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To Save the Fatherland (1944-?)

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Exterous

Exterous

Glaring at the HOI3 icon
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Jan 11, 2003
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To Save the Fatherland​


June 20th 1944

Hitler was sitting in his bunker in Berlin thinking about issuing his newest orders to the Wehrmacht. He looked down at his draft of his latest 'stand-and-die' orders when there was a creak of his door opening. He looked up, then did a double take at his uninvited guest.

"Was??!!" His exclamation was followed by two quick shots fired from a silenced revolver.

His replacement walked over to the body and two accomplices followed him inside the room and grabbed the body. They manhandled it into a black bag and carried it outside. They knew the guards, at the sight of the black bag would look in, see everything was ok for their Furher and then ignore the bag as yet another unfortunate soul who had dis-pleased Hitler was carried away.

The man sat down calmly behind his new desk, glanced at the now blood stained orders. His mouth curled into a snarl and he crumpled up the orders. The man who was identical to Hitler in every physical aspect had a lot of work to do…….

My goals in this 1944 scenario are two fold and are the foundation of Exterous' Two Fold Plan to HOI2 Vicotry™ (or ETFPH2V™)
1) Survive
2) Win

Now that we have taken care of all necessary strategic planning and execution its time to move on to screen shots of the victory screen……what? You want to know how I will win this scenario? Its obvious - just look at my simple two step plan. Don't believe me? Fine - I will go into the nitty gritty details for you:

HOI2 DD 1.2v
Hard/Aggressive
Germany
Rules: No military control. Fog of war on. No cheating and all attempts will be made to avoid 'gamey' exploits, except for 'acceptall'. <- This will be a quick game.

What do you mean that’s too gamey? *sigh* Fine, for you whiners out there 'No cheating!'

All joking aside, this shall no doubt prove to be a challenge. Why not on 'Very Hard'? I'm a little rusty on my HOI skillz and I don't want to start an AAR that will end up with me losing. I rather prefer it end with people praising my skill and wishing they could be more like me. Why not on 'Very Aggressive'? In HOI2 that would actually hurt the AI as it was reckless. Would it be in this situation? I don't know but its better to avoid it (not that it has anything to do with it maybe making this a tad bit easier on me)

First things first:
My fighters and interceptors will be transferred to Europe. ALL of them. I can't beat the Allies everywhere - my hope is for a stalemate in Europe.
Next- my bomber and CAS force will be disbanded. With out my fighters they will be useless on the Eastern front. The allies have too many fighters and are too closely packed for much use on the Western front or Italy. Besides, they use oil and that’s bad.
Submarines-gone. All of them. In the original HOI2 it was next to impossible to starve the UK due to its home island production of resources. Maybe this is still the case, maybe not, but the chances of me achieving this in the '44 scenario are slim. Besides, not only do they use oil, but if I ever want to invade the UK, I ain't gonna do it with Subs.

Immediate Strategy:
Land:
1) Get rid of the Allies in France first
2) When attacked by superior numbers of Russians, my forces will fall back - immediately! None of this 'no retreat' stuff. I am prepared to fall back to the pre-war lines - but hope to avoid this.
All retreats and restructuring of my lines will be made with one goal in mind - My front will have the fewest number of provinces as possible and the Russians have the most possible. Attacking will be very limited as this reduces the 'dug-in' bonus (which also keeps me safe from their airforce)
Air:
1) As mentioned before, I will only fight over Europe in the air. This will help me rid myself of the allied forces there by way of (hopefully) protecting my ground forces from constant air attack.
Naval:
1) At this juncture, convoy raiding will have little effect, so my remaining surface ships will move to Danzig and hole up there. Fighting the Russian navy there is ok, but the Atlantic is off limits. Besides, the more you are at sea, the more oil you use.
 
I hope you have a good game, whether you lose or win in the end.
 
Make sure to include plenty of screenshots! That's what made the other two great.
 
Heh, I was wondering if anyone was around that remembered my old ones.

I do indeed hope this AAR will be sweet. Gives me something to do during work :D (<- your tax dollars at work for you Americans out there)

lifeless- the only forts I plan to construct are in Hammerfest. I can't hunker down forever - besides, thats not my style. I am much to headstrong and stubborn for that

I enjoy playing the underdog and I hope my skills are up to the task. And what is this 'win or lose" stuff? Are you implying that I would lose? That is defeatest stuff mister and will not be tolerated! :D

There will be alot of screenshots but maybe not quite as many as in the past

Yes....there are no fake Hitlers here
shoot, his mustache fell off. GET THE GLUE!
...
..
.
 
By the end of the first day, all indications were that this was going to be a very difficult task.

screensave4zb6.png


The Soviets had already forced a retreat from several provinces. The decision was made to abandon Estonia and dig in behind the Jelgava-Orsha province line and to use the river as an additional barrier. It would shorten the front line as well.

screensave5ig3.png


The Brits and Amies also managed to force a retreat from Florence. This area was key as there were no reinforcements available if the Allies broke out of Italy. A counter attack was quickly ordered. Florence was retaken and several hundred planes were caught on the ground trying to utilize the new forward airbase. Reinforcements from Genoa and Venice helped hold the line.

In France, a small garrison was left in Southern France to stall the inevitable Allied landing there - the rest of the troops were rushed north. The under strength units here were prioritized for reinforcements to deal with the Allied invasion. The three tank units in Essen will be particularly useful once they get above strength 3.

