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Kanitatlan

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Mar 13, 2003
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Hynkel’s New World Order, First try

Scene: The chancellor’s office, 00:00 1st January 1936

Chancellor Adenoid Hynkel sits at his desk reviewing the state of the world. He has completed his political conquest of Germany and instituted a new Reich, a third Reich. He has dealt with Germany’s economic problems, the economy is booming, he has a new army at his command. He is utterly secure within Germany but the other nations look on with greed awaiting their opportunity. We will never be safe whilst the so-called democracies bide their time waiting to pounce. Whilst they are the most active opposition, the comintern works its insidious fingers into everything plotting to take over the world. Chancellor Hynkel inspects the globe next to his desk and comes to a decision. “We will never be safe whilst these other nations exist. There is no alternative, we must conquer the world and we must do it now. The world will soon know the true meaning of our new national symbol of the double cross.”

Chancellor Hynkel calls for his ministers to review actions for the New Year. He instructs them in order, little concerned for their opinions, it is for him to decide and for them to do it.

Constantin, I am sorry but there is little for you to do now. Save your diplomats for later they will have much to do when the storm comes.
Wilhelm, I’m afraid you are just too scary at the moment. You frighten the people so much that it is affecting production. For now I must replace you with Herr Himmler but soon your time will come. Do not go away, Himmler is not good for recruitment; after all he is only a little less scary than you. You will come into your own when there are foreign territories to exploit.
The rest of you must implement my plan. We must conquer the world. I have analysed your end of year reports and the situation is quite clear. We can do nothing without ending up at war with the ‘allied’ alliance and if we beat them up the USA will join them. Therefore, we will get in first and destroy them before starting on our real plans. Herr Schacht, I need you to start building 18 naval transports and as many infantry divisions as we can manage. Give them priority over the naval ships already being built. As we complete these units and / or our industrial capacity increases you may start new infantry divisions until our manpower reserves are depleted down to 200. I will have research plans for you later. And to you my military commanders prepare for war.

The Plan.
Gentlemen, I have spoken at length with the government psychics and it seems clear that there are fixed events in our future that we can take advantage of. In particular, I am assured that if we take over Austria and the Sudetenland at the appointed time in history then many ethnic Germans will flock to our colours. These events will only occur if we are at peace so our objective is to go to war with the allies and bring them to the peace of total defeat before March 1938.

Phase One

We build transports. A soon as they are finished and have had a few days to commission, and I can only allow a few days, we will invade both England and Canada. Our existing force of transports will take our panzer forces and three infantry divisions to invade Canada. The new transports will take 18 infantry divisions to invade England. The first wave of new infantry divisions will be deployed to strengthen our western frontier. We must trust that the Poles will be too shy to join in before it is too late.
 
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Player’s Speech

This AAR is played using standard Hoi 1.05c with textual changes and fixes as follows. The German leader names modified by enigma (HOI editing tool) to include abilities as part of officer names, the infantry_tech file from the units folder is being used and ground_def_eff commands have been changed to –5 to partially correct for the bug). The game is played on very hard / furious.
This game is a result of two practice games to investigate what can be achieved by an immediate war. This is my first attempt at conquest by March 1938.

Forbidden exploits / other rules
No loaning units to foreign powers to steal supplies and/or manpower.
No alliances (i.e. no other nations allowed in the axis) [except for …?]
No taking military control (not applicable anyway)
No asking for military access
No Vichy
Definitely no console commands
No diplomatic exploits (it is possible by judicious alliances and declarations of war to create weird alliance / peace occurrences)

Initial Actions
Existing fleet to prepare to embark divisions for overseas action
Guard the French borders with 9 divisions
Defend all beaches with 1 division each
Build transports for all remaining divisions
Build plain infantry divisions
Run down supply stockpiles; Send logistics wizards to all army depots.

Promote our best generals to field marshal. The most important leaders are those with Panzer Leader and Offensive Doctrine, promote all to Field Marshal, irrespective of starting rank.

