Current Strategic Map

Paris falls

In early November in northern France, Eisenhower was confident that with the build up of troops landing at Cherbourg and Brest, as well as the first British troops at St Malo, the advance on Germany could begin in earnest once again. Overwhelming force and total air supremacy allowed the Americans to get moving east once again and by the 8th they had retaken Orleans and crossed the Loire, although stubborn resistance around Le Mans kept the city in German hands. Further east the front was steadily forced back, and the destruction of two German Panzer divisions near Versailles ensured that Paris fell on the 12th. By the time Hitler had ordered the cities destruction, the French capital had been abandonned and the front moved on.

Yugoslavia breakout

Alarmed by the steady reduction of the Austrian salient, the British attempted to force a path to the Danube during early November 1944, conscious that the war in France may soon be pre-eminent in securing resources and men. The Germans did not expect this sudden move east, away from the German heartland, so at first the British encountered little resistance and reached Graz in just two days.

Then, on the 7thm encountering a Panzer force in the farmlands of Croatia, the British were helped massively by the high crops that blocked sightlines - a relief for the British infantry. Effective sniping by M10s knocked out a platoon of Stugs, while on the other flank a Panther and the Company CO were killed by 25pdr artillery fire.

The British advantage was blunted by German reinforcements, until the 25pdrs and some newly arrived Churchills were able to destroy these forces, despite the loss of the M10s as they went looking for flank shots on the Panthers. However, with casualties mounting and the survivors in danger of encirclement, the Germans retreated.

This kind of action was typical along the front, where German manoeuvring was confused and disorganised. By the 15th the British had taken Zagreb and were only stopped when their armoured units overreached their supply and the infantry had to be given time to catch up. Hitler meanwhile was oddly calm, deriding the move east and consulting with his generals. Events in Romania would make up his mind on his next move.

Bucharest taken. Romania surrenders

While the British made good gains in Yugoslavia, the Russians took the opportunity to consolidate their bridgehead and make their long awaited move into the Balkans. Stalin sold it as a liberation of Romania and a chance to knock one of the axis minor allies out of the war. Churchill saw it for the land grab it really was.

The advance began slowly, with the element of surprise long since lost. The Totenkopf SS division barred the red army, and their panther tanks wreaked havoc amongst the massed T34s which attempted to push into the plains to the south of the Carpathian mountains. For five days the battle raged with casualties mounting on both sides, and it seemed that a breakthrough would not be possible.

Then there was a change of the general staff, and a new plan was hastily organised. The Russians abandonned their cautious advance in favour of mad dash tactics. The ploy worked, Suddenly whole companies of German SS troops found their positions swarming with Russians who attacked headless of the casualties sustained. The close in fighting, entirely not what the Germans wanted, soon saw most of the SS panthers either destroyed or sent fleeing in panic. Seeing the SS units retreating the Romanians needed no encouragement and by the 14th the whole of the Romanian front had collapsed, and the Germans were trying desperately to extricate their remaining fighting units from the country before the inevitable happened.

With the fight knocked out of them the Romanian government, fearful of revolution, surrendered to the Red Army on the 15th, and the Russians occupied Bucharest on the next day, chasing the Germans all the way to the Ploesti oilfields, where a well executed German counter attack blunted the Russian advance. Angered by his ally's weakness, and determined not to lose the vital oil Romania provided, Hitler ordered the fields of Romania to be stained with the blood of Russian and Romanian alike...

October 31st 1944 - Comparison

A comparison of where we are and where history was... Russia is moderately behind, the western allies are slightly behind, the axis are well ahead.

In real history the fronts stood rather still after November 1944, so there is an opportunity for the allies to catch up!

Can the Russians make a breakout in November '44? Can the western allies link up in France?

Current Strategic Map

Germans retake Munich

In October 1944 the situation in Austria and Southern Germany was becoming grim. The high hopes which had abounded of a quick victory over the axis following the lightning fall of Austria in the summer had all but evaporated, and hard fighting against elite German formations was now forcing the allies back towards italy.

