The Great Crusade (Reds! Part 3)
- Thread starter Aelita
- Start date
That should come pretty soon. As should British Carriers and Cruisers.
hipper
Banned
Interesting Post and about the clearest case of America exceptionalism I've seen.
The American South Dakota battleships are stated to be more heavily constructed and more resistant to damage than the British N3 class, you state that the N3 has 8 inch deck armour and 15 inch belt, the Historic South Dakota class had a 6.5 inch deck and a 13.5 inch belt,
So either American Steel is considerably more resistant than British steel or the Historic South Dakota has been considerably redesigned.
However there is a problem in redesigning the South Dakota to be more resistant to shellfire than the N3. because of the N3's concentration of its guns all forward the armoured citadel is shorter, and thus the armour can be thicker than on the South Dakota which has to stretch its armour over a longer area, it had gun turrets fore and aft and one more turret as well.
So either the South Dacota is massively bigger than OTL, or its just too hard to say that a British battleship could be superior than an American one?
Also armoured belts in battleships slope inwards (the tops are further outboard than the bases)
(Cheers Hipper)
The American South Dakota battleships are stated to be more heavily constructed and more resistant to damage than the British N3 class, you state that the N3 has 8 inch deck armour and 15 inch belt, the Historic South Dakota class had a 6.5 inch deck and a 13.5 inch belt,
So either American Steel is considerably more resistant than British steel or the Historic South Dakota has been considerably redesigned.
However there is a problem in redesigning the South Dakota to be more resistant to shellfire than the N3. because of the N3's concentration of its guns all forward the armoured citadel is shorter, and thus the armour can be thicker than on the South Dakota which has to stretch its armour over a longer area, it had gun turrets fore and aft and one more turret as well.
So either the South Dacota is massively bigger than OTL, or its just too hard to say that a British battleship could be superior than an American one?
Also armoured belts in battleships slope inwards (the tops are further outboard than the bases)
(Cheers Hipper)
This timeline's South Dakota as far as I can tell is an entirely different ship built in an America more willing to spend big on big battleships in the 20s.
My apologies in advance to @Jello_Biafra but I'm going to spoil a bit.
Name: South Dakota-class
Operators: US Navy, Workers' and Farmers' Red Navy
Preceded by: Colorado-class
Succeeded by: Herakles-class
Built: 1920-1929
In commission: 1924-1946
Planned: 8
Completed: 5
Cancelled: 3
Type: Battleship
Displacement: 42,200 tonnes (empty)
47,900 tonnes (full load)
Length: 208 meters
Beam: 32 meters
Draft: 11 meters (full load)
Installed power: 45,000 kW (61,000 shp)
Propulsion: four geared steam turbines, four shafts, 12 boilers
Speed: 43 km/h (23 kts)
Range: 15,000 km at 19 km/hr
Armament: 4 x 3 - 406mm L/50 guns
8 x 2 – 152 mm L/53 guns
5 x 4 – 40 mm L/50 AA guns
4 x 2 – 12.7 mm AA guns
Armor: Belt: 325-380 mm
Barbette: 114-380 mm
Conning tower: 406 mm
Turret: 325-457 mm
Deck: 152-240 mm
Bulkheads: 240-350 mm
hipper
Banned
Tonnage is too low for what you have, You have taken the OTL stats for the south Dacota's and doubled the thickness of the deck armour, The belt armour has also been increased. If you built it then the ship would have minimal freeboard and most of the armour would be underwater.
If the Americans want that level of armour they have to have massively bigger ships or go for a radical design. The RN went for a radical design.
Cheers Hipper.
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While constructive criticism is always appreciated, I could do without the venom.
Resisting enemy gunfire will be the alt-South Dakota's only merits. And the finished version of her stats will reflect that; she'll be too slow to be of much use in a post-carrier world, and she'll be built to the earlier US Navy standard: a battleship that can resist her own guns. This will probably mean dropping at least one turret.
Like IOTL, the Royal Navy uses lighter shells for the same bore-size as many of her competitors. The original shells that were designed for the N3, for example, were lighter than the super-heavy 16 inch shells the US Navy later adopted, and not much heavier than the standard US Navy 16-inch shell. As noted in the fluff, the results of the demolition of the South Dakotas push them to adopt heavier shells and higher chamber pressures, a very quick fix.
And as you'll note, TTL's Revenge-class and King George V class are nearly as well protected, and considerably faster. Some of my wording was sloppy and I'm going to go back and fix that.
I've made some notes on them but I'm pretty bad at dimensions so it'll be a while yes.
hipper
Banned
I think you'll find the N3's 18 inch Inch shells probably would have weighed about 3300 lbs which is rather more than the superheavyweight US 16 inch shell 2700 which in OTL was designed in 1939.
It was the G3's 16 inch shell which was 200 lbs lighter than Japanese or American contemporary 16 inch shells.
Given that the design of the N3 concentrated its armour over a shorter Space than a Dakota you have to radically redesign the Dacota to give it a Larger immune Zone than an N3 I actually don't believe it's possible without increasing the size of the Dakota beyond Panama Canal size limits.
Are you sure you want to have the Royal Navy build the N3? Your story makes more sense if they take the OTL route and lay down the
G3 instead Remember though that the G3 was armoured against 18" shellfire!( 7 inch deck )
I'm curious what the story driver is in your History to have the Americans build larger battleships than they did In OTL?
the other question I'd like to ask is have you considered the effect of the American Revolution on The UK's ballence of payments. In OTL the UK was spending 8 % of GDP on debt repayments a considerable amount of that debt will disappear in your time line. With the disappearance of American financial institutions!
Cheers Hipper.
