attack 2 defence 10 and the militia are hard attack zero defence 4. With their army being 50% militia this makes them a real joke.

 

[Kanitatlan]

April 9th
My converging attack deals with the Beirut invasion and an actual defender deals with another in Mersin. I have left a few garrison divisions around the coast here because of the potential supply choke points. The Instanbul area is still accessible to the Allies as Greece remains neutral. As soon as I have taken Gibraltar and Suez the allied navies in the Med will be isolated and once they have committed those troops already present they will have no more forces for amphibious invasions.

 

[Kanitatlan]

April 14th
I have extended my invasion of Persia to the east by a further 2 paradrops. My ground troops are taking the VP provinces along the south coast and the mountain troops are heading for Tehran.

 

[Kanitatlan]

April 17th
The battle for Oman doesn’t take long. Meyer’s panzer division can defeat this sort of defence without taking any losses despite the primitive nature of my armour technology. Next day, April 18, Oman is annexed. This provides a new source of supply that is closer to many of the troops in Persia than my previous supply base in Iraq.

 

[Kanitatlan]

April 26th
My troops have crossed the Suez canal and are attempting to isolate and destroy the British forces. I need serious reinforcements here to make this the usual overwhelming campaign and as soon as Spain has been annexed that is what I will have.

 

[Kanitatlan]

April 29th
I have now cut of the British troops in northern Egypt. Technically they are not cut off because the British still control the zero infrastructure desert provinces to the west but troops are not allowed to retreat into these provinces and therefore I can crush them before taking the desert areas.

On April 29th my scientists develop 'Polypropylene' which is the pinnacle of the industrial technology path and gives me a 15% IC boost (now is the time to begin worrying about resource depletion). Also I manage to annex Spain so in 7 days the mechs will be arriving and the British will be in serious trouble.

On May 5th I make another judicious paradrop in eastern Persia and annex them. My troops stand on the borders of British India and there are no allied divisions in sight.

 

[Kanitatlan]

May 10th
I have been building up my surplus infantry divisions of the Romanian border and on April 30th I declare war on them. This is quite a simple invasion from the Bulgarian frontier as all I need to take is Bucuresti, Ploesti and Constanta which are all nicely grouped in front of me. Infantry is perfectly good for this invasion as they are minimally affected by the river crossings and the marshy terrain. I will leave to your imagination how this battle goes but needless to say I am not going to take detectable losses. Unfortunately I have left this invasion too long for me to get Beltsy and Chisinau out of it as the Soviets have already demanded and got them. It is easily possible to take Romania before that happens which is a bit of an additional bonus. When it comes to invading the Soviet Union I don’t think that little bit of additional terrain makes any difference whatsoever.

 

[Kanitatlan]

May 17th
A few days later and the key areas of Romania are being overwhelmed. I will soon have Constanta and they will be annexed.

 

[Kanitatlan]

May 18th
Back in Egypt my initial attack has been defeated due to inadequate forces (and the presence of British armour) and I have had to pull back a bit but now the mechanised armies have arrived some serious destruction is going to break out. In practical terms my strategy is simply to capture all the high infrastructure provinces. This will result in all British forces being destroyed, as they cannot retreat into low infrastructure provinces. Since I know they are going to be destroyed anyway there is no need to try and cut them off.

 

[Kanitatlan]

May 23rd
My paras having given me a foothold in the Indian mountains which makes me feel a bit more secure and relatively modest forces are spreading out into India against very limited opposition. The paras will very soon be transferring to Africa and the invasion will have to continue without them. The mountain troops have been sent west to capture Gibraltar.

On May 27th Meyer captures Yemen (annexed).

On May 30th the brief battle of Constanta ends and I annex Romania. I am starting to own Europe rather than just dominate it.

 

[Kanitatlan]

June 1st
My mechanised armies now start to demonstrate the principals of overwhelming force to an obviously inadequately educated British army. Notice the use of Behlendorff to conduct the cross-river attack (with trickster Rommel in support with one division to get that surprise bonus). Egypt will obviously soon be mine. There are quite a lot of British air units in Egypt, I have some fighters in El Arish but I am hesitating to use them too much as the British air force is a bit strong. The simple fact is that the air units are barely helping the defence and they will be overrun along with the ground troops.

