That wasn't a criticism, 'beating the odds' is greece's thing here and I like it.
Of lost monkeys and broken vehicles
- Thread starter Lascaris
- Start date
They should be able to do this and I think most of the women and children should be evacuated. By then every street, every alleyway and every building would be a death trap to the enemies of Greece.
It's definitely fun to see Greece being strong and have more agency.
Not to mention that it would improve the sanitary conditions in smyrna.. remember that pre war smyrna had abou 560k now add tou that about 700k refugees and you get the idea..
I'm always very much ok with criticism, you don't improve without criticism. I'm inclined to believe I have kept things plausible all over, ok I'm pretty certain many would be considering that the Germans would be winning any campaign in 1941 on account of... well being Germans, no matter the opposition or logistics constraints but that's a different matter.
Roughly 598,000 refugees reached Smyrna before the siege lines were closed. Add another 567,000 in Smyrna and you are up to 1,165,000 civilians in early 1941, plus the Army of Asia Minor troops pulling back in Smyrna. Call it ~2,500t a day needed to sustain the place. On the reverse this means the ships supplying Smyrna should be able to pull out ~1000 people a day average. So between the end of April and the end of 1941 ~250,000 have been moved out of the way. More have likely been moved to the islands of Lesbos and Chios, off the coast.
Seems like you're giving a little too much to the axis in these fleet engagements. It doesn't make sense that the British would loose PoW and Hood without Japanese air superiority being a factor. Yes, the British were racist, but so were the Japanese. Specifically, the Japanese consistently overrated their night fighting capability and underrated that of everyone else. The British with radar should have the advantage and maybe the Japanese torpedos let them get a draw and escape. The failures on the ground in Malaya do not automatically transfer to the navy.
This pre-supposes British radar works, which at least in the case of Prince of Wales in OTL it was not. But I did not give any particular advantage in quality to either side. By my estimation the Japanese force of 2 Kongos and 4 Takaos was ~40% stronger overall to the 2 British battleships. I'm using Lanchester's square law to estimate battle results. Which is how the Japanese end with ~30% casualties and the British defeated. Without the Takaos or with a stronger RN screen available to neutralise them, the result would be a clear British victory with both Japanese BBs destroyed.
The Japanese force had over 100 Long Lances. Not strange that some of them would find their mark against two battleships.
Part 95
Iraq, January 21st, 1942
Kirkuk fell to 8th Indian division. Further east the Iranian army, 3 infantry divisions and a cavalry brigade with 46,000 men in total, had crossed the border and were advancing on Sulaymaniyah. This was just a fraction of the 126,000 men the Iranian army, had on paper but the remaining 80,000 were tied down "securing lines of communications within Iran", a polite way of saying keeping the government of the republic safe and an eye on the Soviets, although admitedly large numbers of men were also needed to maintain the flow of supplies going to the Soviet Union. Besides Iran did not have sufficient artillery to properly arm up to Western standards the 9 divisions it had on paper but Pahlavi had bought more than sufficient modern material for the three divisions it was engaging. Further west the French 86e DI and the 5th Indian division kept advancing up the Tigris. The Axis prospects were looking if not bleak at least problematic as Slim advanced slowly but inexorably north and the Turkish road and rail network at this time of years did not allow more than a trickle of reinforcements to reach the defenders...
Singapore, January 21st, 1942
Japanese bombers hit once more the city and the port. The British army in Malaya had not been pushed into Singapore, just yet but it has in headlong retreat and it looked as if nothing was going to stop it short of Singapore. But Singapore, the "Gibraltar of the East" with its powerful fortifications would surely hold and more reinforcements were pouring in, two brigades or the British 18th Infantry Division were already on the way...
Tunisia, January 22nd, 1942
The Germans and Italians start consolidating their positions. Tunisia was defensible and easier to supply than Libya given the proximity of Tunis and Bizerta to the southern Italian ports. But the Axis had lost nearly 60,000 men and 400 tanks during Crusader and the retreat to Tunisia, it would need time to recover and from now on would be facing a two front war, west against the French, Juin was already shipping reinforcements by rail to De Lattre, and east against the British. The sole redeeming factor was that the British and French would also need time to recover and consolidate their gains. The only question was who would be ready first...