Both sides gave little ground in dogged, attritional fighting. On October 14th the British were attacked in the east by forces moving west along the Danube valley, and were forced to make a fighting withdrawl back to Salzburg. For now the Austrian capital was safe from allied assault.

Meanwhile further west a determined attack by German forces were forcing the allies back near Augsburg. Fighting on their own soil the Germans were highly motivated, and despite stubborn British resistance they reached Munich, by now a ruin, on the 19th October.

Street battles followed with the British making the Germans pay for every city block, but the British could not sustain the casualties the Russians had been able to accept in the battle for Stalingrad. Grudgingly the British infantry gave up the city on the 24th, allowing the Germans to re-occupy their shattered city.

By the end of the month the allies were back in the Austrian mountains, with the Germans too weak to mount an attack in the difficult terrain of the Alps, and the allies exhausted from repeated vicious battles in the foothills further north. Neither side was able to fight a battle of manoeuvre, and the front became locked in stalemate.

Disappointed, Churchill gave in to pressure from the French and Americans, endorsing a US led invasion of France. If nothing else this now met far less resistance thanks to the southern front, though opinions on the southern strategy remained divided.

Allies land in France

In October 1944, with the advance into southern Germany stalling and German defences in northern France depleted to meet the threat from the allied forces in Austria, the allies decided it was time to launch another front against Nazi Germany. Churchill however was less than enthusiastic at launching another invasion, and the British and Commonwealth forces were in any case committed to the war in the south. Roosevelt therefore agreed that the first landing would be carried out by American forces alone, with Royal Navy support.

The assault was aimed at western France, where German resistance was weakest. On the morning of the 4th October the US V and VI Corps, along with two airborne divisions, landed near St. Malo, taking the German defenders completely by surprise. The initial advance was therefore swift with Britanny, the Cotentin peninsular and the crucial port of Cherbourg all falling rapidly into allied hands.

By the 8th, the Americans had reached and taken Nantes in a lightning southern dash, while fierce fighting around Caen saw two German armoured divisions massacred before the axis troops withdrew towards a more defensible position on the Seinne.

However, as the Americans pushed further inland they outstripped their supplies, astonished at the speed of their advance. On the 17th they were approaching La Rochelle and reached Le Mans and Tours. It was then that Von Runstedt unleashed his counter attack, utilising Panxer Group West in an assault Hitler had been demanding since the invasion began.

Due to allied air power however the counter attack was a fitful affair, with heavy panzer units often arriving late into the fray. At first it seemed that the counter attack would not bear any fruit, and US airborne divisions looked like taking Tours and continuing their advance. On the 21st however a rapid counter attack by Panthers and, belatedly, Tiger heavy tanks shattered American morale.

While one force moved up from the south near Poitiers another advanced west, retaking Le Mans and surrounding a significant force of Americans near Angers. Here a desperate last defence saw the US forces just able to effect a fighting withdrawal, but the lightning allied advance had come to an end, and the Germans now prepared to drive the allies back towards the coast, aiming to cut their army in France in two. What had started so promisingly now looked in danger of turning into a fiasco.

Red Army breaks into Romania

October on the eastern front was mostly quiet. The red army attempted a full scale breakout into Romania but strong German defences and a well timed counter attack stabilised the defences on the 16th.

The motorcycle messengers carried the information with all speed to the High Command that the situation was a stalemate. Fearing more of the now feared Russian hordes, due to the losses in the north during September, the German army withdrew to a more defensible position on the other side of the river Dnestre, carelessly leaving an area big enough for the red army to establish bridgehead without defence.

Current Strategic Map

Allies stall in the south

September 1944 was not a good month for the American and British forces in Austria and southern Germany. The allies were unable to retake their port in Trieste, though significant effort by the engineer corps saw Innsbruck become a major supply route, with mountain passes seeing an almost endless stream of trucks travelling north.

The Americans suffered the worst as a determined German counter attack in the west saw a large force, led by three panzer divisions, strike south from Stuttgart into the foothills of the Alps. Savage fighting badly mauled the American divisions stationed there and by the 18th Ulm and Reutlingen had been retaken by the Germans. Realising their positions were becoming difficult Eisenhower agreed to a withdrawal to the Austrian alps on the 27th, which saw much of western southern Germany back in German hands.

