Myth said:
Good hands but no buses, though...
Guderian is too relaxed, methinks. Hurry the Panzers to Belgrade, man! :rofl:
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Good hands but no buses, though...
Guderian is too relaxed, methinks. Hurry the Panzers to Belgrade, man! :rofl:
Kurt_Steiner: It's only the first day, he'll be getting to Belgrade soon enough 
ColossusCrusher: I'd think so as well, yeah
First comment day!
ColossusCrusher: I'd think so as well, yeah
First comment day!
020. Are we there already?
Südliche Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, Munich
April 11, 1942
Bernau was back at the headquarters for Germany’s southern theater, and was glad for it. While he did enjoy trips to new places, he was aware that there was always a risk that he might have to talk to someone new, someone that he was not comfortable with. He disliked that, he disliked the uncertainty of new social situations. He much preferred the solitude of command, the isolation of theory and the ambiguity of war. A surprise attack on his flanks he could deal with easily. A surprise invitation to dinner leaves him flustered, confused and immediately unsure of himself. He wondered at that. He was more confident holding the lives of tens, hundreds, even thousands of thousands of men’s lives in his hands than he was his own for even a single evening. He wondered whether it was just a simple matter of knowing where his skills lay, or whether it went to some extreme beyond that. He wondered whether that was why he was sitting alone, after the rest of his main staff had left the headquarters to go to their nearby homes and left their unimportant underlings to handle nighttime communications. Why he was sitting alone going over reports from the past week of campaigning under a lamp. With a shiver down his back, Bernau pushed such thoughts out of his mind and looked closer at the reports in his hand, which had been attending on him patiently as his eyes stared at them without seeing them.
The first report was from Volkmann, dated the 5th. Bernau scrunched his forehead at that, wondering why he was only reading it now. He attributed it to the general incompetence of his staff with a shrug before looking at it. Volkmann had written something about the hills having eyes, eyes that were helping him with his tactical dispositions and how he had become a greatly skilled hills fighter. Bernau looked at the writing with skepticism, wondering just what Volkmann was on about. Before he began thinking about it too much, however, Bernau decided that it really was not worth thinking about at all. Whatever Volkmann meant, as long as he fought better in hills than before, everything was fine. There was no need to overanalyze things. No need at all. Bernau quickly placed that report away.
Volkmann becomes a hills fighters.
The next report was a general situational update dated the 10th. By that time Volkmann had won his battle around Ljubljana and had occupied the city, his forces were beginning their approaches toward Zagreb and Rijeka. Guderian, meanwhile, had raced forward as quickly as he could. Maribor had fallen some time, Bjelovar had fallen by the 8th and Osijek by the time of the report. Guderian’s armor was at the gates of Belgrade, just across the Danube River. Bernau frowned and nodded appreciatively, Guderian was certainly fulfilling his task with the vigor that he was known for and that was expected of him. Bernau put that report down, knowing that there was no need to analyze it. This need, or lack of one, however was quite different from that of the previous report, he was quick to remind himself that he knew. He did not want to think about the previous report any more because he was sure to go far to far with overanalyzing it, whereas victory needed no analysis as everything was going according to plan.
Two German armies pushing into Yugoslavia, one of them quite quickly.
The final three reports he saw were all battle reports, and easy to look over. The first was from Geyr von Schweppenburg, whose two panzer divisions were fighting at Zrenjajin. His corps was facing four divisions under the overall command of a Lieutenant General Pavlovic, whose skill was no where near that of von Schweppenburg’s. Bernau, however, expected the battle to go for some time as von Schweppenburg was crossing a river into odds of two to one against his forces. Bernau shrugged, he knew that the man would pull it off. He was a very skilled, and aggressive, commander who understood how to use armored formations. He set that report down.
The battle for Zrenjajin.
The next was from von Arnim, whose corps consisted of two panzer divisions and a motorized infantry division that was pushing toward Novi Sad. The battle was easy for a variety of reasons, which included the sizeable Hungarian population that was welcoming the Germans with open arms and gratuitous alcohol that was sure to affect the men’s combat performance negatively. Another factor in Bernau’s prediction of easy victory was the fact that Lieutenant General Kukavicic had only one infantry division under his command. His men were, simply put, doomed to defeat with no hope of redemption but only of retreat. Bernau briefly considered the etymology of the word ‘retreat.’ Did it signify that the original treating had failed, thus leading to war, and that because one side was defeated and retreating, it was time to attempt to use diplomatic channels again? Bernau shrugged.
The battle for Novi Sad.