Rabaul, New Guinea, January 23rd, 1942
A Japanese brigade landed in the port and drove back the Australian garrison after hard fighting. It would take the Japanese well into February to complete mop up operations and establish a secure defensive perimeter for the port but the result was by then a foregone conclusion.
Limerick, Ireland, January 25th, 1942
The first US troops reached Europe. Numbers were still comparatively few, there would be some time yet before any significant American forces managed to reach Europe, particularly with German submarines running amok, the Germans had extended operations close to the US coast and the USN had proven unprepared to deal with this, nine ships had been sunk in the last two weeks and six more would be sunk by the end of the month. But the Americans were back...
Gorgopotamos, Central Greece, January 30th, 1942
Expansion of the part of the Piraeus-Athens-Thessaloniki railway still under Greek control had begun as early as the previous June, when it looked that the front had stabilized. The single track railroad available at the start of the war, had a maximum theoretical capacity of 20 trains of 35 wagons daily with work underway to increase it to 24 trains daily. It was recognized already before the war that much improving capacity beyond this was problematic as long as the railroad remained single track, but the Hellenic State Railways had more pressing priorities when large areas or the country had no railroads at all and marine traffic was always a readily available alternative for bulk cargo. Construction troops were readily available, tens of thousands of Greek and Serb soldiers had been removed from the front when the Greek and Yugoslav divisions had been consolidated. Rolling stock, railway tracks and tooling, had been provided in American lend lease shipments. It still had taken more than 7 months of work to lay down the double track from Piraeus all the way up to Gorgopotamos....
Toulon, January 29th, 1942
Gabriel Auphan, had tried to delay taking drastic measures over the navy for the past few weeks in the face of a drastically deteriorating situation. The "zone libre" had been occupied by the Germans. Petain remained technically head of state, the old man had rejected his pleas to flee to Algiers till it was too late. Now he was under German control and the Germans had quickly installed Pierre Laval as his prime minister who was not making secret his support for them. The previous day French Morocco, had followed Algeria to joining again the fighting against the Germans, Nogues claiming, that the French government in Vichy could not operate freely. Algeria and Morocco had technically not joined De Gaulle but this was likely to happen in due time. As for the navy with Darlan in German captivity technically he was the highest ranking officer in the navy. But even he could not ignore Castex and Darlan's predecessor Durand-Viel who both had joined De Gaulle and were now calling on the Toulon fleet to sail for Algiers. Insubordination was appearing already among his own crews with demands to set sail for Algiers.
In the end the Germans and Italians had not waited, as German troops and the Italian Littorio armoured division, recently redeployed from Greece had been ordered into Toulon. Auphan's time was up. But with the Germans in sight, the decision had proven simpler than it seemed when he agonized over it in the previous days. Dunkerque her damaged in the battle of the Ligurian sea unrepaired had been scuttled in place. So had 3 cruisers, 10 destroyers, 11 submarines and several auxiliaries that were unable to sail away. But every ship that could set sail for Algiers had done so. German and Italian aircraft had attacked the escaping ships almost immediately sinking the battleship Bretagne, 2 cruisers and 4 destroyers, the French ships lacked radar and had deficient air defences. But Jean Bart and several more ships had made it to Algiers.
Eleusis, February 1st, 1942
The first production batch of Kentauros tanks, for all practical purposes a close copy of the British Centaur tank modified for Greek industrial conditions, was delivered to the army. It was highly questionable whether the project was cost effective under normal conditions, no more than 5 to 6 tanks per month could be produced at the moment. But conditions were not normal, when supplies had to reach Greece going round Africa and a handful of tanks was better than no tanks. And the Greeks had at least made what appeared to be a good choice on what to licence, the British cabinet had already decided to stop production of the Crusader and standardise instead on the Centaur with a variant armed with a 6 pdr gun due to enter production in April.
