Welp the Russians will very much appreciate the diversion of German armor and mechanized divisions to Greece
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Keynes' Cruisers Volume 2
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NotBigBrother
Monthly Donor
I guess there are no freezers on the Greek destroyer. Now the crew must eat it quickly, headaches be damned.
SsgtC
Banned
No ice cream machines. American carriers and battleships made their ice cream at sea. Freezer space was used for things like meat.
American cruisers that weren't members of the Omaha or Atlanta classes had ice cream machines as well.
McPherson
Banned
Would have traded the ice cream machines (and the budgets for them) for working TORPEDOES.
We can blame said torpedo problems more on bureaucratic failings(and on Congress for not giving the navy more money in the 30s) than anything else.
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NotBigBrother
Monthly Donor
What I mean is- the Greek destroyer probably had no place to store ice cream. If she was a Thiria-class destroyer with completement of 60 or so men, they had about half-kilogram of ice cream per person to eat before it melts.
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McPherson
Banned
Bu-Ord. The MONEY was there despite the Rhode Island Reds. The navy chose how to spend it. Why do you think I curse Leahy and Stark?
I thought only that one (infantry?) German division was being sent to Greece. If I read the update correctly. Perhaps other units like a few artillery battalions will be sent later. You wouldn't need huge formations to block the passes and defend in the mountains.
Story 2150
Near Pallini, Greece, July 23, 1943
Mortars and machine guns had been firing like over-caffeinated squirrels fighting over control of an oak tree in November throughout the night. Flares had drifted down, illuminating the scarred suburbs of the Greek capital as the artillery regiments attached to the 1st Greek Corps fired Zeusian lightening bolts. Inside the city, five thousand partisans and reservists who had fought the Italians to a standstill and then pushed them back into Albania before being taken in the rear by the Germans had risen up the night before. They had control of some of the docks and the major police buildings. The police had joined the revolt in the neighborhoods where they did not start it. The Italian garrison, a reasonably fit division plus another divisions's worth of small units made up of thirty five and forty year old reservists were trapped in a vice as their rear was crawling with partisans, and their front had at least six Allied divisions pressing forward.
Over the sea, every medium and heavy bomber based in Egypt and Libya turned to the south near the coastal defense fortress. They had bombed, yet again, the crossings of the Corinth Canal. Eight divisions, including three good German divisions were trapped on either the beaches waiting for another invasion force that was not coming, or along the canal trying to cross broken bridges and extemporaneous expediencies. Since the first landings, perhaps 10,000 men had crossed the canal with no more than 30 tanks and fifty pieces of artillery. The rest were trapped.
Light bombers and fighters that had no opposition to swarm had taken to isolating Attica from the north and the east. Anything that moved outside of Athens was bombed and strafed. However, those attacks had ceased yesterday afternoon. Instead, the ground crews had sixteen hours to prepare for a full scale surge. And they had performed miracles. Now squadrons were flying in neat stacks every 1,000 feet and two miles apart. The initial point for the aircraft from Maleme was a navigation pyre built from a destroyed landing ship that had managed to beach herself eighty yards from shore. The bombers from Heraklion and other bases in the western approaches to the Aegean had to rely on a recently erected light house that cast a directional beam out to seat. Bomb bays opened and the first of two thousand five hundred pound bombs began to fall on the thin Italian reserves half a mile behind the frontlines. Even as the medium bombers began to blast a path in the defenses the held the I Greek Corps still east of their capital, fighter bombers rocketed, strafed and bombed a small coastal stretch that the Ghurkas had started to probe the night before.
An hour after the bombardment from the air began, there was silence and stillness except for the screams of the wounded and the sobs of the broken. The agony was hidden in a moment as every gun that hand been landed on Attica opened fire. The heavy and medium batteries reached deep while the light and field batteries were firing smoke and suppressing high explosives in marching barrages. Up and down the very narrow front, the Greek officers checked their pistols before rising from the ground. Some of the lead companies had crept to within danger close range to the Italian positions, most had been no more than a quarter of a mile away when the first smoke shells hid their movement from the defenders. Guttural roars erupted as the high explosive shells ceased to land in the trenches and dugouts of the Italian defenders. Four Greek regiments backed by a full brigade of British tankers driving Shermans surged forward against two battalions of Italian reservists.
