1914 All Over Again
Dnieper
The drive to the Dnieper continues in earnest. Now that the 10th Armee's divisions have been recommitted to the fight, more advanced progress is being made. XXI. Armeekorps, led by the volunteer 162nd "Turkestan" Infanterie Division., is participating in a massive coordinated attack on Red Army defences around Kamianka. The 2nd Hungarian Hadtest and the XXIth Korps form the main attack on Kamianka, while the 2nd Panzer Division and elements of the 1st Hungarian Army are providing close support to their left flank. In all, 360,000 men are being concentrated on a collection of Soviet formations numbering 70,000 men, once again a fight similar to the large bloodlettings of the Great War.
Although most of the Hungarian divisions are busy smashing the Russian center into submission, the Vth Corps is keeping up the pressure on the enemy's right as it withdraws. The 5th Corps captured Dniprodzerzhynsk late in the day on October 3rd, and with it the Hungarians now have an open road to Dnipropetrovsk and the enemy rear. On Army Group South's own right flank the Soviets are keeping our forces active. On the 1st, thinking they were still facing the Yugoslavians, our opponents recklessly tried to reinforce their beachheads and advance on Novovorontsovka once more. The Russian troops instead ran into 48th Corps of the German 10th Army, our men having dug in the previous evening, and were cut down in droves. Leaving 800 dead, Ivan ran back to the crossings with his tail between his legs, only to lose 350 more when their boats were struck by machine gun and mortar fire. XLVIII. Korps lost 638 men in the engagement, but managed to finally fix the mess created by the Yugoslavs.
After three days of horrifyingly brutal combat and merciless commitment of troops, the massive battle of Kamianka has been won. Over once peaceful rolling hills and in quaint farming valleys the opposing forces clashed for three days. Hungarian and German troops advanced side by side across body strewn fields, stained crimson with the blood of fallen men. The Hungarian II and IV Corps in the center were exhausted in this fight, while the German XX and XXI Korps on the less active right suffered comparatively only minor casualties. 13,111 men fell before the Soviet positions, cut down by machine gun, mortar, and rifle. It was only after the first breakthroughs occurred the Soviet division suffered similar casualties, losing 5110 men in a running battle behind the previous main line of resistance. It was then up to the 1st Hadtest to seize the advantage, with the river to the left and allies to the right, and push its 1st and 5th Corps into the key city of Dnipropetrovsk.
Push on was exactly what the 1st Hun. Army did. Three days after the bloodbath at Kamianka the first Hungarian troops reoccupied Dnipropetrovsk for the first time since the 60th Motorised Division abandoned the city in July, nearly three full months ago. It has taken 85 days of bloodshed and carnage to evict the Soviets, having made it here over a road paved by German, Hungarian, Romanian, Serbian, Croatian, Slovenian, Bosnian, and Turkic dead. Around a thousand men from each side died in the brief battle for the city itself, while 1373 Hungarians and 2200 Soviets were killed in a futile counterattack on the Ungarn left at Dniprodzerzhynsk. Now every Red Army division not already across the Dnieper is retreating back to Nikopol, no doubt to hold a bridgehead for possible future operations and create a thorn in the side of Heeres Gruppe Sued. Nevertheless, it won't be allowed to fortify, and will be attacked from all sides until flattened like an insect.
Once the 10th Armee, 1st Jugoslawien Armee, and the Hungarian 1st and 2nd Hadtests are finally reorganized and in their designated positions in the line they can at last be allowed to recuperate and rest for the possibility of a winter offensive. Already, large shipments of winter gear are already arriving at rear depots: thick woolen greatcoats, insulated boots, tents, sleeping bags, mobile heaters, enlarged trigger guards for use with mittens, studded tires for motorised vehicles, cold resistant lubricant and antifreeze for vehicle maintenance. Recent orders for more than 2 million greatcoats from textile industries in Germany and its allied nations haven't gone unnoticed. It is apparent something big is coming...
