AO1942 and Beyond

[Retributarr]

Part 1. De-bunking the De-bunkers:
By Ray Furlong
BBC News, Berlin
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4348497.stm
Hitler 'tested small atom bomb'
The Germans had an atomic reactor near Berlin which was running for a short while, perhaps some days or weeks," he told the BBC.

"The second important finding was the atomic tests carried out in Thuringia and on the Baltic Sea."

Mr Karlsch describes what the Germans had as a "hybrid tactical nuclear weapon" much smaller than those dropped on Hiroshima or Nagasaki.

'Bright light'

He said the last test, carried out in Thuringia on 3 March 1945, destroyed an area of about 500 sq m, killing several hundred prisoners of war and concentration camp inmates.

The weapons were never used because they were not yet ready for mass production. There were also problems with delivery and detonation systems.

"We haven't heard about this before because only small groups of scientists were involved, and a lot of the documents were classified after they were captured by the Allies," said Karlsch.

Karlsch also cites German eyewitnesses as reporting light so bright that for a second it was possible to read a newspaper, accompanied by a sudden blast of wind.

The eyewitnesses, who were interviewed on the subject by the East German authorities in the early 1960s, also said they suffered nose-bleeds, headaches, and nausea for days afterwards.

Karlsch also pointed to measurements carried out recently at the test site that found radioactive isotopes.

[mdh_slith]

I don't know about the German nuke. But we have to agree that Midway was a major turning point for the US in the Pacific, which likely had an impact in Europe. D-Day as mentioned in an above post was not a sure thing, if Rommel wasn't on Vacation, if von Luck had disregarded orders and attacked on June 6 with his elements of the 21st Panzer Division, etc. Was it certain that the Allies would win, maybe. Was it certain that Germany would lose, maybe. But we play the games to do a what if. What if we were in charge at Stalingrad or Kursk or North Africa? What if Malta was taken instead of Crete by the Fallschirmjager Corps? What if the Italian Navy command was competant? What if the Finns had driven for Leningrad?

[Kiane]

There exists an alternate reality where Germany failed to invade France, and people on the internet put forward the argument that Germany could not possibly have conquered France, owing to things like tank production, being outnumbered, resource concerns, etc. The idea of that campaign concluding in a month being the realm of some odd fantasy

[Retributarr]

Part 2. De-bunking the De-bunkers:

Amerika Bomber
It is true that the 'Amerika Bomber' was not-ready, but not "not near ready???"... not so!. Most of the planning and Engineering for this Bomber was completed... what was lacking... was the material resources [IE: Specific rare metals]… and the financial backing to make it happen. Had 'Hitler' postponed his invasion of 'Russia'... as well as postponed the 'Invasion of England'... and had not declared War on the U.S.A. as soon as he did... then it is quite possible that this project could have been brought to fruition.
-----------------------------------------------------
Several entries were submitted for the 'Amerika Bomber Project'... and none were brought to operational status, however... it was a possible near close call had the WWII situation been somewhat different. Nevertheless... this is the one that scares me the most... "The Sänger Amerika Bomber".

Sänger Amerika Bomber Luft '46 entry
The concept was raised as early as 1938, but advanced, cogent plans for such a long-range strategic bomber design did not begin to appear before Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring until early 1942. Various proposals were put forward, but these plans were all eventually abandoned as too expensive, too reliant on rapidly-diminishing materiel and production capacity, and/or technically unfeasible.
http://www.luft46.com/misc/sanger.html

IMAGE-UNRETREVABLE Go to Website to see illustration.
1) Pressurized Cockpit 2) Oxidant Tanks 3) Fuel Tanks 4) High-Pressure Combustion Chamber of 100 Tons Thrust
5) Auxiliary Rocket Chambers 6) Wedge-Shaped Wing 7) Retracted Undercarriage Free-Falling Bomb

1) Captive Rocket Booster of 600 Tons Thrust 2) Sänger Amerika Bomber of 100 Tons Thrust
3) 3 Km (1.9 miles) Long Monorail Track 4) Sled Carriage The diagram on the right is part of D ... Sanger.htm