 

[Kanitatlan]

June 2nd
The invasion of India is progressing with my single division attack forces engaged in battle. The illustrated battle is being given air support as Jacob doesn’t make for a particularly good attack strength. He is in command because of the river crossing out of the mountains. (Kuntze will soon be replaced by a proper panzer general).

 

[Kanitatlan]

June 4th

I have troops committed to taking the low infrastructure provinces although I don’t want to actually fight for Al Hariga (no I am not going to get any of the accents right). The British troops there will in fact be suffering horrendous attrition as the province is zero infrastructure and they have no connection to their capital (a really deadly combination). I am half expecting them to actually vaporise and cease to exist before they get anywhere.

 

[Kanitatlan]

Over the past few months the combination of conquests, minister changes and technological progress have seen a steady increase in ICs available. This is enough now to have a major impact on what is going on as my production capacity has nearly tripled.

A quick run down on the graph

The big increase in early January is due to bringing in the Prince of Terror and the administrative genius after running dissent reduction since starting the war.

The big March - April dip is the shift to a dissent reduction minister profile again and then back to high prodcution mode.

The increase at the start of May is due to the dicovery of polypropylene.

On top of these sudden shifts there is a steady rise in ICs from the slow acquisition and repair of IC capacity in foreign territory. None of the annexation effects have been big enough to show (productivity goes from 25% to 33% and multiple provinces may be gained).

Current production is 30+ mechanised divisions and 24 type II uboats due in September. My research is starting to expand but still has a focus on maximising the infantry and mechanised divisions. I should have a full set of infantry weapons and assault guns ready for the invasion of Russia in early summer 1941.

 

[Virgiltchicken]

It is this dramatic low cost for the type II that motivates me to build them. There is a total of +13 naval attack available from technologies and as I progress these will be added to all types of submarine. The type II is far more vulnerable but the attack per IC is so much higher. The only major penalty is the limited range which means that I can only project naval strength relatively close to a naval base.

What about the difference in defense between type II and type IX? What I am asking is, might it be cheaper to build type IX simply because fewer of them will sink? Then again, it does seem pretty ludicrous to believe that there will be that large of a gap, if I read your IC to sub chart as being 24 type II to 12 type IX.

 

[elbasto]

nice progress.

Are you planning to annex France and the UK before Russia?

I can't see half of the pics or they are repeated in different posts.

 

[Timpino]

nice development, I guess your tactics are to take out india before GB gets there manpower? wont you get a huge front against SOV in 41?

Cheers

 

[Kanitatlan]

What about the difference in defense between type II and type IX? What I am asking is, might it be cheaper to build type IX simply because fewer of them will sink? Then again, it does seem pretty ludicrous to believe that there will be that large of a gap, if I read your IC to sub chart as being 24 type II to 12 type IX.

The IC cost really does make that much difference and the effect of spreading the attacks over twice as many subs makes a significant difference which outweighs the difference in defence. The combat model used is not properly representative of naval combat as ships will 'gang up' on the weakest target available. However, the larger numbers should compensate. The only worrying aspect is the impact of stacking penalties when engaging large groups of ships on both sides.

 

[Kanitatlan]

nice progress.

Are you planning to annex France and the UK before Russia?

I can't see half of the pics or they are repeated in different posts.

Annexing france is awkward as it involves a trip to south america (the capital gets moved there) but annexing Vichy will be no problem. Annexing the UK is also difficult because of the need to take a variety of islands in the Pacific. This is potentially risky. In both the case of France and the UK complete annexation need not be hurried as isolating them to a few remaining locations can render them completely ineffective due to industrial collapse.

I don't know what the problem with the pictures is. There have been one or two comments for both AARs but the pictures always come up OK for me and I have tested at several locations using both broadband and dial up.