Stresa Revived - an Allied Mussolini TL

[Emperor-of-New-Zealand]

This is all awfully exciting. Please keep going.

Wow, I thought this would inadvertently turn into a more favourable war for the Germans because Hitler would maybe decide to not invade the USSR if he had too many enemies in the West, allowing him to focus on Italy, Britain and France, but it seems Axis is in a significantly worse position than in our timeline.

I think Barbarossa was literally in Hitler's manifesto; wiping out the communist menace and the Slavic untermenschen was part of his over-all plan, so deciding not to do it wouldn't really be in character for him or the Nazi Party. I don't know the details of why they went in 1941, so perhaps it's delayed, but we'll certainly see.

Anyway, I am enjoying this. As I said before, not enough Musso timelines around these days, so good going and keep it up. Also, happy to see an author respond positively to criticism; not to dis anyone else, but quite often people end up saying something like, "It's MY timeline, so pooey."

 

[Onkel Willie]

Update time .

Chapter VI: Pearl Harbor, December 7th 1941. ​

During the Battle of Italy, the Regia Marina came out largely unscathed and, given that it was the world’s fourth largest navy, it would prove a major asset to the Allies. In early 1941 it consisted of six battleships (with two more incomplete and in German hands), nineteen cruisers, 59 destroyers, 67 torpedo boats and 116 submarines while the Kriegsmarine presence in the Mediterranean Sea consisted of the odd U-boat that managed to slip past Gibraltar. The Regia Marina had some issues: it had a number of newer, faster, lightly built cruisers with inadequate defensive armour; there were a large number of older vessels; there had been a lack of emphasis on the incorporation of technological advances like radar and sonar; and the service in general suffered from insufficient time at sea for crew training.

As far as the training and combat experience issues went, Italian and British ships conducted joint patrols. As far as radar and ASDIC (a precursor to sonar) went, Britain was generous enough to give some sets and translated manuals to its Allies, equipping all of Italy’s six battleships and several of its heavy cruisers with radar and equipping its destroyer leaders with ASDIC.

Knowing that the combined Italian and French navies could easily dominate the Mediterranean, barring the fluke U-boat related incident, the British admiralty decided to strip the Mediterranean Fleet of its capital units. They were redeployed to fight in the Battle of the Atlantic and to Southeast Asia to intimidate an increasingly ambitious Japan. Similarly, Great Britain reduced military forces in its African and Middle Eastern colonies, mandates, protectorates and informal possessions to the bare minimum required to police them. In late 1940 Singapore had been defended by little more than three divisions, but by spring 1941 that had increased to eight divisions and two armoured brigades, each equipped with 220 Valentine tanks. The RAF presence in Singapore, in the meantime, increased from 158 modern aircraft to 318 with the addition of two wings of Hawker Hurricanes and two wings of Supermarine Spitfires, totalling 160 modern fighter planes. Garrisons in Burma and Hong Kong were also reinforced.

War between Japan and the United States had been a possibility that each nation had been aware of (and developed contingency plans for) since the 1920s, though tensions did not begin to grow seriously until Japan’s 1931 invasion of Manchuria. Over the next decade, Japan continued to expand into China, leading to all-out war between those countries in 1937. Japan spent considerable effort trying to isolate China and achieve sufficient resource independence to attain victory on the mainland; the “Southern Operation” was designed to assist these efforts. From December 1937, events such as the Japanese attack on the USS Panay, the Allison incident, and the Nanjing Massacre (the International Military Tribunal of the Far East concluded that more than 200.000 Chinese non-combatants were killed in indiscriminate massacres) swung public opinion in the West sharply against Japan. Fearing Japanese expansion, the United States, the United Kingdom, and France provided loan assistance for war supply contracts to the Republic of China. President Roosevelt didn’t manage to push economic sanctions through Congress, but the vote on this matter was narrow. What he did do was to move the Pacific Fleet from San Diego to Pearl Harbor and order a military build-up in the Philippines. Japan perceived these moves as hostile.

Because the Japanese high command was (mistakenly) certain that any attack on European Southeast Asian colonies would bring the US into the war, a devastating preventive strike appeared to be the only way to avoid US naval interference. Preliminary planning had begun in early 1941 under the auspices of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, with a key role being played by Captain Minoru Genda. In summer Genda was sent to Europe as a military attaché to observe German air offensives and assessed that the Mitsubishi A6M Zero was superior to the German Bf-109, the British Hurricanes and Spitfires, and the Italian Macchi C.202.

Upon returning to Japan in spring 1941, Genda met Yamamoto and the latter was inspired by Genda’s idea of launching a carrier attack on Hawaii because the element of surprise would be maintained until the last moment (unlike the “decisive battle” doctrine that had long dominated Japanese naval planning, which involved a campaign of attrition by cruisers, after which a strategic reserve of battleships would be released for a final battle). Genda also advocated the use of shallow-water torpedoes and they would be incorporated into this revolutionary attack plan. Despite the absence of American aircraft carriers, the attack wasn’t cancelled, and Japanese confidence in a quick victory also meant that facilities like the navy yard, oil tank farms, the submarine base and CINCPAC were ignored (by their thinking the war would be over before the influence of these facilities would be felt).

On November 26th 1941, a Japanese task force of six aircraft carriers (Akagi, Kaga, Soryu, Hiryu, Shokaku, and Zuikaku) departed northern Japan en route to a position northwest of Hawaii, intending to launch its 408 aircraft to attack Pearl Harbor: 360 for the two attack waves and 48 on defensive combat air patrol (CAP), including nine fighters from the first wave. The first wave was to be the primary attack, while the second wave was to attack carriers as its first objective and cruisers as its second, with battleships as the third target. The aircrews were ordered to select the highest value targets (battleships and aircraft carriers) or, if these were not present, any other high value ships (cruisers and destroyers). The first wave of dive bombers was to attack ground targets. Fighters were ordered to strafe and destroy as many parked aircraft as possible to ensure they did not get into the air to intercept the bombers, especially in the first wave. When the fighters’ fuel got low they were to refuel at the aircraft carriers and return to combat. Fighters were to serve CAP duties where needed, especially over US airfields.

