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So they appointed Winston...
That's bad, because that'll force you to invade the UK so that you can have peace in the West.

It's always thrilling to see that in HPP, the AI as well as the player seem to require a lot more time to complete the Blitz into France. Belgium is rather strong in the mod.
 
Those pesky British invasions I was talking about. I see yours is as bad as mine. I hope you can handle it better then I did because they forced me to divert a large part of my forces invading Belgium :mad:
 
Thanks for the comments guys. With my fleet the size it is and my transport fleet in the making, i think i will end up having to fight some sort of Battle of Britain before making a landing. Should be fun!

At any rate it might be a while before i can produce an update since i have uni stuff to finish off for the end of year.
 
Two months in Holland

The second week of June, the fourth week of our attacks, saw things go from bad to worse. The second attempt to take Brussels failed and further attacks across Belgium and France bogged down. The British beachhead posed a major strategic problem and the staff of OBWest came to only one conclusion: the attack west would have to be called off. The men would dig in where they stood and as many troops as possible would be concentrated to deal with the British beachhead. Having forced back our troops from Alkmaar, the British front extended from Haarlem, in the south, to Den Helder, in the north. The lodgement was thin, but it was wide. In the space of only a few days the British had doubled their strength to 14 divisions and by mid-June had landed 21 divisions.

By the third week of June, enough forces had been gathered to launch a sustained attack on the British beachhead. The plan was to strike from the south and attempt to roll up the entire front. After several days of fighting, Third Army routed the British southern wing and follow-up attacks forced the British further back, seizing Alkmaar after several more days of bloody fighting. By this stage, French attacks on our positions just inside France had escalated. The increase in fighting in the Netherlands, and the heavy losses already suffered during the campaign resulted in the decision to scrap the construction of the battle cruisers. The workmen would be reassigned to armament factories producing replacement rifles, and other needed replacement war material, while the would-be sailors would be transferred to the infantry to be retrained.

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The British lodgement​

On 21 June, the attack on Den Helder ground to a halt due to the strong British defence. In Holland, the fighting had so far been bloody and any assault was costly. A British attack north managed to drive out the tiny force picketing their northern line although further advances were halted by the timely arrival of German reinforcements. Around Lille, the situation was rapidly deteriorating. The panzergrenadiers were unable to fend off the French onslaught. It was clear to all if Lillie fell, Calais, St Omer and Hazerbrouck would also have to be abandoned as the Panzer Army flank would be exposed. No reinforcements were available as the entire line, back into Belgium, was stretched thin. The panzers were ordered to hold their position, but it was well known that this was only a delaying action.

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The Frontline in France​

Three days later, the French assaults were finally too much to bare for the panzergrenadiers. The French pushed the panzer divisions out of Lille, retaking the city. Elsewhere, however, the French attacks along the rest of the line had been repulsed. But with Lille lost, the order was given for all forces to pull back. As the withdrawal commenced, the order for 2nd and 4th Corps to transfer from Poland to the west was given. This left only three infantry divisions (and several static divisions) holding the eastern front, with the infantry divisions guarding various ports.

During the dying days of the month, the scratch force north of the British line put in a sustained effort and managed to push the British back. The fighting was brutal leaving a divisions worth of troops dead on the now battle scarred fields of the Netherlands. With this victory, the troops were given a brief respite.

Early July saw reorganisation across the front. Infantry started to relieve the panzer divisions, who were pulled back into reserve; a process that would take until 10 July to complete. In The Netherlands, Tenth Army took control of all forces north of the British pocket (9 infantry, 3 paratrooper, 2 panzer, and a single static division) while a temporary army group command took control of all forces to the south (17 divisions in total). The Royal Navy had been shipping in a constant flow of reinforcements to the besieged British resulting in their strength growing to 15 infantry, 1 cavalry, and 12 static divisions. Although, due to the crowded nature of their bridgehead, the British were unable to fully utilise this sizeable force.

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Infantry move through a battered village during the attack on the British positions.​

On 3 July, the southern army group launched a corps size attack against this overwhelming force. The initial 24 hours saw the outer British defensive positions overrun. With this success further troops were committed to the assault, and Tenth Army launched a renewed assault from the north.

