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World War II: Difference between revisions
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By September, the Germans are in control of much of Western Russia, from Novgorod to Kiev. Hitler is initially satisfied with the results and plans only limited mop-up operations the following year. However, his generals convince him that Moscow is an easy target and he approves of Operation Typhoon. Winter comes to aid the Soviet defenses: bad weather, hailstorms and snow, culminating in a mind-numbing cold that the German Army is unable to cope with, particularly since Hitler lacked the foresight to outfit his troops with winter uniforms and machinery wasn't suited to cold weather and failed to even start. These devastating natural conditions reinforce the sheer determination of the Red Army, and the Germans are halted literally within sight of Moscow. Finally, the Soviets launch a surprise counterattack that forces the Germans back. Stalin and the Soviets have avoided defeat, but the Germans remain in possession of the western part of the USSR. In addition, this defeat begins Hitler's distrust of his generals and from this point on, he begins taking more control over military operations.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, the third Axis power, [[Imperial Japan]], is going nowhere fast. On paper, the Empire and its puppets control a third of China, half her population and almost all her industry. In reality occupied China teems with bandits and guerrillas, and one only has to travel twenty miles from a railroad or river to find territory beyond Imperial control. On paper, the Republic's troops outnumber those of the Empire and her allies by three-to-one; in reality, only half these troops answer to the central government led by the Guomindang, the Chinese Nationalists under Generalissimo Jiang Jieshi we mentioned earlier. The superiority of Japanese equipment, training, unit organisation and command structure - [[Death From Above|not to mention air-power]], which is being used to level Chinese towns and cities more or less with impunity (typically by [[Kill It with Fire|fire-bombing]] them) - has counted for nothing in the face of the vast size of China and her massive population. For instance, the Chinese have virtually no anti-tank weapons; but the Japanese have virtually no tanks in working order they can bring to where they are needed except in the on-and-off meat-grinder battles which rage through the hills of southern and central China. The attrition rate for the Guomindang's core armies over the past four years has been at least half. In a relatively unmolested, mountainous province of north-central China, a young Communist official is slowly offing his rivals to become the leader of the socialist commune there, the largest in the country. His name is [[Mao
After the fall of France, Japan takes the opportunity to effectively seize the French colony of Indochina -- including modern-day Vietnam -- ostensibly at the "invitation" of the collaborationist Vichy government. President [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] has been looking for an excuse to act against them for a while now, so the United States restricts steel and oil exports to Japan in a full embargo in an attempt to bring them to the negotiating table. Since the US is Japan's #1 supplier of both essential commodities, the Japanese government is forced between a rock and a hard place; they cannot be seen as backing down to the USA, but they don't have the strength to take them on and win. With Holland fallen to the Germans and England preoccupied elsewhere the Imperial Navy again proposes, for the umpteenth time, their plan to strike south to seize the oil supplies and rich natural resources of the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) and British Malaya. This time, however, the Cabinet is willing to listen; the fleet's oil supplies will be depleted within a matter of months and it's not like the Navy and its attached ground forces - the Special Naval Landing Forces - have been making a huge contribution to the China theatre anyway. Taking on the Dutch means taking on Britain, which almost invariably means war with the United States. Given the awkward strategic position of the Philippines, they will have to be taken too if the plan is to [[Didn't Think This Through|'succeed'.]]
Rational officers like Admiral Yamamato, who understand the US's real strength - c.30% of World GDP to Japan's c.3%, and nearly 51% of the entire world's industrial capacity, albeit much of it still idled by the Great Depression - object to this [[Honor Before Reason]] line of suicidal thinking, but are [[My Country, Right or Wrong|duty-bound]] to follow the government's orders. Yamamato decides that, if this course must be taken, Japan's best chance of victory lies in making a preemptive strike at the US Pacific Fleet, then based at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii; hopefully, the USA will simply drop its sanctions and negotiate a peace treaty instead of going to the enormous expense and inconvenience of replacing much of its fleet and taking the offensive to Japan.
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* [[Those Wacky Nazis]]: [[Trope Codifier]].
* [[Token Evil Teammate]]: This being [[War Is Hell|a war]], [[Black and Gray Morality|nobody]] was really morally ideal, but the Allies were decidedly less evil than the Axis... well, except for the Soviet Union, a mass-murdering totalitarian dictatorship who were only in because Hitler [[Stupid Evil|tried to conquer them]].
** And let's not forget China (both [[Mao
* [[Token Good Teammate]]: Finland was this to the Axis. A democratic, non-fascist, non-racist country which was only fighting to retake their territory from the Soviets. Of course, the fact that they did this alongside Hitler was a bit of a moral gray spot; they were merely caught between two monsters.
** Just to specify how strange Finland was among the other Axis powers: The Finns had many Jews in their army who fought alongside Nazi volunteers. The only thing that united them, really, was the goal of defending Finland from invasion.
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