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Good point, then the best solution would be to make sure Spain is on 3 year draft. That would give their divisions 3/4 strength if I remember right, and they'd quickly reinforce to full once war starts. That'd keep the Pyrenees from being a cakewalk anyways.
It might work, but I'm not certain how this feature works. A supply convoy to Marseille should certainly send supplies into the port, but the question is what happens next. We would like them to take the shortest path to our units, but it's just possible they will be sent back to the supply hub (which in this case would be our capital).
Supposedly, the behavior is different depending on whether the origin and destination ports are on the same supply network or not. If not, then the supply will be moved from the destination port to the origin node of that supply network - the classic example being supplied aboard a convoy from the Japanese home islands arriving at Dalian will be directed to Hamhung (usually the origin node of the Manchuria/Kwantung supply network) before being distributed through the network "as usual".
However, ostensibly if the origin and destination ports are on the same supply network, then the supplies are still considered to have originated from the correct origin node and should be forwarded directly to the troops without first being trucked back to the origin node. This should be what happens with a convoy from, say, Istanbul to Marseille, since Marseille is connected over land to Ankara (origin node, because national capital). I really don't understand why the behavior is just this way, and I really should do some experiments sometime to try and characterize the mechanics more precisely.
Worse, an AI will lose all of their mobilized manpower if they demobilize. In vanilla the player does only get half your manpower back when demobilizing, presumably to disincentivize repeated re/demobilizing for some reason (HPP sets this to 100% manpower back, IIRC, because the vanilla rule is stupid). The AI however never receives manpower back when it demobilizes after a war - which was what was causing e.g. the Soviet build order to be disrupted in HPP due to repeatedly mobilizing for the wars with Japan (2x), Poland, and Finland (plus Ma Clique if unlucky) and demobilizing, causing them to have no MP to build divisions with by 1939.
I honestly can't believe this bug exists (and I discovered it!) because it implies that Paradox wrote two completely different demobilization functions, one for humans and one for AI, which I simply cannot comprehend as if there is one thing Paradox is famous for it is eschewing extra work when the bare minimum would suffice, and the bare minimum here would be for once the smart thing which would be writing only one function. Truly Paradoxican ineptitude boggles the mind.
I mean, Paradox is making the Navy in Vicky3 to not have a reserve capability. It's "always on" despite the very routine nature of laying up ships repeatedly over the course of their service lives: the USN/RN are famous for placing their ships in reserve, and even the RM placed most of their dreadnaught battleships in reserve at one point or the other during the interbellum. This just boggles my mind and their insistence on doing weird shit has turned me off of getting their games.
I mean, Paradox is making the Navy in Vicky3 to not have a reserve capability. It's "always on" despite the very routine nature of laying up ships repeatedly over the course of their service lives: the USN/RN are famous for placing their ships in reserve, and even the RM placed most of their dreadnaught battleships in reserve at one point or the other during the interbellum. This just boggles my mind and their insistence on doing weird shit has turned me off of getting their games.
I suspect that in gameplay terms it is the same problem almost every other naval-type game has with reserve/mothballing mechanics, which is that they are extremely easy to exploit by players to build unrealistically large fleets without paying for them until a war starts - which is usually not a serious hindrance as players can either anticipate or control when a war starts much better than AIs do. Usually in such games, the root of the problem is that actually modeling the various factors that (1) actually limit navy sizes in practice and (2) actually limit reserve/mothball capability are either too complicated to implement or do not make for good gameplay. Usually the latter in practice, I suspect.
Personally I like most of what I have seen of Vicky3 and am looking forward to it, though I am yet undecided as to whether I will buy it on release (or how soon after) and the answer I suspect will depend on what other active interests I have at that time.
I suspect that in gameplay terms it is the same problem almost every other naval-type game has with reserve/mothballing mechanics, which is that they are extremely easy to exploit by players to build unrealistically large fleets without paying for them until a war starts - which is usually not a serious hindrance as players can either anticipate or control when a war starts much better than AIs do. Usually in such games, the root of the problem is that actually modeling the various factors that (1) actually limit navy sizes in practice and (2) actually limit reserve/mothball capability are either too complicated to implement or do not make for good gameplay. Usually the latter in practice, I suspect.
Personally I like most of what I have seen of Vicky3 and am looking forward to it, though I am yet undecided as to whether I will buy it on release (or how soon after) and the answer I suspect will depend on what other active interests I have at that time.
Mind numbing complexity is what vicky has always been for though, especially the economic and potlcial systems that naval mechanics slot into neatly. It's an indication that the whole warfare bit of the game has some issues with it, if navies, the most important part of the era, are not modeled quite right.
Mind numbing complexity is what vicky has always been for though, especially the economic and potlcial systems that naval mechanics slot into neatly. It's an indication that the whole warfare bit of the game has some issues with it, if navies, the most important part of the era, are not modeled quite right.
I will say that no matter how much a game invests into mind-numbing complexity, there always has to be a limit in place for the sake of practical gameplay. Relevant to this forum, I might offer the comparison between the HoI games and the Gary Grigsby WWII games. The latter are incredibly detailed at the combat level, but as far as I know every game in the bunch focuses on a single theater and the economy underlying reinforcements, supply production, etc. is heavily abstracted and railroaded. Compare to any HoI game in which you have control to varying degrees over the economy, technology, political sphere, force composition, and so on, but the actual battlefield tactics are comparatively simple as we have stack-based combat over frontage limits instead of high-granularity hex maps. Don't even get me started on Vicky2 combat, although from the phrase "mind-numbing complexity" I will say that scoring two words correct out of three is not bad.
As far as Vicky 3 goes, I will admit that I'd like to see the navies handled with a tad more attention to realistic factors, but for now I am willing to give the benefit of the doubt both to see what the game is actually like and what potential changes might be planned based on the initial player feedback - I can think of a few ways navies could work or be made to work in a practical way, but I couldn't say in advance which of those would actually make for the best gameplay.
I have to say, my cabin on TCG Yavuz was perfectly acceptable. A bit cramped, but it did have a nice port hole and I didn't have to share it. The food at the captain's table was a rather excellent mix of Moroccan and Turkish cuisine.
And now both GRU LO Agent SkitalecS3 (recently arrived from Casablanca) and USMC LO Kenny ‘Wraith’ Loggins have both turned up in Oran too. It seems to be the new destination of choice, as a woman closely matching the description of legendary Turkish S.I.T.H. operator Cennet Kavgaci has also been spotted around the HQ 1st Corps HQ. Strategic consultant Professor Nukeluru Slorepee had also been seen meeting with LTGEN Cakmak there.
Oran has been a pleasant surprise. A smaller city with fewer bars run by expats, but lots of character and local culture and architecture. Of course, the tens of thousands of UGNR soldiers do dominate the streetscape in this town of less than 250,000 inhabitants. I'm also glad to have been able to spend time with my colleagues, especially Cennet, Professor Slorepee being a bit boring, and 'Wraith' Loggins being a bit much to my taste.
Some more free industrial capacity allowed for construction to start on a third massively expensive Soviet licensed transport wing on 23 July. Some lower priority projects (including many infrastructure upgrades) were temporarily pushed ‘below the line’ to allow 100% effort for this new capability. The new parachute division and its airlift would not be ready before early 1945.
The VDV still isn't well pleased with Turkey's decision to go for American instructors and weapons for it's Airborne units, but the Lisunov Aircraft factories are overjoyed at the continued purchases of their Li-2's. Might I suggest delaying one of the second of the previously ordered transport wings in the production schedule so that experience from producing the first wing might be integrated to make it cheaper to build.
Preparations for the Spanish campaign are going nicely. Turkey definitely needs every single Mountain Rifle Division it can get it's hands on for the fight in the Pyrenees. The massively expanded UGNR does allow for a lot of flexibility here. I do hope the Soviet and German navies come through on their end as the Invasion fleet looks to be like the weakest link in Turkey's invasion plans.