Further east the British and Canadian forces also faced a determined counter attack near Regensberg and Ingolstadt, moving south towards Salzburg. After initial good progress the Germans were stopped on the Danube, with the allied forces putting up fierce resistance. Following the American defeat on the Western flank of the Austro-German salient, the British threw their reserves forward in an attempt to stabilise the situation on the 27th.

A meeting engagement between a British infantry force and a Stug battery intensified as more troops were fed into the fight. Many probing attacks saw British recon units reach the German rear, and run wild through German supply and artillery columns, before their own destruction by a hastily diverted force of Stugs.

Elsewhere, the British reached rifle range of the German artillery, but were driven back by a pioneer counterattack. Casualties among the German artillerymen were heavy, but they refused to break. Despite Goering's promises, the Luftwaffe rarely reached the field, and were easy prey for the British Bofors.

Unstoppable Russian advance

September 1944 saw the continuation of the Russian advance in the northern sector of the front. On the 4th, Vasilevsky led a huge Soviet formation against Riga, which held out for less than five days. Then his army swept west to the Baltic coast, while a substantial portion, led by armoured units, charged south, reaching the Vistula as early as the 20th.

A key factor in this advance was the Russian air force. German reserves were slow to react, harassed daily from the air and this prevented Field Marshall Model from transferring the much needed divisions from the quieter southern sector of the front.

While Vasilevsky was making good gains in the north, Zhukov’s forces were making their attack on Vilnius. Success here would see the German forces in Latvia hopelessly surrounded, and a link up with an attack on Pinsk in the south would liberate all of Byelorussia and reach the border with Poland.

Initially the Russian commander faced some grim resistance, with German forces, led by the formidable Jagdpanzers and highly trained and motivated units from the Fallschirmjaeger, launched a series of aggressive counter attacks which badly mauled the Russian tank formations. However the brave attacks of a few units were to no avail. So overwhelming were the forces arrayed against army group centre, that reserves simply replaced the losses incurred by the Russians.

By the end of September the Russians had linked up with each other on the banks of the Vistula, having taken the Baltic states and Byelorussia. Stalin was pleased with his gains and now had to make a decision. Continue the lightning advance in the east while the western allies floundered in the south, or pause to spread the seed of communism elsewhere before the war ended.

August 1944 - a comparison

So how is our version of events going? Here's a comparison at the end of August.

Light Green - history and GIMPs history both US/UK controlled.
Light Red - history and GIMPs history both Russian controlled.

Dark Red - Russian gains over history
Dark Green - Allied gains over history

Dark Grey - Axis gains over history

Current Strategic Map

German counter attack - Trieste retaken

In the south of Germany the presence of allied soldiers on the soil of the Third Reich caused consternation amongst the Nazi high command. Rommel had however identified the port of Trieste as key to the allied supply lines and was allowed to marshall a large German force to attack this important objective. The allies had difficulties maintaining air support in this region and faced problems supplying their armies across the Alps. They knew Trieste was vital and the American army was deployed in force when the German attack came.

At the same time that Rommel’s massed tank formations, some taken from the garrisons of Greece and Yugoslavia, began their attack towards Graz, six German divisions in Bavaria launched an assault on the British army holding Munich. Here the Germans fared badly, though losses were high on both sides. After two weeks of hard fighting the attack petered out before reaching the German city, a great disappointment for the German high command.

Further east Rommel’s armoured push was much more successful. The allies, with the US Airborne divisions in the front line, fought valiantly, but were unable to halt the massed panzer forces arrayed against them. While tenaciously conducting the defence of Graz, a second force barrelled into the American flanks further south. Trieste was surrounded then evacuated on the 21st, and on the 28th Graz fell to the Germans. By the end of the month the German attack had been halted at Udine, but the allies could see that their foothold in Germany now lay in immediate peril.

While the Germans were counter attacking in Austria and Italy, the French still waited for their liberation, disappointed at the allied strategy to go straight for the heart of the Axis. Fed up with De Gaulle's complaints, the Imperial General Staff ordered an attack towards Marseilles. Shortly into the operation, a German force was encountered, apparently testing the British defences.

