brian brian
Posts: 3191
Joined: 11/16/2005 Status: offline
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Here is a might-have-been-op just now: a pity the weapons caches for the Maquis weren't delivered to Rouen. I think the Free French super 4 engine plane even has a couple tactical factors ... some Free French Navy could be offshore in the North Sea ... an FF FTR in the UK would have been the cherry on top over a desperate battle between well supported Maquis holed up in industrial complexes and German 2nd line troops of all types. Otherwise, the French marines arrive to take over the port, the Maquis move into the countryside, and the American Army lands 2 corps, on the German side of the Seine, with another free port just behind them, backed by all their surplus WWI battleships, and nothing to do but grind forward while huge shells rain down on the poor Landswehr, who would be forced to surround Rouen on four sides, just as Patton and Ike start forward further west, and a fleet of AMPHs are sitting around in the UK with no beach target for the turn, and now a lot of empty beaches on the North Sea, around even more port hexes, and the Germans running out of fingers to put in the North Sea Wall. Whole thing might have even reduced desperately needed German reinforcement clusters from organizing in Silesia and Prussia, as operation Bagration is about to launch, in this war victimizing what is left of the unlucky peasants in the army of Antonescu, who have little chance of holding the Dniester against a river of T-34/85s with howling Asian troopers riding on the backs. Speaking of George, I was surprised he didn't smash the exhausted Panzer/Engineer formation in front of him and race for the Loire bridges in late June. That would have put Guderian in at least a bit of a pickle. Now, Heinz can call on a cutting edge Luftwaffe, including a Gruppe led by this tank-killing machine named "Rudel", something a rapid succession of historical German C-in-C Wests could have only dreamed of. It will be a long summer for George, Bernie, and Ike - some of their Fighter cover was manufactured in 1939 and 40. Edit: Or the Maquis could have disrupted the defense of the Cotentin Peninsula and the port of Cherbourg ... or destroyed Rudel's Stukas on the ground ... In short, couldn't make it to my game of cardboard WiF again this weekend. Seems unlikely until December now.
< Message edited by brian brian -- 6/30/2019 2:27:56 AM >
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