The Co-Prosperity Sphere

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Chapter 56: The Battle of Britain aka the Blitz
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    • CountofDooku

    CountofDooku

    Chapter 56: The Battle of Britain aka the Blitz:
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    The Battle of Britain (German: Luftschlacht um England, literally "the air battle for England") was a military campaign during the Second Great War, in which the Royal Air Force (RAF) tried to defended the United Kingdom (UK) against large-scale attacks by the Imperial German Air Force (IGAF). It would late be described as the first major military campaign fought entirely by air forces. The primary objective of the Imperial German forces was to compel Britain to agree to a negotiated peace settlement. In July 1940 the air and sea blockade began, with the Imperial German Air Force mainly targeting coastal-shipping convoys, ports and shipping centers, such as Porthsmouth. On 1 August, the Imperial German Air Force was directed to achieve air superiority over the RAF with the aim of incapacitating RAF Fighter Command; 12 days later, it shifted the attacks to RAF airfields and infrastructure. As the battle progressed, the Imperial German Air Force also targeted factories involved in aircraft production and strategic infrastructure to bring Britain to it's knees.

    The Germans had rapidly overwhelmed France and the Low Countries, leaving Britain to face the threat of invasion by sea. The German high command knew the difficulties of a seaborne attack and its impracticality while the Royal Navy controlled the English Channel and the North Sea. Wilhelm II already had planned for the expansion of the High Sea Fleet and the Imperial German Air Force, but knew it would take time and that Britain would remain superior over the coarse of the war, because of their superior starting numbers and later his needs to focus parts of his resources on the African Campaign and most of them on his preparations to attack the Soviet Union, the last remaining European Power to challenge Germans domination of the continent. Because of that Wilhelm II ordered the preparation of Operation Meerjungfrau (Operation Mermaid) as a potential amphibious and airborne assault on Britain, to follow once the Imperial German Air Force had air superiority over the UK. In September RAF Bomber Command night raids disrupted the German preparation of converted barges, and the Imperial German Air Force failure to overwhelm the RAF forced Wilhelm III and later his son Wilhelm III to postpone and eventually cancel Operation Mermaid.

    The Battle of Britain took its name from a speech by British Premier Winston Churchill to the House of Commons on 18 June: "What General Weygnand has called The Battle of France is over. The Battle of Britain is about to begin."
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    The Imperial German Air Force later proved unable to sustain daylight raids, but their continued night-bombing operations on Britain became known as the Blitz. Because the German failure to destroy Britain's air defenses to force an armistice (or even outright surrender) this was the first major defeat of Imperial Germany and the Axis Central Powers in the Second Great War and a turning point in the conflict.

    The Blitz was a German bombing offensive against Britain in 1940 and 1941, during the Second Great War. The term was first used by the British press and is the German word for 'lightning'. The Germans conducted mass air attacks against industrial targets, towns and cities, beginning with raids on London towards the end of the Battle of Britain in 1940, a battle for daylight air superiority between the Imperial German Air Force and the Royal Air Force over the United Kingdom. By September 1940, the Imperial German Air Force had failed and the German Air Fleets (GAF, Luftflotten) were ordered to attack London, to draw RAF Fighter Command into a battle of annihilation. The German commander-in-chief of the German Air Force, ordered the new policy on 6 September 1940. From 7 September 1940, London was systematically bombed by the German Air Force for 56 out of the following 57 days and nights. Most notable was a large daylight attack against London on 15 September

    The Imperial German Air Force gradually decreased daylight operations in favor of night attacks to evade attack by the RAF, and the Blitz became a night bombing campaign after October 1940. The Imperial German Air Force attacked the main Atlantic sea port of Liverpool in the Liverpool Blitz and the North Sea port of Hull, a convenient and easily found target or secondary target for bombers unable to locate their primary targets, suffered the Hull Blitz. Cardiff, Portsmouth, Plymouth, Southampton and Swansea were also bombed, as were the industrial cities of Birmingham, Belfast, Coventry, Glasgow, Manchester and Sheffield. More than 40,000 civilians were killed by German Air Force bombing during the war, almost half of them in the capital, where more than a million houses were destroyed or damaged.

    In early July 1940 the German High Command began planning for the assault on the Soviet Union. Bombing of Britain failed to demoralize the British into surrender or do much damage to the war economy; eight months of bombing never seriously hampered British war production which continued to increase. The greatest effect was to force the British to disperse the production of aircraft and spare parts. British wartime studies concluded that cities generally took 10 to 15 days to recover when hit severely but exceptions like Birmingham took three months. The German air offensive failed because the Imperial German Air Force High Command (Oberkommando der Imperialen Luftwaffe, OKIL) did not develop a methodical strategy for destroying British war industry. Poor intelligence on British industry and economic efficiency led to OKIL concentrating on tactics rather than strategy. The bombing effort was diluted by attacks against several sets of industries instead of constant pressure on the most vital. The Axis Central Powers starting the African Campaign as a Second Front against Britain and the Commenwealth/ Allies as well as their preparations against the Soviet Union was drawing fighters and bombers as well as skilled pilots away from the Blitz and the Battle of Britain, much to the relief of the Royal Air Force.
     
