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The Grey Wolf (HOI 4 Romania)

Reader mode
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Karmic Acumen said:
Roma are gypsies. They're, like, 3% of the population
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Gypsies were never Roma people, until about 1990 when they migrated in large numbers into Western Europe.
As a historical fact, gypsies were Indian slaves brought by the Mongols and the Ottomans as they moved West around 1200-1500. And after the Mongols and the Ottomans were chased back, the slaves were left behind and still kept as slaves by various nobles or Church holdings( the Church did own about 33% of all land for a good while).

Around 1855 or so, people began realizing than keeping slaves was bad, even for the Church, so they were set free. Free, but without any land, houses, skills or money, and thus the gypsies adapted to survive without those silly things. Quite similar to the African slaves in America.
 
Constantinopole
  • Threadmarks
    • Getting my new Grey Wolf tank to work was a big problem. Everything about early T-34 sucked, excluding the rather modern angled shape.
    Luckily, the Romanian tank engineers already had the T-26 as a model for what not to do, and we were also not under the pressure of war. One by one, the crappy transmission, engine, sights, and so on were being worked on and upgraded.

    I wanted 5 armored divisions fully equipped by 1938, plus enough light tanks to provide training, plus armored garrisons in occupied lands and even armored guards in important places like research centers, army headquarters and so on. Reaching 2500 medium tanks and about 5000 light tanks was doable, with some effort and extra factories.

    The sunk vessels of the Bulgarian Navy were floated and chopped up for more steel, since Dubrovnik and Albania would need their own coastal forts to prevent a too eager Italy from using its fleet too close to our shores. Also, the Snake Island in Black Sea was also being fortified, getting a few 12 inch gun forts, plus some early radio detection and a torpedo boat base, plus a few seaplanes. The Romanian Navy didn't have an aircraft carrier, but I could build my own version of the Philippine's Corregidor Island.

    And in the game menu, a new menu tree had appeared, the Romanian Empire, which would me an Emperor. I have never been an Emperor, but it sure sounded like a fun idea.
    At the end of the tree, there was also the option of holding an Imperial Conference that would integrate all territories and puppets into a single super-state.

    The first two steps were quite easy, barely a declaration of intent about forming an Empire and then integrating all captured ships and Navies into a single Romanian Imperial Navy, or RAI. The next tree steps would take a lot more time, including sending diplomatic missions to America, Germany and Britain to ensure them of our goodwill, forming an Imperial Air Force and lastly a Romanian Imperial Army that included all armed forces, and paramilitary organizations.

    Luckily for me, Italy was rather busy in Croatia with a country-wide insurgency supported with French and British guns, money and spies, since they didn't want a new Roman Empire rising in Europe and threatening the status quo. Of course, the big boys missed the point and focused on the wrong target, and I was quite happy to let them.

    My new Romanian Imperial Navy didn't have anything to oppose the large Italian Navy, except suicidal planes or torpedo boats. Reclaiming Rhodes Island for my Greek subjects would have to wait, but in the meantime they got Macedonia as part of Greece which created a frenzy of patriotism and a volunteer surge.

    Next on the wish list was Constantinople, and finally chasing Turkey out of Europe after 600 long years. There had been another Balkan War aimed at Turkey in 1912 that tried to do exactly that, but the Balkan nations were not unified, coordinated or equipped with tanks.

    Sadly, the Turks knew what was coming too, and were desperately trying to get foreign support, mostly from Germany and the British.

    Which is why, the moment the first Grey Wolf division was ready and equipped with Grey Wolf tanks, plus other support companies, they immediately crossed the Southern border and headed towards Constantinople, followed by 3 motorized divisions in their trucks, while Greek and Bulgarian armies also pressured Turkey on the other European fronts.

    The Turkish fleet was quite strong, but also locked inside the Marmara Sea, and half of it sank under torpedo bombers and several key kamikaze on the former German dreadnoughts.

    It helped that following the Great War the Bosporus area was declared a demilitarized zone, and thus was not prepared for a large attack from land, air and sea.
    The demilitarized zone would have been annulled in 1936, and thus I had to hurry.

    Even faster than the lightning Bulgarian War, the capture of Constantinople took only 3 days, although clearing out the farther Dardanelles Strait and the fortified Galipolli area would take three months and thousands of lives. Three islands: Imbros, Tenedos and Marmara changed hands, and became part of the Romanian Empire, and will provide extended range for land-based planes.

    With France's unwilling support, we managed to obtain a status quo peace guaranteeing our gains, and free transit through the Straits for the Romanian Imperial Navy, while also specifically denying any Soviet or German ships from transiting through Bosporus. To enforce this, the French would build for us a pair of giant forts armed with twin 15 inch guns at each side of the Strait, while they would gain free access to the Black Sea in exchange.

