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Springtime of Nations II: A European Republic Quest

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The peace with Scandinavia doesn't really sound like a good idea given that the stated possible outcomes (continuation of status quo or limited victory) would still allow Scandinavia to be a potential threat in any future conflict against the Entente (if they ally with the Entente).

We must also take into account that we have been arming the norwegian resistance. If we don't secure their independence we will be betraying them and if we secure their independence they will be sourrounded by hostile nations.
 
I am currently leaning towards Aedan's plan "options open" so far.

We're not struggling anywhere yet so I would like to see if we can support the Norwegian underground we cultivated before the war. Opportunism should be the name of the game!

In Austria it's been noted that the Bohemian army needs a breather so I am inclined to give it to them. Perhaps if the logistics catch up we can even bring a railway gun to fortified Prague in the spring.

In Poland then: Krakow to continue choking Austria should be good, although I could be persuaded to attack elsewhere if we think that it'll have too strong a defence.
 
Nevis said:
I am currently leaning towards Aedan's plan "options open" so far.

We're not struggling anywhere yet so I would like to see if we can support the Norwegian underground we cultivated before the war. Opportunism should be the name of the game!

In Austria it's been noted that the Bohemian army needs a breather so I am inclined to give it to them. Perhaps if the logistics catch up we can even bring a railway gun to fortified Prague in the spring.

In Poland then: Krakow to continue choking Austria should be good, although I could be persuaded to attack elsewhere if we think that it'll have too strong a defence.
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The ultimate goal in Poland is to push Russia out of it. Either Krakow or Plock will open the way to Warsaw and see the first stage of that truly happen, but Plock is noted as being much more disruptive to the Russians in Poland - which will make the subsequent campaign to capture Warsaw much more feasible and less costly. Let the Austrians stew for a season, imo - they aren't going anywhere. The defensible terrain of the Alps goes both ways. We should keep the initiative in Poland while we still can, because we've proven we can fortify cities such that the Russians can't crack them, even if they put in serious effort.
 
[] Operation White Lion
-[] [DENMARK] Strengthen defensive positions in Denmark.
-[] [POLAND] Reallocate troops toward the Austrian front.
-[] [AUSTRIA] Attempt a winter offensive toward Prague.
-[] [ITALY] Ask the Allies to stay on the defensive.
-[] [BALTIC] Deploy the Marinewehr to contest the western Baltic Sea.
-[] [MED] Ask the Allies to maintain the situation in the Mediterranean.

The Russians will keep. They were able to trade space for time, so I think our offensive into Poland will find it hard to go much further for the time being. But with a foothold beyond the mountains, we have a chance to concentrate against enemy formations in Bohemia before they can reorganize. With reinforcements, it becomes more feasible to bypass Prague and force the Austrians on the Silesian border to retreat. Like Grimely said, secure the Bohemian plain.

I'm neutral on what to do about Denmark. I think we wait for them to come to us, one way or another. If we start winning elsewhere, we'll be able to get better terms from them. Still, the other options are fine too.
 
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Retired Explorer said:
The peace with Scandinavia doesn't really sound like a good idea given that the stated possible outcomes (continuation of status quo or limited victory) would still allow Scandinavia to be a potential threat in any future conflict against the Entente (if they ally with the Entente).
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We could walk away from the negotiation if Scandinavia refuses to allow us to spin off a Jutland Republic FWIW, but tbf we would have then delayed the opportunity to really fortify Jutland or try to seize the Danish Islands.

Kirook said:
Just for a couple of slightly different plans:

[] Case Teutoberg
-[] [DENMARK] Attempt to secure a separate peace with Scandinavia.
-[] [POLAND] Strengthen defensive positions in Poland.
-[] [AUSTRIA] Attempt a winter offensive toward Prague.
-[] [ITALY] Ask the Allies to stay on the defensive.
-[] [BALTIC] Order the Marinewehr to stay in port.
-[] [MED] Ask the Allies to maintain the situation in the Mediterranean.

[] Case Gothic
-[] [DENMARK] Attempt an attack of opportunity via naval invasion.
-[] [POLAND] Strengthen defensive positions in Poland.
-[] [AUSTRIA] Attempt a winter offensive toward Prague.
-[] [ITALY] Ask the Allies to stay on the defensive.
-[] [BALTIC] Order the Marinewehr to contest the western Baltic Sea.
-[] [MED] Ask the Allies to maintain the situation in the Mediterranean.

