Who said Nazis can't have nukes? - German Reich TFH HPP AAR

[SKOTy]

5. Polish demise

Hello, I've tried to resist and play at the evening but I couldn't so I've played a bit (first three weeks of the war). Maybe I will play also at the evening.

16th July I've fired Danzig or war, Poles declined which meant only one thing - war has come.

I've immediately declared war on low countries and Denmark according to my Fall Farbige.

Being at war and in faction has some benefits in HPP, they're even larger when your faction has 10 members and more.

First naval clash ended in decisive victory, whole British fleet was sunk.

After three days Denmark found out that they have no chance against Wehrmacht and surrendered. Wise move from them. And I've immediately ordered my infantry corps used in Denmark to deploy in Netherlands.

First naval clash in Mediterranean. French navy retreaded to Nice so I've ordered my CAG to practice port strike on Nice which resulted in sinking every ship of this French fleet.

My fleet composed of older screens and reconstructed battleships (1. Kriegsmarineflottille) encountered British and French fleet with 4 battleships, clearly my old fleet was no match from them but 2. Kriegsmarineflottille was nearby and intercepted in and I've achieved Pyrrhic victory. Most of my old screens were sunk and I've sunk only one light cruiser. However allied fleet was no match for Bismarck and Tirpitz and my naval bombers.

After 5 days of fighting Poland is broken, its armies are shattered into pockets and are encircled. My tanks army led by 'Schneller Heinz' Guderian did excellent job here.

Chasing the escaping Royal Navy fleet after Pyrrhic victory at Norwegian trench brought it results. British pride of the fleet was sunk along with 3 others battleships. My fleet was however badly damaged and was ordered to repair in Hamburg.

Few more provinces and Belgian and Netherlands armies are encircled along with some French divisions.

Soviet Union fulfilled their part of Molotov-Ribbentrop pact and attacked Poland. I am wondering is there a chance that UK AI decides to fight SU?

First and the smallest one of the low countries falls and gets annexed.

Warszava, Polish capital falls and at this moment I need one more victory point to reach 100% war score. Danzig is experiencing some heavy fighting and I am expecting it to fall soon. Aerial reconnaissance showed that Grodno, another Polish victory point, and its surroundings is heavily guarded so I don't want to risk a paradrop here.

Encirclement of low countries is complete I hope that my tanks will hold against attempts to break the encirclement.

Danzig falls last of July and 1st August Poland gets annexed after 2 weeks of fighting. I could have been quicker by day or two if brought more forces to take care of Danzig.

Here it comes first attempts to break the encirclement of low countries. My infantry divisions which were supposed to help tanks hold the encirclement are not yet in all places I wanted them to be. This will be interesting.

Guderian tanks army is rushing towards France to lend aid. With it I will have 25 tank divisions on French front which will hopefully allow me to present you some encirclements.

Encirclement is broken! And what more, this the first battle during war I've lost.

One of my tank divisions get encircled while my tanks are rushing to close the encirclement once again. I would be pity to have part of Netherlands and Belgium army escape.

Encirclement is closed once again and the low country pocket is nearly eliminated. What surprised me is fact that UK launched naval invasion to province that does not have a port. Unfortunately they brought almost entire Royal Navy there so it would be to suicide to engage with Kriegsmarine. With some luck my naval bombers will be able to sink some ships.


In next update we'll see British invasion in Netherlands and my attack on France. With it comes question, would you like more detailed report?

 

[Belgiumruler]

Well, I just want to see Da Bomb

 

[unmerged(329489)]

Great AAR so far! I like that Fall Farbige was so ambitious and well-planned. Do you plan to invade UK or are you going to set a house rule forbidding you to do so?

 

[siempie78]

Thanks for the feedback!

I hope that my forces are large enough, maybe the forces for Poland are way too large but it will hopefully hasten Poland's demise. After Poland falls I will be SR-ing part of army used in Poland (at least one infantry army and 3 tank corps I have there). In ideal World Poland will fall in 2 or 3 weeks and at the same time encirclement of low countries armies would be complete.

I was thinking and another way to deal with Poland would be to simply dig in and let Red army handle Poland as Soviets actually attack Poland in HPP. Maybe I will try that in my next game just for fun and to see the results.

And I've noticed that I've used same image twice in last update so I've fixed that.

