A Blunted Sickle - Thread II

4th January 1942

The central units of First Army reaches the river Havel at Spandau, where for the first time since starting their attack a week ago they meet determined resistance. No attempt is made to fight their way through this, because on their flanks other units have already crossed it at Potsdam and Orianenburg and are heading eastwards as fast as they can. Wavell's plan is to surround Berlin first before fighting his way in, in order to ensure that the civilian and military leadership are unable to escape from the city to elsewhere in Germany.


I wonder if Göring would be found by the British at Carinhal? As given his drugged out state he may very well have been spending his days there letting the army control things , especially if he hasn't been informed of the allied advances. Though I could see him being drugged out in the Chancellery as well.

Further north, 4th Army reaches the line Schleswig-Husen against nonexistent resistance and grinds to a halt for lack of petrol. An urgent signal is sent to the RN liaison officer in Hamburg asking for him if he can arrange for a petrol barge to be sent to Tönning to resupply them.
Meanwhile, the eastern branch of 4th Army's advance (which has been assigned most of the petrol tankers) has also run out of steam themselves having reached the line Rostock-Güstrow, also facing almost non-existent opposition. However, in their case they will have to wait for the engineers to re-open the Hamburg - Hagenow – Güstrow line: given how hard they are being worked elsewhere in Germany this will probably be at least two weeks.

On the right flank of the British Army, Alexander's 2nd Army are still static through lack of petrol and growing increasingly frustrated at having to watch their comrades make huge advances against crumbling resistance. Things are slightly better for 3rd Army however, which has started to receive a trickle of petrol and is therefore able to leap forward and occupy Leipzig. Ritchie has been promised a trainload of petrol by the afternoon of the 6th, which should be sufficient to enable his forces to reach Dresden and maybe even the Czechoslovak border.

Depending on circumstances fuel (or the advance) might not be a problem/matter for long.

Further south, the French reach the suburbs of Stuttgart, with progress actually being slightly better than the day before due to slightly improved weather allowing more use of air power. With the PoWs west of the Rhine starting to come fully under control, Giraud's men are freed up to start attacking again and are able to reach the outskirts of Frankfurt before dusk.

So if my memory of German maps are correct France is in a position to take control of most of Southern Germany.

Finally, in Czechoslovakia the advance in the centre grinds to a halt after the Germans are finally able to put together enough men to tear up the rail lines in the approaches to Prague and form an effective blocking position to stop the Czechs leapfrogging them. The Czechoslovak army is still able to move forward on both flanks however, and reaches the German border at Nové Údolí and crosses it to capture the village of Haidmühle.

Can I go out on a limb and guess the only ones willing to do so were SS? As I don't think the 'regular' soldiers that would be in Czechia would be interested in participating in a lost war.
 
Comments:
Can the Germans still fly into/out of Berlin? If so, is there anywhere for them to go? One of the primary differences iTTL vs. ours is the lack of Fanaticism (and even decapitating the Fanatics in the short lived German Civil War), so I'm not sure there would be the desire for the equivalent to the Eagle's Nest.

About 50 Kilometers short of the Dutch border. Are the British willing to hike it?

Rostock and out of Fuel, thus dies any concept of Free Lithuania. :(

Basically the French will conquer Southern Germany and Austria minus whatever *little* bits the Czech and Hungarians have conquered. The line more or less connects from Wuppertal to the farthest west point in Czechoslovakia and that line doesn't really go through anything.


At this point it seems like there is *exactly* one job left for the RN in this war, *FORCE THE SOUND*.
 
What are the Russian doing?
Probably wishing they hadn't sold the Germans so many trucks. If they hadn't then the Wehrmacht might have collapsed sooner for lack of transport and the Red Army might be able to mobilize in time to grab the rest of Poland before the Entente was in a position to do anything about it.
 
Probably wishing they hadn't sold the Germans so many trucks. If they hadn't then the Wehrmacht might have collapsed sooner for lack of transport and the Red Army might be able to mobilize in time to grab the rest of Poland before the Entente was in a position to do anything about it.
Wouldn't less trucks mean German collapses ever further before the Soviets are ready to move into Poland, and France takes everything?
 
