Manstein in Africa: A preview

Personally I would say 1 or 3. Though the eastern front is pivotal, there's been a lot of OTL's on the east campaign. None with Rommel that I know of, but not nearly as many in the African campaign.

Honestly I would read any of them as the concept is interesting but my preference has been stated.

the only rommel in the east atl i have ever read was in tsouras' third reich victorious book. it had rommel become fuhrer after a successful defence of normandy and assination of hitler. in that tl rommel basically gives manstein the defense of germany and rationalizes war production to get a stalemate.... they only have one brief scene were he commands the 20th panzer division and savages the russians a little

i have never read anything getting him into the battle early in the war
if anyone has seen anything please link it id love to use it so generate some ideas
 
THE SHARK TANK

At the training ground area just behind Panzer Group 2's assembly points in central Poland May 1941,

The sharks as they proudly called themselves were running yet another exercise against an infantry regiment loaned from the 9th army. The shark brigade weaved a beautiful battle tapestry with battalion groups taking turns storming forward or providing covering fire for their comrades. During one part of the exercise the sharks actually surrounded and "captured" an entire battalion by locking it in place with 47mm borrowed French AT guns and 88mm guns operating in a ground role then sending their attached battalion of Panzer Mark III's to surround the "enemy"

The brigade rapidly achieved a high degree of combat readyness thanks in part to its commanders. The brigade was commanded by Kurt "Panzer" Meyer formerly of the Liebstandarte recon battalion. He personally designed the HAI arm cuffs that the SS men took such pride in wearing. Rommel also devoted as much time an energy as possible into the new unit trying to give to them lessons of his ideas of battle that he had learned the hard way in France.

Rommel being impressed greatly by the performance of the 90th Light division in Africa modeled the Hai brigade along similar lines:

2 battalions of motorized infantry (a fair number had seen combat before)
1 battalion of German AT guns (mostly 50mm)
1 battalion of captured AT guns (mostly 47mm but a few two pounders as well)
1 battalion of motorized artillery with a full complements of 105mm and 150mm batteries
4 companies of motorized AA guns ((2) 88mm and (2) 40mm)
1 motorized signals company
1 motorized combat engineer/bridging company
2 recon companies equipped with a mix of German and captured vehicles
1 attached battalion of Panzer Mark III's (34 tanks 50mm L60)
Brigade staff and security company

all told the sharks had a strength of 5900 men and would perform feats on the eastern front far out of proportion with their limited numerical strength

Rommel explained to Meyer how the brigade would work in his Panzer corps

"Meyer, your men will be given only two types of tasks during our offensive. Either I will use you to stiffen the 10th motorized and the cavalry men whilst we hold the enemy down or I shall place you on the flanks so that you may surge ahead of the corps and secure vital crossroads or assembly areas for us whilst we complete out local encirclements or destruction of enemy troops"

Rommel conducted numerous training exercises with his 5 units giving them good practice in forming mixed battle groups as the situation demanded. The general staff fumed that he was burning fuel unecessarily but Guderian was content to turn a blind eye "Genius must be nurtured"

Guderian was highly impressed by this corps and their commander his memoirs went into detail:
With the 24th Panzer corps with Rommel at its head I commanded the strongest Panzer corps in the German army. The high composition of seasoned officers and men along with the finest equipment Germany could provide made this force the match of an entire Soviet field army. That they were to spearhead our drive across central Russia was most fortunate. I had always believed that one should concentrate their strength at the decisive point. With Rommel and his boys in army group center this was exactly done.

to be continued.......

I will accept the board's voting as of 9pm tonight and craft the story to follow

meyer2.jpg

"The Canadians had made a cemetery out of my front line. What I see now is no longer war but naked murder. My young grenadiers, the oldest barely eighteen, they have not yet learned how to live, but God knows they have learned how to die."
 
I have like 4 or 5 more chapters left in my manstein changes the world tl then im going wrap that one up and get this one going.... i allready have it in a rough draft so i should bang out like 3 chapters right off the bat
 
i have the outline for this to have manstein have around 20 chapters in the african theater... i haven't really written any rommel stuff yet other than the sneak peak of his shark brigade so that will take some time to come up with figure the sequence goes manstein jan 1941 to jan 1943 then ill go back and do rommel
 
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