A German Mechanised Strategy

[Kanitatlan]

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

I don't know about GB getting manpower but I would much prefer them to deploy it in India rather than the UK mainland.

Turkey and Persia do give some unfortunate extensions to the front with Russia but I can get by with minimal defensive forces. There is no absolute requirement to properly defend these areas as long as I make sure that my far eastern forces don't get cut off. The Russians will quickly thin out any forces in this theatre once the 'unpleasantness' starts on the western frontier.

 

[elbasto]

did you try www.imageshack.us ?

 

[Kanitatlan]

did you try www.imageshack.us ?

I'm using a very, very similar UK site affiliated to photobucket.com

 

[Kanitatlan]

June 8th
Von Manstein is closing in on the final destruction of British troops in Sudan. They only have three high infrastructure provinces left to them and will soon be eliminated. This will be a successful elimination of even more British units. One thing I have noticed is that the ai does not use strategic movement to allow its units to escape. The British have an effective land connection right down to South Africa and would have no difficulty evacuating all these units to defend West Africa which, given the existing strength in Egypt, would make things much more difficult later on.

 

[Kanitatlan]

June 10th
The ai has foolishly reinforced its units to full strength which makes them much easier to defeat as they now have minimal org. This is simply a complete waste of manpower which is probably in very limited supply for the British forces.

 

[Kanitatlan]

June 15th
The end in northern Egypt. These British forces will break almost immediately and be gone. My mechanised divisions still have a tremendous advantage of British infantry divisions and the effective odds are much higher than those indicated.

 

[Kanitatlan]

June 22nd
Back in Western Europe, this is an example of me definitely violating my overwhelming force principals (all of them). I have transferred half of my mountain troops back to take Malta and whilst they where moving into the attack the British have brought up significant reinforcements. Clearly I should have brought the whole lot back as this would have very substantially changed the outcome. I have several mountain divisions reduced to minimal strength as a result of the hard fighting and I am forced to watch carefully to make sure none is actually destroyed. These mountain troops are a key element of my army and whilst I can stand the heavy manpower losses involved in restoring their strength actually losing any would be extremely unfortunate. Even so the manpower losses are serious, especially as they where unnecessary, and this clearly an example of not sticking to the overwhelming force principal.

This is probably a good example for discussion as I am well aware of the cause of the mistake. This was all about thinking about what would be sufficient force rather than thinking about what force can be made available. No doubt the remaining mountain divisions where doing something elsewhere but, as will be seen a bit later, there is no real time pressure on their activities and therefore I could have spent a bit more time. There was also the tendency to attack a relatively low org levels which has contributed to the problem.

Always devote the maximum possible available force to active operations. Problems in secondary theatres can be corrected later. This is always the best approach and explains why I leave so much coastline unguarded. If you keep your forces busy fighting then there should not be a problem with running out of time and there should not be too much pressure to do things now rather than a bit later. There are always temptations to do things too fast as well as temptations to wait until later (sorry, you just have to develop the skills for deciding for yourself).

On June 24th, 1940, Japan finally declared war upon Nationalist China and the far eastern theatre got underway. There is some hope that Japan may become a co-belligerent at some point and inflict some damage on the Allies. Note that co-belligerent status (fighting the same enemy) does not make you allies. This is one reason for leaving Italy and Japan alone as they can create a considerable distraction for the Allies.

 

[Kanitatlan]

June 27th
The conquest of India is moving forward rapidly although I have minimal forces committed. The biggest problem is winkling the British troops out of the mountains and I make sure they have plenty of opportunity to come down and take back territory. The main objective is Bhutan for a supply source and then on into Burma. As long as those two actions are not slowed down it doesn’t really matter what happens in the rest of the Indian theatre.

 

[Kanitatlan]

July 3rd
With the prospect of lots more submarines I send my entire fleet on a trip around the UK to French bases ready for a possible invasion of the UK. The main British fleet sits in Portsmouth making an eastern approach to invasion undesirable. I have tried landings in Edinburgh in the past but the supply range penalties are rather painful making direct cross channel attacks easily the best approach.

 

[Kanitatlan]

July 8th
The British have come down out of the mountains and are being dealt with by my forces. The dive bombers are carrying out a process of unit destruction as this is going to be the only way to actually get rid of British units unless I let them wander much further from the mountains. The number of British divisions is within the dive bombers capability for total destruction.

 

[Kanitatlan]

July 8th b
Further south the British presence in Bombay is isolated and ready for destruction. The loss of British units in India is a small bonus but unlikely to have much impact on the strength of the defence of the UK. I hope I am attracting forces to India but I have no confidence it is being effective.

