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Tanesis - We believe they are using some sort of secret ship radio-port technology for it. But no technology will elude the Fist of the People!
RGB - Overstretched you say? Ever considered writing some regular articles for the Pravda? You have the right tallent for euphemisms!
Maj. von Mauser - Well there were some Destroyers too, but they seem allergic to 16in guns for some reason...
Slaughts - You lack faith in the People and our Leader, do you? Comrade Tanesis will keep an eye on you. And I'll keep an eye on both...
Lord Strange - I can fight them indeed. the "back" part... well we'll see about that.
Jedrek - ALL our southern units? Oh no, no, don't be silly. There are 3 divisions from Baku currently marching to the front.
Emperor_krk - Andreev is as worried as you are. And I'm not talking about the fleet, although that counts too.
General_Hoth - Not if I can help it. As you can see from Romania though, the AI doesn't pay the favour back
o
Olaus Petrus - That's what Kuznetsov keeps saying, but will Raeder listen? Nooooo he keeps running away, the coward.
Milites - Hey, they are dastardly. th3freakie's vocab gets +1 word
RGB - Overstretched you say? Ever considered writing some regular articles for the Pravda? You have the right tallent for euphemisms!
Maj. von Mauser - Well there were some Destroyers too, but they seem allergic to 16in guns for some reason...
Slaughts - You lack faith in the People and our Leader, do you? Comrade Tanesis will keep an eye on you. And I'll keep an eye on both...
Lord Strange - I can fight them indeed. the "back" part... well we'll see about that.
Jedrek - ALL our southern units? Oh no, no, don't be silly. There are 3 divisions from Baku currently marching to the front.
Emperor_krk - Andreev is as worried as you are. And I'm not talking about the fleet, although that counts too.
General_Hoth - Not if I can help it. As you can see from Romania though, the AI doesn't pay the favour back
oOlaus Petrus - That's what Kuznetsov keeps saying, but will Raeder listen? Nooooo he keeps running away, the coward.
Milites - Hey, they are dastardly. th3freakie's vocab gets +1 word
Oops my bad spelling. I know its probably correct to say cathced, but in normal speech, i have never heard anyone say "catched".
Anyway thats OT
Anyway thats OT
Oh great, 3 divisions... I bet they'll help you patch up the lines. See you in Stalingrad then, don't forget about defending Novorossyisk once Sevastopol falls! ;p
Maintaining sea superiority in any sea is more than the occasional capital battle. In fact, most of it is made by small confrontations, denying the enemy any kind of use to that sea. Or, in alternative, doing small tasks supporting your own troops.
That was the job of the Main Fleet during the last days of August.
In the night of the 26th it detected lights from a small German fleet, composed of a small cruiser and several destroyers. From the size and composition of this fleet, they were probably hunting for Soviet submarines.
Either way, night-time target practise never hurts.
The following day, another Kriegsmarine force is found, intriguingly enough composed of only one outdated Battleship. It's surface escort was promptly sunk, and the Schleisen itself so badly damaged it must have been scuttled. Either way, it likely won't see combat ever again.
The Schleisen, photo taken before the war
The following weeks passed without the support carriers detecting any enemy activity, so Admiral Kuznetsov deemed it safe to join up with the 17th Fleet in, as per Army request, to suppress a recent German influx of defenders to Köenigsberg.
Under the fire of 6 battleships, the Wehrmacht suffered considerable casualties.
Soon enough the Red Army had regained complete control over the region.
Of course, it wasn't only in the Baltic that the Navy was preforming repetitive support actions. In the Black Sea the task of transferring troops out of Romania, boring as it was for sailors, was probably the single most important job of the moment in the USSR. The tragedy it would be to lose so many divisions was only magnified by how bad those same divisions were needed in the Ukraine.
But both Fleets would see their steady, "dull" efforts rewarded soon enough.
As the first evacuees from the pocket marched out of the Crimea, they joined with divisions of fresh recruits arrived by train, and perhaps even better, with the Naval Infantry and their confidence inspiring black uniforms. Together, these men expelled the Germans from Balta - at least for the time being.
The good news from the Baltic came in the same uniform. With Fleet and Army support, the Soviet Marines launched a successful land offensive against the last major harbour of Finland.
With all of their major population and industry centres occupied by Soviet troops, and unable to use the Baltic to get support from their German allies, the Finnish government really had no choice.
Unfortunately for Soviet Pride, the truth is, choices weren't abundant in Moscow either.
Finland was offering a lot less than would normally satisfy Stalin, especially coming from a country that was almost under complete occupation. From what they already controlled, Soviet forces would no doubt be able to crush what remained of the Finnish Army.