By mid-day, the Acropolis had a blue and white flag flying over it as the senior surviving Italian commander, a colonel, declared Athens to be an open city after reaching an agreement with both the partisans and the regular armies to allow him to withdraw his men from the city. Further negotiations could occur once the capital was secured.
Mortars and machine guns had been firing like over-caffeinated squirrels fighting over control of an oak tree in November throughout the night. Flares had drifted down, illuminating the scarred suburbs of the Greek capital as the artillery regiments attached to the 1st Greek Corps fired Zeusian lightening bolts. Inside the city, five thousand partisans and reservists who had fought the Italians to a standstill and then pushed them back into Albania before being taken in the rear by the Germans had risen up the night before. They had control of some of the docks and the major police buildings. The police had joined the revolt in the neighborhoods where they did not start it. The Italian garrison, a reasonably fit division plus another divisions's worth of small units made up of thirty five and forty year old reservists were trapped in a vice as their rear was crawling with partisans, and their front had at least six Allied divisions pressing forward.
Over the sea, every medium and heavy bomber based in Egypt and Libya turned to the south near the coastal defense fortress. They had bombed, yet again, the crossings of the Corinth Canal. Eight divisions, including three good German divisions were trapped on either the beaches waiting for another invasion force that was not coming, or along the canal trying to cross broken bridges and extemporaneous expediencies. Since the first landings, perhaps 10,000 men had crossed the canal with no more than 30 tanks and fifty pieces of artillery. The rest were trapped.
Light bombers and fighters that had no opposition to swarm had taken to isolating Attica from the north and the east. Anything that moved outside of Athens was bombed and strafed. However, those attacks had ceased yesterday afternoon. Instead, the ground crews had sixteen hours to prepare for a full scale surge. And they had performed miracles. Now squadrons were flying in neat stacks every 1,000 feet and two miles apart. The initial point for the aircraft from Maleme was a navigation pyre built from a destroyed landing ship that had managed to beach herself eighty yards from shore. The bombers from Heraklion and other bases in the western approaches to the Aegean had to rely on a recently erected light house that cast a directional beam out to seat. Bomb bays opened and the first of two thousand five hundred pound bombs began to fall on the thin Italian reserves half a mile behind the frontlines. Even as the medium bombers began to blast a path in the defenses the held the I Greek Corps still east of their capital, fighter bombers rocketed, strafed and bombed a small coastal stretch that the Ghurkas had started to probe the night before.
An hour after the bombardment from the air began, there was silence and stillness except for the screams of the wounded and the sobs of the broken. The agony was hidden in a moment as every gun that hand been landed on Attica opened fire. The heavy and medium batteries reached deep while the light and field batteries were firing smoke and suppressing high explosives in marching barrages. Up and down the very narrow front, the Greek officers checked their pistols before rising from the ground. Some of the lead companies had crept to within danger close range to the Italian positions, most had been no more than a quarter of a mile away when the first smoke shells hid their movement from the defenders. Guttural roars erupted as the high explosive shells ceased to land in the trenches and dugouts of the Italian defenders. Four Greek regiments backed by a full brigade of British tankers driving Shermans surged forward against two battalions of Italian reservists.
By mid-day, the Acropolis had a blue and white flag flying over it as the senior surviving Italian commander, a colonel, declared Athens to be an open city after reaching an agreement with both the partisans and the regular armies to allow him to withdraw his men from the city. Further negotiations could occur once the capital was secured.
