General Report January 1943
TOP SECRET - AUTHORISED PERSONNEL ONLY
The following report describes strategic situation of the German Reich as of
10th of January 1943 and contains operational plans for 1943.
State of the Army
Our land forces are modern, but numerically inferior to the Red Army. Production of new tanks (medium and heavy variants), anti-tank guns, anti-aicraft guns, tank destroyers and rocket artillery (both horse-towed and self-propelled variants) is already in progress. Moreover, more infantry and mechanised divisions are being formed. It is expected that our army will consist of
at least 900 brigades (including occupation forces) by
April 1943.
Tactics
It has been proven during the operations performed during 1942 that our armoured and motorised divisions are perfectly capable of achieving breakthroughs and forming encirclements (even the sizeable ones), but not necessarily able to hold them for a long time. S
oviet forces are numerous, so destroying enemy divisions trapped in encirclements takes more time than we previously thought. Therefore, the recommended course of action is to
utilise infantry components of our army to greater extent during the process of forming an encirclement. After the armoured divisions create a breakthrough, our infantry will engage the enemy forces in several places at once in order to prevent him from being able to reinforce his defence lines. Moreover, some infantry divisions will be quickly redeployed to guard the rear of our armoured and motorised forces.
Our frontlines are not to be unnecessarily stretched. Large encirclements often prove to be impossible to hold. It is more rational to create several smaller pockets than a single huge one if in the second case our superior position cannot be exploited.
Our experiences coming from operations performed in 1942 tell us that
force concentration is crucial in any major operation. The enemy has a general numerical advantage, so achieving a local superiority is the best course of action.
State of the Airforce
Expansion of our airforce is of utmost importance. Both during the
Western Campaign of 1941-1942 and the
Eastern Campaign of 1942 we were only able to achieve local and periodical air superiority. To put it simply, our fighter force is too small. We were not able to confront the enemy fighters in long air campaigns and it hindered our offensive and defensive efforts. Our bombers could not efficiently support our land forces because it was the enemy which often controlled the skies.
We must increase our aircraft production if we want to conduct the land operations effectively. It should be noted that part of our fighter force must be stationed in the West in order to counter the threat the Allied bombers pose to our population and our industry.
Moreover, our bombers will now be accompanied by fighter escorts all the time. While it will decrease their maximum range, it will also prolong their operational capability.
State of the industry
The capacity of our industry has been greatly expanded during the last two years. However, our resource situation is alarming. We have some problems with stockpiling of coal and iron and therefore our energy and iron production are not as efficient as they could be. However, our sizeable stockpiles should be enough to stabilise the situation in the real future. The major problems may arise due to our severe shortages of rare materials. If our industry continues to consume rare materials at a current rate and we do not increase the resource flow, then our stockpile will be depleted somewhere in early 1944.
The recommended course of action is to import the resources from overseas. Non-hostile European countries no longer have the necessary resource base in order to meet the demand of our industry. Therefore, we have to expand our merchant marine and protect our convoys from enemy raiders.
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Operation Sunflower
The remnants of the Royal Navy are docked at the port of Dover. The current state of the Allied navies is not fully known, but it expected that the fleet from Dover is one of the biggest remaining force of the Royal Navy. We intend to destroy it completely in a coordinated naval-air operation during
January 1943.
Our CTF will be stationed in Mouth of Thames, ready to intercept the enemy fleet from Dover or any fleet coming to its rescue. We will concentrate our airforce in Belgium and France. Our fighters will engage the enemy aircraft, while our naval and tactical bombers and half of our CAGs will bomb port of Dover during day- and night-hours until the enemy fleet is eliminated.
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Operation Red Carpet - Spring Offensive
In
May 1943 we will start our
Spring Offensive. We will begin by forcing a breakthrough near Eastern Prussia and forming an encirclement ending at Memel (
RED). Our forces stationed in Eastern Prussia will attack the encircled Soviet forces and our infantry will guard our rear while the bulk of our mobile forces will attack Riga. They will be assisted by infantry transported by sea (
YELLOW). This will end the
first phase of the operation.
The
second phase, which we intend to start in
June 1943, will consist of a two-way attack from Minsk and Riga. We will use some of our light tanks to create several smaller encirclements in order to destroy the bulk of Soviet forces stationed in the North as quickly as possible (
BLUE).
As soon as the situation is secured, the
third phase will begin. About one fifth of our available forces will attack Leningrad in the north and prevent any Soviet reinforcements from Soviet-Finish border to aid defenders of Moscow. The rest of our forces will directly attack the Soviet capital, forming smaller encirclements on the way (
PINK). Our intention is to complete this part of the operation by
September 1943.
Should we succeed and the circumstances allow us, we will attack Soviet positions in the south and try to take as much ground as possible before the winter approaches. We will not stop attacking until it becomes infeasible (
GREEN).
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Thoughts? Suggestions? Questions?