France
The German commanders on the Western Front have confirmed their suspicions about the Italian motorised and armored troops: they are absolutely useless. Three successive battles have been lost in the past week alone, with a fourth clearly about to end similarly. Fayl Billot, 1371 Italian defenders opposed to only 563 British attackers; Semur en Auxois, 704 Italians for 421 Americans; Chaumont, 1816 Italian and exhausted German dead against 1198 KIA American attackers.Ronchamp is bound to end the same, with the 133rd Italian Armored being clearly outmatched by the British 6th Armoured. As of now, the only thing keeping 1st Fallschirmarmee's left flank from completely faltering are the extraordinary efforts of the much lauded 1st SS-Division Leibstandarte. Dashing back and forth along the Seine and Marne rivers, its panzers and panzergrenadiers seem to be holding the line by sheer willpower alone. Many men have only gotten an hour or two of sleep per night for the past four days. The SS troopers have also been fighting near non-stop since their deployment to France back in early August, so these men desperately need to be relieved.
Luckily, relief is on it's way in the form the the 8th SS-Kavallerie-Division "Florian Geyer". Recently formed in Poland from the SS-Cavalry Brigade, it was expanded to be a full division with the usual complement of Flak, Pak Anti-tank, Artillery, and Reconnaissance elements, as well as a StuG Ableitung. On October 1st the division arrived in Strassburg to act as a strategic reserve for Student's 1st Fallschirmarmee. However, it is likely that once Wuennenberg has his division organized it will be sent to the Italian sector to assist the 1st SS in holding the line while the Italians regain their nerves.
As a quick aside to the fighting in France, a look should be taken to the renewal of naval construction. Admiral Raeder, having been impressed by the still formidable capabilities of the Schlachtflotte (Battle Fleet), has ordered the construction of three modern Schlachtkreuzers (Battle Cruisers) to replace the antiquated Pre-Great War Schlesien and Schleswig -Holstein. These are to form the basis of a proposed modern German Fleet, one centered around carriers and fast escort ships in the form of battlecruisers and light cruisers, as opposed to the battleship and heavy cruiser focus of the current battlefleet. The Graf Zeppelin is the first "fleet carrier" of the Kriegsmarine and first of a planned 4 ship class. This is opposed to the current escort carrier KMS Weser, which only has a complement of 30 aircraft versus the 80 that the Graf Zeppelin is to have. As a side to the capital ship construction, the U-Boot flotte is finally being reconstructed. The original 30 ship fleet was sunk one by one until only a handful remained. Construction was shelved in favor of building light cruisers, destroyers, panzers, and aircraft. Now, the project is finally being resumed after two years of development from experience. The new class will be faster, more discreet, and more accurate, as well as numbering in the 100s for total ships. With these ships we will cut off the last remaining Soviet ports in Arkhangelsk and strangle the British Isles until they capitulate.
Naval projects and proposals aside, the war on land still has to be won. The 2nd and 4th Panzerarmees are now set to do just that as they have organized themselves on the French-Belgian border. XLII Panzerkorps of the 4th Panzerarmee has already thrust across the border at Hazebrouck with the intention of cutting off the US 30th Infantry Division around Calais. This small envelopment operation has been only lightly opposed, with 200 of our men being lost in a one sided affair at Dunkirk. The Americans and their British HQ on the other hand suffered 1275 casualties in their ineffective attempt to blunt the panzer attack. To 42nd Panzerkorps' left flank the veteran 2nd Panzerarmee slammed into the American 28th Infantry with great speed and surprise. Most likely owing to the fact that the Soviets were incorrectly reporting the 2nd Panzerarmee as being on the eastern front right up until it hit the American flank.
It appears that the BriCanAm commanders expected the 4th Panzerarmee to stop to rest for a few days before resuming the offensive, especially considering the 4th Panzerarmee had been almost continually in combat for more than a month since being committed in September. They most certainly didn't expect the 2nd Panzerarmee to join the offensive, let alone the entire 4th, but this is exactly the plan. The fundamental problem with Western military thinking is that they make assumptions based on their own experience and off of the conduct of their own armies. Unlike the Soviets, the Americans and British have yet to learn about their chief opponent, and instead continue to underestimate German officers and men at every turn. Our troops, especially the panzertruppen, are conditioned to have the ability to march, attack, rest for a few hours, and then march once more and attack. The soldiers, seasoned from the brutal fighting in the east, always anticipate combat and are ready when it comes. It is this reason why we hold a distinct advantage over our AEF opponents, they maintain slow and steady advances with many breaks in between. The lack of initiative to keep the men moving forward at all times is the reason German soldiers still camp on French soil, and the reason why the panzerarmees are now hitting a nearly empty flank.