We do not need to build up large resource reserves, as these will be provided by conquest.

The psychics give me a policy on events, which as an experienced player I can’t help being familiar with. Whilst we will still learn much from the Spanish civil war, there will be no anschluss (300 man power, -10 dissent) and no treaty of Munich (100 man power, -10 dissent) unless we can restore peace before these events are meant to happen. That gives us our grand objective, victory over the allies by March 1938. Note that treaty of Munich provides some very useful doctrines (worth a lot of ICs) but these will probably be far too late so I am ignoring this issue.

Germany 36 infantry divisions, 3 armoured divisions
France 46 divisions
Poland 43 divisions
UK 32 but minimal presence in UK – all under strength
USA 5 division (3 inf, 1 cav on mainland, 1 in Philippines)

Initial build 18 transports and 18 infantry divisions

Target schedule
Invade UK and Canada at start of April 1936. Continue to France by cross channel invasion and complete subdual of France before September. USA will declare war in September (probably) and we must have new panzer forces scheduled to support this action. This must be followed by the transfer of virtually all forces back to Europe as quickly as possible.

A Discussion on technology

If we research “assembly mass construction” (28 for 200 = 5600) and “vehicle assembly…” (15 for 150 = 2250) then we will receive a 27% cost reduction on PzII 20mm (17 for 165 = 2805) to (15 for 135 = 2025), total save of 780 per division. This is too much to forgo as we get pay back after 8 divisions (or 10 if you take into account the ministerial cost reduction). There is a similar 27% cost reduction for motorized infantry. The penalty is a delay of 350 days before production, which, unfortunately, is unacceptable and would impact on our initial production run for Phase 1 (or delay to a total of 440 days). We must therefore go with the 10% cost and time benefit from the minister bonus, which is still significant.

Technology, medium term objectives

Artillery to howitzer 120
Infantry techs, those that improve infantry soft attack
Armour needs the SP artillery but this is too distant.
PzII Luch 40mm is next most cost effective point (+2 speed, +1 Soft, +10% cost)
Basic DB – stuka – then build a load – aim for 48 total including 1 upgrade
Basic SR fighter (just in case) but not a priority
Electronics – aiming for computer techs only
Industrial – aiming for industrial production improvements, no rubber/oil techs.
As soon as we start having major surplus ICs then research should focus on theory as the practical can be filled in later, theory is most demanding on time. Primary areas are infantry, armour, artillery and land doctrine. All naval research is low priority, as we will be defeating all the significant naval powers early on. Next priority air techs, try to do some key research in rocketry and nuclear. It would be nice to conquer the world whilst building an atomic bomb but not using it.

Builds

We are aiming for Infantry divisions until we get nervous about manpower and then plain PzII 20mm. We want basic DB and then build many of these as they are an effective use of manpower. An analysis of combat power shows that infantry and armour without brigades gives more combat power per IC than with brigades so, at least early on, definitely no brigades.

Towards a technology Plan

Research costs are at +25% [very hard mode] above list price. Research cost and time can be improved by researching computers first – (12 for 150 = 1800) will knock 5% of time and cost (total cost reduction 9.75%)
Ministerial benefit (10% armour bonus) gives 15/17 of cost per day and 9/10 of time for a total benefit of 21% total cost reduction. We have done well here due to fractions being rounded down (i.e. 10% off 17 is 15.3 rounded down to 15). Obviously the rounding benefit will vary for different models does the minister apply AFTER vehicle assembly or before? That is potential savings of 44% on list price. At 44% reduction armour units are beginning to approach infantry units for combat power per IC. (infantry 49.12 per 1000 IC, Pz II 20mm 23.5) actually still twice the price but substantially more combat power per 1 man power.

