Development Diary IX: Old World Blues
Hello and welcome to another diary for The New Order: Last Days of Europe. This diary will take us further east than we ever have gone before.
In preparation for our entrance into Asia and the Co-Prosperity Sphere, we're taking a short trip to a middle ground, in Russia. Specifically, the Southern Urals region, where Dirlewanger's Black Bandits, as the Russians call them, have come into conflict with the Ural League and their elite soldiers of the Ural Guard. The Guard has been fighting the bandits bitterly to protect the peasant communes of Orenburg, where the locals have refused their offers to help in fear of losing their anarchistic way of life.
There is much that creeps in the darkness however, for in what the locals have come to call the Black Mountain, and what is more commonly known as Magnitogorsk, Trofim Lysenko and his scientists have emptied the Bashkir countryside of people and goods, using them for foul experiments in their mountaintop fortress. Their goal? Perfect a method to make a superior, invincible, soldier, so that they can create an army to destroy the Germans. Only one obstacle stands in the way of them capturing a suitable number of test subjects however: The Ural League. The League, however, may also just provide the perfect test subjects.
None of these nations, if they can be called that, have any greater designs in Russia. All they wish is for victory over their enemies, or in the Communes case, to be left alone.
Before we get into the diary proper, let me show you a little image I made to describe the deep nuances of the region:
And now, here's a screenshot of the region itself, along with the flags of the respective entities there:
Now let's get to it.
Dirlewanger's Brigade:
During the near mythical West Russian War of the 50s, the SS had come to a turning point. Himmler, seeing the war turning against Germany, finally lost any faith he had in the Reich truly reaching its goals of an Aryan utopia, as the military struggled to hold the line against the advancing forces of the West Russian Revolutionary Front.
As the army retreated deeper west, abandoning the A-A line, the SS plotted. They slowly began to influence the retreating local garrisons and the Wehrmacht units sent to reinforce their lines, and prepared for a killing blow to the German military.
A younger Hans Speidel, however, saw this. Together with men loyal to him, he organized and led Operation Fehlzündung, named after the term ‘Backfire’, or the method for starting fires to fight them, against the SS.
Speidel and his men descended in the dead of night on SS camps and on marching formations and rapidly disarmed and captured the units and their entire chains of command. The operation was a rousing success, with only three wounded and several hundred SS fighters and their leaders imprisoned by Speidel's loyalists.
One unit, however, was not so easy to tame.
The 36th Waffen SS Panzergrenadier Brigade, or the Dirlewanger Brigade. Known for their excessive cruelty, even for an SS formation, the men of the Brigade were widely considered the attack dogs of the German military in the east. Sent to tear apart and brutalize anything the military sent them at before being tossed a bone and kicked back into its cage. Most of the military had little regard for who they considered the lost and the damned, renegade soldiers hardly held on their leash only for the promises of spoil.
Speidel had not told many units of the operation beforehand, fearing a leak, and redirected the Wehrmacht’s 30th Infantry Division to arrest Dirlewanger as they were marching back to camp from the front.
As elements of the 30th surrounded the 36th, they were surprised when Dirlewanger immediately ordered his men to open fire. The 30th was already exhausted, and not quite ready for the operation, and the 36th punched a hole clean through them and escaped camp in several stolen vehicles.
German units chased Dirlewanger and his men in their own vehicles. Luck seemed to be with Dirlewanger however, as the Russians chose the moment to begin another assault, and the 30th was quickly forced back to their lines. Dirlewanger and his men disappeared into Russian lines just as one of the worst blizzards of the area's history began, and were never heard from again. Presumed dead, and forgotten to the annals of history. Perhaps the Germans just hoped that no man so foul could survive the inhospitable Russian wastes and the Slavic hordes both.
Himmler was outraged at Backfire, but German politicians used the captured SS formations as leverage to convince Himmler to accept their offer of the formation of Burgundy. Relations between Speidel and the SS would be forever damaged, but Germany was saved.
The 36th however, were branded as traitors. Realizing that the madmen who caused the deaths of nearly a hundred German soldiers were his responsibility, Himmler officially reneged their membership in the SS and disowned them. Outcasting them to whatever fate they would meet.
