Fall and Rise: An ISOT

[Simon Darkshade]

Michael,

France still has quite a few US contracts:

120 Consolidated LB-30s
50 Curtiss SBC-4s
~200 Curtiss Model 75s/Mohawks
100 Curtiss Tomahawks
480 Douglas DB-7s
81 Grumman F4F-3s
75 Martin Marylands
400 Martin Baltimores
119 North American Yales
(Unspecified) North American Harvards
93 Northrop A-17s
50 Vought-Sikorsky Chesapeake
300 Vultee Vengeances

Joint Anglo-French Order
667 Lockheed XP-38 Lightnings

British equipment orders from USA as of mid June 1940:
320 North American NA-73
(Unspecified) North American Harvards
(Unspecified) Lockheed Hudsons
(Unspecified) Consolidated Catalinas
300 Douglas DB-7Bs

(Unspecified) Thompson submachine guns

500,000 Enfield rifles,
100,000,000 rounds of .30-caliber ammunition,
500 75-mm. guns,
35,000 unmodified machine guns and automatic rifles
500 3-inch mortars with 50,000 rounds of ammunition

The 2000 M3 Grants had not yet been ordered, nor any other tanks.

The small arms and 75mm were ordered in the shock of late May, arriving later in the year.

Therefore:
- The French have already paid for the majority of their own gear.
- The British orders are largely for trainers and patrol aircraft, rather than the combat planes France needs
- Whilst the Lightnings, Bostons and Mustangs have some superficial attraction, they aren't available for service soon enough
- Virtually none of the old land equipment is of any use, with the possible exception of the 75mm, themselves former French guns
So, for A, the French don't really need said equipment

B.) The British will be helping and resupplying the French, but with better equipment - there are a lot of leftover later model Hurricanes, for example

C.) The British are overwhelmingly the senior partner here on account of their larger land, sea and air forces; their technological edge; greatly increased industry and production capacity; greatly superior GDP; and larger population. Frankly, the best use for French troops in the coming fighting will be Lines of Communication security, rather than any counter offensive role. They will need a good 6-9 months to rebuild to some semblance of effectiveness.

French industry, largely under (temporary) German occupation, is in no place to copy Crusader tanks, jets or artillery pieces. The Americans, being on the other side of the Atlantic, are completely out of the picture.

D.)DE British manufacturing represents ~60% of the entire Imperial capacity, with 25% coming from Canada and New Avalon, 10% from the 'Eastern Group' of India and Australasia and ~5% from the rest (almost entirely represented by South Africa). The scope for new construction, repairs and so forth is limited in a certain fashion, but not in practical terms:

Aircraft
August saw production of 152 jet fighters, 1262 fighters, 102 transports, 159 attack planes and 197 light bombers, 148 MPA, 284 mediums, 529 heavies, 341 carrier planes and 402 trainers.
- Heavy bomber production is slightly below where we'd expect it to be, but is going to lift markedly as a new Lancaster plant begins production in York + the Avro York superheavy bomber begins production in October + Halifax production hitting its target rate of 240/month by November with new facilities
- Historically, light bomber production had shriveled up in the face of the shift to the fighter-bomber and US LL aircraft
- Medium bombers are due to lift
- Fighter production is actually a bit low, but is in the process of lifting as the jets start to pour off the production line. The Hurricane was due to wind down production in Britain proper in early 1944 in favour of the Tempest and the Fury

Land Equipment
British Military/Arms Production August 1943:

72,000 SMLE battle rifles
64,000 Sten submachine guns
29,568 Bren light machine guns
20,147 Enfield automatic rifles
19,423 Vickers general purpose machine guns
5988 PIAT recoilless rifles
3259 Armstrong-Whitworth rocket launchers
2354 Vickers heavy machine guns
811 Maxim Guns

1427 2” mortars
852 3” mortars
362 4.5” mortars

448 25pdr field gun-howitzers
97 6” howitzers
29 6” guns
44 8” howitzers
18 9.2” howitzers

556 17pdr AT guns
254 25pdr AT guns

293 3.75” AA guns
79 5.25” AA guns
2967 25mm AA guns
1629 40mm AA guns

1238 Armoured Carriers
482 Crusader medium tanks
204 Churchill heavy tanks
25 Cromwell superheavy tanks
52 Black Prince tank destroyers
50 Iron Duke assault guns
66 25pdr SPG
24 6” SPG
16 8” SPG
9 9.2” SPG
133 Catapult MRL
30 Sabre SPAAG
64 Archer SPAAG
107 Comet SPAAG