    Both Britain and Germany rushed to guarantee the (now smaller) Turkey agaisnt further aggression, but it was a bit too late. Well, I guess the guarantees would help agaisnt the Soviet Union, so not completely useless.

    My glory and legend grew again, for doing the impossible and restoring Constantinople to Europe after 500 years, which meant a dozen new chains and medals found their way on my parade uniform. What can you do, win some, lose some, right?

    General Gheorghe_Avramescu who led the armored thrust to Constantinople was promoted to Land Marshall following this great but inevitable victory, and I made sure the man would have to carry at least half the decorations I had to. Welcome to the club, war hero!

    The infantry would get a new weapon in their arsenal called Renault_UE_Chenillette , to be produced by the Malaxa Company in large numbers. Both as a prime artillery mover, but also as direct fire support for infantry with a machine-gun cupola. I wanted some 100 such tankettes in every army division, basically a light armored battalion to bulk up the fragile infantry and help them lose less people.

    At least 10000 of these machines would be needed, not including training and combat loses. The Japanese (would) had used tankettes extremely effectively in China, since being immune to bullets and mowing down people with a machine-gun wasn't hard at all. The things were also extremely light weight, barely 3 tons at their maximum loadout, which basically made them equivalent to a Terminator power armor from another universe.

    By 1935, the Saint Sophia Cathedral in Constantinople was restored to its original Orthodox denomination, while a million Turks were ferried over the Bosporus in a population exchange with Turkey.

    They still had plenty of Greeks and various non-Muslims to get rid-off, and my threat of crucifying 100 Turks for every killed Christian worked much better after a few demonstrations.
    It also made me a monster in the eyes of many people, but hey. The other option was to kill all the Turks in the occupied lands, which would have been slightly worse, for them. Three million nails were not that expensive.

    Work began to recover the sunk Turkish ships and re-use the steel for more tanks and guns, as well as establishing more airports in the region and fortified the Marmara island in the Marmara Sea, just in case.

    The big 15 inch forts guarding the Straits would take at least 2 years and probably 3 years to be complete, but time was on my side right now.

    The Imperial Navy was increased greatly by the addition of the Greek Fleet, including 2 old battleships, 2 cruisers, 10 destroyers and 6 submarines.
    Sadly the old relic battleships, Kilkis and Lemnos were on their last legs, but chopping them up for steel was not a popular option. So, they were tugged and towed into the Black Sea at the entrance into the Straits, then mounted into concrete islands and painted bright white. The battleships could never sink this way, and still be useful when the time came.
     
    Last edited:
  • Threadmarks
    • Pef said:
    Getting my new Grey Wolf tank to work was a big problem. Everything about early T-34 sucked, excluding the rather modern angled shape.
    Luckily, the Romanian tank engineers already had the T-26 as a model for what not to do, and we were also not under the pressure of war. One by one, the crappy transmission, engine, sights, and so on were being worked on and upgraded.

    I wanted 5 armored divisions fully equipped by 1938, plus enough light tanks to provide training, plus armored garrisons in occupied lands and even armored guards in important places like research centers, army headquarters and so on. Reaching 2500 medium tanks and about 5000 light tanks was doable, with some effort and extra factories.

    The sunk vessels of the Bulgarian Navy were floated and chopped up for more steel, since Dubrovnik and Albania would need their own coastal forts to prevent a too eager Italy from using its fleet too close to our shores. Also, the Snake Island in Black Sea was also being fortified, getting a few 12 inch gun forts, plus some early radio detection and a torpedo boat base, plus a few seaplanes. The Romanian Navy didn't have an aircraft carrier, but I could build my own version of the Philippine's Corregidor Island.

    And in the game menu, a new menu tree had appeared, the Romanian Empire, which would me an Emperor. I have never been an Emperor, but it sure sounded like a fun idea.
    At the end of the tree, there was also the option of holding an Imperial Conference that would integrate all territories and puppets into a single super-state.

    The first two steps were quite easy, barely a declaration of intent about forming an Empire and then integrating all captured ships and Navies into a single Romanian Imperial Navy, or RAI. The next tree steps would take a lot more time, including sending diplomatic missions to America, Germany and Britain to ensure them of our goodwill, forming an Imperial Air Force and lastly a Romanian Imperial Army that included all armed forces, and paramilitary organizations.

    Luckily for me, Italy was rather busy in Croatia with a country-wide insurgency supported with French and British guns, money and spies, since they didn't want a new Roman Empire rising in Europe and threatening the status quo. Of course, the big boys missed the point and focused on the wrong target, and I was quite happy to let them.

    My new Romanian Imperial Navy didn't have anything to oppose the large Italian Navy, except suicidal planes or torpedo boats. Reclaiming Rhodes Island for my Greek subjects would have to wait, but in the meantime they got Macedonia as part of Greece which created a frenzy of patriotism and a volunteer surge.