But it seemed father time was not so good as to snuff Dirlewanger and his dogs out of the books. As the West Russian front and central authority in Russia once again collapsed, settlers and survivors across Russia reported disturbing news. Many thought the Germans were invading anew, or that they had secretly infiltrated Russia. All reported bloodshed, as the Germans seemed to roll into towns, seemingly at random, rape and pillage, and then leave. With them they took the scum of Russia. Petty criminals, former Gulag inmates, other bandits and even Cossacks seemed drawn to the Germans, and reports said that the band had begun to swell to massive numbers.
When they finally settled down south of the Urals, controlling one of the most important trade routes in the new Russia, many were shocked to see that at the head of this army of brigands, the lost and the damned, was Dirlewanger. Independence from the chain of command had done him well, as he had become the Bandit King of Southern Russia. The 36th, or the Black Bandits as many Russians now called them, sat in Orsk, growing fat on their spoils, and becoming the most feared group of bastards in all of the former Soviet Union.
Dirlewanger's Brigade starts out as a deadly force, but not a long lasting one. His men want for nothing more than to pillage and loot Russia, and have no desire to build a nation to last into the future. The band is also solely held together by Dirlewanger, and, being comprised of everything from German deserters to Russian bandity to Kazakh horsemen, would easily collapse in on itself without the aging bandit king.
As said before, however, they are deadly. Most of the band has seen combat in some form or another, and have become infamous as the deadliest and cruelest bandit group in the entirety of the former Soviet Union.
Dirlewanger starts with the largest force in the area, and benefits from attacking his opponents before they have a chance to build up against him. His men are also some of the most experienced, second only to the League, and is made up of a mix of German regulars and native bandits.
He also starts with the Luftwaffe Terror Bombing modifier, that most Russian nations have, thanks to Germany's indiscriminate bombing campaign of Russia, it is much harder for the Russians to actually build their societies. Not that Dirlewanger overly cares about industrial efficiency.
His goals are simple, loot the fabled city of Orenburg. Relatively untouched in the war and having grown into, if not a symbol of wealth, a symbol of stability in Southern Russia, the city holds much wealth for he who sacks it. The mountain passes are blocked by the League however, and their Guards harass and neutralize any bandits attempting to cross west into the Communes territory.
They must be destroyed.
To do this, the bandits can either go in alone, or more likely, and a better idea all around, make a deal with Lysenko.
The foppish scientist who sits on top of the mountain is an odd one, but he also wishes to see the League removed and Orenburg destroyed. In return for the capturing of the populations of both and their transfer to the Black Mountain, he has offered to send material and military aid to the bandits. The mountain is claimed to be full of old Soviet weaponry the band sorely needs, and the deal can be quite profitable. And when it's over, nothing is stopping Dirlewanger from smashing the scientists and stealing anything else he is hiding.
The League is the only real obstacle to Dirlewanger's goals in Orenburg, which stands weak and disunited. The Guards are formidable foes, but they will be smashed like all others.
And when they're done with, Orenburg will burn.
Of course, this is assuming that Dirlewanger survives all of this. But what's the worst that could happen? The man's practically invincible!
It should be noted that Dirlewanger has over a hundred death events, largely made by the team and friends of the team as a group effort. You know, to blow off steam.
YouTube
It was a good time.
To finish this note, Dirlewanger benefits from raiding various places, and can expand further into Russia if he pillages Orenburg and destroys the League. Dirlewanger takes a state, destroys all infrastructure and factories, giving himself massive amounts of goods as he does so, and expands his radius outward. Some even say he has ambitions on moving further west, into German lands...
The Ural League
The Ural League is a collection of fortresses in the southern Urals with a colorful history.
Initially formed far, far north in Vorkuta, the League was established shortly after the fall of the Union. When prisoners of Vorkuta’s gulag rioted against the guards, and the guards prepared to open fire on the crowd, prisoner Janis Mendricks, a Latvian Catholic Priest and anti-German who had traveled east to escape the Germans but had found himself imprisoned by the Soviets soon after, stood up and managed to prevent bloodshed.
Luckily for him, many of the guards felt the same, and the prisoners and guards instead decided to work together to ensure their own survival. The movement spread to several other gulags still inhabited nearby, as Mendriks, former Commissar Mikhail Gefter, and recaptured Red Army defector Sergei Bunyachenko, all worked tirelessly to turn the Gulags into villages.
All was not to be however, as the nearby warlords and the lack of food or warmth in the north forced the prisoners and guards to abandon Vorkuta and the several other gulags that had joined them, and together they marched south.