The idea of Case Teutoberg is to prepare for a decisive strike against Vienna in the spring—peacing out with Scandinavia now will give us time to redeploy IX Army, keeping the blockade maintains the pressure on Austrian supply and morale, and Prague is a key industrial center that they'll struggle to fight without. Meanwhile,
If Russia attacks in Poland, we can also defend ourselves there and then counterattack.

Case Gothic is basically the same, but takes the riskier tack of going for the naval invasion, in the hopes of getting better terms against Scandinavia and potentially redeploying faster come springtime.
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Dreikanter said:
The Russians will keep. They were able to trade space for time, so I think our offensive into Poland will find it hard to go much further for the time being. But with a foothold beyond the mountains, we have a chance to concentrate against enemy formations in Bohemia before they can reorganize. Like Grimely said, secure the Bohemian plain.
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Edit: the intel we got from Bohemian partisans is how well fortified Prague is, and keep in mind how horrid a winter offensive in the mountainous terrain of Austria & Bohemia is. If you think a push into Poland will be hard I predoct it would be magnitudes harder aginst the Habsburgs' forces.

IMO we should try to take on that arduous challnege in a general Austrian Spring Offensive where the entire Alliance attack from three directions if possible. Poland OTOH is flatlands with milder winter conditions, and we did just gain great initiative there compared to the hard progress in Austria & Bohemia. So, better one of Krakow or Plock.
 
Regency said:
We could walk away from the negotiation if Scandinavia refuses to allow us to spin off a Jutland Republic FWIW, but tbf we would have then delayed the opportunity to really fortify Jutland or try to seize the Danish Islands.
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The option says that we will be fortifying as we negotiate.

That said, I have been convinced that we should send the Mediterranean fleet to the Baltic and see if we can seize some Danish territory. We aren't gonna invade Copenhagen, but every bit of territory we grab is a.chance to whittle away at the Russian fleet by making them defend it.
 
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spiritualatheist said:
The option says that we will be fortifying as we negotiate.

That said, I have been convinced that we should send the Mediterranean fleet to the Baltic and see if we can seize some Danish territory. We aren't gonna invade Copenhagen, but every bit of territory we grab is a.chance to whittle away at the Russian fleet by making them defend it.
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Ah, ty for correcting me.

Moreover, yeah I'm coming around to a pan-Alliance naval-supported strike & then offering peace to Scandinavia in the March-May campaign season after making gains in the Danish Islands
 
Regency said:
Ah, ty for correcting me.

Moreover, yeah I'm coming around to a pan-Alliance naval-supported strike & then offering peace to Scandinavia in the March-May campaign season after making gains in the Danish Islands
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Yeah, with the Adriatic secure we can probably expect Spain and Italy to send us all their armored cruisers, and at that point we have enough firepower to actually take the Russians head on.
 
[] Plan Pressure Cooker
-[] [DENMARK] Attempt an attack of opportunity via naval invasion.
-[] [POLAND] Attempt a winter offensive toward Krakow.
-[] [AUSTRIA] Strengthen defensive positions in Austria.
-[] [ITALY] Ask the Allies to stay on the defensive.
-[] [BALTIC] Deploy the Marinewehr to contest the western Baltic Sea.
-[] [MED] Ask the Allies to send naval reinforcements to the Baltic.

the idea behind this is simple, Sueing for peace wont work, the scandinavians still have a ways to go, but by raiding their shipping and stealing some islands we can further secure our northern front and make it so that they will almost definately come to the negotiating table next turn.

then its between austria or poland. invading austria is suicide, we know this due to intel and the fact that its a frozen mountanous hellscape.

I propose to dig in, strengthen our reserves specifically the bohemians who took a beating and make a push for krakow so that the russians in austria have a hard time being supplied. if we manage to take krakow we will be in a very good place to storm the austrians fully next turn, as we will have numerous fronts with them, some of them not so mountainous and with well rested allies. while they have to deal with half their army being undersupplied and their population/production centers being threatened.

The only sticking point is the russians, which will almost certainly attack during winter. I'd advocate for a "no u" strategy where we sit and fortify in place, repel their inevitable attack and to sally with some skirmishers to mess them up only to retreat again into our defensive lines aka a very offensive defense. I'm usure however if something like this is compatible given our push for krakow and the abstraction level of this quest.

Overall, I'd say we made our move. It's now time for the enemy to take theirs.
 
Regency said:
Ah, ty for correcting me.