While the fighting raged in Holland, in Belgium and France the front was quiet. Patrols from either side avoided one another, and the daily mortaring of both lines resulted in no actual losses. While the infantry entrenched themselves west of Brussels, to the east a plan of attack was being produced to capture Turnhout. The capture of this region would straighten out the frontline reducing the frontage our forces would have to hold. Intel estimated the area was home to at least four divisions, and several support brigades. In the few hours of darkness on the morning of 19 July, after several delays, the attack was launched. The artillery roared to life, illuminating the black sky, as the infantry moved forward from several directions. Outlaying French positions were quickly taken, but the battle would rage on.

On 21st July, Tenth Army cracked the northern British line. British soldiers streamed south into Den Helder. It was estimated that the British force consisted of some 270,000 men, now trapped and surrounded. The infantry of Tenth Army consolidated their new positions, but needed to stop to rest and reorganise before joining in on the final attack.

The final days of July would show themselves to be busy and bloody days. On the 24th, after five days of fighting, the French retreated from Turnhout. Their stubborn defence of their positions, had led to the literal decimation – in battle - of the force that had been the garrison on this sector of the front. As our forces moved forward to dig in on the newly captured ground, a French counterattack was launched that would take the remainder of the month to fight off. On 28 July, with the British beachhead still holding out but with the end in sight, the French conducted their own landing in Holland. Seven French divisions stormed ashore across open beaches to the west of Amsterdam. Several nearby divisions were ordered to intervene alongside Dutch forces. However, the main response to this obnoxious landing was the order for the Panzer Army to swoop down and drive the French into the sea and crush those who did not retreat.

anglofrenchbeachhead.jpg

The Anglo-French beachhead​
 
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I wish you would update more often! I myself am enjoying this AAR :)
 
German National Newspaper, 11 August 1940

Allied beachheads destroyed!
German soldiers triumphant.

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British prisoners file forward, in Den Helder.​

Early this morning Field Marshal von Rundstedt, commander of OBWest and directing operations against our French aggressors, issued a press release announcing the destruction of the Allied beachheads. The fighting in the Netherlands is now over, and our forces can now be concentrated to defeat the belligerent French.

Yesterday, at midday, after two and half months of heavy fighting, von Rundsteadt and von Manstein met with the British General Alan Cunningham. They agreed to a ceasefire and the surrender of the British force. Up until that point, it has been revealed, our estimates for the size of the British force in their beachhead was in the region of 250,000 men. By nightfall last night 357,562 British soldiers had walked into captivity.

Our reporters, attached with the frontline troops who broke through the final British positions, have suggested that the British force was so large that they could not be employed effectively. Many thousands of British soldiers were found idle in and around Den Helder not in any combat related duties and that their morale was completely shattered.

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Captured French weapons​

Several hours later, and some miles to the west, the French also surrendered. Under attack from every direction by our panzer forces, the French were unable to mount a successful resistance. One panzer commander commented that "if this is the best the French have thrown at us, we will be in Paris in no time". 36,388 French soldiers were captured before nightfall, bringing the total number of allied soldiers captured on 10 August to nearly 400,000 men.
 
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A complete rout of the Tommies....with the Frenchies thrown in for good measure....Nicely done. Now on to Paris so Adolf can go take his tour of the City..................
 
Battle of Hasselt Wood (28 August-20 September)

Following the collapse of the Anglo-French bridgeheads the various armies started to reorganise. Tenth Army, still more of a reserve formation than anything due to the limited troops assigned to it, was given the role of guarding the Dutch coast. The remaining troops, and the Panzer Army, were slowly moving into positions facing Hasselt. In order to straighten the frontline, the Belgian force in this sector would be forced out, and thus further troops would be freed up to renew attacks west.

frontlineHasseltWood.jpg

The Frontline.​

While the troops redeployed, reports from Amsterdam suggested the puppet Dutch regime could be close to collapse. While the British and French had been forced out of their country, the Dutch colonial empire was under attack from British Imperial forces. All things outside of the scope of interest of the Reich, although it was decided to keep the airborne corps based in Amsterdam for the time being just in case the Dutch decided to oppose our indirect-rule. As a possible sign of this dissatisfaction, several hundred Dutch soldiers mutinied but were quickly dealt with by loyalist forces.

On 28 August, the redeployment of forces had essentially been completed. As dawn approached the guns once more opened up to blast open the frontline positions for our infantry assault. Three Belgian infantry and two cavalry divisions held this sector. It was expected the three pronged attack, including several panzer divisions, would quickly see off the Belgian force and destroy the cavalry divisions. The Belgians were, however, entrenched in-depth and behind several rivers, which would make all assaults costly.