1945 Luftwaffe Sänger Orbital Amerika Bomber - YouTube
URL: VIDEOs: https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=S% ... &FORM=VDRE

VIDEO in Particular:
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=S% ... ORM%3DVDRE

[Retributarr]

Part 3. "De-bunking the De-bunkers":

Hunting Hitler The Secret Island... Huemul Island – Argentina
https://www.bing.com/search?q=Hunting+H ... 2c0e758481
Released on: November 11, 2020
Hunting Hitler: The Secret Island (ENG SUBS) - video ...
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Huemul Island_Argentina
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/huemul-island
The island houses the ruins of a secret nuclear fusion lab that once employed high-profile Nazi scientists.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Videos of Hunting Hitler The Secret Island
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Hu ... &FORM=VDRE

[Kerensky]

There exists an alternate reality where Germany failed to invade France, and people on the internet put forward the argument that Germany could not possibly have conquered France, owing to things like tank production, being outnumbered, resource concerns, etc. The idea of that campaign concluding in a month being the realm of some odd fantasy

Very much this.

Everyone told Hitler he was insane, and when I say that, I don't mean everyone who has post-war historical clarity of hindsight. I mean before these operations even launched, and when I say 'everyone' I mean German military planners and Generals. If anything, this is the most interesting thing I learned when I analyze the incredible victories of German during the early period of World War II. They thought his timetable to invade Poland was outrageous. They fought against launching the surprise attack through the Ardennes at Sedan, they thought taking the Low Countries would be a WWI-esque affair costing 100,000s of German dead.

And yet Poland collapses in a month, Eben-Emael falls at the cost of less than 10 men, and France gives up 6 weeks from the real start of the fighting that ended the 'Phoney War' in the West.

But that just lead to the German equivalent of Victory Disease. After such a string of unbelievable triumphs, no would or could dare to tell Hitler 'no'. He is dictator, and apparently he seems to be dictating some spectacular successes. And so when Hitler rolls out this gigantic map of the Soviet Union and says 'it's go time again boys'. They went. And now we all just look back on history and call him insane. But in the moment of late 1940, this was very much not in the mind of anyone. Any Generals who had concerns and grumbled at the impossibility of invading the Soviet Union were brushed aside, because past victories certainly were happening despite these sorts of grumblings from military analysts and strategists.

And of course as the plans for more outrageous victories on the Eastern Front only led to disaster after disaster, more than a few Germans figured out they really needed to get rid of Hitler. And they apparently tried a lot more than the 1944 bomb we all are probably most familiar with.
https://youtu.be/u1gISC92E2E

[monkspider]

I think it would be cool to see subtle references to how the player has already changed history. I do agree that keeping close to history is important for 42 and 43. But perhaps there are small things that could be done, like your briefing officer can be reading a newspaper at the start of the scenario "Oh, Herr General, did you see this? Churchill was forced to step down because of your successes in Operation Sealion. Well, I guess it something good came out of that debacle." It is honestly an interesting question to consider, what the historical ramifications would be of a Sealion that was neither a total success or total defeat.

[adiekmann]

Here's a wild idea (not really serious, BTW): You and Wagner participate in the July Bomb plot and then you are forced to flee to avoid capture, trial, and execution. Thereby you arrive safely with the Western Allies where you continue the war effort on the Allied side!

[Woak]

Personally I gave up the original grand campaign in PC1 somewhere in 1944. It just got too repetitive, defensive,and frankly, boring. The idea of a long slow retreat where you win defensive battles in a long string only to end up in Berlin. Meh. Throwing offensive scenarios into the mix, counterattacks etc might make it slightly better but the feeling is the same - you're not really achieving anything unless there's a potential turning point somewhere.

My by far favorite PC1 campaign was SSPG(??) something like that, by nikvidd. Sorry for probably butchering the names

[o_t_d_x]

Despite of all its downsides, i still love civ v, because i have control over the economy, social agendas, spys, diplomacy, research and tactical positioning of my divisions and armys.

