The Forge of Weyland
- Thread starter Astrodragon
- Start date
One good thing to know is that OTL many French soldiers surrendered AFTER Pétain's call to stop fighting.
Now though they've withstood the initial German thrust and sealed off the breach in their lines. The much vaunted Panzer Divisions have been mauled and forced to retreat. All in all morale in the French Army will be on the rise. The French Air Force is in the process of unf***ing itself and are finally starting to get deliveries of combat worthy aircraft. Belgium is still fighting, The Netherlands are still fighting, The British are re-inforcing the BEF and with reluctance allied air forces and Norway is still fighting. Italy is watching for the main chance but unless disaster strikes is I think unlikely to act. All told things are going about as well as can reasonably be expected. The key now is the German assault on Antwerp, if that's driven off then the Germans are ultimately screwed.
Donald Reaver
Donor
The Germans do seem to be reducing to a war of attrition, not a good thing for them. Hungry nation to the east of them, pay them for resources needed, fight them if must, not a good thing.
Driftless
Donor
Even if the Germans rally and run the table eventually, driving France out of the war, they'll be badly damaged and resource-poor. What would Hitler's status be under those conditions? IF he's still in charge, he'll still want to have a go at the Soviets, and considering the damaged suffered by the Wehrmacht in the West, Stalin probably wouldn't be overly concerned. Could that lead to a revised Barbarossa that starts off nearly as well, but even more quickly runs out of power before fall? Lots and lots of IFs there....
I doubt Adolf lasts that long. Germany was promised Victory, Victory, Victory (TM), instead they're back in the same place as 1915 and with no Juden to blame it on - everybody but the SS will be calling for his head.
Ah yes Antwerp
This is from Neihorster out of vanden Bloock google Neihorster antwerp defences. Which has maps and pics
But you have three positions - PFA - Positon fortifee dAnvers, which curves around north of the city 94km in length consisting of 23 forts ( company positions with 8 mmg and 12 lmg, 524 mg bunkers, with a 14 m wide and 2-2,5m deep water filled anti tank ditch and an anti tank obstacle.
From there we go south to the 235 MG bunkers of the Dyle line, which has been flooded from Leuven - Wavre and has anti tank barriers
Backing this up is the Belgian army with its large artillery and AT park supplemented by the 200 T13 tank destroyers, which are fast enough to get into position while you are crossing the ditches and obstacles and bodies of the assault troops.
And the BEF. A walk in the park this is not.
The Southern end is Namur which is still holding,
Ghent is worse, much much worse. It has AT bunkers.
And that's assuming the Belgians have in no way reinforced those defenses, which given TTL is highly unlikely. By this time they most certainly would have had the opportunity to place mines, sight artillery, emplace units recalled from other areas, called up reserves, and otherwise hardened everything..
Even worse than 1915, because in 1915 they were holding almost all of Belgium, as well as Alsace Lorraine and the most industrialized areas of France.
There will be wartime only additions, wire for sure mines depends on availability and they are a fairly new thing and ofc the troops occupying the position have had days to survey register and dig in phone lines and suchlike.
But the big issue for the Germans is a massive thrust by powerful armoured formations gets stuck until you have dealt with the barriers, which are all covered by fire. You have to breach those barriers. Its not going to happen overnight. and frankly even if it does the German flank gets hammered by the BEF coming up from the South.
Just to point out @Astrodragon, but while wikipedia is a free, open source resource that does in fact legally allow you to use its content (both unmodified and modified) in stories like this (including commercially), they do require you to Attribute the work (unless you were the one who edited those sections into wikipedia in the first place).
Technically they also require you to publish under Creative Commons Attribution sharealike 3 or compatible license as well, but from what I can tell, this needs only be the bits that use wikipedia.
Under wikipedia's rules[1], all that is needed to stop this being plagiarism is a line that states something like "Text in this update taken from wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remilitarization_of_the_Rhineland".
[1] Ian and Calbear may feel differently.
@Astrodragon Where was the Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands when the bombing of The Hague happened?
I would assume in a government bomb shelter, or quite possibly outside the city, somewhere safe.