In the meantime, Royal Navy battleship HMS Warspite had completed its repair and refit at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Washington state in the United States (she had been transferred from the Mediterranean Fleet to the Home Fleet, and in May 1941 she departed for the US after suffering damage from an air raid on Portsmouth). Modifications consisted of the replacement of her deteriorated 15 inch (381 mm) main guns, a serious increase in her anti-aircraft weaponry, bridge improvements, and new surface and anti-aircraft radar. She left Puget Sound on December 2nd 1941 and maintained a brisk speed of 18 knots, steaming south-westward toward Hawaii for a scheduled goodwill visit before heading on to Singapore. On December 6th around 7:00 PM local time Warspite’s radar detected a large group of surface contacts on a course toward Hawaii. Her captain ordered her to increase speed to 22 knots, only two knots below her maximum speed, and to turn northwest and pass the surface contacts to their north. He then ordered her to steer south to shadow the unknown fleet, staying within radar range but outside visual range (in night time conditions Japanese navy lookouts could spot targets at 5.000 to 15.000 yards out, depending on conditions). During the night of December 6th to December 7th she set a course that would bring the unknown fleet within firing range (maximum range for Warspite’s 15 inch guns was 33.550 yards or 30.68 km).

The Japanese launched their first wave and it was detected by US radar at Opana Point and was also, unbeknownst to anyone, monitored by the Warspite’s radar. Although her captain understood what was going on and wanted to help, he couldn’t because Japan and Britain weren’t at war (and also because inadvertently causing an Anglo-Japanese conflict might cost him his job and rank). He merely sent an encrypted warning via radio, which took a while to decode. It only reached the attention of Lieutenant Kermit Tyler about twenty minutes before the Japanese attack struck home, and it took him up to five minutes to warn for “impending attack”. In a fifteen minute window only a minimal amount of preparations could be made. In the meantime, the radar operators at Opana Point had failed to make clear the size of the incoming formation. As a result, Lieutenant Tyler had initially assumed it was just a flight of B-17s coming in from the mainland and didn’t pass on an alarm of “attack imminent” until Warspite’s warning reached him, unfortunately too late to make a significant difference. The air portion of the attack commenced at 7:48 AM Hawaiian time (3:18 AM, December 8th, Japanese Standard Time). Slow, vulnerable torpedo bombers led the first wave, exploiting the first moments of surprise to attack the most important ships present (the battleships), while dive bombers attacked US air bases across Oahu, starting with Hickam Field, the largest, and Wheeler Field, the main US Army Air Force fighter base.

In the meantime, Warspite was still shadowing the Japanese fleet from the darkness of the west and by now her radio was receiving undeniable signs – i.e. SOS signals and pleas for help – that Pearl Harbor was under attack. But still her captain and crew were bound by orders as well as the fact that Great Britain and Japan were at peace, which changed shortly after the first wave had been launched. A few Japanese aircraft on CAP noticed Warspite and, mistaking her for an American battleship, attacked her (only to be shot down by her anti-aircraft guns while inflicting no damage). Almost simultaneously, she received word of Japanese landings in Malaya, and now there was more than enough reason to open fire.

A few minutes after being discovered and attacked by Japanese planes on CAP, after acquiring a firing solution, Warspite’s main guns unleashed a full broadside from a distance of 22.000 yards (roughly 20 kilometres or 12.5 miles) at 8:45 AM Hawaiian time and targeted the nearest enemy capital warship, by which time the second wave had already been launched. Warspite also radioed the HQ of Admiral Husband Kimmel, Commander-in-Chief of the US Pacific Fleet, that they were engaging the attacking Japanese fleet north of Hawaii. The nearest capital ship turned out to be aircraft carrier Kaga: it was a 38.800 tonne vessel, carrying 90 planes, that had originally been designed as a battleship, but which had been converted to a carrier after the 1922 Washington Naval Treaty. Two of Warspite’s 15 inch shells hit on starboard side near the aft of the ship and cut through the thin 38 mm (1.5 inch) deck armour like a knife through butter. They exploded inside the ship and put her two starboard side propeller shafts out of commission, cutting her speed in half to a mere 14 knots. A third shell exploded right behind the ship and damaged the rudder, slowing Kaga down further to 11 knots. After several more broadsides Kaga had been reduced to a burning hulk, and at 9:05 AM she listed to the starboard side, began to capsize and started to sink, disappearing below the waves within another ten minutes (the second and last known instance of a battleship sinking an aircraft carrier, the only other example being HMS Glorious being sunk by Scharnhorst and Gneisenau).

At this point Nagumo decided to break off the attack, recalling the planes of the second wave. In the meantime, Warspite managed to damage Zuikaku to the point that she’d need a few weeks in dry dock (at a time that the Imperial Japanese Navy needed its carriers the most). Warspite now came under attack from Japanese aircraft, but she conducted evasive manoeuvres, laid out a smoke screen and incurred no fatal damage. After the Japanese withdrew, she went to Pearl Harbor for patch-ups and repairs, proudly flying the Union Jack, and arrived later that day. Upon arrival US Navy crews cheered her on and very quickly she was popularized as “the ship that saved Pearl Harbor.” Lyrical US media glorified her as a David that had heroically and selflessly taken on the mighty Japanese Goliath and had triumphed against the odds, saving Hawaii from invasion and horrors like the Rape of Nanking (it only became known after the war that Japan had never intended to invade Hawaii). In the meantime her crew members were treated like heroes during their shore leave on Oahu, which lasted only two weeks. Though her original orders were to join Force Z at Singapore, as a symbol of Anglo-American friendship and cooperation, Warspite’s new orders were to operate with the US Pacific Fleet until further notice (conducting joint operations that later Allied operations would be modelled on).

In the meantime, Hitler foolishly declared war on the United States. He mistakenly believed the Japanese could keep the Americans distracted and that a German declaration of war on the US would get Tokyo to support his own effort in the USSR. He also arrogantly assumed his planned invasion of the USSR would have been finished by the time the American presence in Europe could be felt, allowing him to devote his full attention to the Western Allies, using Soviet resources to feed his war machine.

 

[Alternity9497]

All I can say is WOW. Excellent update.

IJN's already lost a valuable carrier (technically two, with Zuikaku out of commission for the time being) and the British have reinforced their garrisons in SE Asia, enough to possibly make a real difference ITTL and give the Japanese a huge headache. Also, how much of a difference did the Warspite's warning to Pearl Harbor make (as in fewer casualties, ships sunk, etc.)?

 

[Artaxerxes]

I would guess Singapore wouldn't fall in this TL? They actually have modern fighter planes, and a decent fleet.

Won't have sorted out the horrific logistics of the garrison but it'll mean the Japanese can't support the landings very well.

 

[mlp]

Now that was a great update.