Iraq, February 4th, 1942
Sulaymaniyah, fell to the Iranian army. This concerned the Iraqi political elites more than the ongoing fighting in the country or the Assyrian and Kurdish revolts up north. The Kurds were endemically revolting since Ottoman times but their uprisings could be usually bought off or put down. The Assyrians were few in numbers, if need be they could be dealt with extreme prejudice and driven off the country, as shown at Simele 8 years earlier. The Iranians though could be an existential threat particularly when the majority of Iraq's population were Shia potentially more sympathetic to Iran than to the Iraqi Sunni elites. Within a week of the fall of Sulaymaniyah the Iraqi senate had proclaimed prince Abdullah king of the Arabs. If that raised a few eyebrows in other Arab capitals from Cairo and Damascus to Riyadh and Raban, Abdullah did not much mind, after all his father had been proclaimed exactly that back in 1916 and Abdullah's ambitions did not end with Iraq and Transjordan. As for the British what mattered mos at this time was getting someone loyal on the Iraqi throne and Abdullah had proven his loyalty by actions. If his post-war ambitions included Syria, why that was a French mandate. It wouldn't be so bad if it passed into the British sphere of influence...
Erzurum, February 6th, 1942
The Soviet Caucasus army sprang to the attack. No reinforcements had reached the Soviets for the past several months. But the Turks had pulled out some forces for the assault on Smyrna and Stalin, in the middle of the ongoing Soviet winter counterattacks had considered the time correct to up the pressure on the Turks. It quickly proved it was not, the 10 Turkish and the two German divisions in the Caucasus front had been well prepared and carefully dug in. Yet the offensive would continue for the next five weeks despite gaining almost no ground. One thing it did accomplish was running the casualties up. And the Soviets did have hundreds of tanks and lots of artillery...
Berlin, February 11th, 1942
It had initially looked to marshal Fevzi Cakmak that his visit had been a failure. The German officials receiving him had been more than friendly and thanks to Hitler's hero worship for Kemal he had received him in person and was way more cooperative than any of the German minor allies could normally expect. But the Germans were not forthcoming with more German made guns and aircraft than what they had already promised. Hitler when he had met him had start a tirade citing exact numbers and figures and how little more could be spared. Till Cakmak had questioned if the Germans could not spare any more of the war spoils from the 1939-41 campaigns or the recently disarmed Vichy army. And there he had hit the jackpot. He returned to Turkey with promises of hundreds of artillery pieces, tens of thousands of light arms, D-520 fighters and Leo-451 bombers. Turkey would not be the sole recipient, once the German planners had got going they had added the Bulgarians to the deliveries as well but still...
Appendix French ships making it to Algiers
BB: Jean Bart
CA: Colbert, Foch
DD: Verdun, Kersaint, Vautur, Ferfaut, Cassard, L' Adroit, Casque, Mameluk
SS: Casablanca, Iris, Marsouin, Glorieux, Eurydice, Galatee, Naiade, Redoutable
Kirkuk fell to 8th Indian division. Further east the Iranian army, 3 infantry divisions and a cavalry brigade with 46,000 men in total, had crossed the border and were advancing on Sulaymaniyah. This was just a fraction of the 126,000 men the Iranian army, had on paper but the remaining 80,000 were tied down "securing lines of communications within Iran", a polite way of saying keeping the government of the republic safe and an eye on the Soviets, although admitedly large numbers of men were also needed to maintain the flow of supplies going to the Soviet Union. Besides Iran did not have sufficient artillery to properly arm up to Western standards the 9 divisions it had on paper but Pahlavi had bought more than sufficient modern material for the three divisions it was engaging. Further west the French 86e DI and the 5th Indian division kept advancing up the Tigris. The Axis prospects were looking if not bleak at least problematic as Slim advanced slowly but inexorably north and the Turkish road and rail network at this time of years did not allow more than a trickle of reinforcements to reach the defenders...
Singapore, January 21st, 1942
Japanese bombers hit once more the city and the port. The British army in Malaya had not been pushed into Singapore, just yet but it has in headlong retreat and it looked as if nothing was going to stop it short of Singapore. But Singapore, the "Gibraltar of the East" with its powerful fortifications would surely hold and more reinforcements were pouring in, two brigades or the British 18th Infantry Division were already on the way...