25 May 1940
25th May 1940
When the frontier defence of Belgium had been dislocated by the early capture of the Eban-Emael fortress, the Belgian III Corps had been forced to retreat to avoid being encircled. While such a retreat had actually been part of the defensive plan, the need to do this much sooner than expected had caused confusion and unnecessary losses. The situation had been complicated after the first day with refugees crowding and blocking the roads needed by the Allied troops and their supplies, and so while the Belgian Army did fall back to the Antwerp-Dyle line successfully, covered by demolitions and the actions of its rearguard units, it was not able to man the defence in the strength originally planned. Many of the units had been forced to abandon their heavier equipment, and were disorganised, needing to be pulled back behind the front lines to be put back into order. While the last week had helped, this process was still ongoing, and many units were effectively only armed with rifles. This meant that the forces behind the defensive line, while formidable on paper, were not as strong as they should have been.
The last week had enabled the troops to dig in more deeply along the Dyle line, and bring up ammunition and supplies using the Belgian rail network. Luftwaffe attacks had caused some disruption, and some things hadn't arrived on time or in the order expected, but with the main air effort being south in the Ardennes, this was manageable. The confusion led the Allied Army to believe they were weaker than the attacking German force, where in fact they outnumbered the German 6th Army, the main force opposing them. The delay had also helped the Germans; not only had it given them time to bring up additional infantry divisions, and resupply the leading groups, it had allowed them to bring forward much of the heavy artillery that had originally been intended to neutralises the Belgian frontier forts. With the collapse of these in some areas, they were now available to range on Antwerp and the area south of the city (between Antwerp and Brussels) where the main attack would come. This was seen as the weakest sector, held by the Belgian Army. While the Belgians had strong fortifications, there were weak spots, and they had no mobile armour reserve. The only mobile units capable of damaging a panzer division were the 47mm SP guns, and these were highly vulnerable to counterfire and to Luftwaffe attack. General von Richenau also considered the Belgians much more likely to panic and break, their failure to defend the original border had not impressed him.
At 0300, in the predawn light, the German artillery began to pound the defensive lines. Most of the effort was in the southern sector, but divisional artillery also hit the French divisions in the Stabroek area, where they were positioned on the east bank of the estuary, manning some of the pre-war fortifications. This was to confuse the defenders as to the direction of their main thrust. The heavy artillery also shelled the city itself, causing considerable damage and civilian casualties, and many of the troops in the city itself were needed to restore order and help clear the damage. Fortunately for them von Richenau had no intention of attacking into the city at this time.
The German infantry made steady progress in their thrust from the Albert canal. The intention was to penetrate the Belgian fortifications north of Lier, and in so doing bypass the strong line of forts south of there. While the Belgian soldiers defended their positions well, the German infantry attacked with determination, aided by strong Luftwaffe support and most of 6th Army's artillery. By the afternoon they had ground forward some four miles, and the constant bombardment was starting to make some of the Belgian positions crack. The RAF didn't have enough fighters available to counter the Luftwaffe in this area, a situation not helped by being in the middle of moving some squadrons to Holland. An urgent request was sent, asking for additional French Air Support for this new German attack, but this would take at least a day to arrive.
With reports in Brussels of heavy attacks pushing back the defences south of Antwerp, King Leopold III decides to assume direct command over the Belgian Army, which he feels will improve the morale of his troops.
The German High Command had realised that, as in earlier actions, the support of the Luftwaffe would be vital to breaking the defences. In order to distract the RAF, a raid was mounted on the rail junctions at Ashford and Canterbury, to draw off and confuse the RAF defences. 100 bombers, with escorting fighters (mainly Me110's), made the attack at about 1300.
The Luftwaffe had expected this attack to achieve surprise, this was the first serious bombing attack on mainland Britain, and the attention of the RAF should have been concentrated on northern Belgium. This reckoned without the British air defence system build around the Chain Home radars. The attack had been spotted early as it came in over the North Sea, and 11Group had scrambled its Spitfire and Hurricanes to intercept it. Not as efficiently as hoped - this was the first time they had attempted this against a real raid, and there were mistake made - but in general it worked.
The defending fighters came as a shock to the bombers. While of course they had expected a defence, this was much stronger and better organised than planned for. Another major problem was the inability of the Me110 to cope well with the Spitfires of 11 Group - although the Me110 was nominally a little faster, the Spitfire was much more manoeuvrable, and had better acceleration.