 

[Constantinople]

Pearl Harbor still was attacked, right? What was the damage?

 

[alexcoppo]

Pearl Harbor still was attacked, right? What was the damage?

I presume the damages of OTL first attack wave and nothing more.

 

[Not Henry G.]

Would Hitler actually DOW the US, though? I know it was stupid OTL, but from his point of view he had defeated France and Britain and had the Soviets on the ropes.
Here he hasn't defeated anyone, even if he's caused a lot of damage, and I don't think the USSR has been invaded yet.
I know everyone likes to call him a dumbass, but he was pretty insightful in the first years of the war and his DOW came from "victory disease" more than idiocy

 

[Onkel Willie]

I presume the damages of OTL first attack wave and nothing more.

Pretty much.

Would Hitler actually DOW the US, though? I know it was stupid OTL, but from his point of view he had defeated France and Britain and had the Soviets on the ropes.
Here he hasn't defeated anyone, even if he's caused a lot of damage, and I don't think the USSR has been invaded yet.
I know everyone likes to call him a dumbass, but he was pretty insightful in the first years of the war and his DOW came from "victory disease" more than idiocy

IOTL Hitler assumed Japan would keep the US occupied until he finished the job in Europe. Besides that I thought Hitler's sense of racial supremacy would come into play: 'the pesky Slavic untermenschen will be defeated before American power can be felt and with Soviet resources we're invincible' .

Anyway, here's an update for you all.

Chapter VII: The Battle of Wake Island, December 8th-24th 1941.
​

In the meantime, simultaneously with the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Battle of Wake Island started when 36 Mitsubishi G3M medium bombers flown from bases on the Marshall Islands attacked. Four patrolling F4F Wildcat fighters didn’t detect them due to poor weather and another eight were destroyed on the ground, but two Japanese bombers were shot down the next day. Two more air raids followed in which the main camp was targeted on December 9th, resulting in destruction of the civilian hospital and the Pan Am facility, and on December 10th during which the bombers focused on Wilkes Island. Following the raid on December 9th, the guns had been relocated in case the Japanese had photographed the positions. Wooden replicas were erected in their place and the Japanese bombers attacked the decoy positions.

Early on the morning of December 11th, the garrison, with support of the four remaining Wildcats, repelled the first landing attempt by the South Seas Force, which included three light cruisers, six destroyers, two patrol boats and two troop transports containing 450 troops. The US Marines fired at the invasion fleet with their six 5-inch (127 mm) coastal artillery guns. Major Devereux, the Marine commander under Cunningham, ordered the gunners to hold their fire until the enemy moved within range of the coastal defences. “Battery L”, on Peale Islet, succeeded in sinking destroyer Hayate at a distance of 4.000 yards with at least two direct hits to her magazines, causing her to explode and sink within two minutes, in full view of the defenders on shore. Destroyer Yubari’s superstructure was hit eleven times. The four Wildcats also succeeded in sinking the destroyer Kisaragi by dropping a bomb on her stern where the depth charges were stored. Both were lost with all hands, with Hayate becoming the second Japanese surface warship to be sunk during World War II after Kaga. The Japanese force withdrew before landing (it was the last time that a naval invasion was defeated purely by coastal artillery).

The siege of Wake and frequent air attacks on the island’s garrison continued, without resupply for the Americans, though Commander Winfield Cunningham had sent a long list of critical equipment he needed (including fire-control radar, gun sights and spare parts). The US Navy planned a relief attempt centred on Taskforce 11, which was composed of aircraft carrier USS Saratoga, fleet oiler USS Neches, seaplane tender USS Tangier, heavy cruisers Astoria, Minneapolis and San Francisco, and ten destroyers. Taskforce 14 – with the fleet carrier USS Lexington, three heavy cruisers, eight destroyers, and an oiler – was to undertake a raid on the Marshall Islands to divert Japanese attention.

HMS Warspite’s commanding officer Douglas Blake Fisher, recently promoted to Commodore for his actions at Pearl Harbor, proposed a different and more daring approach, which the Americans adopted. He proposed that TF 11 and TF 14 would both steam for Wake, providing the island with air cover and providing it with the necessary equipment (including 18 US Marine Corps SB2U Vindicator dive bombers originally intended for Midway). Additionally, HMS Warspite would be added to this fleet and be escorted by destroyers USS Hull, USS Macdonough, USS Worden, USS Farragut and USS Dale. The relief force was therefore composed of two aircraft carriers, one battleship, six heavy cruisers, 23 destroyers, two oilers and one seaplane tender, in other words quite a sizeable fleet. It also carried the 4th Marine Defence Battalion and the VMF-221 fighter squadron equipped with Brewster F2A Buffalo fighters, along with 9.000 5-inch (127 mm) shells, 12.000 3-inch (76 mm) shells and 3 million .50 cal. (12.7 mm) rounds. Dummy messages were dropped that only USS Saratoga, three light cruisers and a meagre destroyer escort were headed for Wake (communications to the contrary were limited to written orders as much as possible, for fear of Japan breaking and reading coded messages to the contrary). It would be a target that Fisher believed would be too juicy for the Japanese to pass up, and if they took the bait then there’d be another opportunity to weaken Japan’s carrier force. Fisher’s plan was ambitious to say the least in a time that defeat piled upon defeat for the Allies in the Pacific, but it could count on enthusiastic support from Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Roosevelt went along with it because he believed this gamble could be enough to hold Wake, which would be a major boost to morale as well as a boost to the spirit of Anglo-American cooperation. It was an improvised operation and gamble, but it might just work. The entire effort was coordinated by ABDAFCOM or “American-British-Dutch-Australian-French Command” which was under the over-all command of Sir Archibald Wavell, at least in theory.

The US relief force arrived at Wake on December 22nd and at 9:00 they received news indicating the presence of two enemy carriers and two fast battleships. The two fast battleships in fact turned out to be heavy cruisers and the carriers were Hiryu and Soryu, which had been diverted here because Wake was a key part of the to-be-established perimeter meant to ward off American counterattacks. Admiral Chuichi Nagumo, commander of the First Air Fleet, seized this apparent opportunity to sink an American aircraft carrier: it would, after all, level the playing field (since the Japanese had already lost one carrier to the Allies) and give the Imperial Japanese Navy some breathing space. Hiryu and Soryu were ordered to look out for the American carrier Saratoga.

