I saw them at Munich. Skimpy AAR #7

[Chaim Kaufmann]

"Skimpy" meaning comments on gameplay and, maybe, economics and politics. No roleplaying or images.

"Our enemies are little worms; I saw them at Munich"--Adolf Hitler, June 1939, attributed by Johannes Blaskowitz, commander of the occupation of Czechoslavakia in his opening defense statement at Nuremburg.

AoD 1.10, 1936, GER.

Goal is to start the war at Munich and defeat ENG. Avoid war with SOV, even if SOV attacks me before I can finish ENG (not unlikely given my practically non-existent navy and expected ENG production shifts once war starts--which happened; they shifts mostly to INTs and MOTs).

War at Last!

10/12/1938. Delayed the Sudeten Crisis by 17 days because 8 '39 INF were completed 10/2 (since Hitler initiated the crisis, seemed fair).

To make it work, I edited the germany and czech event files so that:
-CZE resists the demand; and
-If/when GER wins, I will fire a modified March '39 HUN partition event giving GER the cores not gained at Munich. Winning is defined as all of the Czech lands (any more and HUN would not get its share).
-Since I could not figure out how to have the Allies DoW GER, had GER DoW them, then edited the save file to back out the 25 belligerence and add the appropriate dissent to ENG (5.6%) and FRA (4.4%). No belligerence for them; they're showing spine.

The economic preparation has been tense. Followed more or less normal economic development, but with fewer x3 and x2 provinces (not justified by Pang's calculation) and those scaled back to x1 earlyish. 324 effective IC at war start vs. 340 for ENG+FRA (with the dissent). >150k oil but in deficit in metal and rares, practically no money, and 30k supplies.

Could not afford:
-Diplomatic initiatives (except SCW; Nats are about to win) or more than minimal espionage.
-Navy. Completed what was working at start (except cancelled the BCs) plus 2 large SS (1 line working), minus the old BCs and DDs which were sold the first day. SS-4s developed but none started.
-Much air force. 2 lines of INT-3 working (one will be short), one each of TAC-3 and CAS-1. Few upgrades.
-Much army. The Austrian army (upgraded to 1936), 16 INF '39 (3 lines stopped at 2 last week, 5 continuing), 23 ART-5 (1 line), 7 ART-4s upgraded from AUS, and what else I started with or inherited. 1 HQ-2 (1 line), 2 HQ-1 (start, inherited). 2 lines of GAR+MP just started. A little tech progress on other land, but no production.
-Much defenses. 7/4/3 forts facing FRA, 8 airbase levels at Cologne and Aachen (1 line), not even any relevant research.

The relatively good news is that our tech is good (we have good progress on industry, Blitzkrieg, and all 6 '38 TAC and CAS techs). Best, the enemy's forces are not stronger than ours:

INF/CAV/MTN/HQ: GER 70, CZE 20 (INF all '36), FRA 49, ENG 24 (but a majority of the FRA and ENG are 1918).
ARM/MOT: GER 3 LARM-1, CZE 4 LARM-2FRA 2 LARM-2, ENG 3 MOT-1. ENG has only 6 mobile divs in the U.K., most of the rest far away. FRA has 40 at home, 6 in NA, 3 far away. We have 8 divs defending the coast, 15 facing FRA, leaving 50 vs CZE.

INT: GER 7 (5 -3s, 2 -2s), opponents 10 (CZE 4 -2s, others mostly -1s)
TAC: GER 7 (1 -3, 3 -2s, 3 -1s). A measure of how tight it's been. Opponents 10 TAC-1. ENG has 3 STR-1, which are actually scary in the circumstances.
CAS: GER 3.

Unfortunately CZE has level 5 forts in four provinces and level 2 everywhere else, so only two attacks today. It's nice and sunny, though.

 

[Chaim Kaufmann]

Our First Victory.

10/25/1938. After Masaryk disappeared when our forces sealed off Prague on the 20th and Hungarian forces began the occupation of Slovakia yesterday, this morning at 3:00 A.M. Lt. General Prchala surrendered the last three effective Czech divisions to Heinz Guderian's 3rd Panzer Regiment. In the dark it was not obvious that Guderian had with him only the 50-odd Pz Is that were still running after a 130 km drive in one day. A tricky man. Of course, by midday on the 26th Prchala would have faced infantry.

The campaign went much more easily than expected. High org, 10 TAC and CAS, and good weather, I guess. 64,000 Czech dead to 7,200 German. Perhaps 400,000 prisoners, of whom a quarter fell into HUN hands. In the West, 3 INT-3s could do almost nothing to stop the ENG and FRA air forces, but they've killed only 1,400 of our men so far. Not clear how much infra and other damage; we have > 100 IC/day of repairs to do; not clear how much of that in Bohemia.

Overall, it seems the 1936-38 prep was just about exactly right.

Next up:
1. Re-examine our trades and start building supplies for the low countries and FRA.
2. Occupy Denmark to close the Baltic and free up about 3 divisions.
3. Do what we can to slow down the enemy air forces with five INT-3s and six -2s (4 HUN).
4. Upgrade the last TAC-1s, start some more GAR+MP lines and a little AA.
5. Attack LUX and HOL as soon as possible, then BEL, then FRA. In 20 days I should be able to muster 78 divisions including 9 HUN besides the 5 who'll cover DEN and the North Sea.

