A Strange World After All

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Hello all, this is my first time posting here, and this won't be so much an AAR as a quick retelling of the strange events of my fourth 1936 game. This is 1.03 Germany.

I tried to play this one out semi-historically (ie, not totally exploiting on budget) but I still wanted, first and foremost, to win, and quickly.

Early on, I had decided that Germany needed to expand its technology and make friends all over. This was to be a peaceful Reich. Well, at least a little bit.

Following the Anschluss, those Czech lands were looking ripe, and I knew they would open up new doors into Poland, but I didn't want to anger the other democracies. Repeated coup attempts failed, and so for a time I turned my eyes away from the Czechs. A policy of diplomatic encirclement would work better, I thought, and so by 1938 I had successfully allied with Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia, and Bulgaria.

As the fall and winter rolled around, though, the Czechs didn't budge in their stance, and with most of my armor divisions still being assembled in the factories, I decided it was not yet the time for war with the West (or East, either). At the same time, a quick look around showed me that Germany couldn't just stay stagnant. Poland would have to fall first. So, in May 1939, the attack began. With some valuable assistance from my southern allies, Poland fell in just over two weeks, opening up significant new industries for my use. Czechoslavakia finally subsided to a coup, and I'm sure the new loyalist government felt a little betrayed when German armor started rolling into Praha a week later. I never trusted them, anyway. This consolidated central and Eastern Europe under my control, and I was satisfied with this as I bought some time to renovate the Luftwaffe.

I opted to adhere to the Ribbentrop pact, and Soviet units moved in closer to my borders. A quick glance at my intelligence told me the Russian army numbered more than twice my size, and while I was certain I held a significant qualitative advantage, I also felt the French and English would probably be angered soon, and this peaceful Germany did not want a two-front war.

All this time Italy, while a great friend, had consistently declined offers to join the Axis. While I turned my eyes elsewhere to woo Finland and Japan to my side, the first great curiousity occurred. Expeditionary forces began arriving from the Hungarians and Romanians. "But for what war?" I asked. A quick glance south revealed that Italy was driving deep into Yugoslav territory. Friend or not, Italy had attacked an ally of the Reich, and this would not stand. With some apprehension, I stripped the main fronts as bare as I could stand and opened the new Southern Front. After a ferocious clash at the edge of the Alps, the Wehrmacht cracked the bulk of the Italian army and flooded south, fifty divisions strong. Within a few days German air superiority was absolute, and half of the Italian army was cut off in Yugoslav territory. The war was already won, essentially.

But here was my first chance at unchecked expansion into the sizeable Italian holdings in Africa. The Kriegsmarine took a beating at Italian hands, but with the assistance of the wolfpacks were able to annihilate the Italian navy by the time Rome fell. An unexpectedly costly landing action in Tripoli soon resulted the annexation of all Italian lands, and a very satisfying - if unexpected - end to the second phase of the war.

 

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The German people (and their now-extended family) were happy with this, and the war had been concluded without outside interference. The bulk of the army returned to duty on the Western front, while a scant thirty divisions held down the East, staring down the bear as fortresses were hastily constructed. Massive drafts of infantry would be required, but while that was being conducted, Germany could do little else but wait.

Japan still resisted joining the alliance, but it appeared that no one resisted Japan as 1941 dawned. The Japanese empire included all of China and India, Singapore, and all of the mainland Far East. If they would not be our allies, they might at least preoccupy the Americans, who I started to worry about.

Another even more perplexing curiousity occurred in these times. Soviet began demanding military access to German territories. These were categorically denied at first as a trap, but later, as the size of Germany's forces on the Ostfront was doubled, then tripled, I began to feel more comfortable. Similar requests began to arrive from - of all people - the French, and then I realized: The Allies were at war with the Soviet Union. How this came to pass I cannot say, and how the war was conducted was equally a mystery, since I occupied that crucial geography between them. The United States remained uninvolved but had now gone to war with Japan. I agreed to let French troops pass through my territory as I prepared my own war. If much of the French army could be cut off and annihilated within Germany proper, the invasion would pose no problem. But that was still some time away. I wanted to see how this war would play out, first. The result seemed to be at best slugging fest of Great War proportions, or at worst an outright slaughter - some 40 French and English divisions passed east through my lands, and not one ever returned. This was, of course, sadistically pleasing.