The new commander-in-chief of the US Pacific Fleet Vice Admiral William S. Pye, a staff officer without significant combat experience, was tempted to abort the operation merely for fear of losses upon learning of Japanese reinforcements. A message from Commodore Fisher stated that he would assist Wake by himself if need be, which forced Pye’s hand because the heroes of Pearl Harbor couldn’t be allowed to be defeated ignominiously (Pye would soon be replaced by the less risk averse Admiral Chester W. Nimitz). The second Japanese invasion force came on December 23rd, composed mostly of the same ships from the first attempt with the major reinforcements of the carriers Hiryu and Soryu, plus 1.500 Japanese marines. Wake’s four remaining F4F Wildcat fighters were supplemented by 18 SB2U Vindicator dive bombers from USS Lexington and fourteen F2A Buffalo fighters (originally intended for Midway and Oahu respectively). Combined with Saratoga’s and Lexington’s own carrier wings, they were able to successfully counter Japanese attempts to gain air superiority, thwarting the planned amphibious assault.

At 8:10 AM on December 23rd, Japanese reconnaissance flights indeed discovered an aircraft carrier, namely the Saratoga. She was approaching Wake from the east and at eight o’clock in the morning she was about 80 kilometres away from the island; Hiryu and Soryu, in the meantime, were 30 km to the north of it, and about 85 km away from Saratoga. It was also reported that the enemy carrier was being escorted by a battleship that wasn’t supposed to be there, namely HMS Warspite. Nagumo dismissed the battleship as inconsequential against air power and figured its sinking would be another notch on his belt. He subsequently ordered an attack on the Saratoga, to be carried out by his Nakajima B5N “Kate” torpedo bombers. After her reconstruction, however, Warspite had eight 4-inch Mk XVI anti-aircraft guns (4x2), thirty-two 40 mm two-pounder anti-aircraft guns (4x8) and four quadruple 0.50 calibre Vickers machine guns. Additionally, there was her armour: she had a 14 inch armoured belt, thicker than that of the preceding Iron Duke-class, and also had improved underwater protection compared to the Iron Dukes (the scale of deck armour was less generous, but sufficient for the time when she had been first commissioned, namely 1915). In effect Warspite was to act as a floating punching bag as well as anti-aircraft battery, drawing away attention from Saratoga whose aircraft complement would assist Warspite in keeping Japan’s carrier planes occupied.

Lexington and the accompanying Taskforce 14 steamed westward as well, but they were located about 70 kilometres to the north of Taskforce 11 and 90 kilometres away from the Japanese. Lexington remained undetected and – upon receiving word from Warspite and Saratoga that their radar had detected incoming enemy planes – launched her own attack, composed of 21 Buffalo fighters, 32 Douglas SBD dive bombers and 15 Douglas TBD Devastator torpedo bombers who only had to worry about a small number of Zeroes on CAP. The TBD Devastators were the spearhead and were covered by eight Buffalos, and they were engaged by Zeroes on CAP with devastating effects: all but three planes were shot down because they, unfortunately, served as sacrificial lambs. While the TBD torpedo bombers and their fighter escort were being decimated, the SDB dive bombers descended from high altitude before Japanese fighters could climb to meet them. In fact, climbing Zeroes, otherwise superior to Allied fighters, were attacked and massacred from above by the thirteen Buffalos escorting the SDBs. Their 12.7 mm machine guns easily penetrated the wooden fuselage of the Zeroes (the Zero had superior speed and manoeuvrability, but its armour protection was weak compared to other aircraft of a similar role, configuration and era; its armament was also weak when compared to that of the Hawker Hurricane, the Spitfire and later the P-51 Mustang).

In the meantime, Nagumo had made the ill-fated decision to re-equip some of Soryu’s Aichi D3A dive bombers with armour piercing bombs designed for anti-ship purposes (basically, they were modified 16 inch shells). The reason was that Nagumo correctly assumed, based on the approach vector of the torpedo bombers that had just been shot down, that there was another American aircraft carrier out there. His timing, unfortunately, was poor because the American dive bombers struck right at the moment that Soryu’s aft deck was littered with aircraft, aviation fuel and bombs. Her aft deck was consumed by a huge fireball and was engulfed by an enormous conflagration that would burn for hours, forcing Soryu to withdraw while Hiryu took in her returning aircraft. Zeroes recalled from CAP drove off the American attackers, but they still managed to sink light cruiser Tenryu and a patrol boat. On December 24th, Christmas Eve, Nagumo made the decision to abort the invasion of Wake.

All-in-all, the failed invasion of Wake had cost the Japanese a light cruiser, two destroyers and a patrol boat while one of their carriers would be in dry dock for repairs for the next six months, after she had limped back to Japan. This was a handicap the Imperial Japanese Navy could ill afford at this time. Though Wake itself wasn’t extremely important, putting an enemy carrier out of commission for six months was a strategic victory. Besides that, the victory in the Battle of Wake Island was a major boost to American morale and – as an Allied rather than a purely American victory – further cemented Anglo-American relations.

 

[alexcoppo]

1 aircraft carrier sunk and 2 badly damaged in a month ; japanese ass is being kicked to pulp .

 

[RyuDrago]

Wow. The Japanese really put their foot in the mouth in such a spectacular way TTL. Guess this is one of their worse alternate history performances ever. On the bright side, they could avoid the nuclear onslaught if the war will end sooner. However, as it was anticipated, if the lend-lease to Italy lasted till 1945, this only means the war in Europe will last till that time...

 

[Onkel Willie]

And another update .

Chapter VIII: Malaya, Singapore and the Java Sea, December 1941-April 1942.​

Unfortunately, the Japanese were very successful elsewhere: Hong Kong had fallen by December 31st 1941, Guam fell in two days, Dutch forces in the Dutch East Indies were overwhelmed, and Rabaul, the Solomon Islands, the Philippines and French Indochina all fell rapidly in late 1941/early 1942. French Indochina, defended only by two brigades and some colonial militia, was conquered by the Imperial Japanese Army in a matter of days (France had stripped it of troops in order to support the Allied effort in Italy). Thailand caved to Japanese pressure without even putting up a fight. Now the Twenty-Fifth Army awaited orders to invade Malaya and take Singapore.