The final report was from Guderian himself. He was taking the rest of his panzer army straight into Belgrade, crossing the insignificant ditch in his way that was the Danube. Bernau was sure he’d not find those exact words in Guderian’s report, but instead a general attitude rather close to it. His and Heinrici’s two corps, coming together to four panzer divisions and three motorized infantry divisions, was bashing across the Danube bridges into the heart of Belgrade, heavily mauling the Yugoslav defenders as they did so. These defenders consisted of three divisions—including one mountaineer division—under the command of Colonel General Brasic, an old guard of the Yugoslav army, but one who knew how to set up a good defense. Unfortunately for him, Guderian was more skilled, had more men and knew how to plan an even better offensive. No one expected Belgrade’s defenses to last long.
the battle for Belgrade.
A noise behind him suddenly caused Bernau to shoot out of his seat in surprise and perhaps some small fear, turning around in the air as he went. He saw in the doorway Gitler and Lützow, both standing hesitantly. The latter had his throwing stars in hand, and both looked simultaneously afraid, sheepish and apologetic. “We’re sorry, sir. Gitler came to do his usual nightly pagan rituals and I offered to escort him here. Those traitorous Allies drop in their Nepalese ninjamen by night, you know. I heard that someone was in this room and got ready to attack, thinking it was one of them. It was only you, however, sir. We’ll—uhh—we’ll just go now, all right?”
Bernau could only nod speechlessly as the two turned around and disappeared into the darkness.
I wonder if the ninjamen have, among its "must-do", to pay a visit to Regenbogen. On the other side, I'm a bit surprised at Bernau's calm way of leading thsi war... So careful...
On the other side, I'm a bit surprised at Bernau's calm way of leading thsi war... So careful...
Enewald: I attacked Yugoslavia to get some Mediterranean ports, so that I could intervene in any desert war that takes place And we first hear about Lutzow's fear of "Nepalese ninjamen" in one of the previous updates, one of the double ones
Kurt_Steiner: Bernau is a good general. He makes plans and makes sure that they more or less dictate events. Thus, even if an emergency of some sort comes up, he knows that it will be handled and he'd still have the greatly upper hand
First comment day!
And we first hear about Lutzow's fear of "Nepalese ninjamen" in one of the previous updates, one of the double ones Kurt_Steiner: Bernau is a good general. He makes plans and makes sure that they more or less dictate events. Thus, even if an emergency of some sort comes up, he knows that it will be handled and he'd still have the greatly upper hand
First comment day!
021. What, we’re still in one place?
Südliche Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, Munich
April 22, 1942
Bernau and Gitler had spent the whole day reviewing operations in Yugoslavia, past, current and future. It was nearly enough to drive any man mad, but especially one with as little time for fools as Bernau. It was some time just after dinner at the moment, which had been Bernau’s second respite from Gitler that day, after lunch. With a sigh, Bernau rolled his neck and shoulders before his gaping mouth turned into a yawn. He shifted his gaze to look at Gitler. The man seemed haggard, which was no surprise. Bernau was sure that it was an accomplishment to survive his scathing comments and criticisms about operations for so long. Bernau stood up with Gitler as the latter began to pack his maps and charts and orders of battle to clap him half-kindly on the back of his shoulder. Gitler smiled tightly at him before sketching a quick salute and leaving. Bernau, alone in the evening again, could not help but cast his mind back to the several memorable episodes of the day, which had begun virtually as soon as the day had…
“And on the twelfth, Volkmann began his attack toward Zagreb with two corps, sir. They seem to be the same divisions that Guderian had outfought at Maribor the previous week, during our initial push. I wonder how the Yugoslavs managed to do it.”
“What do you mean? Do what?”
“Get there so quickly. There’s no road between Maribor and Zagreb.”
“What? Your map here shows that there is one!”
“It does?” Gitler became a bit embarrassed at this and searched the map with a magnifying glass. “Oh, so it does. Hmm, that’s fascinating. I did not know this.”
Bernau had been stunned. Here he was, two and a half weeks into a campaign they had essentially planned jointly and Gitler was only discovering an important road then. Bernau had sighed with exasperation and disbelief. “What?! How did you not know this?”
Gitler looked askance at Bernau. “Well, to be fair, sir, our operational plan doesn’t take straight north-south roads like that into consideration. Both 2nd Panzer Army and 8th Army go northwest-southeast. Maybe Lützow knew of this road, given his penchant for sending logistics all over the place. You should ask him.”
“Your first plan for the invasion had the 2nd Panzer and 8th Armies going west-east all the way down the country like they were some sort of double helix! You had the 2nd Panzer going Maribor-Zagreb-Rijeka-Banja Luka-et cetera and the 8th going Ljubljana-Zagreb-Maribor-Bjelovar-Banja Luka-Split-et cetera. The hell you didn’t know about it!”