Have to plan ASAP for POL (4 ARM lines = 8) and Sealion (2-3 BBs, some CLs/DDs, a big pile of SS-4s; EscFs. MARs, more TPs). I make that about 140 IC/day. Before conquered factories come on line the most I can fund is 75-80 if we assume a steady state repair cost of 0, very lean assumptions about supplies for both the West and POL, and no need to trade for more materials. Those might not be too far from crazy; if I do POL without ARM, Sealion within a year and a half could be possible. Or just barely impossible. Looks like another long period where the economic management will be more tense than any combat.

 

[Chaim Kaufmann]

Two!

11/1/1938. DEN surrendered (to that same General Blaskowitz); Iceland and Greenland to ENG. Fall Kanal (HOL) is set for 10 days, the 20th anniversary of the end of the last war.

Our INTs can't seem to ever catch anything, but we've only lost 200 men to bombing these past 6 days and have reduced our repair load by nearly 50, so maybe that's O.K.

Economically we're in surprisingly good shape. The materials situation is good, though practically no money. We took the risk of starting the Friedrich der Grosse and Grossdeutschland (scheduled to commission in March 1940) and a line of ENG-1s. Since these won't begin taking the field until January, they will have little impact in FRA unless things go very badly, but 7 by September will help with the short route to Warsaw from East Prussia.

The cost has been not building up supplies. That will have to change today; we already gave up upgrading the oldest TACs and will have to slow province repairs to a crawl.

 

[Chaim Kaufmann]

Fall Kanal.

11/11/1938. Due to bad weather, quite a few of the Fall Kanal divisions have not finished re-organizing, but Hitler has nevertheless insisted that we cross the HOL and LUX borders by 11:00.

On 11/6 SOV declared war. Reading the AI file makes clear that game is not set up for a war that does not begin with Danzig. So I had to go back to 11/1 and fire the M-R Pact. I now consider that GER must spend as much as it can jollying SOV at least until we accomplish the partition of POL. The money needed will mean a slight further reduction in supplies and repairs in the short run, and then further delay in upgrading the TAC-1s.

In the meantime, I figured out that while 4 BB-4s instead of 2 might, maybe, hold of the first big R.N. stack they won't beat the second or third or .... and therefore they cannot hold the Channel open long enough for Sealion in Spring 1940. So I swapped them and the ENGs for 6 lines of SS-4s; we'll have 30 in commission by early Fall '40, plus maybe the BB-4s as well if I can find other production to cut by March 1939 or if some occupied IC is on line by then. The fact that in the Nazi regime no decision was ever really settled came in handy for once.

 

[Chaim Kaufmann]

The West is Black (and White and Red).

1/2/1939. A second campaign has gone much better than expected. Despite ice almost the whole time, HOL took a week, BEL one more week, Paris one more. The armistice was signed on 12/12, although it took until the 18th too round up the last Belgian holdouts in the forts at Metz. The enemy lost 188,000 dead versus 25,000 for us (1,200 of them Hungarian). The air war was much more frustrating; enemy INTs, especially a pesky stack of 4 BEL Int-2s seemed to find our bombers more easily than we could find theirs, but post-campaign analysis shows that it was not as bad as it seemed: they 1,500 aircraft, a lot of them British, to 500 Axis (100 HUN).

Economically less good. With the slider move to full central planning, we now have 366 effective IC to 229 ENG and 300 SOV and our materials are all still rising. Himmler (+15% foreign IC) will replace Diels (-10% consumer goods) once we have completed more repairs and reduced partisan activity. Which is where we are stuck. Because we could not afford to start our GAR lines soon enough (the first is due in February) and we will have just 14 by late Summer compared to a need of 25 or so. As result 48 of 76 combat divisions are still on occupation duty and some still will be by August. And because we are not gaining any occupation IC we have no money andnot much supply, nor prospect of starting the things we should be now--BBs, INT, TAC, and LARM upgrades, and radar (we still can't catch enemy bombers), let alone ARM, MOT, or SPART. We can dial back repairs for two more GAR lines, which will make 20 by late Summer, but that is about it.

 

[Chaim Kaufmann]

We Are Given a Big Rock.

3/5/1939. The Republicans hung on long enough that we got the chance to ally with the Nationalists. Gibraltar fell yesterday to 7 Spanish divisions plus one GER LARM. 16,500 losses on our side, practically all local of course. Not clear that SPN ports will do us much good since we hope to go right at ENG, not gradually wear them down by commerce raiding, but the loss may at least inconvenience them.

Still unable to keep the British air force off the continent; caught only one bomber raid in two months. Nevertheless we've stopped both INT lines (and the TAC), giving us 14 INT including 5 HUN (seven each -3s and -2s), 10 TAC, and 5 CAS (2 more by Danzig).

Economically we're all right except for a rares deficit of 30-40/day; not much on the market now. We managed to start those BBs, a line of CAV (I plan on 3 in time for YUG), and some radar stations. INT and TAC production will resume late in the year when the -4 models are ready. Hope to begin production of CL-4s, DD-4s, and MAR-2s before the new year. All this should be feasible even with fort construction in POL because our infra builds will start to top out. Depending how much Himmler helps maybe we can do even more.

We have 45 divisions, including HUN, arrayed against POL, with 10 INF and 1 CAV to complete by August and, I hope, about 20 to be withdrawn from the West as GARs deploy plus maybe a half dozen SPN MTN. We can see 40 POL divisions but have no spies placed. Still, we should be more than strong enough. If all goes well YUG will get its turn later in the Autumn

 

[Chaim Kaufmann]

Nobody Expects the Polish Inquisition.