The 5th Division stood poised to invade Malaya from the north – after, on December 8th, the Japanese 18th division had conducted a successful amphibious invasion of the north-eastern town of Kota Bharu. Despite being on alert, the landings at Kota Bharu came as a surprise to the British, who of course immediately counterattacked in an attempt to drive the Japanese back into the sea, in which they failed. The 8th Brigade of the 9th Indian Infantry Division put up a stiff fight, while the 22nd Brigade formed a deeper defence to the rear, but both were compelled to withdraw. By December 9th, both units had fallen back to concentrate as a division, while other British forces had moved 50 kilometres into Thailand to the town of Kroh, encountering weak resistance from Thai gendarmerie and other Thai units. The Indian 11th Infantry Division prepared defensive positions at “The Ledge” near Kroh in Thailand and awaited the arrival of the Imperial Japanese Army’s 5th division.

In the meantime, Force Z steamed north – hugging the coast so they could be covered by land based airpower – and during the evening of December 9th it arrived at Kota Bharu. Force Z was commanded by Admiral Thomas Philips and was composed of battleship HMS Prince of Wales, battlecruiser HMS Repulse and four destroyers. The radar on the ships of Force Z detected Japanese light cruiser Sendai and its escort, consisting of four destroyers. Under the cover of darkness, Philips ordered his forces to close in and open fire at 10.000 yards (~ 9 km or 6 mi). His forces sunk Sendai as well as escorting destroyers Ayanami and Uranami due to superiority in firepower as well as the Royal Navy’s efficiency in night fighting. Though he hadn’t suffered any losses, Philips broke off action just before midnight and steamed south at high speed toward Singapore. He had been too late to stop the Japanese 18th Division from landing, but he had temporarily cut off their supplies. The events of December 9th 1941 have become known as the Naval Battle of Kota Bharu (so it won’t be confused with the fighting around Kota Bharu on land).

The Japanese responded by forming a taskforce of six cruisers around “fast battleship” Kongo tasked to hunt down and destroy Force Z; they also dedicated an entire air flotilla to the task. During the night/early morning of December 10th Force Z luckily remained undetected by Japanese aircraft and remained outside the range of Kongo and its taskforce. That was perhaps a blessing in disguise for the Japanese because Force Z – with ten 14 inch and six 15 inch guns – and its land based air cover could have seriously damaged its pursuers. Also, reinforcements were underway: heavy cruiser HMS Exeter and light cruiser HMAS Hobart were added to Force Z immediately after the Battle of Kota Bharu. Aircraft carrier HMS Indomitable was underway from the Caribbean, with a destroyer escort of three, and would reach Singapore in late January 1942. Battleship HMS Barham, aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal, light cruisers Arethusa, Sheffield, Coventry and Calcutta and eight destroyers – all previously a part of the dissolved Mediterranean Force H – were also reassigned from the Home Fleet to Force Z on December 8th 1941. It would, however, take until mid January 1942 for them to arrive at best.

The success of Force Z encouraged General Arthur Percival, the commanding officer in Malaya, to launch a counterattack on the Japanese foothold around Kota Bharu. The Japanese were pushed back and suffered heavy casualties, but weren’t driven out of Malaya. Nonetheless it was a strategic victory for the British because they contained the 18th Division, which should have broken out to advance south together with Japanese forces coming in from Thailand. The Indian 11th Infantry Division, however, also repulsed the Japanese 5th Division at Kroh and therefore the British blunted that component of the invasion of Malaya too.

Lieutenant-General Tomoyuki Yamashita, commander of the Twenty-Fifth Army, was aware that British naval reinforcements were underway and he absolutely wanted to take Singapore before they arrived. Any major British presence in Malaya and Singapore would be a threat to the Japanese position in the Dutch East Indies, a possession that was the cornerstone to Japan’s fuel situation. Yamashita’s 30.000 frontline soldiers had suffered heavy casualties and he unleashed the remainder of his forces, including the elite Imperial Guards Division, and added Thai units to cover his losses, increasing his strength to 70.000 men. His opponents, however, numbered over 200.000 men and had superiority in tanks as well (by the end of January, the invading Japanese had lost almost their entire tank force while the British had lost only 56 tanks out of 440). The Japanese did have an edge in airpower with ~ 500 aircraft opposed to 318, but with the presence of modern planes the British did manage to put up a fight and gain local air superiority from time to time. Even with the aforementioned reinforcements, the Imperial Japanese Army made little headway into Malaya, making negligible gains for serious losses against a numerically superior and motivated foe. By late January/early February 1942, British, Anzac and British Indian forces still held on to most of Malaya. After seven weeks the Japanese had only conquered a few jungle-clad mountains.

The failure of the conquest of Malaya and Singapore forced the Imperial General Headquarters to divert troops, whilst berating Yamashita for his failure. Japanese objectives in Burma had originally been limited to capturing Rangoon, the colony’s capital and principal seaport, which would close the overland supply line to China and bolster Japanese gains in Malaya and the Dutch East Indies. The Fifteenth Army under Lieutenant-General Shojiro Iida, initially consisting of two infantry divisions, attacked the southern Burmese province of Tenasserim. Their attack across Kawkareik Pass was surprisingly successful and they captured the port of Moulmein at the mouth of the Salween River. To Iida’s frustration, most of his forces were transferred and he was ordered to take up a defensive position on the left bank of the river Salween. The Indian 17th Infantry Division commanded by Major General John George Smyth, reinforced by the 48th and 63rd Indian Infantry Brigades, held the Salween’s right bank through January and February. On February 17th 1942, the defending forces of Burma launched an improvised counteroffensive preceded by a short artillery barrage, after which they crossed the river in improvised canoes and almost effortlessly recaptured Moulmein.

In short, the successful defence of Malaya meant that the Japanese had to abandon their conquest of Burma, and Burma indeed remained under complete British control. By February 22nd, British and colonial forces had evicted the Japanese invaders from Burma. Also, by mid February, Malaya and Singapore were still in Allied hands and Force Z had been reinforced to become a formidable force: at this point it consisted of two aircraft carriers, two battleships, one battlecruiser, one heavy cruiser, five light cruisers and fifteen destroyers for a total of 26 ships.

In the meantime, the Japanese invasion of the Dutch East Indies progressed at a rapid pace as they captured bases in Sarawak, Borneo and Celebes. Dutch colonial forces were plainly not ready for war and were easily overwhelmed by Imperial Japanese forces. Troop convoys, screened by destroyers and cruisers with air support provided by swarms of fighters operating from captured bases, steamed southward through the Makassar Strait and into the Molucca Sea. To oppose these invading forces was a small force, consisting of Dutch, American, British and Australian warships. In January a force of four American destroyers unsuccessfully attacked a Japanese convoy in the Makassar Strait and in February the Allies were defeated in the Battle of Palembang, allowing Japan to capture the major oil port in eastern Sumatra. The Allies were also defeated by an inferior invasion force in the Battle of Badung Strait, while air raids rendered Darwin useless as a supply and naval base.