The happenings in the US are certainly intriguing, even if Bud White's interrogation techniques are a bit crude. Hanging a man out of the window, really?
For the moment it's just a funny distraction and a good look into the disfunction of US police departments, though I'm still waiting for Perse to suddenly turn up in the most dramatic way.
I do share Turkey's fear that Stavka might have overestimated it's capacity to supply troops at the far end of the Trans-Siberian. The sheer amount of divisions moving east is going to lead to some serious issues. Of course everyone wants part of the glory of evicting Japan from mainland Asia. At some point the Red Army might well become it's own biggest enemy.
As I write this, I am sitting down at a local restaurant for a delicious Algerian mutton Tajine accompanied by copious amounts of Raki. Cennet and Loggins sitting across the table from me, as we look out over the Turkish fleet, and the Mediterranean beyond. At the next table, Turkish officers retell their, no doubt exaggerated, exploits performed during the war in the Balkans and Italy, in an effort to impress the French-Algerian waitress, who remains wholly unimpressed. She did brazenly flirt with 'Wraith' Loggins when she brought our food, so I guess she likes her men reckless, dangerous, and arguably mentally deranged. Interestingly, none of the officers even dared to try and flirt with Cennet, despite their copious alcohol intake.
Let us hope the Spanish campaign will go down without a hitch, and let us enjoy our downtime in the meantime,
As I write this, I am sitting down at a local restaurant for a delicious Algerian mutton Tajine accompanied by copious amounts of Raki. Cennet and Loggins sitting across the table from me, as we look out over the Turkish fleet, and the Mediterranean beyond.
Oh, I see how it is, you think I'm too busy writing academic papers to notice you three sneaking out without me. Well, usually you would be correct, but in this case the famous loose-lipped tendency of Soviet intelligence officers has played to your disadvantage!
Hi All! Sorry it's taken a bit of time to get back to TT and comment feedback, but summer holiday (in Oz) season, RL stuff, cricket games/tournaments and the other three AARs to get through etc ... But soon, I will be playing the next period through, then the write-up.
It did not quite sink in that we gained most of the old French colonial empire. Most of it will be sold off and decolonised to some degree, but north Africa may well stay under the united republics or as very closely aligned puppet states.
Once spain falls, we'll truly be masters of the med.
Yes, in a post-war world it may well presage a development of a larger Turkish Navy (the recently acquired imperial tail wagging the dog), and maybe even a bidding war between the USA and USSR for basing deals ... and yes, the Med all sewn up.
Mm. Smells like more SITH meddling to discredit the little remaining importance of the other intelligence branches. Soon there won't be a war to get emergency powers from, but if we make all other services impotent enough by then, that won't matter.
And I certainly think we're there or nearly there by this point.
Looks like most of the fleet survived the civil war. That could make things exciting for any planned naval invasions, although maybe the US fleets will bump into the Spanish.
Yes, a bit more than we can handle alone, for now. But there are plans ... and the naval plan is more a nice to have and hasten the end kinda thing. If necessary, the land campaign will have to suffice (hopefully better than Napoleon managed).
Overall, Turkey is looking really strong! You're also getting all the cool toys of modern warfare, and I'm really starting to feel bad for Spain. Hopefully they mobilize or are on 3 year draft so their divisions actually hold for a bit.
Anyways, I'm looking forward to the detailed plan we all know is coming.
It's OK, Spain is full of Fascists anyway in this ATL. And frankly, now Turkey just wants to end the war as quickly and efficiently as possible, so will sadly be showing neither mercy nor sportsmanship in the coming campaign.
From what I understand there was a German plan to invade Spain - they had plans for invading everybody - but they decided it would be too much of a problem. Because they realized how hard it would be to, first, deal with the mountains in the north and, second, deal with the Spanish rails. They were a different size than the rest of Europe and would make logistics a horror.
I look forward to seeing how you deal with Spain. Poor, poor Spain.
Interesting. And attacking Franco may have been seen as a bit rough and fratricidal, even for the Nazis! The planner must surely have read of Napoleon's travails there.
If only they had put the guy in charge of the Spanish invasion in charge of the Russian invasion, things might have turned out very differently. Still, probably, hilariously, but differently nevertheless.
As you say, bad for them (though good for the rest of the world) the lessons of Napoleon's other great debacle in Russia were either unread or discounted through hubris.
Spoiler: it turns out Dudley is a front man for Perse who is secretly building her new underworld empire in a bid to make herself untouchable by Turkish interlopers.
God, the supply mapmode for this region must be an absolute nightmare by now. Thankfully it is a problem for the AI and not for us - at least in this AAR!
As far as Turkish fortunes go, looks like we should be set for an early-August launch date for the invasion of Spain. I'd guess maybe a week or so pushing through the mountains and then landing LTGEN Cakmak's corps in the south to rapidly seize Sevilla, etc. and cripple the Spanish resistance before they can really form up. After that not much left to do but smoke a cigar and declare victory, I think.
It should be something like that, with the naval plan supplementary and dependent on our Anti-Fascist partners and/or the Turkish Air Force taking down the bulk of that large (for us) Spanish Navy.
I hadn’t fully appreciated how just much territory had fallen into Turkey’s hands when Vichy surrendered. We now control a chain of naval bases around the world that extends far beyond our Eurasian regional interests. These assets, I’m thinking, could be extremely useful to our allies in the future - especially to the Soviets. The Americans, of course, always have the option of working with the British.
I guess de Gaulle’s bid for political power must have met with failure, then? Perhaps if he hadn't been hiding in the Congo...
Anyway, this rather strange-looking 'Free French' government does perhaps explain why they've been so reluctant to return to Paris - all those 'grey' ministers must be terrified of being mistaken for Axis collaborators.
Something like that A bit of cross-temporal timeline confusion. There will probably be a cheesy early 21st Century sci-fi time travel spinoff movie, or perhaps a streaming series that gets axed after two of its planned six seasons!
I count 21 Spanish air units on that intelligence map. A lot more than I expected. With our mixture of models, ranging from the modern to the obsolescent, they could turn out to be a good match for us. The one thing that concerns me in particular is the limited fighter cover we have from the air bases in north Africa. I think securing the Balearic Islands would be a very useful first step before attempting to land on the Spanish mainland.
Quite a few, indeed. But having been honed on combat with the Italians and Germans, I'm hoping Turkey's partially-contemporary Air Force will be more than a match plane-for-plane with the Spanish. We shall see.
Yes, that could work, I suppose. We should certainly keep a close eye on the Spanish fleet's movements. Maybe we could hit them at anchor with our bombers? We might also get opportunities to engage them if they decide to split their fleet? If we're really lucky, they might just sail away altogether and let us invade!
Without doubt! Though at this stage, the effect is likely to be narrative rather than in-game. Cennet needs something to keep her interested now that Italy is well in hand.
I think they have caught up - but once we start using supplies and fuel and getting into that rough Spanish terrain, things may get a bit dicey. If they're not yet mobilised, it will give the Spanish more time to do so.
The lack of Japanese activity on most fronts suggests they are hopelessly over-stretched… and yet they can always find a division to take back Midway Island!
I know - it's bordering on the absurd. You'd think the US might have just dropped in a bunch of garrison units to hold it, with some naval and air support. But I guess the AI doesn't do joint ops like that very well (or at all)!
The arc is coming to its zenith there, but I won't spoil. But there will be blood, that's for sure. As for the Two Stooges, I think they fall into the category of known devils being better than the unknown ones!
I had forgotten how absurdly OP some of those early wars were because of the AI's divisions being totally unprepared. Yes, let's hope that's not the case with Spain.