- There is no need for Great War rifles and machine guns, nor any equipment considered by the US to be frontline/cutting edge in 1940

Monthly Ship Commissionings
September: 1 CVL, 2 CVE, 1 Tiger class CA, 7 DD, 6 DE, 8 FF, 6 LST, 4 SS
October: 1 CVL, 1 CVE, 1 Tiger class CA, 9 DD, 5 DE, 6 FF, 9 LST, 5 SS
November: 1 CVL, 1 CVE, 1 Tiger class CA, 8 DD, 4 DE, 6 FF, 10 LST, 6 SS
December: 1 CVE, 1 Tiger class CA, 9 DD, 5 DE, 8 FF, 16 LST, 5 SS

Still under Construction
5 CV, 4 CVL, 4 CA, 90 DD, 38 DE, 32 FF, 32 SS

- Definitely no need for 50 old US destroyers, nor any shipping due to the nature of long term contracts and lead in times

Simon

[Bernard Woolley]

- Virtually none of the old land equipment is of any use, with the possible exception of the 75mm, themselves former French guns

Think that a lot of the 75mm guns the US held were M1917s. Which in @ were supplied to us. A reminder that we can sort of thank the French for a lot of standard NATO calibres.

[Simon Darkshade]

Noted. Some other sources had indicated a preference for keeping the 75mm by the US Army, but upon re-reading, this was a bit more complex:

https://history.army.mil/books/wwii/csppp/ch10.htm

In any event, they are not needed here, nor will there be an argument to be made in favour of the future US 105mm in preference to the 25pdr, whilst the medium and heavy artillery park situation is completely different.

Just as there hasn’t been a NATO artillery calibre standardisation in DE post WW2, so there is likely not one here, for a host of reasons.

I tend to stand by my position that there would not be any need for US aircraft or arms orders, with the possible exception of Harvards.

[Simon Darkshade]

The final ‘kicker’ for me with regard to US aircraft orders as of mid June 1940 is that they don’t deliver for up to 12 months and beyond:

Mustang: NA had started in April 40 and would finish in October. Even with a circumvention of the Merlin engine issue by going straight for it, a production plane is a mid 1941 one at best.
Thunderbolt: Delivering planes to Republic would accelerate their process, but once again, we get that waiting period until mid 1941
P-40 variants: A bit better timeframe, but nothing really until 1941
Bostons: No real need for 300-320mph light bombers when the Buckingham and Battleaxe are both in the 375mph class, with longer range and British production to boot, plus of course the Mosquito

Britain doesn’t want the European War to last into 1941. Deterring and confronting Japan is a different matter, as they’ve built the fleet to do it.

[Simon Darkshade]

June 16th 1940

"General Lee? They will see you now."

Brigadier-General Raymond E. Lee, the U.S. defense attache to Britain, nodded gratefully and walked into the large oak paneled meeting room where three British officers rose to greet him.

"Good morning, General. I'm Lieutenant-General Herbert Lumsden, Deputy Chief of the Imperial General Staff. This is Vice-Admiral Sir Henry Blagrove, Assistant Chief of the Naval Staff (Home) and Air Marshal Sir Albert Ball, Vice Chief of the Imperial Air Staff. In light of the...changed circumstances...and Ambassador Kennedy's unfamiliarity with technical matters and the vagaries of military strategy, the Prime Minister thought it best that we might brief you on some aspects of our position and intentions. There is an intention for a direct personal mission to the President to discuss the war and our strategy for victory, but prior to that, it would be ideal for him to get a clear picture from you."

"Thank you, General. This all sounds good, or as good as it can be in such unique circumstances. This whole situation...has so much to take in. For example, not to put too fine a point on it, Air Marshal, but you're dead."

"Oh dear."

"Since 1917."

"I shall have to let my wife know; hopefully this won't upset her plans too much."

A slight wisp of a titter of laughter circulated among the officers, serving to bridge the gulf between the Britons and the American ever so slightly.

"Very good. To begin with the British, Commonwealth and Imperial Armies, we currently have 162 divisions, made up of 124 infantry, 30 armoured, 5 airborne and 3 cavalry, not counting those formations still training or the two divisions of West Indians, who have reportedly turned up in Ireland. 120 of those are British, 16 Canadian, 10 Polish, 6 Australian, 4 Indian, 4 Gurkha, 3 South African, 2 New Zealand, 1 Rhodesian, 1 Newfoundland and 2 Imperial. As of today, four divisions will be crossing over to Brittany as the first echelon of 80 divisions of the new British Expeditionary Force, the liberation army that will defeat the Germans and free Europe. 22 are assigned to potential deployment to the Mediterranean, Egypt and the Near East, 13 for India and the Far East, as soon as our transportation and shipping capacity can support their movement, whilst an infantry division will take over the occupation of Iceland from the existing understrength 49th and two corps are to be place on standby in case Spain becomes hostile. Finally, 10 divisions have been assigned to the liberation of Norway."