In the diplomatic arena, Portugal joined the Axis although Spain still refused, Turkey was couped but subsequent diplomatic efforts largely ignored, and some headway was made with Persia and several South American nations.

In late 1942, the decision was made to complete the annexation of Europe. Unit upgrades and new additions were made across the board with a deadline of April 1943 for the assault to begin.

By April 1943, the French proved no match. The Maginot had not been extended, and a swift assault through Belgium resulted in the total decimation of some forty enemy divisions in little over a week. Control over the air, of course, was never in doubt, and even English bomber attacks halted soon enough. The Royal Navy was noticeably absent and the United States was noticeably apathetic, and everything went as well as it could have. The Wehrmacht concentrated on eliminating large concentrations of Allied units in the field with the secondary objective of taking ground. With a second front opened from the Italian alps, this strategy was completely successful, with few losses. Paris fell in a few weeks, and the Vichy offered to establish a new government. The German people had grown accustomed to swift victories and did not desire a lengthy conflict, and so this offer was accepted. However, apparently the Vichy ministers were assassinated by the French Resistance, because Vichy France never appeared (game bug? maybe because I occupied several Vichy lands, including possibly Vichy itself?). A lengthy conflict was precisely what ensued, albeit a relatively painless one.

A French counter-attack in North Africa caught me unprepared, and they won several victories before being stopped cold at Tobruk. Quick reinforcements eliminated the threat once and for all, but it wouldn't be until the capture of Addis Abbaba nearly a year later that the French would finally end their petty attacks.

 

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Elsewhere in the world, a number of critical events were occuring. The multi-hemisphere Axis alliance seemed to have shut down the British Empire once and for all. The Argentinian navy appeared in numbers in the North Atlantic, accompanied by the Finns, and the Portugese actually mounted a landing against the British Isles before Germany had even begun to consider it. The Soviets had launched several attacks against the British puppet states to their south, and the Yugoslavians had captured the Suez and most of the Nile. Japan still held India, but their days were numbered, I could see. America had re-captured all of the Pacific, several territories in China, and had taken the homeland isles of Kyushu and Shikoku. The Imperial Japanese Navy simply no longer existed, but intelligence told me that the United States boasted over two hundred ships and three hundred air wings. Japan held down what was left of her setting sun with over TWO HUNDRED divisions of infantry, mostly militia. Even so, I doubted the Empire would last long, and was thankful no formal Alliance had been formed. Still, the United States was clearly becoming a serious threat, although I was assured that I outpaced them in most technology sectors.

The joint invasion of England, which Germany never participated in, eventually yielded success, although the British finally set up a stronghold in Manchester which held until the end of the war, I believe.

America still lay across the ocean, but the Soviet Union did not, and I knew that with no Allies for them to fight, the showdown would approach. But on my timetable, not theirs. And that timetable was dependent on one immiment development - atomic weapons. To make a tedious story short, little happened for nearly two years as Germany focused on multidisciplinary research and construction of three entirely new army groups, laden with Tiger tanks and the latest artillery.

With some trepidation, German forces left the cover of the very fortresses they had built years earlier and began the invasion of Russia proper. The German army was the finest in the world, but despite my best efforts, the Red Army still easily maintained three times its size on the ground and in the air. Well over three hundred divisions of Soviet troops, many of them armored, waited for our guns. But German traditional strategic innovation (and moral questionability) couldn't be ignored even in this massive war, and on Day One, the Eastern Front was cracked wide open by four tactical nuclear strikes, which wholly destroyed some eighty divisions of defending forces and opened the door for the whole Axis force to pour right in. The Romanians and Hungarians, remarkably, could be counted on to hold their own against the bear, and drove paths to the south and east. Massive German panzer divisions split then re-formed, encircling huge pockets of Soviets while hundreds of thousands of infantrymen took them on. As each successive pocket was crushed, the armored spearheads carried on towards their objectives. Within four months, the key Soviet cities had been siezed and a new bitter peace was arranged.