Yes, smaller targets with easy-ish to reach VPs ideal for RAW invasions allowed us to get those early wins relatively quickly and easily. It got a bit harder with enemies like Yugoslavia and Greece, when the terrain allowed them to build more strength in the weeks following D-Day. I think Spain is large enough and with spread-out VPs so that it should still be a victory for a war machine hardened by four years of tough fighting against Germany, Italy and Hungary, but may have its moments and take some time.
I think - and this is a tenuous thought, because the HoI3 supply system is arcane at best - but I think we can help this out if we run a supply convoy from homeland Turkey to Marseille or some other port in southern France, which should be integrated into the supply network instead of getting toted back to Ankara since it's all on the same network.
It might work, but I'm not certain how this feature works. A supply convoy to Marseille should certainly send supplies into the port, but the question is what happens next. We would like them to take the shortest path to our units, but it's just possible they will be sent back to the supply hub (which in this case would be our capital).
Supposedly, the behavior is different depending on whether the origin and destination ports are on the same supply network or not. If not, then the supply will be moved from the destination port to the origin node of that supply network - the classic example being supplied aboard a convoy from the Japanese home islands arriving at Dalian will be directed to Hamhung (usually the origin node of the Manchuria/Kwantung supply network) before being distributed through the network "as usual".
However, ostensibly if the origin and destination ports are on the same supply network, then the supplies are still considered to have originated from the correct origin node and should be forwarded directly to the troops without first being trucked back to the origin node. This should be what happens with a convoy from, say, Istanbul to Marseille, since Marseille is connected over land to Ankara (origin node, because national capital). I really don't understand why the behavior is just this way, and I really should do some experiments sometime to try and characterize the mechanics more precisely.
Not sure what you think Bullfilter, but you could do a quick tag to Spain and mobilize them. I'm not sure if the AI would stay mobilized, but it would be fairly logical as they notice the Turkish buildup on their borders.
Don't feel obligated to though, I know you don't want to use any console commands in this AAR. As long as the Spanish aren't on volunteer army or one year draft they should be interesting to fight.
Good point, then the best solution would be to make sure Spain is on 3 year draft. That would give their divisions 3/4 strength if I remember right, and they'd quickly reinforce to full once war starts. That'd keep the Pyrenees from being a cakewalk anyways.
Worse, an AI will lose all of their mobilized manpower if they demobilize. In vanilla the player does only get half your manpower back when demobilizing, presumably to disincentivize repeated re/demobilizing for some reason (HPP sets this to 100% manpower back, IIRC, because the vanilla rule is stupid). The AI however never receives manpower back when it demobilizes after a war - which was what was causing e.g. the Soviet build order to be disrupted in HPP due to repeatedly mobilizing for the wars with Japan (2x), Poland, and Finland (plus Ma Clique if unlucky) and demobilizing, causing them to have no MP to build divisions with by 1939.
I honestly can't believe this bug exists (and I discovered it!) because it implies that Paradox wrote two completely different demobilization functions, one for humans and one for AI, which I simply cannot comprehend as if there is one thing Paradox is famous for it is eschewing extra work when the bare minimum would suffice, and the bare minimum here would be for once the smart thing which would be writing only one function. Truly Paradoxican ineptitude boggles the mind.
An interesting thought re Spain. Though at this point I think in-game Turkey and meta-game me will just take what comes, after years (for both) of unrelenting war, a bit of victorious peace can't come soon enough!
I am pretending that Spain and Vichy France are just @Bullfilter movies and that the war in Europe ended with victory over Hitler and Mussolini. Turkey's main concern, while SU-USA-GB are dealing with the Empire of the Setting Sun, should be moving German-Italian brain and money power to Turkey.
I mean, Paradox is making the Navy in Vicky3 to not have a reserve capability. It's "always on" despite the very routine nature of laying up ships repeatedly over the course of their service lives: the USN/RN are famous for placing their ships in reserve, and even the RM placed most of their dreadnaught battleships in reserve at one point or the other during the interbellum. This just boggles my mind and their insistence on doing weird shit has turned me off of getting their games.
I suspect that in gameplay terms it is the same problem almost every other naval-type game has with reserve/mothballing mechanics, which is that they are extremely easy to exploit by players to build unrealistically large fleets without paying for them until a war starts - which is usually not a serious hindrance as players can either anticipate or control when a war starts much better than AIs do. Usually in such games, the root of the problem is that actually modeling the various factors that (1) actually limit navy sizes in practice and (2) actually limit reserve/mothball capability are either too complicated to implement or do not make for good gameplay. Usually the latter in practice, I suspect.
Personally I like most of what I have seen of Vicky3 and am looking forward to it, though I am yet undecided as to whether I will buy it on release (or how soon after) and the answer I suspect will depend on what other active interests I have at that time.
Mind numbing complexity is what vicky has always been for though, especially the economic and potlcial systems that naval mechanics slot into neatly. It's an indication that the whole warfare bit of the game has some issues with it, if navies, the most important part of the era, are not modeled quite right.
I will say that no matter how much a game invests into mind-numbing complexity, there always has to be a limit in place for the sake of practical gameplay. Relevant to this forum, I might offer the comparison between the HoI games and the Gary Grigsby WWII games. The latter are incredibly detailed at the combat level, but as far as I know every game in the bunch focuses on a single theater and the economy underlying reinforcements, supply production, etc. is heavily abstracted and railroaded. Compare to any HoI game in which you have control to varying degrees over the economy, technology, political sphere, force composition, and so on, but the actual battlefield tactics are comparatively simple as we have stack-based combat over frontage limits instead of high-granularity hex maps. Don't even get me started on Vicky2 combat, although from the phrase "mind-numbing complexity" I will say that scoring two words correct out of three is not bad.
As far as Vicky 3 goes, I will admit that I'd like to see the navies handled with a tad more attention to realistic factors, but for now I am willing to give the benefit of the doubt both to see what the game is actually like and what potential changes might be planned based on the initial player feedback - I can think of a few ways navies could work or be made to work in a practical way, but I couldn't say in advance which of those would actually make for the best gameplay.
Have never played Vicky, and if I did my personal interest in the general period would be more around the Seven Years War and Napoleonic Wars, so perhaps more EU4? Which I also haven't played. Maybe I'll get to one or both in time (which I don't currently have, with my HOI3 Mod on hold but definitely still in prospect, once I can free up some AAR time for it).
I have to say, my cabin on TCG Yavuz was perfectly acceptable. A bit cramped, but it did have a nice port hole and I didn't have to share it. The food at the captain's table was a rather excellent mix of Moroccan and Turkish cuisine.
Oran has been a pleasant surprise. A smaller city with fewer bars run by expats, but lots of character and local culture and architecture. Of course, the tens of thousands of UGNR soldiers do dominate the streetscape in this town of less than 250,000 inhabitants. I'm also glad to have been able to spend time with my colleagues, especially Cennet, Professor Slorepee being a bit boring, and 'Wraith' Loggins being a bit much to my taste.
Agent SkitalecS3 will be enjoying the relative freedom of these exotic locations compared to either Ankara or Inonu's field HQ! Now, that's not colouring 'Wraith' Loggins with his shadowy and wildly 'colourful' compatriot Tyler Durden, it is?
The VDV still isn't well pleased with Turkey's decision to go for American instructors and weapons for it's Airborne units, but the Lisunov Aircraft factories are overjoyed at the continued purchases of their Li-2's. Might I suggest delaying one of the second of the previously ordered transport wings in the production schedule so that experience from producing the first wing might be integrated to make it cheaper to build.
Preparations for the Spanish campaign are going nicely. Turkey definitely needs every single Mountain Rifle Division it can get it's hands on for the fight in the Pyrenees. The massively expanded UGNR does allow for a lot of flexibility here. I do hope the Soviet and German navies come through on their end as the Invasion fleet looks to be like the weakest link in Turkey's invasion plans.
