Keynes' Cruisers Volume 2

[Curtain Jerker]

Shouldn't the Germans be doing marginally better seeing as there's significantly more of them with no Stalingrad/Tunisia/Bagration around to inflict hundreds of thousands more casualties OTL than TTL? Tough to say for sure given the field-level view from the vignettes but it seems like they're getting rocked worse than OTL despite having those aforementioned more men. Does opening up a second front in the Med negate the German advantage in men and supplies ITTL?

I absolutely get Japan getting their teeth punched in here as opposed to OTL but Germany seems just as weak mid-1944 here despite not having the drastic setbacks of OTL.

Either way I'm still reading so this timeline continues to be excellent.

 

[kmmontandon]

Shouldn't the Germans be doing marginally better seeing as there's significantly more of them with no Stalingrad/Tunisia/Bagration around to inflict hundreds of thousands more casualties OTL than TTL?

The Heer, specifically, is in better manpower shape and has a further east front against the Soviets. But ... they're also doing much worse in that there's a Greek front, and the Allies are doing so much better that they can do OVERLORD and DRAGOON simultaneously.

 

[Donald Reaver]

The Heer, specifically, is in better manpower shape and has a further east front against the Soviets. But ... they're also doing much worse in that there's a Greek front, and the Allies are doing so much better that they can do OVERLORD and DRAGOON simultaneously.

So deeper in Russia, and facing stronger ally forces in Normandy and Southern France and extra front in Greece. Bagration coming up, even more brutal fight perhaps for the Soviet Union and Germany on the Eastern front. The Soviet Union may not be first to Berlin, If so I hope the Western Allies surround it and don't fight door to door.

 

[fester]

This is a rough map of the situation at D+10 hours or so. The division responsible for beach defenses has been effectively destroyed as a divisional unit. Some companies and battalions are in good enough shape and are coherent. Fixed defenses are either being bypassed or taken by deliberate, combined arms assaults. The Allied arrows (RED = US, Green = Commonwealth) are intentions and may not be reflective of actual progress. A panzergrenadier division is starting to move north to counter-attack. Forward recon elements are close enough that Allied fighter bomber pilots are actually trying to identify them as friend or foe instead of acting as a free fire zone.

Reserves near Paris are getting ready to start the process of moving. They are waiting orders to head north, northeast to Calais or south. OKH is still confused.

 

[ThunderBolt47]

This is a rough map of the situation at D+10 hours or so. The division responsible for beach defenses has been effectively destroyed as a divisional unit. Some companies and battalions are in good enough shape and are coherent. Fixed defenses are either being bypassed or taken by deliberate, combined arms assaults. The Allied arrows (RED = US, Green = Commonwealth) are intentions and may not be reflective of actual progress. A panzergrenadier division is starting to move north to counter-attack. Forward recon elements are close enough that Allied fighter bomber pilots are actually trying to identify them as friend or foe instead of acting as a free fire zone.

Reserves near Paris are getting ready to start the process of moving. They are waiting orders to head north, northeast to Calais or south. OKH is still confused.

View attachment 639841

Are the two purple circles at Valognes and between Le Hom and Saint-Pierre-en-auge representing French resistance forces that are rising up?
Or are they Paratroopers?

 

[fester]

Are the two purple circles at Valognes and between Le Hom and Saint-Pierre-en-auge representing French resistance forces that are rising up?
Or are they Paratroopers?

No.

The circle near Valognes is a German occupied well prepared defensive position as part of the outer works of Cherbourg.

The circle between Le Hom and St. Pierre en Auge is part of a German panzergrenedier division moving north to counter-attack.

I've updated the map to make it clearer.

