Facing that kind of strength, I hope you'll follow my Middle East intervention plan
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Unfortunately support cannot be given until Spring at the absolute earliest, as soon as feasibly Rommel and his korps will be pulled from the front, supplemented with some extra units and sent to North Africa as support. Then we get down to transport, how do you propose we get them there? The Graf Zeppelin won't be ready until December of 1942, until then, the Weser and the surface fleet will be hard pressed to fight the Royal Navy if it brings it's carriers into the mix. Unless we can find an alternative means of transport a theater deployment won't be feasible until 1943.
Operation Crusade
OKH has decided to delay deployment of troops earmarked for the Romanian front, instead focusing on a mobile force of Jager troops.
Unternehmen Crusade has a planned kickoff date of March 1st, and will involve Rommel's 40th Panzerkorps, with 4th Leichte and 7. Flieger divisions attached. The 48th Mountain Korps and Italian 2nd Alpine Korps will also participate as part of the 14th Gebirgs-Armee. 7. Flieger division will begin the offensive by dropping outside of Istanbul, securing a bridgehead over the Dardanelles, then holding their ground until reinforced. The Italian Alpine Corps will move to the West coast, while the German mountain troops will move east. The mountain troops will then move to the Caucasus region. Rommel's korps will drive through central Turkey, then move down through Iraq and finally to the Sinai peninsula and the Suez Canal. It is a daring plan, but if it works, we will own a good bit of the world's oil reserves.
I am holding you responsible for this Hawke, if it fails, Hitler will want a head, and I can't promise you it won't be yours.
really good work in the north, its not looking good in the south when are you going to send help for Romania?
turkey is not match for the mite of the German army
turkey is not match for the mite of the German army
I didn't expect my plan to have been adopted so quickly. Turkey is a dis-unified country, already fairly pro-Axis, and will have most of their army facing the Soviet Union; seeing troops parading in Istanbul and Ankara should convince them continued neutrality isn't an option. However, in that time until March 1st, could Von Manstein attempt another backhand blow, in Romania? With Soviet troops so near Bucharest, the fall of Romania wouldn't only lose the Axis a member, but could also bring about the loss of the troops in the Middle East. Our lines in Northern Romania are merely dozens of kilometers from the Black Sea, and those Soviet soldiers would be an excellent target once harsh weather begins setting in in the north. It would set the stage nicely for Unternehmen Crusade.
With that condition, I'd gladly vouch to have Der Fuhrer hold me responsible for the plan. Maybe the entire Italian field army could be brought into our command hierarchy once it completes. I'd love to see the reaction of Il Duce to such a development; sending me off to Russia, only for me and my friends in the OKH to engineer a way to bring the rest of the army with me. If the Japanese ever get to fighting, this will help them as well, both because of the supply difficulties of shipping troops to the Far East and because we'll have eliminated the Indian Army in Africa. Perhaps we could set objectives for Japan in India and Italy along the Mediterranean ports of Turkey?
(Allied objectives are a useful, well hidden tool. Click a province, and the box that comes up will have a small button on the bottom right you can click to give this province objective status from an ally.)
With that condition, I'd gladly vouch to have Der Fuhrer hold me responsible for the plan. Maybe the entire Italian field army could be brought into our command hierarchy once it completes. I'd love to see the reaction of Il Duce to such a development; sending me off to Russia, only for me and my friends in the OKH to engineer a way to bring the rest of the army with me. If the Japanese ever get to fighting, this will help them as well, both because of the supply difficulties of shipping troops to the Far East and because we'll have eliminated the Indian Army in Africa. Perhaps we could set objectives for Japan in India and Italy along the Mediterranean ports of Turkey?
(Allied objectives are a useful, well hidden tool. Click a province, and the box that comes up will have a small button on the bottom right you can click to give this province objective status from an ally.)
My allied objectives for Japan almost never work, Italy would conquer the moon if I told them to, Japan can't even capture Vladivostok. I'm afraid a backhand blow isn't viable until Guderian's panzers return south and the pocket has been reduced. The pocket has been split in two but there are still more than 30 divisions stubbornly resisting. If the Romanian armees can hold that salient we will have an excellent point to aim for. Then we might launch an offensive at least as far as Odessa, possibly Sevastapol if resistance is light.
Russians in Retreat?
It is now September, Hitler wanted us to be in Moscow by now...