We've got the four MTN divs now, which will get a real workout. Fingers crossed the US Navy in particular (which usually has quite a heavy Med presence) gets mixed in with those Spanish ships.
The happenings in the US are certainly intriguing, even if Bud White's interrogation techniques are a bit crude. Hanging a man out of the window, really?
For the moment it's just a funny distraction and a good look into the disfunction of US police departments, though I'm still waiting for Perse to suddenly turn up in the most dramatic way.
The DA, from his own office, at that! It's the Wild West out there. Perse may have been forgotten by some of the players, but she's definitely not gone!
I do share Turkey's fear that Stavka might have overestimated it's capacity to supply troops at the far end of the Trans-Siberian. The sheer amount of divisions moving east is going to lead to some serious issues. Of course everyone wants part of the glory of evicting Japan from mainland Asia. At some point the Red Army might well become it's own biggest enemy.
As I write this, I am sitting down at a local restaurant for a delicious Algerian mutton Tajine accompanied by copious amounts of Raki. Cennet and Loggins sitting across the table from me, as we look out over the Turkish fleet, and the Mediterranean beyond. At the next table, Turkish officers retell their, no doubt exaggerated, exploits performed during the war in the Balkans and Italy, in an effort to impress the French-Algerian waitress, who remains wholly unimpressed. She did brazenly flirt with 'Wraith' Loggins when she brought our food, so I guess she likes her men reckless, dangerous, and arguably mentally deranged. Interestingly, none of the officers even dared to try and flirt with Cennet, despite their copious alcohol intake.
Let us hope the Spanish campaign will go down without a hitch, and let us enjoy our downtime in the meantime,
Poor Professor! I really do think Loggins is getting Durden's reputation here. Or are they the same person? Has anyone ever seen them in the same room together? Mayhem!
Oh, I see how it is, you think I'm too busy writing academic papers to notice you three sneaking out without me. Well, usually you would be correct, but in this case the famous loose-lipped tendency of Soviet intelligence officers has played to your disadvantage!
Thanks to all for your continued engagement and support. Still a bit to happen before the New World Order emerges. Next, to play and write up. Will take a few days yet, as there's more cricket to be played (getting close to finals now, which two of my teams look like reaching) and a short interstate trip for a play in Sydney next week.
As always, no expectation to vote for one of my AARs - and there are plenty of different categories to votes for. It can sometimes be hard to decide which one to put an AAR in (for example, I see all my AARs as primarily 'Gameplay', though some also have major narrative elements). All authAARs recognised with a vote will greatly appreciate the effort.
----
For this story, August 1944 has just been played through, so I'll soon be going into AAR production for the next chapter. I've also pretty much worked out a Post-War peace conference model, which will (with moderator permission) include some detailed interactive proportional voting for various outcomes, where I'll call on commentAARs to take the helm of various countries represented there in a role-play with hidden (from each other) objectives.
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Chapter 232: No Room for Fascists (1-17 August 1944)
Chapter 232:No Room for Fascists (1-17 August 1944)
Introduction
Turkey’s build-up of forces and supplies against Spain continued all through July 1944. So too did Stalin’s insistence that bringing Spain into the Comintern was a core objective of the Anti-Fascist pact. The Soviets (with the help of Romania and Poland) were off en masse to fight Japan in the East: Turkey was expected to ‘do the wet work’ in the West. There would be no room for fascists in the New World Order and Francisco Franco’s days were clearly numbered. But when would Turkey move?
Lieutenant Ed Exley and Detective Sergeant Bud White were building a case against the corrupt police Captain Dudley Smith – often by ‘unconventional means’. But who will strike first – and who will survive? Perse has been keeping a low profile, while rumours of the ‘Duke of Midnight‘ persisted. Have they both long fled the scene by now, or have they bunkered down in or around Los Angeles?
---xxx---
Preamble - The Glorious Path to War
At HQ 1st Army in Toulouse, just before midnight on 31 July Ismet Inönü was reviewing reports of the Turkish forces mustered on Spain’s northern border and to the south in Morocco and Algeria. First was from his Chief Logistician, which indicated Turkish supply stockpiles were now ‘in the green’ all along the Pyrenees.
Some more recently rebased air units in Toulouse were not yet fully reorganised, but otherwise all was in readiness – and time was ticking away. The war had dragged on now for years; Stalin had made his expectations clear; and Turkey would clearly benefit from having Spain within its own orbit, rather than in the hands of Fascist running dogs, or perhaps later the British-led Allies. It was time to strike.
Spain would not be conquered and incorporated into the UGNR, but hopefully enlisted in the Comintern as a client state of Turkey. Orders were sent. Turkish troops were put in motion and would cross the border at midnight. As expected, Franco’s response was to enlist with the dying Axis. The Allies would remain neutral in this ‘side conflict’.
In Africa, the five divisions stationed around Spanish Morocco began marching to their respective objectives.
In Spain itself, the difficult assault would begin on the Spanish defensive line based in the Pyrenees, while an armoured column of corps strength would drive along the coastal plains through undefended Figures. Later that day, a V2 strike would hit the Spanish air base at Barcelona.
---xxx---
1 Aug 44
By midnight, five battles had erupted along the border. The Spanish Army appeared to have been fully mobilised, with poor weather and the mountainous terrain aiding the defenders. But good progress was made in Ripoll, Andorra and Viella, with victories recorded in all three locations by the early afternoon. But the fighting in Sabiñánigo and Boltaña would be more fiercely contested. All four Turkish mountain divisions would be involved, with commander 3 Mtn Div, MAJGEN E. Diskoerekto, leading the four-division Turkish-Soviet assault on Andorra.
By 2am, the Spanish Air Force was making a bold – if hazardous – sortie on the troops attacking from Pau, with two unescorted TAC wings bombing and strafing the men massed there for the attack. Simultaneously, a more substantial Spanish raid on the Comintern soldiers massed in Foix was made, with two TAC wings and a multi-role fighter aircraft escort – led by an apparent German expat flyer: von Richthofen!
The first raid on Pau was met by the old but experienced 2 and 3 AFs, even though they were not yet back at full operational readiness. The first raid slipped through, doing some minor damage, but when they returned later that morning one of the enemy wings was badly damaged, with no further ground casualties. The raids were broken off.
It was a different story over Foix, where the Spanish escort fighters enabled their bombers to get through twice that morning without being too heavily damaged. The two wings of Yak-7s were not heavily damaged, but did become more disorganised after the second raid.
Over 200 Comintern troops were killed on the ground, but while 1 AG was pulled off the line for repairs at 1pm that afternoon, the enemy bombers did not return, so one of the other fighter groups (all now two wings in size) in reserve at Toulouse was not required, though they did continue to patrol the skies over Foix.
These initial Spanish air sorties drew a response from Turkey’s new missile arm, with a battery of V2s launched on Barcelona that morning to disrupt enemy air operations. They severely reduced the facilities at the air base, forcing most of the Spanish aircraft there to be withdrawn by the afternoon.
Interestingly, it also flushed out a response from a group of three Spanish fighter wings (based elsewhere) who vainly tried to shoot down the rockets. None of the aircraft based there had in fact participated in the early morning raids on the Comintern attackers.
The morning’s air activity had given the Turks a good look at the various aircraft models the Spanish were operating: none were modern (all ‘first generation’ German and Italian designs) and the latest license-bought Turkish aircraft would be superior, though the enemy could still put up a fight.
By 5pm on the first day of the Spanish Liberation War, the battle for Boltaña remained fairly evenly balanced [58% progress], with three Turkish divisions in the front line taking on three Spanish counterparts. On the western end of the line, the defenders of Sabiñánigo were still resisting strongly [66%], though slowly losing ground. Combat and especially movement would continue to be slow all along the mainly mountainous border.
