Fall and Rise: A WW2 ISOT

[lordroel]

Jul 27, 2024 5:00:14 GMT simon darkshade said:

A little snippet:

Forward into the night pushed the Centurion tanks of the leading armoured divisions,

Even if the Germans had Tiger I and IIs i doubt they could go to to to with them.

[simon darkshade]

This is a British Army that has been designed and equipped to take on and defeat the Dark Earth Tigers and King Tigers, not just the @ versions:

"he Tiger entered production in July 1941 as a long overdue replacement for the Sturmpanzerwagen and the 64 ton titan bought unmatched firepower and protection to the battlefield. Its armament consisted of a 10.5cm KwK 40 L/54 gun adapted from the 10.5cm Flak 38 and three 7.92mm machine guns. The Tiger was protected by up to 150mm of frontal armour which made it almost impervious to most Allied anti-tank and tank guns at combat ranges at the cost of a moderate top speed of 40km/hour."

"In early 1944, production shifted to the 12.8cm armed Tiger II, which had even more powerful frontal armour that put further strain on its overburdened drive train. By this time, the British, American and Soviet armies had the tanks that could match the hulking Tigers in the form of the Centurion, Super Pershing and the T-44/100 and the tactical impact was minimal."

There are a very few Centurions that have been pushed forward for this from testing, but they are more than enough, as there are no Tigers and barely any Panzer IVs. Coming up soon will be the Cromwells and the Dreadnoughts...

Earlier in Fall and Rise, I posted this:

Jerry has the Panzer I, Panzer II, Panzer III, Panzer 35t, Panzer 38t and Panzer IV. At the start of the BoF, per Guderian and wiki, they had ‘523 Panzer Is, 955 Panzer IIs, 349 Panzer IIIs, 278 Panzer IVs, 106 Panzer 35(t)s and 228 Panzer 38(t)s.’ The IV has the short 75mm that can penetrate 43mm at up to 700m and a few of the IIIs has the 50mm which could do the same to 43mm at 500m.

The tanks they are up against are the Crusader V with the QF 25pdr 90mm gun, 4” of frontal armour and 2.5” on the sides; the Centurion with the 36pdr 105mm gun, a minimum of 6” sloped armour on the front, and 4.5” of sloped armour on the sides; and the Churchill heavy tank with a QF 120mm gun, 6” on the front and 4” on the sides.

The German tanks can’t penetrate any of them.

What of the 88s? At 1000m, they can get through 95mm of 30 degree sloped armour with their standard AT round; I don’t believe they had the hollow charge rounds at this time. So at best, they could get through a Crusader from the side.

When the war turns mobile again, then the German tank units are in a bit of bother, even if they didn’t have to worry about the small matter of thousands of jabos.

[simon darkshade]

June 25th
Cape Gris-Nez

The night was silent, yet although all was dark, all was certainly not calm. Leutnant Unglücklichesziel sat huddled in his latest foxhole and tried to will himself to sleep. Every hour for the last ten days, there had been the guns, the awful, huge Tommy guns. Sometimes the shells fell just short, causing enormous explosions out in the surf, just beyond the rocky beaches, and sometimes too long, creating fresh craters that had turned the green, green grass of this hellish home of his into a blasted hellscape or something from the moon. Yet the awful guns were the least of it all, really. The Tommy planes came over without the metronymic regularity of the artillery, but through the day and night, screaming along far too quickly at low level or droning far too high above in their hundreds, never destroying the constantly bleeding German troops at Calais, yet always inflicting just another cut, just a few more deaths, or just a few more supply trucks blasted with their infernal rockets and liquid fire. Every effort to bring up new vehicles, new guns or any meaningful supplies, or to establish more than perfunctory defences met with the same response, almost as if they were being watched.

For tonight, though, the Dover Guns had not spoken since sunset, and after being pushed to near breaking point, any respite for the unlucky and effectively helpless targets that were him and his men was most welcome indeed. It was strange, really, to have silence after so long. It even made the summer night air smell pleasantly sweet, like home.

It was a much discommoded Leutnant Manfred Unglücklichesziel who was prodded awake, almost apologetically, by the point of a British bayonet less than half an hour later. As he blinked blearily at the Commandos surrounding him, his heart leapt at the thought that he'd finally be able to get some proper sleep.

"Awfully sorry to wake you there, old crocus. We had to put your lot out to the land of nod so we could get ashore safely, what, but now we're here, we can go about getting your lot over to Blightly and a nice quiet camp. I say, they might even put you up in that new place in Steeple Bumpleigh for a bit. Anyway, I'm forgetting my manners. Captain Bertram Wooster, 8 Commando. Would you mind awfully if we took you prisoner?"

"Anything, anything." muttered the Leutnant. Anything to stop the way this Englisch schweinhund mangled German.

As he was marched away down to the beach, where dozens of LCAs had disgorged their loads of assault troops under cover of a wave of sleep spells, he looked out to the Channel. The clouds that had enshrouded the moon now parted, revealing an armada of landing ships coming in silently and steadily towards the shore. 