While it began as a decisive offensive, Case Black has slowed to a crawl. This is due not only to Russian Resistance around Minsk, but also our own logistical issues. Two-thirds of our forces North of the marshes are engaged in the massive battle of Minsk, this naturally makes the job of supplying them difficult. Another factor is the refusal of encircled Soviets to surrender, indeed the forces in Courland took nearly a month of fighting to subdue. The sheer number of successive encirclements in the North have effectively intertwined and disorganized troops from the 2nd, 5th, and 6th Armees, leaving the Panzers alone on the attack with a wide open flank. The Panzer divisions themselves are exhausted, 4. Panzerarmee is sustaining heavy casualties without assistance Meanwhile the more fresh 3. Panzerarmee is out of fuel, with nearly a third of it's strength being transferred South for refitting. While the Panzers are drained, the Infanterie Divisions are still moving relatively unopposed. Since the Soviet Baltic front has been encircled and routed numerous times, there are very few Soviet divisions in the Baltic republics. Around Lake Peipus there are a measly 4 divisions arrayed against the 9. Armee. 7. Armee and 2. Armee meanwhile have the Reds running from Lithuania, and are rolling the entire front back without any stoppage in sight. Around Leningrad our Landsers are equally as successful, 1 korps has managed to take Leningrad, rout counterattacking Red Army units, and fan out along the entire Novgorod region. Case Black may be successful overall, but it is hardly shaping up to be the decisive offensive it was hoped to be.
It seems that with every success comes failure, every time we encircle forces in one region, we are forced back somewhere else on the line. August has seen a general collapse along the Romanian Front. Despite the best efforts of Romanian troops to break out of encirclement, half of the Romanian army was destroyed, leaving just over 100k men left to defend the capital. The Bulgarians and Slovaks have lost the battle to defend the Romanian Naval base, and have even been pushed back into Bulgaria itself. Relief efforts won't be available for at least a week at best, for 2 months at worst. The 1st and 2nd Panzerarmees are both hard pressed by Soviet attacks, the 1st is still busy cleaning up the Carpathian pocket, and the 2nd is so horribly weakened that it's Panzers wont be available for operations until mid to late September. These are the same divisions that attempted the first Rumanien counteroffensive, but, running into the entirety of 3 Soviet Armies, they were stopped dead and thrown back. The VII. Armeekorps to their left suffered the same fate, losing the entire HQ element on the Northeast bank of the Dniester River. If the Romanians cannot hold, Operation Crusader will have to abandoned....
On the subject of the upcoming operation, the Italians have finally gotten the right idea from the 8a Armata, and have begun pushing the British back through the Sahara. Nearly 300k Italian troops are on the fast track to the Suez Canal, with their opponents running with their tails between their legs. While we hope they move with haste, there is still glory to be won by the Germans.
To compound our every growing list of problems, uprisings have been initiated in both Norway and France. The French resistance seems to have built up for quite some time, working in conjunction with the dreaded British Kommandos, and have even captured an airfield for RAF use.
Gott mitt uns...
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(I was thinking you might've vanished, like so many other people on this board seem to have.)
It seems the counterattack around Tobruk has turned into much more than I expected it could. Perhaps my old colleagues Messe and Pintor are behind the new breakthrough, they were always uniquely capable among my compatriots. While I'd hate to see Crusader cut before being launched, I'd be happy to see it become unnecessary and an Italian army standing at the borders of Turkey and Persia.
It seems the counterattack around Tobruk has turned into much more than I expected it could. Perhaps my old colleagues Messe and Pintor are behind the new breakthrough, they were always uniquely capable among my compatriots. While I'd hate to see Crusader cut before being launched, I'd be happy to see it become unnecessary and an Italian army standing at the borders of Turkey and Persia.
(Funny thing, I only went with this avatar because my first AAR was Italy, but I think everyone assumed I actually was Italian. I'm from the Pacific Northwest, which probably makes me the opposite of an Italian. My girlfriend is both Italian, and out of my league, though.)
(Of course, when we're in character that is. The parentheses are 'talking out of character')
Ouch!
Herr Rommel I think AARs have been hit because of Alert-failures. Hawke said it somewhere else and I followed suit. Somehow, I had a few that I was following fall of the radar; for a while I thought they were not being updated. Hopefully it's fixed now or will be.