Lead by assault guns and a single King Tiger, the Germans made early progress towards the British lines. However, the arrival of British reserves forced them back, and when a recon patrol found a way into the German rear (destroying a battery of Panzerwerfers in the process), the Germans were forced to retreat.

3 days after the start of the operation saw both forces back in their original positions, with even casualties. The British had failed to break into France from the south and the Free French leader protested in vain that the liberation of his country be given top priority, dismissing the attempted British attack as a “sideshow”.

August 1944 - Russian offensive

Early August saw OKW transferring a large number of divisions to face the new threat in the south. The western allies had crossed the Austrian alps and now had a foothold in southern Germany. The effect of this was marked. Hitler was furious that the hated enemy were now on German soil and removing them became a priority. However for once Hitler listened to his generals and Field Marshall Rommel convinced the Fuehrer that Trieste, the main supply base for the allied attack in the south was key to removing the allied presence from the Third Reich.

This meant fewer forces in the East. The red army wasted no time in capitalising and launched a two pronged attack. Vasilevsky and Yeremenko moved south from Leningrad, attacking army group north, while Zhukov launched a major offensive towards the Vistula.

The initial advances were swift and decisive. In the north, Friessner’s Army Group North took a terrible battering as Vasilevsky conducted a successful breakthrough near Pskov, annihilating most of the panthers of the eighteenth army and encircling much of the German forces in Estonia. These would fight on in pockets for months, but Estonia had been lost. Yeremenko’s attack in the centre faced lesser opposition, but reached northern Latvia by the 15th. Leningrad was now safe, and the Germans had been pushed back well into the Baltic States.

Meanwhile further south Zhukov’s armies ploughed through the weakened Germen defences, and made short work of the schwere-SS-Panzer-Abteilung 502 and severely weakened the 9th army. Though the heavy tanks were more than a match for the Russian tanks, the Soviet infantry found them vulnerable when they were not supported by Grenadiers, and were easily destroyed by the rockets of the Shturmovik flying tank.

By the 17th of August the Russian armies had reached the Vistula in eastern Poland after a great deal of bitter fighting. Model however now chose to commit his reserves in a devastating counter attack launched in two prongs. One from the south near the Pripyat marshes and one from the north near the recently recaptured cities of Vilnius and Brest.

The exhausted Russian armies were not expecting such a furious counter assault and soon found their lines in disarray. The fighting continued until the end of the month and the Russian’s lost some of their recent gains. Brest was retaken by the Fourth Army, which devastated the massed formations of T-34 tanks which were still no match for well organised German panzer forces. The infantry fared little better, German grenadiers supported by Tiger heavy tanks making short work of the massed Russian infantry formation.

By the beginning of September the Russian offensive had been checked, just, with the red army on the border with Poland. Model’s Army Group Centre had been severely mauled but managed to hold the line against the Russian juggernaut. With the western allies now in southern Germany however, many began to wonder how long the Russian hordes could be kept at bay.

Current Strategic Map

Surprise attack sees Austrian collapse

By the 20th June the German assault on the British positions around Trieste had pushed the British back to the city, cutting them off from all but seaborne resupply. However, naval artillery support had forced the Germans to reduce their forward positions to a thin screen of infantry and obersevers. Intending to destroy the British forces in Trieste, the Germans planned a massive assault on the city, lead by the Tigers of several Schwerepanzerabteilung.

Ultra intercepts alerted the Allies to this move, and the RAF and USAF were unleashed on the roads leading to Trieste, littering the German line of march with scores of wrecked soft skinned vehicles, and forcing the Tigers to make long marches 'on track', where their notorious unreliability slowed them even further. Meanwhile, the allies had landed a division of US armour. Striking before the Germans could react, the Shermans overran the German forward positions and reached the Tigers' start lines before the Tigers themselves.

Thrown into disorder by this, the German army was forced to retreat, away from the pocket that closed as the US armour linked up with the British to the west. By the end of June the allied forces of Britain and the US had reached the mountain passes of the Austrian alps, and in the east, had reached Yugoslavia. Then the Russians had attacked in strength in the east.

