usertron2020
Donor
I never mentioned Warsaw..
You didn't NOT say Warsaw either.
Or Brest-Litvosk, Minsc, Smolensk, Tula, Gorki, the Urals, Vladivostok, etc, etc, etcAs for the Germans, they've just done what they were trying to do in OTL. The fact is, any victory that ends up in attrition is a poisoned chalice for Germany. And there aren't any quick victories left. Not even in Italy. (1)
Hmm. I'll try and reveal more about what is left of Italian involvement next time. (2) But the lack of them is a problem for the Germans, their own troops are better, but they are now spread more thinly. (3)
Stalin is very upset over Stalingrad, but he isn't holding mass executions - yet. But he has been rather incentivizing his commanders
1) Italy? Not sure exactly who you mean here?
2) Thank you
3) Ah, that's it then. Italy's finest troops HAVE been withdrawn from the Russian Front (if indeed they were ever sent there). To be expected. Reminds me of the old Avalon Hill wargame "Russian Campaign". Any number of alternate options that allow the Germans to sellout the Italians to ever greater degrees to strengthen the Heer, paratroopers, Luftwaffe, artillery, reinforcements, and replacements in the East. One little problem: If Russia doesn't surrender by May 1944 Berlin falls to the Western Allies! Silly.
In such an ATL the Stauffenbergs of the Third Reich would be marching into Hitler's HQ in columns of four!4) That's logical. I was only worried about self-serving logic that grinds up the USSR while the Western Allies get a pass all the way through Normandy, Paris, the Low Countries, the Rhine, the Elbe, the Oder, and the Vistula. That goes from wank material to fap eroticism lacking any relation to reality. [size=-4]soundlikeanyoneweknow?[/size]
I remember an old SPI "War in Europe" game in which the Axis player, having a personal grudge against the Allied player, placed 95% of his war effort against the West, leaving a thin string of infantry units in the East, retreating one hex per turn to avoid maximum damage. The problem with this game design was that you could never have done that IRL. Every last German soldier and civilian would be able to draw a line on a map to see exactly when Berlin fell against this constantly retreating front. At some point they would be expected to fight. Otherwise you get mass morale collapse.
As in this case, in reverse, if the Germans try to allow the Allies to pick daisies all the way through Germany, the very Allies who had been bombing their cities into rubble, the Heer and SS will be...displeased.