15 for 150, 10 for 90 to develop basic DB = 240 days, 350 days for aircraft assembly
“Assembly mass construction” (28 for 200 = 5600) and “vehicle assembly…” (15 for 150 = 2250)
Basic em computer 15 for 150

And so here is a schedule

Feb. 26th start basic em computer (spend 15)
April start assembly mass construction (spend 43)
July 26th em computer finished, start basic light bomber prototype (spend 42.5)
October 20th (assembly finished) start vehicle & aircraft assembly (spend 42.75)
December 17th bomber proto complete, start basic DB (spend 38)
March 13th vehicle & aircraft complete, basic DB complete (spend 0)
Cheaper units and better DB rolling out by late summer 1937
 
And so it begins

In the early morning of 25th March the pre-war German transport fleet slipped out of harbour and headed for Canada. There was no flag waving or cheering, in fact nobody was watching but there are half a dozen field marshals at the rail arguing about who commands what. The only onlookers were the new transport fleet being finished by the early morning shift of shipyard workers. On the 1st April the 18 new transport flotillas were completed and launched. They began working up in Wilhelmshaven but had been warned that they must be ready for sea long before the crews were really ready (org 5). A few days later (00:00 6th April) the first batch (17) of infantry divisions began deploying in their defence locations on the western frontier. By 01:00 April 8th 1936 all the fleets were ready.

6 transports in the Gulf of St Lawrence
1 transport off Scapa Flow
2 transports off Edinburgh
15 transports off Coventry (Coventry has a coast ?)
Doenitz with the entire submarine fleet in the eastern channel
Kriegsmarine, including the Baltic squadron, with the main transport fleet.

And so we go to war

At 01:00am on 8th day of April 1936 : Germany declared war upon United Kingdom, Iraq, France, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa, Nepal, Bhutan, Yemen and Oman. Now there’s a long list of countries to invade and annex with only 23 months to go.

Immediately the landings begin. The plan was 1 division in Scapa flow and 2 at Edinburgh but low and behold, 2 come forth from the 1 transport at Scapa flow and 1 from 2 transports at Edinburgh. HOI can be rather annoying at times. Must take more care loading transports.

As soon as war is declared the allied fleets venture out but they must get past Doenitz to reach out landings and Doenitz proves a sharper foe than they expect. The battle between the heroic German submarine fleet and the British and French battle fleets goes on for 5 days and by that time the allied fleets are too late. The German troops have landed and their transport flotillas scuttled back to their safe harbours. Doenitz is awarded a medal for his heroic actions. Whilst he has done significant damage to the allied fleets, French and British, the most important achievement is having protected the landings. By April 10th (with Doenitz’s battle still in mid flow) the invasion troops have landed and captured their beachheads. 1 division lands in Edinburgh (from 2 transports) and starts its march south into England, 15 divisions land in Coventry and immediately head off in all directions, 2 divisions land at Scapa Flow (from one transport) at start their march south to occupy all the rest of Scotland. All the transports flee to the safety of Wilhelmshaven (no medals for them). The attempt to capture British ships in Scapa Flow by coup-de-main is a total failure and we come up with nothing. We don’t even get a single transport. The armies sweep across the UK, apparently unstoppable and finally converge on Portsmouth. All the British opposition is totally ineffectual, whilst the British army was able to deploy a few divisions they were all new units and were engaged whilst still forming up a badly disorganised. The elite German forces were able to rout them and pursue them to finally annihilation and capture at Portsmouth. And it was here, at Portsmouth, that a miracle occurs, as the army poured into Portsmouth harbour they found the British Home Fleet still docked and were able to capture 6 battleships, 5 cruisers and 2 destroyers. At a single stoke the Kriegsmarine is doubled in size. This new fleet is immediately despatched back to the homeland for repairs. All resistance is finally ended on the British mainland by 23rd April. We have effectively crippled the British war fighting ability in 13 days from the first successful landing.

