Fatherland - Deutschland über alles

[Kanitatlan]

04:00 August 21st 1939

I am pursuing the British fleet towards Iceland. This is their predictable target as it is the only nearby friendly naval base.

19:00 August 21st 1939

I am not having much luck at killing ships and I suspect damaging them is not particularly useful. They will simply go to ground somewhere and repair which is well within the industrial capabilities of the UK even now.

 

[Kanitatlan]

August 21st 1939

Accumulated land battles since the last report. This encompasses the Greek, Ireland and Portugal campaigns with all fighting now complete. The end of the Portugal campaign is linked to the battle of La Coruna. Notice the sprinkling of Polish battles as local forces continue to skirmish with the Poles to keep them in eastern Poland. Some of the battle reports remain misleading with, for example, the battle of Lisbon apparently lasting for 5 days when, as far as I can remember, there were no more than 3 brief skirmishes (the main battle and then two short encounters with retreating units).

 

[Kanitatlan]

02:00 August 22nd 1939

This final battle before they pass out of range is a little more successful with another old carrier going down. The level of damage across the fleet makes it very disappointing that I cannot pursue further. I have made the mistake of having my fleet based at Amsterdam rather than in the UK (Liverpool would have been sensible) and I am now at my limit.

Checking afterwards I could have dropped the Emden out and achieved another 500 miles with the rest of the fleet but it was too late.

 

[Kanitatlan]

12:00 August 22nd 1939

This is the accumulated naval losses since the last ship loss report. Despite the appearance it does include ship losses for both sides. The one truly outstanding aspect of this list is the astonishing performance of the KMS Peter Strasser, which has accounted for 10 ships in this one list. The KMS Germania isn’t far behind with 6 kills. It’s nice to see the Italian fleet being successful as well.

 

[Kanitatlan]

19:00 August 23rd 1939

Amongst all this excitement the British have managed to land another division in Plymouth. There are only minor German ground forces still in southern Britain but air action is quite capable of eliminating a single division on their own.

 

[Kanitatlan]

August 24th 1939

Finally the M-R pact and I sign up for the historical agreement – no war till next spring. Poland is immediately annexed and shortly afterwards eastern Poland is transferred to the Russians.

 

[Kanitatlan]

07:00 August 27th 1939

Over the last few weeks the infantry element of the invasion of Yugoslavia have been moving north westwards culminating in a massive attack on Switzerland. They may have a strong defensive position but odds of about 13:1 in base firepower are more than enough to overcome it before the air support can even manage to fly to the battlefield. Notice the attack is from 4 directions giving the defenders a –20% combat modifier (every bit helps).

14:00 August 28th 1939

The one panzer corps involved rapidly arrives in Zurich and heads on to Geneva, which is currently unoccupied. Careful examination of this image will reveal an interesting development that will probably catch most of you by surprise. Points to be had - who can spot it before tomorrow morning.

 

[Medi]

Uh, the Swiss ocupation of northern Italy?

 

[Herbert West]

The exsistance of a Swiss airforce?

 

[oddman]

The fact that the Swiss are either allied to or at war with Italy.

 

[Kanitatlan]

Congratulations, that's a definite 10 points to Medi, someone is obviously paying attention.

And so on with the war...

 

[Kanitatlan]

07:00 August 30th 1939

With the first infantry force arrived in Zurich I have launched a follow on attack into Chur before it is reinforced by retreating units. Again the odds are very high and this time the air support is already present. 16 CAS on interdiction shortens the battle considerably and is quite useful now that the odds are down to about 8:1 along with more difficult terrain and no concentric attack.

The surprise has now happened with Switzerland, now a member of the allies, invading undefended northern Italy. This is a sort of embarrassing opportunity which it is hard to know what to do with.

06:00 September 2nd 1939

With Geneva taken the final attack goes in against Berne with odds now down to about 5:1 in base firepower. This is plenty to win but not really enough by my standards. The CAS quickly come to help resulting in another rapid Swiss defeat.

09:00 September 3rd 1939

All of the Swiss forces in Switzerland are now in full retreat. Their incursion into northern Italy is quite serious and has bagged them VPs so they cannot be annexed until Italy has been sorted out.

 

[Kanitatlan]

07:00 September 5th 1939

Meanwhile German naval forces have been rebased at Scapa Flow and deployed for an invasion of Norway. I have launched an insanely large landing force against Kristiansand resulting in a combat effectiveness of 10%. This proves perfectly adequate as the Norwegians break as soon as the air support arrives. The southern landing is supported by the residue fleet (everything not in the main fleet) which manages a whole –1% modifier for shore bombardment.