The result was a failure of the raid to do much damage. The bombers did press the attack home with great determination and bravery, and some damage was done to the targets, although this had been repaired by the next day. The damage also caused the first British civilian bomb casualties of the war.
The losses were too heavy to allow a repeat of the raid (especially with the need to concentrate on ground support), 15 He111 bombers had been shot down, along with ten Me110 and two Me109 fighters, for the loss to the RAF of five Hurricanes and two Spitfires. While the German pilots insisted they had destroyed at least twenty RAF fighters, more raids of this type were postponed until better fighter cover could be organised.
Germany
The first transport of prisoners arrives at the Mauthausen-Gusen Concentration Camp in southern Germany.
Britain
The new aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious is commissioned into service with the Royal Navy. The first of a new type of carrier, one equipped with heavy armour protection for her hanger, she was designed to survive the sort of air attacks the Royal Navy has been experiencing in Norwegian waters.
A convoy of tank transporters arrives at Bovington carrying some of the Panzers recovered from the battlefield, and are immediately directed to one of the testing sheds. The Panzers had been given priority for transport, as working out what they are actually facing - and working out what weaknesses can be exploited - has been seen as an urgent priority. The convoy is met by just about everyone who can find an excuse to be there and see an enemy tank at first hand, and there is considerable competition as to who gets 'first crack' at them.
A group of French tank experts is expected to arrive in a day or two, and they will help with the testing and make sure any useful information is reported to the French Army as soon as possible. The testing at Bovington will be shared with the French, who will be doing penetration and damage tests on some more-damaged panzers at their own facility.
Atlantic
The French aircraft carrier Béarn rendezvoused with the light cruisers Jeanne d'Arc and Émile Bertin in the Atlantic Ocean and transferred French central bank gold bullion to the light cruisers, which would carry it to Canada. In view of the recent actions, the French are looking to increase their purchases of aircraft and other military material from the USA, and this money will be available to pay for it.
When the frontier defence of Belgium had been dislocated by the early capture of the Eban-Emael fortress, the Belgian III Corps had been forced to retreat to avoid being encircled. While such a retreat had actually been part of the defensive plan, the need to do this much sooner than expected had caused confusion and unnecessary losses. The situation had been complicated after the first day with refugees crowding and blocking the roads needed by the Allied troops and their supplies, and so while the Belgian Army did fall back to the Antwerp-Dyle line successfully, covered by demolitions and the actions of its rearguard units, it was not able to man the defence in the strength originally planned. Many of the units had been forced to abandon their heavier equipment, and were disorganised, needing to be pulled back behind the front lines to be put back into order. While the last week had helped, this process was still ongoing, and many units were effectively only armed with rifles. This meant that the forces behind the defensive line, while formidable on paper, were not as strong as they should have been.
The last week had enabled the troops to dig in more deeply along the Dyle line, and bring up ammunition and supplies using the Belgian rail network. Luftwaffe attacks had caused some disruption, and some things hadn't arrived on time or in the order expected, but with the main air effort being south in the Ardennes, this was manageable. The confusion led the Allied Army to believe they were weaker than the attacking German force, where in fact they outnumbered the German 6th Army, the main force opposing them. The delay had also helped the Germans; not only had it given them time to bring up additional infantry divisions, and resupply the leading groups, it had allowed them to bring forward much of the heavy artillery that had originally been intended to neutralises the Belgian frontier forts. With the collapse of these in some areas, they were now available to range on Antwerp and the area south of the city (between Antwerp and Brussels) where the main attack would come. This was seen as the weakest sector, held by the Belgian Army. While the Belgians had strong fortifications, there were weak spots, and they had no mobile armour reserve. The only mobile units capable of damaging a panzer division were the 47mm SP guns, and these were highly vulnerable to counterfire and to Luftwaffe attack. General von Richenau also considered the Belgians much more likely to panic and break, their failure to defend the original border had not impressed him.