The march was tireless, with dozens, and then hundreds of their number dwindling, but eventually they found shelter in Sverdlovsk. While the locals feared them and refused them shelter, many of the local gulags were still filled, either with prisoners who had freed themselves, the garrisons who had let them leave or similar groups of the two working together. They settled down in the mountains, creating a fortress far away from civilization where they could live in peace.
The guards would organize parties to scout the surrounding land or scavenge for supplies, and although they were initially ordered to stay out of others affairs for the safety of the group, it wasn’t long until several of the guards found themselves protecting a small group of survivors from bandits.
The survivors made their way to the town, and then, slowly, more and more of the loners and peasants around the area did as well, seeking the shelter the group afforded. The gulags grew from prisons to castles to cities.
It was not long until Ilya Starinov, Soviet military veteran and formerly a strong proponent of the use of well-trained forces in unequal combat situations, wandered to the city. Having been traveling across Russia, offering his services to the highest bidders and training villages to fend for themselves in return for food and shelter, he has decided his nomadic life must end, as he is now entering his 60s.
Seeing a need and unique opportunity for the force he has always dreamed of in the League, he has settled down and decided to help the locals. With him, the Ural League Guard, formed from the original bands of guards who scouted out of the compounds, was founded. Taking men from all walks of life, and even women, the Guards were trained to be the most elite, powerful, and well drilled force on any battlefield. Meant to be able to scavenge for supplies or fight well away from any supply train, the Guard soon became possibly the most powerful fighting force in the former Soviet Union.
Their numbers, however, are small, and the League continues to struggle with resources as the Gulags they call their home continue to offer them little. In order to gain supplies, groups of Guards often leave the mountains to act as mercenaries, lending their assistance to villages in return for supplies for the homeland.
The League slowly civilized the areas south of them, clearing out the bandit gangs and uniting or colonizing the rest of the gulags as well as any mountain villages into their polity, when Dirlewanger and his men pillaged Orsk and the surrounding countryside, turning it into their personal fiefdom. The two sides have been in constant conflict since.
Guards also have begun drifting east, to Bashkortostan, one of the most poor and damaged lands in Russia. The Guards there often work for lower rates, working more out of kindness for the poor souls left behind by the stream of refugees traveling east into the League or into Orenburg. A dangerous route with the Germans roving the passes. This has brought them into conflict with Lysenko’s 22nd Motor Rifle Division NKVD, who the Guards have been forced to defend the locals from.
Stuck between two very hostile groups, low on resources and with a growing refugee problem, the Guards have begun looking for ways to save themselves and the locals of their new home from the situation. There has been talk of finding allies in Orenburg, but so far, the locals have proven quite uncooperative.
The League starts with the modifiers 'Refugee Crisis' and 'Children of Vorkuta'. As people flee west from Orsk and Bashkir, the League has taken it upon themselves to save as many as they can and safely escort them through the Urals. It has taken a major strain on the League, however, and it must be resolved quickly if the League will survive.
In addition, the League has the Children of Vorkuta spirit, which grants them impressive army benefits but makes training new men much more difficult. With Ilya Starinov, famed Russian general, as their starting advisor, the modifiers from this are doubled. The Guard is elite, but its strict training regime and spartan lifestyle means that they can not bring enough men to bare against their enemies. Alongside the Guard stand a small number of militia units, trained from volunteers among the refugees to help bolster the League's defenses.
Two paths can be taken, either the Guard can be further built up and reinforced, further increasing the benefits of
Children of Vorkuta and raising their experience even higher, while granting a scant few more regiments, or the militia can be expanded upon, lessening the quality of the Guard but giving them enough men to punch back against the bandits and scientists both.
The League can have its cake and eat it too, however, and could bolster its manpower by enlisting assistance from those they've sworn to protect, the Communes in Orenburg. The Communes are a paranoid lot, however, and fear the highly regimented and militaristic Guard will take power if given the chance to enter, and have so far refused to aid or be aided by them.
If they were to unify, however, and the Communes convinced to allow the Guard to train their people and organize to fight their attackers, they could be a force to be reckoned with.
If Dirlewanger's bandits are crushed and the Commune saved, the League can then move on to the Black Mountain, and free Bashkir from the tyranny of 'comrade' Lysenko.
The battle will be hard fought, Lysenko has built himself the strongest fortress in all of Russia and has one of the last organized remainders of the Red Army, still acting soldierly even as they operate as bandits and thugs. But the League will persevere, as it always had, and crush the tyrant.