Air Damage Report. 1 BG (2 x M/R, 3 x TAC) had struck Boltaña all day, causing 345 Spanish casualties in total. Before being driven off, the Spanish bombers had caused 245 casualties in Foix and 24 in Pau.
OTL Event: Poland. The Polish resistance Home Army began the Warsaw Uprising against Nazi occupation forces. [Comment: my father, who turned seven years old that very day, was sheltering in a Warsaw subway station with his mother and grandmother while this went on. His grandmother would not survive the episode. Shades of current day Ukraine – so sad.]
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2 Aug 44
Since the victories against Germany and Italy, Turkish manpower had rebuilt to achieve a surplus of 36,000 men with a monthly recruiting base of 32,700. By the start of 2 August, demands for 990 replacements had been recorded. While most would be from combat losses, as Turkish forces pushed into Spain itself (especially the mountains) a steady trickle of attrition would be added to that toll.
By 5am the first Spanish territory had been occupied, with 2 Armd and 3 Cav Divs arriving in Figueres. By 3pm, four of the ‘flying column’ divisions had made it and were given orders to bypass Spanish units and continue along the coast towards Barcelona as quickly as possible, as 2 Inf Div came up behind to secure the border gain. As a German battleship squadron patrolled offshore.
Victory came in Sabiñánigo at 6am, but as with all these mountain provinces, it would take a long while yet to physically secure it. The fighting in Boltaña remained fierce, as Turkish bombers continued to strike it.
As the day drew to a close, Boltaña was the only battle still in progress – and reports were coming in from the Germans, who seemed to be sending most of their units in southern France to support the Turkish offensive.
Air Damage Report. Improved bombing effectiveness in Boltaña (perhaps the result of better weather) caused another 589 Spanish casualties in four raids.
OTL Events: London, Poland and Turkey. The Germans launched 316 V-1 flying bombs at London, the highest single-day total yet. Over 100 reached the capital, hitting Tower Bridge and doing great damage to the armament factories on the outskirts. The primary stage of the Lublin–Brest Offensive concluded with Soviet objectives met. And Turkey broke off diplomatic relations with Nazi Germany.
---xxx---
3 Aug 44
Recruiting seemed to be broadly keeping pace with casualties at this point, to the relief of Turkish planners, though careful daily monitoring continued for the time being.
By 3am, only one Spanish division remained to contest Boltaña and it was weakening rapidly [93%]. Victory came in the largest and longest of the five initial border battles at 10am. In the east, the advance had deepened along the coastal plain.
The first combat in Africa broke out in Larache, with 47 SD the first to engage at 1pm that afternoon, with the IS-1 equipped 1 Inf Div joining in reserve early on the next morning. This was enough to break the defenders’ morale and the Comintern forces would emerge victorious two hours later.
Spain would not be entirely passive in their defence and at 4pm staged a well-executed assault from Olot on Figueres, hoping to cut off the Turkish mechanised forces that had already passed beyond it to the south. By then 2 Inf Div had arrived and 3 Mot Div had not yet left, so they put up a hasty defence. The situation was borderline and 1 BG switched its efforts from the recently won battle for Boltaña to defensive air support on Olot.
This triggered a response from the Spanish fighter group that had been spotted operating over Barcelona on the first day of the war. A group of the latest model Yak-7s was called in to assist the two wings of Mustangs already providing fighter escort. The raid was hindered and enemy ground casualties were minimal.
Air Damage Report. The raids on Boltaña were completed that morning, another 146 casualties making a total of 1,080 killed from 1-3 August. The one raid on Olot that night only killed 18 soldiers.
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4 Aug 44
The powerful German battle group patrolling off the Spanish east coast reported sighting enemy ships in the Gulf of Valencia early on 4 August, but it was unclear whether any direct combat occurred.
The air war continued over Olot in the early hours of the morning and into the afternoon. Raids ending at 4am, 10am and 4pm all made their way through to the target, though the Spanish Air Force contested them all that morning. The Spaniards focused on the lead TAC wing – equipped with the newest M-26 Marauders of 4 TAK – eventually forcing it to withdraw for repairs that evening, leaving the Yak-4s to go on with the job.
In Morocco, to the far south a lone Spanish cavalry brigade was advancing north from Sidi Ifni and occupied Goulimine at 1pm. The Turkish response to this advance, 19 Inf Div, was still well to the north, marching south from Casablanca, but only arid land lay between them: this would remain a side-show.
The battle for Figueres raged on, with the arrival of the new 4 Cav Div that afternoon tipping the scales further in favour of the Turkish defenders, as the Air Force harried their attackers in Olot.
Meanwhile, the Turkish lead elements had not slowed their rapid advance along the coast and by 5pm they had secured Mataró. 2 Armd Div launched a quick blitzing attack on Barcelona but soon ran into substantial opposition in the urban terrain. 3 Cav Div was called in to support them soon after first contact.
Air Damage Report. Four raids on Olot, the last one without the assistance of the withdrawn B-26s, killed 369 Spanish troops.
OTL Event: Florence, Italy. German forces retreated from Florence after blowing up the city's medieval bridges overnight to effectively cut the city in two. Only the Ponte Vecchio was spared.
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5 Aug 44
Just at the right time, a first advance in domestic Turkish interception tactics was made: this would be continued, to help upgrade the response of Turkey’s older fighter wings. The effort would be continued.
In North Africa, Spanish troops (perhaps attempting to evade the Turkish advance) took the province of Taounate early that morning, though 4 Mot Div rolled into the frontier province of Melilla just two hours later.
By 10am that morning, the replacement bill had grown to 1,480 men, but the reserve still stood at 36,000. The battles for Figueres [-37%] and Barcelona [61%] continued. The logistics advisors reported supply remained in the green in almost all front line provinces, including to the troops attacking Barcelona.
Air Damage Report. Four raids on Olot killed another 379 Spanish troops.
---xxx---
The Victory Motel – Part 1
Bud was at the Hollywood precinct station, figuring out his next move after having earlier discovered strong evidence of Dudley Smith’s corrupt practices. His thoughts are interrupted by a rookie officer bearing a message.
“Uh, Sergeant White?”
“What?”
“Dispatch just got a call for you. Lieutenant Exley wants you to meet him at the Victory Motel. Room 6.”
A short time later, Bud’s Packard crests the rise looking down on the abandoned Victory. Exley's Plymouth is in the courtyard. Sunset approaches.
Inside, in Room 6 - the room used for Smith’s ‘interrogations’, using Bud and others as the strongarm men - Exley sits in the ‘hotseat’. He opens the door as Bud approaches, toting a shotgun. It is now dark outside, except for a dull glow on the horizon.
“You wanted to meet here?” asks Bud.
“Me? You called it. I got a message that...” He pauses as the reality sinks in.
Bud and Exley hear tyres on the gravel outside but can’t see the vehicles yet; they are around a corner. They hear car doors opening, but not shutting. Footsteps. Murmurs. More cars arriving.
“Shit... Come on!” Exley starts for his car, but Bud holds him back.
“Too late.”
Resigned, Exley nods and they retreat back to Room 6. Bud covers a big window with a ratty old mattress and pumps the shotgun, while pulling a .45 automatic from his waistband.
“Here.” He throws the pistol to Exley, then pulls out a .38.
“You figured this was a set-up?” asks Ed, rhetorically. “And you showed up anyway?”
“A lot of bad stuff happened here. It's as good a place as any for it to end.” Bud switches off the light and they wait in silence for a while.
“You know, all I ever wanted was to measure up to my father,” offers Ed.
“I spent years trying not to live down to mine,” replies Bud softly. Then louder: “We should block off the bathroom. They could come through …”
Then he hears a creak outside the front door. Bud levels the shotgun and blows the door off its hinges. A man is sprawled in the dirt. In the darkness beyond, muzzle flashes come from all around. Exley and Bud return fire.
