Fall and Rise: A WW2 ISOT

A little bit on the air:

- Bomber Command are hitting a new city every three days. In @, it was every 2-6 days for a major raid in September 1943, for example: alternate-timelines.proboards.com/thread/2181/world-war-ii-real-time?page=109
- In @, Main Force or large scale ops were on September 3rd, 5th, 6th, 15th, 16th, 22nd, 23rd and 27th
- In terms of strength, equipment and technology, this is a Bomber Command more on par with 1945, reflecting the higher 'starting point' of DE. In scale, it is more equivalent to the 1945 US Eighth Air Force
- Mention is made of single engine fighters flying over Berlin. These are the Mustangs, which are capable of doing so given their @ record
- German night fighter capacity at this time was very small, as this is pre Kammhuber Line, up against a sophisticated late war EW package and massive bomber streams with Mosquito escort
- The history here is informative: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nachtjagdgeschwader_1 Prior to the @ formation of a night fighter force, over 2000 RAF bombers hit Berlin
- The German Air Ministry, along with its staff, was destroyed in that raid, complicating the process of response
- To make things even more unfair, the RAF heavy bombers fly faster than the Luftwaffe fighters and at an altitude above their flak

A little snippet:

The tenuous twilight war along the Seine Front had crept towards the flashing violence of the breakthrough quite gradually in the days leading up to June 24th. The British First and Second Armies and the Canadians had advanced steadily to positions stretching from Honfleur to Brionne, with vast quantities of supplies coming with them in armies of lorries, along the railway lines (including the 25 miles of new track laid with arcanely influenced haste from Caen to Pont L'Eveque) and in the daily skyship flights. Their push forward had been extremely heavily shrouded by misdirection and illusion magics, along with more prosaic means of disguise and distraction, such as the British Third Army and French conducting probing attacks around Tours and seemingly heavy concentration of tactical airpower in support of the dogged French defenders of Poitiers. RAF Mosquitoes and Buckinghams had been conducting regular high speed flights over Paris, dropping leaflets to the population promising that their deliverance would soon be at hand and that Allied help was on its way. The combination of these factors helped to drag German concentration away from the coast of Normandy in the lead up to the offensive.

Field Marshal Montgomery had set the first objective of Operation Broadsword as the Somme River at Amiens, some 61 miles away, where, depending on German opposition, British armour could then break for Sedan and the Ardennes. The Third and Fourth Armies would attack through Tours, Orleans and Troyes, whilst the Eighth Army would come through the Channel Ports after the initial breakthrough. The aim was very simply to cut off the two German army groups in France and then annhilate them, bringing the war to a swift conclusion, as directed by the Imperial War Cabinet and Supreme Allied War Council. The location of the first assault would allow Britain to deploy the maximal amount of her airpower and also bring some of her seapower to bear upon the decision. 

Thus it was, at 2136 on the night of June 25th, 4268 25pdrs, 768 rocket launchers, 1984 6", 896 8", 420 9.2", 125 12", 54 18" and 12 24" howitzers erupted in a terrific hurricane bombardment of German positions along the Seine, with the first rounds arriving in a simultaneous shock to the defenders. From out to sea, they were joined by 10 monitors, 12 cruisers and 6 battleships, who concentrated their fire on the northern flank of Broadsword. After 20 minutes of general bombardment, the artillery shifted to different fire missions, depending on their type and range, whether it be direct support of advancing British infantry and mechanised troops, long ranged fire against German guns and supply lines previously identified by reconnaissance or the inexorable creeping barrage. Up and down the German line came the crackle and acrid tang of spellfire, as the massed force of British battle mages let loose with the unrestrained fury of their war wizardry, blasting enemy positions with hundreds of enormous fireballs, lightning bolts, cones of deadly frost, showers of meteors and storms of icy hail, whilst dozens of elementals of earth, fire, air and water were sent raging against a thoroughly terrified mundane foe and screaming waves of terror spells rippled through the air. From on high came the dragons of the Royal Flying Corps, raining fire, death and ruin upon the German soldiers and seeming like the worst of their nightmares taken flesh.

The combined effect of the assault was simply disintegration, with not even the doughtiest and most professional soldier of the Heer equipped to face such a force, let alone effectively counter it. First by handfuls, then in their dozens, then in their hundreds, large numbers of the survivors turned and ran for their very lives. Four corps from the assembled field armies - two British, one Canadian and one Anzac - pushed forward, supported by Churchill heavy tanks which proved nigh on impervious to whatever response the remaining shell-shocked Germans could muster. Within 54 minutes, the immediate objectives had been taken and assault troops had stormed across the Seine on boats, allowing sorcerous bridges of arcane force to be thrown up. Now the infantry parted ways allowing for the advancing elements of four armoured divisions to drive forth into the night, even as the guns lifted to their final objective of the night's fire. The German defences along the Seine had been conventionally strong, and in some cases included multiple lines of resistance, but they had not been prepared for what Roon had aptly described as a hole being blasted through their lines.

Forward into the night pushed the Centurion tanks of the leading armoured divisions, with more to follow through the crossings as the night turned through the witching hour into the early morning, and fully mechanised infantry and artillery after them. The dawn would bring new light and new knowledge of what had come to pass, along with the terrible swift sword of British airpower, but for now, in the darkness of the night, there was but the fearful and inexorable clank of the tanks, the monstrous anger of the guns and the stuttering rifle's rapid rattle.

It took me a while to work out how to answer this with enough words and characters, so:

No, it isn't.

(See what I did there? )

I don't think that Hitler or any of his commanders would be in any way happy at a bombardment that they only experienced with Operation Plunder or Bagration, or at the Seelowe Heights. When they happened, though, there was some sense of understanding of Allied numerical superiority in equipment that had developed over time; here, it has come in less than two weeks.

In quoting single lines or fragments, some of the more significant bits of the above snippet get lost or forgotten. The sheer number of guns isn't the big takeaway.

You can. The basic idea of a rocket launcher on the back of a lorry or truck is quite straightforward, with the British having the Land Mattress in @, but not placing it on 'truck back' not out of technical impossibility, but choice. In a situation where Britain has worked on modern rocket technology for some time back into the 1930s, this is a natural progression.

The Internet and I seem to be unfamiliar with SSUD. These are pretty standard 5.25" rockets with an improved propellant (compared to the 4.5" used in @) fired in salvos like the Katyusha or Land Mattress.

As for the Seine, German Army Group B only received the Stop and 'Hold Contact with Each Other So The Enemy Does Not Escape' order from Halder and OKH on June 16th. In 9 days, they were able to construct some basic defensive positions that would have done the job against a 1940 era army with very few tanks, but simply lacked the time to really build anything substantive.

Sorry should be SCUDS.

So does the Rhine crossing (Operation Plunder) come close to the Seine operation.

My deepest apologies.

So do the British have a DUKW for crossing the Siene.