He's a strong character - and knew Kelebek well enough from Italy to know he'd want to question a freshly caught Slovakian spy. And he also knew that by uttering his name aloud, the Dark Lord was likely to hear ...
Ok so Italy still has some puff (could contest the invasion of their country if we tried) but not that many, especially as its split between air and army populations. If we had a stronger navy and more commandos, this information would probably provoke some island hopping in the Med to try and split the troops they have left and reduce their pops down. As it stands, holding the line should work, especially if Germany has nothing.
Agree. Italy still has quite a bit in reserve. Germany is getting towards its analog OTL position of late 1943 in this time line. Which is actually about right, given the pressure they've been under (though not from the US or UK).
No - a bit of dramatic license taken there. I re-watched
'A Bridge Too Far' recently and combining that vibe with all the various suggestions in these pages for multiple naval landings on the African coats and then the bio of the British commander ... well, I just couldn't pas that by.
It's also still plausible, as I keep looking for opportunities to do some of those landings (which prompted that look in the last chapter). But, as commented in the narrative, I was afraid that even landing all three divisions in Bengasi could be dangerous given how little the British have committed to the offensive and how they've fallen short in the past. But I'll keep looking.
So the Germans are on their knees then...interesting. With this information, the war in the west against Germany should be somewhat assured. They will not be able to retreat in time to save Germany and don't have the men to defend it, let alone fight the soviets in Russia and reinforce Axis lines in Romania and the balakan front.
This is what we've been doing all the hard work for these last two-plus years. And knowing there would be no OTL-style second front in Western Europe to assist, while the Soviets are the ones with the big Eastern Front to deal with.
Perhaps we should hold the meat grinder here for a moment, establish ourselves again, and then prepare another big push concentrated along the coastline? Our main objective now isn't helping out Russia or Romania, its reducing Hungary and Italy down to the German level. So we need to go after their own land.
Something like that. If an opportunity doesn't present itself, we'll create one. For now, consolidation (mainly getting
Banja Luka back to shorten the line), then assembling enough breakthrough forces (based on 2 Mech Corps) to mlaunch another offensive somewhere.
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I'm liking the new format, battle by battle instead of a purely day by day report.
Thanks! I'll tweak it a little as I go to make it flow a bit better and seem a bit more coherent too.
Glad to see the Turkish Air Force back in action, even if only for a single battle. In the end it seems that intervention turned out in your advantage, which is quite impressive considering the disadvantage you currently have in fighter wings.
Sometimes just a short sharp one-off battle can discourage further raids - sometimes not. This one was quite interesting, as the air battle escalated each hour, on both sides. I won't always be showing that much detail for more routine running air battles in the future.
The front likes looks pretty secure right now. With Axis bombers in the skies, the Turkish Army still suffered 'only' a comparable number of casualties compared with the Axis. All in mostly hard-fought battles that ended in Turkey's favour. The Turkish Army continues to demonstrate it's mastery in the field.
I was generally pleased with how it went, given enemy air superiority at the moment. For now, Banja Luka aside, it will probably be letting them bash their head against set defences if they want to, but then let things settle and reorganise the lines to concentrate my attack troops. Maybe even a winter offensive if things turn out ok - or an ally gets into trouble.
It's somewhat strange to call an operation across the Libyan Desert 'Market Garden', I'd have expected this kind of a name to go with an operation through the lush countryside of northern Europe, the Netherlands perhaps? Maybe 'Desert Bazar' would have been more appropriate... In any case it does seem too risky to go for all 3 of those objectives with nothing more than 3 Marines Divisions, and the British over 1.000 km away. (It should be noted that, compared to OTL Market Garden, the dash from the current front line to Tripoli is of another magnitude entirely.) Turkey would probably have to hold Tripoli for a month or so before the British get there. Unacceptable. (and I thought 'Market Garden' wasn't the greatest plan...) And the man who proposed this plan was on the ground in Galipoli? What's wrong with these Brits?