07:00 September 5th 1939 b

The northern attack has the best landing force and the main fleet providing shore bombardment but no air support. The Norwegians have a stronger defensive position but it is wholly inadequate against this attack.

Just to illustrate the level of actual combat, the mountain corps which has fought through the UK and a landing in Norway has between 1.6 and 3.7 experience for each division. This is typical of the rate that my units gain experience since I specialise in short overwhelming battles. Looking ahead a bit the most experienced division has gained 5.1 experience through the whole war so far.

 

[Kanitatlan]

05:00 September 6th 1939

I have allocated a few air superiority fighters just in case but the Norwegian flying cardboard boxes are just depressingly obsolete. These are obviously irrelevant and I don’t even care about the rain.

05:00 September 7th 1939

The Norwegian navy decides to intervene and gives the small surface fleet under Aracnid something to do. He seems to have no trouble lengthening the range despite the better positioning of the Norwegian force. Despite the interesting combat history Aracnid has previously only commanded transport flotillas in battle so this is a new experience for this otherwise excellent commander.

06:00 September 8th 1939

Attempts by the Norwegians to break out from Oslo prove equally pointless as Blue Emu sends their destroyer flotilla straight to the bottom.

03:00 September 9th 1939

Another breakout attempt by the Norwegians is more successful but Aracnid still easily puts some distance in between and can shell the Norwegians out of existence. They have two type I CAs against Aracnid’s type I BC and type IV CA. These are sufficiently better to gain a proper range advantage once they manoeuvre back from the encounter range. It is all very strange that you can do this whilst landing troops on the coast but there you go, who wanted realism anyway?

09:00 September 11th 1939

With all the troops ashore the main carrier fleet is proceeding into the Baltic and swipes down half the Norwegian navy on the way.

 

[Kanitatlan]

12:00 September 11th 1939

Meanwhile the Russians have turned up in eastern Poland to garrison their new western frontier. Obviously they think giant stacks extending almost to the Baltic coast will frighten us but I’m not intimidated at all. After all I have 15 assorted divisions nearby, why would I worry about a mere 85+ Russian divisions. Notice the question marks, that’s a sure fire indication that we have similar encryption tech levels.

 

[Kanitatlan]

04:00 September 14th 1939

A quick move into Oslo and Norway is ours. This was again a very short campaign bringing yet another country into Greater Germany. However, we cannot leave things like this since I am not going to tolerate having to use convoys for access. We need a “land” connection.

September 14th 1939 Oslo

Oslo has brought us some resource increases although they are not as big as has been obtained in elsewhere, at least they are detectable. 5K energy, 14K metals, 4K rares, 5K oil, 1.5K supplies and $350. Not a bad catch but it isn’t going to last all that many days. The energy level remains more than twice the oil level so conversion is still active and at current rates will continue for about 80 more days.

 

[Kanitatlan]

09:00 September 14th 1939

I have now occupied the whole of Switzerland but they have moved south and taken a rather nice collection of Italian provinces. There is nothing else to do but follow them.

 

[Kanitatlan]

12:00 September 14th 1939

The remainder of the Norwegian fleet has temporarily joined the British navy but immediately encountered the main fleet and been sunk. This now accounts for the majority (at least) of the Norwegian navy so I don’t really expect anything more from them.

September 11th Berne

German forces moving into Berne capture the miniscule Swiss resource reserves. The most surprising thing is Switzerland doesn’t appear to have any money.

 

[Kanitatlan]

21:00 September 17th 1939

I have taken Turin and am moving on to take down the rest of the Swiss.

16:00 September 18th 1939

But the Italians are faster so as soon as the Swiss have no VPs I annex them. This gives me Turin as a little extra bonus. No doubt there will be some bickering between Italy and Germany over this but hard luck. They are obviously not too upset about it as they ask to join my alliance a little later. Perhaps they think that will be the best way to get all their territorial claims (and they are right, it would be the best way). Unfortunately (for them) I have to tell them to get lost.

September 18th 1939

Land battles for the Swiss and Norwegian campaigns.

 

[Kanitatlan]

06:00 September 20th 1939

All the UK invasion force has been transferred to Copenhagen and then moved out for further operations. It is time to acquire that land bridge to Norway. There are 3 landings going in with the main fleet supporting the direct attack on Stockholm. This is strongly defended but it is only one division and I have 6 (with shore bombardment). The southern attack has good air support and the militia are a joke so anyone can land there.

09:00 September 20th 1939

The Swedish air force proves slightly superior to Norwegians but is still dramatically inferior to mine.

11:00 September 20th 1939

The landings are now being supported by the occupation army from Denmark who are finally getting an opportunity for a spot of fighting.