3/30/1939. POL joins the allies and attacks! We still have no spies and can see the same 40 divisions to our 45 GER and HUN. We can summon at most 8 divisions from occupation in the West, all we can spare from occupation, 5 new INF will take their oaths on 4/8, and 5 SPN MTNs began their trek two weeks ago and will arrive in about three weeks more--63 in all.

We must hurriedly re-assign commanders to relieve the logistic wizards and re-deploy a half dozen dozen TACs and CASs and 5 INTs. There is no doubt of the outcome but it will be interesting at first.

3/31: The first day did not go well in the air, with our INTs not ready in the East and now too few in the West. POL INT-2s beat up some of our bombers, while a British 3-wing sweep defeated one of our wings over Calais (they now fly Hurricane Mk. IIs (INT-3) vs. the Gladiators (-1) they used at the start of the war less than six months ago) and HMS Argus raided the SPN subs at Seville; fortunately none were sunk.

 

[Chaim Kaufmann]

Back on Track.

5/6/1939. POL fell today after we recaptured the forest of Kielce which our CAV div mistakenly abandoned earlier. We only ever got 1 spy into the country, who claimed 73 POL divisions. We counted 55 at the most, including ones that appeared from the East after Warsaw fell; perhaps there had been more. We lost 16,400 German heroes and 4,100 HUNs and SPNs; the enemy 260,000 Poles and 4,500 British and others.

In the air it went less well; those POL INTs caught us 3 times more, while ENG got 4 STR wings into the country (who did not do well) and 4 British and one Iraq INTs (who did). But how did they get there? They did not have access through ROM. Later the Iraqi unit could be found in Britain but only 3 of the British wings; maybe we miscounted. Including operations over France, we lost 350 aircraft and the enemy 400 (250 each German and British).

From here we are back on the historical track; in effect we have traded various deficiencies on our side forced by early war start (no ARM, few INTs, less industrial development, etc.) for more time now to weaken ENG.

Economically, we’re all right. Base IC are up 21 from the start of the year, of which no more than 10 can have been at home. Paris accounts for 4 and several other occupied cities 1 each; our first GARs and Himmler are starting to pay off.

Our only economic problem is a rares deficit of 20-25/day; there e just isn’t much to buy. HUN is in worse shape, with their economy basically shut down. Since SPN has a large stockpile we’ll buy from them and sell or donate to HUN. Had hoped to exchange for a HUN INT wing—we can use it better than they—but they would not do it even for 5,000 rares.

Infra builds started to build paths to Suwalki and Zamosc, as well as forts on the new border. Plus some infra in the West, especially Metz which we had not noticed before. The decision to interrupt INT production feels bad, but we would have only two more by now and could not have afforded this campaign. If I’m counting right, with advance tooling we can get the first INT-4s in the air about the start of next year--which means we should have started the research sooner. ENG, fortunately, has not started the research.

Since YUG is not research rich, we’ve cancelled that project in favor of SWE (and maybe NOR afterward). SWE has metal, or course, with only a tiny rares surplus, but overall a better deal including strategic position. No intel at all, but how serious could they be?

 

[Chaim Kaufmann]

North by Northwest.

6/23/1939. We invaded SWE at Malmo and Norkopping on May 16th. They surrendered at 22:00 on June 7th when the Kiruna mines fell. After a four hour rest, we crossed the NOR border at several points. Not willing to risk more than subs in the North Sea, it took until late last night to reach Bergen. The speed of two of our divisions—the CAV and one of the HQ-2s—were the main limits on both campaigns (hmm; since we changed our mind about YUG, we expect no more land campaigns until Sealion, we should stop the CAV line when the first finishes). SWE has now been released as a puppet. NOR we will hold because of the event that will give as access to FIN if (when) SOV attacks us.

Minor country navies apparently join ENG when their country goes under, so we had to sink the former SWE navy after the country had surrendered and we have all 12 SS flots waiting outside Bergen for what will come out now.

The British seized Majorca, which we noticed only when they started bombing Tarragona. With Gibraltar closed, the SPN fleet was able make a landing; so far they have been driven to Menorca, from where they will not escape. Still having trouble defending French airspace, but objectively we must not be doing too badly, since we lost 300 aircraft over the period to 800 for ENG, CAN, and AUS (maybe some of these when their base on Majorca was overrun?). On land, 7,500 German of our heroes lost vs. 14,500 allied, again probably most in the Baleares. 30,000 Nordics, which shows how little they resisted compared with others.

Our economy continues to grow as GARs suppress partisans; we’ll see if SWE or NOR or some improvement in the trade environment can get us more rares. We’ve started 3 INT-3 lines which will upgrade to -4s about 50 days from now (before they finish tooling), 4 of CL-4s (8 ready for a September 1940 Sealion, 2 of DD-4s (4 or 5 ready), and CV-4s Graf Zepelin, Seydlitz, and Peter Strasser (which will not be ready, but we can afford them). Since we’re also quite close on Assembly Line, we may do better.

We’ll also be upgrading all 9 existing INTs and the 8 (of 10) obsolete TACs once TAC-4 finishes. EscF and MAR techs are not ready yet but will be in time.

 

[Chaim Kaufmann]

Things to Do in Stockholm in the Winter.

10/1/1939. "Drink, sleep, or go to Ibiza." SPN drove that ENG INF off Menorca, but they landed 2 NZ INFs + a CAV there and 4 ENG MOT-1s on Ibiza. We have beaten off two attacks using 4 GER and 3 SPN TACs, and have 6 INT ‘39+ENG and a HQ on the way.

The air war over FRA goes much the same. Since June we and HUN lost 400 aircraft to 1,000 enemy but since nearly every one of ours was an INT to 215 of theirs, we can’t say that we have air superiority.

