Next month (Jan 47) all played through, images edited and first of three chapters arising written up. FYI, it will be a chapter on just the Eastern/Home Front (1-19 Jan), then the Rest of the World (all month) followed by the Eastern Front again (19-31 Jan). Am doing it that way to keep the narrative from hopping to much from one theatre to another and also to ensure the details of this crucial part of the war (especially for Poland). Eventually it should pan back out again to one or two episodes a month again. Just depends on the action and material.
For now, here we go with responses to comments I hadn't yet done.
One or two tricky moments there trying to manage the retreat! Although I have every confidence you will get the German expeditionaries out safely, I am resigned to the remaining Allied forces being lost (yet again). If there's anything positive to take away from all this I suppose the Allied collapse is ultimately a consequence of the AI withdrawing most of its forces from this theatre and sending them elsewhere, so most of them have been evacuated already.
The northern and southern Allied pockets do mainly have port access, so maybe most can escape before the end. Shouldn't be as bad as some of these have been in the past. It's kept the US occupied for a long time now, but I agree that appears to be drawing to an end.
I don't really see any evidence of Allied supply issues along the front in Estonia. I suspect incompetence.
Most likely.
This offensive is proving tougher than I'd hoped for. It also hasn't escaped my notice you're attempting a winter offensive - do you have any assessment if or how weather might be affecting operations?
Tough yes, especially at first, but my feeling was we'd need to wear them down first before then being able to generate some chaos and collapse later. Of course, attacking in the winter just slows everything down a bit. Tactically, it's about creating breakthroughs and then encirclements to keep them on the back foot, with the winter timing being governed by the Belarus coup.
Operationally, it's to crack the Eastern Front and start occupying the Soviets' key industrial centres. Strategically, I felt it was now or never as the Allies faded away in its more distant fronts (Western China, Mexico etc). Whether we beat them decisively here or force them to collapse elsewhere, we need this or the Communists will triumph. And that's not even factoring in the US and their new TRA faction.
Each and every enemy mistake is to be welcomed!
Let them flow.
Excellent! The battle of the Bobruysk Pocket feels like the first genuine Allied success for a very long time.
I think so too. We're going to keep punching hard, until we put them down for the count. Still months away before we get past the snow and then the mud.
Taking either of the rail junctions at Zhytomyr or Vinnytsia would be good, but encirclements would obviously be better. We are going to need a lot more victories like Bobruysk to take down the Fourth International and change the course of the war...
That's the plan, encirclements preferred, but they're going to be harder to do now: that one was made possible by the surprise of the coup, I suspect.
That or the people achieving it and the horrors they will unleash, even if said horrors go unmentioned.
It is a foible of mine I freely admit; I don't really want to read about the victories of monsters, even fictitious ones that are very well written. But many do and I'm glad they find enjoyment in it, it's just not for me.
Fair enough, thanks for explaining.
I think only Vinnytsia for next month. A grand encirclement requires too much force at the moment. Remember: the overall strategy is attritional. Transitioning into full-on manoeuvre warfare will require some degree of force reconstitution and, as such, is not really that feasible. The northern bridgeheads also need to be reduced to prepare for further operations
It's a mix of attrition and encirclement. As mentioned above, the first encirclement was opportunistic due to the shock of the coup, others will be harder to achieve. Attrition makes it possible. You will soon see what choices were taken for this next phase and then (after the following chapter) how far Poland got in January.
The Zhytomyr pincer will have to wait until spring. Of course, this means the risk of the Soviets fixing their manpower situation or escalating by joining MAP, but still, it is unfeasible for the pincer to commence right now.
The Poles are impatient: if they can get there in the winter they will try at least. If we sense weakness and unbalance in the enemy, there will be no rest until either we've exhausted the possibilities - or kicked them to the ground!
It is essential to resist the urge to commit rush offensives to "turn the tide" of war. Such mentality led to Somme and numerous other disasters.
I'd actually recommend learning from Bernard Montgomery during Normandy, commit to a strategy of "colossal crack", only commit an attack at the place and time of your choosing and maximize all the force you have on that area. It's going to be slow, it's going to cost lives, but at the end of the day you are going to win. Piecemeal victories one at a time.
Yes, to a certain extent, but I also like Patton and those who advocate seizing and maintaining the momentum - when possible. We've been Monty until now ... will the winter snows let the Polish wolves loose - or see their muzzles smacked? Stay tuned ...
Of course, if the Soviets are "bled white" as that's the trend they are going with, a steady force transition with more armoured and motorised units is necessary as the death blow against an opponent like the Soviets will require a lot of manoeuvre warfare
We have a certain amount of mobile units (one army's worth, though not all of first-line strength) but have been unable to build more and equipment shortages will prevent more being trained for a while. We do have the Czechs and Yugoslavians supporting too, who combined field more divisions on this front than Poland, so that is a help. In foot soldiery (mainly) anyway.