I'm actually surprised that the RN and the Marines haven't done more in regards to Schleswig. Is the issue a lack of minesweepers or the extreme cold that any landing would include?
 
I'm actually surprised that the RN and the Marines haven't done more in regards to Schleswig. Is the issue a lack of minesweepers or the extreme cold that any landing would include?
Maybe also a sense of 'why bother'. Dumping a few marines who then can only walk doesn't help much compared to what the ground troops already do. A daring mission to deposit some men in Oslo or Copenhagen might be worth it if not for the mines, but why bother trying to navigate mines to drop some infantrymen 20 miles further north in Slesvig?
 
Maybe also a sense of 'why bother'. Dumping a few marines who then can only walk doesn't help much compared to what the ground troops already do. A daring mission to deposit some men in Oslo or Copenhagen might be worth it if not for the mines, but why bother trying to navigate mines to drop some infantrymen 20 miles further north in Slesvig?
The question becomes actions could the UK take (that don't limit the current action in Berlin) that would most likely allow for Entente Oil Tankers to reach the German controlled Baltic Sea Coast. I'm including (for example) offering von Renthe-Fink 50 kg of gold coins, Swedish passports for his entire family and an airplane trip to his choice of Mediterranean bordering nations.
 
The noose is now real right it seems. Only question is how determined German resistance will be in Berlin. RUSH B!
Umm... the whole objective of this offensive is to get assistance to the uprising in Poland. Diverting forces to Berlin does not support this - expect to see it bypassed as much as they can (difficult as it's a major transport hub) and surrounded by relatively light forces.

I wonder if Göring would be found by the British at Carinhal? As given his drugged out state he may very well have been spending his days there letting the army control things , especially if he hasn't been informed of the allied advances. Though I could see him being drugged out in the Chancellery as well.
Since he's the designated scapegoat, he's going to be found wherever the senior generals think is most convenient for him to take all the blame. That probably means Berlin, in the Reichs Chancellery with a big sign saying "I did it" in English and French, just in case the Entente miss the message that it was all his fault.

Depending on circumstances fuel (or the advance) might not be a problem/matter for long.
The fuel situation is rapidly improving - the advance moved very fast and is far beyond the zone in which there were substantial German forces present, so the infrastructure is in a reasonable state. Even a few trainloads of petrol makes an immense difference, and the Port of Hamburg helps hugely too.

So if my memory of German maps are correct France is in a position to take control of most of Southern Germany.
Yeah, the British have taken most of the northern half, the French took the area west of the Rhine (along with most of the German army in the process) and are now about to do the same to the south.

Can I go out on a limb and guess the only ones willing to do so were SS? As I don't think the 'regular' soldiers that would be in Czechia would be interested in participating in a lost war.
They have a choice of being captured by the Czechoslovak or French forces. Personally I'd hold out for the French.

You know things are over when the mustering effort is to find some people to break the rail lines.
They're in a very, very bad state.

Can the Germans still fly into/out of Berlin? If so, is there anywhere for them to go? One of the primary differences iTTL vs. ours is the lack of Fanaticism (and even decapitating the Fanatics in the short lived German Civil War), so I'm not sure there would be the desire for the equivalent to the Eagle's Nest.
They could probably fly in, but it's about as dangerous as OTL (i.e. very). Militarily they're in a far worse place than they were even when Berlin was falling in 1945 though, so there really isn't much of a chance to fight on.

About 50 Kilometers short of the Dutch border. Are the British willing to hike it?
Why bother? Their primary objective is to relieve the Poles, and their secondary objective is to win the war with as few casualties as possible for their own side. Advancing on foot without armour or artillery in miserable conditions supports neither requirement.

Rostock and out of Fuel, thus dies any concept of Free Lithuania. :(
Why they hell would the British and French try to set up a fight with the USSR? Even if they had captured Klaipėda they would just have treated it as part of East Prussia rather than as part of "Free Lithuania".

