Merkwürdigliebe
Arcane
Lets Play Hearts of Iron 3, the potato strikes back
Well I could just start with an ordinary start some where between 36-40 and do an AAR of that, but make for an exciting game it does not, and therefor a rather shitty LP. So instead why not instead turn the difficulty up to 11 and let you watch me struggle to not get raped by the Soviet hordes. Thus a HoI3 LP as Germany with a 1944 start. So me actually winning this is pretty much out of the question, rather the goal is, how long can I last?
Index
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Welcome to Europe, summer of '44. As you can see Germany still holds a lot of land, to buffer an invasion of the actual homeland. Pretty much everything else is shit however.
First off the eastern front, at this start date we are rather severely outnumbered on this front.
Then of course there is Italy, with the allies pushing up the Italian peninsula the Italians have done what they do best in war. Surrender and switch sides.
Of course if that is simply not enough, the Allies have just a few days ago opened up yet another front in Normandy. Enemies on all fronts, depleting manpower and resources and no even remotely powerful/competent allies.
So what can I hope to accomplish with these odds? Well I would say my primary goal is to simply last longer than Germany did historically. That is lasting past 8-may 1945, challening but not impossible. Should I reach that goal, my next goal would simply be lasting all the way to the game end date, 1 January 1948. Which while unlikely I will count as a victory, as it will at that point be clear that the allies lack the resources to subdue Germany and its European allies (Japan is another matter and will likely fall in any case). The really insane level goal would be to not only halt the Soviets, but to turn the eastern front around and capture Moscow, but well I might not even last the first year, we will have to see.
First order of business will be to put a stop to the allied advance Normandy. They have plenty of armour, however are very lacking in port infrastructure currently. If they are prevented from taking any additional ports they could be stopped. If allowed to spread and land additional forces I will be quite overwhelmed.
Redeploying forces from the south, not much sense having them standing around doing nothing. It does open up for an invasion in the South, but to win I need to gamble playing it safe simply will not be enough.
As for Italy the few Mechanized and Armored divisions in the area are brought in for an offensive.
And the same goes for the Balkans, fresh divisions are brought in from the south to shore up the front.
Fuel is on rather short supply, when it runs out I'm not sure what I will do. Maybe try to run tanks on potato vodka from occupied Poland? : x
With little port infrastructure and German subs patrolling the sea constantly the allied forces in Normandy are running short on supply. Let the tasteful Panzer rape begin.
Those bombers are a problem.
Time to deploy some interceptors while I still have some industry left to build potato powered panzers.
Meanwhile on the eastern front the Russkies are pushing hard, possibly empowered by the belief that will be able to plunder vast amounts of potato in Poland, jokes on them we already took it all to fuel our tanks. Also nearly all divisions on this front are going to need leaders assigned *sigh*
God damned Hungarians can't even hold them off for a day.
Things are no better in the South where the Romanian forces under German command are faltering as well. Tankfully I have some tanks to push them back here at least.
Currently all my industry is allocated to supply production, not sure if this level of supply consumption may be a bug? Will have to have a look at this if it continues.
In Normandy things are going well at least. Enemy forces cut in two.
Encircled, time to crush those pockets of enemy troops and get these divisions to the ostfront asap.
Time for a counter offensive with Panzer V Panther cunningly disguised as A7V sturmpanzers, the enemy wont know what hit them.
The Allies try to break the encirclement, but they simply don't have enough fight left in them. Especially since they underestimated our tanks disguised as A7Vs
And of course Tigers cleverly disguised as some other kind of hopelessly obsolete interwar tank.
The red menace is halted for now.
In the north I decide to pull back my divisions in Estonia and have them dig in behind that river in Latvia. They are spread so think up here currently that there is no way they can hold against a horde of Russians that have caught the scent of vodka and potato unless they have some sort of terrain advantage.
An armored counter offensive has managed to surround several soviet divisions trying to do the same to the German forces. Soon they will all be sent to German POW camps were there is plenty of potato*.
*Actually there it's no potato only slave labor.
Some more offensives seem to be working rather well so far with nearly 3 Russians dead for every German.
Only a single division in that pocket currently, but several other are retreating to it. We will crush them like man crushes potato to make sweet sweet potato juice.
Let the offensive begin in the South, with the river to the east it will be difficult for the enemy to counter attack.
The tommies lose more ground, just one more battle and hundreds of thousands of well equipped allied troops will be captured.
Well thats not good, I left the port to the North unguarded in my attempt to defeat the forces already present. The Brits took this opportunity to land forces and capture the province thus allowing supplies in and allowing the previously pocketed troops a way of escape.
... and the Northern front continues to collapse.
Success! Next stop on the Rape train is Rome to encircle those allied divisions.
And Caen is taken. Despite the heavy casualties this a good victory as over fifty thousand allied troops were captured when it fell.
Meanwhile in German occupied Poland.
Worth continuing or just a waste of time?