This climactic scene all occurs in one sitting, but for narrative and structure purposes excerpts will be played out in separate segments through the chapter.
---xxx---
OTL Event: Cowra, Australia. The Cowra breakout occurred when over 1,100 Japanese prisoners of war attempted to escape from a POW camp near Cowra in New South Wales, Australia. Four Australian soldiers and 231 Japanese were killed, but hundreds managed to escape although they would all be recaptured within ten days. We could imagine something similar happening somewhere in this ATL. [Comment: in another familial coincidence, my late father-in-law was one of those young nearby soldiers who had just finished his basic infantry training and was waiting to be shipped off to join a battalion in the 2nd AIF, eventually to land in Borneo. He was there that first morning in the immediate (and grisly) aftermath and would later become President of the Cowra Breakout Association. Decades afterwards he would be interviewed about it by a Japanese TV crew!]
---xxx---
6 Aug 44
Spanish fighters (three different wings to the ones encountered on 4 August) returned to the skies over Olot at 5am – supposedly personally led this time by none other than Franco himself! This interference and night conditions contributed to a decreased effect on the ground, but the Spanish attack on Figueres continued to weaken.
And the assault on Barcelona was pressed hard, with victory won and the key city rapidly occupied later that morning. By 11pm, the Spanish attack on Figueres looked to be on its last legs [-13%].
Two new militia brigade upgrades were begun late that night in Turin, with the conversions to be for mountain brigades to equip the half-formed 5 Mtn Div. This drew the Turkish manpower reserve back down to 34,000 men, with 1,340 replacements required.
Air Damage Report. Three raids on Olot killed 334 Spanish troops.
---xxx---
7 Aug 44
The first German divisions were reaching the Spanish border by the early morning of 7 August, but none had yet joined in any combat as the slow follow-up advances into the Pyrenees still played out.
The focal point of fighting remained in the east, with the battle of Figueres – by far the largest of the war to date – won at midday, with a swift follow-up attack launched on Olot straight afterwards. The Spanish soon broke, exhausted after days of heavy ground fighting and Turkish air strikes.
1 BG took the opportunity for a rest, with the two Yak-4 wings gradually worn down to between 92-94% strength and the B-26s still undergoing repair.
Air Damage Report. The final four strikes on Olot killed 243 Spanish troops, bringing the total to 1,343 between 3-7 August.
---xxx---
8 Aug 44
Recent builds and accumulating casualties after the heavy fighting in Olot saw the manpower reserve at 34,000 with 2,990 replacements required. Still manageable for the foreseeable future, but requiring some vigilance to ensure it would be sustainable in the longer term.
The first Spanish mountain border province was finally occupied at 6am, with 4 Mtn Div then combining with 4 Inf Div and 4 SD to mount an ‘all fours’ attack on the significant defences of Benabarre. German troops were in the vicinity but had not yet joined in any battles.
In Africa, 4 Mot Div caught up with the Spanish in Taounate soon afterwards, defeating them after a brief skirmish. 2 Mot Div continued to follow up behind them towards Alhucemas.
Zaragoza was added to the German objective list at midday, to further encourage them to advance in the centre of the main Spanish front. Not that it seemed to be working.
OTL Event: Germany. The Junkers Ju 287 ‘testbed’ for a multi-engined jet bomber had its first flight. This is the same aircraft Turkey has ordered on license from the Germans in the ATL.
---xxx---
9 Aug 44
More gains from previous Turkish victories were made during the day, with Olot, Sabiñánigo, Manresa and Ripoll all falling as the advance continued to widen the coastal salient and the Pyrenees were slowly cleared.
Evidence of presumed Spanish submarine activity was received when a transport on the Genoa-Oran convoy route was lost in the Southern Balearic Islands. Other Comintern shipping had also been hit in surrounding areas during recent days.
---xxx---
The Victory Motel – Part 2
The back window of Room 6 breaks under a muffled blow. Bud charges back and yanks down the mattress to reveal two men climbing through. Sitting ducks torn apart by shotgun blasts at close range.
“We got ’em!” cries Ed.
A third man looks through the window. BOOM! Bud nails him and motions Exley to stay put, then slips out the window.
Outside, Bud crouches, looks between the cinder blocks supporting the room. He sees two sets of feet shuffling along. Bud fires the shotgun and hears shrieks as the men go down, then extends the .38 to fire point blank headshots.
But then Bud flattens himself as a wicked crossfire tears up Room 6. Exley is forced down as well, lying flat as plaster rains down. The door frame splinters as more of Dudley’s men charge in. Four men with rifles. They spot Exley lying there.
In hushed whispers as they approach, the phrases "Dead meat" and "Be careful" are heard. They kick the motionless Ed in the side, then look at each other and sneer.
Then Exley spins over on the ground, shooting the .45 and his own .38. All four men go down. Exley stands and digs into his pocket to reload. Bud scrambles back through the window. Exley looks over and smiles as Bud reloads the shotgun. It's dead quiet.
“I'm thinking we might walk away from this,” says Ed with some hope.
In that instant, Dudley steps through the bathroom door. He's got Exley dead to rights. As he squeezes the trigger, Bud leaps forward and pushes Exley hard to the ground. The shot passes through Bud's back by his left shoulder blade, spinning him around. A second shot to the stomach slows him to a walk as he charges Dudley. A third round shatters Bud's jaw, but still he comes. Driven by rage, his hands reach for Dudley's throat. He even manages to hold on before a fourth slug tears into his chest. Bud falls hard.
Dudley swings his aim to Exley who's just managed to shake off the cobwebs from being flattened by Bud. A frozen moment passes between them.
---xxx---
10 Aug 44
At 3am, with follow-on forces coming behind them and the mountains of Olot secured, 1 Mot and 3 Cav Divs began advancing on the unoccupied Tarragona (another VP location) from Barcelona.
Back in northern Italy, the two partly finished upgrade divisions 5 Mtn Div (2 x MTN) and a yet-to-be named motorised division (1 x LARM, 2 x MOT) finished their rail journeys to Turin, where they would remain until completed. Manpower was begin to grow again, even while the replacement bill was now declining.
In Morocco, 19 Inf Div had reached El Jadida at 6am and was advancing on Marrakech, even as the Spanish 7th Cav Bde seized Tamanar and did the same.
The subs of the 1st ‘Mk1 Eyeball’ Flotilla were ordered to re-base from Athens to Alger at 10am. They were intended for use in scouting around the Western Med and key Spanish ports.
The next phase of the Turkish offensive in Spain began after 3 Mtn Div secured Andorra at 11am, with an opportunistic assault on a small two-brigade division in Puebla de Segur launched a few hours later. It would take almost a day, but victory would eventually be won there after a sharp battle.
In the west, a new attack on Jaca initially made slow headway. 1 BG was called in at 6pm to provide air support, but little damage was being done.
Air Damage Report. The first raid on Jaca killed only 24 Spanish troops that night.
OTL Event: Germany. Berthold Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg, 39, German aristocrat, lawyer and conspirator in the 20 July plot was executed by the Nazis. [Comment: in the ATL he is on the winning side and probably serving somewhere in the new DDR High Command.]
---xxx---
11 Aug 44
The Jaca air mission was ended at 10am, after only three and then 24 ground casualties were caused: it was deemed not worth the fuel and supplies being expended.
Instead, it was the Spanish Air Force who tried to disrupt the troops attacking from Pau, but a single old TAC wing was met immediately by the fighters still on intercept mission there from earlier in the war. No ground casualties were incurred and the bombers were seen off.
In the mid-afternoon, Tarragona was secured without a fight, though the lone Spanish tank brigade that had been on its way there bumped into 3 Cav Div at 3pm and was immediately driven off. The grip on Barcelona was expanded soon after with a clearing attack on Tarrasa that would eventually succeed early the following morning.