The phrasing is a little vague:
"This division along with another motorized division"
It is 2 motorized divisions that will pick up leg infantry and horse artillery support in their train trip west and then south.
formion
Banned
The OTL liberation of Athens (12 October 1944): the flag is carried by young women in traditional dress to Acropolis. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipe...ν_απελευθέρωση_της_Αθήνας,_Οκτώβριος_1944.jpg
Story 2151
Rzhez, Russia July 24, 1943
The general looked at his division. To his left was the remains of two infantry regiments digging in. They would occupy a few long factory blocks near the rail yards on a frontage that a full strength regiment would find dense. To his left his entire anti-tank gun strength was being buried behind chunks of road and fragments of destroyed buildings. They would have flanking shots on any German counter-attack that was determined to take the bridges. The rest of his infantry, excluding his single full strength battalion that he held in reserve screened the anti-tank guns. His artillery men were either dead or in the rear waiting to be re-equipped as almost all of his guns had been overrun by a Tiger company in the last desperate counter-attack. They had destroyed eight of the super heavy tanks firing over open sights, blunting the strength of the heavy tank battalion leading a motorized battle group before it could find a seam between the advancing armies.
Now his victorious men had buried many of the dead, and they had turned their shovels to the task of staying alive. A counter-attack by theatre level reserves instead of army level reserves had to be coming. It was how the Germans fought, always punching and jabbing to keep the Red Army off balance before swinging lead pipes at the knees and heads of over-extended armies that had been set off balance by the kidney punches and throat jabs. His men opened up the red earth to build the stability to absorb the blow that had to be coming.
The general looked at his division. To his left was the remains of two infantry regiments digging in. They would occupy a few long factory blocks near the rail yards on a frontage that a full strength regiment would find dense. To his left his entire anti-tank gun strength was being buried behind chunks of road and fragments of destroyed buildings. They would have flanking shots on any German counter-attack that was determined to take the bridges. The rest of his infantry, excluding his single full strength battalion that he held in reserve screened the anti-tank guns. His artillery men were either dead or in the rear waiting to be re-equipped as almost all of his guns had been overrun by a Tiger company in the last desperate counter-attack. They had destroyed eight of the super heavy tanks firing over open sights, blunting the strength of the heavy tank battalion leading a motorized battle group before it could find a seam between the advancing armies.
Now his victorious men had buried many of the dead, and they had turned their shovels to the task of staying alive. A counter-attack by theatre level reserves instead of army level reserves had to be coming. It was how the Germans fought, always punching and jabbing to keep the Red Army off balance before swinging lead pipes at the knees and heads of over-extended armies that had been set off balance by the kidney punches and throat jabs. His men opened up the red earth to build the stability to absorb the blow that had to be coming.
Story 2152
The Indian Ocean, July 25, 1943
HMS Cairo led the small convoy as every revolution from the engines of the four tankers was being called upon. The rudders had turned over to port a minute ago when HMIS Indus fired her forward gun at something in the water. Large splashes were erupting in the sea fourteen hundred yards away from the now fleeing tanker Pecos. Her crew was scrambling to battle stations as the first depth charge rolled over the stern of the sloop.
Eight hours later, the sloop had returned to the convoy. A Catalina pounded the sea with her radar looking for any periscope or surfacing u-boat needing to recharge her batteries.
HMS Cairo led the small convoy as every revolution from the engines of the four tankers was being called upon. The rudders had turned over to port a minute ago when HMIS Indus fired her forward gun at something in the water. Large splashes were erupting in the sea fourteen hundred yards away from the now fleeing tanker Pecos. Her crew was scrambling to battle stations as the first depth charge rolled over the stern of the sloop.
Eight hours later, the sloop had returned to the convoy. A Catalina pounded the sea with her radar looking for any periscope or surfacing u-boat needing to recharge her batteries.
The Greek destroyer is a new build Hunt Class with a crew of ~170 men, so each man was getting ~9 ounces of ice cream doled out over two days.
Nine ounces? More like 2 minutes worth.
Ουρλιάζω. Κλαψουρίζετε. Όλοι φωνάζουν για παγωτό.
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