Overall, the enemy buried (or we for them) 25,000 men, 90% ENG who mostly died on Menorca, a few FRA who went down with CL La Gloire off Bergen, and some CAN and AUS pilots to just 2,200 of our great heroes and 1,800 HUN, mostly pilots.

Economically, we’re O.K. on rares for now, and continue to buy from SPN and give away to HUN; worth it since they have completed 3 INT-3s since around May. We’ve started a TAC-4 line and all the air upgrades, and one more air base line; two out of five GAR lines have allowed to finish.

We can see 15 ENG divisions at Plymouth, hopefully on the way out of the country.

 

[Chaim Kaufmann]

Rising Strength but Few Results.

1/1/1940. Most of the action has been in the Baleares, where we were able to re-occupy Menorca after the New Zealanders ran away, but ENG slipped 3 more MOTs onto Ibiza, making 7. 16 GER and SPN air wings were not able to do much damage to them—all the damage seems to go on the 1-div corps, none on the army of 6 (another lesson is that CAS are much more vulnerable to AA than are TACs; one group of CAS lost 24 strength in a single raid, while TAC groups can often run 3-4 raids without losing even 1). We also committed 12 SS flots. Quite a bit of British naval activity too—we’ve seen Courageous, Glorious, Furious, Eagle, and Argus, all but the last of which have apparently made at least one round trip via the Cape, so at least this has wasted their time.

The air war over FRA goes a little better, but not well enough. For the first time honors close(r) to even: 517 GER and HUN losses to 532 ENG (since FRA lost 50 off Bearn in a brief engagement, 150 oor more of the Brits may have been from CVs as well). We now have 9 INT-4s and 8 HUN INT-3s. Intel says ENG has 12 (they’ve just started researching -4s) although they have better fighter techs. The Axis lost 316 bombers, presumably all in the Med., to 728 Allied.

Overall we lost 9,000 of our heroes and 4,500 allies, virtually all in the air, to the enemy’s 26,500, over 22,000 of them British. Not sure what can account for quite so many unless ships torpedoed but not sunk by U-boats.

Economically, we are now at 546 effective IC, up 50% in a year, although with most partisan activity suppressed and most infra complete, further gains will be moderate. The rares deficit is at least no worse. Manpower is becoming a concern we are down from 1900 to 1200 in a year, compared with steady the year before. The main culprit is 68 new ground divisions, mostly INF and GAR, which cost about 850 MP, compared with 23 (280) the year before, not counting what we inherited. So the pace of expansion must slow; we’re going to stop a 4th GAR line, leaving just one, and the planned additional MTNs won’t happen.

Our biggest problem is ENG home strength. Even with 5 INT-4 lines and 7 EscF-2 it is not clear we can gain air superiority, and with 24 ENG divisions at Plymouth, surely almost all MOTs, it would appear that they can reinforce any beach defense before MARs can get ashore to welcome friends.

It is apparent now what the key error was: declining to build INT-2s in 1937-38 which would have been helping the air superiority fight all along in favor bombers which were nice for CZE, the West, and POL, but not actually necessary.

Even more embarrassing, we miscalculated the MAR-2 tech speed and won’t have any ready by September; we’re now looking at Winter, or Spring 1941. Well, at least that is more time to crack the air and naval nuts even if it means even more ENG ground forces and brings closer the inevitable SOVs.

 

[Chaim Kaufmann]

With Growing Confidence and Growing Strength in the Air.

4/1/1940. Churchill quote, 6/4/1940. On 2/2/1940 we fought our first two really successful fighter engagements, shooting down 199 ENG for 65 of ours. Since then we have started sweeping the Channel and Southeast England, and this has been the first three month period in which enemy INT losses exceeded ours—over 1,300, almost 1,200 of them ENG, to 612 for us. Also 1,000 bombers to 300 for us, but that is nothing new.) The HUN INTs assigned to protect our interior have hardly ever caught the strategic bombers pricking us from Bremen to Stuttgart, but at this rate those raids will become less common.

Things have also gone well at sea: Between December 15th and now we’ve sunk two CVLs (Bearn and Hermes), Renown, 2 CAs, 7 CLs, and 5 DD flots without loss—most of this done by 16 SS flots and 12 air wings operating off Spain. ENG and FRA still have plenty, of course, although much of it has been beat up; we need them to come out so we can whack them more. (Some odd bits of reporting: none of Renown, Bearn, nor Hermes were listed as lost in those battles, and Hermes does not show in the sunk ships list, though I watched her die in a port strike at Ceuta and later peeked to make sure she’s gone. Conversely, when a combined GER/SPN naval strike sank CL Montcalm, she showed up twice—once as herself, sunk by GER, and once as CL Gloire, supposedly sunk by SPN—but there was only one ship there and the real Gloire was sunk in July 1939 off Bergen.)

Only 7,000 men lost this period, 4,000 of them allies, against almost 65,000 enemies, almost 55,000 of them ENG—mostly at sea I suppose. We’re down another 160 MP, though; I hope 72 of those are advance payment for the 6 MARs that are working, or we’re in real trouble.

Discovered another 8 divisions of ENG reserves in Britain, making about 33 or 34. Even if we don’t try to get ashore for another 11 months, it’s going to be a real challenge. 92 divs facing SOV, but many will have to be pulled back for Sealion.

 

[Chaim Kaufmann]

A Friend with Battleships is a Friend Indeed.