The American revolution results in the obliteration of France and Britain's debts to America which they use to bolster their economies and thus militaries. It's part of why when after Britain has taken the measure of the Axis after redeploying their assets from their expected conflict with America and the Soviet Union they can start really rapidly kicking Axis ass. The Commonwealth military isn't the rather caught off-guard force it was OTL, but a force that is certainly quite ready for war, it's just that it was ready for war with someone else so when the Empire strikes back it's brutal. However, the doctrines developed by JFC Fuller and the like are the accepted doctrine in the UK and commonwealth as I mentioned before in the Chimera tank post. No faffing about with Infantry and Cruiser tanks; they've got a working model for armoured vehicles. An armoured car, a carrier vehicle, a light tank, a medium tank, and a heavy tank. That they can then alter as needed for purposes like tank destroyers, self propelled guns, assault guns, and what have you. I'm not much of a plane guy so I can't say too much on how planes develop.
Maybe (yeah,stereotypical i know) the Power Jets got more funding?
Also with earlier Franco-British cooperation British planes have Hispano autocannons earlier i think.
Also,what's the French part of the Franco-British Union?It is mentioned that Algeria is Petainist,so Dakar?
Also with earlier Franco-British cooperation British planes have Hispano autocannons earlier i think.
Also,what's the French part of the Franco-British Union?It is mentioned that Algeria is Petainist,so Dakar?
I presume it's something like the split of colonies that sided with Free France over the ones that sided with Vichy France as per this map of OTL.
Free France in red.
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I would guess that Guyana and the Caribbean islands also break for Free France out of a sense of self-preservation, although they may initially try and present themselves as neutral just in case the Axis win...
Well, looks like the Allies have got their shit in order!
Seems that the Brits have progressed well beyond their OTL Infantry Tank/Cavalry Tank doctrine, their invasion of Spain seems to even have some blitzkrieg elements.
Seems that the Brits have progressed well beyond their OTL Infantry Tank/Cavalry Tank doctrine, their invasion of Spain seems to even have some blitzkrieg elements.
Probably, but the only references I could find for planned shell weight were in the ~2800 lb range. Obviously, they'll correct that deficiency in time.
I suppose more of the G3s would be more in keeping with the Royal Navy's actual needs. As for in-story reasons, America was involved much earlier in WW1, and so the lessons of Jutland penetrated more thoroughly, as the US Navy would be cooperating with the Royal Navy, mostly against u-boat threat, but historically the US did deploy coal-fired battleships to help support the Grand Fleet.
Of course, each act begets another. With the cost of WW1 spread more evenly, I figured htere would be less political will to harm domestic industry in the short term with major arms limitations, so the WNT is different. Keeping the steel mills going supporting naval production delays the Great Depression's onset, but also makes the resulting crash more severe. It's partly just wanting things to not be completely convergent as well.
Yes, balance of payments is a huge factor in the timeline. The revolution is a sort of windfall for the British economy, as it both fixes the balance of payments problem, and justifies increased arms expenditure, which will serve as a Keynesian stimulus.
hipper
Banned
Navyweapons is your best source of naval technobabble.
http://www.navweaps.com
It's got the stats for the projected 18 inch gun for the
N3 and the actual 18 inch gun that the RN put on HMS Furious , or you could just look up Wiki
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BL_18_inch_Mk_I_naval_gun
But you would expect a larger shell to weigh more in all circumstances anyway.
The British were fixated on Crusers after WW1 they had just watched their main enemy fleet sink itself, and had been assured by the politicians that the American Fleet would be Not a threat. I expect you would see considerable panic in the admiralty at the threat of an American Communist Revolution. But for early 30's rearmament you would get Lion class 9x16 ships with perhaps a Vanguard or two if they were truly Spooked.
Anyway I look forward to your next update' I tend to be venemous only when someone suggests the RN are idiots
Cheers Hipper
Timeline: 1942 to Mid 1943
So I'm going to take a break from my usual literary style and just give you guys a straight up timeline for the next oh...year and a half or so. It's not meant to be 100 percent complete; as you might notice the South American theater is absent, but a broad overview of just about every other theater is of the conflict is here.
What I'd like to know from you is what from here do you want more depth from. There's a lot of ground here, and some of it just may not be interesting to the audience as a whole, and some of you have always been itching to take matters into your own hands, which I'm willing to help with to reasonable amount.
So without further adieu, I present the rough timeline of 1942 and the first half of 1943.
The Road to the Turning Point
2 February 1942: Marshal Petain delivers his pronunciamiento against the French government.
7 February 1942: French General Prioux advances on Paris: the French Civil War begins.
8 February 1942: The IJN launches its surprise attack on the WFRN Pacific Fleet.
14 February 1942: The United Kingdom issues its declaration of war against Germany. Within hours of the announcement, the Imperial Japanese Army begins mobilizing against French Loyalist and British territories in East Asia.
28 February 1942: The battlecruiser HMS Hood and the carrier HMS Hermes are sunk by air attack. Singapore falls within the fortnight.
1 March 1942: The Entente treaty is ratified, establishing the Franco-British Union as a united front against the Axis.
4 March 1942: Paris falls. Marshal Petain establishes the French State.
15 March 1942: Reykjavik Conference: Premier Reed meets with Prime Minister Attlee to lay the groundwork for future military cooperation. Both leaders agree to a tripartite conference in July to develop a more permanent alliance. As part of the preliminary agreement, the UASR leases several islands to serve as naval bases to help protect the somewhat dangerous Iranian convoy routes.
April - May 1942: Preparations for Fall Blau. Failed counteroffensive against Army Group North. 1.1 million troops moved to Ostfront.
1 April 1942: French loyalist troops evacuate to the Spanish Free Soviet Republic.
4 April 1942: Enraged by the Franco-British rebuffing of his diplomatic overtures, Adolf Hitler begins putting diplomatic pressure on Italy and Spain to join the war against the UK.
