The HPP mod has a number of recurring events that happen to you or your worldly neighbors. I’m pretty sure this is an HPP event, but I can’t be sure it’s not SF since I haven’t played a lot of SF by itself. The assassination attempt against an opposition leader either causes Dissent, or it causes a loss of Money (to handle the uproar quietly), and turmoil that hurts your party. I’m pretty settled in, as a Party, right now – there’s no sense in removing the party in power, and so this isn’t something I like. But I can afford to lose a little money right now, so I don’t worry about it so much.
On the other hand, if I had chosen to take the Dissent, it wouldn’t have been as bad is it would be in Vanilla HOI 3 or in SF, because in HPP Dissent is an increased chance of revolt, not something that hurts your IC. A revolt is easily put down during peacetime, so I’d rather have the risk of revolt than anything that might hurt my IC.
Another thing I want to note, before we go on, is that I’ve reached a unique position. I’ve been “IC whoring” so extensively that my economy is now almost “too strong,” if you can believe it. I’m starting to have resource issues – my industry uses more from my stockpiles than is coming in from my trades and production. In the past I could make up for this shortage by finding another trading partner – I have plenty of Money – but the World Market seems to be getting tighter and tighter. No one will trade with me, perhaps because as Threat rises worldwide, countries start looking to their own needs for reserves.
So I’m showing you something I never expected. You know about my “Production Reserve” – the construction projects which are almost done, but which I’m not finishing because I don’t want to increase Threat. Here’s an odd “Research Reserve” – a tech I don’t want yet! I’ve moved Industrial Production to the end of the line so that I don’t complete research. As soon as it comes up in the list, I’ll have increased IC, which is what I want, right? No. Too much stress on my Resource Stockpiles. It’s there when I need/want it, but I don’t want it sapping my Stockpiles right now. It’s probably only 3-5 more IC I’d gain, but that’s enough to cost a drain of 20 more Energy, and I’m already way out of balance in that resource.
As you can imagine, with things this tense with the Soviets, I’m still courting possible allies, such as Romania and Yugoslavia. I’m fairly confident of drawing Yugoslavia in, eventually, but not as certain of Romania. Romania would be the most useful, because they provide a second front against the Soviets – a distraction, and an opportunity.
There continues to be a gaggle of Soviet divisions milling around the territory formerly called Lithuania. The continued activity worries us, but no “sudden moves” seem to be evident, and the tensions settle down slightly as the time since the takeover of the Baltic States increases.
Much of our planned air war will concentrate on use of close air support bombers. An advance in techniques used by forward air controllers improves our ability to coordinate such attacks where they’re most needed.
Also helpful for our airwar, as well as for our intelligence gathering activities, will be our radar/intel stations. We continue to expand our network. Our stations in East Prussia and Oppeln are already strong enough to get the information we need, and the one at Wilhelmshaven covers the North Sea approaches to our coast as well as the Baltic Sea exits. We have no need to expand them further. But Radar/Intel is useful for much more than just watching enemy units. Because we’ve been researching the Radio Intercept techs, we get bonuses for interception of air missions as well (in reality, this is the more obvious use of radar – HOI 3 expands it into a full Intel game). We place a Radar Station at Marienburg (next to Danzig) as a fallback station if the forward station falls to the Soviets. It’s going to be pretty good strength too. But we also begin placing radars at strategic industry centers – level 1’s if there’s an isolated industrial city (not a lot of those), and level 2 or 3 (eventually) centrally located between clusters of industrial cities. A level 2 station in Chemnitz, for instance, also covers Dresden and Leipzig and other nearby potential targets.
During the month of January, these were our research achievements. The Heavy AA is a big deal for us, because to shield our industry from strategic bombing from either the Allies or Soviets (who do have strat bombers, we've confirmed -- even from startup I think), or both, we've relied heavily on massed AA barrages at our industrial centers. Slan, or someone has done a study on this it seems, and I'll allow him to chime in on it, though I didn't see it until after this game. The agriculture, of course, boosts our manpower, which is also a big deal. We've been "researching" ahead of time on Agriculture, as with other critical industrial techs. Germany, of course, can afford to do this, even if it is somewhat wasteful in points.
We've been continuously researching aircraft techs, and so the single-engine airframe is part of this series. Durability for our fighters and light bombers is welcome. And, of course, the battlecruiser techs. I'm not focusing alot on naval power, but if Germany is going to have the ability to commerce raid, aside from submarines, I'd like to have some ability. It's also expected of a great power to have some navy. This is my concession to that.
At the end of January, 1941, these are my Production priorities. The battlecruiser, of course, seemed a logical choice. They take so long to build, so I figured I'd commit that 13 IC to naval uses now, because I might not have another chance later and we could always throw it back into Production Reserve if our need for immediate builds becomes more acute and immediate. We've just finished our garrison divisions, and I'm deploying them to protect Germany's eastern border (one in East Prussia, I think, and the rest on my border with Poland, which is my fallback defense line).
The two panzer divisions... Two medium panzers brigades, one mechanized, and one self-propelled artillery. This is a more-or-less ideal setup, in my personal opinion, as it provides a combined arms bonus, keeps the speed of the division up, and provides huge firepower and mutual internal protection (tanks for punch, mech for staying power). It's an expensive division, of course, even as reserves, and takes alot of manpower. It should be worth it if I need it one day. If the Soviets invade, I will.