My usual strategy is too put a small layer of men at the border with France, two divs thick. That usually keeps them from attacking. Then I waltz over Poland with a humongous army, which I then redeploy west to the Netherlands and Belgium. Always works .

EDIT: Nice blitz there

 

[SKOTy]

Great AAR so far! I like that Fall Farbige was so ambitious and well-planned. Do you plan to invade UK or are you going to set a house rule forbidding you to do so?

Thank you, this was the first time I've started war on three front simultaneously, even I doubt Denmark could be counted as a front,
I feel like I will do Weserübung (Norway) in week or two, I have some units sitting in Poland and doing nothing.
Regarding UK, launching Sea Lion before Barbarossa in vanilla usually provoked Soviet Unions attack (this was coded to prevent exploits in making London largest prison in World and effectively cutting UK armies of supplies), I don't how is this scripted in HPP? SSmith?

My usual strategy is too put a small layer of men at the border with France, two divs thick. That usually keeps them from attacking. Then I waltz over Poland with a humongous army, which I then redeploy west to the Netherlands and Belgium. Always works .

EDIT: Nice blitz there

Attacking Poland with my whole army seems like overkill, they got pretty roflstomped even with half of armies.

 

[SSmith]

Regarding UK, launching Sea Lion before Barbarossa in vanilla usually provoked Soviet Unions attack (this was coded to prevent exploits in making London largest prison in World and effectively cutting UK armies of supplies), I don't how is this scripted in HPP? SSmith?

No, it's not scripted like that in HPP. There are circumstances where the Soviet Union can attack you (certainly if you mess with their sphere of influence) but if you signed the MRP then I think you're probably OK for now.

 

[SKOTy]

No, it's not scripted like that in HPP. There are circumstances where the Soviet Union can attack you (certainly if you mess with their sphere of influence) but if you signed the MRP then I think you're probably OK for now.

Thank you for quick response.

I still do not know whether will I attempt Sea Lion before or after Barbarossa. I don't think I will be able to humiliate Royal Navy enough to let me land on the islands. But we'll see.

 

[SKOTy]

6. Fall of France

In previous update I've managed to conquer Poland, low countries and also Denmark. Now its time to delve into France and march through Paris.

Also I should repel this pathetic attempt of invasion. What surprised me was the fact they didn't landed in a port so they're cut from supplies. My naval bombers managed to sink some ships during landing process (2 transports and one destroyer fleet). Given to number of my forces present in area of landing I consider this attempt suicidal.

The plan is following: quick and decisive breakthrough in Cambrai then rush to outskirts of Paris split forces there and encircle defenders of Lille and surrounding provinces with one half of Guderians tank army and with the other half trap defenders of Maginot line.

I've noticed that coast is left unguarded, I've immediately exploit this (red line). The battle for Cambrai, main breakthrough point, has already begun.

Soviets have come for part of Poland and I've offered them modification of the Pact (historical) but they've refused.

British invasion has been repelled. They've lost 5 divisions here and more than 50,000 troops. Maybe even more as I suppose some troops were on those two sunken transport fleets.

State of battlefield after 5 days from beginning of the operations.

Do my eyes deceive me? Paris is left unguarded, I've expected Paris to be guarded at least with 2 guard divisions so in original plan I was planning to attack Paris after collapsing Maginot line and Lille pocket.

Lille has fallen and whole pocket is closer to collapse.

Paris, capital of France has fallen but it's still far from victory...

After fall of Paris I can't even fire decision to add 'Fall of France' wargoal, this is to fact that France has around 75% national unity in HPP and tanking Paris is simply not enough to gain 100% warscore. Losing capital causes 15% national unity hit.

Encirclements of Frenchmen is nearly complete, Lille pocket has nearly collapsed and you can see my tanks rolling through France and grabbing land as most of defenders are trapped in Maginot line-Arden pocket.

Looks like more target practice for my fleet, French fleet shortly disengaged and fled to Nice. You can guess what followed. Naval bombing which caused whole fleet to sink.

I decide to split Maginot line - Arden pocket into two smaller ones as I need some heavy bombing to take care of defenders of Maginot line. In HPP forts give 10% penalty to attacker per level of fort.

Why are they even trying? Intercepted by my fighters without a chance to inflict some serious damage to German war machine.