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A routed frontline Belgian position, during the opening stages of the battle.​

The weather took a turn for the worse as a massive storm system broke over most of Europe. For days rain poured over the battlefield. The firm solid soil of summer gave way to soggy mud and swelling rivers. The inclusion of the panzers made little difference, leaving the battle to be fought akin to the Great War. Divisions from three armies were rotated in and out of the battle in an attempt to keep the attacking force fresh, and not let up on the besieged Belgians.

What had started out as a small attack expected to quickly brush the Belgians aside and straighten the line, had expanded into a major battle. Intelligence reports highlighted French divisions moving from one sector of the front towards Hasselt, in response small scale attacks were launched all along the line to intercept and halt these reinforcements from arriving at the main battlefield. In doing so, it was discovered the position west of Hasselt was weakly held and would be a good place for the Panzer Army to attack.

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A French tank, and its crew, are captured during the initial assault.​

A mishandling of the panzer attack and French reinforcements soon halted any exploitation that could cut off the Belgians. The Belgian troops were steady and holding their own, although rapidly losing ground. Victory seemed in sight. However, French troops arrived relieving the Belgians and counterattacked retaking the ground painfully gained by our troops. On 20 September, the battle was called off, as were the supporting attacks along the front. On the main battlefield nearly 25,000 soldiers had been lost, while Belgian losses had been not even half that.

With winter fast approaching, and the expectation that conditions would worsen with the weather and thus increase casualties, it was decided on one final gambit to win the war on the Western Front.
 
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the western campaign takes quite a lot.
Playing hard with custom bonuses? or just the vanilla static modifiers.
Enjoyable AAR so far , can't wait to see your plan for the russians.
 
Hi,

I started with a fresh install of with the motherland, and installed the The Historical Plausibility Project. Thats it, nothing else. Those Belgian riverlines are a right pain in the ass lol
 
Yeah, VetMax went a little overboard with the BeNeLux rivers for the CMP. It was toned down a bit in the CMP version submitted to PI for the 3.06 patch, but some of the rivers made it back in and are causing gameplay problems. Since the HPP has used the CMP map since sometime last year, it has that gameplay problem too. Of course, the Belgian army starts off with its 1940 OOB rather than the 1936 in the version you see here, because we weren't able to find accurate data from 1936 (everyone seems to care about the 1940 one and 1914 OOB; imagine that :)). It'll get toned down in the next release of the mod, but for now it means enigmamcmxc is going to have a harder time beating the West than he'd otherwise expect.

I'm curious, why did you puppet the Netherlands? They don't have much of an army or navy and their colonies are easy prey for the UK and France. Was it to make sure they don't go into exile?
 
My thought process had been if i made Belgian and the Netherlands, they would look after their coastline. That thought process kinda failed :D This being my first game back to HOI3 in quite some time, i have made quite a number of mistakes lol
 
Operation Moltke (11 October - 1 November)

Twenty-Six years ago, Field Marshal Moltke led the German army across France aiming for Paris to end the war on the Western Front before it could really begin. With a similar goal in mind, this last chance operation to end the war on the Western Front, before winter, would bear his name.

During the final days of September, a conference was held to establish how the army would breakthrough the well-entrenched French positions and achieve victory. After much consultation, a plan was worked out. The bombers would be moved to forward airfields, and commence softening up operations against the twenty French divisions known to be holding the frontier. Meanwhile half a million men and 5,000 tanks would assemble in the region around Dunkirk.

OperationMoltke.jpg

Green Sector: held by Fourth Army. Orange Sector: held by Eighth Army. Yellow Sector: held by First Army. Blue sector: held by the strategic reserve of 2nd and 4th Corps. Most of the frontline is supported by numerous static divisons nominally under the command of Second Army, and originally charged with holding the German border.
The thurst lines for Operation Moltke are also shown​

The battleplan decided upon, called for Third and Fourth Army to assault four sectors of the frontline and achieve a breakthrough. Following the breakthrough, the Panzer Army and SS Panzer Corps would exploit the openings and race for Paris. Since the Luftwaffe had already wrestled control of the air away from the Anglo-French (shooting down over 1,000 aircraft during the opening weeks of the Battle of France), as the armoured forces neared Paris the Airborne Corps would be dropped directly on the city to help facilitate its rapid capture. Seventh and Ninth Armies would follow in the panzer’s wake, clearing pockets, guarding the flanks, and aiding in any other way. All available forces would then help capture the city of Lille. In order to divert Allied attention, First and Eighth Armies, along with the strategic reserve, would launch diversionary attacks along the entire front in Belgium.