But that would mean time. Time during which a good chunk of the Red Army would be tied up fighting a minor enemy, while the Germans closed on Kiev each day. That front collapsing could spell the end of all the Soviet Union, while letting Finland have it easy was only a relative set-back.
All things considered, there was only one real option.
That was the job of the Main Fleet during the last days of August.
In the night of the 26th it detected lights from a small German fleet, composed of a small cruiser and several destroyers. From the size and composition of this fleet, they were probably hunting for Soviet submarines.
Either way, night-time target practise never hurts.
The following day, another Kriegsmarine force is found, intriguingly enough composed of only one outdated Battleship. It's surface escort was promptly sunk, and the Schleisen itself so badly damaged it must have been scuttled. Either way, it likely won't see combat ever again.
The Schleisen, photo taken before the war
The following weeks passed without the support carriers detecting any enemy activity, so Admiral Kuznetsov deemed it safe to join up with the 17th Fleet in, as per Army request, to suppress a recent German influx of defenders to Köenigsberg.
Under the fire of 6 battleships, the Wehrmacht suffered considerable casualties.
Soon enough the Red Army had regained complete control over the region.
Of course, it wasn't only in the Baltic that the Navy was preforming repetitive support actions. In the Black Sea the task of transferring troops out of Romania, boring as it was for sailors, was probably the single most important job of the moment in the USSR. The tragedy it would be to lose so many divisions was only magnified by how bad those same divisions were needed in the Ukraine.
But both Fleets would see their steady, "dull" efforts rewarded soon enough.
As the first evacuees from the pocket marched out of the Crimea, they joined with divisions of fresh recruits arrived by train, and perhaps even better, with the Naval Infantry and their confidence inspiring black uniforms. Together, these men expelled the Germans from Balta - at least for the time being.
The good news from the Baltic came in the same uniform. With Fleet and Army support, the Soviet Marines launched a successful land offensive against the last major harbour of Finland.
With all of their major population and industry centres occupied by Soviet troops, and unable to use the Baltic to get support from their German allies, the Finnish government really had no choice.
Unfortunately for Soviet Pride, the truth is, choices weren't abundant in Moscow either.
Finland was offering a lot less than would normally satisfy Stalin, especially coming from a country that was almost under complete occupation. From what they already controlled, Soviet forces would no doubt be able to crush what remained of the Finnish Army.
But that would mean time. Time during which a good chunk of the Red Army would be tied up fighting a minor enemy, while the Germans closed on Kiev each day. That front collapsing could spell the end of all the Soviet Union, while letting Finland have it easy was only a relative set-back.
All things considered, there was only one real option.
Curse those Finns and their trechery! They got Stalin good! Still... peace treaties always expire at some point...
Ah good, that piece of garbage (Schleisen) is gone. Sorry that the Finns didn't knuckle under sooner. Oh well. their treachery will not be forgotten I hope.
Peace with Finland releases more resources to war against Germans and those marines who were tied in Finland can now liberate harbours on the southern coast of the Baltic Sea for the Soviet Navy.
I suspect Finland has probably only brought time, that's an armistice not a peace deal. Stalin is not well known for his tolerance and forgiving nature.
So a white peace or something? You got Viipuri, Sortavala and Petsamo? Well, historically it went kinda this in -44. With enough resources the Soviets could have crushed Finland, but they needed their troops for the Race to Berlin. But don't even think about breaking that peace, the Finns won't go down without a fight!
Hm, guys, HoI2 doesn't exactly have a lot of negotiating space for the end of the Continuation War...
But yeah, I assumed the audience knew too much. That actualy is one of the writing lessons from the solAARium...o
But yeah, I assumed the audience knew too much. That actualy is one of the writing lessons from the solAARium...
o
The Finnish reactionaries have only postponed the eventual meeting with a back yard wall and 12 rifles.
Engine Design Assistant Oleg Peskow couldn't complain about his luck. One of the few survivors from the Murmansk, he had been lauded as the main responsible for keeping the near-destroyed cruiser's engine working long enough for an escape.
This, in turn, led to a invitation to help design the engines for the new Heavy Cruisers being developed in the Leningrad offices of the Fleet. It was the kind of invitation he couldn't really refuse, of course, but he wouldn't want to anyway. Even if his presence there was more of a Propaganda stunt than anything else, it beat sitting in Arkhangelsk repairing a light cruiser that would probably not sail again, for fear of another Bismarck encounter.
Oleg also got to know news before (and sometimes unlike) everyone else.