Its interesting how dramatically small things change everything: Your spy steals that super important technology, a seemingly nice nation attacks your enemy totally unexpected. Your country was always low on war critical ressources but then oil is discovered in high quantities ..... If your country is central, surrounded by potential enemys, with few ressources, bad luck restart. But thats exactly what hitler had, no restart in reality.

What i am trying to say: for all this what ifs you need more control, then tactical positioning of units. Maybe pc 10 (me 120 years old) will give us all of the above and then all this what if scenarios would develop by themselves. And every new playthrough differently. (of course with perfect machine learning quantum computer powered ai that has to be dumbed down, otherwise it would be not to beat )

[wecker]

Well - let`s not discuss from what point the hybris of german military went the wrong direction.

Most historians will see the point happening in December 1941 with the decision of Japan to attack Pearl Harbour (and not attacking the Soviet Union in support of Germany), with the counter-offensive of fresh siberian divisions attacking battle weary german divisions in the russian winter and the declaration of war from A.H. to the United States.

As we know America is an "island" with nearly infinite industrial potential which in the end would win the war for the allies. Not to mention the "Manhattan project".

But back to our problems of AOs.

I can see that we will get rather historical AOs for every year (and probably every theater). This means as in the original PG - winning all battles until the end but loosing/achieving a truce at the end of the war.

What about a complete ahistorical AO? With different entry points like in the original game?

So if somebody likes to win early Sea Lion in 40 he would import his AO39 core and start in 1940.

If he wants a DAK campaign he could import his historical AO40 core and start 1941 conquering Egypt, Mesopotamia and finally invading the Soviet Union from the South or even India to meet the Japanese there.

You could import your historical AO41 core and fight your way to the Caucasus and further on to Siberia or India. And so on for every year...finally conquering as always the USA.

Is that technically possible? That would be a fine solution in my point of view. Historical AOs and one ahistorical AO.

What do you think?

[o_t_d_x]

1. They should make historical AO.
2. Then historical Allied O.
3. Ahistoric operations, for both.
4. Link all together with a patch or dlc to create the most epic campaign made ever.

[Duedman]

Regarding the title of the thread I actually wonder if there will be an "XP sink"
"The winter was harsh! Many good men died. Here, have some greenhorns"
I mean how else can you avoid having 5-star units in 1942?

[Scrapulous]

Is that something to be avoided?

[Duedman]

I think it has to be avoided.
Part of the fun is levelling your units. If everyone is max, this part disappears....

[WolfOfWinter]

those who think Wehrmacht was one step away from the victory are grossly mislead.

germany had ZERO chance to win the war even without declaring war on the usa (which was de facto a belligerent since the launch of the land lease). they didnt have a chance against the soviet union alone propped up with lend lease. you cannot fight the whole world all alone without resources.

I suggest we all read or re-read the pre-history and history of Israel before deciding on zero chance .

Different strategic decisions and policies could have resulted in a German victory.
I’m not talking world domination or conquering the USA, I’m suggesting a military victory in Europe, and perhaps the middle east and north Africa, resulting in a negotiated peace favourable to Germany.

As the game already includes removal of historical elements to avoid offending various groups of people …
Why not also remove some of the really idiotic decisions and policies? Perhaps go with just Germany instead of Nazi-Germany?

So instead of leading a panzer corps for a bunch of criminal lunatics (whilst telling yourself that you’re just “fulfilling your duty”) the general could be serving a more rational (IMHO there’s no such thing as honest/moral politicians) political leadership. I’d like to think that this could lead to plausible alternate history DLCs in addition to the planned historical (or mostly historical) and “Allied Corps” DLCs.

I’d love to buy and play all the DLCs produced as long as the quality and innovation is maintained going forward.

[Vorskl]

those who think Wehrmacht was one step away from the victory are grossly mislead.

germany had ZERO chance to win the war even without declaring war on the usa (which was de facto a belligerent since the launch of the land lease). they didnt have a chance against the soviet union alone propped up with lend lease. you cannot fight the whole world all alone without resources.

I suggest we all read or re-read the pre-history and history of Israel before deciding on zero chance .

