NationStates Jolt Archive

Laying back, supported by a stump of red brick that used to be a garden wall, heel nervously scraping the earth as the sun beats down, finally, that sound! One last pop followed by the tell-tale tinkling of metal falling to the pavement. Jens scrambles up, almost tripping over the rubble, and lets off a burst of 7.92mm kurz ammunition at the shape of a G.I. frantically trying to force a fresh clip into his Garand rifle.

Hit by the brunt of the burst the American slumps heavily, betrayed by his weapon's automatic ejection of its spent clip which, by its audible report, told Jens that he was temporarily unarmed, out of ammunition. He didn't have time to realise it, but this G.I. was the last living, unwounded, and uncaptured allied soldier in Le Havre, and his demise properly ended resistance and gave the port back to the Reich. If things continue in this manner it won't be very long before General Doll's army group has cut through the western allies' major line of supply and, ultimately, France falls for a second time in five years.

To be continued...

OOC: Welcome to the introduction thread! Before you ask, yes, this is another Third Reich alternate history nation, and yes I'm sure we've all seen them before. I'd just like to say that of course I'm sensitive to the controversial nature of such an account, and have already posted a thread in Moderation double-checking the rules, and ask that anyone who wants to take issue with anything that I do should contact me there Link! (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=540994)

Also, an OOC thread Link! (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=542519) Please feel free to drop in there if you're interested in getting involved.

As to interaction with Tausendjahriges-Reich, well this thread will start out mostly as a story, explaining how things are different in my timeline, and I am going somewhere with it, sort of. Still, if your nation was involved in WWII and you are interested in submitting to an alternate history you are free to write of your nation's mood in respect of events that I describe, or even to perhaps describe how your nation's forces suffer with the reeling Allies or leap on to the Germans' coat tails, so long as it doesn't derail my version of events before I say that I'm done with what's planned!

I may have the nation exist in two forms, one back in the war and the other perhaps more open to interaction with other tech periods, so feel free to give me a shout.

Following the first Battle of France, otherwise a resounding victory in which the nation could be described as having been steamrolled if only a steamroller could have moved half so fast as the Wehrmacht's advance, the Luftwaffe's failure to destroy the British Expeditionary Force at Dunkirk represented to many of the military's finest the likely begining of the end for Germany.

That Goering made the miscalculation and, more importantly, that Hitler unwisely listened to him against the protestations of his Generals on the ground, represented something perilously close to an historic turning point.

Still, close is nothing in itself.

Initially, Hitler refused to consider an invasion of the British Isles, convinced that the cultured and globally successful English were just too alike to his vision for the Aryan race for Britain and Germany to be anything but natural allies. Ultimately he would have to be convinced of London's defiance and its intent to continue the war in spite of losses, and plans for a grand amphibious invasion were already being sketched when one German officer managed by chance to catch the Fuhrer's ear with a risky plan to capture the British government in an airborne operation taking advantage of massive equipment abandonment by the British during their evacuation.*

Since this plan offered a chance for quick victory without the need to destroy the RAF or the Royal Navy or even engage a fully armed British regular army, thus minimising damage to Britain and, in Hitler's wishful thinking, make future relations possible, it was approved at the last minute.

Shortly after the evacuation from Dunkirk, then, on what was for London another foggy day, Fallschirmjager, the Luftwaffe's elite parachute forces, began to descend on England's southeast, supported by newly raised SS Parachute Battalions, the 500th, 501st, and 600th. The massive bulk of Heer forces may not even be required!

Fifty-thousand elite Luftwaffe and SS troops rained down on the green and pleasant island with little warning, though RAF fighter command did react quickly once the assault became evident and the region's skies soon became the stage for intense dogfighting.

*OOC: This is where things start to diverge from real history. Such a plan was put forward by several proponents, but dismissed largely out of Hitler's reticence in attacking the British. In this alternate history I merely have it that one Officer with the gift of the gab happened to get the Fuhrer's ear, possibly at a dinner Hitler hosted for invited officers (I believe that was essentially how the plan to attack France through the Ardennes rather than the Low Countries came about in spite of an initial intention to repeat the advance of the Great War), and convince him that Parliament could be rounded-up within a few days and before Britian could really turn the issue into a major bloodbath that would sour relations forever.

Next, we see how things turn out. No jumping the gun! ;)

Jens Möller only got into the Luftwaffe because his father made a name for himself and his family as an Ace flying a Fokker DV.III towards the end of the Great War. But Jens didn't even enjoy flying, and his skill with a rifle, learned fending off pests and the like on the family property in the east, was sufficient to get him into the ranks of the Fallschirmjager, swapping any thought of 300kt flight for the marginally more secure three engines of Tante Ju, even if it did entail occasionally jumping out.

It was 1940 and Germany was becoming accustomed to the sight of its enemies' white flags. British obstinance was an affront to the Reich, and to the deadly skills of its warriors, and, so, young Jens and his chums were off to arrest Churchill and see to it that somebody more agreeable was put in charge."We'll remind the King of his real name while we're at it!" Jokes Jens' best mate, Willie Rabe, as their Ju-52 transport rattles through English skies, already somewhat the worse for wear after its extensive service in Spain.

On each side of the pair, and opposite them, more semi-elite Luftwaffe soldiers sat, some laughing and chatting, others quietly contemplative or engaged in little rituals meant to get them through the risky jump, or at least make it easier to take, all awaiting the go order. "Must be soon." Said Jens.

Two minutes, which seemed as an hour, passed without further exchange between the two pals. Then, suddenly, Willie looked up at the man opposite, dismayed and ready to mock him for losing his nerve or getting airsick before he realised that the youngster, Haas, hadn't thrown-up on him, the wetness was blood, and Haas, pale faced, mouth agog, displayed a large and grizzly exit wound on his neck.

"Scheiße!" Jens cried, noticing the same, "It's the RAF!"

Indeed it was! A Boulton-Paul Defiant fighter had drawn up beside the clumsy Junkers and turned its unusual turret-mounted quartet of .303" machineguns on the transport's starboard flank, from which it was now chewing great chunks, slaying one man after another.

Panic broke out, an officer stood, despite the pilot's frantic efforts to evade the admittedly less than nimble British interceptor, and repeatedly ordered his men back to their places. First, one, who scrambled from his seat, was shot in the guts at least twice. Then, one who sat caught a round in the back of the head. Next the officer's legs were ripped from under him by a steel tide.

"May as well save the effort." Joked a grim-faced Willie, firmly seated. "If I'm to be shot, I'll be damned if I'm getting up for the service."

Just then, in an instant, the assault halted.

"It's our boys!" Cried somebody as a Bf.110 heavy fighter dove on the interceptor, rattling off heavy fire from its strong forward battery and compelling the British plane to break-off its attack.

The journey continued, now burdoned by the stench of death and the whimpers associated with its inexorable approach upon the wounded...

This really is no better than flying a 109 a parachuting Jens muses, gripping tight the straps securing him to his canopy. England's pretty, though. Plenty of good pasture.

As the company descends, reduced in number, another fall of paratroops can be seen in the distance. They're having a bad time of it, Jens can see. A Home Guard platoon fortunate enough to have a Lewis gun and a few pans of .303" ammunition has the number of some SS troops over the next landing zone, and the few that hit the ground alive will be pinned in a cabbage patch until regular army arrive to finish them off.

Jens and Willie land soon, near a country road running between fields. Most of their planemates are dead in the aircraft, the rest, well, who knows where they landed?

"Come on." Says Jens usually the more practical of the two. "Let's see what that signpost can tell us."

"Enfield, 9." Reads Willie. "Map says that's north of London."

"NORTH!?" Jens exclaims in dismay. "We're done for!"

"No, no!" Replies his mate, scrutinising a blood-stained chart taken from an officer killed during the interception. "They must have switched the signs... to fuck with us." He seemed almost triumphant in having discovered the ruse.

"All right" says a suspiciously calm Möller, "So they changed the signs... HOW THE HELL DOES KNOWING THAT HELP US? We're still fucked! Where's Captain Zickler? Oh, my God in Heaven! Let's just start walking! Maybe somebody will surrender to us and we can ask them for directions."

Willie shrugged and followed his mate down the road, machinepistol hanging from his neck as he continued to peer at the bloody map, stopping from time to time to look around the horizon with a searching expression on his face.

The 501st SS Parachute Battalion was already less than twenty percent combat effective, scores of men landing dead or wounded, the rest pinned by a recklessly valiant Home Guard platoon -including one veteran of the Boer War, who remarked that he'd been shot at by Mauser rifles before and come off all right- when a Vickers 6-ton tanks and two Vickers tankettes, brought back into service to repalce Cruiser and Matilda tanks left in France, arrived to accept their surrender (the SS would not give up their arms to Home Guard, whom they considered illegal combatants).

Jens and Willie, meanwhile, had walked at least a kilometre and were unaware of just how badly the whole invasion was going.

"Hey!" Rabe exclaimed, "Here comes somebody!" and he ran out into the middle of the road, covered in Haas's blood and waving his machinepistol harmlessly over his head as he flagged down what turned out to be a butcher's van. Jens stood dangling his arms as he watched in surprise.

"Halt! Halt! Herr Johnson!" Willie's shouts followed his reading of the van's side and related assumption as to the driver's identity. "Ah... Wo ist London?" he asked, straight faced.