 

[Kanitatlan]

July 10th
Hausser is busy punishing the British troops who have come down from Simla. I won’t give him any air support as that would simply reduce British casualties. I want to kill as many as possible before they retreat and then use the dive bombers to try and finish of the retreating forces before they reach the mountains.

 

[Kanitatlan]

July 12th
As ever, trying to circumnavigate the UK results in meeting minor UK naval forces that hold up my fleets. The big risk is that these encounters then attract further Allied naval forces so I have to hurry everyone along.

 

[Kanitatlan]

July 13th
There are several things going on in the Spanish theatre of operations. I currently have my torpedo bombers here as the Allies are constantly attracted to the straights of Gibraltar even though they cannot get through. I can constantly nibble away at their navies. Unfortunately this continues to require micro-management and daily manual scheduling of bombing attacks. This is very tedious.

I have deployed several new mechanised divisions in Ceuta. It is annexed territory so I can deploy there. This removes the need to bring transports down to gain access to North Africa. I have set up a supply convoy across the straights which are completely safe from interference as the allies cannot enter that sea zone. These mechanised divisions are tasked with taking French North Africa and moving south to Dakar. This is not very difficult as the Vichy event has eliminated all forces and left these areas completely undefended.

Last (and least) there has been an allied landing in Spain that, despite the difficult terrain, is effectively a free gift of a division to destroy.

On July 13th, 1940 I am able to annex Bhutan giving me a new supply source to trace to in Eastern India.

 

[Kanitatlan]

July 16th
Meanwhile the allies (Netherlands) launch another harassing invasion which I am counterattacking highly successfully. The constant strategic redeployment of mechanised divisions is taking its toll on their org and I will have to have them all sit doing nothing for a month later on to get them all back to full capability. It is NOT a good idea to invade Russia with lots of divisions at low org levels (this is called stating the obvious).

 

[Kanitatlan]

Aug 2nd
The allies are interfering with my conquest of Vichy Africa. This situation illustrates the importance of annexing Vichy. Currently my forces south of here are isolated and out of supply. When I control all the inland provinces the allies will no longer have any way of isolating these units and defending this coast becomes significantly less important. As ever, my mechanised divisions under von Manstein will have absolutely no difficulty in dealing with British infantry divisions.

Lets just compare the two sides in this battle. Manstein is skill 4 with od and pl giving +40%. Dempsey is a lt General (-15% no HQ) with od and skill 3 giving plus 25%. Overall I should be at 120% efficiency whilst the British are at 110%. If I put this through my combat simulator with current capability figures (my Mechs = SA 13, GD 12; their infantry HA 3, GD 16) and prevailing ground defence efficiency then it reports and expect loss ratio of 110:1. I don’t take enough casualties in the battle to verify this loss ratio but you get the idea. The fight looks like I have a bit of an advantage and will easily win but the actual figures spell out overwhelming force. (Hands up who would have guessed a loss ratio of more than 10:1 let alone 100:1)

 

[Kanitatlan]

Aug 27th
A number of paratroop landing across central Africa, completed by a drop staged via the Spanish colony of ?, result in the capture of Libreville and on August 26th I annex Vichy France. This is immediately followed by strategic redeployment of units to move into the remaining allied territories in West Africa. After annexing Vichy these territories are all isolated and undefended and easy to take. Strategic movement is so much quicker than actually marching or driving all along West Africa.

 

[Kanitatlan]

Aug 28th
British air cover in southern England is sufficiently limited and fragmented for a few raids by my full fighter force to start destroying it. This will give my air force a free hand in supporting attempts at achieving local naval superiority. This opens up a believable opportunity for a guaranteed successful invasion of the UK. With my naval forces already here I have started concentrating other units for an invasion that involves all three arms of the forces in a coordinated operation.

It is now exactly one year since the start of the war and I have gained a dominant position throughout Europe, Asia and Africa with the only major opposition being the mainland UK and Russia (still at peace). I have not completed the conquest of Africa but it is progressing nicely. I have not completed the conquest of southern Asia but that is also progressing nicely. In Europe my forces are preparing to invade the UK mainland. Things are looking good.

 

[Kanitatlan]

Sept 1st
Fighting continues with my air force beginning to contribute by inflicting losses on his naval forces. Unfortunately the commonest unit is naval transports which simply dilute the effect that I have. I am not interested in sinking transports as they are no threat to me.

 

[Kanitatlan]

Sep 1st b
I have moved forces into the channel heading for a landing in the undefended province of Southampton. I keep a close eye on British naval forces in Portsmouth as their arrival might spell disaster. The riskiest period is after the first landing when the ai has the opportunity of placing such a large force in the channel that I have to relinquish all operations and face the possible annihilation of all those forces that have already landed. Fortunately the ai is totally incompetent and despite it being possible to easily thwart my invasion they will do nothing of the sort (I hope)