An Estonian soldier prepares to fire an anti-tank rocket at a Soviet tank on the Baltic front
Shattered World - A Worse World War: Part 44
Enter the Bear
June 3rd 1948 to June 10th 1948
0 hour + 20 minutes, somewhere over the western Ukraine...
Vlad Ene had never seen so many planes in the sky at one time. As a matter of fact, he had never seen so many aircraft at once - period. The sky was alive with fighters and bombers of every type and sophistication. Some of them were friendly - most were not. Tracers were visible in every direction - aircraft engaging each other and flak froom dense AAA positions rising to pluck Soviet aircraft out of the skies. For Axis fighter pilots and anti-aircraft ground crews the term "target rich environment" would have been an epic understatement.
Vlad nosed his Focke-Wulf 190J fighter downwards to follow his squadron leader towards a swarm of Soviet medium bombers. A surge of adrenalin brought his senses to a heightened state. All his training, all his years of work and dedication, were about to be put to the test. A farm boy from southern Romania, orphaned early in the Eurasian war, was about to prove his worth to his beloved Romania and his beloved Fortele Aeriene Romane. The Soviet bomber stream stretched eastwards into the gloomy night and was moving approximately southwestwards at four thousand meters.
Vlad and his fellow fighter pilots tore into the enemy bomber stream with a vengeance. The FW190J was not a state-of-the-art fighter by any means, it wasn't even the most modern fighter in the Romanian arsenal. For the role of bomber interdiction against the Red Air force it was much more than adequate. Vlad lined up on a particular Soviet bomber and closed rapidly, ignoring the tracers lancing in his direction from desperate Soviet gunners. At close range Vlad opened up with his four 20mm cannons, sending explosive incendiary rounds into the fuselage and left engine of the medium bomber he had targeted. As Vlad streaked through the Soviet bomber formation he looked back over his left shoulder and watched as his victim rolled over and exploded in a brilliant orange fireball. Several other enemy bombers had met similar fates as other members of his squadron successfully engaged the enemy. There was no time to celebrate.
His second pass into the Soviet bomber stream was similar to his first pass, except that he used rockets instead of cannon fire to destroy his second victim. He fired the rockets from nearly point blank range and had to maneuver hard to avoid the debris of the shredded bomber. Better, he thought, to conserve some cannon rounds in case he encountered any Soviet escort fighters.
As Vlad came in for a third pass he noticed that the Soviet bombers were dropping their bombs. Odd, he thought. There should be nothing but farmland on the ground below. The Soviet bombers must be panicking as so many of their comrades went down in flames around them. Whatever the case, Vlad still had a job to do. He had made four passes through the Soviet bomber stream and downed four Soviet bombers before a fleet of Soviet escort fighters finally arrived and demanded his immediate attention. Things became much harder and much more intense for Vlad Ene in the busy skies over the western Ukraine.
Four thousand meters below the intense aerial battle and Vlad Ene's fighter, Soviet bombs fell all around a typical Ukrainian farming village. No one noticed that the bombs didn't behave like normal bombs - exploding with muted pops and releasing a fine mist rather than detonating with the expected fury of hundreds of pounds of high explosives. The remnants of the strange bombs would be noticed weeks later by German scientists and studied in special labs in the Reich itself - but for now the war rages. Only a few people high up in the Soviet chain of command realize that a new type of warfare has arrived. Something grander than mere chemical warfare and far more insidious.
June 3rd 1948
The Soviets launch operation 'Venus' in the west against Germany and the European Axis Powers and operation 'Mars' in the east against the Japanese. Each operation is a titanic offensive in its own right. The Soviets have thrown everything they have into these efforts and they have little margin for error.
Operation 'Venus' commences with the largest surge of aircraft in human history. No less than 5000 Red Air force planes take to the skies from Sweden in the north to the Caucasus region in the south. Operation 'Mars' involves another 1500 aircraft along the Siberian coastal regions and over Manchukuo. In all, 6500 Soviet aircraft are in flight in offensive operations in the early hours of their entry into the Second World War.
German ballistic missiles rain down on Leningrad, Moscow, Beriagrad and other major Soviet cities within range. Soviet medium bombers hammer Oslo, Minsk, Kiev, Riga, and other major cities within range of the Red Air force.