There is no time to waste; we must hurry on to Phase 2 of our battle for world dominance. Now we must defeat the French, a much more potent fighting force. By this time the 1st transport fleet has returned from Canada and the combined transport force sets out from Wilhelmshaven with 6 more divisions. They follow the Kriegsmarine up around the north of Scotland and down into the Irish Sea. There are a number of sorties by the British fleet but the Kriegsmarine fights them off. The new forces put ashore in Belfast and successfully capture 1 carrier, 2 cruisers and 1 destroyer flotilla. We now have control of the entire British home islands by April 28th and the nearest British base is Gibraltar. The fleets then proceed down the Irish Sea taking on board the whole invasion force for the British Isles, giving a total force of 24 divisions. Over the next few days British naval opposition fades almost completely, no doubt due to the loss of all their naval bases. On May 4th the fleets are all in Ouesseant and the troops start landing at Brest but a whole series of naval interventions by French, British and Canadian fleets delays the landing until the 14th. None of these attacks was very serious, all being short lived and causing very limited damage to our ships. A soon as our forces are landed they begin a sweep across French territory with the intention of occupying as much of France as possible to destroy and disrupt the French war effort. The secondary objective is to destroy the French armies by drawing them out into battle in the clear terrain of northern France, surround them and destroy them. Our armies proceed against minimal opposition; the enemy is slow to respond. We capture 9 transport squadrons in Nantes. By My 23rd we have taken Paris and approximately 50% of France and the French government, in desperation, offer us a peace treaty based on the creation of a rump state with its capital at Vichy. We cannot accept, they are still not to be trusted; we shall carry on fighting them. By June 15th we have half the French army pocketed in three pockets – Rodez, Vichy-Bourges and Lille, along with all the allied expeditionary forces. Soon these are gone and all that is left are the forces holding the Maginot line. Unfortunately this means that a convoy up the channel is still operating to supply the German army in France, which, whilst it hasn’t been intercepted yet, is an unwanted and risky commitment of shipping resources. As a quick interlude, civil war now breaks out in Spain (July 19th) and we quickly send support to the Nationalists even though we do not trust them. The Republicans, with their communist leanings are even less trustworthy. For some reason our generals suddenly discover a whole shed load of useful doctrine changes.

Herr Hynkel now summons his ministers for a quick review. Our industrial capacity is now up to 430 and Wilhelm Fritch has been restored to improve our exploitation of the occupied territories. We are equipping and training infantry divisions at an increasing rate and will soon be switching to panzer divisions. Our research is proceeding as planned but has no immediate impact on any military activities. A quick discussion amongst the generals comes to conclusion. We need to establish a land supply line to France and we must go to war with Belgium because of its colonies in Africa so we might as well eliminate them now. After a quick reorganisation of german forces including new divisions deployed in Germany, we declare war on July 24th invading all of Belgium simultaneously. In 8 days it is all over and Belgium is conquered. During this invasion the French foolishly take advantage of our week defences between them and Paris and by August 4th half their remaining forces have been pocketed at Troyes followed by a quick blitz on an under-garrisoned Metz which is captured on Aug 22nd. The remaining maginot provinces are too scary with their level 10 fortresses so we surround them and leave them. They will surrender when we annex France but we hold no hope that they will exhaust their supplies first (how many years can they survive?). The bulk of our forces are even now being redeployed to eastern Canada ready for the expected war with the USA. A single huge convoy delivering 33 divisions on August 28th.
 