Tunisia, January 22nd, 1942
The Germans and Italians start consolidating their positions. Tunisia was defensible and easier to supply than Libya given the proximity of Tunis and Bizerta to the southern Italian ports. But the Axis had lost nearly 60,000 men and 400 tanks during Crusader and the retreat to Tunisia, it would need time to recover and from now on would be facing a two front war, west against the French, Juin was already shipping reinforcements by rail to De Lattre, and east against the British. The sole redeeming factor was that the British and French would also need time to recover and consolidate their gains. The only question was who would be ready first...
Rabaul, New Guinea, January 23rd, 1942
A Japanese brigade landed in the port and drove back the Australian garrison after hard fighting. It would take the Japanese well into February to complete mop up operations and establish a secure defensive perimeter for the port but the result was by then a foregone conclusion.
Limerick, Ireland, January 25th, 1942
The first US troops reached Europe. Numbers were still comparatively few, there would be some time yet before any significant American forces managed to reach Europe, particularly with German submarines running amok, the Germans had extended operations close to the US coast and the USN had proven unprepared to deal with this, nine ships had been sunk in the last two weeks and six more would be sunk by the end of the month. But the Americans were back...
Gorgopotamos, Central Greece, January 30th, 1942
Expansion of the part of the Piraeus-Athens-Thessaloniki railway still under Greek control had begun as early as the previous June, when it looked that the front had stabilized. The single track railroad available at the start of the war, had a maximum theoretical capacity of 20 trains of 35 wagons daily with work underway to increase it to 24 trains daily. It was recognized already before the war that much improving capacity beyond this was problematic as long as the railroad remained single track, but the Hellenic State Railways had more pressing priorities when large areas or the country had no railroads at all and marine traffic was always a readily available alternative for bulk cargo. Construction troops were readily available, tens of thousands of Greek and Serb soldiers had been removed from the front when the Greek and Yugoslav divisions had been consolidated. Rolling stock, railway tracks and tooling, had been provided in American lend lease shipments. It still had taken more than 7 months of work to lay down the double track from Piraeus all the way up to Gorgopotamos....
Toulon, January 29th, 1942
Gabriel Auphan, had tried to delay taking drastic measures over the navy for the past few weeks in the face of a drastically deteriorating situation. The "zone libre" had been occupied by the Germans. Petain remained technically head of state, the old man had rejected his pleas to flee to Algiers till it was too late. Now he was under German control and the Germans had quickly installed Pierre Laval as his prime minister who was not making secret his support for them. The previous day French Morocco, had followed Algeria to joining again the fighting against the Germans, Nogues claiming, that the French government in Vichy could not operate freely. Algeria and Morocco had technically not joined De Gaulle but this was likely to happen in due time. As for the navy with Darlan in German captivity technically he was the highest ranking officer in the navy. But even he could not ignore Castex and Darlan's predecessor Durand-Viel who both had joined De Gaulle and were now calling on the Toulon fleet to sail for Algiers. Insubordination was appearing already among his own crews with demands to set sail for Algiers.
In the end the Germans and Italians had not waited, as German troops and the Italian Littorio armoured division, recently redeployed from Greece had been ordered into Toulon. Auphan's time was up. But with the Germans in sight, the decision had proven simpler than it seemed when he agonized over it in the previous days. Dunkerque her damaged in the battle of the Ligurian sea unrepaired had been scuttled in place. So had 3 cruisers, 10 destroyers, 11 submarines and several auxiliaries that were unable to sail away. But every ship that could set sail for Algiers had done so. German and Italian aircraft had attacked the escaping ships almost immediately sinking the battleship Bretagne, 2 cruisers and 4 destroyers, the French ships lacked radar and had deficient air defences. But Jean Bart and several more ships had made it to Algiers.
Eleusis, February 1st, 1942
The first production batch of Kentauros tanks, for all practical purposes a close copy of the British Centaur tank modified for Greek industrial conditions, was delivered to the army. It was highly questionable whether the project was cost effective under normal conditions, no more than 5 to 6 tanks per month could be produced at the moment. But conditions were not normal, when supplies had to reach Greece going round Africa and a handful of tanks was better than no tanks. And the Greeks had at least made what appeared to be a good choice on what to licence, the British cabinet had already decided to stop production of the Crusader and standardise instead on the Centaur with a variant armed with a 6 pdr gun due to enter production in April.
