Kraftwerk
Posts: 395
Joined: 3/26/2010 Status: offline
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Nov 14th 1938 - Germany It seems obvious by day 21 to the entire world that this is where the allies have drawn their line in the sand. The world holds its breath, praying for peace, but knowing that war is coming. The only question now is when. Will germany give the allies the 45 days it allowed in the Ultimatum? Or will it shock the world with a surprise attack. No one inside the Reichstag is sure if even the Furher knows. Communications between Germany, Italy, Turkey, Spain, Japan and the Central European Committee have all but ceased. No one knows what was spoken of, in detail, at Istanbul last month. But since then the "Axis" powers have been eeriely non communicado with each other. Cities are blacked out at night. Fighter patrols sweep the borders. The Kriegsmarine also though, are serenely calm. Locals report massive shifting of forces among the armies stationed on the border, and aerodromes across central europe are abuzz with activity. November 14th 1938 - Italy Alone on the planning floor of his estate in Ruma, Benito calmly eyes the "big board". Yes. This plan will do little lance corporal. This plan will do. He empties another bottle of wine and throws it off the balcony. Mussolini grins looking out over the bay, past the horizon to the west....and thinks of Nero...a touch of madness tempers his grin. November 14th 1938 - Japan Kaifeng falls in a 16 day long urban street brawl. A battle that SNLF Commander Tomoyuki Yamashita wanted to avoid. Newly appointed to the Special Naval Landing Forces position, Imperial General Yamashita feels the assignment in the experimental army a downgrade, from commanding the 5th army that Tokado now commands. The glory of Kwesui could have been his. Instead he is responsible for the deaths of almost 10,000 Japanese soldiers, 4,000 of them his highly trained, and irreplacable SNLF Marines. The general is the only one who sees it this way. The rest of the Imperial staff and Royal family are exhalted after the capture of the once capital of China. To them the cost of lives is far cheaper than that of a general who cares for his men. One who lives, breathes, fights and dies with his men. This battle will haunt the general for many more battles to come. Hopefully his tenacity isnt affected. Heres how the battle went. Until round 6, casualties were pretty much 1:1, and this is after a huge 200 plane bombardment, and attacks by artillery. Then they just up and surrendered in round 7. Im curious if Ernie set the defenders to fight to the death, and the poor xp and morale of the conscripts just gave out, or if he perhaps forgot to change the loss threshold %. I did truely expect higher casualties. So this was a blessing. HOWEVER. I do wish he just broke out his forces through my armor. Sure id have had two divisions mauled, the remnants of the 3 there, could become a single full division waiting for readiness to come back up, but I wouldnt have had EVERY division of 1st and SNLF armies in the battle, as you can see it pretty much wrecked their readiness. In the end the casualties on his side would have been made up in the breakout and the next turns offensive. So now instead of having only 1 division with low readiness, and 2 divisions destroyed, with an entire two army corps of completely fresh troops. I have two corps that are stopped dead in their tracks. Even conscripts will slaughter you if you initiate huge battles containing these size forces with less than almost 90% unit cohesion (90+ readiness). Plus I pretty much leveled the place. Heres the casualties from the battle,:
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