Shattered World : A Worse World War : Part 34

In the rugged terrain south the Mareth Line Domenico Tizzoni crouched cautiously behind a rock outcrop. His dirty khaki uniform blended in well with the local terrain and he had learned much about this land during the hard fighting around Medenine and the slow push north since then. He had also learned that the French did not want to give up Tunisia, nor did their puppet native soldiers.

Domenico carefully edged himself into a position from which he could observe the valley below. The landscape leapt into view through his binoculars. Low brush, a few scattered shrubs, rocks. Was that movement? There, in a small crevice on the crest opposite his position. Movement again, a figure belly crawling through the dirt and vegetation there - rifle and canteen on his back, scraggly beard visible even at the distance of some two hundred meters. The man looked to be of darker color, not French. A native soldier then.

As he looked the man stopped, brought a pair of goggles to his eyes, and began scanning the valley just as he was himself. A fellow scout then. Domenico carefully leveled his rifle when the colonial was looking in another direction. The Fucile rested comfortably on his shoulder. He remembered the words of his instructor most clearly.

"No Tizzoni, don't think about the rifle. Don't think about anything. There is you, and there is the target. Take a breath and hold it. Feel the stillness. Let your finger depress the trigger, don't tug at it. Be as still as a stone Tizzoni".

He had listened to the words, and practiced. He had become good. Very good - or so he estimated. Eight dead Frenchmen and a few natives would agree, if their shades somewhere to the south could be made to speak. Silently, slowly, Domenico adjusted the sights for two hundred meters.

The other scout, his opposite, remained oblivious to his existence. Domenico took a deep breath, found his inner stillness, took careful aim, and let his finger flick the trigger.

CRACK, the rifle butt jammed hard into his shoulder. The 6.5mm bullet hurled itself across the lonely valley. A small geyser of dirt erupted just below the native scout's position. The other man flinched, startled by the sudden impacting bullet and the sharp report of Domenico's rifle. The other man was soon ambling back up the hill to the safety of a cluster of boulders. Domenico worked the bolt action and brought the rifle to his shoulder again. Still as a stone. CRACK. Another eruption of dirt right between the fleeing man's legs. Damn! The enemy scout flung himself behind a boulder before Domenico could even begin to work the bolt action.

Well, he thought, maybe I'm not as good as I thought.

Several Kilometers to the north the French lay in wait, fortifying along their Mareth line. To the south, the Italians continue to mass men and equipment while they prepare themselves for the un-envious task of breaching the Mareth Line. Meanwhile, scouts probe the hills and valleys between the two forces. The fate of Tunisia remains to be seen.

November 24th 1945 to March 28th 1946

November 24th 1945

The U.S. successfully tests an early prototype of its new BM-2 'Goddard' missile. The new missile is to have a range of close to 350km, carry a one ton warhead, and will have a circular radius of error of over one kilometer.

The BM-3, essentially a beefed up version of the BM-2, is further away from testing and will have a range of about 500km and a larger two ton warhead capacity. The British are working on a missile similar to the BM-2 but haven't yet reached the prototype stage. Secret talks have begun to merge the two research efforts.

The Germans are continuing work on their A-4, a ballistic missile with a range of 900km employing two stages. It is still months away from live testing. This is to be a ballistic missile capable of hitting anywhere in the British isles from launch sites in northern France or the Low Countries and also capable of hitting Moscow and anywhere in western Russia from launch sites in the Ukraine and the eastern frontier of the Greater German Reich. Due to its longer range this new missile will be much less accurate than the A-2b and A-3, with a circular radius of error of over 2km. For this reason it is envisioned purely as a terror weapon and possibly a delivery mechanism for long-distance chemical warfare attacks.

Von Braun and his staff are already designing the A-5, a three stage design derived from the A-4 with a range of as much as 1800km. The A-5 would be a missile capable of hitting targets east of the Urals. The main problem in developing this missile will be guidance for the complex three-stage flight profile. With modification the A-5 should also be able to place a small payload into earth orbit, something that has been Von Braun's dream from the beginning. The A-5 is still years away from becoming a reality.

November 26th 1945

French forces cross into Spanish northwest Africa. Spanish resistance is virtually non-existent as Spanish forces have long since been stripped from the region to participate in the fighting in Spain itself.