Jens shook his head and his disbelieving eyes followed the van as it trundled away.

"We should have commandered it." He told Willie. "No use." Came the reply. "He's going all the way to Gillingham on a special order. Doesn't know London."

Jens opened his mouth for a moment but then shook his head again and said nothing but, "Let's just keep moving."

_______________________________

"Well, I don't know about you boys, but I'm for taking it and getting the Hell out of here!"

Möller couldn't disagree. Despite his fears he was the only one who could fly worth a damn, and Willie was cracking up fit to get them all caught or killed. Escape now and explain later, or hang around until Willie loses the plot and gets somebody else shot.

The friends, along with three half-starved countrymen they'd found lying in a Surrey field, climbed aboard a British transport aircraft, clearly laid-up due to an urgent need for repair, and made for the continent, there to waggle their wings in surrender and try to explain their cowardice to Goering.

These were the only five of an eventual sixty-thousand Germans to escape England. The 500th Paras had been bombed to bits attempting to capture a British aerodrome so as to allow Luftwaffe fighters to land and refuel, hit by Bristol Blenheims taking off from the very same field.

The 600th had marched along the south coast after a miss-drop and attempted to take a radar station, but had found the Royal Navy terribly uncooperative. Some eighty warships had arrived from Scapa Flow during their march, and the SS were repulsed by unanswerable naval artillery, later to be revenged upon for having burned on the first day of the invasion a church full of worshipers after mistaking hourly chimes for the warnings of an invasion bell.

The 501st marched out of that cabbage patch and into detention for the duration.

Fallschirmjager fared better for a time, but they too soon ran into trouble. The British may have abandoned much in France, but the Germans came by air with no armour, no mechanisation, no artillery, and without air superiority. This had been no Blitzkreig, and defensive lines at GHQ and elsewhere resisted long enough for the invaders to run low on ammunition and other supplies. Within days the Royal Navy arrived to cut any hope of serious resupply, reinforcement, or retreat, and moral collapsed.

Goering, on Hitler's orders, tried aerial reinforcement but only succeeded in turning fifty thousand trapped men into sixty thousand. Most Luftwaffe, the rest SS.

Debacle was the only word for it, and the myth of unfailing German efficiency was sunk, along with Goering's already tarnished reputation and a little bit of Hitler's previously stunning gloss.

OCC: Intresting indeed, sorry for spoiling it with an OCC post, but would you mind roleplaying as Italy. Basically I will take part in the theares of Yugoslavia ,Greece and North Africa probally needing the help of your Afrika Corps. ;) Btw im not going to create a new account.

OOC: Would I mind you RPing as Italy? No, not really, so long as it doesn't run us into moderation problems. I've checked that I'm okay with this alternate history, presumably since my nation's name clearly refers to the once much-vaunted Thousand Year Reich and as such can be taken as another name for Nazi Germany (even if they did abandon the slogan quite early in the Reich's short life). I've certainly no problem hearing from the Italian perspective about their real troubles and their impression of Germany's altered path, but would you mind telegraming me if you plan to make any major changes? Until now I hadn't invisioned Italy's role altering dramatically until Germany does some more things differently, ultimately making life easier for Mussolini. I'll just need to know if I'm going to need to make some changes to my story, which I've vaguely sketched in my head up to about the end of 1945! At the moment we're just leading up to Italy's ill-advised expedition against the British.
Anyway, thanks for your interest so far. I plan to post the next step tomorrow, which may be more of an over-view than the particular adventures of Herr Möller.

I thought i would just add my congratulations, a well written piece of narrative, obviously researched
Have you read SS-GB, alternate history where Great Britain is successfully occupied, nice book though it could be out of print.
Also Invasion 1940, the nazi invasion plan for Britain by SS General Walter Schellenberg. Its an actual handbook prepared by the germans for their occupying forces.

OOC: Thanks.
I have read some alternate history books, some pure fiction, and some serious attempts to figure-out what might have happened. I've tended to disagree with those that conclude a swift German victory was likely, despite British weaknesses. If nothing else, Hitler would have found a way to cock it up! NATO simulations during the Cold War, I think, tended to show the Germans bogging down, as well. It's harder to effect a Blitzkreig twice on the same enemy and achieve the same sort of surprise, I'd think (especially when his navy and air force are ample compensation for his army's shoddy condition).
Where the heck am I up to? Ha!
Oh, all right, next time I'm moving on to different theatres in an attempt to explain how the botched invasion of Britain alters things elsewhere!

1940 concludes

In late July of 1940 Germany had launched its fifty-thousand man invasion of Great Britain, using Luftwaffe Fallschirmjager, such as Jens Möller, and SS troops.

This force had been supposed to round-up the British government by early August and establish a Vichy-esque authority less liable to disrupt the Führer's plans in the east. Unfortunately the British were uncooperative, as were their French and Belgian allies plucked from the grasp of a disbelieving German army when Hitler accepted Goering's assertion that the Luftwaffe could finish the job at Dunkirk. The newly-raised Home Defence Volunteers -the Home Guard- fought with courage where they lacked equipment, and defensive lines slowed the unmechanised airborne force, which laboured under British air superiority.

Ten thousand airborne reinforcements some weeks into the campaign and the start of a bombing campaign against London -the Blitz- involving over six-hundred German bomber aircraft kept the invasion alive as Italy declared war and launched offensives against British Somaliland and Egypt, using a total of four hundred and fifty thousand troops against less than forty thousand British defenders, and also attacked Greece from bases in Albania.

Hitler was furious at being let down by Goering for a second time, and also by his own SS, and equally irritated by Mussolini's decision to get into a war with the Greeks, who were giving him more trouble than he anticipated. The Germans were bogged-down in Britain, which was receiving supplies from the United States, and the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force combined to prevent any major evacuation of sixty thousand semi-elite forces.

There was no question of heading east while the Luftwaffe was absolutely committed and the Reich's best soldiers were trapped.

Jens, escaped from England, was not surprised to learn that the British had turned around the Italian offensive in Egypt and over-run 130,000 soldiers with just 30,000 men of their own. "The British can fight." He would say, from bitter experience, with a shrug.

Britain, responding to the first accidental bombing of London, had stepped up her raids on German cities and even bombed Berlin for the first time. Germany's response, showering London and other cities with hundreds of thousands of tonnes of explosives, offered slight relief to the invasion force as British personnel were tied-up in air defence and related duties and the RAF had less time to worry about Goering's battered aerial bridge that was still barely keeping the Fallschirmjager in food and ammunition.

Then it was put to Hitler that with Britain's forces tied to home defence there was little prospect of their being reinforced in Africa. If he couldn't beat Churchill at home, at least he might strike a vengeful blow by driving the British from North Africa for good.

The Afrika Corps was dispatched promptly, much faster than might otherwise have been the case, to back-up the failing Italians. The British had no choice but to fall back, and back, and back, ending up on the Nile. No reinforcements could reach them while the job of finishing off the Luftwaffe's troops in England was unfinished. The Italian Northern Army under the Duke of Acosta restarted its thrust from the southeast once German forces, under the already famous Rommel, had broken the back of British resistance.

Thousands of Italian POWs were rescued -much to their chagrin- and Egypt was gradually over-run, even as the Greeks pushed Mussolini's forces back into Albania and the British broke-up and captured the last elements of Goering's invasion force in southern England.

For outsiders betting on a final outcome to the war these contrasting fortunes made life difficult to say the least, and with 1941 appearing over the horizon Europe faced another year of uncertainty and violence.

Bring on '41!

1941 opened with Britain and Germany still bombing one another's cities on a regular basis. The SS and Luftwaffe were humiliated and weakened on the ground, Britain's forces bottled-up at home with token showings in Sudan and Kenya and in the sub-continent, the Mediterranean a Fascist lake since Rommel's over-running of North Africa, Malta isolated and bombed, Aden bombed, Gibraltar bombed, Afrika Corps forces moving into the Middle East to confront remaining British outposts, Japan aligned to Italy and Germany, Hungary and Romania allied to Germany, Greece invading Italian Albania, the USSR in Moldova, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, Japan pushing back the Chinese, and America at odds with itself as to whether to remain isolationist or prepare for war.

Then came March. Bulgaria declared itself with the Axis, a minor concern to the rest of the world. Then, in Iraq, an Arab nationalist, Sayyad Rashid Ali al-Gailani, came to power and reached-out to the Axis in hopes of diminishing British influence over his land.

Hitler had wanted to begin preparations for the invasion of Russia, and the Reich was concerned for the safety of its oil reserves in Romania owing to Soviet expansionism, which had already forced Romania to surrender some territory. But anti-Nazi sentiment was strong, especially in the apolitical Wehrmacht. Several ranking officers had privately said -or written- that the German people did not want this war, many felt that it could not be won, and still others were aghast at the senselessness of the Reich's concentration camps. But Hitler remained popular for his war on unemployment and his failures against the British were off-set to a degree by the victories of his Generals elsewhere.

These Generals, of course, felt differently to the public, and many saw their lord and master as an incumberance more than a leader. Rommel was one opponent of at least some of Hitler's policies, and this may have counted for little -for he was certainly a loyal soldier before he was a political critic- except for his vital face-saving victory over the British in North Africa so soon after the disaster in England. The Heer wanted to invade the Middle East and cut-off the last of Britain's access to oil there, which was already badly hurt by Italio-German domination of North and East Africa, infringing on Britain's ability to access the Suez and the Mediterranean.