Axis has increased, Yugoslavia has accepted my proposal to join Axis, however Spain does not look like joining Axis as their opinion on joining Axis is impossible. If they do not change their minds I am thinking of them as next target. I like Franco more as he joins the Axis.

I am missing 3% of surrender progress so I've ordered my tanks just to rush to nearest victory points.

Maginot line - Arden pocket has been split into two smaller ones and Ardens one is already collapsing.

State of the French front the day their surrender score has reached 100%

After 3 weeks of fighting, France falls.

Looks like I've got a bug to fill. French state does not receive land that is controlled by German Reich. Look at Vichy for example. I guess I will play with console to fix it.
Some Frenchmen refused to lay their weapons and started fighting under British flag, soon I will deal with them but not in scope of this update.



After 6 week long offensive I've managed to conquer Poland, Denmark, low countries and France while fighting all of them simultaneously. I will probably execute another offensive in 1939 but do not except Sea Lion anywhere soon. I do not know where the offensive will take place so I am open to your suggestions who shall I blitz next.

 

[Ikarases]

Interesting, as France (first major I've started playing with?) I use the very same ARM/MOT/SUP (T/M) division composition, despite being able to use 5 brigade divisions and I have about 20 of them, which is the exact count of my INF/INF/INF/INF/SUP (H) divisions. Now I'm just waiting for the Germans to come through BeNeLux and building more HARM brigades than two I already have (in Africa). British gave me quite a lot of divisions, so I guess now the French army consist about from 25% of BEF. I hope I'll be able to hold the Germans off! I guess I got a little carried away though

I like that Frenchmen aren't so nerfed as in vanilla, where paradropping Paris would be enough to make them surrender. Vichy (or rather Toulouse) looks weird thanks to your Panzers

I fully agree with playing around with the console a little, so you can clear the borders up

 

[SKOTy]

7. Some useless stuff

Hello, this update will be mainly about some stats, expect no gameplay here.

My production queue at the moment (2nd August 1939). At the moment I am also spending 90 IC on upgrades and reinforcement and I assume after all units are upgraded and reinforced/repaired I will use this IC for construction of nuclear research lab and rocket test site.
I am also building some radars as I plan to deploy level 5 radar in Brest and Amsterdam.
After some more IC is freed I will use it for construction of some heave cruisers.

I've started nuclear research (1938) tech, next one is 1940 tech which requires level 2 nuclear research lab. By my approximations I should meet these criteria mid 1940.


Here comes the tech screens:

Not much to say here, I am trying to have my infantry up to date.

I've decided to abandon light tank branch and stick only to armor to save on some leadership. I hope that I will have enough IC some day to upgrade my existing LARM to ARM.

I've decided my preferred screen will be heavy cruiser so I didn't bother to research CL tech anymore. I am still researching destroyer tech because apart from engine it affects all ships.

Not much to say here, I try to have these as much up to date as possible.

I am not using any heavy planes except few transport planes so I am not researching heavy bombers techs at all.

This tab is absolute priority number one for me. When any tech becomes available I start to research it (of course not ahead of time).


Quick look at my doctrines:

Here comes the pies:

You meant different pies?
Wow, I haven't thought I have nearly 500 brigades right now - 500 brigades is one of criteria to reach superpower status, other ones are 350 IC, 20 planes and 90 ships. However I have only 40 ships right now so I guess German Reich won't be superpower any soon.

Overview of sunk ships during the war:

By this picture you can clearly see who's winning winning battle for the seas. However my main battleship fleet is still heavily damaged and unable to operate. Even this high number of sunken ships means nothing as it's only fraction of allied navy.


Question: Is there any comfortable way to provide picture of my OOB or do I have to take like 100 screenshots of OOB viewer and then merge them together?

 

[Ikarases]

Question: Is there any comfortable way to provide picture of my OOB or do I have to take like 100 screenshots of OOB viewer and then merge them together?

I'm afraid there isn't any other way than this one. But you don't really need to post an OOB now anyway; it's more interesting for the reader to know what you're going into war with (before Fall Weiss or Fall Gelb) than in some mid-war period (you're not really fighting anyone at the moment).

The only next OOB notifications I'd made (from on now) would be the invasion of UK, SU and US. No-one really expects Spain (be it AI or human) to match your hundreds of divisions

 

[SKOTy]

8. Weserübung
(alias invasion to Norway)

First quick look on Asian front. Look like a stalemate here as I do not observe any significant moves on this front.