December 3rd 1945

French forces complete their occupation of Spanish northwest Africa after capturing about 3,000 Spanish defenders. Franco vows that Spain 'will return one day to its rightful lands in Africa'.

December 7th 1945

British carrier aircraft strike the port of Buenos Aires, concentrating mostly on Argentina's one and only submarine construction facility as well as the main docks and several Argentinian warships in the harbor. The submarine construction facility and the docks sustain heavy damage. A nearby residential district is set ablaze by stray bombs and nearly a hundred civilians are killed in the resulting fires. Two Argentinian destroyers and a cruiser are also sunk, putting a dent in the Argentinian fleet. The British lose just 3 aircraft in the attack, one to mechanical failure and two to lucky shots from gunners aboard the Argentinean naval vessels in the harbor. The Port itself had virtually no anti-aircraft defenses.

The Royal Navy is positioning itself for a total blockade of Argentina and Uruguay. British troops have already landed in the Falklands to reinforce the small garrison there. Britain issues a statement offering terms for an armistice to Argentina - If Argentina will pledge not to allow the Axis Powers any use of her ports then hostilities will cease.

Realizing that Britain is too stretched to actually invade Argentina, Ramírez decides to play it stubborn. He will offer no such promise and the war will go on.

He sends out orders to begin beefing up anti-aircraft defenses along the coast, primarily around ports. The militarization of Argentina's coast is now underway. Argentina doesn't have much in the way of anti-aircraft weapons so it will take months to establish true functional air defenses. Rameriz orders the economy to a war footing and nationalizes many factories(to the displeasure of the upper classes) in order to begin to build up a much larger arms industry.

December 11th 1945

As a result of the spread of the war to the western hemisphere, and the ominous threat that Germany now poses to the entire world, president Dewey orders more resources to be committed to the 'Dover Project' in New Mexico. Top researchers in the American atomic bomb project are estimating that they are 18 to 36 months away from having a 'working device'. The U.S. and Britain have secretly begun to jointly work on this with the old British-French project being merged into the U.S. effort.

Funding levels for the Dover project are now up to something like 50% of the levels committed to the Manhattan project in OTL.

December 15th 1945

Italian forces in Tunisia have reached the Mareth line and have become bogged down in front of it. The French now have some 90,000 troops in Tunisia but are still outnumbered by almost three to one in the theatre.

December 21st 1945

RAF bombers hit submarine pens and armament factories in Hamburg in a night raid. Several hundred Lancaster, B-17, and B-24 bombers are escorted by P-51 Mustangs.

The bombers also make the first large-scale use of chaff to confuse German radar coverage in the area. Several dozen bombers and escorts are lost in the attack but the bombing succeeds incausing moderate damage to the targeted facilities. In response to the attack the Luftwaffe will begin to bulk up its air defenses in northern Germany. The P-51 has now shown itself to be the equal of any German propeller aircraft, though it is outmatched by the German jet fighters.

December 26th 1945

The Axis Powers begin to form a unified general staff which will be dominated by Germany. This is a first tentative step towards integrating the armed forces of the various Axis Powers into a single command structure. Italy is a reluctant partner in this as it fears the growing German domination of the Axis Powers.

January 1st 1946

In a speech to the 'people of the Axis Powers' Hitler authorizes the reconstruction of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, despite wartime rationing of metal, as a symbol of the Reich's desire to 'revitalize the new province of Nordwestliches Europa'. The new Eiffel Tower will have one major addition - a giant red swastika at its top (much to the horror of the French).

January 12th 1946

Britain's strength in Egypt has now reached 150,000 soldiers(largely Australian and Indian along with many rescued from Antwerp) and 800 tanks, including many of the latest American 'Pershing' tanks. Churchill is applying pressure to the commander of British forces in the middle east, Sir Archibald Wavell, to open an offensive into Libya in order to relive pressure on the Free French in Tunisia. Italy has some 200,000 soldiers well fortified in eastern Libya to resist just such a British move.

January 15th 1946

Germany announces the extension of the 'Slavic Exclusion Zone' to include all of the former-Poland. All non-Germanic Poles must emigrate to the east by June 1st. The Ukraine andGerman-occupied western Russia are now due to receive a titanic flood of Poles. Beria pledges to maintain his policy of allowing immigration of 'displaced Slavs'. What this really means is that Beria will take any Pole who he feels is useful to the Soviet Union, and not a single person more.