Different strategic decisions and policies could have resulted in a German victory.
I’m not talking world domination or conquering the USA, I’m suggesting a military victory in Europe, and perhaps the middle east and north Africa, resulting in a negotiated peace favourable to Germany.

As the game already includes removal of historical elements to avoid offending various groups of people …
Why not also remove some of the really idiotic decisions and policies? Perhaps go with just Germany instead of Nazi-Germany?

So instead of leading a panzer corps for a bunch of criminal lunatics (whilst telling yourself that you’re just “fulfilling your duty”) the general could be serving a more rational (IMHO there’s no such thing as honest/moral politicians) political leadership. I’d like to think that this could lead to plausible alternate history DLCs in addition to the planned historical (or mostly historical) and “Allied Corps” DLCs.

I’d love to buy and play all the DLCs produced as long as the quality and innovation is maintained going forward.

This works both ways. We actually would need a set of alternative universes to explore all the possible outcomes if...
-Czech, British and French leaders grow balls in 1938 and counter-attack Germany instead of gifting Czechoslovakia ?
-Polish leaders do unpopular and accept Stalin's 'protection' proposal? Poland would likely be occupied, but its army would remain intact.
-French learned how to use radio in XXth century and fight XXth century wars???
-USSR started its mobilization two weeks earlier, so instead of beating three echelons of soviet forces, separated by 200km each, Wehrmacht would meet ALL soviet forces at the border?
-Stalin did not put his Civil War friends as top commanders, hence avoiding Leningrad and whole 1942 South catastrophes..

Unlike you, I would not buy standalone ahistorical DLCs, but will gladly buy all quality DLCs with addons of ahistorical scenarios (like Sealion in 1940 - love this de-tour).
But I'd like to stress the word QUALITY: to keep players interested, new units would work, but providing prototypes toooo early destroys the game (Katyusha and KV-2 in 1939 is an overkill). Hence scenario objectives and MAPS need to be of quality: different and well-thought.

While early DLCs had masterpiece maps with interesting gameplay (pretty much all SCW and Bzura), I am disappointed with 1941: many maps appear copy/pastes (find what's different between Rasseinai, Lokhvitsa and Gomel, as an example); objectives are largely the same (just KKND if someone remember that game - Kill, Krush n Destroy); and contain grave errors (Yelnya 1941 is more fictional than SeaLion: there is a Soviet town if Desnogorsk that will only be built in 1965 (!), Desna river flows in the wrong direction (west-east i/o north-south) and omits Yelnya (!); Rzhev misses important roads, hence it's not obvious why Germans and Soviet fought fiercely over this godforsaken town. 1st Panzer Groups attacks Kiev from a wrong location - all of these are MASSIVE battles each of which overshadows by size/importance any of the previous 1939-1940 ones. Yet a minor battle at Arras replicated with a top accuracy while Yelnya only gets the name right.
The attached map clearly shows the SALIENT mentioned in the scenario briefing, shows that Soviet attacked from ALL sides; shows the river TRHOUGH The city, shows a railroad that allowed Germans to supply Yelnya garrison. Now compare it with what we got in the game...

On an aesthetical note, SCW introduced modified city tiles to portray Spanish cities; Soviet DLCs should also use a few customized city / village tiles to help create atmosphere of the Eastern Front.

[Bee1976]

This works both ways. We actually would need a set of alternative universes to explore all the possible outcomes if...

to be honest, i would love that!

I like winning the game, and on the hostrical path, you can play your best game, you will always lose when playing base game and base grand campaign, and you will always will win when playing soviet corps or allied corps.
So im a big fan of "what if" dlcs and long grand campaigns.

@Topic
@Kerensky hopefully the doctors were wrong and Wagner did make it! We need Wagner back, that "new" wagner is more like a willowips, misleading us with bad information.....
we need to get rid of him!