Iraq, February 4th, 1942
Sulaymaniyah, fell to the Iranian army. This concerned the Iraqi political elites more than the ongoing fighting in the country or the Assyrian and Kurdish revolts up north. The Kurds were endemically revolting since Ottoman times but their uprisings could be usually bought off or put down. The Assyrians were few in numbers, if need be they could be dealt with extreme prejudice and driven off the country, as shown at Simele 8 years earlier. The Iranians though could be an existential threat particularly when the majority of Iraq's population were Shia potentially more sympathetic to Iran than to the Iraqi Sunni elites. Within a week of the fall of Sulaymaniyah the Iraqi senate had proclaimed prince Abdullah king of the Arabs. If that raised a few eyebrows in other Arab capitals from Cairo and Damascus to Riyadh and Raban, Abdullah did not much mind, after all his father had been proclaimed exactly that back in 1916 and Abdullah's ambitions did not end with Iraq and Transjordan. As for the British what mattered mos at this time was getting someone loyal on the Iraqi throne and Abdullah had proven his loyalty by actions. If his post-war ambitions included Syria, why that was a French mandate. It wouldn't be so bad if it passed into the British sphere of influence...
Erzurum, February 6th, 1942
The Soviet Caucasus army sprang to the attack. No reinforcements had reached the Soviets for the past several months. But the Turks had pulled out some forces for the assault on Smyrna and Stalin, in the middle of the ongoing Soviet winter counterattacks had considered the time correct to up the pressure on the Turks. It quickly proved it was not, the 10 Turkish and the two German divisions in the Caucasus front had been well prepared and carefully dug in. Yet the offensive would continue for the next five weeks despite gaining almost no ground. One thing it did accomplish was running the casualties up. And the Soviets did have hundreds of tanks and lots of artillery...
Berlin, February 11th, 1942
It had initially looked to marshal Fevzi Cakmak that his visit had been a failure. The German officials receiving him had been more than friendly and thanks to Hitler's hero worship for Kemal he had received him in person and was way more cooperative than any of the German minor allies could normally expect. But the Germans were not forthcoming with more German made guns and aircraft than what they had already promised. Hitler when he had met him had start a tirade citing exact numbers and figures and how little more could be spared. Till Cakmak had questioned if the Germans could not spare any more of the war spoils from the 1939-41 campaigns or the recently disarmed Vichy army. And there he had hit the jackpot. He returned to Turkey with promises of hundreds of artillery pieces, tens of thousands of light arms, D-520 fighters and Leo-451 bombers. Turkey would not be the sole recipient, once the German planners had got going they had added the Bulgarians to the deliveries as well but still...
Appendix French ships making it to Algiers
BB: Jean Bart
CA: Colbert, Foch
DD: Verdun, Kersaint, Vautur, Ferfaut, Cassard, L' Adroit, Casque, Mameluk
SS: Casablanca, Iris, Marsouin, Glorieux, Eurydice, Galatee, Naiade, Redoutable
So i'm a bit unclear, but has Iraq actually flipped now? Or just a new , more receptive to peace offers king? Is that the government in allied hands or the axis supported one breaking rank? Interesting implications for an Arab state though for certain anyway. Fingers crossed for the revolts as well.
I'm really curious what's going to happen with Stalingrad now. especially since iotl the Germans were pretty close to the Caspian by November. The active Caucusus front will probably be a massive problem then. I wonder if the Soviets would try to hold and risk an encirclement or pull back since I don't see how they could be supplied if the Germans reach anywhere near where they did iotl, maybe allied supplies though Iran but...
That would be... not good for... everybody not a Turk in the Caucasus.
I honestly forget how much, how, and when, these got used otl but that's just given the Axis minors a major boost hasn't it? Honestly kinda wonder if Stalingrad will go to the Soviets now...
This update shows the differences between ittl and otl quite well, in that Vichy France's navy is defecting instead of being scuttled, the USSR Vs Turkey, lend lease on Greece... The North African front will end soonish if things go well.