The focus in this first day of fighting is on tactical air support and the strategic bombing is more for propaganda than for anything else.
The Soviets, from the opening minutes of the war, make extensive use of chemical weapons in Europe and in the Far East. Soviet doctrine for the use of these weapons is that they should be used mostly for the reduction of fixed enemy strong points.
Armored and motorized rifle divisions will streak ahead and make deep penetrations while infantry with the aid of chemical weapons and massive conventional artillery, rocket, and air support will reduce pockets of resistance cut off by the deep penetrations. It is the Soviet version of the German blitzkrieg.
Scandinavia: In Scandinavia the Soviet thrust is aimed straight down the Baltic coast of Sweden and they are not trying to be subtle. Soviet motorized rifle divisions crash into the Aurora defense line and meet effective, and stubborn, resistance from well equipped Swedish and German infantry. By the end of the day the Soviets have not been able to advance by more than a few kilometers and the skies over Sweden and the Baltic are a confused blur of activity as both sides send bombers to hammer each others lines of communication in the theatre. By the end of the day neither side can claim air superiority although the Luftwaffe is doing a much better job of providing tactical air support for the troops on the ground.
Baltic Region: The Soviet Northern Front consists of some 900,000 soldiers and 1500 tanks and is tasked with liberating the Baltic States and the city of Riga in particular. This army rolls from jump-off points southwest of Leningrad and crashes into the 450,000 soldiers and 750 panzers of the Reich's Army Group Baltic. Roughly a quarter of Army Group Baltic consists of units from the former Baltic states (now the Baltic provinces of the Greater German Reich) and they are fighting for the survival of their people as the Soviet lust for vengeance may be genocidal.
The main bulk of the Soviet offensive in this theatre slams into a section of the border from the southern tip of Lake Peipus to Daugavpils in the southern part of Latvia. The northern prong is thrusting directly west for Voru and Valga while the southern prong strikes northwest for Daugavpils and Jekabpils. The plan is for these two prongs to reach the Gulf of Riga east and west of Riga itself and thus surround the city. This is essentially the plan that the Germans had expected the Soviets to follow and Army Group Baltic is well prepared.
A secondary Soviet thrust cuts southwest in the direction of Vilnius. This force will advance in such a way as to also threaten German forces arrayed north of Minsk. The first day of combat goes according to the Soviet time tables and Voru is already coming under threat by the end of the day and is being saturated with Mustard gas in hopes of weakening the fortified German and Estonian soldiers. However, Soviet losses are immense as the superior German panzers and infantry equipped with anti-tank rockets brew up ghastly numbers of Soviet tanks.
In the air neither side gains the upper hand. Soviet bombers hit Riga, Tallinn, and Vilnius while German bombers and ballistic missiles hit Leningrad and other cities across the region. Both sides are able to perform effective tactical air support - German and Soviet anti-tank aircraft are rapidly becoming the feared weapon on the battlefield as their 20mm and 30mm cannons wreak havoc on mechanized columns everywhere.
Belarus and western Russia: Here is where the majority of the armored vehicles of Germany and the Soviet Union are concentrated. The Soviet Central Front is really an army group consisting of three powerful armies. Wielding over two million men and 4000 tanks, this might be the most powerful single army group ever assembled. The main aims of these three armies are to liberate Minsk, Kiev, and Kharkov. Opposing them is German army group Russia with just under one million soldiers and 2000 panzers.
Also, operating independently of Army Group Russia is the fanatical SS 1st Army, 'F�hrer's Fist', consisting of three elite SS panzer divisions and five elite SS panzergrenadier divisions. All of this SS army's enlisted men have been drawn from the Hitler Youth and the officers have been hand picked from the ranks of the Wehrmacht and SS. This force has been called "the true army of National Socialism" by Hitler and is commanded by some of the best young officers in the Reich. This SS Army was Himmler's pet project which he hadn't completed before his death.
The Soviet offensive in this theatre can be broken into three basic parts. Each of these parts are themselves made up of multiples prongs. These three massive pushes are aimed towards Minsk, Kiev, and Kharkov which Beria has referred to as "the critical targets in the goal of liberating stolen Soviet territory in Europe". On the first day the greatest Soviet progress is in the drive for Minsk where northern and southern prongs tear into German lines and advance ahead of schedule in their bid to envelop the city. Progress towards Kiev and Kharkov is slower although within acceptable margins.
