Fatherland - Deutschland über alles

[Kanitatlan]

So ends the year of 1940. We didn’t mark the end of 1939 although a fair amount had happened during that year. Looking back on 1940 the year has really only yielded one major event, which was the defeat of Russia. This was followed by the outbreak of true world war and the cleaning up the remainder of Europe bringing us to the current position with active fronts being in Africa, the Middle East and the banks of the Volga.

The whole year has taken about 75,000 words and 850 images to document in, hopefully, enough detail to keep everyone happy. This is obviously a second successful year of warfare although may be that celebration should be on the second anniversary of the unprovoked French attack on our nation (or have you all forgotten that we never started it).

1941​

We begin a new year with nothing very significant changed from the old. Having posted a few words about 1940 we can now put it behind us and look forward to the future. This is undoubtedly the year of the second Russian campaign but beyond that there is little that can be said at this time.

Bear in mind my stated rules at the start. I will permit myself one “free” minister change per year and this means I now have another free change available. There are a few possibilities. The only ones that appeal are a switch from manpower focus to IC focus for the security minister or a change from IC focus to research focus on the intelligence minister. Both are attractive but for now I am changing nothing since, unfortunately, if I do change I would really like to change both.

p.s. This is phase one of the weekend update, more, much more, to follow.

 

[unmerged(53911)]

Wow! Very dramatic year end! I'm sure Berlin saw a lot of Christmas celebrations given the generally good news on all fronts. Great job with the amphibious assaults in the Middle East. I am sure that surprised the British! Looking forward to more updates this weekend.

 

[sbr]

Very nice updates, good to see them regularly again.

I had forgot that this war was caused because the French couldn't stand a few friendly insults and frog noises from our peaceful border guards.-Thank you for the index, made it possible for me to go back and reread the beginning of the war.

 

[Von Uber]

How are you planning on guarding your coastlines if the Allied navies can roam at will?

 

[Kanitatlan]

WhisperingDeath The year end was dramatic but the new year is even more so.

sbr I thought it worth reminding everyone that the war began with german border guards taking the mickey out of the French

Von Uber That is a very good question. My current coastal defence plan is purely reactive. My traditional approach is to ignore the possibility of a landing and assume I can react and deal with it before any critical territory (ie Germany) is affected. The Allies always seem particularly useless at invading Europe once the British Isles has been taken and I really despair of the AI's ability in this area. A player would very quickly organise a massive landing in western Europe and totally discrupt all my other plans. As things stand I am depending on strategic redeployment from the current active fronts back to Germany to be quicker than an allied landing and offsenive. Against the AI this is effectively risk free.

And so on to the updates

 

[Kanitatlan]

January 1st-7th 1941

08:00 January 1st 1941​

The new year begins with a real WTF moment. I have evacuated my troops because obviously the Russian threat to Murmansk was over. Oddly they seem to have conjured up a new division from somewhere and I am going to have to go all the way back again. This is more than annoying.

12:00 January 2nd 1941​

In other news I have remembered to do a bit of spying and this time had a really good round of success. Both technologies are on my lists and will need researching one day so this is quite useful. I am now operating spies throughout the world and attempting to increase my presence in almost every nation. I keep forgetting to carry out the weekly spying round so my money reserves are actually holding up quite well. If I remembered to try every week then I would be accumulating blueprints rather more quickly.

16:00 January 2nd 1941​

The Royal navy is suffering severely now for their visit home. I don’t fancy the chances of anything significant from this fleet getting away. I have a suspicion that this is the end of the British capital ships but it is worth remembering that even with so little territory left they still have 70 ICs in operation and should be able to turn out a far volume of forces in India.

20:00 January 3rd 1941​

Continued u-boat success. I’m still hoping for the Italians (and Vichy) to run out of convoys.

11:00 January 4th 1941​

In North Africa there is some success against some enemy interceptors for a change. It looks like the Americans have their air units as badly depleted as the other poorer countries. This battle lost them at least one squadron. I guess the air war is going nicely and promises a good stab at the proposed annual target.