At 0300, in the predawn light, the German artillery began to pound the defensive lines. Most of the effort was in the southern sector, but divisional artillery also hit the French divisions in the Stabroek area, where they were positioned on the east bank of the estuary, manning some of the pre-war fortifications. This was to confuse the defenders as to the direction of their main thrust. The heavy artillery also shelled the city itself, causing considerable damage and civilian casualties, and many of the troops in the city itself were needed to restore order and help clear the damage. Fortunately for them von Richenau had no intention of attacking into the city at this time.
The German infantry made steady progress in their thrust from the Albert canal. The intention was to penetrate the Belgian fortifications north of Lier, and in so doing bypass the strong line of forts south of there. While the Belgian soldiers defended their positions well, the German infantry attacked with determination, aided by strong Luftwaffe support and most of 6th Army's artillery. By the afternoon they had ground forward some four miles, and the constant bombardment was starting to make some of the Belgian positions crack. The RAF didn't have enough fighters available to counter the Luftwaffe in this area, a situation not helped by being in the middle of moving some squadrons to Holland. An urgent request was sent, asking for additional French Air Support for this new German attack, but this would take at least a day to arrive.
With reports in Brussels of heavy attacks pushing back the defences south of Antwerp, King Leopold III decides to assume direct command over the Belgian Army, which he feels will improve the morale of his troops.
The German High Command had realised that, as in earlier actions, the support of the Luftwaffe would be vital to breaking the defences. In order to distract the RAF, a raid was mounted on the rail junctions at Ashford and Canterbury, to draw off and confuse the RAF defences. 100 bombers, with escorting fighters (mainly Me110's), made the attack at about 1300.
The Luftwaffe had expected this attack to achieve surprise, this was the first serious bombing attack on mainland Britain, and the attention of the RAF should have been concentrated on northern Belgium. This reckoned without the British air defence system build around the Chain Home radars. The attack had been spotted early as it came in over the North Sea, and 11Group had scrambled its Spitfire and Hurricanes to intercept it. Not as efficiently as hoped - this was the first time they had attempted this against a real raid, and there were mistake made - but in general it worked.
The defending fighters came as a shock to the bombers. While of course they had expected a defence, this was much stronger and better organised than planned for. Another major problem was the inability of the Me110 to cope well with the Spitfires of 11 Group - although the Me110 was nominally a little faster, the Spitfire was much more manoeuvrable, and had better acceleration.
The result was a failure of the raid to do much damage. The bombers did press the attack home with great determination and bravery, and some damage was done to the targets, although this had been repaired by the next day. The damage also caused the first British civilian bomb casualties of the war.
The losses were too heavy to allow a repeat of the raid (especially with the need to concentrate on ground support), 15 He111 bombers had been shot down, along with ten Me110 and two Me109 fighters, for the loss to the RAF of five Hurricanes and two Spitfires. While the German pilots insisted they had destroyed at least twenty RAF fighters, more raids of this type were postponed until better fighter cover could be organised.
Germany
The first transport of prisoners arrives at the Mauthausen-Gusen Concentration Camp in southern Germany.
Britain
The new aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious is commissioned into service with the Royal Navy. The first of a new type of carrier, one equipped with heavy armour protection for her hanger, she was designed to survive the sort of air attacks the Royal Navy has been experiencing in Norwegian waters.
A convoy of tank transporters arrives at Bovington carrying some of the Panzers recovered from the battlefield, and are immediately directed to one of the testing sheds. The Panzers had been given priority for transport, as working out what they are actually facing - and working out what weaknesses can be exploited - has been seen as an urgent priority. The convoy is met by just about everyone who can find an excuse to be there and see an enemy tank at first hand, and there is considerable competition as to who gets 'first crack' at them.
A group of French tank experts is expected to arrive in a day or two, and they will help with the testing and make sure any useful information is reported to the French Army as soon as possible. The testing at Bovington will be shared with the French, who will be doing penetration and damage tests on some more-damaged panzers at their own facility.
Atlantic
The French aircraft carrier Béarn rendezvoused with the light cruisers Jeanne d'Arc and Émile Bertin in the Atlantic Ocean and transferred French central bank gold bullion to the light cruisers, which would carry it to Canada. In view of the recent actions, the French are looking to increase their purchases of aircraft and other military material from the USA, and this money will be available to pay for it.