Haha, I was intent on using the Market-Garden analogy, no matter what. I'm sure a few of the coastal cities would have a market garden or two, North African style!
Indeed, the distances are of an entirely different order, but then again the force concentrations are much less too. If all three were undefended, it
could actually work, especially if I scraped up a few follow-on forces to help them hold. Not quite there yet. Though perhaps it could be a winter project if the British keep push - maybe not all at once, but in succession.
I'm loving the dark lord's work. The information on the German and Italian manpower situation is revealing. With a little more pressure and time, the German 'Ostfront' will collapse. The Italians and Hungarians are another story, but I'm sure we can handle them.
It's finally coming around. They'll get that 100 MP + modifier boost in January 1943, and it will only be fair to give them the same MP bonus that Turkey got earlier in the war (though that was in part because Turkey doesn't get any events, like Germany does - quite a few of them along the way.) More on MP considerations below.
SE-Asia isn't looking great. The Japanese now have a clear upper hand in Malaysia, and dutch Indochina, and it doesn't seem like the UK is in any position to do something about that. They're still slowing down the Japanese, and we don't want the British to be too powerful once the war is over. I don't think we should be too worried about British failures like the loss of an Armoured Division and an Australian Royal Marines Division. Singapore is next, but it doesn't really matter to the Comintern.
It's going to take a lot of work there, both to reclaim occupied Soviet territory all the way back to the Pacific coast, then to hit Japan in China and the Home Islands. Especially as I can't really control what the Soviets do. SEA may as well be in a Stellaris game at present!
Our own Eastern Front is looking better, we're starting to push back the Japanese rather consistently now, and there is a potential pocket forming that could see an entire corps of Manchukuo troops being taken out of the fight. The more resources the Japanese put into their fight to extend into SE-Asia, the better for us. It's a long way to the pacific, but we'll get there eventually, and when we do we'll be stronger than we've ever been.
True. I hope we get there one day. For now, the tide is only just being turned back.
And I'll be interested to see how my big AI ally continues to handle the two-front war. They're notoriously bad at it. And my own attempt to give them objectives to 'assist' quickly spiralled out of hand!
Mostly good news all around, I do hope this trend continues,
SkitalecS3
Same here.
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Really starting to feel the effects of air power here. Not much to be done, of course, and at least our divisions aren't shattering from bombing alone - an ill which I've managed to inflict upon other hapless minors in past campaigns!
I can still surge a short response if I really need to (most org and strength was still retained after that last brief battle) but it would have to be worth it - say if a key part of the line looked like falling and air power was part of the problem. Otherwise, I'll be nursing my air resources carefully while so much Axis air power is operating.
Damn Brits never learn.
These things always look so appealing when there are big hands on small maps.
And there's someone else to provide troops (though to be fair, the Brits did send their own into Gallipoli as well, as did the French).
Please tell me this actually happened in the game! LOL!!
It pretty much did - he was the general in charge of the relevant British army attacking towards Bengasi. It was only when I went into his bio for a bit of flavour that the Gallipoli angle came up.
We're approaching critical mass of cheesy movie references in this AAR. Too many more, and Turkey may find herself prematurely discovering nuclear bombs!
Then into the fiery cauldron we go, Dr Strangelove style!
That one came up during a search for pictures of German officers to use for Kelebek's victim. How could I
not use him, I ask you!?
At that rate, their divisions will be literal paper shells by mid-1943. For gameplay reasons, I recommend intervention before things reach that stage.
As we saw, they get that Jan 43 boost. I'll also give them what I gave the Turks earlier. But beyond that, they won't be getting any more favours, as I think their position is actually quite realistic and if all the hard work can make them crack in 1943 instead of 1944, then so be it! Another 100,000 troops is the equivalent of 50 of those battles where they take 2,000 casualties. Giving them too many more MP would seem like condemning ten of thousands more Turkish (and other Comintern) soldiers.
