Keynes' Cruisers Volume 2

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formion

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fester said:
Choke the Danube is the combined objective. UK objective is post war Balkans influence
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With fighter cover, the ATL Operation Tidal Wave will never have the same staggering casualties (53 out of 177 bombers). The Danube was the major oil artery of the german war machine. A worthy target indeed.

Might I entice you gentlemen with an interesting reading? https://books.google.nl/books?id=EsWXDgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&hl=el#v=onepage&q&f=false

Moreover, tt should be mentioned that the Danube was a major trade link besides oil. With the rail network barely able to provide for the East Front, the river was used for everything: german imports of agricultural products from Bulgaria and Romania, along with exports for these countries. I am also under the impression that manganese from Nikopol used the river as well - I may be wrong however in this case.
 

pjmidd

Look More Closely Later said:
Okay: So the German have to either contain Athens, as they did the original timeline Anzio landings, or look for a line of defence to fall back on.
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Think you are getting confused on how wide Greece is, the Allies have effectively cut Greece in two. An entire German Army is cut off in the Peloponnese with no way out bar small boats ie men might escape but not heavy equipment. Given the length of coast , a proper defensive line is a long way back.
 

Coulsdon Eagle

Monthly Donor
jlckansas said:
Remember the Danube was so important most any country along it had a brown water navy of some sort, an example of this is here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yugoslav_monitor_Drava
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As a schoolboy in the mid-70's I was given a naval pocket diary. I was surprised to learn Hungary had a navy, given my limited knowledge of geography confirmed it was landlocked. I didn't know then the importance of the Danube, or even of Admiral Horthy.
 

Look More Closely Later

pjmidd said:
Think you are getting confused on how wide Greece is, the Allies have effectively cut Greece in two. An entire German Army is cut off in the Peloponnese with no way out bar small boats ie men might escape but not heavy equipment. Given the length of coast , a proper defensive line is a long way back.
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Well: I was going to refer to Thermopylae, but by the look of it the bottleneck (edit: battlefield) of the 5th century BC has been blown open by a couple of thousand years of earthquakes, erosion, and geological upheaval.
 
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Lascaris

Lascaris

Look More Closely Later said:
Well: I was going to refer to Thermopylae, but by the look of it the bottleneck (edit: battlefield) of the 5th century BC has been blown open by a couple of thousand years of earthquakes, erosion, and geological upheaval.
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In modern military terms its area is still a chokepoint for an army invading north to south. Less so if you are an army trying to defend in the opposite direction. The logical German plan would be trying to hold on the Olympus passes... although that leaves them open to landings on the Macedonian coast. Should that fail pull back to roughly the lines of the WW1 Macedonian front, this at least removes the threat of Allied landings.

And the Germans probably need to get Bulgaria committing troops to the new Greek front in large numbers... so I expect Germany and Bulgaria to be shortly announcing the annexation of all of Greek Macedonia and Thrace, Thessaloniki included to Bulgaria and of course its occupation by Bulgarian troops, so far they have let the Bulgarians occupy only chunks of East Macedonia and Thrace.
 

Aristomenes

Just a map for all non-Greek readers, to get an idea of the Geography and of the OTL Axis occupation zones in Greece. Note that in OTL, after the Italian armistice their occupation zone was mostly covered by the Germans, while the Bulgarians were given control of the Central Macedonia (except Thessaloniki) from the Germans.
https://www.themaparchive.com/axis-occupation-zones-of-greece-194143.html
The allies have landed in Attica near Athens and as @pjmidd has said, they have cut Greece in two. Notice how vulnerable is the the coastline to amphibious landings. However, if the Axis forces retreat above Larisa, in the Olympus Mt. passes from Thessaly to Macedonia, the list of possible landing points is still significant but definitely shorter. Besides this the guerilla warfare in Northern Greece was less ferocious than the one in Southern Greece, so it would make sense.
I wonder however what would be the Turkish POV, would Turkey be willing to declare war to Axis much earlier than OTL? In OTL they declared war to Germany in February 1945, when the nearest German soldier to them was many hundreds km away (with the exception of some isolated German garrisons in Crete ). https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1945-02-15GerWW2BattlefrontAtlas.jpg
 
Story 2162
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    • fester

    Port Lyautey, Morocco July 31, 1943

    "Anything on the radar?" The squadron commander bit on his cigar as he waited for the answer that he knew he was going to get.

    "No sir, nothing beyond a flight of fighters on a training mission. Nothing coming in from the sea." The technician had already responded to this question six times over the last two hours. He always had the same response.

    Other enlisted men had been making calls up and down the coast to the primary diversion fields. They had heard nothing.

    Six patrol bombers had left the airbase before dawn. One had to abort six hours into the patrol and landed after lunch. Four more landed within twenty minutes of their expected times. They had seen nothing unexpected during the course of their day. The last bomber flown by an experienced pilot with thirty three missions under his belt had been due five hours ago. There was enough fuel to keep the bomber in the air for another three hours past the expected mission end time. No one had heard a distress call. The last call was an acknowledgement that the bomber was heading home after circling a big convoy that had started off in Freetown and was destined for Liverpool.

    The squadron commander took a deep breath and inhaled the Cuban tobacco.

    "Thank you."

    He turned and as soon as he knew he was alone, he muttered several strings of swears that should not be placed together. He would be drafting letters tonight.
     
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    • Story 2163
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    • fester

    Norfolk, Virginia, July 31, 1943

    The escort carrier had docked an hour ago. Messages had been hurried up the gangway, and a man whose appendix became inflamed the night before was hurried off the ship before the last hawser was secured. The passenger, a former squadron commander, was the seventh man off the ship. A car was waiting for him. His destination was temporary quarters for a hot shower and a good breakfast and then fleet headquarters where he would be presenting on anti-submarine operations and challenges of flying out of forward bases. After tonight, he had a twenty day pass and unlimited rail priority. A short trip to the Capital to see his father, and then a slow ride up the coast with stops in Philadelphia and New York for a few nights of fun before a final arrival in Boston to see the rest of the family. At the end of the leave, he was expected to report to Newport to teach and train ever more eager young men.
     
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    • fester

    The Clyde, July 31, 1943

    HMS Jervis Bay was waiting. The tired merchant cruiser was due for a ninety day refit. A convoy had arrived the night before and a damaged freighter had occupied the time and attention of several pilots and a dozen constructors who were needed to inspect her. The damage was repairable. It almost always was. The Empire ship would be placed into queue but the prioritization delayed the conversion of the former liner and current merchant cruiser into a landing craft support ship by four hours. It would not matter all that much. Four hours out of ninety days was not even a noticeable delay. It merely made half a dozen men miss their trains home. They would see their families soon enough.

    Eight miles down the river, the horizon lit up. An orange glow of fire started and then soon thick black smoke roiled the morning. The cruiser was not delayed entry into the drydock even as a dozen tugs and harbor craft headed down river to look for any survivors. Few would be found from the escort carrier that erupted in flames in the sanitized channel upriver of the anti-submarine booms.
     
    SsgtC

    SsgtC

    Banned
    So, is Joe Kennedy home safe, or is he missing in action? I'm leaning toward home safe, but seeing as this is an "anyone can die" TL...
     
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