    Next on the wish list was Constantinople, and finally chasing Turkey out of Europe after 600 long years. There had been another Balkan War aimed at Turkey in 1912 that tried to do exactly that, but the Balkan nations were not unified, coordinated or equipped with tanks.

    Sadly, the Turks knew what was coming too, and were desperately trying to get foreign support, mostly from Germany and British.

    Which is why, the moment the first Grey Wolf division was ready and equipped with Grey Wolf tanks, plus other support companies, they immediately crossed the Southern border and headed towards Constantinople, followed by 3 motorized divisions in their trucks, while Greek and Bulgarian armies also pressured Turkey on the other European fronts.

    The Turkish fleet was quite strong, but also locked inside the Marmara Sea, and half of it sank under torpedo bombers and several key kamikaze on the former German dreadnoughts.

    It helped that following the Great War the Bosporus area was declared a demilitarized zone, and thus was not prepared for a large attack from land, air and sea.
    The demilitarized zone would have been annulled in 1936, and thus I had to hurry.

    Even faster than the lightning Bulgarian War, the capture of Constantinople took only 3 days, although clearing out the farther Dardanelles Strait and the fortified Galipolli area would take three months and thousands of lives.

    With France's unwilling support we managed to obtain a status quo peace guaranteeing our gains, and free transit through the Straits for the Romanian Imperial Navy, while also specifically denying any Soviet or German ships from transiting through Bosporus. To enforce this, the French would build for us a pair of giant forts armed with twin 15 inch guns at each side of the Strait, while they would gain free access to the Black Sea in exchange.

    Both Britain and Germany rushed to guarantee the (now smaller) Turkey agaisnt further aggression, but it was a bit too late. Well, I guess the guarantees would help agaisnt the Soviet Union, so not completely useless.

    My glory and legend grew again, for doing the impossible and restoring Constantinople to Europe after 500 years, which meant a dozen new chains and medals found their way on my parade uniform. What can you do, win some, lose some, right?

    General Gheorghe_Avramescu who led the armored thrust to Constantinople was promoted to Land Marshall following this great but inevitable victory, and I made sure the man would have to carry at least half the decorations I had to. Welcome the to club, war hero!

    The infantry would get a new weapon in their arsenal called Renault_UE_Chenillette , to be produced by the Malaxa Company in large numbers. Both as a prime artillery mover, but also as direct fire support for infantry with a machine-gun cupola. I wanted some 100 such tankettes in every army division, basically a light armored battalion to bulk up the fragile infantry and help them lose less people.

    At least 10000 of these machines would be needed, not including training and combat loses. The Japanese (would) had used tankettes extremely effectively in China, since being immune to bullets and mowing down people with a machine-gun wasn't hard at all. The things were also extremely light weight, barely 3 tons at their maximum loadout, which basically made them equivalent to a Terminator power armor from another universe.

    By 1935, the Saint Sophia Cathedral in Constantinople was restored to its original Orthodox denomination, while a million Turks were ferried over the Bosporus in a population exchange with Turkey.

    They still had plenty of Greeks and various non-Muslims to get rid-off, and my threat of crucifying 100 Turks for every killed Christian worked much better after a few demonstrations.
    It also made me a monster in the eyes of many people, but hey. The other option was to kill all the Turks in the occupied lands, which would have been slightly worse, for them. Three million nails were not that expensive.

    Work began to recover the sunk Turkish ships and re-use the steel for more tanks and guns, as well as establishing more airports in the region and another fortified island in the Marmara Sea, just in case.

    The big 15 inch forts guarding the Straits would take at least 2 years and probably 3 years to be complete, but time was on my side right now.

    The Imperial Navy was increased greatly by the addition of the Greek Fleet, including 2 old battleships, 2 cruisers, 10 destroyers and 6 submarines.
    Sadly the old relic battleships, Kilkis and Lemnos were on their last legs, but chopping them up for steel was not a popular option. So, they were tugged and towed into the Black Sea at the entrance into the Straits, then mounted into concrete islands and painted bright white. The battleships could never sink this way, and still be useful when the time came.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Great chapter as always, unless it isn't, but it was…so imma need another one chop chop
     
    Spain
  • Threadmarks
    • Perhaps it was not a great idea to allow the Archangel's Legion the rights to pilgrimage to Constantinople and the Holy Lands, as their means and methods were soon adopted by various Israeli groups like Irgun and Herut, eager to cleanse the Holy Lands and especially the West Bank of Jordan of any non-jews.

