This seems to be the forum to post his bit of alternative history. Its similar to the pair of previous items I place here a few years ago. Had been planning on adding more to it, but other projects dear to my heat and bank account intrude, so what I can complete will appear here.
The narrative is inspired by a old strategic WWII game Third Reich I participated in back in the 1980s. The Soviet player did not do some well in the Autumn 1941 turn and the following Winter & Spring turns turned into a destructive brawl. The German player took extreme risks and huge losses, ejecting the Red Army from territory west of the Volga river. The game rules imposed a armistice on the east and the German player turned his remaining Wehrmacht west to confront the British across the Mediterranean and Channel.
This is not a interactive timeline, but rather a snapshot of early January 1943. A few days after the New Years celebration hangover has faded. I do encourage constructive commentary on the historical OTL context, and sources.
Where time allowed I research as many of the names/personalities as possible. A number of minor characters are pure fiction, the majority are actual personalities who were in or could have likely been in the position assigned.
Karellia
General Lieutenant Schorner considered the last dumpling in his bowl. The broth was gone & the spoon full of pastry and meat was cooling quickly in the empty bowl. The chill in the room reminded him of the promise of the engineer officer that the building housing the HQ would be properly heated in a few weeks. Months more likely. But considering the winter would drag on after any reasonable time decent heat in March or even April would be an improvement. The building was the best this ruined little town could offer for his purposes. He could count himself lucky in that regard. It did not take many inspections of the solders quarters to understand how being crammed into the remaining miserable apartments and houses, barns, storage buildings and factories with the sorry surviving Russians and Karellians made for a unhappy winter. Not that things were not better than the previous winter of combat operations. But it certainly was not remotely close to the comforts at home.
Policy was the Russians were the lowest in the new order here, and the Karellians something above them. But both were near indistinguishable, and it was difficult to see the security and occupation administration treating either differently from the other. He had been told in a regular meeting with the regional security chief the Karillans had been disappearing into the forests. Apparently they had the ability to survive in small villages in the vast forests. Perhaps they did. They did not seem to pose a military threat and he had his hands full dealing with that. The Russians were seldom cooperative and it was evident in the mop up operations of the summer and anti partisan or bandit operations the Russians or Slavs were some kind of residual threat. Mostly they took shots at patrols or the smaller garrison posts around the region. Mines or other larger attacks were rare. But the shooting was at a enough of a level to be more than anoyance. The most recent counts from the reports suggested the bitter winter was reducing the incidence of the attacks. Perhaps he & his soldiers would be lucky and find the partisans all frozen in the thawing spring snow. Otherwise there would be more than a anoyance next summer.
The partisan activity might have been less anoying but for the weak state of the Lapland army commandgarrisoning the region.The demobilization had been thus far chaotic. Entire divisions had been packed up, but for fragments and seemingly random groups. Those formations that were not withdrawn whole were stripped of large numbers of men for reasons as numerous and varied as the men themselves. Political connections accounted for many, some were needed by industry, then there were others sent home for reasons of family hardship, medical problems, & whatever. Other unfortunates were needed elsewhere for continuing the war with England. Imagine the shock of landing in Africa after the cold wastes of the Arctic.
Beyond the Partisans there was nothing. The Kriegsmarine claimed a few Tommy ships, submarines mostly, were lurking about the Arctic seas. What they were up to seems to have been encouraging the Slavs to make trouble. A few English weapons and other paraphanllia had turned up and a landing site, for supplies had been found on the coast.
Swallowing the last bit of dumpling Schorner takes the last of the tea, sets the dishes aside for his aide, and turns to the reports on the construction of assorted garrison installations, barracks, offices, armories. The Luftwaffe seeks a couple new airfields as well as renovating a number of Soviet facilities. He wonders how realistic much of this is. The vast renovation of the old imperial era military installations was still underway in the Reich. Now there were ideas to make large chunks of the Bolshivik military structure usable for the Wehrmacht. He hesitated to think of these directives as ‘plans’ since they were simple documents of a few pages with a vague outline of establishing this or that installation. Nothing on manpower requirements, how much equipment, fuel, tools, cement, or anything else would be required. His aide knocks and enters, with a envelope of papers. “The report on local labor resources” he announces. Taking the dishes the aide retires. Schorner drops the report on top of a few others at the corner of the desk. Its the most promising thing hes seen in weeks. Ordered months ago the data in it is no doubt a couple months stale, but it will be as accurate or more so that most of the documents hes read this autum and early winter. He is confident he can extrapolate the data for a rough idea of current conditions. The report is specifically a estimate of the labor value of the Karellians and Slavs in his military district. There are assorted interests in exploiting the known resources of Karellia. A scout for the clothing industry had been nosing about a few weeks ago, for what furs might be available. Otherwise there were plans for taking some of the local timber south for use elsewhere. That would depend on if the salvaged railways was capable of the traffic. Between inferior Slav construction, and hasty repairs of battle damage & sabotage it was difficult to predict what the railway capacity would be in four or five months.
Schorner wonders where he will be in four or five months. Presumably here in this Karellian District. Swatting mosquitos perhaps. The Tommys are still fighting over the tropical lands of Africa. Why he really can't see, but he can see the photos of panzers in Tunisee, rolling along Palm Tree lined boulevards. Likely a peace will be announced any day and rounding up partisans will be the most action a General Lieutenant will see this year or next.