Despite Hitler's orders to prepare for war on a new eastern front, the Wehrmacht enables the Desert Fox to press on into Arabia, and Italy's forces, independent of Hitler's command, see isolated Aden as another soft target, the sort that Mussolini loves, and so send their own forces there.

Rommel's resources are limited by Hitler's continued direction of resources to Eastern Europe, but his officers are increasingly defiant, ever more confident of their own abilities and of his weaknesses. The SS, badly hurt in England, is no longer so powerful a sword as once Hitler wielded against his domestic opponents. The British in Palestine and elsewhere are in a far worse condition, anyway. The Mediterranean is a graveyard of British shipping, civil and military, and Malta is starving. Even the reclusive Regia Marina dares to sorties forth once again, and with Lebanon and Syria now under Vichy French control and Iraq in arms against them, the British have no hope in the Middle East.

Before long, Rommel's forces are in relatively friendly Iran, welcomed by Reza Shah, and Hitler is presented a mouth-watering proposition: wait until next summer and we will be able to attack the USSR from the south as well as the west. He has no choice: plots against the Fuhrer have already been discovered, and Hitler's closest allies suspect that the majority of the Wehrmacht would side against them if push came to shove. The Heer has performed too well, and the Nazi SS and Goering's Luftwaffe too poorly.

Hitler's lust for living-space for the German people, and his racial vitriol, are to be sated for now by the invasion of Yugoslavia, which is carried-out at terrifying speed, and the Heer proves itself once again by reversing Italy's sorry fortunes in Greece. British forces stranded in Greece are captured, further denting the island nation's moral as its fuel supplies dry-up and brave little Malta is forced to run-up the white flag after withstanding months of bombing and ceasing to receive any meaningful supply.

The Reich is on the brink of succumbing to a military government, and Hitler, rather than rebounding from his set-backs, seems to become excessively stressed, constantly angry, and exhibits more rather than less of the erratic behaviour that has so hurt his position in the eyes of his most important servants.

He cares little for massive anti-partisan operations that sweep all opposition before them, made possible only by the narrow decision to postpone the invasion of the USSR until summer of '42, and has nothing to say when in Yugoslavia a Josip Broz, calling himself Tito, is captured by German forces and executed by Croatian Fascists assigned to guard him. With Europe almost totally under his control, if he wants it, Hitler astounds his officers one more time.

On the 7th of December, 1941, the Empire of Japan, having taken Indochina and preparing invasions of Thailand and Malaysia, launches a surprise attack on the United States, at Pearl Harbour, and Hitler responds by declaring war on the slumbering hulk of America.

Nobody can quite believe it, and likely it is only shock that prevents an immediate coup from being carried out against this man who seems determined to undo every hard-won victory that his army delivers into his lap.

OOC: again, I apologies for ruining your thread with an OOC post. I'd just like to confirm my interest in this as Pictish soldiers theoretically served in WWII (See 'History' in my signature; then hit 'Modernity'), after being pulled into the war in 1941 and engaging Nazi forces in the Blitz of Pictavia. (See 'Wiki' in my signature, and hit 'Geography: These Isles are intended to be roughly the size of the UK, situated off the mouth of the Mediterranean) One more thing: What nation did you previously play as? I'lll have a post up ASAP, I just need time to catch-up with the story.

January, 1941

The Pictish campaign against Falangist Spain is abandoned, the last supporters of the republic either arrested or exiled. The source of the move? Growing pressure from the 'former' British Empire to open-up a new front in the Mediterranean against the Axis war-machine, however the British Empire lost their control over Pictavia in 1917. Regardless of politics, Hitler declared war. An isle of such strategic importance in the Mediterranean, aligned undoubtedly to their Celtic brethren in Scotland could not go by unscathed. By late January, Pictish paratroopers were conducting raids in Vichy-France, eventually clashing with Nazi troops in the north. In the sea, the Pictish fleet was no-match for the superior German forces, although had been reinforced with British battlegroups retreating from Malta and North Africa, at the port of Gibraltar.

*****

Lieutenant Abbán kept his body bent, head down, as he ran through the long grass. His face was caked in dirt and black-smoke, giving way only to the sweat that ran down his brow. Abbán through himself to the earth as he reached two more of his men, one of whom was armed with a bazooka. The lieutenant looked both of the men in the eye, then gave a short nod. The Private with the bazooka popped his head above the grass for but a moment and fired a rocket straight into the side of a German Panzer, sending flame and ash rolling into the air. With the left-side of the tanks tracks melted, the great-machine charged sideways into a ditch, where a shell misfired and tore into the dirt before it.

"Go, go, go!" Lieutenant Abbán had suddenly sprang into life, moving through the grass and waving his arm to the other concealed paratroopers. Several more bazooka rounds impacted on the other two tanks accompanying it, but were largely unaffective. Three German half-tracks brought up the rear, but their thinner armor had already given-way to the unrelenting Pictish fire. German troops spilled out of the vehicles in all directions, but were torn to shreds by fifty cal. fire before they could dismount. The two remaining operational Panzers swung round their turrets and opened-fire, sending the charred corpses of Pictish paratroopers into the air. Another round of bazooka fire thumped into the metal monsters, hacking away the turret of one. Unable to fire its main gun, the wounded tank began to advance at full speed off the road and through the grass, its machinegun silencing any soldiers who got too close. One man, a Sergeant Ghenna, ran full pelt towards the thing, his Thompson waving awkwardly in one arm. In his other hand was a small object, not larger than a ration pack. He leaped over the final mound and slammed the package onto the underside of the beast, throwing himself over a verge as flames consumed the tank in a hail of twisted metal and fire. The final Panzer halted its advance some thirty meters behind the metal corpse, firing intermittently into the grass. Then, Second squad of First Platoon ran from their cover at the other side of the road where they had been lying patiently, and jumped aboard the tank, opening the buckled hatch and throwing down three grenades. The men were in and out before the German infantry knew there were enemies among their ranks.

Abbán found himself on the front line, his Garand going through clip after clip of ammo. The toasted half-tracks provided decent cover for his men as they weaved their way towards the last German infantry. He continued firing, three rounds tearing into the chest of one soldier, then his magazine popped out. As he scrambled for another clip he realized that there were no-other shots in sound. The raid was complete.

OOC: Is it okay if I RP the Soviet Union? I have always had a fascination with that country. If not, simply tell me so and I will delete this post.

IC:
The Kremlin, Moscow, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

Joseph Vissiaronovich Stalin was in a good mood, the rebuilding and reformation of the Red Army was going on schedule and he no longer had too worry about the Japanese threat. Already, he had ordered 150,000 men westward from Siberia to protect against any attempts by the Germans.

His Generals had actually said this was a wise move, as even with this transfer of men and equipment, there were still plenty left over in case the Japanese broke the neutrality pact and tried too move northward... which they probably wouldnt, given what was happening with America. A good number of that 150,000 men, of course, would head South, to protect against the German forces in Iran.

He gave another complacent grin as he picked up the next sheet of paper, production of the new T-34 had improved again! By close to mid-1942, the report said, all of the Red Armies mechanized units would have a good number of T-34s. Also, tests of the 85mm tank gun were coming along nicely, perhaps it should replace the current 76mm on the T-34 when the time came?

Stalin scrawled a note and leaned back in his chair, content. By Late-Spring, 1942, the Red Army will have over 500 well-armed, well-led divisions, with new doctrine that should help counter the new German Lightning War tactics.

Perhaps, Stalin mused, I should backstab that Fascist in Berlin come Spring, 1943?

OOC2: The way I set this up is accurate. Had the Germans not invaded, the Red Army will indeed have reformed itself in 1942 too a level approaching, though not quite matching, the German capability for maneuver warfare. In addition, it will indeed would have had 500 divisions by Spring 1942, with more by the end of the year. Also, the mechanized units would have been well stocked with T-34s by this time. So dont expect an easy fight, come 1942.

OOC: Welcome to the thread, guys. New OOC thread just posted, but I think because this account is so new we have to wait for a mod to clear it or something, so I can't link you to it! You're all welcome in principle, but hopefully we can address a few things in the OOC thread, when it appears, before we get ahead of ourselves.

Jens hadn't seen his mate Willie for some time. After recovering in Germany, Möller was sent to the Balkans where he took part in the operation that lead to the capture of Tito and the collapse of the most powerful partisan army in Yugoslavia. Rabe was more traumatised by the fighting in England and took longer to recover. He would be dispatched to Iran, to help man a German outpost in the north, but not for some months yet.

Some more good news heartened Axis warriors on Christmas day: the Imperial Japanese Army had entered Hong Kong.

In the first month of 1942, Japan gave Germany more cause to feel confident, launching into Indonesia and, more importantly, into Burma, removing any possibility of the British in India freeing up forces to attack Iran and threaten Germany's domination of Middle Eastern oil supplies. By February Singapore had fallen, and in May there was a mood of jubilation as the British abandoned Burma and the Americans were forced to surrender the Philippines. These Japanese really did seem to be living up to their unofficial label as Aryans of the East.

In the Reich, meanwhile, more than three and a quarter million German and over one million other Axis troops were massing in the east, and Jens went with them. Stalin was told that resources were moving east to avoid British bombing raids, which continued against Germany. It was said that Germany planned a more serious invasion of Britain -an idea surely reinforced in Stalin's eyes by the fact that there had been a previous attempt with just sixty-thousand men, which failed- and also wanted to build-up in Iran for a campaign into British India to link up with the Japanese and finally crush any hope for the British.