The air war in this theatre is similar to that of the Baltic theatre, with most assets concentrating on tactical air support. German jets sweep Soviet piston fighters from the skies in incredible numbers. The Soviets hammer Minks, Kiev, Kharkov, and the transportation hubs all around them with everything the Red Air force can muster. The Soviets lose over one hundred medium bombers in the opening hours in this theatre alone but through sheer numbers the Soviet bombing severely degrades German efforts at movement around these cities.The Germans lob ballistic missiles at Moscow and use their Ural Heavy bombers as well as medium jet bombers to hit Soviet supply lines west and south of Moscow to great effect. Chemical weapons usage by the Soviets is surprisingly light in this theatre as most of the initial fighting is on the open plains and the Soviets are holding their chemical weapons stocks for use in the expected sieges of the target cities.
The Ukraine and Caucasus: This is the other great front of operation 'Venus' and the location of the second largest concentration of tanks in the world. The Soviet thrust here is straight forward. Much of the Southern Front, consisting of 1.3 million soldiers and 3000 tanks, heads directly west towards Rostov from staging points southwest of Beriagrad(Stalingrad in our timeline). Waiting on the terrain east of Rostov is German Army Group Don with 500,000 men and 1500 panzers. Initial Soviet progress here is rapid as the Germans have chosen to wait in well prepared defensive lines west of the actual border.
The other portion of the Soviet Southern Front heads directly south to the west of Astrakhan and meets the 400,000 combined Turkish, Chechnyan, Romanian, Bulgarian, Spanish, and Italian soldiers of the Axis Army Group Caucasus. Roughly 100,000 German troops, including elite mountain divisions, are dug in further to the south to block the Soviets in the mountains. Here again initial Soviet progress is rapid as the Axis forces are entrenched well south of the border in layer upon layer of defensive lines.
As in the theatre to the north the initial use of chemical weapons by the Soviets is fairly light.
In the air the main aim is again tactical air support with fighters battling for air superiority and the Soviets losing large numbers of piston aircraft to German jets. German bombers and ballistic missiles hit Beriagrad, Astrakhan, and Soviet lines of communication up and down the Volga and Don rivers. The Soviets concentrate their bombing mostly on Rostov but also hit Axis supply and transportation hubs around the theatre.
The Far East: It is here that the Soviets have the greatest advantage. 80 well trained and equipped Soviet divisions face 20 questionable Japanese divisions and 40 divisions of Manchurian and Chinese puppet troops. On all sections of this front Soviet progress is rapid and meets little in the way of effective resistance. The Japanese forces lack modern anti-tank equipment and are not very mobile. Also, the Imperial Japanese Air force is not what it once was and is quickly overwhelmed by the vast numbers of Red Air force machines. Many puppet Chinese and Manchurian units melt away in the early hours and the few pockets of resistance receive massive doses of mustard gas for which the Chinese and Manchurian troops are ill-prepared. The result is wholesale slaughter.
The Japanese, seeing the front melting more by the hour, begin to execute a carefully pre-planned operation to systematically destroy everything of value in the occupied Siberian coastal region. Ports are wired with explosives for total destruction and contaminated with every type of biological weapon the Japanese have developed. Factories, military facilities, and virtually all significant structures are scheduled for burning and/or demolition. Water supplies are to be contaminated and biological agents seeded among the general population of the region. Crops and food supplies are to be destroyed or contaminated and cities, towns, and villages put to the torch. As coastal Siberia is rendered into a wasteland Japanese troops will be evacuated to the Home Islands for re-deployment to Korea and/or Manchukuo.
In Tokyo the Emperor shudders upon hearing of the measures to be taken in Siberia. He could only hope that the Soviets never reached the Home Islands to exact revenge. It didn't occur to him to order his forces to stop their atrocious actions.
June 4th 1948
Britain hails the entry of the Soviet Union into the war, calling on the Soviet people to "fight until the last Nazi soldier is dead and the German Reich and Japanese Empire are ground into dust".
The U.S., still formally neutral in the war against Germany, calls on the Soviets to "fight the fascist tyrannies with every resource the Russian people can muster".
Germany blasts the "blatant aggression of Bolshevism and world Jewry" and calls on the "sane nations of the Earth to fight the Communist and Jewish menace to the end".