The narrative is inspired by a old strategic WWII game Third Reich I participated in back in the 1980s. The Soviet player did not do some well in the Autumn 1941 turn and the following Winter & Spring turns turned into a destructive brawl. The German player took extreme risks and huge losses, ejecting the Red Army from territory west of the Volga river. The game rules imposed a armistice on the east and the German player turned his remaining Wehrmacht west to confront the British across the Mediterranean and Channel.
This is not a interactive timeline, but rather a snapshot of early January 1943. A few days after the New Years celebration hangover has faded. I do encourage constructive commentary on the historical OTL context, and sources.
Where time allowed I research as many of the names/personalities as possible. A number of minor characters are pure fiction, the majority are actual personalities who were in or could have likely been in the position assigned.
Karellia
General Lieutenant Schorner considered the last dumpling in his bowl. The broth was gone & the spoon full of pastry and meat was cooling quickly in the empty bowl. The chill in the room reminded him of the promise of the engineer officer that the building housing the HQ would be properly heated in a few weeks. Months more likely. But considering the winter would drag on after any reasonable time decent heat in March or even April would be an improvement. The building was the best this ruined little town could offer for his purposes. He could count himself lucky in that regard. It did not take many inspections of the solders quarters to understand how being crammed into the remaining miserable apartments and houses, barns, storage buildings and factories with the sorry surviving Russians and Karellians made for a unhappy winter. Not that things were not better than the previous winter of combat operations. But it certainly was not remotely close to the comforts at home.
Policy was the Russians were the lowest in the new order here, and the Karellians something above them. But both were near indistinguishable, and it was difficult to see the security and occupation administration treating either differently from the other. He had been told in a regular meeting with the regional security chief the Karillans had been disappearing into the forests. Apparently they had the ability to survive in small villages in the vast forests. Perhaps they did. They did not seem to pose a military threat and he had his hands full dealing with that. The Russians were seldom cooperative and it was evident in the mop up operations of the summer and anti partisan or bandit operations the Russians or Slavs were some kind of residual threat. Mostly they took shots at patrols or the smaller garrison posts around the region. Mines or other larger attacks were rare. But the shooting was at a enough of a level to be more than anoyance. The most recent counts from the reports suggested the bitter winter was reducing the incidence of the attacks. Perhaps he & his soldiers would be lucky and find the partisans all frozen in the thawing spring snow. Otherwise there would be more than a anoyance next summer.
The partisan activity might have been less anoying but for the weak state of the Lapland army commandgarrisoning the region.The demobilization had been thus far chaotic. Entire divisions had been packed up, but for fragments and seemingly random groups. Those formations that were not withdrawn whole were stripped of large numbers of men for reasons as numerous and varied as the men themselves. Political connections accounted for many, some were needed by industry, then there were others sent home for reasons of family hardship, medical problems, & whatever. Other unfortunates were needed elsewhere for continuing the war with England. Imagine the shock of landing in Africa after the cold wastes of the Arctic.
Beyond the Partisans there was nothing. The Kriegsmarine claimed a few Tommy ships, submarines mostly, were lurking about the Arctic seas. What they were up to seems to have been encouraging the Slavs to make trouble. A few English weapons and other paraphanllia had turned up and a landing site, for supplies had been found on the coast.
Swallowing the last bit of dumpling Schorner takes the last of the tea, sets the dishes aside for his aide, and turns to the reports on the construction of assorted garrison installations, barracks, offices, armories. The Luftwaffe seeks a couple new airfields as well as renovating a number of Soviet facilities. He wonders how realistic much of this is. The vast renovation of the old imperial era military installations was still underway in the Reich. Now there were ideas to make large chunks of the Bolshivik military structure usable for the Wehrmacht. He hesitated to think of these directives as ‘plans’ since they were simple documents of a few pages with a vague outline of establishing this or that installation. Nothing on manpower requirements, how much equipment, fuel, tools, cement, or anything else would be required. His aide knocks and enters, with a envelope of papers. “The report on local labor resources” he announces. Taking the dishes the aide retires. Schorner drops the report on top of a few others at the corner of the desk. Its the most promising thing hes seen in weeks. Ordered months ago the data in it is no doubt a couple months stale, but it will be as accurate or more so that most of the documents hes read this autum and early winter. He is confident he can extrapolate the data for a rough idea of current conditions. The report is specifically a estimate of the labor value of the Karellians and Slavs in his military district. There are assorted interests in exploiting the known resources of Karellia. A scout for the clothing industry had been nosing about a few weeks ago, for what furs might be available. Otherwise there were plans for taking some of the local timber south for use elsewhere. That would depend on if the salvaged railways was capable of the traffic. Between inferior Slav construction, and hasty repairs of battle damage & sabotage it was difficult to predict what the railway capacity would be in four or five months.
Schorner wonders where he will be in four or five months. Presumably here in this Karellian District. Swatting mosquitos perhaps. The Tommys are still fighting over the tropical lands of Africa. Why he really can't see, but he can see the photos of panzers in Tunisee, rolling along Palm Tree lined boulevards. Likely a peace will be announced any day and rounding up partisans will be the most action a General Lieutenant will see this year or next.