10 April 1942: Manila falls to the Imperial Japanese Army. A bacchanalia of cruelty ensues against the captured British and Filipino troops. The Rape of Manila follows.
13 April 1942: Having seized decisive naval superiority in the Far East, the Imperial Japanese military begins its invasion of New Guinea.
21 April 1942: Prime Minister Attlee receives Italian diplomatic assurances that it will remain neutral, recalling the two country’s close economic and military cooperation in recent years. The carrier HMS Illustrious and the battlecruisers HMS Revenge and HMS Beatty are transferred from the Mediterranean Fleet to the Eastern Fleet.
30 April 1942: Refugee troops begin evacuating Red Spain to the American occupied Canary Islands and Gibraltar.
1 May 1942: The French State officially joins the Axis. The Marine Nationale puts to sea in the Atlantic and Mediterranean to begin convoy raiding.
12 May 1942: Enigma intercepts tip off the Main Intelligence Directorate to joint Petainist/Falangist invasion plans against Red Spain. Gibraltar is believed to follow.
30 May 1942: Petainist troops begin attacks at the Pyrnees border passes in the early morning, pinning the Free Republic’s forces to their defense. The Spanish Army begins its attack the next day. To their surprise, the militias are already mobilized and ready for combat. Progress is slow going, and many VIPs begin evacuation to the Canaries assisted by joint Royal Navy/WFRN task forces.
3 June 1942: Fall Blau begins: Army Group Volga presses towards Stalingrad, Army Group Caucasus advances on Baku.
4 June 1942: The Malta Campaign: Mere minutes after the Italian embassy delivers the declaration of war against the UK, the Italian Air Force begins bombing attacks on the island citadel. The Regia Marina sails to support a planned German-Italian paradrop attack. Simultaneously, Italian North African and East African forces begin invading Egypt and Somaliland respectively.
18 June 1942: The Battle of the Ionian Sea: The Regia Marina wins a decisive victory against the British Mediterranean Fleet. Paradrops and marine landings begin on Malta. The island falls, at great cost, after two weeks of fighting. Two British battleships are heavily damaged, and another sunk outright, along with a fleet carrier and three support ships.
30 June 1942: With Luftwaffe support, the Falangist Army breaks through the Red lines and begins advancing on Barcelona.
4 July – 22 July 1942: Battle of Voronezh. Voronezh Front collapses against Army Group Centre
6 July 1942: Army Group Volga reaches the Chir River. Stavka orders evacuation to the east bank of the Don.
8 July 1942: Barcelona falls. The White Terror begins across occupied Red Spain.
11 July 1942: Battle of the Levantine Sea: The British Mediterranean Fleet engages the Regia Marina and the Marine Nationale as it evacuates Cyprus, already under intense German/Turkish bombardment. In the opening salvoes, the Royal Sovereign is sunk by catastrophic magazine detonation. The remaining battlecruiser HMS Invincible and carrier HMS Indomitable stand alone against four battleships and two carriers. The Invincible endures salvo after salvo of 15-inch gunfire. Her superior radar gun directors and super-heavy 16-inch shells tear her opponents to ribbons. While the attempted interdiction is thwarted, and the French battleships Alsace and Dunkerque are sunk, and the Italian Littorio and Aquila severely damaged, the HMS Invincible is severely damaged by heavy gunfire and air-launched torpedoes. She is towed to Egypt, covered by cruisers and destroyers.
14 July 1942: The Imperial Japanese Navy attacks Port Moresby to support the invasion of New Guinea. With invasion of the port city considered imminent, the Australian government acquiesces Attlee’s demand for Commonwealth unity, and requests assistance from the UASR.
17 July – 31 July 1942: The leaders of the UASR, the USSR and the FBU meet in Delhi, India. Based on previous agreements, a “United Nations” is formed, headquartered in the new Dominion of India to serve as a world forum and definer of policy among the powers allied against the Axis.
20 July 1942: Armavir falls to Army Group Caucasus.
25 July 1942: Soviet-Japanese Border Incident: troops of the Kwantung Army demand access to the city of Kabrarvosk to inspect for contraband believed to be destined for the Republic of China in violation of Soviet neutrality. When this is refused, troops of the 10th Infantry Division overwhelm the Soviet border guards.
30 July 1942: Though Japanese marines have already taken the city of Port Moresby, the WFRN’s relief force arrives to engage the Imperial Japanese fleet before it retires. In the ensuing Battle of the Coral Sea, the American carriers Gettysburg and Solidarity duel with the Shokaku and Taiho. The result is inconclusive; the IJN loses the light carrier Tone, both air groups have severe attrition, and both sides score bomb hits on the other’s carriers.
1 August 1942: Stalingrad Front fails to stop the crossing of the Don River. Elsewhere, an Axis taskforce begins assembling in southern Spain to begin the assault on Gibraltar.
5 August – 21 August 1942: Southwestern Front nearly destroyed in pincer between AGV and AGCa at Battle of Kalmyk Steppe. Reorganized as Astrakhan Front after retreat to Volga defense line.
7 August 1942: Soviet-Japanese conflict escalates. The 1st Red Banner Army mobilizes against increasing Japanese escalation.
8 August 1942: The IJA’s First Area Army begins seizing bridgeheads on the Amur River along a front from Khabravosk to Khanka Lake. Without orders from the Imperial General Headquarters, Japanese military officers have provoked yet another war. All convoy traffic to Vladivostok is halted.
14 August 1942: With the fall of Gibraltar imminent, the Royal Navy begins evacuating what forces it can to the Canaries. By the end of the month, the Pillars of Hercules are shut.