German Ural bombers devastate Soviet port facilities in Leningrad with guided bombs and sink most of the few minor ships of the depleted Soviet Baltic fleet - ending any possible Soviet naval threat in the Baltic. Also, Germany begins shipping massive quantities of nerve gases and other chemical weapons towards the front.
June 5th 1948
In Sweden Soviet forces have made little progress against the Aurora line and several motorized rifle divisions are stalled and digging in for fear of a German counter-attack. In the air the Germans are gaining the upper hand as the Red Air force in Scandinavia can't afford to sustain the types of massive losses that it can in the larger fronts to the south. With German naval domination of the Baltic assured German cruisers are providing direct support in the form of off-shore bombardment in some locations.
In the Baltic theatre Soviet progress is mixed. The thrust immediately south of Lake Peipus is advancing ahead of schedule but several German pockets of resistance, including the town of Voru, remain out of Soviet hands despite massive Soviet use of mustard and phosgene gasses. The German forces are well equipped with chemical weapons gear and are determined to hold out as long as possible. The air war here is a complete mess, with neither side holding the upper hand and planes being downed by the dozens. Strategic bombing has let up, with both sides focusing on providing tactical air support to key locations on the battlefields.
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On the central portion of the vast and hellish eastern front Soviet progress is again mixed. The drive towards Minsk is making rapid progress.
Fighting is fluid here and the German Cougars and Cougar IIb's are killing 5 or more enemy tanks for every panzer lost. In some cases the kill ratios are much higher in favor of the Germans. In spite of this the Germans are forced to continue withdrawing back towards Minsk as swarms of Soviet tanks constantly threaten to flank their positions.
The push towards Kharkov and Kiev is much slower. T-34's and other, more modern, medium Soviet tanks such as the T-45 are being destroyed in vast numbers by German infantry equipped with anti-tank rockets - both guided and unguided. Newer Soviet heavy tanks such as the IS4 have some success in close-in fighting but are vulnerable to the more maneuverable German panzers. The Soviets have been forced to place motorized rifle divisions ahead of tank divisions to clear out fortified German infantry. Chemical weapons are proving useful to the Soviets in these situations as a chemical battlefield makes it harder for the German infantry to operate. However, this close-in infantry action is greatly slowing the Soviet advance in some locations and leading to many friendly fire incidents involving chemical weapons - which needless to say puts a damper on Soviet morale in the affected areas. Luckily for the Soviets, the Red Army has a lot of tanks and men to spend and isn't being cheap in these matters.
As in the Baltic theatre to the north, the situation in the air over this central theatre is a big mess. German fighters are maintaining kill ratios of 5 to 1 and more but the Red Air force is throwing a lot of machines and pilots into the air. The focus here has also shifted to tactical air support and both sides are using tank-busting ground attack aircraft to great effect. German mobile radar-guided AAA is beginning to have a significant impact as panzer and panzergrenadier divisions are much better protected against air threats than their Soviet counterparts.
On the plains west of Beriagrad the Soviet drive towards Rostov is bounding ahead at a staggering rate. The Germans, with little space to work with, have been forced here to wage a more static defense and the result is a net Soviet advantage. With massive rocket and artillery barrages and rolling waves of chemical attacks to lead the way, Soviet armor is swarming ahead and engaging German armor and infantry at close range. In many cases the Soviet commanders simply shell the front lines with everything they can muster, conventional and chemical, without regards to hitting friendly forces. The net result, they figure, is to their advantage. This is the location of the greatest Soviet success in the west to date and Soviet forces are within just 60 kilometers of Rostov. Rostov itself is coming under massive conventional and chemical air bombardment, at a horrific cost in aircraft and pilots, as the Soviets attempt to prevent German forces from evacuating to the west.
To the southeast the Soviet thrust directly down into the Caucasus has slammed into the first lines of defense manned largely by Turkish, Romanian, Italian, and other minor Axis troops. Although the Red Army outclasses these minor Axis forces they are advancing into well-fortified lines of defense and with German air support available the minor Axis units are holding and waging a fighting withdrawal to the south in relatively good order. The German units here are being held in reserve to the south. On this front the meshing together of the Axis commands over the past few years is paying big dividends.