To assist the panzers in rolling back the front, the northerly elements of the 1st Fallschirmarmee are launching attacks on the northeastern fringes of the allied line. The 3rd Panzergrenadier Division kicked off this effort by driving into an undefended gap in the line at Soissons, obsolete surplus 38-Ts leading the way. It appears the 3rd, supported by the 8th Panzer Divison, will be able to cut off the 1st Indian Infantry and the 3rd Mexican Infantry without issue. To the south the much contested Chaumont has held against 6 days of American and Canadian attacks that left 1065 attackers dead and 825 defenders from the 24th Panzer Division as well as the Italian 132nd Armored and 3rd Motorised. On the other side of the Laon-Hirson salient the 2nd Panzerarmee overran the American 28th Division at Lille, leaving the allied left flank completely devoid of troops. More properly, it is devoid of
fighting troops...
3rd Panzergrenadier Division 38-Ts of Panzer-Ableitung 65 dashing into Soissons
The motorcycle battalion of the 17th Panzer Division was driving into St. Quentin in the early afternoon of Oct. 11th when it came upon an interesting sight: Canadian staff officers and supply clerks were busily working to pack up or destroy documents, maps, fuel caches, and ammo stores like busy bees. (They must have received word that a panzer division was closing in from the northeast, little did they know the entire division was just a few miles down the road.) Upon seeing the hurried actions the cyclists immediately opened fire, 4 sidecar mounted MG-34s supported by rifles and sub-machine guns, raining down fire on the unfortunate rear echelon men. A chaotic scramble for cover then occurred, with a rare few taking untrained potshots with carbines and service pistols. A few MPs equipped with Colt M1911s and Thompsons attempted to resist, but soon resistance melted away once a Sd.kfz 234 "Puma" appeared with it's 6cm gun. A few stubborn holdouts in a farmhouse cellar refused to surrender until compelled by a StuG salvo, but most of the men in the town merely hopped in ambulances, jeeps, staff cars, or trucks and got the hell out of dodge.
As it turns out, the Kradschutzen Ableitung had driven into the main forward supply depot and headquarters for the Canadian 3rd Army, II Corps, and VIII Corps and just barely missed the chance to capture the commanders and staffs of all three. This little engagement shows, as does the map, that the allies do not have left flank at all, nor have they committed any reserves to the literally undefended road to Paris.
A 17th Panzer Division column prepares to move into recently captured St.Quentin.
Caucasus
A great blow has been struck to the Soviet Union. On October 10th the Romanian 1st Alpine captured Baku, the primary oil source of the USSR. Hitler was exuberant, according to OKH Chief Kurt Zeitzler:
"I almost wish the Romanians didn't capture Baku, then I could rest my ears. So many questions: Are the facilities intact? How much oil is stored? How soon can the oil be shipped to Germany? Could a pipeline go through to Turkey? When are our oil engineers due to arrive in the Caucasus? The capture of the Soviet oil is indeed helpful for the war effort, both boosting our industry and grinding the Soviet industry to a halt, even if Hitler keeps on talking about it."
Now that we have reached the Caspian, all the forces available to Heeres Gruppe Südost can now be turned to press the Soviet Caucasus Front back through the mountains. The final goal for this campaign is to reach the central Caucasus in the West and the Terek river in the East. The Terek is right around where hills turn to steppe, so it seems OKH wishes to use it as a springboard for this rumor of a winter offensive going around.
Norway
In the chilly north 12th Armee keeps on keeping on. The rollback of the British front is continuing with the capture of Doldca, at the cost of 718 Landsers for 1175 Tommies. The 50th and 54th Korps only need to push the stubborn Brits back to the Scandinavian Mountains and secure the lowlands around Oslo, then a defensive line can be established to tie down vital British, American, and Canadian divisions until the real war is won in mainland Europe.
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