    The British were not amused, as they were also ruling over a huge part of the Middle East filled with Arabs. Crackdowns on the immigrants and extra weapon control points made life harder for the Jews returning home, but it could have been much worse. The British 'harsh' measures were nothing compared to concentration camps and similar stuff in USSR or Germany.

    Although the Great Depression was over and food was not being thrown away just to keep prices high, due to my policies (not just me, but the entire National Peasant government)
    it meant that agriculture output had doubled in the past 5 years, while industry output had tripled. Technology and science had grown immensely as well, partly from intensive investments into research centers, military testing and numerous schematics being sent from all over the world.

    The Greek diaspora had also been co-opted into the Network, as well as Romanian emigrants, and to a much lesser extent various other nations from the Empire.

    The Royal Corporation in America was already in top 500, and sneakily hiring inventors from all over the world. Half of the secret work was dedicated to radar and sonar technologies, while the public effort was made for dual-use technologies like tracks, trains, engines of all kinds, plus better steel and oil production. The Americans were not that interested yet in who owned my corporation or what they were doing in their labs, instead being happy to buy our products.

    Several inventions never made it to the market, instead being packed and sent to Romania with all haste. An engine with 20% better performance and reliability would have made a pretty buck, but I preferred to gained in edge in my war machines. The IAR_80 was a direct descendant of the IAR_14 that fought bravely over Hungary, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia, but it was for this time the best propeller fighter in the world. Its speed had doubled though, reaching 500 km/hr compared to the former IAR 14 speed of 250 km/hr.

    This was indeed an era of wonder and discovery, as technology made huge progress all over the world.
    The Royal Airforce immediately put an order for 1000 new IAR 80 planes, but even 1000 planes would not be enough.

    To keep the skies of Romania safe from incursion, we will need jet fighters, but that work was still slow. My friend Henri Coanda had a large team around him to help him make his dream into reality, but without computers and graphic programs it took a long time to create a decent flying machine. Even worse, there was nobody to steal the tech from, as we were the leading edge in jet planes at the moment.

    As for naval technologies, diesel submarines with air snorkels were being tested in both Greece and Romania, in great secrecy. We had bought and stolen torpedoes from a dozen nations, and the stolen British Unrotated_Projectile was being tested as a depth charge delivery system against submarines and mines. They had no chance hitting a flying airplane with those things, but I wouldn't bother to tell them unless they became my allies.

    And for the moment, the British were doing British things, thinking themselves the rulers of the world. Made them pretty obnoxious and unlikable, but then I was also doing Empire things in the Balkans.

    A similar unrotated projectile system was being considered for the Army, as a tankette like the Malaxa UE could carry a rocket launcher with 8 such rockets and deliver a punishing barrage up to 3 kms away. Using a proper tank chassis would allow for a 30 rocket launcher to be installed on a Ferdinand tank, and 60 rocket launcher on the Grey Wolf.

    In the end, all three options were approved, as long as the tank could also fire its main gun or machine-guns too. That lead to the creation of a tank destroyer with a fixed casemate in the front for the main gun, just like the Wolf or the Hetzer, but that would be continued with a flat portion to carry the rocket launcher. It looked a bit like the yet-not-made SU-85 , but with a swivel missile launcher on the back. I decided to use the light tanks for this rocket role, and keep the medium tanks in their turreted role.

    Seeing +30 damage to both hard and soft attack in my game menu made me very happy when I examined the first prototype. A battalion of 40 these babies would boost any division to impressive stats, even if they complicated logistics and maintenance. The 23 mm twin-autocannons used by the Anti-air company also added +30 piercing, air and soft attack, while the UE tankettes added +2 armor and +20 soft attack to every infantry division.

    I also had ideas for a flame tank, but the tankettes would be bombs on tracks due to their low armor, same with the Ferdinand light tanks. The Grey Wolf chassis was the only option remaining, and quite viable too, but the time wasn't right. Before building support units for an armor division, I needed to equip that division with normal tanks first.

    While the Romanian Empire was re-building the damaged territories and growing at an absurd rate, in Spain things were going crazy. USSR was supporting the local communists as to expand the Revolution on a global stage, while reactionary countries Germany and Italy were supporting General Franco and his nationalist clique.

    Volunteers were pouring into Spain from all over the world, eager to die for their beliefs. I decided to help them die faster. Unmarked submarines departed for Spain loaded with torpedoes, and ordered to sink any ship heading into a Spanish port.
     
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  • Threadmarks
    • Pef said:
    Volunteers were pouring into Spain from all over the world, eager to die for their beliefs. I decided to help them die faster. Unmarked submarines departed for Spain loaded with torpedoes, and ordered to sink any ship heading into a Spanish port.
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    What a saint. He deserves a few more dozen medals for sending so many heroes/martyrs into heaven. Kek.
     