Moreover, yeah I'm coming around to a pan-Alliance naval-supported strike & then offering peace to Scandinavia in the March-May campaign season after making gains in the Danish Islands
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Ooon a second thought, uh, It's winter and we don't really have naval supremacy in the Baltic like we do in the Med (that's a whole other problem of landing in the Adriatic being very mountainous). I do want to make gains in the Danish islands before forcing Scandinavia to peace out...but I'm starting to lean on doing that in Spring.

So for now, I think we'll just progress gradually in the Polish front while messing out Austro-Russian coordination by taking Krakow

Anyways
Winter:
[] Case Yule (name suggestions welcome)
-[] [DENMARK] Strengthen defensive positions in Denmark.
-[] [POLAND] Attempt a winter offensive toward Krakow.
-[] [AUSTRIA] Strengthen defensive positions in Austria.
-[] [ITALY] Ask the Allies to stay on the defensive.
-[] [BALTIC] Order the Marinewehr to stay in port.
-[] [MED] Ask the Allies to maintain the situation in the Mediterranean.

Potential Spring plan (dependant on available options):
[] Case Arquebus II (pls suggest a more creative name)
-[] [DENMARK] Attempt an attack of opportunity via naval invasion.
-[] [POLAND] Attempt an offensive toward Plock.
-[] [AUSTRIA] Attempt an offensive toward Prague.
-[] [ITALY] Ask the Allies to put pressure on the League.
-[] [BALTIC] Deploy the Marinewehr to contest the western Baltic Sea.
-[] [MED] Ask the Allies to send naval reinforcements to the Baltic.

Potential Summer plan (again, dependant on available options):
[] Case Eagle
-[] [DENMARK] Attempt to secure a separate peace with Scandinavia.
-[] [POLAND] Strengthen defensive positions in Poland.
-[] [AUSTRIA] Attempt an offensive toward Vienna.
-[] [ITALY] Ask the Allies to put pressure on the League.
-[] [BALTIC] Deploy the Marinewehr to contest the western Baltic Sea.
-[] [MED] Maintain naval reinforcements in the Baltic.

Criticism welcome (needed, even)

Edit: Alternatively, delay an Austrian strike to Fall, which would be (in this scenario) when we had reallocate troops from the Danish (& Polish?) fronts to potentially be able to strike both Vienna & Prague alongside a simultaneous strike by our allies against Trieste?
 
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Thing is, naval landings, ESPECIALLY with the technology level we're at, are very, very difficult. Also have to consider how the terrain will become muddy, wet and cold during the winter. If you wanted to do a landing, do it in the summer for god's sake, or not at all and sue for peace with them. Ideological fanaticism is not the way to win this war, and even though our gains have been good so far, they CAN change for the worse if we're not prudent.
 
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Yeah, I've lost track of all the plans so far, but if we're going to do any winter advances, they should probably be in Poland. Maybe Vienna just to scare the Imperials, but going for Plock or Krakow is more likely to be actually successful. Doing a naval landing of any kind is probably a bad idea at this particular juncture, but gaining full superiority in the Baltic is a good plan.
 
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Nerdorama said:
Yeah, I've lost track of all the plans so far, but if we're going to do any winter advances, they should probably be in Poland. Maybe Vienna just to scare the Imperials, but going for Plock or Warsaw is more likely to be actually successful. Doing a naval landing of any kind is probably a bad idea at this particular juncture, but gaining full superiority in the Baltic is a good plan.
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I think from the description in the update, Prague would be better than Vienna. Poland might still be better than either though.

And I absolutely agree naval landings are a mistake.

If we want to put Scandinavia out of the war we should wait for a better season to beat them thoroughly at sea then shell their ports.
 
The scandinavian peninsula is a sparsely populated, montainous and forested area which means that, even if the Landwehr succesfully secured a beach head, the Landwehr would have to fight in complicated terrain against an enemy that knows it as the back of their hand and our supplies would still have to come through the Baltic sea (a sea we have yet to completely secure).​
 
Retired Explorer said:
The scandinavian peninsula is a sparsely populated, montainous and forested area which means that, even if the Landwehr succesfully secured a beach head, the Landwehr would have to fight in complicated terrain against an enemy that knows it as the back of their hand and our supplies would still have to come through the Baltic sea (a sea we have yet to completely secure).​
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I think this misses the fact that a good chunk of Scandinavian population and political control is Denmark, which is very flat, and in the rest of Scandinavia, most of the population is in a few coastal cities. We can totally make them capitulate without controlling the hinterland if we want to, especially if we offer reasonable terms. The main issue is getting a foothold because naval landings are awful.
 