What are the Russian doing?
Celebrating New Year and extending it a bit towards Orthodox Christmas, by and large.

Probably wishing they hadn't sold the Germans so many trucks. If they hadn't then the Wehrmacht might have collapsed sooner for lack of transport and the Red Army might be able to mobilize in time to grab the rest of Poland before the Entente was in a position to do anything about it.
The missing trucks also provide a convenient excuse for a lot of mid-ranking Red Army officers...

This one is a Christmas miracle
The last few months have been manic, but it's rapidly slowing down this week.

Wouldn't less trucks mean German collapses ever further before the Soviets are ready to move into Poland, and France takes everything?
That was happening already, it just accelerated the speed at which the change happened.

I'm actually surprised that the RN and the Marines haven't done more in regards to Schleswig. Is the issue a lack of minesweepers or the extreme cold that any landing would include?
More an issue that forcing the straits in the face of a fairly major mine barrage and horrible weather doesn't get them anything that the Royal Engineers railway companies won't get quicker and cheaper. Most of the places they want to go to are a long way from the sea.

Maybe also a sense of 'why bother'. Dumping a few marines who then can only walk doesn't help much compared to what the ground troops already do. A daring mission to deposit some men in Oslo or Copenhagen might be worth it if not for the mines, but why bother trying to navigate mines to drop some infantrymen 20 miles further north in Slesvig?
Lots of potential for egg on face right at the end of a war too. Resting on laurels gets very tempting when it's militarily the right thing to do...

The question becomes actions could the UK take (that don't limit the current action in Berlin) that would most likely allow for Entente Oil Tankers to reach the German controlled Baltic Sea Coast. I'm including (for example) offering von Renthe-Fink 50 kg of gold coins, Swedish passports for his entire family and an airplane trip to his choice of Mediterranean bordering nations.
How does that help? There really isn't very much there, Rostock might help a bit until the rail line is open, and after that there isn't really anything of use short of Danzig.
 

G-6

Banned
What the Japanese doing and are the allies going to break Germany into pre unification states?
 
What the Japanese doing and are the allies going to break Germany into pre unification states?

Japan is doing the math on "Is an army/navy civil war more or less costly than starting a war in SE Asia against an alliance that's looking *much* more stable than IRL (plus, America doesn't have the political capital to force an oil embargo, so the Allies are allowing sales if the Japanese have hard currency to buy) and right now, civil war might be a winner.

And the German question seems to come up every update, breakup (beyond removing Austria) is out of the cards because the Allies have concluded that such an action only ends in ultimate reunification under the aegis of the most militarily competent substate, a situation they are keen to avoid.

Likely outcome in Germany is a demilitarized state cut down to Poland's benefit, policed by UK&France for two generations, with German minorities outside Germany forcibly relocated, as the Allies are super disinterested in fighting this war again in twenty years.
 
Are the allies worried about Soviet union?

Certainly wary, the Soviets in this TL have been no friend of the Allies, bellicose with Finland and Romania, and are responsible for no small amount of material support to the Nazis (Stalin, hoping to string Hitler along just enough to let the West bleed itself white in preparation for Red revolution).

Long term, Tube Alloys and the Franco-British nuclear program look to keep the USSR out of Europe, the future looks to be nothing short of very interesting, with a cold war likely very similar and yet very different from our own in the cards
 
Wouldn't the advantage to taking Berlin be that a general Surrender might be agreed to by the German leadership allowing the Polish Home Army to not have to fight any more?

Having the sign only in English is designed to insult the Dutch, Belgians and Norwegians, splitting the Entente. :)

The question is whether Stalin is going to get his plans to invade the remainder of pre-war Lithuania or not.

So once the rail connections in the Ruhr are fixed, the British and French can ship the fuel by rail almost to the front line? I presume the break of Gauge is on the pre-war Polish/Soviet border?

Also without the fanatics, I don't think there is any chance of a Fortress Norway.
 
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