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.
“Look at it this way Sir. The Germans are tapped out; like us, they can’t support any more than they already have. They’ve got pitifully few troops outside Russia. Most of their occupation forces are those ‘allied’ divisions. Romanians and Slovakians mostly. Those German units that are elsewhere are reconstituting after being torn up in Russia.”
For a second Colonel Charles Lampier looked very tired. “Europe’s bleeding to death Sir, the whole continent is just bleeding to death.”
There was a grim silence. Running through both men’s minds was a terrible question that neither would admit to even thinking.
“So why don’t they?”
“Three reasons Sir. Two are military, one is political. The first military reason is that the terrain here is some of the finest defensive ground in the world. It’s a maze of lakes, rivers, ridges, swamps. You name it, we’ve got it. The weather is frightful; you saw how bad flying down here. That isn’t the worst of it; you wait until we get white- out conditions. The sky fills with windblown snow and nobody can see where the sky ends and the ground begins. Too dangerous even to try and fly.
“This whole area is a defending force’s paradise. Even a high correlation of forces in favor of the attacker doesn’t help much. The attack is channeled into a series of narrow thrusts and the additional troops just stack up behind the lead elements. A company can hold a division for days, weeks if necessary, and when it’s finally destroyed, the next defending company has moved in behind it.
“That brings us to the second military reason: air power. The Americans in particular; they shoot up everything that moves. And I do mean everything. If your division has vehicles on the move, make sure they display the recognition panels and pray intensely. All the Yank fighter-bombers are trigger-happy but the Grizzlies are the worst. They have a 75mm right in the nose and it’s accurate so they tend to shoot from long range. Let’s just say they aren’t too careful sometimes.
“But, once all those troops stack up in front of a defensive position, the aircraft get to work and they reduce those forces to a shambles. You should have seen the roads west of here a few weeks ago. The Germans tried a local advance to straighten their line before winter. There’s a lot of that going on, everybody tries to seize the best shelter for their own people and to deny it to the enemy. Anyway, the front was about the width of a main road. A couple of SU-100 tank destroyers and an infantry platoon blocked it then the fighter-bombers got to work. Mostly Thunderstorms and Grizzlies but even some of our Williwaws got in on the act. By the time they’d finished, the road was a tangled mass of burned out wreckage.
“Anyway, put together, those two things mean that attacking here is slow and expensive. Applies to us as much as the enemy of course but we don’t plan to go anywhere though. ‘ The Germans don’t know that of course; they can see that if we broke out of here, we could cut off their whole northern flank. Isn’t going to happen, but they have forces pinned here in case. The ground their side isn’t so defensible so they need more troops to hold it.
“The third reason is political. The Finns want to survive this war as an independent state and the way they’ve screwed the political side of things to date puts a big question mark against that. The Russians and us are doing a good-cop, bad-op act on them. The Russians make noises that, when the allies have won, Finland is going to be occupied and reduced to a Russian province and any Finns that don’t like it can seek new lifestyle opportunities in Siberia. We tell the Finns, we can argue the Russians out of that but how effective our arguments are depends on how active a part they take in the war. The more operations Finland engages in against us, the less will be left unoccupied post-war.
“Of course, the Finns have the Germans telling them that they’re going to win and if Finland wants to survive post-war and get a share of the goodies, it had better be an active German ally. So they’re dancing a tightrope. Frankly I doubt if anybody here has any sympathy for them. We all had when we arrived, Winter War, gallant little Finland and all that, but it didn’t last.
“The problem is that we need to keep this front quiet, that’s our prime driver. We need to keep the activity, and thus casualties, down to a minimum. You know how stretched manpower is back home. We’re keeping units up to ToE at the moment but if the casualty rate spikes, that’ll end and we’ll drop behind the curve. Once that happens, we’ll never catch up. It’s not as if we could draw on any of the Free British units. They’re all being reserved and trained for the invasion of the UK. If that ever happens.”
“You don’t think it will?”
“I have my doubts. Oh, sure, the Yanks are going through the motions. They’ve trained and equipped a Marine Corps, six divisions of it, and are planning a landing in France. They’ve got the Royal Marines and various other units doing beach reconnaissance and all those good things and they’re training and equipping the Free British units for a landing in the UK but there’s something missing. Either they’re not serious about it or they’re heading for the worst amphibious foul-up since Gallipoli.
“Six divisions sounds really good and, as we’ve seen, there isn’t that much to oppose them, not at first. But the Germans are on interior lines; they can move troops around. We just can’t get at their core railway system, so they can shift forces west without much interference. If they moved, for example, 11th SS Panzer Army west, they’d go through the Marines on the beach like shit through a goose. And they’re talking of landing in France? Why would they do that? The UK is the fortress that guards Europe from the west; that’s been true since the time of the Barbary pirates. Retaking it has got to come first. Surely they’d do that with one landing, at full strength, not two spread out over half Europe?
“No, sorry General, but I think they’re bluffing. They’re not really planning to land in the west; they’re just trying, not too successfully, to keep German troops pinned down in France and the UK. The issue’s going to be decided here, in Russia. And we won’t see Free British troops out here.
“So, I’m sorry to have to tell you this but at least half your job is political. We’ve got to keep the Finns scared enough so they stay quiet but not so scared they decide they have nothing to lose. Anyway, another thing running for us. Our Intel is good, very good indeed. Don’t ask me how, but we get warning of every major German move, when and where. In effect, the Germans are telegraphing every punch and that gives us a huge edge. I believe a lot of stuff comes in from the Norwegian resistance and I think we get more from the Swedes.”
“I thought the Swedes were tight with the Germans?”