And a new attack was begun on Huesca in the west early on the 12th as two Soviet rifle divisions attempted to push past the Pyrenees and into the foothills to its south.
Air Damage Report. The single raid on Jaca that day killed only another 27 Spanish troops before the mission was discontinued.
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12-13 Aug 44
On the evening of the 12th, in the west 1 Mot Div secured Tarrasa and pushed on towards Tárrega: part of a developing Turkish plan for a sweeping hook behind the main Spanish defence of the Pyrenees and its foothills. Valencia was added as another depth German objective. This was followed by 3 Mot Div securing Manresa at 1am on the 13th.
Victory was won in Jaca at 3am, at the same time a new attack began on Boltaña against a badly outnumbered enemy division that had slipped in to try to close the gap in the line. Turkish bombers started to hit the province as the quick attack went in. That battle would be won by the afternoon after a 12-hour firefight.
After the victories in Jaca and Boltaña, 156 SD attacked south to Seo de Urgel but met strong resistance, while later that afternoon the battle for Huesca was won.
Air Damage Report. Two Turkish raids on Boltaña to support the latest quick attack there killed 155 Spanish defenders before they fled.
---xxx---
The Victory Motel – Part 3
“I'm loathe to kill my brother officers, Edmund.”
“Tell that to Stensland,” Ed hisses.
“Dick Stensland had the audacity to try to sell me my own heroin. Through his whore girlfriend. I sent him to make the buy at the Midnite Owl. The rest is history.”
“Why?”
“A vacuum, Edmund. That's what we have in Los Angeles. Sending Mickey Cohen up created it. My containment work maintained it. Certain photographs guarantee it. Organised crime has been held back, but there's still a demand for the services it provides.”
“And now you'll provide them.”
“Absolutely. Prostitution and gambling are victimless crimes. The heroin we'll run down to the under-classes. Anaesthetise them. As long as it's not a middle class problem, no one will care. It's still a crime free city – for respectable people.”
Dudley aims the .38, cocks back the hammer. Distant police sirens are heard.
“This isn't politics, Edmund. There won't be winners and losers when it's over...”
Dudley doesn't see the badly wounded Bud stir and then reach into a pocket.
“Just the living and the dead,” Dudley continues, now in full villain-explains-his-rationale mode. “It's always been that way in the Bureau. You should've realised that before you became a detective.”
Dudley's finger tightens on the trigger … but he screams as Bud buries a switchblade into his left calf. It took all Bud had left. As Bud collapses, Dudley wails while Exley dives for Bud's shotgun. Dudley fires but misses. A wild shotgun blast takes out half the wall. Dudley stumbles out the door. Sirens blare.
---xxx---
14 Aug 44
After a short rest, 1 BG began air strikes on Seo de Urgel at 4am to support the Soviet attack, which was beginning to make slow progress [61%].
At 11am, the sub flotilla reached their new base in Alger and began a patrol of the Western Med around Valencia and the Balearic Islands. The three older Yak-7 wings of 4 AG (also based in Alger) were detailed to provide air intercept support in case any Spanish aircraft tried to interfere.
At midday, MAJGEN Diskoerekto began a new attack on Puebla de Segur [71%]. 3 Mtn Div was then joined at 8pm by 10 and 17 Inf Divs attacking from Viella, which would force the defending 20a Division to flee by 11pm. Meanwhile, HQ 23rd Corps (a reinforced combat-capable outfit) was the first to secure mountainous Jaca in the west.
In Africa, the Spanish mountain division earlier forced out of Taounate had been cut off by the arrival of 2 Mot Div behind them in Xauen. By the night of the 14th, they had surrendered and an unrecorded number of prisoners taken. The remaining Spanish forces in Morocco were falling back on their two last ports of Tanger and Ceuta.
Air Damage Report. The Turkish bombers striking Seo de Urgel killed 276 Spanish defenders that day in raids that would continue on into early 16 August.
OTL Event: Normandy, France. Canadian and Polish troops began Operation Tractable, the final offensive of the Battle of Normandy.
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15-17 Aug 44
On the morning of the 15th, Inönü was briefed on the overall situation.
While some good gains had been made in the north, especially along the coast, the briefing map showed just how large Spain was. Even without enemy resistance, it would take some time to secure enough of Spain’s population centres to force a surrender, given the very high national unity Franco had managed to establish in the years since his victory in the Civil War.
The Spanish 7th Cavalry Regiment had won the race to Marrakech early that afternoon but then came under immediate attack from the advancing Turks in a one-sided battle that would be won by 19 Inf Div just after midnight the following morning.
And the sub recon off Valencia revealed the port contained one light cruiser and four other ships of unknown type, with two wings (again of unknown type) in the air base there.
Manpower had grown to a reserve of 38,000 men, with only 590 replacements needed at the front as recruiting outstripped losses to combat and attrition.
1 Mtn Div occupied the hill province of Berga at 8pm and pushed on west to reinforce the almost won attack on Seo de Urgel (which would be won early the following morning). However, the Turkish attackers were themselves ambushed at 6am on the 16th by the Spanish 2a Division, which slipped into Seo de Urgel before they could secure it. It would ultimately take over a day to finally force a second Spanish withdrawal (by 10am on the 17th).
On the western end of the line, a shock attack on Barbastro just before midnight on the 15th caught the two defending Spanish divisions off balance, with air support from 1 BG switched from Seo de Urgel to assist. That fight would be won at 1pm on the 16th as the Turkish offensive continued to develop.
The day would end with 1 Mot Div trying to get to Balaguer before the Spanish divisions now retreating from Seo de Urgel could escape there. The more Spanish troops that could be captured on the frontier, the faster (and less expensively) the rest of Spain could be secured.
Air Damage Report. Turkish bombers killed 384 more enemy troops in Seo de Urgel on the 15th and another 68 on the morning of the 16th, making a total of 728 from 14-16 August. The one raid on Barbastro killed 68 Spanish defenders.
OTL Event: Southern France. On 15 August Allied forces began Operation Dragoon, the invasion of southern France.
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The Victory Motel – Part 4
Outside, Dudley drops his gun as the police cruisers stream down. Exley steps out behind him, but doesn't drop the shotgun. The two of them are bleached white by headlights.
Dudley raises his badge over his head.
“We're policemen!” he shouts, then turns and winks to Exley. More softly and suddenly chummy, he says “Let me do the talking. They'll make you Chief of Detectives.”
Exley steps ahead to block his way.
“No.”
“Why not, lad? Absolute justice?”
“Something like that.”
“Really? Would you be willing to rig crime scene evidence to support a prosecuting attorney's working hypothesis?”
Exley doesn't answer. He’s heard this all before. Dudley smiles.
“Would you be willing to beat confessions out of suspects you knew to be guilty?"
Exley glares. Laughing, Dudley brushes by, limps toward the gathering uniformed policemen, saying “Are you willing to shoot hardened criminals in the back to offset the chance they'll …”
The shotgun belches flame. Dudley goes down, shot in the back. Exley drops the gun and raises his hands over his head, police badge in hand.
Gunfight at the Victory Motel – selected scenes
Top left: Bud White arrives at the abandoned Victory Motel, lured along with Ed Exley into Dudley Smith’s ambush. Top right: Ed Exley returns fire. Bottom left: Bud White stalks another attacker. Bottom right: Last man standing? Ed Exley identifies himself to the uniformed cops attending the shootout, standing in front of Dudley Smith’s crumpled body.
---xxx---
Coming Up: As the Turkish offensive against Spain grinds ahead, can they effect an encirclement of a large portion of the Spanish Army? Or will this be a long, slow and exhausting campaign that will drag out for weeks or even months? What of the Spanish Navy and the currently shelved Turkish plans for a landing in southern Spain to help shorten the war? Will supply problems in the Far East hinder the Soviet counter-offensive to liberate the rest of Siberia and their Pacific Coast territories down to Vladivostok?