January 22nd 1946

British intelligence manages, once again, to break the latest 'un-breakable' German encryption scheme.

February 2nd 1946

A highly secret overture of peace is summarily dismissed by Churchill. The offer had been for a total ceasefire to be followed by formal peace talks. Basically, the Axis Powers would keep existing gains, Greece to remain in the Alliance for Democracy, Italy to withdraw out of Tunisia. This offer was extended directly by Hitler over the strenuous objections of Mussolini. Hitler's thinking is that he can finish off the Soviets once and for all if he can make peace with the British.

February 5th 1946

The latest in a series of Italian attacks into the Mareth Line in Tunisia comes to a bloody and ragged halt after some minor gains. An Italian attempt to flank the line with armor is beaten back by French armored forces which have only recently arrived in the area.

February 18th 1946

The Polish Home Army explodes a bomb in Warsaw that kills several dozen German officers, including the Chief of the German General Staff, Wilhelm Keitel. In response Hitler orders a brutal crack down in the Polish provinces and the finish date for the expulsion of all non-Germanic Poles is moved up to April 1st. The next two months will be a brutal time for the Slavic Poles of central Europe.

February 21st 1946

Mussolini announces to his inner circle that 'the time has come to wipe Greece from the map'. Italy has already begun to mass forces along the Greek border. Bulgaria and Turkey have privately pledged to Mussolini that they will throw many more men and resources into their offensives than they did in the earlier failed invasion of Greece. Also, Hitler has committed the Luftwaffe to supporting the invasion.

In Greece; Alliance forces are well dug in among multiple lines of defense-in-depth. The British Expeditionary Force in Greece is now 140,000 strong after Churchill dedicated some of the troops rescued from France as well as Australians and South Africans to the Greek theatre. The RAF is also present in strength and the Greek army itself is well trained, equipped with British and French equipment, and has very high morale after their stunning success in the earlier Italian invasion attempt.

The rest of the British forces evacuated from France and the Low Countries are divided between the defense of Britain itself, northern Norway, and Egypt. By this point the RAF is strong enough over England to make any German invasion attempt extremely unlikely. Even more unrealistic than in OTL. Churchill never bothers with a speech about defending Britain to the last man because an invasion has never seemed that likely in this ATL.

March 4th 1946

During a speech in front of top Nazi party officials Hitler suffers a mild stroke and collapses. The stroke is not fatal but reduces the mobility in his left arm. In a national radio broadcast Goebbels assures the German people that 'the Führer is in good spirits and should have a quick recovery'. Figures like Goering, Himmler, Heydrich, and other top-level nazi figures begin considering their options for a post-Hitler Reich.

Hitler's health has been better in this timeline due to the fact that Germany is doing much better and there haven't been any serious attempts on his life that resulted in any injury. However, running the Third Reich takes its toll and something has to give at some point.

March 9th 1946

A German attempt to create a self-sustained nuclear chain reaction (two full years after the U.S. project accomplished the task) fails dramatically when the nuclear pile suffers a meltdown. Several high-ranking members of the German atomic research effort will die of radiation poisoning in the near future. Werner Heisenberg survives with a moderate dose of radiation but is likely to die of cancer within the decade. The cause of the meltdown was inadequate use of control rods to control the pace of the reaction. Word of the disaster quickly reaches the British who pass the disturbing news on to the Americans. It seems the German Atomic research effort has suffered a setback but is farther along than previously suspected. This event will convince Dewey and members of Congress that the U.S. atomic bomb project needs to be accelerated.

In the U.S. Edward Teller has been pushing the need for a 'thermo-nuclear' research project. This 'super' weapon would dwarf even the current 'atomic bomb' designs under development in Los Alamos. After some debate it will be decided that the 'Dover Project' should focus all of its efforts on atomic weapons. Once this has been accomplished thermo-nuclear weapons can be considered. Teller, a ranking member of the Dover Project, will continue work on his 'super' designs in private.

The German atomic weapons program is currently at least 2 years behind the U.S. effort but Germany is benefiting from Atomic Weapons research stolen from the U.S. - that could close the gap. While Germany has very little of its own intelligence assets in the U.S. the Soviets have A LOT of intelligence assets in the U.S. and Germany has a lot of intelligence assets in the Soviet Union. Thus, German intelligence has been able to steal a lot of U.S. atomic secrets indirectly from the Soviets. The Soviets also have an atomic research effort but it is far behind both the U.S. and the German projects.