The odds were not great for the Allied forces. They were disunited (ships came from five separate navies) and demoralized by constant air attacks. In addition, the coordination between Allied navies and air forces was mediocre. The Japanese amphibious forces gathered to strike at Java, and on February 27th 1942, the main ABDAFCOM naval force, under Dutch Rear Admiral Karel Doorman, sailed northeast from Surabaya to intercept a convoy of the Eastern Invasion Force approaching from the Makassar Strait. The ABDAF force consisted of one heavy cruiser, three light cruisers, and eight destroyers while the opposing force was composed of two heavy cruisers, two light cruisers, fourteen destroyers and ten transports. Doorman’s forces launched pinprick probing attacks throughout the afternoon in what was the early phase of the Battle of the Java Sea, inflicting little damage (while also suffering limited damage). To the Japanese it seemed like Doorman’s Combined Striking Force was aiming for the invasion convoy, but in reality they only diverted attention from the real attack.

Battlecruiser HMS Repulse and her destroyer escort (detached from Force Z) steamed down Karimata Strait and arrived on February 27th around 19:00 hours. Repulse seriously damaged Japanese heavy cruiser Haguro in intermittent night-fighting between 8:15 PM and 00:30 AM, using Allied radar technology to her advantage. She suffered damage herself too as Haguro’s sister ship Nachi and light cruisers Naka and Jintsu engaged at 13.000 yards out, proving that Japanese naval crews too were proficient night fighters. Repulse was hit by several 203 mm (8 inch) and 140 mm (5.5 inch) shells, but one of her own 381 mm (15 inch) shells, cut through Naka’s 29 mm (1.1 inch) deck armour like a knife through butter, exploding in her ammunition magazine. Naka sank in a few minutes, taking all but eight of her crew with her. In the very early morning hours of February 28th, HMS Repulse withdrew back to Singapore under the cover of darkness to avoid air attacks by the Japanese out on patrol looking for her, rejoining Force Z after some repairs.

The Battle of the Java Sea was a tactical victory for the Allies: they had damaged a heavy cruiser, which would likely need a few weeks in dry dock, and had sunk an enemy light cruiser. Strategically, however, it was inconclusive. The Japanese invasion of Java continued with only a few days delay and they sank heavy cruiser USS Houston, light cruiser HMAS Perth and four destroyers, leaving no serious Allied forces capable of stopping the Japanese in the Sunda Strait. Dutch light cruisers HNLMS De Ruyter and HNLMS Java with five remaining destroyers had to withdraw all the way to Perth, Australia. They survived the war and saw some action in the Dutch colonial war in Indonesia between 1945 and 1950. Java was sold to become the Costa Rican navy’s flagship in 1951, in which capacity she served until they sold her for scrap in 1972. De Ruyter was upgraded after the war and was stationed at Netherlands New Guinea, serving in the shooting war against Indonesia in 1961-’62 which resulted in the Dutch keeping this colony as an autonomous country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands (being much better of than Indonesia, having an $18.000 GDP per capita compared to $3.500). De Ruyter was eventually decommissioned in 1966 after a thirty year career and became a museum ship at the Dutch naval base of Den Helder, remaining open to the public until the present day. Rear Admiral Karel Doorman was promoted to full Admiral and survived the war. In 1950 he had a part in organizing a NATO naval exercise, he retired from active duty in 1951 and he died in 1964 aged 75. He was given a state funeral.

In the meantime, British resistance in Malaya was starting to buckle as well under the weight of Japanese reinforcements, although they continued to inflict serious losses. The beleaguered Japanese 18th Division managed to break out of Kota Bharu on March 1st 1942. That forced the Indian 11th Infantry Division to withdraw from their long held position at Kroh, Thailand, to avoid being captured in a pincer between the reinforced Japanese 5th Division and the Imperial Guards coming in from the north and the 18th Division threatening their rear. Before Malaya fell, an RAF squadron of De Havilland Mosquito bombers conducted an air raid on Borneo on March 15th, targeting the island’s oil wells and refineries. Their success was moderate: they knocked out oil production for two weeks, but lost a number of bombers that would take more than two weeks to replace.

By March 23rd, the Japanese had overrun Malaya and laid siege to Singapore while Japanese advances in the Dutch East Indies threatened to make this position untenable. 150.000 men were under threat of becoming prisoners of war of the Imperial Japanese Army, a fate one wouldn’t wish for their worst enemy. Force Z kept the fortress city supplied and, but the situation became hopeless as the Dutch defences on Sumatra collapsed. Force Z started to evacuate Singapore’s defenders despite Japanese air attacks aimed at preventing that. While the evacuation was ongoing, Japanese soldiers found out the hard way that British and Imperial forces were more than a match in urban combat. During fierce urban fighting in Singapore, Japanese forces incurred heavy losses. The last defenders of Singapore surrendered on April 5th and Force Z left for Ceylon to fight another day, joining aircraft carrier HMS Hermes, heavy cruisers Cornwall and Dorsetshire and destroyer HMAS Vampire at Trincomalee.

 

[mlp]

Well, I'd say the war looks like it could end pretty quickly in the pacific.

 

[Alternity9497]

This here is almost certainly what would have transpired had the British been able to hold Malaya and Singapore longer than OTL, with the initial Japanese offensive petering out, forcing the IJA to reallocate troops from other theaters and regain the initiative in Malaya at the cost of other targets. Case in point, Burma.

Also, with Burma remaining firmly under British control, the Allies should be able to keep the Burma Road open and continue to supply the KMT in China, which could have some very interesting side effects post-war.

 

[thekingsguard]

i wondered briefly if Singapore might have held - hopefully lasting longer than otl will count for something.

 

[Avrorrange]

i wondered briefly if Singapore might have held - hopefully lasting longer than otl will count for something.

Casualties for the Japanese are severe and the British managed to evacuate most of their troops it seems instead of being forced to surrender all of them.

A lot of Japanese capital ships also got destroyed early on,so the IJN is fairly crippled compared to OTL.

 

[Artaxerxes]

Also, with Burma remaining firmly under British control, the Allies should be able to keep the Burma Road open and continue to supply the KMT in China, which could have some very interesting side effects post-war.

No, or much reduced, Indian famine as well

 

[alexcoppo]

Has the sabotage of dutch oil fields been as through as IOTL?