“Oh. I guess I forgot then. I have the wonderful ability to forget irrelevant information.”
“But it’s not irrelevant, obviously! Seeing how the Yugoslavs might and indeed did use that road at all!”
“Please, sir, let’s not play the ‘blame game,’ as they call it…”
“I loathe you, Gitler. You know that, right?”
“Yes, sir.”
It had only been just after breakfast.
The battle for Zagreb.
“And on the 14th, Leeb attacked Banja Luka with his corps, having arrived first at Zagreb. Two Yugoslav divisions oppose him, led by that Simovic character. To be honest, in this picture we have of him, he looks a bit like Hitler…”
“He what? Give me that!”
Bernau had looked closely at the picture before discarding it. “No he doesn’t!”
“Well, maybe it’s a bad picture then. We should get another one.”
“Shall I just sent a messenger across the lines to give him this message, then?”
“Sir, are you being sarcastic?”
“How could you tell?”
“You’re glaring at me.”
Bernau had indeed been glaring. The clock had not yet even struck 11:00.
the battle for Banja Luka.
“…and Geyr von Schweppenburg was still enmeshed in the fighting around Zrenjanin on the 15th. He was performing a daring breakthrough action that led to an encirclement four days later, on the 19th. He’s still fighting outmanned and outgunned, basically outnumbered in every way. But he’s not being outfought, because he has a great outfit under his command! Not to mention that outfit he’s wearing, that had in particular is particularly dashing…”
“Gitler. What?”
“Uhh, never mind, sir. Geyr von Schweppenburg is fighting well, he’s outfight—err, he’s beating the Yugoslavs despite their superior numbers.”
“All right, I guess. I still don’t understand where you were going with that little spiel before, however. Have you had too much coffee to drink?”
“Just forget it, sir.”
“How about we break for an early lunch, normal return time? I think I need some extra time to myself to recover from an entire morning spent with you.”
“Sounds good to me, sir! I’ll just visit that little café and work on seducing that cute little waitress. An hour is never long enough but now that I’ve got nearly two…”
“Gitler, that’s too much information.”
“Sorry, sir.”
It had been 12:00 by that time, and Bernau had been glad that he would not see Gitler for two hours.
The battle for Zrenjanin, as reported on the 15th.
The two hours had come and gone and again the two were conferring. “Sir, I must lodge a complaint.”
“What sort of complaint?”
“Against reality.”
“What?”
“Just bear with me, sir. If you look at this map and then compare it to the progress reported by Guderian and Geyr von Schweppenburg, to take two examples, what would you assume?”
“I’d assume that they’d be pushing the enemy back pretty steadily.”
“Yes, quite steadily. In fact, steadily enough that they should both be approaching Nis by now! But they’re not! We all know that movement is attack, but what about actually entering the damn towns and cities and fighting in them as well, rather than just on the approaches? It could revolutionize warfare! Guderian could fight everywhere between the Danube River and the, err, the Danube River! On the other side of Belgrade, as this case would be.”
Bernau had shook his head, with a puzzled and disbelieving expression on his face. “What?”
“You know what, sir? Never mind. The point of the matter is that both Guderian and Geyr von Schweppenburg should both be bearing the outskirts of Nis but they’ve not yet actually taken Belgrade or Zrenjanin yet, respectively.”
“So who’s fault is that?”
“As I implied earlier, I blame this reality we are stuck in.”
“O-okay, then, Gitler. Shall we move along?”
“Please.”
Lunch had only just ended.
The campaign plan on the 17th.
“Sir, on the 18th Leeb sent in a strange message about the hills having eyes that aided him in his fight…”
“Oh right, that sort of thing. Well, he thinks he’s better at fighting in hills. As long as he does, I don’t care what he thinks. Too bad he can’t get better at crossing rivers, though. He seems to be stuck on that Danubian tributary for a long time.”
“Yes, yes. I can envisage it now: ‘river crosser.’ He becomes skilled at crossing rivers, being exactly a third better at crossing them than other generals save perhaps engineers.” Awe had entered into Gitler’s voice. “Imagine if he was an engineer too! Rivers would pose as much a threat to an offensive as a toothpick!”
“Gitler, you’re beginning to frighten me. What are you talking about? Where are you getting these numbers, these ideas from?”
“You know how rooms tend to have four walls?”
“Some of them, yes.”
“I’m trying to break one of them.”
“Which—no, never mind. I won’t ask. Let’s just move on.”
By that point lunch had seemed like years ago to Bernau.