 

[fester]

Central Aegean Coast of Greece, 1800 May 14, 1944

The Churchill tank commander clambered out of the hatch. His tank had made its longest journey of the day. They had gone eleven hundred yards from one side of the beach head to another. The driver had found a good spot of cover and soon the entire crew was out. After relieving their bladders, the five men went to work. The commander went to find the officers to see what would be happening next. The gunner and loader were re-arranging stored ammunition to the ready use positions and then working on the barrel of the main gun while the driver was checking the tracks. The assistant driver had the most important job --- he got the kettle going for some Turkish coffee that had been acquired for a good amount of bully beef in Athens. The crew was able to enjoy an hour outside of their machine before the Germans started to drop mortar rounds uncomfortably close to them again.

 

[Alanith]

OTL she did not make any sinking's in her first 4 patrols - her 5th being somewhat more successful in that she famously sank the Shinano - the largest ship ever sunk by a submarine on the 28th Nov 1944.

I wonder who she has chanced across here?

By the phrasing I’d guess one of the Yamato’s. Six Mark XIV, if they all hit, will do a number on anything afloat.

 

[fester]

By the phrasing I’d guess one of the Yamato’s. Six Mark XIV, if they all hit, will do a number on anything afloat.

Assuming they all A) hit and B) Explode

 

[Trevayne]

Assuming they all A) hit and B) Explode

True, but one hopes by this point in the war that failures to explode are rare, unlike the early war when failure was normal and actually exploding was the exception to the rule.

 

[Cryhavoc101]

By the phrasing I’d guess one of the Yamato’s. Six Mark XIV, if they all hit, will do a number on anything afloat.

Nothing hit by 3 or more fish (that as Fester says explodes) in a single attack in WW2 did not ultimately sink (ie touched the seabed)

Maybe a Yamato 'might' survive 3 fish but I seriously doubt it.

Certainly not surviving 6!

 

[fester]

Northern suburbs of Caen, France 1830 May 14, 1944

The Suffolks were pinned down. The tanks that had been supporting the advance were either popping smoke, seeking cover or burning. Half a dozen Stugs and two companies of motorized infantry had slammed into the flank of the advance guard as they were preparing to enter the outer edges of the small city. Up until then resistance had been light as German outposts and screening groups would often fire a few shots, call in corrections to a dozen mortar shells and then leap back another half mile. Seven minutes after the counter-attack was detected, three batteries of twenty five pounders joined the fray and allowed the Suffolks enough time and space to retreat, breathe and think again.

 

[ThunderBolt47]

In France given you have both landings in the North and South at the same time. What is the allied battle plan compared to OTL?

Will it be a Hammer and Anvil drive halfway across France to try and trap parts of the German army in a Kesselschlacht?
Or will it be a race to Paris and then reinforcing the edges but allowing the German a corridor to retreat to technically in the centre?
There are a multitude of other options available as well of course. I could potentially see the southern forces swinging towards the French alps to do a much smaller Kesselschlacht.

 

[historyfelon]

So deeper in Russia, and facing stronger ally forces in Normandy and Southern France and extra front in Greece. Bagration coming up, even more brutal fight perhaps for the Soviet Union and Germany on the Eastern front. The Soviet Union may not be first to Berlin, If so I hope the Western Allies surround it and don't fight door to door.

I'm thinking that with the Western Allies on their doorstep and the Soviets still some distance off a successful Valkyrie may take place. It may even be staged by Himmler or Goring.

 

[Cryhavoc101]

Northern suburbs of Caen, France 1830 May 14, 1944

The Suffolks were pinned down. The tanks that had been supporting the advance were either popping smoke, seeking cover or burning. Half a dozen Stugs and two companies of motorized infantry had slammed into the flank of the advance guard as they were preparing to enter the outer edges of the small city. Up until then resistance had been light as German outposts and screening groups would often fire a few shots, call in corrections to a dozen mortar shells and then leap back another half mile. Seven minutes after the counter-attack was detected, three batteries of twenty five pounders joined the fray and allowed the Suffolks enough time and space to retreat, breathe and think again.