A Soviet attempt to bomb the Romanian oil fields is a disaster with half of the bombers being downed and only a few reaching their targets. No real damage is done and the Soviets soon decide that strategic bombing deep into Axis territory simply isn't going to happen, at least not anytime soon.
The T-45 is equivalent to the T-44/100 of our timeline with many small improvements. The IS4 is basically a refined version of the IS3 of our timeline with many of the OTL IS3's faults corrected. Its most impressive feature is a nearly invulnerable, angled, frontal glacis. The Soviets only have relatively small numbers of IS4's and they are using them primarily against hardened enemy targets. The various T-34 upgrades and the excellent T-45 are the main battle tanks of the Soviet Union. The Soviets also have a large number of tank killers with large caliber cannons including monsters sporting 122mm cannons. The KV line of tanks were developed but never built in large numbers as it was decided to focus more on the medium T-34's and T-45's .
June 6th 1948
The Soviet advances against the Japanese are rapidly becoming total routs. Japanese forces are pulling back towards the ports along the Siberian coast and focusing more on destroying everything in site than on holding a defensive front. The Japanese attempt to render coastal Siberia into a wasteland continues with secondary targets now being destroyed and contaminated. Even forests are being set ablaze and livestock slaughtered. The Japanese Navy is already preparing to evacuate ground forces from coastal Siberia.
In Manchukuo the puppet Chinese and Manchurian units are beginning to entirely dissolve and some are even beginning to turn their weapons on their Japanese masters. The front in Manchukuo is in complete collapse with Japanese divisions being pocketed by Soviet forces or moving towards Korea or China in full flight. There is no coherent front as Soviet divisions crash ahead with little serious resistance. At this point the only thing slowing the Soviets in this theatre is the rate at which they can bring their supply lines forward.
In Iraq British forces enter the southeastern outskirts of Baghdad where heavy urban fighting erupts. Iraqi forces, and volunteer units from all over the Muslim world, are determined to turn Baghdad into a funeral pyre for the British. Hoping to avoid this scenario, British mechanized columns are already moving to surround the Iraqi capital and meeting little serious resistance in the open terrain.
June 7th 1948
In the Baltic region the Soviet drive south of Lake Peipus appears to be gaining steam. Voru and other transportation hubs have now fallen and Soviet forces are now approaching Valga and putting that city under heavy conventional and chemical bombardment. Soviet medium bombers have begun to pummel Riga itself again as well as transportation routes east and south of that city.
The Soviets are also making progress in the vicinity of Minsk. The large Soviet thrust which is heading to a point north of Minsk is now close to being directly north of the city ahead of their own schedule. The Germans have chosen to withdraw southwest towards the defensive belts outside of Minsk due to their northern flank being threatened by Soviet forces advancing on Vilnius. The Germans are fearful that the Soviet forces moving towards Vilnius will swing south and form a third pincer towards Minsk. Southeast of Minsk Soviet progress has been slower but remains steady. The Germans here are exchanging territory for time, trying to lure the Soviets into a vulnerable position for a counter-attack. Some unseasonable light rain in this theatre has slowed down armored operations somewhat but not enough to seriously hinder operations.
The Soviet drives towards Kiev and Kharkov are not going well. The Soviets are now two days behind schedule in these thrusts and localized German counter-attacks have brought parts of the front to a complete standstill. The Soviets are already being forced to commit reserves in a bid to get back on schedule. German commanders in the east have their eyes firmly set on this region. The area seems ripe for a large-scale counter-offensive and eight powerful panzer divisions are already being marshaled at staging points east of Kharkov. The SS has its eyes on the region as well. The 1st SS Army, held in reserve up to this point, is now moving by rail towards Kharkov to join in this coming operation.
Soviet rockets and artillery begin hitting Rostov as the Soviets are just 20 kilometers from the strategically vital city. German forces in the northwestern Caucasus are dashing head long to escape into the Ukraine before the Soviets can close the noose. The Luftwaffe has made a surge in the area in a desperate effort to hold the Rostov corridor open as long as possible. German ground attack aircraft swarm in great clouds and wreak havoc among Soviet armored columns which stretch for kilometers.