[Magni]

Very few things are certain in history... sure, if you mathematically compare all the factors, production, terrain, manpower... then the situation looks fairly grim for Germany. But a political collapse of the Soviet Union wasn't out of the picture. Let's just say you manage to take Moscow swiftly and capture the whole Politburo, the republics declare independence and rise up before German atrocities pushes them away. Or let's say that the kind of colossal victories you achieve in this game, even larger in magnitude than reality, convince the Japanese to purse a northern strategy instead of a southern one... there are possibilities.

All of these are either implausible or inconsequential.

A political collapse of the USSR was never anything but wishful thinking, as was taking Moscow fast enough to capture the entire Politburo. There was effectively no leadership or anything the like able TO declare independence in the republics, let alone to actually create a meaningful uprising, and it'd be pretty darn hard for German atrocities to not push them away before the Wehrmacht got anywhere close to Moscow. After all, said atrocities started virtually the moment the Germans set foot in those areas. And the Japanese invading Siberia? For what? Frozen wasteland that is ultimately completely expendable to the Soviets, with everything of actual value far beyond the limitations of the IJA's logistics? What's that supposed to achieve, other than potentially getting a japanese army wiped out by hunger and exposure alone if they're dumb enough to actually try to march all the way across Siberia to get somewhere the Soviets truly have to care about in the short term?

The "Normandy-Landings" very-nearly failed for several reasons... it was not a guarantee that the amphibious invasion effort was going to work out!.

This is a complete myth. Ultimately, the Normandy Landings were already palgued by severabl bouts of bad luck, and still handily succeeded anyways.

2. Many of the "Mulbury- Harbours" were dislocated from their moorings so as to render them useless for further off-loading from ships of 'Material and Troops'. Some of these 'Mulbury-Harbours'... were actually 'Wrecked' or 'Destroyed' by the stormy weather so that they were unusable!. So now!...the allies had to make a determined effort to capture another... but "less-capable coastal port" to maintain the momentum of continued offloading. I think that it was called... "St. Malo".

It's "Mulberry". And the port they took was Cherbourg. The only thing close to your "St. Malo" I can come up with would be St. Lo, which was an important traffic crossroads for the region - and not on the coast.

3.The worsening weather conditions hampered the 'Stuka Dive Bombers' and other German Aircraft from inflicting more damage on the 'Invasion-Fleet' than they originally did.

Weather did not ensure that the skies over the invasion fleet and the beaches were clear of german aircraft. The overwhelming presence of the RAF and USAAF holding virtually total air dominance over the region did. It was the Germans who were consistently praying for worse weather in Normandy. Because that would have lessened the relentless pressure allied airpower put on them throughout the entirety of the campaign, and they had no real recourse against that otherwise.

4. I'm quite sure that one entire 'American Infantry Division' landed in or on the wrong beach which in-fact was just pure 'Dumb-Luck'... as they landed where the German Defenses were near non-existent!.
That incident alone really helped in making of securing the 'Normandy Beach-head' a much more successful operation.

This, as far as I can tell, is entirely made up yarn.

5. One would have to check further on this but, I am reasonably sure that some German Armoured Units might have possibly been close enough to severely disrupt the invasion effort... but were diverted for some forgotten reason by myself... and so did not adversely affect the outcome of the landings.

German armored units, chiefly the 21st Panzer, tried. Their attempts were for the most part summarily beaten back by overwhelming allied airpower and naval artillery before even getting close to the beaches. Turns out that rolling panzer columns down a road gets a lot more exciting when there's hundreds upon hundreds of enemy aircraft patrolling all over the region and strafing anything that moves on the roads.

Hitlers 'Hermann Goerring' gave the authorization to implement the 'Amerika Bomber' programme. You can check this for yourself through various means, the internet and so on, but!... the easiest way is to go to 'UTUBE'. This 'Amerika-Bomber' was specked out to be able to go to the U.S.A. to drop 'Atomic-Bombs' at first on 'New York and Washington'.

Yes, and in true Goering fashion it was a trianwreck of a program right from the start. And made less than zero sense strategically, too. Strategic bombing is a strategy for rich countries, not for someone who wants to go to war against a nation that literally has more than half the entire world's GDP at its disposal.

