TheMarcksPlan wrote: ↑20 Oct 2021, 06:55
PunctuationHorror wrote: If they started with a building programme for transports and aircraft (fighters, naval bombers) in 1940 they could have had the required forces by the suggested time of '42/43. But where would they take the industrial capacity for it from?
I highly recommend Hearts of Iron 2 Darkest Hour, an oldish (2005?) PC game.
Like I said upthread I don't think Sealion had a snowball's chance unless Germany beats the SU. Until then they don't have the actual industrial capacity to achieve air superiority nor to build a Channel fleet - primarily because their latent industrial capacity (manpower) is drained by the Eastern Front (or absent Barbarossa, the Eastern Defense Forces or whatever). That's a fact missed by most historians. As a smaller numerical factor but a larger historical factor, Germany was also slightly undermobilized early in the war. More discussion
here and in some of my other threads. Sealion would become a credible threat in 1944-45, had the SU gone down. The Allies could counter that threat but only by tying down so many resources as to preclude defeating Japan and/or preventing the Axis overrunning virtually all of Eurasia.
This. I read this thread some times ago. Nice points.
TheMarcksPlan wrote: ↑20 Oct 2021, 06:55
...given that most historians miss the industrial manpower point, I wouldn't expect a video game to get it. I purchased HOI4 and have played it a few times, don't consider it very insightful for analysis.
Try HOI2 DH. If you search for it, you might even find a free download somewhere in the web. There is a big modding community and there are very detailed mods for this platform some "crazy people" came up with over the years: "1914", "New World Order", "The Grand Campaign", "1980" and even a modern day scenario called "Putin mod". The latter is weird, as european countries unite themselves in ~2015 to form two super states - a western and an eastern EU.
Indeed, industrial manpower, meaning you can explicitly allocate manpower to industry or military, is not directly implemented in HOI2 DH. However, it is built in indirectly as you can trade more military manpower for less production efficiency or vice versa depending on your mobilization level. This was added in Darkest Hour, previous versions of HOI2 don't have it to that extent. And there is "dissent", which affects your industrial capacity (IC), meaning people dont show up for work. IC again determines the transport capacity (it is simply IC multiplied with factors and affected by weather, seasons, logistic level, number of convoi ships), supply production, repair etc.
I never played HOI4, but I played HOI3 and went back to HOI2. In my opinion, HOI3 - after it was made playable by addons, the released version was unfinished buggy crap - has too much senseless micromanagement. HOI2 keeps things more reasonable. Yes, there are some improvements compared with HOI2, for instance you can manually draw supply lines and naval warfare is better, and it has a chain of command from theater, army groups, armies, corps down to divisions, whereas in HOI2, you have to imagine this chain of command and do it by yourself. Which I do like better. The mechanics of HOI2 are smart, pretty forward and you can easily edit the textfiles and set the multipliers, factors etc the game uses for its calculations if you feel it necessary to do so.
As to HOI4: After watching videos on yt, I did not like what I saw and decided not to bother with it. Looks like they made an arcade shooter.
To give an idea how such a HOI2 game could unfold:
Lastly I played the November 1942 scenario which models roughly the OTL dispositions. If you are quick, very lucky (had to reload saved games until it "worked", because the AI is sometimes nasty) and send literally everything to eastern Ukraine you can save most of your troops from Caucausus and Stalingrad and prevent collapse. 1943 was mostly spent for retreat, reinforcements and stabilizing the eastern front, because soviet forces get too strong. Back to Ukraine, back to Estonia/Latvia. With germany, you can't really afford big losses or continuous attrition, but as SU keeps attacking, you can't do much about it. So time is against you. The manpower situation is just too dense. In Aug '43, after lucky stabilisations, I launched an offensive to Rostov - Astrakhan, to cut off Caucasus and managed to pocket and destroy ~60 of the >250 soviet divisions against me, but quickly abandoned the new gained territory as it was untenable. I sent considerable aid to Finland because they were under heavy pressure and prevailed only by luck.
In the west, I tried to save as much troops as possible from north africa and bring them to Sicily. Western Allies invaded Sardinia, Corsica, tried Sicily, but failed. In 44 Western Allies took Crete, greek islands and tried to invade mainland Greece, Sicily and Italy close Salerno and Neaples several times, but suffered heavy losses as my naval air sank many troopships in the mediterranean. In France they took Brest, but were repelled. In the meantime, they landed in Belgium and Netherlands, but were cut off and destroyed. Later they headed for Norway, what I missed, because I was busy on the eastern front. Took some time to clear it. For unknown reasons AI sent not more troops and it was not expoited further.
In early summer 1944 in the SU Karelia/Petrozavosk was conquered and Murmansk/Kola was cut off and finished. Then an armoured wedge from Latvia to Lake Ladoga was beaten in to meet with the troops in Karelia, and Leningrad was cut off (again). Both actions together yielded 50 soviet divisions. After this, there were several very lucky 20+ div encirclements and Moscow was encircled in a big pocket. This pocket existed for several months until it could be cleared. Afterwards, there were no more specatcular things. Urals were reached by spring of 1945, Novosibirsk by summer '45.
Sealion had to wait because I still needed to build aircraft, paratroopers, transport ships and some small naval units. Occupying all the areas of SU, upgrades and reinforcements consumed up all my IC and manpower. There were just no free capacities for Sealion armaments. Using as many troops from eastern european allies worked somehow to close the gaps. With the availible tank, mot. and mech troops I secured the Mediterranean. It took time to get trough Caucasus to Iran, Iraq, french Lebanon, Palestine to Suez, Egypt. Reconquering Lybia and Tunisia and formerly French Colonies went slowly, because the Allies several times tried to cut off my fast divisions by launching naval invasions in their back. To prevent this, I needed many infantriy divisions to secure ports and important points. I wanted to conquer Turkey as well, but I lacked troops for occupation. So Turkey came in the 50s. Finally Spain was persuaded to join my alliance in '47, so the western passage of the med was closed by air. It was followed by Battle of Morocco where US lost at least 50 divisions.
In the meantime, Allied strategic bombing campaign crippled my industry. However, it was more efficient to concentrate every availible interceptor/fighter aircraft for a massive counter attack on one allied bombing raid every now and then, than trying to fight all bombing raids continuously in a dispersed manner because the losses of constant interceptions would be too high and the kill/loss ratio too unfavorable. Signs of Allied air attrition became visible by '48.
In summer '49 Sealion was launched. The Allies had ~ 90+ divisions on the British islands, most in the south. Paratroopers captured ports in Scotland and northern England. As most allied fleets were sunk by then by aircraft, my transport fleets went unharmed but for losses by enemy aircraft. Approx. 40000 men did not survive the crossing. Air cover from Norway was crucial. However, my airgroups had heaviest losses, some were down below 10% strenght. I sent 22 tank and 26 mot/mech/cav and 21 inf divisions to conquer the island. North Ireland was taken by airborne assault shorty afterwards.