On 11 October 1940, after days of softening up bombing raids, the massed artillery of Third and Fourth armies opened fire. The infantry of both armies surged forward hitting the French frontier forces from Calais to Lille. From Lille to Luxembourg, the entire skyline was also lit up by our artillery as the supporting attacks were launched. The entire front moved as one, as hundreds of thousands of men struck allied positions.

After four days of intense fighting along the main sector of the front, correct operational use of our forces saw a breakthrough achieved north of Lille. Hours later, the French troops holding Calais routed and started to flee west. The tanks were ordered forward, with a small fraction ordered to breakoff and help crack the bastion of French troops holding St Omer.

breakthrough.jpg

On the 16th, massed Panzer forces collided with a lone French armoured division in the Battle of Calais-Boulogne. The French were able to, temporarily, hold up our forces, but were mauled in the process. By the 20th, the French were in retreat, and the advance was once more on. At this stage the airborne drop was considered, yet the paratroopers were not ready.

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A captured French photograph showing the French armoured forces near Boulogne

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The frontline on 20 October: the planned advance routes of several of the panzer divisions can be seen. The capture of bridgeheads over the Seine was an absolute priority.​

Within 48 hours, bridgeheads had been established across the River Seine and our troops were now around only 80 miles from the French capital. By the evening of the 25th, panzer divisions had reached the outskirts. The Airborne forces, now ready, boarded their transports and the order was given to capture Paris.

invasionoffrancepics.jpg

Elements of the Seventh and Ninth armies move forward in support, in places passing devestated areas of the old frontline.​

The next day, after 15 days of fighting, Lille fell to our forces. At midday, the panzer divisions - with no time to await the paratroopers - launched their attack on Paris. The next day, 30,000 parachutes descended over the skies of Paris by a swarm of transport planes. For three days, panzergrenadiers attempted to push back the tiny city garrison, while the paratroopers, in small groups, attempted to stall the flood of reinforcements. By 1 November, the paratroopers had fallen back – linking up with the panzergrenadiers – and evacuated the city. The brief window to capture Paris, without much of a fight, had passed. Over 134,000 French troops had now taken up positions in the northern, devastated, suburbs of the city. The late arrival of the paratroopers had resulted in a major setback.

Operation Moltke had brought about the decisive breakthrough needed, and had nearly brought victory with it, but in the end had failed on the doorstep of Paris. An ironic end, mirroring the events of 1914. One-fifth of all casualties thus far suffered on the Western Front, had been received during the breakthrough and the drive on Paris – the main attack – of this less than month long operation.

While the first attempt to take Paris had failed, the fight to encircle the city now began. Further operations were launched to tie down French troops in Belgium. Of note, Hasselt woods fell on 6 November for the loss of only 1,000 men. On 10 November, Italy joined the Axis, and the next day started the mobilisation of her forces.

11Nov.jpg

The frontline on 11 November: the Second Siege of Paris underway.​
 
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Squeesed through, and lost out on the big finish by the slimest of margins :( Only one battle left to fight it would seem. If i cant push the French troops back north of Paris, i can at least attempt a three pronged attack on the city - after i moved up enough forces to launch spoiling attacks all around.

If am lucky, it will all be over my christmas! Ha! i might even be saved by the Italians!

Seems i have made so many mistakes and had such bad luck during this game, i cant see the invasion of the Soviet Union (my first in HOI3, i tried once before as the UK but lost my save game) making progress, nevermind being a success.
 
Great read. Epic struggle against the western allies, can't wait to see you match wits against the red army. Good luck
 
Luxemburg is currently at peace, the original plan had been to fully occupy it once the Western Front had been finished off. That is still the goal.

I declared a limtied war on Belgium with the objective of installing a puppet government, after all the fighting am regretting that. I think i will see if i can change that to complete occupation before the front closes.

With the Netherlands, the option has appeared to annex (i think, i will have to have another look since its the first time i have played FTM and HPP) them. So once the fighting is over, am going to see about installing complete German control there.