OTL Operation Mallard delivered 6 Air landing Brigade and the 6th parachute divisions heavy equipment in 256 Gliders (all but 10 landing safely) at 9 pm that evening - it was still day light at this point and these reinforcements effectively doubled the Divisions fighting strength (incidentally the only Assault Division to achieve all of its D-Day objectives)

It's arrival 'behind his units' and the loss of 1/4 of his tanks in just a few hours of fighting convinced the Commander of 21st Panzer to abandon his counter attack

Here the air landing units would be arriving at Saint-Aubin-d'Arquenay (Just south of Ouisteham) and Ranville (about a Km south East of the 2 Bridges captured by Pegasus Company on the other side of the river)

Here these LZs would be already well behind the Front line and therefore much safer for the arriving units but conversely not 'behind' Generalmajor Feuchtinger 2 Counter attacking Brigades of the 21st panzer.

Not that it would give him much to feel happy about and I suspect that seeing such a display of 'power' it might also impact the activities of the 21st panzers 3 Kampf Group Brigades

 

[mudhead]

The Rhone Valley, 0538 May 7, 1944

The most important score was seeing a battalion of Panzer IIIs cross the river and head south. The most common observation was a farm cart or two crossing the river.

I think this is where they went.

Northwest of Saint Tropez, France 1643 May 14, 1944

A dozen Panzers were burning. They had bowled through a light line of scouts mounted in jeeps and motorcycles. Machine guns had scattered the screen forty minutes ago but they did not kill their greatest threat. Half a dozen radiomen had started to call in first warnings and then artillery corrections. Three French cruisers supported a pair of American battleships in stripping the impromptu battlegroup built around a reinforced company of nearly obsolete Panzers

 

[fester]

North of Corsica, 2000 May 14, 1944

USS Kasaan Bay turned out of the wind. The last Hellcat had landed on her deck just a few minutes ago. Her pilots had scored half a dozen kills including a pair of ME-109s and bombed, strafed and rocketed at least five separate German battalions over the course of the day. One pilot had bailed out near the beach after a German machine gunner got lucky with a dozen rounds into the engine while another pilot was in sick bay after he bashed his head into the canopy after a hard water landing when his wheels would not come down.

The nine little carriers and their escorts started to head south with a large box course laid in for the night. The pilots would rest until an hour before dawn while the mechanics and bomb hangers could only look forward to hours of work while the midnight oil burned. They would only rest once twenty machines were ready to fly in the morning. Tomorrow would be another all out day to support the expansion of the beachhead against, so far, light and mostly disorganized opposition. After tomorrow, the two American carriers along with a pair of British ships would rotate south for a recovery and refueling day before relieving the other half of the naval air component of the invasion for their own recovery day. But that was the concern of the captains and the admirals, tonight, the concern of the men was to get battered machines fixed and coffee adequately brewed.

 

[Driftless]

The last Hellcat had landed on her deck just a few minutes ago.

I had to look up to see that Hellcats were indeed historically used in the Med - by the British. It also makes sense in this universe for them to serve on USN ships in the Med.

 

[fester]

East of Turin Italy, 0600 May 15, 1944

The recently promoted sergeant looked over the edge of his foxhole. The division had been pulled back the regiment into reserve to rest and recover for two weeks after the fighting in west of Milan. Replacements had come forward and now it was his responsibility to make sure the lanky, goofy and completely incompetent to the realities of a modern battlefield privates who had been trying to feel up a girl for the first time at this time last year were not going to get the eight veterans in the squad killed. He got back under cover just as every damn gun in the corps opened up against a German hardpoint and the reserves that were in support of that position a mile to the north. He did not need to care too much, that was going to be the problem of the Texas National Guard today. Today, the squad, the platoon and the company just needed to hold the line and be ready to hold against any German spoiling attacks. They could do that readily enough. As the heavy guns flung shells over his head, he belly crawled to the LT's command hole a few dozen yards away where there were the other squad leaders and a hot cup of coffee waiting for him.

 

[Wings]

@fester Missing threadmark for your last one ^^