Leeb became a hills fighter.
“Ooh, sir, we have another cryptic message! This one is from, of all people, Guderian!”
“Read it to me, Gitler.”
“Hmm, ahhh…I’ll just summarize it. He says that he enjoys assaulting people with his fists to make them fight harder, concluding that this makes him an assaulter and that a he can launch more assaults because of it.”
“What? Give me that!”
Bernau had snatched the message from Gitler’s hands and scanned it, but found that it had indeed been generally as Gitler had said. There had been no mention of assaulting people with his fists, however, but rather a general enjoyment of simply assaulting people. Nevertheless, Bernau had been slightly frightened. “Err, all right then. We’ll just pretend we never read this, and if Guderian wants to make more frequent assaults, good on him. Are you in agreement?”
“Yes. Though I’d love to assault Belgrade castle and save that princess…”
“What? Does Belgrade even have a castle, much less a princess? What if she’s in another castle?”
“Well, uhh, shall we continue?”
“Fine.”
That had been in the mid-afternoon, and the prospect of several more hours with Gitler had made Bernau’s head hurt and his mind weep.
Guderian became an assaulter.
“Sir, we only have one more report to go through today!” Gitler had sounded so excited.
“Excellent! What is it?”
“Err, another personal report, sir. I don’t know why they all started cropping up all of a sudden. This one is from Geyr von Schweppenburg, and just arrived today. He says that he likes hugging people a lot, and that because his arms are strong he by default becomes a good encircler. Since, as he logically points out, by hugging someone you are encircling that person with your arms.”
“I’m a bit worried by this epidemic of oddity, to be honest.”
“Do you think it’s the water?”
“What?”
“We all know the people of the Balkans are odd and unreasonable, right? Maybe it’s the water. Leeb, Guderian and Geyr von Schweppenburg have definitely drunk the water in Yugoslavia, given that all three are attacking over rivers. Just hope that they never become unreasonable.”
“Err, yes. Well, I guess that’s it with the reports. Do you have anything more to say before we go on to discussing future operations in Yugoslavia?”
“When is dinner?”
Dinner had been, at that point, unfortunately distant.
Geyr von Schweppenburg became an encircler. Hugging does that to you, apparently. Always hug people.
Bernau shook his head. Though nothing more stood out for him, that had been a quite eventful day. But it had made him quite tired, and Bernau decided that there was nothing left to keep him to his headquarters after everyone else of direct importance to him had left. With a sigh and a stretch, Bernau walked out the door.
I, honestly, propose that Bernay and Regenbogen switch their staffs.
Regenbogen-Gitler... mmmh... so... fascinating...
Regenbogen-Gitler... mmmh... so... fascinating...
Ah. We sneaky Serbs, distorting reality and poisoning water. When will our devilry end.
Kurt_Steiner: Fascinating, but deadly! The sheer chaos they'd create would kill everyone around them!
ColossusCrusher: Can be, at times
4th Dimension: Indeed, though this time your devilry is giving my leaders traits! Don't stop that! Just stop the cryptic messages!
First comment day!
ColossusCrusher: Can be, at times
4th Dimension: Indeed, though this time your devilry is giving my leaders traits! Don't stop that! Just stop the cryptic messages!
First comment day!
Ahhh. This is all part of our master plan to make you go nuts because of all pop up windows, so you quit the game. You see we never bother with paperwork.
4th Dimension: Ahh, clever, clever. Of course, it's not too much work to close a pop-up
Second comment day!
Second comment day!
Myth said:4th Dimension: Ahh, clever, clever. Of course, it's not too much work to close a pop-up
Second comment day!
True, but when 100 pop ups come at the same time, with a new one for everyoen you close what happens then?
Lols... more traits... I wonder if someone becomes a desert fox... or jungle rat... :rofl:
But is it allready 1942?
But is it allready 1942?
Hmmm. We'll have to make us some jungles, and deserts to increase our pop up capability.
Tjen better start working on them at once. Great highaltitude flat sandy place with trees and palms. Which also is not flat but hilly. or the Plafordesemounthilungle.Discomb said:
For added effect I bet it's going to make Bernau's HQ to drive Bernau into terminal insanity. Then when he retires, we must make shure that his HQ passes to Robogen. Collision of two so INSANELY forcess will generate explosion of insanity mesured in TKSR (Tera Kurt_Steiner Robogens), which will prompt what remains of now insane population of Germany, and it's armed forces (only insane staffers remained, rest... ) to invade Soviet union using an army of handkerchief and rock caring solders (part of Robogens brilliant plan invented when he was playing paper, rock, scissors outranking with his staff).