39 The Dieppe Raid

Han Xin and Guan Yu reentered the room where they had previously been. Except this time there was only Baron who remained now. The others had left.

(GY) "Hmm, where did everyone else go?"

(BM) "Ah your back elder Guan Yu. The others have left to continue their simulation training. Have you decided on what you'd like to do?"

(GY) "Yes I have, but just to be sure I'd like to test out your abilities first."

(BM) "Sounds like you have almost finished deciding and you just need me to prove to you that I'm worth your time."

(GY) "I can start to see how you got the others to start following you. You are quite the perceptive one. However, you shouldn't get too cocky yet.

(BM) "You're quite right. Han Xin, please continue your training. No point in wasting time spectating us. If you'd please elder Guan Yu."

Within a moment all three men disappeared into their own simulations. It was customary that should two strategist want to face each other for the first time, they would leave the settings as random. This is exactly what Guan Yu and Baron did. The random setting was revealed to be The Dieppe Raid that occurred on August 19, 1942 in Germany occupied France.

The history connected to this particular setting was a little depressing for the Allied powers. A few Allied nations hoped to achieve a few important goals. The first was to boost morale, another was to gather intelligence, and also to prove to others that fighting back Germany was possible. However the only goal they managed to achieve was gathering intelligence. Nearly 60% of the invading Allied forces were killed, captured, or wounded. Though the 3,000 or so Germans were outnumbered to the approximately 10,000 Allied forces the Germans would successfully push back the invaders easily. It was a complete and utter disaster for the Allies especially the Canadian forces that made up the majority of the Allied forces.

Baron was to lead the invasion with his army of Allied troops against Guan Yu and his German troops. What made this map interesting was that there was a preparation time of 1 year. By far not a common sight in most simulations. The advantages were clear for Guan Yu. Better trained troops, more advanced weaponry, and better cohesion because his entire army consisted of all German troops. The advantages for Baron was quite clear as well, he had more troops altogether, but due to there being soldiers from various countries, the cohesion between them wasn't as great as Guan Yu's men. Baron wasn't concerned because he planned to spend the year of preparation to greatly train his men, run drills, and pound everything he had learned from his previous air training simulations to best Guan Yu. Of course, Baron had done research onto this before he died so he already knew many things that Guan Yu would have to find out as the time comes.

Baron knew that a big reason that the Germans were able to push back the Allies was because the Germans were aware that an attack was coming. They had the intelligence because there were multiple double agents that reported this attack. Another reason was that the Allies weren't very secretive when transporting supplies which made it fairly easy to guess where they would attack. Perhaps the biggest reason though was because the Allied forces were because the batteries that could hit Dieppe weren't neutralized before the important raid. Baron was already aware of this so he spent the better part of a week to devise a strategy capable of defeating Guan Yu. Going by his estimates he had a close to 40% chance of winning, but this was a conservative guess as this was the best case scenario. Who knew what surprises Guan Yu had in store for him?"

Guan Yu would spend months upon months completing construction projects around his most important strategical positions while Baron would spend it a bit differently. Baron knew that one of the most important aspects of warfare was intelligence. He was extremely careful regarding spies and the like, but he had a few other ideas to deny Guan Yu of any intelligence. Unlike history, Baron could afford to take as much time as he wanted to in order to secure himself a win. For the preparation time Guan Yu spent most of it in the German occupied lands of France. While Baron spent most of it in the UK. The one year of preparation time quickly came to an end, but Baron had no intentions of waging war with Guan Yu any time soon. He baded his time and another 4 months pass before Baron made any sort of move.

In history the Allies started by attacking 6 other beaches that had batteries that could defend Dieppe Beach. They hoped to neutralize all of these batteries in order for their troops to have an easier time to take Dieppe Beach, but these only 1 of these 6 other battlefields were taken by the Allies. Baron didn't intend to make errors in calculations like what happened in history. He had time on his hands so he went about these 6 beaches with caution and surprise attacks. Months before, Baron had sent in many spies to these 6 beaches plus a few others so that he could use them for his great plan.

Instead of splitting up his army into many fragments like what happened in history, he decided that it would be wisest to split them up into three groups. Two for attacking, and the other as a reserve. The time finally came for him to attack the 6 other beaches. He took one of the attacking forces which consisted of multiple jets, carriers, infantry, and a bunch of others and did something Guan Yu did not expect. Baron called up his spy on the Blue Beach to blow up the power lines and cause as much confusion as possible. He had close to 20 spies on Blue Beach, all of them volunteers from the UK.

At the height of confusion on the German occupied beach, Baron quietly led his forces inand started attacking like no tomorrow. First he had bombers unload a bunch of bombs onto the beach further increasing the panic and confusion. Followed by a swift docking of his infantrymen and heavy tanks. The rest of the battle was quick and decisive since Baron was there to lead his men with the help of his radio blueprint that was able to connect every force available to him. He started his attack in the middle of night at 0200 hours. He finished his battle just 3 hours later and proceeded to neutralize the batteries. He then led his forces to advance further into German territory to do exactly what he had just done to the other 5 targets.

It wasn't for a couple days until Guan Yu received the report that Blue Beach, Orange Beach, Yellow Beach, Red Beach, and White Beach had fallen to enemy forces. It wasn't that his men were slow to deliver the news, it was just that the initial blowing up the power lines meant that the people at the beach weren't able to send reports to head HQ informing them that they were under attack. Now only Green Beach was left, but that wouldn't be the case for much longer because Baron was attacking Green Beach as Guan Yu got the report about the other 5 beaches. By the time Guan Yu reacted, Baron had already finished up Green Beach and actually decided to try and squeeze one more victory under his belt before ordering his men to retreat.

His target was a German radio station that could detect Baron's ships and aircraft within a certain distance. Guan Yu was livid at this point. Not only had Baron managed to strike a devastating blow to his defenses in such a short few days, he had managed to do so in a way that prevented Guan Yu to react at all. However, Guan Yu would not let Baron achieve any more successes under his watch. He immediately sent out about 200 FW 190 fighter air crafts from the Luftwaffe under his command to help aid the Pourville Radar Station that Baron had set his eyes upon. Guan Yu was sure that this attachment was enough to scare the enemy into retreating.

Baron did indeed want to destroy the Pourville Radar Station, but he had a hidden motive. He hoped that Guan Yu would be coming personally to have a few bouts with Baron. However that was not the case, and Baron had to rethink his strategy. On the way to the radar station, Baron had decided that it was finally time to have the second group come out, at least partially. He ordered the pilots from the second group to descend into Germany occupied France in order to do a bit of reconnaissance. Baron had hoped that he could get enough intel through enemy messages, however it seems that Guan Yu clamped down on this sort of information leak.

The 200 or so FW 190 German air craft sent to deter Baron did not work and instead suffered 40 casualties before Guan Yu ordered them to retreat. Within a few more hours, Pourville Radar Station was under Baron's control. This week long conquest had undoubtedly gone into Baron's favor. That is until he returned back to the Uk and received the reconnaisance report that he had sent the pilots of the second group to investigate. It turns out that Guan Yu had constructed multiple more Beachesall with batteries capable of defending Dieppe Beach from many kilometers away. A total of 20 more had been found by his men, it was highly possible that there were more undiscovered ones that his men did not manage to spot.

(BM) "It looks like you've been quite busy the last little while Guan Yu."