Diplomatically, it seemed a good idea to enact the Anti-Comintern Pact decision. This brings "allies" into our fold without any kind of binding agreement. I get to associate with the Japanese, and let them antagonize the Soviets, without having to agree to back up their aggression. It also highlights to the Allies who WE think our enemies are. A win-win. Gamewise, there's precious little effect -- nothing that harms our strategy, anyway.
The French are stubborn. We all knew that. But Soviet threat is increasing, and the UK is within 10 points of their Threat-to-Neutrality converging. That is very promising! If the Soviets invade Poland, even without an Allied guarantee, that might tip the Threat over the threshold and allow war with the Allies (I know experts are skeptical on this, gamewise -- this is from a role-playing perspective).
Our Engineer brigades are done! We deploy these into East Prussia, where we hope they will aid in slowing the Soviet juggernaut as it crosses the border. They go into our frontline border provinces, where we've also begun building forts. This is a strategy that could backfire, of course -- the Soviets could outflank us through Poland, take the forts, and then we'd have to fight through them ourselves. But my feeling is this...
My main goal is to hold the Soviet line in East Prussia while they sweep through Poland. Unless they turn their flank properly, this may/will expose parts of the Soviet advance to being outflanked by ourselves with our panzers in East Prussia and eastern Germany. We couldn't do this if our line in East Prussia didn't hold for long enough to allow this imbalance (bulging) along the front, so... It could all play into our hands. It is my belief that holding East Prussia as long as possible is a good plan, no matter what happens in the south.
I'm a Major Power.
To be honest, I don't understand the whole "regional power" "major power" thing, so if Slan or TheBromgrev want to explain in more detail, they can be my guests.
Obviously, it's helpful in some areas. The Supply Production advance is also helpful, as I need lots of supplies, and even use them to sell, and thereby keep up my Money balance.
In mid-February, I begin looking more in earnest at my OOB and overall command setup. Who's in command where, who SHOULD be in command, etc. Gen. Hoth has 3 skill but his specialties may not be what I need. I begin looking to see if there's someone else who might fit better there. I have two corps commands watching the direct border with the USSR in East Prussia. North and south. The southern command includes the counterattack forces. The northern one is just a holding force with artillery, engineers, garrisons, infantry, etc.
I think I ended up replacing Hoth with this Brand guy. Same skill, overall, but far more useful specialties for what I need. Defense, entrenchment. That's where 1st Korps is at! I also replaced von Witzleben, in the immediate superior command, with Gen. Dollman, who also has defensive and entrenchment specialties, not offensive skills.
You'll recall that in one of my recent updates -- probably December 1940 or so -- I achieved Infantry Doctrine 1943 (and I think I hit Tank Doctrine 1943 months before that). The Soviets are not far behind. They achieve these two (plus the operational one, which I think I've also hit) around the first of March. Combined Arms makes sense for them, rather than Blitzkrieg. Firepower Focus is a little bit of a surprise for me, as it is more in the direction of "quality over quantity" but the USSR can certainly do it, and Mechanized Wave certainly makes sense operationally -- they have the ability to mechanize, but they have huge numbers of troops. The USSR can afford both quality AND quantity. For now.
Here I add two paratroop divisions to our Production Queue. I already have JU-52 transports sitting in Munchen. Paratroopers will help us, once we go on the offense, or even during a counter attack. One last thing to note. I have horse-drawn Artillery Brigades in some units. For Infantry, that's fine -- they'll keep pace. But if I need artillery for mobile units, I either need to build Self-Propelled Artillery, or the HPP mod allows me to upgrade my Brigades to Artillery Battalions of truck-towed artillery, with much higher mobility. I begin upgrading some of my brigades.
Our medium tanks are being upgraded. So much the better for any advance in that area. And our radar! We've been hitting the radar hot and heavy. We will rely on radar, this Germany will, almost as much as I've been relying upon tanks and artillery. We've hit level 3, which means we can actually start researching radar guided missiles (air to ground, but air to air and surface to air are not far behind). This shows you how far we've advanced this tech, because we've been concentrating on it. By 1942 we should have these deployed, and perhaps SAMs by 1943.
A curious thing in comparing March's UK Threat-Neutrality to their February stance. My spies have been somewhat reduced in the USSR, and so my increase of their Threat is not as effective as it was previously. But their Threat doesn't seem to have gone up at all. Only the UK's Neutrality has gone down, and I'm not sure exactly why that is. They haven't done anything to prompt it, and neither have I. I suppose the UK may be intentionally lowering her own Neutrality, which is a good thing -- I hope -- for me. This would also explain why the UK's Neutrality is so much lower than France's, which remains high.
Those spies. The NKVD finally got into gear, it seems. I've had 10 or 8 spies in the USSR for a long time, increasing Threat. Now it's much reduced. This may also be a result of my own change in priorities -- not sending as many spies, preferring Research.
As we go into late spring, 1941, I begin to wonder if we're seeing the tide recede -- the Soviets losing interest in expansion -- or if this is simply the calm before the storm. Will the Soviets use this lull in tensions to prepare a massive invasion of Poland? Or even of Romania? What's their next step? What will the Allies do? Germany's future hinges upon all these considerations. Everything remains uncertain.