30 August 1942: Battle is joined in Stalingrad itself.
5 September 1942. Italian North African forces win a costly victory at El Alamein. The Entente Army begins evacuating across the Suez Canal into the Levant. The damaged HMS Invincible, hurriedly made seaworthy by valiant dock crews, and her escort begin a mad dash to safe harbor in Arabia, braving land based air attack in the Red Sea. The crippled battleships Valiant and Queen Elizabeth are scuttled to block the harbor at Alexandria and the Suez Canal respectively.
14 September 1942: The Kriegsmarine begins Operation Hanseatic. With the British Home Fleet now struggling against the Marine Nationale in the Eastern Atlantic, a task force consisting of the battleships Bismarck, Tirpitz, and Friedrich der Große, the battlecruisers Scharnorst and Gneisnau, and the carriers Graf Zeppelin and Peter Strasser put to sea. Their target: the port facilities of Iceland and the arctic convoys.
18 September 1942: The German task force is spotted by Royal Air Force recon flight. Too strong for the rump force stationed at Scapa Flow to challenge, the sighting is forwarded to the WFRN attaché. Already aware of German ambitions, the prepared WFRN Task Force 17—the battleships Nat Turner, Felix Dzerzhinsky, and Michael Kohlhaas, the battlecruiser Toledo, and the carriers Shiloh, Paris Commune and Hornet—under Rear Admiral Itzhak Levin* sets sail from Nuuk, Greenland to intercept.
20 September 1942: AGV begins advance on Mozdok, its flanks now secured.
22 September 1942: The planes of the German task force begin their attack on the harbors and airfields near Reykjavik. As the capital ships begin to move into bombardment range of the harbor, Levin’s ships move in to ambush. The German carriers are located first, unaware of the American carrier’s positions. The subsequent attack cripples both the Graf Zeppelin and Peter Strasser, and decimates their air arms, and sink a cruiser escorting them. With the carriers forced to retire, Levin’s battleships cut off the German escape. Bismarck is sunk outright, and the Tirpitz is scuttled to prevent capture. The Friedrich der Große limps away at nightfall, protected by the two Scharnorst battlecruisers.
23 September 1942:The Great Chase: the Royal Navy and the WFRN begin hunting down the remnants of the German surface fleet, intent on its utter annihilation. Two German cruisers are sunk.
24 Septemner 1942: American carrier planes torpedo the Scharnorst. Damage control fails, and the ship capsizes. The British battleship King George V and battlecruiser Black Prince intercept the Friedrich der Große before she can reach the Bay of Biscay. In the resulting action, she is sunk after a protracted battle.
25 September 1942: British destroyers torpedo the crippled Graf Zeppelin near Spain. She capsizes and sinks after burning into the night.
26 September 1942: The American battlecruiser Toledo runs down the Gneisnau as she links up with the Petainist battleship Strasbourg. The Strasbourg sinks to catastrophic magazine detonation, and the Gneisnau founders after repeated 406mm shelling. The Peter Strasser is scuttled by her captain after running out of fuel trying to avoid her pursuers.
27 September 1942: AGC begins advance on Saratov to sever main rail communications to the Caucasus. Stavka commits its Reserve Front to support; David Eisenhower, as Stavka representative, is tasked with holding the city.
1 October 1942: The Japanese attack begins to falter against the prepared defenses of the Far Eastern Front. Frontal reserve units begin to move into action. 4 American divisions, originally slated to move to the Central Theater, are retained in the Far East.
2 October 1942: The Italian Army begins pushing into Sinai; the Kingdom of Iraq concludes its pact with Turkey, seeking to divide Free French Syria and British Palestine.
5 October 1942: The Franco-British government extends diplomatic recognition to the Democratic Republic of Iran. The Iranian Revolutionary Army begins mobilizing for war against Iraq.
10 October 1942: The New Union Treaty is ratified by the governments of Australia, Canada, India, Ireland, Newfoundland and New Zealand. Direct representation in the Franco-British Cabinet is guaranteed, and the armed forces of the dominions and mother countries are united into a combined Entente military.
14 October 1942: Mozdok falls. The Autumn rasputitsa hits. Urban fighting continues in Stalingrad, but neither side seeks to overcome the mud for offensive operations.
18 October 1942: British forces in Kuwait hold firm against Iraqi pressure. Damascus falls to Turkish forces.
1 November 1942: The Hashemite Kingdom of Arabia concludes a new treaty with the Franco-British Union. With increased aid, the sale of modern arms and military advisors, the Arabians enter the war on the United Nations side.
5 November 1942: The Entente Army begins evacuating Burma for a prepared defensive line at the Indian border. The call to arms and conscription is met with enthusiasm, for it is their Commonwealth too.
7 November 1942: An early cold snap near Saratov freezes the mud. Eisenhower is prepared; his counteroffensive deals a significant blow to AGC.
12 November 1942: The Far Eastern Counter Offensive begins. Comintern troops are strictly ordered not to cross the border into Manchuria; General Secretary Molotov begins opening diplomatic channels to terminate the undeclared war quickly while allowing the Empire of Japan to save face.
14 November 1942: American Naval Grenadiers begin an amphibious invasion of Guadalcanal, forcing the IJN to abort its New Hebrides campaign planned for January of the next year. Australian Entente forces follow soon after in the protracted land battle.
17 November 1942: The Italians take Aqaba, and begin advancing into Eretz Yisrael. Fierce resistance by the Haganah militants, cooperating with the Entente Army, slows the advance to a crawl.
18 November 1942: AGV resumes the offensive. They reach the Baku defensive lines by the beginning of December.
4 December 1942: The Saratov salient nearly reaches the Don River. The offensive is halted. Stalingrad still holds.
5 December -24 December 1942: The Battle of Baku: overstretched and exhausted, AGV hammers into the fortress of earthworks, AT guns and artillery at Baku.