And as mentioned above with
@roverS3 there is still the huge Japanese invasion to roll back as well. As I've said often, the extra year of war means we're approaching 1944-equivalent times for Germany and there will be no Allied Western Second Front (or even Torch-Italy Allied campaigns) to distract the Germans. While the Soviets never got General Winter, and have had to deal with that masisve Japanese invasion of the east.
So I think the gameplay balance is about right, all things said. The bratwurst-eaters still seem to be going pretty well and will have quite a few troops coming in during the first part of 1943 (with the one-off boost and MP modifiers), even if their deficit increases. Much like happened in OTL.
What the actual [REDACTED]?!
I know! Just a little news snippet from my standard review of 'on this day' events. Not the most glorious nor effective raid of the war, one might say!
For what it's worth, I think the new format may need a few iterations to smooth out the rough bits but it's working fairly well at movong the action along and keeping things comprehensible. Thumbs-up from me!
Then (on request):
It's a bit hard to identify anything properly wrong with the format in the current update, but to me it felt like the battle reports were not really connected as well and felt like just random actions happening across the front. Once I got through a few battle reports and got a sense of how things were flowing, then it started making more sense, and by the end I felt like I had a good grasp of the action, so it's mainly the beginning that might need a bit of ironing out.
That makes sense and is very helpful. I think I was still in transition from diary to summary styles and it definitely could do with a little more tweaking. In part it will depend on what/how much happens and how inter-related things are within and between theatres.
One suggestion might be to have the session report open with a map + summary which shows the actions during the reporting period as an overall view. This may involve a bit of narrative license on the part of the authAAR to assume he understands the mind of the Axis AIs, but it would probably help give context for the specific actions being reported on. Admittedly, this does remove a bit of suspense from the progressive reading of the post, but at this point the suspense isn't really drawn from individual battles (as in the past with e.g. Timisoara) but from larger, looming questions such as whether an entire section of the front will collapse - whether the Soviets in Ukraine, Romania, or our own Sava Line!
That's one way, but I still like to have the possibility of surprises in battle results as well. I'll think of something - its not like I have any shortage of WW2 books to consult and give me some techniques!
I have, do, and will continue to hold up loki100's
Great Patriotic War as the gold standard for simplifying a complicated series of battles into cohesive fronts and operations, and I certainly believe it's always worth a refresher reading just to pick up new reporting techniques.
I still have it on my 'watched threads' list just to remind me it is there.
And on MP for Germany:
I will help a bit, but 100 MP is a mere 100,000 men and can hardly make up for the horrific losses being suffered across the entire front by any significant player, let alone Germany. I really wish Paradox would have adopted a system that gives much higher MP modifiers in exchange for permanent IC and EXP debuffs to accurately represent the historical mobilization of manpower, but at this point beating a dead horse is a waste of time when we should be shooting live Bratwurst-munchers!
Still, the Turkish MP system did me no favours either and has limited the numbers of divisions I felt I could build and still be able to support with replacements during high tempo operations. One of the reasons I went with more infra, air and even naval production than I might have done otherwise. It's interesting, I think people tend to criticise Germany for being over-powered in the game and then lament their MP collapse later! I'm not sure which is fair comment (or both, or neither), having so rarely played them and that not for years.
I'm sure your observations about MP mechanics in general are accurate. It's not something I've delved into much myself. I tend to just play the games as I find them and, if necessary, try to make other adjustments to compensate for any skewed difficulty nerfs or buffs.
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This provides the relief I needed
Happy to do so!
That
was a nice victory.
This is a blessing in disguise, on to Ruma for a bridgehead when their attack inevitably fails and they're low on org
Yes, in the end, it just eroded their MP more than ours.
Yeah it could've been somewhat gamey. On the other hand, if the Soviets take one more province around the lakes a very big salient will be shut and numerous divisions will be trapped so we might be there anyway without doing anything gamey
That's the plan. If my little force can help them, then that would be the neighbourly thing to do.
Fingers crossed
I will 'do them slowly', but I hope surely.
