The state of the armed forces - the Heer
Ever since the end of the Weltkrieg, there hadn't been a country that could claim to match Germany on land, at sea or in the sky. Even in times of peace, the Kaiserliche Heer was larger than any other army in the world. The Kaiserliche marine had more battleships and battlecruisers than its three biggest competitors combined and the Luftstreitkräfte dominated the skies of Europe. All Germans could sleep soundly each night, knowing Germanies might was unchallengable. Sadly, it was this sense of misplaced superiority that had spelled ruin for the armed forces. The Heer was large, but spread out along Germanies borders and its colonies, while the Communes Cohorts could concentrate all their forces near Lothringen and the Flemish border. The navy had to police all the seas to guard Germanies interests around the world, while the Republican Navy could concentrate on the North Seas and had a clear advantage in carriers. Even the airforce faced the danger of being outnumbered when faced with the combined power of the Republican Airforce (RAF) and the Armee de l'air at the same time.
The defence of the Reich
The strategic conundrum of facing an enemy able to concentrate all its force on a single front had been clear to the Generalstab, even before that appoinment of Generaloberst Beck. Noone had any doubt that war between the Kaiserreich and the Commune was inevitable and a strategy against the Commune had to be found. During Seeckt's tenure the mindset of the Weltkrieg had prevailed and a large number of fortifications where built in Lothringen among the border with the Commune. This line became known as the Wilhelmstellung. The defences continued through the Ardennes along the river Meuse, with Eastern Wallonia being occupied for security reasons, and stopped along the Dutch border. In the unlikely case the French would attempt to strike through the Netherlands, the formidable Rhine would form a barrier along which Dutch troops could rally and hang on until German troops could fortify their position. All along the border, the Commune would bleed before crumbling before a German counterattack, with stormtroopers stiking at weakspots in the enemies defence and heavy artillery supporting the infantry.
The Panzer II and Panzer I. Their design reflected the Generalstabs disinterest in tank design, being smaller and weaked armoured and thus cheaper to produce than their Commune and Russian counterparts.
Yet Beck knew that the Commune wasn't about to repeat the same mistakes of the Weltkrieg, especially not with men like Makhno and LeGentilhomme at the helm. Makhno had proven to be a master of unorthodox warfare while commanding his Black Army during the Russian Revolution and LeGentilhomme, the recently appointed commander-in-chief of the Communes armed forces, was pushing for an unprecedented increase in tank production. Even if Germany was preparing to fight in the trenches, the French clearly weren't.
Modernisation
Yet the oldfashioned strategies employed weren't Germanies only problem. The age of the equipment used by its forces was starting to hurt its operational effectively, as shown in Lithuania. The first step in upgrading German smallarms had been started during the '30s, with the Mauser 98k carbine replacing the cumbersome Gewehr 98. The MP18 submachinegun, favoured by the Stosstruppen (stormtroopers) of the Weltkrieg, had already been replaced with the MP34. Even the iconic Luger was slowly but surely being replaced with the Walther PPK. The most effective addition to the infantries arsenal was the MG34 all-purpose machine gun, which provided a great boost in firepower. Each division, wether used for assault or defence, was to raise a Stosstruppen-battalion from among the best of its men, to provide the division with the capability for agressive reconaissance, a quick counterattack or as vanguard of an assault.
The versatile MG34 light machinegun. Besides its use as an infantry-support weapon, it was also used as a basis for the MG81 anti-aircraftgun and mounted as a secondary weapon on the Panzer II. Unfortunately the machinegun was quite expensive to produce, requiring 49kg of steel to produce.
Beck also expanded the tank warfare programme he had set up after his return to service. Becks first step would be the replacement of the feeble Panzer I with a new generation of tanks. The production of the Panzer II was increased, yet this tank wasn't meant to be anything more than a temporary solution until more advanced tanks would take its place. Unfortunately, the Panzer III cavalry-tank and Panzer IV infantry-tank where still plans on a drawingboard. To provide another stopgap measure, Beck ordered the few remaining cavalry divisions to be reformed into mechanized cavalry, with about half of the regiments in each division swapping their horses for motorized vehicles and by adding a battalion of armoured cars (the Leichter Panzerspähwagen). Less glamorous, but of equal importance was the start of replacing the horse with freighttrucks and halftracks, yet the high cost of this proces meant the conversion wasn't planned to be finished before 1945.
Generalleutnant Heinz Wilhelm Guderian (b. 1888). A gifted but hot tempered officer, the outspoken Guderian often clashed with his superiors. After yet another incident in 1934, Guderian was 'promoted' to commander of the German troops in Saigon. The drab work of guarding a distant colony gave Guderian ample time to study works on maneuver warfare written by British exile J.F.C. Fuller and French colonel Charles de Gaulle. Guderian compiled his theories into the seminal work 'Achtung Panzer', which impressed Beck enough to recall Guderian to Germany.
The controversial generalleutnant Guderian, author of Achtung Panzer, was recalled from his commission (or exile) in Deutsch Indochina to teach a the first generation of tank-commanders at Lichterfelde. As expected the hotheaded Guderian soon clashed with virtually everyone of the military establishment, including Beck himself, but his insights where valuable enough for Beck to let him get away with such 'eccentricities'. It was clear that the tank could be a fearsome weapon is used right, breaking through enemy lines. By combining Clausewitz theory of combining ones strenght against a single point, the Schwerpunkt, with Hutiers 'infiltration-tactics' and the firepower a modern army could wield, the recipe for fighting the commune might just have been found.
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Beck has started reforming the German army for a new kind of war, reforms that are bound to upset the more conservative part of the Generalstab. Next update will deal with the Kaiserliche Marine and Raeders fight to push through Plan Z.
. Expect to hear more from Schleicher, Papen and the other mudslingers soon.