06:00 January 5th 1941​

With panzers now deep into Saudi territory we can reduce the final pocket in Palestine removing the last British divisions. The bag for this campaign is now 25 divisions as a small token achievement towards my annual target. These forces can also move on elsewhere, the mobile forces will predominately head eastwards for the end of Iraq whilst the infantry is probably too slow to get anywhere in time to contribute. In fact their next action may be redeployment for the new Russian campaign.

12:00 January 7th 1941​

I have sent my naval forces prowling around, supported by the usual air power, with the objective of starting to clean up the Mediterranean and eliminate all allied naval power. As far as I am aware all that is left is a few US units wandering around, a few scraps and the Italian fleet in Alexandria. Further investigation does reveal a concentration at the far western end based on the last Vichy North African ports.

 

[Kanitatlan]

08:00 January 10th 1941​

Finally it is time to attack Alexandria and bring the downfall of Italian power in Egypt. Alexandria is heavily fortified (which I hadn’t realised before attacking or I might have changed leaders) but a combination of shore bombardment and poor supply has left the Italians even worse off. My divisions are also individually much superior. It is immediately obvious that we will win and Alexandria will fall in a few days. There are 56 allied squadrons based at Alexandria airfield and no doubt evacuation plans are immediately being made.

Meanwhile at Tobruk …

10:00 January 10th 1941​

As a distraction the German fleet is cleaning up the western end of the Mediterranean. There is a small concentration of enemy ships in what is left of Vichy North Africa. My control of Gibraltar prevents them from escaping and every time they come to sea they take more damage.

Back at Alexandria Kasakka is doing his stuff. Our Fallschirmjäger drop on Alexandria airfield and …

13:00 January 10th 1941​

At 15:00 the defenders are defeated. The Fallschirmjäger run amok on the airfield and no allied planes escape. All 56 squadrons are taken. I suspect they were all massively under strength but even so we are talking about around 2,000 aircraft and all the residual cost in building new squadrons instead of repairs. This is the single greatest victory of the war so far with its only competition being the great sea battle of Scapa Flow near the beginning.

Alexandria airfield is a mass of wrecked aircraft and burnt out hangers. Sample operational aircraft are returned to the fatherland for analysis but they are all inferior to those that we already use.

I have not been awarding medals recently but this massive victory definitely deserves something so…

Kasakka, as leader of the most successful parachute drop in human history is given the highest award we have to offer. The second gold star ever presented.

It is worth a brief comment about the air war in general. It seems that the AI is profoundly unsuited to managing the increased available air power. Part of the problem is that the provision of airfields hasn’t been scaled up and the AI is therefore putting far too many aircraft at each airfield. The result is slow org recovery and slow loss replacement for all units. This wouldn’t be such a big problem if it weren’t for the fact that the AI is pretty poor with strategic management of air power anyway. It copes best with relatively static ground conditions which tend to trigger fairly static air deployment. With the relatively volatile situation caused by the continued German offensive mismanagement rises to an epic level. Yet again we see the game not coping well with my switch from player penalties to AI bonuses. Given my policy (for this game) on difficulty settings all that can be done is consider giving the AI even more bonuses.

 

[unmerged(53911)]

Congratulations to Kasakka and our glorious "sky-warriors"!! A well earned Gold Star!

I wonder if Basra is still the middle Eastern center of the Allied world? How many units will be redeploying from Palestine? What are things looking like on the Russian Front? [deep announcer-type voice] "All these things will be answered (I hope), next time our story continues..."

 

[sbr]

Kanitatlan's To-Destroy list for 1941

50-100 BB or CV
circa 500 other ships
50-100 air squadrons plus numerous losses--completed Jan 10 1941
circa 1000 divisions

OK whats next? :rofl:

Wow 56 squardrons in one shot. Very nice haul.

 

[Brad1]

That was a very well deserved gold star! Imagine Kasakka and his troops going nuts destroying those planes by the thousands.

 

[unmerged(61606)]

130 pages and it's only 1941?? god.. .

 

[unmerged(40779)]

WHOAH! :O Not bad, even from me

56 squadrons.... I wonder how on earth were they all destroyed! I mean, there's only a certain number of hand grenades one can carry when jumping with a parachute...

