Still following 11’s adventures closely - another fine mess she’s got herself in!
Sorry to burst your bubble but the 'modern' infantry small arm in HOI3 is the Sten Gun Mk.I (1940 tech, pretty much up to date as 1942 has barely started...), in any case, the sten will feature in whatever happens to that train... Even worse, I tagged to the UK, and found out that '1942 tech' is the SMLE Mk.III, a 1907 Rifle predating the sten-gun... a true paradox why that's the case... In any case I would expect the Bren-gun to be widely used in the infantry, especially the special forces.
I have no idea on the German Sten, I didn't even know they had copied sten-guns, interesting...
I don't think so. You're the general and I thought it a fine order.I might have gone overboard on the Locomotive, but the Rolls-Royce of German freight locomotives of the time cannot remain unmentioned, when so much of this story hinges on a powerful and relatively fast German train.
She got herself in a mess all right, but is certainly not yet out of said mess, though the situation is no longer acute...Still following 11’s adventures closely - another fine mess she’s got herself in!
I tried to make it seem that way, though one could argue the Wehrmacht has been preparing for Barbarossa for three years off and on. I suspect the Germany won't launch Barbarossa, at least not before it dealt with those Polish Partisans in their rear. That said, having not played past the 6th of January, I have no idea whether Barbarossa is now imminent, or whether they will wait until winter weather abates.11’s travels are, I reckon from all these hints and indicators, taking her through the German preparations for a delayed Barbarossa. But time will tell.
All answers have been provided. One could say that 11 herself was much of said lapse in security, though a few Poles were needed in assistance... Her use of the explosives was quite creative...This keeps getting more and more interesting. Unless the security of the train lapses once it reaches German-controlled territory, 11 may be in for a tough time... An explosive solution would definitely attract attention, but perhaps it could also act as a distraction?
How very German... copy a cheaply made weapon, and use better materials than the original...Therein lies also the answer to the question: The German copies were identical down to the markings, but identifiable due to their higher quality, or so I've heard at least. Apparently they used actually decent steel, not scrap piping and copper for bolts... And I don't think I need to say anything about the quality of German worksmanship (excluding most things produced in 1945 for obvious reasons).
I must have seen too many memes on Austria/Australia, because I find it somewhat funny that Australia used a licensed version of an Austrian weapon...SMGs are notoriously unreliable. We used the old F1 SMG up until everything was replaced by variations of the Steyr, (Australia made its own Steyrs under license, modified to our specs) including carbine versions for tank crew.
The F1 was an Australian design made in the 1960s, which replaced the Owen gun. A simple thing with a top-mounted magazine. And probably a lot better than the Sten, but never having fired one of those I can’t compare directly. I would like to have seen how the German MP 40 Schmeisser would have performed as well.
Apart from the unreliability and legendary inaccuracy at anything beyond 25m, the ammunition used also had a great bearing on the above and its hitting power. It used the standard 9mm ammo - and when it was older ‘War stocks’ ammo (which degrades over time) its range was even worse and it was said (without much exaggeration) that it would be unlikely to penetrate a wet greatcoat at its supposed ‘effective’ range (150m by the book).
Despite all that, it was still fun to fire on a walkthrough pop-up target bush ‘stalker range’. And good at short range.
Maybe so... let's not go into the arbitrary tech system... I still haven't played HOI4, but if it's anything like HOI3, the weapons and techs are definitely not entirely accurate, to put it mildly...I think I would rather go with the SMLE than the Sten 9 times out of 10, so maybe that's what PDX has based their choices in? Many of the technologies have never made a lot of sense to me. IIRC in HOI4 infantry AT weapons in '42 or '43 are Boys AT rifles for some countries, armour thicknesses and the rest of armour and artillery techs in HOI3 are all over the place if memory serves, and don't even get me started on the research system based on arbitrary year levels with everything in that year level being equal between countries...
That would make a lot more sense, as the No.4 really started to get to the front lines in 1942, and became truly ubiquitous in 1943 iirc, that would fit much better.Alright, rant over, and some research done. I presume they got confused (wouldn't be the first time) and wrote SMLE Mk.III when they really meant Rifle No. 4, which was adopted in 1941. Honestly speaking, I think while PDX does lot of work to achieve at least some historical accuracy, these kind of cock-ups just ruin the whole thing. If it takes all of 30 seconds with an internet connection to figure out which weapon should be there and they still manage to be so far off the mark, they are either lazy or ridiculously incompetent.
Well, the official position of the Soviet Union at this time is that Poland does not exist, and has no right to exist... Of course, if Germany were to attack, this Position would change, and eventually, you might see a new 'Poland SSR' encapsulating now German-occupied Poland, Eastern Prussia, and part of Eastern Germany... (Oder-Neisse line anyone?)Epic! 11 is proving to be worth a company of marines by herself alone. The poor Polish resistance - unlikely to survive their tangles with the Germans and then, if they do, will have the Soviets to contend with (sorry, must go OOC with this bit due to Polish heritage ). I’m sure a good propaganda film could be made of her adventures (if it could be declassified)!