How will Exley explain himself? And is Bud White dead or alive? Has this shootout removed both Ed and Bud from the picture for Lynn Bracken? And will this violent apocalypse finally allow Perse to emerge from hiding, or will she remain too afraid of the S.I.T.H. hitman the ‘Duke of Midnight’ to risk it?
Looks like the Turkish Army easily rolled up the Eastern part of the front, with several of Franco's Divisions being overrun. Casualties on the Turkish side are lower than expected too. Spain is clearly doomed and outclassed, even before the SS gets involved. I guess that after fighting crack German and Italian formations for so long, the Turkish forces are just so much more experienced in the modern ways of war, not to mention the Turkish Airforce's ability to swat any Spanish bombing attempt out of the sky.
Over in LA, the Victory Motel showdown is quite the dramatic end to the Saga, I was definitely on the edge of my seat. One does wonder what the consequences for Exley. Will he end up in jail, or a shallow grave for ending Smith's empire, will he be celebrated asa hero, or will he be quietly discharged from the police force to keep this whole affair quiet?
It's a good start to August to say the least.
Let us celebrate the brave UGNR troops liberating Spain from Fascism,
All four Turkish mountain divisions would be involved, with commander 3 Mtn Div, MAJGEN E. Diskoerekto, leading the four-division Turkish-Soviet assault on Andorra.
[Comment: my father, who turned seven years old that very day, was sheltering in a Warsaw subway station with his mother and grandmother while this went on. His grandmother would not survive the episode. Shades of current day Ukraine – so sad.]
By 3pm, four of the ‘flying column’ divisions had made it and given orders to bypass Spanish units and continue along the coast towards Barcelona as quickly as possible
OTL Event: Cowra, Australia. The Cowra breakout occurred when over 1,100 Japanese prisoners of war attempted to escape from a POW camp near Cowra in New South Wales, Australia. Four Australian soldiers and 231 Japanese were killed, but hundreds managed to escape although they would all be recaptured within ten days. We could imagine something similar happening somewhere in this ATL. [Comment: in another familial coincidence, my late father-in-law was one of those young nearby soldiers who had just finished his basic infantry training and was waiting to be shipped off to join a battalion in the 2nd AIF, eventually to land in Borneo. He was there that first morning in the immediate (and grisly) aftermath and would later become President of the Cowra Breakout Association. Decades afterwards he would be interviewed about it by a Japanese TV crew!]
The next phase of the Turkish offensive in the began at after 3 Mtn Div secured Andorra at 11am, with an opportunistic assault on a small two-brigade division in Puebla de Segur launched a few hours later. It would take almost a day, but victory would eventually be won there after a sharp battle.
At midday, MAJGEN Diskoerekto began a new attack on Puebla de Segur [71%]. 3 Mtn Div was then joined at 8pm by 10 and 17 Inf Divs attacking from Viella, which would force the defending 20a Division to flee by 11pm.
Turkey’s build-up of forces and supplies against Spain continued all through July 1944. So too did Stalin’s insistence that bringing Spain into the Comintern was a core objective of the Anti-Fascist pact.
OTL Event: Poland. The Polish resistance Home Army began the Warsaw Uprising against Nazi occupation forces. [Comment: my father, who turned seven years old that very day, was sheltering in a Warsaw subway station with his mother and grandmother while this went on. His grandmother would not survive the episode. Shades of current day Ukraine – so sad.]
As the day drew to a close, Boltaña was the only battle still in progress – and reports were coming in from the Germans, who seemed to be sending most of their units in southern France to support the Turkish offensive.
While some good gains had been made in the north, especially along the coast, the briefing map showed just how large Spain was. Even without enemy resistance, it would take some time to secure enough of Spain’s population centres to force a surrender, given the very high national unity Franco had managed to establish in the years since his victory in the Civil War.
I expect that once the battles move past the imposing Pyrenees (which really should be nearly impassable in-game, IMO) things will move more quickly, the Spanish forces are inexperienced and underpowered compared to the modern Turkish Army - and no doubt demoralized after seeing the rest of the world's fascists go down in flames! Once the initial battles are over it should be a matter of pressing the demoralized Spanish troops backwards until we secure enough key cities to force Franco to give up.
There should not be much need, we are not in a terrible rush here and the more of the army which remains somewhat intact the better to maintain order in our newest, hmm, allied state.
The Spanish Army appeared to have been fully mobilised, with poor weather and the mountainous terrain aiding the defenders. But good progress was made in Ripoll, Andorra and Viella, with victories recorded in all three locations by the early afternoon.
It's nice to see the Spanish aren't pushovers, although I agree with others that they'll be less impressive once you get out of the Pyrenees. It looks like the biggest problem could be the relatively large front line, but luckily Spain is fairly weak.
The shootout was really intense and enjoyable, but it's hard to see how Ed will get out of this one.
At the very least, we can comfort ourselves in knowing Turkey cannt afford or has the capability to be as overbearing to her puppet and 'allies' come the new era. Think of it more as a more intensely focused EU, for the benefit of all members...but mostly Turkey, at least for the rest of the 40s and 50s.
That being said, Turkey is still going to be a big player in Europe once their puppets and 'allies' eventually and inevitably get a bit freer. They'll have all of anatolia, Syria, the balkans, the med islands (hopefully we can snap the few remaining up from the british eventually) and even perhaps some more of the middle east.
Italy and Spain will be a pretty good places too. Personal union with Turkey, protection from stalin and the US, benefits of both since they're both trying to woo Turkey...better than OTL timeline at least.
The Spanish army does seem to be going in to this war at a high state of readiness – which is excellent news for the story, less so for Captain Metin Sadik.
These initial Spanish air sorties drew a response from Turkey’s new missile arm, with a battery of V2s launched on Barcelona that morning to disrupt enemy air operations.
Interestingly, it also flushed out a response from a group of three Spanish fighter wings (based elsewhere) who vainly tried to shoot down the rockets.
The morning’s air activity had given the Turks a good look at the various aircraft models the Spanish were operating: none were modern (all ‘first generation’ German and Italian designs) and the latest license-bought Turkish aircraft would be superior, though the enemy could still put up a fight.
All that patient build-up is finally paying off. For the first time, Turkey’s air force is going toe-to-toe with a major opponent and winning. Wherever Perse is hiding these days, I hope she can still manage to get hold of a copy of the Istanbul Times!
Evidence of presumed Spanish submarine activity was received when a transport on the Genoa-Oran convoy route was lost in the Southern Balearic Islands. Other Comintern shipping had also been hit in surrounding areas during recent days.
While some good gains had been made in the north, especially along the coast, the briefing map showed just how large Spain was. Even without enemy resistance, it would take some time to secure enough of Spain’s population centres to force a surrender, given the very high national unity Franco had managed to establish in the years since his victory in the Civil War.
And the sub recon off Valencia revealed the port contained one light cruiser and four other ships of unknown type, with two wings (again of unknown type) in the air base there.
Exley glares. Laughing, Dudley brushes by, limps toward the gathering uniformed policemen, saying “Are you willing to shoot hardened criminals in the back to offset the chance they'll …”
The shotgun belches flame. Dudley goes down, shot in the back. Exley drops the gun and raises his hands over his head, police badge in hand.
A fitting end, considering their past history. Despite Exley having convincing evidence of Dudley’s guilt, there’s no escaping the fact he’s just shot a man in the back. I don’t see this ending well for him.
And will this violent apocalypse finally allow Perse to emerge from hiding, or will she remain too afraid of the S.I.T.H. hitman the ‘Duke of Midnight’ to risk it?
