Perhaps a Romanian guerilla leader behind enemy lines, in Transylvania?
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I'm thinking a cross between Guy Fox (a competent one, maybe V?) and Vlad the Impaler.
Glad to see the northern and center lines of the Russian front are holding or even pushing back. It gives me hope that maybe, just maybe, when Russia's best weapon comes out to play (old man winter) they can reverse this wave of bratwurst and drown them in vodka!
It saddens me very much to see the Romanians slowly dying like this. If the mountains are lost and/or things aren't looking like they will stabilize in any way I would have to suggest leaving them out to dry. I know I'm probably going to get some backlash for this but I don't think they can be saved. If the front there collapses then our entire northern flank could be left open. I'm not sure how their government will react when the inevitable happens (game mechanics?) but we can't afford to be left flapping in the wind.
Glad to see the northern and center lines of the Russian front are holding or even pushing back. It gives me hope that maybe, just maybe, when Russia's best weapon comes out to play (old man winter) they can reverse this wave of bratwurst and drown them in vodka!
It saddens me very much to see the Romanians slowly dying like this. If the mountains are lost and/or things aren't looking like they will stabilize in any way I would have to suggest leaving them out to dry. I know I'm probably going to get some backlash for this but I don't think they can be saved. If the front there collapses then our entire northern flank could be left open. I'm not sure how their government will react when the inevitable happens (game mechanics?) but we can't afford to be left flapping in the wind.
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I haven’t quite given up on Romania yet - and it’s useful the two critical centres are way to the south - but neither can I risk a large outflanking move in the east. If the pull- back comes, the question will be whether to attempt a serious intermediate line or just a delaying defence of some useful spots while the main body falls right back to the final fortified lines. It will depend on the circumstances that develop and could go either way.
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I have a huge headache so this episode I couldn't find the energy to write every comment that I had in my mind when reading, but a great episode.
Things are still going bad, but in a good way
Things are still going bad, but in a good way
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...wow.
One front at a time.
Well thats the scrapping of the german navy nearly done. Axis really are done nearly. UK must start focusing on something else though, unless she goes to fight japan instead?
Romania looks doomed but who knows?
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Hope you’re over it soon! Take your time, have another edition each of the other two AARs to write before I return to TT again.I have a huge headache so this episode I couldn't find the energy to write every comment that I had in my mind when reading, but a great episode.
Things are still going bad, but in a good way
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Well, it's time for a little comment from Rasa Urs out of Bucuresti after one of his usual visits of the Romanian army-headquarter of Marshall Antonescu, surely the most senior facist-leaning military leader in all comintern-armies...
He is still very angry about the idiotic decision of Stalin to send so much of his army to Tannu Tuva! And he thinks the local soviet leaders are similar idiots keeping so many worthful divisions in the saliant and leaving such a big gap to the Turkish lines, to the divisions which are giving the Axis troops so heroic fights.
If only Stalin would give him the commando of all these soviet divisions on Romanian soil he would be attacking Hungary soon again!
He is still very angry about the idiotic decision of Stalin to send so much of his army to Tannu Tuva! And he thinks the local soviet leaders are similar idiots keeping so many worthful divisions in the saliant and leaving such a big gap to the Turkish lines, to the divisions which are giving the Axis troops so heroic fights.
If only Stalin would give him the commando of all these soviet divisions on Romanian soil he would be attacking Hungary soon again!
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Great to have RasaUrs75 checking back in again! Romania may become an important narrative focus, even if the Axis (temporarily) conquers it! Quite agree re foolishness of sending much of the Romanian Army east - it made the initial hope of knocking Hungary out early impossible. Am still hoping STAVKA fixes the salient and uses some of those divisions to stabilise things.
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I am compeltly sacked out on pain men's right now but I think seems to me that the patriotic front is even more dubious than I just said it was. If Romania falls, it'll fall quickly and because of those plain lands, the Germans could quickly zoom through the occupied teriroty and flank either the Russians or us. Now...they should really hit us because there is no way their spy networks don't know about our advanced defensive lines in Greece and Istanbul, and if they do literally anything to delay or stop any of our forces in Yugoslavia getting back there, we're in big trouble. In fact, all they need to do is send their land forces to flank Russia and send their airforces to captured Romanian airbases to harass us as we flee back to safety.
In fact, we've basically caught ourself in a situation where if the AI is competent, we die. So better pray in the Paradox incompetence streak that infects HOI. Or that the Soviet Union has a plan in place for the fall of Romania. Which they probably do, and it's probably along the lines of let turkey and the south did to buy time and land for the motherland.
Oh those Russians...
In fact, we've basically caught ourself in a situation where if the AI is competent, we die. So better pray in the Paradox incompetence streak that infects HOI. Or that the Soviet Union has a plan in place for the fall of Romania. Which they probably do, and it's probably along the lines of let turkey and the south did to buy time and land for the motherland.
Oh those Russians...
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There are dangers, but at the moment we’re still confident of avoiding the worst of them. The tree may fall, but if it does it will fall slowly enough for us to get out from under it. Unless things go worse than I expect, a secondary delaying position Tirana-Sofiya-Black Sea is still a possibility. I don’t think they have enough forces spare for one massive and quick breakout, and the Soviets will be building heavily now - they have had over a year of a war economy by now.
Of course, I could be wrong at and you worst case scenario is wise to plan for. But we will have warning and once our men are on trucks and trains, they will move a lot quicker than their pursuers. And they have limited air power in the region - I think they will keep the bulk against the UK and Russia. This next month will be telling ...