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    Progress
  • Threadmarks
    • Outrage filled the radiowaves and newspapers all over the world, as thousands of volunteers, plus their ammunition, guns, tanks and planes got sunk, without a clear enemy or even a clear reason.

    People blamed everyone and everything, from Germans and Italians to the Soviets or even the French. Given that no radio transmissions were being sent after a ship got sunk, and thus no radio detection or code breaking could be made, it was perhaps understandable.

    I didn't need my captains to report their position or torpedo status or what ships got sunk. I had my HOI 4 menu, and could see all that in real time.
    A number of coded messages were being sent by Network agents from all over Europe and even from the Americas, most of them fake 'number stations' repeating Pi sequences between 500th and 1000th decimal, while a single station from Venezuela also added a map coordinate in-between 100 random numbers.

    A clever Submarine Captain with a suicidal Legion Archangel as an XO would decipher the next ship being sent loaded with expensive planes or tanks, or thousands of tons of munitions, and sink their target before they could unload the cargo.
    Of course, there were hundreds of such ships delivering cargo into Spain, plus more armament deliveries carried over land through Gibraltar, Andorra, France and most of all: Portugal.

    A squadron of the Romanian Navy composed of 5 destroyers was sent officially to inspect ships traveling to Spain, with orders to confiscate illegal cargo and the ship that carried it, if possible. That was mostly aimed at Soviet transports though, since their equipment was quite useful for my Army, given that we used Soviet-origin weaponry in great numbers.

    The patrol squadron was based in Bordeaux on the Atlantic Ocean shore, since the Black Sea was locked with a solid chain for Soviet ships attempting to supply the 'Republican' faction in Spain.

    Passenger ships filled with volunteers were left alone by the Romanian destroyers, who simply reported their position and course in the clear to their base in Bordeaux.
    Any submarine with a snorkel out would hear the target being painted with a bright red kill sign.
    As it happens, the destroyer squadron also had a number of tankers and supply ships loaded with torpedoes to keep them in good sea shape on the long patrol, and if any of that fuel or torpedoes got misplaced and were loaded by a submarine instead?

    Oh well. This was why hundreds of Legion members were posted on board these supply ships, to make sure deliveries were made on time, or in case they got boarded or captured...blow up the ship.

    As for land units, I wasn't ready to step into the bear trap of the Spanish Civil War, but we could send a dozen mountain infantry battalions to patrol the Pyrenees Mountains and the passes, catching and executing smugglers and spies. The French were a bit suspicious of our interest in mountain training and such, but I think they also didn't want the war to escalate towards themselves either, so the exercise in mountain cooperation was allowed.

    The first French armored brigade, modeled after the Romanian one which captured Budapest, was sent to protect the Mediterranean littoral and the expensive villas of the rich, as it wouldn't do for either 'Republican' or 'Nationalist' agents to blow up a million francs villa in Port Vendres or Banyuls-sur-Mer.

    Cap Cerbere nearest to the Spanish border received a brand-new 15-inch coastal battery to secure the French morale against a possible outbreak of Spanish trouble. I doubted they would get to finish the coastal fort before the Spanish war was over, but it was a good start anyway. Build a dozen such forts along the Belgian border and they might last longer when the time came.

    Nothing I could do about Portugal and their stance to allow weapons going through, so the war in Spain would continue anyways, but hopefully with less weapons and ammo.

    Meanwhile in Leningrad, a pair of Soviet physicists have discovered a radar prototype involving microwaves and magnets, which sounded to me like a good way to make popcorn. They also tried to publish their work, sending it to various journals, but the Soviet censors were not very amused. Either way, a copy of their work made their way into my hands, and then was copied a dozen times more and sent to all the research institutes with a prize of 5000 dollars for any team that made it work first.

    I also sent them a 'fake' Soviet study involving printed transistors on a silicon wafer, but since I was not an engineer, it was all mostly theoretical. Surely, a hundred geniuses working in electronic research might figure it out one day. By the next month, my guess was vindicated as the Cluj team produced a radio weighting only 2 kilograms, and promised to reduce that weight in half by the next year. Progress was unexpected, but welcome.

    We could mount radios into tanks and planes now, without making them lose 20% speed.

    The first application of the light radio was for the artillery spotter plane, a Polish PZL_P.11 which had a great field of view, and for which we already had a license to build more. A naval variant was soon tested in Greece for seaplanes and a converted hull used as an early carrier.

    The Navy wanted 5 escort carriers with dedicated torpedo bombers in the Mediterranean Sea, mostly to counter the Italian Navy and their new battleships.
    I also agreed, since a single wing of 10 torpedo bombers were 1000 times cheaper than building a new battleship. Not that we had the tech or the resources to do that anyways.