7/1/1940. Another lesson: ITA had been waiting to ally with us if only we would ask. They joined on June 25, bringing 5 BBs, 3 of them Littorio class, with another due in the early Spring. Better, starting tomorrow we can direct their invasion of Suez, which will seal the Med. and ultimately destroy all ENG forces inside.

Our own fortunes at sea have been acceptable. ENG’s heavy naval forces have been inactive since at least the beginning of March (and the French since before the turn of the year), presumably repairing. In the meantime we’ve sunk 6 CLs, 6 DD flots, 2 SS flots, and 11 TPs, 7 or 8 of which we’re pretty sure had troops on board. A lot of this happened around the Balaeres—attempts to seize Minorca and Melilla (from the Med. Side) caught us napping and each nearly succeeded, although all ended badly for the warmongers. We also got a few at sea off Spain ad Ireland, some which we finished off in Western British ports. (We have also sunk over 300 enemy convoys by now to 10 SPN and 4 of ours, but this is more something to do while hoping that the R.N. will come out.)

The problem is how to draw them out; our first resort will be invade Ulster. If we succeed, the question will be whether we’ll have to fight simultaneously three or all four of the 17-stacks identified earlier (based on last detections, one may be in the Med. or further East), up to 51 or 68 units. Without waiting for the Italians, we can come up with 25 or so SS flots, and the surface fleet has 4 BBs, 3 CAs, and 10 CLs, and 4 DDs, all probably more up-to-date (and healthier) than virtually any of theirs. Can bring 10 TACs, but the level of enemy AA could be fearsome.

In the air our problem is now less the RAF (and RCAF and RAAF, who now fly INTs, and the RBAF, which put in a brief re-appearance to lose 100 planes) than flak over Britain. No good solution for that yet. We lost 910 INTs in 3 months (by far the worst yet, and almost all flown by our own heroes) to 2,158 for them and 116 bombers to 1,444.

Overall we lost 20,595 German heroes (and 4,700 others), which must mean that air losses over enemy territory cost far more men. We’re only down 50 MP for three months, though, and have brought in Fritz Busse (MP +25%) to replace Fritz Bayerlin (org. regain +20%); should have done it 18 months ago, which would have been worth 100-110 MP in that time. The enemy lost nearly 90,000 men, by far a record for three months, almost 80,000 ENG—probably mostly troops drowned. Their situation must be terrible.

 

[Chaim Kaufmann]

An Enemy without Battleships is also Not Bad.

7/6/1940. Whatever the British were thinking, by now they are asking “What were we thinking?” On July 1st we discovered two of the R.N. stacks we were looking for, one West of Ireland, headed around Scotland, ultimately to Sheffield. 25 SS flots gave chase but ultimately only the battle fleet caught them, in the “Westcentral North Sea” (about where the Shetlands are). We sank HMS Hood, Kent, 6 CLs (including what we hope are the last two ex-NOR), and 3 DD flots for KM Deutschland (CA-4) and Emden (CL-2). We’re beat up but will be back at sea before them.

The same day we found another group in Portsmouth, and over 6 days 10 TACs and 4 CAS sank HMS Courageous, Barham, Valiant, Malaya, and a CL (Malaya is the second ship we’re sure we sank that way which does not appear in the sunk ships list). There are 12 survivors, so 14 SS flots are on the way to blockade the port while our heroic aircrews spit out enemy 40mm AA shells and brush their teeth.

We haven’t seen any new enemy capital ships and so estimate that they have Glorious, Furious, Argus, 10 BBs, and a BC left to them.

Odd occurrence: 4 BEL INTs, in no great shape, intercepted 2 SPN STRs over Huesca in Basque Country. Could not figure out how they got there until I realized that this was an accident during redeployment. Sure enough, they showed up in Egypt.

 

[Chaim Kaufmann]

Britannia Leaves the Waves.

9/11/1940. There were only 3 British divs. in Lower Egypt, which was under ITA control by about 7/20. The R.N. units that were at Alexandria will presumably die OOS at sea although, if they are in the province we have declined to enter, until that happens they will block access to the Canal. The British troops in Malta and Ibiza will die too. ITA can go on to other tasks. All the subs are already in the Atlantic and some of the Army has begun the long walk to Kenya; we won a small battle at Kismayo this week. Iraq and Syria have come over to our side.

More port strikes at Plymouth in July finished off the 12 remaining ships there, and one at Portsmouth got two who fled our U-boats. Then the big prize was won at Sheffield this week; 8 days of strikes by 13 TACs, with cover and distraction by 21 INTs fly air sup in SE and SW England and 2 SPN STRs bombing London, sank 40 of 41 ships there; we saw one DD flot escape. Enemy losses from all this included HMS Glorious, Furious, Argus, Eagle, Ramillies, Resolution, Royal Sovereign, Warspite, the monitors counted in-game as a BB-1), Repulse, Berwick, Cornwall, Dorsetshire, Suffolk, Effingham, Frobisher, Hawkins, and the two larger NOR coastal battleships (counted as CAs), as well as 19 CLs and 15 DD flots. The Royal Navy now consists of 5 BBs, 17 smaller ships, 11 subs, and 2 TPs, including what is trapped in the Med.

The Commonwealth navies don’t amount to enough to notice, the French do but U-boats drove most of them into a Spanish Saharan port nearly a year ago and they do not seem to have stirred since; no supplies?

The 16 U-boat flots that had been watching Sheffield can now join the 55 other GER, ITA, and SPN flots in destroying the world’s merchant marine. We can probably halt SS and CL production now in favor of more MARs and a PAR or two.

As for the Kriegsmarine, ASW is now our main business.