 

[Onkel Willie]

Has the sabotage of dutch oil fields been as through as IOTL?

About the same.

Chapter IX: Barbarossa vs. Nevsky, May-December 1942.
​

While the Pacific theatre saw a lot of action from late 1941 to spring 1942, the European theatre was inactive in the same timeframe, except for some minor battles in Italy. During this period, the United States Army Expeditionary Corps – composed of the US 2nd Armoured Division and the US 3rd and 9th Infantry Divisions, totalling 35.000 troops – was deployed to Italy in April 1942. It was commanded by Major General George S. Patton and was nominally subordinate to the Allied Expeditionary Force commanded by Field Marshal Sir Claude Auchinleck (replacement of Wavell, who had been sent to command ABDAFCOM). In reality, Patton ignored Auchinleck routinely when he saw an opportunity for a victory. The original plan was to rotate large American units in and out of Italy to gain combat experience, but Patton objected and kept most of the forces he had started out with. Subsequently, his core USAEC became an elite force in the US Army that scored small but valuable victories. Brigade sized forces rotated between training areas in North Africa, guard duties at POW camps there, and the battlefields of Italy, slowly forming a veteran force. US troop strength also grew to 150.000 in four months.

In the meantime, the British stepped up their bombing campaign: they had conducted bombing raids against targets in Germany before, but even the largest of those had been two and a half times smaller than the attack on Cologne on the night of May 30th/May 31st 1942 (daytime bombings had proven much too costly). The Royal Navy refused to let Coastal Command aircraft to participate because they felt propaganda justifications were too weak against the real and pressing U-boat threat. “Bomber” Harris managed to get enough pupil pilots and flying instructors to crew the remaining aircraft. 1.047 bombers eventually took part in Operation Millennium, the first thousand bomber attack on Cologne.

A total of nearly 1.500 tonnes of bombs was dropped, two thirds of those being incendiaries, starting 2.500 fires across the city, of which 1.700 were classified as “large” by German fire brigades. 3.330 non-residential buildings were destroyed, 2.090 seriously damaged and 7.420 lightly damaged, making for a total of 12.840 buildings of which 2.560 were industrial or commercial buildings. The damage to civilian homes, most of them apartments in larger buildings, was also considerable: 13.010 destroyed, 6.360 seriously damaged and 22.270 lightly damaged. Additionally, 428 civilians died, 58 military personnel were killed, 5.027 people were listed as injured and 135.000-150.000 out of Cologne’s population of 700.000 fled. The cost to the RAF was only 43 planes and it would be the first of many thousand bomber raids. These were designed to hit German war production and break civilian morale, but they failed in both respects: the output of German industry in fact increased under the leadership of Minister of Armaments Albert Speer and the German people continued to support the war effort. There, however, was an effect: over one million soldiers would be assigned to air defence duties, more than 500.000 Germans would die because of the strategic bombing campaign, and the Luftwaffe would have to divide its attention over at least three fronts for the remainder of the war (the Eastern Front, Italy and Germany).

The increase in the production of weapons and ammunition had a reason: within days of the bombing of Cologne, Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union that had been in the making for almost two years, kicked off (despite the urging of several of Hitler’s generals to postpone it indefinitely). It had been scheduled to start on Sunday May 17th 1942, but intelligence reports emphasized that most roads had been reduced to impassable sludge due to the rasputitza rains. Because the ground part of the German invasion would get irrecoverably stuck in the ocean of mud within five minutes, it was postponed by a week to May 24th. Weather reports indicated that heavy rains would continue to plague the western Soviet Union and Barbarossa was again postponed until May 31st. In the following days, however, the weather cleared up: a weather front came in from the southeast that brought clear skies and minimum daytime temperatures of 22 °C (72 °F), reaching a maximum of 31 °C (88 °F). It lasted for the entire month of June and the Russian steppes transformed from a giant tank trap to a highway for the Panzers. Red dust got everywhere and was a major annoyance, but not a serious hindrance to Barbarossa, which commenced on June 7th 1942. 3 million German and another 800.000 Axis troops (Finnish, Slovakian, Hungarian, Romanian and Yugoslavian, and a Spanish volunteer division) crossed the border in the largest military campaign the world had ever seen.

In the meantime, in November 1941, Stalin had summoned his defence minister Marshal Semyon Timoshenko, his best tank general Georgy Zhukov, Marshal Kliment Voroshilov, Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov, Marshal Semyon Budyonny, head of the air force Pavel Zhigarev, and People’s Commissar for the Navy Admiral Nikolai Kuznetsov to his Kremlin office, known as “Stalin’s corner”. He informed them that by his top secret decree they formed the new General Staff, or Stavka, and that Zhukov was the new Chief of the General Staff, succeeding Kirill Meretskov. He reiterated a statement he’d made in a speech to graduates of military academies in Moscow on May 5th 1941: “War with Germany is inevitable.” Over the course of 1941, the Red Army had implemented reforms based on their embarrassing performance in the Winter War against Finland and after witnessing the success of German blitzkrieg tactics. They had also modernized their equipment and built thousands of T-34 medium and KV-1 heavy tanks. As Stalin witnessed how Germany failed to defeat and completely dislodge the Western Allies from the European continent, he believed this was the perfect time to strike. In the November meeting in his office, he ordered newly appointed Chief of Staff Zhukov and Stavka to plan a pre-emptive strike on Germany. The attack, codenamed Operation Nevsky, was to take place in June, after the autumn rains had subsided. Stalin also formed a the new People’s Commissariat for Armaments Production and appointed Lavrentiy Beria, head of the NKVD secret police, to lead it. Fear and intimidation would be used to increase arms production, along with further exploiting the hundreds of thousands of Gulag inmates to their maximum potential (the Gulag was in fact the country’s largest employer).

Based on meteorological reports, the Red Army was to attack on June 12th 1942, as scheduled, and 3.500.000 troops started to deploy to vulnerable forward attack positions from late May. In the meantime, Stalin was warned that the Wehrmacht was doing the same thing, but he dismissed these reports. He didn’t believe Hitler would be stupid enough to start a war against him while also at war with Great Britain and now also the United States and not even in control of continental Europe yet, ignoring the history lesson that Germany should avoid a two-front war at all costs. Stalin’s gigantic misjudgement of Hitler’s character and motives meant that the massing vanguard of the Red Army – composed of three quarters of a million men and thousands of tanks – was caught in a colossal encirclement. Also, over 887 aircraft deployed to forward positions were destroyed in the first 24 hours by the Luftwaffe.