Canada’s Story

The invasion of Canada started with 2 infantry divisions and 3 panzer divisions landing at Halifax succeeding in surprising a destroyer flotilla and a transport flotilla in harbour. A single infantry division was landed on St John. As soon as the initial landing was over the transport fleet headed back to Wilhelmshaven and safety proceeding by the northernmost route possible. The captured transport flotilla later transferred the division from St John to the mainland. Meanwhile the main landing force headed for Ottawa. After a difficult battle at Ottawa and slight further difficulties at Timmins to the North, a single panzer division proceeded westwards. The infantry divisions occupied the key eastern provinces whilst the remaining panzers reorganised and then entered the strategic redeployment queue. They will be needed when the lead panzer division becomes too disorganised from its long drive. A supply convoy is set up to Gaspe and suffers from no interference from the allies who are fully distracted by the catastrophe befalling them in Europe. The panzer forces continue their drive across the great northern plains with the reserve taking over for the final battle outside Vancouver. The two panzer divisions under Rommel made short work of the 3 militia divisions the Canadians had managed to cobble together and Canada was annexed on August 5th 1936, the first formal addition to the German Reich. The supply convoy is now rerouted to St George as this province is never likely to be under threat of invasion from US forces and it gives a more northerly and therefore more remote and safer route.
 
The invasion of the USA

Unexpectedly the USA didn’t declare war on us, which came as a bit of a surprise. During this lull I sent a small task force to the Caribbean, despite the fact that this is strictly against the instructions of my war plan (It says, “don’t be tempted to send forces to the Caribbean before defeating the USA, you will come to grief”). I stand by the war plan; they did come to grief and ended being bottled up in Saint John (not St John) until the completion of the conquest of the USA. By September 21st I got tired of waiting and declared war. In hindsight, I should have declared war as soon as the troops were deployed. The invasion of the Eastern USA took place via two main thrusts using the 36 infantry divisions available. 12 divisions from Toronto to Detroit and then all points south and west. 18 divisions through Buffalo and on to New York cutting off what seemed like half the US army in Concord. The other six divisions completed the ring around Boston / Concord. The western group used their main strength to sweep round to provide western and southern encirclement of Washington / Charleston. After the destruction of the Boston / Concord pocket the troops moved on to encircle most of the rest of the US army in Charleston but they were allowed to break out of there just so we could finish them off in the open. The first new panzer divisions were becoming available and these were deployed in Canada and used for the rather slow process of capturing all the rest of the US provinces. Meanwhile, on the west coast the 3 original panzer divisions had a hard time keeping the US forces at bay (12 infantry divisions at the start) but the US forces faded away obviously redeployed to the East coast. This was a good demonstration of the principle of attacking the enemy were it hurts so their army comes to you rather than attacking their army were it is now. This is a good principal as it means the enemy is at the disadvantage of having to get there and having to fight on your choice of ground. After the coast was secure the fleets were brought up and 12 transports, supported by 1 fleet (I know have two fleets as a result of captured vessels) proceeded to capture the US overseas VP provinces – and ONLY the VP provinces. This is an important principal, if you are aiming to Annex a country then only the VP provinces count. They took Colón on 18th December and proceeded into the Pacific (rebasing the fleet at Los Angeles), Honolulu Jan 23rd, Wake Feb 3rd, Guam Feb 11th. At which point I discovered that the US had landed some troops in southern texas so I couldn’t annex yet. The main war went on regardless and a small US occupation force of 3 Pz division and 6 infantry divisions was left to deal with this. One interesting note is that I managed to capture 2 battleships and a cruiser and it may actually be worth making a point of not annexing the USA to give more opportunity for capturing ships. The downside is that you can’t afford major detours to force annexation later when the deadline approaches. The USA was finally annexed on April 8th 1937.
 
Dang it, where's that Jewish barber? We could use him to stop Hynkel from annexing every one.

And hey, I want Goebeg and Herring to make an appearance. :D
 
Review of the show so far

So far we have conquered, if not annexed, all three of the main allied nations. France is a completely broken reed and their only significant capability are their military remnants in the Maginot line. The UK, on the other hand, has significant overseas holdings and little chance to use up all their manpower. As a result I likely to be harassed all round the world by English fleets and I expect to meet huge hordes of militia (and some infantry) when I invade India.