I had different versions of that fight in mind, and even partially wrote some others out. In the end this version was most consistent with 11's character. At heart, she is a lone operator, she acts quickly, sometimes impulsively, and she knows she is at her best when the enemy is always one step behind. A version where she blasted out of the carriage didn't make sense, as she would have needlessly alerted the Germans to her presence, her deviousness, and her strong sense of self preservation made a sneaky but devastating approach much more in character. One could speculate where she learned to shoot like that, but as we don't know much about her background besides what's in the GRU files, and what she has told us, there are huge gaps in what we know on her life, and I'm sure she'd like to keep it that way. What is certain, is that she received some level of training within the GRU, and that MI(R) must have added considerably to that, especially in her knowledge of British weapons, and her handling of explosives. 410m is only about half the cited effective range of a P14, and from what I read, the P14 was a very accurate rifle for it's time. That said, she's definitely an above average marksman to make those shots without missing.Impressive! Not that after sneaking in the compound, anyone expected any less, of course. She seems to be a crack shot; maybe an assassination mission might be more "up her alley" as the saying goes? (OOC: Sniper Elite anyone?) For the time being though, helping Poles fight off the invader should prove highly beneficial, but we need to make sure those same teachings are not employed against the Red Army once we roll across Europe. If they could hit some supply trains once the bullets really start flying, they'd be worth their weight in gold.
I don't think so. You're the general and I thought it a fine order.
I like trains, what can I say... @El Pip is quite busy with his newly born daughter, but I'm sure he would appreciate the amount of research I did on the train porn side of things...So much train porn! This I suspect will send the Pipmeister to Cloud Seven.
Thanks a lot for your encouragement, I feel properly encouraged...I'm having trouble keeping abreast, as testified above, but want to encourage you. My friend, this espionage writing is exceptional for what you are doing here and your yarn, is becoming more intricate. Very well done. Spy-fiction has always sold well in RL - might make a nice hobby that pays-out.
English expressions for expressing recognition of another person could be many:
You've a knack
It comes easy for you
You're a natural
You have a gift
It's in your DNA
I prefer the belief we ALL have at least one gift to share with the rest and with that in mind you are blessed with many it seems to this hoary-headed-wizard.
Navigating a second language and writing this tale? Bravo.
Well, I'd like to think this AAR is mostly going crescendo overall, as I endeavour to improve all aspects of it gradually. Compared to these last updates, I'm sure some of the early ones may seem a bit clunky, and maybe a bit short on narrative. (as explained in the expanded first post) That said, welcome to this AAR, I'm glad you enjoy it, I can only encourage you to re-read the whole thing as to get the big picture all these bit fit into. I've done my upmost not to introduce no paradoxes or inconsistencies... sometimes going back and rereading my older updates to make sure (that summary in the first update is there just as much for me as for my readAARs...)I'm going to re-read the whole AAR, because starting to read this update was like tasting a morcel of the finest meal, and realizing I have missed all the entrées and hors d'oeuvres and most of the main courses.
But before I do, kudos for the pictures! They do capture the atmosphere.
It's driving me crazy too. We had temperatures up to 38°C in the Carcassonne area, and in Brussels, it's 28-29°C right now... The trip was quite physical, we did quite a bit of hiking, several times, we parked the car near the bottom of a small mountain, then hiked up to the castle at the top in 30+°C on steep and narrow paths with little shade. One time we did 25km in one day, hiking to the next village, then up a hill to visit a castle, then back to the camp site. We were there for 11 days, and in those days we visited 6 castles, one fortified city (Carcassonne), went rafting, canyoning, spent half a day repairing the tent, climbed a small mountain with no castle on it, and went swimming in the Mediterranean for half an hour (before a Jellyfish burned me across the chest), the trip was mentally relaxing though... We (My mother) also drove down there and back, which took more than 12 hours each way. In HOI3 terms we stayed in the province of 'Limoux' and visited in the provinces of 'Mirepoix', 'Lavelanet', 'Carcasonne', and 'Perpignan'.Edit: Damn heatwave, making me scatterbrained. Hope your trip is nice, relaxing and you have great company! Have a trip of my own coming up in a little under two weeks, too, a week in Croatia, so I'll have some catching up to do once I return.
Very wise. Salute!As I mentioned before, this AAR is helping me develop my writing skills, and initially, I started it at a time when I had to keep up a blog in English in the context of an international exchange programme at my university, and found that whole process to my liking
Not yet... An optimist would say that there is no need to set up partisans if the Germans never make it into our homeland... (It should be noted that in HOI3 FTM, you can only train Partisans if some of your territory is under enemy occupation)... If Germans manage to push deeply into our territory, it would, of course, be beneficial to set up Partisan cells behind their lines. (as happened historically in some areas, an effort that intensified from 1943 onward)While it is nice to see Revolts within German territory I doubt we can rely too much on Rebellions weakening the Fascists. Still, do we have any plans to start our own underground cells if the Germans advance into the Homeland?
They aren't exactly sitting still though, considering the amount of Panzers on the border... (I should do an update on that pretty soon, not sure whether I'll do it before or after the follow-up on 11's predicament)The Cold War continues with the Reich - who knows where that will end up? I think that every day that goes by will make the hammer fall harder on the Fascists when/if they attack.
The plan is to have a few heavy bombers for the following reasons:Heavy bombers eh - how do you plan to employ them? If war breaks out with the Japanese, might they be better used in those wide-open spaces and long distances? A desperate fight in Libya - the game does seem to replicate its see-saw and logistics-driven nature quite well, I’ve often noticed.