Despite the 'Nay-Sayers' debunking the German efforts to develop a viable 'Nuclear Programme'... they had in-fact before wars-end,... did testing with small scale 'Atomic-Bombs' to gauge their effectiveness and viability. The 'Bombs' were successful working weapons during the tests.

If 'Atomic-Bombs' were successfully dropped on American Cities... very likely the willingness to carry on the war with Germany would change... with some kind of settlement or arrangement.

1. [citaiton needed] The german nuclear wepaons program was undersized, underfunded, going down a developmental dead end and by all actual evidence avaiable came never even close to a functioning weapon. In fact, givne they were going down a dead end, they would have never actually gotten a working weapon without all but scratching the whole program and starting over again.
2. Even if we are insanely optimistic about the german nuke program, by the time they'd be able to drop a bomb on the US, it would be promptly answered by the Americans dropping 20+ on Germany in returnwithin the month. And meanwhile, the eastern seaboard would turn into the greatest air defense zone in human history,while "unconditional surrender" would de facto turn into "we'll stop once the German nation is nothing but irradiated dust and ashes".
3. The above isn't going to happen anyway, because by that point there'll long since be a red flag flying over the Reichstag.

The Germans were developing 'Huge' quantities of heavy-water in 'Norway'... as well as in South America where they had constructed a large 'Hydro-Electric-Dam'... which was also producing huge quantities of heavy water for Atomic Bomb development. This Hydro-Electric-Dam was constructed in South America before the war in Europe even began. Just west of 'Bariloche' in Argentina...on an island... a major Atomic Testing Centre was constructed... to hasten the development of the Atomic Bomb.

Okay. Please provide actual evidence for the existence of this mythical heavy water plant in South America. And then explain how said plant was supposed to actually deliver even a single drop of said heavy water to Germany across the allied pond that was the Atlantic. PS: Your "Bariloche" would be San Carlos de Bariloche. Which is situated about a hundred kilometres away from the Alicurá Dam. Of course, the problem there is that a) the Alicurá Dam doesn't include a heavy water production facility and b) the dam was only inaugurated in 1985.

Part 1. De-bunking the De-bunkers:
By Ray Furlong
BBC News, Berlin
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4348497.stm
Hitler 'tested small atom bomb'
The Germans had an atomic reactor near Berlin which was running for a short while, perhaps some days or weeks," he told the BBC.

"The second important finding was the atomic tests carried out in Thuringia and on the Baltic Sea."

Mr Karlsch describes what the Germans had as a "hybrid tactical nuclear weapon" much smaller than those dropped on Hiroshima or Nagasaki.

Having a tiny test reactor run for a couple days does not a functioning weapons program make. And "hybrid tactical nuclear weapons" is a pretty funny way to describe primitive dirty bombs (because that's what gets you a measily 500 square meters area of effect), if one that hypes them up massively.

Putting a 500 meter hole in an american city isn't going to bring the US to the negotiation table. They've done far, far, far worse to german cities with conventional firebombing alone on a regular basis, let alone what they could start to do once 1945 hits and they start receiving real nukes on a weekly basis. Your silver arrow Wunderwaffe is more of a nerf dart. At "best" what you'll achieve is the yanks mistaking the radiation poisoning for some sort of chemical attack and responding by mass-dropping poison gas on german cities in response.

Not to mention that your source is heavily disputed and rife with outright pseudo-science and/or outright failures to understand basic physics, and even the author himself admits that he is lacking actual definite proof for his claims.

I also love how you keep going on about Hitler declaring war on the US being such a mistake. When in reality the US was already waging an undeclared war against Germany for a while by that point and Hitlers declaration against them didn't actually change much of anything.

[Kerensky]

The "Normandy-Landings" very-nearly failed for several reasons... it was not a guarantee that the amphibious invasion effort was going to work out!.

This is a complete myth. Ultimately, the Normandy Landings were already palgued by severabl bouts of bad luck, and still handily succeeded anyways.

Is it though? There are more than a few events that went awry during D-Day, but also so many more successes that could also have gone sideways or not had the impact they did.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c844En8XvC4