High above at 40,000ft, the RAF skyship assigned to aerial control of Operation Dirk, the Eighth Army's landings at the Channel Ports, had a rather better view of the goings on, thanks to her darkvision equipped arcanocameras. The 29th Infantry Division of XIV Corps was landing at Dunkirk, the 50th (Northumbrian) Infantry Division of XXI Corps at Gravelines, the 52nd (Lowland) Infantry Division of XX Corps around Calais and 43rd (Wessex) Infantry Division of XVIII Corps south of Boulogne. Some of the beaches selected would be less than optimal for conventional operations, but in the apparent absence of any German arcane capabilities, certain measures had been deemed possible, and the sorcerous ramps developed under Project Masada now stretched up from the sandy beaches to the clifftops above, allowing jeeps, Landies, lorries, carriers and tanks to drive up with consumate ease. What was not visible from above were the three other brigades of Commandos already pushing inland to link up with the units of the SAS Brigade and Special Raiding Squadrons previously airdropped or inserted into the porous Pas de Calais over the last 48 hours, nor indeed the Rifle brigade poised in Dover to be flown across the Channel in waves by the new helicopters once the order was given.

Aerial reconnaissance had identified only two German infantry divisions in the Pas de Calais as of last week, as most of Army Group B's strength had been drawn south to the Seine, where twenty divisions held the river line and half a dozen were held in reserve around Paris. Their transport, command, artillery and supplies had been mercilessly targeted by the fighter-bombers, attack planes and light bombers of the RAF. In the absence of organised German opposition, ensured by the continual artillery and air attacks since The Event, it was hoped that the assault divisions of the Eighth Army would be able to push inland and create a contiguous beachhead as soon as possible. Another four infantry divisions would be landed in the morning, and then the airlanding of three British armoured divisions by skyships was scheduled to begin.

General O'Connor's main objective was the same as that of Broadsword - Amiens. They would strike at the enemy like the Highlanders of old, with dirk and claymore, splitting both their attention and their fire and moving to pocket the German frontline forces. Very soon, after the quiet beginnings of the unnaturally sleepy night, Dirk would begin to draw blood.

[simon darkshade]

A little issue that will come up in Part 5 is the @ Duke of Windsor and wife at Biarritz. In DE, he died as PoW in 1930, without there being an abdication crisis, so some of the bad blood isn’t there; it has the makings of a strange reunion, particularly with a living Prince John being part of the DE Royal Family.

Come to think of it, Tsar Nicholas II and the Russian Imperial Family are in Scotland, whilst the @ Kaiser Wilhelm is in the Netherlands…

[lordroel]

Jul 31, 2024 2:22:48 GMT simon darkshade said:

Come to think of it, Tsar Nicholas II and the Russian Imperial Family are in Scotland, whilst the @ Kaiser Wilhelm is in the Netherlands…

But while both are related by blood, they are as different as can be, one comes from a world with magic and the other not.

[simon darkshade]

Indeed. They are cousins and yet not cousins, when we consider how people from different parts of a multiverse are “related”. It does have the makings of a very strange meeting.

[lordroel]

Jul 31, 2024 3:30:53 GMT simon darkshade said:

Indeed. They are cousins and yet not cousins, when we consider how people from different parts of a multiverse are “related”. It does have the makings of a very strange meeting.

I assume they also look different.

[simon darkshade]

No, not noticeably. Obviously, Nicholas II, being 25 years older than he was on Earth in 1918, will look aged.

[lordroel]

Jul 31, 2024 4:00:31 GMT simon darkshade said:

No, not noticeably. Obviously, Nicholas II, being 25 years older than he was on Earth in 1918, will look aged.

So has he ore his son ever tried after they fled to reclaim the throne.

[simon darkshade]

There really hasn’t been an opportunity over the 1920s or 30s.

[lordroel]

Aug 3, 2024 15:09:38 GMT simon darkshade said:

There really hasn’t been an opportunity over the 1920s or 30s.

But what about now, DE Britain is the most powerfull nation in OTL Earth.

[stevep]

Aug 3, 2024 15:26:27 GMT lordroel said:

Aug 3, 2024 15:09:38 GMT simon darkshade said:

There really hasn’t been an opportunity over the 1920s or 30s.

But what about now, DE Britain is the most powerfull nation in OTL Earth.

  Yes and probably for at least a decade or two.  Especially since it seems to have a monopoly of magic.  However its likely that the US and later the USSR will seek to catch up.  Also unclear how the markedly different UK will interact with the rest of the empire and dominions.

[simon darkshade]

Priorities: At this time, Britain is at war with Germany, not the USSR. Business first.

[lordroel]

Aug 4, 2024 0:47:40 GMT simon darkshade said:

Priorities: At this time, Britain is at war with Germany, not the USSR. Business first.

Is there a Russian Free Legion in the DE British Army ore Free Forces.

[simon darkshade]

No, there is not. There would not be, as DE Britain was not at war with the Soviet Union in September 1943. They were co-belligerents, which is different enough from the exigency of the Anglo-Soviet Treaty of 1942, but rather something based on this: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Soviet_Agreement

Not all exile forces have made the transition.