Keynes' Cruisers Volume 2

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GREECE
9th Army (UK Command and Logistics)
  • I Greek Corps
  • 21st Indian Corps
  • 5th (UK) Corps
  • 1st Australian Corps
ITALY/ADRIATIC LITTORAL
15th Army Group (UK Command)

8th British Army (UK Logistics)
3 Corps
~10 Divisions

5th US Army (US Logistics) (veteran units are reinforcing US 7th Army, to be replaced by green units from CONUS)
2 Corps + Brazilian Expeditionary Force
~6 Infantry Divisions

FRANCE
Operation Dragoon (US Command)
6th Army Group

1st French Army (US Logistics)
3 Corps HQ
8 Infantry Divisions
2 Armored Divisions

1st Polish Army (50% US Logistics, 50% UK Logistics)
2 Corps HQ
3 Infantry + 2 Armored Divisions

7th US Army (US Logistics)
2 Corps HQ
6 Infantry + 1 Armored Division

Operation Overlord (US Command)
21st Army Group (UK Command & Logistics)
2nd British Army
4 Corps
11 Infantry, 5 Armored, 1 Airborne Division

1st Canadian Army
2 Canadian Corps
4 Infantry, 2 Armoured Divisions
1 UK Corps
2 Infantry, 1 Armoured Division (Czech, Dutch and Belgian units included)

12th Army Group (US Command and Logistics)

1st Army
3 Corps (11 Infantry, 4 Armored Divisions)
3rd Army
3 Corps ( 8 Infantry, 5 Armored Divisions)

9th Army (follow-on force to deploy to Continent )
TBD :)

1st Allied Airborne Corps (back in barracks in England)

@fester I suppose that with the liberation of its territory, France will be able to raise an extra Corps and 3 infantry divisions for first line duty. They have extra NCO and officers from Syria and 1940 after all (compared to OTL).

As OTL, 2nd line duty forces will besiege the ports not liberated in the initial rush. Some of said ports were hours away from liberation OTL, but due to delays were held by Germans for months.
 
Strongly suggest you go back and make it clearer that this is a copy paste from wikimedia with only a minor edit by you, before someone accuses you of plagiarism.
I don't know why you would suggest plagiarism. I immediately recognised it as the original and simply assumed he had a bad translation. Anyone with a knowledge of French history would have simply smiled and nodded.
 
Anyone with a knowledge of French history would have simply smiled and nodded.
I’m not saying it is plagiarism, I’m saying that the way it was posted leaves him open to accusations of it, which could easily be avoided. I also think you’re assuming a degree of knowledge that isn’t necessarily reasonable.
 
Major Major's clarified he or she got the material from another website, and has acknowledged that. That should hopefully be enough to keep the moderators here happy.
So, getting back to tanks...

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/07/M3_Canal_Defense_Light.jpg

Edit: Okay, thought when posting (sleep deprivation) that this was a tank thread timeline, but never mind. Canal Defence Lights will presumably come in handy at some point in the next few months, if the allies close up to the Rhine...
 
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Story 2515
Western Pacific, July 1, 1944

The patient in sickbay could feel the engines rumble some more as steam pushed hard against the turbines and the propellers bit deep into the sea. The battleship curved, and he saw the water in his glass tilt to starboard. The guns started to bang. First, the heavy rhythm of the dual purpose heavy anti-aircraft guns, and then the staccato chatter of the Bofors and finally the seam ripping roar of the light cannon. A bomb exploded. It felt like a near miss. No one was brought to the sick bay in the next ten minutes, so it was likely a near miss.

The fleet continued to head west after the nuisance raid was roughly handled.
 
Story 2516
West of Chambery, France July 2, 1944

A pair of Austers loitered overhead. They were seeing little in front of them. The only opposition in the town was buxom and blonde.

One battalion of Polish infantry was allocated to liberate the town and suffer the kisses and cheers of pretty girls. Behind them, engineers would be working to defuse any demolition charges that the retreating Germans had laid. Over the past week, the defeated army had a habit of leaving a few bombs on twelve, twenty four or even forty eight hour fuses as well as wrecking what they could.

Another battalion would secure the rail yard. It was on fire. Supply trains that had been destined for the German army in Italy had been set to the torch. Civilians in the town had been fighting the fire and seizing whatever they could. Bread, cooking oil, and meat were in scarce supply during the entire occupation, so what was intended for a rifleman in Turin was now in the larders of a French matron.

The rest of the corps spearhead, a battalion mounted on Jeeps and half tracks, a battalion of armoured infantry with two companies of half tracked mounted riflemen and two companies of Shermans and a single independent company of Shermans along with an artillery battery and two companies of engineers would stop to refuel and eat a brisk lunch before pushing north again.
 

Driftless

Donor
^^^Close to shutting the door to Italy (from France anyway)

How many German soldiers are left in northern Italy at this point? Part two of that question, how many are supplied and in useful formations vs a bunch of guys in gray suits?
 
