WWII-Global 2.4, Emperor difficulty, Soviet Union.
House rules: I use ground artillery only against Fortress units, as otherwise it is an overwhelming advantage to me.
Week 44, 1940:
Norway/Denmark declares war on us. They appear at the Lithuanian border with three Infantry divisions, take one of our captured Turkish workers, and destroy two Motor Rifle divisions.
Week 45:
We sign a Right of Passage agreement with Finland and send 27 T-34 divisions north toward Hammerfest. Taking Denmark might prove difficult. We have begun building transports in the Arctic Sea. We destroy the Norwegian Infantry in Lithuania.
Week 47:
Our T-34 divisions begin to pass through Finland near Petsamo on their way toward Hammerfest.
Norwegian infantry attempt to cross the Finnish-Soviet border near Kem. One of our Soviet Garrison divisions is destroyed, but another crushes the invaders.
Week 48:
Our T-34s continue driving through pathless Finnish forest. The Finnish roads are clogged with infantry and engineers.
Norwegian Infantry enters Finnish territory south of Petsamo.
Week 49:
Our T-34s cross into Norway southeast of Hammerfest. Generals estimate two weeks until contact.
Our reserve T-34s crush the two Norwegian Infantry divisions south of Petsamo.
Four Norwegian Coastal Defense ships appear off the coast of Hammerfest.
Week 50:
Our glorious Socialist technicians have achieved yet another miracle of Soviet engineering! No more must we envy the Fascists their "dive" bombers, for now we have a mighty ground-attack plane of our own: the Ilyushin-2 Sturmovick has been developed! In addition, the Petlyakov-8 can begin to replace the hardy but under-powered Pe-2s (we currently have 43 wings of Pe-2 bombers). Finally, the new long-range Mikoyan-Gurevich-3 fighter is available. It is perhaps not as powerful as our Yak-1 fighters, but its excellent range gives us two tactical advantages: 1) we now have the ability to provide overlapping air support in sparsely populated areas, and 2) we can provide air cover from our border cities to troops invading across that border. These also make an excellent unit for production in remote cities, because their long flight range means they can be brought to the front quickly, and their low material cost means that those remote cities can produce them rapidly.
Our T-34s move to the hills directly southeast of Hammerfest. Next week we will strike.
Our two Battleship C2s that make up our Arctic surface fleet engage the Norwegian Coastal Defense ships off the Hammerfest coast and sink two. The two remaining Norwegian Coastal Defense ships bombard our army and slither back into the ports of Hammerfest.
Week 51:
Our troops take Hammerfest with no significant casualties. We destroyed the three Norwegian Infantry divisions guarding the city, but there are still two divisions scuttling around in the mountains. Our armor can't pursue them there, so we send 23 fresh T-34 divisions west toward Narvik. Our reinforcements and the units left behind in Hammerfest to refit, repair and crush any resistance will smash the Norwegian divisions if they have the courage to leave the mountains.
Two Norwegian Infantry divisions cross into European Russia: one near Warsaw and one near Liepaja.
Weel 52:
We destroy the invading Norwegian forces. Meanwhile the Red Army moves closer to Narvik.
Week 1, 1941:
The new year begins uneventfully. Our Arctic battleships sink a couple of Norwegian destroyers near Narvik. Our tanks move closer to Narvik.
One of the Norwegian Infantry divisions skulking in the mountains attacks Hammerfest and is easily destroyed by our KV-1 division garrisoning it.
Week 2, 1941:
Our troops enter the outskirts of Narvik.
A Norwegian destroyer slips past our Battleship screen and destroys one of our transports which is en route to Hammerfest.
Week 3, 1941:
We take Narvik at the cost of a single T-34 division. Our 17 fresh T-34 divisions enter Norwegian territory north of Trondheim.
Week 6, 1941:
A disappointing week. We take Trondheim, but at the cost of 5 T-34 divisions. We are reinforced by some refitted divisions from the north. 16 T-34 divisions and one KV-1 division move south toward Bergen.
Week 8, 1941:
We take Bergen, losing two T-34 divisions in the process. 14 T-34 divisions move to the hills just north of Oslo.
The British have seized Crete. We declare war on Greece and cross the border with 14 T-34 divisions.
Week 9, 1941:
We take Oslo with no losses. Norway has fallen - now only Denmark remains.
Week 10, 1941:
We take Athens and Greece surrenders.