Btw, You've accomplished one thing from this AAR...I'm playing my first game as Germany and now I'm dreading the war in the East much more. <L> (In France now)
If it is normal difficulty you should be fine. I usually curb stomp the Red Army in 41, stop for the winter, then take VPs with ease in the spring.
I typically annihilate the Red Army in the summer, put my troops on AI command and get some popcorn, then see the war over in a few months time. But then again, Poland is pretty powerful.
I don't know if I said it earlier but I love this aar. Especially the rousing speech given by Von Manstein and Zhukov at the start.
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Why thank you, update soon, I am thinking of adding a few more speeches/journals.
The Return of Rommel
As of September 17th the remains of the Soviet Hungarian Front have surrendered to the 1st Panzer Armee under von Kleist. This frees up the 3 large field armies of Hungary as well as our own 10th Armee and and 1st Panzer Armee. Kleist's Panzers have been fighting to defend Hungary since the start of Barbarossa, and deserve a rest, however, they get only a few days of R&R (Refueling and Repair of course, there is no relaxation in the Heer) When they have been replenished they are to drive eastward in the direction of the Romanian city of Iasi, linking up with the spearheads of Guderian's 2nd Panzer Armee. This, in conjunction will attacks by the 10th Army and the Hungarian 1st Army will destroy forces of the Carpathian Front and hopefully ease the load on the Romanians.
Following this the two panzer armees will conduct a massive envelopment operation to cut off the Soviet Bessarabian and Romanian Fronts, as without Romanian and Bulgarian support we will be unable to launch Unternehmen Kreuzzug, or any operations in the South for that matter. We must act in considerable haste now that the Romanian capital of Bucharest has been encircled and the Oil Fields of Ploiesti captured. The situation is so desperate that the newly raised XLVIII. Korps has been diverted from France by rail to our allies. The 2nd and 3rd Hungarian armies are also being committed, hopefully this significant assembly of arms will be enough to save the city.
Farther North, in Byelorussia and Novgorod, the ball is rolling once again. After 2 weeks of supply troubles and traffic jams Case Schwarz has resumed. The armored fist of Heeres Gruppe Mitte, the 3rd and 4th Panzer Armees, has won the Battle of Minsk and re concentrated it's panzers for the resumption of the eastern advance. On it's flanks, the 5th, 6th, and 7th Armees, and the Italian 8th have spread out and are routing all troops that face them, even in the mess that is the Pripyet swamps we are having success. In front of Army Group Center all that can be seen is the backs of retreating Soviets and the scorched earth they leave behind. However, 50,000 ballsy Russians under a General Saladze have attempted to counterattack against the strength of 3 full Panzerkorps at Maryina Horka, may god have mercy, because we won't.
Now let's compare German progress in September under Field Marshall Zeitzler to historical German Progress in July and August under Field Marshall von Brauchitsch, ouch
On our Allied fronts, Italy has routed the British army in North Africa, and is now engaging the...Iraqi Army? Alright, I guess they will route them too, if they could only move all their divisions forward instead of being so spread out. At least they can accomplish something, nearly at the Nile River and Alexandria.
Heergruppe West September 29th Report to OKH
Heeresgruppe West will be unable to comply with demands for troop transfers. The present situation in eastern france has deemed it nescessary to commit 2 extra divisions from the XII. Korps to bolster the 7. Flieger division. There are an estimated 20,000 partisans and commandos now rapidly liberating territory, and this number grows daily. We have even gotten reports that there are a number of soldiers who escaped capture in the previous year's campaigns. These men have undoubtedly been training french citizens to rise up and fight our occupation. The 7th and 9th Armees have already been sent to the Eastern front without replacement, the XIX. Korps and the 7. Flieger Divison cannot be transferred as well unless properly replaced. With our current strength, we would be unable to counter any amphibious landing by the British. We estimate that if Britain were to land in the Pas-De-Calais region tomorrow they could drive to Paris without resistance. If they were to land in Holland, the resistance of the 2 garrison divisions there would be insignificant. The Belgian staff also estimates that they would be unable to resist any landing in force. Overall, the 100,000 troops we currently have in the west will be unable to defend the area we have been ordered to. I must request reinforcement once again, even one korps would allow for a defense of all the major French ports.
Generalfeldmarschall Gunther von Kluge, Commander in Chief, Heeres Gruppe West
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