    However, the escort carriers also needed cruisers in the fleet, and some destroyers. I would have to spend like 40% of all the money I gained from selling oil...you know what? Fine!
    We could get 30 destroyers, 10 cruisers and 5 small carriers from my own money. The rest would need to be covered by the Imperial budget, which was not so big.

    The Dacian Wall had reached level 5 in my menu, and more officers were asking me to stop the nonsense. They logically argued that static defenses could be bypassed, either via lateral envelopment, maritime invasion or even vertical envelopment, meaning gliders and paratroopers. I forcefully declined their requests, and simply opened two more artillery factories for anti-air guns, including medium 65mm guns on swivels and the larger 105 mm guns normally used for long range bombardment by the Army, and by some naval ships too.

    The Soviets were not known for their admirable paratroopers yet, but might as well be safer.
    Plus, there were precious cities and oilfields that would also need anti-air defenses, not just the big wall.

    Population wise, more and more Romanians living in Moldova and Bukovina were being relocating from their sad poverty to nice empty farms left behind by the Hungarians and Bulgarians, who went home to their now smaller countries. That also meant that extensive housing and construction was taking place in both puppet countries, mostly 2-story apartment blocks on the outskirts of major cities.

    The new blocks were built mostly with brick and had wooden roofs, so they couldn't be very tall, nor was elevator tech available for the moment. However, each family was given a garden nearby where they could grow vegetables or poultry, which made the new Imperial suburbs quite popular.

    Hundreds of enterprising companies began to build similar blocks near Romanian cities as well, making the cities grow in population and causing a bit of deflation in salaries, but also growing the Imperial GDP by several percents, due to sale taxes and buying of construction materials.

    In America, they produced their first real fighter as well, the Curtiss_P-36_Hawk , which kinda matched our IAR 80 in speed and performance.
    It didn't have a radio or an armored backseat though, nor a proper cannon to shot down airplanes, but they will get there soon enough.
     
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  • Threadmarks
    • Pef said:
    A clever Submarine Captain with a suicidal Legion Archangel as an XO would decipher the next ship being sent loaded with expensive planes or tanks, or thousands of tons of munitions, and sink their target before they could unload the cargo.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    I didn't understand this sentence mainly cos Idk what an XO is.

    Brian the dor said:
    Another one…another one…get back in the basement and write us another one
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    Click to shrink...

    What he said!

    Thanks for the chapter. I'm really enjoying this story and would be eagerly waiting for all updates.
     
    • Like
    Reactions: Pef
    Fair
  • Threadmarks
    • I have to say, the Spanish war was a great way to train your troops with live exercises, especially the Navy. The Army had already fought in 4 wars, or perhaps 5 if we consider Albania. Although, in my view only the Yugoslav War was a real one, as proved by the equipped loss and the lost lives too. Italy was still fighting this war in occupied Croatia, and another similar war in Ethiopia and had little troops to spare for Spain, as they were not willing to mobilize and lose 20% of their workforce.

    Germany was still chaffing at the Versailles Treaty limits, but they were getting ready to invade Rhineland.
    'The German Reich invades the Rhineland, ignoring the demilitarized zone status. You can decide to: protest, whine, declare war.'

    Thanks game! Even if I wanted to declare war, my Empire doesn't have a border with Germany for now, being separated by Austria and Czechoslovakia.
    I sent an angry telegram to Paris, urging them to bomb the troops entering Rhineland, and the same to the British, urging them to use their fleet and blockade Germany.
    I got only whining in return.

    Oh well. At least I tried. Actually, I haven't tried enough.

    A royal household plenipotentiary diplomat was sent to Holland, offering them 200 Wolf tank destroyers armed with 65mm guns, and 200 brand new 65mm anti-air guns, in exchange for 1 heavy cruiser almost finished in their construction cycle.
    To both our surprise, the deal went through and my Imperial Navy gained a brand new flagship, while Holland had tripled they armored capability in land warfare.

    A similar offer was made to Belgium, gaining me 2 destroyers and a light cruiser.

    Luxembourg didn't have a Navy, but they were rich, so I sold them the same for enough gold to buy a new heavy cruiser from Britain, albeit one specifically devoid of radar or unrotated projectiles. No matter, a few upgrades could be carried out in Salonic, including installing a radar set of our own design.

    The rest of the ships were ordered in America, a country far less likely to confiscate my unfinished ships when the war started. 30 submarines and destroyers, plus 8 cruisers and 5 small carriers was a pretty penny for any shipyard, especially in America were people were fighting for job, any job.
    And if they commented at the small carriers with external elevators being ordered, I didn't care. I know they were interested why were only demanded diesel engines and spare engines too, for all ships. Simply put, we didn't have the technology to build big engines in my Empire, and after the war started the Mediterranean Sea would be quite dangerous for shipping.