Invasion!

Interest in Japanese victories in the east, meanwhile, was to be over-shadowed by the opening of Operation Barbarossa, in May* 1942.

Observing a build-up of Soviet forces in the USSR's west, German planners, by and large, actually express cautious optimism. The more forces that are concentrated close to the border, the more can be over-run in the opening days of the assault, and the less can be called-on to relieve them later on.

Jens, for now, is glad to be fighting an enemy he regards as less capable than the British, and glad to have no sea behind him to prevent his retreat should it all go wrong a second time!

Axis forces crashed across the frontiers in their millions, displaying an impressive degree of mechanisation and supported by upgraded Pz.IV medium tanks, new assault guns, and aircraft such as the Fw.190 fighter and fighter-bomber. Hundreds of thousands of Romanian, Slovakian, Croatian, Hungarian, Bulgarian, and Finnish troops as well as the Spanish Blue Division and hundreds of thousands of Italian troops freed-up after victory in North Africa joined the advance.

Three great arms made of five million men thrust themselves into Soviet defences in combined arms offensives furnished with the most modern weapons on earth.

For now, things were actually going well, and though Hitler was still arguing with his Generals, the situation was presently strong. Jens was enjoying his semi-automatic rifle, and killed two Communists, he thought, on the first day!

*OOC: Barbarossa was originally planned for May, I believe, in '41, but delayed partly due to the situation in the Balkans, amongst other factors. By the next year I suppose that there's nothing to stop it happening earlier in the season, though in turn I'm having trouble finding out just how soon the mud/winter came in '42, bearing in mind that it was late in '41. I don't know if the early start will end up helping Germany very much.

By early June the Axis columns had penetrated deep into Soviet territory, lunging past hundreds of thousands of Red Army personnel and trapping them in pockets from which few escaped as dive-bombers screamed in, protected by German fighter aircraft still far superior to their Russian opponents.

Granted, the Soviets had more trained pilots than they would have when Hitler originally desired to attack Stalin, but flying low to tackle German attack aircraft the MiG-3 was still inferior to its opponents. Equally, the Germans were surprised by Soviet tanks, finding the few 37mm anti-tank guns left in service nearly useless against the T-34. Fortunately for the Wehrmacht and its allies this older gun had largely been replaced after being found useless against Britain's Queen of the Desert Matilda tanks, and Pz.III, which would have been out of its depth, was also being withdrawn in favour of the better-armed and armoured Pz.IV, which at least out-gunned T-34 even if the Soviet machine seemed to be giving its crews far less trouble.

On the ground several weeks into the campaign and several hundred kilometres into Soviet territory, Jens Möller was beginning to lose his enthusiasm for his new rifle, a Walther-made Gewehr 41 which had twice failed to operate in the heat of battle, and he had now resolved to lift a bolt-action Mauser from the next dead marksman he found. For all the Axis success so far, there was still no shortage of fallen heroes, and the Communists were proving less encumbered by their supposedly ape-like stupidity than Jens had been lead to expect.

June passed and bad news filtered through from the Pacific. There'd been a to do at some place called Midway. Japan was having some trouble, it seemed, and might not last as long as the Reich had hoped.

Then, in August, the Americans began to launch bombing raids against Germany.

By this time the Axis forces had cut through Poland, the Baltics, Belarus, and Ukraine, but the Soviets were only getting better and better. Their T-34 had shaken off its early problems and was now only troubled by the fact that it couldn't defeat the frontal armour of Germany's new but desperately rare tank -the Tiger- at even point-blank range. Their fighters, though taking horrible losses against Luftwaffe fighters, were felling Stuka and other attack aircraft in significant numbers. Their eastern soldiers were proving twice as tough as their European comrades and sometimes refusing to fall down even after Jens' machinepistol-armed comrades shot them two or three times. The muds would be worsening soon, and summer uniforms starting to feel insufficient.

Hitler had caused further gritting of his commanders' teeth by putting his remaining SS to work rounding-up Gypsies and even Slavic masses as well as Communists and turfing them out of their homes. Potential anti-Soviet allies were being marched into captivity, worked to death, executed on a whim. Then he ordered his central thrust to abandon the drive on Moscow and split to complete victories north and south, finishing off the Ukraine.

After his blundering in France and Britain and near failure to capitalise on the Middle East's vulnerability this was almost too much.

Conspiracies began to ferment even as Hitler's orders were grudgingly obayed.

Walmington, an even littler England even further out on the cold waves of the Atlantic, had, despite its people's loving affinity for mother Britannia, played in the war against Fascism a role most generously described as minor.

Walmington's high command had learned little from the experiences of its volunteers in the Spanish Civil War -at least little beyond that the Bolsheviks weren't to be trusted- and the WEF, Walmington's paltry contribution to the defence of France by way of a token attachment to the British Expeditionary Force, crumbled like a shortbread biscuit at the Marigold Tearooms when confronted by German combined-arms tactics and mobile warfare.

"Damn Bosch!" General Square, WEF Field Commander had complained of his enemy, "What's the point of a properly conducted fusilade if the blighters don't even form rank to face it like men?"

Evacuated on a couple of trawlers and a flight of light transport aircraft, the WEF hung around to support Home Guard units facing Luftwaffe and SS parachute forces in England, and RWAF fighters made a brief showing over Dunkirk, helping to provide cover for Operation Dynamo.

The Royal Walmingtonian Air Force's major achievement was its low loss rate, which was similar in scope to its anemic kill tally. Walmington's Highwayman fighter, an aircraft driven by a wooden two-blade fixed-pitch propellor, was an awkward halfway house of an interceptor and air-superiority fighter, resembling outwardly the Boulton-Paul Defiant flown at the time by the more engaging RAF.

When German pilots mistook Defiants for Hurricanes they tended to get a mouthfull of .303" ammunition from four turret-mounted machineguns such as would later damage the Iron Annie transport aboard which Jens and Willie were flying. The Highwayman, though it mounted a less-formidable aft battery of just two relatively slow-firing Walmingtonian .303" guns, achieved some protection by its Defiant-mocking disguise.

However, when Luftwaffe pilots realised that the Defiant was defenceless in a head-on engagement the British began to suffer, and the Walmingtonians too were attacked face to face. The Highwayman, though, bore two fixed forward-firing machineguns close to its nose. Thus Highwaymen were able to waylay several unsuspecting Germans before it was realised that, on any angle, a 109's forward battery completely outclassed a Highwayman's defences.

The RWAF gave up and ran for home before losses became too great, and though some Walmingtonian reinforcements were rushed to the aid of reeling British forces in North Africa the smallness of the Royal Walmingtonian Navy meant that increasing Axis naval and aerial domination of the Mediterranean ruled-out a serious campaign for Britannia's most devoted child. Several weeks into the Blitz Walmingtonian fighters were returned to Britain, but again they came in small numbers, and though the Highwayman was largely replaced, its successor, the Wren, was essentially a smaller and inferior relative of the Hurricane still unable to go toe to toe with any German aircraft more formidable than a Stuka. The RWN continued anti-submarine operation in the Atlantic, but once again its small size -especially its deficiency in destroyer numbers- limited the real impact of often brave Walmingtonian efforts.

By the time Barbarossa rolled around, many in Great Walmington felt it best to give up on the continentals and let the Nazis and Bolsheviks beat eachother's brains out, so long as the tea trade wasn't directly threatened!

Five months of hard fighting punctuated with great Axis victories and the capture of tens of thousands of Soviet troops, and Jens Möller could see Moscow simply by peering through his rifle's optical sights.

And yet the advance was stopped, caught in bitterly cold Russian mud.

Willie was kicking his heels in sunny Persia and jens was stamping his feet just to keep feeling in them. "I should have gone to pieces" he mused, thinking on Rabe's emotional collapse and how it kept him out of the field long enough to miss the start of Barbarossa.

Möller's diaries from the time were destined for public record. In them he committed to paper a rollercoaster of elation and revulsion shared by many of his Heer comrades on this deadly ride at the carnaval of the eastern front.

"Fucking SS" he writes in September, "there's nothing left of them since England but a wretched beaten dog snapping at everyone who passes by. All they do is round up Gypsies and Jews, shoot un-armed Communists -which makes things worse for us- and kick the Slavs about in Ukraine and Belarus.

"I saw a Ukrainian partisan who had a logbook with three insignia suggesting he'd done away with that many Bolsheviks since we pushed them back across the river, and the SS had strung him up because he was Untermensch. Inferior, they say. At least he killed more Reds than the Nazi Party's thugs did that day!"

Möller's obvious dislike of his Communist enemy is joined by his admiration for both that very same enemy and for the citizens of the Soviet empire who are prepared to resist it from within.

"If only we dared oppose him [Hitler] like those Ukrainians who greeted us with flowers at Lviv."

His last entry for several days reads simply. "Can see Moscow. We stopped to days ago. Yesterday they started their counter-attack one day after marching all the way from the east. Siberian? Central Asian? Hard as boots! Falling back. At least I got a good coat. No time to write."

______________________________

That was October. Möller spent the next few months fending off swarms of Russian troops as the Axis lines fell back and surrendered more and more of Hitler's precious living room.