7 December 1942: In the bitter winter cold, after suffering heavy losses, the IJA retreats back into Manchuria. The undeclared war has caused almost 400,000 casualties on both sides, and the loss of hundreds of tanks, armored fighting vehicles and aircraft. The Soviet-Japanese neutrality treaty is reaffirmed in a meeting between Soviet Foreign Affairs Commissar Christian Rakovsky and Japanese Foreign Mister Naotake Sato.
9 December 1942: The Iranian Army begins pushing into southern Iraq to relieve British Kuwait. Indian troops begin arriving to support the front.
12 December – 16 December 1942: The Battle of the Solomons: An IJN task force, including the carriers Zuikaku, Hiryu, and Unryu, arrive to drive off the Comintern support fleet. The American carriers Gettysburg, Enterprise and Wasp win a strategic victory, driving off the fleet and sinking the Zuikaku and the light carrier Hosho at the cost of the Wasp.
17 December 1942 – 8 January 1943: Operation Pallas. Stalingrad Front counterattacks, pushing back nearly to the Don River. The Stalingrad Salient becomes a dagger pointed at AGV.
12 January 1943: Manstein recommends AGCa retreat. Hitler orders not one step back; decisive battle will be made at the Stalingrad salient. Meanwhile, Stavka representatives work to ensure the salient is turned into a fortress.
20 January 1943: Guderian convinces Hitler to release AGCa against the Stalingrad salient. Preliminary planning for Operation Citadel begins.
1 February 1943: Enigma and Lorenz intercepts tip off Stavka to German plans. General K. K. Rokossovsky proposes setting up for a crushing counterattack. The operational goal is the destruction of German forces in the Caucasus.
5 February 1943: While the attached Waffen-SS units aiding the Italians get distracted bringing indiscriminate terror to Palestine, the invasion is halted before Tel Aviv. Arabian reinforcements have begun putting pressure on the flanks.
8 February 1943: The Turkish Army is held fast at the Golan Heights by Haganah and Entente forces. At the end of their effective supply lines, they begin to pivot to Lebanon to increase access to maritime lines of communications.
14 February 1943: Premier Reed commits almost a million additional American troops to the Soviet theater to support the planned counterattack. With the u-boat threat receding, and Soviet-Japanese neutrality, sufficient men and materiel can be moved to support the plan. The American military is now nearly fully mobilized.
28 February 1943: Comintern maskirovka leaks falsified plans of a brewing counterattack to push the Germans further back from Moscow. To support this deception, false radio traffic, dummy formations, and troop movements begin.
1 March 1943: Iranian and Entente forces take the city of Basra, Iraq. The Iraqi Royal Army begins to collapse as the 1st Iranian Tank Division breaks into the rear areas. The Entente 2nd Armoured division begins preparing to break out of Kuwait.
8 March 1943: Entente intelligence intercepts evidence of Spanish designs on Portugal. Neutral, but firmly allied with the UK, both Hitler and Sanjurjo wish remove the wayward Corporatist state as a possible entry point into the Continent. Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery begins plans for invasion, as the civilian government begins high level covert talks with Salazar.
18 March 1943: The Iraqi government falls as Entente forces reach Baghdad. King Ghazi bin Faisal is forced to abdicate. ‘Abd al-Illah is installed as Regent for Ghazi’s adolescent son Faisal II.
21 March 1943: The Turkish Army moves into Northern Iraq to prop up Ghazi’s loyalists.
24 March 1943: The Iranian Revolutionary Army takes Tikrit, and prepare to push to the Turkish border.
30 March 1943: An operational plan is reached in the Middle East theater. Iranian forces, supported by American air power, will push through Iraqi Kurdistan into Turkish Kurdistan. Entente forces will sweep into Syria and relieve Palestine.
1 April 1943: Amidst the spring rasputitsa, Comintern forces seize key ground near Leningrad. The good observation points will support eventual plans to end the siege of the city.
3 April 1943: In Cisjordanian Palestine, an alliance of communists, Jewish Labor Zionists and Arab socialists establish the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
17 April 1943: The Imperial Japanese Army launches Operation Kogo. Supported by troops of the Jiang Jieshi Clique, the IJA attacks south from Kaifeng to capture the large salient between the Yellow and Yangtze Rivers.
30 April – 7 May 1943: The Battle of Damascus: Entente forces route the Turkish Army in Syria, relieving pressure on Palestine.
5 May 1943: American forces redeployed from Iran to Socotra Island begin their invasion of Italian Somaliland in cooperation with Entente forces in Kenya.
9 May 1943: Italian-German forces are pushed out of Eretz Yisrael by PFLP militants
28 May 1943: Entente forces begin rapid deployment to Portugal ahead of Spanish invasion plans.
22 June 1943: Three years since the beginning of Operation Teutonic, the Germans launch Operation Citadel.
What I'd like to know from you is what from here do you want more depth from. There's a lot of ground here, and some of it just may not be interesting to the audience as a whole, and some of you have always been itching to take matters into your own hands, which I'm willing to help with to reasonable amount.
So without further adieu, I present the rough timeline of 1942 and the first half of 1943.
The Road to the Turning Point
2 February 1942: Marshal Petain delivers his pronunciamiento against the French government.
7 February 1942: French General Prioux advances on Paris: the French Civil War begins.
8 February 1942: The IJN launches its surprise attack on the WFRN Pacific Fleet.
14 February 1942: The United Kingdom issues its declaration of war against Germany. Within hours of the announcement, the Imperial Japanese Army begins mobilizing against French Loyalist and British territories in East Asia.
28 February 1942: The battlecruiser HMS Hood and the carrier HMS Hermes are sunk by air attack. Singapore falls within the fortnight.