But anyways, this is rather cool! Thank you, dear Kaniführer, for the honor you gave me and my sky-divers when you let us do this - and the star also, naturally!
We look eagerly forward for more opportunities to burn some planes.

 

[TheExecuter]

"Idiots!" fumed the admiral. "Unqualified buffoons!" he snorted. To have 56 squadrons concentrated in Alexandria was natural...they would be needed to repel the German armies closing in on the canal. "How could 56 squadrons of planes be surprised and captured by a !@#$%^ aerial assault. "Did not the fools do any defensive patroling?" The images of german paratroopers grenading, then shooting up, then painstakingly removing key components with sledge hammers and wrenches, had flashed across the Germanic world. Thousands of planes destroyed...the Allies air effort set back months to perhaps a year, and the canal in German hands...

"This is certainly a black day. I shall have to make them pay for it dearly." The admiral bent over the latest intelligence reports from the fleets probing the north atlantic. "Yes...dearly...or be nothing worth!"

TheExecuter
P.S. Congrats Kasakka!
P.P.S. Way to take the golden opportunity Kanitatlan!

 

[Lord E]

Impressive gains and victory in Alexandria. I must say the number of air units destroyed by the paratroopers is enormous and quit shocking. But it is still wonderful work by your forces and the gold star is certainly deserved

 

[unmerged(70464)]

Quite an impressive parachute drop.

 

[unmerged(62857)]

Wow, gone a few days and missed so much.

I am both excited and dismayed at the same time... I am excited that you are nervous, yet when one of your objectives has been completed so quickly and relatively easily... well...

The other thing is the AI use of navies with no particular purpose seemingly in mind. Just sending a fleet by Scapa flow? What for? I also wonder about the size of the fleets... It would seem to me that sending anything out in a fleet of less than 30 ships would be unwise, yet we are seeing capital ships out alone, and fleets of 6 and 8 ships being relatively common. Oh well, hopefully the massive numbers will make it somewhat difficult...

Great job BTW, I am always amazed at your ability to keep up the logistics, and have troops where you need them, when you need them. In my own game play, this always seems to be the let down when I try to take advantage of the opportunities presented. It typically takes just a little to long to manouver into position, and the results are not nearly as spectacular as those which you have been able to achieve.

 

[VladAntlerkov]

Really nothing I can say about the paradrop except for

 

[Kanitatlan]

WhisperingDeath Many things will be answered in the forthcoming installments. You will just have to wait.

sbr "OK whats next?" Well I guess the second target is their ships as I hold out little hope of meeting the ground unit target anytime soon.

rcduggan More to the point - 130 pages and the war hasn't reached its second anniversary yet . This AAR is going to continuing for some time to come.

Kasakka I am still looking for the next airbourne opportunity but currently there doesn't seem to be a good location to set up. Wherever I send them they will be out of targets by the time org recovers.

TheExecuter "This is certainly a black day. I shall have to make them pay for it dearly." Yeah, right.

Bafflegab I think the size of the British fleet reflects, well, I guess it reflects the size of the British fleet. They've sent a small force because its all they have.

Your comment on logistics is interesting since it is very important and a key game (and military) skill. I have covered it at times in my AAR but it is something that usually gets very poor coverage. I am constantly making decisions about campaigns based on achieving suitable troops concentration. All of the planning for the cleaning up of Europe was basically a discussion about concetrating troops with no real discussion of the execution of each campaign. If you get the troop movements right you don't need clever tactics (and Germans don't die).

You might bear in mind that one of my constant targets in the game is to keep losses so low that they barely register against my manpower and industrial income. This is always best achieved by efficient concentration of force and defeat in detail.

 

[Kanitatlan]

20:00 January 10th 1941​

The Italian fleet begins to issue forth from Alexandria and we are ready waiting for them. Just my luck and the engagement is at night in rain so the carriers are pretty much ineffective and the Italians get away. Great stuff, I now have a huge Italian navy wandering about the Mediterranean. Time to wheel out the entire Luftwaffe to hunt them down.