(In these raids HMS Glasgow became the 3rd ship I’m sure died that did not show in the sunk ships list and a DD flot the 4th; ran that strike again and 2nd time it did show so there’s definitely a random element and it is definitely a bug.)

 

[Chaim Kaufmann]

It Hurts When I Do This.

10/1/1940. Our cruiser/destroyer expedition to Portugal quickly sank a CL (FRA) and 4 SS flots (one FRA). In the air we continue to harry the remains of the RAF; more than half the INTs we encounter now are RAAF or BEL, though how the latter recovered enough strength to lose 277 more pursuits is a mystery.

The first 6 MARs have completed training. We’ll use them to seize Dublin’s airport. It’s too bad that so few ENG transports remain; it would be nice to tempt some of them over to Ulster. (Four HOL TRPs have been sitting in Norwich since 1938; we don’t know why the enemy does not use them.) We also lost our first div, a SPN MIL forced off Las Palmas by an AUS INF. The leading ITA division has crossed Kenya into Tanganyika at Tanga; one ENG INF, retreating from Mombasa, still hopes to escape the closing net.

But it’s not coming cheap. In three months when no GER ground unit saw an enemy we nevertheless lost more heroes (29,302) than in any of our major land campaigns, almost all of them in the air plus about 10,000 allies including a few SWE pilots, the first to die on the right side. 860 INTs to the enemy’s 2,339 and 683 bombers to 1,123. At least 400 of our losses came in airport strikes in August, an experiment we will be loathe to repeat. The enemy lost almost 127,000 men, their heaviest since POL, all but 12,000 of them ENG, including 4 divs lost in Egypt and men from 11 more whom we are allowing to starve in the prison camps they built for themselves on Ibiza and Malta.

The manpower situation is serious; we’re down to 766. The 15 divs working (five INF, nine MAR, and a PAR) will be the last ground units except the one line of GARs and we hope, one of MECH. The four LARMs will eventually upgrade. Given high upgrade costs with central planning I had hoped to favor quantity more than quality, but from here on it will have to be the other way.



Snakes in the Grass.

10/20/1940. The Wehrmacht, deprived of new vistas since July of last year, finally got to take some new postcard photos when we invaded Cork on 10/11 with the 6 MARs, backed up by 6 INF landed on the the 15th. Eire surrendered this morning. We’ll knock out the ENG GARs in Ulster, although we probably don’t want the provinces yet. We’ll build up the Dublin airbase, then release IRL.

On the way to provide shore bombardment, KM Tirpitz sank a DD flot and 2 more plus 3 SS flots were destroyed in port strikes; the AI’s persistent use of ports within air range is a major weakness. (One SS flot was not recorded; I noticed that it was shown as 0 strength at the end of one raid, then was gone before the next, a pattern noticed with one other of the non-recorded sinkings.)

The last Brits on Ibiza shuffled off their mortal coils, and an ITA MIL is on the way to see about Malta. That AUS division is still there on Tenerife; heavy U-boat commitments are not, apparently, affecting its supplies.

We chased down the last ENG div in East Africa although another beat back the lead of our advance in Uganda; we have several more coming. Not clear what this is good for besides consuming ENG attention and some MP and supplies.

Finally, the same day our 2nd wave landed in Ireland ROM joined the right side. At this point we have 110-odd divisions in the East, about 50 facing ENG (not counting GARs), and 47 in the Middle East and East Africa--too many. Does not count coastal defenses from Amsterdam to Narvik, SPN, and ITA (the last probably entirely unneeded).

 

[Chaim Kaufmann]

The Sun Never Sets on the Thousand-Year Reich.

1/1/1941. In December we captured Ceylon and 18 provinces in India. We have 6 MTN and 3 CAV there, ITA 3 INF and a HQ with lots more coming; so far the only opposition has been 1 GAR and 4 Nepalese divs (which have handled our leading CAV roughly, but we’ll make that up). For unknown reasons, some Indian provinces have high partisans, some none at all. The point is to capture the rares in Colombo, Cochin, and ultimately Malaysia, both to weaken ENG and to allow further industrial development at home. Maybe also to attack SOV from another direction as well.

This probably means that we have overcommitted to Central Africa; 12 ITA divs are there and we have eliminated 7 enemy divs since we started in July (3 are visible in Congo now), but it is not clear what more we can hope to accomplish.

Our Indian adventure was made possible by the destruction of the last of the Royal Navy in October and November. In late October, HMS Nelson, Rodney, Royal Oak, and Dorsetshire tried get home from wherever they had been hiding. KM and RM (and even Spanish) battle fleets, light forces, and subs, plus Luftwaffe and RA chased around the Portuguese coast until we sank two and drove the others into Plymouth, where the Luftwaffe finished them. In November a combination of Luftwaffe CAS and RA TACs and NAVS finished off everything left in the Med., and finally a port strike sank the 3rd to last ENG SS flot and CL Dortmund caught a NZ TP flot (not before it landed a div. at Belfast, which we ate happily). (Two more instances of sunk ships not showing up in the list.)

The R.N. now consists of two sub flots (which have managed to prick us a bit) and two TPs, which we watch for lest they bring more troops home from (somewhere). We’ve also done in 1,082 convoys, about 500 in the last two quarters. Not clear whether this matters.

3 ITA MTNs also finished off the AUS div in the Canaries. Unclear whether we should force the FRA fleet out of Spanish Morocco, where it has been hiding for a year and a half.