In the first month of 1943 the Jews of Warsaw rose and were crushed after a valiant bid for freedom, and in March Hungary required Wehrmacht attention to avert an anti-Axis shift. The Communists managed even in winter to fly constant sortiesagainst the Axis and launch countless ground offensives with artillery and armour support. It was a Viking's hell on earth, and everyone's heard the stories. Horrid, cold, huge clashes of armour, showers of artillery and rocketry, waves of humanity torn apart.

The reduced SS was by now dedicated to the final solution while the Heer and Luftwaffe fought with extra manpower than might have gone into the SS if anybody had still been listening to Hitler and his increasingly detached ravings.

In early summer extra Italian troops arrived from a pacified Africa and the Balkans, their nation's flagging spirits somewhat lifted by victory in those theatres, and the Germans started to employ new weapons. The Henschel Hs 293 anti-ship missile had begun to attack the precious allied convoys supplying the Soviet war efforts and was achieving its first kills, Panther tanks were arriving at the front, and new aircraft were starting to show up.

The fighting only intensified.

Summer, 1943

The launch of a summer offensive got Jens moving again, and he found himself chasing Bolshevik forces out of Stalingrad. He was soon stationed in the captured city as his comrades pressed on once again.

A plan was drawn-up for a second attempt on Moscow, but the situation took a turn for the worse. Once again Heer commanders and soldiers were dismayed by the Nazis orders as Hitler resolved to launch two individual operations at one time, and again declined to drive straight for the capital, despite his officers' insistance that this would have fitted far better with his own likely accurate assertion that we have only to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down.

Then, even as significant Italian forces joined the offensives, word arrived of a coup against Mussolini's government. German and Croatian forces were deployed to Italy to restore Fascist order. Military commanders were acutely aware that it was only their victory in north Africa that prevented the Western Allies from taking advantage and landing forces in southern Italy. They were also aware that their glorious leader had wanted to focus on an early attack against the Soviet Union rather than on securing Africa and the Middle East, and that, had the disaster of Britain not delayed Barbarossa by a year, British and American forces would likely now be preparing to drive up the spine of Italy into the Reich itself, drawing more of their forces away from the Russian frontier. Though he of course failed to see it, yet another blow had been delt to the Führer's credability.

At Malgobek, meanwhile, the southern offensive was bogging down, and the Caucasus remaind in Soviet hands even as fighting at Stalingrad became severe, Jens and his comrades fighting street by street to secure the city.

Late 1943

Jens had looked forward to better Christmases. Since capturing this damnable city he'd had little to smile about, and now some bugger called Zhukov was directing a major counter offensive. Things had gone sour quickly, and, by November, Hitler was informed that the 6th Army, along with some associated formations including a corps of the 4th Panzer Army, was trapped in Stalingrad.

Along with Möller some 250,000 German, Romanian, and other Axis troops including a few Croatians, Hungarians, and Italians, were cut-off, immobile, and useful only in absorbing Red Army attentions.

Goering proposed to the Führer that Stalingrad be relieved by air, and owing largely to his stubborn refusal to give-up a city named for his chief nemesis or surrender any of his precious living space, Hitler agreed, despite the objections of Wolfram von Richtofen, commander of Luftflotte 4, and others who pointed to the disaster that resulted from the failed air-bridge to Britain and the resulting depletion of Germany's air transport capacity, which they claimed would have been insufficient even if it had not been so badly damaged by the RAF.

The operation began anyway, but by now opposition was increasingly close to total. Hitler and Goering had failed too many times, and the Heer succeeded in spite of them on such a grand scale.

A with plenty of help from other officers and men, Rommel was convinced to pick up his bored forces in Iran and launch a southern thrust into the Caucasus. The brilliant leader couldn't sit idly by for much longer, merely policing former British colonies and keeping the Vichy French on the right track, and events to the north essentially forced his hand.

A young General Doll, much against orders from Hitler and Goering, had launched a breakout attempt, aiming to regroup at the Don and fight Zhukov's counter-offensive to a halt. Doll, like so many others, was simply disgusted at the string of offences levelled against the army by the Nazis and their hangers-on. From Dunkirk to England and now Stalingrad the Luftwaffe had failed to pull its weight. That only a tiny fraction of needed supplies arrived on the first few days of the pocket was enough, along with the no-retreat order, to send Doll into an absolute rage.

"No retreat? That fat coward, that man who promised no bombs past the Ruhr? Meyer? I've five Meyers in my staff, and he's not worth a one of them! When he rescues sixty thousand Germans from Britain I'll believe he can build an 'air bridge', but until then I'll not let my men face the same fate! To the Don, damn the order and damn the Bolsheviks, to the Don, boys!"

The break-out hung in the balance for several desperate days, and then Zhukov's southern offensive suddenly collapsed as Rommel's rested veteran forces came pouring into Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia.

This time the Nazis had lost control, and the military was taking the initiative. Within days the Wehrmacht had organised provisional Free Republics in the Caucasus. In stark contrast to the obliteration of Ukrainian and other populations in the initial invasion of the USSR, here the relatively apolitical German forces were content merely to drive out Bolshevism, and they established anti-Soviet governments that jumped at the chance to cast-off the Stalinist yoke and promptly turned local Red Army forces into new nationalist armies that joined Rommel's thrust.

It soon became apparent that the 6th Army, with Red Army forces drawn away to resist Rommel's offensive and the rebellion of Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan, had a very real chance of escape and even of linking up with the army coming from the Caucasus. The Red Army's northern forces were drawn south in an attempt to prevent the disaster, and their counter attack was rapidly collapsing. Jens and Willie might yet live to be reunited in battle!

1943 closed with German forces fighting back as the Nazi Party was sent reeling and put all of its efforts into merely surviving in power as rumour of an impending military junta abounded.

1944 begins

The Eastern Front

Curse the luck! Jens' division met up with elements of the unit with which Willie had been operating... two days after Möller took a 7.62x25mm round to the leg and was evacuated. His body had almost collapsed from the shock after being put under such ridiculous stress from short rations, constant cold, and inhuman savagery at Stalingrad.

On the bright side, he had another annecdote about which to write. Jens was airlifted from the banks of the Don aboard a Focke-Achelis Fa 223 Drache... a helicopter. Jens had read a letter in which Rabe described seeing a Flettner Fl 282 sitting aboard a U-boat in the Mediterranean, but had never seen one himself, and certainly was the first person he knew to get a ride in such a contraption.

His appreciation for the fact was mostly to come after the event, during which he actually passed out from... well, he claimed it was blood loss, but his fear of flight almost certainly played a part.

Willie continued to fight in Russia, and wrote back to his friend, recovering in the Reich, with good news. Since the 'liberation' of Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan, the Whites were back in force and causing the Reds no end of problems as mutiny swept through Soviet ranks. The idea that retreat took more courage than attack in Stalin's army was tested to the limit as men began to gun down their officers and march off to join nationalist outfits, inspired by the events in the Caucasus.

"If only we'd done this in Ukraine and Belarus" wrote Rabe, "we'd have won a long time ago. You wouldn't have to have got shot, and I wouldn't have to have left my deckchair!"

Damn Nazis, Jens mused.

"Still, it's going to be all right. The Bolsheviks are in a right old state, and we got a new tank delivered to our outfit this week. Tiger II, though I don't know what was wrong with the first ones."

To the north, the Battle of Leningrad tottered back and forth for some days. Zhukov's offensive looked sure to finally relieve the battered city, but the sudden Axis breakthroughs in the south upended Soviet plans and drew major attention away from the former capital. With relief so close and then cruely snatched away, it appeared that the city may finally collapse. British overseas aid was being hit by guided anti-ship missiles and new electric submarines (the Type XXI) that could run submerged for days at a time, but much was still getting through, and so one final push would be needed, and was possible since the rise of White Russian opposition to the Bolshevik establishment.

The Reich

The RAF had recently dropped 2,300 tons of explosives on Berlin in a single night, and now the USAF was launching big week, a series of raids on crucial industry. Reports from the Pacific weren't great either, as US forces took several islands from the Japanese even as the IJA prepared new offensives in China.

Still, as ever through the war, victories and defeats countered one another on both sides, and the outcome remained impossible to anticipate.

Rockmann was young, Rockmann was bold, but there was something else as well...

Rockmann was at war

The Imperial Dynasty was in trouble, big trouble. In the years leading up to the rise of the Third Reich in Europe, the lands of Reicharia had been under the iron grip of the Imperial Dynasty, all controlling, all knowing, and all superior.

The people of Reicharia, those who's parents, grandparents, and great grandparents had been weak and sided with the native Sanshawaa people, were the main source of cheap labour for the Dynasty for many decades, and now, under the leadership of some supposed 'great leader' Julian Harmond, they had formed a force that was engaging in revolutionary warfare against the establishment...

and worse, they were winning...

It had been a slow, brutal process, one filled with backstabbing, betrayal and many, many false starts, but now, under the combined leadership of Julian Harmond and Gregor Marshal, the forces of the Reichan Liberation Army were beginning to develop their secret organisation into something that could very well defeat the dynasty's hold on most of Reicharia.

"Yassen, is the legacy weapon ready?" Rockmann asked.

A tall, sickly looking man, monocle in his left eye, bowed deeply and replied "Lord Rockmann, if the city ever falls, no Reichan shall lay claim to its soil, as you stated."