I've decided to attack Norway, here's a plan: quick landing with my marines in Oslo, deploy there tanks and run for other important cities.

Battle for Oslo has begun.

Partisans have risen in Middelburg and allies immediately seize the opportunity transporting some Dutch forces there before I manage to suppress the partisans.

Another British invasion backed up with whole Royal Navy. I wish I had more of those naval bombers...

Or maybe it would be enough to have some organization left. Anyway this invasion attempt ends with one UK transport flotilla sunk.

Looks like some Dutch divisions will shatter as no more reinforcements arrived and my concentration of forces is still high in this region as I haven't redeployed my troops from France as 5 divisions are far enough to conquer Norway.

Oslo has fallen after 16 days of amphibious invasions, this looks like complete fail from as I've forgot to paradrop my forces near Oslo to help with assault. Unfortunately I forgot to take screenshot of Norwegian surrender

3rd Kriegsmarineflottille adventures. Its CAGs already destroyed two submarine packs stationed in Malta and now the fleet is searching for other targets. Anchoring near Suez seems logical as the fleet has already met one Royal Navy screen fleet which fled to harbor and was destroyed by port strikes shortly after.

Finally some engagement with some fleet that can match 3rd Kriegsmarineflottille.

I wouldn't call 3rd Kriegsmarineflottille adventures in Mediterranean either success or fail. 3 British screens and 2 submarine packs were destroyed but the fleet was heavily damaged and is redeployed to Genoa for repairs.

Finally some free IC for Wunderwaffen development.

It's time for some action in Africa as I don't want to see usual Italian progress there so I will deal with allies myself there. First step will be taking Malta for it's strategic position. Heavily damaged 3rd Kriegsmarineflottille escorts transports. Looking at this from retrospective it was a bit risky operation.

News from the World: Winter war has begun. I don't know whether to hope for quick or slow Soviet victory as quick victory means less time under war laws for Soviets but slow victory would hopefully drain them.

Malta is conquered by brave German marines. But wait! How can I supply Malta when Mediterranean is sealed? I need to think more before I unpause the game. Maybe I should prepare a cup of hot beverage before every my decision. My troops immediately leave Malta undefended and retreats to Genoa.

No ports in Mediterranean to supply Afrika Korps? No problem, I will just take them. I am already pissed by Spanish government refusing to join the Axis so I present you Unternehmen Parsifal.
First phase is marked by green color. Breakthrough in Pyrenees and then exploit as many Spanish as possible using plains under Pyrenees trap them and destroy them. While tanks will be busy hunting Spanish, infantry and Gebigsjägers will advance into hills and mountains of central Spain.
After defenders will be crushed Unternehmen Parsifal will advance into second phase - tanks will encircle central Spain while infantry will be constantly pushing towards Madrid.
After Madrid falls I am expecting most of Spanish army to be destroyed which will allow me final push to Gibraltar.

Forces ready to be deployed in Spain:

• 10 infantry divisions
• 15 armor divisons
• 3 groups of medium bombers
• 1 groups of light bombers
• 2 groups of light fighters
• 2nd Kriegsmarinflotille consisting of 4 battleships (Bismark, Tirpitz and 2 newly constructed ones)

Did you know that you can't spell Spain without a pain? Hope it won't be pain for German armies.

Aaaand noob question to end: is there easy way to get province ID so I can fix Vichy France?

 

[TheBromgrev]

Aaaand noob question to end: is there easy way to get province ID so I can fix Vichy France?

Type tdbg into the console. I'm surprised you saw that problem though, because I reverted to the old SF Vichy event a few months ago since the FTM-era version wasn't working and caused problems like in your earlier screenshot. The mod's SF version is same as vanilla (aka, the base game's Vichy event came from the HPP), so you shouldn't have seen the weird ownership issue in the first place.

Not sure if attacking Spain is a wise move in the long-term. Yes, it will let you take Gibraltar by land, but it also means you have a longer coastline to protect afterward and the Allies will be able to assist the Spanish via Gibraltar. The Brits are already landing all over the place, so you'll be giving them a larger area they can attack at will. Now, you *could* invade Gibraltar by sea, but that's really risky.