Week 11, 1941:
Special Intelligence Report on the Japanese: The Japanese Empire has pursued a continental strategy throughout the war. This has cost them some Islands in the Pacific: they have lost Taipei to the British, and Truk, Saipain and the Kwajalein atoll to the Americans. However, they have conquered nearly all of Nationalist China: only Chengdu, Kunming and Khotan remain in Nationalist hands. They have also seized Hong Kong from the British and Hanoi from the French. It is safe to say that if we had not saved Communist China from the Japanese that the addition of the extremely productive cities Lanchow and Sian to the Japanese Empire would make them competitive with Germany as the most potent Axis power.
It will be interesting to see how this strategy serves them in the long run: if they go as far as to take India from the British, it is conceivable that mastery of every continental Asian port could give them enough power to contend with the Americans and the British navally, assuming that Germany can continue to tie up the Allies in the Atlantic. We will watch to determine whether the Japanese start gaining ground in the Pacific Islands.
Week 16, 1941:
The brilliant engineers at Yakovlev have created a powerful new fighter: the Yak-9. All factories that are currently producing Yak-1 fighters now switch to production of Yak-9s.
Week 17, 1941:
We have completed the Trans-Siberian Railroad connecting Warsaw to Bulgan. Our work crews will turn north to continue building the railroad around the border of Manchukuo in an attempt to connect Vladivostok.
Week 21, 1941:
[Note: I am attempting to simulate Operation Barbarossa by making the Axis declare war on me. I will do this by attacking a single Finnish unit in Finnish territory, and then withdrawing in order to simulate the element of surprise. I will cancel my ROP with Finland first so that my reputation suffers as little as possible.
On the eve of Operation Barbarossa, I have:
103 Russian Infantry divisions
176 T-34 divisions
14 Motor Rifle 1941 divisions
161 KV-1 tank divisions
17 Heavy Artillery
162 Yak-1 fighter wings
68 Mig-3 fighter wings
12 Yak-9 fighter wings
27 Il-3 Sturmovick wings
44 Pe-2 bomber wings
41 Pe-8 bomber wings
Germany has:
3 Marine divisions
3 Fallschirmjager (Paratrooper) divisions
2 SS Infantry divisions
4 Slovakia Infantry divisions
11 German Security divisions
38 German Infantry divisions
135 88mm FlaK/PaK divisions
53 Panzer IIIe tank divisions
2 Panzer IIIg tank divisions
17 German Mechanized Infantry divisions
3 Me-109e fighter wings
18 Me-109f fighter wings
16 Ju-88 bomber wings
Japan has:
161 Japanese Infantry divisions
31 Type 97 tank divisions
2 Paratrooper divisions
1 Japanese Special Naval Landing Force division
24 Ki27 Nate fighter wings
13 D3A Val bomber wings
3 B5N Kate bomber wings
]
Treachery! The Axis declare war on us. The Finns, the Germans, the Hungarians, the Romanians and the Bulgarians all simultaneously attack.
The Finns sink 4 submarines, and destroy 8 Soviet Garrison divisions. They approach Murmansk, Kem and Leningrad with a total of 19 Finnish Infantry divisions, 4 Tank divisions, and 3 Light Tank divisions. It is not without some bitterness that our Generals observe that the Finnish tanks are fueled with petrol made from Soviet oil.
The Hungarians enter the mountains immediately west of Kishinev with 18 Hungarian Infantry divisions.
The Romanians approach Odessa with 14 Infantry divisions.
The Bulgarians sink 4 Submarines in the Black Sea and approach Istanbul with 15 Romanian Infantry divisions and 10 Infantry divisions.
The Japanese make no obvious move. They have, however, lost Hanoi to the British.
The Germans attempt to bomb Bergen with two wings of Ju-88 bombers, both of which are shot down by our mighty Yak-1 fighters. They also attempt to bomb our 5 Battleship C2s near Bergen with a single Ju-88 wing, which is shot down.
The Germans also attack Radom with 4 tank divisions, each of which is destroyed by the two KV-1 divisions garrisoning Radom. However, they have crossed the border in the following places: near Radom, with 5 Panzer IIIe divisions; near Warsaw with 26 Panzer IIIe divisions, 2 Panzer IIIg divisions, 2 Marine divisions, 6 German 88 divisions, 2 Paratrooper divisions, 1 SS Infantry division, and 1 Motorized Infantry division; and near Radom with 5 German Motorized Infantry divisions, 3 German Infantry divisions, 3 Slovakia Infantry divisions, and 4 Panzer IIIe divisions.
Clearly counterattacking the German army near Warsaw has our highest priority going into week 22.