"Good, then let the preparations for siege begin..." Rockmann answered quietly, "If they want freedom, they'll pay for it with blood... oh yes, how they'll pay"...

The war in Europe was still in the balance, but the war for Reicha was reaching its most apocalyptic point in history, Rockmann's legacy would live forever, and would haunt the land for eons to come...

It made the man proud.

Late March, The Reich

Hungary invaded by the Wehrmacht, Italian rebels killing Fascists and even German Nazis, the Americans landing on more Japanese-held islands. Glum hospital reading for Jens. Still, good news from Willie, confirmation of the news reels, which you can't really trust what with the Nazis in charge and all.

Leningrad has fallen, at last. Thanks to Rommel's lot in the south, Zhukov's plan was beaten, though not without significant cost to the Axis. Willie says it's more than that, and the Reds are really done for! Rabe even wrote about his first tank kill, a Sherman in Red Army colours. 'Raketenpanzerbusche'? Sounds effective, anyway.

Jens was making a good recovery. "Faster than expected. You're a strong lad, Corporal Möller."

What's this? A General at my hospital bed? Jens snapped a salute and tried to get up, but General Uwe Doll stopped him with a hand gesture.

"Writing helps?"

Möller's face became ashen as the cities of European Russia. The General was holding his diary. His diary, in which he repeatedly cursed the absurdity of Nazi ideology and even dared to lament the stupidity inherent to Hitler's more ridiculous strategic orders.

Well, Jens, you're in for it now he told himself. It's curtains for sure, this time. Oh, God, I hope they don't haul in Willie, too!

The Eastern Front

The Red Army was in chaos. The fall of Leningrad and the arrival of a new Axis Army Group via the Caucasus was joined by the raising of Azeri, Georgian, and Armenian nationalist armies against the Soviet banner and a secret agreement between top Wehrmacht commanders and anti-Bolshevik White Russians.

Partisan action in Belarus, the Baltic States, and Ukraine was directed at the Germans, but in the rest of the USSR it was the Bolsheviks who bore the brunt of a resurgent opposition. Communications all centred on Moscow, and the city was once again directly threatened by Axis forces, this time, however, White Army forces were encroaching on the flanks, and coordination efforts across the USSR had begun to collapse.

Before long the Red Army would be reduced to a guerrilla force, Stalin on the run, and Moscow, like Stalingrad and Leningrad, out of Communist hands.

One problem remained.

The Whites need Russia to be theirs. The Führer has become obsessed with making living space of this cold, wet, ruined country. Without the Whites, nothing will stop a regrouping of the Soviet power and loss of Belarus and the Ukraine. One problem. One.

The Reich, some weeks later

A terrible screaming streaks across the sky. Onlookers duck instinctively as some terrible bird hurtles over their heads at terrific speed.

"Can it be made to carry bombs?"

"Yes, my Führer." A dejected Wilhelm Emil "Willy" Messerschmitt replies with a heavy sigh. "It can carry two two-hundred and fifty kilo bombs or one five-hundred kilo bomb at least."

"Terrific! At last, this is the Blitzbomber I have been asking for!" An excited Hitler announces.

"I order that it be built only as a bomber! With it we will crush any Allied landing!"

Onlookers, including the famous designer and several fighter aces can only grit their teeth as the Me.262 is stolen away from the Reich's defenders even as Allied bombs fall on Berlin.

Several score kilometres away and a few hours later, a recovered Jens Möller steels himself for action. The Walther-made Gewehr.43 he has been given seems much superior to the Mauser Gewehr.41 that he abandoned in Russia as uselessly unreliable, and he is ready to carry out the dastardly action that Doll has asked of him.

God, if you had anything to do with getting me back from Russia in one piece, let it be to guide this bullet true.

Gazing through the optical sights Jens feels as if he is looking out of this world, out of a terrible history and in to fantasy. There is no mistaking the cruel face marked by his crosshairs, the slick black hair ruffled slightly by the breeze as the equally black Mercedes rolls through the countryside with its windows down and occupants exposed.

Let it be true...

Der Führer ist tot!

Not only the nations of the Reich but all the lands in which Fascism held sway, a whole world that was defined only by the natural laws of deadly combat and survival, now knew a fresh kind of havoc.

In the Russias White and Red countrymen fought once again, and even in the streets of Berlin, as Anglo-American bombs fell day and night, Nazis traded lethal blows once again with fellow Germans. The Führer was dead. His killer was unknown and unpunished. Some blamed socialists, some blamed Jews, some even said that the killer was a member of the Heer, an Aryan soldier, a sniper using German ammunition, and that he had escaped aboard a Wehrmacht helicopter and would be rewarded by his superiors!

The SS, reorganised after the debacle in England to become once again dedicated to the protection of Hitler and other top Nazis and to carry-out Nazi policies in pursuit of the final solution to the Jewish problem rather than the conduct of front-line military operations, found itself headless, directionless, desirous only of revenge, and utterly outnumbered by the Heer. The apolitical Wehrmacht now expected the total surrender of the Nazis' political militia and, from each of its members, an oath of allegiance to the Provisional Wartime Government. With Hitler dead, what could be the purpose of his personal protection force? Dishonour had been rendered by their failure to preserve his life, and now their only duty was to remain loyal to the Reich.

Many disagreed, and would have to be crushed. The military found no shortage of volunteers, and even armed untermenschen from the occupied territories to help in crushing SS units that could not be convinced to surrender.

No doubt it would take a long time to convince the victims of Nazism to give their loyalty to a new Reich government, and indeed some within it were less than keen to seek such a drastic change, but it would have to come, some day.

The Provisional Wartime Government was yet to be universally recognised by the people of the Reich and the governments of its allies, but it would soon be impossible to ignore. General Doll was a dynamic young commander popular with his men, it was rumoured that even Rommel supported the new movement despite disagreeing with the under-handed nature by which it had siezed power, and its key leadership was influential.

The Provisional Government

Fallen General Ludwig August Theodor Beck was proclaimed Reichspräsident, former Mayor of Leipzig Carl Friedrich Goerdeler was made Reichskanzler, and decorated Generalfeldmarschall Job-Wilhelm Georg "Erwin" von Witzleben became Commander-in-Chief of the Wehrmacht. Colonel-General Erich Höpner meanwhile was appointed Commander of the Ersatzheer, or Reserve Army, and rather surprisingly Heinrich Luitpold Himmler appeared to retain a senior position in the state security apparatus despite the illegalisation of the SS and a major turnaround on the Reich's anti-Semitic and related racist policies.

Major opposition even within the newly empowered anti-Nazi movement existed, especially on the left, in respect of Goerdeler and Himmler, and it seemed even now clear that much of the administration would change on conclusion of the war.

Der Kampf geht weiter!

Initial attempts by the Provisional Government to negotiate a settlement to end the war fell on deaf ears. With bombs raining down on Germany, the Imperial Japanese Army in retreat, and American oil production finally increased enough to partially off-set the loss of British Middle Eastern territories, not to mention obvious divisions within the German state and military following the coup, the Western Allies were in no mood to negotiate.

On the fifth of June, 1944, the Royal Air Force deployed an impressive one thousand strong bomber force to drop some five thousand tons of bombs on Normandy. Clearly, the invasion of continental Europe was coming, and the conspirators were too late to stop it now.

The very next day Commonwealth and American forces began to land on the beaches of Normandy, and a new front was opened-up.

In the east, however, an agreement was reached with the Whites. Russian territory would be returned to their control, their anti-Bolshevik struggle supported by Axis forces, while other territories captured from the USSR would be incorporated into the Third Reich. Poland, Königsberg, Ukraine, Belarus, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia would join Hungary, Austria, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, western Czechoslovakia, Moldova, Yugoslavia less Croatia, and Greece in constituting, along with Germany, the Thousand Year Empire. The Whites would be free to pursue the reconquest of the Mid Asian states so as to build a new Russian Empire, while Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia would, like Croatia, Slovakia, Norway, Bulgaria, Romania, and France, be under independent or semi-autonomous pro-German governments supported by the Reich.

OOC: Could I RP the Indonesian in the Pasific? The dutch has been defeated at their home land, so the government should be weakened. I will RP about the Indonesian educated about the new Third Reich. And if you accept I will RP about a coup that will devastated the Dutch and make us independent before even Japanese land in our shores! Or did the Japanese already invade Indonesia?

OOC: Hey, thanks for your interest. I'll reply in the OOC thread, linked here (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=542519) if you don't mind. Check that shortly for a response.

The big turning of the tide post. History convulses.

As he clung almost without thinking to the shuddering deckplate, Jens was made automatically nauseous by the swaying motion of the Focke Achelis Fa.223 Drache and the incessant whump-whump-whump of its dual rotors. Still, he was too tense to actually think about his distate for flight. After all, it isn't every day that you shoot Hitler in the face...

"I wondered if you guys would even come for me" he admitted to the helicopter crew. "I thought you may leave me to take the fall."

The pilot shook his head. "You could've implicated the General... and he knows my name."

Jens gave a nervous laugh before realising that no humour was implied. This was incredibly serious business. They'd just assassinated the Führer. They could hang.

When the hardened soldier returned to meet General Doll after a few days in hiding, he was told that, of course, no medal could be awarded, "...though you have done the German people a great service and perhaps saved the entire war." Jens did not mind. "I'd rather get back out there and help to finish it once and for all, General."