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Driftless

Donor
^^^I looked at a modern map of the area and Chambery is the main road hub from Lyon(and points north and west) to Italy. The nearest major road hub to the north(not in Allied control) is Geneva - in Switzerland. "The way is shut!"
 
^^^I looked at a modern map of the area and Chambery is the main road hub from Lyon(and points north and west) to Italy. The nearest major road hub to the north(not in Allied control) is Geneva - in Switzerland. "The way is shut!"
Yeah, and the Germans only have one mountain pass with a road to retreat, le Col du Petit Saint-Bernard (between Aosta and Bourg-Saint-Maurice). And the way can be shut by taking Albertville.
So, the German Army in Italy is effectivelly cut off.
 
Story 2517
Genoa, Italy July 3, 1944

A dozen ships were in the harbor taking on men and material of the 28th Infantry Division. Their journey would not be far. The infantry would be landing in Toulon while the artillery and logistics would be landing in Marseilles as the harbor was becoming somewhat functional. They would meet up, re-organize and then join the 7th Army in their race to the Rhine via the Rhone.
 

Driftless

Donor
Falaise, France June 28, 1944

Silence filled the air. If one strained their ears hard enough, they could hear tank treads squeaking in the distance and batteries of Long Toms firing. But now, there was silence on a battlefield that had led to a third of the German 7th Army to be destroyed, a third to have escaped and a third to have surrendered. German prisoners were active on the killing grounds. They wore masks and gloves as stretcher bearers moved bodies to piles where identification was attempted. Sometimes the remains had a tag or a notebook or a card in their pocket, but most bodies were unknown. More prisoners had been handed shovels and picks after they had received a hot breakfast. American and Canadian engineers had marked out half a dozen mass graves and now the prisoners were slowly moving the dirt away to bury the bodies that only luck and happenstance were not their own.
Almost a week late with this question... How does this version of the Falaise pocket compare to the historic campaign - given that the front end of the campaign is different ITTL?
 
Story 2518
Near Pusan, Korea July 4, 1944

The Darien Maru was quickly taking on water. A single mine had ripped open the middle portion of her port side hull. Half an hour later, over six hundred men were in the water waiting to be rescued. She was the fourth ship sunk by mines within sight of the Korean port in the past ten days.
 
Story 2519
Near Pas de Calais, July 4, 1944

The trio of minesweepers had already cleared half a dozen mines. The sweep gear would bring the mines up, and then machine gun and rifle fire would detonate the steel eggs. It was nerve wracking for the hostilities only crews. They were in small wooden ships, steaming in straight lines at eight knots while within range of German coastal defense guns. Most of the German armies were retreating, but the garrisons in the Cinque Ports had not moved yet. Two minesweepers had been shelled the night before. Shrapnel had claimed the lives of three matelots in the squadron and wounded another dozen.

Tonight, the danger was not the coastal guns. Instead, a pair of E-boats had crept out the port at low power and had almost drifted with the currents until the minesweepers were detached from the MTBs that were the local covering force. The two E-boats dashed in at full speed and their guns soon lit one of the minesweepers on fire, and damaged another. Eleven minutes later, they had turned to the coast, and the heavy guns were ready to damage any steel ships that gave chase.
 
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Driftless

Donor
Near Pusan, Korea July 4, 1944

The Darien Maru was quickly taking on water. A single mine had ripped open the middle portion of her port side hull. Half an hour later, over six hundred men were in the water waiting to be rescued. She was the fourth ship sunk by mines within sight of the Korean port in the past ten days.
Not knowing the overall flow of ships crossing to Korea, four sunk in ten days seems like a painful rate of attrition - just at that single point.
 
Not knowing the overall flow of ships crossing to Korea, four sunk in ten days seems like a painful rate of attrition - just at that single point.
Pusan was the third biggest port in the Japanese Empire, the largest outside Japan so it started off at least with hundreds of ships ( if you count Sampans ) a week, also lots of ships from other places would pass that point if they were hugging the coast and travelling only at night to try and avoid detection by allied planes/submarines.
 
Near Pas de Calais, July 4, 1944

The trio of minesweepers had already cleared half a dozen mines. The sweep gear would bring the mines up, and then machine gun and rifle fire would detonate the steel eggs. It was nerve wracking for the hostilities only crews. They were in small wooden ships, steaming in straight lines at eight knots while within range of German coastal defense guns. Most of the German armies were retreating, but the garrisons in the Cinq Ports had not moved yet. Two minesweepers had been shelled the night before. Shrapnel had claimed the lives of three matelots in the squadron and wounded another dozen.

Tonight, the danger was not the coastal guns. Instead, a pair of E-boats had crept out the port at low power and had almost drifted with the currents until the minesweepers were detached from the MTBs that were the local covering force. The two E-boats dashed in at full speed and their guns soon lit one of the minesweepers on fire, and damaged another. Eleven minutes later, they had turned to the coast, and the heavy guns were ready to damage any steel ships that gave chase.
I'm curious about 'Cinq Ports'. I've heard of the 'Cinque Ports' in the UK, but is 'Cinq Ports' some general French or WW2 French equivalent?
 
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