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    • Icee

    Return of the Shinobo reminds me of anime called joker game its abut spys i think you could find ideas for japanis spy network from that anime
     
    Chapter 57: The Imperial Armored Samurai and Ashigaru
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    • CountofDooku

    CountofDooku

    Chapter 57: The Imperial Armored Samurai and Ashigaru:
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    The Chinese Civil war was as much a testing ground for new Japanese and Co-Prosperity Sphere tactics, strategies and weapons as the Spanish Civil War had been for Germany and Italy. The Standstill at the front of the Chinese Civil War led to different Japanese and Co-Prosperity Sphere tactics and approaches to enforce a solution in Wang Jingwei's favor and defeat Chang finally. They mostly tried to get the Xikang (also Sikang or Hsikang) Army, the Sichuan (formerly romanized Szechuan), the Hunan Clique and even the Guominjun (Kuominchun) Army on their and Wang's Government side by promising them political and military power in the new government, protection from the Communists and even immunity for any kind of war crimes. A more direct approach to force them and Chiang into submission was the invention of new strategies, tactics and troops, like flamethrowers and flamethrower tanks against the already technological and equipment inferior enemy. One of the biggest successes during this time was the invention of a new type of soldier and military armor; the Imperial Armored Samurai (IAS, often nicknamed the walking tank, human tank or tank walker by the Allies later during the war). The Imperial Armored Samurai used the modern armor used for regular infantry helmets and covered the whole infantryman in plate armor similar to that of the old samurai, that was mass produced in factories and not as colorful as the original. Armed with a Katana and Wakizashi, the Imperial Armored Samurai also used pistols, rifles and automatic/ early machine guns and had access to the most modern equipment and weapons of the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy.
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    The armor of the Imperial Armored Samurai could be hermetical sealed and came with a gas mask to replace the face masks of the old samurai. Experimenting with new weapons and easily the best trained forces in the whole Japanese Empire soon, the Imperial Armored Samurai also had experimental or new weapons like flamethrower for infantry soldiers, and grenades that used biological or even more often chemical charges to quickly kill huge enemy numbers in trenches, foxholes, bunkers or even armored vehicles and tanks. This made the Imperial Armored Samurai one of the deadliest and most feared infantry troops in the Second Great War. The Imperial Armored Samurai also formed the Imperial Guard (Inperiarugādo) a special elite force like the recreated German Stormtroopers (or before that the SA, SD and SS troops under Hitler's regime) that served the Tenno Hirohito himself as fanatical Shintoist elite soldiers, ready to die for him. Many of them would later rather die then get into captive and many would serve as pilots for so called Kamikaze planes or serve as human bombs in land warfare or human torpedoes/sea mines in maritime warfare. While a single Imperial Armored Samurai was heavily armed and protected, the heavy armor robbed them of their stamina during long runs and fights, meaning they often were slower on their feet and easy to fight in close combat, assuming any enemy survived their bullet protecting armor and came close enough to do so. Once a a enemy came close enough however, the Imperial Armored Samurai had many weaknesses, one the ability to shoot up between the armor plates from a certain position once a enemy was close enough. This openings were necessary to prevent the armor from getting to heavy and unhandy, sometimes they even provided some form of ventilation for the Samurai, mostly in hot or jungle regions. The first variations also did not have the legs of the Imperial Armored Samurai covered, or only with smaller plates, to not limit their movements, this was later fixed with plates and chainmail armor waved and incorporated inside the trousers and boots.
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    Therefore the armor used for the the Imperial Armored Samurai elite forces came with a lighter, not so heavy variation that added only a torso plate to the normal infantry helmets used. This forces were known as Ashigaru (“light of foot”/ light foot soldiers) that had once been used and employed by the samurai class of feudal japan and were now, like the Samurai and Shinobi now reinvented and reused again. Japans new strategy was a combination of tradition and new ideas, combined to a mass army and a modern elite force to beat their enemies on every area and soon the Imperial Navy adapted the same concept for their new ship ideas, strategies and tactics. Because of the massice costs for the training, armor and equipment of the Imperial Armored Samurai, they remained a small elite force, often used as divisions a fire brigade division in the most troublesome parts of a front. Sometimes only a few battalions or corpses of the Imperial Armored Samurai were itnegrated into regulair divicions and armies to increase their overall fighting abilities. This elite forces would prove to be a pain for the Allies in places like India, Burma and the Pacific Islands later on.
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    The most primitive form of this idea would later see the Bamboo Spear infantry try to defend their homes and freedom against the enemies at all cost, often supporting regular troops in or near their home-region with a mass army (even including women and children) that simply overwhelmed the enemy in masses alongside regular forces to push them back.
     
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    • CountofDooku

    CountofDooku

    Alpha-King98760 said:
    Okay, I just don’t know if modernised samurai armour would stand up to bullets or not.
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    Seen a few fotos OTL with armor like the ones Ashigaru used TTL in both Japanese and French variations, some were clearly pierced by armor but still worn, plate armor has been fire tested in both world wars.
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    Here some people who have just tested if that stuff works as protection.
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    Here the variation with more plates over each other.

    Most effivient seams to be many plates about the other, like the Samurai armor would do, but it gretaly limits the soldiers stamina and overall fighting ability in close combat, just as it does his ability to run fast for long or carry heavy things beside that. It's no cevlar for sure, but for the weapons of it's time it seames to have worked fine for the time being. Still the more costs and even more the overall negative effects seamed to have proven it ineffective on the long run. But combined with the Japanese tactics during the island fighting or against the Chinese in combination with chemical warfare I thing it could prove quiet effective TTL.
     
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    Icee

    CountofDooku said:
    I know, but the name always reminded me more of Hitler and his military ...


    Most likely what normal helmets and stuff like that is made during that time. Some metal/steel I don't even know to be true (I'm no expert in such stuff).
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    who is not to say that Germany got inspired by Japan and made the wolf brigade
     
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