He had good reason to be concerned...

June-July, 1944

Though Hitler was gone, the Reich was still dangerously close to paralysis when the Western Allies landed. Rommel was on leave and still travelling back from the Eastern Front after helping to complete the crushing of Zhukov, and his entire army was scattered across Ukraine and the Caucasus. Thousands of German personnel were concerned with training the formative White Russian military and tonnes of supplies were being ferried east to support the new ally.

With the Nazi structure collapsing it was not clear exactly with whom particular commands lay, and some men were hesistant to follow orders even when they were received. A golden opportunity to cast the Allies back into the sea was slipping away as beachheads were reinforced in Normandy and protected by naval gunfire.

Jens was given a medal for his key role in destroying the Nazis, and it was passed off as being somehow related to his service in the Russian campaign and the injury he suffered in its course. Now he was heading the other way, to France, and he was once again indulging his fascination in firearms technology, having been issued with one of the first batch of Sturmgewehr.44 assault rifles. He doubted its value to a marksman such as himself, but, after looking through a lens at the face of a man worshipped by millions and seeing his every feature destroyed by his own action, Jens had lost his interest in becoming a dedicated sniper.

It was time to get into the thick of it with the Anglo-Saxons in the streets and hedgerows of northern France. Just so long as he was never asked to perform a special mission like that ever again.

The air war

Following Hitler's removal, drastic changes in industrial strategy were almost immediate. The Führer's order to build the Me.262 only as an attacker, given just hours before his death, was quietly forgotten, and by Spring whole fighter squadrons were armed with the deadly new wonder-weapon. Aces were spread through the squadrons, nobody below the rank of Colonel being allowed to lead. By example these men would make sure that novice recruits knew how to use their advantages and what mistakes to avoid.

One Tuesday night, as so often, several hundred aircraft from RAF Bomber Command unloaded their deadly cargo on the cities of Germany. In the light of Wednesday the Americans' Mighty Eighth did much the same with a force consisting of one thousand heavy bombers. That night the RAF was back. Then, on a clear and sunny Thursday, the Eighth Air Force launched one of its large missions, sending 1,800 bombers and 950 fighters to attack several targets in the Reich and Wehrmacht forces engaged in France.

By the end of the day, the Americans, who had recently proven themselves able to absorb losses of 4-5% and continue full-scale operation, were baffled to find that they had lost 204 aircraft including 170 bombers and 34 fighters. That night, however, the RAF's casualties were little changed from similar operations in prior days, and so, on Friday, the Americans arranged another large mission in hopes of disproving wild talk about and incredible jump in German defence capability.

This time 207 aircraft were lost, 184 of them bombers.

The Germans, for their part, lost 86 fighters on the two days combined.

The war machine springs to life

That pretty well settled it, and Hitler's obsession with vengeance for the bombing of German cities was utterly repaced by a more pragmatic response to the crippling attacks. In coming weeks the Luftwaffe, finally restoring its reputation after years of failure under the now-disgraced Georing, developed its tactics further and made still better use of the plane its pilots called Turbo. Almost no fighter-bomber versions of the Me.262 were being built, but dozens of interceptors were rolling off production lines that only became safer and safer with every passing day.

Many jets were still being lost to engine flameouts, and there was no time to fix technical failings at this stage, but the 262 was killing Allied aircraft at a rate of more than four to one. Now attacks were being launched by jets with the goal of breaking-up large bomber formations and scattering fighter escorts, where upon large numbers of Fw.190 Würger piston-engine fighters would descend to pick-off exposed B.24s and B.17s.

Production of the Luftwaffe's troubled Me.163 rocket plane was halted while an improved version was pursued more aggressively, and night-fighter versions of the Me.262 began to appear to make life harder for Britain's Bomber Command even as the US forces were falling to pieces.

Another out-right revolution occured in late spring. Hitler's V-1 and V-2 weapons, intended to punish the British for bombing Germany, lost priority without his personnal backing. Instead, Wasserfall was deployed.

That was the end of the Allies' strategic bombing campaign. In July no less than eight-hundred guided surface-to-air missiles were launched against RAF and USAAF bombers, which had no defence against them. In August the Reich would manufacture almost three thousand Wasserfall rockets, largely using resources saved by the stop on bigger and more costly V-2 ballistic missiles.

Small numbers of V-1 flying bombs continued to be launched against London, but they were deployed almost exclusively to tie the fastest British fighters to home soil where they could be used to intercept the ancestral cruise missiles.

As in 1940, air superiority over France was being ripped from Allied hands as German industry began to recover. The Reich was able to manufacture scores of helicopters, some of which were being armed with machineguns, bombs, and rockets. With Hitler's opposition gone, ordinary German infantry were being armed with assault rifles supported by designated marksmen with semi-automatic battle rifles. Ridiculous super-heavy tank projects were scrapped and resources re-directed to practical works such as Panther II, and Tiger II was now being built to proper standards and proving damned hard to kill. With refinaries intact and roads and railways safe, Panzer formations were receiving the fuel they needed to conduct massive strategic operations.

Then, in August, Britain's airfields suddenly came under attack. The Arado Ar.234 Blitz, the world's first true jet bomber, was in English skies, and it couldn't be stopped.

Bukittinggi, July 1944
The Japanese's secret tunnel that encompasses the majority of Bukittinggi is almost done. The Japanese has brought many labor from Java to work in the tunnel. Their condition is frightening- many have died, with many causes. The Japanese is far more cruel than the Nederlandiers (Dutch) who have set a foot in the Indonesia great chain of islands.

The tunnel project is keep secret because if it is known to the public, they will be mad to the Japanese. The tunnel is an underground bunker and barracks. The Japanese took logistic from the locals by force.

In 14th July, however, an event will greatly change the shape of Indonesian history. A Javanese labor, his name is Ading, has escape the tunnel. He ran to the Sianok canyon, which is full of trees. He hid in one of the trees, far from the entrance to the tunnel. The Japanese search him, of course, but they can't tell the locals about it.

(OOC: Tell me what do you think about this first, then I will continue this (This is not finished, yes.).)

Events in Fort de Kock would hardly have been given a second thought in the Reich right now, even if anybody knew what was happening there in the former Dutch colonies. The Nazis had managed to convince themselves that the Japanese were, essentially, the Aryans of the East, but had failed to exploit their alliance, which at one stage looked like an avenue by which to shut-down British India. Now all of the Reich's alliances were in doubt.

If the Japanese were failing to live-up to the hype, Mussolini was an outright liability. Tens of thousands of German and other Axis forces were needed just to prevent widespread mutiny in the Italian military, which simply wasn't inclined to join the defence of Normandy and get shot at for the sake of Berlin's continued strength. This wouldn't do.

Villa Torlonia, Rome

Il Duce certainly knew that his position of power, and his life, were in danger in late 1945. Partisans had made several attempts against him, but German security assistance continued to prevail. The demise of Hitler, who once had greatly admired Mussolini, was another cause for concern as the Fascist icon wondered as to the stability of German aid in future.

He wasn't worried enough.

"Thanks God I at least got to stay out of that one!" Jens would later say of the events of the night of the 29th of August...

OOC: I was going somewhere with that, but I've been called away. Next time!

[OOC: Isn't the German wouldn't know this? The Nipponese would have keep it secret.]
July 1944

It was night, the fog has returned. The Nipponese surrender to search him again and running back to their underground fortress. Ading jump down, and he walk slowly and silently to the edge of the forest. He crashed with one of the local farmers, who know nothing of the Javanese languange Ading spoke. Fortunately, he brought Ading to the mushalla, and he was healed from his injury. He can spoke some Arabs, so he spoke to the Ustad there. He tell the all event to the Ustad, who in turn translate it to the other villagers. When they finished hearing all this, they become angry to the Japanese. They wanted to punish these heathens by themself.

They take their weapon and rallied near the exit to the forest. The Ustad is not let them go, fearing as this attack may rally the Japanese to persecuted them. He have an other plan though, this event shall be known to the ultra-nationalistic movement in Bukittinggi- in secrecy- who in turn shall inform it to Jakarta.

And so be it, their fastest runner was dispatched to the Bukittinggi, with the messages of the event with him. He was able to reach the Ultra Nationalistic Movement leader of Bukittinggi's home savely. Upon reading, the leader of the region surprised and tell his subordinate to copy the message and send it to the Jakarta.

It was dinner time in Jakarta. Many important people (fortunately there is no Japanese/Nipponese there) dine with Soekarno at his house. Suddenly a messenger come in . It must be urgent , Soekarno thought, and it is. He exclaimed "Masya Allah" upon reading, and he let his guests to read it too. They all agreed to tell this to the branch of the movement anywhere, and it would be in the news tonight.

That night, the UNM borrow the radio equipment from the Japanese, telling them that they want to inspire the men in the other remote places with this "piece of good news" which is not for the Japanese, as their Empire would crumble, her allies go away, because of this piece of paper.

The News: Damn the Japanese, they have an underground prison in Bukittinggi, and they not tell us. Many people dieing there, and they didn't tell us. We have proof that the Japanese has enslaved people-our people- and use them to make an underground fortress, that encompassed Bukittinggi, to be used againts us! The slave's condition is very terrible, many are dieing. Hell, these people are more oppresive than the Nederlandier! Do you know how many of our resources and men they shipped out of this chain of island! Charge at these heathens!!