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Top: Bismarck in 1940. Bottom: struck by a British battleship salvo - from either the Rodney or the King George V - in its final battle.
You might note that the top picture is in fact Yamato, which has three turrets versus the Bismarck's four...
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Aha! I've fallen prey to a mis-titled pic on the Great Interweb - I’m shocked!
I will find a correct one and edit the image - thanks for spotting it. PS: funnily enough I’d looked at the two pics and thought the masts on the Bismarck (below) looked different to those on the top pic, but attributed it to a trick of the lighting and dismissed it. Didn’t look closely enough to spot the turret discrepancy. Can’t have mislabeled battleship p•rn!
PPS: Fixed!
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Not help with all defeats and the one withdraw. Not happy with that.
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It might no be a bad idea to run a little test. Maybe have one of the units that is getting shipped off the front in the future preform a redeployment and see about how long it takes to get from the front to the next defensive line. It would give us a good idea of how many days we would be vulnerable and a rough timetable of withdrawal.
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I could, but am so used to it in general I just judge it by instinct
. The depth line is a good way back and the SR movement is way quicker than the enemy having to walk/drive it. Also, if the retreat is on, then the weakest units will pull out first (‘thinning out’ as we called it in the trade), which will give us a more specific idea. I try not to play ahead if I can help it, as I like to give the AI every advantage it can get re mechanics: it usually needs it! But a very good suggestion and not unreasonable, as planners would estimate such things under normal circumstances.- 1
Yes, this line is getting closer to the point of fatal breach somewhere every day. The AI has actually been quite impressive (for an HOI AI) at switching from one part of the line to another to sniff out weak spots. Though a human Axis commander would probably launch 2-3 simultaneous thrusts with an encirclement objective, whether in the Balkans or Russia.Not help with all defeats and the one withdraw. Not happy with that.
Not yet ready to abandon the current line, but the decision is getting closer ...- 1
Still catching up but this did jump out at me.
If a villain has style and panache you can find yourself rooting for them and enjoying the ride, but such thinking does not apply here, or at least not for me. The Turkish government are a collection of yes-men and some ice-cold sociopaths at the top, certainly the ineptitude of SITH provides some comic relief (for me at least), but that just further highlights the graphite grey banality of evil at the top.
I hope our terrifyingly prolific author doesn't take this the wrong way, as I said it's an excellent bit of work and I'm probably just over-thinking it, but it explained a few things for me.
I've not been as quick as catching up on this as I could have been, there always seemed to be something else to read. I was never consciously sure why, the writing is excellent, the story interesting and the 'community' around it great fun. This line crystallised things for me, I am fairly sure this Turkish regime is probably the greater of the available evils in the timeline, or at least tied for the top, so I'm unsure if I really want to read about them winning.
If a villain has style and panache you can find yourself rooting for them and enjoying the ride, but such thinking does not apply here, or at least not for me. The Turkish government are a collection of yes-men and some ice-cold sociopaths at the top, certainly the ineptitude of SITH provides some comic relief (for me at least), but that just further highlights the graphite grey banality of evil at the top.
I hope our terrifyingly prolific author doesn't take this the wrong way, as I said it's an excellent bit of work and I'm probably just over-thinking it, but it explained a few things for me.
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An interesting comment and I always value them from you, @El Pip. More broadly, the reasons you mention are why I might be happy enough to play a WW2 game as Germany as an intellectual challenge (if you can find one where it is a challenge), but am not sure I’d be able to bring myself to write an AAR about it.
In this one, as to me it is still principally a gameplay AAR (narrative asides, well, aside) where I try to stick strictly to what the game throws up or rationalising the game choices one makes, then I find myself writing it to include some of the odious things one is ‘forced’ (if you play to win) to do into an alt-historical story. In this case, from the perspective of a protagonist of the ruling government. With some sardonic nods every so often to the bleak Orwellian landscape implied by the actions taken.
A bit like thinking it was better on balance that Stalin beat Hitler, but not liking the consequences of that. You and @TheButterflyComposer are two welcome voices of counter-narrative to the ‘necessary evil’ of the thankfully fictional regime of this AAR.
In the meantime, we march proudly down the Path to Glory, trusting in Kemalism-Inonuism to show the Glorious Union and the Comintern the way to ultimate victory!
All in-game dissenters will be ruthlessly ‘neutralised’, the Axis defeated and as many peoples as possible brought under the beneficent protective embrace of the UGNR. Fortunately, PDX forum observers are exempt from the delights of TT’s press ‘freedoms’.PS: liked that ‘graphite grey’ observation. Though there are still a few surprises lurking under the surface story-wise. But grey I like, because this is definitely a story in which black and white are hard to find. So I guess that leaves us with plenty of grey areas and moral quandaries. Would a generation or two of post-war Soviet-Glorious Union rule over large swathes of the map be worth seeing Hitler and Nazism defeated? When the choice is between awful and worse, but you are forced to choose, what do you do? These are meta-questions that sit behind the story.
But, if it makes it any easier, setting aside the government etc and just focusing on the game itself, is there merit in hoping a jumped-up anti-Fascist minor can hold out against the German juggernaut and contribute to victory against them? The harsh realities (which I openly catalogue) of the powers that be vs the honest valour of those fighting Fascism on the front line? Another moral quandary to ponder.
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