    Anyways, people in America were quite confused where Romania was, especially which continent. Most of them guessed South America, which was pretty close.

    In Spain, the war was not very civil, despite its name. Priests and nuns were butchered by the communists, while the Nationalists also butchered intellectuals, doctors and suspected communists. German planes dominated the sky, since most Soviet planes were either sunk or captured en route. The special sound of the Stuka became the motif for the Spanish War, used in movies and cinema reels all the time.

    France had built over 800 Wolf tank destroyers already, but refused to deliver them to me, even though it was my order that got them built. So I eventually backed down a little, and asked them to deliver the tank destroyers the Low Countries instead, using only 600 Wolfs and the rest of the order being covered by 600 65mm Anti-air guns, to counter plunging Stukas if necessary.
    Again, this offer went through and much better, since France's own security was guarded by the Low Countries in the North. So I basically got my ships and gold for free.

    Truly, the French were great friends, when doing things in their own interest.

    I didn't have a big hope with the extra tank destroyers though. Be it 800 or even 8000 it wouldn't matter. Soviet Union lost 80000 tanks against Germany, and 30000 of them in the first 3 months of the war. The Blitzkrieg as a doctrine was extremely powerful, allowing for amazing coordination via radio and independent decision for ground commanders. Compared to the French messenger pigeons used instead of radios, and the archaic command chain, they weren't even in the same century with Germany.

    Sadly, the Romanian Army was almost as bad for now, although the tanks' locomotive horns were slowly being phased out in favor of radios.

    For now, I focused on logistics, after consulting my logistic map mode, and consulting professional officers. Ammo depots, secondary ammo depots, fuel depots, new roads and railway tracks, more trains, artillery movers, trucks, and so on. The Soviet Army menacing our Eastern border numbered about 8 to 10 million, and we could only mobilize 1 million soldiers to withstand that. Which is why I was building the Dacian Wall, since prepared defenses gave the defender a 10 to 1 advantage, given equivalent weapons.

    We would also need at least 500000 women to help with secondary tasks, everything from cooking, washing, mending uniforms, mending wounds and so on.
    The aluminum splinter vests were also providing +1 armor to the infantry, but their effect was far larger in a long war. Most injuries in a war happen through artillery, not bullets.

    The front line units would also receive sown silk skirts with aluminum plates, since femoral artery bleeding was even faster than a body injury.
    Officers were being trained now to try to act like a proper soldier in the field, even if more silk was being produced in Albania for body armor. They would need to use metal helmets instead of cool French style caps, but that would save their brains from artillery shells and the occasional sniper.

    And speaking of snipers, 5000 soldiers with good marks in marksmanship were being trained as Army snipers, using the best rifles and scopes that money could buy from America. My own money, not the Imperial budget. In general, snipers were the only soldiers in the Army who didn't waste all the bullets they fired for nothing. In a year of war, a soldier might fire 1000 bullets and don't even hit any enemy. It was a bit sad, but true.

    If I could obtain 1 million snipers instead of regular soldiers, the Soviet army would last less than a week. But alas, it took a special type of mentality and training to accurately hit targets at a long distance, beside a good weapon and a quality bullet. I had the officers comb their troops for any decent marksman to send for sniper training, but no luck so far, beside those already found.

    In Brasov, Henri had just produced the first jet plane in the world, but he didn't allow me to fly it. Not fair!
     
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    • By the time 1937 came around, General Franco supported by Germany had taken Madrid and was taking charge of Spain more seriously.

    And a merchant ship carrying tons of gold, stolen from the Spain treasury, departed from Spain towards Soviet Union, and was intercepted by the Romanian destroyer squadron, then carried to Bordeaux. There was a bit of debate in France and Romania what to do with all the gold, but eventually we extracted 30% for our finder fee and deposited the rest in America, for the time when Spain was restored to a legal government.

    The extra gold allowed me to praise the American shipyards and their workers, and order 100 more destroyers for the Navy, while France ordered 3000 tanks and airplanes for their army. It still wouldn't be enough, not if spread to every division in company strength instead of concentrating the tanks into a powerful armored force.

    I mean, the French idea wasn't bad, since they did boost the infantry rating by a lot, but only as a secondary effect. You could do that, but only after establishing enough of an armored force to counter an enemy attack.

    Taking the French idea and expanding on it, I doubled the tank industry once more to create 4000 Wolf destroyers (with a rocket launcher on the back), to boost every infantry division stats. Luckily, the new diesel engines created in America were stronger and more reliable than the Soviet junk we used til now, so they should last until 1940 at least.

    Our T-34-65, or the Grey Wolfs were coming up nicely as well, reaching 800 in number and equipping a second armored division, while tank radios began to appear in slightly better numbers, enough to equip all command tanks for now. For their infantry support, a half-efficient measure was introduced, armoring the trucks with light duraluminum plates, created by adding copper to aluminum to give it more resistance.