On a related note, if you're trying to take Gibraltar in order to help Italy out, then that's a bad move. Right now, East Africa is cut off from supplies, so if you take Gibraltar then the dumb Italian AI will start sending supply convoys west and around Africa to supply its troops in Ethiopia. This will pretty much ruin Italy's position even more so than usual, since its convoys will be sitting ducks for the RN as they sail around Africa.

That said, this is your AAR. Do whatever you want

 

[jpbfr]

You can write an event which gives Vichy its historical borders, and then trigger it via console. Shouldn't be too hard to write one.

 

[SKOTy]

Not sure if attacking Spain is a wise move in the long-term. Yes, it will let you take Gibraltar by land, but it also means you have a longer coastline to protect afterward and the Allies will be able to assist the Spanish via Gibraltar. The Brits are already landing all over the place, so you'll be giving them a larger area they can attack at will. Now, you *could* invade Gibraltar by sea, but that's really risky.

On a related note, if you're trying to take Gibraltar in order to help Italy out, then that's a bad move. Right now, East Africa is cut off from supplies, so if you take Gibraltar then the dumb Italian AI will start sending supply convoys west and around Africa to supply its troops in Ethiopia. This will pretty much ruin Italy's position even more so than usual, since its convoys will be sitting ducks for the RN as they sail around Africa.

This is exactly why I stopped playing yesterday after I made plans for Unternehmen Parsifal so now time to think.

I need a port in Mediterranean in order to succeed with Afrikakorps, other option would be to take only Gibraltar so Mediterranean would be no longer sealed for my convoys and ships - I would prefer port so my convoy routes are shorter and there's less opportunity for convoy raiding.

As for Italy - Italy is still neutral and will join war with declaring war on Greece in 1940 so that gives me 3 or 4 months for Parsifal and conquering Suez. Other option would be to stop at Gibraltar and let it under Englishmen control but that would mean there will be open backdoor for invasion.

As for possible increase on number of ports - I am expecting no major engagement till Barbarossa so I feel pretty comfortable about repelling other possible invasions.

 

[SSmith]

I think one of the consequences of your rapid victory over the Low Countries and France is that the British most likely didn't have time to send the BEF to the continent. So you should expect the British to keep harassing you. Extending your coastline into Spain will give them more opportunities to be annoying but they might ship their reserves to Gibraltar and let you destroy them.

I have occasionally seen the German AI para-drop Corsica. After admiring their audacity for a moment or two I then remember they are completely cut off from supplies.

 

[SKOTy]

I think I will execute research named 'How annoying can BEF be?'. :happy:
I don't thing these invasions won't be more than a nuisance and at least British will loose (hopefully) their BEF and it's batter to handle BEF now, when I have plenty of time, than during Barbarossa.

I am still planing to execute Barbarossa in 1941 and Sea Lion is also not happening early (at least not in following 6 months) I want to expand somewhere so Spain was only logical option as I am still waiting to Hungarian and Romanian neutrality to drop to join Axis, I don't want to engage in Bulgaria and Greece and I don't want to engage in Sweden during winter. Simply there's no other target and wouldn't it be a boring winter without some offensive?

Also taking a port in Spain will allow my Afrikakorps to be supplied from somewhere. I suppose supply using allied ports can't modded and is hardcoded as it would be in my opinion good addition to HPP.

 

[red_KLG]

You can use the "concede defeat" wargoal (or something equally not bloodthirsty), use Spain to reach Gibraltar and keep it once Spain is defeated. That way you don't get to keep Spain. I am not sure if Spain will join the Allies or what will be the consequences.

Keeping Spain will have negligible benefits and will be a serious PITA once USA joins the war.

 

[SKOTy]

You can use the "concede defeat" wargoal (or something equally not bloodthirsty), use Spain to reach Gibraltar and keep it once Spain is defeated. That way you don't get to keep Spain. I am not sure if Spain will join the Allies or what will be the consequences.

They will IMO join allies. That's another possible option for me but still, I would like to have port inside Mediterranean.

Long thinking awaits me before I am going to play ...

 

[red_KLG]

They will IMO join allies. That's another possible option for me but still, I would like to have port inside Mediterranean.

Long thinking awaits me before I am going to play ...

Then select as a wargoal acquire territory (pick the one in which Seville is located) and after a month another wargoal to be expelled from the Allies (I' ve no idea if HPP covers such options).