Slitherine

Mod: Battlefield Europe 1.9
Difficulty: Custom - 75% Experience and 75% Prestige (basically a 'balanced' Field Marshal difficulty)
Dice chess

I make no promises on updates, pictures or even finishing this thing.


THE RISE OF GENERAL RIESENKNÜLLER - A BREIF ANALYSIS

Today, in the aftermath of the conflict, we can see the earliest influence of the General already in the Polish campaign. While Hitler and his supporters were still formally in power, the conduct of the war was increasingly in the hands of a man with his own ideas on how - and even why - the war should be pursued. Astutely playing on the ingrained Prussian officer's regard for the lives of his subordinates, General Riesenknüller argued that when faced with an enemy like Poland, the entire campaign should be regarded as a live fire exercise, with a clear mandate to minimize losses. Thus, Poland was conquered not with the reckless abandon favored by the political leadership, but rather in a deliberate application of overwhelming force. The result was a decisive victory and complete and utter control of Poland, with the prisoner camps struggling to cope with the massive influx of Polish soldiers having laid down their arms. The general's doctrine of tactical kesselschlacht was given its first vindications, and his prestige and prominence was on what seems, in hindsight at least, an inexorable rise.

The Norwegian Campaign, while a relatively minor operation, presented the first real test of inter-service cooperation - historically a weak point in every armed service. General Riesenknüller's insistence that all staff above colonel be given comprehensive inter-service training and assignment was instrumental in achieving the kind of combined arms successes this campaign showcased: the sinking of the venerable Warspite is a fine example of this, where a combination of schnellboote, torpedo bombers and cruisers proved that the response to a battleship is not another battleship, but combined, supporting arms. Thus, with minimal losses and an ever-increasing clout in strategic planning, Riesenknüller was ready for the first real test for the Wehrmacht - France.

The French Campaign

PLANNING
The first Generalstab discussions were centered around what amounted to a modernized repeat of the Schlieffen plan - an astounding fact, considering the Generalstab prided itself on being the most forward-leaning staff in the world. However, after the enemy capture of these plans(a plane with an officer carrying them managed to land in the wrong country!), General Manstein championed the idea of a push through the Ardennes forest - a logistical nightmare, but with a great chance for success if this could be overcome. Hitler, who at first wanted to attack in the winter of '39, jumped at this novel idea and gave Manstein his support. In the end, however, General Riesenknüller weighed in with his own version of how things should be done.

In his opinion, a push through the Ardennes would be possible, but not optimal. The narrow advance would be costly, would leave our troops exposed to artillery attack and while it would possibly result in a large encirclement of troops in Holland and Belgium, it would be more cost-effective to defeat those forces in more limited, tactial encirclements. This presented several advantages, he argued; we would be able to bring a greater part of our forces to bear in the opening phase, thus ensuring fewer casualties; the enemy's best formations would be knocked out early; and crucially, they would have no time to destroy their equipment, giving the Wehrmacht the maximum amound of captured supplies and equipment possible. The Maginot line, as a matter of course, would be left completely alone - in the words of Riesenknüller, "as a monument to the delusion of the French".

The result was a campaign much like the Polish one, albeit on a grander scale. While at first the Allies' losses were moderate, they proved unable to inflict any meaninful defeats on German arms in return, and after the crack troops of the BEF and the vaunted Cuirassée divisions were defeated in detail, little was left to stop the German steamroller from flooding across the plains of the French interior. The Italians entered the fray - late and underequipped, as always - and were graciously allowed to occupy Nice, while a nearby Panzer division conducted target practice on the last remains of French infantry in the Rhone valley.