Part Four: Nochmals, mit Liebe…
Last time, Sealion failed because of our choice of port – Lowestoft doesn’t have a large enough port to supply our Hungry Hungry Heer.
Therefore, this time, I won’t launch Sealion until a large port, ideally Dover, is empty. If no opportunity arises, we can try launching a diversionary landing at Lowestoft and then hit Dover when the UK send forces up to deal with the first landing.
I’m dedicating much more IC to Battlecruisers and Carriers this time, accompanied by Light Cruisers. Because I intend to have air superiority over the North Sea, the lack of AA from Destroyers shouldn’t be a huge factor.
So it turns out, you can land planes on boats? Are we sure this isn’t witchcraft?
One big mistake I made last run – serial production! I was still thinking in the Darkest Hour terms, where the only way to speed up your production is to set up serial runs, and each time one item is finished the next will be quicker. In Hearts of Iron, this generates ‘practicals’, which can be transferred between similar items. In Darkest Hour, you can toggle a button which auto-upgrades between each run, so if you start a serial production line in 1936, and then research a 1938 tech, once the next item on that run is finished, the line will auto-update to producing 1938-model units rather than the ones you started with.
Hearts of Iron 3 does not do this!
It’s better to have short runs if you have to have serials, and stop and update them as you develop new technology!
Because the first runs of the ships (battlecruisers and light cruisers) were VERY IC-intensive – battlecruisers start at 10 IC a pop – we only have two Panzerkorps ready for Fall Weiss. Instead of the two weeks it took in the last game, this Fall Weiss takes just under a month, and we experience many more casualties. Hopefully this won’t be an issue further down the line. I leave a few corps (eight, I think) on the new Soviet border and turn my eyes west.
Ooh, the Dutch are pointing their bicycles at us, oooh, we’re so scaaaared…
Just like last game, the Netherlands join the Allies, meaning that we stomp them, because the Belgians don’t join until later. This seems to be a strange decision-making problem with the AI, but I’ll take anything the game wants to give me! After a short campaign, we also puppet Yugoslavia in late July.
Why puppet?
Whenever possible, I believe it is always better to puppet, or annex-and-release than to annex territory outright. When you conquer territory, the amount of potential IC and manpower you get out of it is based on your occupation policies, which can be anywhere from
5% of your potential value to around
50%, but that comes at the increased cost of partisan activity, not to mention the supply drain of keeping your occupation forces fed and watered.
Your puppets won’t have ANY of these problems! Because they have cores on their own territory they get 100% of the province potential, and you get to keep whatever army they had before you declared war, minus whatever you destroyed. This can be a HUGE improvement on what you would get by just outright controlling their provinces. Whenever you can, puppet!
Note the Axis lettering on Belgium, or as it is now known, NEIDEROBERVLAANDERNREICH!
We declare war on Belgium in September, with the goal of puppeting their country, for the reasons described above. By the end of the month they are firmly in our grasp, and by October 25th, Paris has fallen.
“Does zis meen I will ‘ave to eat ze German sausages?”
You’re not singing, you’re not singing, you’re not singing over there!
In November, we achieve our first big naval success – we sink five vessels, including a Battleship, at the cost of only the light cruiser
Emden. However, our fleet is now blockaded in a Belgian port and at risk of being bombed, so as soon as possible I want to get it back to Wilhemshafen and repair it properly. We will need a lot more engagements like this if we are to have success in Sealion. I’m also preparing RADAR positions in Cherbourg, so I can get a view of troop dispositions in the South of England.
I think our troops deserve a nice relaxing cup of tea after their conquests. What better to go with tea than finest Danish butter biscuits?
Next time, I will attempt a landing by paratroops in southern England, hope the Soviets don’t get any ideas, and maybe puppet some Scandinavian countries too, just for larks.