"General Lumsden, you will understand that this is a complete change of fortunes and circumstance from a few days ago, when your army had just been rescued from Dunkirk and the French front collapsed."

"Indeed, General Lee. If you think the situation is a shock for you, believe me when I say that it is equally surprising, if not more so, for us. In any event, those are our available forces. On top of them, we have a dozen more that will be ready from the 1942 mobilisation wave by November and a further eight divisions still in training from this year's tranche."

"Does the entry of the Italians into the war affect this?"

"We bombed Italy overnight, didn't we, Albert?"

"Rome, Turin, Milan, Genoa and Naples, all hit by Windsors and Yorks. 224 aircraft all up; Harris was a bit more occupied with Whirlwind over Berlin."

"Rather. Suffice it to say, General Lee, that from our perspective, the participation of Italy is no great threat or cause of fear. Over our last three years of war against them, we've flogged them from pillar to post, smashing their fleet, kicking them out of East Africa, North Africa and Sicily, invading Italy itself and forcing them to sign an armistice. Field Marshal Alexander's forces were on the Garigliano and a new landing at Anzio to take Rome was due for the end of the month. The Italian soldier is brave, but poorly armed and wretched; their cavalry some of the noblest in Europe, but the worst led. The Germans are a different matter, but we don't fight them man to man, but man to machine.

"As you can see from these figures," said Lumsden as he passed over a typed report "we currently deploy 29,387 tanks in our first line field formations - 12564 Crusader and 5296 Sherman mediums and 3287 Cavalier and 824 Stuart lights in the armoured divisions and independent regiments; 6546 Churchill heavy tanks in the 36 Army Tank Brigades assigned to corps and other independent formations; and 642 Cromwell, 172 Lee and 56 Dreadnought superheavies at army level. Our plans to complete the process of attaching a regiment of Crusaders or Shermans to each British infantry division have been suspended in light of the interruption to supply from Canadian production and your own plants in the United States. The Royal Artillery has 16,289 25pdr field guns, 6432 6", 1924 8" and 762 9.2" howitzers, 2596 Catapult rocket launchers, 9452 17pdr anti-tank guns and 5236 3.75" mobile anti-aircraft guns in field army formations, whilst the infantry has over 20,000 armoured carriers, most equipped with their own machine guns. Our photographic surveys of German equipment and operational reports from French and New British personnel in France are still being assembled, but the immediate indication is that we have them outnumbered and outgunned in most categories of weapon."

"The Shermans, Stuarts and Lees are American?"

"From our former America, as it were. None of them are in existence in your America. Yet. We don't require any augmentation insofar as tanks as concerned from your current US Army stocks or production, either of your M2 Light Tanks or the M2 Mediums. None of your current or projected artillery pieces are necessary or compatible with our artillery park and ammunition production, including the delivery of 75mm guns noted on Page 4; subject to your government's approval, we will be seeking to transfer them directly to the French. The rifles, machine guns, mortars and ammunition will similarly be used to re-equip the French, but the scale of that task is yet to be fully established."

"You seem to be extremely confident, General, to discard the strength of American production so. Do you think you can stop the Germans?"

"Stop them, break them and defeat them. If it were our Germans, then it would be a completely different story, but the combination of three years of experience and three years of better weapons development changes the odds somewhat. Our indications are that they have fewer tanks and their logistics are still mainly horse based. We aren't planning on fighting simply on an even basis on land, either. Air Marshal?"

"Thank you, General. Put simply, our confidence comes from our advantage in airpower. In fighters, we outnumber them over 10 to 1, with over 12,500 to their 1200. In bombers, we have 9500 to their 1300, with over 5000 of ours being four engined heavy bombers. We additionally outclass all of their frontline aircraft in performance, armament and range based on our engagements thus far. They have absolutely no answer to our 470 jet fighters, which have top speeds of over 650 miles an hour. Operating from Southern England, our main fighters and fighter-bombers have a radius of action of 250 miles, covering Northern France, the Low Countries and Western Germany almost to the Rhine; when we are flying out of Brittany, Normandy and Aquitaine, we can cover even more."

