40 Your Loss

Baron had expected Guan Yu to construct maybe five to ten more coastal defence fortifications with batteries. However, 20 plus was completely outside of his expectations. The reason he was able to swiftly take care of the previous six beaches and the Pourville radar station was because he had planted spies inside to cause mass confusion. These new areas would be harder to take because he had no spies inside.

This was an extremely huge oversight on Baron's part. Baron knew that underestimating an enemy was a boon to strategists everywhere. He made a mental note to improve upon this bad habit of his later. For now he had to think of some way to move forward with the simulation. There were a couple of options that popped into Baron's mind immediately.

The first of which involved him taking out every single fortification that Guan Yu had constructed. The advantage gained here would be that taking Dieppe Beach would be a much easier task, but the disadvantage would be dragging the battle out which would decrease all the morale he had just managed to gain. Another option would be to take only the more strategically important targets and then proceed to take Dieppe Beach. The pros with this route was that his high morale wouldn't be reduced too much, but the cons were that taking the main beach would be a little tougher.

After thinking for a few more hours he came up with two more ideas, but they were equally as bad as the first two. One new idea was to attack Dieppe Beach with his entire force as is and hope for the best. Clearly going down this route would take on huge amounts of risks. Risks he was not willing to take. The other idea was to directly launch a two pronged attack against Dieppe Beach and the HQ where Guan Yu was staying at. If this worked out then Dieppe Beach would no longer receive orders from Guan Yu which would decrease their defensive capabilities by quite a large margin.

In the end Baron thought of a few more plans, but he decided that launching the two pronged attack was in his best interest. After all, if he gave Guan Yu more time to prepare, then whose to say Guan Yu wouldn't have completed 20 or even 30 more batteries along the coast? Giving Guan Yu those extra few months after the preparation time seemed to bite him back in his flank. This was when he received some terrible news.

(M) "General Baron Sir! We have some news to report to you."

(BM) "What is it? If it isn't too important then tell me later. I need to work on the logistics for our next attack."

(M) "This is very important. We have lost all contacts with our spies in Dieppe Bea and the enemy HQ. It seems as though something happened to all of them since they went off the grid at practically the same time."

(BM) "Could Guan Yu have done something to all of our spies so quickly?It seems as though this is too much of a coincidence. Is it possible we have a spy in our midst, or could it be Guan Yu has converted all of them to his side? This matter will have to wait for now. We need to focus on other things at the moment."

Baron made all the preparations and as an extra precaution he reorganized his forces as follows. There would be 4 groups attacking Dieppe Beach, and the central HQ where Guan Yu should be at. The first two groups would attack Dieppe Beach and these forces mainly composed of tanks, infantry, a few bombers/jets, and all the ships available to him. One of these would serve as the main attacking force while the other group was formed as special operations unit. This special operations group would receive direct orders from Baron on what to do and they were handpicked by Baron himself due to their courageousness and skill. The other two groups were similar to the first two, but their main attacking force consisted of mostly fighter aircraft and infantry. One group was also made to be a special ops unit.

The reason Baron had decided to create these two special forces was simple. The two pronged attack will likely not work without his spies on the inside. Especially considering Guan Yu still had 20 plus batteries that could still defend Dieppe Beach. So instead Baron decided that he needed special ops to stealthily infiltrate the two positions in the dead of night. Then proceed to sabotage as much guns, artillery, radar, radio communication, and anything else that would help the enemy. This was certainly a huge risk that Baron was taking. Therefore, to increase his chances of winning he decided to only tell these men first of their objective, then send them out immediately. To prevent a leak of information Baron only told his Lieutenant and officers about this matter the day that they were to leave for combat. Sure there were some who weren't very happy about this, but Baron made it known to them that keeping this plan confidential was important.

They set out and within a few hours Baron received a report from both of his special forces units. The plan worked out splendidly and they caused a lot of damage to many of the enemy infrastructure and weaponry. Baron ordered them to get back to the rendezvous and that they would all be airlifted back to their base in the UK. This was one of the critical point in Baron's plan the other was to stall Guan Yu at the enemy HQ long enough so that Baron and the Dieppe Beach attacking force could take over Dieppe Beach.

The group lead by Baron's Lieutenant would be attacking Guan Yu's HQ first, then after an hour Baron would commence with his attack on Dieppe Beach. At first everything was going well for the two pronged offensive. Baron received reports that the group targeting the HQ was even managing to get a slight edge over the enemy. Baron knew something was not right. If Guan Yu were at the HQ, then Baron's army should at most have a stalemate against the enemy forces. Yet his side was pushing the other back? There was only one explanation for this Baron thought to himself. Guan Yu was not at the HQ at all, he was probably at Dieppe Beach.

This was not good news to Baron. He had designed this plan so that Guan Yu would be too preoccupied by the HQ to send any orders to Dieppe Beach. Instead it seemed like Baron and Guan Yu would be facing off in the final showdown of this simulation. He only realized this when his army just started attacking Dieppe Beach. He still had a bit of time left to devise a strategy that would allow him to win. The first thing he did was to recall the other army and have them join forces to create one army that could break through and seize Dieppe Beach from Guan Yu's hands. Baron cooked up a whole new strategy, this time involving his entire army and began to brief his officers about the new change in plan.

They put it into effect immediate and things started to look up for them. They started by setting up a smokescreen so large that the enemy had trouble discerning who was enemy and who was foe. With this smoke screen, Baron's soldiers had a higher chance of making it ashore. The battle raged on for a few more hours, and when the two sides had reached a stalemate, Baron's other army arrived to tip the balance. It was another hour before Baron noticed something that didn't seem quite right. He knew his tactics were fairly good, but Guan Yu's men didn't seem to have any semblance of unity among them. There was something else too, the batteries the other Beaches carried didn't seem to be firing onto Dieppe Beach.

Baron was completely confused as to what Guan Yu had wanted to achieve. Then Baron noticed one last detail that he had missed before. The smokescreen was supposed to have disappeared by now, so why hasn't it? Multiple ships emerged from the smoke and that's when everything went wrong for Baron. These new ships were from Guan Yu's forces, and followed by the firing from these ships, were the batteries that had finally charged up and were doing massive amounts of damage to the now mostly Baron's forces on Dieppe Beach. As if this wasn't bad enough the Luftwaffe that were supposed to have stayed behind at Guan Yu's HQ also came into the fray.

Baron was flanked from the sea, from the air, and honestly the only thing he could do was to move forward and take DIeppe Beach before trying to attempt to defend it.Baron almost, almost made it. However, Guan Yu was just too cunning. Baron couldn't manage to hang on and Baron's men surrendered after they saw just how outmatched they were. That is how the simulation ended. The two exited the simulation and there was nothing but praise from both sides.

(GY) "Looks like it's your loss."

(BM) "Well done Guan Yu, it seems like I'm no match for you."

(GY) "Oh don't say that. If I hadn't convinced my superiors to lend me a few ships, then whose to say you wouldn't have won?"

(BM) "Even so, I played right into your hands."

(GY) "Yes, it seems like you were a bit too hasty when you decided to attack Dieppe Beach. You are still young and inexperienced. I can't imagine how much you'd mature in a few decades."

(BM) "So have you decided then? About joining us?"

(GY) "Yea why not, you all seem like worthwhile people."