To the southeast the Soviets have largely penetrated the first Axis line of defense in the northern Caucasus and are already advancing into the second lines of defense some 40 kilometers beyond the pre-war frontier. Turkish and other minor Axis troops are fighting hard on the defense and waging a skilled defensive campaign comfortable in the knowledge that 12 German divisions, including elite mountain divisions, are fortified behind them providing a safe fallback route.
June 8th 1948
The British introduce their latest Centurion tank model, upgraded with a 20 pounder main cannon, improved sighting, infra-red viewing capabilities, and generally improved reliability. The new tank is regarded as superior to the Cougar panzers in terms of firepower but remains inferior in other areas. The U.S. is making further refinements to its Pershing 2 and is beginning work on its own next-generation main battle tank to rival the Cougar and Centurion line of tanks.
250 German Ural heavy bombers and medium jet bombers raid Moscow and set fire to parts of the Soviet capital city. The Kremlin itself, rebuilt after the Eurasian War, suffers moderate damage. Beria suffers minor scratches and decides to spend more time in the bunker complex beneath the Kremlin in the future. The raid heavily damages several factory complexes and railroad junctions. The raid helps expose a major Soviet weakness - their anti-aircraft defenses are obsolete. They do have radar, but only for spotting incoming aircraft. They have virtually no radar-guided anti-aircraft weapons and no jets. They are forced to rely on Eurasian War era flak and prop-driven interceptors not much improved over their Eurasian War ancestors. The extremely fast and agile German medium jet bombers in particular are virtually invulnerable to the Soviet air defenses. Over the coming weeks the Soviets will begin requesting large amounts of anti-aircraft weaponry and technology from the Alliance and the U.S.
British forces complete the encirclement of Baghdad are pushing into the city from the southeast against fierce resistance. British bombers are now ranging at will over central and northern Iraq and have total air superiority as the Luftwaffe has now evacuated from Iraq to southeastern Turkey. Iraqi oil production has come to a halt as the British have by now destroyed most of the Iraqi capability to transport oil and maintain oil fields.
Hitler, in tense meetings at his command headquarters in eastern Poland, orders the General Staff to defend the precious Baku oil fields "at all costs".
German chemical weapons, including nerve gases and older WWI-era gases, begin to arrive in quantity at forward depots from the Baltic to the Caucasus. It will take several days to begin deploying the chemical munitions to the front lines.
June 9th 1948
Seeking to turn all of his attention towards the new war with the Soviets, Hitler appoints Heydrich to the post of "Reichsprotector of the Northwestern European provinces". Heydrich will become the master of northern France and the Low Countries - Hitler's cruel hand extended over the provinces west of the Rhine. His planned system of rule in these provinces will be extremely harsh but practical.
"Work hard for the Reich and be rewarded" he says on the radio in these occupied regions, "or work poorly or resist the Reich and be punished swiftly and severely".
Heydrich has been tasked by Hitler with fortifying against any possible future threat of invasion and "Germanifying" northern France by creating a class of "French-Germans". People living in occupied northern France and the�Low Countries are to learn German as a second language. All official business is to be conducted in German and German holidays will replace French holidays. All children and teenagers must learn to speak German in school. Jews, dissidents, "deviants", and others deemed racially "impure" or "weak" are to be sent east and either liquidated or used as slave labor. Anyone suspected of any kind of resistance activity is to be summarily executed with reprisals extending to friends, associates, and family members.
Many people living in northern France and the�Low Countries will begin to flee for the relative safety of the semi-independent French nations to the south, especially surviving Jews and educated people who are unwilling to collaborate with the Germans. Others will continue on further to the south and settle in Italy or Free French North Africa.
To picture northern France and the Low Countries under Heydrich think of how Heydrich ruled over Bohemia-Moravia in OTL. He is precise, calculating, and cold in his brutality and completely loyal to of all of Hitler's policies. Heydrich created the system of mass murder that we know as "the final solution" (he created much the same system in this alternate timeline and this time lived to see it in action) and was known as "the blonde butcher" to those he ruled over. Needless to say, northern France and the Low Countries are in for hard times.
June 10th 1948
Huge armored engagements southeast of Minsk end with battered German mechanized units withdrawing west into new defensive positions. The Soviets suffer massive losses but overwhelm the German forces with sheer quantity and firepower. The southern Soviet pincer in the drive on Minsk is now almost directly south of the city. The Soviet drive to the north is already northwest of Minsk and beginning to turn south in an effort to flank the city. Minsk is now a hellish landscape of chemically contaminated rubble, flame, and death. Some 300,000 civilians are dead or dieing and a torrent of humanity numbering in the hundreds of thousands is now flooding southwest in a desperate attempt to flee. The mass movement of civilians is clogging German efforts at movement southwest of Minsk.