It is imperative that the offensives will finally strike at the political centres of Bolshevism. A political strike that result in capitulation (Moscow) is the one and only way to secure any kind of victory. Right now, this translates to the destruction of enemy combat power through the destruction of their armies to enable future maneuver operations.
Moscow is certainly a strategic objective, though because it's Trotsky's USR, the capital is in Petrograd, so a bit further away from us for now.
Another thing about the Vinnytsia pincer is that in real life control over the accesses of urban areas is often imperative for success. A good example of this is the battle of Aachen, where American forces spent most of their time surrounding the city rather than the final assault. Same thing here.
My estimation for the force required is five corps involved in the attacks. In the north the attack is to be conducted by two corps of 4 infantry divisions each. In the south the attack will be spearheaded by two armored divisions and one corp of infantry. This is to be backed up by armored reserves for about 4 divisions. Speed is of critical essence, the enemy must not be allowed to reorganize or regroup.
Again, this phase was already played before you posted, so again you'll see what we tried. But I do agree: for cities, I like to attack from as many axes as possible. Surrounding is ideal, but rarely practical. And yes, to keep the pressure on all the time, including force rotation through the front lines.
I propose two variations for the plan, one is to send the unoccupied militia and infantry down south for this operation (will take a while for them to go there), down there they will take part in a holding attack against the city and as part of opening attack towards the flanks. The second is to send all available armored divisions down south to strengthen the pincer manoeuvre. And use the recently freed up militias and infantry to strength existing lines and reduce enemy bridgehead.
Just read the whole thing (Oh no my chemistry degree! Oh no my timetables!)
Wonderful! Really appreciated. Hope your studies didn't suffer too much
Actually a big reason why the Allies are in such deep trouble is due to an abundance of sea power but lack of sound naval strategy. It's actually where the original criticism of the "Easterner" faction of WW1 comes from.
Brief history talk for WW1: During the Great War, the British high command have two factions over the grand strategy: Westerners, who want to fight the Germans here down in France, and the Easterners: who believed the sea power of the British meant that it is much more preferable to strike at the enemy's "soft white bellies" such as the ottoman empire. Basil Liddle Hart and many others became firmly supportive of the easterner cause, as the British sea power continued to be underutilised throughout the entire First World War, and it was finally the fall of the Ottoman empire that delivered the final strike at the Central Powers. According to them, the British command based themselves upon ill-suited doctrines borrowed from Clausewitz and wastefully squandered numerous young lives in the stalemate of France.
But is it true? One of the Easterner's most famous actions during the Great War was Gallipoli, which is nothing short of disastrous. The act of dispersing the troops in an artificial way all across the entire world and introducing the dynamisms of naval actions into strategy created so much complication that often resulted in bloodbaths and blunders.
What does it mean for this AAR? Well, that's what the Allies have done throughout this AAR, Gallipoli after Gallipoli after Gallipoli. The problem with allies in this AAR is that the major power, Britain, has and seeks to utilise its sea power, is limited by AI, and they lack any competent naval strategy. Hence it leads to nothing but numerous disasters along the way. Poland is a land power and, therefore, has little to contribute to such campaigns and cannot introduce reasons to this madness. The situation right now may actually offer a way out of the crisis, namely a "quick, decisive" war that enabled land power to function again. But still, this means you need to defeat the Soviet Union in a year. I believe the sea power has been lost since the US went to war against the allies; it may be necessary to abandon most overseas operations and instead switch to a land-based strategy centred around the Eurasia continent.
The ensuing conversation on the historical aspects speaks for itself - I don't have strongly held views on the naval strategy aspects. Both sides (ie the AI) do like the multitude of landings: some have worked, though most seem to fail. I'm certainly focused on the land-based aspect as I can't really influence the naval side of things. Will just see what the respective AIs get up to without any real human intervention.
The UK using naval power to do high risk but war ending invasions can work...its just really complicated, requires a lot of planning and prep time, and if the enemy knows you are coming, its all over.
This is why Gallipoli fell through. The navy was supposed to force the Dardanelles, but couldn't because of mines and shore defences (the minesweepers couldn't sweep because of the guns, and the battleships couldn't destroy the guns due to the mines). This went on for long enough that a massive fleet halting, and deciding instead to just chuck soldiers out onto beaches was not unexpected.
Had the British instead scouted the straits or used spies to find out there was no chance of them forcing them navally, they wouldn't have then tried to do so. At that point, they've got a fleet, and a load of troops marshalling in Egypt and India. What to do? Well, use the navy to land them in southern Anatolia, with a solid plan as to what to do once landed and where to go next.
They could have gotten a fair beachhead or further before the ottomans show up, at which point the Turks are fighting in the Caucuses, against Persia, the Levant, and the Arab revolts as well. They did surprisingly well in defence, as did everyone else, but this would have pushed them to an earlier defeat than OTL. At which point the Balkans open up again as does the Black sea to easily supply Russia.
So it could have worked but you have to put serious effort and prep in. Overlord took years to plan and prep, a ton of secrecy and counter-intelligence operations to confuse the Germans, and also landed after the Axis were already fighting a losing war in Russia and Italy.