In total, 42 divisions were caught by Wehrmacht spearheads that cut through them and then threatened their rear while the Luftwaffe and German artillery attacked them relentlessly. German soldiers and commanders were quickly disillusioned, however, when it turned out during their initial encounters that their adversaries were anything but weak. Soviet soldiers provided fierce and competent resistance due to a mix of ideological conviction, being terrified of their own superiors (the political commissars in particular) and the immediate threat of an invasion of their motherland. Moreover, T-34 tanks proved superior to the Panzer IV, the most ubiquitous German tank by 1942, never mind the heavy KV-1: the Panzer IV could only penetrate the T-34’s armour at point blank range while 88 mm flak guns were needed for the KV-1. The newest version of the Panzer IV would have an elongated version of the 75 mm gun with greater muzzle velocity and therefore greater armour piercing capacity.

The German attack commenced at 3:30 AM June 7th and two days later, for lack of orders from a shocked and confused Stalin, Zhukov ordered the entrapped forces to fight their way out to lines further east. The Red Air Force and troops intended as follow-up for the initial invasion in Operation Nevsky launched an improvised counteroffensive to relieve their encircled comrades, suffering very heavy losses. Veteran Wehrmacht pilots ran circles around inexperienced Soviet pilots and they also had the most advanced machines. Even in this early phase of the invasion they noticed the sheer number of aviators and aircraft their opponent could bring to bear (Stalin said “great quantity is a quality in its own right”). Soviet ground forces also came with major numerical strength but incurred heavy losses due to their disadvantageous positions, but were able to survive (and they had inflicted more serious losses than the Germans had anticipated). Major Soviet formations were destroyed in cauldrons in the early frontier battles, particularly at Kaunas, Bialystok, Brest and Lvov. Out of 750.000 men, 300.000 were irrevocably lost in the frontier battles of the first ten days, destroying two fifths of the vanguard of Operation Nevsky, which had been snuffed out before it even began. A 40% loss was massive and a couple of divisions even suffered losses up to 80% in their escape attempt. Besides 300.000 men killed or taken prisoner, 200.000 men were wounded to various degrees, for a total of 500.000 casualties. Almost 15% of the entire Red Army invasion force had been put out of action in less than a month. Only a country the size of the Soviet Union could survive such catastrophic losses and continue to fight on to victory.

Zhukov ordered the Red Army to fall back to a line that followed the Dvina River, the Berezina River, then diverged south to the impassable Pripyat Marshes, then followed the western part of the Teteriv River and then followed the Southern Bug River. Lithuania, a large part of Byelorussia, and western Ukraine were abandoned between June and September in a phased, fighting retreat. Army Group North broke out and overran Latvia and Estonia, threatening Leningrad and being by far the most successful of the three German army groups. Army Group Centre advanced east and crossed the Berezina and also the Dnieper, but resistance from a numerically superior, well-equipped and motivated foe reduced the German advance to a snail’s pace. Army Group South didn’t do much better in its attempt to conquer eastern Ukraine after crossing the river Dnieper, taking the Ukrainian SSR’s capital of Kiev.

In the meantime, the Crimean Peninsula turned out to be a haemorrhage for the Germans: the Soviet Black Sea Fleet and the Red Air Force continued to supply the besieged troops at Sevastopol regardless of the cost. They also supplied the troops operating in the eastern Crimea through the harbour of Kerch, which was only 3.1 km away from the Taman Peninsula on the opposite side. Forces in the Crimea were reduced to two pockets where fighting was ferocious and Stalin, ignoring disproportionate losses, hung on to them to stir up patriotic sentiment: through propaganda Sevastopol and Kerch became symbols of defiance. In December 1942, the two pockets even launched simultaneous breakout attempts which very nearly succeeded in linking up, but they got stuck 30 kilometres from each other. They could actually hear each other’s gunfire, but by Christmas were exhausted and no reinforcements arrived to counter fresh German troops.

Behind the front, in the meantime, Nazi atrocities unfolded: as per the “Commissar Order” political commissars of the Red Army were executed upon capture to destroy the country’s ideological backbone. Not long thereafter, the SS Einsatzgruppen encouraged pogroms against Jews, which were particularly violent in the Baltic States. These were followed by indiscriminate mass executions of Jews by the Einsatzgruppen: this was known as the “Holocaust of Bullets” and killed one million people, culminating in the massacre of nearly 34.000 Jews in two days time in the Babi Yar ravine near Kiev. The high dropout rate due to psychological problems motivated SS leader Heinrich Himmler to seek alternative methods. By October 1942 the SS deployed trucks that pumped poison gas or exhaust fumes into the back and that proved to be a much more effective way to conduct the “Final Solution to the Jewish Question” as it was called. Two months later the first gas chambers went into operation at a location personally selected by Himmler 80 km northeast of Warsaw, the city that had the largest Jewish ghetto in the entire Reich (with over half a million inhabitants crammed into a 3.4 square kilometre space). Upon becoming operational in December 1942, Treblinka killed more than a quarter of a million people and those select few who were left alive to work were subjected to humiliation, random cruelty, imprisonment, forced labour, starvation and a complete absence of medical care. The Polish Home Army, or Armia Krajowa, haphazardly smuggled in some supplies, proving unable to consistently aid the Jews in the ghetto.

After their invasion force had been caught with its pants down and got mauled, the Red Army had withdrawn in chaos, but by autumn 1942 they had reorganized. Despite furious offensives on Hitler’s orders, the frontline stabilized on a line running from Leningrad through Novgorod, Smolensk, Dnepropetrovsk to Berdyansk on the Sea of Azov. Given the numerical advantage it wasn’t surprising that the German advance grinded to a halt: they suffered half a million casualties up to September and could replace only 200.000 of them. Opposite 136 Axis divisions stood 280 Soviet divisions, with another 40 kept in reserve for possible action against Imperial Japan. After the damage that had been wrought by the enemy, however, Zhukov allowed Hitler to grind down his strength in futile offensives that produced negligible gains, with Stalin’s permission of course. In the meantime, factories in places like Leningrad, Moscow, Sverdlovsk, Orel, Bryansk, Kursk, Belgorod, Kharkov, Stalingrad and Rostov churned out massive quantities of tanks, artillery guns, rifles, machine guns, mortars and airplanes. The Red Army prepared for a major winter offensive.

 

[MapleTekh]

World War II is going to end in 1944 now. Excellent update as always. Waiting for the next one.