1 March 1942: The Entente treaty is ratified, establishing the Franco-British Union as a united front against the Axis.
4 March 1942: Paris falls. Marshal Petain establishes the French State.
15 March 1942: Reykjavik Conference: Premier Reed meets with Prime Minister Attlee to lay the groundwork for future military cooperation. Both leaders agree to a tripartite conference in July to develop a more permanent alliance. As part of the preliminary agreement, the UASR leases several islands to serve as naval bases to help protect the somewhat dangerous Iranian convoy routes.
April - May 1942: Preparations for Fall Blau. Failed counteroffensive against Army Group North. 1.1 million troops moved to Ostfront.
1 April 1942: French loyalist troops evacuate to the Spanish Free Soviet Republic.
4 April 1942: Enraged by the Franco-British rebuffing of his diplomatic overtures, Adolf Hitler begins putting diplomatic pressure on Italy and Spain to join the war against the UK.
10 April 1942: Manila falls to the Imperial Japanese Army. A bacchanalia of cruelty ensues against the captured British and Filipino troops. The Rape of Manila follows.
13 April 1942: Having seized decisive naval superiority in the Far East, the Imperial Japanese military begins its invasion of New Guinea.
21 April 1942: Prime Minister Attlee receives Italian diplomatic assurances that it will remain neutral, recalling the two country’s close economic and military cooperation in recent years. The carrier HMS Illustrious and the battlecruisers HMS Revenge and HMS Beatty are transferred from the Mediterranean Fleet to the Eastern Fleet.
30 April 1942: Refugee troops begin evacuating Red Spain to the American occupied Canary Islands and Gibraltar.
1 May 1942: The French State officially joins the Axis. The Marine Nationale puts to sea in the Atlantic and Mediterranean to begin convoy raiding.
12 May 1942: Enigma intercepts tip off the Main Intelligence Directorate to joint Petainist/Falangist invasion plans against Red Spain. Gibraltar is believed to follow.
30 May 1942: Petainist troops begin attacks at the Pyrnees border passes in the early morning, pinning the Free Republic’s forces to their defense. The Spanish Army begins its attack the next day. To their surprise, the militias are already mobilized and ready for combat. Progress is slow going, and many VIPs begin evacuation to the Canaries assisted by joint Royal Navy/WFRN task forces.
3 June 1942: Fall Blau begins: Army Group Volga presses towards Stalingrad, Army Group Caucasus advances on Baku.
4 June 1942: The Malta Campaign: Mere minutes after the Italian embassy delivers the declaration of war against the UK, the Italian Air Force begins bombing attacks on the island citadel. The Regia Marina sails to support a planned German-Italian paradrop attack. Simultaneously, Italian North African and East African forces begin invading Egypt and Somaliland respectively.
18 June 1942: The Battle of the Ionian Sea: The Regia Marina wins a decisive victory against the British Mediterranean Fleet. Paradrops and marine landings begin on Malta. The island falls, at great cost, after two weeks of fighting. Two British battleships are heavily damaged, and another sunk outright, along with a fleet carrier and three support ships.
30 June 1942: With Luftwaffe support, the Falangist Army breaks through the Red lines and begins advancing on Barcelona.
4 July – 22 July 1942: Battle of Voronezh. Voronezh Front collapses against Army Group Centre
6 July 1942: Army Group Volga reaches the Chir River. Stavka orders evacuation to the east bank of the Don.
8 July 1942: Barcelona falls. The White Terror begins across occupied Red Spain.
11 July 1942: Battle of the Levantine Sea: The British Mediterranean Fleet engages the Regia Marina and the Marine Nationale as it evacuates Cyprus, already under intense German/Turkish bombardment. In the opening salvoes, the Royal Sovereign is sunk by catastrophic magazine detonation. The remaining battlecruiser HMS Invincible and carrier HMS Indomitable stand alone against four battleships and two carriers. The Invincible endures salvo after salvo of 15-inch gunfire. Her superior radar gun directors and super-heavy 16-inch shells tear her opponents to ribbons. While the attempted interdiction is thwarted, and the French battleships Alsace and Dunkerque are sunk, and the Italian Littorio and Aquila severely damaged, the HMS Invincible is severely damaged by heavy gunfire and air-launched torpedoes. She is towed to Egypt, covered by cruisers and destroyers.
14 July 1942: The Imperial Japanese Navy attacks Port Moresby to support the invasion of New Guinea. With invasion of the port city considered imminent, the Australian government acquiesces Attlee’s demand for Commonwealth unity, and requests assistance from the UASR.
17 July – 31 July 1942: The leaders of the UASR, the USSR and the FBU meet in Delhi, India. Based on previous agreements, a “United Nations” is formed, headquartered in the new Dominion of India to serve as a world forum and definer of policy among the powers allied against the Axis.
20 July 1942: Armavir falls to Army Group Caucasus.
25 July 1942: Soviet-Japanese Border Incident: troops of the Kwantung Army demand access to the city of Kabrarvosk to inspect for contraband believed to be destined for the Republic of China in violation of Soviet neutrality. When this is refused, troops of the 10th Infantry Division overwhelm the Soviet border guards.
30 July 1942: Though Japanese marines have already taken the city of Port Moresby, the WFRN’s relief force arrives to engage the Imperial Japanese fleet before it retires. In the ensuing Battle of the Coral Sea, the American carriers Gettysburg and Solidarity duel with the Shokaku and Taiho. The result is inconclusive; the IJN loses the light carrier Tone, both air groups have severe attrition, and both sides score bomb hits on the other’s carriers.
1 August 1942: Stalingrad Front fails to stop the crossing of the Don River. Elsewhere, an Axis taskforce begins assembling in southern Spain to begin the assault on Gibraltar.