In the skies over Britain, we destroyed 1,276 INTs for 697 losses, the lowest total and worst ratio since the 4th quarter of 1939—perhaps not surprising since they are flying mostly -4s now. But maybe good enough. Altogether 16, 173 of our heroes lost (and nearly 8,000 others) to 74,000 ENG and 20,000 other enemies, not counting Irish.

Economically, we are no longer in deficit in rares. We’re up to 580 IC, only a 6% gain compared with 45%-49% each of the last two years because we’ve basically finished assimilated conquered territory. All of the actual and potential Axis countries combined are about 94% of the actual and potential Allies.

Our biggest problem remains getting ashore. We’ll attack with 39 or 42 divs, most with soft attack 18-20 and 100 org or better. They will be mostly 17 attack, some less, org 55. We’ll have some air support, shore bombardment stacks of 120, 100, and three or four of 20-40. But we won’t have numerical superiority anywhere but Plymouth and they will have two dozen or more unengaged divisions, mostly fast. If we make it ashore we’re good.

 

[Chaim Kaufmann]

The Countdown Begins.

4/1/1941. We have finished the conquest of the Indian subcontinent except for two provinces in Burma, as well as Malaya and Oman, finishing off 10 enemy divs in the process (an annoying feature: once a div becomes part of an expeditionary force it does not die even when its country is annexed; 7 NEP, BHU, and the Omani div had to be chased down). A NZ div just landed yesterday at Akyab; fortunately 3 GER and 3 ITA divs are still in the subcontinent to eat it, and all 7 heavy U-boat flots are between the landing site and home, so we hope to catch the TP too.

In Congo 12 ITA divs face (that we can see) 6 SAF and 13 FRA and BEL; honors about even the last three months; 5,000 ITA to 3,500 enemies. Not clear whether it is feasible or worthwhile to try to reach the river mouth and annex BEL. We also seized Bermuda and have 3 U-boat flots based there.

The very last of the R.N. (2 SS flots and 2 TPs) went under the waves, along with a HOL CL and a NZ TP. All three TPs were caught in the Little Minch, suggesting missions to reinforce Britain; casualty counts for the quarter suggest that, unfortunately, some or all may have succeeded before we found them. Another 630 convoys sunk just this quarter, almost half HOL and AUS, so there may not be many more.

In the air things continue expensive—1,179 INTs lost, 1,024 our own—but perhaps good enough—nearly 1,800 enemy. Overall 22,000 lives, 15,000 German heroes to 94,000 enemy, of which 40,000 ENG and most of the rest NEP and BHU. For the main event we’ll have 27 GER INT-4s and some allied -3s as well as 24 GER TAC-4s and CAS-2s plus a dozen or so allied bombers.

When the third sextet of MARs graduates on the 17th (and the PAR on the 22nd) we’ll have 45 TPs (23 GER, 16 ITA, 6 SPN), so we’ll land at Plymouth with 12 MARs, Portsmouth with 6, Norwich and Sheffield with 6 INF, all with ART-6, plus Glasgow with 9 SPN and ITA MTNs with various ART. Maybe 3 INF at Bristol. That will leave either 3 or 6 TPs to bring over reinforcements if the attack at Plymouth allows the PAR to seize the port, since we surely won’t get ashore anywhere else. Then other TPs can rapidly bring in more.

It’s a clipboard job now.


At Long Last.

5/1/1941, 06:00. 12 MARs begin landing at Plymouth, while 6 more, 15 INF, and 9 SPN and ITA MTN make pinning and diversionary attacks at five other places. Not one of those other landings has a chance—many of those 300,000 men will lose their lives so that 100,000 can get ashore. (The fact that Cornwall rather than Kent is the promising landing site has to be considered a map defect.)


That Was Close.

5/7/1941, 12:00. The additional landings all failed in the expected order—Bristol, Glasgow, Sheffield, Norwich, Portsmouth (the last two have not been abandoned yet but will fail in the next day or two), allowing the enemy to feed in another 8-10 divs before the enemy finally retreated at 17:00 yesterday. Our PAR div landed at 1:00 last night and 6 divs we had waiting offshore are unloading now. From here the outcome will not be in doubt; we have 46 more divs available to feed in beyond the 52 already committed.

It took five years and four months to find out whether the Britain-first project could be done from a 1938 start. The answer seems to be: just barely. A peek shows that there were 78 ENG divs waiting for us. Plymouth was so close that 3 TPs or MARs fewer probably would not have sufficed, nor fewer INT-4s; although it took more than two years and even more blood than treasure to get here, we are able to operate our bombers with next to no interference. Nor perhaps, fewer allied MTNs and TACs, which means we might not have succeeded without the Spanish.


Thanks for the Memories.

6/17/1941. Scapa fell on the 13th and London, which we had kept isolated, the next day. We rejected the short-lived new government’s offer and seized Cyprus this morning. Guadalcanal was taken last month and day after tomorrow a division will set out from Bermuda for Newfoundland. Hong Kong, the last VP, will take a bit longer because we are still transferring TPs back to the Indian Ocean. The sun has set on the British Empire.

The costs were in scale with the gains. Since April 1st we buried 93,584 of our heroes and our allies another 34,000, mostly ITA and SPN in Scotland. Our enemies lost 455,000, nearly 430,000 of them ENG. (Since the start of the war we have lost just over 250,000 men, our allies about 83,000, and our enemies about 1.4 million—not counting either side in the Spanish Civil War.) Our manpower reserves are down to 569 from 2100 three years ago.