And so began the revolt...

[PS: This will make your new-german government to be againts the Japanese, right?]

ooc: can i rp the Guerilla Movement in the Philippines against the japanese? namely the HUKBALAHAP?

OOC: Sure, I suppose so. Please try to use OOC Thread (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=542519) for out-of-character discussions, though. Thanks

Villa Torlonia, Rome, 29th of August 1944

The thumping of helicopter rotors was still a sound unfamiliar to most people, even within the Axis, so the dictator's guards were somewhat perplexed when they awoke to this strange sound.

If that confused them, their attempt to resist the German stormtroopers proved positively baffling as, one after another, they fell to unseen and almost inaudible fire from muffled assault rifles... to which the Germans had fitted groundbreaking night-vision equipment that the Italians could not even imagine.

It was an ignominious end to the career of the Duce as his best bodyguards crumbled, survivors surrendering within the first minutes of the raid.

Before he knew it, Mussolini was flying off into house-arrest somewhere in the Reich, and a new Italian Republic was being raised with the morning sun, replacing the Social Republic with one that involved the Catholic Church, the Army, and greater representation for workers.

Italy would retain dominion over Albania, and its African holdings, and these -along with Italy itself- would continue to host German military bases. The arrest of Mussolini, the formal end of the Salò Republic, the recovery of the Church, and an end to aggressive foreign campaigning for most Italian military forces, it was hoped, would placate former anti-Fascist militias, while the collapse of the USSR limited enthusiasm and support for Marxism-Leninism.

The Far East

After Vice-Admiral Ozawa's defeat at the Philippine Sea it was evident that Japan could not defeat the United States, and few in the new German junta saw much purpose to continuing the alliance. It's only purpose seemed to be in serving to keep Germany at war with Britain and America, and now the Japanese were even struggling to control their own imperial outposts, let alone distract the Allies to a significant degree.

Himmler himself, the opportunist rogue that he was having conspired to survive the obliteration of the Nazi order by turning on his own SS and helping to convert or defeat its ranks, was sent -presumably much against his will- to the far east to lead a delegation from the Reich tasked with finding new allies and countering Anglo-Saxon influence in a crumbling Japanese Empire.

Aboard a new all-electric submarine, the cruel architect of the Final Solution to the Jewish Question (a question that the new Reich was no longer asking, in any case) was sent to negotiate with Indonesian nationalists, probably much as anything merely out of a desire to get the unseemly character as far away from the Reich's reorganisation as possible.

Himmler must have understood that to reject the assignment would lead him down one of two paths: that of Hitler, with a bullet in his brain, or of Mussolini, with no freedom to leave the gounds of a house to which he was confined.

In the last months of 1944, Himmler and a small delegation representing the German military junta arrived in Jakarta not long before the outbreak of the Battle of Leyte Gulf.

Late 1944

The Allied bombing campaign over the Reich was finished. Over France the Germans were beginning to win the air war. Britain was still afraid to send its new jet fighters away from home lest the technology fall into German hands (however far advanced German aviation seemed over that of the Allies, British engines weren't flaming out with such terrifying regularity as the German units), and kept them at home to down Buzz Bombs still being sent at London.

The Meteors' attempts to intercept German jet bombers were less triumphant until the last days of 1944 when the F.3 first appeared and one Ar.234 bomber came home trailing smoke, its crew reporting that a British jet had briefly out-run them at a sprint and claiming that they were lucky to escape.

By this point, however, British radar and airfields had suffered badly, and the nation was usually unable to scramble interceptors accurately until after a target had been hit. This meant a further reduction to air support for the Allies in France, where things were rapidly going pear-shaped.

Massive German forces with full mechanisation and close air support had begun a new push, an offensive through the Ardennes...

With more than three quarters of a million Allied -mostly American- troops hammered into submission by operation Wacht am Rhein, there was now little stopping the acceptance of the Reich's new military junta. Within the government it was becoming evident that the President and Chancellor had rather less power than the Wehrmacht, which was only increasing the loyalty of its personnel and the population by displaying its terrific might, taking on the whole world and giving it a jolly good thrashing.

In Africa, Vichy French forces, concluding that Germany wasn't going to fall, received something of a boost. Why join the Free French when theirs is the losing side? Skirmishes on Africa's colonial borders were becoming more serious, Vichy, Italian, and German guns frequently shelling British and Free French outposts. Earlier Allied attempts to usurp Vichy and Italy had failed except in distant Madagascar, but now the British were worried as much about the possibility of India being invaded through pro-German Iran.

France, spring 1945

Laying back, supported by a stump of red brick that used to be a garden wall, heel nervously scraping the earth as the sun beats down, finally, that sound! One last pop followed by the tell-tale tinkling of metal falling to the pavement. Jens scrambles up, almost tripping over the rubble, and lets off a burst of 7.92mm kurz ammunition at the shape of a G.I. frantically trying to force a fresh clip into his Garand rifle.

Hit by the brunt of the burst the American slumps heavily, betrayed by his weapon's automatic ejection of its spent clip which, by its audible report, told Jens that he was temporarily unarmed, out of ammunition. He didn't have time to realise it, but this G.I. was the last living, unwounded, and uncaptured allied soldier in Le Havre, and his demise properly ended resistance and gave the port back to the Reich. If things continue in this manner it won't be very long before General Doll's army group has cut through the Western Allies' major line of supply and, ultimately, France falls for a second time in five years.

By now Jens was starting to worry about Willie, which was strange, because Möller was on the front and Rabe was miles behind the lines. "Problem is, there's nobody to shoot at out here, and there must be more Yankee POWs than Willie has bullets, back there!" Jens wrote in his diaries.

Indeed, though some fifty thousand Germans remained in captivity in Britain, the Reich now had far more than a million POWs from Allied armies, plus thousands of airmen shot down by Flak, SAMs, and fighters. Caring for them was becoming almost as big a problem as the bombing had been! That was especially so since Reichskanzler Goerdeler signed the order that effectively scuttled the so-called final solution and released countless slave labourers into regular detention and gradually back into the civilian workforce in painfully small numbers. That was another problem with which the Reich would have to deal. How many of those former inmates would hold a grudge against the Reich even now that the Nazis were gone? How many were too sick, physically or mentally, to ever work again? Could the Reich apologise? Could it dare to cover up the concentration camp programme or the slaughter in the Ukraine and Belarus?

Asia

These worries were diminished some what in March, when the United States murdered one hundred thousand Japanese civilians in a fire-bomb attack on Tokyo. Apparently, genocide is acceptable conduct even for a self-proclaimed democracy. Such is the war.

The east was increasingly Berlin's chief concern. Yamato had been sunk, and American forces had taken Okinawa. Japan was failing, holding on perhaps only because American ground forces were diverted to the increasingly desperate defence of France as their President suddenly died almost as if to avoid facing Churchill, who long told him that this cross-Channel invasion business had been a jolly stupid idea.

Top officers in the Reich almost felt responsible for the plight of the Japanese people as the American air force, having abandoned the strategic bombing of Germany as utterly hopeless, directed all of their murderous force against Tokyo, Kobe, and, then... Hiroshima.

This demanded a response.

Authorisation was given to launch the Amerika Bombers...

August, 1945

Similar preparations were under way in Spain, but the bulk of operations would be launched from France, much of which was now directly under the Reich's control while the rest was variously Allied and Vichy controlled. Since the end of Allied bombing, German air superiority had only increased, and reconnaissance missions had become near suicidal, even for nippy RAF Mosquitos, so it would come as something of a surprise, some hours from now, when sirens begin to wail over New York City.

Jens was looking up from his dug-out, watching the massive body of a Messerschmitt Me P.08.01 as it swept over head, climbing under escort from a number of Fw.190 fighters that would soon peel off as the bomber headed out to sea. The battle-hardened soldier had never seen anything like it. "It looks like..." his comrade could come up with nothing. The Me P.08.01 was a flying wing driven by pusher props, and had a wingspan greater than fifty metres. Jens couldn't say much, either. "God help them." Was all that he could muster. The one bomber was carrying 20,000kg -over 44,000lbs- of bombs, and it was far from alone.

Not far away, crewmembers were just preparing their Focke-Wulf Fw 238 bomber for launch when they received word of a second American atomic bombing against Japan, this time at Nagasaki. Worse than the Nazis, worse than the Bolsheviks! The airmen were encouraged to believe this of the Americans and their new Presiden Truman. If they are not convinced that this type of war can not help them to save their desperate situation, then the atomic havoc will be wrought on the cities of the Reich!

Fw.238s bearing 5,000kg of bombs and making their escape at 670km/h, Me.P.08.01s bearing 20,000kg and departing at 645 km/h, Me.264s bearing 4,000kg of bombs and cruising at more than 640km/h so sprinting away still more quickly under power of Jumo 222 E/F jets would lead the first aerial bombing raid against the continental United States. Junkers Ju.EF101 aircraft were already en route, carrying fighters derived from the Fw.190 that would be released against American interceptors and then recovered in a daring operation over the Atlantic on the way home.

Concurrently, several U-boats were heading out to the high seas, towing strange boxes behind them as they crept towards the North Atlantic.

Washington had just rejected Japan's offer of conditional surrender, and the Reich would answer for its ally's grievances.

Der Kampf geht weiter!

OOC: This isn't dead, but I think that I may start a new thread for 1945 > Look out for that one, then.