The result of this was a major redeployment of forces. Thousands of Germans were transferred east to shore up the defences in Russia, while the southern front was stripped bare of resources and elite troops. Only a few schwere abteilung divisions remained to bolster the defences, which now mostly consisted of a few German grenadier divisions, Croats, Rumanians and Austrians, as well as a mixture of other second or third rate outfits.
Fearing invasion across the channel, an operation Hitler was convinced would eventually occur, the Atlantic wall was kept at strength, further reducing the defenders in Austria and southern Germany. Even so, German high command considered an all out attack in Austria as almost impossible, given the mountainous and forested terrain, forgetting their own lessons from the attack in the Ardennes back in 1940.

And so on 1st July 1944 the British and American forces attacked. British Infantry and American armour was flung at the defenders of the Austrian passes, but the lightly armed defenders had little trouble in holding the allies at bay. Three days later the main attack came, with five armoured divisions spearheading an advance in the direction of Graz and Vienna.

At the same time an overwhelming air armada bombed the supply routes into Austria, causing chaos behind the German lines. Still the German generals failed to understand the objective of the allied advance and poured more and more of their defensive forces into the mountains near Innsbruck and south of Salzburg, not realising that just as the British and French had walked into the Belgian trap in 1940, so they were doing in Austria, in 1944.

On the 10th July the British and American forces finally reached Graz, facing little resistance, while the holding actions in the alps tied down as many axis defenders as they could. Then the main thrust turned north towards Vienna, and as the allies had hoped more forces were sent to the Austrian capital to defend it. This was also not the allied objective.

When the allied armoured thrust was reported at Linz on the 12th, the Germans finally saw the intention, and the danger. Hitler was contacted, but refused to entertain such “ridiculous” notions and denied the army’s requests for more troops. The Wehrmacht would have to stop the allies with the forces at its disposal. As the allies travelled along the Danube the German army desperately tried to withdraw their forces from the closing trap, while sending in heavy tank divisions to halt the allied advance towards Munich.

Pulling back to avoid the US armoured spearheads, the tankers of the 502nd Schwerepanzerabteilung were surprised by the sight of a fleet of allied transport aircraft. In a daring assault, the US airborne dropped directly on several strategic mountain passes, fragmenting the German defences even further. The Germans immediately attacked, but with the paratroops dug into good defensive terrain the counterattacks failed with heavy losses.

The US armour, fresh from their victories north of Trieste, passed through the airborne positions and onto the plains north of the alps, OKW had no reserves in position to block an offensive so deep in their rear, and the Shermans reached the Swiss border in record time, cutting off an entire German army group in the Austrian Alps. OKW had reckoned on needing 3 divisions to hold the alps in a war with the Italians. Faced with a far stronger defence, the Allies had simply gone around it.

Meanwhile in the mountains the German grenadiers had fought tenaciously, desperately calling for reinforcement while they attempted to keep the US and British tanks at bay. Hundreds of US tanks were destroyed as the Americans tried to batter their way up the passes, while overall command knew that their sacrifice was a necessary diversion, one which, in the end, nearly succeeded on its own.

Near Innsbruck the German infantry held out until they found themselves with no anti-tank weapons left, such was the scarcity of resources in the southern theatre. Only Marder IIIs and Sturmgeschutz assault guns were available for the defence which faced literally thousands of Shermans. By the 20th July the outflanking manoeuvre had been completed, and the entirety of Army Group C, some 300,000 men under Heinrich von Vietinghoff had been surrounded. Less than 20% were able to escape the pocket and form a defence on the Danube, and most surrendered or headed for Switzerland, who was obliged to close her border. The Swiss made a formal protest to the allies over this incident, which was ignored.

Hitler sacked von Vietinghoff, despite the fact he’d already surrendered to the allies, and ordered that the allies be thrown out of Austria and southern Germany. Realising, finally, that the Italian offensive was the main event, Hitler transferred several divisions from the atlantic wall to face the British and Americans in the south, and began planning a counter attack to trap them in Austria.