On the industrial front, things are looking rosy. On Feb 26th I had 827 ICs and rising. It takes a good while for all of the US industry to come back on line and this review is taking place slightly out of sequence. A fair bit has already happened in Europe. Currently the spare production is going to supplies ready for a massive production surge when my industry techs and basic DB come up next month (see original tech plan). Some technology research has been initiated in infantry, armour and artillery to achieve some improvements in combat power. Before too long I will have such a huge industrial capability that I will be researching nearly everything.

It is worth passing some comments on the military policies that I have adopted. An important step is that I have not, as yet, sent ANY replacements to ANY divisions (although I have sent replacements to the air units). This is a very conscious and definite policy. Having followed technical comments on combat formulae (they all turn up or get referenced in Math Guy threads sooner or later – if you want to understand what is going on, go back and read all the Math Guy threads) it is apparent that the only benefit of rebuilding divisions is that they last longer in combat. If I have a battle were any division suffers a lot of damage then I consider it an appalling defeat. To win you must always be fighting in advantageous circumstances and minimising your losses. At this point I have a large range of divisions with strengths down to about 65% at the lowest but with the most common figures in the high 70 upwards. The initial build policy was to turn most of our manpower into effective fighting troops as quickly as possible and hence the infantry builds. As manpower fell below 200, I started building Pz II 20mm divisions as and when ICs became available. Just at the moment this policy has been temporarily suspended ready for our tech change, i.e. leave it a bit because they will be cheaper and just as quick. Also I want to build 24 basic DB.

A review of the lessons learnt is very simple. Defeat your enemies in detail, one at a time. This is the most important strategy lesson and what any successful war fighting policy must be based on. Another principal, which doesn’t always hold true, is relevant here; that is, defeat your strongest enemies first; don’t be afraid to take on the big ones early on. On specific issues there are a few clear lessons.

The invasion of England is easiest if you are invading before the English can deploy their first production run of infantry divisions. If divisions are being deployed right in front of you then they are easy to sweep up and destroy. Therefore it is extremely helpful to invade with pre-war troops rather than your first production run. It may not be absolutely critical but it certainly pays.

The really effective way to deal with those nations with a strong naval defence (i.e. strong navy and you have to cross the sea to get to them) is to have landed (in Canada to get the USA) or ready to land as soon as you declare war (England and Canada). This is without doubt the most effective way to deal with these maritime nations.

Speed is of the essence. Every day you delay is the chance for the enemy to catch up and overtake. In my pilot games there was a real benefit to getting troops landed in France as early as possible.

Next time I will be trying to do it quicker, this review is at the end of Feb 1937. I've already used 14 months and have only 12 months left and an awful long way to drive even if it isn't against serious opposition.
 
Henry v. Keiper said:
Dang it, where's that Jewish barber? We could use him to stop Hynkel from annexing every one.

And hey, I want Goebeg and Herring to make an appearance. :D


Thank you Henry, I was hoping that someone would recognise the source. I do have some pictures to go with this AAR but currently no arrangements for hosting them. Anyone who is wondering what we are talking about -

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0032553/

one of my favourite films

p.s. the jewish barber pops up at the end
 
Kanitatlan said:
Thank you Henry, I was hoping that someone would recognise the source.

Hey, I love that film too. Charlie Chaplain's a genius. Only he knew how to make a truly good political satire, especially for his time.

p.s. the jewish barber pops up at the end

*GASP!* Yay! :)
 
A bit more analysis

A point not mentioned before. I did some analysis of IC upgrading. It is often considered sensible to upgrade the industrial capability of very low IC provinces. A 1 IC province will pay back its upgrade cost in 6 months BUT upgrading ICs costs manpower (1 mp per upgrade) and therefor I have strictly forbidden ALL industrial upgrades. I will depend entirely on conquest for industrial expansion.