Bear in mind even before the naval attempt to force the straits the Ottomans had been pre-warned, it was November 1914 when Churchill ordered the Royal Navy to bombard the outer forts as a 'test of the defences'. This proved the defences were a bit crap and there were few mines. Then stupidly nothing happened for 3 months, during which time the Ottomans laid a lot of mines and deployed more guns.
Skip that idiotic 'test' and the naval effort in February succeeds because the defences are still weak.
Not sure how that is relevant to this AAR, probably something about how diversionary landing are not worth the cost of splitting the effort.
It does however make the Ottomans even more stupid for going to war in 1914, and even more unprepared. The Pashas were just awful.
This actually was briefly referred to in TBTM, where the Ottomans join later, and the British find out they'd spent the time actually getting somewhat prepared around the Dardanelles and with the army. But even that is not good enough given how many fronts they have to fight in and how outmatched they are by both the British and the Russians.
Somewhat related...Churchill's run at the admiralty, since he was in the office in both WW1 and WW2. How good was he at the job - both navally and politically speaking?
OK, I don’t really know that much about Churchill’s competency. Usually there’s a bad stereotype of him being incompetent whenever he issue orders. Although I do think he is probably good at politics apparently.
The problem with Gallipoli lies in the desire for a “game changer”. Easterner faction want to prove that they might be able to win the war once and for all.
The way allied AIs hastily prepared operations and a lack of repect to local terrain and proper logistic.
My statement was referring to the criticisms for the “easterners” of WW1 as a whole. The constant thrusts at perceived “soft white belly” that result in nothing but dispersion of effort. The impact of sea power is totally squandered.
Politics?
It's difficult to say. He held a lot of different high offices in his time, a very long political career, and was really, really good at speechcraft.
On the other hand, he spent long periods in the wilderness, went through periods of intense unpopularity with the party and public, and when he actually was PM in peacetime, he was supremely variable. Then again, he was very old by that point.
The navy itself seems to have various minds about him.
He’s awful at ground operations. I’d still say he’s better than FDR, but that’s Americans for ya
This is some good advice and is ultimately what I did in my look at the save. One encirclement leads to another which leads to another. The problem is that it is slow. The Allies were kicked out of Mexico and India by the time the USR broke.
It will be a race against time, but I must stick to what I can reasonably try to control, no matter the wider war.
Indeed, awful in every way.
It's Churchill so lots of highs and lows but the highs are generally higher. First Admiralty stint you have him pushing for sea planes, supporting the use of Fuel Oil over coal (and funding British oil firms so there was a safe supply), mostly getting the Admiralty the ship building they wanted and of course he setup the Landship Committee which led to the tank. He would mostly back Fisher which of course made him enemies and Fisher was much like Churchill in terms of mixing up good ideas with bad ones, but more often good than bad. But crucially he did go against Fisher on several big decisions, like the Queen Elizabeth-class not being battlecruisers.
When he stuck to being the First Lord of the Admiralty I think he did a good job, he just couldn't resist interfering and pretending to be First Sea Lord and giving operational orders. Those tended to go wrong, like his vague and badly worded orders during the pursuit of the Goeben and Breslau. It is interesting to speculate if those two ships being promptly sunk would have introduced some caution into the Ottomans, a bit less trust in German promises and a bit more worry about what the British could do. Probably not, but it is interesting to speculate.
Second time round I'm not sure he was in office long enough to change a great deal. He benefitted from the Navy having a decent start to the war (River Plate and Altmark Incident) and the Norway campaign was at least a tactical win for the RN as the Kreigsmarine was gutted. Of course it could have gone better, it would only take a bit of luck for the British submarines (a few near misses becoming hits) for instance and the Germans may never even get ashore. But just as you can't give Churchill much credit for the good bits he's not particularly at fault for the mistakes.
Overall he's probably better second time round from a naval perspective, if only because he issues fewer direct orders and works though the Admiralty a bit better
My own general (quick) view on Churchill is that he was great in certain situations, doing certain things, but others ... well, it's been said above. I think he is a bit like the old stopped watch metaphor: right at least twice a day, anyway!
India? That’s unacceptable. losing mexico is normal, you have lost sea power at this point. But the loss of India will cripple the British Empire and then the allies.
The attrition phase is to set the condition for the maneuvre stage where you rush moscow.
Who knows what will happen in the rest of the AAR. But the AI in my game couldn't handle both advancing in Russia and defending India/Tibet from the PRC.
Hope India doesn't fall in my run. I we can collapse the Soviets in time, maybe the 4th Army in Iran can help a little in India later ... mebbe.
"The Bobruysk pocket", Warsaw National War Museum
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Great stuff! Yours? AI? Archives?
Next chapter out fairly soon, but not straight away. Thanks so much everyone for all the support, comments and debate (which I'm always happy to let run as long as it's vaguely on topic, which this was, of course).