Nyvis said:
I think this misses the fact that a good chunk of Scandinavian population and political control is Denmark, which is very flat, and in the rest of Scandinavia, most of the population is in a few coastal cities. We can totally make them capitulate without controlling the hinterland if we want to, especially if we offer reasonable terms. The main issue is getting a foothold because naval landings are awful.
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It is true that most of the population lives in coastal cities, but unless we are planning:
  1. Multiple landings (one per coastal city).
  2. and directly landing on said coastal cities.
We are going to need to deal with Scandinavian terrain (between Oslo and Stockholm there's hinterland).

On the other point about political control being centered in Denmark, I am not so sure about that. The battle we recently fought against the scandinavians clearly showed that they have been unwilling or incapable of creating a united chain of command (given that the swedish army just decided to retreat without coordinating with the Norwegian and Danish army). In the field of battle they act like three different countries fighting together which suggests that the Kalmar Union is not that united (which indicates that political concentration, most likely, is not a thing that has happened).
​
 
Retired Explorer said:
It is true that most of the population lives in coastal cities, but unless we are planning:
  1. Multiple landings (one per coastal city).
  2. and directly landing on said coastal cities.
We are going to need to deal with Scandinavian terrain (between Oslo and Stockholm there's hinterland).

On the other point about political control being centered in Denmark, I am not so sure about that. The battle we recently fought against the scandinavians clearly showed that they have been unwilling or incapable of creating a united chain of command (given that the swedish army just decided to retreat without coordinating with the Norwegian and Danish army). In the field of battle they act like three different countries fighting together which suggests that the Kalmar Union is not that united (which indicates that political concentration, most likely, is not a thing that has happened).
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I said "a good chunk", not that Denmark controlled all of Scandinavia. We don't need to occupy the whole country to declare a Danish sister republic, for example. We have to think about our exit conditions, not forcing unconditional surrender through full occupation.
 
I think the only things I have strong opinions on are pushing for a separate peace with Scandinavia, using the winter to repair the Baltic fleet as they, and getting what reinforcements we can from the allies into the Baltic as these as synergize towards shifting the Navel war in our favor.
 
Something worth noting is that right now there are two big issues with amphibious assaults, IMO. The first is that it's difficult to get supplies ashore. This doesn't get better without painful learning experiences - the shipbuilding technology is there to build a small, shallow-draught boat that can beach itself and unload cargo over the bow, but prior to Gallipoli, it's not considered necessary (the Russians actually developed some stuff on the Black Sea during the war as well, which they ended up using in WWII). This doesn't get fixed until somebody bites the bullet. Thankfully, the Danish islands are really close to the mainland and Germany has a lot of river barges; getting supplies ashore following an invasion wouldn't be as horribly disastrous as it was at Gallipoli.

The second big issue is that it's hard to overwhelm the defender's firepower. However, again, the small width of the channels acts in our favour. Here's a map of what I assume is within range of our railway guns if we built the necessary rail lines:
We could somewhat effectively bombard the invasion beaches and inland areas from the German coast as well as threatening warships that try and force their way through. Hell, I suspect that German and Danish forces are routinely engaging in rifle fire across some of the narrower portions; crossing the Little Belt is more like an opposed river crossing than a full amphibious op.

It's possible to do this kind of landing by bombarding the landing beaches from the opposite shore and then rowing across or using some flat-bottomed barges. This winter, where part of the Russian fleet might be ice-bound, is probably our best shot at it, and would give us a much better position from which to negotiate a peace with the Scandinavians.
 
The islands of Denmark historically suck to invade as it is made of over a thousand islands, wetland bogs and flatland with perfect view is all directions.
 
Yeah, as Nyvis pointed out, we don't need to waste thousands of lives to achieve a worthless little beachhead on Fyn or Lolland. We litteraly just have to achieve naval supremacy in the baltic and put them under a blockade until we get the terms we want.
 
01paradox01 said:
Yeah, as Nyvis pointed out, we don't need to waste thousands of lives to achieve a worthless little beachhead on Fyn or Lolland. We litteraly just have to achieve naval supremacy in the baltic and put them under a blockade until we get the terms we want.
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Most of Denmark's population is in battleship armored cruiser gun range. :V
 
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