Quiet before the Storm
0000 March 2nd 1946
Seville, Spain
Field Marshal Sugiyama was in his HQ office when he finally realized that something was really wrong when the little counters depicting UK troops started falling off his wall map of Gibraltar.
German intelligence found as many as fifty-nine divisions in The Rock, and the number would not cease to grow.
Seeing as it was a waste of men and fuel to ever attempt anything against the Allies, fortified in their little logistical paradise, a general consensus among the top generals agreed for a 'withdrawal' of the Luftwaffe on its previous positions. Most of the aicrafts rebased in Cologne in order to try and prevent Allied bombing; another huge chunk rebased in Eastern Prussia, just to scare the neighbouring Soviets, as the mere sight of a flying object with the Luftwaffe insigna meant pure terror to them.
1900 March 6th 1946
The skies above Münster
The Allies' Happy Times in Europe would be over for a brief time, now that it was decided to hunt Allied bombers who, perhaps due to the prolonged absence of any German counter-initiative, were always being sent without any escort whatsoever.
The lack of escorts and the abundance of targets made the German pilots very happy. Not so for their Allied counterparts.
1700 March 7th 1946
Seville, Spain
Just to spice up things a little, the logistics wizards at Gibraltar surprised the Japanese, attacking where no-one would have ever thought: Seville.
Field Marshal Sugiyama was very interested in keeping track of casualties, and he would make the same experiment tried one month ago.
The battle would not be a short one, and Sugiyama had a lot of data acquired this time. Over the course of sixteen days, the Allies lost around 12-15,000, while the German-Spanish-Japanese garrison suffered casualties that range between 5,000 and 7,000. Calculations are proven difficult by the constant variation of divisions involved in battle, divisions that are very often not at full strenght. Nevertheless, it was safe to assume that this attack assured a casualty ratio of approximately 1:3.
1000 March 10th 1946
The skies above Dieppe, France
Germans and Americans met once again in the skies.
American pilots met the ground once again.
0000 March 19th 1946
Intelligence Dept., Berlin, Germany
I.G. Farben further helped on the development of synthetic oil.
Its efforts would be barely noticeable to the oil-munching Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe, but there was little else that could be done to address this issue. Research was now aimed, once again, at the improvement of Germany's knowledge about Nuclear Reactors.
The new syntethic oil technologies netted an overall improvement of 3.55 tonnes of more oil being produced per day. The Germans Armed Forces could well consume over 300 a day when in full swing, so that was barely a one percent improvement.
0000 March 20th 1946
Intelligence Dept., Berlin, Germany
The research spree did not end here as Kriegsmarinewerft finally developed an improved version of a true monster: the Super Heavy Battleship.
The long-term strategy for a new, revamped German Kriegsmarine, however, included the employment for Light Carriers as those proved to be invaluable assets for a Surface Fleet against the new ruling power on the seas, the Carrier, a subject the Germans knew too little about to hope to face the Allies' navy.
1500 March 21st 1946
Diplomatic Offices, Berlin, Germany
Von Ribbentrop met an ambassador coming from the Far East. His experience with the Japanese made him well accustomed to discerning Japanese from Chinese somatic traits, and the man in front of him was clearly a Chinese. There was a further complication, however, in the fact that that Chinese could be a Nationalist or a Communist. And, when the ambassador started talking, von Ribbentrop was quite ashamed of the fact he didn't know what Country he was representing.
Then, when the ambassador started blabbering something about the lines of 'white peace' and 'socialist paradise', von Ribbentrop erupted into a big, belly, rather vulgar for a diplomat, laugh.
"What's so funny about that!" the Chinese ambassador protested, but von Ribbentrop was too occupied with providing oxygen for its lungs to answer back.
1500 March 21st 1946
Naval Base of Rostock, Germany
Another important step for the German Kriegsmarine happened on this day, as the German battleship Tirpitz, along with other smaller vessels, were successfully rescued from the hostile waters of Norway to safe shores.
Vessels like the Tirpitz and Admiral Scheer would be a welcome addition to a fledging Kriegsmarine. It was weak and scattered. Now it was only weak. Heck of an improvement.