The Sun, The Stars and The Sickle: Alt-WWII and a Tripolar Postwar World
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Soviet Storm 1942: Before The Storm (German Side)
Excerpts from "The Great Patriotic War: The Soviet Struggle for Survival" D. Amaro, Penguin Books, New York, 2007.
BY July 13th, 1942, the German summer offensives into the Soviet Union were ready to commence. Collectively dubbed Fall Blau ("Case Blue"), the plans were complex and ambitious.
There was considerable infighting amongst the Nazi upper echelons during the planning process. Göring, his prestige already severely tarnished by the failures Unternehmen Grille, was eager to re-establish the formidable reputation of the Luftwaffe, and made considerable boasts, to the annoyance of nearly every senior Nazi.
Himmler feuded bitterly with Minister of Armaments, Fritz Todt [AN: Todt did not die in a January 1942 plane crash TTL his fateful flight delayed by illness]. Todt was rapidly falling out of favour with Hitler and the upper echelons of the Nazi Party and the Wehrmacht over his lack of enthusiasm for the invasion of the Soviet Union, but still regarded as necessary by the Führer. Todt consistently stressed the shortages of Germany's lack of iron ore and thus steelmaking capacity. Himmler's desire to "liquidate" the "undersirable" population of the Soviet Union came into direct opposition with Todt's agenda to mine more iron from the rich deposits of the Soviet Union. It must be stressed that Todt was no humanitarian, he wished to simply work prisoners- Jews, Slavs and other targeted populations to death, but on a slower timeline than Himmer. The Reichsführer-SS, meanwhile, felt that such actions were too lenient. Many of his most promising protegés had been killed. Reinhard Heydrich was killed by Czechoslovak partisans on June 4th, 1942 and Klaus Barbie was firebombed in Dijon, France earlier that year. The commander of Einsatzgruppe A, Franz Walter Stahlecker was killed in March, 1942 in partisan action, and the commander of Einsatzgruppe C, Dr. Dr. Otto Rasch, was killed in a suspicious "accident" in December, 1941; his brutality and insistence that senior officers personally shoot Jews and Slavs made him numerous enemies, and it was widely speculated that the car crash and subsequent fire that killed him were deliberate.
Himmler's next most promising protege, Adolf Eichmann, would also meet his fate in June, 1942. Eichmann had fallen of favour with Chiang Kai-Shek, and was utterly despised by Alexander von Falkenhausen, making it only a matter of time before he was declared persona non grata in China. With sea and land lines of communication almost completely cut, there was little Berlin could do to force its will on Nanking or Chongqing. Eichmann very nearly found himself expelled from China in late 1941, and it was only through fears that he would immediately report senior China officials' lack of enthusiasm for some of Berlin's policies that kept Falkenhausen pleading to Chiang not to have Eichmann expelled. During the transfer of Republic of China governmental operations from Nanking to Chongqing, Eichmann attempted to return to Germany via submarine; a specially modified Type IX "executive transport" version with extra internal fuel stowage. However, his efforts were thwarted. A Japanese floatplane from the light cruiser Yoshii spotted the submarine, and radioed its coordinates back to the mothership, which alerted the destroyer squadron she was leading. The submarine dived, and was fired upon with "Sledgehammer" mortars* and depth charges. The submarine, although damaged, escaped, but disappeared, presumably succumbing to the damage caused by the attack. The wreckage was never found, and this would be the last attempted submarine extraction of Nazi personnel. Dönitz now shifted all resources to the defence of the Baltic, and was frustrated with the lack of cooperation with the Luftwaffe regarding minelaying operations in the Arctic ocean.
Himmler, suffering from a lack of reliable underlings, was forced into an uneasy compromise with Todt, diverting much of the SS' activities into massive roundups of slave labour, and setting up camps to house the slave labourers and massacre those unable to work; an aspect which Todt was all to eager to delegate to Himmler.
The military aspects of the operation were even more convoluted and just as characterized by competing goals and personalities. From the outset, the plans were extremely ambitious. The capture of the Chechen oilfields was identified as a top priority, but other senior Wehrmacht officials, notably Oberkommando des Heeres chief of staff Franz Halder, favoured another assault on Moscow. Halder and others were under the belief that Moscow's defences had been severely weakened by the massive battle at the end of 1941, and would need just one more kick to come crashing down; an argument parried with the objection that Moscow did not topple the first time that was tried and now Germany was in a significantly worse position than the year prior. Other commanders, such as Erwin Rommel, stressed the importance of taking Arkhangelsk, to deprive the Soviets of another port for supplies. The Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe were unable to meaningfully disrupt the increasingly heavily escorted convoys in the Arctic, especially when the ships were within the range of Allied air cover from Norway.