5 August – 21 August 1942: Southwestern Front nearly destroyed in pincer between AGV and AGCa at Battle of Kalmyk Steppe. Reorganized as Astrakhan Front after retreat to Volga defense line.
7 August 1942: Soviet-Japanese conflict escalates. The 1st Red Banner Army mobilizes against increasing Japanese escalation.
8 August 1942: The IJA’s First Area Army begins seizing bridgeheads on the Amur River along a front from Khabravosk to Khanka Lake. Without orders from the Imperial General Headquarters, Japanese military officers have provoked yet another war. All convoy traffic to Vladivostok is halted.
14 August 1942: With the fall of Gibraltar imminent, the Royal Navy begins evacuating what forces it can to the Canaries. By the end of the month, the Pillars of Hercules are shut.
30 August 1942: Battle is joined in Stalingrad itself.
5 September 1942. Italian North African forces win a costly victory at El Alamein. The Entente Army begins evacuating across the Suez Canal into the Levant. The damaged HMS Invincible, hurriedly made seaworthy by valiant dock crews, and her escort begin a mad dash to safe harbor in Arabia, braving land based air attack in the Red Sea. The crippled battleships Valiant and Queen Elizabeth are scuttled to block the harbor at Alexandria and the Suez Canal respectively.
14 September 1942: The Kriegsmarine begins Operation Hanseatic. With the British Home Fleet now struggling against the Marine Nationale in the Eastern Atlantic, a task force consisting of the battleships Bismarck, Tirpitz, and Friedrich der Große, the battlecruisers Scharnorst and Gneisnau, and the carriers Graf Zeppelin and Peter Strasser put to sea. Their target: the port facilities of Iceland and the arctic convoys.
18 September 1942: The German task force is spotted by Royal Air Force recon flight. Too strong for the rump force stationed at Scapa Flow to challenge, the sighting is forwarded to the WFRN attaché. Already aware of German ambitions, the prepared WFRN Task Force 17—the battleships Nat Turner, Felix Dzerzhinsky, and Michael Kohlhaas, the battlecruiser Toledo, and the carriers Shiloh, Paris Commune and Hornet—under Rear Admiral Itzhak Levin* sets sail from Nuuk, Greenland to intercept.
20 September 1942: AGV begins advance on Mozdok, its flanks now secured.
22 September 1942: The planes of the German task force begin their attack on the harbors and airfields near Reykjavik. As the capital ships begin to move into bombardment range of the harbor, Levin’s ships move in to ambush. The German carriers are located first, unaware of the American carrier’s positions. The subsequent attack cripples both the Graf Zeppelin and Peter Strasser, and decimates their air arms, and sink a cruiser escorting them. With the carriers forced to retire, Levin’s battleships cut off the German escape. Bismarck is sunk outright, and the Tirpitz is scuttled to prevent capture. The Friedrich der Große limps away at nightfall, protected by the two Scharnorst battlecruisers.
23 September 1942:The Great Chase: the Royal Navy and the WFRN begin hunting down the remnants of the German surface fleet, intent on its utter annihilation. Two German cruisers are sunk.
24 Septemner 1942: American carrier planes torpedo the Scharnorst. Damage control fails, and the ship capsizes. The British battleship King George V and battlecruiser Black Prince intercept the Friedrich der Große before she can reach the Bay of Biscay. In the resulting action, she is sunk after a protracted battle.
25 September 1942: British destroyers torpedo the crippled Graf Zeppelin near Spain. She capsizes and sinks after burning into the night.
26 September 1942: The American battlecruiser Toledo runs down the Gneisnau as she links up with the Petainist battleship Strasbourg. The Strasbourg sinks to catastrophic magazine detonation, and the Gneisnau founders after repeated 406mm shelling. The Peter Strasser is scuttled by her captain after running out of fuel trying to avoid her pursuers.
27 September 1942: AGC begins advance on Saratov to sever main rail communications to the Caucasus. Stavka commits its Reserve Front to support; David Eisenhower, as Stavka representative, is tasked with holding the city.
1 October 1942: The Japanese attack begins to falter against the prepared defenses of the Far Eastern Front. Frontal reserve units begin to move into action. 4 American divisions, originally slated to move to the Central Theater, are retained in the Far East.
2 October 1942: The Italian Army begins pushing into Sinai; the Kingdom of Iraq concludes its pact with Turkey, seeking to divide Free French Syria and British Palestine.
5 October 1942: The Franco-British government extends diplomatic recognition to the Democratic Republic of Iran. The Iranian Revolutionary Army begins mobilizing for war against Iraq.
10 October 1942: The New Union Treaty is ratified by the governments of Australia, Canada, India, Ireland, Newfoundland and New Zealand. Direct representation in the Franco-British Cabinet is guaranteed, and the armed forces of the dominions and mother countries are united into a combined Entente military.
14 October 1942: Mozdok falls. The Autumn rasputitsa hits. Urban fighting continues in Stalingrad, but neither side seeks to overcome the mud for offensive operations.
18 October 1942: British forces in Kuwait hold firm against Iraqi pressure. Damascus falls to Turkish forces.
1 November 1942: The Hashemite Kingdom of Arabia concludes a new treaty with the Franco-British Union. With increased aid, the sale of modern arms and military advisors, the Arabians enter the war on the United Nations side.
5 November 1942: The Entente Army begins evacuating Burma for a prepared defensive line at the Indian border. The call to arms and conscription is met with enthusiasm, for it is their Commonwealth too.
7 November 1942: An early cold snap near Saratov freezes the mud. Eisenhower is prepared; his counteroffensive deals a significant blow to AGC.