With peace restored, the Germans took proper stock of the war. Losses had not been light, and the Luftwaffe had suffered heaviest of all, with many wings utterly destroyed and almost all crippled, at least for the moment. Some snooping revealed that even after such a swift victory, the Soviet army retained well over half its strength (although little of its air support). The Germans were thankful for the end. Confident in the ability of our eastern allies to hold the Urals for a while if need be, and even more confident that Stalin rightfully feared further use of the Fuhrer's super weapon, Germany turned all attention away from Soviet affairs. The troops welcomed the return to warmer climates as the end of 1945 approached.

 

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The villains of Communism had been ruined, but Democracy still ran rampant, do to a single cause - the vast United States. Japan still held its homeland, but all else was lost. There was only one power left in the world that could face the United States, and it would be for the good of all the world's people if that happened sooner rather than later. With this noble intention (well foreseen), the first German excursion to the New World would begin.

Germany had no way to contest with America's naval power, although our vast U-boat packs would certainly give them a fight. The only chance for the enormous transport fleets was to ferry over under stealth and the thin veil of peace. With crossed fingers, the best of the Wehrmacht left their homeland on the way to a new and strange destination. Haiti had been chosen as the base of operations; the sudden and unexpected war lasted less than a single day against both Haiti and the Dominican Republic. A few days later, the Australian Navy put a kink in the plans by a mid-sized transport fleet, but this was a minor hitch.

One month later, the Final War was underway. Fierce opposition was encountered, but as predicted the bulk of the American Navy was in the Pacific and unprepared for the fury of the Reich. U-boats finally managed to clear the way for the landing ships, and Rommel, Guderian, and Model landed their armies up and down the Gulf of Mexico and began moving north quickly. Literally hundreds of American air wings were caught unprepared on the ground and annihilated, helping to ease a serious concern of the war, which was operating with only extremely limited air support.

Meanwhile, the U-boat flotillas moved up to Norfolk to engage the U.S. Atlantic fleet in force. A few battles transpired and were won, with moderate losses, but for the most part it appeared that there simply WAS no Atlantic Fleet. A number of long-range V2 rockets launched from Haiti to engage large formations up the American east coast, but were intercepted and destroyed by U.S. fighters. (game bug?) A sole nuclear-tipped V2 managed to slip through and destroy the American capital and the massed forces there. The fighting through the central plains was fierce and slow, and the Germans operated in constant fear of losing supply, and so as 1947 ended they were satisfied to accept peace, the clear victors of nearly a decade of escalating conflict. German troops would surrender their American holdings, but not far off - an alliance with Mexico had been forged, and it had been proven that Germany had beaten her only true remaining enemy in nuclear research. An enormous axe would dangle over the head of the United States until the next time came to let it swing.

END RESULT:
(approximate - I forget)

Axis : 650 points
Allies : 90 points
Comintern : 110 points

Oh, I also forgot to mention... this was all on Hard/Normal aggressiveness, with Fog of War on.

Anyway. That was waaay longer than I originally intended. But a very interesting sequence of events, no?

 

[Aetius]

Very interesting chain of events... How much of the French Army remained after the Soviet meatgrinder?

 

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great AAR, i look foward to more from you

 

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Oh, thanks. This game has siezed control of my life for the last few days... although I think I've spent as much time lurking here as actually playing. Looking forward to playing some multiplayer soon.

I'll try to add a bit more polish in the future, I was doing most of this from memory.

As for the French... I believe they rebuilt most of their losses by the time I invaded them, and many of the divisions sent into Russia were English, but I'd say they lost about 25-30% attacking. Which is indicative of a very strange and terrible AI flaw, I guess... they would have been facing at least 1:1 odds in any single province of the Soviet border even IF all of the troops I saw go went at once, which they didn't. They generally moved in groups of 3 to 10 divisions. Just fodder for the Red Army.

 

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I'd love to hear damage reports from your American front. I hope as patches continue the US puts up more and more of a fight, espically in defense of the homeland.