The Army Groups themselves were also severely understrength, and the situation did not improve by anywhere close to what was hoped for in the spring. Division equivalents that had been rated capable for static defence were quickly re-rated as capable of offencive action in preparation for Blau in order for the required strength to be met. Shortages of trucks could not readily be made good, so a Wehrmacht already lagging in motorization was forced to provide for the hundreds of thousands of horses stolen from Soviet farms to provide the required logistical strength. The Luftwaffe, despite Göring's lofty pronouncements, was woefully unprepared to supply any of the five Army Groups.
The most significant aspect was Hitler's increasing annoyance with his generals and insistence in inserting himself in the planning process. Hitler believed oil to be more important than Moscow, yet refused to drop Moscow as an objective for 1942. The confusion would prove to have sweeping effects.
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* A device developed jointly by the IJN and RN exchange officer Commander Francis Maxwell "Mad Max" de Villiers. Japanese kaibokan were originally equipped with Type 97 81mm trench mortars for submarine hunting. The light bombs were found to be of limited effectiveness, so different methods were tried- notably the borrowing of the IJA's heavy Type 96 150mm mortar, with a scaled-up trigger mechanism from the Type 99 81mm mortar which required a mallet strike to fire; the larger mortar required a sledgehammer to fire, but the tube could be pre-loaded and fired at the exact moment required. "Sledgehammer" evolved into an array of 5 mortars firing in a V-shape, fired electrically rather than with sledgehammer strikes.
BY July 13th, 1942, the German summer offensives into the Soviet Union were ready to commence. Collectively dubbed Fall Blau ("Case Blue"), the plans were complex and ambitious.
There was considerable infighting amongst the Nazi upper echelons during the planning process. Göring, his prestige already severely tarnished by the failures Unternehmen Grille, was eager to re-establish the formidable reputation of the Luftwaffe, and made considerable boasts, to the annoyance of nearly every senior Nazi.
Himmler feuded bitterly with Minister of Armaments, Fritz Todt [AN: Todt did not die in a January 1942 plane crash TTL his fateful flight delayed by illness]. Todt was rapidly falling out of favour with Hitler and the upper echelons of the Nazi Party and the Wehrmacht over his lack of enthusiasm for the invasion of the Soviet Union, but still regarded as necessary by the Führer. Todt consistently stressed the shortages of Germany's lack of iron ore and thus steelmaking capacity. Himmler's desire to "liquidate" the "undersirable" population of the Soviet Union came into direct opposition with Todt's agenda to mine more iron from the rich deposits of the Soviet Union. It must be stressed that Todt was no humanitarian, he wished to simply work prisoners- Jews, Slavs and other targeted populations to death, but on a slower timeline than Himmer. The Reichsführer-SS, meanwhile, felt that such actions were too lenient. Many of his most promising protegés had been killed. Reinhard Heydrich was killed by Czechoslovak partisans on June 4th, 1942 and Klaus Barbie was firebombed in Dijon, France earlier that year. The commander of Einsatzgruppe A, Franz Walter Stahlecker was killed in March, 1942 in partisan action, and the commander of Einsatzgruppe C, Dr. Dr. Otto Rasch, was killed in a suspicious "accident" in December, 1941; his brutality and insistence that senior officers personally shoot Jews and Slavs made him numerous enemies, and it was widely speculated that the car crash and subsequent fire that killed him were deliberate.