"You plan to overwhelm the Luftwaffe with sheer numbers?"

"Numbers, quality and science. We have superior RDF to the Germans, ranging out to 150 miles beyond our shores from the ground based stations and considerably more by our airborne capacity and we have better weapons to strike at their armies on the ground. We are building more than Germany and more than the United States, at least for the moment in your case. As in the case of the Army, we don't require American aircraft with anywhere the same alacrity as with the case of your Old Britain. The orders for the Douglas DB-7s and the Lockheed and North American fighters are no longer necessary, whilst the Harvard and Hudson trainer orders will be maintained."

"There will be some interest from the United States in some of your aircraft and engine designs."

"I am sure that such discussions can be entertained by others at the appropriate juncture in the fullness of time, General. The Admiralty would also be involved in them, naturally. Vice Admiral?"

"Certainly. In terms of our capacity at sea with the Royal and Commonwealth Navies, we have a total of 26 fleet and 16 light aircraft carriers, 52 escort carriers, 51 battleships, 11 battlecruisers, 180 cruisers, 526 modern destroyers and 178 from the Great War, 204 escort destroyers, 504 frigates, 351 corvettes, 142 sloops and 219 submarines. We've listed the general specifications of each class on Pages 6 through 19. These numbers exclude the 'Old British' RN, naturally. On these figures alone, it is hoped that your government will understand that previous discussions regarding the transfer of old United States Navy destroyers are simply no longer required."

"Those numbers are gargantuan."

"They do seem that way, but comprise our global strength, Empire construction and our position four years into a world wide war. We had been fighting the Japanese for almost two years as well the current German and Italian enemy and our most modern and powerful ships are concentrated in the Grand Fleet which is currently making its way back to European waters. Once it arrives, the Regia Marina will have a rather short and eventful existence; it brings with it over 3000 modern carrier aircraft. Similarly, the threat offered by the Germans is not particularly egregious at this time, neither above nor below the waves."

[jemhouston]

It's Clobbering time

[Simon Darkshade]

Sorry, but who or what is being imminently clobbered here?

Not the Italians, whose reckoning awaits when the GF gets back. Not the Germans, who are only being engaged in limited specific fashions whilst a ground force is built up in France.

If anything, it is still Recon, Logistics and Force Movement time.

[jemhouston]

Sorry, but who or what is being imminently clobbered here?

Not the Italians, whose reckoning awaits when the GF gets back. Not the Germans, who are only being engaged in limited specific fashions whilst a ground force is built up in France.

If anything, it is still Recon, Logistics and Force Movement time.

Ambassador Kennedy, I hope. Okay, I don't like him.

[Simon Darkshade]

He isn't going to be clobbered, but something far, far worse from his perspective - he will be rendered an irrelevancy and recalled rather earlier. He is still possessed of political clout in the United States, but the world has just changed overnight and his attitudes and positions have been rendered moot.

The Catholic Irish-American community in the United States is faced with a very interesting situation and Joseph P. Kennedy, being a supporter of appeasement, defeatism, anti-Semitism and anti-British sentiment, is in a particular pickle. No clobbering, just being shuffled off the political stage.

[jemhouston]

He isn't going to be clobbered, but something far, far worse from his perspective - he will be rendered an irrelevancy and recalled rather earlier. He is still possessed of political clout in the United States, but the world has just changed overnight and his attitudes and positions have been rendered moot.

The Catholic Irish-American community in the United States is faced with a very interesting situation and Joseph P. Kennedy, being a supporter of appeasement, defeatism, anti-Semitism and anti-British sentiment, is in a particular pickle. No clobbering, just being shuffled off the political stage.

Kennedy without political power is the best way to clobber him.

[Simon Darkshade]

I honestly don't intend to give more than a sentence or two to Kennedy. I'm not really one for petty score settling or smacking around historical figures; I leave that to others who go for that sort of thing. His role in this brief story is even briefer.

When it comes to the time when I properly do WW2 for Dark Earth, he'll have a bit of a broader role in mid 1940, but there the DE Joe Kennedy doesn't have the same background of appeasement to operate within, nor the same scope for abject defeatism.