On Stalingrad idk how'd that go. On one hand the Soviets are using their resources in the Caucasus. On the other it shouldn't be too hard to shift the troops in Asia minor to move back to Russia.
On Stalingrad idk how'd that go. On one hand the Soviets are using their resources in the Caucasus. On the other it shouldn't be too hard to shift the troops in Asia minor to move back to Russia.
What Axis forces are currently available in Tunisia?
This is a great step to assist Allied logistics. And it is an investment that will pay dividends for Greece in the post-war era, especially if double-tracking the railroad gradually continues to Thessaloniki and the serbian border.
1 modern BB, 2 CA and 8 DDs. This is a veritable squadron and a very fine addition to the Indo-Pacific Theater once Italy flips.
I would guess that most of the machine tools would be recently imported. So, post-war the greek industry will have a rather modern industry with trained personnel...
I am very much looking forward to the post-war settlement of the Middle East. If anything, the French are in a stronger position and will try to maintain influence via proxies.
While greek tank production may not affect the war much it will provide the greek industry with experience in heavy vehicle manufacturing.
If you want to get technical the legitimate king is Gazi, who is with the Germans, along with Rashid Ali and what remains of the Iraqi army. The British in Baghdad are... somewhat unimpressed by the argument.
The distances involved are pretty big. But a lot is at stake from the Soviet point of view, from their oil supply to the fate of most their population in the Caucasus who have... reasons to be wary.
And isn't that an interesting turn of phrase? For example there is an ongoing Chechen uprising under the Israilov brothers already since 1940 which the Germans did contact but did not really support. The Turks have advantages here from being fellow Muslims, the sultan conveniently is still around as caliph, to ethnic ties, throughout the previous century hundreds of thousands of more Muslim Caucasian refugees made it to Anatolia. And if Chechens are short of limited in numbers... what about Azeris?
The Romanians were given 252 former Czech artillery pieces. The Bulgarians 617 including 232 modern German howitzers. Weren't the Germans good at prioritizing?
No Mers El Kebir or invasion of Syria or invasion of Madagascar earlier on. Vichy's relations with the allies may not be any better but perceptions of the rank and file in its armed forces most likely are, with little in the way of actually fighting the allies.
Roughly the lower casualties the Soviets did suffer in 1941 and the army they had occupying Iran are cancelled out by the forces fighting in the Turkish front. Roughly...
Over 125,000 men and 167 tanks. With reinforcements on the way.
And once the ships are refitted. But La Royale is a lot stronger TTL. One potential side effect this may lead to is fewer American and British ships transferred to France, the French have to crew a lot more ships and before metropolitan France gets liberated their naval manpower will be relatively limited.
Greece did have a small car and steel industry already at the start of the war TTL, the Ford factory that had gone to Turkey in OTL went to Greece TTL. And had some locomotive works even earlier. So has a starting point not much different than Romania and not much behind Australia. Now the Romanians unlike Hungary tried but did not manage to build tanks domestically but that had a lot to do with lack of German aid. The allies in contrast are helping each other. So yes it seems to me sending some tooling to Greece would be making sense giving shipping constraints. And if the US was willing to provide industrial supplies to the USSR and Britain why not Greece (or Ireland) also? The amounts would be after all miniscule for the US but pretty significant for Greece...
Whic is good news for the Lebanese for a start...
Tractors have their uses...
What would the Greek tanks be called? Like we have the British Kentaros but I hope ittl we get a mythological creatures naming convention. A 'Hydra' and 'Lamia' tank would be fun.
As I see it, the timing of a successful Crusader is pretty much excellent. It corresponds with the soviet counter-offensive and the culmination of Eastern Front's battles. In my understanding, the OKH had moved in December 1941 additional forces to the Eastern Front - at least three infantry divisions that I am sure of.
I think the available armoured formation at this point is the 22nd Panzer Division. I doubt the other newly-formed panzer divisions would be available. The 23rd is already transfered to the Eastern Front and the 24th is under formation in East Prussia. Even so, the 22nd Panzer is just finishing forming and in OTL was able to move (towards the Eastern Front) at mid-February 1942.