Orel is surrounded and under siege as Soviet forces have bypassed the city in their drive for Kiev. Orel has seen the largest Soviet chemical attacks to date and most of the civilian population still in the city is either dead or on the verge of death. German soldiers in the city and in the surrounding countryside, number 95,000 and are having to wear chemical protection gear at nearly all times. The suits are beginning to fail as wear and tear sets in. Hitler has denied requests to break out of the Orel pocket, insisting that Orel hold out as a thorn in the gut of the Soviet push in the theatre.
In the forests of occupied western Russia partisan activity is beginning to make its presence felt. The Germans have managed to contain it for the most part with aggressive suppression by paramilitary police forces and minor Axis infantry and aircraft. However, the partisans are too numerous and well armed to suppress completely. Roads and rails are mined constantly - keeping German engineers very busy and diisrupting many supply convoys and train routes. Several key bridges in various places are downed and a major Luftwaffe base northwest of Minsk is assaulted in a well coordinated attack with several dozen Luftwaffe fighters and ground attack aircraft destroyed on the ground. However, the overall impact of the partisan operations are fairly minor.
Reports of a blight on the wheat crop begin to filter out of the western Ukraine and eastern Poland. With most of the attention focused on the titanic struggle being waged to the east the reports gain little initial notice.
East of Kharkov some 32 German divisions, including some of the best armored and panzergrenadier divisions the Germans can muster, prepare to launch a counter-offensive into the largely stalled front to the northeast. Their goal - drive northeast for Voronezh and then swing northwest to relieve the Orel pocket and cut off an entire Soviet army pushing towards Kiev.
In North Africa, on a front somewhat forgotten due to the events in Russia, Erwin Rommel prepares to lead his 8th panzer army into Tunisia. While Guderian holds the front in Libya the Italians, with the aid of Rommel and his 8th panzer army, will make their biggest push towards Tunis in over a year in a bid to capture Tunisia once and for all and put Algeria under threat.
In a highly guarded SBC (Strategic Bombing Command) hangar, at a major U.S. Army Air force base near Manila in the Philippines, two large spherical objects sit in the midst of more conventional equipment. The two atomic bombs are freshly arrived from the U.S. and the plans for their usage are still being drafted. The potential targets are numerous but the bombs themselves remain rare and precious. Debates rage from the Pentagon to Pearl Harbor as to how they may best be utilized.
In southeast Asia American, British, and Indian forces are crossing into Indo-China and being aided by Ho Chi Minh's Vietnamese nationalist guerillas. Thailand is in allied hands with the exception of a few pockets of isolated Japanese forces who refuse to surrender. The Japanese are fortifying the border between Indo-China and China and moving most of their limited mechanized forces into that region in hopes of holding allied forces out of China.
In Malaya British and American forces are now more than halfway down the peninsula towards Singapore thanks to a series of amphibious landings. The Japanese are preparing Singapore for a siege with defensive works built by forced labor reaching out kilometers from the city's northern outskirts. The Japanese must hold Singapore if they want any chance at holding onto the East Indies. The Japanese fleet anchored at Singapore remains a significant threat although it has little real mobility thanks to a critical shortage of fuel.
In Afghanistan the railroad stretching from British India to the Soviet Union is as busy as any rail line in the history of the world. Alliance and U.S. aid to the Soviets, already heavy before the Soviet entry into the war, has now become a torrent. With the Siberian ports not yet re-captured and the sea passage to northwest Russia a deadly gauntlet of German submarines and aircraft operating out of Norway, the trans-Afghan railroad is now the main Soviet outlet to the outside world. Everything from trucks to factory machinery and every kind of equipment and weapon in between is moving across the deserts and mountains of Afghanistan - much to the delight of the Afghan King and local warlords who are making a huge profit "protecting" the vital rail line. And running parallel to the existing trans-Afghan line a second rail line is more than a third complete. The second line will double the capacity of the strategic railroad when it is finished sometime in 1949.
The world shudders as Global War is fully joined.
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