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Операция "Ой морозь морозь" - Maintain a high operational tempo through the winter, attacking weak points as able

6 (60%)

Операция "Не морозь меня" - Slow things down, making a few major and considered attacks without wasting strength

4 (40%)

Total Members Voted: 10

[Fishbreath]

Right, but the Turks control the Bosphorous (so we can't pass it), and it's the only way from the Mediterranean to the Black Sea.

[Sheb]

Yeah, but why do we need an access to the mediterranean yet? Can't we attack Istanbul from the Black Sea?

[Jopax]

Yeah, that's what i meant, if we have a fleet in the Black sea (and hopefully some transports with it) we can take Istanbul after we softened it up a bit, after that the Bosphorous is ours and we can move on to the rest of the countries in the region.

[Fishbreath]

The Mediterranean is way out of range of any of our fleets except for the one stuck in the Black Sea, with no transports and 22 divisions in Istanbul.

[Hyo]

Well, in any case, we should have a passable ocean-link to Istanbul. As long as we bomb their ships into oblivion, it should be fine.

[Azkul]

It might be useful to build paratroopers, for situations like this.

[Fishbreath]

Paratroopers are a definite possibility, and would open up a lot of tactical possibilities. The issue is that they're incredibly expensive in terms of IC, and my current plan is to convert manpower reserves into infantry divisions for a bit before I swing back toward heavy-IC builds.

Update will be coming tomorrow.

[Fishbreath]

Today's update is brief.

Spoiler: 18 August, 1942 (click to show/hide)

There were two and a half noteworthy events in the two and a half weeks since the last update.

1. The United States declared war on the Soviet Union, along with their ally the Philippines. I'm not particularly worried: we've got nothing to blockade, and their army is puny. This does raise a question of grand strategy, though: do we continue our massive army builds and air force builds, or abandon some of our IC-heavy builds to start work on a navy? We could build five or six relatively-modern carriers plus escorts concurrently if we focused heavily on it, and naval bombers wouldn't be too far behind.

2. Despite our bombing campaign eliminating the remainder of the Turkish navy in port in just two weeks, it turns out we still can't cross the Bosphorous. I'm worried that an attack on Greece to flank Istanbul by land might bring the historical Allies into the war against me, and I'm pretty happy with where I've got the United States right now--that is to say, in a place where I can fight them alone and not have to worry about the English and company joining in. That seems to leave us with one choice: work on some transports alongside our real navy, invade the Turks from the sea some time down the line.

Thoughts?

[Taricus]

Do Stalin's original plan, INVADE THE US, CHANGE HISTORY.

RED ALERT!

[Jopax]

Coax the Axis to attack the US, tear it apart like a pack of wild dogs

But i'd say that we should probably rush them as soon as possible, as the japanese said the giant is slow to wake but its wrath is great indeed.

[Fishbreath]

We're presented with a couple of strategic options, and before I go on I want to know what our priorities ought to be. There are a few tasks we need to accomplish:

• War with the US, beginning with an occupation of the Philippines and island-hopping to the West Coast. Requirements:
  1. A large, modern navy. This will take some time. A carrier is something like a year and a half of production time. 18 should do us just fine, and six or nine parallel production lines are not out of the realm of possibility if we cancel some army and air force builds. Jopax, your hour has come sooner than I predicted.
  2. A ton of transports, convoys, and convoy escorts. The Soviet merchant marine is entirely unprepared for the supplying of an overseas campaign. This will take some time as well, but not nearly as much.
  
• Conquest of Japan and China, as the war with the US necessitates a more Pacific focus. Requirements:
  1. A land army. I don't really want to pull too much off of the Western front. It's undermanned as it is.
  2. A large, modern navy. See war with the US.
  3. Transports, convoys, and convoy escorts.
  
• Conclusion of the war with Turkey, through taking Istanbul. Requirements:
  1. 30-40 transports. This we can do as part of either of our other goals.
  2. 10-15 divisions, 4 tactical bomber wings for containment. The Turks may be able to attack across the Bosphorous even though we can't.
  3. 30-40 divisions, 2 headquarters units, a Field Marshal, naval assets for shore bombardment, naval bases in southern Turkey for naval assets, 8-12 tactical bomber wings for invasion. This is quite the list of assets, and even then it'll probably be very, very difficult to win owing to amphibious assault penalties on top of attacking some twenty-five dug-in divisions on top of penalties for frontage on top of... and so on.
  
  Alternately:
  1. War with Greece to attain a land route to Istanbul. This is not a great solution, but it may turn out to be better than amphibious attack.
  

Where do we go from here?

[Jopax]

Do we really need to finish up Turkey quickly?

If it isn't bringing too much negative stuff we can just wear them down with bombardment and invade on our own leisure while we take care of more important stuff, like invading America or something.

And i don't think carriers are all that important (i hazily remember someone talking about them being broken or something, not sure if they said that they were fixied in AoD) i'm thinking some cruisers and destroyers to keep the sea under our control and perhaps some battleships to use for shore bombardment and we should be good to go, subs are always nice but i feel a bit too specialized for what we need right now.

[Hyo]

I say undertake #1. and #3.

#2 is a definitely a no-go. It takes us way too many resources to hold off Turkey, keep the Germans in check and not invading us, to keep out eastern coast safe and commit to a massive land-based war on the other side of the world where the Germans are? No; we are not, and we should not force our selves into a two-front war situation.

However, #3 is optional. I say the best choice is to keep Istanbul in check and then invade Greece when GB's DoI for them wears off. Mind you, we have to be quick, and I propose that we still build ~20 TPs in the Med anyway, to annex Greece before they can ally themselves with the Allies.

But our focus should be to keep a decent army in the West to deter Germany, and a navy in the east, so that we may invade the US.

Honestly, I feel that this is a bad idea; mostly because the US doesn't have the IC penalty the Germans do, and the sea is their home ground. But hey, what else can we do?

[Sheb]

What we really want to avoid is the German declaring war to us. We should avoid anything that coul provoke them.

[Hyo]

... Right, forget what I said. Don't invade Greece.

I forgot that the Germans usually get pissed off at you if you do anything beyond the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. Turkey's probably the limit, and if we invade Greece, we're going to have a nightmare on our hands.

Actually, I propose that we go for #1, and as for Istanbul, instead of anything drastic, can't we starve our the Turks by bombing Istanbul to bits? I mean, with ~30 divisions, their supply stockpile shouldn't last too long.