    Given our larger territory and population, plus native oil resources meant that we were becoming self-sufficient at a rapid pace, although more work had to be made for electricity needs and coal mines, plus several hydroelectric plants including a giant one on the Danube, somewhat below Belgrade.

    The Eastern border was getting a network of tall radio towers made of steel beams with a concrete base, used both for radio detection and artillery spotting. After reaching 100 forts with 12 inch guns on the Dacian Wall, further work was dedicated to command bunkers, protected trenches and tunnels and all the good stuff used at the Maginot Line, while the big gun production was dedicated to more Greek islands forts, plus several on the Hungarian border that overlooked Italy and Austria.

    Although Adolf invited us to the anti-Comintern pact, alongside Benito, Franco and Hirohito, it didn't mean we were allies. The enemy of my enemy was still my enemy, but probably a bit later.

    A dozen jet planes were breaking world speed records everyday as more testing and fixes were made, but we will begin mass-production soon enough, just after the IAR plant completed the 1000 IAR 80 planes order. Sadly, the aircraft industry in Romania was still a bit small and lacking specialists, but every year more and more engineers finished their University studies and joined the workforce. Being a Royal Company, and thus getting twice the normal salary, for example those at the Fokker plane-plant nearby, meant that becoming a royal engineer was a great career choice.

    In the submarine department, we had begun producing roughly one submarine per month, which was a great deal, matching Germany for example.
    War being hell and such, all the Romanian Navy submarines had already sunk while embargoing the Spanish coast, some by accident, some by 'Neutral patrols', and some by intentional and sacrificial self-destruction. Either way, their efforts killed perhaps 100000 'freedom fighters' and sank some 400 transport ships, which was a good ratio for only 7 submarines in one year.

    Our lost subs were reported as sunk in the Black Sea while training, but I think people had started to figure it out by now. There were a limited number of submarines in the world after all, and while some of them did sink in the same time period, there was the odd wreckage or survivor to confirm the location. We also surfaced mementos and photos to bury in empty graves, but there was still a great deal of doubt. No matter, the Spanish War concluded 2 years earlier like this, and we saved millions of civilian lives. Plus I got 30% of the Spanish gold, let's no forget that.

    In Africa we had begun extracting tungsten as well, very useful for lightbulbs but also anti-tank penetrators. Molybdenum was used to reinforce steel and give it more resistance,
    while several uranium depots were mined in secret, both for X-ray machines, glowing clock limbs and other non-so-peaceful applications like electricity generation and submarine reactors.

    Eventually I planned to discard the polluting uranium for thorium reactors, but the technology was not ready yet.

    The Czechoslovaks and the Polish were desperately trying to obtain a military alliance with the Romanian Empire, perhaps feeling the Damocles sword hanging over their heads.
    Sadly, without both Britain and France supporting and enforcing such an Europe-covering alliance, it was all futile. The Scandinavian, Low Countries and Baltic states were all proudly and desperately claiming neutrality, as if that ever worked. Sweden might get away with it, the rest wouldn't.

    Even so, Finland received their own Fokker plant to produce decent fighters, plus our own CAC weapons-plant that made guns, machine-guns, auto-cannons and the new 65mm anti-tank and anti-air guns.

    The Germans had begun to produce their own BF 109 fighter, matching the IAR 80 and the American Curtis Hawk, as well as the Pz III tanks that were even better than our Ferdinands. But also, we were only using the Ferdinands as training tanks and infantry support, not main battle tanks.

    The radio industry had exploded in Romania as well, matching America and Britain in this aspect. I did want a few radios in every village, which meant rural electrification, as to pave the way for television and internet later.
    Such a massive effort would take 2 or 3 years, since Romania was a bit larger now, but this is why a capitalist economy is better. Place an open market bid, and just wait for 30 Western corporations to rush in to take my money, each tasked with electrifying a single county.

    For true capitalism to work, you need more than competition, you also need granulation. Having 2 or 3 corporations in a field was never enough, since they would naturally form a cartel to exploit the budget for more money ever year. Instead, the first corporation to finish the task with good results would be given the next county and so on.

    Much the same was done for military supplies and rations, forcing companies to work harder to make quality products.

    Sadly, we couldn't to the same for Navy and Airforce, since the technology and investment level meant that only a couple companies could do it anyways.

    What I could do, and I did, was to open a bid for small arms and machine-guns, then watched a hundred inventors propose all sorts of crazy and unreliable guns for the Army to test.
    Anticipating this, we had 100 bench-workshops and lathes, plus steel plates and necessary materials for the inventors to prove themselves. They all failed to produce a single working gun, ever after months of desperate tests and modifications. Welcome to the real world.
     
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