Stuart Slade: Winter Warriors

The other heavy cruisers had even worse luck. On paper, they were good, 14,000 tons with eight 20.3guns, but the class had been cursed with ill luck. Blucher had been sunk by a Norwegian coastal defense battery, Prinz Eugen had gone down in the Kattegat after a submarine put four torpedoes into her. One had been sold to the Russians and was now a floating battery at Petrograd, firing on the German troops south of the city. Seydlitz had been converted into the Boelcke. That just left the Hipper, a ship that had become a by-word for mechanical unreliability.

And, if his heavy cruiser force was weak, his light cruisers were even worse. He had three: Koln, Leipzig and Nurnburg. Nine 15-centimeter guns each. Weak ships, poorly designed but there was nothing better. His destroyers? Lindemann snorted in disgust. The best were also the oldest, the ten survivors of 22 Z-1 class ships. The British had destroyed the other twelve in the Norway campaign. That had been a nightmare. At Narvik, the new German Navy had faced the British in combat for the first time. The destroyers had taken the brunt of the onslaught as the British had gone through them like a buzz-saw through butter.

Those destroyers had five 12.7 centimeter guns and eight torpedo tubes each. On balance Lindemann felt that made them as good as the American destroyers. The other twenty of his destroyers, well, some fool had armed them with 15 centimeter guns, leaving them over-armed and poor seaboats. They were all right inshore and in the Baltic. Take them out in the North Atlantic and they’d be hard put to stay upright, let alone do any fighting. Lindemann had made repeated requests to have them rearmed with 12.7 centimeter guns but he’d been turned down.

Lindemann put down his status report file. The major fleet units were all right; it was the smaller stuff that was so lacking. That was logical. It took time to build the big ships, the Forties had taken five years, and the last two had never even been started. The idea had been that the smaller ships could be built quickly when the need arose but that wasn’t the case. By the time the need arose, the demand for tanks on the Russian Front was over-riding everything else and the small ships had never been built.

Until now that was. The High Seas Fleet had orders. The Americans were expected to send a huge convoy through to Murmansk and Archangel. It would be a mixture of Canadian and American ships bring supplies for the troops on the Kola Peninsula and besieged in Archangel. It would be heavily escorted, at least two battleships, probably more, cruisers and destroyers. An American aircraft carrier group would be providing distant cover. But, the new American battleships were with the carriers and the not-so new ones were out in the Pacific. The only battleships left for the Atlantic convoys were the very old Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona, and Oklahoma. There were reports that the even older Arkansas, Texas and New York had already been sent back to the States for scrapping.

So, at most four old battleships, all ready to be destroyed by his guns. Then the convoy was to be annihilated. It didn’t take much insight to see what the plan was. His ships would destroy the convoy, leaving the Kola and Archangel troops desperately short of supplies. Then, the army would attack and overrun both northern ports. It wouldn’t win the war but it would be a break in the grinding deadlock.

“Lutjens!” Lindemann called his chief of staff. Once Lutjens had been the senior, a full Admiral to Lindemann’s mere Captain but Lutjens had mysteriously fallen out of favor. Just as mysteriously, Lindemann had gained a place in the sun. It was, perhaps, a measure of the man’s character that he’d never displayed resentment or ill-will from that turn of events. “Lutjens, we are going to sea as soon as the tankers are filled up. We have a mission worthy of us at last.”

“So what are we up against?”

“In global terms, sir, the German armed forces deploy a total of three hundred and thirty three divisions and forty three independent brigades, of which sixty six divisions and thirteen independent brigades are drawn from their ‘allies’. That force totals some six and a half million men. Their major effort remains facing the Russians and the Americans along the Volga. There, the Germans deploy 258 divisions and 16 independent brigades totaling just over five million men.

“Against them, the Russians have deployed three hundred and ninety one divisions with an aggregate of six point one million men and, now that SUSAGIR has entered the line, the Americans deploy 72 divisions with a total of one and a half million men.”

“SUSAGIR?”

“Second United States Army Group In Russia Sir. It and FUSAGIR are much more powerful than their numbers suggest. Every one of those divisions is fully mechanized, by the standards of the Russian Front they’re armored divisions. And they have tactical air power coming out of their ears.”

General John M Rockingham grunted. “And very nice for them it is I’m sure. What I need to know is what do we face here?”

“On the Finnish Front Sir, the Finns have deployed a total of sixteen standard infantry divisions and one mountain infantry division plus an independent armored brigade. They’re backed up by two German mountain divisions and four German infantry divisions together with two independent armored brigades. We, First Canadian Army, face that force with two corps, with a total of five divisions. Six once your Sixth Infantry Division comes into the line. Three infantry divisions, four as soon as the Sixth arrives, and two armored divisions.

“The odds aren’t as bad as they seem. The Finns have 250,000 men at most, the Germans about 100,000. We have 120,000 men. The catch is aircraft. The Finns have about 200, the Germans less than a hundred. Here in Kola, we have 300 planes, the Americans have 350 and the Russians 950. So we rule the air pretty much unchallenged. As long as we have avgas, of course. If that runs out, we’re in a world of hurt.

“To complete the picture, at a right angle to our deployment is the Petrograd Front. The Russians have fourteen infantry divisions, one mechanized corps and two tank corps down there plus about forty independent battalions, most of them in Petrograd itself. They face Army Group Vistula under the command of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel.”

“Vistula? How did it get that name? The river Vistula runs through the middle of Poland.” Rockingham was amazed at the out-of-place name.

“The Germans only change the name of their Army Groups when they get seriously defeated or are split. They started the war here in Russia with three, Army Group North, Center and South. Near the end of ‘41, Army Group North split with Army Group Vistula being formed to mop up the Baltic states and Petrograd. The rest remained Army Group North and headed east. I guess the Vistula was the nearest big river back then and there’s been no reason to change it. Down south, Army Group Don is still in business as well. Anyway, Vistula has two armies, Ninth and 11th SS Panzer. Total of 17 infantry divisions, one mountain division, two SS Panzer divisions and three SS Panzergrenadier divisions. Ninth is pretty poorly equipped, but 11th SS? Well, they’re SS divisions, if its good, they’ve got it.”

“If they outnumber us that much, why don’t they attack?” The balance of forces he faced appalled Rockingham.

“It must be very tempting Sir. The Germans have seventy five divisions and twenty seven independent brigades not deployed on the Volga Front. Of those, a total of thirty five divisions and three independent brigades are deployed here on Kola. That’s not quite half their uncommitted forces but it’s pretty close to it. It must be frightfully tempting for them to attack, roll us up and seize Kola. Once that’s done, they could free up, probably, the whole of the German contingent and leave most of the occupation work to the Finns. Thirty more divisions on the Volga front, well, it won’t win the war for the Germans but it’ll swing the deadlock there in their favor.