Himmler's next most promising protege, Adolf Eichmann, would also meet his fate in June, 1942. Eichmann had fallen of favour with Chiang Kai-Shek, and was utterly despised by Alexander von Falkenhausen, making it only a matter of time before he was declared persona non grata in China. With sea and land lines of communication almost completely cut, there was little Berlin could do to force its will on Nanking or Chongqing. Eichmann very nearly found himself expelled from China in late 1941, and it was only through fears that he would immediately report senior China officials' lack of enthusiasm for some of Berlin's policies that kept Falkenhausen pleading to Chiang not to have Eichmann expelled. During the transfer of Republic of China governmental operations from Nanking to Chongqing, Eichmann attempted to return to Germany via submarine; a specially modified Type IX "executive transport" version with extra internal fuel stowage. However, his efforts were thwarted. A Japanese floatplane from the light cruiser Yoshii spotted the submarine, and radioed its coordinates back to the mothership, which alerted the destroyer squadron she was leading. The submarine dived, and was fired upon with "Sledgehammer" mortars* and depth charges. The submarine, although damaged, escaped, but disappeared, presumably succumbing to the damage caused by the attack. The wreckage was never found, and this would be the last attempted submarine extraction of Nazi personnel. Dönitz now shifted all resources to the defence of the Baltic, and was frustrated with the lack of cooperation with the Luftwaffe regarding minelaying operations in the Arctic ocean.
Himmler, suffering from a lack of reliable underlings, was forced into an uneasy compromise with Todt, diverting much of the SS' activities into massive roundups of slave labour, and setting up camps to house the slave labourers and massacre those unable to work; an aspect which Todt was all to eager to delegate to Himmler.
The military aspects of the operation were even more convoluted and just as characterized by competing goals and personalities. From the outset, the plans were extremely ambitious. The capture of the Chechen oilfields was identified as a top priority, but other senior Wehrmacht officials, notably Oberkommando des Heeres chief of staff Franz Halder, favoured another assault on Moscow. Halder and others were under the belief that Moscow's defences had been severely weakened by the massive battle at the end of 1941, and would need just one more kick to come crashing down; an argument parried with the objection that Moscow did not topple the first time that was tried and now Germany was in a significantly worse position than the year prior. Other commanders, such as Erwin Rommel, stressed the importance of taking Arkhangelsk, to deprive the Soviets of another port for supplies. The Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe were unable to meaningfully disrupt the increasingly heavily escorted convoys in the Arctic, especially when the ships were within the range of Allied air cover from Norway.
The Army Groups themselves were also severely understrength, and the situation did not improve by anywhere close to what was hoped for in the spring. Division equivalents that had been rated capable for static defence were quickly re-rated as capable of offencive action in preparation for Blau in order for the required strength to be met. Shortages of trucks could not readily be made good, so a Wehrmacht already lagging in motorization was forced to provide for the hundreds of thousands of horses stolen from Soviet farms to provide the required logistical strength. The Luftwaffe, despite Göring's lofty pronouncements, was woefully unprepared to supply any of the five Army Groups.
The most significant aspect was Hitler's increasing annoyance with his generals and insistence in inserting himself in the planning process. Hitler believed oil to be more important than Moscow, yet refused to drop Moscow as an objective for 1942. The confusion would prove to have sweeping effects.
---
* A device developed jointly by the IJN and RN exchange officer Commander Francis Maxwell "Mad Max" de Villiers. Japanese kaibokan were originally equipped with Type 97 81mm trench mortars for submarine hunting. The light bombs were found to be of limited effectiveness, so different methods were tried- notably the borrowing of the IJA's heavy Type 96 150mm mortar, with a scaled-up trigger mechanism from the Type 99 81mm mortar which required a mallet strike to fire; the larger mortar required a sledgehammer to fire, but the tube could be pre-loaded and fired at the exact moment required. "Sledgehammer" evolved into an array of 5 mortars firing in a V-shape, fired electrically rather than with sledgehammer strikes.
TTL, the first three are built to an enlarged, angled-deck Shokaku design, with only Kaimon's design modified before laying down to incorporate an armoured flight deck.
LMAO at Eichmann's ignominous fate. I mean seriously, did the Japanese even know who was on that submarine when they sank it?
Yatta
Donor
I do think the other two Taihōs should be named Shōhō and Zuihō to follow the tradition of naming sister Carriers similarly to each other*, with Kaimon being named due to it's original design as a maintenance carrier.
*Ex: sōryū and hiryū, zuihō and shōhō (otl), Shōkaku and Zuikaki, Taiyō and Unyō and Chūyō.
*Ex: sōryū and hiryū, zuihō and shōhō (otl), Shōkaku and Zuikaki, Taiyō and Unyō and Chūyō.