He remembered the day the Armistice was declared, and Finland retreated from Murmansk and offered Petsamo. At the time he worried a bit about how his sleeping quarters might have been treated by the Finns, only to smile when he realised how much better his current accommodations in Leningrad were.
Shortly after, the first posters and articles about the Fleet "guarding the flanks of the front" started appearing. Oleg couldn't really say they weren't true.
Not that all early news were good. Speeding your relaxation times around the people who best knew how the situation in Romania was evolving made for some grim moments... As soon as the 15th everyone sensed probably no more troops would be leaving the area, but they couldn't say it out loud.
It was only in the 18th that it was made clear, when the two divisions trying to load into the Fleet transports were forced to retreat to Bucharest. The 18th Fleet quickly sailed away from the Harbour, before the fascists took complete control of the city, and that was the end of it.
As soon as they joined with the Main Black Sea Fleet, a small flotilla of German submarines tried to attack the transports, thinking they were filled with troops. They couldn't have gotten there without Turkish collaboration, and that made everyone in the Offices very angry.
The trapped troops held out for over a week in Bucharest, but were eventually crushed. It was a major blow for Soviet morale, but also a boost to the will to fight.
A will that soon translated into action, when the Red Army announced it was "a river away" from Warsaw...
And even more so when the first transfers from Finland arrived in Kiev, just in time to drive the Germans back from the outskirts of the city.
The Baltic Naval Infantry had remained in Leningrad, however, where a great reception was held for them, which Oleg managed to attend. That Commissar Kuznetsov managed to hold these 3 elite divisions away from the front in such a dire moment, was a clear display of the autonomy of action the Fleet had gained by it's successes.
An autonomy that was, no doubt, needed. The World would still call upon the Navy to tackle many challenges, from protecting the merchant marine sending oil and supplies to a Britain suffering under aggressive U-boats...
...to keeping it's secrets free from the spies of the Royal Navy.
Either way, and despite all of this, all of the good and the bad things, there was, at this moment, something even more important to Oleg Peskow: getting home, because quite frankly, it was freezing already!
This, in turn, led to a invitation to help design the engines for the new Heavy Cruisers being developed in the Leningrad offices of the Fleet. It was the kind of invitation he couldn't really refuse, of course, but he wouldn't want to anyway. Even if his presence there was more of a Propaganda stunt than anything else, it beat sitting in Arkhangelsk repairing a light cruiser that would probably not sail again, for fear of another Bismarck encounter.
Oleg also got to know news before (and sometimes unlike) everyone else.
He remembered the day the Armistice was declared, and Finland retreated from Murmansk and offered Petsamo. At the time he worried a bit about how his sleeping quarters might have been treated by the Finns, only to smile when he realised how much better his current accommodations in Leningrad were.
Shortly after, the first posters and articles about the Fleet "guarding the flanks of the front" started appearing. Oleg couldn't really say they weren't true.
Not that all early news were good. Speeding your relaxation times around the people who best knew how the situation in Romania was evolving made for some grim moments... As soon as the 15th everyone sensed probably no more troops would be leaving the area, but they couldn't say it out loud.
It was only in the 18th that it was made clear, when the two divisions trying to load into the Fleet transports were forced to retreat to Bucharest. The 18th Fleet quickly sailed away from the Harbour, before the fascists took complete control of the city, and that was the end of it.
As soon as they joined with the Main Black Sea Fleet, a small flotilla of German submarines tried to attack the transports, thinking they were filled with troops. They couldn't have gotten there without Turkish collaboration, and that made everyone in the Offices very angry.
The trapped troops held out for over a week in Bucharest, but were eventually crushed. It was a major blow for Soviet morale, but also a boost to the will to fight.
A will that soon translated into action, when the Red Army announced it was "a river away" from Warsaw...
And even more so when the first transfers from Finland arrived in Kiev, just in time to drive the Germans back from the outskirts of the city.
The Baltic Naval Infantry had remained in Leningrad, however, where a great reception was held for them, which Oleg managed to attend. That Commissar Kuznetsov managed to hold these 3 elite divisions away from the front in such a dire moment, was a clear display of the autonomy of action the Fleet had gained by it's successes.
An autonomy that was, no doubt, needed. The World would still call upon the Navy to tackle many challenges, from protecting the merchant marine sending oil and supplies to a Britain suffering under aggressive U-boats...
Either way, and despite all of this, all of the good and the bad things, there was, at this moment, something even more important to Oleg Peskow: getting home, because quite frankly, it was freezing already!
Ouch, painful loss of those men.... Still victory shall soon be yours with Warsaw in your hands.
looks like you're doing quite nicely in europe, overall. romanian disaster notwithstanding.