12 November 1942: The Far Eastern Counter Offensive begins. Comintern troops are strictly ordered not to cross the border into Manchuria; General Secretary Molotov begins opening diplomatic channels to terminate the undeclared war quickly while allowing the Empire of Japan to save face.
14 November 1942: American Naval Grenadiers begin an amphibious invasion of Guadalcanal, forcing the IJN to abort its New Hebrides campaign planned for January of the next year. Australian Entente forces follow soon after in the protracted land battle.
17 November 1942: The Italians take Aqaba, and begin advancing into Eretz Yisrael. Fierce resistance by the Haganah militants, cooperating with the Entente Army, slows the advance to a crawl.
18 November 1942: AGV resumes the offensive. They reach the Baku defensive lines by the beginning of December.
4 December 1942: The Saratov salient nearly reaches the Don River. The offensive is halted. Stalingrad still holds.
5 December -24 December 1942: The Battle of Baku: overstretched and exhausted, AGV hammers into the fortress of earthworks, AT guns and artillery at Baku.
7 December 1942: In the bitter winter cold, after suffering heavy losses, the IJA retreats back into Manchuria. The undeclared war has caused almost 400,000 casualties on both sides, and the loss of hundreds of tanks, armored fighting vehicles and aircraft. The Soviet-Japanese neutrality treaty is reaffirmed in a meeting between Soviet Foreign Affairs Commissar Christian Rakovsky and Japanese Foreign Mister Naotake Sato.
9 December 1942: The Iranian Army begins pushing into southern Iraq to relieve British Kuwait. Indian troops begin arriving to support the front.
12 December – 16 December 1942: The Battle of the Solomons: An IJN task force, including the carriers Zuikaku, Hiryu, and Unryu, arrive to drive off the Comintern support fleet. The American carriers Gettysburg, Enterprise and Wasp win a strategic victory, driving off the fleet and sinking the Zuikaku and the light carrier Hosho at the cost of the Wasp.
17 December 1942 – 8 January 1943: Operation Pallas. Stalingrad Front counterattacks, pushing back nearly to the Don River. The Stalingrad Salient becomes a dagger pointed at AGV.
12 January 1943: Manstein recommends AGCa retreat. Hitler orders not one step back; decisive battle will be made at the Stalingrad salient. Meanwhile, Stavka representatives work to ensure the salient is turned into a fortress.
20 January 1943: Guderian convinces Hitler to release AGCa against the Stalingrad salient. Preliminary planning for Operation Citadel begins.
1 February 1943: Enigma and Lorenz intercepts tip off Stavka to German plans. General K. K. Rokossovsky proposes setting up for a crushing counterattack. The operational goal is the destruction of German forces in the Caucasus.
5 February 1943: While the attached Waffen-SS units aiding the Italians get distracted bringing indiscriminate terror to Palestine, the invasion is halted before Tel Aviv. Arabian reinforcements have begun putting pressure on the flanks.
8 February 1943: The Turkish Army is held fast at the Golan Heights by Haganah and Entente forces. At the end of their effective supply lines, they begin to pivot to Lebanon to increase access to maritime lines of communications.
14 February 1943: Premier Reed commits almost a million additional American troops to the Soviet theater to support the planned counterattack. With the u-boat threat receding, and Soviet-Japanese neutrality, sufficient men and materiel can be moved to support the plan. The American military is now nearly fully mobilized.
28 February 1943: Comintern maskirovka leaks falsified plans of a brewing counterattack to push the Germans further back from Moscow. To support this deception, false radio traffic, dummy formations, and troop movements begin.
1 March 1943: Iranian and Entente forces take the city of Basra, Iraq. The Iraqi Royal Army begins to collapse as the 1st Iranian Tank Division breaks into the rear areas. The Entente 2nd Armoured division begins preparing to break out of Kuwait.
8 March 1943: Entente intelligence intercepts evidence of Spanish designs on Portugal. Neutral, but firmly allied with the UK, both Hitler and Sanjurjo wish remove the wayward Corporatist state as a possible entry point into the Continent. Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery begins plans for invasion, as the civilian government begins high level covert talks with Salazar.
18 March 1943: The Iraqi government falls as Entente forces reach Baghdad. King Ghazi bin Faisal is forced to abdicate. ‘Abd al-Illah is installed as Regent for Ghazi’s adolescent son Faisal II.
21 March 1943: The Turkish Army moves into Northern Iraq to prop up Ghazi’s loyalists.
24 March 1943: The Iranian Revolutionary Army takes Tikrit, and prepare to push to the Turkish border.
30 March 1943: An operational plan is reached in the Middle East theater. Iranian forces, supported by American air power, will push through Iraqi Kurdistan into Turkish Kurdistan. Entente forces will sweep into Syria and relieve Palestine.
1 April 1943: Amidst the spring rasputitsa, Comintern forces seize key ground near Leningrad. The good observation points will support eventual plans to end the siege of the city.
3 April 1943: In Cisjordanian Palestine, an alliance of communists, Jewish Labor Zionists and Arab socialists establish the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
17 April 1943: The Imperial Japanese Army launches Operation Kogo. Supported by troops of the Jiang Jieshi Clique, the IJA attacks south from Kaifeng to capture the large salient between the Yellow and Yangtze Rivers.
30 April – 7 May 1943: The Battle of Damascus: Entente forces route the Turkish Army in Syria, relieving pressure on Palestine.
5 May 1943: American forces redeployed from Iran to Socotra Island begin their invasion of Italian Somaliland in cooperation with Entente forces in Kenya.
9 May 1943: Italian-German forces are pushed out of Eretz Yisrael by PFLP militants
28 May 1943: Entente forces begin rapid deployment to Portugal ahead of Spanish invasion plans.
22 June 1943: Three years since the beginning of Operation Teutonic, the Germans launch Operation Citadel.
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