And now a little historical diversion. When playing HOI it is very tempting to plan for a long war or, at least, to plan for a war that lasts a little while. In doing this you start considering plans specifically aimed at increasing your industrial capability or gaining natural resources. This is a mistake that Hitler made. German policy in the early years of the war can be rather confusing because it was a mixture of blitzkrieg victories mixed into a conservative strategy. Hitler was obsessed with victories aimed at creating a stronger fortress Germany rather than winning the war. This explains many of his rather odd decisions. There is the same temptation when playing HOI. You must resist this, Germany's best chance at victory is to win as quickly as possible. Forget the territory you are acquiring, the objective is to destroy all your enemies, or in the case of a rather paranoid Herr Hynkel, destroy everyone who looks vagualy like they might be an enemy if ever they should want to.

Back at my AAR, I have done some analysis of events so far and possible variations on it. I replayed the first month about five times.

In conclusion, I was very lucky in capturing the british home fleet and this has had a major influence on my ability to project two amphibious initiatives at one time. This only becomes obvious in the next installment. It is difficult to tell exactly what factors influence the capturing of the fleet but I have a suspicion that an ideal situation is to fight the fleet until just before you capture their home port and then end the battle. The fleet returns to port and then the province is captured, hopefully to good effect. Unfortunately I am too lazy to check this properly.

I suspect that even with this fleet capture and most definitely without it that there would be considerable benifit in building a substantial fleet of submarines to support the upcoming naval campaign in the far east. Because of the long transit times on land and the island nature of the eastern dominions there is a lot of naval activity needed in late 1937 and early 1938. Only the future will tell.

My analysis of the war so far (and this includes the invasion of Poland which I haven't covered so far) suggests that I could have saved about six weeks if I had acted with a little more haste. Three weeks of this was lost to waiting for a US declaration of war but the other three weeks is simply down to not being hasty enough. I did suffer from some hesitation in invading Poland probably because I usually play stony road. The six weeks wasted may be six weeks I cannot afford. Only time will tell.
 
Return to Europe

Even before the conquest of the USA is complete, the flow of new units in europe means that I can proceed with the conquest of eastern europe. This starts with the invasion of Poland starting on December 26th. For the rapid conquest of minor countries it is important to focus on the victory point provinces. For the invasion of Poland, the panzer concentrate on Poznan then exploit through Lodz to Random. Panzer divisions then rush to all the victory provinces and execute concentric attack on czestochowa. Meanwhile the infantry assault Danzig. There is no need to try and encircle the enemy units, we just capture the relevant provinces and then annex.

Poland is annexed on January 17th after a fairly brief winter campaign with no significant problems caused by the weather. Now, because of my policy to have my cake and eat it (i.e. the 1938 Austria and Czechoslovakia events) I have to continue through a rather tenuous link south at Lwow. Note that, of course, we have no deal with the Soviets and I have sacked Ribbentrop for suggesting it (I don’t know what post he held but he’s out on his ear now)

Next is Romania and the invasion starts on January 22nd. The invasion of Romania does not go well as the battle for Ploesti – a river crossing in bad weather – is extremely drawn out, even giving the infantry time to bring a flanking attack to bear through the mountains. The battle for Constanta is also drawn out again due to terrain and weather. I’m not sure what the solution to this is as I can see no way of avoiding attacking during the winter and the approach from Lwow is fixed. Whilst the battle for Ploesti was very drawn out, it was executed by panzer divisions and due to the very low hard attack capability of Romanian units the casualties were not heavy. I could probably have significantly benefited from a more judicious choice of leaders for the circumstances. On March 17th Romania was finally annexed and due to the early date I have Beltsy and Chisinau before the Soviet diplomats can get them.

On March 20th we begin the invasion of Bulgaria, taking until April 17th to complete and annex the country. The time being dominated simply by the movement cost of taking first Plovdiv and then Sofia.

On April 20th we declare war on Turkey and set out on a more satisfying blitz of that country with annexation by May 12th. The strategy for Turkey simply being “head for the VPs”.

On the technical front, we gained our industrial techs and basic DB during April and start building 24 basic DBs and a resurgence of panzer division construction. Supply generation is back to zero but with several months stockpile available.