I'm on training this week (they're selling the company, moving our contracts to a contractor who has 300.000 employees in India and will probably kick us all out, but still insisting we have those in company trainings for some reason) so unfortunately short on my usual reply time. The episode was a nice one where we can see the tide is beginning to turn again
Sounds a bit Kafka-esque!
Hope they don't cut a swathe through the staff.
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I'd definitely intervene to maintain at least some sort of manpower (like maybe 100 or so for two quarters, then maybe 75, then 50 etc) to show the slowing before the crash.
So, with the German 1943 event, that will give them 100 plus some continuing mid-term (though time-limited) MP and defensive buffs. As mentioned above, I'll give them the same amount I gave Turkey early on, even though that was because Turkey got no such events at all as a minor, whereas the Germans get a good number of them. But that done, they get no more favours. If they start imploding, then good! It's what we've been working towards, and the Axis has been doing pretty well up to now, so I don't feel there's been a big imbalance re gameplay. We've had to fight tooth and nail, and after two-plus years the USSR has vast slabs of territory occupied in the west
and east. With no credible Allies to distract them, except on the seas perhaps.
Also, there needs to be a national focus on getting more advanced interceptors (because from what I've discovered, because of the air defense bug, MRs don't actually do much to become their powerful selves) to prevent some of these Axis air attacks from being so devastating.
Yes, looks like it, and helpful observation re the M/R. I'm waiting for my supply-related production backlog to be slowly worked through, and also for the next generation of US fighters to be developed. The Wildcats aren't exactly cutting the mustard, and once I buy them I can't upgrade.
Re Loki's GPW AAR:
I have to agree and will revisit it both for a grasp of what I want to see for both this AAR and my own...
I'll have a glance through again too. But I'm hoping some consideration and a few tweaks will help me find a new equilibrium with this one, as I actually want to finish it one day!
I have lots of other projects in mind for HOI3, and ...
That's one of the many things I do appreciate from HoI4.
... have started playing/getting into HOI4 a bit the last few weeks. It takes a hit of getting used to, but it is more similar in some ways to HOI3 than I thought it would be and have started to quite enjoy it. Once I'm more familiar with it, another future project will probably be an HOI4 AAR. But not while I'm still going on three full-bore!
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And one of the many things I really appreciate in HPP (and I guess other mods, I know BICE has a complicated manpower mobilization system but I've never even made it to 2 Jan 1936 in that mod). I try not to beat that horse in other peoples' AARs but it's just such a massive improvement over vanilla.
HPP does sound pretty good. As I've mentioned before, I might use it for a future HOI3 effort (can't for my next one, as that will be a shorter-form piece taking up as the Soviets from the end on the Allied-victorious
Quick and Dirty French AAR).
I mean, let's be honest, 100 is still more than the germans should have by 1943 in terms of effective troops (Hitler youth on air defence don't count) especially in this timeline where realistically they should have lost the war a few years ago when it took them months to take france. They've still not secured any oilfields for themsevles, they must be out of resources by now and the economy should have crashed.
With no D Day in sight and no need for it, the future of europe looks very, very red indeed.
Agree, per discussions above re MP - I think its about right, though will grant them the quid pro quo for for the small boost the Turks got earlier. Not a penny more, though. They need to get beat!
Seems the Germans are maybe readying for another push later in the year. Or maybe are transferring forces back to the Russian front where they have had more consistent successes.
The Eastern front though is definitely incredibly long and snakey. It has to be causing logistical and operational headaches for the aI.
I'm not sure what they will do: I intend to deflect them a bit for now, presenting them a defensive line they either won't want to assault, or will suffer heavy casualties if they do. The monthly reports of all the fronts will show more of what has been going on in Russia and the East. I think they may well be wanting to send forces back against the Russians again. Which is good for us as (like we learned in the almost-debacle of the Eastern Front switch with the Soviet AI) as troops in transit aren't fighting anyone at the time!
Well said! As always, people should vote for as wide a range of AARs and authAARs as they can. Of course, any votes for this one are very appreciated, but not assumed/an expectation.
All: next monthly summary annex out reasonably soon. Thanks once again for your energetic comments and support.