Despite fresh German troops, the Allies with more units managed to drive the Axis back to Cholet in the west, but Le Harve and Paris remained in German hands.
 
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Hmmm, photobucket seems to have changed since my last AAR. Any recommendations on a site that does not autoresize images?

EDIT: Image shack seems to be working well for now
 
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Thanks for the luck gilf!

lifeless said:
not looking good....what are you building?
Click to expand...

Hey, its only been one day :p

My quere consists of:
Two paralell runs of 3 Me-263 fighters
Three parallel runs of 3 Panther tanks
Three parallel runs of 3 Mech-3 divisions
Three parallel runs of 3 Hummel SP-A
Two parallel runs of 2 Panther tanks

I don't always have ICs for the entire quere (depending on my reinforcement and upgrade load)
 
Two paralell runs of 3 Me-263 fighters
Three parallel runs of 3 Panther tanks
Three parallel runs of 3 Mech-3 divisions
Three parallel runs of 3 Hummel SP-A
Two parallel runs of 2 Panther tanks
Click to expand...
uhh.. Don't you think that in very near future you might start running just a little SHORT OF OIL!!!!
 
Good luck with this!
 
By early July, the strategy of limited attacks along the Russian front was shown to be a very very bad idea. The Russians were advancing too quickly and had managed to secure not only Lvov but Kowell as well. Both provinces were considered vital to any German deployment in Byelorussia. All German forces were instructed to attack any newly arrived Soviet forces in a new province to try to keep them off balance. Despite these attacks, only Lvov and Kowell would be reoccupied. Otherwise, once the Soviets were defeated, German forces would return to pre-attack lines.

screensave8yp6.png


The Soviets, perhaps sensing how vital the Lvov-Kowell area was to the German war plans, devoted ever greater forces to that area. Both sides suffered heavy losses in this back and forth battle. It did allow limited actions on the Romanian front and securing of Beltsy, which in turn allowed the safe fortification of Chisinov (sp).

On July 8th, German Whermact forces in France managed to cut off two armored divisions and General Omar Bradley's Headquarters Unit in Le Mans. His unit had advanced a little too quickly and the main German army managed to cut in behind him in Argentan. The German forces in Angers were forced to retreat but not before the pocket was reduced, making prisoners of the three trapped Allied divisions. Somehow, despite local air superiority and being completely surrounded - General Omar Bradely and ONLY Bradley escaped. As a result of the savage fighting both sides with limited combat ability north of Cholet and Tours.

screensave10jm4.png


Fortunately General Hausser's forces, which included elite Panzer-SS units, had retained much of their organization while mounting harassment attacks from Tours. His forces quickly moved north to take advantage of the situation. Normally it would not have been enough but the Allies had been busy savaging German motorized and infantry units in Argentan and Angers. This, combined with the fresh tank units from Essen (albeit at 37% strength but fully organized - Hey, at this point every tank counts), they managed to drive the allies back on July 18th, trapping over 30 poorly organized Allied units in Caen and Cherbourg. The Allies continued to batter against the bulk of the German forces that had advanced almost to Rennes in a vain attempt to break the pocket.

-Dietrich Lutz shouldered his K98 rifle and walked back to his foxhole. It was warm and humid outside and that only made things worse for Dietrich. He plopped back into his hole and tried to get comfortable. Normally there would be two men per foxhole, but Dietrich's unit had sustained far too many losses for that. He fidgeted for a few minutes and finally found a position that didn't make everything hurt. Just as he was nodding off a lookout shouted "Air raid!"

Dietrich swore. It was next to impossible for him to get any sleep around here. Besides, its not like he could do anything about the Allied aircraft, except curse their very existence.

Soon he saw the black puffs of his units AA guns. He knew they would do little to starve off the enemy planes. Then he heard engine noise. Judging by the sound they would be low flying fighter bombers.

The first bombs exploded and Dietrich hunkered lower in his foxhole. Then he head more aircraft overhead. The engines sounded different, more guttural. As there seemed to be less explosions, Dietrich risked a peep over his foxhole.

What he saw amazed him. A large flight of German fighters swarmed overhead. Within the span of 30 seconds Dietrich saw no less than five enemy bombers explode into flame. Dietrich though to scream in vengeance at the bombers who harassment had interrupted his sleep, but he was too tired. Instead he hunkered back down to sleep, happy that the bombers would not be back for a bit. That’s was when the Allied artillery started to land……


Meanwhile, the French and British landed in Bordeaux with 2 divisions. Another 3 soon followed. With the Allies pocketed in the north, several severely under strength units were given orders to march south and attempt to delay the Allies as the German High Command refused to have their attention diverted from Normandy. The Allies were pushed back to Cherbourg

screensave11eu7.png


By July 23rd, after a furious assault on Cherbourg, the port city fell. The fortresses there had been to badly damaged by the Allied assault there not all that long ago and proved to be little use to them. The Germans, however, found immediate use for the stores of oil that were captured.

The German forces ground inexorably forward, taking Rennes, Nantes and Lorient. They paused only when necessary to re-organize or when the advance faltered in the face of Allied attacks. Here the strategy of re-deploying all the fighters from France paid off as few Allied bombers got through the fighter screen to harass the ground forces. (I have NO doubt that if the Allies bombers had been able to consistently break through my fighters that this would have turned out differently). Many, however, questioned the disbandment of all the ground attack aircraft as that would have made advance easier.
 
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