It is time for us to shift our national identity. Having gained so much, we can longer think of ourselves as Frustrated Expansionists. We now need to protect what we have won, so Defensive Worldview fits better. Our social policy will also shift from Ethnic Focus—the sons of our farmers no longer in great need yet more Lebensraum than they were; when they get out of the Army there will be managerial jobs for them in the more than a hundred thousand profitable enterprises from Inverness to Singapore that are being Aryanized. But what must happen first is peace—i.e., the defeat of Bolshevism (it does not hurt than Eastward expansion will generate more Lebensraum anyway). This task requires a Militaristic Focus. These two changes will help generate the men needed to finish the job. Our culture of Ethnic Nationalism, of course, will remain inviolable. We will also replace Air Minister Milch with Udet, who, being more bomber oriented, will be more help in Russia.

Most of the 47 Axis TPs are busy transferring the Army to the East. There are 204 GER, SWE, SPN, HUN, ROM, and ITA divs on the Eastern front with at least 50 at sea or still to embark from Britain. Although we have not set the date, the attack will include 5 HQs, 4 ARM-3s, 1 MEC, 1 PAR (still transported by the Regia Aeronautica), at least 16 MAR-2 (which will land near Leningrad), and > 65 INF ’41 with > 55 ART-6. The Luftwaffe will not be able to contribute fully for lack of airbases close enough to the front, since until mid-April all our construction effort was on the Channel coast.

At sea we sank the 4 HOL and BEL TPs that had been hiding in Norwich and one HOL sub flot.

In Africa things are about steady; an Italian attempt on Banana failed but, as BEL is likely unable to reinforce, another attempt may succeed—which would be the end of that empire. HOL will take longer—a lot of walking around Sumatra. (A NZ INF showed up at Batavia the same day we crossed the Channel, but disappeared again before we could attend to it.) Only FRA, whose last VP is at Noumea, is out of reach, but since they have no IC that is not important.

 

[Chaim Kaufmann]

So Far, So-so.

7/1/1941. There’s an alternate history novel circulating in which an Eastern campaign, begun on 6/22/1941, ultimately failed. Accordingly we considered it better luck to wait three extra days to launch Operation Red Beard; we invaded Persia the day before with 4 GER MTNs and about 10 SYR, IRQ, ITA, and PAK divs the day before; a quick seizure of Baku won’t hurt our cause.

After six days, all of our initial attacks have been successful although overall we and our allies took as many or more casualties as the Bolsheviks. We are not able to employ much of the Luftwaffe. We hope for a number of small encirclements of 6-20 divs each, but with only 8 fast divs (4 ARM-3, 1 MEC, 3 CAV) this will depend on how promptly the enemy withdraws from salients. A combined FIN-SWE force is advancing on Viipuri, while 4 corps of 3 MAR each will begin landing there and along the Southern shore of the Gulf of Finland this morning. 5 INF and a HQ will land behind these, which we hope will enable us to seize Leningrad quickly. Further North the Finns are losing ground, but we’ll fix that soon enough.

We’ve taken Newfoundland; the Churchill government has retreated to Hong Kong, but we can follow them even there.

In Congo, ITA forces are in danger of being outflanked by SAF forces to the South and FRA to the North, although the latter have no IC and cannot replace losses. Once we have control of an ENG port in West Africa, we’ll send a MAR expedition to resolve the matter.


She Sails Just Fine, but She’s Leaking a Bit.

7/28/1941. In the past two days ENG, HOL, and PER all surrendered, solving our raw materials needs for at least two years, with spare for HUN and ITA.

On the Eastern Front, the operations from Leningrad down to Kiev have been quite successful, with the front running from Luga to Toropets and down the Dneiper to Cherkassy, with further advances in progress along most of that range. Finland has been a see-saw, while Ukraine S. of Kiev has been has been a slog; we have been held up for several days at Krivoy Rog. We are also holding Baku and trying to advance further into the Caucasus. It looks like we may take Ashkabad (5 IC) undefended.

Six encirclements, a large one in Latvia and five small ones from Brest-Litovsk to Central Finland (the last closed by the Fallschirmjagers), eliminated 49 SOV divs while we are reducing another of 29 in the Pripet Marshes and hope to cut off 6 more at Vitebsk tomorrow. (Actual SOV losses in these are probably higher, since some pockets held fewer when liquidated than the number initially encircled and SOV now has 52 fewer divs than on 6/25 even though they have surely added some in that time.) Several efforts in Ukraine failed, either because the enemy escaped—they have many more fast divs than we do—or because, as at Krivoy Rog, we simply have not been strong enough. This will be an increasing problem as the SOV army is at or near full org by now, while ours is beginning to run down.

We have not been able to get much use out of air power.

6 MARs and a bombardment fleet have been sent to Freetown from where they will clean up Central Africa. This will ameliorate ITA’s TC situation, allow withdrawal of some divs, and prepare a welcome for Liberian entry.

Overall our enemies have lost 665,000 men since 6/17 and our side 125,000 (83,402 of ours), making a ratio of about 4.8:1 on the eastern Front once we allow for about 10,000 each side elsewhere. Another two months of that would leave SOV near-helpless, but that won’t happen.

Since most SOV strength is in now in Ukraine, at this point our plan is to try to take or, better, isolate Moscow before the weather (a noticeable but not crippling factor so far) and the balance of strength stops us. Prospects for that look reasonable,

Overall, what we have learned is that our initial ambitions for this game cannot be achieved. We have 467 MP and will hit zero around the beginning of 1942 or a bit after. The main culprit was the huge cost of the air campaign against Britain from about 1/1939 to 5/1941; second, the GARs needed to occupy rather than make peace with Britain.