March 13th 1946

Admiral Dönitz, commander of the Kriegsmarine, is more than a little concerned. His beloved Kriegsmarine is badly losing the war on the high seas. His powerful surface raiding force, led by the powerful 'Fatherland' and Germany's one operational carrier, was mostly smashed early in the war with the loss of several capital ships including that lone carrier. The 'Fatherland' survived but is now at port in northern Germany undergoing repairs. The rest of the German surface fleet remains mostly at port in northern Germany, Sweden, and German-occupied southern Norway. The Royal Navy is simply too large and too well trained for the surface forces of the Kriegsmarine to handle.

Even his 300+ submarine force is performing below expectations. For the first several months the submariners enjoyed a 'Happy Time' of incredible success, sinking incredible amounts of tonnage with little loss to themselves. However, those few months of heavy merchant losses allowed the British to master the arts of anti-submarine warfare. Long-distance bombers equipped with surface-penetrating radar could guide destroyers and other surface ships directly to the submarines or even sometimes attack the submarines themselves with air-dropped depth charges. Also, surface ships equipped with sonar and clustered around convoys could target and destroy submarines with frightening accuracy. The 'Happy Time' had rapidly devolved into a nightmare for German submariners.

While German engineers began to design a new generation of submarines that will dive deeper, operate more silently, and remain submerged longer - the unfortunate crews of existing submarines could only fight on through their disadvantages. The results have been dozens of submarines lost every month and plummeting morale among the submarine crews.

Dönitz thinks he has a way to make those crews lives easier, at least somewhat. They were now operating under relatively strict rules of engagement. Ships had to be confirmed as Alliance vessels before they could be attacked, which often made the submarines vulnerable to enemy action. Submarine commanders had been begging him for an unrestricted campaign since the first days of the war. The Admiral now found that he agreed with the submarine captains.

In a stormy meeting with Hitler the admiral manages to convince the Führer that an unrestricted submarine warfare campaign is the best way to knock Britain out of the war. Goering's missiles can only terrorize the British people while Dönitz's submarines can starve them and cut off their supplies of raw materials - thus brining their war machine to a grinding halt.

March 23rd 1946

Researchers working under the auspices of British Intelligence create what they call an 'electronic gate'. This tiny device is an on-off switch that holds the potential of vastly decreasing the size, and increasing the reliability of, electronics. Despite the project's secrecy word will soon leak out to a commercial research lab in the United States(and from there to the rest of the world including Germany and the Soviet Union) - and the electronic age will have begun.

The British have been intensely working on electronic calculating machines since about 1938 as part of their overall intelligence efforts against first the Soviet Union and later the Germans. This along with the random 'butterfly' effect is my reasoning for having the transistor appear a year earlier than in OTL.

March 28th 1946

Germany formally declares the North Atlantic to be a 'Total War Zone'. Any vessel present in these waters(of any nationality) will be subject to attack by the German Navy. Admiral Dönitz sees this as the final step in winning the war against Britain and a way to inflate his own prestige.

The U.S. strongly condemns this German announcement and warns Germany not to attack U.S. ships 'anywhere in the world'. President Dewey orders increased U.S. naval patrols in the mid-Atlantic.

Also, U.S. marines will join British forces in garrisoning Greenland. Thus begins an undeclared, and largely secret, war of minor engagements between the U.S. navy and German submarines in the mid-Atlantic.

Across the U.S., from the shores of the Pacific to the swamps of Florida, there is a rising tide of nationalism and anti-Axis sentiment. The recent spread of the war to South America combined with astounding Axis success in coming to dominate Europe and the German announcement of unrestricted submarine warfare, have set this movement in motion.

Dewey, elected on a mildly isolationist platform, now finds himself forced to ride this wave or face political death. Some strong internationalists in congress are beginning to call for U.S. entry into the Alliance for Democracy but Dewey remains reluctant to take this step, for it will mean war.

The trend is clear. The U.S. appears to be moving slowly but inexorably towards joining the Alliance for Democracy and thus towards war.

In Japan, preparations for a massive and lightning campaign across the Pacific are underway. Events, military plans, and politics are converging towards a truly global war.

To Be Continued...