They had no idea- the plane spotted a submarine and the destroyers did the rest. The likeliest fate of the submarine was that it got clipped with a single Sledgehammer bomb, causing it to sink slowly in deep water- not a pleasant fate for its occupants.
Oh what a tragedy, Nazis slowly drowning to death.
Ah, that would have been great
.Here I went with Taiho, the Great Phoenix ushering in a new age of carriers much like Hosho ushered in the purpose-built carrier.
Kaiyo and Shin'yo (Sea Hawk and Divine Hawk respectively) were ordered from the New Naval Estimates, whereas Taiho was originally ordered from the 1939 bill that authorized the Yamatos.
A fitting end- trapped and unable to fight back, after being expelled from a land that wants nothing to do with him.
I don't doubt that someone down the line will claim that he escaped and lived under an assumed identity in Argentina or something equally crazy.
Bookmark1995
Banned
Not only were they monsters, they were also egotistical nutjobs who couldn't properly coordinate. It is astonishing they even made it to the gates of Moscow OTL, let alone didn't trip near Kiev.
I imagine when Chiang and Falkenhausen hear the news they'll be weeping so hard they can barely open the champagne bottles.
Without giving away too much now, I can tell you that the Chinese film industry, even in the absence of a dominant PRC, will be split along language and regional lines- Mandarin-language cinema produced in Shanghai will be quite different from the Cantonese-language films made in Hong Kong, although in ways different from OTL. You'll still get a lot of kung fu films featuring Wong Fei Hung however!
Yes; superior British and Japanese naval power reduced any attempt to take the ciry to bloody debacles for the KMT.
Indeed it is, as @Jaenera Targaryen has observed.
The defence of Hong Kong in 1940 represented several important firsts for Britain and Japan. It was the first battle in the war involving the rapid deployment of naval task forces for fire support and landing troops (in a harbour rather than on beaches this time), with HMS Hood and HIJMS Hiei bringing their 15" and 14" guns to bear on National Army targets ashore, while carrier aircraft defended the city and counterattacked. It was the first major operation for the IJN Special Naval Landing Force, and the first coordinated Anglo-Japanese operation. It was regarded as a success, and many of the lessons learned in Hong Kong would be applied to the defence of Malaya.
Hong Kong is important for the Allies, as it is part of the chain of bases from the Persian Gulf to Japan, which allows oil from Iran, Iraq, Kuwait and the Dutch East Indies to flow East and to fuel both the RN and IJN. This oil is the lifeblood of both navies and its supply cannot be allowed to be cut off or fall into enemy hands.
While I plug away more on the Soviet situation, it bears mentioning that the Allies have a further advantage at sea over OTL.
An Allied Norway means all of Norway's huge merchant marine is at the Allies' disposal. Some of the headaches with OTL's Nortraship are butterflied away, and Norway can tap into Lend-Lease to gain back lost tonnage if necessary. Norway's harbours are full, and safe under the watch of the Royal Navy and Royal Norwegian Air Force. The USN is also sending over Auxiliary/Transport Aircraft Carriers (T-ACV; the MAC equivalent) and new Escort Carriers (CVE) to cover the gap to Arkhangelsk, and even a Standard or Louisisna as distant cover. Even with the additional challenges and worse ports, supplies are getting through to the Soviet Union.
Less tonnage passes over the San Francisco-Vladivostok route, as the port requires extensive icebreaking and all tonnage must pass over the Trans-Siberian Railway to get to the front.
An Allied Norway means all of Norway's huge merchant marine is at the Allies' disposal. Some of the headaches with OTL's Nortraship are butterflied away, and Norway can tap into Lend-Lease to gain back lost tonnage if necessary. Norway's harbours are full, and safe under the watch of the Royal Navy and Royal Norwegian Air Force. The USN is also sending over Auxiliary/Transport Aircraft Carriers (T-ACV; the MAC equivalent) and new Escort Carriers (CVE) to cover the gap to Arkhangelsk, and even a Standard or Louisisna as distant cover. Even with the additional challenges and worse ports, supplies are getting through to the Soviet Union.
Less tonnage passes over the San Francisco-Vladivostok route, as the port requires extensive icebreaking and all tonnage must pass over the Trans-Siberian Railway to get to the front.
Been a crazy last few weeks with tons of paperwork and contracts that had to be done before year end, but I should finally have a chance to write more soon!
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