[Simon Darkshade]

A few thoughts I've had on the course of any fighting in France:

Holding a front in Brittany and Normandy whilst forces, supplies and materiel is built up isn't going to be the impossible task that Brooke assessed it as in 1940. The RAF has sufficient tactical airpower to smash any German mobile units moving up against the bastion, which is larger than Normandy beachhead of @ and has several large ports to use for administrative landings rather than substitutes such as going over the beach or Mulberry.
Historically, the build up was:

D: US 1st, 4th, 29th, 90th Infantry Divisions, 82nd, 101st Airborne; British 3rd, 50th Infantry Divisions, 79th Armoured Division, 6th Airborne, 3rd Canadian Infantry
D+1: US 2nd Infantry Division
D+3: US 2nd Armored Division
D+4: US 9th Infantry Division, US 30th Infantry Division
D+6: US 79th Infantry Division, British 7th Armoured Division
D+7: British 11th Armoured Division, British 49th Infantry Division
D+8: British 15th Infantry Division
D+12: US 83rd Infantry Division
D+17: US 3rd Armored Division
D+18: British 43rd Infantry Division
D+22: British 53rd, 59th Infantry Divisions
D+23: British Guards Armoured Division

With the advantages present, it will be a fair bit more than 26 divisions in 23 days.

One aim once forces have built up is to get inside the OODA loop of the enemy, even before such a term was coined in the 1970s/80s. The Germans have the disadvantage of Hitler's tendency to attempt to micromanage when he started to hit defeat in late 1941, in combination with his insistence upon constantly defending every single line and objective to the last man; an exercise in rhetoric that owes more to romanticism than modern military art. Setting aside even that, they have what can be characterised as a strategic inflexibility borne of a weakness of modern strategy. What we should be looking at is how quickly the German position in France collapsed in 1944 after Cobra. On a tactical level, small German units will have considerable tactical and operational flexibility and advantage, as they did historically, through Auftragstaktik, but they aren't up against the 1940 British, but the 1943/44 British with overwhelming airpower, excellent tanks and artillery that literally blows away their own in performance, capability and responsiveness. Having a decent squad, platoon or company level performance doesn't matter much when the enemy can call down fire from 100 multiple rocket launchers or 25pdrs upon a dogged defence.

Currently, the German Army is spread out over France in pursuit against the collapsing French, with most of their Panzer divisions deep in the interior or Eastern France where, whilst successful, they are in need of a rest, replenishment and reinforcement. Their infantry divisions, the bulk of the Heer, are a mixed bag, with only 10% motorised and the rest reliant on horses. In fact, should they be cut off, say, by an armoured thrust out of Brittany and Normandy towards a line from Dunkirk to Sedan...

[Simon Darkshade]

Looking ahead to the establishment of the Brittany and Normandy Redoubt, it historically was considered that it would take ~20 divisions at a minimum to occupy effectively, based on a ~150 mile frontage. That is in terms of 1940 divisions.

In Normandy, the French have ~6 partial strength divisions of the Tenth Army and a further one being withdrawn from Norway on the way, the Downtime British and Canadians have 4 divisions, plus a Belgian division and a Polish one. They have been given momentary respite by the DE RAF and RFC eliminating the two forward Panzer divisions, but the Germans are still across the Seine in some form.

The first waves will see the landing of 2 divisions through Cherbourg and a division at Le Havre on June 16th, along with 2 divisions at Brest, 1 at Saint Malo and 2 apiece at Lorient and Saint Nazaire. The other two divisions of the British First Army will be airlifted in by skyship. The amount of equipment arriving on the first day is significantly more than that left behind at Dunkirk in @. The next wave will start on June 19th and the third on June 24th. These will be formed into an army group commanded by the 21st AG staff prepared for Overlord and hold the front in Normandy. After that, the Fourth and Eighth British and Fifth Canadian Armies will be moved in through Brittany and form the other arm of the advance. Further on June 16th, RAF fighter-bombers and fighters will begin flying in to Brittany and Normandy to extend the reach of the tacair umbrella, as well as supporting the French in Bordeaux alongside the bombers.

There will also be some other means used to disrupt the Germans above and beyond airpower; their sleep being ruined by horrific nightmares will be just the beginning of the Wizard War.

[jemhouston]

Will the two Wizard War Teams meet and talk, Magical and the Boffins?

[Simon Darkshade]

They have been working with each other from the get go in DE Britain. Two of the major strengths of Britain are their scientific industrial complex and their magical industrial complex.

[jemhouston]

They have been working with each other from the get go in DE Britain. Two of the major strengths of Britain are their scientific industrial complex and their magical industrial complex.

I'm a firm believer in Clarke's 3rd law, Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. It also works the other way.