06:00 January 11th 1941​

More Italian convoys are sunk. Given the imminent collapse of the defences of Egypt I suspect that the convoys will be blocked at source long before I sink all their ships. I guess my u-boats are really only achieving some target practise.

05:00 January 12th 1941​

The assault on Egypt begins. The main objectives are to secure Cairo and hence clear northern Egypt using the forces form the Suez Canal bridgehead whilst the mobile divisions in Alexandria sweep down the west bank of the Nile and head to the Red Sea much further south to pocket everyone else. I will also be looking to crush any Italians west of the Nile against the impassable province borders out in the Sahara desert. For those unfamiliar with the local Geography there are impenetrable province boundaries from Qattara to the far south of the desert.

09:00 January 14th 1941​

In Russia the Russian air force has finally shown up and set to with a little bombing. The target division is obviously fully dug in and also not immediately under any threat of being retreated but I really haven’t made adequate provision for air defence. I am going to have to sort something out before the adjacent Russian force develops into something that could repeat the motorised division issue that occurred earlier in Persia. Oddly enough, despite being mid January the weather conditions are perfect.

I’m going to make a slight detour in subject now as I have been given some thought to attrition. I have a fair few divisions in northern areas with attrition symbols showing and it seemed prudent to calculate the order of losses I can expect over the winter. The sort of values I have seen for attrition varies between 0.01% and 0.03% per week. This actually amount to 1-3 men per week and all of a sudden this doesn’t seem to be a real issue. If I use the 3 value, estimate 33 divisions affected for 10 weeks then this suggests a grand total 1,000 men or 1 point of manpower. This suggests my “annual” loss rate to attrition is of the order of 0.1% of manpower income and really nothing to take any notice of whatsoever. Henceforth I will be ignoring attrition for the remainder of the winter.

09:00 January 14th 1941 b​

I have transferred the usual Stuka solution for the new Russian presence in Murmansk and they are well on their way to destruction. This has taken a few attacks and they are starting to get quite resistant due to dug in bonuses but it does look like they will be gone before they become too dug in.

 

[Kanitatlan]

13:00 January 15th 1941​

Italian merchant ship losses continue to mount. In any other game this would deserve real celebration. The lack of relevance is irritating at best. Does anyone know what happens to convoys when a nation is annexed? Do they really just disappear?

18:00 January 15th 1941​

The defence of Egypt has pretty much collapsed and the first Italian pocket is reduced. This has been no great challenge but the total bag is looking to be no more than about 20 divisions so I am still looking somewhat low on ground troops destroyed.

11:00 January 17th 1941​

With northern Saudi Arabia occupied I can launch the main strike on Riyadh. This is the key operation of the Saudi campaign as I will be able to annex them once Riyadh is taken. I suspect huge foreign forces have been assigned to Saudi Arabia as expeditionary forces due to the isolated supply state of the locality. It is quite clear that they cannot really have produced all these forces themselves. The big question is what happens to them when their current country is annexed.

13:00 January 17th 1941​

The clean up for Egypt is well illustrated here showing how a loop back manoeuvre is being used to pocket the Italians and destroy them in northern Egypt. Qattara and the Great Sand Sea are the “no go” provinces providing a western boundary to this combat zone clearly showing that the Italians cannot escape in that direction. The Luftwaffe has been doing a great job destroying retreating Italian divisions to save me the trouble of chasing them around. They have already been considerably reduced and will go down still further.

17:00 January 17th 1941​

My naval bombers are able to operate further out to sea than the coastal sea zones and have found one of the better US admirals to practice on. I am surprised to see that US fleets still have substantial supplies of obsolete ships although the class IV types do seem to be beginning to take over.

22:00 January 17th 1941​

The Allies launch a major counter-attack against Jawf although for some reason they have waited until this is no longer a flanking attack and, of course, gone for the now obviously optimal night attack. The basic troop levels initially suggest this is a distinct possibility for a successful attack but everything conspires against them being any good. The Allied troops are inferior, out of supply, more poorly led, obsolete, weaker units types and without a nice combat event. This attack does of course fail utterly but for a moment they looked like may be there was some sign of life in the old AI just yet.