Our armies sweep on from Turkey into the Middle East overwhelming Iraq and Egypt.

On June 11th we declare war on Saudi Arabia and a small panzer army sweeps in, annexes Saudi on June 19th and then proceeds to take all the provinces around the Arabian coast. Including Saudi Arabia is much the easiest way to get at these British possessions and allies whilst also giving a land connection back to Germany to transfer all the oil resources.

On June 10th we declare war on Persia and the long slow overland process to take this country which doesn’t complete until August 8th. We are now at the gates of India with a land based invasion force and a major naval invasion capability, British fleet permitting.
 
Naval Operations –1937

The German navy is operating two amphibious naval campaigns based on the two battle fleets available. The 1st battle fleet is initially occupied with operations in the Pacific aimed at the annexation of the USA but has returned and commenced atlantic operations by early February

1st Fleet operations

On Feb 10th amphibious forces from the 1st fleet commence operations occupying the allied Caribbean possessions and merge with the forces that were previously stranded in Saint John (see earlier mistakes). After occupying all allied possessions in this area the first fleet heads east and lands forces at Dakar on 1st March.

These forces march across the West African colonies occupying them by land invasion whilst the fleet holes up at Dakar making much-needed repairs. The long drawn out foray into the Pacific has left the fleet badly damaged due to sailing to far from base.

After occupying all the high infrastructure provinces in West Africa, a single infantry division heads into Bangui (infrastructure 10) to later provide a land connection to the rest of Africa. This division will lose a great deal of org for travelling into this province but does not lose actual strength until it is in the province and before that happens I can strategically redeploy it out again.

During late May minor forces move out and occupy all the allied South Atlantic island possessions. The reason for occupying all these colonies is to deprive the allies of naval bases. The objective is to prevent allied naval operations in the north atlantic. Obviously I would like to stop their operations elsewhere as well but all I can really aim for is protection of the north atlantic.

On June 13th there is an abortive invasion of banana (Belgian congo). This invasion is repulsed and the first fleet lays up until September when a second attempt succeeds. These troops slowly fight there way inland with the terrain delaying us far more than the Belgian colonial forces. As soon as we capture the key provinces we can annex Belgium and there will then be a supply route on land back to west Africa. Meanwhile we have a supply convoy to Banana and despite our naval operations there is a constant trickle of shipping losses.

2nd Fleet operations – 1937

The 2nd fleet operations start with the return of the main armies committed to the US invasion. The 2nd fleet, accompanied by the main transport fleet, head south to commence operations in the Mediterranean. The first target is Gibraltar which falls on April 7th due to poor supply status. This is a great relief as Gibraltar is an extremely strong defensive position and has to be brought down by supply depletion (or land attack or overwhelming air attack). A major army landed in Casablanca on the 12th and commenced a long march along French North Africa.

The fleet moved on into the Mediterranean occupying Bastia. The fleet was rebased at Toulon, an important step to make sure we don’t exceed operational range. We then moved against Valetta but found it was well supplied and so immediately aborted the landing and moved on landing at Alexandria on May 24th. This was an attempt to capture British ships in port but came up empty. After sweeping the Egyptian coast the panzers arrived from the middle east and took over land operations. The army re-embarked capturing Cyprus (Nicosia) on June 12th.

This ended the Mediterranean operations, leaving Malta isolated to be picked off later when its supplies have been fully depleted. The fleet moved on to bases on the Arabian peninsula ready to support operations against British India.
 
Ï once played a very similar game. I only invaded USA as soon as I had built some transports. My biggest mistake was to Install Himmler as the minister of ...something. Anyway, I got a huge IC boost, but by the time I attacked France, I had no manpower. That crippled my war effort considerably. But, a great AAR, and I hope you'll succeed.
 
This plays out like a manual on world conquest. :) (many parts remind me of Rommel's book on infantry attacks in WWI)