[Simon Darkshade]

In the case of Dark Earth, magic is distinguished from technology, although it does have rules and systems; not everyone can use it equally and some workings are stronger in certain places than elsewhere. Magic has been the subject of new developments and applications since the Arcane Revolution of the 1650s-1670s, making it a very refined art both directly on the battlefield and when applied obliquely.

Now they are up against a non-magic enemy, the results in that respect alone will be akin to an early 1900s army replete with machine guns taking on Boudicea’s Iceni.

[Simon Darkshade]

Even as the larger part of Bomber Command’s heavies had been on their way to deal a dreadful blow to Berlin, the second partner in the Pact of Steel had not been forgotten. Five days before, the hand that held the dagger had plunged it into the back of its neighbour; now the reckoning had begun, first from the air.

The industrial northern cities of Turin, Milan and Genoa had been allocated two squadrons of Vickers Windsors each. The six engined bombers had first seen service in 1942 in Operation Chastise amid the Battle of the Ruhr, but had been used across Europe as a result of their tremendous range and altitude capabilities, including Spain, Romania and the USSR. The farthest Italian cities, Rome and Naples, were assigned to a further three squadrons of Windsors and the first eight Avro York superheavy bombers in the entire Royal Air Force.

Whilst some damage was inflicted by the raids, particularly over Genoa, where the Ansaldo shipyard had been badly hit, the primary purpose was one of sending a message. Indeed, one plane in each group was allocated a special load of propaganda leaflets, dropped away from the target areas. Each page bore a simple message:

Hai seminato el vento; ora raccoglierai il turbine.

Verremo.

……………….

Shortly after 7:30, the first soldiers of the 1st Infantry Division of the British First Army began disembarking in Cherbourg. The process of administrative landing in a friendly port was rather less arduous and complicated than their planned return to France in the middle of their 1944; tramping down a gangplank to the dockside was preferable to storming off a landing craft into machine gun fire. The landing of personnel was very much the simpler part of the process, with the division fielding 230 assorted guns and over 5200 vehicles that were carried on the LSTs, LSMVs and converted train ferries, with thousands of tons of supplies carried on the more conventional ships. It was upon these little ships with their innocuous acronyms that the whole process, hastily dubbed Operation Deliverance, depended.

“The 1st Division will be followed in the afternoon and evening by the Guards Division and the 127th Army Tank Brigade, with the 35th and Corps troops to follow tomorrow. Quite the show the Air Force has put on, don’t you think, General?”

General Alan Brooke, the erstwhile commander of the Second British Expeditionary Force, looked across at the commander of I Corps, Lieutenant-General Sir Jock Campbell and nodded. Ensconced in a requisitioned building overlooking the harbour, he could see the dozens upon dozens of circling Spitfires and Tempests above, along with the fewer but much faster “jets”.

”If we had this airpower a few weeks ago…”

”We would be in a rather different situation, I’d wager. Fighter Command guaranteed General O’Connor full air supremacy for the first landings and they are not messing about. They must have five hundred fighters up there, not counting those on the counter-air sweeps against the Luftwaffe further inland and the fighter-bombers hitting anything with a swastika this side of the Seine; over six thousand aircraft in all.”

”It gives us time and space, most definitely. Now, I’ve placed the Canadians at Coutances and the 52nd at St-Lo for now, supported by the 1st Armoured and the Poles.”

“The other three corps are landing at Brest, Saint Nazaire and Lorient and the Australians at Saint Malo. It will take several days for the real heavy artillery to get over here, but within a week, we’ll have a screen up around Falaise and Argentan alongside Second Army.”

”Don’t underestimate the Germans. They are in the position they are in for good reason.”

”Far from it, General. We’ve learned to respect the Hun in our time, but under the amount of airpower we can throw at him, it isn’t an even fight. They’ll keep them at arm’s length until we have our tanks and guns over here. Then we can give him a taste of his own medicine.”

”What on earth is that?” Brooke gazed up at a hulking shape that flew above them.

”Skyship. One of those taking the Kiwis down to Rennes, I’d wager. Shore up links with the French to the south and give them something to build upon. Now, on the matter on rearming your forces, we have a shipload of rifles and machine guns coming over tomorrow, then another of guns and mortars the day after that.”

”We’ll need more time than that to re-equip and adjust to them.”

”Naturally, sir. After tomorrow, the plan is for a phased movement to lines of communication security for your forces, to allow for proper adjustment to new equipment and other matters.”

………………….

[jemhouston]

High speed operations are doing the basics well.

[bobbins66]

Enjoyable as ever!